Gros was a more vacillating man(FRENCH PAINTING)

Gros was a more vacillating man, and by reason of forsaking the classic subject for Napoleonic battle-pieces, he unconsciously led the way toward romanticism. He excelled as a draughtsman, but when he came to paint the Field of Eylau and the Pest of Jaffa he mingled color, light, air, movement, action, sacrificing classic composition and repose to reality. This was heresy from the Davidian point of view, and David eventually convinced him of it. Gros returned to the classic theme and treatment, but soon after was so reviled by the changing criticism of the time that he committed suicide in the Seine. His art, however, was the beginning of romanticism. art oil painting reproduction
The landscape painting of this time was rather academic and unsympathetic. It was a continuation of the Claude-Poussin tradition, and in its insistence upon line, grandeur of space, and imposing trees and mountains, was a fit companion to the classic figure-piece. It had little basis in nature, and little in color or feeling to commend it.Watelet (1780-1866), Bertin (1775-1842), Michallon (1796-1822), andAligny (1798-1871), were its exponents. oil paintings for sale
A few painters seemed to stand apart from the contemporary influences. Madame Vigée-Lebrun (1755-1842), a successful portrait-painter of nobility, and Horace Vernet (1789-1863), a popular battle-painter, many of whose works are to be seen at Versailles, were of this class. art oil paintings online
ROMANTICISM: The movement in French painting which began about 1822 and took the name of Romanticism was but a part of the "storm-and-stress" feeling that swept Germany, England, and France at the beginning of this century, appearing first in literature and afterward in art. It had its origin in a discontent with the present, a passionate yearning for the unattainable, an intensity of sentiment, gloomy melancholy imaginings, and a desire to express the inexpressible. It was emphatically subjective, self-conscious,reproduction oil paintings for sale, a mood of mind or feeling. In this respect it was diametrically opposed to the academic and the classic. In French painting it came forward in opposition to the classicism of David. People had begun to weary of Greek and Roman heroes and their deeds, of impersonal line-bounded statuesque art. There was a demand for something more representative, spontaneous, expressive of the intense feeling of the time. The very gist of romanticism was passion. Freedom to express itself in what form it would was a condition of its existence. cheap oil paintings for sale

FIG. 62.—DELACROIX. MASSACRE OF SCIO. LOUVRE.

Please click here for a modern color image

The classic subject was abandoned by the romanticists for dramatic scenes of mediæval and modern times. The romantic hero and heroine in scenes of horror, perils by land and sea, flame and fury, love and anguish, came upon the boards. Much of this was illustration of history, the novel, and poetry, especially the poetry of Goethe, Byron, and Scott. Line was slurred in favor of color, symmetrical composition gave way to wild disordered groups in headlong action, and atmospheres, skies,abstract oil painting on canvas, and lights were twisted and distorted to convey the sentiment of the story. It was thus, more by suggestion than realization, that romanticism sought to give the poetic sentiment of life. Its position toward classicism was antagonistic, a rebound, a flying to the other extreme. One virtually said that beauty was in the Greek form, the other that it was in the painter's emotional nature. The disagreement was violent, and out of it grew the so-called romantic quarrel of the 1820's. art oil painting reproduction