L’Histoire de l’Art – Gombrich Ernst Hans, 1950 (Phaidon, 15e édition)

INTRODUCTION

 Questions the plural definitions of art, evolution of the meaning throughout centuries according to
evolution of technique. “Art, with a capital A has come to be something of a bogey and a fetish.” (p.3)
=> the object of “art” in unstable
 Art does not engage/address taste => “art” does not signify a “feeling”
o Yet, there are wrong reasons for disliking a work of art: if we were to universally dislike any
revolting work of art, what is the purpose of such art that is not deemed “beautiful” enough to
be “art”?
o “the beauty of a picture does not really lie in the beauty of its subject matter” (p.5), so it is for
technique (precision, realism etc.): CULTURAL TASTES
o According to Gombrich, one cannot argue about matters of taste, but one can grow and
develop one’s taste. “One never finishes learning about art.” (p.17)

REPRESENTED: beauty  JUDGMENT: “it’s art”

PERFECTION (detail, expression of subject-matters, clarity of message)  varies according to subjectivity

 A constant: artists
o Artists seek something that cannot be put into words, is hard to talk about, and that is best
approximated in the expression “to get it ‘right’”. “To talk cleverly about art is not very
difficult, because the words critics use hve been employed in so many different contexts that
they have lost all precision. But to look at a picture with fresh eyes and to venture on a voyage
of discovery into it is a far more difficult but also a much more rewarding task.” (p.18)
o To “get it right” is an activity that we do in daily life, harmony and balance (figures, lines,
perspective, colors etc.) is brought to extreme in art.
 To appear beautiful (emotionally engaging)?
 To seem effortless/natural?
o Therefore, can is the critic’s role vain?
o Is there such thing as “bad art” : how can we value art / what is the VALUE OF ART?
o Can great masters break rules/codes, and yet still trigger admiration? Is it a success because it
achieves a new harmony, or because the painter sought and managed - by breaking the rules-
to trigger a reaction?
o Gombrich is talking of art as process and
technique/activity: I think one must also consider what
artists aim at in abstract painting for instance, when the
work of art does not result from conscious activities.

Sir Joshua Reynolds, from the Royal Academy, believed blue should be
reserved for the distant backgrounds. Thomas Gainsborough sought to prove
that academic rules are nonsense by painting The Blue Boy, with blue as the
central and triumphant colour of the painting, against the warm brown of the
background.

Figure 1, The Blue Boy, 1770 - Thomas

Gainsborough
LA PRÉHISTOIRE  : ÉTRANGES DÉBUTS

 ‘’we are not likely to understand the art of the past if we are quite ignorant of the aims it had to serve.”
(p.20)

Primitive societies = art + function. Powerful and magical value of images, protecting the population against
natural and spiritual forces, like a roof shelters from rain.

Therefore, for them, art is an instrument, source of power vs. passive consumption of contemporary public.

Image-making was also often a form of writing, telling a tale.

 Artists in primitive societies are craftsmen.

 Getting it “right” for primitive societies was getting art to “work”, to perform upon the world.
 Art touches upon the symbolical/allegorical: they are part of rites and customs (a flag for the nation, a
wedding ring, a more than decorative objects).

“the whole story of art is not a story of progress in technical sufficiency, but a story of changing ideas and
requirements.” (p.24)

EGYPTE, MÉSOPOTAMIE, CRÈTE  : L’ART POUR L’ÉTERNITÉ

 Crucial rôle of Egyptian art: Egypt > Greece > Europe

 Pyramids of Giza, Fourth Dynasty (2723-2563 BC)
 Reliefs

Practical importance of pyramids (tombs protecting

body so that it reaches the beyond properly) + art
(architecture)

Practical importance of statues: granite sculptures

representing the late king, thereafter placed in an
unreachable place (=not meant to be ‘enjoyed’) to
ensure his immortality (stone = immortality), that is,
keeping soul alive through the picture. Nb. One
Egyptian word for sculptor translates ‘He-who-keeps-
alive’. While servants were for a time sacrificed when
the king died, to accompany him in the beyond,
statues replaced them symbolically as containers of
their soul.

(a) Rigidness of the traits and simplicity (no details), enough to recognise them, but to preserver solemnity and
evoking to spectators the quality of enduring through time.

(b) Clarity of subject-matter was essential: perspective was easily dealt without in order to recognise objects.
Faces were drawn in profile as it is our characteristic angle of perception. Shoulders and chest are, on the
contrary, best seen from the front. Arms and legs in movement are more clearly seen sideways.

(c) Completeness vs. prettiness: Egyptian art was not concerned with beauty but order, hence the strong sense of
pattern in Egyptian art!

 The role of the artist is crucial!

  Artists proceeded from conventional forms, the conventional significance of each from, and from his
ability to reproduce forms he sees in reality. Nb. Masters would be depicted bigger than servants and
wives.
 Men figures = dark-skinned / Female figures = light-skinned
 Mythology:
o Horus [falcon’s head]: sun-god
o Anubis [jackal’s head]: death-god
 Consequence of Egyptian ‘style’/rules: in 3000 years, it evolved very little.
 Amenophis IV (2000 BC), of the period ‘New Kingdom’ (18 th Dynasty): a king who worshipped only
one god, Aton, he had represented in the shape of the sun. He then renamed himself after this god:
Akhnaton. He is the predecessor of Tutankhamun. Tutankhamun re-established old-tradition.
 Mesopotamian art [between Euphrates and Tigris] is less known than Egyptian art because materials
less enduring (brick) + did not use of the practice of statues making for embodying the souls like
Egyptian are. They mostly used of representation for war victories, seal of an undefeatable future.

Figure 2 From the Palace of King Asurnasirpal II (850 BC), Mesopotamia

GRÈCE (7 E -5 E SIÈCLES AV. J.C) : PREMIÈRE RÉVOLUTION ‘GREAT AWAKENING’

 Doric style (from Spartan region):

few ornaments, austere, simplicity of
structure (figure 4)
 Crossbeams of stone = “architraves”
 Unit supported by columns =
“entablature”
 End of columns marked with three
slits = “triglyphs”
 Space between the beams =
“metope”
 Cretan style (from Crete region):
primitive design, outdoing Egyptian
rigidity (figure 3)
 Greek artists not part of genteel
society/upper class, because
handwork vs. philosophers.
 Greek art reached peak of
development when highest level of democracy: after overcoming the Persian invasion (480 BC), the
Acropolis and temples had to be re-built,
decided under leadership of Pericles. They
were re-built not with timber, but marble!

Figure 4 Parthénon d'Athènes (exemple de

temple 'doric'), imaginé par Iktinos en 450 av. JC

Figure The mourning of a dead (700 BC)

 Importance of art in Greek society: making of idols for worship.

Idols, considered heathen religion, destroyed upon the conquest by Christians: Greek statues in museums are
for the most part second-hand copies made by Romans and sold as souvenirs.

