Realists and Romantics: an Introduction to the Art of Post-Revolutionary France
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Updated: 7 hours ago
Explore the dialogue between Neoclassical Realists and Romantics in Post-Revolutionary France and discover their surprising commonalities!
As we saw in our post on Rococo art, the years 1774-1848 are sometimes called the “Age of Revolution” because of the way these years shaped European and world history, from the collapse of the Ancien Regime, the French Enlightenment and Revolution (1789), the American Revolution, the British industrial revolution and the abolition of slavery.
We mentioned in our posts on Baroque art that, in the early nineteenth century, the French art world was divided over a question of line and colour. “Poussinistes”—admirers of Nicolas Poussin—argued that line and structure should be the basis of composition, whereas the “Rubenistes”—admirers of Peter Paul Rubens—said that colour, emotion and sensory experience were the most important. The Poussinistes, such as David and Ingres, rejected the Rococo and developed Neoclassical Realism. The Rubenist movement would eventually develop into French romanticism, led by artists such as Delacroix and Theodore Gericault.
These trends can be seen in the context of a wider debate within nineteenth century intellectual life between realism and romanticism. Realism can be seen in the literature of George Sand, Honorè de Balzac, Flaubert and Guy de Maupassant. Romantic literature included that of Victor Hugo, Andre Dumas, Theophile Gautier and Madame de Stael.
At the same time, France was looking outwards to the wider world. Following Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt, there were important discoveries by French archaeologists. There was also a fascination with other cultures, leading to the development of French Orientalism—a fascination with (and often an idealisation of) North Africa and the Arab world. This can be seen in the art of both Neoclassical Realists and Romantics.
Jacques-Louis David and NeoClassicism
The ideas and events of the French Revolution (1789) made the Rococo style seem too decadent and Rococo was challenged by the new trend of Neoclassicism, popular in Europe from 1760 to the beginning of the nineteenth century.
Neoclassicism rejected the voluptuous forms of the Rococo and used striking angles and straight lines. Rather than celebrating pleasure, the emphasis was on moral themes and civic virtue. It was also marked by a renewed interest in Classical Antiquity. For instance, Pompeo Batoni’s Portrait of John Talbot, later 1st Earl Talbot (1773) depicts an English aristocrat with the Ludovisi Mars and the Medici Vase (both classical antiques).
Jacques-Louis David spent five years in Italy and returned to Paris in 1780, committed to the method of studying the nude model. David’s Oath of the Horatii (1784) challenged the Rococo style and was exhibited a few years before the Revolution. It shows the father of the Horatii brothers holding swords as the sons take an oath to battle to the death for Rome. Rome was at war with the neighbouring city of Alba and three brothers from each side were sent to battle, even though there were intermarriages between the two families chosen.
This painting is important because it established Neoclassicism as a style and reinforced the importance of the history painting. Enlightenment thinkers like Diderot had called for art that depicts virtuous behaviour; unlike Rococo art, which depicted luxury and pleasure.
You can see that David is worried about appearing too close to the Rococo in his Monsieur et Madame Lavoisier (1788). This shows the Lavoisiers in their Parisian home, bonding over their shared intellectual interest; their Elements of Chemistry is on the desk. This also highlights the Enlightenment ideal of scientific thought. It’s important evidence about the rejection of Rococo ideas because of the findings of conservators at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2021. X-rays of the portrait revealed that David removed aristocratic-looking items from the original painting. The Lavoisiers were arrested during the Revolutionary Reign of Terror.
David’s The Death of Socrates (1787) was made two years before outbreak of the Revolution. It depicted Socrates’ decision to drink hemlock rather than escaping from prison when he had the chance, a decision which Plato’s Crito portrays as evidence of Socrates’ integrity and respect for Athens’ political system. In the context of the French Revolution, this highlights the need for sacrifice for the sake of higher principles.
Socrates’ features are inspired by ancient statues and his body is idealised. Socrates was 70 years old when he died, but David portrays him as athletic. This is typical of Neoclassical art, which often looks at the idealised forms of Raphael’s work during the Renaissance. The position of Socrates’ hands is also reminiscent of Raphael.
