25 Week 6 Baroque, Rococo, and Neoclassical Art

Everyone welcome back today. I want to take a look at the major artistic developments of the 17th and 18th centuries as we go through Baroque Rococo and Neoclassical visual art we've taken a look at before the Main elements of Baroque art which is much more intense Much, you know have a darker dramatic Lighting which is called tenebrism or kiosk heroes. We've talked about Mainly kept capturing things in action in movement Here we see the sacrifice of Isaac and so Abraham is taking the knife and Isaac is yelling out kind of screaming To you know for his life, but gone are the days of this kind of peaceful serene Renaissance rendition of What this would look like? They wanted to focus more on intensity and emotion and to capture more of the complexity of the era that they're living in a constant Religious and political conflict that art starts to reflect that turmoil starts to reflect some of those anxieties we see this with the incongruity of Thomas or the foolishness of Thomas who says Lest I see the the Spear prints or the nail prints in his hands and his feet. I will not believe in so here you see getting a really close investigation of those Of the spear wound and putting his finger inside so that he could then can't believe but again the whole idea of For short in the background and providing this lighting in addition to providing that intensity It's to invite us in to draw the viewer in to Participate To think about how many doubts do we have and what should we do with doubts and we've talked about before in the last lecture about how important it is for the 17th and 18th century to grapple with that doubt and to know what to do and how science Is beginning to move away from religion and to say we need to see the world as it really is not how you know The Bible necessarily says it is but how it actually is this Bible like myth might be an oversimplified version of creation And so and we need to avoid using Traditions in order to understand the reality and so doubt is going to be Important and Caravaggio has his own kind of you know Discussion with his own commentary on doubt and whether that is important. It seems like here. He's suggesting that doubt perhaps leads to a lack of faith and So this is his commentary on it, but we see in the sciences they have a different kind of discussion But Caravaggio becomes that founding founding element that really sets the style for for the For the Baroque era if you're ever in Rome You'll notice that That Caravaggio is pretty much everywhere last year when I took a group of students to Europe I decided to go on a suicide mission to see if I can find every Caravaggio In Rome and while students were off kind of doing their own Studies their own investigation, but just through this kind of one-man Mission to see if I can find all of Caravaggio's and Rome is a great city It's very beautiful, and there's a lot of history there the one downside of Rome is that they don't really have a good Metro system I'm in Paris they have the Metro and in London they have the tube and those are really good to be able to get you back and forth between parts of the town In Rome as they were building the Metro system every time they would start digging they would find an ancient relic or an old kind of Archaeological dig and so every time they were digging it didn't become this Archaeological find they'd have to stop and then they have to bring in archaeologists They'd have to dig it up, and then there's a whole process and so there really isn't a very good Metro in Rome There is they have just it does two lines There's a north and south and then east and west and so it just kind of makes this this cross But I'm not that many. It's not really that functional. It's it smells really bad It's really run down and mainly where people go to get to get pickpocketed and so generally Generally, I avoid it Students To avoid it just because it's not very efficient so that means there's a lot of walking and so I walked to all the churches which there's Just like in Rexburg. There's a church on every corner in Rome There's a church on every corner and generally there's some type of masterpiece inside it and a lot of the churches are filled with Caravaggio Here you see the crucifixion of st. Peter and then the conversion all in the Popolo written this one is just another church. This one is the martyrdom of st. Matthew or this one that is the Judith and California's and so as I went to all these I mean it was it was really cool to see them Going to see art is almost like going to see an old friend right things that you study things that you spend time with I'm teaching so it's great to see but really cool really exhausting But really important to get the sense of what the Baroque era is all about what happens is at the turn of the century right around the 1715 Louie the 14th the Sun King talked about him at the Versailles He dies and His grandson Louie the 15th is not quite old enough to take over and so momentarily the Duke of Orleans takes over in France and as France has become the cultural center of of the world He changes art and he changes the way that art looks and he implements a new style and he believed that Baroque was too dynamic too harsh. He wanted to lighten it up and so he developed what is known as the Rococo style Rococo is similar to Baroque. It has similar themes to it Mainly it's going to project