(a) Greek art is influenced by Egyptian design (geometric harmony) + perspective (figures on profile).

(b) Greek ‘revolution’: nb. “Great Awakening” = 520-420 BC

>> Less colossal than Egyptian because of they way columns are sculpted.
Gombrich notes: those monuments seem built by human beings, not God, because
Greeks were not governed by God figures

>> art based on perception of reality vs. rules and knowledge (Egyptian). Body
expression became important, the freedom of the body represents the liberty of the
artistic mind in Greek art. Socrates (trained as sculptor) urged artists to represent
the ‘working of the soul’ by observing how feelings affect the body in action. Nb.
Greeks invented drama (aka. expressivity).

>> Pheidias (around 400s BC), who sculpted idols for Athens Parthenon: new
conception of the divine (impressive, beautiful).

Temple of Olympia celebrates the body. Olympic Games participants were

Figure Discus Thrower 'Discobolos'
(marble), copy after a bronze statue
by Myron (450 BC)
not sportsmen but members of wealthy families. The victor was looked
upon as blessed with God-given invincibility (Figure 4: Egyptian
inspiration as trunk seen from front and face from profile, but Myron’s
sculpture is one of the first to convey motion by rendering it like-like
instead of piecing together the various angles).

LE MONDE GREC (4 E AV. J.C – 1 E R AP. J.C) : LE TRIOMPHE DE LA BEAUTÉ

 ‘Ionic’ style (end of 5th BC): more richly decorated temples, slender shafts, adorned headpieces,
volutes etc.
o Advent of ‘beauty’ as value/purpose of art, beauty as:
 Less ‘rigid’ art, less stiff or lifeless.
 Valuing the ‘individual’ character of subject-matters = injecting
personality = almost breathing
 Birth of portraiture: giving expression to faces.

Grace and beauty by means of symmetrical harmony

Idealisation and perfection of nature in art makes it a pale copy:

“People often thing that what the artists did was to look at many
models and leave out any feature they did not like : that they […]
carefully cop[ied] the appearance of a real man, and then beautified it
by omitting irregularities or traits which did not conform to their idea
of a perfect body. They say that Greek artists ‘idealised’ nature […] Figure Alexander the Figure Hermes with
Great, probably by young Dionysus (350
Lysippus (330 BC) BC), Praxiteles
 but an idealised statue usually lack character and vigour […] little remains but a pale and insipid ghost of a
model.” (p.69)

 Alexander the Great’s empire comprised almost

half the world of the time, so no longer ‘Greek
art’ but ‘Hellenistic art’:
o Corinthian style (from Corinth, a
merchant city near Athens): adding

foliage to Ionic spiral, richer ornaments, complex and

luxurious looking. Influenced Oriental art.
o Impressive reliefs (Figure 8): figures almost standing
free from the wall.
o This art was meant to appeal the public: depicting
scenes with tension vs. religious or magical purpose.
Figure The Gods fighting the Giants, from the
Also, advent of nature vs. man as subject-matter, like
alter of Zeus in Pergamon (around 170 BC)
landscape painting.
o Influenced ‘Lacoon’ school of 16th.
o Advent of painters: decorated columns, walls and mosaics.

ROMAINS, BOUDDHISTES, JUIFS ET CHRÉTIENS  : LE MONDE EN CONQUÊTES

 Roman civil engineering (roads, acqueduc,

public baths etc.): arches, vaults, are
characteristic.
 Roman inherited from Hellenic
(conquest). See Colosseum (Flavian
amphitheatre)
 Roman values similar to Egyptian art of
representation of souls.
 Roman art influenced Egyptian art:
mummies’ portraits more realistic (Figure
10)
 Image-making enabled Indians to picture
Buddha
 Simplicity/clarity vs. faithful imitation:
o First representations of biblical
scenes of Jewish Old Testament,
while Jewish law forbade making
of images for fear of idolatry
(Figure 9: primitive style telling
of the onset of representation, and
the need to have pictures as plain as possible in order not to sin against the Law – to be
interpreted as an explanation in images, rather than illustration)
 o Christian art favoured simplicity over realism, too. Use of symbols (dove = divine
intervention)

Indian art – Gandhara Region,The Great Renunciation: Prince Gutama leaving palace to become hermit in
wilderness and bring salvation to the world of gods and men by becoming Buddha.

4th and
5th c. AD
(// rise
of

Figure Portrait of a
man (about 150 AD)
Christianity): turning point from
ancient art to ‘modern’ art.
Figure Moses striking water from the rock, synagogue in Mesopotamia
(245 AD) (a)Less realism (Roman)

(b)Less virtuosity (Hellenic)

(c)New tools (mechanical drill)

ROME ET LES BYZANTINS (5 E -13 AP. J.C) : DIVERGENCES

 
311: Emperor Constantine established Christian
Church
o Reconsideration of the role/place of art
because new places of worship
 Temples: small shrine with statue
of god, sacrifices made outside
 Churches: large room, assembly
place for congregation and
religious service
 Christian churches:
o No statues (representation condemned in
Bible), mostly to establish a difference
between pagans and Christians in order to assert Christian religion as different.
o Pictures of ceremony allowed (end 6th AD, since Pope Gregory the Great) because few could
read. Colour and mosaics conveyed greatness to the picture, so that the spectators would know
they face something sacred.
o Simplicity of art in churches gave them a primitive look. Innovations of the Great Awakening
did not die out, as the discoveries and newly found techniques were transposed for another
purpose and context: but the intent was no longer to find new ways to represent the body, or
expression, or create illusion of depth.

At first, churches looked like ‘basilicas’ (= “royal halls” = market halls and public
law-courts): oblong hall separated with rows of columns from the lower
compartments on the lateral sides; the far end had an apse where chairman
presided.

When basilicas were churches, aspe = choir (location of the altar) / hall = nave,
usually lofty with beams (congregation assembly) / lower compartments, usually
flat-roofed = side aisles

Figure 4 Christian Basilica S. Apollinare in Classe (Ravenna, 530 AD)

Figure 3 Enthoned Madonna

(Constantinople, around 1280)

Greek-speaking people (Byzantium/Constantinople) refused to be led by Pope and iconoclasts (against images
of religious character) and had the upper-hand in 745 on the art of the Eastern Church. Latin people (Rome), led
by Pope Gregory who thought images holy and became embodiments/artefacts of the sacred world. Byzantine
art was hence more conservative, aka. close to Hellenistic art (Figure 12)

L’ISLAM, LA CHINE (2 E -13 E AP. J.C) : LE MONDE ORIENTAL

 Islamic art (from 7th century onwards, Persia, Mesopotamia, Egypt,

North Africa, Spain):
o making of images forbidden (except some later sects, which
tolerated images when not in context of religion, as in tales)
o representation of human beings forbidden

Figure Winged lion (Tomb of Prince

 o rich colour scheme
o lace patterns: ‘arabesques’, in architecture, in clothing, rugs etc.
o fabulous-looking
 Chinese art (as early as 1000 BC, bronze vessels in temples, burial customs with chambers adopted
from Egyptians):
o Predilection for undulating lines and movement in pictures and sculptures (Figure 13)
o Ascetism of Buddhism
o Painters were poets: inspiration and mediation in process, as to meditate is to deeply ponder
about holy truths and the workings of nature. According to Gombrich, some monks mediate
for hours upon single words, listening to the stillness which precedes and follows each
syllable. Art was a mean to, and the result of, meditation (vs. didactic vs. ornament).
o Hence, Chinese pictures must not be contemplated as representations of reality: their
vagueness represent the spirit of the artist. Painting not from reality, but from
mood/recollection.
o Copying masters to learn techniques.

