24
Lectures
30
minutes/lecture
1.
The Realist and the Idealist
In 1855 Paris held the first of many international exhibitions, allowing Frenchmen and foreign viewers to witness the tensions raging in the French art world. At mid-century, the bitter rivalry was between two competing trends: the French Classical tradition exemplified by Jean-Dominique Ingres, and the French Romantic tradition presided over by Eugène Delacroix. To this mixture was added the new strand of art called Realism.
1.
The Realist and the Idealist
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13.
The Third Exhibition
In 1877 a relative newcomer to the group, Gustave Caillebotte, organized the third Impressionist Exhibition. His modern and thoroughly urban works anchored what can now be called the single most important of all eight Impressionist exhibitions, defining the major artists for the next several generations.
13.
The Third Exhibition
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2.
Napoleon III’s Paris
Napoleon III, the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, declared himself emperor of France in 1853. His aim was to modernize the economy of France, create a sophisticated and centralized rail-transport system, and completely rebuild and glorify the capital city, Paris. This systematic development meant that, for most Parisians, life was utterly disrupted and altered from fundamental patterns.
2.
Napoleon III’s Paris
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14.
Edgar Degas
One artist, more than any other, represented the modern urban condition as a psychological as well as social condition. Edgar Degas created a body of work in various media that defines Parisian modernism through the interaction of figures with their settings.
14.
Edgar Degas
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3.
Baudelaire and the Definition of Modernism
A poet and art critic named Charles Baudelaire began writing systematically about art in 1846. His basic idea was that art should be "of its own times," and he struggled to find artists who would embody his ideals.
3.
Baudelaire and the Definition of Modernism
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15.
Gustave Caillebotte
Caillebotte was the wealthiest of all the artists associated with Impressionism. Long known as a collector and patron of the group, he was recognized as a painter in his own right only after World War II, when works from the family collection began to be acquired by major museums.
15.
Gustave Caillebotte
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4.
The Shock of the New
Edouard Manet, the son of a prominent civil servant, was among the best-educated and most authoritatively independent artists of the 19th century. He painted works that, although fundamentally Baudelairian, actually transcend Baudelaire. Manet's painting is as great as Baudelaire's poetry, and greater than his art criticism.
4.
The Shock of the New
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16.
Mary Cassatt
Mary Cassatt was a well-born American painter who had worked extensively in Europe before she met Edgar Degas in 1876. He introduced her into the Impressionist circle, and she became the only American painter who was a major force in the movement. Like Morisot, Cassatt's paintings depict the lives of wealthy women.
16.
Mary Cassatt
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5.
The Painters of Modern Life
By 1865 Manet's fame made him the de facto leader of a group of young painters who wanted to push painting further and further into modern life. These artists included Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, Frédéric Bazille, Camille Pissarro, and Paul Cézanne—all of whom would become central members of the Impressionist group.
5.
The Painters of Modern Life
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17.
Manet’s Later Works
Edouard Manet is known today chiefly as a painter of major Salon Paintings in the 1860s, and as the creator of a late masterpiece, The Bar at the Folies-Bergeres. That view is incorrect and undervalues the importance of his Impressionist experiments. He is among the few great painters in the history of art who adapted his style as a mature painter to that of younger artists.
17.
Manet’s Later Works
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6.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Of the young artists in Manet's circle, Auguste Renoir was the most naturally fluent and, hence, sensual painter. His works vary widely in composition, subject, and style, indicating a willingness to experiment that was greater than that of any of his colleagues.
6.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
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18.
Departures
Renoir and Monet became increasingly successful in the early 1880s and, perhaps as a result, increasingly dissatisfied with the group dynamics and politics of the Impressionists. Each of them also became restive about Paris and its suburbs as the sole subject of their art.
18.
Departures
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7.
Impressions in the Countryside
In 1869 Monet, Renoir, Sisley, and Pissarro all moved to a landscape along the Seine just west of Paris and easily accessible to the capital by train. The aesthetic created by these four men in what we might call the Cradle of Impressionism stressed the modern and the mutable. The landscapes were not only up-to-date in terms of their fashionable urban/suburban subjects, but also in their fascination with the frank use of materials.
7.
Impressions in the Countryside
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19.
Paul Gauguin
A young banker-stockbroker named Paul Gauguin met Pissarro in the late 1870s and became a major collector of Impressionism. He also embarked on a career as an amateur painter and sculptor, and exhibited with the Impressionists in their last four exhibitions.
19.
Paul Gauguin
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8.
