Contents
Introduction
Old and new histories of art.—Seeming “restlessness” of the nineteenth century.—To recognise “style” in modern art, and to prove the logic of its evolution, the principles of judgment in the old art-histories are also to be employed for the new.—The question is, what new element the age brought into the history of art, not what it borrowed eclectically from earlier ages
Book I
The Legacy of the Eighteenth Century
Chapter I
Commencement of Modern Art in England
The commencement of modern art in England.—Two divisions of modern art since the sixteenth century.—Classic and naturalistic schools.—English succeed the Dutch in the seventeenth century.—William Hogarth: his purpose and his inartistic methods.—Sir Joshua Reynolds.—Thomas Gainsborough.—Comparison between them.—Reynolds, an historical painter; Gainsborough, a painter of landscape.—Pictures of Richard Wilson show the end of classical landscape.—Those of Gainsborough, the beginning of “paysage intime”
Chapter II
The Historical Position of Art on the Continent
English influence upon the art of the Continent from the middle of the eighteenth century.—Sturm-und-Drang period in literature.—Rousseau.—Goethe’s “Werther.”—Schiller’s “Robbers.”—Spain: Francis Goya, his pictures and etchings.—France: Antoine Watteau frees himself from “baroque” influences, and directs the tendency of French art towards the Low Countries.—Pastel: Maurice Latour, Rosalba Carriera, Liotard.—Society painters: Lancrat, Pater.—The decorative painters: François Lemoine, François Boucher, Fragonard.—“Society” turns virtuous.—Jean Greuze.—Middle-class society and its depicter, Jean Baptiste Siméon Chardin.—Germany: Lessing frees the drama from the classical yoke of Boileau, and, following the English, produces in “Minna” the first domestic tragedy.—Daniel Chodowiecki as the portrayer of the German middle class.—Tischbein goes back to the national past.—Posing disappears in portrait painting.—Antoine Pesne.—Anton Graff.—Christian Lebrecht Vogel.—Johann Edlinger.—The revival of landscape.—Rousseau’s influence.—English garden-style succeeds the French style.—Disappearance of “nature choisie” in painting.—Hubert Robert.—Joseph Vernet.—Salomon Gessner.—Ludwig Hess.—Philip Hackert.—Johann Alexander Thiele.—Antonio Canale.—Bernardo Canaletto.—Francesco Guardi.—Don Petro Rodriguez de Miranda.—Don Mariano Ramon Sanchez.—The animal painters: François Casanova, Jean Louis de Marne, Jean Baptiste Oudry, Johann Elias Riedinger.—An event in the history of art: in place of the prevailing Cinquecento and the “sublime style of painting” degraded at the close of the seventeenth century, a simple and sincere art succeeds throughout the whole of Europe.—Return to what Dürer and the Little Masters of the sixteenth century and the Dutch of the seventeenth century originated
Chapter III
The Classical Reaction in Germany
The influence of the antique at the end of the eighteenth century shows no advance, but an unnatural retrograde movement, and notes in Germany the beginning of the same decadence which had happened in Italy with the Bolognese, in France with Poussin, and in Holland with Gérard de Lairesse.—The teachings of Winckelmann, Anton Rafael Mengs, Angelica Kauffmann.—The younger generation carries out the classical programme in the value it sets upon technical traditions.—Asmus Jacob Carstens.—Buonaventura Genelli
Chapter IV
The Classical Reaction in France
In France also the classical tendency in art was no new thing, but a revival of the antique which was restored to life by the foundation of the French Academy in Rome in 1663.—Influence of archæological studies.—Elizabeth Vigée-Lebrun.—The Revolution heightens the enthusiasm for the antique, and once more gives Classicism an appearance of brilliant animation.—Jacques Louis David.—His portraits and his pictures in relation to contemporary history.—David as an archæologist.—Jean Baptiste Regnault.—François André Vincent.—Guérin
Book II
The Escape Into the Past
Chapter V
The Nazarenes
Influence of literature.—Wackenroder.—Tieck.—The Schlegels.—Instead of the antique, the Italian Quattrocento appears as the model for the schools.—Frederick Overbeck.—Philip Veit.—Joseph Führich.—Edward Steinle—Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld.—Their pictures and their drawings
