France boasts an unparalleled legacy in art that spans several centuries, dating back to Romanesque and Gothic art and architecture of its Middle Ages golden era.
French aristocracy turned away from Versailles’s extravagant excesses by decorating their mansions with more subdued designs. At this time, France’s Academy debated colorito vs disegno and established Nicolas Poussin as its French Raphael.
Rococo
Rococo was an art style that emerged from baroque through a theatrical approach to nature with serpentine forms and asymmetrical curves, from France through Germany and Austria, before reaching Venice where Giovanni Battista Tiepolo epitomized it through his wall-sized large frescos.
Artworks in this style were inspired by mythological subjects and decorative allegories, celebrating feminine beauty through lush landscapes, emotive portraits, and elaborate depictions of commedia dell’arte characters. Though largely unstructured in form, rococo survived until Neoclassicism emerged during the Enlightenment, signaling its death for many artists.
Rococo’s decadent compositions, bright hues and ornate detailing continue to influence today’s culture and can be found anywhere from movie sets to modern furniture and design – such as Louis Delenouis’ chairs. Their luxurious aesthetic can be found everywhere from movie sets to furniture designed by Louis Delenouis that exude Rococo aesthetics.
Enlightenment
Paris became the epicenter of this new Enlightenment movement and its ideas quickly spread throughout Europe. The philosophy of Enlightenment stressed rationality across all areas of knowledge; its aim was universal truth with strong anti-metaphysical undertones.
Artists were encouraged to produce works with moral over immoral themes and teach people right from wrong through their works. Furthermore, artists were expected to pay more attention to nature; idealised antique statuary and anatomy principles continued to be important studies, but first-hand natural phenomena should not be neglected in favour of idealised models.
The Enlightenment fostered a society with diverse and tolerance viewpoints. This effort attempted to free human thought from religious and societal limitations.
Romanticism
Romanticism’s definition remains subjective; however, it can generally be defined as an ideological response against Enlightenment ideals and emerged culturally between 1789 and 1830.
At this time, artists increasingly depicted nature as the primary subject. Scenes depicting shipwrecks and wilderness evoked feelings of danger and unpredictability, such as Theodore Gericault’s Raft of the Medusa (1818-19), which depicted real events but was intended as an artistic protest against government policies that contributed to disaster.
A figure of the emotionally anguished artist emerged: Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand promoted Catholic revival, while George Sand depicted peasants and rustics as heroes. Furthermore, this movement created a form of literary criticism that combined Romantic notions of genius with Neoclassical principles of literary genre.
Realism
Realism was revolutionary art that transformed society by depicting contemporary issues taken directly from working class life while French society battled for democratic change. Realism’s foundation lay in constant surveillance of contemporary life – an approach that stood in stark contrast with both academic art and its exotic subjects as well as Romanticism’s traditional classicism and exotic topics.
Gustave Courbet laid the groundwork for Realism in the 1840s through paintings like “Burial at Ornans” and “The Stone Breakers.” He rejected traditional painting where subjects are idealized; this denied viewers their true experience.
Realist artists favored scenes depicting working life, urban streets, casual social gatherings in cafes and even some forms of nudity. Furthermore, their paintings displayed near photographic level details and focused on depictions of simple everyday people; an approach also found its way into literature such as Emile Zola and Honore de Balzac’s writings.
Impressionism
Impressionist artists defied traditional academic models of depicting historical or mythological subjects with literary or anecdotal overtones and instead focused on fleeting optical impressions and natural lighting; their goal was to capture modern life’s rapid pace using crude brushstrokes and expressive color.
Impressionist artists came from various social and economic backgrounds; among them were Claude Monet, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro Alfred Sisley Berthe Morisot; many had merchant family or working class roots while Mary Cassatt from America had moved to Paris 1866 and would exhibit with them later.
They emphasized the play of light across surfaces and painted outdoors, or “en plein air”, to observe natural lighting throughout the day.