1. The Enlightenment and Its Legacy: Neoclassicism and Romanticism
Gardner’s Art History on the Internet

2. Voltaire: Champion of Enlightenment Thought
Houdon's marble bust shows Voltaire, whose writings and critical activism contributed to the conviction that fundamental changes were necessary in government in order for humankind to progress.
Jean Antoine Houdon, Voltaire, Marble, life size. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

3. A Compendium of Knowledge:
The comprehensive compilation of articles and illustrations in the Encyclopédie provided access to all available knowledge. The Comte de Buffon's Natural History provided a kind of encyclopedia of the natural sciences.

4. An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump 1768
WRIGHT of Derby, Joseph NG725.   Presented by Edward Tyrrell, Signed on the reverse: Jos. Wright pinxt 1768
A travelling scientist is shown demonstrating the formation of a vacuum by withdrawing air from a flask containing a white cockatoo, though common birds like sparrows would normally have been used. Air pumps were developed in the 17th century and were relatively familiar by Wright's day. The artist's subject is not scientific invention, but a human drama in a night-time setting. The bird will die if the demonstrator continues to deprive it of oxygen, and Wright leaves us in doubt as to whether or not the cockatoo will be reprieved. The painting reveals a wide range of individual reactions, from the frightened children, through the reflective philosopher, the excited interest of the youth on the left, to the indifferent young lovers concerned only with each other. The figures are dramatically lit by a single candle, while in the window the moon appears. On the table in front of the candle is a glass containing a skull. This painting is part of the touring exhibition, 'Light'. Oil on canvas x cm.
The Wonders of the Universe: An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump 1768 WRIGHT of Derby, Joseph

5. Bridging the Ages with Iron: Abraham Darby III and Thomas F
Bridging the Ages with Iron: Abraham Darby III and Thomas F. Pritchard designed and built the first cast-iron bridge. The bridge's exposed cast-iron structure prefigures the skeletal use of iron and steel in the nineteenth century. Coalbrookdale, England 1776– ' span.

6. VOLTAIRE VERSUS ROUSSEAU: SCIENCE VERSUS THE TASTE FOR THE "NATURAL"
While Voltaire thought the salvation of humanity was in science's advancement and in society's rational improvement, Jean-Jacques Rousseau believed that the arts, sciences, society, and civilization in general had corrupted "natural man" and that humanity's only salvation was to return to its original condition.

7. The Sentimentality of Rural Romance: The expression of sentiment is apparent in Jean-Baptiste Greuze's much-admired painting of The Village Bride, which shows a peasant family in a rustic interior Oil on canvas, 3' x 3' 101/2". Louvre, Paris.

8. The Charm of the Commonplace:
Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin's Grace at Table, which shows an unpretentious urban, middle-class mother and two daughters at table giving thanks to God before a meal, satisfied a taste for paintings that taught moral lessons and upheld middle-class values.
Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, Grace at Table, Oil on canvas, 1' 7" x 1' 3". Louvre, Paris.

9. Portrait of a Woman Artist:
Élisabeth Louise Vigée-Lebrun's naturalistic Self-Portrait shows the self-confident artist in a light-hearted mood.
Élisabeth Louise Vigée-Lebrun, Self-Portrait, Oil on canvas, 8' 4" x 6' 9". Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

