Jacques-Louis David, a prominent French painter who painted in the style of Neoclassicism, exhibited qualities of civic virtues and patriotism characteristic of his times in many of his paintings. However, I find a peculiar commonality amongst a few of his drawings, particularly those produced in the 1780s. In particular, each of his painting in that period conveyed a certain quality of virtue, but they are either depicted in negative manners, or had a sad background. The paintings in question are Belisarius Begging Alms (1781); Socrates at the Moment of Grasping the Hemlock (1787); and Lictors Returning to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons (1789).
The Belisarius Begging Alms (1781) depicted an old, blind Belisarius seated in front of a governmental edifice begging for alms from an unknown, passing-by lady. An old soldier showed a surprised yet saddened expression upon recognizing the begger as the once great General Belisarius. Belisarius was shown to be still wearing his armor, as if indicating his ever-readiness to serve again, even though he was dispossessed by the Emperor for a falsely claimed crime of treason. In this manner, David showed the great extent of loyalty a patriotic person could possess. However, David chose to depict the moment when Belisarius was at the lowest point in his life, never to rise again. This is done, perhaps, to convey a greater impact and stress on the virtues of patriotism, and what it entails.
The Socrates at the Moment of Grasping the Hemlock (1787) was another painting by David that depicts a (negative, in my perspective) consequence of holding true to one's philosophies, principles and virtues. Supposedly, Socrates was condemned to death by drinking hemlock for corrupting the young souls of Athens with his worship of strange gods. Even as Socrates neared his death, he tried to calm his followers and casually reached out for the hemlock given to him by a saddened young fellow. Even though this painting was commissioned by a wealthy young jurist, David's acceptance of the commission might provide insight into his disposition to portray virtues in a melancholic tone. The somber atmosphere surrounding Socrates which he painted showed his mastery of dejected and despairing emotions.
The Lictors Returning to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons (1789) portrayed a tragedy that befell the founder of the Roman Republic, Junius Brutus. Brutus toppled the previous ruler, Caesar and brought in a new political order. However, his two male heirs colluded with their mother (who was related to Caesar) to restore the monarchy. However, Brutus had to execute them for death sentence was mandatory for a crime of this gravity. While similar to the Socrates in that both subject matters depicted death as the consequence for staying true to one's principles (and the resulting emotional turbulence), nevertheless the focus of both paintings were not the same. The Brutus sought to portray the inner turmoil of Brutus, for his bond with his heirs clashed with his principles and he had no choice but to execute them as exemplary warning to the citizens. The Socrates, on the other hand, showed Socrates willingly subdued by death, as if it is a form of emancipation and of transcendence.
The lugubrious tone that David so readily exhibit in his paintings was perhaps not just a reflection of his predilections, but also of his outlook of life in the era he lived in, which was characterized by change of political order and inherent instability, to say the least.
Goya's works were truly exemplars of a new paradigm in painting style, differing in visibly many aspects from those of David and Girodet, true champions of neoclassical paintings. These departures collectively made the characteristic qualities that define Romanticism.
The first quality in question was the brush strokes. They were almost invisible in neoclassical paintings; thus giving the paintings a very uniform and smooth spread of colors. However, upon closer inspection, one could see the very minute strokes the artist made to form the lines and textures. With such small brush strokes, the artist must have good control of the brush and abundance of patience. With Romanticism, however, the artist could streak the painting in a seemingly careless and unrefined fashion, as if breaking free from years of austere teachings and becoming bolder than ever. The end result was a discovery of a new, distinctive style of painting. The Knife Grinder (1808-12) by Goya showed the artist's mastery of such bold strokes at a high level. The white brush strokes on the knife grinder's sleeves seemed as if painted carelessly without any orientation and fully covering the base; however, this gave rise to a texture-like appearance to the shirt. The coarseness of that texture seemingly tells us the unrefined, plebeian nature of the knife grinder, but also the sweat, time, and effort he devoted so much to his profession.
