Romanticism was a dominant movement in 19th century art in Europe and the United States. It focused on emotion, imagination, and individuality over rational thought. Key Romantic artists included Goya, Gericault, and Delacroix who depicted dramatic subjects and political themes. Romantic architecture revived past styles like Gothic and incorporated new technologies like iron. The development of photography also influenced painting during this period.

1. 19th Century Art in Europe and the
United States (1800’s)

2. 1800’s = a lot of art
We are going to divide the 1800’s in halves so we
don’t get overwhelmed.
This PowerPoint is roughly the FIRST HALF of the
1800’s
We’ll break it down into “movements” as best we
can to keep it organized
• Neoclassicism (we already covered that, but it’s
still around)
• Romanticism
• Early photography

3. 19th century history…
• The enlightenment transforms life in Europe and
the US
• Advances in manufacturing, transportation,
communications, new products, etc.
• Thriving cities, urban centers, better living
conditions, poor work conditions (factories)
• “Progress” is the height of human achievement
• Inventions and advances: Telegraph, telephone,
radio, electric lights, motors, trams, railways,
medicines, explosives, steel, pasteurization,
vaccines, etc. = healthier, more efficient people!

4. • Darwin’s scientific discoveries challenge biblical
account of creation
• “Survival of the fittest” was thought to apply to the
human race (“Social Darwinism”)
• Anglo-Saxon upper class = at the top of social
evolution
• Working class = less evolved people
• Underdeveloped parts of the world = not as evolved
• Power of the church and monarchies declines = less
influence on art production
• Capitalist bourgeoisie (middle class), nation-states,
and national academies become largest patrons of
the arts

5. A word about Neoclassicism…
• We just covered it!
• Remained popular in early 19th century
(sculpture, painting, and architecture)
• Greek/Roman influences recall
democracy
• We covered a lot of Neoclassicism, so
we’re going to move on…

6. Let’s start with ROMANTICISM (began
in late 1700’s and ended around 1850)
• Focuses on feelings and imagination rather than
thoughts – individuality and freedom!
• Humans long for self-expression, understanding,
and identification from other
• Dramatic and emotional subject matter drawn from
literature, sublime landscape, current events, or the
artist’s imagination
• Explore political revolution
• Unconscious world of dreams and fantasies

7. • French Revolution strengthens the
Romantic spirit
• Romantics like social independence,
freedom of individual thought, and
the ability to express oneself openly
• Trust your heart, not your head!
• Photography invented in the
Romantic period (more about that
later)

8. Let’s talk about Romantic artists…
• Romantic artists are brilliant, troubled,
temperamental, critical, exhausted,
emotional, gloomy, depressed, pensive,
melancholy, thoughtful
• Romantics liked the “extremes” of being a
human, daredevils, adventurous, pleasure-
seeking, fought for important causes
• Romantics love the “anti-hero” (underdog) –
shuns society, quiet, but capable of heroic
deeds

9. Let’s get the architecture over with…
• Iron becomes more prominent in Romantic period –
hide iron frameworks under “skin” of a building to
maintain outer beauty
• Some architects get daring and expose the iron, or
even mix in walls of glass
• Large-scale iron structures introduced (engineers
realize this is the face of the future)
• Romantic architecture is a revival of all past styles
• Nostalgia for old styles (like medieval) – They even
built “ruins” so Romantics could ponder the loss of
civilization when they saw them

10. •Medieval art was the favorite
revival style, but they also
incorporated Egyptian,
Islamic, Gothic, and Baroque
styles
•Let’s look at some ROMANTIC
architecture…

11. The Houses of Parliament
Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin, 1836-1860, London

12. •The winning design for the new Houses of Parliament in
1835 (the old one burned down)
•Designed in the England Perpendicular Gothic style (Gothic
revival) – had to be in this style so it would look consistent
with Westminster Abbey (13th century church) next to it –
where English monarchs are crowned
•Massive structure: 1100 rooms, 100 staircases, 2 miles of
hallways

