Storytellers of the past
A presentation given in History on 23 May 2023, 9 - 10 am,
at U3A Brisbane/Australia
Visual Art chronicles history and mirrors who we are. It is one of the earliest attestations to the evolvement of humanity. Art reflects the politics and religions that have shaped societies and can also be one of their means for propaganda. Evidence from the earliest art discoveries demonstrate that three pictorial threads seem to be common throughout humanity: survival, morality, and emotion.
Elaborating broadly on each thread, survival would encompass – passing on knowledge, like symbols of fertility, everyday life and nature. Morality covers law & order, individualism, heroics and propaganda. Emotion features harmony, beauty, grandeur, grotesque, and art for art's sake.
We will come across some of these motivations in the works of art that follow and touch on Western art from the pre-historic era to mid-1800.
Art is inseparable from society, and throughout its history, artists reflected their present moment, bringing their artistic truth to audiences. On the one hand, art is an independent field of creation, free from society's rules, functions and norms. On the other, the art world is deeply dependent on artistic production, to earn a living by displaying socio-economic conditions and political context.
Ancient civilisations used available techniques and media to depict culturally significant subject matter. Since the discovery of early artworks, many art movements have followed, each bearing its distinct styles and characteristics that reflect the political and social influences of the period from which they emerged.
When was art first created?
The Paleolithic Era, or Old Stone Age, is divided into three categories:
Lower: (2,500,000 – 200,000 BCE)
Middle: (200,000 – 40,000 BCE)
Upper: (40,000 – 10,000 BCE)
According to paleo-archaeological information, humans created the oldest art during the Lower Paleolithic Era: 300,000 and 700,000 years ago. Old forms of prehistoric art were Petroglyphs, followed by Pictographs.
Petroglyphs - Humans engraved rock by carving, hammering or chipping away at a surface to make an image with shapes like circles, arcs, dots, or animal tracks.
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| Petroglyph, Marrawah, Northern Tasmania |
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| Pictograph, Mesopotamia, 3500 BCE |
Two ladies are thought to be the earliest representations of the human form from the Lower Palaeolithic Era. They were found in neighbouring regions.
Tan-Tan Venus was found near Tan-Tan, Morocco. She is 6 cm high and made of quartzite, with iron and manganese pigment traces to accentuate the human-like form.
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| Venus of Tan-Tan (500,000-300,000 BCE) |
She has a general human-like shape with specific incised grooves.
Some scholars attribute this to nature, others as the result of being struck by a tool or stone. It is assumed that this human form was recognised and thus brought to the site by hominids.
Venus of Berekhat Ram was found in the Golan Heights. This younger Venus is 35 mm high, a pebble made of scoria.
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| Venus of Berekhat Ram (280,000-250,000 BCE) |
Her find supports the two figurines' status as genuine early Stone Age artworks.
Examples of rock art in India from an earlier culture lend credence to the idea of human fine art representations.
Prehistoric or Upper Palaeolithic era (~50,000-4,000 BCE)
Between c 40,000 and 10,000 BCE, female figurines surfaced in Europe that were more distinguishable.
A 'Venus figurine' is an art history term for a relatively lifelike drawing or sculpture of a human being – man, woman or child - found in many Upper Palaeolithic contexts.
Often the Venus figure consists of a detailed depiction of a woman's lush and Rubenesque body, which lacks details for her face, arms, and feet. These Venuses were made from different materials, not all from the locality where they were found.
Venus of Willendorf, some date her to 30,000 to 25,000 BCE, is carved from limestone and tinted with red ochre.
Venus of Brassempouy is carved from mammoth ivory.
Venus of Monruz is made of a black mineraloid - jet.
Generally believed to be the oldest of these figures, the Venus of Hohle Fels (only 6 cm high and made of mammoth ivory) may have been worn as an amulet. Some anthropologists date her age back to 40,000 BCE.
Venus of Brassempouy is the first to show a realistic representation of a female human face, thus depicting the oldest known Stone Age portrait with triangular and serene features.
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| Venus of Brassempouy, 22,000 BCE |
Approximately 20,800 years later, a similar depiction surfaced in Egypt, the
standing figure of Ahmose-Nefertari, mother of pharaoh Amenhotep I. New Kingdom, from Thebes, Egypt.
