History of Modern France — Winter

An introduction to the terms of our studies this quarter:

Modern

Classicism

Romanticism

Realism

Naturalism

RECOMMENDED READING

Note: This book from 1961 is available in used hardcover edition.

Romanticism is the dominant philosophical vision of the modern world.  The central ideas of Romanticism were first given expression in the books and essays of Jean Jacques Rousseau beginning in 1750, and it remains in the twenty-first century the single most powerful philosophical vision in Western Civilization.  For our winter quarter, a complete understanding of Romanticism is the proper and necessary foundation for all the remaining study during this quarter.  I have chosen these three individuals to speak for Romaticism in their three different fields:

Delacroix the painter, Rousseau the philosopher, Byron the poet.

DELACROIX

Eugène Delacroix (26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school. Delacroix's use of expressive brushstrokes and his study of the optical effects of colour profoundly shaped the work of the Impressionists, while his passion for the exotic inspired the artists of the Symbolist movement. A fine lithographer, Delacroix illustrated various works of William Shakespeare, the Scottish writer Sir Walter Scott and the German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

ROUSSEAU

If you have never had the opportunity to study the prophet of Romanticism, this may be the time that you want to learn something more about him. The three-volume Cranston biography is the best in print.

 

RECOMMENDED READING:

The best biography of Rousseau is written by an Englishman, (Can you imagine how the French hate that!) Maurice Cranston who devoted a lifetime to Rousseau and produced a brilliant biography at the end of his life. It is available in 3 softcover volumes. It is very readable, very well written. For our work the first volume is the most immediately useful but all three are worth reading at some point in your investigations into Romanticism.

Vol. 1: Jean-Jacques; the early Life and Work (1712-1754)

Vol. 2: The Noble Savage (1754-1762)

Vol. 3: The Solitary Self (1762-1778)

University of Chicago Press.

BYRON

George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, later George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron Byron, FRS (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), commonly known simply as Lord Byron, was an English poet and a leading figure in Romanticism. Amongst Byron's best-known works are the brief poems "She Walks in Beauty," "When We Two Parted," and "So, we'll go no more a roving," in addition to the narrative poems "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" and "Don Juan." He is regarded as one of the greatest British poets and remains widely read and influential. Byron's notability rests not only on his writings but also on his life, which featured aristocratic excesses, huge debts, numerous love affairs, and self-imposed exile. He was famously described by Lady Caroline Lamb as "mad, bad and dangerous to know". He travelled to fight against the Ottoman Empire in the Greek War of Independence, for which Greeks revere him as a national hero. He died from a fever contracted while in Messolonghi in Greece.

PART TWO: Painting

Eugene Delacroix

From Wikipedia: "The Artist's Studio (L'Atelier du peintre): A Real Allegory of a Seven Year Phase in my Artistic and Moral Life" is an 1855 oil painting on canvas by Gustave Courbet. It is located in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, France. Begun in late 1854, he completed it in six weeks. "The world comes to be painted at my studio" said Courbet. The figures in the painting are allegorical representations of various influences on Courbet's artistic life. On the left are human figures from all levels of society. In the center, Courbet works on a landscape, while turned away from a nude model who is a symbol of academic art tradition. On the right are friends and associates of Courbet including writers George Sand and Charles Baudelaire, Champfleury, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, and collector Alfred Bruyas. The 1855 Paris World Fair's jury accepted eleven of Courbet's work, but refused this one. So, in an act of self promotion Courbet, with the help of Jacques-Louis-Alfred Bruyas, opened his own exhibition close to the official exposition; this was a forerunner of the various Salon des Refusés. Very little praise was forthcoming, and Eugène Delacroix was one of the few painters who supported the work. Influenced by Diego Velázquez's "Las Meninas," this work in turn influenced Edouard Manet in two of his early paintings: "The Old Musician" and "La Musique aux Tuileries."

PICTURES

The work of Gustave Courbet.

