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Summary Literature Reality Contested: Visual Arts
This document contains a summary of all the literature of the course Reality Contested: Visual Arts Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. So chapters of Chu and Arnason.
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Literature Week 1 ChuIntroduction
During the third quarter of the 18th century, many thinkers in both Europe and America believed the
world was undergoing a tremendous ideological and cultural upheaval. There was a remarkable
change in their ideas, a slow and steady process of democratization developed (French Revolution).
The Industrial Revolution also went on, which led to the mechanization of manufacturing, which
prompted a vast increase in the production of consumer goods. The unprecedented supply of
commodities and the development of markets for these commodities, encouraged the full flowering
of capitalism. The steam engine also lead to more mobility of people and goods. Communication also
improved by the mail delivery system and the electric telegraph. The democratization leaded to
political unrest. The Industrial Revolution created an urban proletariat that lived in squalid poverty,
while improving the standard of living of an ever-growing middle class, the bourgeoisie. Some
aspects of modernization, notably agricultural capitalism, created a rural underclass whose members
were just as miserable as their urban counterparts. This increased mobility and communications
helped several European nations to extend their grip over the rest of the world, leading to
colonization in Africa and South Asia. Due to improvements in medical science the population grew
massively. Radical changes took place in people’s daily life. Gas lightning and electric light led to an
urban night life and coal heating and cast-iron stoves warmed the houses. Mass produced clothes
were on the markets and consumerism developed. The social position of women slowly improved
during the 19th century largely to increased access to education, but women still lacked most of the
rights and privileges of men. In 1750 serfdom (slavery) was the condition of most peasants in eastern
Europe, and it remained until 1861, when it was officially abolished.
Early modernism is associated with the birth of ‘modern’ science, the beginnings of capitalism and
the ascend of the middle class. Modern proper is known for expanding technology and the
mechanization of production processes, the triumph of capitalism, the cultural hegemony of the
middle class, and the rise of the democracy. There was a powerful belief in progress, a sense that
with the help of technology, humankind has the power to improve the world. Modern art is used
quite differently and less precisely than in history. In the 17th century, modern art meant the
opposite of ‘classic’. Modern art signified a relative freedom form artistic rules and criteria of beauty
that had been established in ancient Greece and Rome. In the late 18th and early 19th century modern
art came to be associated with the art of the Christian Middle Ages, which was felt to embody the
freedom and sentiment that Christian art lacked. In the mid-19th century, modern art came to be
known as ‘of its own time’. It called for originality and rebellion against established artistic values.
Charles Baudelaire wrote: ‘Modernity is the transitory, the fugitive, the contingent. The half of art,
of which the other half is the eternal and immutable. Woe unto him who seeks in antiquity
anything other than pure art, logic and general method. By plunging too deeply in the past, he
loses sight of the present, he renounces the values and privileges provided by circumstances, for
almost all our originality comes from the stamp that time imprints upon our feelings.
To be modern in the Baudelairean sense was to be in and of one’s own time, and originality was a
function of artist’s ability to emotionally engage with his or her time. The comparison of modernist
artists with explorers, has led to the use of the term ‘avant-garde’, which expresses the militant and
the masculine character of modernism. Neoclassical art recalled the art of Classical antiquity, which
itself was the antithesis of the notion of modern art. Romanticism rose against the art of precious
generations and was also inherently anti-classical. Realists refused to paint historical, mythological,
or religious subject matter, and they always painted in the present, in their own time. Manet
presented a credible illusion of reality, according to their own rules. Impressionists and Post-
impressionists advanced the idea that a work of art is an autonomous entity that may refer to reality
but that is first and foremost an object created by an artist.
,The Classical paradigm
As the 18th century progressed, artists increasingly went beyond 17th and 16th century painting to
find, in antiquity, the models for a ‘new art’. It was Classical sculpture rather than Renaissance or
Baroque era painting that came to be seen as the chief paradigm for the renewal of art. The book
Reflection on the Imitation of Greek Works in Painting and Sculpture, written by Winckelmann,
pointed to classical sculpture as a model for the improvement not only of painting and sculpture but
of society as a whole. He suggested that Greeks’ sensible, natural lifestyle engendered healthy minds
and high moral standards. Winckelmann believed that a true understanding of Classical Art,
moreover, would help them to imbue their figures with the ‘noble simplicity and quiet grandeur’.