10. Harlot's Progress tackled the lower, A Rake's Progress the middling and the upper-classes - taken together, they add up to a comprehensive picture of Georgian England. Although Hogarth harbored radical ideas, he was no radical; there is nothing in his work to suggest that he believed his society could or should be other than it was. More often than not, it was his view that the egregious corruption he saw at every turn was the disastrous result of individuals and groups failing to live up to the ideals of the class to which they belonged. This, indeed, is what we find in Marriage A-la-Mode, a juicy tale of a misgotten exchange of money and title that leads to disaster.
Decorum - the fine art of fitting form to function, style to to subject - was one of Hogarth's strong points. Unlike his sensuous and colorful paintings, to take the most obvious example, his prints were plain and sober; they were meant to inform and improve not to entrance. From this point of view, his limitations as an engraver could be seen as virtues. Simple and forceful, his style was tailor-made for making didactic points; fancy French flourishes would only get in the way. When, however, it came to depicting moral corruption in High Society fancy French flourishes were just the ticket; the medium could become a forceful part of the message. Accordingly, Hogarth recruited skilled French engravers to prepare the plates for Marriage A-la-Mode.
Simple, familiar and appalling, it is the story of a marriage of convenience between a bankrupt nobleman and the daughter of a wealthy tradesman. Moving from plate to plate, we are saturated with rich and curious detail that gradually enriches our appreciation of the unfolding disaster. In the opening scene, we see the Earl of Squanderfield, old, cynical and gouty, waving his ancestral tree as a bargaining counter. Through the window we glimse the unfinished Palladian pile that has brought him to the edge of bankruptcy. As the Alderman pores over the fine print of the contract, the nobleman's son - effete, effeminate, a little French perhaps - peers at a mirror with narcissistic complacency, while the bride-to-be, sulky and spoilt, listens to a whispered jest from the lawyer, Silvertongue. The next scene - the newly-weds in their grand mansion - presents an unforgettable image of weariness and disillusionment. A rococo fantasy of a clock tells us that this breakfast is taking place at the ungodly hour of twenty minutes after one. The young Earl, exhausted from the night's debauchery, sags in his chair; he couldn't give a damn and certainly can't be bothered to hide his mistress's cap from the family dog. The Lady of the House, stretches and yawns; the overturned chair and the books on music and "whist" suggest a party has been taking place. Who knows, perhaps Silvertongue has been visiting? Their steward, evidently a Methodist, shudders at this decadence as he departs with a sheaf of unpaid bills. That the estrangement is complete is clear from the two scenes that follow: The Inspection and The Toilette. The burden of the first is that the Earl, seeking treatment from an alarming quack, has - How could it be otherwise? - a dose of venereal disease that will be passed on to the next generation; of the second that the Countess, having taken the measure of her new life, will succumb to Silvertongue's advances. In the circumstances, melodrama is entirely appropriate: surprising his wife and her lover in a fashionable bagnio, the pathetic young Earl is stabbed to death. In the last plate the equally pathetic Countess does the only thing that is left to her - she returns to her father's house where, deaf to the cries of her crippled child, she swallows laudanum and dies.
The fourth plate, The Toilette, is a particularly good example of the way the background detail and minor characters amplify and intensify our understanding of the moral betrayal and the cultural treason personified by the central figures. The bloated castrato; the French hairdresser, face slathered in makeup; the black page-boy laughing at Actaeon's horns; the pornographic French novel; the voluptuous Correggio, and the erotic version of "Julio Romono's" Leda and the Swan do more than comment on the action, they become part of the action.
William Hogarth Breakfast Scene, from Marriage à la Mode, ca Oil on canvas, approx. 2' 4" x 3'. National Gallery, London.

11. Grand Manner Portraiture:
Thomas Gainsborough's portrait, painted in a soft-hued light and with feathery brushwork, shows Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan dressed informally and seated in a rustic natural landscape of unspoiled beauty.
Thomas Gainsborough's portrait, painted in a soft-hued light and with feathery brushwork, shows Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan dressed informally and seated in a rustic natural landscape of unspoiled beauty. Gainsborough's painting is also an example of "Grand Manner portraiture," in which the sitter is elevated and the refinement and elegance of her class is communicated through the large scale of the figure relative to the canvas, the controlled pose, the "arcadian" landscape setting, and the low horizon line.
Thomas Gainsborough, Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, ca Oil on canvas, approx. 7' 2" x 5'. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

12. The Virtues of Honor and Valor:
Honor, valor, courage, resolution, self-sacrifice, and patriotism were included among the "natural" virtues that produced great people and great deeds.
Defending the Rock of Gibraltar:
Sir Joshua Reynolds's painting shows an honest English officer who was honored for his heroic defense of Gibraltar with the title Baron Heathfield of Gibraltar.
Sir Joshua Reynolds, Lord Heathfield, Oil on canvas, approx. 4' 8" x 3' 9". National Gallery, London.

