Belisarius Begging Alms

Jacques-Louis David

1781

Neoclassical

Like The Funeral of Patroclus, David's previous work, this draws inspiration from antiquity but the theme is more immediately relevant and the composition is more instantly legible.

It speaks to the historically relatable sentiment of people in power suddenly being reduced to rags due to the tumultuous political climate in David's France. The painting is on-trend, by being classically inspired, and all the same critical of and engaged with current events.

Oath of the Horatii

Jacques-Louis David

1785

Neoclassical

Like Belisarius Begging Alms, David combines classical subject matter with immediate and relevant emotional impact. The fatal collision between cousins, the over-investment in civic duty, and the familial distance contribute to his convoluted subject matter.

David's sterile use of scenery and space creates a stoic and critical isolation and a visually harsh image.

This painting was 150% David's allotted canvas size.

The Death of Socrates

Jacques-Louis David

1787

Neoclassical

This image celebrates Socrates' decision to consume hemlock and die aligned with his own principles. This reflects revolutionary independence from tyranny.

This painting is much smaller than Oath due to being a private commission. The visible exit reduces the sombre quality of the painting- as well as the second "exit" as indicated by Socrates' pointed finger.

Lictors Returning To Brutus The Bodies of his Sons

Jacques-Louis David

1789

Neoclassical

Brutus was an early republican figure in Ancient Rome, during the period in history when "modern" civic virtues were established.

When Brutus' sons are found to be participants in a conspiracy to reestablish monarchy, they are sentenced to death.

The women are active in this image (cf Oath) and Brutus is obscured in shadow and malaise. The sewing basket, a feminine object, is symbolic of violence within domesticity, or the inability to mend this difficult situation.

Intervention of the Sabine Women

Jacques-Louis David

1799

Neoclassical

David's Sabine Women elevates Oath's Camilla in Hersilia's action. Hersilia pleads Romans and Sabines to overcome their differences and embrace rather than conflict.

Post Revolutionary Era France was an era that well knew interfamilial bloodshed, making the painting highly relevant in its time.

Death of Marat

Jacques-Louis David

1793

Neoclassical

my favorite David painting tbh

David's response to the Revolutionary's assassination was to depict his passing not as a violent struggle, but as a hushed, private, almost beautiful scene. The Caravaggio-esque use of light and shadow and delicately gestural form creates a martyr of Marat, appearing more a saint than a modern man.

1. History painting
2. Portraits
3. Genre scenes (images of everyday life)
4. Landscape
5. Still life

The Nightmare

Henry Fuesli

1781

Romanticism

Fuesli explores a fragmented, disjointed state in terms of gestural orientation, composition, and subject matter. The scene exists between reality and fiction, and possibly indicates posession. The painting seems more modern and psychoanalytic than others in the academy at the same time.

Fuesli doesn't aim to depict a story from mythology or from the Bible– this scene is ostensibly one he imagined and chose to depict. It has no grounding moralizing subject, which frightened viewers.

Glad Day (Albion Rose)

William Blake

1780

Romanticism

The mythological figure of Albion, who represents Britain, freeing himself of the shackles of materialism.

Heroic nude!

I don't really like or get this picture. Whatever.

Carlos IV of Spain

Francisco Goya

1800-1801

Romanticism

The Bourbon monarchy– related to the recently deposed French Bourbons, hired Goya to be their court painter. This painting contains many questionable pictoral aspects. For isntance, King Carlos looks a little foolish (as he was known to be), and a few older individuals pictured look somewhat gruesome.

The most likely interpretation is that Goya's dedication to representing the truth is more of an influence on the painting's less savory aspects, more than a desire for him to undermine their power.

Second of May 1808

Francisco Goya

1814

Romanticism

This image is a subverted history painting, in which the central figure is distorted and vulnerable, and not necessarily a protagonist. There is no single definite protagonist. The visual experience is almost sensual.

Third of May

Francisco Goya

1814

Romanticism

This image is a secularization of martyrdom. The victims are innocent and have faces to go with them, and the firing squad is anonymous. This horrifying event lacks biblical transcendence and redemption.