Another aspect of the painting that is typical of Neoclassical art is the strictly ordered composition and its solid, linear forms. There is an interesting relationship between the angles, lines and arches and the arms and bodies of the figures.
Some people think of David as the artist of the Revolution. He was a member of the Jacobins, the most radical group in the Revolution who advocated for a revolution and a republic. He was elected to the Assembly in 1792, where he voted in favour of the execution of King Louis XVI.
David’s The Death of Marat (1793) is one of the most famous painting of the Revolution. It depicts the 1793 assassination of David’s journalist and politician friend Jean-Paul Marat.
David became Napoleon’s court artist during the First Empire. His The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries (1812) shows Napoleon with his French Civil Code, a sword symbolising his military achievements and Plutarch’s Lives, celebrating notable Greek and Roman figures. David’s link to Napoleon meant that he had to go into exile following the Bourbon Restoration in 1814.
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres had grown up copying works by Boucher, Correggio, Raphael, and Rubens and he began studying at the Académie Royale de Peinture, Sculpture et Architecture in Toulouse as a boy. As a teenager, he moved to Paris to study under Jacques-Louis David. In 1801, Ingres won the Prix de Rome with his history painting, The Ambassadors of Agamemnon in the Tent of Achilles.
Ingres’ Napoleon on His Imperial Throne (1806) depicts Napoleon as Emperor of France, but it also makes Napoleon seem divine. It has been compared to Jan van Eyck’s Ghent Altarpiece (1432), the central panels of which were in the Musée Napoléon (now the Louvre) due to the Napoleonic Wars. One of the cartouches (oval containing an image) on the left-hand side of the rug shows Raphael’s Madonna della Seggiola (c. 1513–1514). That’s because Ingres admired Raphael so much.
Napoleon holds the sceptre of Charlemagne, one Napoleon’s heroes. It’s a huge painting and it is meant to be imposing. The Neoclassical style recalls Napoleon’s political authority and military power: in some ways, this shows how Ingres embodied the idea of the new French Republic.
Having said this, Ingres did depart from this tradition. His La Grande Odalisque (1814) is an Orientalist work that shows a concubine in the Sultan’s harem (not a goddess of antiquity). He also elongated the body in a way that was similar to the Mannerists style of the late Renaissance; for instance Parmigianino’s Madonna of the Long Neck (c. 1535).
Neoclassicism is often contrasted with Romanticism and Ingres’ style conflicted with Eugène Delacroix’s “nouvelle école” Romantic style. However, this painting, and Ingres’ career in general, is often seen as a fulcrum between Neoclassicism and Romanticism.
Ingres also tweaks human proportions in his Portrait of Madame Rivière (1805-6): he deliberately elongates Madame Rivière’s right arm so that it echoes the curve of the frame.
Romanticism and Théodore Géricault
Theodore Gericault was made famous by his huge Raft of the Medusa (1818–19), depicting living, dead and dying people chaotically adrift on a raft in the ocean. It was exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1819 and it depicted the wreckage of the French naval ship, Medusa, in 1816. The Medusa was on its way to Senegal with the new governor of the colony and his family, along with other government who planned to secretly carry on the abolished practice of slavery (others aboard the ship hoped to abolish it completely). When the ship ran into a sandbar, the governor and other VIPs were put into lifeboats while the other passengers were put onto a raft made from the masts. At one point, the rescue ship passed them by, not returning for another two hours.
Gericault studied the real-life movement of ships on the water, along with actual images on the raft’s design, making over one hundred studies of the bodies at different stages. His painting is important because, although he used the grand scale of French history painting, he abandoned ideal forms and the moralising story. Instead, he depicted a contemporary event, with the horror death and suffering—a typically Romantic treatment and very different from what Neoclassical artists like David were doing in paintings like the Oath of the Horatii (1784). Whereas David used clear, even light, Gericault’s treatment use dark, dramatic light in a way similar to Caravaggio.
