19th Century Art: Romanticism, Impressionism, and Post-Impressionism
Romanticism
The French Revolution, the Napoleonic wars that hit Europe, and the Internal Crisis of Old Regime systems result in the loss of faith in reason. In response, a new sensibility that is characterized by a core value given to sentiment, to the exaltation of passion, intuition, imagination, and freedom to the individual. Romanticism is primarily a way of feeling.
The Romantic Painting
Painting rejects romantic neoclassical conventions, rules, represents a time of renewal of major technical and aesthetic implications for the future. It uses different techniques: oil, watercolor, engravings, and lithographs. The texture begins to be valued in itself and appear rough surfaces with the more subtle forms. The brushwork is free, lively, and full of expression. Disappears against the color line. It retrieves the suggestive power of color, releasing the forms and limits defined too. Emotional agent is first-order light is important and taking care of their gradations gimmicky and theatrical character. The compositions tend to be dynamic, marked by curved lines and dramatic gestures. Some authors such as Friedrich quieter prefer geometric patterns. The topics are varied. The landscape is cultivated as a resource to convey mood, dominated by the infinity of nature to which man appears neglected and oppressed. Other issues are the political revolutions, disasters, religious, portraits, exotic, and fantastic.
The German Romanticism
The most important figure is Friedrich (1774-1840). The representation of nature reaches the highest expression where man meets the negligible role of spectator for the magnitude of the landscape. Some of his works are Moonrise on the sea or traveler on a sea of fog.
The French Romanticism
The author is more representative Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863), master of color, representing the force of will and of the energy. Delacroix is enshrined as the epitome of romance with his The Massacre of Chios, which reflected the carnage carried out by Turkish troops against the Greeks. But the most notable work is the painting that commemorates the Revolution of 1830 and entitled “Liberty Leading the People.
The English Romanticism
In the last years of the eighteenth century, England brings contribution to Romantic landscape painting through the figure of Turner (1775-1835). His work expresses the concern for color and light that uses a revolutionary way to represent the means by which the color appears to spread through the atmosphere, fog, steam, and smoke. With his work Rain, Steam, and Speed, became champion of modern painting.
ARCHITECTURE: Historic, BUILDINGS OF IRON AND GLASS. MODERNISM
The century of industrialization
The nineteenth century is a time of gestation. The new company, the new industrial culture, I needed an architectural response to their needs and this response will not be given satisfactorily to the twentieth century, is produced during the nineteenth century. It is a period in which different trends intersect with a certain confusion, but overall is marked by the clash between tradition and new architectural techniques, materials, and requirements provided by the industrial revolution. This causes the existence of two artistic trends that extend throughout the century:
The historicist architecture
The architects Romantic first half of the nineteenth century revived, simultaneously, several historical styles: the neo-Byzantine, the Romanesque, Gothic, the neo-Renaissance, Neo-Baroque, and the derivatives of Islamic art in the East and Spain. But none had the power to impose on others. It’s a return to past styles. Both in its construction is decorative as in traditional characters is a little new architecture. Buildings are constructed of various types such as churches, palaces, … and is used for each different style depending on the client and the artist. Neo-Gothic style was more important. In France, Viollet-Le-Duc was dedicated to the restoration of the Gothic cathedrals. In England highlights the Parliament in London, in Gothic style, while its colonial empire provides Eastern influences, especially in India, such as the Pavilion of the Prince of Wales.
The architecture of the Iron
Born in relation to the industrial revolution, which has other possibilities and needs. Brings a new vision of building very different from the traditional, which means not only material changes, but construction techniques, artistic values, types, etc.. The material used is iron (cast iron) with great consistency, more elastic media suitable for heavy load. Since 1845 he imposed steel industrial production and widespread use of glass. In the faces of the walls using traditional materials (masonry, brick, stone, ..The walls are simple enclosures of buildings with no other function as the load is supported by an internal frame. The brackets are usually insulated cast iron columns and worked as the classical laminated iron studs tougher for high thrust loads or large buildings. The roofs are metal-framed roofs of different shapes or metal vaults covered with sheets of glass, tile, or board. The decoration made of metal is almost nonexistent but often appears other decoration of traditional materials in the external cladding. The inner space provides a new spatial concept of indefinite extent, large, clear, and bright. Show respect for symmetry, proportion, and harmony, but does not theorize about it. It focused on the construction of buildings in keeping with the times, bridges, factories, greenhouses, railway stations, markets, buildings for exhibitions, which means the birth of new types. Created a new tradition of building that conforms to the principle that form follows function. Slowly imposed in the mid-nineteenth his innovations: a skeleton construction which allows to build in height, almost continuous glass walls, open plan, and creates a new architectural vision. Developments such as the invention of the elevator has resulted in the building height: the skyscraper. The fires in cities built of wood, will quickly rebuild the city with these buildings, as was the case in Chicago. The most important buildings are: Paxton’s Crystal Palace (London 1850-51), the Hall of machines Dutert and Contamin, Eiffel Tower (Paris 1889), the Atocha station and the Palacio de Cristal del Retiro de Madrid.