The values of the wealthy and why they're in power and that's very similar to The Baroque era we see some of those underlying principles of why the church is in power, right or why? The leaders are in power. We talked about how that the symbol that the main architectural establishment of the Baroque era is the Palace of Versailles But what Rococo does it takes those ideas those values and it actually just makes them a little bit lighter, right? So you're gonna see more pastels light pinks light blues light greens that dominate the particular work And it really is about the lifestyles of the rich and famous very superficial pleasures that So in some ways this is kind of leading up to the the French and American Revolutions in some ways this helps to visualize some of the problems some of those discrepancies that we've talked about in the previous lecture about how How much money and access to resources the rich have and how little those at the bottom have and so in some ways? This you know unwittingly Unintendedly Helps to bring about the French Revolution because it says yes This is why they're completely aloof and they don't really care about us and Watteau's pilgrimage to the island of Sithra Sithra is the island where? where Aphrodite was raised and so it has this connotation of love and sensuality Which is going to be a big part of the Rococo type of art But it says mythical land. It doesn't really exist And so here you have all of the wealthy elites kind of taking their mistresses off to this pilgrimage to this Sithra this island of Sithra in order to have a riotous shall we say weekend But you can see that the emphasis on the pinks the light pastels the greens which is mainly focusing on fertility and growth that really dominate this and so we see that the reintroduction the reimportance of Classical themes like Greek mythology being shown within a contemporary context of these individuals wearing contemporary clothes and trying to partake in those kind of sneaky deceits but the idea again is to suggest that the Wealthy are like the gods. They should be worshipped like the gods and so it should be okay for them to be able to have so much and have such a kind of a lifestyle of superficial Frivolousness and so in some ways they're trying to present this as propaganda to say hey, aren't we like the gods? Don't we deserve this but in some ways it actually backfires and it shows hey, why are they have why they have so much? This one is another one. I just wanted to show you this one's a sideburn of their song This one is just an average art dealer So if you want to know what an art gallery would have looked like during the 18th century This is what it would look like You'd just have from the floor to the ceiling you'd have art coming in and and you'd go in and you'd pick out the one Art and then they would box it up and they would you know ship it for you But again, this is showing what the wealthy Value right who are the ones that are buying art in our life, right? It's gonna be the the mainly the wealthy and there's the same in the 18th century the people that are going in Don't really have to worry about food. Yeah, they don't have to worry about having a roof over their head They don't really have to worry about work So they can spend their money on Things that you know generally don't really help with your survival these are people that are mainly trying to escape that and to display their wealth and kind of a throwing their money away this kind of idea of You don't necessarily have to worry about money because you're so wealthy was that was kind of my son So you have these wealthy individuals here off kind of talking and this individual kind of looking Near kind of showing their vanity or these individuals that are inspecting their rococo art, which focuses again on this element of centrality and lust and desires And it's not necessarily like the Baroque era shows some of the Hardships some of the negative sides of that is kind of a moral lesson. We saw that with Rembrandt's Bathsheba and she makes this tough decision between being loyal to the king or loyal to her husband or we see this a little bit more with prom forced as the young man is guided in to to see that the young woman and Is leading to his demise this kind of idea of foolishness here we just see that complete embrace It's a different kind of tone a different type of mood That's being that's being emphasized here. And here you see this is a Portrait of Louis the 14th the Sun King being put away and a new work of art kind of being put up in this place And so the idea here is that the older style the broke the seriousness of the older era is being put away With a passage of time here you have a clock over his head that now we're entering into a new phase. That's less serious That's more frivolous this let's focus on having fun. And that's really what Louis the 14th wanted for the court he wanted them to have fun so he can kind of Manipulate them and get what his way a little more and have more power and influence But that idea that that builds a legacy and people were starting to focus more on frivolous things and again less on the people So again, this is going to lead up to more of the tensions and we're gonna see these tensions come to head with Louis the 16th and Marie Antoinette Take a look another artist for an hour This is the meeting again what we see here are two individuals that are kind of