The second notable quality was the vague, unclear backgrounds. During David's times, consideration given into background was just as much as the subject matter in the foreground. For example, in David's paintings, they were often well defined and stretched away from the viewer, giving a sense of perspective. When buildings and interiors were involved, they were drawn with utmost geometric precision and realism. However, when it came to Goya's times, such obsession with background accuracy and clarity was no longer valued as much. In The 28th of July: Liberty Leading the People (1830) by Goya, the background was very much just a cloudy white fog against the blue sky, with some edifices visible but unclear on the middle right side. It might be an intended consequence of using large bold strokes, however, doing so gave all the more focus to the foreground subject matter: Liberty. Actually drawing well-defined, faraway background edifices and objects might in fact drown out Liberty herself, seeing how the painting would start getting crowded and cluttered.
The discussed characteristics above are the two of which I find most prevalent in paintings of the Romantic movement. There are several other defining characteristics of Romanticism which I have noticed but not discussed, namely the freely used gamut of colors, lack of anatomical correctness, less stress on lighting and shadow accuracy, and less focus on draperies and clothe wrinkles. Together, they make up a very stylistic characterization of Romanticism paintings, as if foretelling the very dynamic and free form of paintings of the modern era that we enjoy so much today.
Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) was a Realist painter who unflinchingly partook in a political war in order to regain social and political equality for the common peasants and workers. His paintings (and his trilogy paintings, especially) depicted the suffering of the lower class and also a sense of ambiguity that only served to suggest the clash between social class. As I observe each painting closely, I notice some common, recurring characteristics of the paintings themselves and the subject matter therein.
Most notably, a lack of emotion can be seen on the people Courbet painted. This is very noticeable in the After Dinner at Ornans (1849), as well as in the trilogy paintings. In these paintings, some have their gaze hidden, and some show a lack of concern for their surroundings. While we can hardly deduce that they are unhappy, it was most certainly not the case that they are ecstatic either. They just look bored, as if waiting for the seemingly eternal time to pass. Whatever they are engaging, they would repeat it again some time later, as if there is no greater purpose in life that they can look forward to. However, in a way, I perceive calmness amidst the absence of emotions in the paintings, for the boredom and lack of concern seem to say 'All is well, just like yesterday, and the days before.'
Another recurrent feature would be the disconnectedness amongst the people (or groups of people) in Courbet's paintings. An absence of interaction amongst the people, coupled with their lack of emotion showed a sense of uncanny aloofness. Each one (or each group) of them are minding their own business, not reacting much to their surroundings. In A Burial at Ornans (1849), most of the funeral attendees are not looking at the dug grave, nor the coffin being carried in. The crying women are not interacting with the clergyman group, nor to the workers carrying the coffin. In my perspective, perhaps this disconnectedness was also an effort by the artist to show the social and political antagonism; each class, with their own political hopes and motives, is not willing to give in to the others.
In my view, these features do not only serve to amplify the ordinariness of the subject matter portrayed; as Realist paintings, they show the reality as they were. While ordinary, these elements of the ordinary are perhaps what make the paintings extraordinary for they make a break from portraying the elite and also the idealized features inherent in neoclassical paintings. By doing so, they garner a wider audience, many of which were the subject matter of the paintings, and thus the audience were able to identify with the portrayals.
Mary Cassatt (1844-1926) was an impressionist artist whose work largely revolved around the affinity between a mother and a child. Perhaps unsurprising given her gender, that the subject matter in her paintings were mostly female. The book provided some discussion on the issue of gender with respect to her paintings; I, however, find a slightly different interpretation equally plausible.
First, the gaze. In Cassatt's Woman in Black at the Opera (1880), a woman in black is in an opera balcony, with one fan in her hand and an opera-glass in the other, peeking intensely at what seems to be an opera performance. At a distance, a man can be seen doing the same (sans the fan), but is looking at the woman. While this can be interpreted as a modern woman asserting herself, reversing her role from the seen to the seer, and that the woman is not bothered in the least by the man's gaze (and thus appear independent), I find something as much can be said about the man, or about the artist, to be more precise. Allegorically, perhaps, the woman represents the artist, while the man represents the male critics. In this way, the man's gaze at the woman may well mean their scrutiny of her and her work, while the woman's aggressive manner (as seen from the popping vein on her right wrist) with which she looks signifies the intense effort the artist is putting in her painting career. The woman's using an opera-glass that is typically used by male may mean that she is stepping into a career domain (painting) that is predominated by male painters.