The Chicago School
: In the late nineteenth century, this architecture meets a large peak in U.S. Business centers are centralized and requires the building construction to recoup the value of the land. The development of elevators and steel structures are combined to produce a new architecture, skyscrapers, based on their utility and functional. The representative of this school is performed by Louis Sullivan Chicago Auditorium, Carson stores, etc. Modernism: Somewhere between the nineteenth and twentieth century art style comes a brief but extremely intense, Modernism, transmitter of cultural heritage nineteenth century and the foundation of many of the architectural trends of the twentieth. Modernism is a complex phenomenon that occurs in the cities of those countries where it reaches a certain industrial development. Intended to be a reflection of modern society and active for a lively, new and elegant. Is the style of a rich and sophisticated end of the century bourgeoisie, the more prepared socially and intellectually.Despite the different interpretations and names given in the countries in which it develops, maintains a more or less common characteristics: In conjunction with the traditional materials used iron and glass in a constructive and decorative. The walls are modeled Plastic and winding with whimsical shapes and supports are columns, with aspects of plant stems, and stone pillars with fancy shapes. The roofs are metal structures stained glass coated lightweight allowing freedom of form and open spaces. The decor is an important element. Curves and floral decoration, undulating shape of buildings and covered the furniture and walls. Seaweeds, lilies, tulips, butterflies, clothes and long hair girls together in a curious mixture with an organic sense. They are made of ceramics, reliefs and stained glass and the color is a key element. The lack of symmetry and the weird ways that sometimes take the planes, reveal a high degree of rationalization in the integration of all elements of the building: indoor and outdoor , staircases and rooms, materials and decoration, all elements of the house style fit creating an intimate atmosphere. Victor Horta is the pioneer in Belgium and throughout Europe. His work The Tassel House in Brussels is the first manifestation of this style. Modernism in Spain.
The industrial development of Catalonia allows inclusion in the European artistic currents and “modernism” to achieve sustainable and effective than in other places, it extends into the twenties.
Many architects make special copper tones modernist Barcelona and Antoni Gaudí, Lluís Domènech i Montaner and Josep Puig.
Antoni Gaudí (1852-1926): The best and most creative architects of the era of Modernism. Its architecture is bolder and unbiased technical and formal than its time and demonstrates the ability of architecture as a vehicle of lyrical expression, if not almost always limited by utilitarianism and traditions. El Capricho de Comillas, Episcopal Palace of Astorga with neo-gothic elements Reform Batlló house where the walls undulate, La Casa Mila, also known as La Pedrera, Parc Güell and La Sagrada Familia. Is commissioned in 1883 and worked all his life in it, especially in his later years. It is a large project that was never finished. It is one of the most daring and surprising religious monuments of this century which combines a fertile imagination with advanced structural solution. NINETEENTH CENTURY PAINTING: THE IMPRESSION: The growth of capitalism and industrialization triggered unprecedented development that radically transformed Europe.The conception of reality changes at a rapid pace and this profoundly affects the art. The concepts of space and time are transformed communications are getting faster, photography lets you see things the human eye can not perceive. Given this changing world, the pictorial art of the second half of the nineteenth century offers the path of impressionism which is the origin of contemporary art after the experiences of post-impressionist. The means by which artists got their acceptance was through the halls and National Exhibitions. For a painter, not being accepted into a room meant their marginalization and failure. The decision to include or exclude competing works to juries academic authorities whose criteria are based on more conservative traditions and rejected the original works represented a break with the official art. In 1863 he organized an exhibition of works that the jury had not accepted. This exhibition is called “Salon of the rejected”, among whom was Manet and some years later, in 1874, organized the first Impressionist exhibition, Monet, Renoir and Pissarro, among others. It is used primarily in oil on canvas, but also the pastel on paper. The Impressionists discovered that there is no insignificant matter, but right or wrong pictures solved. Make a recovery of the banal that encourages attention to formal problems. There is a marked preference for both rural and urban landscapes; interested in capturing the fleeting-the water, smoke, air …-. Landscapes are real and not compounds, which shows elements considered ugly as the railway stations, … There are also scenes inconsequential, entertainment – dances, taverns. Reassessment of the light. Color does not exist, nor how, only real for the painter the air-light. Thus, the light is the real subject of this picture and repeat the same motif at different times of day. The quality and quantity of light (not the line or color) is what gives us a visual configuration or other object. This forces them to paint outdoors and use a quick invoice can capture something as changeable. The