Academies and History Painting in Latin America “The Royal Academy of San Carlos in Mexico City,...

Academies and History Paintingin Latin America

“The Royal Academy of San Carlos in Mexico City, founded in 1785, was the first academy of art in America, and the only one established under colonial rule…. In Brazil, the Academia Imperial de Belas Arteswas founded in Rio de Janeiro…in 1826 with the French painter J.B. Debret, who trained in David’s studio, as director…. In Peru, the Academy was founded in 1919….” (coinciding with the arrival of avant-garde modern art)

Dawn Ades

Natalia Majluf, “Ce n’es pas le Peru,” or, the Failure of Authenticity: Marginal Cosmopolitans at the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1855”

“The movement of artists and intellectuals from Latin America to metropolitan centers (and usually back) increased dramatically after

independence from Spain in the early nineteenth century…young Creole Americans traveled to Paris, London, and Rome not as exiles or

émigrés but as cosmopolitans, as participants in a world culture.”

“…but the international community has systematically rejected any sign of their sameness.” (Majluf)

Francisco Laso, The Indian Potter (or Dweller in the Cordillera), 1855, o/c, 4’4” H., Lima

“The same comparative context that rejected the cosmopolitanism of the Latin American artists served simultaneously to locate France at the very center of the international art scene.” Majluf

José Ferraz de Almeida Junior (Brazil 1859-1899), The Guitar Player, 1899, o/c, 56” H, Pinocoteca do Estado de Sao PaoloAcademic genre paintings - “costumbrismo”

(left) Aztec goddess, Coatlique, c. 1500 C.E. discovered in 1790, Mexico City; (right) Praxiteles, Hermes & Dionysus, 4th Century B.C.The Royal Academy of San Carlos in Mexico City was thoroughly European in its aims and practices. Students studied from a selection of plaster casts of Greek and Roman sculptures sent from Spain. The question of “beauty” of European versus ancient indigenous Mexican work was discussed.

Juan Cordero (Mexico, 1824-1884), The Bather, c.1860, oil on canvas, 59 X 45 in.

Cordero’s draped nude shocked Mexican visitors at a 1864 exhibition in Mexico City.

Felix Parra, Friar Bartolomé de las Casas, 1875, oil on canvas, Museo Nacional de Arte, Mexico City. The woman turns to the Christian friar and not the Aztec god.

Juan Cordero (Mexico, 1824-1884), Columbus Before the Catholic Monarchs, 1850, o/c, 68” H.

First history painting of an American subject seen by Mexican viewers.

Academic history paintings were popular in the New World.

José Maria Obregón, The Inspiration of Columbus, 1856, oil, 58” high

José Maria Obregón, Discovery of Pulque, 1869, oil on canvas73 x 91 in., Museo Nacional de Arte, Mexico City

Xochitl, who discovered pulque, presents it to TecpancaltzinAcademic Neoclassicism in Mexico

Impressionism

"All that is solid melts into air" (Marx and Engels, Communist

Manifesto, 1848)

"Capture your Moments" (Kodak ad, 1888)

IMPRESSIONISM – Paris, the 1870s

Quiz question for Thursday, May 14th: Exactly what was so “Avant-garde” and “modern” about Impressionism? How can it have been radical when it is so easy to like, not at all “shocking”? Use at least three works of art, fully identified, by

three artists as examples.

(left) Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Portrait of Claude Monet. 1875, o/c, Musée d'Orsay, Paris (right) Claude Monet. Self-Portrait. 1886, o/c, private collection, Paris(center) Edouard Manet, Portrait of Monet, 1880, india ink on paper, Musée Marmottan

(left) Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) Color Theory, 1805-1829(center) Michel-Eugène Chevreul, color wheel, c.1860

1888—First Kodak Camera

Map of France showing Impressionist and Post-

Impressionist locations for painting en plein aire (in

the open air).

