Romanticism and the ArtsPreserving the Savage

Romantic ArtThe slogan of the Age of Reason was I think therefore I am.For the Romantics it became I feel therefore I am.The Romantic artist had to rise above the boundaries of logical thought and reasonPower of the sublimeGothic Novels and the work of, besides Rousseau, Walter Scott, Edgar Allan Poe, Victor Hugo, and James Fennimore Cooper- Back to NatureNew idea that an artistic work was not a self-contained whole, but something that shared many relationships internally and externally with other works of artThe music and art reflected the literature and poetry as the literature and poetry reflected the music and art.Called upon to build dream castles from the works of Gothic literature

Variations of the Romantic SpiritNo one single tendencyVariety of aesthetic approachesRomantic realism looked at current events Eugne Delacroix Medieval Revival- James Wyatts Fonthill AbbeyNationalism and Individualism- People are primarily individual human beings and secondarily citizens of a society- Lord ByronExoticism- Colonization exposed the west to foreign cultures which excited the passions of artists- Black Woman and Turkish BathLandscape Painting- romantic deification of nature

Back to NatureSaw nature as a source of inspiration and a mirror of their own sensibilitiesNature as awe-inspiring- WandererSense of preservation before it is all lostThe Hudson River SchoolHighly moral imperative that they celebrate the beauty and purity of the American wildernessThomas Cole and the Cyclical Nature of History

MusicHybrid forms- program symphony and the symphonic poemMusical dramatization of a play- operaPurely instrumental form on the spirit of a poemSequential arrangements of episodes taken from a novel- Berlioz did Scotts Waverly and Rob Roy Mendelssohn wrote Songs Without WordsBerlioz Fantastic Symphony became an opera with no words

Symphonie Fatastique- March to the Scaffold- Back to Slides

Liberty leading the PeopleBack to SlidesJuly 28 1830, to commemorate the July Revolution that had just brought Louis-Philippe to the French throne. This painting, which is a political poster, celebrates the day July 28 1830 when France overthrew the Bourbon king. Liberty is not a woman; she is an abstract force.

Fonthill Abbey- Architect James Wyatt

Watercolor of Fonthill interiorby Wyatt Back to Slides

Thomas Phillips Lord Byron in Albanian Costume Back to Slides

Marie Guillemine Benoists Portrait of a Black Woman

Jean Auguste Dominique IngresTurkish Bath Back to Slides

Caspar David Friedrichs Wanderer Above the Mist Back to Slides

Essay on Coles Course of Empire Back to Slides

Thomas Coles The Course of Empire

The moral principle of the nation is much lower than formerly much less than vanity will allow Americans are too fond of attributing the great prosperity of the country to their own good government instead of seeing the source of it in the unbounded resources and favorable political opportunities of the nation. It is with sorrow that I anticipate the downfall of this republican government Thomas Cole 1865

Thomas Cole epitomizes the Romantic Movement in 19th century art as the founder of the Hudson River School. He and other members of this movement broke from their 18th century predecessors in the exaggerated baroque and neoclassic styles. Although this new movement was considered to be in opposition to the Age of Reason, some enlightenment and neoclassical roots remained in certain Romantic works such as The Course of Empire. Thomas Coles Romantic art seems to transcend the confines of his social and cultural circles by synthesizing the new romantic ideas with the rationalistic ideas that, on the surface, they oppose.

According to the neoclassical painter Jacques Louis David, [a]rt should have no other guide than the torch of reason (Flemming 1995, 511). Neoclassicism certainly looked to the classics for their style and sense of virtue especially nationalism but the late 16th century also uncovered the long lost city of Pompeii. This discovery raised questions concerning humanity that perhaps exceeded the canvases upon which neoclassical painting were poured. Romantic art encouraged an alternative perspective that transcended the boundaries of logical thought and rose above the limitations imposed by reason (ibid.). The Hudson River School in particular focused on landscape and it as a high moral imperative in which they celebrated the beauty and purity of the American wilderness (Lamm, 1996, 432). The Hudson River School saw the American wilderness as an intact Eden that Europe had lost centuries before.

This idea of Europes lost Eden may be exactly what drove Cole toward his painting of the five part series, The Course of Empire. Places like Pompeii which had fascinated the neoclassicists now became the concern of romantics like Cole for different reasons. Ancient ruins were part of the 19th century European landscape and this was enough to spark the interest of Cole. The ruins themselves beg several questions that may be summed up: How does the environment become overrun and urbanized by humanity, fall into a state of complete devastation and return to a nearly savage state with edificial reminders of a lost civilization? Eternal inquiries about human nature played a vital role in this investigation and Empire sets out to address the issue pictorially.

Empire is painted in five parts: The Savage State, The Pastoral or Arcadian State, The Consummation of Empire, The Destruction, and Desolation. The series set forth in allegorical form his [Coles] pessimistic philosophy of history and furthermore expressed a cyclical view of history by giving explicit meaning to the mythical-historical narrative in his [Coles] individual landscapes by linking different stages of historical development (Wallach 1994, 84). The five paintings have been labeled an epic of an empires rise and fall. Although the viewpoint is different in each of the five parts, the setting remains the same. The Savage State depicts a pristine landscape scattered with nomadic hunters and several tepee-like huts. The Pastoral or Arcadian State depicts a rural environment with grazing sheep, a farmer, travelers, and a temple in the distance. According to Wallach, this scene is laden with visual references to art, science, and mythology of the ancient Greeks (ibid. 91). The Consummation represents the end of the pure and natural world and the rise of wealth, power and luxury. Destruction follows as an all-out attack on the city and it depicts extreme violence as battle ensues and citizens flee. In the end comes Desolation, an abandoned city, overtaken by nature with subtle hints of the historical greatness that once covered it.

Coles treatment reflects a synthesis of ideas. His rejection of reasoned, nationalistic art led him to view the classical world in a new light. His questions of humanity and his cyclical view of nature carried him to a poignant conclusion perhaps best communicated in his own words: Ages may have passed since the scene of glory though the decline of nations is generally more rapid than their rise (qtd. in Wallach 1994, 93). He comments also on the reasons for the fall: luxury has weakened and debased (ibid.). The modern world can take a valuable lesson from Coles work and I may not be hasty to conclude that a moral lesson was intended. In the synthesis of romantic art (natural landscape), keen interest in the questions stemming from the work of the neoclassicists, and the rationalistic approach to historical methodology rooted in the classical period, Thomas Cole was able to transcend the confines of his time and place to make a genuine contribution to the humanistic world.

Bibliography

Flemming, William. Arts and Ideas. 9th edition. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace, 1995.

Lamm, Robert C. The Humanities in Western Culture: A Search for Human Values. Revised 4th edition, brief version. McGraw Hill Higher Ed, 2004.

Wallach, Alan. Thomas Cole: Landscape and the Course of the American Empire Thomas Cole: Landscape into History. CT: Yale University Press, 1994.

http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~baschatz/courseofempire

Presented as common knowledge in Wallachs essay.

Quoted from Coles own description of Destruction.

Place of publication is not identified.

Savage State

Pastoral State

Consummation

Destruction

Desolation Back to Slides