The Rococco

Lecture notes on Rococco Art

In 1688 to 1697 Europe was embroiled in the War of the Grand Alliance, also known as the Nine Year's War followed by the War of the Spanish Succession which lasted from 1701 to 1714, the War of the Austrian Succession and numerous other wars that occupied the rest of the 18th Century.  Despite all of this warfare France and Britain maintained their territorial integrity and Europe embarked on “The Enlightenment”. Although Britain and the Netherlands turned towards more democratic forms of government the French and other parts of Europe experimented with absolute monarchy and establishing a huge gulf between a dilettante upper class and the population in general.

The enlightenment was a philosophical reaction to the new discoveries in science by Galileo, Newton, Leibniz and other scientists.  Science demonstrated that the natural world was ruled by rational relations between its components and was not subject to miracles and magic.  In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the chief concern of philosophers was to reason how religion and science could co-exist and to re-visit the rational basis for morals and ethics.  The chief philosophers of the Enlightenment were an early wave of philosophers such as Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, Renee Descartes, Spinoza, John Locke, then, in the eighteenth century, Hume, Kant, Adam Smith, Voltaire, de la Mettrie, Rousseau etc.   What characterised all of these is that God must be explained and humanity becomes part of the natural environment, subject to reason.  Some, such as de la Mettrie, even went as far as rational atheism.


This new philosophy loosened the bonds between the highly educated and the Church, even in Catholic countries such as France.

In France and to some extent in mainland Europe as a whole, the 17th and 18th centuries marked the rebirth of the Ancient Greek Symposium in the form of the “Salon”.  The Salon was a place where a wealthy patron would gather together a group of people to discuss and study artistic, philosophical, scientific and political matters.

Salons became the place where the wealthier urban elite could show off new styles of decoration, furnishing, erudition and art.  This new taste was then copied by their wealthy friends.

The new style in the arts, although sometimes labelled “Late Baroque” or "High Baroque", owes little to the Council of Trent and a great deal to the looser tastes of the Enlightened rich.  “Rococco” is a more appropriate name. 

Fête champêtre and Fête Galante

The Fête champêtre was a form of garden party that was popular in 17th century France.  Such parties would involve orchestras and fancy dress.  The Fête Galante was a courtship party – a Fête champêtre attended by eligible young folk.  Paintings of such parties became popular amongst the wealthy.

Claude Gilot 1673 – 1722

Gilot was a commercial artist who painted theatre sets, produced engravings, illustrated books and produced paintings.  He ran a successful studio in Paris.  His style of art was highly commercial and adapted to theatre set design.  His studio provided employment for two famous Rococco artists: Watteau and Lancret.

Gilot introduced the painting of Fête champêtres and this style was perfected by his pupils.

Jean-Antoine Watteau 1684-1721

Watteau was born in Valenciennes.  In 1702 he moved to Paris where he obtained employment making copies of Dutch genre paintings.  He then became apprenticed to Claude Gilot between 1703 and 1708. 

Watteau became a member of Academy in 1714 but only finished his reception piece, the demonstration artwork to justify his membership, in 1717. His reception piece was the Embarkation for Cythera.  The French Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture (which subsequently became the Academy des Beaux Arts) created a special category, the Fête champêtre, to allow Watteau's painting to be accepted as an equal of the biblical, historical and mythological paintings that were generally allowed as fine art.

Cythera is the mythical island where Venus, the goddess of love, was said to be born.  Watteau's painting shows a Fête galante with nobles enacting a journey to the island.

François Boucher 1703-1770

Francois Boucher's painting marked the high point of the French Rococco.  He was born in Paris to an artist father.  In 1730 he became a member of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture and became First Painter to the King in 1765.

Like Gilot and Watteau, Boucher also designed and executed paintings for theatrical sets. Many of Boucher's paintings were distinctly erotic and suited the moral climate of the pre-revolutionary French Court.

Boucher was a particular favourite of Madame de Pompadour, the Chief Mistress of Louis XV.

