Figuring I better take advantage of the amazingly diverse artistic resources Paris has to offer, and honestly a little over-Louvred, I headed to the Musee de la Vie Romantique this week. The museum occupies a totally cool old french house that belonged at one point to George Sand, British author and Chopin's lover. It's in the north of the city, quietly resting at the end of a long cobblestone path that dips off of a non-assuming Parisian street.
From the outside it looks like a tastefully decorated, humble yet adorable abode. You walk inside and the impression of understated taste is quickly shattered (see frighteningly elaborate living room below).
The Romantic movement was launched during the aftermath of the French Revolution in 1789. Spearheaded by several artists emerging from the studio of acclaimed painter Jacques Louis David, notably Jean Ingres and Eugene Delacroix, Romanticism dominated the arts scene until midway through the 19th century. Works such as "The Apotheosis of Homer" by Ingres and "Death of Sardanapolus" by Delacroix occupy the gray area between neoclassism and romanticism. These artistic movements are commonly placed in opposition to one another, but in fact neoclassism exerted strong influence on early Romantic works. These works are not in the Musee of the Romantics, but here are some pics of them to give you an idea of the aesthetic (first Ingres, then Delacroix). In short, when Romanticism emerged as a full-forced movement, reason and order were out, and high-drama emotional-wracking imagery was in.
Romanticism is a movement that stressed feeling over thought. The movement was a reaction to the wave of rationalism that washed over Europe during the 18th century, known as the Enlightenment. By the end of the French Revolution in 1789, Enlightenment values were considered too sterile to explain the dramatic and bloody events of the past decades. Society was disillusioned with the notion that logic and reason — epitomized by economics, mathematics and the social sciences — were sufficient explanations of the human experience.
The trinity of nature, reason and antiquity were no longer considered adequately nuanced to describe the depth and emotional entensity of being human. Artists gravitated toward depicting 'la verite de la passion,' the truth of passion. Romantic artists placed great value in the imagination and sought to portray emotional intensity. Reminents of the Enlightenment era such as the pretention of the sublime and eloquent logic-dominated discourse were pushed to the sidelines as gut-wrenching sentiment took to the stage.
Aligned with the emotionally-geared goals of Romantic artists, subjectivity and individuality were also highly valued. Romantic artists embraced the format of the portrait as a vehicle for communicating individuality. Portrait artists focused on individualizing the portraits and expressing a wide range of emotional states. The portrait below is an example of a highly personalized and somber portrait from the Romantic museum. Notice the artist's attainment to individualized details such as the woman's brooch, sash, and hairpiece. Other portraits in the museum depicted subjects tearing up, staring vacantly at something outside of the frame, or serenly pondering life's biggest questions.
One offshoot of the newfound-emphasis on individuality that emerged during the Romanic era was a change in how the artistic endeavor was conceived. During the 19th century art was viewed as an intimate vocation guided by the artist's passion and individuality. Artists were no longer slave to the 'official taste' of the culture, and were more free to paint what interested them. Many museums and salons in Paris stopped accepting anonamous works at this time.
Below is another painting from the Musee de la vie Romantique. Some sort of angel or saint descends, bathed in light, toward what appears to be a political figure. Religious imagery played a role, but does not dominate Romantic art. In fact, Romantic art features a variety of subject matter. Some paintings herald back to a Middle Ages chivalry and chastity. Nationalism and patriotism are also common themes, especially promoted by Delacroix and Goya. In addition, Orientalism and fragments of the exotic are present in many works.
Nature is also heavily featured in Romantic art, often dwarfing the human figures. During the Englightenment nature was viewed as a controllable entity, something humans could master with reason, science and knowledge. The Romantic era took a vastly different stance toward nature, with artists depicting it as an unpredictable and violent force. Romantic nature scenes were meant to induce terror and awe, simultaneously stunning the spectator with the mere magnitude of nature's force. Shipwreaks and other man/nature confrontations, such as 'Raft of the Medusa', emerged as a prevalent subject matter. Additionally, animals are a common motif in Romantic art, functioning as minnions of nature's force, symbols of man's primal state, or convenient metaphors for human morality and behavior.
In sum, while the human experience remained the core of art produced during this era, Romantic artists really diversified in terms of subject matter. The human body, and thus anatomy, was an element of many works, but was not omnipresent. The exterior, physical body was viewed as drastically less interesting than the turbulent interior. This period marks a time when artists had access to anatomical knowledge, but were not judged as harshly on their ability to depict it accurately. Many artists utilized the human figure, and depicted it in a relatively realistic way, but with the goal of packing emotional punch. Passion, not truth, was the guiding force.
I did a lot of sketching this week of Romantic-era paintings to get a better sense of how they depicted the human figure. I greatly enjoyed deciphering and trying to interpret the tangled limbs and contorted bodies in the dramatic and complicated works of this era. Here are a few sketches based on works by the old masters. First, a sketch I did of "Raft of the Medusa," painting in 1819 by french painter Theodore Gericault. This well-known Romantic work captures the theatrical taste of the Romantic era.
The sketch below is a reprise of "Le Duc d'Orleans Montre son Maitresse au Duc de Bourgogne," painted by Eugene Delacroix in 1825. While the subject matter is about as mysoginistic as you get, the work is reflective of the dominance of the bourgeoise in Romantic-era society.
The sketch below is based on an Ary Scheffer work titled "Les Ombres de Francesca da Rimni et de Pado Malasesta Apparaissent a Dante et a Virgile," painted in 1855.
This next sketch is based off of an 1826 Horace Vernet work titled "Mazeppa aux loups." In the original painting the horse jumps over a fallen log as it is chased by wolves.
This final skech is modeled off of another Delacroix work, "Scenes des Massacres de Scio," painted in 1824. The sketch depicts only two of the figures that form the emotionally-wracked mass in this high-drama masterpiece. The full painting is at the beginning of this blog post.
Tune in next week, things will get real. I'll check out depictions of the human figure in art created when Realism dominated the arts scene.
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