Chapter
27 Romanticism, Realism, Photography: Europe and America, 1800 to 1870
Napoleon
Bonaparte was an important patron of the arts in France at the turn of the 19th
century, appointing the Neoclassicist Jacques-Louis David as First Painter of
the Empire. But early in the 19th century, Neoclassicism gave way to
Romanticism as the dominant art form in Europe. Delacroix and Gericault became
the leading Romantic painters in France, favoring exotic subject matter and
employing bold, loose brushstrokes and vibrant color. In England, Germany, and
America, Romantic landscape painters took on transcendental themes. Photography
was invented simultaneously in France and England, and by the middle of the
century it was a burgeoning new artistic and documentary medium. The American
Civil War was one of the first major conflicts to be thoroughly documented in
photographs. In the mid-19th century, Realism emerged as the
dominant painting style, with artists such as Gustave Courbet in France and
Thomas Eakins rejecting revivalist styles and historical themes in favor of
depicting the people and events of their own times. Edouard Manet’s shocking
contemporary subject matter and no illusionistic painting style established the
terms of early Modern art.
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