Jean-Honoré Fragonard 1732-1806

Fragonard was born in Grasse, France.  He began work as a student notary but his gift for painting was evident and at 18 he was apprenticed to the artist Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, having been rejected as an apprentice by Francois Boucher.  Six months later he was accepted into Boucher's studio.

Fragonard won the prix de Rome in 1752 with “Jeroboam Sacrificing to Idols”

This painting was in the Academic style but Fragonard is known for his Rococco work, the most famous being “The Swing”. Fragonard was an artist who could paint in either style with ease and by comparing his academic work with the Swing the stylistic features of the Rococco are obvious.

A lot of rather serious analyses of the Swing are available but it is really a sophisticated cartoon for the amusement of wealthy patrons.  Fragonard truly summarises the rococco style in this picture with the lightly drawn faces and foliage, the whole painting is dedicated to communicating the joke.  

You can almost imagine tipsy, wealthy Frenchmen swirling their brandies as they peruse the picture after lunch, one saying to the others “Mon dieu, imagine that!”.  There is almost a hint of British 1950s seaside postcards in the Rococco.

But obviously Rococco paintings have more class.


The rococco spread across Europe.  Its greatest exponents in Italy were Francesco Guardi and Giovanni Battista Tiepolo.



Giovanni Battista Tiepolo 1696-1770.

Tiepolo was born in Venice Much of Tiepolo's work is truly high baroque rather than rococco, the focus being on grand mythological and religious themes.

But he was also capable of lighter hearted rococco paintings such as Rinaldo Enchanted by Almeda:

Francesco Guardi 1712 - 1793

Guardi was also a Venetian artist.  Much of his work consisted of landscapes and especially urban views of Venice.  Although a capable academic artist he adopted the freedom and inventiveness that was part of the rococco style.

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes 1746-1828

The Spanish artist Francisco Goya was the most prominent exponent of the Rococco style in Spain.   He was born in Aragon and at age 14 he was apprenticed to the artist Jose Luzan and then moved to Madrid where he studied under Anton Mengs, one of the first neoclassical artists.

William Hogarth 1697-1764

Hogarth was the son of a Latin teacher who was also a bit of an entrepreneur.  His father set up a coffee shop where the customers and staff spoke Latin.  His father ended up in Fleet Debtors prison for 5 years.  Hogarth trained as an engraver and his paintings were often models for subsequent engravings.    He also produced numerous portraits for customers.

Captain George Graham, painted in 1745, is a good example of Hogarth's wit and skill.  It is amusing to read critiques of this painting, incorrectly suggesting that Hogarth was painting the dogs as prominent members of the company to show what he thought of the people.  The painting was a commission and so involved the acquiescence of Captain Graham.  The dogs are part of the scene as dogs often are in British society, the dog that is sitting with the wig on is  probably Hogarth's pug who is shown in a portrait of the same year. The intention of the painting is rococco hilarity, from the steward spilling gravy down the back of the clergyman to the dog in fancy dress.  Captain Graham wanted to show that he could take life lightly despite his daily risk of death in war.

Hogarth's self portrait, shown above,  is a picture within the picture.

Hogarth is most famous for his series of pictoral moral tales. These are the Harlot's and Rake's Progresses, Marriage à-la-mode, Industry and Idleness, “Beer Street and Gin Lane” and The Four Stages of Cruelty.

Each series was produced as a set of paintings and as engravings.  The Rake's Progress consisted of 8 pictures.  Painting 1 is reproduced below.

Epilogue

The Rococco was a short-lived period in art.  It began in about 1700 but as early as 1750 Winckelmann was extolling the virtues of Classical Greek art and suggesting that artists should follow the example of Raphael in the absence of original Greek paintings.  The new Neoclassical style offered the stillness and nobility that the revolutionary sentiment of the late Enlightenment required.

Baroque Art

Lecture notes for Baroque Art.

Baroque Art has its roots in the Counter-Reformation which was launched by the Catholic Church to oppose the Protestant revolution.

