Ch.19 - France during la Belle Epoque Flashcards
Entrance to the Louvre Métro Station, 1889-1905
Hector Guimard
This design represented something new for it’s time, known as “art nouveau”/new art.
Emerges in a specific place, La Maison de l’Art Nouveau. Run by Siegfried Bing.
Bing commissioned Parisian artists and design cabinetmakers to make Art Nouveau. Curved and rounded, organic and naturalistic forms and shapes. Highly decorative, emphasis on pattern and nature.
The inspiration for this style is: Tiffany stained glass, but also the Arts and Crafts movement/ William Morris, and even Rococo. Japanese art was also an influence, including porcelain. Branches, trees, growing vines, etc.
Le Divan Japonais, 1892-93
Henri de Toulouse Lautrec
Important to note that the emphasis is on the spectators and not the performers.
Events to promote, development of lithographic processes, meant that ads were being made in mass amounts.
Flat areas of pure colour, strong outlines. The perspective he chose for this piece was influenced by Japanese print.
Viewer is drawn to, or is part of, the audience, as opposed to the woman on stage. A different take on space form and composition.
In the Salon of the Brothel, 1894
Henri de Toulouse Lautrec
He was also a painter. His paintings show some of the same subjects as his posters.
Nightlife in Montmartre. Lives of sex-trade workers is a big one. Lautrec actually lived in a brothel for a period of time.
Lautrec broke both his legs, and they never healed properly. He was very short and looked fragile. He was allowed to live in the brothels because he wasn’t seen as a threat.
These women are not idealized, they look worn out, tired.
Technique he uses is oil painting, with the paint thinned out tremendously with turpentine. Creates a layering effect/ washed out feeling
He was often made fun of. Became an alcoholic and died at age 36. He had a cane that was hollow and filled with booze!
Vision After the Sermon, 1888
Paul Gauguin
Composition of this piece is notable, the diagonal tree trunk against a darkly silhouetted background
He was in search of the primitive. He believed that the obsessions of modern life caused people to neglect their inner life. The values, emotions, etc.
He was a stock broker who decided to go into art full time. Had a wife and family. He decided he needed to leave and went to Brittany. Rural society with peasant people and more of a primitive culture. He wanted to paint what modern industrialist society had lost. Somewhere more contrasting to Paris.
Many tourists were in Brittany, which Gauguin didn’t like.
Shows Breton women coming home from church. These women are seen as simple, and pure in faith.
We’re not looking at snapshot of a scene you would see in reality. It’s the vision these women are seeing in their minds.
Unrealistic representation of an angel wrestling a man. Interestingly, it was common practice after church for men to have wrestling matches, which is very odd.
Gauguin is all about the subjectivity of it. He criticized the Impressionists for being too objective.
Tahitian Women on the Beach, 1891
Paul Gauguin
He was influenced by the 1889 expo, and things that were displayed there.
He finds in Tahiti a French Colony, missionaries, who make the women dress a certain way. French police, post office, and French grocery store. It still wasn’t the pre-civilized world he was hoping for.
Woman on the left is wearing something traditional, woman on right is wearing a dress she’s been told to wear by the missionaries. Left woman is weaving a basket for tourists
The Specter Watches Over Her, 1892
Paul Gauguin
Combines the real and spiritual world. Young woman, who is 13-year-old mistress, is lying on the bed freaking out. Typical of the superstitious belief that spirits of the dead come out at night
Weird flower-like phosphorescent lights in the sky.
Combination of viewing this girl, but also the world she is experiencing in the moment.
The “where and why” are important to give this piece context.
Symbolism is often used to describe Gauguin’s works. There’s always a connection to the European in his works, even though they aren’t painted In Europe.
Gauguin creates what is known as a “synthetic” method.
Jupiter and Semele, 1890-95
Gustave Moreau
Moreau uses incredible elements of texture and color. Almost a hallucinatory environment.
Again, not biblical, but mythological. Jupiter has an affair with a mortal woman.
Larger issues of humanity, life death, sense that you only come to be with god is “through death”. Mortality/immortality.
The Age of Bronze, 1877
Auguste Rodin
Sculpting in the 19th century: rooted mainly in the conservative styles of neo-classicism and maybe romanticism/realism. Primarily conservative
Rodin was criticized highly for this sculpture, but it was eventually purchased by the French state.
Soldier was used as a model, which was controversial.
He was commissioned to do fairly traditional sculptures. John the Baptist, etc.
