SAN BEDA UNIVERSITY MANILA

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the subject

Art, Man and Society

Prepared By:

Flores, Faith Daniela

Flores, Victor Luigi

Macamay, Ma. Lourdes

Magsino, Fatima

Wisco, Merill

To be Submitted to:

Dr. James Loreto C. Piscos

February 21, 2018

NEO-CLASSICISM (Magsino)

The classical revival, also known as Neoclassicism, refers to movements in the arts that
draw inspiration from the “classical” art and culture of ancient Greece and Rome. The second half
of the eighteenth century in Europe saw the increasing influence of classical antiquity on artistic
style and the development of taste. The Neoclassical style arose from such first-hand observation
and reproduction of antique works and came to dominate European architecture, painting,
sculpture, and decorative arts. The height of Neoclassicism coincided with the 18th century
Enlightenment era, and continued into the early 19th century. Generally speaking, Neoclassicism
is defined stylistically by its use of straight lines, minimal use of color, simplicity of form and, of
course, an adherence to classical values and techniques.
The Age of Enlightenment was partially a reaction to the Industrial Revolution, as the
world witnessed the importance of technological innovation for the advancement of humankind.
This age of reason and enlightened thinking dominated Europe, inevitably birthing two important
eras in philosophy and visual art. Neoclassicism and Romanticism competed side by side, bringing
creative together to express emotion as well as a love for the classics. It is when philosophers
believed that we would be able to control our destinies by learning from and following the laws of
nature. Scientific inquiry attracted more attention. Therefore, Neoclassicism continued the
connection to the Classical tradition because it signified moderation and rational thinking but in a
new and more politically-charged spirit.

ARTISTS AND THEIR WORKS

Neoclassical painting is characterized by the use of straight lines, a smooth paint surface
hiding brush work, the depiction of light, a minimal use of color, and the clear, crisp definition of
forms. Its subject matter usually relates to either Greco-Roman history or other cultural attributes,
such as allegory and virtue. The softness of paint application and light-hearted and “frivolous”
subject matter that characterize Rococo painting is recognized as the opposite of the Neoclassical
style. Typically, the subject matter of Neoclassical painting consisted of the depiction of events
from history, mythological scenes, and the architecture and ruins of ancient Rome. The subjects
of Neoclassical sculpture ranged from mythological figures to heroes of the past to major
contemporary personages.
 Architecture, which began in the mid 18th century, looks to the classical past of the Graeco-
Roman era, the Renaissance, and classicized Baroque to convey a new era based on Enlightenment
principles. This movement manifested in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of
naturalistic ornament, and in its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of some classicizing
features of Late Baroque. In its purest form, Neoclassicism is a style principally derived from the
architecture of Classical Greece and Rome.

