Brushing Up on the Past: Understanding Romantic and Realist Art

While I'll resist making a pun by saying that I love Romantic art, I will provide links to the paintings several artists.



Take a look at the paintings, and brush up on the basic biographical details of the painters' lives; we will need this information as we canvass the history of Romantic art.



[For the first three links, find Romanticism on Mark Harden's homepage, click, and find the painters and their paintings here.] In addition to some of the artwork featured in your book, there are some arresting landscapes from John Constanble. Check out the work of French artist Theodore Gericault, and the German painter Caspar David Friedrich. And finally here is an assortment of paintings for your viewing and analysis. You should also read more about Realism, and see examples of some realist artwork here and here.




The assignment: pick one artist, and one painting by that artist. On Thursday you will discuss basic biographical details (birth, death, education, influence, importance, etc.), and then using the SMARTboard to display images of your artist's painting(s), analyze the paintings in class. The aim of this assignment is to better understand Romantic and Realist art.






[Photo credit here and here.]