Download The Age of Revolution: From Neoclassicism to Romanticism

Discovering the Humanities
THIRD EDITION
CHAPTER
12
The Age of
Revolution: From
Neoclassicism to
Romanticism
Discovering the Humanities, Third Edition
Henry M. Sayre
Copyright © 2016, 2013, 2010
by Pearson Education, Inc. or its affiliates
All Rights Reserved
Learning Objectives
1. Compare and contrast the French and
American revolutions.
2. Describe the Neoclassical style.
3. Define Romanticism as it manifests
itself in both literature and painting.
4. Differentiate between Classical and
Romantic music.
Document: Declaration of the
Rights of Woman and the Female
Citizen by Olympe de Gouges
Document: American
Declaration of Independence
Paul Revere, after Henry Pelham. The Bloody Massacre. 1770.
Hand-colored engraving. 8-15⁄16" × 10-3⁄16".
© Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, MA/Bridgeman
Images. [Fig. 12.1]
The American and French
Revolutions
• The American Declaration of
Independence was signed on July 4,
1776, and the French Declaration of the
Rights of Man and Citizen on August
26, 1789.
• Both documents reflect Enlightenment
thinking, and both were influenced by
the writings of John Locke.
The Declaration of Independence
• The American Declaration of
Independence is one of the
Enlightenment's boldest assertions of
freedom.
• The chairman of the committee that
prepared the document and its chief
drafter was Thomas Jefferson (1743–
1826).
The Declaration of Independence
• Jefferson argued for "Life, Liberty, and
the pursuit of Happiness."
• His basic rights aimed at achieving
human fulfillment, a fulfillment possible
only if the people control their own
destiny.
John Trumbull. The Declaration of Independence, 4 July 1776. 1786–97.
Oil on canvas. 21-1/8" × 31-1/8".
Yale University Art Gallery, Trumbull Collection. 1832.3. [Fig. 12.2]
The Declaration of Independence
• The British lost the war against their
American colonies in 1781, and the
Treaty of Paris was signed on
September 3, 1783.
The Declaration of the Rights of
Man and Citizen
• In France, the cost of maintaining Louis
XVI's court was so enormous that the
desperate king attempted to charge a
uniform tax on all landed property in
1788.
The Declaration of the Rights of
Man and Citizen
• The subsequent riots across all levels of
society led to the formation of the
National Assembly by the Third Estate
in 1789.
 The three traditional French estates
included the First Estate (composed of
clergy), the Second Estate (composed of
Nobility), and the Third Estate
(composed of the bourgeoisie).
The Declaration of the Rights of
Man and Citizen
• In 1791, a radical minority of the
National Assembly led by the Jacobin
extremist Maximilien Robespierre
(1758–1794) lobbied for the
elimination of the monarchy.
• The Revolutionary Tribunal was formed,
which over the course of the next three
years executed as many as 25,000
citizens of France.
The Declaration of the Rights of
Man and Citizen
• The Reign of Terror ended in the
summer 1794 with Robespierre's
execution.
• The French constitution was passed on
August 17, 1795.
• It established France's first bicameral
(two-body) legislature consisting of the
Council of Five Hundred and the Council
of Elders.
Document: Cahiers de
Doléances by French
Peasants
Document: Declaration of the
Rights of Man and of the Citizen
by National Assembly (France)
Jacques-Louis David. The Tennis Court Oath. 1789–91.
Pen and brown ink and brown wash on paper. 26" × 42".
Musée National du Châ teau, Versailles. MV 8409: INV
Dessins. © RMN-Grand Palais/Agence Bulloz. [Fig. 12.3]
To Versailles, to Versailles, October 5, 1789. 1789.
Engraving, colored.
Musée de la Ville de Paris, Musée Carnavalet, Paris/Giraudon/Bridgeman Images.
[Fig. 12.4]
The Declaration of the Rights of
Man and Citizen
• Over the next four years, the Directory
improved the lot of the French citizens,
but was perceived as relatively
unstable.
• This paved the way for Napoleon
Bonaparte (1769–1821) to assume
power in 1799.
The Neoclassical Spirit
• The rise of the Neoclassical in France,
with its regularity, balance, and
proportion, can be attributed to the
same ideals that would lead to the
overthrow of the aristocracy in the
French Revolution.
• It was in the painting of Jacques-Louis
David that the Neoclassical found its
first full expression.
Jacques-Louis David and the
Neoclassical Style in France
• No artist more fully exemplifies the
values of Neoclassicism in France than
the painter Jacques-Louis David (1748–
1825).
