Larousse Encyclopedia of Modern Art [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION This book covers a period of only a hundred and fifty years, but it has brought a reversal of all the estabUshed values in the visual arts — the severing of the traditional relationship between artist and patron; the impact of non-European civilisations, eclipsing the classical idea; the swing away from humanism and realism, accentuated by the acceptance of the machine and mass-production. The first half of the 19th century brought a revolution in the whole political and economic structure echoed in the arts in the battle between classicism and Romanticism. Neoclassicism was based on a scholarly recreation of the past and a devotion to archaeological exactitude which hardened into academicism. Leaders of the Greek Revival in architecture included Percier and Fontaine in France, Schinkel in Prussia, von Klenze in Bavaria, Wilkins and Smirke in England, T. Hamilton and W. H. Playfair in Scotland. Sculpture was dominated by Canova in Italy, Thorvaldsen in Denmark and Flaxman in England. In painting Ingres succeeded David as the acknowledged leader, though his personal genius lay elsewhere, in his sensuality and abstract rhythmic line. Romanticism, a predominantly literary movement, swept Europe as a ferment of ideas, among them that of the artist as a bohemian and of painting as the private art of the individual in opposition to society. Many of Romanticism's dominant concepts were implicit in the new feeling for nature as a universal spirit of elemental power and destructive energy. And the passionate identification of the artist with these overwhelming forces brought a new ideal of landscape painting, with Turner, Constable and C. D. Friedrich among the key figures. Nostalgia for the past led to a yearning for the lost unity and spirituality of medieval Europe, instanced by the Nazarene community in Rome. This historicism led to a conception of architecture as the decoration of construction, with ornamentation as its chief aim. In England, with its High Victorian Gothic influenced by Pusey and the Ecclesiological Society, a building tended to be judged by the moral worth of its creator. Heralded by Barry and Pugin in the Houses of Parliament, Victorian Gothic's chief exponents were Scott, Butterfield, Street and Waterhouse. No other country was so whole-heartedly devoted to the Gothic Revival, but European monuments included Ste Clotilde, Paris, the Rathaus and the Votivkirche, Vienna, and the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedachtniskirche, Berlin. In painting Delacroix dominated the age, combining the confliaing passions of the time — its revolutionary liberalism, emergent nationalism, philhellenism, Byronic pessimism, historic medievalism, exoticism and love of force and energy. The middle of the century saw a break with both the classical and Romantic worlds in favour of one based on the concrete. Advances in science and industry brought a new belief in progress and a spirit of positivism for wliich the visual was the only reality. With the proletariat replacing the artisan, themes of work and manual labour ousted religious and literary subjects. Courbet, the initiator and champion of Reahsm, was the incarnation of a generation which rejected all idealisation. He was followed at The Hague by Israels, Mauve and the Maris brothers; in Belgium by Meunier; in Germany by Menzel and Leibl; in the United States by Winslow Homer. In England the Pre- RaphaeUtes made no attempt to seek their truth to nature in contemporary life, but their desire for new links with reality is apparent in their direct observation and in their technique. The Second Empire style of architecture, originating in France with the completion of the Louvre by Visconti and Lefuel and the Opéra by Gamier, became the official style for public buildings, including Scott's Foreign Office in London, Semper's Burgtheater in Vienna, Poelaert's law courts in Brussels and the old State, War and Navy Department building in Washington. Hostihty to the industrial revolution prevented any development of architecture as a social service, and it was left to engineers to show an awareness of the new technology and the use of iron — Paxton in his Crystal Palace, Bnmel at Paddington station, Labrouste in the Bibliotheque Ste Genevieve, Paris, and Eiffel in his Tower. In its fidelity to the visual sensation, realism culminated in Impressionism, which isolated optical impressions by exact andysis of tone and colour through divided touch, a prismatic palette and complementary colours. Though aware of the researches of Chevreul and Helmholtz, the Impressionists radiate not scientific detachment but joy — in the play of Ught on the surface of objects and the luminous vibrations of the atmospheric envelope. In spite of initial hostility, their vision, within a decade, had spread throughout Europe, while in France itself Symbolism, Neo-Impressionism and Post-Impressionism already marked a reaction against the purely visual. For Gauguin the change from perceptual to conceptual meant a decorative two-dimensionality and the rejection of Western civilisation; for van Gogh an emphasis on subjective expression; for Cezanne a concern for purely formal quaUties heralding the 20th century. But the style which swept Europe during the 1890s was that known as Art Nouveau, Jugendstil, Sezessionsstil or Stile Liberty. Its considerable historical importance lay in its being the first movement to break with historicism and period styles. Primarily decorative, it stressed the ornamental values of two-dimensional sinuous organic forms. Appearing first in applied arts, with glass by Gallé and jewellery by Tiffany, its leading exponents in architecture included Horta and van de Velde in Brussels, Guimard in Paris, Endell in Munich, Mackintosh in Glasgow, Wagner in Vieima and, above all, Gaudi in Barcelona. In the same decade in the United States the achievements of H. H. Richardson led to the Chicago school of skyscraper design, Sullivan being among the first to reveal the potentialities of the steel frame construction.