secretly having this rendezvous So people that probably have relationships with other people, but now they're having this, you know extra relationship here This affair and they're kind of looking off into the distance to see if she was followed as they're meeting up He's kind of climbing up. There's a ladder on this balcony in order to Venus and Cupid as a statue that kind of watches over them we're encased within this garden this lush garden of fertility and life and So it's again focusing on the passions but seeing if we can get away with things So the idea of the the lifestyles of the rich and famous of the era was that they didn't necessarily they had, you know Social rules they have marriages, but those were all just for political alliance and that weren't necessarily for love the whole idea was to see if you can get away with something and that was what they valued that this idea of We don't really have to worry about serious things. We have the freedom to be able to just have fun With life. Meanwhile, the working class is off supporting this And so again, that's going to lead to some future problems for the swing you guys have probably seen this one before this one's kind of the pinnacle of Rococo focusing on you notice the colors the lighting is different, right? We see a little bit of darkness with the guy the poor sap here who's pushing her in the swing and then this guy here's strategically stationed in the bushes below There's a little bit like but it's not that intensity that other broker It's mainly focusing on on this kind of lightness this kind of frivolousness and here we see as she's being pushed here by her perhaps Her fiance and she's kind of laughing and giggling and he's just thinks, you know Kind of hey, she's laughing because she's having fun with me what she's really laughing at is her You know boyfriend is stationed in In the bushes and so he's she's kind of you know Laughing to him to see if they can get away with it and they're having this kind of secret secret kind of insights or this Kind of secret connection between them and then she gives him a little token I have this my favorite part of the image here So a little token for him to then be able to return later and then you have Cupid Overhead another statue Referring to ancient myths of you know gods and goddesses and so that's well how they kind of saw themselves as being able to be free to do what they want like the gods and goddesses and Here Cupid is holding his finger up to his lips to say This is in the Wallace collection. The program is the swing. It's actually in London And I just wanted to go and see it last time we were there Just because it's such an important piece and you can see it's right next to it in this case is the actual shoe That was modeled after so you get to see that kind of cultural significance as well But what we're gonna see is with neoclassical art There's gonna be a different type of theme a different type of ideas that are that are emerging mainly that are influenced by Herculaneum and Pompeii being discovered in the early to mid 1700s and these are Ancient ruins in in Italy that were uncovered Initially, they were completely lost because of volcanic eruption But as archaeologists were going in they they discovered them and they said hey, let's this is kind of interesting Let's see what they're this life this society look like to see what we if we can learn more about the ancients and this is coming in at a time when scientists and Politicians are trying to say hey, can we can we find other ways of doing things? and so in politics going back to ancient Greece and ancient Rome become important not in the same way as they were during the Renaissance when they're trying to understand aspects of Religious truth what we see during the 1700s is they're trying to understand What's the aspect of trying to find the happiest way of living right? What's what can provide the most amount of happiness and so Political philosophers go back to ancient Greece and Rome to understand the ideas of a republic to understand the ideas of a democracy and so Herculaneum and Pompeii become part of that and it just creates more energy more excitement of going back to the past And so neo means new right? So a new appreciation of classical ideas classical values. We see that starting to influence Politics we've talked a little bit about that in the lecture where we go over Locke and Rousseau and they're trying to think about how do we establish a new political government? That's away from the Kings and Queens. Can we have more of a voice? Can we have democracy? Can we have a republic? So and then in art, we see a similar aspect of this. We're going to reappreciate revalue classical themes Really starts here With this and so it brings us about this classical era. We see some classicism within Rococo, right? we see this with Venus and and Cupid mainly focusing on love and sensuality but what we're going to see with the the application of classical ideas and Neoclassicism is more of a political kind of driving force Jacques-Louis David is probably the most important artist of the 18th century by far, right? he comes from from France and he mainly is Picked up very quickly by the aristocracy, but he becomes the Kings painter The King sees his ideas and sees his his passion sees his energy and says this is you know this is the the future of art and so as he's being influenced by you