History of World Art II: Day 66 - Europe and America 1800-1870 Recap

The revolution in France in 1789 ended the rule of Monarchy and sent art and thinking in the opposite direction from the ostentatious and elite art of Rococo. The Enlightenment combined with major advances in technology resulted in the Industrial Revolution creating great cities filled with factories, tall buildings and masses of laborers living in congested overpopulated cities. A new middle class arose out of the wealth of industry and art became more accessible to regular people through Realism. With the advent of photography, portraying reality became a new focus in keeping with Enlightenment principle of progress and empirical observation.

"Boulevard du Temple", taken by Louis Daguerre in late 1838 or early 1839,
was the first-ever photograph of a person a man in the bottom left corner,
who stood still getting his boots polished long enough to show up in the picture.

The Neoclassicism held over from the 18th century rejected the Enlightenment principles and instead revisited classical themes that developed into a new Romanticism. A new focus on the human Psyche began to emerge during this time through the art of Goya and Fuseli who explored the darker side of the subconscious human nature. Other Romantic painters and artist followed suit and began to paint from the imagination embracing themes of the exotic and supernatural. One of these artists was William Blake who combined naturalistic details with with a Baroque dynamism and classical forms to create scenes from his dreams.

Blake's The Lovers' Whirlwind illustrates Hell in Canto V of Dante's Inferno

Landscape painting became popular, especially in America where painters such as Thomas Cole, Albert Beirstadt and Frederick Church (all of the Hudson River school of painting lead by Thomas Cole) showing grand expanses of undeveloped land that seem to beckon to pioneers and urge them on in the spirit of Manifest Destiny. Factories began spilling out into the landscapes around cities generating new images showing the mix of nature and industrialization. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood rejected the idea that they should be bound to contemporary scenes and instead chose to depict historical and fanciful subjects with a high degree of convincing illusion and realism.