13. Westminster Abbey

14. •It’s basically a modern office building in a medieval costume
•Barry was a classical architect- we can see this in his
symmetrical, classical plan
•Pugin was a Gothic architect- provides intricate Gothic
decorative touches (this design is even more ornamented
than the original building!)
Here’s Big Ben, the “village clock” for all of England

15. Oooooo, it’s pretty at night

17. The Opera
Charles Garnier, 1861-1874, Paris

18. •Baroque revival – check out all the ornamentation on the exterior!
•Elaborate entrances
•You don’t go to the opera to SEE the opera. You go to BE seen
•Iron used throughout, but hidden by outer skin of stone
•Part of a large project to rebuild the neighborhood after damage from riots

19. •Pairs of columns above an arcade
•Similar to the Louvre in style
•Celebrates devotion to wealth and pleasure of Romanic period
•Elaborate decoration mirrors the type of entertainment there – elaborate
opera. Let’s go inside!

20. The Opera (interior) - called the “temple of pleasure” by critics

21. The grand staircase has alcoves and balconies where ladies can “perch”
and show off their outfits. Garnier said the staircase IS the opera

23. • Mirrors throughout – reflect light from gas lamps,
allow people to check their appearance

24. This is where you watch the opera, but no one cares!

25. Bibliotheque Saint-Genevieve, Henri Labrouste,
1843-1850, Paris

26. The exterior (meh)
•Arches on exterior
mimic interior arches

27. •1st attempt to incorporate structural iron into architecture (seen)
•Labrouste was a radical – wanted to incorporate new technology
and innovations

28. •1st library to be open at night – used gas lamps (needed to be a
fireproof building, have big windows to allow natural light, and be
centrally heated (how modern!)

29. •Iron arches symbolize mechanically set lines of print
•Patterned arched spaces – two large barrel vaults represent two
columns on a printed page (like two pages of an open book with
the columns acting as a book spine)

30. •810 authors’ names carved into exterior (in chronological order)
•Starts with Moses, ends with a Swedish chemist (Berzelous)
•Letters were originally deep red to look like printing on paper

31. The Crystal Palace
Joseph Paxton, 1850-1851, London

32. •1st World’s Fair held here (called the London Great Exhibition)
•Revolutionary construction – leads to the development of modern
architecture
•Skeleton of cast iron holding in iron-framed glass panes (each one 49”x30”-
the largest-sized glass panes that could be mass-produced then)

33. •About a million square feet of exhibition space! – The largest enclosed space
up to that time (covers more than 18 acres!)
•1,851 feet long (symbolic of the year it was built)
•Built in 39 weeks (one week less than a pregnancy!), under budget, and ahead
of schedule!
•Critics considered It a great work of engineering, but not legit architecture
because it didn’t allude to any past styles. God forbid!

34. • No interior lighting required – all natural light
• Barrel-vaulted interior high enough to cover trees already growing on the property!
• Huge open interior space for displays of products

36. • Paxton was an expert in building greenhouses- see the connection? Walls are like a
glass curtain
• First monumental building out of factory-produced parts. Yay industry!

37. •Meant to be temporary, economical, simple, capable of fast
assembly/disassembly (GREAT example of the industrial revolution’s impact on
art/architecture)
•Also meant to be fire proof, but it burned down in the 1936  sorry

38. Yay time for paintings!
•Artists are inspired by the “sublime” – didn’t like the ordered,
symmetrical, logical, scientific elements of prior styles. For
example…
The Tyger by William Blake
Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
•Since when does “symmetry” rhyme with “eye”? Ah ha! The
rhythm of the poem seems to want it to rhyme, and Blake is
pointing out that there is a “fearful symmetry” in the old
Neoclassical ideal. Bring on progress and change and the
unexpected! The heck with symmetry!
•PS: William Blake was a poet AND artist. Remember him?

