5.3 ART 82 The Pre-Raphaelites were a group of English artists who opposed both Victorian values and Realism in art, which they saw as materialistic and conventional. They chose this name to declare an aesthetic ideal referring to early Italian Renaissance art before Raphael. G ricault, Raft of the Medusa PAINTING IN THE 19TH CENTURY: A BRIEF OVERVIEW The 19th century was a period of great social and technological changes. Artists broke away from traditional styles: they were eager to explore different ideas, and this experimentalism led to the development of an amazing variety of new styles and techniques over the years. Romanticism Romanticism was an international movement that arose in Europe between the end of the 18th and around the middle of the 19th century, spreading in reaction to the rational ideal advocated by the Enlightenment, and in opposition to the academic artistic conditioning of neoclassicism. In an attempt to react to the overwhelming industrialisation, the arts expressed the need to reunite the individual with nature. The most representative painters were Friedrich in Germany, Turner and Constable in England , G ricault and Delacroix in France, and Hayez in Italy. Seurat portrayed the play of light using tiny brushstrokes of contrasting colours, which became known as Pointillism. By using this technique, he created compositions with tiny, detached strokes of pure colour too small to be distinguished when looking at the entire work. Realism 19th century realism adopted an objective view of its time, recording situations and characters. The greatest exponent of realism was the Frenchman Courbet, who portrayed the everyday life of workers with objectivity, highlighting, under the influence of socialism, the exploitation of the weaker classes caused by capitalism. canvas: tela eager: desideroso easel: cavalletto exploitation: sfruttamento overwhelming: travolgente Impressionism The Impressionist movement originated in Paris thanks to a group of artists (Degas, Manet, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Sisley) who wanted to carry on 190 CreAtive ArtS the teachings of the realist school: to represent everyday reality on canvas as we see it, without too many details and refinements. Following the example of realistic painters, instead of painting inside their studio, Impressionist painters took their easel into woods, onto boats, the beach, in the open air (hence the French term en plein air painting). From such a position they could observe the authentic colours of the city and nature, and by painting directly outdoors, they achieved a greater luminosity and naturalness. They painted everything they saw without following the public s taste and the instructions of the Academy where Fine Arts were taught. Post-Impressionism Post-Impressionism is an umbrella term to refer to those artistic orientations that developed in France and were fundamental to the development of the historical avant-garde and the birth of 20th century art. The term was coined for the works of the late 19th-century painters C zanne, Seurat , Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Toulouse-Lautrec. Their masterpieces were characterised by a subjective approach to painting in order to evoke emotions. Even though their styles were different, they shared some features such as symbolic motifs and unnatural colours. Gauguin, Tahitian Women on the Beach