Europe at a Crossroads

Heading from the 18th century into the 19th century, Europe was at a crossroads.  Events such as the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars shook the continent to its foundation.  In art and architecture there were also great changes.  The Baroque and the Rococo were cast aside for Neoclassicism which took its inspiration from the ancient Greeks and Romans.

One of the galleries of the Cleveland Museum of Art has a selection of artwork from the late 1700s and early 1800s.   

Prominently displayed in the gallery are five paintings by the French artist, Charles Meynier. They were done between 1798 and 1800 and represent Apollo and the Muses.  They were acquired by the museum in 2003, and experts spent five years meticulously cleaning and restoring the canvasses.  During much of that time the entire museum had been closed for renovation and expansion.  When the main floor of the original building was reopened in 2008, the paintings were debuted with much fanfare.

Polyhymnia, the Muse of Eloquence

Erato, the Muse of Lyrical Poetry

Apollo, the God of Light, with Urania, the Muse of Astronomy

Clio, the Muse of History

Calliope, the Muse of Epic Poetry

When I used to take students to the museum, this painting always elicited some giggles as we passed by.  

It was painted in1817 by Jacques-Louis David, the preeminent Neoclassical painter.  (You would surely recognize his famous portraits of Napoleon.)  This canvas depicts the myth of Cupid and Psyche, but instead of portraying Cupid as an idealized lover as other painters did, the artist here shows Cupid smirking over his sexual conquest.

Antoine-Jean Gros was a pupil of Jacques-Louis David.  This portrait, done in 1824, is of Count Jean Antoine Chaptal, who played a major role in the development of industry in France after the French Revolution.

Gros also did numerous historical paintings depicting the victories of Napoleon.  One of them was a massive painting of the Battle of the Pyramids.  After Napoleon's downfall, the new king, Louis Philippe asked Gros to paint additions onto either side of the painting, perhaps to diminish Napoleon's importance in the picture.  The museum has two sketches which Gros did in preparation for those additions.  (The "sketches" are more than eleven feet high!)

This is General Kleber, who had been absent in the original painting.

On the other side, an Egyptian family, with the father standing defiantly against Napoleon's army, was added.

I uploaded this picture of what the entire painting with the additions looks like.  It is in the museum of the Palace of Versailles.

One of the giants of Spanish art, Francisco de Goya, straddled the two centuries and produced paintings that ranged from portraits of the royal family, images of the horrors of war, to ghoulish scenes out of a nightmare.

This portrait from about 1817 is of Don Juan Antonio, one of the leading intellectuals of Spain at that time.  He was the director of the Academy of San Fernando, the official academy of artists and architects.

At first glance, one might think that this is one of Goya's paintings of the Spanish royal family.  

It is indeed a portrait of a Spanish prince, Don Luis de Borbón, but it was done by a German painter by the name of Anton Rafael Mengs.  Mengs worked at the court of King Charles III in Madrid.  He is considered a precursor of neoclassicism.

In the next entry from the Cleveland Museum of Art, there will be more European Neoclassicism.