Cf Goya's print series, The Disasters of War 1810-1820

Napoleon in the Plague House at Jaffa

1804

Antoine-Jean Gros

Neoclassical

The male nude is reduced from heroism to a figure worth pity in this vivid, lurid painting. This competition-winning image brims with fury and frustration, as well as Gros' "improvisatory flair."

This image demonstrates the arbutary divide between Occidental and Oriental symbols.

Battle of Eylau

1808

Antoine-Jean Gros

Neoclassical

Bloody and inconclusive battle. Horror and the sublime meld together in the sprawling composition. Napoleon's hand is extended in blessing of the wounded Prussians, who bow to him despite his own devastated troops and subsequent Pyrhhic victory.

Charging Chasseur

Théodore Géricault

1812

Romanticism

The propose of this painting is left ambiguous; is this a portrait, a piece of propaganda, or an allegory?

The man is a soldier, a powerful character, but bears hesitance/reflection on his face. This image is contradictory and tumultuous. The scene of war is indicative of how intrigued Géricault was in the face of disaster.

Wounded Cuirassier

Théodore Géricault

1814

Romanticism

The uneasy gaze of the soldier suggests an important presence beyond the bounds of the painting. Heaven? Danger?

The cuirassier's wound is not visible. He is awkward and uncertain. The battle seems far away in time and distance.

Raft of the Medusa

Théodore Géricault

1818-19

Romanticism

This uncanny painting is of a well known and highly publicized disaster much akin to the sinking of the Titanic. Géricault transforms a recent real event into a sort of epic narrative.

Géricault toyed with many different scenes regarding the Medusa, but settled on a moment of false hope– the survivors are trying to catch the attention of a ship sailing in the distance. He was very interested in portraying the event truthfully, and interviewed survivors and examined drawings of the actual raft.

The pyramidal/triangular motions of the survivors are positioned in counterpoint; the humans are making a pyramid leaning towards the boat, and the sail (and the wind) push them away.

The Hay Wain (Originally Landscape: Noon)

John Constable

1821

Romanticism 

A rural scene. Not accepted into the academy (because it's boring.)

A hay wagon on John Constable's father's property.

Cloud Studies

John Constable

1820's or 30's

Romanticism

Constable was quite interested in the languid fluidity of cloud formation.

If you look closely, you can see some pij flying in sky.

Hagar in the Wilderness

Camille Corot

1835

Neoclassicism / Plein Air

This image depicts Hagar and her son Ishmael as left to die by Abraham and Sarah. 

Corot was praised for his peaceful-looking composition (a plein air painting inspired by the Italian countryside) and the contradictorily harsh image of a child dying.

Monk By The Sea

Caspar David Friedrich

1809-10

Romanticism

This painting features a faceless, mysterious figure, isolated amidst a highly simplified composition of land, sea, and sky.  Contemplative, nihilistic (?), transcendent. 

Friedrich conceptualizes the natural world as an opportunity to reconnect with divinity.

Woman Before the Setting Sun

Caspar David Friedrich

1818

Romanticism

This image is almost symmetrical and depicts a woman relishing in the sublimity of nature.  The topographical makup is disrupted by little natural hints of unpredictability in the sway of the body and trees– this organic gesture adds a sense of vitality to the image. 

Wreck of the Hope

Caspar David Friedrich

1823-4

Romanticism

This image was Friedrich's response to the real life ill-fated expeditions to the north pole in 1819-20. 

The plates of ice form a monolithic tomb for the wrecked ship. 

The Goddess of Dischord Choosing the Apple of Contention

Joseph Mallord William Turner

1806

Romanticism

The key work of Turner's early years, this painting has pathetic fallacy (in the form of stormy weather) that betrays the chaos to come from this relatively unassuming scene.  

This Homeric subject presages the ruin of Troy, a precondition of the founding of Rome.

Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps

Joseph Mallord William Turner

1812

Romanticism

This dramatic image has the blurry visual quality of Turner's later works.  Hannibal himself is not seen.  Rather, the focal point of this image is a yellow sun shrouded in sudden darkness.  The entire image is characterized by color values and abrupt changes between light and dark.

cf. David's Napoleon Crossing the Alps (Turner visited David's studio in 1802).