James Whistler (American expatriate in London) - Harmony in Blue and Silver, Trouville, 1865

James Whistler, Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket, 1875Oil on wood, 23 3/4 x 18 3/8 in. (60.3 x 46.6 cm) Detroit Institute of Arts

http://blogs.princeton.edu/wri152-3/rpower/archives/001951.html Information re. 1877 slander suit against John Ruskin

“I have seen, and heard, much of cockney impudence before now; but never expected a coxcomb to ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face”

- Ruskin, 1877 review

Gustave Courbet, Low tide, Trouville, 1865

Eugène Boudin (French, 1825-1898), (top) Vacationers on the Beach at Trouville, 1864;(bottom) Boudin, The Beach at Deauville, 1863, oil on canvas.

Painted out of doors, “en plein air.” Influential teacher/mentor of Claude Monet

(top) Claude Monet, The Beach at St-Address, 1867Bottom) Boudin, View of Portrieux,1865

Precursor painters – sources of Impressionism

John Constable (English), The Haywain, 1821

Constable, Cloud Study, 1822, Oil on paper laid on board,12 x 19 1/4 inchesCourtauld Institute Galleries, London

Joseph Mallord William Turner (English, 1775-1851), Rain, Steam & Speed: The Great Western Railroad, exhibited in 1844 at the Royal Academy, London, oil on canvas. Romantic landscape painter studied by Claude Monet in London in1870 (in refuge from the Franco-Prussian war.

Théodore Rousseau (French, 1812-1867) Forest of Fontainebleau, Morning, 1850“Barbison School”

Eugene Delacroix (French Romantic painter), (top) Tiger Hunt, 1854(bottom) Odalisque, 1855, oil on wood with source photographic studyGestural painting and optical theory. Orientalist, not a Painter of Modern Life

“Delacroix, an alchemist of color, miraculous, profound, mysterious, sensual, awesome: explosive color and subdued color, a penetrating harmony. The gestures of man and animal. The scowl of the beast, the snufflings of animality.”

- Charles Baudelaire

(left) Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Madame Leblanc 1823 Oil on canvas. Metropolitan MA, New York City;

Eugène Delacroix. Self Portrait. c.1837. oïl on canvas. Louvre, Paris

Claude Monet, Luncheon on the Grass, oil on canvas, 165 x 59 in. 1866Musée d’Orsay, Paris

(left) Claude Monet, Dejeuner sur l’herbe (Luncheon on the Grass), 1866, Oil on canvas.

Edouard Manet, Dejeuner sur l’herbe, 1863

Claude Monet, Women in the Garden, 1866-7, oil on canvas, 8’4” x 81”

Claude Monet, La Grenouillère ("The Frog Pond"), 1869, oil on canvas, 29 x 39 in. Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY

Claude Monet, La Grenouillère, 1869 Auguste Renoir, La Grenouillère, 1869, 26 x 32 in. Nationalmuseum, StockholmPainted side by side at Bougival on the Seine river

Claude Monet, The Thames at Westminster, 1871, Oil on canvas, 47 x 72.5 cm (18 1/2 x 28 1/2"), National Gallery, London. Monet left France for England to escape the Franco Prussian war and was not in Paris during the seige or Commune.

First Impressionist Exhibition 15 April 1874: “Exhibition of the Société Anonyme of Painters, Sculptors, and Printmakers”

(left) Nadar (Gaspard-Felix Tournachon) (1820-1910) Nadar¹s Studio at 35 Boulevard des Capucines’ (right) Claude Monet, Boulevard des Capucines, 1873 (31 1/4 x 23 1/4") A new “modern” view: one of Baron Haussmann’s new boulevards

Edward Anthony (American, 1818–1888) & Henry T. Anthony (American, 1814–1884) Broadway on a Rainy Day, 1859; Albumen silver prints from glass negatives, each 3x3 in., stereograph. (right) Claude Monet, Boulevard des Capucines, 1873 (31 1/4 x 23 1/4")

Compare: Stop-action or "instantaneous" stereographic urban views by the Anthony brothers, New York’s first manufacturers of cameras and photographic supplies, with Monet’s flickering “impression.” Which is more “real”?