Second, the preoccupation with female subject matter. In many of Cassatt's paintings, the subject matters are either a female, or a mother with her child. Critics interpreted this as female equivalent of modern heroism. Perhaps Cassatt was really trying to assert the role of females in a modern society, but the recurrent theme of motherhood (in many of her later works) might seem to be an obsessive preoccupation of Cassatt. Cassatt was never married, for she felt it is not appropriate for her career as a painter. Perhaps Cassatt's maternal sense was tingling, her child caring vocation was calling. Her inability to do so (as she was not married and had no children) was perhaps what heightened her sensitivity towards mothers with children, and compelled her to paint them as a source of relief. After all, if Cassatt was really trying to portray female equivalent of modern heroism, surely there were other female occupations in her times which she could portray.
Understandably, Cassatt was indeed trying hard to seek recognition in a field predominated by men. Might it not seem plausible then, that her aspirations and regrets (as a result of choosing the field of painting) had crept into her paintings as well?
As a student with immense interest in theoretical physics and cosmology, as well as training in the schools of engineering, I could not help but to draw analogies between Impressionism and other esoteric subjects I had learned as I delve deeper into the qualities and ideologies of Impressionism. These parallels, as I see it, seem to lend credence and justification to the evolution of painting from old movements to Impressionism.
Before Impressionism, there were Neoclassicism, Romanticism, and Realism. These movements, as different as they are, nevertheless place great emphasis on lines and contours. Neoclassicism especially have a long painting conventions of chiaroscuro, modeling and perspective. They give not just forms but solid forms to figures and objects. These rules which academy painters followed with great austerity, are nevertheless just mere tools with which the painters use to reproduce reality. They are not in any way an accurate description of nature nor that which are contained therein. More so is the disposition of the academy painters to idealize their subject matters, to extend them to such perfection as to be beyond reality. When the transition is made to Impressionism, this perfection is loathed, replaced instead by the impression of the visual sensations. In a way, those conventions and rules practiced in the old movements are like the great three Newton laws which govern the motions of the celestial entities as well as terrestrial objects. At a certain scale, these laws work perfectly. Their linear simplicity (for example, an object with velocity 10 m/s, when given a push in the same direction such that it attains an additional 5 m/s, its final velocity would be 10 + 5 = 15 m/s) seems too perfect, as is evident in their predictive ability of celestial motions. However, beyond a certain scale, say, an object approaching the speed of light, the Newton laws crumble and fail ignominiously. The linear perfection is gone, just like the idealistic perfection so desired in Neoclassicism. It succumbs to the theory of relativity (where the linear simplicity may no longer hold, and physical measurements are relative), which in some sense is a metaphor to the subjectivity inherent in Impressionism.
A more convincing analogy, however, is that of between Impressionism and String Theory. As noted earlier, the old movements rely on such helpful constructs as lines, contours, perspective, and modelings to give sense to the subject matter depicted, just like how we prefer to think of objects in our world as the sum of smaller constituents (building made of bricks, hold together by wooden and steel frames). In Impressionism, however, the focus shifts to the many little unmixed but adjacent dabs of colors. Lines and forms and shapes is nothing but the optical mixture of juxtaposed complementary colors. This is very much akin to the many tiny vibrating strings so posited in String Theory. They are the very fundamental entities whose vibrations give rise to mass. These vibrations at an unimaginably minute scale (magnitudes smaller than the smallest particle in the universe), like the optical mixture, work cooperatively to produce a macro effect, akin to the final visual sensations rendered on the retina.
These parallels, as much a coincidence as they are, nevertheless allows one to speculate if such trends can be extrapolated, and permits him or her to prognosticate the direction of future movements of art shall take.