39. • Artists want to capture images that are fantastic, unconscious,
haunting, and insane!
• Gericault and Goya (painters) actually visited asylums and
depicted the people there
• The birth of photography has an impact on painting – some
painters give up – why bother if you can take a photo that
captures things perfectly?
• Other artists saw photography as a great tool – no need to have
a live model pose for an eternity – can use photos as reference!
• Photography never becomes the enemy of painting, though.
They remain separate art forms.
• Painters include political themes – express support of social
movements and political positions
• Even landscapes make contemporary statements (about the
industrial revolution, pollution, etc.)

40. Let’s start in Spain

41. The Sleep of
Reason Produces
Monsters
Francisco de Goya
1799
etching
(Spanish)

42. •“Reason” falls asleep
while at work
•Haunted by dreams of
bats and owls (night
creatures)
•Monsters haunt even
the most rational mind
•A response to the
Spanish inquisition,
which stopped French-
inspired reforms
•Goya disliked the
inquisition’s disregard
of human emotion
•Goya’s work = despair

43. Family of Charles IV
Francisco de Goya
1800, oil on canvas

44. •Goya makes the royal family look a little ridiculous, accentuated costumes
•King looks dazed and bloated, many metals
•Queen has double chin, was having an open affair with prime minister
•Relatives stare off into space, look dazed, confused, surprised
•Despite all this, the royal family was ok with this realistic depiction

45. •Painter stands behind easel on the left (Las Meninas?) – obviously not part
of the royal family
•Everyone is perhaps looking in a huge mirror as he paints, admiring
themselves, arranged in three groupings
•Authority of Spanish aristocracy crumbling

47. Third of May
Francisco de Goya, 1808, oil on canvas

48. •Napoleon conquered Spain, Spanish citizens (including Goya)
welcomed the French, liked their new liberal constitution
•But then French are supposedly going to kill royal family…
makes the Spanish people mad!
•Bloody street fights arise, hundreds of Spaniards herded into
a convent, executed by French firing squad (on March 3)

49. •French are faceless robots, repetitive
•Central Spanish figure is Christ-like (arms in crucifixion pose)
•Church is silent, powerless in background
•Brutal inhumanity, bloody foreground

50. • Even his hands suggest
crucifixion-like wounds

51. •What’s ROMANTIC about this painting?

52. •Current event
•Loose brushwork
•Poses based on reality
•Off-balance composition
•Dramatic lighting
•Blind destruction of
defenseless humanity
•Goya said he painted it “To
warn men to never do it
again.”

53. • One of his “black paintings”
(he did these after giving up
hope in human progress –
vented his disillusionment by
painting nightmarish scenes
on the walls of his home)
• Somewhat damaged after
crumbling plaster under
murals were transferred to
canvas
• Never meant for public view
Saturn Devouring One of His Children
Francisco de Goya
1819-1823, oil on canvas

54. • Mythical scene: Saturn
eats each of his children
because of a prophecy
that one of them would
grow up to be greater
than he
• Sinister blackness, bulging
eyes
• Human self-destruction
• Time destroys all its
creations
• A country eating its young
in pointless, bloody wars

55. Moving on to France…

56. Napoleon Crossing
the Saint-Bernard
Jacques-Louis David
1800-1801
oil on canvas
•Nap. commissioned
David to document his
good deeds as a ruler –
to glorify him
•Idealized portrait – Nap.
leading his troops across
the Alps into Italy in
1800
•Napoleon actually
made the crossing on a
donkey (haha)

57. •Looks calm on
the rearing horse,
telling us to
follow him!
•Windblown
cloak mimics his
extended arm
•Dramatic
diagonal
composition (very
Baroque)