know, Herculaneum and Pompeii and these new classical ideas and influenced by all of these new ideas of politics He starts painting them, but he's painting in some ways with neoclassicism painting these old Classical ideas and bringing them in within a contemporary kind of thought process here. We see the death of Socrates Who is being put to death for? Treason being put to death for sedition being put to death for corrupting the youth and being put to death for impiety and The only evidence that they had against Socrates was by a cloud by a play written by Aristophanes called the clouds Which has a character that resembles Socrates in there and he becomes impious. He corrupts the youth he He it seems as though he's questioning the government. And so they use that That fictional work written by Aristophanes as evidence against Socrates for his crimes But really what they were afraid of is that he was teaching people to think for themselves and this is exactly what we see That people like Immanuel Kant is pushing for during this time They're starting to push for people need to be educated to liberate themselves from self-imposed Immaturity to be able to think and act for themselves and and the state generally sees that as a dangerous act Why doesn't the state want people to think for themselves because what are they gonna do? They're gonna start questioning. Why is it that someone has so much power and other people don't right and they don't necessarily want that So they saw Socrates is a threat. So they put him to death and here he is about ready to take the the drink from this young Student's hands the hemlock the poison that he's gonna drink and kill himself and his wife is being Escorted out of the room before he does that just kind of waving. Goodbye and here even in his kind of death He's defiant and pointing to say hey It's better that I die By my own hand then for them to give them the satisfaction of putting me to death for something that is unjust At the foot of the bed we see his prized student Plato Who was extremely important during the Renaissance kind of mourning kind of looking down at the loss But the idea here is is a political ideal willing worth dying for and That's something that is extremely important for the members of the Enlightenment So what's interesting about Davide is even though he becomes the king's painter and he's painting these ideas He actually helps to undermine the king's authority Unintentionally, right and so what people you know what the king wants people to kind of think about when they see this kind of image Is yes, we need to be loyal We had things that we need to be you need to be willing to die in behalf of the king, right? But how people interpret it instead is you need to be willing to die for the good of the people for the good of a political idea for the best of Society and so a very different message that's being interpreted and being applied by society But you can take a look at that There's a different kind of mood a different feel between the Rococo arts and you know Classical right one is kind of frivolous that doesn't really have a lot of depth or it's just mainly saying hey life should be fun Let's live life to the fullest carpe diem Seize the moment, you know eat drink and be merry for tomorrow We die and another one that has a much more serious bent up. We need to protest against Tyranny, we need to fight against the political errors of our day We need to try to fix them All right And so in what we see during happen to happen happening during the Renaissance for the Reformation, right? We need we see corruption. We need to fix it. We now see that being applied to political institutions We see the corruption now, we need to fix it and that's happening during the 19th century It's gonna lead into this modern political state that we have today I just want to go through another one of these by by Jacques-Louis David and it's pronounced David So if you say, you know, David if you say hey, have you ever heard of Jacques-Louis? David people aren't gonna know what you're talking about But if you say have you ever seen Davids the oath of the Haredi people know exactly what you're talking about Just there's just as a side note, but anyway the oath of the Haredi what we see within this one is The idea of Horace Horace is the Emperor of Rome and he is currently in going into battle with his neighboring neighboring city-state of the of the Albus and And they're they've entered into this long quagmire this never-ending type of a war and so what happens is Horace Goes to Alba and says hey Why don't you send three of your sons and I'll send three of my sons and they will battle it out and the winner-take-all right and so there's this kind of a way to spare, you know thousands of people from from further bloodshed and And to end this kind of never-ending conflict and so the Alba agree to that and so this is This is Horace's three sons Taking on right? He's asking them. Will you fight for the good of Rome? Will you fight in my behalf? And again, what we see is that the three sons kind of embracing each other We have one arm around them and they're all pledging their allegiance to the Emperor and he's now Receiving them and going to give them swords to to fight in the behalf of Rome and so what we see here again is a very political message is a political ideal worth fighting for For the founding fathers in the United States is a political deal