Chapter VI
The Art of Munich Under King Ludwig I
Chapter VII
The Düsseldorfers
On the Rhine, a school of painting instead of a school of drawing.—Wilhelm Schadow, Carl Friedrich Lessing, Theodor Hildebrandt, Carl Sohn, Heinrich Mücke, Christian Koehler, H. Plüddemann, Eduard Bendemann, Theodor Mintrop, Friedrich Ittenbach, Ernest Deger.—Why their pictures, despite technical merits, have become antiquated
Chapter VIII
The Legacy of German Romanticism
Alfred Rethel and Moritz Schwind oppose the Roman with the German tradition.—Their pictures and drawings 167
Chapter IX
The Forerunners of Romanticism in France
Last years of the David school wearisome and without character, except in portrait painting.—François Gérard, the “King of Painters and Painter of Kings”; his portraits of the Empire and Restoration periods.—Commencement of the revolt: Pierre Paul Prudhon; his pictures and the story of his life; Constance Mayer.—Revival of colouring.—Antoine Jean Gros and his pictures of contemporary life; discrepancy between his teaching and his practice
Chapter X
The revolt of the Romanticists against Classicism in literature and art.—Théodore Géricault and his early works.—“The Raft of the Medusa.”—Eugène Delacroix: protest against the conventional, and renewed importance of colour.—Delacroix’s pictures; influence of the East upon him.—His life and struggles.—The Classical reaction.—J. A. D. Ingres and the opposition to Romanticism.—His classical pictures.—Excellence of his portraits and drawings
Chapter XI
Juste-Milieu
Moderation the watchword of Louis Philippe’s reign, in politics, literature, and art.—Jean Gigoux, a follower of Delacroix and an inexorable realist.—Eugène Isabey.—Middle position occupied by Ary Scheffer between the Classical and the Romantic schools; decline of his popularity.—Hippolyte Flandrin, as a religious painter a French counterpart to the Nazarenes.—Paul Chenavard, compared to Cornelius.—Théodore Chassériau; his short and brilliant career.—Léon Benouville.—Léon Cogniet and his pictures.—Transition from the Romantic school to the historical painters.—The great writers of history: renewed activity in this field: historical tragedies and romances.—Art takes a similar course: popularity and facility of historical painting.—Eugène Devéria; Camille Roqueplan.—Nicolaus Robert Fleury; Louis Boulanger.—Paul Delaroche; his popularity and its causes; his defects as a painter.—Delaroche’s pictures.—Thomas Couture
Chapter XII
The Post-Romantic Generation
France under the Second Empire; the society of the period not represented in French art.—Continuation of the old traditions without essential change.—Alexandre Cabanel.—William Bouguereau.—Jules Lefébure.—Henner.—Paul Baudry: his pictures; decoration of the Grand Opera House.—Élie Delaunay: his pictures, decorative painting, and portraits.—The “Genre féroce”; predilection for the horrible in art.—Numerous painters of this school.—Laurens.—Rochegrosse and his pictures.—Henri Regnault
Chapter XIII
The Historical School of Painting in Belgium
Belgium to 1830.—David and his school.—Navez, Matthias van Bree.—Gustav Wappers, Nicaise de Keyzer, Henri Decaisne, Gallait, Bièfve.—Ernest Slingeneyer, Guffens and Swerts.—The Exhibition of Belgian pictures in Germany
Chapter XIV
The Revolution of the German Colourists
Anselm Feuerbach, Victor Müller.—The Berlin school: Rudolf Henneberg, Gustav Richter, Knille, Schrader, and others.—The Munich school: Piloty, Hans Makart, Gabriel Max.—The historical painters and the end of the illustrative painting of history
Chapter XV
The Victory Over Pseudo-Idealism
The Historical Picture of Manners as opposed to Historical Painting, an advance in the direction of intimacy of feeling.—The Antique Picture of Manners: Charles Gleyre, Louis Hamon, Gérôme, Gustave Boulanger.—The Picture of Costume from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.—France: Charles Comte, Alexander Hesse, Camille Roqueplan.—Belgium: Alexander Markelbach, Florent Willems.—Germany: L. v. Hagn, Gustav Spangenberg, Carl Becker.—The importance of Hendrik Leys, Ernest Meissonier, and Adolf Menzel as mediators between the past and ordinary life, between the heroic art of the first half of the nineteenth century and the intimate art of the second half