58. The Raft of the Medusa, Theodore Gericault, 1819-1819, oil on canvas

59. It’s in the Louvre
in Paris!
Dr. Smo!

60. • Shows story of a shipwrecked vessel off the coast of
Africa in 1816 – not enough room on lifeboats, captain
made rafts from shattered ship (The Medusa) and put
150 people on it – set adrift in the Atlantic. 15 people
survived 2 weeks on the raft (ate each other, ewww)
•This shows the point
when the raft is
spotted by a rescue
ship, the Argus (on
right)
•Ocean wave tilts raft
towards us so we get
the best view of the
scene

61. • Piece of raft drift – suggest it’s breaking
• Body on extreme left has no torso (cannibalism!)
• X-shaped composition and triangle shapes
• Suspended between salvation and death
• Black figure at top of pyramid of survivors – he has the power to
save his friends (metaphor: freedom will only happen when the
most oppressed member of society is emancipated)
•Excitement at top,
mourning in lower figures
•Figures have heroic
musculature (in reality,
they were emaciated,
sunburned, and close to
death – he wanted to
elevate their appearance
so it wasn’t “about” a
shipwreck and MORE
about humanity, hope,
and life vs. death

62. Napoleon in the Pesthouse of Jaffa
Antoine-Jean Gros, 1804, oil on canvas
(Gros became an official chronicler of Napoleon’s military campaigns)

63. •The plague strikes Napoleon’s troops in Jaffa, Israel (sick are in a
converted mosque)
•Napoleon touches the open sore of a soldier to prove the disease
isn’t contagious, comforts, them, unafraid, calms their fears

64. •Napoleon- parallel with Christ healing the sick, and Doubting
Thomas (put his hand in Christ’s side)
•Napoleon actually ordered the sick to be poisoned so he didn’t have
to take them back to France (THAT’S not in the painting!)
•Figures scattered around canvas in semidarkness, in various states of
disarray

66. •Inspired by Oath of the Horatii, but columns don’t frame
the figures (figures overlap columns)
•Definitely an idealized account of what actually
happened! - Napoleon is depicted as practically divine!

67. The Grand Odalisque
Jean-Auguste Ingres, 1814, oil on canvas

68. Go see it at the Louvre!

69. • Raphael-like face
• Turkish elements: incense burner, peacock fan, tapestry-like turban, hashish pipe
• Inconsistent arrangement of limbs – rubbery arm, elongated back, left leg awkwardly placed over
right leg, one arm longer than the other
• Influenced by Italian Mannerism
• Odalisque = a female slave or concubine in a sultan’s harem

70. • Turns her body away from her master’s gaze (erotic and aloof)
• Cool blues of couch and curtain contrast her warm skin
• Tight, angular crumples of sheets contrast her smooth contours
• Inaccurate proportions (look at those tiny feet!) – incorrect but aesthetically
compelling

71. Liberty Leading the People
Eugene Delacroix, 1830
Oil on canvas

72. • July Revolution of 1830 – people revolt against new conservative
government imposed by the monarchy
• “Liberty” with French flag marches over barricades to overthrow govt.
soldiers (can’t you just hear the music from “Les Miserables” playing in your
head?)
•Red, white, and
blue used
throughout
painting
•Pyramid
composition
•Sums up the
destiny of France
after the fall of
Napoleon in 1815
•Revolutionaries
were all walks of
life (students,
children, day
laborers, etc.)

73. • Figures stumble forward through the smoke of battle, cross
barricade and dead bodies
• Leader is allegorical “Liberty” – muscular woman w/ French
flag and bayoneted rifle
•Not an exact
depiction of the
actual event – it
IS faithful to the
emotional
climate of the
event as the
artist felt it.
THAT is the
essence of
Romanticism

74. Now on to the Britain…

75. The Fighting Temeraire
Joseph M.W. Turner, 1838, oil on canvas

76. •Admiral Nelson’s ship at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 being brought
to a berth (a stopping-point close to shore) to be dismantled
•Turner liked extremes in nature- avalanches, storms, whirlwinds, etc.
•Color is dominant motif
•His paintings include a sort of “vortex” concept (you’ll see more….)
•Warm and cool
colors
•Tall, white,
glorious ship of the
past in sharp
contrast to small,
black, modern
tugboat of the
future
•Symbolic sunset:
last days of
sailboats, historical