1. Jacques-Louis David was a great artist as well as the chief propaganda minister of the French
Revolution. He is considered the father of the Neoclassical art movement because his compositions
are balanced and synchronized, and the subjects were generally Roman inspired, emphasizing
loyalty to the state. David believed in the revolution and used his mighty talent to promote the
ideas of liberty and freedom. In 1781 the artist stated "Not by pleasing the eye do works of art
accomplish their purpose. The demand now is for examples of heroism and civic virtues which
will electrify the soul of the people and arose in them devotion to the fatherland."
 The Death of Marat (1793)- an idealized image of David's slain friend, Marat, is shown
holding his murderess's (Charlotte Corday) letter of introduction. The bloodied knife lays
on the floor having opened a fatal gash that functions, as does the painting's very
composition, as a reference to the entombment of Christ and a sort of secularized stigmata
(reference to the wounds Christ is said to have received in his hands, feet and side while
on the cross).
2. Antonio Canova is considered the greatest sculptor of the Neoclassical era. He began his
education at the Venetian workshop of Giuseppe Bernardi Torreto, who stressed the dramatic
Baroque style. Canova later became captivated by the writings of Winckelmann, who championed
a return to the gracious order and serene dignity of Greek and Roman Art. His compositions were
based on smooth rhythmic lines, the harmony of figures and refined gestures, creating an
atmosphere of lighthearted decorativeness.
 Psyche revived by Cupid’s Kiss- shows the mythological lovers at a moment of great
emotion, characteristic of the emerging movement of Romanticism. It represents the god
Cupid in the height of love and tenderness, immediately after awakening the lifeless Psyche
with a kiss. The wandering of the soul was a concept of the Neo-platonic philosophy to
 which Canova adhered. The love between the two characters is represented simply,
somewhat naively, by their contemplation of the butterfly.
3. Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres became the principal proponent of French Neoclassical
painting after the death of his mentor, Jacques-Louis David. A talented draftsman known for his
serpentine line and impeccably rendered, illusionistic textures. In pursuit of more beautiful forms
and harmonious line, Ingres pushed the abstraction of the body beyond the idealism of the
Neoclassical.
 Napoléon on his Imperial Throne (1806)- Ingres's painting was inspired by art historical
depictions of power; it was a strategy similarly employed by Napoleon himself, who often
used symbolism associated with the Roman and Holy Roman empires to reinforce his rule.
Pictorially, Ingres looks directly to the God the Father panel from Jan van Eyck's Ghent
Altarpiece; replacing God with Napoleon, encircled by the golden laurel wreath and throne,
Ingres suggests his sitter's power, even divinity.
4. Francois Gerard’s paintings are outstanding examples of the French Neoclassical style in the
nineteenth century. His main subjects were classical mythology, historically important scenes of
the French Revolution and portraiture. His style is distinguished by expert draftsmanship, gracious
sophistication and a polished style.
 Portrait of Empress Josephine (1805)- The widow of General de Beauharnais,
Martinique-born Joséphine Tascher de la Pagerie, married Napoleon Bonaparte in 1796.
Unable to provide the emperor with children, she was repudiated in 1809. Here Prud'hon
shows her in the grounds of La Malmaison, a year after Napoleon's coronation. This
dreamlike image is among the finest French examples of the open-air portrait at which the
English painters of the time excelled.
5. Benjamin West’s work has been classified as being in three modes: stately, pathetic, and dread.
The stately mode includes classicizing, elevating ancient themes, featuring idealized forms and
gravity of demeanor. Because of his quaint charm and the remoteness of his origins, West
interested important patrons, critics, and literati in Rome.
 The Death of General Wolfe (1770)- West depicted a near-contemporary event, one that
occurred only seven years before. It depicts an event from the Seven Years' War (known
as the French and Indian War in North America), the moment when Major-General James
Wolfe was mortally wounded on the Plains of Abraham outside Quebec.
ROMANTICISM (Macamay)
Romanticism was an artistic and intellectual movement that ran from the late 18th century
through the 19th century. It celebrated the individual imagination and intuition in the enduring
search for individual rights and liberty. In a broad sense, romanticism was a reaction against the
forms and conventions of the eighteenth century. Enlightenment told the people how exactly to
think, feel and behave. Neo-classicism set down hard and fast rules which the poet, playwright or
artist must observe if he wanted to produce a perfect composition. The result was that rules,
formulas and conventions reigned supreme in literature, in fine arts and in society generally.
Romanticism was a revolt against classical restraint, intellectual discipline and artificial standards.
Romanticism did not oppose everything for which the past stood as literary romanticism proceeded
from neo-classicism. When we talk about Romanticism the Movement, we aren't using the root
word "romance" in the sense of hearts and flowers or infatuation. Instead, we use "romance" in the
sense of glorification.Romantic visual and literary artists glorified things ..which takes us to thorny
problem number two: the "things" they glorified were hardly ever physical. They glorified huge,
complex concepts such as liberty, survival, ideals, hope, awe, heroism, despair, and the various
sensations that nature evokes in humans. All of these are felt—and felt on an individual, highly
subjective level.
Characteristics of Romanticism:
1. Imagination
2. Intuition
3. Idealism
4. Inspiration
5. Individuality
ARTISTS AND THEIR WORKS
1. Jean Louis Theodore Gericault – The first French master and the leader of the French
realistic school. His masterpieces are energetic, powerful, brilliantly colored and tightly
composed.
 The Raft of Medusa - Portrays the victims of the contemporary shipwreck. The people on
this raft were French emigrants en route to West Africa
2. Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix - as a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of
his career as the leader of the French Romantic School. As a painter and muralist, Delacroix's use
of expressive brushstrokes and his study of the optical effects of colour profoundly shaped the
work of the Impressionists, while his passion for the exotic inspired the artists of
the Symbolist movement. A fine lithographer, Delacroix illustrated various works of William
Shakespeare, the Scottish author Walter Scott and the German author Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe
 Liberty Leading the People - This painting commemorates the July Revolution of 1830,
which toppled King Charles X of France. A woman personifies Liberty and leads the
people forward over the bodies of the fallen, holding the flag of the French Revolution.

