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Art of the Romantic Period

Francisco de Goya

Self-Portrait, 1815 (Academy of San Fernando, Madrid)

The Spanish Master Francisco de Goya did not start out with the morbid, bizarre witchcraft inspired paintings that decorated his last years as a painter. Goya started out as an ordinary art student at the Royal Academy, and for several years was relatively unsuccessful.

Anton Raphael Mengs, the founder of Neo-Classicism and who is one of Goya's major influences, arranged for Goya to design a tapestry for the Prince of Asturias. The Prince loved Goya's tapestries and ordered 46 designs from him. He admired Goya's work so much he appointed him court painter in 1789. He continued to paint there until he fell ill in 1792 with a mysterious illness that left him deaf and dumb. From then on his painting was to change dramatically. Although he returned to his position as court painter when he recovered, he went on to paint a series of six pictures on witchcraft called Los Caprichos for the Duchess of Osuna.

King Charles IV and his family (1800, Prado Museum, Madrid)

This large group portrait of the family of Charles IV is inspired by Louis-Michel Van Loo's Family of Philip V and Goya's rival from the Academy, Diego Velázquez's Las Meninas. However, unlike Velázquez's work, the Royal Family is all shown in full dress. French writer Alphonse Daudet called it "The Grocer and his family who just won the top prize in the lottery" because the Royal Family is portrayed as if they won a lottery and bought fancy clothes and expensive jewelry, but at heart are still the unclassy, undignified people they were. The family is squashed together in a dull, ordinary room in the Palace decked out in all their gaudy regalia. Goya did, in fact, attempt to improve the looks of the Queen in her portrait. Some of the members of the painting are distracted by a character off-scene who could possibly be Godoy, a family friend and who is rumored to be the father of the Infante Francisco de Paula. The Infante is seen in the middle of the picture between the Queen and the King in the red suit. He is the subject of one of ten individual studies Goya did to prepare himself for the final painting. In this individual unfinished portrait, Goya keys us in to one of his techniques: painting a red base on the canvas. Like Velázquez, Goya placed himself into the family portrait. He can be seen as the second figure from the left, working quietly away.

This work of art is arranged like a freize; the characters standing in a more-or-less straight line in a dull setting. It is fairly balanced, with tall figures on each side, with the light highlighting each figure's face. There is no real focal point to this painting. The eye moves first to Queen María Luisa, then to the King, and on down the line then is jerked to the left to Goya and the remaining characters. The ladies' dresses are all bright white, perhaps to symbolize inncence. There are no feelings portrayed by the figures, the emotion here is inferred by the history surrounding the painting. The viewer knows of Goya's distaste for tyranny, and his growing contempt for royalty. He portrays those in the characters by making them unelegant and out-of-place.

The Third of May, 1808 (1814, Prado Museum)

Goya's The Third of May, 1808 was not merely a historical painting, but an outcry against the society's cruelty. This painting was painted at a very lonely stage in Goya's life, where he used his deafness and lonliness to convey to us his fears. When the viewer looks at the painting, their eye is drawn immediately to the man in the white shirt, the "Christ" figure, who raises his hands in both surrender and in a symbol of crucifixtion. The eyes go to the the cringing villagers to the right of the man. Then, to the faceless executioners, who could be anyone, then down to the man in a heap on the ground. He lay in a pool of blood in the same position as the kneeling man. The viewer completes the visual circle looking at the pleading faces of the villagers next to the man in white. It is very aesthetically pleasing, not necessarily in the subject matter, but in the composition. The eye moves in a circular pattern at first, but then along a more horizontal pattern after the intitial glance. The colors are primarily dark and muted, except for the bright white of the "Christ" figure. The picture, however, is not entirely balanced. There is light from the solider's lamp shining towards the left, but this is not unpleasing. This painting expresses many emotions. The villagers to the left pleading for mercy, for forgiveness, for their lives. The villagers to the right cannot bear to watch their friend murdered, or possibly to look at their already dead friend on the ground. The soldiers perhaps do not feel at all, but are just there to carry out orders.

In 1819, Goya began painting "Black Paintings," paintings that were merely an outlet for his fears and were meant only for him to see. He continued on a downward spiral, broke, deaf and growing old. He died in April of 1828 of sickness and old age.