77. The Burning of the House of Lords and Commons, 16th October, 1834
By Joseph M.W. Turner, 1834, oil on canvas

78. •Tragic fire damaged London’s Parliament building in 1834
•Depicts accounts of the fire “lighting up the night sky”, crowds gather to watch
•Turner was AT the scene, sketching quickly in watercolor (later translated sketches
into this painting)
•More faithful to feeling than fact (Romanticism!)
•Loosest and most painterly brushwork ever seen in Western art up to this point
•Fascination mixed
with fear
•Witnessing
something far
bigger than
ourselves
•Sublime aspect of
nature

79. Snowstorm: Hannibal and His Army Crossing the Alps
Joseph M. W. Turner, 1812, oil on canvas

80. • Romantic view of nature’s awesomeness
• Vortex of win, mist, and snow – threatens to overcome soldiers below and
obliterate the sun
• Hannibal (Carthaginian general) led his troops through he Alps to defeat
Roman armies in 218 BCE (shout out to Napoleon who also crossed the Alps
w/ troops)
• Storm symbolizes their eventual defeat

81. So do you think you could
recognize a Turner painting now?

82. The Hay Wain, John Constable, 1821, oil on canvas

83. • “Hay wain” is a horse-drawn cart used in agriculture
• Painted the English countryside as a reaction against the Industrial Revolution (neg.
impact on the landscape)
• Oneness w/ nature, man actively participates but doesn’t disturb
• Clouds fill the sky – captures a fleeting moment

84. • Cottage blends into countryside – nestled into trees
• Wain easily crosses the river, dappled reflections on water’s surface
• Shimmering, vibrant paint applied w/ careful rendering of atmospheric
effects
• Everything and everyone in harmony w/ nature, ideal state

85. The White Horse, John Constable, 1819, oil on canvas

86. • Similar concept here
• Fresh early summer day, sunlight plays off of water and foliage
• Captures time of day, humidity, smell of wet earth
• Used unmixed dabs of pure color on the canvas

87. The Oxbow, Thomas Cole, 1836, oil on canvas

88. •Cole = founder of the Hudson River School (art movement embodied by
a group of landscape painters (Romantic) – paintings depict the Hudson
River Valley and surrounding areas
•Hudson River School paintings depict three main themes of America in
the 19th century: discovery, exploration, and settlement
•Humans and nature coexist peacefully

89. •This view is actually in MA (view from the top of Mt. Holyoke)
•Cole divides landscape into 2 sections – Romantic on left and idealized
pastoral valley on right
•Human touch shown on right (lit up) – cultivated fields, boats drifting
down CT river
•Painted as a reply to British book that alleged that Americans had
destroyed a wilderness with industry

90. •Cole’s self portrait in
foreground amid
dense forest with
broken trees
•Wild landscape,
sublime nature

91. Two Men Gazing at the Moon
Caspar David Friedrich, 1819, oil on canvas

92. •Sublime nature
•Moon is symbolic to Romantics: nocturnal, ghostly,
unknowable, romance, etc.
•Sentimental longing, melancholic mood

93. • RUCKENFIGUR:
in Romantic
painting, a figure
seen from the
back, often in the
contemplation of
nature (German
word….German
painting)
•Friedrich thought landscapes and panoramas were windows through which
one could experience God
•That’s Friedrich in the cap, cloak, and walking cane, enjoying the sunset
•He’s accompanied by August Heinrich, his student, who died young – painting
memorializes their friendship – oak tree with moss symbolizes Friedrich, young
cut-down tree in foreground symbolizes Heinrich, awww