worth fighting for and dying for right? Or is it not and so again that the you know, the the king kind of sees this and says hey This is great. You know, you should be aligned with me the king of France But the people see it as you know, we need to be aligned with a political ideal That's that's bigger than us. And so they they interpret it again differently and so even though they're trying to use this as propaganda to further the the strength and the Authority of the king it actually helps to undermine And to juxtapose right there kind of bravery that honor we see the woman on the far right hand side, right? They're overwhelmed. They're emotional. They're saddened for this fight the woman in the center as Sabina She is a sister to the curator and she's she's married to one of Horace's She's married to one of Horace's sons either way. She's going to lose someone another is Camilla on the far, right? If she's a sister of one that her ready and wife to one of the other people, right? So either way She is going to lose someone and then the other one is probably And so what we see here is the sacrifice right the elements of stoic men willing to fight with honor and bravery for the good of Rome for the good of their people, right a classical subject of ancient Rome, but it's again being applied to Being applied to a very contemporary Field this one's currently in the And so you can see that just to give you the sense of size Also, I just wanted to kind of leave off with What we see is the death of Marat Marat was a revolutionary individual fighting for Fighting for the French Revolution calling for change calling for political reform and what we see here is he is as he's fighting he's mainly known for his words and Is very eloquent with the way he wrote and inspired a lot of people to go off and then the fight for the good of France But one particular person some people didn't really like him. One was Charlotte Corday She sneaks into his apartment and takes out a knife That she had stuck to her thigh and she She stabs him in the chest and this one's kind of a this kind of chest means a little bit in the wrong place I don't know if this is a lethal blow but anyway, it's a representation of his that is willing to sacrifice for the good of the people and he contracted Marat contracted a Disease he was very poor I had to live in the sewers for a particular amount of time or close to the sewers or as the legend goes And he contracted a kind of a rare skin disease, which was very painful And the only way that he could get some type of relief from this is taking long medicinal baths And so that's why he's in the bath This is where he wrote most of his his words and so but what we see within this is again this idea of being willing to die for And so something that's particularly important for Members of the enlightenment and the neoclassical art and you can see how he's borrowing ideas from From Michelangelo here. We see kind of almost a quasi religious image as he's kind of recalling Michelangelo's Pieta on the face of Christ With Marat who's kind of has this peaceful look at him because he he fought for He fought for His ideals and he's willing to die for them as well And so he's he can receive peace within that and then you know what we see with George Washington. He knows a French French artist and he's inspired by George Washington Who's this, you know political ideas is bringing these ideas back of we need to resist authority We need to have more of a democracy when you have a bigger say in For for the people and so he becomes this symbol of the Neoclassical world about fighting and being willing to to die and to go up against Goliath the Goliath in this case or with the American Revolution was was England this idea of being willing to to sacrifice yourself for So neoclassical artists has this political bent to it as is these kind of political aspirations to to match What's happening within their society with the desire to have political form? All right, just to leave off here in less than a minute I wanted you to kind of you know, apply these ideas to works that we definitely haven't necessarily Covered some of them you may have seen before but some of them You may not have and so what I want you to do is I want you to identify the era This is getting you to apply right the critical thinking To some of the themes the main elements that we see within an era and to see if you can get it, right? So with this one if you were to take a look at this one Would you say this is Renaissance Baroque Rococo or neoclassical and then the more importantly why? Taking a look at this one is this one Renaissance Baroque Rococo neoclassical and then again, why what's that? What's what are some of the attributes that this one has? This one as we take a look at this one. Is this one Renaissance Baroque? Rococo And then finally this one Reason why I wanted to do this in this last quiz is because We're being you know We're the amount of eras that we're studying or starting to stack up and I want to make sure that you can differentiate between them as we as we go through because that's gonna be an important part of the class is gonna be important part of your Future appreciation of the art is to be able to see a work of art that you might not be familiar with and at least know Roughly when it was created what time what era what was going on and what can we understand about that particular culture?