Gustave Flaubert (December 12, 1821 – May 8, 1880) was a French writer who is counted among the greatest Western novelists. He is known especially for his first published novel, Madame Bovary (1857), and for his scrupulous devotion to his art and style. He has been considered the leading exponent of literary realism in his country and abroad. According to the literary theorist Kornelije Kvas, "in Flaubert, realism strives for formal perfection, so the presentation of reality tends to be neutral, emphasizing the values and importance of style as an objective method of presenting reality". He is known especially for his debut novel Madame Bovary (1857), his Correspondence, and his scrupulous devotion to his style and aesthetics.

We will read Madame Bovary, Vintage paperback edition

 

REQUIRED READING

 

 

PART TWO: PICTURES

A visit to Rouen, the hometown of Flaubert, and a visit to his house where he was born and to the country house on the banks of the Seine where he wrote.

France, 1830-1850

King Louis Philippe I, (1773-1850), King of France, 1830-1848

Francois Guizot, (1787-1874) Minister of Education, Foreign Minister, and Prime Minister

"The Revolution of 1848"

The 1848 Revolution in France was one of a wave of revolutions in 1848 in Europe. In France, the February revolution ended the Orleans monarchy (1830-1848) and led to the creation of the French Second Republic.  The February revolution established the principle of the "right to work" (droit au travail), and its newly-established government created "National Workshops" for the unemployed. At the same time a sort of industrial parliament was established at the Luxembourg Palace, under the presidency of the Socialist Louis Blanc, with the object of preparing a scheme for the organization of labour. These tensions between liberal Orleanist and Radical Republicans and Socialists led to the June Days Uprising.  The June days were a bloody but unsuccessful rebellion by the Paris workers against a conservative turn in the Republic's course. On December 2, 1848, Louis Napoleon was elected President of the Second Republic in the first truly national presidential election in French history.  (The above from Wikipedia.)

 

 

RECOMMENDED READING

PART TWO: PICTURES

"Realism" and the work of Honore Daumier and jean Francois Millet.

Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte ( born April 20,1808 – died January 9, 1873) was the President of the French Second Republic and as Napoleon III, the ruler of the Second French Empire. He was the nephew and heir of Napoleon I, christened as Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte. Elected President by popular vote in 1848, he initiated a coup d'état in 1851, before ascending the throne as Napoleon III on 2 December 1852, the forty-eighth anniversary of Napoleon I's coronation. He ruled as Emperor of the French until 4 September 1870. He holds the unusual distinction of being both the first titular president and the last monarch of France.

In this our first of two weeks on Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, we will talk about his early life as the nephew of Napoleon, and the son of Hortense de Beauharnais, and grandson of Josephine: his life in the palace; his life on the run after 1815; his life in Italy; his life in prison; his return to power in 1848.

Louis Napoleon Bonaparte ruled France for twenty-two years.  He was elected President in a landslide  victory in the national elections of 1848.  At the end of his presidential term, he requested the legislature to change the law allowing only one presidential term.  The legislature refused and so in December, 1851, as his term was about to end, he staged a midnight coup ("Operation Rubicon") and took over the government.  He remained in power until 1870.  On this second evening, we will discuss Louis Napoleon Bonaparte ("Napoleon III") as ruler of France from 1848   to 1870.

 

PART TWO: Paris

How Louis Napoleon (Emperor Napoleon III) remade Paris.

VIDEO, Gustave Caillebotte and the new Paris.

The painting above is the magnificent Wivenhoe Park by John Constable. It is not French and therefore you are wondering why it heads up this page about French art. That is the subject of our studies this week. What were the influences in French art in the 19th century. Who were the artists and who were the writers (Rousseau) whose thinking was influential in the century between 1750 and 1850.