Paris under Siege
The Second Empire crumbled in 1870 when, after provocation from Prussia, France declared war. Inadequately prepared, the French endured a humiliating defeat. This was followed by another in a series of 19th-century French revolutions, the Commune, based completely in Paris. These upheavals caused many Impressionists to leave Paris and France, and had notable effects on their lives and work.
8.
Paris under Siege
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20.
The Final Exhibition
In 1885 Pissarro went to visit a young, academically trained painter named Georges Seurat. This meeting changed both men's careers and the subsequent history of art, introducing a scientific rigor into conception, composition, and execution of art. Their collaboration brought an end to the Impressionist experiment when they dominated the final Impressionist Exhibition in April of 1886.
20.
The Final Exhibition
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9.
The First Exhibition
Within two years of the group's return to Paris, they had organized themselves into a new and, in French art, unprecedented private and independent group of artists. Their aim was to organize an exhibition of their own work on their own terms, outside the governmental strictures that limited artistic freedom in France. The exhibition, in May of 1874, quickly came to be called an exhibition of Impressionists or an Impressionist Exhibition, possibly based on the title of a quickly painted canvas by Monet entitled Impression: Sunrise.
9.
The First Exhibition
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21.
The Studio of the South—Van Gogh and Gauguin
A young Dutch painter, Vincent van Gogh, came to Paris in February of 1886 and visited the final Impressionist exhibition. He befriended many of the artists but came increasingly under the spell of Paul Gauguin. In 1888, van Gogh moved to Arles in the south of France and succeeded in convincing Gauguin to join him to create an artistic brotherhood called "The Studio of the South."
21.
The Studio of the South—Van Gogh and Gauguin
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10.
Monet and Renoir in Argenteuil
After the First Exhibition, a core group of the artists spent the summer together in the suburban town of Argenteuil, just west of Paris, a popular spot for sailing on the Seine. That summer can easily be considered the classic moment of suburban Impressionism.
10.
Monet and Renoir in Argenteuil
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22.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, the only son of the Comte de Toulouse, was the wealthiest and most nobly born painter in the history of French art. All of Toulouse-Lautrec's early subjects have their origins in the art of Manet and Degas. Hence, Lautrec can be considered a second-generation Impressionist.
22.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
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11.
Cézanne and Pissarro in Pontoise
While "The School of Argenteuil" painted modern suburban landscapes along the Seine, Camille Pissarro gathered a different group of artists around the much less-modern town of Pontoise, on the river Oise. Although several artists were part of this group, the most important, after Pissarro, was the young provincial painter, Paul Cézanne.
11.
Cézanne and Pissarro in Pontoise
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23.
The Nabis
In the late 1880s a small group of young men formed a brotherhood of artists called "Nabis" (the Hebrew word for prophet). Edouard Vuillard and Pierre Bonnard, the most important artists of the group, took the informal art of Impressionism into the interiors of 1890s Paris—a realm relatively unexplored by the Impressionists themselves.
23.
The Nabis
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12.
Berthe Morisot
Berthe Morisot was the first woman in the history of French art to have a career comparable to the best of her male colleagues. She was also the first to be accepted completely by a group of male artists, including Manet, Degas, and Renoir. Her social position in the haute bourgeoisie and her gender shaped her oeuvre powerfully.
12.
Berthe Morisot
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24.
La Fin
After their final exhibition, boycotted by Renoir and Monet, the Impressionists worked more or less independently of each other. Monet's pictorial production of the 1890s was dominated by the concept of "series" paintings. Pissarro and Degas also devoted much of that decade to series of their own.
24.
La Fin
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36
Lectures
30
minutes/lecture
1.
Art and Society in 16th-Century Netherlands
This lecture outlines the art to be discussed and provides historical background about the Protestant Reformation, Catholic Counter-Reformation, and the beginning of the Eighty Years' War between the Northern Netherlands (Holland) and the Spanish-ruled Southern Netherlands (Flanders).
1.
Art and Society in 16th-Century Netherlands
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19.
Still-Life Painting, c. 1620–54
This first lecture on still-life painting, a subject which often conveyed the moral of life's brevity, includes the work of Ambrosius Bosschaert, Pieter Claesz, Jan Davidsz de Heem, and Willem Claesz Heda.
19.
Still-Life Painting, c. 1620–54
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2.
The Years of Crisis in the Netherlands
Political and religious clashes of the 1560s led to the Protestant rebellion and, ultimately, the independence of the northern provinces. This lecture concentrates on the art of this period, especially that of Pieter Bruegel the Elder.