Figure 5 Head of a Lohan (glazed statue), about 1000

Figure 6 Landscape after rain, Kao K'O-Kung (1250)

L’EUROPE, L’ART ET LA MIXITÉ CULTURELLE (6 E -11 E AP. J.C)

 ‘Dark Ages’ = after the fall of the Roman Empire

o Little knowledge of these civilisations
o Variety of styles
o 500-1000 AD
 Monks and learned people trying to preserve art vs. ‘barbarians’ (Goths, Vandals, Saxons, Danes and
Vikings) who pillaged European countries.
o ‘barbarians’ were however craftsmen (woodcarving, metalwork, manuscript making
o ‘barbarians’ were heathens: believed in power of art to exorcise evil and primitive-looking
(figure of the dragon and mythology)

“the Egyptians had largely drawn what they knew to exist, the Greeks what they saw; in the Middle Ages the
artist also learned to express in his picture what he felt.” (p.120)

Gombrich compares the representation of St Matthew in two manuscripts: left, as a scholar, and right, as an
inspired man. The variation is small, but significant. Clarity was not any longer concentrated in harmony and the
use of shadows, but in the patterns in pictures, concentration, and significant details (Figure 16 and 17).

Nb. Charlemagne’s residence was Aachen, and he thought himself successor to Roman tradition. The picture is
proof that artists were asked to produce faithful copies of religious figures/convincing likeness, with classical
techniques, and aiming at harmony (beauty).

Figure 7 (left) painted in Aachen, Germany, in

800 / (right) painted in Reims, France, in 830
Figure 17 God pointing to Adam, Adam to Eve, Eve to
the serpent (bronze door), in 1015, Hildesheim
Cathedral
LA COMBAT DE L’EGLISE AU 12 E AP. J.C

 ‘Norman style’ (BR), or ‘Romanesque style’ (FR):

o From 1066 onwards
o Ground plan of Roman churches, taking
care of a cross-shape-like church
o Round arches replaces columns supporting
‘entablures’
o Earliest had few decorations, few windows
o Stone vaulting replaces timber roofs (fire
issues) + ‘ribs’ vault (Figure 17)
revolutionized the support of roofs (light
appearance because lighter materials could be
used with ribs structure) Figure Durham Cathedral (1093)

 Decoration representing the task of the ‘Church Figure Facade of Saint-Trophime in Arles (1180)
Militant’: the idea that Church has to fight the powers
of darkness till the hour of triumph on doomsday. Massive and solemn. Figure 18: on Christ’s left:
chained figures to hell / on Christ’s right: blessed figures turned towards Him. To put this at the
entrance indicates the purpose and necessity of church.

Le Catéchisme de l'Église catholique déclare que « Les trois états de l'Église… certains de ses disciples sont des
pèlerins sur terre (Eglise Militante). D'autres sont morts et se purifient (Eglise Pénitente), tandis que d'autres
encore sont dans la gloire, contemplant en pleine lumière, le Dieu tel qu'il est (Eglise Triomphante). »

La théologie protestante rejette la doctrine du purgatoire : il reste alors l’Église militante et triomphante.

 Influence of Byzantine and Eastern art: rigid arrangement

of symbols and no realism (Figure 19).
 Illuminations and stained-glass however used of bright
colours, inspired by nature and supernatural, mostly
around 13th.
 Art of combination (miscellaneous elements in the same
frame)

Figure Swabian Gospel

Manuscript representing The
Annunciation (1150)

LE TRIOMPHE DE L’EGLISE (13 E AP. J.C)

 Gothic style:
 Figure Notre Dame de Paris
o Distribution of weight makes it possible to reduce the material
needed for the construction without endangering the firmness of
the whole
 Pointed arches to build higher and have more opened
arches/light/windows
 Reinforcing with ‘buttresses’ (arc-boutants) (Figure 20)
o Boldness of design asserted
 ‘Tracery’ in windows: thin lines framing stained-glass.
 Dwarfing intention: heaven-like look, in the spirit of
the ‘church militant’, “rising up like a mirage” (p.142)
 While Greek art intended to inspire beauty in symmetry and skills in
observing and reproducing nature (realism), Gothic art uses techniques to
produce realistic works, but to inject moralism: the purpose of Gothic
art is to appeal to the onlooker’s morality, not feelings. Note the Greek
art of drapery and facial expression in Figure 21.

Figure 8 Ekkehart and Uta, Naumburg Cathedral, 1260

 Conscious of proportion (Figure 22): we have proof that proportion

did not matter before the 13th century.

Figure 9 Matthew Paris: An elephant and its keeper, 1255

 Venice was in close contact

with Byzantine Empire and
did not look to Paris (centre of Gothic style) for inspiration.
But at the end of 13 th, Italian artists added Gothic life-like
figures to Hellenistic perspective, so that it revolutionized
painting: “With methods of this kind [Florentine painter
Giotto du Bondone] broke the spell of Byzantine
conservatism could venture out into a new world and
translate the lifelike figures of Gothic sculpture into
painting.” (p.150)
o Giotto’s ‘frescoes’ (= paintings on a wall while the
plaster is still ‘fresh’/wet): the art of illusion.
Clarity of Oriental art, and all Christian art -of
showing figures completely- was replaced with
clarity from re-construction of space/combination (Figure 23).