94. Departure of the
Volunteers of 1792
Frencois Rude, 1833-
1836
Arc de Triomphe, Paris

95. •Also known as The
Marseillaise
•1833 commission added to
the Arc de Triomphe in Paris
•Represents volunteers who
protected France during the
Austrian-Prussian invasion
of 1792
•France/Victory/Bellona
(god of war) helmeted and
winged, giving a war cry
•Volunteers surge forward
in a tangle

96. • Crowded, excited
grouping of figures
stirred patriotism of
French viewers
• None of the figures
look ready for war
(some old, some
young)
• Leader on ground
wears Roman armor,
encourages a nude
boy to join in
• Scene raised to
mythic proportions

97. Jaguar Devouring a Hare
Antoine-Louis Barye, 1850, bronze

98. • Jaguar mercilessly
feeding on the
living entrails of a
hare
• The moment of
the hare’s death
• A study of animal
anatomy
• Survival of the
fittest, Origin of
the Species – ideas
relatively new in
early 19th century,
yay science!

99. Early Photography!!!
• What WE know as “photography” arose around
1840
• Artists since the late Renaissance tried a previous
method called a CAMERA OBSCURA (“dark
chamber”) – a dark box with a lens through which
light passes, project onto the opposite wall an
upside-down image the artist can trace
• Photography developed (haha, developed) as a way
to make the CAMERA OBSCURA images permanent
(on light-sensitive material)

100. • Light comes through the
lens and produces an
image on the mirror. The
artist traces the image
onto tracing paper, and
then uses that as
reference for paintings

101. • PHOTOGRAMS came
next –
photosensitive paper
with silhouette of an
object on it
(primitive, though,
nothing but outlines)

102. • Photography was invented in 2 places at the same
time: England and France
• Louis Daguerre invents an advanced lens that
projects a scene onto a treated metal plate for 30
minutes to produce an image with great clarity and
detail – called this a DAGUERREOTYPE

103. The Artist’s Studio
Louis Daguerre, 1837
Daguerreotype
• Still life inspired by
painted still lives –
new art form inspired
by old art form
• Variety of textures:
fabric, wicker, plaster,
framed print, etc.
• Daguerreotypes have
shiny surface with
good detail
•Over the next 20 years, there are better lenses, smaller cameras,
and shorter exposure time. Photography is so portable!
•How might short vs. long exposure time influence portrait
photography?

104. The Two Paths of Life
Oscar Rejlander, 1857, combination albumen print

105. • Photographers like Rejlander argue that photography should be
accepted alongside painting and sculpture
• Wanted to create photographic equivalents of paintings
• This image combines 30 negatives

106. • Allegory of good and evil, work and idleness
• Loosely based on School of Athens
• Not well-received as art
• Mechanical nature of photography- criticism- it’s not “high art”
And old sage brings two young men into life
This guy moves toward religion, charity, virtue, industry, etc.
This guy moves toward enticements of pleasure

107. Early Portraiture
• Julia Cameron:
photographed great
menand women of Britis
arts, letter, and sciences
• Cameron rejected sharp
stylistic precision, liked
blurring the details to draw
attention to the lighting of
her subjects and their inner
character
Portrait of Thomas Carlyle
Julia Cameron, 1867, silver print

108. • Nadar (aka: Gapard-Felix
Tournachon)
• Photographed well-known
Parisians – documentary and
commercial potential to this!
• Opened a portrait studio
• Liked photography because he
could capture people in their
surroundings exactly
• Avoided props and formal poses
• Liked informal ones chosen by
the sitter
• Wanted a factual record of a
sitters characteristic
appearance and personality
Portrait of Charles Baudelaire
1863

109. Other Nadar photos…
Portrait of Theophile Gautier Portrait of Sarah Bernhardt Nadar in a Balloon
•Nadar floated over Paris in a hot air balloon to take the first aerial photographs in
history
•Controlled camera angles, sitters determine their poses, concentration on figures
•Highlight on forehead (typical Nadar), eyes often left in shadow (more mysterious)

110. FIN