Burning of the Houses of Parliament

Joseph Mallord William Turner

1834

Romanticism

Turner allegedly took a boat out into the Thames and sketched Parliament as it burnt.

This is classic Romanticism since it showcases the superiority of nature over man (or just the fact that man can't anticipate nature).  It also comments on political stability, since you can't really paint this and be non-political lol. 

This image is characteristic of Turner's later works, with its heavy yellow tones and "blurry" quality.  

Agrippina Arriving in Rome with the Ashes of Germanicus 

Joseph Mallord William Turner

1839

Romanticism

This image combines landscape (a somewhat newly reclaimed art form, see Constable, but actually don't see Constable because he boring) with history painting.  

Germanicus was the son of Tiberus (Yimo) and the grandfather of Nero (Pogeeni), and often seen as the last great Roman before Rome's decline.  He was poisioned in Antioch.  Agrippina is now heralded as an exemplum virtutis of a dutiful wife because she brought his urn back to Rome.

Light and Color (Goethe's Theory), The Morning After The Deluge, Moses Writing the Book of Genesis 

Joseph Mallord William Turner

1843

Romanticism

bruh needs to cool it with the long titles obviously.

Moses is portrayed as passive in his inability to control nature.  Nature is beautiful to the eye yet has the power to destroy and recreate life. Very Vishnu-like. 

Turner sees God as the only one in charge, as it is he who creates the flood, allows Noah to survive, parts the seas, allows the Jews to survive, and inspires Moses to write the book of Genesis.

Rain, Steam, and Speed: The Great Western Railway

Joseph Mallord William Turner

1844

Romanticism

Man's creation dares to rival nature.  This is a commentary on that, though it's unclear if the rabbit outrunning the train is a sign of nature's continuing superiority, or the destructiveness and danger that comes out of man's hubris. 

Napoleon on the Imperial Throne

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

1806

Neoclassical

Ingres was a man who worshipped the past; his style is firmly Neoclassical and he considered the Romantics (Delacroix especially) to be his nemeses.  This fixation with the past is seen in spades in this portrait of Napoleon, where the emperor wears Caesar's laurel wreath and carries Charlemagne's sceptre.  Little heavy handed, bro

Dedication to realistic and majestic portrayal 

Jupiter and Thetis

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

1811

Neoclassical

Scene from the Iliad- traditional history painting.  There is a severe contrast between the might of the red-clad Jupiter as he confronts the viewer with a stern gaze (and he's manspreading!) and the submissiveness and nudity of the blue-clad sea nymph Thetis as she gazes upwards, the mother of Achilles.  Pictoral representation of patriarchy.

Zeus is unaffected by Thetis's emotional request, "exalt my son Achilles".  

Roger Freeing Angelica

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

1819

Neoclassical

Classical subject matter.  Careful execution, as always.  Roger, whose steed is a hippogriff for some reason, saves Angelica from a sea monster and rescues her from the rockface she's been chained to, courtesy of some sea-monster-worshipping barbarians. 

Angelica's neck is really freaky looking.  why 

Paolo and Francesca

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

1819

Neoclassical

Characters from Dante's Inferno.  The lovers Paolo and Francesca just before Francesca's husband (and Paolo's brother) Giancotto catches them in the act and kills them.  They end up in the third circle of hell, doomed to be swept away in the wind as soon as things get too spicy.

The Execution of Lady Jane Grey

Paul Delaroche

1834

Neoclassical

Delaroche was a student of Gros in an era where David & Gros were less celebrated.  This image is martyrdon brought down to earth.  Since it is a scene of English history, it can express the trauma of political upheaval by relocating it at a safe distance.  

Rather than showing the execution in the garden where it took place outside the tower of london, he has her on a raised platform similar to the guillotining platforms used during the French Revolution.  He hides this French Revolutionary imagery in this English subject matter.

The Barque of Dante and Virgil

Eugène Delacroix

1822

Romantic

This is the first work publicly exhibited by Delacroix, for the salon of '22.  He took some inspiration from his friend Gericault's Raft of the Medusa (for which he modelled).  