3. Francisco De Goya - Goya is one of the greatest printmakers of all time, and is famous for his
achievements in etching and aquatint. He created four major print portfolios during his career:
the Caprichos, Proverbios, Tauromaquia, and The Disasters of War. Perhaps even more than
his paintings, these works reflect the artist's originality and his true opinions about the social
and political events of his day. The subject matter of his etchings veers from dreamlike to
grotesque, documentary to imaginary, and humorous to harshly satirical.
 Charles IV of Spain and His Family (1800) - This portrait of the Spanish royal family was
made at the height of Goya's career as a court painter. At the center of the composition,
brilliantly lit, is the figure of Queen Maria Luisa, who holds the hand of her son Francisco
(in vivid red) and her daughter, Maria Isabel. King Charles stands to her left: widely
thought to be an ineffectual leader, his off-center placement provides a clue about the
power dynamic of the family as well as their foibles and failings. Indeed, the Queen was
believed to hold the real power, along with Prime Minister Manuel Godoy, with whom she
had an affair (her illegitimate children are at the far left of the canvas, one in blue, the other
in orange). Goya's subversive critique - disguised as a glorifying portrait - of the corruption
of Charles IV's reign is further enhanced by the subject of a painting hanging in the
background, which shows the Biblical story of the immoral and incestuous Lot and his
daughters.
ART NOUVEAU (Flores, Luigi)
Art Nouveau stemmed from the name of the Parisian art gallery, called "La Maison de l'Art
Nouveau", owned by the avant-garde art-collector Siegfried Bing, a style that emerged at the end
of the 19th century. It adapted the twining plant form to the needs of architecture, painting,
sculpture, etc. It is an architectural and design movement that developed out the ideas the Arts and
Crafts movement promoted. The distinguishing ornamental characteristic of Art Nouveau is its
undulating, asymmetrical line, often taking the form of flower stalks and buds, vine tendrils, insect
wings, and other delicate and sinuous natural objects; the line may be elegant and graceful or
infused with a powerfully rhythmic and whiplike force.
“L’Art Nouveau” – a shop from Paris that means new art (known in France, Belgium,
Holland, England, and USA) Jugendstil – Germany; Stile Liberty – Italy; Sezessionstil – Austria;
Tiffany- USA
ARTISTS AND THEIR WORKS
1. Victor Horta - Victor Pierre Horta was a Belgian architect and designer. John Julius
Norwich described him as "undoubtedly the key European Art Nouveau architect." Horta is
considered one of the most important names in Art Nouveau architecture.

 Hotel Tassel - It is generally considered as the first true Art Nouveau building, because
of its highly innovative plan and its groundbreaking use of materials and decoration.

2. Aubrey Beardsley - an English illustrator and author. His drawings in black ink,
influenced by the style of Japanese woodcuts, emphasized the grotesque, the decadent, and the
erotic.