Edouard Manet (1832-1883)

1832 born in Paris (most 19th Century French writers/artists from country).
1841 American John Rand invents oil paint in tubes.
1842 studying at College Rollin 
(Manet has good education)
1848 goes to sea, father wants him to join Navy.
1849 rejected by Navy.
meets Suzanne Leenhoff, future wife.
1850 Manet begins painting career in studio of Thomas Couture (Decadence of Romans). 
1851 birth of Leon-Edouard Leenhoff. 
(was Leon Manet's son?)
1852 visits Amsterdam, influence of Dutch artists.
1853 visits Dresden, Prague, Vienna, Italy.
1855 visits Delacroix. (Manet great admirer of D.)
1856 on his own, leaves Couture rents own studio.
1859 first painting submitted to Salon: rejected. 
"The Absinthe Drinker."
1861 first painting accepted by Salon: 
"The Spanish Singer."
1862 father dies, leaves him substantial fortune.
1863 exhibits "Music in the Tuileries" in a gallery.
1863 exhibits "Le dejeuner sur l'herbe" 
at Salon des Refuses.
marries Suzanne Leenhoff..
1865 Salon accepts "Olympia," huge scandal. (how did it get accepted?).
first visit to Spain. impressed by Velazquez and Goya. 1866 paintings rejected by Salon again. Zola writes impassioned defense.
Manet meets Zola, Cezanne, Monet.
Manet becomes central figure in French art.
1867 World's Fair in Paris: Manet erects own pavilion (like Courbet).
Zola publishes 23-page defense of Manet's work in L'Artiste, Revue du XIX Siecle.
1870 Franco- Prussian War, fall of the government.
Manet joins the National Guard. sends family to country.
1871 Manet witnesses the Paris Commune. paints scenes.
his lithography one of most haunting memories of Commune.
1872 dealer Paul Durand-Ruel buys 24 canvases. first recognition.
1874 Salon accepts his painting: "The Railroad."
brother Eugene marries the woman painter Berthe Morisot.
1874 First Impressionist Exhibition 
Manet does not join, never does but within which his sister-in-law Berthe Morisot has the greatest success of them all.
1875 "Argenteuil" exhibited at Salon.
travels to Venice. paints "The Grand Canal," loves Venice.
1876 holds exhibition in own studio. shows paintings rejected by Salon.
1877 Salon rejects "Nana," shows in gallery window, cause sensation, fury (prostitute).
1878 evicted from his studio due to his private exhibition (really they just dont want him). 1880 early symptoms of syphilis which now worsens every month til death in 1883.
1882 great difficulty walking. legs giving out. 
paints anyway.
in pain, he paints his greatest painting: "The Bar at the Folies-Bergere"
1883 April his legs worsening, amputate left leg April 20. surgery unsuccessful, last days in terrible pain.
April 30, 1883. buried in Passy.
1884 posthumous exhibition of his works at the bastion of Classicism:
Ecole des Beaux-Arts.

REQUIRED READING

 

A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (French: Un bar aux Folies Bergère), painted and exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1882, is considered the last major work of French painter Édouard Manet. It depicts a scene in the Folies Bergère nightclub in Paris. The painting originally belonged to the composer Emmanuel Chabrier, who was Manet's neighbor. Chabrier hung it over his piano. The painting exemplifies Manet's commitment to Realism in its detailed representation of a contemporary scene. Many features have puzzled critics but almost all of them have been shown to have a rationale, and the painting has been the subject of numerous popular and scholarly articles. The central figure stands before a mirror, although critics—accusing Manet of ignorance of perspective and alleging various impossibilities in the painting—have debated this point since the earliest reviews were published. In 2000, however, a photograph taken from a suitable point of view of a staged reconstruction was shown to reproduce the scene as painted by Manet. According to this reconstruction, "the conversation that many have assumed was transpiring between the barmaid and gentleman is revealed to be an optical trick—the man stands outside the painter's field of vision, to the left, and looks away from the barmaid, rather than standing right in front of her." As it appears, the observer should be standing to the right and closer to the bar than the man whose reflection appears at the right edge of the picture. This is an unusual departure from the central point of view usually assumed when viewing pictures drawn according to perspective. (Wikipedia)

SPRING BREAK WEEKS OF MARCH 18 AND MARCH 25

An introduction to the terms of our studies this quarter:

Modern

Classicism

Romanticism

Realism

Naturalism

RECOMMENDED READING

Note: This book from 1961 is available in used hardcover edition.