Figure 10 Giotto's The Mourning of the Christ (detail), 1306

LA VIE MÉDIÉVALE  (14 E AP. J.C)

 Period of refinement vs. grandeur

o From Early English (Gothic) Cathedral to ‘Decorated Style’
o Gothic architecture in churches + guild hall, colleges, palaces, bridges, city gates etc.
o Smaller but more crafted and detailed objects intended for private prayer vs. public
worship = made to be appreciated by connoisseurs and devoted worshippers.
 End of 14th: ‘International Style’ because cultural interactions and exchanges = shared vision of art
 o Mastering observation of nature and details
o Mastering composition (Giotto’s remnants?): illusion of reality through details
o Sketchbook practise developed

A LA CONQUÊTE DU RÉEL (DÉBUT 15 E )

 ‘Renaissance’: various aspects

o Italy, necessary period, after the break down of Roman Empire against the invasions of
Germanic (Goths and Vandals) tribes, ‘destroying’ and ‘vandalizing’ (in the minds of
Italians) the beauty of classical/Roman tradition.
o Attempt to revive the glorious (classical) past.
o Florence (home of Dante and Giotto): renewal
 Filippo Brunelleschi, architect who mastered ‘vaulting’ (technical invention of
Gothic art!), which combined with ancient Roman architecture (by studying ruins of
temples) led to the invention of domes.
 Masaccio, painter developing rules of perspective in style reminding of Roman and
Greek order (solid forms vs. delicate grace, austerity and geometrical forms vs.
curved and thin)
 Donatello, sculptor, new observation of bodies, less graceful than Gothic, more
definite contours, rigidity of the stone.
 Dijon: Claus Sluter, lifelikeness, sculptures less rigid than those flanked on porches.
 Swiss: Conrad Witz, first landscape-painting (‘portrait’) with St Peter standing near Geneva Lake,
might have seemed uncanny to worshipers!
 Belgium: Jan van Eyck, delicate details (typical of Gothic art), looking more like an actual scenery (vs.
decorative background), perspective and light and shade to model figures.
o Oil-painting: during M.A, linking agent was egg and dried quickly, oil allowed to work more
slowly and give glossy aspects if used in transparent layers (called ‘glazes’)
o For the first time, artists became eyewitnesses in the truest sense of the term (Figure)

Italians = renaissance in composition (using techniques to give more life to images, greater accuracy in
depiction)

Van Eyck = renaissance in depiction (using details and depiction to give more life to images and greater
accuracy).

“The difference between northern and Italian art remained important for many years. It is a fair guess to say that
any work which excels in the representation of the beautiful surface of things, flowers, jewels, fabric, will be by
a northern artist […]; while a painting with bold outlines, clear perspective and a sure mastery of the beautiful
human body, will be Italian.” (p.178)
 Figure 11 The betrothal of the
Arnolfini, Jan van Eyck, 1434

TRADITION ET
INNOVATIONS EN
ITALIE (FIN 15 E )

Figure Cappella Pazzi, Brunelleschi, 1430

Renaissance  art as mirror of reality vs. telling sacred stories

Realism > foreshortening is dangerous because threatens art to be a less satisfying whole: it had to be both
accurate and harmonious. Conversely, harmony may become too rigid if lacking movement (and counter-
mouvements). See Pollaiuolo’s models (his painting looks like and exercise) = dangers of realism and studio-
studies

But 15th c. is characterised by an attempt from artists to mix old and new. Example: Fra Angelico’s ‘frescoes’ in
the spirit of Masaccio, but no suggestion of movement and realism of the figures. Paolo Uccello’s paintings
reflect his fascination for perspective, and therefore gives them an artificial quality rather than realism.

Figure 12 The Battle of San Romano, Medici Palace, Uccello, 1450

Figure The Holy Trinity,

Masaccio (in Florentine
Church in the style of
Brunelleschi)
  U
n it
y of

Figure Court of the Palace of Justice of Rouen, 1482

style in each city, hence, artistic identity of cities because:
o Guild (unions) of artists because circulation of
masters across Europe: guilds reserved to masters,
allowing them to open workshops, to employ
Figure 13 The Martyrdom of St Sebastian,
apprentices + guilds often had their say in Pollaiuolo, 1475
government.
o Schools of painting in each city (apprenticeships)
 Piero Della Francesca introduces light into perspective
 Sandro Botticelli’s Renaissance paintings reach back to glorious Roman Empire and represents
mythology instead of Christian figures + curvy lines

TRADITION ET INNOVATIONS DANS L’EUROPE DU NORD (15 E )

 Innovations from Gothic style in Northern art:

o Pointed arches, flying buttress, and massive development of ornamentation (lacework of the
‘Decorated style’): the French ‘Flamboyant Style’ (Figure 29) almost exhausted possibilities
of Gothic architecture; the English ‘Perpendicular Style’ (Figure 30) shows fantastic lacework
in the vault, and its sober/simple/classical structure and elements increase the worldliness of
the whole (lofty hall with no side(aisles, no pillars or steep-arches).
o Architects followed Brunelleschi’s incorporation of classical motifs to Gothic works
 Northern artists were still ‘medieval artists’ compared to Italians, who
proved more ‘modern’ in incorporating perspective, scientific anatomy,
etc.

 Similarities between Italian art and Northern art:

o Lochner // Fra Angelico (Figure 31): humility of
background/shallow stage, drapery
o Fouquet // Piero Della Francesca (Figure 32) : light
and shades, realism of faces

Figure 14 The Virgin and the rose-bower, Figure King's College Chapel,
Lochner, 1440 Cambridge, 1446
Figure 15 Estienne Chevalier, Jean Fouquet, 1450

 Printing ! ‘Woodcut’ technique, a cheap method of reproduction

o Gutenberg’s evolution: using movable letters held by a frame, instead of wood-blocks.
o Martin Schongauer: for the sake of realism, using copper, instead of wood: the ‘negative’ of
woodcut, because with a burin, copper plates are carved, then surface is inked, then plate
pressed, so that the ink that has remained in the lines cut by the burin is on the paper.
o Enabled circulation of art

TOSCANE ET ROME (DÉBUT 16 E ) : LE RÈGNE DE L’HARMONIE

 16th = Cinquecento
 Liberty for artists to choose for whom to work = artist’s vision
o Michelangelo’s disappointment with Florence led Pope Julius II to try to appeal to him back in
Florence by pleading the state to commend his skills  politics meddled with art.
o Raphael : imagination vs. faithful reproductions (nb. Faithful reproductions was key in
Quattrocento) => artists improved on nature by having models representing ideas!
 Period of unachieved monuments in context of Reformation (indulgence to Church triggered Luther’s
protest)
 o Donato Bramante: Basilica of St Peter, 1506, commanded by Pope Julius II
 Leonardo da Vinci: observing nature (dissecting bodies)
o Copying bird’s flying mechanism to design flying machines
o Mirror-inverted writing in his notes: fear of divulging heretical ideas.
o Considered painting a Liberal art  same level as poetry!
 Power of visualisation in painting ‘The Last Supper’: dramatic movement
introduced when enacting the words “he should ask who it should be of whom he
spake”.
 Effortless harmony
 ‘Mona Lisa’ seems to possess a mind of her own.
o Contrary to Botticelli or Van Eyck, Leonardo believed that realism and
life-likeness/movement in painting could be achieved by leaving something to guess to the
beholder.
 ‘Sfumato’: blurred outline = mysterious effect
Notice in ‘Mona Lisa’ the corner of mouth and eyes blurred out, which in tradition
are the two main important features of facial expression in paintings + ambiguous
symmetry
 Michelangelo Buonarotti: surpassed classical masters (he could draw from any angle) thanks
to his great memory + unorthodox because each invention/creation came from his whims
o Sistine Chapel, 1512: notice various positions
o Sistine Chapel: touch of God is the focus of the scene “it is one of the greatest
miracles in art how Michelangelo has contrived thus to make the touch of the
Divine hand the centre and focus of the picture, and how he has made us see the
idea of omnipotence by the ease and power of this gesture of creation”
(creation = God + artist) (P.235)
o ‘The Dying Slave’: impression that it is at once at rest and moving, because of Figure 16 The Dying Slave,
the position in which he places the figures contrasts with the firmness and designed for the tomb of
restful aspect of the outlines (stone). Pope Julius II, 1516

