SESSION 9 (Monday 7th May) Early 19th Century (Romanticism)
1. Caspar David Friedrich 1.1. The Monk by The Sea 1808-10 Oil on canvas (110 x 171cm) Alte Natinagalerie, Berlin 1.2. Wanderer above the Sea of Fog 1818 (95 x 75cm) Kuntshalle, Hamburg 2. JMW Turner [RM] 2.1. The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons Philadelphia Museum of Art 2.2. The Slave Ship 1840 Oil on canvas (91 x 122cm) Museum of Fine Arts. Boston 2.3. Rain, Steam and Speed 1844 Oil on canvas (91 x 121cm) National Gallery 3. John Constable [RM] 3.1. The Haywain. 1821 Oil on canvas (130 x 185cm) National Gallery 3.2. Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows, 1831, Oil on canvas, 151.8 x 189.9 cm (National Gallery) 4. George Stubbs 4.1. Whistlejacket c1762 Oil on canvas (292 x 246cm) National Gallery 5. Sir Edward Landseer [RM] 5.1. The Monarch of the Glen 1850/51 Oil on canvas Scottish national Gallery 6. Eugene Delacroix [RM] 6.1. The Massacre at Chios 1824 Oil on canvas (419 x 354cm) Louvre 6.2. The Death of Sardanapalus. 1827 Oil on canvas (392 x 496 cm) Louvre 6.3. Liberty leading the People 1830 Oil on canvas (102 x 128cm) Louvre 7. John Martin 7.1. The Great Day of His Wrath 1851-3 Oil on canvas (197 x 303cm) Tate Britain
Title screen – Turner’s Painter at the Easel
In my view, the late 18th and early 19th century saw a step change in the history of paintings. Romanticism in the arts emphasised the emotional response in both the artist and in the viewer/reader. From then until the present day, painters have used their art to express personal feelings and responses. In part, the impetus for this change can be seen as a reaction to the new world of the enlightenment, where man rather than God is seen as the measure of all things. The industrial and scientific revolution brought many benefits but some saw that the ‘human’ was being squeezed out of consideration.
One idea gained increased credibility – the sublime; this was associated in particular with the immensity or turbulence of Nature and human responses to it; it could be seen as a way of directly engaging with God’s power. So, we may react to art with a pleasurable terror. I think the two paintings by Caspar Friedrich attempt to illustrate how small we are in the universe. Freidrich wrote “a painter should paint not only what he sees before him, but also what he sees within himself.” The small lone figure of the monk in The Monk by the Sea can draw us in to the picture so we see, as he does, the power of the ocean. The Wanderer above Sea of Fog shows another figure facing away from the viewer (Rückenfigur), possibly with the red hair of the artist himself. The landscape is in the Elbe Mountains of Saxony, based on open air sketches but modified to the artist’s purpose.
Turner is reputed to have observed The Burning of the Houses of Lords & Commons first-hand from the opposite bank and from a rented boat on the Thames in October 1834. He probably made sketches en plein air, although some are now believed to be of a later fire of the Grand Storehouse. The colours and composition may have influenced the treatment of The Fighting Temeraire. In his lifetime much of his fame depended on his seascapes, and The Slave Ship shows his mastery of this genre; the storm has seldom been better portrayed but in this picture, it is combined with a humanitarian sensitivity to the horror of the drowning slaves thrown overboard to avoid insurance losses.
Rain, Steam & Speed – The Great Western Railway again shows Turner’s mastery of atmosphere, but in this directly references the new industrial age. A detail frequently missed (over time the oil paint has ‘sunk’) is the running hare in front of the train; the new technological world is literally chasing out the old natural one. As his career progressed the details of objects in his landscapes became less important, which may be why his paintings so appealed to later impressionist artists and the abstract artists of the 20th Century.
As the problems of the new urban and industrial cities became more apparent, there was a re- evaluation of the merits of rural life. Rather than a place of wretched poverty, the countryside came to be seen as lost Eden. Constable’s landscapes might be seen as responding to this change of mood. The Haywain is one of several paintings we are looking at this year that are so familiar, so iconic, that we find it hard to them examine with a new eye. John Constable created works that seem to epitomise what being English means, so it may be worthwhile to remember he wasn’t faithfully reproducing a ‘reality’ – he was contriving a Romantic vision, an idea, of the countryside. However, he can be credited with giving landscape painting the status in England previously accorded to historical topics – a fascination still evident today. It would be hard to find an artist who painted skies better, and the flat Suffolk landscape gave him the opportunity to display that skill to the full. The sky is the most important feature of Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows, but here with possible allegorical overtones of the storm reflecting a concern for the threat to the Anglican Church from Catholic emancipation.
Stubbs’ Whistlejacket and Landseer’s Monarch of the Glen are separated by about ninety years but I think demonstrate another strand of Romanticism – a respect, perhaps a sentimentality, towards animals, both domestic and wild. Previously it was usual to paint animals without an individuality, a ‘personality’, and frequently dead. Pairing these two paintings illustrates how art shifted from a province of the wealthy to, through reproductions, a consumer product of the middle classes.
Delacroix’s paintings, Massacre at Chios and The Death of Sardanapolus (inspired by a play by Byron) both illustrate a contemporary fascination with the ‘Orient’ but, I would argue, not by giving a realistic portrayal but a Romantic fantasy of exotic lands peopled by cruel men and seductive women (also consider Ingres). Like Géricault, Delacroix often treated recent events in a way previously reserved for ‘historical’ subjects, and like Géricault worked to evoke an emotional response in the viewer by bringing horror and violence close to the picture plane. Unlike the Neo- classicists, Romantic artists focussed less on geometric form and line and more on colour to evoke feelings. The paintings may still include classical references, as in the bare breasted Liberty (leading the People) with a Phrygian cap - but now set in a modern setting to carry an overt political message; the painting was bought for the throne room of the new ‘citizen king’ (Louis-Philippe) but soon returned to the artist as too inflammatory.
The Great Day of His Wrath was inspired by the description of the Last Judgement in the Book of Revelation & depicts this terrifying passage: “there was a great earthquake and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair and the moon became as blood. And the heaven departed as a scroll... and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.” Religion is here combined with the 19th Century fascination for science, particularly geology. Probably, we will be reminded of modern apocalyptic films so it may be of interest that this and two accompanying, pictures were presented as theatrical spectaculars in the 19th Century. John Martin’s son claimed his father was also inspired by a visit to the Black Country at night, so again we see again an adverse reaction to industrial development.