Théodore Géricault

Art of the Romantic period was very emotional, with sometimes gruesome subject matter. One artist that displayed this quality was Théodore Géricault. Géricault was born in 1791 in Rouen, a town in France. He studied with the French painters Carle Vernet and Pierre Guérin. At the age of 25, Géricault traveled to Italy to study art further. There, the Italian masters influenced his paintings, as well as Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens. Soon, Géricault became known as the leader of the Romantics. His paintings exhibit bright colors, dramatic action and powerful emotions.

The Raft of the Medusa (1819, The Louvre, Paris)

These characteristics are very evident in his painting The Raft of the Medusa (1818-1819), his liberal attack on a tragic event. The French ship La Méduse sank in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean en route to West Africa in 1816. The captain, as well as the senior officers, took the lifeboats and left just a raft for the passengers and crew. After 13 days at sea, only 15 of the 150 passengers and crew members were left. Géricault's portrayal of this dismal scene brought him fame, but perhaps for the wrong reasons. Géricault's painting brought him to the forefront of Romanticism after it went on display. The viewers, however, did not see it for its artistic qualities, but rather for the sensationalism that surrounded it. Nevertheless, Géricault's masterpiece won the gold medal at the Paris Salon in 1819.

In The Raft of the Medusa, Géricault uses dark colors to portray the somber scene. There are many deep reds, browns and blacks. He does, however, use light convincingly. Each starving body is highlighted in an eerie white light. The approaching storm gives the characters odd shadows, especially to the corpses still on the raft. The eye is not drawn to anything at first. The viewer takes in the whole raft at once, then is drawn to the nude corpse at bottom left, then around the dying figures to the man held aloft by his mates who waves his shirt to a ship in hopes of rescue. The composition is not in the calming circular shape of the Impressionists, but in a jagged triangle, drawing the viewer's eye in several directions. In this artwork, we can see the turmoil of the splashing waves through Géricault's short brush strokes in the water. He creates vivid tension in the figures using short brush strokes and effective shading. He also captured the essence of the rafters, not by using muscular models that fit the Greek "ideal," but by seeking out the actual survivors of the raft and painting them. One of the survivors was even the ship's carpenter who made a model of the raft for Géricault. Géricault also visited asylums and hospitals to sketch the dying men. Unfortunately, The Raft of the Medusa is the basis for Géricault's reputation. He died a short six years later in a horse-back riding accident at the age of thirty-three. This left his good friend Eugène Delacroix as the leading Romanticist.

Eugène Delacroix

Self-Portrait (1837/1838, The Louvre, Paris)

After Géricault's death in 1824, many regarded Delacroix as the leader of Romanticism. He was born in 1798 in Charenton-St.Maurice, France. He began his artisitic studies under Pierre-Narcisse Guérin at the age of 17. In his first picture, Dante and Virgil in Hell, he used unblended colors that looked whole from a distance. This technique was used by the Impressionists years later.

The Death of Sardanapalus (1827, The Louvre, Paris)

His great work, The Death of Sardanapalus was the largest and most ambitious painting of his career. It shows the ruler Sardanapalus preparing to sacrifice himself. In this process, he has his servants murder each of his many wives, as well as his horses. He does not wish for any loved one to be happy after his death. In this energy-filled painting, we see the boredom of Sardanapalus, the fear of the horses and wives, and the mania of the slaves. This painting is full of bright, deep reds and golds, creamy flesh tones and deep browns. Delacroix's brush strokes give the women's flesh a brilliance, so very realistic. When the viewer first sees this, their eyes go immediately to the prominent wife, in the lower right. Her fear and pleading expression are very clear to the reader, as is the delight the slave has in killing her. The viewer then looks to the pleading slave on the right, up and over Sardanapalus. He is almost an afterthought, in the back left, almost an innocent on-looker. Our eyes are then brought to the absolute fear in the unlucky horse. The eye then returns to the first wife. This circular motion is very aesthetially pleasing, though the subject matter is not. The elements of this picture are somewhat spread out. There are several wives surrounding the bed, as are mountains of jewels and priceless treasures. There are slaves killing wives around the bed, but so are a few Oriental tea servers, somewhat out of place. This was the last of Delacroix's main Romantic pieces. After this, he traveled to Algeria and from then on, his paintings had a different, Middle Eastern feel. Delacroix died in 1863, in Paris, of failing health.