The inspiration for this painting was Dante's Inferno.  An unusual choice, but much more "appropriate" than Medusa which drew from current events.  

Virgil is in the center and Dante wears a bright red scarf about his head.  They are passing the souls of the damned.  There is a lot of random articulation of musculature.  Colors collide and clash to provide a jarring impact, for this is the moment that Dante recognizes someone he once knew. 

Slight ébauche (see Virgil's robe). 

Massacre at Chios

Eugène Delacroix

1824

Romantic

Contemporary subject of ethnic cleansing enacted by the Ottomans in Chios.  Multiple events and disconnected elements- assemblage of vignettes and very little action.  This is notable for its Orientalist themes (often referenced as the first Orientalist painting-- either this or Plague House). 

Two pyramidal forms-- inspiration from Gericault. 

Death of Sardanapalus

Eugène Delacroix

1827

Romantic

As the last king of Assyria's castle is stormed, he orders for all of his male slaves to destroy his treasures and kill his concubines.  This is a scene of incidiary destruction and chaos.  Violence, misogyny, and disorderliness.  

This was not received well in the Salon due to it being too overcrowded and chaotic. 

Liberty Leading the People

Eugène Delacroix

1830

Romantic

I scream when I see this painting because it is very cool and i love

Delacroix painted this in celebration of the July Revolution that focused on empowering the people.  Liberty, dressed as a common woman, is an empowering allegory. People complained that Liberty didn't look classical enough. 

This image shows mixed social classes working together to fight the king's guard.

This is the only time Delacroix engages with his own modern environment, contrary to his usual escapism. 

Women of Algiers

Eugène Delacroix

1834

Romantic

This image depicts the newly colonized North Africa.  Delacroix was interested in this Oriental theme because he felt as if he had stepped back in time as if the land had been unchanged since antiquity.

As typical, Delacroix is wrestling with his own political ambivalence towards the now less-enchanting July Monarchy, and therefore relocating his image to a world exempt of Western influence and toxicity. 

After Dinner At Ornans

Gustave Courbet

1848

Realism

Courbet was a pioneer of Realism, a genre that rejected both the sterile grandeur of Classicism and the chaotic passion of Romanticism, by instead uplifting the realistic and ordinary (situational truth, not optical truth). 

This painting elevates a common scene, endowing it with significance that the hierarchy of genres and traditional Classical and Romantic lenses would neglect to give it.  

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Peasants of Flagey Returning from the Fair

Gustave Courbet

1849

Realism

Oddities in brush/palette knife technique- unusual proportions and multiple perspectives. Not optical truth

People complained that these peasants were too realistic, and not the idealized "happy rural workers" in starch white clothes that other painters were wont to portray. 

Situational truth: cattle are underfed, even the better-off man (walking the pig) is not high-society appropriate, they are overworked etc. 

The Stonebreakers

Gustave Courbet

1848

Realism

Showcases the truth of back-breaking work, and how it is repetitive and an inherited labor.  Sort of labor-ouroboros, an unending cycle of underprivilege. 

Most famous image of Social Realism.  Courbet himself saw this as the truest visual expression of poverty.

A Burial at Ornans

Gustave Courbet

1849

Realism

Courbet's largest undertaking (pun lol) to date.  It includes many individual portraits of villagers from his native Ornans.  It is a tableau historique.

It was criticized for being devoid of composition-- a mere crude lineup.  There are no visual bookends, and the procession could perhaps extend much further on either side. 

It is a bleak pinnacle of realism.  The townspeople are grim and unattractive, standing stiffly at the scene.  Unsentimental, crowded, each person blending into the next.  Human conglomeration of black-clad forms against a dark fog. 

Little nugget of clergy in the leftish middle looks bored, especially the kids who are basically like can we goOOO please

Christ in the House of His Parents

John Millais

1850

Pre-Raphaelite

Detailed material environment and a banal topic associated with Jesus.  Joseph's forearms are those of a real carpenter-- unidealized.

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was devoted to creating "thoroughly good" images; optical truth. 

