Nineteenth-Century French Painting [antikvár]

The nineteenth century was a period of monumental change, both in the structure of society and the development of attitudes. Within the sphere of French art this change manifested itself in the transformation of traditional forms and the appearance of new artistic themes. Both the new and the renewed ideas and forms greatly enriched French painting, while at the same time the important influences of Graeco-Roman and Renaissance art could be felt, and they remained the dominant tradition in European culture. It is hard to do justice to the richness of nineteenth-century art and its sources within the scope of this short book. In this brief introduction to the stylistic tendencies of the period, I shall stress the importance of Neo-Classicism and Romanticism as movements, and their influence on the choice of subject matter and pictorial composition. At first sight, the history of art in the nineteenth century appears to be a series of diametrically opposed movements, for which the debate over the relatíve merits of Neo-Classicism and Romanticism serves only as a starting-point. For this reason the pace at which artistic movements followed each other seemed to accelerate as the century progressed. "The nineteenth century is a battleground," wrote Henri Fociilon, where the Neo-Classicists, Romanticists, Realists, Impressionists and Symbolists set themselves apart with belligerent consistency. Yet the sudden emergence of a new movement in painting did not precipitate the annihilation of its predecessors. For example, Neo-Classicism did not die out when Romanticism emerged on the scene, nor was Romanticism wiped out by Realism. Thus the key to artistic expression in the nineteenth century can be found by looking at the effects of the different movements upon one another, and alsó by analysing the extensive interactions between literature, music and the fine arts. With the beginning of Romanticism, however, painting assumed the leading role in the fine arts. Under the Second Empire, Georges Eugéne Haussmann designed and executed plans which elevated Paris to the position of the most cosmopolitan city of the age, where somé of the greatest painters of the epoch, from Dávid, Ingres, Delacroix, Courbet and Manet through Cézanne, exemplified the rangé of the new movements in painting. The patrons of this new multi-faceted art came from the bourgeois circles who had assumed power after 1789. In their search for new values, many of these