Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

    • 50 views

    AHIST 1401written Assignment Unit 5

    Uploaded by

    Julius Owuonda
    The document discusses two paintings from the French Revolution period - Louis-Léopold Boilly's 1798 painting "Gathering of artists in Isabey's workshop" and Léon Cogniet's 1833 painting "La Garde nationale de Paris part pour l’armée". Boilly's painting depicted artists socializing in an elegant setting, reflecting their new social status and independence after the revolution. Cogniet's painting depicted volunteers departing for war and celebrated national unity, commissioned under the July Monarchy to commemorate revolutionary history. Both works reflected the transitioning social and political changes occurring after the revolution.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    AHIST 1401written Assignment Unit 5

    Uploaded by

    Julius Owuonda
    50 views6 pages
    The document discusses two paintings from the French Revolution period - Louis-Léopold Boilly's 1798 painting "Gathering of artists in Isabey's workshop" and Léon Cogniet's 1833 painting "La Garde nationale de Paris part pour l’armée". Boilly's painting depicted artists socializing in an elegant setting, reflecting their new social status and independence after the revolution. Cogniet's painting depicted volunteers departing for war and celebrated national unity, commissioned under the July Monarchy to commemorate revolutionary history. Both works reflected the transitioning social and political changes occurring after the revolution.

    Original Description:

    AHIST

    Original Title

    AHIST 1401Written Assignment Unit 5

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    The document discusses two paintings from the French Revolution period - Louis-Léopold Boilly's 1798 painting "Gathering of artists in Isabey's workshop" and Léon Cogniet's 1833 painting "La Garde nationale de Paris part pour l’armée". Boilly's painting depicted artists socializing in an elegant setting, reflecting their new social status and independence after the revolution. Cogniet's painting depicted volunteers departing for war and celebrated national unity, commissioned under the July Monarchy to commemorate revolutionary history. Both works reflected the transitioning social and political changes occurring after the revolution.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    50 views6 pages

    AHIST 1401written Assignment Unit 5

    Uploaded by

    Julius Owuonda
    The document discusses two paintings from the French Revolution period - Louis-Léopold Boilly's 1798 painting "Gathering of artists in Isabey's workshop" and Léon Cogniet's 1833 painting "La Garde nationale de Paris part pour l’armée". Boilly's painting depicted artists socializing in an elegant setting, reflecting their new social status and independence after the revolution. Cogniet's painting depicted volunteers departing for war and celebrated national unity, commissioned under the July Monarchy to commemorate revolutionary history. Both works reflected the transitioning social and political changes occurring after the revolution.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 6

    1

    The French Revolution

    in the eyes of Boilly and Cogniet

    Bachelor of Science in Business Administration

    University of the People

    AHIST1401 – World Art History

    Julie Lawrence (Instructor)

    February 26th, 2022


    2

    The profound changes during the French Revolution affected the arts field, giving rise

    to new institutions and paving the way for different artistic practices. Indeed, the abolition of

    the institutions of the Ancien Régime as early as 1789 resulted in the disappearance of the

    Royal Arts Academy, especially those of academies (1793), whose artists, David in mind, did

    not stop denouncing the hierarchical system. As for the fairs, which allowed the only members

    of the former Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture and certain authorized artists to expose

    their works publicly, their existence was not questioned (Mirzoeff, 1997). The Salons that

    settled at the Louvre from 1791 to 1799 hosted many artists and met a particular public success.

    Offering an overview of the genres and artistic currents in vogue, they reflected the new tastes

    of the clientele. At the same time, they allowed artists to integrate with the bourgeois society

    by acquiring a certain financial autonomy.

    It is precisely these two new trends that we find in a famous painting of Louis-Léopold

    Boilly, entitled “Artists' meeting in Isabey's workshop”, presented at the 1798 Art show. This

    canvas won great success, both by its iconography and virtuoso technique. It was treating a

    traditional theme and very popular at the artist's workshop. The realism and the thoroughness

    with which Boilly painted the characters' physiognomy allow us to identify most of them and

    bring tribute to the eminent personalities of the arts of the time. On the one hand, the realistic

    vision and the careful aesthetic of the painter reflect an evolution concerning the pomposity of

    neoclassicism in vogue, a change which thus announces the Romantic period (Britannica,

    2022).