Claude Monet, Impression, Sunrise 1873

Monet, Railroad Bridge at Argenteuil, 1874Anonymous, photo of the Argenteuil Railway Bridge, c. 1895

The Impressionist Eye is, in short, the most advanced eye in human evolution

Jules Laforgue

Claude Monet, The Gare Saint-Lazare, 1877, National Gallery, London

(left) Katsushika Hokusai, South Wind, Clear Dawn, from Thirty Six Views of Mount Fuji, c. 1830-2, color woodblock, 10 x 15”(right) Claude Monet, Haystack, Sunset, 1891, oil on canvas, 28 x 36in, MFA Boston

Monet’s 23 views of haystacks (1891-2) under various light conditions is thought to be influenced by Hokusai’s 36 views of Mount Fuji. Monet owned a copy of this print by Hokusai.

“People are not sufficiently aware of how much our contemporary landscapeArtists have borrowed from these pictures, especially Monet, whom I often encounter at Bing’s in the little attic where Levy is in charge of the Japanese prints.”

Edmund de Goncourt, 1892

Monet, Rouen Cathedral, the West Portal, Dull Weather, dated 1894, painted 1892oil on canvas 39 3/8 x 25 5/8 in. (100 x 65 cm) Musée d'Orsay, Paris

http://www.learn.columbia.edu/monet/swf/ Click for information about Monet’s Rouen Cathedral series, 1892-4, and reproductions of most of the paintings.

Claude Monet, Rouen Cathedral, the West Portal and Saint-Romain Tower, Full Sunlight, Harmony in Blue and Gold, dated 1894, painted 1893, Oil on canvas, 42 1/8 x 28 3/4 in. Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Claude Monet, Water Lilies (The Clouds) 1903 Oil on canvas (29 3/8 x 41 7/16 in.) Private collection

Monet's home and garden at Giverny(below right) Studio constructed for the Nympheas (Water lilies) Series

(left) Utagawa Hiroshige, Wisteria Blooms Over Water at Kameido, from One Hundred Views of Edo, c. 1857, color woodblock 14 x 9 in. Brooklyn MA(below) Claude Monet, Water Lilies and Japanese Bridge, 1899, oil on canvas, Princeton University

(left) photoportrait of Pierre-Auguste Renoir (right) Frédéric Bazille, Portrait of Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1867, Oil on canvas, (37 x 32 1/3 in); Musee d'Orsay, Paris

Claude Monet, La Grenouillère, 1869 Auguste Renoir, La Grenouillère ("The Frog Pond") 1869

Painted side by side at Bougival on the Seine river

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, The Dance at the Moulin de La Galette (Montmartre), 1876

(left) Auguste Renoir, Torso of a Woman in Sunlight, 1876 (Impressionism, considered first modern, democratic art movement, born out of the class revolution that brought down the Ancien Régime) Hedonism and veiled eroticism(right) Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Bathers, 1756 (Rococo, considered the cultural epitome of French aristocracy, the Ancien Régime swept away by the class revolutions beginning in 1789) Hedonism and veiled eroticism

Berthe Morisot, Self Portrait, 1885; Edouard Manet, Portrait of Berthe Morisot, 1872

Berthe Morisot, The Cradle (sister Edma and child), 1872, o/c (Morisot married in 1874)Exhibited in the First Impressionist exhibition. Morisot exhibited in 7 of the 8 Impressionist exhibitions.

Berthe Morisot, Hide-and-Seek, 1873, Oil on canvas, 45 x 55 cm (17 3/4 x 21 5/8"); The models are Berthe Morisot's sister Edma and Edma's daughter, Jeanne Berthe

Berthe Morisot, The Wet Nurse Angèle Feeding Julie Manet, 1880. Private collection

Mary Cassatt (American, 1845-1926), Little Girl in a Blue Armchair, 1978, oil on canvas, 35 X 51” (88.9 x 129.5 cm). Point of view, photographic cropping, sensuous immediacy = modern painting

(left) Auguste Renoir, The Loge, 1874 (right) Mary Cassatt, In the Loge, 1880

Mary Cassatt, In the Omnibus, drypoint and aquatint in colors, series of 10, 1890-91Suzuki Harunobu, (Japanese Ukiyo-e printmaker) 1724-1770) Women and Child, woodblock print, c.1750Ukiyo-e prints were key source for modernist form - flatness, rejection of Renaissance illusionism - but also in content: daily life of the middle and working classes.

