Revolution to Realism1780-1880

Catalog description

From the power of Neoclassicism to the decadence of the fin-de-siècle, painters, sculptors, and architects challenged tradition and transformed art during the dynamic and often turbulent years between 1780 and 1880. The death of the revolutionary hero, the search for spiritual meaning, the "rape" of the countryside by industrialism, the anxious masculinity of romanticism, and the emergence of such conceptions as "Orientalism" and nationalism are some of the themes that are addressed through the art of this period. Students study the careers of such artists as David, Delacroix, Ingres, Gericault, Constable, Turner, and Goya, and the radical landscape painting of the mid-century that foreshadowed Impressionism. Themes explored include gender and sexuality, patronage, and political censorship, and we focus on the social and political contexts in which works were produced, exhibited, and understood.