Media Aesthetics

Week 4
Art movements and Aesthetics Lesson 2
LESSON 2 : WHAT HAS ART PRESENTED TO US?
THE AESTHETICS OF THE INDIVIDUAL, FROM
THE ROMANTIC TO THE EXPRESSIONIST AND
ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONIST
Lesson 2 – What has art presented to us?
The Pre and Post19th Century (Does Modernism begin here ?)
The aesthetics thread from the Romantics to Expressionist to Abstract
Expressionist

• Presenting the ‘Real’ world as we ‘meditate’ it, bringing in the subjective self and the
aesthetics of the being.

• The aesthetic thread from the Romantics to the Expressionist and the Abstract
Expressionist

Approach
1. Key concepts of the Romantic
2. Philosophy and world view – what ‘reality’ do they see
3. When and what is Romantic art in visual arts
4. Romantic inspiration or elements identified in later movements
5. Conclusion
 Romanticism •1800-1880
Interrelation of Major Movements
of 20th Century Arts
REALISM

Principle Influence Impressionism

Secondary Influence Post-Impressionism
Symbolism

Art Nouveau
1900

CUBISM Expressionism
Fauvism
•1905-1925
WW1 Constructivism Futurism
Dada
De Stijl

Bauhaus Surrealism Social Realism

WW2
Abstract Formalism Abstract Expressionism
Action Painting
Op
•1940-1960s
Minimalism
Pop

Happenings

Kinetic Process Conceptual New Realism

Eugene Delacroix
The Lion Hunt 1858 Oil on canvas 36” inches David, Jacques-Louis
wide by 27” inches high The Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons Paris 1789
Oil on canvas 127 1/4 x 166 1/4 in. (323 x 422 cm)
Compare the differences of these two Musee du Louvre, Paris.
paintings. Unity & Variety, Balance,
Emphasis & Subordination, Directional
Forces, Contrast, Repetition & Rhythm,
Scale & Proportion
 •NEO-CLASSICAL KEY DATES: 1750-1880
David, Jacques-Louis
The Death of Socrates 1787 •A Nineteenth Century French art style and movement that originated
Oil on canvas 51 x 77 1/4 in. (129.5 x 196.2 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
as a reaction to the Baroque. It sought to revive the ideals of ancient
Greek and Roman art. Neoclassic artists used classical forms to
express their ideas about courage, sacrifice, and love of country.
 Philosophy and world view – what ‘reality’ did they see, or did not wish to see?

• ROMANTICISM KEY DATES: 1800-1880

• Romanticism was basically a reaction against Neoclassicism, it is a deeply-felt ‘style’
which is individualistic, beautiful, exotic, and emotionally wrought.

•The origins of Romanticism, reactions to 18th narratives of The Enlightenment,

•Critical reactions to 18th Grand Narratives of The Enlightenment
(Kant,Rousseau limitations of rationalism - science/encyclopeadiasts. )

•The enlightenment – the great age of reason – whereby every phenomenon and events
was believed to be explainable by reasons and rationality through a scientific method

•The rise of the Nation State in Northern Europe –Napoleonic War in Europe, American
Revolution 1775-1783, French Revolution 1787 – 1794, creation of new state, e.g. Prussia,
Norway etc. created a patriotic environment – urges national identity – awareness of ones
‘Englishness’ or ‘Frenchness’
 PHILOSOPHY AND WORLD VIEW – WHAT ‘REALITY’
DID THEY SEE, OR DID NOT WISH TO SEE?

• Romantic yearned for the distant and unattainable Middle-Ages and have various challenges
to the dominance of classical (antique Greek and Roman culture):
• The Gothic Revival, medievalism, folk culture, the Celtic fringes, Shakespeare (especially
Macbeth, Hamlet and Lear),
• 'Nature' (rather than urban culture) as a source of truth (Turner's avalanches and storms)
• dreams, nightmares, the visionary and the imagination - feeling/emotion (e.g. the 'sublime') in
opposition to rationalism (science, logic, etc.)
• individualism and the particular opposed to the general and the idealised.
Hieronymus Bosch,The Garden of Earthly Delights, oil on oak panels, 205.5 cm × 384.9 cm (81 in × 152 in), Museo del Prado, Madrid (1490-1510)
Some main themes of the Romantic

•Nature' (rather than urban culture - classical/academy) as a

source of
truth/integrity - TRUTH TO NATURE' - often with
religious/pantheistic implications – 'nature in all her moods' .
Pantheistic – doctrine that god is everything and everything is
God

•Individualism/individual liberty

•Feeling/emotion (including extremes of emotional response

in opposition to rationalism (science, logic, etc.) Edmund
Burke's notion of 'the sublime' 'the terrible'/ 'aw(e)ful
•The imagination dreams, nightmares, the visionary
•Emphasis on 'authenticity' - of emotions expressed -
(integrity, spontaneity, individuality - 'inner-truth' became
criteria by which all art came to be judged')
•The particular opposed to the general and idealised - hence
no Romantic style.