From the times of romanticism in the 1830's to the early twentieth century of modern art, one can readily see the gradual evolution and integration of oriental elements into western paintings. A chance encounter or a deliberate one, whichever it was when the early painters stumble upon oriental elements (either the people or the culture), certainly piqued the interest and curiosity of the painters. After all, globalism was at its infancy (people were able to travel between continents, albeit with much difficulty and limitations), and these painters were just starting to discover cultures beyond the boundaries of their land. As if having seen something alien (skin color and culture) yet so similar to themselves (as member of mankind), curiosity and fascination of these painters turned into unrestrained imagination, releasing a thousand fantasies. They had fallen in love with the exotic.
At the very first stage of that integration of oriental elements into paintings, the depiction was very much just on the surface. There were oriental elements, but the subject matter was perhaps mere wild imagination of the painters, as is evident in Delacroix's Women of Algiers (1834). The smoking instrument, the clothings, the carpet, and the black female servant are all clear indications of orientalism, yet the other female figures (which are actually concubines in a harem) are seen indolently lounging around and enjoying themselves. This provocative sexual connotation shows the common sexual association painters made with oriental people. Well into the 1860's, black females were still suggestive of animal sexuality, or bestiality to the painters and art critics. Like prostitutes at that time, they were thought to have congenitally malformed genitals, which resulted in hypersexuality. This association can be seen in Manet's Olympia (1863), where a nude prostitute is seen reclining with a black female servant holding a bouquet of flowers. A more significant progress in Orientalism could be seen in the era of Post-Impressionism. We see Vincent Van Gogh, a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who's so fascinated by Japanese wood block prints that he tirelessly devoted his time to understanding and mimicking them, trying to integrate them into his paintings.
And then, Etienne Dinet came along. He was one of a few painters of his times who would assimilate themselves into oriental cultures. They hold dear to the tenet that to paint a subject is to understand the subject. Dinet's paintings clearly show his mastery and erudition of Arabian culture. One can readily see this in his The Son of a Holy M'rabeth, a subject I believe was hard for the common artists who wished to just incorporate orientalism into their paintings in a superficial manner. It entails deep understanding of the atmosphere, the clothing, the culture, and the values of Arab life. The average artist might not understand the significance of a person kissing the shoe of a holy figure (as depicted in the painting), or why the people surrounding the central holy figure hold out their hands in the manner portrayed. And then there's also Mohammed Racim, a native of Algiers who, needless to say, possessed understanding and knowledge of the motifs and values of Muslim society as well as Muslim history. His paintings Dancer (Old Agiers) (ca. 1932) and Barbarossa's Fleet (undated) are a testimonial to this.
As we have seen, orientalism has progressed from mere decoration, to a serious subject matter involving deeper understanding of the non-western cultures.
The Cubist artists in the early twentieth century represent a new breed of painters who were at the forefront of art, who abandoned the centuries long conventions of art making, and who embraced a new form of art expression that was as revolutionary as the scientific and technological progress that was taking place at the same time. Arguably simplistic compared to the art form that preceded it, Cubism nevertheless represents an ambition that is far more monumental than before. It seeks to cast its subject matter in a completely different point of view (by means of taking the subject matter apart and reconstructing it), not bounded by the conventional rules of the world (by portraying multiple simultaneous perspectives from different angles), and thus forcing the viewers to restructure the final piece in their own terms.
From my perspective, the most ambitious part of the Cubism plan is the attempt to portray a physical object from multiple point of views. It is not certain when multiple facets of a part is depicted, how do their various lines and points connect to facets of another part. In Robert Delaunay's La Tour aux rideaux (Eiffel Tower) (1910), the Eiffel Tower is seen through a window flanked by curtains on both sides; yet despite this single point of view, we are able to see different sides of the Tower simultaneously. Nevertheless, the artist seem to have elided over the connecting points of the many facets of the Tower, giving a slight sense of ambiguity. The lines just faded out into the surrounding and are not connected to other parts, giving the sense of fractured-ness that is inherent in almost all Cubist art works.