pictures are bright and clear. The color is directly related to light. Use light colors, bright and pure juxtaposition are applied to the mixture produced in the retina is called optical mixing. This resource is gained vivid colors. The shadows are no longer dark spaces are reduced to colored with complementary colors as the color becomes more vigorously about its complementary (eg red and green mutually reinforcing). The black disappears as not exist in nature so the shading is not done in the traditional way to color the shadows. Loose brush, short and quick. To translate the vibrations of the atmosphere shun any retouching of strokes and prefer the slick, thick paste. The line disappears and is the brushwork and color key values. The modeling in the traditional manner, with gradations of color and light, and there will eventually end up dissolving the shapes and volumes in light and color impact. Painting outdoors. This projection into the open spaces is dictated by the issue but still desire to “clean mud” colors of view and pure play, and to find a corrective to the too mechanical composition, pose of the study. New assessment of illusionary space. No interest in space to fake depth away the traditional conception of painting as a window or window. It is intended as a living thing, a piece of nature, so it avoids the traditional perspective and composition. In many pictures what is striking is the frame that cuts shapes and objects as the target of a camera.Monet (1840-1926): The most poetic of the Impressionist painters. One of the primary goals of Monet is to set the immediacy of visual sensation. For this reason chooses the water, emphasizing the effects of light on water. His concern for the light variations by time of day it takes to run multiple pictures simultaneously on the same reason: Rouen Cathedral, Cliffs … The Monet painting Impression: Rising Sun is a pretext for an ironically critical baptized this group with the name of Impressionists. Renoir (1841-1919): It is both a revolutionary and an artist with a heavy weight of tradition. With strong colors, red and yellow, captures the vibrations of light rolling between sheets. Rather as the reason human beings, especially women, which he expresses the beauty., So you can admire his most famous Le Moulin de la Galette. Degas (1834-1917) is an impressionistic form rather than color. In many pictures the bright light of the atmosphere is displaced by the light of the footlights, the iridescence of the waves is in the brightness of skirts of dancers captured in fleeting moments. Thinks that the method is valuable in itself and maintains its volume . It is especially interested in the human figure in its themes of dancers. postimpressionism Impressionism with its effort to capture the natural light had been dissolving the forms in their environment and all elements of the painting had been losing volume, pattern and meaning space. In the last years of the nineteenth and early twentieth century we find a basis of the Impressionist painters who paint drift to staff announcing some major painting movements of the twentieth century. Post-Impressionism means including a recovery of the importance of drawing and concern to capture not only light but also the expressiveness of things and enlightened people. Van Gogh (1853-1890): Set in Arles excited the light of Provence painted figures and landscapes of winding forms flaming fire, giving its interior. He is passionate about color as a vehicle to express the frequent depression and anxiety he suffered. His brushwork is very distinctive, sinuous, italic and thick, the colors are sometimes infrequent harsh contrasts of orange-yellow. It sets the twentieth century expressionism. Self Portrait, Starry Night, Planting … Paul Gauguin (1848-1903): Initiated in impressionism with Pissarro. Leaves a comfortable life, and poorly installed in Paris and Brittany and then moves to Tahiti, he painted his series of Tahitian women. Highlights so expressive use of color makes strong tones, live and often arbitrary planes have large curved linear rhythms delimited. Has two preferred subjects: the exotic world of Tahiti and the “primitivism” of Britain. His work is preferred the symbolism and sense of color affect the Fauves and Expressionists. Waiver of perspective, modeling and deleted the shadows and identifies the plane feeling like in Japanese paintings. Paul Cézanne (1839-1906): In his painting is recovered volume with geometry, drawing and defining touches the ways that have been called constructive, all this without sacrificing the high-intensity color by contrasts and colored shadows. In his paintings is enhanced in the foreground and makes small distortions resulting from the use of more than one point of view (still life). His painting is the starting point of cubism and influenced colorful as Matisse.The Card Players, the mountain of Santa Vitoria .. SCULPTURE: RODIN (1840-1917). At the same time developing in the impressionist painting, the art of sculpture begins the search for a new language that is consistent with the aesthetics that emerge in the late nineteenth century. The sculpture of Rodin rethinks the assumptions of realism, takes some of the approaches of Impressionism and the valuation of the fragment and the importance of feeling light. It is the first sculptor who gets to what looks like a sketch is seen as a finished work. All this is achieved thanks to a knack for modeling, under new criteria rethinking the configuration space with sculptural surfaces and volumes on which the light creates strong contrasts. Important works are: The Burghers of Calais, Balzac and The Kiss.