The Artistic Soup of the 1700s 1700s--Rococo, Salon, Neo-Classical, Sturm und Drang 100 years of conflicting styles From the frills of the Rococo --- to the solidity of the Revolutions Mme Pompadour, Louis XV’s mistress Greenough, Washington

Rococo ( )- Louis XV and XVI expresses beauty for beauty’s sake… the label is made during the 19th century, French for “little rock” and “shell,” motifs of rococo decoration Boucher’s Toilet of Venus, 1751 displays the ideal woman, feminine charm in its lightest moments. Mme Pompadour commissioned the work for her chambers. Fragonard---The Swing, 1767 Can you find the delicate pink slipper? The whispering statue? The clueless boyfriend? The amorous suitor? After the Sun King’s (Louis XIV) reign is over in 1715, wealth is spread to the aristocracy

Marie Antoinette and her Children, 1789 in the year of the French Revolution, made Marie Antoinette look motherly. Painted shortly before the queen’s imprisonment and beheading. Child points to an empty cradle. Women join the ranks of the elite ….salon leaders and academic painters Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun held out for the aristocracy

Say you want a revolution… France and the U.S. explode 1789 and 1776 Paris Women Marching to Versailles, engraving, 1789 Libya rebels, 2011

Chardin, Soap Bubbles, 1733 revolution breeds morality and idealism of the everyday man Life is fleeting and fragile… Brings up the still sense of Dutch bourgeoisie paintings A reaction against the frills of rococo DC’s National Gallery has one of three versions Jean Jacques Rousseau, philospher of the French Revolution, condemns: "moral or political inequality, which consists of the different privileges which some men enjoy to the prejudice of others, such as that of being more rich, more honored, more powerful."

Jacques Louis David ( ) becomes the painter of the French Revolution as well as the Neo-Classical Period’s leading academic artist a moralist with a message Heroic, academic, balanced composition Oath of the Horatii, 1784 What “threes” do you see? Lictors Bringing Back to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons, 1789 Brutus appears in the shadows…What is David warning about?

How do we express the heroic ? Nazi poster from the 1930s “Long live Germany” Edmonia Lewis Forever Free, 1867 Displays the complexity of freedom for African Americans after the Civil War. Currently housed at Howard University …how do we reflect struggle? What is the fine line between heroism and propaganda? Ignorance=Fear, Keith Haring, 1989 What are components of courage?

DAVID, Death of Marat, 1793 Marat is killed by Charlotte Corday who felt that he was leading the revolution with excessive bloodiness Painting is made in same year that Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette are guillotined Marat is in a bath due to a crippling skin disease Note that Marat clutches says that Corday is taking Marat’s life due to her suffering: “I am just too unhappy to deserve your kindness.” Marat becomes instant martyr for the cause—wound is displayed at funeral

HOUDON, Ben Franklin, 1779 Houdon was a fellow Freemason, as were Voltaire, Mozart, Haydn, Jefferson and our founding fathers Franklin’s wigless image created a stir in France Voltaire Masonic symbol of the unfinished pyramid and the all seeing eye

The Demons of Sturm und Drang Fuseli, The Nightmare, 1781 “Storm and Stress” Germanic literature, art and music movement Subjective and emotional Our inner self rules Rebellion against the rational revolutionary movement Early Romanticism Goethe, “real” = painful, confllicted