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| Ahmose-Neferatri, c 1200 BCE |
While the Venuses seen thus far don't seem to have a specific purpose other than conveying fertility and continuation of life, Venus of Laussel from Laussel cave, Dordogne Valley, France, is holding in her right hand what looks like a large horn of an ancient bison.
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| Venus of Laussel, c 27,000-22,000 BCE |
The horn has 13 vertical lines etched onto it, and she appears to be looking at it. There are traces of red ochre on the sculpture. She is 45 cm high, a low relief in limestone and part of a frieze of four female figures.
Scholars speculate about the significance of the bison horn: she is holding the crescent moon, the stripes explicitly referencing the annual lunar cycle; the stripes represent women's menstrual cycles, postulating that women teach adolescent girls about their bodily functions. The horn has also been interpreted as a drinking or musical instrument, and male genitalia.
Art historian Allen Weiss proposes that a fertility symbol holding a fertility symbol is an early representation of meta-art, or art about art, in which the figure of Venus contemplates her significance.
The interpretations of this Venus have one commonality: she represents a fertility goddess, a magical or shamanistic figure, thus leaving a fascinating, ambiguous and unsolvable mystery.
It is interesting to follow the evolving styles of these Venuses from c 40,000 BCE, to 11,000 BCE, to modern times. Venus of Monruz has a modern Matisse-esque shape. She measures 18 mm.
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| Venus of Monruz, c 11,000 BCE |
The Radcliffe Venus is made of bronze and measures 13 cm. Would you believe there is a difference of about 13,000 years between these two stylised Venuses?
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| Venus by Graham Radcliffe, c 2010 CE |
Just returning from Winton in Qld, I came across this Venus on Arno’s Wall.
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| Venus of Arno's Wall, Winton, Qld, 2023 |
While my focus is on Western Art, being in Australia, we should not ignore Australian Rock Art.
Rock Art
Rock engravings consist of cave paintings, relief sculptures, ceramic pottery, architecture, and stone, ivory, bone and wood sculptures. Natural pigments and stone carvings create representations of objects, animals, and rituals governing a civilisation’s existence. Here are some of Australia's earliest rock art:
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| 17,300 year-old kangaroo in dark mulberry paint on the ceiling of a rock shelter in the Kimberley |
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| Gwion Gwion (Tassel) figures wearing ornate costumes, c 12,000 BCE |
Perhaps this Gwion Gwion rock painting, depicts African tribes? It was found in the northwest Kimberley. A recent study estimates that these figures were created 12,000 years ago.
Other famous examples of prehistoric cave paintings have been found in the complex caves of Lascaux, near Montignac in France. They are estimated to be up to 22,000 years old and depict large animals and vegetation from the area.
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| Cave painting in Lascaux, c 20,000 BCE, depicting a bull and a horse |
Ancient Art (4,000 BCE - 400 CE)
Advanced civilisations (those with an established written language) produced ancient art, they include Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Aegean, Greece, Rome, and Byzantine.
The medium for art from this period varies depending on the civilisation that produced it. Still, most of their art served similar purposes: to tell stories, decorate utilitarian objects like bowls and weapons, display religious and symbolic imagery, and to demonstrate social status.
Many works depict stories of rulers, gods, goddesses, warriors and wars. Some of the earliest artistic propaganda for battles and law and order were found in the Middle East.
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| Unknown, Code of Hammurabi, c 1792-1750 BCE |
The famous work from ancient Mesopotamia, the Code of Hammurabi, created around 1792 BCE, bears a Babylonian set of laws carved in stone, adorned by an image of seated King Hammurabi—the sixth King of Babylonia—and the Mesopotamian God, Shabash. This is a most comprehensive legal text from that area and era, setting out that social order is more important than individual rights.
The warrior from Delos wears a helmet plated with boars' tusks and a Cretan loincloth and carries an enormous Cretan figure-of-8 shield.
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| Ivory relief of a warrior from Delos, c 1400-1300 BCE |
In Egypt, around c 1350 BCE, the reign of Akhenaten and Nefertiti is noted for abandoning Egypt's traditional polytheism and introducing the worship of one God, the Aten or Aton. This change is evident in the exaggerated and fluid forms of Amarna Art.
Amarna Art is characterised by a sense of movement and activity in images. Figures have: raised heads, an elongation and narrowing of the neck and head, sloping of the forehead and nose, a prominent chin, large ears and lips, spindle-like arms and calves and large thighs, stomachs and hips.