Isabella

John Millais

1848-49

Pre-Raphaelite

Poesie, based on poem by Keats. Isabella and Lorenzo have a forbidden, unapproved-of love.  

Every material, surface, and object are rendered with equal clarity.  

The Blind Girl

John Millais

1856

Pre-Raphaelite

Sensitive to the plight of women in the Victorian Age. 

This painting celebrates human perception.  This post-storm scene shows a blind girl relishing nature with her inner vision/other senses.  Not characters easily empathized with (cf Stonebreakers by Courbet). 

Some lil pijins in the picture are the best parte helo

Ophelia

John Millais

1851

Pre-Raphaelite

Me lol

Again the Pre-Raphaelites are shown to be fiercely dedicated to detail, taking their subject matter quite seriously.  Millais represents Ophelia with all of the flowers she mentions. Like the blind girl, she is very still.  You can't tell whether she's merely disconnected or already dead.  

Cf Delacroix's Ophelia. 

Work

Ford Madox Brown

1852-65

Pre-Raphaelite

Detailed representation of Victorian England's transition from a rural to an urban economy.  The British commoner is elevated to worthwhile subject matter in this large-scale painting.

The Old Musician

Édouard Manet

1862

Realism

Tenuous connection between characters-- the Absinthe Drinker (1858) is there, as well as two young boys who resemble Watteau's Pierrot and Murillo's Young Beggar.  The old musician gesturally evokes an ancient Roman statue in the Louvre called Seated Philosopher. This display's Manet's artistic knowledge and his place in the legacy of art. 

Also-- social types, cf. Courbet

Luncheon on the Grass (Dejeuner Sur L'Herbe)

Édouard Manet

1863

Realism

Super jarring to his audience.  He uses a Renaissance pose and trope of naked women and clothed men, and then removes all pretense that might make that "acceptable".  He's poking holes in the fact that academy artists so often paint nude women under some pretense so that they can check them out.  He's like, here's a lady. She's naked. Deal with it, you know this is what you want.

Olympia

Édouard Manet

1863

Realism

Here Manet portrays another social type, another outcast, by painting a prostitue.  Her gaze is unsettling and challenging, cooly appraising the viewer.  

It is compositionally identical to Titian's Venus of Urbino(1538) so like Luncheon he's taking a traditional painting/trope and poking holes in it with real situations. 

The Execution of Maximilian

Édouard Manet

1867

Realism

cf Goya's 3rd of May 1808.  The firing squad is impersonal and rigid, and everone is given a somewhat ambiguous characterization.  The delicate and drilled positioning of the firing squad is unlike the aggressive stance of Goya's executioners. 

Maximilian's hat provides some halo imagery. 

The Balcony

Édouard Manet

1868

Realism

A new apartment after the urban renewal of Paris.  Splintered visual composition in a shallow space. 

Took liberties with tradition-- stark dark background, lurid green railing, strange distribution of details etc. 

The Railway

Édouard Manet

1873

Realism

Victorine Meurent returns to Manet's scene with a young child in tow. 

Shallow space, stark black and white stripes made by the gate and smoke. It was found baffling by its audience.  I think it makes a great linear story after Olympia.  I could write a book about it or something. 

A Bar at the Folies Bergere

Édouard Manet

1882

Realism

In this image, you are the Flaneur, and the barmaid seems to be yet another object that money can buy in the frivolous scene.  The perspective with the mirror is confusing. 

December 7, 1815: The Execution of Maréchal Ney 

Jean Léon Gérôme

1868

Academicism

Execution framed in a very different way than the execution of Maximillian or 3rd of May.  Ney was a former right-hand man of Napoleon.  Denied being executed in uniform. Undignified, and yet sympathetic. 

The Bellelli Family

Edgar Degas

1858-62

Impressionism

A family portait done in the scale of a history painting.  Bluring lines of past and present.  The subjects are Degas's aunt, her exiled Italian husband, and their children. They were part of the old regime, and then uprooted and forced to reconfigure themselves.

They upheld an illusion of propriety despite the marriage being dysfunctional. Interlocking angles and modes of separation-- charged an unequal relationships 

Interior

Edgar Degas

1868-69

Impressionism

Possible topic of marital rape (see the dysfunction he touches on in Bellelli fam portrait).  The man looms, menacing. 

