THE NINETEENTH CENTURY IN EUROPE:
THE PRE-RAPHAELITES IN BRITAIN
AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS IN FRANCE
Pre-reading. Answer the following questions freely
What characterized the Nineteenth century in Britain?
Who was ruling?
Which events took mainly place in this period?
What were the living conditions for the people?
Why was it called the Age of the Compromise?
What happened in Literature and Art?
Read the following passage and decide if the statement are True (T) or False (F). Correct the false statements
The nineteenth century was characterised by social unrest and dissent with the political establishment. Artists began to reject established standards and links with tradition, stating a desire for self-expression. A distrust between artist and the public began to grow. Artists started to see themselves as a race apart: they grew long hair and beards, they dressed in velvet or wore broad-brimmed hats and generally stressed their contempt for the conventions of the bourgeoisie, the middle-class people.
a. the nineteenth century was a period of prosperity and peace
b. rejections of conventions and break with tradition were common among artists
c. artists no longer sought the approval of the public,
d. artists lived dressed in a conventional way
e. they felt to belong to the middle class
As to painting in the ninenteenth century here you are information and details about two parallel painting movements which took place around in the same time in Britain and France
THE PRE-RAPHAELITES IN BRITAIN / THE IMPRESSIONISTS IN FRANCEThey were a group of British artists who wanted to react against academic standards and conventions. The group was inspired by medieval and early Renaissance painters up to the time of the Italian painter Raphael. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was established in 1848, and its central figure was the painter and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Other members were Holmant Hunt and John Everett Millais.
Although the themes of their paintings were often historical or religious, the Pre-Raphaelites distinguished themselves from academic tradition by their concern with naturalistic representation and correct detail. They had an important influence on the development of Art Nouveau and Symbolism. / Impressionism was a painting movement that developed in France between 1867 and 1880. The group which originally consisted in Monet, Pissarro, Cézanne, Degas, Sisley and Renoir shared a common interest in anti-academic painting, preferred to paint outdoors – 'en plein air' – chhosing landscapes and street scenes, as well as figures from everyday life. The Impressionist painters organized their first independent exhibition in 1874. The term impressionist was first used by the journalist Leroy to characterize derisively a painting by Claude Monet entitled “Impression: Sunrise”. The term was officially adopted for the Impressionists' third exhibition in 1877.
Going In-Depth. PAINTING IN BRITAIN IN THE VICTORIAN AGE
JOHN EVERETT MILLAIS: OPHELIA
The source of this painting is Shakespeare's account of the death of Ophelia in Hamlet. Ophelia has been driven mad by the murder of her father by her lover Hamlet. Out picking flowers she slips into a stream. In her grief and madness she allows herself to drown.
Millais spent nearly four months from July to October 1851 painting the background, on the banks of the river Hogsmill in Surrey. He endured considerable difficulties and discomfort in doing it and this is evidenze of the extraordinary dedication of the younf Pre-Raphaelites to their goal of 'truth to nature'. In December Millais returned with the canvas to London, where he inserted the figure. The model was Elisabeth Siddal, who posed in a bath full of water kept warm by lamps underneath.
The brilliant colour and luminosity of 'Ophelia' is the result of the Pre-Raphaelite technique of painting in pure colours onto a pure white ground. The ground was laid fresh for each day's work – the wet-white technique – which gave added brilliance and was used by Millais particularly for the flowers. The picture contains dozens of different plants and flowers, painted with botanical fidelity and charged with symbolical signbificance.
The weeping willow tree leaning over Ophelia is a symbol of forsaken love.
The daisies floating near her right hand represent innocence.
Violets around Ophelia's neck are a symbol of faithfulness and they can also symbolise chastity and death in the young.
The vivid red poppy with its black seeds represents sleep and death.
MONET: IMPRESSION. SUNRISE
Read the following text about Monet's painting then write a short summary about the description of the work of art.