 Raphael: regularity and apparent simplicity but introduced liveliness in the whole
o Depiction of ‘madonnas’
o Movement and counter-movement (Figure 34): angels in mirror + movements of
angels reproduced on Galatea, whose chariot goes from left to right while her veil
blows in the opposite direction. The position of each elements places her face as
the focus of the painting.

Figure 17 The Nymph Galatea, Raphael, 1514

Aristotle’s classification of Arts:

(a)‘Liberal Arts’: grammar, dialectic, rhetoric, geometry

(b)‘Menial Arts’: manual work (= less dignifying)

LUMIÈRES ET COULEURS DANS L’ITALIE DU NORD

(DÉBUT 16 E )

 Renaissance reached Venice late: in architecture, combining a

classical Doric level to an Ionic upper level + Gothic elements in
decorations.
 Venetian art was very appropriate to play with radiant colours
and blurred outlines in painting because of the surrounding
lagoons.
 o Potentially also influenced by mosaic tradition of Constantinople.

Short history of colours in art:

Middle-Ages art: no intent on realism => colours were used according to their value, pureness, and
preciousness.

Reformation period in Florence: the most important was the outline => colours were secondary effects.

Venetian art: colours used to unify forms => Venetian art was great, not because of the moving stories they
told and the way they were depicted/composition/content, but for the atmosphere emerging from colours

 Giorgione (Figure 35): he did not draw/filled the background second-hand (“the picture is clearly
blended into a whole simply by the light and air that permeates it all. It is the weird light of a
thunderstorm, and for the first time, it seems, the landscape before which the actors of the picture move
is not just a background.” p.251)
 Titian (Figure 36): established balance not in composition and geometrical placement of figures, but
through light and colours. Gombrich observes: “the idea of making a mere flag counterbalance the
figure of the Holy Virgin would probably have shocked an earlier generation, but this flag, in its rich,
warm colour, is such stupendous piece of painting that the venture was a complete success.” (p.254)
 Correggio (Figure 38): master of light, notice how Christ radiates. All the more impressive when
displayed in darkly lit churches and domes.
o Legacy of Correggio: painters learnt to use dark colours to convey light!

Figure 35 The Tempest, Giorgione, 1508

Figure 36 Madonna with saints and the
members of the Pesaro family, Titian, 1519

Figure 37 Pope Paul III with Alessandro and

Ottavio Farnese, Titian, 1546

Figure 38 The Holy Night, altar painting,

Correggio, 1530

L’ALLEMAGNE ET LES PAYS-BAS  : LA DIFFUSION DES

SAVOIRS (DÉBUT 16 E )
  Early modification to keep up with Italian Renaissance: plastering Roman/classical elements to Gothic
works, like superficially turning vaults into roman columns by having capitals affixed to them.
 In painting, however, this trick would not do.
 Albrecht Dürer
o Van Eyck’s vein: nature, picturesque and details
o Gothic vein: imitation of nature
o Introduced proportion as rule of art and of the ‘beautiful’

He “transplant[ed] the ideals of the south into northern soil” (p.266): representation of bodies
in the style of Italian artists of the Renaissance (inspired by classical models) but fixing those
bodies in an atmosphere proper to northern painting (details, nature) so that it counterbalances the
artificiality of the symmetrical proportion of the bodies.

L’EUROPE À LA FIN DU 16 E  : L’ART EN CRISE

 Fear that art has come to standstill triggered various responses:

o ‘Mannerism’ : period of reproduction of great masters’ works
(Michelangelo’s nudes notably)
o Simpler productions (focus on perfection and geometry) and
displayed knowledge of classical art (Figure 37)
o Vaguer pictures (mysterious nature)
o Original creations (Figure 35), seeking to create unexpected
works
o Purposedly breaking rules:
 Figure 38 is by a Venetian painter and sacrifices their
rules of colouring to convey mystery and drama through
mellow light / Vasari criticised his works as unfinished
and strokes made by chance).
 Disregarding rules of forms and realism (Figure 38)

Figure 18 Window of Palazzo Zuccari

by Zuccari, 1592

Figure 19 Villa Rotonda, Andrea Palladio, 1550

Figure 21 The finding of St Mark's remains, Figure 20 The Opening of the Fifth Seal, El
Painters in the north faced Tintoretto, 1562 Greco, 1610
Reformation: against holy images + sober decorations
o Holbein’s Puritan portraits of Henry VIII’s Court, Hillard’s refinement
o So much that almost the only artistic activity left was portrait-painting
o Landscape paintings, Drôleries (= genre pictures / daily-life) and still-lives developed in
Netherlands
  Pieter Bruegel the
Elder, master of
‘genre’: /!\ if he mostly
depicted Flemish
peasants, himself was a
townsman.

Depiction of rustic life was less artificial:

(a)manners were different

(b) painters and writers often chose low-life as

subject-matter to show the folly of humankind (=
to mock) Gombrich calls Figure 39 a “comedy” in
Figure 22 A country wedding, Bruegel the Elder, 1565
which Bruegel managed to depict activity and
bustle: it is therefore not a facile scene, and yet, Bruegel managed to not make the picture look confusing.

SUR LA VISION  : L’EUROPE CATHOLIQUE (DÉBUT 17 E )

 Baroque, designated works that appeared

‘grotesques’ by combining classical art with
other, extraneous elements, or making classical art
without following its rules. = lack of taste

Figure 23 Il Gesù, Giacomo Della Porta, 1575

Jesuit church designed by Giacomo Della Porta

has double columns, double door frame, which
are essential for the structure, and volutes which
have not place in Roman or Greek architecture
(“it is these curves and scrolls that have been
responsible for much of the censure showered in
Baroque builders”, p.303)
o In a way, it is a continuation of art that
attempted to innovate against
Mannerism:
 Caravaggio: Figure: draped figures but wrinkled faces,
not heavenly and more common-like while people were
accustomed to seeing apostles as dignified figures. The
light gives the scene an uncompromising honesty vs.
aiming to glow on figures
“What he wanted was truth. He had no liking for classical models,
nor any respect for ‘ideal beauty’. […] Some people thought he had
no respect for any kind of beauty or tradition. He was one of the
first painters at whom these accusations were levelled and the first
whose outlook was summed up by his critics in a slogan: he was
condemned as a ‘naturalist’.” (p.305)
 Rubens, inspired by Caravaggio’s sincerity, and applied
skills to convey texture

Figure 24 Detail, Prince Philip of

Prosper, Velasquez, 1660
  Velasquez, inspired by Caravaggio: dispassionate observation of nature + Las
Meninas is like a photograph. Unlike Northern painters, instead of reproducing every
detail, he managed to convey the effects of elements (compare Velasquez’s dog with
Van Eyck’s dog).