Powerful women characterised the 18th Dynasty, and Akhenaten seems to have granted his chief wife, Nefertiti, with power surpassed only by himself.
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| Thutmose, Bust of Nefertiti, c 1345 BCE |
Note that the bust of Nefertiti conforms to the classical Egyptian style.
A few centuries later, a clay plaque was found in Sunium, southeast of Athens, dating to c 700 BCE, depicting hoplites in battle. Hoplites were citizen-soldiers of Ancient Greek city-states, primarily armed with spears and shields. They used the phalanx formation to be effective in war with fewer soldiers. They are depicted on plaques, vases, plates, and statues found around present-day Greece and Iran.
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| Hoplites in phalanx formation, detail from a Corinthian vase, c 650-625 BCE |
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| Plaque showing part of a ship with soldiers on board. The steersman can be seen, but the rowers have to be imagined. |
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| Achaemenid king killing a Greek hoplite, c 500-475 BCE, at the time of Xerxes |
Art did not only represent battles; the harmony between man and animal was also a popular theme.
Approximately 1.65 m in height and made of porous limestone, this Archaic sculpture portrays the connection between man, in this instance a happily smiling one, and an animal. The calf-bearer's crossed arms cross the calf's legs, demonstrating their unity.
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| The Moschophoros (calf-bearer), c 570 BCE |
This Charioteer of Delphi, also known as Heniokhos, is 1.8 m in height and made from bronze.
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| The Charioteer of Delphi, c 470 BCE |
One interpretation is that he was to commemorate the victory of the tyrant Polyzalus of Gela in Sicily. Another suggests he celebrates his brother Hieron's victory at the Olympic Games.
Numerous friezes, sculptures and vessels describe battles and wars during that era, such as the battle for power between the sons of the earth, the Gigantes, and the Olympian gods.
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| Northern Frieze of the Siphnian Treasury, Delphi, showing the Battle of the Gigantomachy, c 525 BCE |
The Gigantomachy was probably the most depicted conflict in Greek mythology. It symbolised Hellenism's triumph over barbarism, good over evil, order and civilisation over savagery, barbarism, and anarchy.
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| close up of the Gigantomachy |
On the right, the giants are heavily armed with helmets, shields, breastplates, and pieces of armour to protect the leg. They attack the gods with spears, swords, and stones. On the gods' side is Hephaestus in his short tunic, his chiton. He is supported by two females, then Dionysus (or possibly Heracles), and Themis on her chariot drawn by lions. A pair of gods who are shooting their arrows against the Giants follow.
The Venuses from earlier eras evolved into more recognisable and lifelike forms.
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| Venus de Milo, c 150-125 BCE |
Made of Parian marble, Venus is 2.4 m high. Some believe she depicts the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite, while others theorise that she represents the sea-goddess Amphitrite, who was revered on the island of Milos, where she was found.
Between 310 and 340 BCE, the remains of Villa Romana del Casale, on the southern side of Sicily, give us access to life at that time. Extremely luxurious on a vast scale (covering a general area of 4,000 sqm), the Villa was probably made for a member of ancient Rome's elite. We can gather a sense of 4th-century Roman civilisation in its essential aspects: economy, religion, politics, and family life. This important and extensive floor mosaic attests to this. It is believed to have been created by North African artists, since some of its pieces (tesserae) are from there. It clearly shows the athletic activities that women participated in.
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| These ancient bikini girls had a lot fun competing for victory. |
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| close up of Romana del Casale mosaic |
It is interesting to note that the mosaic of these two lovers is in the lady of the Villa's apartment.
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| Two lovers embracing. |
The Dark Ages followed these joyous and carefree years.
Medieval Art (500 - 1400 CE)
During the Middle Ages, the enormous power of the church caused art to be almost exclusively related to the church and religion. It was a period of economic and cultural deterioration following the fall of the Roman Empire in 476.
This early Carolingian Codex Eyckensis was produced around the year 750, during the early stages of Christianisation. It is a Gospel Book from the treasury of Saint Catherine’s church in Maaseik (northeast Belgium) and is the oldest preserved ‘book’ produced in the Low Countries.