In the mid 16th century Europe was experiencing the first skirmishes of the conflict between Protestants and Catholics that culminated in the devastating Thirty Years War (1618-1648).  This was perhaps the worst war in European history with about 8 million deaths (proportionately equivalent to perhaps 80 million today), severely depopulating vast swathes of central Europe.  The events in Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are scarcely covered in English school history because during this period England was involved in its own revolutions, from the Reformation to the English Civil War. The devastation that swept Europe was followed by the Plague which was even worse.



In  1545 the Hapsburg and Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, was optimistic that a compromise could be found between the Protestants and Catholics.  The Council of Trent (1545-1563) was initially convened to mediate between the Protestant and Catholic theologies.   When the Council finally ended it issued a string of decrees opposing Protestantism and declaring that Protestants were “anathema”: cursed and excommunicated.  This laid the foundations for the subsequent wars.  However,the Council also decreed that art should be a vehicle for communicating the message of Catholicism to the masses.

The 25th, and last, session of the Council decreed that:

“And the bishops shall carefully teach this, that, by means of the histories of the mysteries of our Redemption, portrayed by paintings or other representations, the people are instructed, and confirmed in remembering, and continually revolving in mind the articles of faith; as also that great profit is derived from all sacred images, not only because the people are thereby admonished of the benefits and gifts bestowed upon them by Christ, but also because the miracles which God has performed by means of the saints, and their salutary examples, are set before the eyes of the faithful; that so they may give God thanks for those things; may order their own lives and manners in imitation of the saints; and may be excited to adore and love God, and to cultivate piety.”

This decree led artists back to the early years of Christianity and to  revisit the classical forms of architecture as well as to produce a profusion of images of religious themes.  The essence of the new style was to produce a dynamic story of religious events.

The new approach to art began with architecture.  Baroque architecture was an evolution of Renaissance architecture but it was embellished with a mass of classical motifs and sought to present a building as a unity, even if this involved spurious volutes and scrolls that had no functional role. One of the first Baroque architects was Giacomo Della Porta (1541?-1604) who designed the church "Il Gesu".

These early, ecclesiastical Baroque buildings appear almost normal to modern eyes because they became a norm for architecture into the nineteenth century.

The new artistic style became named “Baroque”, from the Portuguese 'barocco' meaning, 'irregular pearl or stone'.  It was a derogatory term devised by those who thought the new style was imperfect.


The Baroque is divided into two, and sometimes with the inclusion of “Late Baroque”, three periods.

Early Baroque, c. 1590 – c. 1625
High Baroque, c. 1625 – c. 1660
Late Baroque (overlaps and includes Rococo), c. 1660 – c. 1725

Dutch art between 1590 and 1700 is often also called "baroque" but although it shared technical achievements with the general, European baroque, it differed in style and, most importantly in content. (See Dutch Art)

Baroque painting became highly popular as a result of the work of Annibale Carracci and Michelangelo de Caravaggio.

Annibale Carracci (1560-1609)

In 1582 Annibale Carracci, his brother Agostino and cousin Ludovico Carracci shared a studio in Bologna called Academy of the Desirious, later called the Academy of the Journeying (Accademia degli Incamminati).   They worked together on paintings until the 1590s. In 1595 Annibale and Agostino travelled to Rome where they completed a commission to decorate the Villa Farnese and later the Farnese Palace.

Carracci was producing religious paintings throughout the 1590s. His altar painting, “The Virgin Mourning Christ”,  is perhaps the most famous  and has all of the elements of drama and naturalism desired by the Catholic Reformation.

Michelangelo de Caravaggio (1573-1610)

Michelangelo da Caravaggio came from a small village near Milan and joined the studio of Simone Peterzano.  He went to Rome in the mid 1590s.  His dramatic approach to religious art was exactly what was required by his patrons.  One of his most dramatic paintings is “Doubting Thomas”.

Notice the chiaroscuro (light and dark contrast), it verges on tenebrism (extreme contrast), this technique had been pioneered by the Renaissance artist Correggio.