2.
The Years of Crisis in the Netherlands
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20.
Still-Life Painting, c. 1652–82
We conclude our examination of still-life painting with a look at the work of artists Samuel van Hoogstraten, Pieter Anraadt, Willem Kalf, Willem van Aelst, Abraham van Beyeren, and Jan Weenix, and also special categories such as illusionistic art, banquet pieces, and dead game.
20.
Still-Life Painting, c. 1652–82
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3.
Art in Haarlem and Utrecht, c. 1530–1625
We look at two significant art centers and works produced by Cornelis van Haarlem, Hendrik Goltzius, Abraham Bloemaert, and Hendrick Terbrugghen.
3.
Art in Haarlem and Utrecht, c. 1530–1625
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21.
Landscape Painting—The Early Decades
Dutch artists essentially invented naturalistic landscape painting, producing thousands of views of land and sea, in Holland and abroad. This is the first of seven lectures surveying the subject with examples ranging from Hendrik Goltzius around 1600 to the early work of Salomon van Ruysdael around 1630.
21.
Landscape Painting—The Early Decades
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4.
Facing the Truth—Candid Portraits
Portrait painting becomes prominent in Holland in the 17th century, with citizens of the new Dutch Republic eager to record the features of their families and their national leaders.
4.
Facing the Truth—Candid Portraits
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22.
Landscapes of Jan van Goyen and Rembrandt
We look at the work of the first great genius of Dutch landscape specialists, Jan van Goyen, and also discover that only eight of Rembrandt's landscapes were paintings (he depicted them more often in drawings and prints).
22.
Landscapes of Jan van Goyen and Rembrandt
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5.
Dutch Portraits, c. 1635–75
We examine some of the finest Dutch portraitists, including Gerard ter Borch, Jan de Bray, and Bartolomeus van der Helst, and note the 1660s shift in taste that led to greater emphasis on artifice and display of skill.
5.
Dutch Portraits, c. 1635–75
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23.
Foreign Landscapes
The Dutch were world traders and colonizers, and their interest in the world beyond Holland was expressed in landscapes by painters who went on foreign missions and by others who traveled alone or with other artists, including Frans Post, Allart van Everdingen, and Jan Both.
23.
Foreign Landscapes
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6.
Frans Hals—The Early Years
The first of three lectures on Hals—who in a career spanning more than half a century never left Haarlem—discusses his early single portraits and rare genre paintings from about 1611 to about 1633.
6.
Frans Hals—The Early Years
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24.
Landscape Painting in the 1640s and 1650s
During the 1640s and 1650s, landscape painting developed from a tonal style to a more colorful style. We look at examples from the work of artists Salomon van Ruysdael, Aert van der Neer, Albert Cuyp, and Paulus Potter.
24.
Landscape Painting in the 1640s and 1650s
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7.
Frans Hals—Civic Group Portraits
During the same period covered in the last lecture, Hals painted a famous series of group portraits of the Civic Guard Companies of Haarlem. His vivid, animated compositions and vigorous paint surface contrasted strongly with similar portraits by others.
7.
Frans Hals—Civic Group Portraits
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25.
Jacob van Ruisdael
Unanimously agreed to be the greatest Dutch landscape painter, Jacob van Ruisdael produced potent landscapes that featured a rich blend of precise observation and vivid imagination.
25.
Jacob van Ruisdael
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8.
Frans Hals—Later Portraits
As Hals aged, he retained all of his astonishing skill and became more penetrating in his characterizations, seeming never to repeat a pose as he found a new invention, a new insight, for each painting.
8.
Frans Hals—Later Portraits
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26.
Dutch Landscape Painting until 1689
This lecture continues with Ruisdael's painting before continuing with two other prominent landscape painters, Philips de Koninck and Meindert Hobbema.
26.
Dutch Landscape Painting until 1689
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9.
Town and City
In this first lecture devoted to the most inclusive category of Dutch painting—genre painting, or scenes of everyday life—we focus on paintings of public places in town and city, primarily Haarlem and Amsterdam.
9.
Town and City
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27.
Marine Painting
Marine painting—seascapes, beach scenes, lakes, and rivers—unsurprisingly received its first complete exploration by Dutch artists, who came from a nation that had a great navy and was under constant threat of flooding from the sea.
27.
Marine Painting
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10.
Daily Life in the Town
This examination of depictions of the public places—inns, taverns, barber and doctor establishments, shops, even brothels—includes the work of painters Judith Leyster, Adriaen van Ostade, and Job Berckheyde.