Classical art exemplified ideal beauty (imperfect nature). Plato suggested that the Creator had
conceived an Idea, a conceptual and invisible prototype of all things. Classical Greek artists aimed at
uncovering the Idea in the particularized forms of nature in order to approximate its supreme
perfection in their works. Idealism in art is the search for perfection in nature. Revealing the ideal in
nature was considered a difficult task, requiring a special insight. The ideal required that the artist
captures the inner ‘idea’, the emotional and intellectual essence, of a subject. Idealism was then the
search for the perfect form as the expression of the essence of a subject.
Winckelmann saw contour as the royal road to the ideal and the supreme means of artistic
expression. Contour enabled the artists to purify reality by purging it of all physical particularities and
to reduce it to its formal and spiritual essence – the highest beauty human beings could achieve. The
renewed emphasis on outline during the 18th century led to a revived interest in the Classical legend
of the origin of art. Enlightenment curiosity about the origins of civilization and mankind had let to
the birth of archelogy. Greek or Etruscan vases were widely collected in the 18th century. The remains
of the cities Pompeii and Herculaneum offered a convincing picture of life in Classical times. A
substantial body of Classical murals was available, and this was to have a powerful effect on
scholarship as well as on the arts. They discovered that Classical art (and by extension all major
artistic traditions, according to Winckelmann) had an origin, a period of growth and maturity, and an
eventual decline. Winckelmann focused on Greece
rather than Rome, which caused a major reorientation
in the study of Classical art and culture, which until that
time had favored Rome. Giovanni Battista Piranesi
opposed Winckelmann’s view that Roman art was
merely a derivative of Greek art and represented the
decline of Classical art. He argued instead that the
Romans were quite original, and traced their artistic
origins back not to the Greeks but to the Etruscans. He
claimed that the Romans had created by far the greatest
architectural monuments of Classical antiquity. Artists
of the 18th century seemed to follow the advice of
Piranesi that they should not feel bound to a single artistic
model, Greek or Roman, and should explore all forms of Classical
art.
Some artists entered Winckelmann’s orbit and were influenced
by the idea that the imitation of Classical art would foster the
renewal of art. The works these artists produced are generally
referred to as Neoclassical, in reference to their Classical
inspiration. Neoclassicism is a broad term that covers a wide
variety of works whose content and form depended on artists’
individual temperaments and convictions as well as on their
cultural and national backgrounds. Parnassus was a
revolutionary statement of new art, its intention was to break
,free from rococo (drama and complexity) decorative painting
in order to create a new grand, and noble style of
architectural painting. The dual reliance on Classical sculpture
for individual figures and Renaissance painting for
composition characterizes much Neoclassical painting (Vien,
Carlo Nolli, Benjamin West, Kaufmann).
Jacques Louis David was more interested in the works of the
great Renaissance and baroque masters to be found in Rome
(Michelangelo, Poussin etc.) than in Classical art. He became
interested in Winckelmann’s ideas about the purity and
power of the contour in Classical sculpture. He captured the
simple, flowing outlines of Classical sculptures (Andromache).
Expressive heads (dramatic gesture and facial expressions)
were greatly valued in the Academy. The Oath of the Horatti
was a turning point in David’s career and earned him long
lasting international fame. The piece improved public
morality and strengthened the nation. In the painting, David
seems to have absorbed fully the lessons of Classical
sculpture, as it was viewed in the 18th century. The painting
exemplifies Winckelmann’s ideal of ‘noble simplicity and
quiet grandeur’.
, Art and Revolutionary Propaganda in France
The end of the French Revolution ushered in a new era of political equality and social mobility, in
which power and wealth had to be earned rather than inherited, and in which the law of the land,
rather than the whim of the ruler, governed.
The painting Brutus, painted by David, is all
about the conflict between nation and family,
and between duty and love. Chiaroscuro is a
technique where the contrast between dark
and light is made much more stronger than
reality. Brutus came to be seen as the classical
example of modern revolutionaries.
With the painting Death of Marat, David
manages to represent a national hero in a
very unusual way. If you compare David’s
painting with any one of the numerous prints
that were circulated after Marat’s death, you
can see that in nearly all of them, Marat, the
‘friend of the people’ is contrasted with his
“heinous murderess’.
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