• David abandoned the traditional
complexities of composition that had
defined French academic history
painting.
Closer Look: Jacques-Louis
David, Oath of the Horatii
Jacques-Louis David. The Oath of the Horatii. 1784–85.
Oil on canvas. 10'10" × 13'11-1/2".
Musée du Louvre, Paris. © RMN-Grand Palais/Gérard
Blot/Christian Jean. [Fig. 12.5]
Jacques-Louis David and the
Neoclassical Style in France
• He introduced a formal balance and
simplicity that is fully Neoclassical.
• David's work has a frozen quality to
emphasize rationality, and the
brushstrokes are invisible, to create a
clear focus and to highlight the details.
• David's Oath of the Horatii champions
heroism and personal sacrifice for the
state.
Closer Look: Jacques-Louis
David, The Lictors
Returning to Brutus the
Bodies of His Sons
Jacques-Louis David. The Lictors Returning to Brutus the
Bodies of His Sons. 1789.
Oil on canvas. 10'7-1/4" × 13'10-1/4".
Musée du Louvre, Paris. © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée du
Louvre)/Gérard Blot/Christian Jean. [Fig. 12.6]
Pierre-Alexandre Vignon. La Madeleine, Paris. 1806–42.
Length: 350' Width: 147' Podium Height: 23' Column height: 63'.
© Lebrecht Music and Arts Photo Library/Alamy. [Fig. 12.7]
Napoleon's Neoclassical Tastes
• Napoleon's coup d'état (violent
overthrow of government) in 1799 was
intended to remove the existing
constitution that the Directory had
approved.
Napoleon's Neoclassical Tastes
• By 1802, Napoleon had convinced the
legislators to declare him First Consul
of the French Republic for life, with the
power to amend the constitution as he
saw fit.
Jacques-Louis David. Napoleon Crossing the Saint-Bernard. 1800–01.
Oil on canvas. 8'11" × 7'7".
Musée National du Châ teau de la Malmaison, Rueil-Malmaison, France. © RMN-Grand
Palais/Gérard Blot. [Fig. 12.8]
Napoleon's Neoclassical Tastes
• Over the subsequent years, Napoleon
increased his power and control over
French political life.
• In 1813, a series of military defeats led
to his abdication and exile and then
final defeat in 1815.
Neoclassicism in America
• The Neoclassical style that dominated
the architecture of the new American
republic became known as the Federal
style.
• Its foremost champion was Thomas
Jefferson.
Benjamin Henry Latrobe. View of Richmond showing
Jefferson's Capitol from Washington Island. 1796.
Watercolor on paper, with ink and wash. 7" × 10-3/8".
Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore. [Fig. 12.9]
Pierre-Charles L'Enfant. Plan for Washington, D. C. (detail), published in the Gazette of
the United States, Philadelphia, January 4, 1792. 1791.
Engraving after original drawing.
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. [Fig. 12.10]
Benjamin Henry Latrobe. Tobacco-leaf capital for the U. S. Capitol, Washington, D. C.,
Senate wing. ca. 1815.
Courtesy of the Architect of the Capitol, Washington, D.C. [Fig. 12.11]
Neoclassicism in America
• Jefferson designed the Virginia State
Capitol in Richmond, Virginia, which
was, first of all, a "capitol," the very
name derived from Rome's Capitoline
Hill.
The Issue of Slavery
• Autobiographical and fictional accounts
of slavery intensified abolitionists
sentiments in both Europe and North
America.
• Olaudah Equiano exposed the
conditions on board slave ships in his
autobiography (1789).
William Blake. Negro Hung Alive by the Ribs to a Gallows, from John Gabriel Stedman's
Narrative of a Five Years' Expedition against the Revolted Slaves of Surinam. 1796.
Engraved book illustration.
Library of Congress, Catalog no. 1835. Private Collection, Archives Charmet/The
Bridgeman Art Library. [Fig. 12.12]
The Issue of Slavery
• John Gabriel Stedman (1747–1797)
revealed the shocking treatment of
slaves in Guiana.
• Abolitionist opposition to slavery in
both England and the American
colonies began to gain strength in
1771.
The Issue of Slavery
• Laissez-faire, "let it happen as it will,"
was declared by free-trade economist
Adam Smith to be the best policy.
• Leading the fight against slavery were
the Quakers as well as the members of
the Lunar Society.
The Issue of Slavery
• In 1787, Josiah Wedgewood made
hundreds of ceramic cameos of a slave
in chains, on bent knee, pleading, "Am
I Not a Man and a Brother?"