Women's Building, Sophie Hayden, architect, World Columbian Exhibition of 1893 in Chicago, featuring Cassatt’s Modern Woman mural, 12’- 58’ (lost)

Young Women Picking Fruit of Knowledge and Science, 1892 Women’s Building, Chicago Worlds Fair

Center panel

Mary Cassatt, Young Women Picking Fruit, 1891/92, oil on canvas, 52 x 36 in (132 x 91.5 cm.) Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh

(below) Edgar Degas, The Tub, 1886, pastel on paper, 23 x 32”(left) Katsushika Hokusai, Women at the Public Bath, from the Manga vol. I, c. 1820, color woodblock, 7 x 4” In the manga, Degas said, he found relief from Western art’s obsession with “the female form divine.” European artists continually borrowed motifs from the manga.

Both subject matter –contemporary woman bathing – and style that was considered radically anti-academic and modern, are directly influenced by Japanese art.

Motion Photography and the

Beginnings of Cinema

Eadweard Muybridge, 1879

Eadweard Muybridge (Edward James Muggeridge, British 1830-1904), AKA “Helios” San Francisco Landscape photographer, Valley of the Yosemite, ca.1867

Muybridge’s five-month trip to the Yosemite Valley in 1867 yielded 260 published views, 160 of them stereographs. His were among the most celebrated images taken of the Valley.

Eadweard Muybridge (Edward James Muggeridge, British 1830-1904), Galloping Horse, Motion Study: Sallie Gardner, owned by Leland Stanford, running at 1.40 gait over the Palo Alto track, June 19, 1879, wet plate collotype, a sequence of photographs with 12 cameras

Muybridge began the project in 1872. In 1878, he succeeded in taking a sequence of photographs with 12 cameras that captured the moment when the animal’s hooves were tucked under its belly. Publication of these photographs made Muybridge an international celebrity.

Edgar Degas, At the Races, 1877–1880, oil on canvas, Musée d'Orsay, Paris, informed by Muybridge’s photography.

Eadweard Muybridge, The Zoopraxiscope, projector presented in autumn of 1879

The private gathering that watched the first Zoopraxiscope projections at Mayfield Grange, the home of Muybridge's sponsor, Leland Stanford at Palo Alto farm, in the autumn of 1879 has the distinction of being one of the earliest motion picture audiences.

Zoopraxiscope disc and detail of stencil

Eadweard Muybridge, Animal Locomotion: Man Shoveling (Self Portrait), 1895University of Pennsylvania

Thomas Eakins (American Realist Painter, 1844-1916), George Reynolds: Seven Photographs, 1883, albumen print, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (lower left) Motion Study: male running jump to left, ca. 1885, (lower right) Motion Study: female nude, blindfolded, walking to left, ca. 1885

Eakins approached the human figure with the analytical eye of a scientist.

(left) Thomas Eakins, The Swimming Hole, oil on canvas, 1884-85 (right) Eakins Eakins's Students at the Site for Swimming, albumen print, ca.1884

Thomas Eakins, Max Schmitt in a Single Scull, 1871, oil on canvas, c.32X46” (82x117cm), Metropolitan Museum, NYC

Etienne-Jules Marey (French Physiologist 1830–1904), Photographic Gun: camera with a rotating plate capable of taking rapid sequence of separate images. (below) Marey, Pelicans in Flight, c.1882

Marey saw Muybridge’s motion photographs when they were published in Paris in 1878. Muybridge’s multi-camera system wasn’t scientific enough for Marey.

Marey, Chronophotographic study of Man Pole Vaulting, 1890 -1891, albumen silver print

Marey used dry photographic plates, faster than the wet plates Muybridge used, and an ordinary camera with its lens left open. Behind the lens, Marey put a rotating metal disk that had from one to ten slots cut into it at even intervals. As the subject, dressed in white, moved in front of a black background, the rotating shutter exposed the glass plate, creating a sequence of images.

Thomas Eakins, Motion Study using Marey’s wheel camera, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 1885

Edgar Degas (French Realist/Impressionist Painter and Sculptor, 1834-1917)Frieze of Dancers, 1895, oil on canvas, 27 3/4 x 79”

Multiple views of a single figure, an approach that violated the traditional notion that a painting must represent a unity of time, place, and viewpoint