FRENCH REVOLUTION IN ART By the eighteenth century being part of the beaux-arts rather than being involved in “crafts” was often a matter of class. Artists tended to come from the middle class and shared the aspirations of upward social mobility typical of...
ROMANTICISM AND CHANGING METHODOLOGIES IN ART HISTORY What is the impact of methodologies of art history upon the recounting of the history of art? A methodology is a way of telling or constructing the past. This act of re-construction is, in fact, as Hayden White...
THE ACADEMY AND THE AVANT-GARDE IN FRANCE The artists of the French Academy and the artists of the French avant-garde are often presented as being protagonists, but, in fact, each group defined itself in terms of the other. The French Academy was the bastion of the...
THE AESTHETICS OF ROMANTICISM Part One With the decline of religious commissions and with the end of aristocratic patronage, the modern artist was left dependent upon the State and the new art public. In the past, it had been sufficient to define “art” as...