Impressions, Sunrise shows the port of
Le Havre in the morning. In the background, some of the ships anchor; their silhouette disappears in the mist, though. In the foreground three small boats appear dimly. The water reflects the light of the rising sun. Monet composed the majority of the painting in blue and violet, but the reflection of the sun on the water is painted in orange. The ships in the background serve as a structuring element and create linear structures. The diagonally arranged boats create the impression of the spatial distance, while Monet renounced at composition and further spatial effects. The aim of Impression, Sunrise is just the accurate reproduction of the very impression and its resulting mood. The atmospheric effect dominates and marginalizes the importance of the object's shape. In order to capture the constant change of light and the flicker of the air clearly, Monet painted with small, short strokes.
From the 15th April to 15th May 1874 Monet exhibited his work together with Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, Édouard Manet, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, and some other thirty artists. They organized their exhibition on their own as they were usually rejected at the Paris Salon. Most visitors were disgusted and even outraged over such a graffiti. Monet's Impression, Sunrise enjoyed the most attention and some visitors even claimed that they were absolutely unable to recognize what was shown at all. When Edmond Renoir, the painter's brother, insisted on having a title for the catalogue, Monet is said to have replied, “Call it impression”.
From the first landscapes painted at Argenteuil on the banks of the Seine through to the waterlilies of his last years, Monet was fascinated by the changing sky, shimmering water and anything that lacked a fixed shape. He spent his life trying to catch the ceaseless dialogue between water and light. As Zola noted in 1896, “In Monet's work water is alive, deep and above all real”.
Read the text about the Impressionists and try to complete it with the following words: complementary – brushstrokes – details – distance – primary – light – form
The Impressionists were concerned more with the effects of ______on an object than with exact depiction of form. They eliminated minor ______and suggested rather tahn defined ______. They preferred the ______colours – red, yellow and blue – and the complementaries – green, purple and orange. They achieved effects of naturalness and immediacy by placing short ______of these colours side by side, juxtaposing primary colours so that they would blend when viewed at a ______and contrasting a primary colour (such as red) with its ______colour (green) to bring out the vivid qualkity of each.,
“LA LOGE” BY RENOIR
This piece was first exhibited as part of the first Impressionist Exhibition in 1874.
The artist's brother Edmond and a model, Nini from Montmartre, posed for this painting.
‘La Loge’ translates to ‘The Opera Box’, a popular subject among the more forward thinking artists of the time. The opera house seemed to embody all the contrasts and confusion of Parisian society at the time. While it was the place for the wealthy to see and be seen, prostitution was rife among the performers and the established upper class felt themselves increasingly infringed upon by kept mistresses and the more successful women.
As to the woman her dress is elegant, with the strong vertical stripes which were in vogue at the time, complemented by the subtle shades of the fresh roses in her hair and within the garment. Her jewellery is lavish yet simple, a gold bracelet and a long string of pearls. To the modern viewer, it is difficult to decide whether she is dressing excessively and extravagantly, or simply abiding by the expectations of her peers. For clues to this we look to her expressions, her movements. She leans forward, resting an arm on the ledge, her fan on her lap, an air almost of excitement. Her eyes are subtle, her mouth slightly purses, it is hard to tell whether she is favourable or shy.
The painting is a great interplay of gazes; where usually the viewer is the primary gaze in concern, we are the ones looking, here we become one of the great interchange of looks and expressions. The opera glasses are a clue to this, the man behind points his high, clearly not directed at the stage. We almost see ourselves as acting out the same role as him, the cropped composition suggesting we too look through the opera glasses, in a box opposite and slightly above the woman. The composition is potentially highly voyeuristic, the male depicted implies that we too are male, searching the opera house for the most pleasing woman, attending the opera under the pretence of intellectual nourishment. But this sense of voyeurism is countered by her gaze; she is slightly knowing, neither encouraging being viewed, nor offended by it, but gently acknowledging it, looking back at the viewer, or the other audience members, accepting this aspect of society. She becomes almost symbolic, or at least typical, of modern woman’s experience on Paris in the 1870s.
In his treatment of Nini, Renoir left her exact social and sexual status ambiguous: some critics described her as a typical 'cocotte' and others as a 'figure from the world of elegance'. To avoid signs of difference was very characteristic of Renoir as he never painted images which suggested any social division though in his paintings he produced aspects of life as harmonious and balanced and untroubled.