John Constable

The great English landscape artist John Constable was born in 1776, in Suffolk, England. His schoolmaster encouraged Constable's interest in drawing. Constable began to expand on his love for art in 1795 when an amateur painter moved into town. Soon, Constable was admitted into the Royal Academy in London. There he learned his craft and by 33 he felt that he had mastered it. Unfortunately, though he kept painting the English countryside he loved, he did not sell a painting for another six years. In 1820 he began to work on The Hay-Wain, which would become one of his most famous works. He was awarded the gold medal in France for this painting in 1824, three years after he finished it.

The Hay-Wain (1821, The Tate Gallery, London)

In The Hay-Wain, we see a simple rustic scene of a man bringing an empty hay wagon across the Stour. This is the Flatford Mill by Willie Lott's Cottage in Constable's native Suffolk. Though some critics believe that Constable's green trees and fields are too unnatural, he captures the sense of the countryside at noon. The sun is bright and is shining on the spring foliage. Constable uses short brush strokes to simulate the look of the leaves, the lazy Stour river an the muddy banks. Everything about this picture suggests a lazy day in England: the horses standing in the still water, the drivers chatting briefly, the dog glancing up at them. The trees hardly move in a breeze and the cows in the distance are surely not hurried. Constable also uses light and highlighting well in the painting. We see how the sun reflects off of the leaves and field. The river reflects the landscape. The bright clouds show us that it is noon-time. What draws the viewers eye first is the hay wagon in the middle of the picture, and this is the focal point. The eye drifts then to the dog, to the quaint cottage and along the horizontal line of the field. The horizontal lines in this painting, the river, the fields, produce a very calming effect often found in Constable's work. Space, as in most of his work, is used well. The sky on the right is rather open, but this conveys the openness of the countryside and is not empty of character. Constable captured the essence of his landscapes by taking the canvas outside with him. He took quick sketches and oils of the landscape and would rougly draw it in before finishing it in his studio.

Constable went on to paint his native Suffolk, known as "Constable Country," until 1835. Many of his works featured cathedrals at Salisbury. His last painting The Valley Farm was of the same cottage in The Hay-Wain. He died two years later, at the age of 61 and was buried beside his wife Maria.

Joseph Mallord William Turner

J.M.W. Turner, one of England's finest landscapist, was a rival to Royal Academy alum Johh Constable. Both painted landscapes, though in radically different styles. Constable once said that Turner "painted with tinted steam." Turner was a child prodigy and entered the RA at 14. He was elected an Associate there at the age of 26, long before Constable was. Turner spent a great deal of time traveling abroad, and these are the subjects of most of his works. He traveled to Italy and did over 1,500 pencil sketches of Rome. He also painted many sites in Paris, Switzerland, France and Italy.

Approach to Venice (1843, Tate Gallery)

Turner painted this painting on his last visit to Italy. This painting is a good representation of his "tinted steam." Turner's sweeping brush strokes give the sense of mist over the canals of Venice. In the distance, Venice can be seen as a just a few spires and building. The piers and barges dot the foreground, heavily shrouded in mist. Turner used layers in his painting and it is evident in the foreground. He used thin washes of color to prepare it, and then used full strenth paints subsequently. Turner uses spaces well here. The far-off city provides a calming horizontal, as does the sweeping strokes of the evening sky. The colors are mainly monochromatic. There are lots of shades of oranges and yellows and reds, fading into a few light purples and browns. These capture the sense of the sunset. The cooler purple shades show the moon rising over the water, casting a shadow onto the waves. One of Turner's characteristics was to use colors effectively in his paintings. The colors blend into each other and mix so well that the viewer feels as if he were there. Turner died in 1851. He left behind 300 oil paintings, and 20,000 watercolors.

The Turner Watercolors Exhibit
A Special Exhibit of J.M.W. Turner's watercolors will be on display at the Indianapolis Museum of Art from June 1 to July 27, 1997. This exhibit will feature 116 of Turner's watercolors from the Whitworth Art Gallery and Manchester City Art Galleries in England and the Kurt F. Pantzer Collection at IMA. There are several special programs and workshops in connection with this exhibit. To find out more about this special collection call the Education Division at IMA at (317) 920-2648, or on the web, go to The Turner Watercolors Exhibit, or visit IMA's website.

Aesthetic Artistic Activities
Two major Romantic figures, Goya and Beethoven were deaf. How did this disability affect their works? Was it a disability? Write an analysis paper on this subject.
One of the most famous Romantic landscape painters was J.M.W. Turner. Go outside, or get some books on English, Scottish or Irish landscapes from your local library. Paint a landscape in watercolor in Turner's style. What are some of his characteristics and techniques? What were some of his favorite scenes to paint?