William Hackwood, for Josiah Wedgwood. "Am I Not a Man and a Brother?" 1787.
Black and white jasperware. 1-3/8" × 1-3/8".
The Wedgwood Museum, Barlaston, Staffordshire, UK. [Fig. 12.13]
The Romantic Imagination
• Dedicated to the discovery of beauty in
nature, the Romantics rejected the
truth of empirical observation, which
John Locke and other Enlightenment
thinkers had championed.
• Most of the major writers and artists
used their emotions as a primary way
of expressing imagination and
creativity.
The Romantic Imagination
• For Romantics, the mind was a feeling
thing—not distinct from the body as in
Descartes' declaration, "I think,
therefore I am," but instead connected
to it.
The Romantic Poem
• The Romantic imagination found its first
and most articulate expression in
poetry, which is inherently intuitive and
personal.
 In the beauty of poetry's expression, it
might capture, even mirror, the beauty
of nature itself.
The Idea of the Romantic: William
Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey"
• William Wordsworth's (1770–1850)
poem "Tintern Abbey" embodies the
growing belief in the natural world as
the source of inspiration and creativity
that marks the early Romantic
imagination.
Document: "Tintern Abbey"
by William Wordsworth
J.M.W. Turner. Interior of Tintern Abbey. 1794.
Watercolor. 12-5/8" × 9-7/8".
Victoria and Albert Museum, London/Art Resource, NY.
[Fig. 12.14]
The Romantic Landscape
• Landscape painters in the nineteenth
century saw the natural world around
them as the emotional focal point or
center of their own artistic
imaginations.
John Constable: Painter of the
English Countryside
• John Constable (1776–1837) mainly
painted the area around the valley of
the Stour River in his native East
Bergholt, Suffolk.
• He felt his talents depended on "faithful
adherence to the truth of nature."
John Constable: Painter of the
English Countryside
• The power of Constable's painting lies
in the fact that it contains more than
one state of mind.
• The human figure in Constable's
paintings is an essential and elemental
presence, uniting man and nature.
Document: John Constable,
from a letter to John Fisher
John Constable. The Hay Wain. 1821.
Oil on canvas 51-3/8" × 73".
© The National Gallery London/Scala, Florence. [Fig. 12.15]
J. M. W. Turner. The Upper Falls of the Reichenbach. ca. 1810–15.
Watercolor. 10-7/8" × 15-7/16".
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. B1977.14.4702. [Fig. 12.16]
Joseph Mallord William Turner:
Colorist of the Imagination
• Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–
1851) specialized in capturing light.
• His interest did not focus on the objects
of nature, but on the medium through
which they are seen.
Joseph Mallord William Turner:
Colorist of the Imagination
• Turner draws the viewer's attention not
to the rock, cliff, or mountain, but to
the mist and light through which we
see them.
• The human figure in Turner's paintings
is minuscule, almost irrelevant to the
painting, except insofar as its
minuteness underscores nature's
indifference.
J. M. W. Turner. Snow Storm—Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth. 1842.
Oil on canvas. 36" × 48".
© Tate, London 2014. [Fig. 12.17]
The Romantic in Germany:
Friedrich and Kant
• The German painter Caspar David
Friedrich (1774–1840) represents the
imaginative capacities of the Romantic
mind by placing figures, usually solitary
ones, before sublime landscapes.
Caspar David Friedrich. Monk by the Sea. 1810.
Oil on canvas. 47-1/2" × 67".
Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen, Berlin. © Photo Scala, Florence/BPK, Bildagentur
für Kunst, Kultur und Geschichte, Berlin. [Fig. 12.18]
The Romantic in Germany:
Friedrich and Kant
• The lonely figures are raising the theme
of doubt: How do I know God? How, in
the face of this empty vastness, do I
come to believe?
• These sentiments echo the philosopher
Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure
Reason (1781).
The Romantic in Germany:
Friedrich and Kant
• For Kant, the mind was an active agent
in the creation of knowledge.
• Kant believed that the way we
understand concepts such as space and
time is a quality innate from birth.
Closer Look
• The sublime is the prospect of
anything beyond the ability of the
human mind to comprehend it fully.
• Occupying a middle ground between
the sublime and the beautiful is the
picturesque.
 Price defines this as "roughness and
sudden variation joined to irregularity."
Tintern Abbey. Wye Valley, Monmouthshire, Wales.