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| Codex Eyckensis |
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| Anonymous - Saint Catherine's Monastery Virgin and Child with Angels and Sts George and Theodore. Encaustic iron on panel, c 600. |
[Encaustic is painting by burning in the colours]. This is in Greek realist style. The Monastery is located at the foot of Mt Sinai in Egypt. It is the oldest continuously inhabited Christian monastery in the world.
Ambrogio Lorenzetti, (1285/1290-1345), painted The Allegory of Good and Bad Government, in a series of three frescos in Siena's Palazzo Publico, Italy. The Bad Government is on top, and the Good below, demonstrating the visual distinction between the ruin and decay that results from tyranny versus the harmony and prosperity of ruling honestly.
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| Ambrogio Lorenzetti, The Allegory of Good and Bad Government, c 1338-1339. |
Sir Geoffrey Luttrell commissioned The Luttrell Psalter (1276-1345). Luttrell was a wealthy landowner of a Manor in Lincolnshire. The Psalter was created by anonymous scribes and artists. It is a collection of religious texts, including psalms, prayers and a calendar of Church feast days, written in Latin on vellum or parchment. It is richly illustrated with depictions of everyday life in rural England in the first half of the 14th Century – evidently with a fair bit of violence. The lively, vibrant and sometimes humorous illustrations also include rather bizarrely, many 'grotesques', curious figures combining animal and human parts.
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| Two grotesques fight with earthenware pitchers: one breaking his pitcher over the other's head, c 1325-1335. |
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| Wife beating her husband with a distaff (attachment for a spinning wheel). |
This period was also responsible for the emergence of the illuminated manuscript and Gothic architecture style.
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| Simone Martini and Lippo Memmi, Annunciation with St Margaret and St Ansanus, 1333, wooden triptych painted in Tempera and gold on panel. |
The Handwritten Annals of the City of Toulouse were held from 1295 to 1787. They consist of a collection of books in which the administrative acts and the rights and privileges of the capitouls, the municipal consuls, were recorded yearly. These Annals are particularly renowned for the illuminations that decorate them, an original and unique example of miniature portraits of municipal consuls in the exercise of their office.
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| Detail of the illustration of the year 1412-1413. A saint (either an apostle or their patron saint) is standing behind each kneeling capitoul. |
Definitive examples of influential art from this period include the catacombs in Rome, Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, and Notre Dame in Paris.
Renaissance Art (1400 – 1600)
Covering the 15th and 16th centuries, the Renaissance had its beginning in Florence, due in large part to the Medici, a wealthy merchant family who supported the arts, humanism, and a variety of beliefs and philosophies, such as that ‘man is the measure of all things’. Broadly speaking, the Renaissance is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to Modernity. This new thinking was associated with significant social change and profoundly influenced politics, architecture, science, literature, and visual art.
Paintings, sculptures, and decorative art were characterised by a focus on nature and individualism, the thought of man as being independent and self-reliant. Though these ideals were present in the late Medieval period, they flourished now, paralleling social and economic changes like secularisation.
The Renaissance is credited with developing conventions of diplomacy, inductive reasoning, social scientific pursuits, an introduction of modern banking and a fusion of art and natural philosophy, a forerunner of modern science. It is perhaps best known for the contributions of such polymaths as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, who inspired the term ‘Renaissance man’. The artists Raphael and Botticelli also spearheaded ideals of emotional expression.
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (1452-1519) was multi-talented, being a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. His works were characterised by realism, attention to detail, and careful study of human anatomy. His studies in science and engineering are as impressive and innovative as his artistic work. While these drawings may not be as famous as his Mona Lisa, they show his understanding of the body, animals, plants, architecture, machines for war and flying.
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| Physiological sketch of the human brain and skull, c 1510. |
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| Study of a fetus in the womb, c 1510. |
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| Drawing of a scythed chariot and a fighting vehicle, a prototype of modern tanks, c 1487. |
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| Aerial screw, suggestive of a helicopter, c 1489. |
The marble statue of the Biblical figure David, a favoured subject in Florentine art, is a masterpiece of Renaissance sculpture. The statue soon came to symbolise the defence of civil liberties embodied in the Republic of Florence, an independent city-state threatened on all sides by more powerful rival states and by the domination of the Medici family.
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| Michelangelo, The Statue of David, 1504, 5.17 m. |
This David caused controversy in March of this year. The principal of a school in Florida/USA had shown her grade Six students this statue as part of a lesson on Renaissance art. She was forced to resign after a parent complained that students were exposed to pornography.
