Romanticism

 Late 18th Century to Mid 19th Century

 Another reaction against Neoclassicism
 deeply-felt style which is individualistic,
beautiful, exotic, and emotionally
wrought.
 The United States - the leading
Romantic movement: the Hudson River
School
Winslow Homer (1836 - 1910)
 an American landscape painter and
printmaker, most famous for his
marine subjects
 one of the foremost painters in 19th
century America
 mostly known for his watercolors and
his paintings of the Civil War
The Gulf Stream, 1899
Waiting an Answer, 1872
Breezing Up, 1876
Thomas Eakins (1844-1916)
 American realist painter
 one of the foremost of the 19th century
 independent of contemporary European
styles
 the first major artist after the American
Civil War (1861-1865) to produce a
profound and powerful body of work drawn
directly from the experience of
American life
Thomas Eakins (1844-1916)
 lifelong interest in scientific realism
 scenes and people observed in the life
around him in Philadelphia, particularly
domestic scenes of his family and friends
 delineated the anatomy of the human
body
 profound influence, both as a painter and
as a teacher, on the course of American
naturalism
Motion Study: Thomas Eakins Nude, 1884 or 1885
The Agnew Clinic, 1889
 Wrestlers, 1899

Crucifixion, 1880
The Ash Can School/Ashcan School

 a realist artistic movement

 came into prominence in the United
States during the early twentieth
century
 America's first artistic rebellion of
the 20th century
 Name: reference to their brand of
realism drawn from the city streets
The Ash Can School/Ashcan School
 Other names: Apostles of Ugliness,
the Revolutionary Gang
 best known for works portraying
scenes of daily life in poor urban
neighborhoods
 movement most associated with a
group known as The Eight/ The Ash
Can Painters
The Ash Can School/Ashcan School

 Members: Robert Henri, Arthur B.

Davies, Maurice Prendergast, Ernest
Lawson, William Glackens, Everett
Shinn, John French Sloan, and
George Luks.
 The Eight exhibited as a group only
once - the Macbeth Gallery, 1908
 work very diverse in terms of style and
subject matter.
The Ash Can School/Ashcan School
 Others: photographer Jacob Riis
 this frequent, although not total,
focus upon poverty and the daily
realities of urban life at that time
prompted critics to consider them on
the fringe of modern art.
 Everyday life in the city was dealt
with, not only as art, but as a
contemporary standard of beauty.
The Ash Can School/Ashcan
School
 These artists viewed:
 the paintings of Whistler as elitist
(appealing only to a select few)
 the paintings of the visionaries as too
private in meaning
 the subjects of the impressionists as
irrelevant to modern city life
 the late seascapes of W. Homer as
escapist.
Robert Henri --
Portrait of Mary
Gallagher (about
1924)

•contended that the

working classes
were the most
suitable subjects for
art and that the
artist was a social
force whose “work
creates a stir in the
world.”
George Benjamin Luks -- The Wrestlers, 1905

•started his career

as a newspaper
correspondent and
illustrator
•Career as a boxer
foe a while

•came from a
Pennsylvania
mining district
though from a
home of more-than-
average culture,
passed himself off
as a working-class
tough

•preference for
scenes from urban
working-class life
John Sloan - Turning Out the Light, (1905)

•part of a
series of
etchings
called New
York City
Life

•Incl. New
York’s Lower
East Side
William Glackens -- Beach Umbrellas at Blue Point, 1915

•the
technique
and light
palette of
impressionis
m

•preferred
scenes of
crowds in
parks, in
theaters, or
at beaches
George Bellows -- Mr. and Mrs. Phillip Wase, 1924
The City. Jacob A. Riis. How The Other Half Lives
(1890)

December, 1889: an
account of city life,
illustrated by photographs,
appeared in Scribner's
Magazine.
This created a great deal of
interest and the following
year, a full-length version,
How the Other Half Lives,
was published.
The book was seen by
Theodore Roosevelt, the
New York Police
Commissioner, and he had
the city police lodging
The Slums houses that were featured in
the book closed down.
 Jacob A. Riis. How The Other Half Lives (1890)

Children sleeping Bandits' Roost (1890)

in Mulberry Street (1890)
Jacob A. Riis. How The
Other Half Lives

Homeless Children
(1890)