Art History Review: Rococo --> Impressionism

Art History Review: Rococo --> Impressionism

Timeline

• Rococo (follows Baroque)

• Neoclassicism

• Romanticism

• Impressionism

Key Points: Rococo

• Kitsch - artwork that doesn't challenge viewers' beliefs, does not prompt critical thought, artwork with no significant meaning (a lot of kitsch artwork is mass produced/knick knack things sold at chain stores)

• Important artists: Watteau (painted scenes of high society/nobility [lush gardens, figures in expensive clothes, etc.]), Chardin (Zahr-don) (painted scenes of daily life for the normal person [still-life paintings of household objects, figures in normal clothes, etc.])

• Associated with King Louis XIV (14)

Neoclassicism

"Neoclassicism" --> "New Classic" [borrowed traits from Classical Greek and Roman art] --> "idealism" --> healthy people, figures that look like statues, Roman stories depicted in paintings

Jacques Louis David -> Artist of "Oath of Horatii (shown on the right) --> Roman story of two families who are friends but live in cities at war with one another

Was the movement during the French Revolition

Romanticism

• An art period that was a direct response to neoclassicism --> artists wanted to show more drama and emotion (instead of the "ideal/perfect" and "unmoving" neoclassic paintings)

• Human figures in Romantic works were often posed mid-motion, like they were in the middle of an adventure --> sometimes shown as sick, with imperfect bodies, etc.

Impressionism

- Started by a group of French artists who were rejected from the Salon (annual art exhibit in Paris), who decided to hold their own exhibit

- Impressionism --> characterized by a "first iimpression" of light on a subject, usually a landscape // critics during this period (late 1800's) said it looked "unfinished" (first said about the painting shown on the right

- Significant artist from this period: Claude Monét --> "Impressionism; Sunset" (shown to the right)