Guido Reni 1575-1642

Guido Reni was born in Bologna and apprenticed from the age of nine in the studio of Denis Calvaert.  At twenty he moved to the Carracci studio in Bologna and in 1601 travelled to Rome to join the Carracci brothers working on the Farnese Palace in Rome. In 1604 he started to work independently, being patronised by Cardinal Paolo Emilio Sfondrati and later, from 1607-14 he was patronised by the Borghese family.

He was extremely popular for his portraits of saints and holy scenes.

His painting of St Michael the Archangel shows Satan being defeated. In this picture Reni uses a slightly more colourful palette, perhaps influenced by  Caravaggio and he was deliberately abstracting the beauty of the archangel in the fashion of Raphael.  The model for Satan is the Cardinal Giovanni Battista Pamphilj whom Reni believed had slandered him.

Annabale Carracci, Reni and their followers adopted a programme of the idealization of and beautification of nature in art.  This became known as the neo-classical or academic movement in art.  Perhaps one of the greatest masters of this approach was Nicolas Poussin.

Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665)

Nicolas Poussin was born in Normandy and became apprenticed as an artist at a young age.  He ran away to Paris at eighteen and joined the studios of some Flemish artists. He was later employed by Giambattista Marino, the court poet to the Medicis, and joined Marino's  household.  In 1624 he was asked to join the household in Rome. Whilst in Rome Cardinal Barberini became his patron for a series of paintings.

Poussin was true to the guiding principles of the Baroque, using realistically painted images to further the Catholic  Church.  His “Ordination” is one of a series of seven sacraments.

One of Poussin's most famous pictures is “Et in Arcadia Ego”, which means “And I am in Arcadia”.  This  has three, concerned looking shepherds poring over a tomb.  A wise looking woman places her hand on the shoulder of one of the shepherds as if to reassure him.

Over a century later Poussin was to become  a major influence on the later revolutionary neo-classical artists such as Jacques-Louis David.

Claude Lorrain (1600-82)

Claude Lorrain was the pre-eminent landscape painter of the early 17th Century.  He was born in the Duchy of Lorraine, part of the Holy Roman Empire.  He was orphaned at the age of 12 and moved to live with his older brother Jean Gellée, who was an artist.   In the early 1620s Claude moved to Rome where he became a servant in the house of the painter Agostini Tassi.

He briefly returned to Lorraine in c. 1625 then moved to Rome permanently. He painted commissions for ambassadors and the rich and famous, including Pope Urban VIII.  Landscape was not considered to have a moral purpose by the Catholic Church of the Counter Reformation so Claude incorporated religious figures and classical themes into his landscapes.
 

Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640)

Born in Germany to a Calvinist father, his family moved to Cologne in 1578, his father died in 1587 and in 1589 the family moved to Antwerp after it had been captured and depopulated by Hapsburg forces. Rubens was raised as a Catholic.

At the age of 14 he started his artistic apprenticeship and by the age of 21, in 1598, he became a member of the Antwerp Guild of St Luke as a master.

In 1600 he travelled to Italy. One of his first commissions was for an altar piece, “St Helena with the True Cross”.

Rubens was in demand for portraits.

In 1608 Rubens moved to Antwerp and established a studio.  In 1609 he became court painter to the sovereigns of the Low Countries: Archduchess Isabella and Albert VII, the Archduke of Austria.  His most famous pupil was Anthony Van Dyck.

Rubens has a reputation for painting rather plump ladies which has led to the term “Rubenesque”

Anthony Van Dyck 1599-1641

Anthony Van Dyck was perhaps the most famous of Rubens' pupils, particularly in England.  Van Dyck was born in Antwerp.  At the age of ten he was studying with Hendrick van Balen and by 1615 he had set up an independent studio with Jan Brueghel the Younger. In 1618 he joined the Antwerp Guild of St Luke and was the chief assistant to Rubens.  In 1620 he was invited by the Marquesse of Buckingham to spend four months in England.  In 1623 he moved to Italy for six years, being largely based in Genoa but travelling widely in the country, studying the masters and performing commissions for local aristocrats.

In 1632 he was invited to England by Charles I to be the “principal painter in ordinary to their majesties”.  He was paid a retainer of £200 a year and further paid for each picture.