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (1483-1520), better known as Raphael, was admired for the clarity in his work, the ease of composition and the visual achievement of the Neoplatonic (revival of interest in classical antiquity) ideal of human grandeur.
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| Raffaello Sanzio da Urbin, The School of Athens, 1511. |
The School of Athens fresco is an allegory of secular knowledge, showing an elder Plato on the left, and Aristotle, surrounded by present and past philosophers, illustrating the historical continuity of Platonic thought.
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| Piero Della Francesca, Portrait of a Boy, c 1483. |
Piero Della Francesca's (1413-1492) paintings were characterised by serene humanism, geometric forms, and a study of light and perspective.
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| Tiziano Vecelli, Portrait of Charles V, 1550s. |
Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio, known as Titian in English, (1488/90-1576), was a Venetian school member who, apart from Madonnas, painted patrons and rulers of clergy and state, like Charles V, who was an important political figure. He was part of the Habsburg family and became king of Spain in 1519.
In 1517, the Protestant Reformation started with the publication of Martin Luther's critique of the Catholic Church, which challenged the institution's image and power and sparked a religious revolution.
Rebelling Charles V's troops and some of Luther's followers carried out The Sack of Rome in 1527. The city was taken by assault. Many Vatican soldiers and civilians were killed, religious buildings were robbed and destroyed. This event is often considered the end of the Italian Renaissance because it caused many people to flee the city, including artists. The population decreased dramatically. The Vatican lost much prestige and started to act against the Reformation.
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| Maarten van Heemskerck, Sack of Rome, 6 May 1527, (1527). |
Van Heemskerck (1498-1574) was a Dutch painter, known for his depictions of the Wonders of the world.
During the entire century, the Spanish Empire experienced amazing growth. Colonies were established in most of the Americas and the Philippines. The empire became very wealthy, and Catholic arts and culture were promoted in those new territories.
This atmosphere of instability and change influenced art and artistic creations. Most artists produced pieces to make a living and created commissioned artwork. An example is German painter Albrecht Dürer's (1471-1528) portrait of his principal patron, Maximilian I.
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| Albrecht Dürer, Portrait of Maximilian I, 1514. |
In 1515 Dürer and his cohorts created the first world map projected on a solid geometric sphere. They printed celestial maps, which prompted the revival of interest in the measurement of stellar distances.
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| The Northern Hemisphere of the Celestial Globe, created by Dürer under the direction of cartographer Johannes Stabius and mathematician and astronomer Konrad Heinfogel, 1515. |
The fear of being trialled or executed for producing inappropriate art discouraged many artists from further exploring humanism. Many adapted to less enlightened forms and were more removed from human perfection and mathematical proportions than in earlier artistic periods.
The tensions caused by the Reformation and the Catholic Church's response impacted artists in Protestant and Catholic territories. Artwork reflected the religious ideology that prevailed in such areas and focused on the personal relationship between God and the individual. However, numerous artists turned to secular themes, including still life, portraits and landscapes.
Mannerism (1527 – 1580)
Mannerist was an anti-classical movement that differed from the aesthetic ideologies of the Renaissance. It emerged from the ideals of Michelangelo and Raphael, but their focus on style and technique outweighed the meaning of the subject matter. Often, figures had graceful, elongated limbs, small heads, stylised features and exaggerated details.
Influential Mannerist artists were Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola (1503-1540) also known as Francesco Mazzola or, more commonly as Parmigianino near Venice and Agnolo di Cosimo (1503-1572) usually known as Bronzino in Florence.
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Parmigianino, Madonna with the Long Neck, 1534. |
The elongated features are a reminder of the Amarna Art back in Egypt.
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| Agnolo Bronzino, Portrait of a Young Man, c 1550–55 |
Lavinia Fontana, (1552-1614), was a Mannerist female artist from Bologna. She was trained by her father and is considered to be the first female career artist. She gave birth to eleven children and had Pope Paul V amongst her sitters. She was elected to the Accademia di San Luca of Rome. Fontana made herself a name not only for her incredible art but for her bottom pinching dare.
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| Lavinia Fontana, Mars and Venus, 1595. |
The love affair between Venus, the goddess of desire and Mars, the god of war is depicted in a cheekily intimate way. She casts her gaze at us with a narcissus flower.