 The Peacock Skirt – confined in black and white, a dazzlingly composition of

perfectly characteristic of his Japanese print style

3. Antonio Gaudi - an architect from Reus, Catalonia, Spain. He is the best known
practitioner of Catalan Modernism. Gaudí's works have a highly individualized and distinctive
style.

 Casa Mila – “A Building Seemingly Molded from Clay”; popularly known as La

Pedrera or "open quarry", a reference to its unconventional rough-hewn appearance, is
a modernist building in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.
4. Gustav Klimt - an Austrian symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of
the Vienna Secession movement. Klimt is noted for his paintings, murals, sketches, and other
objets d'art.

 The Kiss - A perfect square, the canvas depicts a couple embracing, their bodies
entwined in elaborate robes decorated in a style influenced by both linear constructs of
the contemporary Art Nouveau style and the organic forms of the earlier Arts and Crafts
movement. Painted in 1907

5. Joseph Maria Olbrich - German architect who was a cofounder of the Wiener Sezession,
the Austrian manifestation of the Art Nouveau movement. Olbrich was a student of Otto Wagner,
one of the founders of the modern architecture movement in Europe.

 Vienna Secession Building - was designed by architect Joseph Maria Olbrich in 1897
as the manifesto of the Secessionist movement. The exhibition hall opened in October
1898. Most of the original interior was looted during World War II and the building
was left in a desolate state until the passion for Viennese Art Nouveau was rediscovered
in the 1970s and the pavilion rescued from decay.

6. Louis Comfort Tiffany - an American artist and designer who worked in the decorative
arts and is best known for his work in stained glass. He is the American artist most associated with
the Art Nouveau and Aesthetic movements.

 Lotus table lamp – made of leaded glass, mosaic, and bronze based on floral forms of
the lotus. One of the most expensive lamps in the world. It was handcrafted by the
finest skilled workers at the time.

SYMBOLISM (Flores, Faith)

Symbolism was a literary movement before it took part of the art world. It was popularized
by the French writer Jean Moréas and gained both momentum and credibility with his manifesto
in “Le Figaro,” published in 1886. The author proclaimed that subjectivity and the interpretation
of the artist were more important and more relevant than a realistic portrayal of tangible things and
ideas. Symbolism was both an artistic and a literary movement that suggested ideas through
symbols and emphasized the meaning behind the forms, lines, shapes, and colors.
ARTISTS AND THEIR WORKS