 Neo-classicism: new rules for beauty developing from classical ‘ideals of beauty’
o Reni (Figure 40)
o Nicolas Poussin and Lorrain: selecting elements so that the picture is dream-like and perfect,
and details, use of golden light to transfigure (pastoral) scenes

Figure 25 The Dawn, Reni, fresco, 1613

LA HOLLANDE DU 17 E  : L’IMITATION DE LA NATURE

 South Netherlands (Belgium, Antwerp) = Catholics = Rubens = Baroque

 North Netherlands (Amsterdam, Haarlem) = Protestants = simple works, few decorations and non-
religious/ religious respectful subject-matters
o Painters were not commissioned  they had to find buyers!
o Frans Hals (Figure 43), portrait-paintings seized a fleeting
impression, therefore unconventional (earlier portraits were
painted with visible patience): we do not have the
impression the sitter sat still for long! The portrait is alive,
because not symmetrical: “Hals knew how to attain the
impression of balance without appearing to follow any
rule.” (p.328)
o Jan van Goyen’s evolution of genre paintings: while
Claude Lorrain painted nostalgic visions of English land,
van Goyen painted homely scenes and transfigured familiar
motifs into beautiful scenes => advent of the “picturesque”
(gazers look back at the world through the artist’s eyes, that
is, its unpretentious natural beauty).
o Rembrandt, sincerity, and honesty in his portraits: master
of a new “working of the soul”. As if he did not care for
beauty! New technique: etching

Discovering a new type of ‘beautiful’:

Figure Pieter van den Broecke, Frans Hals,
1633
Birth of still-lives:

(a)Demonstrating that subject matter is less important than composition/art

 (b)Art from trivial objects / trivial subject-matter

 Vermeer: still-life of human beings (genre scenes without humour) meddling mellowness and
precision

ITALIE : GLOIRE ET POUVOIR  (17 E -18 E )

 Developpment of Baroque architecture, evolution of Della Porta’s:

o Borromini (Figure 45): cupola, first story of towers squared, second story rounded, more
complex curves to door-frames = in all, “more theatrical”
 Bernini’s altar is like a stage.
 Gaulli’s painting of the ceiling (Figure 44)
almost illusion that the ceiling opens as the
figures have their backs turned to us and
gaze into something unreachable: “The
crowded scene seems to burst the frame of
the ceiling, which brims over with clouds
carrying saints and sinners right down into
the church. In letting the picture thus break
the frame, the artist wants us to confuse and
overwhelm us, so that we no longer know
what is real and what illusion.” (p.349)

o Interiors more decorated to contrast Protestant

churches on purpose
 Exultation, see Bernini’s altar, intensity of
facial expression (compare to
Michelangelo’s Dying Slave), and drapery
not shaped to fall in the Classical tradition,
but to add effects around the face and
convey movement.
o New purpose of art in churches: to convert (Baroque age) vs. help read scriptures (M.A)

Figure 26 The worship of the Holy Name of Jesus,

Jesuit Church Il Gesù, Gaulli, 1670 Figure 28 Sta Agnese in Piazza Navona, Borromini, 1653

Figure 27 The visions of St Theresa, altar in Sta Maria della Vittoria,

Bernini, 1644
 FRANCE, ALLEMAGNE, AUTRICHE  : GLOIRE ET POUVOIR  (17 E -18 E )

 Louis XIV: invited Bernini to design his palace, never materialised.

o Versailles 1655-1682, by Louis Levau and Hardouin Mansard
 Baroque because of immensity
 Baroque because of statues and columns decorating facades.
 Development of Baroque in Europe: brooks turned into cascades, entire cities designed as stages,
stucco everywhere, etc.

Interior of homes were meant to be overwhelming: “we must imagine what it meant for a simple Austrian
peasant to leave his farmhouse and enter this strange wonderland.” (p.357) = seems to be another world where
(natural) rules do not apply.

Figure 29 Church of Melk Monastery, 1738

Figure 48 Fête dans le parc, Watteau, 1718

Watteau: over-precious and artificial paintings, reflecting the taste of French aristocracy, called ‘Rococo’
(=fashion for dainty colours and delicate decorations, expressing gay frivolity).

Light themes and light motifs, refinement of the brushstrokes, whiffs of colours, but manifested his awareness
of the transience of beauty.

‘THE AGE OF REASON’ EN ANGLETERRE ET FRANCE

 1666 London fire

o Sir Walter Wren commissioned to rebuild churches.
 St Paul’s Cathedral (Figure 49): Baroque
influence, except no curves, sober =
suggests stability, no extravagance
 The rule of reason = the ideal of English-eighteenth-century
architecture:
o country houses vs. castles
o Andrea Palladio’s architectural guidebook based on
studies of Roman ruins = ‘Palladian manner’
o Against art that produced emotions
o English-landscape garden, by Kent: gardens should
reflect the beauties of nature, as seen in the
paintings by Lorrain.
 Versailles was deemed ‘absurd’ and ‘artificial’ because its gardens extended beyond measure from the
building.

 William Hogarth, educational engravings: the ‘Rake’s Progress’ teaches the rewards of virtue and the
wages of sin (idleness, crime)
o Stock characters
o Back to Medieval teachings of art Figure 30 St Paul's, Wren, 1675
o Theatrical dimension
o Classical composition for clarity
 idea that rules of taste are teachable:
o ‘The Analysis of Beauty’, Hogarth: undulating lines more beautiful than angular lines
o Sir Joshua Reynolds: first
president of the Royal
Academy of Art, discourses on
taste and authority in art, on
the model of Italian masters
(Titian, Carracci), and great
Art always derives from
impressive and worthy
subject-matters: “instead of
minute neatness of his
imitations, the genuine painter
must endeavour to improve
[his spectators] by the grandeur
of his ideas.’
Figure Portrait of Miss Bowles with her  Precedence to
dog, Reynolds, 1775 ‘historical paintings’ Figure Portrait of Miss
 ‘portraiture’ and Haverfield, Gainsborough, 1780
selection of scenery, particularly, depicting innocence
(Figure 50).
 Need to convince about ‘poetic invention’: artists work with their brains vs. hands

 Sir Thomas Gainsborough: refused to copy masters and was from the country, more fresh, less
sophisticated than Reynolds, and liked to paint landscapes (‘picturesque’) = against many of Reynolds’
‘rules of art’
o Followed by Fragonard in France

Legacy of the ‘Age of Reason’: artists became self-conscious of ‘style’ and the method and effect they applied
to.