Baroque (1600 – 1750)
The Baroque period yielded ornate, over-the-top visual arts and architecture. It was characterised by grandeur and richness, punctuated by an interest in broadening human intellect and global discovery. Baroque artists were stylistically complex. They used an intense contrast between light and dark and had energetic compositions matched by rich colour palettes.
Baroque paintings were characterised by drama, as seen in the iconic works of the Italian painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) and Dutch painter Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606-1669).
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| Caravaggio, The Calling of Saint Matthew, c 1599-1600 |
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| Caravaggio, Fortune Teller, c 1595 |
The Fortune Teller shows a foppishly dressed boy, having his palm read by a Romani girl. The boy looks pleased as he gazes into her face, and she returns his gaze. Close inspection reveals what the young man has failed to notice: the girl removes his ring as she gently strokes his hand.
Rembrandt portrayed himself with his wife Saskia van Uylenburgh in a merry setting.
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| Rembrandt, The Prodigal Son in the Brothel, c 1635 |
Anatomy lessons were a social event in the 17th Century, taking place in lecture rooms that were actual theatres, with students, colleagues and the public being permitted to attend on payment of an entrance fee.
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| Rembrandt, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp, 1632 |
This event occurred on 31/1/1632 when the official City anatomist Nicolaes Tulp was permitted one public dissection per year. The body would have been of an executed criminal. Some spectators are doctors who paid commissions to be included in the painting.
Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens’ (1577-1640) immensely popular Baroque style emphasised movement, colour, and sensuality, which followed the immediate dramatic artistic style promoted during the Counter-Reformation. His commissioned works were mostly history paintings, embracing religious and mythological subjects, and hunting scenes. He was fond of painting full-figured women, giving rise to the term ‘Rubenesque’.
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| Peter Paul Rubens, The Three Graces, 1635 |
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| Peter Paul Rubens, The Four Rivers of Paradise, c 1615 |
This title alludes to the four rivers of paradise, in which each female is paired with the god of her respective river.
Rococo (1699 – 1780)
This style originated in Paris. It focussed on the aristocratic extravagances of the pre-revolutionary society under Louis XIV. Its subject matter shows flirty women and frolicsome men with a hedonistic attitude. It was almost sinful and certainly lustful. Cherubs and cupids feature in mythological scenes. Rococo is characterised by lightness and elegance, focusing on natural forms, an asymmetrical design, and subtle colours.
Apart from paintings, Rococo encompassed decorative art, architecture, sculpture, silver, porcelain, and French furniture.
Painters like Watteau and Francois Boucher used rich brushwork, and fresh colours.
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| Antoine Watteau, The Embarkation for Cythera, 1717 |
Neoclassicism (c 1750 – 1850)
In the 1780’s run-up to the French Revolution, Neoclassicism was the dominant painting style in Europe and flourished under the Empire of Napoleon I. As its name suggests, it drew upon elements from classical antiquity. Archaeological ruins of ancient civilisations in Athens and Naples that were discovered at the time reignited a passion for all things past.
Artists strove to recreate the great works of antiquity. This translated to a renewed interest in classical ideals of harmony, simplicity, and proportion. The changes were dramatic, transitioning from historic ‘Old Masters’ style works to the dawn of Modernity. The 19th Century was a period when Europe and the world experienced rapid and profound changes in all areas. It was politically and geographically constantly in a state of flux with revolutions in France, the breakdown of the Spanish, Holy Roman and French Napoleonic empires, and the growth of the British and German empires.
This period is marked by urbanisation stemming from the birth of science as a profession and the Industrial Revolution. It was defined as the age of the machine and impacted every level of society. Breakthroughs in transportation, especially rail travel, fuelled communication across borders. New ideas and artistic influences spread quickly throughout Europe.
Neoclassical painters rebelled against Rococo art rejecting its superficial beauty and aristocratic frivolity. Flamboyance had given way to solemnity, clarity and order. Whereas previously, artists were commissioned to produce works on behalf of a client or institution, they started now to create works of their own accord, exploring new and personal areas of interest.
Neoclassical art was aimed at the masses on the verge of revolting against the elite. Its subject matter was art with a moral character, favouring symmetrical compositions. To inspire values while yearning towards the greatness of Greco-Roman cultures. Art had a political role to play.
Neoclassical painting is generally a form of history painting, a genre that traversed many styles but depended on the historical subject matter.