Romanticism is the dominant philosophical vision of the modern world.  The central ideas of Romanticism were first given expression in the books and essays of Jean Jacques Rousseau beginning in 1750, and it remains in the twenty-first century the single most powerful philosophical vision in Western Civilization.  For our winter quarter, a complete understanding of Romanticism is the proper and necessary foundation for all the remaining study during this quarter.  I have chosen these three individuals to speak for Romaticism in their three different fields:

Delacroix the painter, Rousseau the philosopher, Byron the poet.

DELACROIX

Eugène Delacroix (26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school. Delacroix's use of expressive brushstrokes and his study of the optical effects of colour profoundly shaped the work of the Impressionists, while his passion for the exotic inspired the artists of the Symbolist movement. A fine lithographer, Delacroix illustrated various works of William Shakespeare, the Scottish writer Sir Walter Scott and the German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

ROUSSEAU

If you have never had the opportunity to study the prophet of Romanticism, this may be the time that you want to learn something more about him. The three-volume Cranston biography is the best in print.

 

RECOMMENDED READING:

The best biography of Rousseau is written by an Englishman, (Can you imagine how the French hate that!) Maurice Cranston who devoted a lifetime to Rousseau and produced a brilliant biography at the end of his life. It is available in 3 softcover volumes. It is very readable, very well written. For our work the first volume is the most immediately useful but all three are worth reading at some point in your investigations into Romanticism.

Vol. 1: Jean-Jacques; the early Life and Work (1712-1754)

Vol. 2: The Noble Savage (1754-1762)

Vol. 3: The Solitary Self (1762-1778)

University of Chicago Press.

BYRON

George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, later George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron Byron, FRS (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), commonly known simply as Lord Byron, was an English poet and a leading figure in Romanticism. Amongst Byron's best-known works are the brief poems "She Walks in Beauty," "When We Two Parted," and "So, we'll go no more a roving," in addition to the narrative poems "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" and "Don Juan." He is regarded as one of the greatest British poets and remains widely read and influential. Byron's notability rests not only on his writings but also on his life, which featured aristocratic excesses, huge debts, numerous love affairs, and self-imposed exile. He was famously described by Lady Caroline Lamb as "mad, bad and dangerous to know". He travelled to fight against the Ottoman Empire in the Greek War of Independence, for which Greeks revere him as a national hero. He died from a fever contracted while in Messolonghi in Greece.

PART TWO: Painting

Eugene Delacroix

From Wikipedia: "The Artist's Studio (L'Atelier du peintre): A Real Allegory of a Seven Year Phase in my Artistic and Moral Life" is an 1855 oil painting on canvas by Gustave Courbet. It is located in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, France. Begun in late 1854, he completed it in six weeks. "The world comes to be painted at my studio" said Courbet. The figures in the painting are allegorical representations of various influences on Courbet's artistic life. On the left are human figures from all levels of society. In the center, Courbet works on a landscape, while turned away from a nude model who is a symbol of academic art tradition. On the right are friends and associates of Courbet including writers George Sand and Charles Baudelaire, Champfleury, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, and collector Alfred Bruyas. The 1855 Paris World Fair's jury accepted eleven of Courbet's work, but refused this one. So, in an act of self promotion Courbet, with the help of Jacques-Louis-Alfred Bruyas, opened his own exhibition close to the official exposition; this was a forerunner of the various Salon des Refusés. Very little praise was forthcoming, and Eugène Delacroix was one of the few painters who supported the work. Influenced by Diego Velázquez's "Las Meninas," this work in turn influenced Edouard Manet in two of his early paintings: "The Old Musician" and "La Musique aux Tuileries."

PICTURES

The work of Gustave Courbet.