10.
Daily Life in the Town
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28.
The Moral of the Story—History Painting
Although Dutch art is especially known for its specialties, from portraiture to landscape, many Dutch artists also made history paintings, depicting elevated narrative subjects from the Bible, mythology, and ancient or modern political history.
28.
The Moral of the Story—History Painting
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11.
Daily Life in the Home
In Dutch homes of rich or poor or middle class, artists found plentiful settings for all sorts of scenes. Almost always the works carry deeper meaning than the action suggests to a modern viewer.
11.
Daily Life in the Home
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29.
The Decoration of the Amsterdam Town Hall
The Town Hall of Amsterdam, when opened in 1655, was considered one of the grandest and most significant buildings in the country. We look at the art commissioned to adorn it.
29.
The Decoration of the Amsterdam Town Hall
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12.
Music and the Studio
Music and art prove to be important genre subjects. Indeed, music was a preoccupation of Dutch art, with romantic and erotic connotations almost always present in musical subjects.
12.
Music and the Studio
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30.
Rembrandt to 1630
The first of seven lectures on Rembrandt includes details about two of his early self-portraits and two significant history paintings that signaled his lifelong dedication to the subject matter in which he would become pre-eminent.
30.
Rembrandt to 1630
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13.
Jan Steen—Order and Disorder in Dutch Life
One of the greatest Dutch genre painters, Jan Steen is best known for subjects that often show boisterous activity, a subject seemingly at odds with Calvinist precepts of an orderly life.
13.
Jan Steen—Order and Disorder in Dutch Life
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31.
Rembrandt in Amsterdam, 1631–34
This examination of Rembrandt's first years in Amsterdam, to which he moved permanently in 1631, includes Saskia, which may be his first portrait—even a wedding portrait—of Saskia van Uylenburgh, the woman he married in 1634.
31.
Rembrandt in Amsterdam, 1631–34
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14.
Pieter de Hooch and Quietude
The quiet pervading much of the work of Pieter de Hooch presents an introverted style, in marked contrast to the extroverted, "loud" paintings of Jan Steen.
14.
Pieter de Hooch and Quietude
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32.
Rembrandt and the Baroque Style
Although he never left Holland, Rembrandt was acutely aware of the extroverted drama of the Baroque style that characterized much Italian and Flemish painting, and it found a place in his art, especially in the mid-1630s, when he painted some of his most dramatic works.
32.
Rembrandt and the Baroque Style
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15.
Art in Delft
The town of Delft was a crucial locale in Dutch history, commerce, and art. In art it will always be associated with Johannes Vermeer.
15.
Art in Delft
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33.
Rembrandt's Personal Baroque Style
In the decade that follows, Rembrandt moved away from apparent emulation and reinterpretation of the European Baroque style toward the full maturity of his thirties and a personal Baroque style with a full range of size, subject, and expression.
33.
Rembrandt's Personal Baroque Style
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16.
Johannes Vermeer, c. 1655–60
In the first of three lectures on Vermeer, we look at the unexpected beginnings of this short-lived artist, including some works that particularly display his characteristic and miraculous effects of light and profound silence.
16.
Johannes Vermeer, c. 1655–60
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34.
Rembrandt's Etchings
Rembrandt's technical and expressive command of etching was unequalled. This lecture describes the process and examines a dozen examples from the 1630s to the 1650s.
34.
Rembrandt's Etchings
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17.
Johannes Vermeer, c. 1660–65
Between 1660 and 1665, Vermeer painted subjects common to Dutch genre painting, including music and letter writing, but they are infused with his own aura.
17.
Johannes Vermeer, c. 1660–65
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35.
Rembrandt in the 1650s
This lecture looks at portraits and religious paintings infused with the ever-deepening emotion and inwardness of Rembrandt's art that we first saw in several etchings discussed in the previous lecture.
35.
Rembrandt in the 1650s
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18.
Johannes Vermeer, c. 1665–70
This lecture includes discussions of renowned paintings like Girl with a Pearl Earring as well as the camera obscura, a visual tool assumed to have been used by Vermeer and other artists.
18.
Johannes Vermeer, c. 1665–70
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36.
Rembrandt's Last Years
This final lecture features some memorable paintings of the last decade of Rembrandt's life. It discusses the fascination Dutch artists showed in creating their seemingly realistic record of the world with a lifelikeness and truthfulness that have made Dutch art of the Golden Age recognized everywhere.
36.
Rembrandt's Last Years
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