Angelika Kauffmann was one Neoclassical Swiss-Austrian painter, who was also trained by her father. She had a very successful career in London and Rome. Primarily a history painter, she was a skilled portraitist and landscape painter. She was one of the two female founding members of the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 1768.
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| Angelika Kauffmann, Amor and Psyche, 1792 |
Kauffmann’s Amor und Psyche looks quite demure in comparison to Lavinia Fontana’s Mars and Venus.
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| Angelika Kauffmann, The Deserted Costanza, c 1783-84 |
You can see The Deserted Costanza, as she hangs here in Brisbane's Queensland Art Gallery.
Since the establishment of the Royal Academy of Art, history painting was seen as one of the most important genres to which artists had to conform. This genre was looking backward to historical events to inspire excellence in the present, as exemplified by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres.
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| Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, The Apotheosis of Homer, 1827 |
Ingres grandly represents this style of historical portraiture in The Apotheosis of Homer. The symmetrical composition depicts Homer crowned by a winged figure personifying Victory or the Universe. Forty-four additional figures, including notables like Socrates (23), Michelangelo (26), Shakespeare (34) and Mozart (37), to name only a few, pay homage to the poet in a kind of classical confession of faith.
One of the most important Neoclassical painters is the French artist Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825). He is credited with defining Neoclassical painting with his famous work Oath of the Horatii.
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| Jacques-Louis David, Oath of the Horatii, 1784 |
This huge painting was a success when it was exhibited in the Paris Salon, symbolising and capturing in a historic composition the French spirit in the years before the Revolution. It depicts thee brothers preparing to fight for their city, Rome, in classical style and in static calm poses (draped in flowing Greek robes, Roman togas, and sandals). Their father blesses them. The heroic nationalism of the subject is evident and became massive propaganda for the French revolution.
David, a huge supporter of the Revolution, went on to become chief painter to Emperor Napoleon I, and produced a great deal of revolutionary propaganda in the form of Neoclassical paintings.
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| Jacques-Louis David, Napoleon Crossing the Alps, 1801 |
Joseph Wright, (1734 – 1797) styled Joseph Wright of Derby, was an English landscape and portrait painter.
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| Joseph Wright, A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery, c 1766 |
Joseph Wright's public lecture about a model solar system illustrates his skill of illuminating the faces of the audience.
As part of a larger decorative style, the Neoclassicism movement encompassed architecture, sculpture, and the decorative arts.
Romanticism (c 1800 - 1850)
The scope of Romantic painting in terms of subject matter was extensive, favouring emotional depictions and intensely sad and heroic subjects. Romantic pictures didn't all look the same in terms of their aesthetic. They can look completely different from one another because what mattered about this style was the feeling and the emotion – hence it became known as Romanticism.
Bold, linear drawings and strong juxtapositions of light and shade defined paintings. Though some Romantic paintings have a sketchy, grainy appearance with a certain softness.
In England Romantic paintings depicted a range of subjects that included man's relationship to God and his place in the cosmos, as well as history painting but executed in the Romantic style. Landscape and seascape paintings were also popular genres.
English painter William Blake (1757-1827), is a seminal figure in Romantic painting, known for his distinctive illustrations of imaginary worlds that are inspired by gods and mystical powers, as well as famous writers like Shakespeare and Dante, as depicted to Dante's Divine Comedy: Hell, Canto 1.
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| William Blake, Dante running from the Three Beasts, 1824 |
In France, Romanticism evolved to include the contemporary. Paintings glorified the terror, heroism, or sadness of events. French artist Théodore Gericault (1791-1824) greatly impacted both Romanticism and the entire history of French painting. Unlike Blake, Gericault preferred to paint contemporary subjects focusing on the darker elements of human psychology. The emotion and drama are evident in his painting, The Raft of the Medusa, which depicts the survivors of the French ship Medusa, that ran aground in 1816.
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| Théodore Gericault, The Raft of the Medusa, 1818-1819 |
French artist Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863) is often considered the leader of Romanticism in France. Like Gericault, he preferred contemporary subjects, in which he heightened emotion and romance.
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| Eugene Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People, 1830 |
Despite their differences in subject matter, all Romantic painters shared an intense portrayal of emotion in their works, highlighting the breadth of the Romantic movement in painting.
