FOUNDATIONS OF MODERNISM: REVIEW

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (French, 1780 – 1867) La Grande Odalisque, 1814, oil on canvas , 91 × 162 cm .

The Valpincon Bather, 1808, Oil on canvas ,146 cm × 97 cm

The Modern era (“Modernity”) could be said to have started around the 18th Century. This period is known as The Enlightenment era (aka The Age of Reason) Enlightenment ideas themselves have earlier roots in the Renaissance (14th century.)

Denis Diderot (French 1713 – 1784) Map of human muscles,Enclycopedia, mid 1700s

Some key Enlightenment ideas included:

• Faith in Science rather than superstition;

• Increase in scientific discoveries;

• The importance of truth and authenticity;

• The importance of the rational over the emotional;

• The idea of Democracy (people voting on how they want their country to be run, rather than a king or emperor telling them what to do.)

• Love of the sophisticated Classical cultures of Rome and Greece.

Jacques-Louis David ( French,1748-1825) Death of Marat, 1793,oil on canvas,165 × 128 cm.

Another Neoclassicist…

Jaques-Louis David (French,1748 – 1825) The oath of the Horatii, 1784, oil on canvas, 326 x 420cm

The Salon, the annual Exhibition held by the Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Paris during 18th / 19th centuries. Note the way the paintings were hung, right up high on the walls. All artists wanted to be hung at the Salon.

THE ACADEMY…………important Art Institutions in France, England and Italy. These places taught art and exhibited art, and were regarded as the centre of knowledge about what art was Hot and what was Not. They were meeting places for patrons, critics, artists. If you wanted to be accepted, you needed the Academy.

Faster, faster….• The closer we get to the present day, the faster the pace of change is. • Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution.• Railroads; Steamships; • Photography, then film at beginning 20th century;• New forms of steel manufacture allowed new building methods.• Discovery of electricity in 19th cent• Communication across the world by telegraph during the 19th century• Changes in the way people worked; where they lived; how long they lived.

Fox Talbot: Nelson’s column under construction, 1844.

Gustave Courbet (French 1819-1877), A Burial at Ornans, 1849-50, oil on canvas, 315 x 668 cm

Realist art: a search for authenticity and a new kind of truth.

Honore Daumier (French, 1808 – 1879) The Laundress, 1863(?) oil on wood, 49 x 33cm

Eduard Manet (French 1832-1883) Olympia, 1863, oil on canvas, 131 cm × 190 cm)

Manet, Déjeuner sur l'herbe, (Luncheon on the Grass) (previously called La Bain – The Bath) 1862-3, oil on canvas, 208 cm × 266 cm

Manet – a realist and hugely influential onThe Impressionist painters and many others.

Edgar Degas (French, 1834–1917) Waiting, c. 1882, pastel on paper, 43 x 60cm.

Edgar Degas (French, 1834–1917) At the Races in the Countryside, 1869, oil on canvas, 37 x 56 cm

Degas was associated with theImpressionists and exhibited with thembut did not use the term himself andpreferred ‘Realist’ painter. Influenced byManet.