Robert Harding Picture Library. Roy Rainford/Robert Harding. [Fig. 12-CL.1]
Closer Look: The Sublime, the
Beautiful, and the Picturesque
Hubert Robert. Pyramids. ca. 1750.
Oil on canvas. 24" × 28-1/2".
Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA.
[Fig. 12-CL.2]
The Romantic Hero
• Napoleon was the very personification
of the Romantic hero—a man of
common origin who had risen, through
sheer wit and tenacity, to dominate the
world stage, yet also possessed a
darker side.
• To the Romantic imagination, Napoleon
resembled the Greek mythological
figure of Prometheus.
The Romantic Hero
• On the one hand, the Romantics
revered Prometheus as the all-suffering
but ever noble champion of human
freedom.
Casper David Friedrich. The Wanderer above the Mists. 1817–18.
Oil on canvas. 37-1/4" × 29-1/2".
On permanent loan from the Foundation for the Promotion of the Hamburg Art
Collections. Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg. © Photo Scala, Florence/BPK, Bildagentur
für Kunst, Kultur und Geschichte, Berlin. [Fig. 12.19]
The Romantic Hero
• On the other hand, in his reckless
ambition to achieve his goals by
breaking the laws imposed by supreme
authority, they recognized in
Prometheus a certain futility and
despair.
Baron Antoine-Jean Gros. Napoleon in the Pesthouse at Jaffa. 1804.
17' 5" × 23' 7".
Musée du Louvre, Paris. © RMN-Grand Palais/Thierry Le Mage. [Fig. 12.20]
The Promethean Idea in England:
Lord Byron
• For poet George Gordon, Lord Byron
(1788–1824), Prometheus was the
embodiment of his own emphatic spirit
of individualism. The ode "Prometheus"
recalls Aeschylus' play Prometheus
Bound.
Goethe's Faust and the Desire for
the Infinite Knowledge
• One of the greatest ironies in the
development of Romanticism is that
two of its greatest heroes, Werther and
Faust, were the creation of an
imagination that defined itself as
Classical.
Goethe's Faust and the Desire for
the Infinite Knowledge
• The creator of these two heroes was
the German writer Johann Wolfgang
von Goethe (1749–1832) who abhorred
Romanticism.
Goethe's Faust and the Desire for
the Infinite Knowledge
• According to Goethe, great art is
ultimately subject to God's grand
design and to the natural laws that
govern the universe—a point of view
similar to that of the Enlightenment
philosophes.
Goethe's Faust and the Desire for
the Infinite Knowledge
• One of the greatest ironies in the
development of Romanticism is that
two of its greatest heroes, Werther and
Faust, were the creation of an
imagination that defined itself as
Classical.
Goethe's Faust and the Desire for
the Infinite Knowledge
• The creator of these two heroes was
the German writer Johann Wolfgang
von Goethe (1749–1832) who abhorred
Romanticism.
• The main character of Faust is
profoundly bored, suffering from an
affliction of the Romantic hero ennui, a
French term that denotes both
listlessness and a profound melancholy.
Goethe's Faust and the Desire for
the Infinite Knowledge
• According to Goethe, great art is
ultimately subject to God's grand
design and to the natural laws that
govern the universe—a point of view
similar to that of the Enlightenment
philosophes.
Goya's Tragic Vision
• The Spanish painter Francisco Goya
(1746–1828) was, at first, enthusiastic
about Napoleon's accession to power in
France.
• After Napoleon's invasion of Spain,
Goya came to hate the French emperor,
as most Spaniards did.
Goya's Tragic Vision
• Goya's painting The Third of May, 1808
is one of the greatest testaments to the
horrors of war ever painted.
• The artist's final work was dominated
by his sense that the world had
abandoned reason.
Francisco Goya. The Third of May, 1808. 1814–15.
Oil on canvas. 8' 9-1/2" × 13' 4-1/2".
Museo del Prado, Madrid. © 2013. White Images/Scala, Florence. [Fig. 12.21]
Goya's Tragic Vision
• Goya suffered from a profound sense of
despair, isolation, and loneliness that
led him to the descent into a world of
near-madness and fear.
Francisco Goya. Saturn Devouring One of His Children. 1820–23.
Oil on plaster transferred to canvas, 57-7/8" × 32-5/8".
© Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid. All rights reserved. 2013 White Images/Scala,
Florence. [Fig. 12.22]
From Classiscal to Romantic Music
• Fascination with the Promethean hero
was not limited to literature.
• It was also reflected in the music of the
German composer Ludwig van
Beethoven (1770–1827).
From Classiscal to Romantic Music
• The tradition of Classical music
reflects growing distaste for the Rococo
and its associated moral depravity.