13. The Heroic Death of General Wolfe: Benjamin West's The Death of General Wolfe shows a contemporary historical subject with realistic figures in modern costume, but in a composition arranged in the complex and theatrically ordered manner of the grand tradition of history painting, which West uses to transform the heroic battlefield death into a martyrdom charged with religious emotions.
The Taste for the "Natural" in the United States
Benjamin West, The Death of General Wolfe, Oil on canvas, approx. 5' x 7'. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (gift of the Duke of Westminster, 1918).

14. Paul Revere, Silversmith:
A sense of directness and faithfulness to visual fact is conveyed in John Singleton Copley's Portrait of Paul Revere, which shows the figure informally posed in a plain setting with clear lighting.
A sense of directness and faithfulness to visual fact is conveyed in John Singleton Copley's Portrait of Paul Revere, which shows the figure informally posed in a plain setting with clear lighting.
John Singleton Copley, Portrait of Paul Revere, ca Oil on canvas, 2' 11" x 2' 41/2". Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

15. Setting the Stage for Neoclassicism in Art
A Roman Example of Virtue: Angelica Kauffmann contributed to the replacement of "natural" pictures with simple figure types, homely situations, and contemporary settings with subject matter of an exemplary nature drawn from Greek and Roman history and literature.
Angelica Kauffmann Self Portrait 1787 oil on canvas Uffizi Gallery, Florence

16. Jacques-Louis David, Oath of the Horatii, 1784. Oil on canvas, approx
Jacques-Louis David, Oath of the Horatii, Oil on canvas, approx. 11' x 14'. Louvre, Paris.

17. David put classicism in the service of the French Revolution in The Oath of the Tennis Court (commissioned by the Jacobins), in which the patriotic drama of a contemporary historical event is presented as an instructive and inspiring example of patriotism and civic virtue.
Art in the Service of Revolution:
The Oath of the Tennis Court, Graphite, ink, sepia, heightened with white on paper, 65 cm x 105 cm. Musée national du Château de Versailles, France.

18. A Martyred Revolutionary:
In a spare Neoclassical composition, David painted the assassinated revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat as a tragic martyr who died in the service of the state.
Jacques-Louis David, The Death of Marat, Oil on canvas, approx. 5' 3" x 4' 1". Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels.

19. Roman Grandeur in France:
Jacques-Germain Soufflot's grand design for the Neoclassical portico of Sainte-Geneviève, now the Panthéon, in Paris, was inspired by the Roman ruins at Baalbek in Syria.
Jacques-Germain Soufflot, the Panthéon (Sainte-Geneviève), Paris, 1755–1792.
                                                            

20. A Napoleonic "Temple of Glory": La Madeleine was intended to serve as a "temple of glory" for Napoleon's armies and a monument to the newly won glories of France. Pierre Vignon, La Madeleine, Paris, 1807–1842.

21. The Emperor's Sister as Goddess: Napoleon's favorite sculptor, Antonio Canova, carved a sharply detailed marble portrait of Napoleon's sister, Pauline Borghese, as Venus shown reclining in a sensuous pose on a divan. Antonio Canova, Pauline Borghese as Venus, Marble, life size. Galleria Borghese, Rome.

22. Lord Burlington's Chiswick House is a free variation on the theme of Palladio's Villa Rotunda. Its simple symmetry, unadorned planes, right angles, and stiffly wrought proportions give it very classical and "rational" appearance. In contrast, the interior is ornamented in a Late Baroque style, while the informal gardens are irregularly laid out.
Invoking Palladio: Richard Boyle (Earl of Burlington) and William Kent, Chiswick House, near London, begun British Crown Copyright.

23. A Resort Town of Palladian Splendor: John Wood the Younger's plan for the Royal Crescent in Bath links thirty houses into rows behind a single, continuous, majestic Palladian façade in a great semi-ellipse. The Royal Crescent, Bath, England, 1769–1775.