•The decentring of man - man overwhelmed by the power

Friedrich, Caspar avid
of nature – the magnitude of natura! forces: Mountains, Wanderer above the Sea of Fog
avalanches, storms, etc. 1818; Oil on canvasD, 94 x 74.8 cm; Kunsthalle, Hamburg
The Sublime,
Theory developed by Edmund Burke in the mid eighteenth century, where he defined sublime
art as art that refers to a greatness beyond all possibility of calculation, measurement or
imitation

he theory of sublime art was put forward by Edmund Burke in A Philosophical Enquiry into the
Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful published in 1757. He defined the sublime as an
artistic effect productive of the strongest emotion the mind is capable of feeling. He wrote
‘whatever is in any sort terrible or is conversant about terrible objects or operates in a
manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime’.
In landscape the sublime is exemplified by J.M.W Turner’s sea storms and mountain scenes
and in history painting by the violent dramas of Henry Fuseli. The notion that a legitimate
function of art can be to produce upsetting or disturbing effects was an important element in
Romantic art and remains fundamental to art today. (https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-
terms/s/sublime)
John Constable (1776 – 1836)
English Landscape Romantic

Clock wise from Top Left

1. Haywain
2. Flatford Mill
3. Salisbury Cathedral
Joseph Mallord William Turner. Keelmen Heaving in Coals by Moonlight.
Probably 1835, oil on canvas, 36’’ X 48’’ in.
A historical theme and a seminarrative presentation of subject are qualities found in many works of the
Romantic movement. By using color to produce atmospheric effects, Turner anticipated the techniques of
later Impressionists. Like them, he placed less emphasis on formal organization.
Slavers throwing overbroad the dead and dying – typhoon coming on 1839 35.75in x 48in
Snow storm: Hannibal and his army crossing the Alps 1812 57.5in x 93.5in
• The Grotesque, comically or repulsively ugly or distorted.
• Since at least the 18th century Italy (in French and German as well as
English), grotesque has come to be used as a general adjective for the
strange, mysterious, magnificent, fantastic, hideous, ugly, incongruous,
unpleasant, or disgusting, and thus is often used to describe weird shapes
and distorted forms such as Halloween masks. In art, performance, and
literature, however, grotesque may also refer to something that
simultaneously invokes in an audience a feeling of uncomfortable
bizarreness as well as sympathetic pity. (wiki)
Francisco de Goya (1746 – 1828)
Spanish Painter and graphic artist
Top: Illustration
Right : Saturn devouring on eof his sons.
 When and what is Romantic art

•Redefinition of the artist - For Reynolds(a British Neoclassical artist) - any rational (male) person
could develop the intellectual and manual skills to be an artist given work and application/For
Romantic art - only those with the gift of natural creative genius/ inspiration/ insight/ sensibility could
become artiste)

•Technique- suggestive rather than delineated - interpretation not determined by clarity and
precision of rendering but inviting the imaginative interaction of the spectator. Free handling of paint
came to be seen as the direct expression of a free spirit (culminating in Abstract Expressionism)
Academic:drawing superior - Romantic: Colour more important.

•It emphasized the emotions painted in a bold, dramatic manner. Romantic artists rejected the cool
reasoning of classicism -- the established art of the times -- to paint pictures of nature in its
untamed state, or other exotic settings filled with dramatic action, often with an emphasis on the
past. Classicism was nostalgic too, but Romantics were more emotional, usually melancholic, even
melodramatically tragic.

•Sublime and the genius – the subjective self in the aesthetic creation and appreciation.
Eugene Delacroiz,
The Death of Sardanapalus, 1827-28, 392 x 496 cm Musée du Louvre The 'natural' man (Rousseau's 'noble
savage') -inspiration rather than learning.
Romantic admired the geographically distant
cultures, the Orient, with its mysticism or
harmonious existence of primitive societies.
Uncorrupted ‘noble salvage’ liberated and
uncorrupted by constrain of materialistic
concern, free from mechanical and industrial
process.
 Romantic inspiration or elements identified in later movements

• What has Romanticism presented to us as form of cultural heritage?

• The Romantic have given us many folds of seeing art and more importantly the role of the artist
– the subjective self in a larger world, always attune to the ‘ world spirit’.
• One of its thread is carried on to the Expressionist in the early 20th Century, in the sense of the
individual being.
• Expressionism is an artistic style in which the artist attempts to depict not objective reality but
rather the subjective emotions and responses that objects and events arouse in him. He
accomplishes his aim through distortion, exaggeration, primitivism, and fantasy and through the
vivid, jarring, violent, or dynamic application of formal elements.
• In a broader sense Expressionism is one of the main currents of art in the later 19th and the
20th centuries, and its qualities of highly subjective, personal, spontaneous self-expression are
typical of a wide range of modern artists and art movements.
Romantic inspiration or elements identified in later movements- Expressionist

Marc Chagall, Birthday

(L'anniversaire), 1915.
•EXPRESSIONISM KEY DATES: 1905-1925
•A term used to denote the use of distortion and exaggeration for emotional effect,
which first surfaced in the art literature of the early twentieth century. When applied in a
stylistic sense, with reference in particular to the use of intense colour, agitated
brushstrokes, and disjointed space.
 Marc Chagall,
Above the Town,
1887, oil on
canvas.