Partly because, preoccupied with authenticity/correctness, they discovered that the ‘classical style’ had been
elaborated in the 15th century upon the model of Roman ruins!

Before: style = how things are done / the best way to achieve something.

After: style = styles

ROMPRE AVEC LA TRADITION  : L’ANGLETERRE, LES ETATS-UNIS ET LA FRANCE

AU TOURNANT DU 19 E
  Regency period (1810-1820): an exercise in authenticity (vs. taking
elements from Gothic or Roman orders and composing a work according to
one’s fancy or modernizing it)
o Walpole’s ’Gothic Revival’
 Style of the romantics, who despaired of the command of
Reason in Britain and longed to return to an ‘Age of
Faith’
 Disregarding the traditional set of subject-matters
(religion, historical scenes etc.) = imagination
o ‘Greek Revival’  ‘neo-classical style’
 US’s buildings
 France, under Napoleon’s Empire, discarding
Baroque and Rococo (associated with aristocracy)
and inspired by Athenian type of democracy.

 Rebels in art in context of political revolutions: engaged historical

paintings
o US, context of colonial self-rule
o France, against arbitrariness: Jacques Louis David,
‘official artist’ of the Revolutionary Government. Figure
52 shows noble accuracy, keeping with details of Marat’s
life-style and death-record, simplicity, no complicated
design.

Figure 31 Marat assassiné, David, 1793

Figure 32 Group on a balcony, Goya, 1810

o Spain, Goya, court painter, his paintings look superficially like state portraits by Van Dyck or
Reynolds, but making his sitters reveal all their vanity, greed, ugliness and emptiness.

 Images are poems: private visions of the artists (‘inner eye’) = correctness irrelevant / art as
expression
“The idea the the true purpose of art was to express personality could only gain ground when art had
lost every other purpose.” (p.398)
o William Blake: admirer of Michelangelo (see Figure 54). His vision of the Creation is
fantastic vs. realistic. And there is something evil-like in the image, for Blake thought of the
creator as an evil spirit, for the world itself was bad.
o Goya’s ‘aquatinta’ technique, derived from etching, allowing shaded patches. The result is
fantastic images. Those denounced an atmosphere of oppression and cruelty.
o Landscape paintings’ ‘Romantic’ vein:
 J.M.W Turner (closer to tradition), agreed that his paintings be exhibited, but only
side by side with Claude Lorrain. However, Lorrain’s paintings were calm and lacked
any loud effect. Figure 55 is revolutionary: previous landscape painters created
‘picturesque’ views (= depicting what is typically there, clichés), while Turner
renders the impression, the drama in the scene.
“In Turner, nature always reflects and expresses’ man’s emotions.” (p.393)
 John Constable gives spectators to explore their feelings when faced with objects,
and therefore access their truth. Contrary to Turner, Constable explored the visible
world vs. poetic moods.
  In US, development of new techniques and trends, colonies have no attachment to Old
tradition.
Figure 34 The Ancient of Days,
Blake, 1794

Figure 33 Steamer in a Snowstorm,

Turner, 1842

‘Academy’ derives from the

name of Plato’s villa, where
he taught his disciples 
resonates with philosophical thinking

In sixteenth-century Italy, ‘academy’ was used to promote art as an

intellectual work.

19 E  : UN SIÈCLE DE RÉVOLUTIONS

 Churches built in Gothic style because associated with the ‘Age of Faith’.
 Theatres adopted Baroque style as most consistent
 Administrations adopted Renaissance style, the most
‘dignified’ style.
o Eg: House of Parliament, Gothic style because
civil liberties, born in the Middle Ages, was
celebrated + Renaissance style
 Industrial revolution: machine production and factories
o Craftsmen vs. artists: cheap goods sold as ‘art’ =
indicates a deterioration of taste
o Photography also encouraged new technique and
purpose to painting

Artists played with (the bourgeois) expectations towards art and their complacencies, by creating unusual works:
previously “the artists and their public shared certain assumptions and therefore also agreed on standards of
excellence”, while “the history of art in the nineteenth century can never become the history of the most
successful and best-paid master of that time.” (p.399)

 Delacroix’s revolution vs. Ingre’s academism: privileging colours and imagination vs. forms and
knowledge = no clarity of outlines, carefully graded tones, movement, and drama (Figure 56).

 Courbet’s ‘réalisme’: “to be the pupil of nature”

o François Millet vs. genre paintings: paintings where peasants are no longer placed in
comical settings (Dutch tradition), but in non-picturesque or idyllic rural settings. Simple
outlines underline the movements of the figures (hard-work emphasised), and use of plain
 colours to emphasise the dignity of working people despite harsh conditions (Figure 57), and
natural pose, impression of tranquillity/casualness => solemn significance. Gaiety in the
picture, thanks to rhythmic composition.
o Truth vs. ‘prettiness’

Figure 35 Arabic fantasy, Delacroix, 1834

Figure 36 The gleaners, Millet, 1857

 Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood: reacting against ‘realisme’

o More primitive: achieve sincerity in grand stories by depicting them in naïve manner.
o Retrieving virtue in art

“Throughout the history of art, people have been inclined to judge pictures by what they know, rather than by
what they see.” (p.406)

 Edouard Manet: truer to actual vision

o Painting inspired from nature vs. studio-making
o Opening plurality in perspective (one object = multiple angles and sides)  truer to actual
vision
Figure 58 shows balcony scene inspired by Goya’s, but flatter perspective! + green railing
cuts colour harmony = emphasises perspective
o Monet altogether urged to abandon the studio: the object depicted changes through time,
according to light etc .= against natural change, painters must draw from rapid strokes
quickly capturing the present sight = less details = truer to actual human vision.
 Salon of the Rejected, 1863
o Degas’ evolution of foreshortening: painting
from any angle

 James Whistler: form more important than subject-

matter
o endowing subject-matter with restful quality
and resigned loneliness
o Notice his titles: portrait of his mother is
“Arrangement in grey and black”! (Figure
59)

 Rodin: disregarding classical

Figure 38, Awaiting the cue, Degas, 1879 perfection of “finished” works

Figure 37 The balcony, Manet, 1869

 o As his sculptures were inspired from ancient masters and tradition, his works helped paved the
way for the better reception of impressionism.