Gustave Flaubert (December 12, 1821 – May 8, 1880) was a French writer who is counted among the greatest Western novelists. He is known especially for his first published novel, Madame Bovary (1857), and for his scrupulous devotion to his art and style. He has been considered the leading exponent of literary realism in his country and abroad. According to the literary theorist Kornelije Kvas, "in Flaubert, realism strives for formal perfection, so the presentation of reality tends to be neutral, emphasizing the values and importance of style as an objective method of presenting reality". He is known especially for his debut novel Madame Bovary (1857), his Correspondence, and his scrupulous devotion to his style and aesthetics.

We will read Madame Bovary, Vintage paperback edition

 

REQUIRED READING

 

 

PART TWO: PICTURES

A visit to Rouen, the hometown of Flaubert, and a visit to his house where he was born and to the country house on the banks of the Seine where he wrote.

France, 1830-1850

King Louis Philippe I, (1773-1850), King of France, 1830-1848

Francois Guizot, (1787-1874) Minister of Education, Foreign Minister, and Prime Minister

"The Revolution of 1848"

The 1848 Revolution in France was one of a wave of revolutions in 1848 in Europe. In France, the February revolution ended the Orleans monarchy (1830-1848) and led to the creation of the French Second Republic.  The February revolution established the principle of the "right to work" (droit au travail), and its newly-established government created "National Workshops" for the unemployed. At the same time a sort of industrial parliament was established at the Luxembourg Palace, under the presidency of the Socialist Louis Blanc, with the object of preparing a scheme for the organization of labour. These tensions between liberal Orleanist and Radical Republicans and Socialists led to the June Days Uprising.  The June days were a bloody but unsuccessful rebellion by the Paris workers against a conservative turn in the Republic's course. On December 2, 1848, Louis Napoleon was elected President of the Second Republic in the first truly national presidential election in French history.  (The above from Wikipedia.)

 

 

RECOMMENDED READING

PART TWO: PICTURES

"Realism" and the work of Honore Daumier and jean Francois Millet.

Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte ( born April 20,1808 – died January 9, 1873) was the President of the French Second Republic and as Napoleon III, the ruler of the Second French Empire. He was the nephew and heir of Napoleon I, christened as Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte. Elected President by popular vote in 1848, he initiated a coup d'état in 1851, before ascending the throne as Napoleon III on 2 December 1852, the forty-eighth anniversary of Napoleon I's coronation. He ruled as Emperor of the French until 4 September 1870. He holds the unusual distinction of being both the first titular president and the last monarch of France.

In this our first of two weeks on Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, we will talk about his early life as the nephew of Napoleon, and the son of Hortense de Beauharnais, and grandson of Josephine: his life in the palace; his life on the run after 1815; his life in Italy; his life in prison; his return to power in 1848.

Louis Napoleon Bonaparte ruled France for twenty-two years.  He was elected President in a landslide  victory in the national elections of 1848.  At the end of his presidential term, he requested the legislature to change the law allowing only one presidential term.  The legislature refused and so in December, 1851, as his term was about to end, he staged a midnight coup ("Operation Rubicon") and took over the government.  He remained in power until 1870.  On this second evening, we will discuss Louis Napoleon Bonaparte ("Napoleon III") as ruler of France from 1848   to 1870.

 

PART TWO: Paris

How Louis Napoleon (Emperor Napoleon III) remade Paris.

VIDEO, Gustave Caillebotte and the new Paris.

The painting above is the magnificent Wivenhoe Park by John Constable. It is not French and therefore you are wondering why it heads up this page about French art. That is the subject of our studies this week. What were the influences in French art in the 19th century. Who were the artists and who were the writers (Rousseau) whose thinking was influential in the century between 1750 and 1850.

