French Art

FRENCH ARTBrief survey

Many thanks to Dr. P. Schrock for her input.

Copyright, 2011 Dr. Th. Saint Paul Lay out: Elizabeth Logsdon

Murray State University

Art and Societyreflect each other

• Classified by broad sweeping changes from era to era

Detail from Bourges Cathedral:Battle of Roncevaux/ Song of Roland (800 -9th c)

The Middle AgesRomanesque (9/10thc-12thc)Vezelay, Autun, Bourges, Conques…

GothicNotre Dame (Paris)gargoyleshttp://ndparis.free.fr/index.html

Gothic,Chartres Cathedral, France, 12th C

Notre Dame de Paris,Rosace

Albi cathedral pillar

Cathar Castle (SW FRANCE)--- Arques

Fortified City of Carcassonne (SW)

The Renaissance (16th c)

Madonna of the Meadow Raphael(Italian) 1505

Meaning “rebirth” in French1400-1600Italian in originStressed forms of classical antiquity (roman/greek)Space based on perspective and everyday detailsAdded religious topics

The northern Renaissance in Flanders : BRUEGEL, Pieter the Elder

Flemish painter (b. ca.1525, d. 1569, Brussels

The Fall of Icarus

BRUEGEL, Pieter the Elder Children's Games 1559-60

LEONARDO da Vinci

(b. 1452, Vinci, d. 1519, Cloux, near Amboise, France)Mona Lisa (La Gioconda)c. 1503-5

Renaissance architecture : the Palace of Fontainebleau

Classical mythology Italian artists, who worked for Francois I from 1530 to 1560.

The first School of Fontainebleau introduced Mannerism to France.

• Diana Huntress1550-60

Gabrielle d'Estrées and one of her Sisters c. 1595

Jean Goujon the greatest 16th-century French sculptor.

• the Fontaine des Innocents, 1548

• Goujon rejected the Mannerism of the Fontainebleau school

• revival of the classical purity of later 5th century Greek art.

Nymph1548-49MarbleMusée du Louvre, Paris

17th century: Baroque (classicism)

• Violent movement• Strong emotion

and dramatic lighting and colors

• Examples: N. Poussin, Georges Latour, Louis Le Nain, Hyacinthe Rigaud (Louis XIV)

http://www.chateauversailles.fr/

Nicholas Poussin: Et in Arcadia Ego'1637-39-Musée du Louvre, Paris

The Holy Family on the Steps - Poussin 1648Inspiration from the Greeks and the Romans

Georges La Tour (1640’s) The New Born

Influenced by Italian painter of light and darkness, Caravaggio

18th century: Rococo• Originated in France• Highly decorated

forms• In reaction to the

massiveness of the Baroque

• Examples: Jean – Antoine

Watteau, Jean-Honoré

FRAGONARD.Happy Accidents of the Swing Fragonard 1767

18th century: Neoclassicism:The Oath of the Horatii J-L David 1784

Neoclassical painting• Late 18th to early

19th centuries• Revived order and

harmony of ancient Roman and Greek art

• Examples: Jacques Louis David

Romanticism• Late 18th to mid

19th centuries• Utilized drama

and bright colors• Reaction to

Neoclassicism• Examples: Eugene

Delacroix and Theodore Gericault

Delacroix: Liberty Leading the People , 1830

19th CenturyDelacroix: The Death of Sardanapalus 1827

19thc Realism: Courbet, The Stone Breakers, 1849

Impressionism• Late 19th century • Focused on transitory, visual impressions• Often painted directly from nature• Emphasis on changing effects of light and

color• Examples: Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet,

Claude Monet, and Auguste Renoir• Salon of the “refused”artists (1874, Paris)

Edouard Manet

• Dejeuner sur l’herbe & Olympia 1863

Monet Renoir

Villa by the Seaside,1874- Berthe Morisot

Le Moulin de la Galette 1876

Nympheas1887

Pointillism• 1880’s• Developed by

Seurat and Signac• Dots that were to

mix in the eyes of its viewers

• Also called divisionism or neoimpressionism

La Grande Jatte, Seurat, 1884-86

Post Impressionism• Turn of the century

• Reaction against Impressionism

• Examples: • Paul Cezanne and • Paul Gauguin

The Basket of Apples , Cézanne 1895

Van Gogh

Art Nouveau• MODERN

IMAGINATION AND ESTHETICS

posters for the theater• Example: Henri de

Toulouse – Lautrec

• A Mucha ( Sarah Bernhardt )

Sculpture –Auguste Rodin The Thinker/Le Penseur [1881) Louvre

Camille Claudel, L’Age mur(1899-1913) Musée d'Orsay

• Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi

• French Sculptor, 1834-1904

• The Statue of Liberty

–Gustave Eiffel

–The Eiffel Tower (1889)

Art Nouveau: architecture

Victor Horta, architect Belgian, 1861 – 1947

Interior of the Tassel House, 1893

Subway in Paris by Guimard

Avant-Garde until World War II FauvismCubismAbstract ART DadaSurrealismPost-modernism (After WWII)Pop ArtOp ArtPerformance ArtNeo-ExpressionismEnvironmental Art

20th century (1900-1950)The School of Paris, Modernism: abstraction and color

Henri MATISSE http://www.matissepicasso.org/home.asp

Fauvism: Liberation of Color, re-interpretation of “reality”

Red Interior on Blue Table (1947)

Woman with the Hat (1905)

Henri Rousseau: naïve art

Cubism ( leader Picasso: geometrical forms, interpretation of space) Houses at L’Estaque – Georges Braque (1908)

DADA Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968)Ready-made, scandalous art

Surrealism• 1920’s and

1930’s• Tries to explore

the subconcious pictorially

• Example: René Magritte (Belgian)

The Treachery of Images -Magritte 1928

Paul Delvaux (Belgian)1897-1994The Village of the Mermaids, 1942Pygmalion, 1939

Postmodernism (Post World War II)Jean HelionNature morte aux pains et salueurs, 1946 Le second Royaume (1983)

Vasarely (1906-1997)—Op Art

Contemporary art. Jean Tinguely Homage to Stravinsky, Paris 1980

Nikki de St Phalle• 1961, New

RealistsNanas, 1974

Christo (wrappings) 1985

Modern Architecture—Pompidou Center (1971-77)

PEI

(architect) (The Louvre glass pyramid)