A very theatrically lit and posted tableau of modern life. 

The Orchestra

Edgar Degas

1869-70

Impressionism

Painting of the pit instead of the stage.  Tightly-framed image of a behind-the-scenes peek.  Role of the unseen performer vs the seen performer (glimpse of ballerinas on stage). 

The Cotton Exchange

Edgar Degas

1873

Impressionism

Painting of Degas's uncle's cotton business. 

Count Lepic and his Children (Place de la Concorde)

Edgar Degas

1875

Impressionism

Lepic's hat covers the statue of Strausbourg, situating him in a precarious place in History. 

The Rehearsal

Edgar Degas

1874

Impressionism

Diaphonous painting of ballerinas rehearsing.  Visible reworking on the surface of the canvas.  Slightly predatory edge of men watching.  Behind-the-scenes look at the girls waiting to go out on to perform. 

Pont de L'Europe

Gustave Caillebotte

1876-77

Impressionism

Modern, geometric, urban society.  Paris (post renewal) is not moving back towards the medieval grandeur of its past. 

The figures are cold and have little regard for the viewer. 

Study: At the Water's Edge

Berthe Morisot

1864

Impressionism

Still, contemplative image of Morisot's sister gazing into the water.  Isolated female in a simple white gown amidst a gentle natural scene, away from society. 

The Psyche Mirror

Berthe Morisot

1876

Impressionism

A soft, non-voyeuristic painting of a girl looking at herself in the mirror, pulling her dress back to create the illusion of a corseted waist.  It's unpredatory due to not being involved with the male gaze.

Women in the Garden

Claude Monet

1866-7

Impressionism

Very heavy application of paint, which would beome a hallmark of impressionism.  Painted en plein air and referenced against fashion magazines (for the dresses).  Criticized heavily by the salon. 

La Grenouillère

Claude Monet

1869

Impressionism

Elevates ébauche to finished product. Modern liesure captured in an impression. 

Bridge at Argenteuil

Claude Monet

1874

Impressionism

Effects of light and shadow, plus complementary colors in the form of blue and orange/yellow. 

He painted this bridge seven times.  In this version, the foreground of the water is smooth and the middle ground is very choppy.  In later versions the entire mass of the water was rendered in a more choppy style-- more and more, he sought to create an impression rather than a rendering. 

Impression: Sunrise

Claude Monet

1872

Impressionism

The namesake of impressionism.  Monet depicts a scene that can easily be called "unfinished" but it is his complete work; the mere impression of the harbor at sunrise.  

A Sunday on the Grande Jatte

Georges Seurat

1884-86

Impressionism

Colors straight from the paint tube-- pointillism. Allows less-important shapes and figures, such as the faces of people, to be obscured.

There is a frame painted in, giving the painting a second level of separation. 

Seurat saw art as science.  Reactions in the brain, response to input to the eye, etc. "Chromo-lunarism" is what he called his painting style, as he focused mostly on the interactions of color and light. 

Bathers at Asnières

Georges Seurat

1884

Impressionism

Balayé style made up of tiny crosshatched lines of color. Anonymity of subjects, who are perhaps members of the petit-borgeoisie.  

Scene of lazy relaxation away from urban structure.

Circus Sideshow

Georges Seurat

1887-88

Impressionism

Outside, nocturnal scene in artificial light.  Parallels between audience and performer.  Performers are soliciting audience attention. 

House of the Hanged Man

Paul Cézanne

1873

Impressionism

This picture is characterized by its sharp, jutting angles, thick impasto, interlocking solid forms, and tension between flatness and natural illusion. 

There is no subject besides the lone scene-- no human figure, no movement.

Mont Sainte-Victoire and the Viaduct of the Arc River Valley

Paul Cézanne

1882-84

Impressionism

Considered one of Cézanne's best works.  Impressionistic scene in Cézanne's hometown of Aix-en-Provence of one of his favorite subjects, Mont Sainte-Victoire.  This image is lauded for its depth and colorful atmospheric perspective.