However, (still on the topic of disconnection amongst the different facets) I see this as a futile attempt on the Cubists' part to portray the true depiction of multiple point of views. When studying dimensions of space and time, we have come to understand that when one observes from a particular dimensional space (say, three dimensional space), he or she is able to observe physical objects existing in lower dimensions in its entirety. However, one would not be able to observe the objects in higher dimensions, much less multiple facets of it. With this in mind, when we look at Cubist artists who for the most part were relying on a two dimensional medium (three dimensions in some cases), yet sought to portray the different perspectives one could look at a three dimensional object simultaneously, one could not help but think of this as, like I said, a futile attempt. It is just like a humble ant who wishes to see things from the point of view of the high flying bird. We may suspend the ant in mid air, but it will never for its entire life be able to comprehend the breadth and depth of a three dimensional world. To take in several facets of a subject matter and synthesize it into a coherent, comprehensible view is in my opinion an ideal (or rather, a limitation) that can never be overcome by our mind, for we are shackled in a three dimensional world, and will remain so for a long time.
With an understanding of this limitation right from the beginning, the Cubist artists, I gather, had relinquished all effort to achieve that impossible ideal, and through these “pseudo-depiction” of multiple perspectives, sought to make us aware that there are many forms with which an object could take, and with which we could look at the object. The critic Maurice Raynal summed this up neatly: “Conception makes us aware of the object in all its forms, and even makes us aware of objects we would not be able to see.”
Surrealism, an art movement characterized by the irrational, sometimes fantastical, subject matter, aims to probe, unlock, and liberate the unconscious human mind. Its practitioners attempt to achieve this by several means, like automatism, and cadavre exquis ('exquisite corpse'). Much of these methods, needless to say, are based upon Freud's conceptions of how the unconscious (id) might break the barrier imposed by the conscious (ego) and manifest themselves in non-obvious ways, like dreaming and slips of tongue. While the art produced by these techniques were later discredited somewhat by Freud himself as nothing more than just work of the ego (instead of the unconscious), Freud's theorization of the interplay between the conscious and unconscious psyche (which serve as the bedrock foundation of surrealism) itself suffered through a barrage of critics, most of which claimed it to be unscientific, unfalsifiable, and untestable. While this may not necessarily mean surrealism is unfounded, for the many art works of this movement do pique the thinking and curious mind, I have my own personal take at the two methods stated earlier, namely automatism and cadavre exquis.
Freud theorized about how the unconscious may momentarily break through the consciousness barrier and manifest themselves as dreams and slips of the tongue, and automatism was perhaps bore out of this conception of the unconscious psyche. Automatic drawing, which was used by Andre Masson, a surrealist artist, is an example of automatism. The technique itself, however, rely only on the crucial assumption that when one let the pen run free, it does not involve the conscious mind, and hence the unconscious must necessarily be at play. By the unconscious' definition (in Freudian psychoanalytic theory), the unconscious do not manifest themselves so easily. If they can be summoned at whim, it would defeat the very meaning of the unconscious. I'd say, perhaps, this is a misguided assumption on the artist's part and he might have unknowingly ignored the possibility that the free running of his hand holding the pen is controlled by his conscious mind.
Cadavre exquis refers to the method of producing a composite drawing collectively without each person knowing what the others have drawn. While a collective effort, this method may provide a glimpse into a person's mind (but not necessarily the unconscious), for he upon seeing the clues (the slightly visible overshot lines from the folded, invisible part of the paper), imagined what it might be and how to connect his drawing to it. The final product is most probably not coherent, and in my view, should not be treated as such (I.e. that there is an underlying meaning to the composite image). The individual parts may say something about each person, but as a whole they do not convey any meaning, much less provide a glimpse into the unconscious. Searching for meaning (as humans always do amidst random and chaos) is a futile attempt. It, however, provides an interesting subject to ponder upon, for the final product is most certainly not a coherent composite that exists in the world.
While it's incoherent and irrational, it is these qualities, I believe, that give surrealism its appeal: a combination of things that no one have ever thought of, and when connected in certain ways, leads one to an endless stream of what-if thoughts, of an imagined landscape full of possibilities.