Eugène Delacroix
Eugène Delacroix was a huge admirer of Géricault and, although Géricault was established earlier, they both trained in Paris under Pierre-Narcisse Guérin. Delacroix loved Gericault’s Raft of the Medusa and it had a big influence on him.
Delacroix was born in 1798 to an aristocratic family and was a child under Napoleon. Although his family had previously been rich, they lost all their money. Many of his family members served as soldiers and ambassadors in the Napoleonic government.
Delacroix made his name in 1824 with his Scenes from the Massacre at Chios, which he exhibited at the annual French Salon. It is characteristic of Romantic painters because it referenced a contemporary event: the attack on Chios by the Ottoman military in1822.
Delacroix was an admirer of Francisco de Goya, who (as we saw in our post on the art of the Rococo) was sensitive to the reality of suffering at the time. Goya’s The Third of May 1808 (1814) depicts the execution of Spanish civilians by Napoleon’s soldiers in retaliation for an uprising the previous day. Like Goya, Delacroix did not simply depict “heroic” war art, but showed the real horror of war for ordinary people. The fact that he also used very fluid brushwork rather than strict lines and a polished surface is also characteristic of his work.
One of Delacroix’s most famous paintings is Liberty Leading the People (1830), which honours the Revolution of 1830. Following the rule of Napoleon, there had been a Bourbon Restoration, with Charles X, Louis XVI’s brother taking the throne. His overthrow in the 1830 revolution led to Louis-Philippe, “the Citizen King,” ruling in the July Monarchy until 1848, when discontent with this regime led to Louis-Philippe’s deposal.
Liberty, who is stripped to the waist, is holding a bayonetted musket and the tricolor (the French national flag). She is wearing Phrygian cap, which freed slaves were given in ancient Rome. Liberty is an allegorical figure, with allusions to the Classical past—but the scene around her pertains to modern France. There is a soldier carrying the weapons of the Napoleonic Wars, but also clothing that suggests working-class status. Others wear clothing that signifies the upper classes. There are adults and children as well as someone wearing a faluche (a black velvet beret that students often wore). The action takes place near Notre Dame.
Delacroix had meant the work to be a classic history painting with Liberty as an allegorical figure, but critics saw it as a call to revolution. This made it difficult to decide whether the painting was to be put on show—France had experienced so much violence and political turbulence that it seemed reckless to display a painting that celebrated revolution. Louis-Philippe’s government initially put it on show, but then withdrew it again in 1832. It’s now one of the Louvre’s most popular works.
In January 1832, Delacroix travelled to Morocco. His Women of Algiers in Their Apartment (1834) shows Algerian women and a black servant in a luxuriously decorated room. It is typical of Romanticism because of Delacroix’s spontaneous brushstrokes; it is an example of Orientalism because of the way it romanticises life in the “orient.”
Reassessing Realism and Romanticism
We’ve seen that Romantic art was not afraid to embrace reality—so in some ways it is unfair to juxtapose it with “realism.” At the same time, people often report feeling calm and reassured when they look at Neoclassical Realist art—a different way of art engaging with emotions. Both styles have included Orientalism and references to Classical antiquity.
It would be unfair to characterise Neoclassical art as stuck in the past. In Ingres’ own notes, he once wrote, “Tout a été fait, tout a été trouvé. Notre tâche n’est pas d’inventer, mais de continuer” (“Everything has been done, everything has been discovered. Our task is not to invent, but to continue”). That’s because he had been criticised for his obvious references in his work to older works by Raphael and The Ghent Altarpiece. He was frustrated because he saw himself as continuing the conversation—why throw away the insights of those who had come before?
That didn’t stop Ingres from discovering authentic, human reality and depicting this in his art (click the link to read about his portrait of Louis François Bertin and the tenderness with which he portrayed Bertin’s personality on canvas)! You also can see this personal side of Neoclassical art in David’s Portrait of Jean-Pierre Delahaye (1815). Delahaye was a close friend of David and the portrait shows a more intimate side to his work.
You can definitely see stylistic and philosophical differences between Neoclassical Realism and Romanticism, but there’s a lot more to the styles than simple opposition. Both schools have a lot to offer when it comes to conversations about beauty, humanity and truth.
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