Art Appreciation Lecture Series 2019 Being human: The figure in art

Beautiful Bodies and Perfect Societies: Neo-Classical Fantasies Mark Ledbury May 22 / 23 2019

Lecture summary:

This lecture explores the ideal bodies of Neo-classicism and their relationship to the ideas, desires and ideals of the Enlightenment and modern age. It explores what such “ideal beauty” meant and how it was shaped by key thinkers including Winckelmann and by key artists such as , Houdon, Canova and others, as well as speculating on the very complex legacies and continuing controversies of body shape, size and image that in some ways constitute the legacy of the ‘ideal beauty’ of the enlightenment.

Slide list:

*1. Polykleitos (?), the Spear-Bearer (Dolyphoros), Height: 2.12 metres, Marble, Roman Copy, Naples, Archaeological Museum 2. The Ludovisi Cnidian Aphrodite, Roman marble copy (torso and thighs) of Praxiteles original, with restored head, arms, legs and drapery support 3. Angelika Kauffman, Portrait of J-J Winckelmann, (1764, oil on canvas, Kunsthaus, Zürich) 4. , Circa AD 120–140; copy of bronze original of ca. 350–325 BC, Rome, Vatican 5. Laocoon and his Sons attacked by Serpents, 208cm, White Marble, c.1st century BCE, original perhaps 230 BCE, Vatican. 6. Niobe and her youngest daughter, Roman. Original: early C3 BCE Greek, Florence, Uffizi 7. J-S Duplessis, Portrait of Joseph-Marie Vien (1784, Oil on Canvas, : ) 8. J-M Vien, THe Cupid Seller (1763, Oil on Canvas, Fontainebleau, Chateau) 9. Francois Boucher, Venus and Cupid, (Oil on Canvas, c.1750, Wallace Collection, London) 10. J-M Vien, Two Women Bathing, (Oil on Canvas, 1763, musée de Cahors Henri-Martin) 11. Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Portrait de Lalive de Jully, (1759, Oil on Canvas, Washington, NGA) 12. Augustin Pajou, Bust of Charles de Wailly (Marble, 1789, Paris: Louvre) 13 J-L David, Sketch of Sarcophagus (c1775-80, Paris: Louvre) 14. Henri Fuseli, THe Artist overwhelmed by the Antique Ruins (Red Chalk with highlights, c.1776, Zurich, Kunsthaus) 15. J-L David, Belisarius Begging for Alms (1781, Oil on Canvas, Lille, MBA) 16. J-L David, The , (1785, Oil on Canvas, Paris: Louvre) 17. J-L David, The Lictors Bringing to Brutus the Bodies of his Dead Sons (1789, Paris: Louvre) 18. J-L David, , (1787, Oil on Canvas, New York, Metropolitan Museum) 19. Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Septimius Severus and Caracalla (1769, Oil on Canvas, Paris: Louvre) 20. Bertel Thorvaldsen, Jason with the Golden Fleece, (1803, Marble, Thorvaldsen Museum) 21.Jean-Antoine Houdon, Diana (Bronze, Louvre, and Marble, Lisbon, 1780) 22. François Boucher, Diane au Bain (1747, Oil on Canvas, Paris: Louvre) 23. Jean-Antoine Houdon, Winter (1783, Marble, Montpelier, Musée Fabre, and 1787 Bronze, Metropolitan Museum of Art) 24.François Boucher, Winter 1755, Oil on Canvas, New York, Frick Collection

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25. Antonio Canova, Pauline Bonaparte as Venus Victrix, (1805-8, White Marble, Rome, ) 26. , (disc.1608, Roman Copy of a Hellenistic Greek original, Mattress by Bernini, Marble: Louvre) 27. Antonio Canova, Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss (Louvre Version, 1787-93, Marble, Louvre, (Det) 28. Antonio Canova, The Three Graces, (Thalia (youth and beauty) Euphrosyne (mirth), and Aglaia (elegance)), 1814-1817, carved marble, Victoria and Albert Museum/National Galleries Scotland 29. J-L David, , (1797-1814, Oil on Canvas, Paris: Louvre) 30. J-A-D. Ingres, La Source, 1830-56, Oil on Canvas, Paris: Musée d’Orsay 31. Richard Gross, Athlete , Domain Gates, Auckland, c.1935. 32. Sculptures at the Foro Italico, formerly Foro Mussolini, (Enrico Del Debbio and Luigi Moretti 1928 - 1938) 33. Caricature of Saartje Baartman, (c.1811) and , (Paris, Louvre) 34. François André Vincent, Zeuxis Choosing his Models (1789, Paris: Louvre)

References:

Boime, Albert, and Albert Boime. Art in an Age of Revolution, 1750-1800. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987. Craske, Matthew. Art in Europe, 1700-1830: A History of the Visual Arts in an Era of Unprecedented Urban Economic Growth. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Crow, Thomas E. Emulation: David, Drouais, and Girodet in the Art of Revolutionary France. Yale University Press, 2006 Eitner, Lorenz. and Romanticism, 1750-1850; Sources and Documents. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1970. Honour, Hugh. Neo-Classicism. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968. Irwin, David G. Neoclassicism. London: Phaidon, 1997. Mansfield, Elizabeth C. Too Beautiful to Picture: Zeuxis, Myth, and Mimesis. Univ Of Minnesota Press, 2007. Padiyar, Satish. Chains: David, Canova, and the Fall of the Public Hero in Postrevolutionary France. Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007. Padiyar, Satish. "Who Is Socrates? Desire and Subversion in David's Death of Socrates (1787)." Representations 102, no. 1 (2008): 27-52 Potts, Alex. Flesh and the Ideal: Winckelmann and the Origins of Art History. Yale University Press, 2000. Rosenblum, Robert. Transformations in Late Eighteenth Century Art. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1967. Winckelmann, Johann Joachim. Reflections on the Painting and Sculpture of the Greeks: With Instructions for the Connoisseur, and an Essay on Grace in Works of Art. Printed for the Translator, and sold by A. Millar, 1765. Winckelmann, Johann Joachim, a History of the Art of Antiquity. Getty Publications, 2006.

Exhibition website, Gods in Colour, http://buntegoetter.liebieghaus.de/en

For access to all past lecture notes visit: https:// www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/members/current-members/member-events/being- human-figure-art/