• Beethoven was the key figure in the
transition from the Classical to the
Romantic era.
 He viewed Napoleon as at once the
enlightened leader and tyrannical
despot—as did most of Europe.
The Classical Tradition
• The most important development of the
age was the symphonic orchestra, a
large orchestra divided into sections
according to instrument type.
• In order to organize such a large group,
an overall score, which indicated what
music was to be played by each
instrument, was required.
The Classical Tradition
• The music most often played by the
symphonic orchestra was the
symphony, a term deriving from the
Italian sinfonia—the three-movement,
fast–slow–fast, introduction or overture
to Italian operas.
Haydn and Mozart
• Joseph Haydn was the musical director
at the Esterháza Palace in Eisenstadt
for nearly 30 years.
• During this time, he composed an
extraordinary amount of music, with
emphasis in the classical symphony and
the string quartet.
Haydn and Mozart
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the
greatest musical genius of the Classical
era, composed complex melodies in
many genres.
• Mozart's music was generally regarded
as overly complicated, too demanding
emotionally and intellectually for a
popular audience to absorb during his
lifetime.
Beethoven: From Classicism to
Romanticism
• After coming to the brink of suicide in
1802 due to his increasing deafness,
Beethoven entered the so-called
"Heroic Decade."
• During this era, Beethoven was guided
by an almost pure state of subjective
feeling.
Beethoven: From Classicism to
Romanticism
• In great symphonies like the Eroica and
the Fifth, Beethoven refined the
Romantic style in music.
• The Eroica dramatizes the composer's
own descent into despair, his inward
struggle, and his ultimate triumph
through art.
Beethoven: From Classicism to
Romanticism
• Like the Eroica, the Fifth Symphony
brings musical form to the triumph of
art over death, terror, fear, and pain.
Beethoven's First Symphony: opening four-note motif.
[Fig. 12-MN.1]
Romantic Music after Beethoven
• Beethoven's musical explorations of
individual feelings were immensely
influential on the Romantic composers
who succeeded him.
Hector Berlioz and Program Music
• The French composer Hector Berlioz
(1803–1869)was the most startlingly
original of Beethoven's successors.
• He wrote three symphonies, all of
which are notable for their
inventiveness and novelty, and
especially for the size of the orchestras
Berlioz enlisted to play them.
Felix Mendelssohn and the
Meaning of Music
• Program music was an important part
of the work of Felix Mendelssohn
(1809–1847).
• For Mendelssohn, the meaning of music
cannot be expressed in language, but
lies in the music itself.
Felix Mendelssohn and the
Meaning of Music
• The Hebrides is a concert overture, a
single movement setting a scene for a
story.
 Other forms of concert overture are
usually connected with a narrative plot
known to the audience.
• The music creates a feeling that all
listeners share, even if no two listeners
would interpret it in the same terms.
Song: Franz Schubert and the
Schumanns
• Since the middle of the eighteenth
century, German composers had been
intrigued with the idea of setting poetry
to music, especially the works of
Schiller and Goethe.
Song: Franz Schubert and the
Schumanns
• These songs were called lieder
(singular lied), and they were generally
written for solo voice and piano.
• The lieder of Franz Schubert (1797–
1828) and Robert Schumann (1810–
1856) were especially popular.
Piano Music: Frédéric Chopin
• Performances of character pieces often
occurred at salon concerts, in the
homes of wealthy music enthusiasts.
• Among the most sought-after
composer/performer pianists of the day
was the Polish-born Frédéric Chopin
(1810–1849).
• Chopin composed almost exclusively for
the piano.
Piano Music: Frédéric Chopin
• Among his most impressive works are
his études, or "studies," which address
particular technical challenges on the
piano; polonaises, stylized versions of
the Polish dance; nocturnes, character
pieces related to the tradition of the
serenade; and ballades, dramatic
narrative forms.
Continuity & Change
• After the fall of Napoleon in 1815, the
battle between Classicism and
Romanticism raged within France,
fueled by political factionalism.
• Théodore Géricault, in his The Raft of
the "Medusa," made a mockery of
Neoclassicism with a Romantic-slanted
depiction based on real-life events; it
was dismissed by royalist critics.
Closer Look: Théodore
Géricault, Raft of the Medusa
Théodore Géricault. The Raft of the "Medusa." 1818.
Oil on canvas. 16'1" × 23'6".
Musée du Louvre, Paris. © RMN/Hervé Lewandowski.
[Fig. 12.23]