Figure 39 Arrangement in grey and black,

Whistler, 1871
Figure The hand of God, Rodin,
1898
FIN 19 E   : À LA RECHERCHE DE NOUVEAUX CANONS

 Context of cheap-mass production, eg. architecture: design no longer related to the purpose of the
building.
o John Ruskin and William Morris’s design to reform the arts and crafts
 Retrieving the ideas of medieval art
o ‘Art Nouveau’: new designs and will to explore the possibilities inherent
to materials
 Inspired by Eastern art vs. Western art tied with tradition
 Decorative arts: bold simplification of forms

 Vincent Van Gogh:

o Japanese and Impressionist influences
o Colours reflect his exaltation
He painted “motifs in which he could draw as well as paint with his brush,
and lay on the colour thick just as a writer who underlines his words. That
is why he was the first painter to discover the beauty if stubbles,
hedgerows, and cornfields […].” (p.437) Figure Illustration to Oscar
 Wilde's 'Salome', Ashley
Beardsley, 1894

Figure 40 La Desserte, Matisse, 1908

 Fauvistes: Henri Matisse’s Oriental colour-scheme

 Paul Cézanne’s self-contradicting paintings:

influenced by Poussin, he aimed at natural simplicity,
paintings that look restful/calm through their
composition. But this sense of order is perfectly
combined with a
vagueness of form
 natural harmony

 Georges Seurat’s pointillism: completely indifferent to correctness

of outlines as the technique avoids all contours.
Moderns?

Figure A cornfield with cypresses, Van

Gogh, 1889
Figure 65 Bridge at Inheritors
Courbevoie,
of Seurat,
Renaissance
1886 painters, who accomplished balance and precision thanks to their study of
nature.
!! However, for Impressionists, the methods of academic art were contrary to nature, who fixed in
definite forms an unstable and changing object.
!! To “paint ‘from nature’’ (p.429) = surrendering to visual impressions and effects of nature vs.
painting from the knowledge of objects.

For Renaissance painters, the problem was the medieval precision  conveying a rigid nature
For Impressionists, the problem was vagueness of form  impressions are not lasting  the canvases
contradict the notion of art as something enduring.

 Modern art born out of dissatisfaction:

o From Cézanne’s impressionism >> Cubism: order makes art?
o From Van Gogh’s impressionism >> Expressionism: passion and intensity make art?
o From Gaugin’s dissatisfaction with life >> Primitivism: retrieving purity of art in simpler
forms

DÉBUT 20 E  : L’ART EXPÉRIMENTAL

 New function of art:

o Looking to ‘primitive’ works to regenerate the purpose of Western art. African art is all
which European art seemed to have lost: expressiveness, clarity of structure, simplicity of
technique.
 Cubism: pictures are re-constructions of familiar objects ( questions the relation
between the various parts and our knowledge and automatism in ordering vision) +
exploiting the illusion principle (the flat fragments convey a solid picture in our
minds)

Pablo Picasso’s violin inspires the Egyptian principle of perspective

(drawn from the angle from which its characteristic form come out most
clearly)

o Against William Morris’ opinion rejecting the place of

technology and machinery in art-making + against
decoration and taste developed by Brunelleschi
 Bauhaus school of architecture,
‘functionalism’, Walter Gropius: to fit its
purpose, and will be forcefully aesthetically
pleasing because achieved a sense of purpose.
Geometry may be pleasing/’right’ to the eye.
 ‘Organic Architecture’, Lloyd Wright : a
house must grow out of the needs of the people
and the character of the country around it.
o “It might even be said that modern art has found a new
function in serving as testing-ground for new ways of Figure Violin and grapes, Picasso, 1912
combining shapes and patterns.” (p.445)
o Indifference to taste: be a painting beautiful or ugly, it is no longer of importance to rebel
artists:
 Expressionists intended on representing
and exorcising strong human feelings,
like suffering, poverty, violence: for
Figure Children playing, Kokoschka, 1909

them, beauty is antagonistic to honesty and truth. But in fast, the

historical context has led rebel artists to believe that
To Edvard Munch, ‘The Scream’ : anguish is not beautiful by nature.
Oscar Kokoschka’s children do not look innocent and beautiful: he
seeks to arouse compassion.
 Abstract Art:
Wassily Kandinsky: psychological effects of pure colours  spiritual
art vs. oriented towards/celebrating progress and technology. His
paintings, like Whistler’s, are compositions, because they are colour
music.
Piet Mondrian: aimed to convey that there lies mystery in the world
Figure My Mother,
behind solid forms.
polaroid collage,
Hockney, 1982
Art became a problem and a story of
forms vs. subject-matter was simply the base.
Eg, contrary to Michelangelo, Alberto Giacometti
sought to find out how much the sculptor could
retain of the original shape of his slab while still
transforming it into the suggestion of a human
head. (Figure 68)
Figure Head, Giacometti, 1928

UNE HISTOIRE SANS FIN

Art = « when something is done so superlatively well that we all but forget to ask what the work is supposed to
be, for sheer admiration of the way it is done.” (p.477)

More and more, the making of art becomes an art  performance

 Abstract expressionism, or ‘action painting’;

o Jackson Pollock: his lines “satisfies two opposing standards of twentieth-century art: the
longing for child-like simplicity and spontaneity that evokes the memory of childish scrawls
[…] [and] the sophisticated interest in the problems of ‘pure painting’.” (p.479)
 Outburst of inspiration
 Influence of oriental arts and mystical beliefs
o Pierre Soulage: plays with spatial quality of the canvas through brushstrokes and color
gradation.
o Interest in ‘texture’
 ‘Op Art’: play with optical effects of shapes and colours

The ‘tradition of the new’:

The tradition in arts of the contemporary period is that of experimentation: rebellious gestures, and shock.

‘Vanguard Audience’, coined by Harold Rosenberg in April 1963: that which is open to anything (“Its eager
representatives -curators, museum directors, art educators, dealers- rush to organize exhibitions and provide
explanatory labels before the paint has dried on the canvas or the plastic has hardened. Co-operating critics
comb the studios […] to take the lead in establishing reputations.”)

“The tradition of the new has reduced all other traditions to triviality.” H. Rosenberg, 1963

What are the factors that pushed to the activity of studying the history of art?

(a)Sort of need to defend the art of the past against prejudices and hostile public (notably for revolutionary
movements)

(b)Concern for progress and change

+ : critical POV upon history; the need, while in a period celebrating change and the future, to not
forget traditions and history also.

- : few actually reflect upon the very activity of history writing and history-research/critics’ tasks and
methods, eg. the conception that all great artists were derided in their time and lauded afterwards.

- : Belief that change is positive, and we must welcome it.

(c)Influence of the Romantic period and Freud’s psyche studies: greater importance granted to psychology
 art observed though psychologists’ eyes: the pleasure, in a conformist and mechanised society, to witness
rebel’s art and self-expressions. Art often perceived as either mirroring or fighting the world.

(d)Art tied with politics, eg. Marxism’s socialist art

- : Dressing up the history of art gives the impression that all that matters is novelty!

 New practises:
o Photography: more people have access to image-making = what makes an artist?
 David Hockney: cubist influence (Figure 69)
 Post-Modern, coined by Charles Jencks (architect) in 1975: diversity, plurality and tolerance, for
whom shock = originality