hi modern art class I hope you've been
enjoying this class so far this week
we've been learning about neoclassical
and romantic styles and one of the
things that I've really been focusing on
up until now is your ability to
recognize each of those styles just by
looking at it making sure that you
understand what the main visual
characteristics are but also making sure
that you understand the types of stories
that artists from each movement told and
some of the historical context for each
period so now that you know all that I
wanted to do something a little bit more
general and talk about romantic and
neoclassical attitudes in the art that
we've been seeing and I know that's a
kind of funny idea because you think of
an attitude as being something that like
a human being has and that a painting
doesn't have but the reason I wanted to
go over it is that when I was first
studying this style I found that
thinking about how my personality and my
friends' personalities fit into these
Styles really helped me kind of
contextualize them for myself so at that
time I thought I'm very much a
neoclassical personality type I was very
organized and clean I was very logic
driven whereas these days I think I've
gotten a little bit more of a romantic
personality going on where I'm more
comfortable with spontaneity I like
things to be a little messy I'm a little
bit more emotional than I used to be so
you can kind of make those interesting
judgments about yourself or people you
know as a way to help you think about
how these particular styles kind of
would express themselves in a
personality like if this painting was a
person who would they be
alright so that probably sounds weird
but I'm gonna go ahead and explain it
more and maybe that will help so let's
start with just a little reminder here's
Jacques Louis David how do I look in his
outfit probably not good gonna get that
out of here okay so here's Jacques Louis David who you know well by now he's one
of the main artists that people think of
when they think of a neoclassical style
of course he's from he was born in 1748
lived till 1825 and this was a
self-portrait which he made while he was
imprisoned after the end of the French
Revolution in terms of the artworks we
looked at
we've looked at a lot from him but two
of the main ones that we focused on are
the Oath of the Horatti and of course
his very rigid clear style highly
structured and then also his death of
Socrates another very serious structured
painting that kind of has a timeless
feel
of course David was really basing his
work on ancient Greek models but it's
not just that he likes ancient Greece
it's like he goes for this overall sort
of structured clear serious heroic look
and then we also spent some time looking
at Francisco de Goya one of the many
romantic style artists that we studied
this is a great self-portrait by Goya
and then here's a couple of images to
jog your memory
so here's his second of may picture of
course much more dramatic and messy less
structure and clarity now it is
structured but just not as obvious of
structure as we saw with David also
Goya loved creepy stuff
mysticism anything that felt like dark
and things that you might have a
nightmare about that's a really common
interest for romantic era painters they
like things that I were on the mystical
side of life okay so now let's look at
these two self-portraits I think I'm
just gonna get myself out of here okay
good um so here we've got Goya versus
David and again we've talked about
both of these artists you know where
they fit into our history what work
they're known for
but now let's just look at these
particular paintings of themselves so in
the David painting I already mentioned
he was imprisoned at the time now it was
a pretty lenient prison you know he was
able to paint he was able to see his
kids so it's not prison how we would
think about it now but he was
nonetheless incarcerated and if you look
at his face here and we're looking at
the David so this guy here if you look
at his face here look how intensely he
was looking at you he's definitely
projecting strength he's sort of staring
right into your eyes once you can kind
of tear yourself away from looking at
that very intense sort of aggressive
face you can notice some other little
details of course he shows himself with
his palate and his paintbrush he's
looking in a mirror
but he's in charge of this self-portrait
so he could have edited this out I mean
of course he really would have had a
paintbrush and palette but there's no
reason he has to leave it in there he's
specifically choosing to represent
himself as somebody in the act of
painting so that lets us know that
because he is painting that stare that
intense face he's actually looking at
himself so he's sort of telling us I am
scrutinizing myself in this picture
that's who that look is for he looks
very serious he looks like he has
definitely got an important idea in his
head and we can see even in his clothes
look at that little paint bit right
there he's really trying to stress that
he is an artist and that's how he's
defining himself I know that this is
kind of hard to tell from our
contemporary perspective but these are
actually sort of raggedy clothes so he's
also speaking to just his condition of
being in prison but also of somebody who
associates himself proudly with the
lower classes you know that was part of
his revolutionary kind of persona you
know he of course played an important
role in the French Revolution and he was
on the side of the revolution overall
okay so to recap
David here is serious he has clearly a
mission he's really trying to define
himself as a painter and we get this
sense that he's got something important
he wants to tell us about himself I
think the overall implication here at
least for me when I look at this is of
strength he looks strong in his beliefs
and strong in what he wants to
communicate now let's look over here at
this Goya painting this was a painting
that he actually made as a gift for his
doctor who had helped him through like
really a very dangerous kind of period
in his life he was quite sick and the
doctor ended up saving him I think he
was on his deathbed um and here he is
looking very weak this is Goya himself
and then that's the doctor who helped
him this message down here was just
explaining the situation and because the
painting was a gift for a doctor for the
doctor this is sort of addressed to him
so you can see the doctor here looks
like a strong helpful figure you can see
some worried people in the background
but the main thing of interest here is
that this is a self-portrait
this is Goya's chance to tell us who he
is and he shows himself as vulnerable
and weak not just sick and elderly but
look at his neck how he's got just this
flesh of his neck just exposed in this
really vulnerable way
compare that to David's covered up neck
he's celebrating his weakness here his
vulnerability is the point of this and
in a way I think that strong of him you
know he's willing to show himself at
this very weak point to show himself be
helped by another man in a way that I
don't think David would ever do so David's
 real focus on strength and almost
aggression in this picture it's like the
polar opposite of Goya's real kind of
embrace of his own frailty his own
vulnerability here so that contrast to
me is one of the things that helps me
understand the romantic versus
neoclassical attitude remember
neoclassical folks were all about the
idea of the thing they were mind over 
heart they were intellectual this is
something where you really see this
strength and this sense that he is
trying to get across a particular point
romantic style in general will tend to
privilege emotions they put emotions
first more than the neoclassical folks
do and that kind of helps explain why he
chooses to show himself in this kind of
weak frail vulnerable place this is a
portrait of somebody who's more
comfortable showing emotion showing
weakness and although he's showing
emotion in the sense that there's a kind
of aggression here it's less about
feelings and more about the sense of
action like he is doing something so
this attitude of the neoclassical more
strong more about an idea the attitude
of the romantic more comfortable with
weakness and emotionality I made this
little helpful list here I'm gonna
reappear hello I made this little list
which hopefully is helpful for you that
is just summing up what I mean so the
romantic attitude it's more heart over
mind feelings before
ideas not they don't have ideas but they
like to really stress the heart stress
the feelings whereas a neoclassical
attitude they tend to go with mind over
heart so its first the idea and then if
there's feelings I mean the feelings are
there but they're not the main leading
kind of force the romantic attitude will
tend to embrace mysticism embrace the
darker parts of life I think that that
picture of his illness and near-death is
part of that whereas a neoclassical
attitude will tend to be about clarity
and order they love things to be easy to
understand structured and I say that
here too so the neoclassical attitude
loves structure and they love things to
be polished by polished I mean like you
don't see any messiness there it's all
cleaned up and perfect whereas the
romantic attitude loves spontaneity and a
kind of messiness you probably fit into
one or the other
you're probably somebody who is gonna
switch between these different poles at
different parts of your life I think we
all do but hopefully thinking about
these kinds of personality type traits
as a way to think about how these styles
are different will help it stick in your
head and help it relate a little bit to
your everyday life and that's it so I
will see you next week