24. Adapting Pompeian Décor: Robert Adam's delicate Pompeian design of the Etruscan Room at Osterley Park House is symmetrical and rectilinear. Decorative motifs, such as medallions, urns, vine scrolls, sphinxes, and tripods derived from Roman art are sparsely arranged within broad, neutral spaces and slender margins. Osterley Park House, Middlesex, England, begun 1761.

25. Thomas Jefferson, Monticello, Charlottesville, Virginia, 1770–1806.

26. Benjamin Latrobe, Model for The Capitol, 1806
This model shows how the Capitol would have looked if it had been completed according to the designs of Benjamin Henry Latrobe, the second Architect of the Capitol, as shown in his architectural drawings. After being appointed Architect of the Capitol by President Thomas Jefferson, B.H. Latrobe proposed design changes to the central section. He wished to raise the dome on a drum, lengthen the portico, and add a central flight of steps. This model illustrates how the Capitol would have appeared if all of Latrobe's alterations to the original design had been carried out.
A temple-like entrance gate flanked by residences for the doorkeepers of the House of Representatives and the Senate was the principal feature of Latrobe's revised design for the Capitol's West Front. The colonnaded central building shown in the model replaced Dr. William Thornton's original idea for a circular conference room. Neither the entrance gate nor this design for the central building was actually built.
Benjamin Latrobe, Model for The Capitol, 1806

27. George Washington as Greek God?
Horatio Greenough's monumental Neoclassical statue of George Washington shows the first president as a half-naked pagan god.
Horatio Greenough, George Washington, 1832–1841. Marble, approx. 11' 4" high. National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

28. FROM NEOCLASSICISM TO ROMANTICISM
Jacques-Louis David's stature and prominence as an artist and his commitment to classicism attracted numerous students, including Antoine-Jean Gros, Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson, and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. Although they were deeply influenced by David, these artists also moved beyond the somewhat structured confines of Neoclassicism in their exploration of the exotic and the erotic and in the use of fictional narratives for the subjects of their paintings.

29. Napoleon Among the Sick and Dying: Antoine-Jean Gros's painting of Napoleon at the Pesthouse at Jaffa presents an exalted public image of Napoleon as a compassionate and fearless leader by showing him touching, as if capable of miraculously healing, the sores of a plague victim. The mosque courtyard with its Moorish arcades in the background reveals Gros's fascination with the exoticism of the Near East.
Antoine-Jean Gros, Napoleon at the Pesthouse at Jaffa, Oil on canvas, approx. 17' 5" x 23' 7". Louvre, Paris.

30. With the help of Father Aubry, the Indian Chactas is burying Atala, a young Christian girl who was to take the veil, and who preferred to poison herself rather than succumb to carnal love. Girodet's unusual talent, given to cavernous gloom and spectral forms, was well suited to illustrating Chateaubriand, who had his novel "Atala" published in 1801 on his return from America. There is a similar contained melancholy, a similar belief in wild but beneficent nature and both men were ideal exponents of the pre-Romantic sensibility.
Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson, The Burial of Atala, Oil on canvas, approx. 6' 11" x 8' 9". Louvre, Paris.

31. Combining the Ideal with the Exotic: However, Ingres also departed from Neoclassicism. A Romantic taste for the exotic and erotic is seen in his Grande Odalisque, which shows a languidly reclining, nude odalisque.
28-32 Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Grande Odalisque, Oil on canvas, approx. 2' 11" x 5' 4". Louvre, Paris.

32. A Claustrophobic Dungeon: Giovanni Battista Piranesi's series of etched prints of imaginary dungeons, the Carceri (prisons), shows grim, infernal-looking architectural fantasies of massive arches, vaults, piers, and stairways. Within the gloomy, menacing spaces move small, insect-like human figures.
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Carceri 14, ca Etching, second state, approx. 1' 4" x 1' 9". Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, England.

33. Henry Fuseli 's The Nightmare illustrates the Romantic taste in night moods of horror, in Gothick fantasies, in the demonic, in the macabre, and in the sadistic.
A Nightmarish Vision
Henry Fuseli, The Nightmare, Oil on canvas, 3' 4" x 4' 2". The Detroit Institute of the Arts (gift of Mr. and Mrs. Bert L. Smokler and Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence A. Fleishman).