The Spanish Golden Age

Between 1519 and 1554 the  Hapsburg Empire ruled much of Europe and was based in Madrid.  This was the start of the “Spanish Golden Age” when a Spanish-German superpower conquered a global empire. On  his death Charles V divided the empire into two Hapsburg dominated empires: the Spanish and Holy Roman Empires. The two halves were frequently allies.

Diego Velazquez 1599-1660

Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez was  born in Seville in 1599. At the age of eleven he was apprenticed to the artist Francisco de Herrera in Seville then moved to the studio of Francisco Pacheco at the age of 12 and married his daughter Juana in 1618.  In 1622 he moved to Madrid and rapidly rose to become the official court painter by 1623.

In 1628 Velazquez met Rubens, who stayed in Madrid on a diplomatic mission for seven months.  In 1629 he went to Italy for 18 months and studied the masters.  As a court painter he recorded important state events such as the Surrender of Breda.

Perhaps one of his greatest works was “Las Meninas”, shown below:

“One of the infantas, Margaret Theresa, the eldest daughter of the new Queen, appears to be the subject of Las Meninas (1656, English: The Maids of Honour), Velázquez's magnum opus. However, in looking at the various viewpoints of the painting it is unclear as to who or what is the true subject. Is it the royal daughter, or perhaps the painter himself? The answer may lie in the image on the back wall, depicting the King and Queen. Is this image a mirror, in which case the King and Queen are standing where the spectator stands? Are they the subject of Velázquez's work? Or is the work simply a court painting?” Wikipedia


Bartolomé Esteban Murillo 1617-1682

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo was born in Seville (or nearby). His father was a surgeon barber and both of his parents died when he was young.  He was raised by his aunt and uncle and apprenticed to the artist Juan del Castillo at a young age.  In 1642 he moved to Madrid and was influenced by Dutch Art and Velazquez.  The Dutch influence is evident in his “Holy Family with Dog”.

In 1645 he returned to Seville and married Beatriz Cabrera y Villalobos and they had 11 children.

He produced numerous religious paintings of saints and the holy family but also some charming pictures of everyday life.  Murillo co-founded the Seville Academy of Fine Arts in Seville.  It was a strictly Catholic institution and the members had to swear to Catholic orthodoxy by declaring:  “Praised be the most holy Eucharist and the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady”.

Non-Native North American Art History

The art of North America has several periods:

Colonial Art to 1776

In the 18th and later centuries there were American versions of the movements in European art in the 19th Century, often with a 10 or 20 year delay.  The following are all represented:


Neo-Classical,
Romantic,
Pre-Raphaelite,
Naturalist,
Realist,
Impressionist

The American credentials of the artists were justifiably highlighted by prefixing the word “American” because they often took the movements in a distinctly American direction. 

American Colonial Art

It is unfortunate that many paintings produced in North America during the 16th to 19th centuries have been lost.  The Americans had a cavalier attitude to their past and even as late as 1979 I remember seeing a street in Philadelphia preserved as the “oldest city street” whilst wrecking balls were destroying nearby buildings of apparently identical age and architectural merit.

“Interestingly enough, the first account of an American landscape painter comes from Puritan Boston in 1740 when the New England Journal announced the death of the thirty-six-year-old Nathaniel Emmons. "He was universally own'd to be the greatest master of various Sorts of Painting that ever was born in this Country. And his excellent Works were the pure Effect of his own Genius, without receiving any Instructions from others." The obituary goes on to mention his "Rivers, Banks and Rural Scenes," none of which, apparently, have survived.”  (AL Cummings)

The artists of this period were chiefly involved in documenting events, places and people.  This gives them a considerable charm that derives from their historical interest. The artists are sometimes called “Limners”, a term for early American untutored artists, and the names of these artists are often lost.

