Classical & Romantic Art

This week we looked at Classical & Romantic Art. I am going to be looking at different examples of both classical and romantic art and comparing them to each other. I am also going to take a little look at Gothic art and compare that with the classical and romantic art.

First I am going to look at Neo-Classicism (A form of classical art), which appeared between the 1700's and 1800's and the paintings created came from the inspiration of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. This period was like a second coming of classical art as it had mainly began in the 14th Century in Greece and Rome. This artwork was what had been getting painted for many, many years and was typically the norm. This artwork seems to be much more formal to that of Romantic Art. I am going to look at a few examples of classical art below.

The Girl With the Pearl Earring, Vermeer, 1665-1667 [1]

Poem of the Soul - Sunrays, Louis Janmot, 1854 [2]

The Lady of Shalott, John William Waterhouse, 1888 [3]

Primavera, Botticelli, 1477-1482 [4]

You can see in Classical art that they all look very similar, they use the same realistic style to show innocence and beauty. It just so happens that I have selected to show all include only females, however the same style would have been used for a male. In all of them you can see that the faces don't really have any emotion, they just look very straight faced, but I suppose that adds emphasis to the paintings. Moving on from Classical I am going to move onto Romantic art.

Now looking at Romantic art, this art form started to occur in the early 1800's, to which they looked into nature for their inspiration. This art form was against any form of industrialisation, to which this was forming a large hatred through the Industrial Revolution in Britain. Within this era the steam engine was invented and there is one artist who created Romantic artwork against the industrial revolution. His name is 'Joseph Mallord William Turner'. The first piece of artwork I am going to look at is called 'Rain, Steam and Speed', which I have previously looked at under my perspective title. I believe that although it doesn't initially look like romantic art, maybe Turner is trying to hide the natural beauty on purpose as some sort of message about how the industrial revolution and the invention of steam engines is killing and hiding away nature. The painting shows a steam train travelling across a bridge, but the whole image seems to be very unclear, which I believe what steam would do, it would block your view from what is behind.

Rain, Steam Speed, J. M. W. Turner, 1844 [5]

You can see how a dark and mucky orange colour has been used to hide the nice blue sky that is peering through either side of the 'steam'. Now onto another piece of his work called 'Fishermen at Sea', where he takes his focus off of the industrial revolution and looks at nature. In this painting he has created a darkening and negative mood through the rough sea he has painted and the small wooden boats that are trying to stay afloat. He has added dark clouds where the moonlight is peering through and shining down onto where the small boats are. I believe this is don't to create focus onto the danger and reality of nature.

Fishermen at Sea, J. M. W. Turner, 1794 [6]

I am now just going to look at one example of Gothic art. This piece is called 'The Nightmare' and was produced by a man called Henry Fuseli. It consists of what looks to be a deceased woman in a white dress laying across a chair or bed. It is believed to be an impression of the woman potentially having a nightmare, if she were to be alive, as there is an unusual demon like creature sat on top of her. Also there is a black unusual looking horse in the background to the left, which looks like it is creeping out of the shadows, this makes me believe further that it is a representation of a nightmare.

The Nightmare, Henry Fuselli, 1782 [7]

I have shown examples of Classic, Romantic and Gothic art from around the same time, to compare them to each other. You can see the differences in the three styles, but I can also see why artists moved from Classical, to that of Romantic and Gothic. They will have wanted to get themselves known for being good artists. I believe that classical artwork, with its formality, seems to be very structured and in one word, 'perfect'. Whereas Romantic art wants to try different things, very well proven by J. M. W. Turner as it looks very different to that of Classical art. Then finally onto Gothic, Gothic art seems to have elements of both Classic and Romantic. This is because it looks like a formal painting, especially in this example above, and has elements of surprise in the use of mythological creatures. I myself prefer the Romantic and Gothic art as they seem to have more meaning behind them, they look more textured, which I like in a painting. However there is nothing wrong with a Classical painting which has taken the human form and composition perfectly into account.

Image Reference:
[1]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/Meisje_met_de_parel.jpg
[2]http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Le_poeme_de_lAme-13-Louis_Janmot-MBA_Lyon-IMG_0496.jpg
[3]http://www.artble.com/imgs/1/1/4/77882/the_lady_of_shalott.jpg
[4]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/Botticelli-primavera.jpg
[5]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/Rain_Steam_and_Speed_the_Great_Western_Railway.jpg
[6]http://www.artofmanliness.com/2011/03/03/the-basics-of-art-the-romantic-period/
[7]http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/gothic-nightmares-fuseli-blake-and-romantic-imagination/gothic