34. William Blake, Ancient of Days, frontispiece of Europe: A Prophecy, Metal relief etching, hand-colored, approx. 9 1/2" x 6 3/4". Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester, England.

35. Reconsidering Reason
Francisco Goya, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, from Los Caprichos, ca Etching and aquatint, 8 1/2" x 6". The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (gift of M. Knoedler & Co., 1918).

36. As Painter to the King of Spain, Goya painted a naturalistic portrait of The Family of Charles IV. Besides the King, Queen Maria Luisa, and their children, Goya also included himself (in imitation of Diego Velázquez's painting of Las Meninas).
Depicting the Spanish Royal Family: Francisco Goya, The Family of Charles IV, Oil on canvas, approx. 9' 2" x 11'. Museo del Prado, Madrid

37. Turmoil in Spain: In support of Ferdinand VII's claim to the throne, Napoleon Bonaparte sent French troops to Spain, but after ousting Charles IV and Maria Luisa, installed his brother Joseph Bonaparte on the Spanish throne.
The Massacre of May 3, 1808: The French invasion was met with Spanish resistance. In retaliation for an attack on French troops by Spanish patriots on 2 May 1808, the French spent the next day, 3 May 1808, executing Spanish citizens. Goya painted an emotional record of the ruthless event in 1814.
Francisco Goya, The Third of May 1808, Oil on canvas, approx. 8' 8" x 11' 3". Museo del Prado, Madrid.

38. Paintings of Dark Emotions:
One of Goya's "Black Paintings," which reflect his disillusionment and pessimism later in life, shows a terrifying and disturbing vision of Saturn devouring one of his children.
Francisco Goya, Saturn Devouring His Children, Detail of a detached fresco on canvas, full size approx. 4' 9" x 2' 8". Museo del Prado, Madrid.

39. Death and Despair on a Raft
Théodore Géricault's ambitious painting of the Raft of the Medusa shows the handful of survivors of the frigate Medusa, which, due to the incompetence of the captain, a political appointee, had run aground on a reef. This grandly conceived, large-scale painting combines a realistic attempt to record the event accurately with a Romantic taste for the drama and horror.
Géricault was highly moved by the real-life drama Of 149 shipwrecked sailors from the frigate "Medusa", abandoned for twelve days on a raft off the Senegalese coast. To illustrate it he chose the moment on July 17, 1816 when the 15 survivors were overcome with despair as the "Argus", the ship that eventually was to rescue them, sailed off. This was the first time a contemporary news item had been made the subject for a painting on a large scale. The dark subject, matched by the coloring and the macabre though realistic depiction of the corpses, make what was a controversial exhibit of the 1819 Salon, the first epic example of Romanticism.
Théodore Géricault, Raft of the Medusa, Oil on canvas, approx. 16' x 23'. Louvre, Paris.

40. Picturing Insanity:
Géricault's portrait of an Insane Woman (Envy) is an examination of the influence of mental states on the human face, which, it was believed, accurately revealed character. It reflects the Romantic interest in mental aberration and the irrational states of the mind.
Théodore Géricault, Insane Woman (Envy), Oil on canvas, approx. 2' 4" x 1' 9". Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyons.

41. Delacroix's Death of Sardanapalus, inspired by Lord Byron's 1821 narrative poem "Sardanapalus," is an erotic and exotic orgy of death and destruction conceived as grand drama.
Orgiastic Destruction and Death: Eugène Delacroix, Death of Sardanapalus, Oil on canvas, approx. 12' 1" x 16' 3". Louvre, Paris.

42. Eugène Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People, 1830
Eugène Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People, Oil on canvas, approx. 8' 6" x 10' 8". Louvre, Paris.

43. Delacroix's visit to North Africa in 1832 renewed his Romantic conviction that beauty exists in the fierceness of nature, natural processes, and natural beings, especially animals, which he painted in scenes of violent and exotic tiger hunts.
The Allure of Morocco: Eugène Delacroix, Tiger Hunt, Oil on canvas, approx. 2' 5" x 3'. Louvre, Paris.