1. James Ensor - The artist was particularly intrigued by the carnival theme and found it an
excellent means by which to capture society's foibles. He masked his figures, giving them
faces that would express their inner selves rather than their outer. In this way he was able
to dig beneath the surface and reveal the "true face" of society. His exploration of society
unmasked eventually caused his rejection by many, even the local avant-garde artists.
 Death and the Masks (1897) - Ensor imparts lifelike qualities to the skull of Death in
the center and to the masks of the people; the mask becomes the face, and yet it is still
a mask that tries to cover up the spiritual hollowness of the bourgeoisie and the
decadence of the times. The man-like skull is seen holding a candle with a flickering
flame; this symbolizes the fragility of life. The crowded composition suggests that this
is a pervasive problem and that the painting is the artist's critique of contemporary
society.
2. Gustave Moreau – French symbolist painter; His paintings normally depicting moments
from biblical or mythic narratives, are populated with ambiguous visual symbols - which
he took to represent certain desires and emotions in abstract forms - with divine and mortal
beings locked in conflict, and with strange visions of sex and suffering.
 Jupiter and Semele (1895) - illustrates the myth that tells of the love between Jupiter,
the divine king of the gods, and Semele who upon the suggestion of Jupiter's wife Juno,
asks Jupiter to make love to her in his divine radiance. Jupiter cannot resist the
temptation of her beauty, with the acknowledgment that she will be consumed by his
light and the fire of his divinity. The painting is symbolic of humanity's union with the
divine that ends in death. Jupiter then saves his unborn child by ripping the fetus from
Semele's body. Semele can be seen in the painting stricken in Jupiter's thigh and their
child is depicted into the painting with angel-like wings beside Semele. Themes of
death, corruption and resurrection are used in the painting.
3. Odilon Redon - one of the most important and original of all the Symbolist artists. His
visionary works concern the world of dreams, fantasy, and the imagination. He first became
famous for his noirs series, monochromatic compositions that exploit the expressive and
suggestive powers of the color black.
  The Eye Like a Strange Balloon Mounts Toward Infinity (1882) - The large scale of
the eye is the symbol of the spirit rising up out of the dead matter of the swamp. It is a
physical organ that looks upward toward the divine, taking with it the dead skull. The
aura of light surrounding the main image helps express the idea of the supernatural, as
does the nebulous space. The work evokes a sense of mystery within a dream world.
4. Jan Toorop - born on the island of Java in the Dutch East Indies, and was best known as
a Symbolist and Art Nouveau painter.
 The Three Brides (1893) - The artist sets up an allegory of the three states of the soul,
consisting of the bride dedicated to Christ, the bride dedicated to earthly love, and the
satanic bride who appears to be Egyptian. The artist's goal was to relate humans to the
spiritual world, specifically identifying women as the source of evil - an idea found in
the work of many writers and artists of the time. Sin was associated with sex, and sex
was related to procreation and death, with woman as the ultimate source of death.
5. Edvard Munch - prolific yet perpetually troubled artist preoccupied with matters of
human mortality such as chronic illness, sexual liberation, and religious aspiration. He
expressed these obsessions through works of intense color, semi-abstraction, and
mysterious subject matter.
 The Dance of life (1899) - The virgin symbolized by white, the carnal woman of
experience in red, and the aged, satanic woman in black. The sea is the beyond, eternity,
the edge of life into the vast unknown, and finally, death. The dance is therefore the
playing out of earthly life.
6. Gustav Klimt - Austrian Symbolist painter Gustav Klimt was born in Baumgarten, a town
near Vienna.
 Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I (1907) - The gown is extremely decorated with fancy
details and gold leaf. The gown forms a powerful symbol of a person changing their
identity as well as the hope of the future.

REALISM (Wisco)
According to (The Art Story Foundation, 2018), “Realism is recognized as the first modern
movement in art, which rejected traditional forms of art, literature, and social organization as
outmoded in the wake of the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. Beginning in France in
the year 1840s, Realism revolutionized painting, expanding conceptions of what constituted art.
Working in a chaotic era marked by revolution and widespread social change, Realist painters
replaced the idealistic images and literary conceits of traditional art with real-life events, giving
the margins of society similar weight to grand history paintings and allegories. Their choice to
bring everyday life into their canvases was an early manifestation of the avant-garde desire to
merge art and life, and their rejection of pictorial techniques, like perspective, prefigured the many
twentieth-century definitions and redefinitions of modernism .”
ARTISTS AND THEIR WORKS:
The chief exponents of Realism were, to wit:
- Gustave Courbet;
- Jean-François Millet;
- Honoré Daumier; and
- Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
Realists used unprettified detail depicting the existence of ordinary contemporary life, coinciding
in the contemporaneous naturalist literature of Émile Zola, Honoré de Balzac, and Gustave
Flaubert.

References:
http://www.theartstory.org/movement-symbolism-artworks.htm
http://blog.art.com/artwiki/~/symbolism-art/#Famous
https://www.scribd.com/document/189573492/Jean-Moreas-Symbolist-Manifesto
http://www.ducksters.com/history/art/symbolism.php
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-arthistory/chapter/neoclassicism/
https://www.ranker.com/list/neoclassicism-art-and-artwork/reference
http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/his/CoreArt/art/neocl_dav.html
http://www.historyofpainters.com
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Romanticism
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https://www.ranker.com/list/romanticism-paintings/reference
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http://www.theartstory.org/movement-romanticism.htm
https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/roma/hd_roma.htm
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