Edouard Manet (1832-1883)

1832 born in Paris (most 19th Century French writers/artists from country).
1841 American John Rand invents oil paint in tubes.
1842 studying at College Rollin 
(Manet has good education)
1848 goes to sea, father wants him to join Navy.
1849 rejected by Navy.
meets Suzanne Leenhoff, future wife.
1850 Manet begins painting career in studio of Thomas Couture (Decadence of Romans). 
1851 birth of Leon-Edouard Leenhoff. 
(was Leon Manet's son?)
1852 visits Amsterdam, influence of Dutch artists.
1853 visits Dresden, Prague, Vienna, Italy.
1855 visits Delacroix. (Manet great admirer of D.)
1856 on his own, leaves Couture rents own studio.
1859 first painting submitted to Salon: rejected. 
"The Absinthe Drinker."
1861 first painting accepted by Salon: 
"The Spanish Singer."
1862 father dies, leaves him substantial fortune.
1863 exhibits "Music in the Tuileries" in a gallery.
1863 exhibits "Le dejeuner sur l'herbe" 
at Salon des Refuses.
marries Suzanne Leenhoff..
1865 Salon accepts "Olympia," huge scandal. (how did it get accepted?).
first visit to Spain. impressed by Velazquez and Goya. 1866 paintings rejected by Salon again. Zola writes impassioned defense.
Manet meets Zola, Cezanne, Monet.
Manet becomes central figure in French art.
1867 World's Fair in Paris: Manet erects own pavilion (like Courbet).
Zola publishes 23-page defense of Manet's work in L'Artiste, Revue du XIX Siecle.
1870 Franco- Prussian War, fall of the government.
Manet joins the National Guard. sends family to country.
1871 Manet witnesses the Paris Commune. paints scenes.
his lithography one of most haunting memories of Commune.
1872 dealer Paul Durand-Ruel buys 24 canvases. first recognition.
1874 Salon accepts his painting: "The Railroad."
brother Eugene marries the woman painter Berthe Morisot.
1874 First Impressionist Exhibition 
Manet does not join, never does but within which his sister-in-law Berthe Morisot has the greatest success of them all.
1875 "Argenteuil" exhibited at Salon.
travels to Venice. paints "The Grand Canal," loves Venice.
1876 holds exhibition in own studio. shows paintings rejected by Salon.
1877 Salon rejects "Nana," shows in gallery window, cause sensation, fury (prostitute).
1878 evicted from his studio due to his private exhibition (really they just dont want him). 1880 early symptoms of syphilis which now worsens every month til death in 1883.
1882 great difficulty walking. legs giving out. 
paints anyway.
in pain, he paints his greatest painting: "The Bar at the Folies-Bergere"
1883 April his legs worsening, amputate left leg April 20. surgery unsuccessful, last days in terrible pain.
April 30, 1883. buried in Passy.
1884 posthumous exhibition of his works at the bastion of Classicism:
Ecole des Beaux-Arts.

REQUIRED READING

 

A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (French: Un bar aux Folies Bergère), painted and exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1882, is considered the last major work of French painter Édouard Manet. It depicts a scene in the Folies Bergère nightclub in Paris. The painting originally belonged to the composer Emmanuel Chabrier, who was Manet's neighbor. Chabrier hung it over his piano. The painting exemplifies Manet's commitment to Realism in its detailed representation of a contemporary scene. Many features have puzzled critics but almost all of them have been shown to have a rationale, and the painting has been the subject of numerous popular and scholarly articles. The central figure stands before a mirror, although critics—accusing Manet of ignorance of perspective and alleging various impossibilities in the painting—have debated this point since the earliest reviews were published. In 2000, however, a photograph taken from a suitable point of view of a staged reconstruction was shown to reproduce the scene as painted by Manet. According to this reconstruction, "the conversation that many have assumed was transpiring between the barmaid and gentleman is revealed to be an optical trick—the man stands outside the painter's field of vision, to the left, and looks away from the barmaid, rather than standing right in front of her." As it appears, the observer should be standing to the right and closer to the bar than the man whose reflection appears at the right edge of the picture. This is an unusual departure from the central point of view usually assumed when viewing pictures drawn according to perspective. (Wikipedia)

SPRING BREAK WEEKS OF MARCH 18 AND MARCH 25