44. Allegorizing France's Glory:
Francois Rude's colossal, densely packed relief sculpture of La Marseillaise on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris is an allegory of the national glories of revolutionary France. It shows the stirring departure of the volunteers of 1792 led by Bellona, the Roman goddess of war and personification of Liberty.
Francois Rude, La Marseillaise, Arc de Triomphe, Paris, Approx. 42' x 26'.

45. The Ferocity of Animals: Antoine-Louis Barye's bronze of a Jaguar Devouring a Hare shows the bestial violence and brute beauty of nature.
Antoine-Louis Barye, Jaguar Devouring a Hare, Bronze, approx. 1' 4" x 3' 1". Louvre, Paris.

46. Caspar David Friedrich, Cloister Graveyard in the Snow, 1810
Caspar David Friedrich, Cloister Graveyard in the Snow, Oil on canvas, approx. 3' 11" x 5' 10" (painting destroyed during World War II).

47. John Constable, The Haywain, 1821. Oil on canvas, 4' 3" x 6' 2"
John Constable, The Haywain, Oil on canvas, 4' 3" x 6' 2". National Gallery, London.

48. Joseph Mallord William Turner's The Slave Ship uses the emotive power of color to convey the tragedy and cruelty of an incident that occurred in 1783, in which the captain of a slave ship ordered the sick and dying slaves thrown overboard. Turner's use of color had an incalculable effect on the development of modern art.
The Horrors of the Slave Trade: Joseph Mallord William Turner, The Slave Ship, Oil on canvas, 2' 11 3/4" x 4' 1/4". Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Henry Lillie Pierce Fund).

49. Landscape Painting in the United States
America's Future Direction?: Thomas Cole, a member of the Hudson River School in America, painted his expansive, panoramic view of The Oxbow (the Connecticut River near Northampton, Massachusetts) with a dark stormy wilderness on the left and a sunlit and more civilized landscape on the right.
Cole relies heavily on European conventions of landscape painting to convey the visual representation of the struggle between wilderness and civilization. Cronon points out that the diagonal of the tree to the left that directs the view of the scene down the valley toward the farmland is a trademark of celebrated French landscapist Claude Lorrain. The dramatic storm clouds over the wilderness speak of the uncontrolled power of nature, but also of the sublimity of this power. Cole shows no remorse for the recession of the wilderness from the scene. The soft greens and yellows and the gentle rolling landscape of the farms suggest that the pastoral civilization that replaces the wilderness is as beautiful in its order as nature is in its sublimity.
Thomas Cole, The Oxbow (Connecticut River near Northampton), Oil on canvas, 6' 4" x 4' 31/2". The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (gift of Mrs. Russell Sage, 1908).

50. Albert Bierstadt, Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, 1868
Albert Bierstadt, Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, Oil on canvas, 5' 11" x 10'. National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

51. Frederic Edwin Church was the most famous painter in America when he painted Twilight in the Wilderness in Based on sketches of Maine, the painting's realistic aspects conceal complex meanings that are both celebratory and valedictory. Church delighted in the pristine beauty of nature, watched over here by an American eagle. The natural cross beside the eagle serves as a reminder that America has placed herself in God's hands. But Church was well aware of the close-approaching end of this state of innocence: the continent had been settled from coast to coast, and conflict seemed imminent over the issue of slavery. Before the year was over, the firing on Fort Sumter had started the Civil War. Twilight in the Wilderness, through an unintended but not unconscious fortune of timing, is the most fateful and prophetic of all American paintings.
Frederic Edwin Church, Twilight In the Wilderness, Oil on canvas, cm. x cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio (Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund, ).

52. Winslow Homer, The Veteran in a New Field, 1865
Winslow Homer, The Veteran in a New Field, Oil on canvas, 2' 1/8" x 3' 2 1/8". The Metropolitan Museum of Art (bequest of Adelaide Milton de Groot, 1967), New York.