Although the artist is unknown there are records of “Mrs Freake. Elizabeth Freake was born May 22, 1642, the daughter of Thomas (d. 1682/3) and Mary Clarke, in Dorchester, south of Boston. On May 28, 1661, Elizabeth Clarke married John Freake (1631–1675) in Boston.  John emigrated about 1658 from England and was a successful merchant and attorney who held public office as a juryman and a constable. The Freakes settled in Boston's North End, and between 1662 and 1674 Elizabeth gave birth to eight children.7 John Freake died in an accident in 1675, leaving Elizabeth a substantial fortune. “ http://www.worcesterart.org/collection/Early_American/Artists/unidentified_17th/elizabeth_f/painting-discussion.html

Colonial era artists

Captain Thomas Smith (1650-1700)
John Singleton Copley
Robert Feke (1707-1752)
John Smibert (1688-1751)
Gilbert Stuart
Charles Bridges (1670-1747)
Benjamin West

The self portrait by Captain Thomas Smith 1680 (below) is the earliest known American self portrait.







































The consulting Curator of American Art, Dallas Museum of Art, Eleanor Jones Harvey, described some of these early artists:

"John Smibert was the first professionally trained portraitist in the American colonies. He came to the colonies in 1728 and immediately established the new standard for colonial portraiture.

Copley was the natural inheritor of that tradition. He was essentially self-taught, yet he exceeded all expectations of his ability to portray the people of his place and time. Gilbert Stuart raises questions about the nature of patriotism when the sitter is made to resemble the President and First Lady of the new United States,"

Post Independence Art

In Canada and the USA artists tended to follow the European fashions, in the USA the Neoclassical style was appropriate to depict the new leaders.

William S. Jewett
Edward Savage (1761–1817)
James Peale (1749-1831)
Benjamin West
Martin Johnson Heade

Benjamin West 1738-1820


Benjamin West was one of the most accomplished colonial era artists. In the painting “General Johnson” he uses the techniques of the Rococco style, having recently spent 3 years in Itay.  The painting depicts an incident in the North American theatre of the Seven Years War in which the British General Johnson saves the wounded French officer Baron Dieskau from being scalped by a Mohawk (The Mohawks were allies of the British).

Later Benjamin West tried his hand at the neoclassical style:

American Pre-Raphaelites

In Britain the Pre-Raphaelites started in 1848 and were a movement that extended through most of the nineteenth century. The American Pre-Raphaelites took to heart the teachings of Ruskin.  They were led by Thomas Charles Farrer and in 1863 founded the "Association for the Advancement of Truth in Art" which published "The New Path". The members were:  John William Hill, his son, John Henry Hill, Charles Herbert Moore, Henry Roderick Newman, Robert J. Pattison and William Trost Richards.  The movement petered out in about 1870.  The American Pre-Raphaelites were focussed on portraying nature as perfectly as possible and were less interested in mythological and religious themes than the Europeans.

Pre-Raphaelites were symbolists and according to Victorian symbolism Hill's painting is very straightforward:  the dog rose means pleasure and pain, the red currant symbolises life or blood, the egg birth or even creation.


American Naturalism

Naturalism in the visual arts is the desire to represent nature in as accurate and detailed fashion as possible.  There was a strong naturalist tradition in England in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century represented by the English Landscape School and culminating in the work of John Constable. This naturalist style was a major influence in Europe and was known in the USA.  It gave rise to the Barbizon style in France.  However, the extent to which it influenced American Naturalism, beyond the idea of a faithful reproduction of nature, is in doubt.

The high point of American Naturalist painting in the nineteenth century was the Hudson River School.  This was founded by Thomas Cole.

The Hudson River School

Thomas Cole (1801 – 1848)

Thomas Cole moved from England to the USA in 1818 and pursued portrait painting, studying with an artist called Stein. His real interest lay with landscape painting and in 1824 he moved to Philadelphia where he spent a short time at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts which had been founded in 1805.  He moved to New York in 1825 where he helped to found the National Academy of Design which subsequently became known as the “National Academy”.

The Hudson River School grew around Cole's love of the American landscape, he was joined by his close friend Asher Durand and had a gifted pupil Frederic Edwin Church. This trio formed the nucleus of the Hudson River School which grew with the addition of Durand's friends John Frederick Kensett and John William Casilear and then expanded as many other artists joined them.  A notable member was Albert Bierstadt who later became an important artist in the “Rocky Mountain School”, or group of artists, who painted the landscape of the American West.