Its goals were not to reproduce the impression suggested by the surrounding world, but to strongly
impose the artist's own sensibility to the world's representation.

The expressionist artist substitutes to the visual object reality his own image of this object, which he
feels as an accurate representation of its real meaning.

The search of harmony and forms is not as important as trying to achieve the highest expression
intensity, both from the aesthetic point of view and according to idea and human critics.
Romantic inspiration or elements identified in later movements- Expressionist

Egon Schiele
Max Beckmann
“Three Studies for Portrait of George Dyer (on Light
Ground),” a painting by Francis Bacon (1964)
Romantic inspiration or elements identified in later movements- Abstract Expressionist

•ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM KEY DATES: 1940-1960s

•Emerging in the 1940s in New York City and flourishing in the Fifties, Abstract Expressionism is
regarded by many as the golden age of American art. The movement is marked by its use of
brushstrokes and texture, the embracing of chance and the frequently massive canvases, all
employed to convey powerful emotions through the glorification of the act of painting itself.
•An outlook rather than style that the Abstract Expressionist shares- an outlook characterized by a
spirit of revolt against tradition and a demand for a spontaneous freedom of expression.
Romantic inspiration or elements identified in later movements- Abstract Expressionist

ACTION ART This term, first coined by Harold Rosenberg, refers to the dribbling, splashing or otherwise unconventional
techniques of applying paint to a canvas. Connected to the Abstract Expressionist movement, but more precise in its
meaning, Action Painting believes in the expressive power held in the actual act of painting as much as in the finished
product. Rosenberg defined the notion of the canvas as seen by the artists in this movement as being 'not a picture but an
event'.

Jackson Pollock was the leading figure of the movement, employing the 'drip' technique to create his vast paint splattered
canvases. There is some debate as to how much he left to chance and how much the finished product reflected his original
intentions, but the power of his works lies in their energy and sheer drama.
Romantic inspiration or elements identified in later movements- Abstract Expressionist

COLOUR FIELD A technique in abstract

painting developed in the 1950s. It
focuses on the lyrical effects of large
areas of color, often poured or stained
onto the canvas. Newman, Rothko, and
Frankenthaler painted in this manner.
Romantic inspiration or elements identified in later movements- Abstract Expressionist

Rothko Chapel in Texas

Conclusion
• Although there is no direct stylistic or philosophical
influence connection between the Romantic with the
expressionist or the abstract expressionist, one could
still discern that they share a similar characteristic, i.e.
artist, the genius, reflecting on the society as individual.

• In certain way, the Romantic introduced the notion of

the critical and creative individual, always expressing
one’s opinion through works of arts, providing critique
towards the society, (somehow) always yearning for an
unattainable utopia.
•The aesthetics theme of the subjective self - the
individual being, expressing (out) one’s feelings,
emotions, (sublime -awe) towards (overwhelmed by)
the environment, nature, society, or humanity is as
much a recurring theme with some of the contemporary
artists.

•Style and treatment of figure or even formal

arrangement differs very much, but most important is
the subjective aesthetic outlook of the artist as an
individual. In other words, Romanticism introduces the
idea of the subjectivist aesthetics into the production
and appreciation of art.
 HOW IS ‘REAL’ REPRESENTED, MIMIC, EXPRESS?
OBJECTIVE SUBJECTIVE
• Value of Truth (beauty) lies in subjective
• Value of Truth (beauty) lies in objective experience, perception, perceived, intuited by
world, materiality, outside of human the self. *doesn’t mean nihilistic /aestheticism
mind/body – but can be learnt, perceived
• Intersubjectivity
• And subsequently – rationalized,
reasoned, idealise -> rules, regulation, • Began from Hume, knowledge built from
canon of form and beauty (standard of one’s experience of the world – but it is one’s
measurement intellect as much as capability to discriminate
between the good/bad, desirable/undesirable,
beauty/ugly, pleasure/pain/sorrow,Tabula Rasa
(blank slate)
• Kantian-> disinterested judgement, critique
(Kantian sublime)
CONTEMPORARY TIMES: HOW ARE AESTHETICS VALUES,
JUDGED, EXPERIENCE, DISCUSSED (OR IGNORED),
SIDELINED OR UNAWARE?

How do listing, likes help or influence?

• How about celebrities’ analysis/comments?
• How do you exercise your critical judgement on art, design, aesthetic experience, expression
and projection? Building social-affinity