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (c 1848 - 1854)
The Pre-Raphaelites painted various subjects, including religious works, subjects from poetry and literature, and pieces inspired by spiritualism and nature. Still, ultimately, they looked to themes such as love and death to express profound, genuine ideas. 'Heartfelt-ness' was a key motivation in their work.
They were a group of British artists who opposed the 'ideal' in the art favoured by the Royal Academy, as exemplified in the pictures of the Renaissance master Raphael. We saw his School of Athens painting before. They sought to revive British art by making it as creative, powerful, and dynamic as late Medieval painting before the work of Raphael, hence the term Pre-Raphaelite. Their opposition to the Industrial Revolution motivated them to return to the calm and beauty of nature to offset the rapid, mechanical changes happening all around.
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| John Everett Millais, Ophelia, 1852 |
One of their most distinctive characteristics is the portrayal of long-haired women with delicate features and long, sweeping dresses.
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| Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The Day Dream, 1880 (left); Joan of Arc, 1882 (right) |
Realism (c 1850 - 1900)
Realism is arguably the first modern art movement. Often referred to as Naturalism, it began in France in the 1850s. It resulted from multiple events: the 1848 French Revolution, the anti-Romantic movement in Germany, the rise of journalism, and the advent of photography. Each inspired a new interest in accurately capturing everyday life. This attention to accuracy is evident in art produced during the movement, which featured detailed, lifelike depictions of subject matter.
The term 'Realism' does not mean the realistic appearance of works. Until this point, nearly all artworks sought the 'realistic' portrayal of the composition. This style was interested in the realism of the subject matter, marking a departure from Neoclassical history paintings and Romanticism, which elevated subjects to monumental importance.
Realism was concerned with the truthful representation of subjects that avoided artistic embellishments or implausible elements. It revolted against the dominant Romantic style.
It was interested in common labourers and ordinary people as its subjects. Thus, its paintings depicted scenes of everyday life, seeking to appeal to the public rather than just being aimed at the upper echelons of society. Idealised, emotional and dramatic content was utterly avoided. Instead, people from all walks of life, and mainly the working class, were celebrated in lifelike depictions within precise, logical compositions.
One of the most important painters of the Realist movement was French artist Gustave Courbet (1819-77), who was committed to painting only what he could physically see. His Burial confronts the Parisian public at the Salon with the importance of ordinary rural people. At the bottom are a skull and bones on the open grave.
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| Gustave Courbet, A Burial at Ornans, 1848 |
Another is Jean-François Millet (1814-75), who is widely celebrated for his scenes of peasant farmers, as shown in this painting, The Gleaners.
Jean-François Millet, The Gleaners, 1857
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| Jean-François Millet, The Gleaners, 1857 |
Equivalent Realism developed in many other European countries and particularly in Russia, but this style was mainly associated with France and French painters. Realism was prevalent until the late 19th Century when it was gradually overtaken by Impressionism, which will be the beginning of another presentation.
And this is where our journey through the early part of the history of art ends.
List of Works Consulted
Di Giovanni, Guiseppe, Piazza Armerina Morgantina. The Roman Villa of Casale. An insight into the way the Romans lived. Agrigento: Arti Grafiche Campo, 2000.
Power, Eileen, Medieval Women, Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995.
https://www.archives.toulouse.fr/archives-en-ligne
https://www.britannica.com/list/10-modernist-art-movements
https://www.canva.com/learn/10-influential-art-movements-still-used-today/
https://www.invaluable.com/blog/art-history-timeline/
https://joyofmuseums.com/museums/europe/france-museums/paris-museums/national-archaeological-museum-france/venus-of-brassempouy/
https://www.mayfairgallery.com/blog/19th-century-european-painting-styles-movements
https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/682647255996863846/
https://study.com/academy/lesson/effect-of-16th-century-european-politics-religion-on-art.html
https://www.thoughtco.com/laussel-venus-upper-paleolithic-goddess-173069
http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/prehistoric/venus-of-tan-tan.htm
https://www.widewalls.ch/magazine/political-art
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelika_Kauffmann
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anatomy_Lesson_of_Dr._Nicolaes_Tulp
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Paleolithic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Berekhat_Ram
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Hohle_Fels
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Tan-Tan
www.visual-arts-cork.com › prehistoric-art.htm
http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/prehistoric/mesolithic-art.htm
http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/prehistoric/neolithic-art.htm
Images via Wikimedia Commons.