American Luminism

Luminism was a style of painting in which the brush strokes are carefully hidden, giving a more photographic realism to paintings. It was a style that was popularised by the seventeenth century  Leiden Fine Artists, especially Gerrit Dou, and may have been learnt by Durand and his friends in a tour of Europe.  It became, to some extent, a hallmark of the Hudson River School and is known as American Luminism in this context.

Niagara Falls by Frederick Edwin Church (1857) is a good example of both the Naturalism and Luminism of the Hudson River School

American Impressionism

Impressionism had begun in France in about 1863-65.  The American artist, Mary Cassatt was central to the development of Impressionism owing to her wealthy connections in Philadelphia (and superb paintings) but she was central to European Impressionism, not American.  James Whistler and John Singer Sergeant were successful American masters who skilfully incorporated the Impressionist style in their art but again they were deeply involved in Europe.   It was probably the Impressionist exhibitions in New York and other major American Cities from the 1880s onwards and the visits of American artists to France in the late nineteenth century that stimulated a truly American Impressionist movement.

American Impressionists were notable for working in artistic colonies at places such as at Cos Cob and Old Lyme, Connecticut, both on Long Island Sound; New Hope, Pennsylvania, on the Delaware River; and Brown County, Indiana,in California at Carmel and Laguna Beach; in New York on eastern Long Island at Shinnecock.

There is something languid and upper class about American Impressionism and this repelled the artists who became the later American Realists.

There were numerous American Impressionists, here is a list of some of the more notable:

William Merritt Chase, Edmund Tarbell, Frank W. Benson,  Childe Hassam, Joseph Rodefer De Camp, William James Glackens, Willard Leroy Metcalf, Ernest Lawson, Robert Spencer, Robert Vonnoh.



American Realism

American Realism was a movement in the arts that was devoted to portraying the lives of ordinary people and portraying ordinary places.  It was a continuation of much of earlier American art which had always eschewed the mythological or allegorical, perhaps because the varied origins of Americans meant that there were few common themes and because Protestants were not fond of religious art.  American Realists emphasized the ordinary rather than the wealthy or special.  Nineteenth century American artists often found employment as illustrators with the large number of magazines and newspapers that were popular at that time and this also predisposed them to Realism.

Winslow Homer  (1836-1910)

Winslow Homer was probably the most accomplished artist of the mid-late 19th Century USA.  He received his art education at the National Academy of Design.  His style is fairly unique, being a synthesis of many of the styles present in around 1860.

He spent 20 years of his working life as a freelance illustrator submitting illustrations to publications such as “Harper's Weekly”.   Harpers sent him to the front to cover the American Civil War.

In December 1866 he went to France for a year and studied French Realists such as Courbet and Millet.

Later American Realism

In the late 19th century there was a realist reaction to the art of the wealthy that was dominating American Impressionism. 

The Ashcan School

These artists rejected American Impressionism and believed in urban realism.  Some of the artists worked to a socialist ideal.  They originally consisted of the "Philadelphia Five": Robert Henri, George Luks, William Glackens, John Sloan, and Everett Shinn. All except Henri were illustrators and trained by Henri at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. The five migrated to New York from 1896 onwards.

The group expanded rapidly to include artists such as George Bellows, Glenn O. Coleman, Jerome Myers, Gifford Beal, Eugene Higgins, Carl Springchorn, and Edward Hopper although Edward Hopper is often thought to have worked outside of the ideals of the Ashcan School.

(The “Eight” were a group who exhibited together occasionally: the Philadelphia 5 plus  Arthur B. Davies, Ernest Lawson, and Maurice Prendergast.  Davies was post-impressionist and later cubist, Prendergast was post-impressionist and Lawson was impressionist.)

THE BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN LANDSCAPE PAINTING BY ABBOTT LOWELL CUMMINGS
Assistant, Department of American Art  http://www.metmuseum.org/pubs/bulletins/1/pdf/3258297.pdf.bannered.pdf