    This canvas illustrates the artist's role in society at the time: the dress refinement of the

    characters, their pace, just as the conversation they practice with ease indicates that they have

    obtained some social recognition. Therefore, carried out at a hinge era, this canvas not only is

    a living testimony of the artistic and cultural life of the time but again reflects the transition

    between the old social order and the new (Britannica, 2022).
    3

    This last aspect of Louis-Léopold Boilly's work is fundamental to the extent that the

    initial treatment of a conventional subject throws innovative lighting on the aspirations of the

    artists of the time. Indeed, abundant at previous times, the iconography of the workshops

    usually emphasized the artisanal character of the artist's work through the representation of his

    tools or his easel, thus presenting the painter or the sculptor as a craftsman. On the other hand,

    Boilly chose to move away from this aspect of the job to give the Isabey workshop the

    appearance of an elegant and comfortable living room, tastefully decorated and in the middle

    of which is a piano. The choice of such iconography thus presents the artist as an intellectual

    and claims for him an essential place within the society, equivalent to that of the humanist, the

    honest man or the philosopher for previous centuries. Visionary, this optic prefigures the

    aesthetic manifests of the realistic painters of the second half of the nineteenth century.

    Gathering of artists in Isabey’s workshop, oil on canvas by Louis-Léopold Boilly, 1798; in the Louvre, Paris. 72 × 111 cm.

    https://www.britannica.com/biography/Louis-Leopold-Boilly

    On July 11, 1792, in the face of military defeats and threats of invasion, from the

    Prussians of the Duke of Brunswick and the emigrants of the Prince of Condé), the legislative

    assembly declared "the Fatherland in danger" and the raising of 50,000 volunteers among the

    national guards (Britannica, n.d.).


    4

    At the end of the summer, the military situation became dramatic. Longwy capitulates

    on August 23 before the Prussians, Verdun surrenders. On August 26, the assembly then

    approved a new levy of 30,000 men on Danton's proposal. This composition represents an

    enlistment scene in Paris on the Pont-Neuf. On the site of the statue of Henri IV removed by

    the Revolution, we see a tricolour flag brandished on the empty pedestal (Britannica, n.d.).

    The women in the foreground offer olive branches, kiss their children and are saddened

    by the departure of the partisans. The general atmosphere of the composition celebrates the

    enthusiasm of these volunteers who contributed to the victories of Valmy and Jemmapes.

    In this retrospective evocation of the departure of the volunteers, Léon Cogniet directs

    the unifying myth of the Revolution towards a representation where the romantic spirit tends

    to individualize the characters. Commissioned in 1833 for the Historic Galleries of Versailles

    by Louis-Philippe, this painting had to celebrate, under the July Monarchy, the memory of the

    Nation's unity to give to the theme of national reconciliation, dear to Louis-Philippe, all its

    historical meaning (Chateau de Versailles, n.d.).

    Admittedly, the departure of the volunteers must have taken on a first-rate significance

    for the contemporaries of Louis-Philippe: alongside the victories of Louis XIV and Napoleon,

    this evocation of the Nation attracted the attention of spectators to the fact that the regime of

    Louis-Philippe also claimed to be, like the Republic, born from the destruction of the Old

    Regime, directly resulting from the popular will.


    5

    La Garde nationale de Paris part pour l’armée, oil on canvas by Léon Cogniet, 1833; in the Grand-Palais, Paris.

    https://pin.it/wsH3MEn

    In conclusion, artists willingly disregard the speculation of science, political intrigue

    and abstract philosophy. Most hardly argue. They saw, they felt, they created. However, an

    emotion needs time to germinate: the seeds do not sprout immediately; it is still necessary not

    to stir the field, and that is why we have seen the artists of the Revolution, for want of hindsight

    and rest, powerless to directly translate the tragedies of that heroic and bloody history.

    However, as the great shakings of souls are never sterile, we have seen these paintings

    transmitted to produce their natural effects, and art to transform and inspire, first of all, by the

    military glory of which the epics allowed artists more contemplation than agitation of the

    streets. We then saw the men, sated and tired of so much noise, pride and glory, feel the need

    for quiet, humble and deep affections and we would later witness the blossoming of a new art

    so much to the eternal sources for the love of Nature.


    6

    References

    Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia (2022, January 1). Louis-Léopold Boilly.


    Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Louis-Leopold-
    Boilly

    Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopedia (n.d.). Campaign of 1792. Encyclopedia


    Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/event/French-revolutionary-wars/Campaign-
    of-1792

    Boilly, L.-L. (1798). Gathering of artists in Isabey’s workshop. Oil on canvas in the
    Louvre, Paris. 72 × 111 cm. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Louis-Leopold-
    Boilly

    Château de Versailles. (n.d.). The 1792 room. www.en.chateauversailles.fr


    https://en.chateauversailles.fr/discover/estate/palace/1792-room#a-transition-room

    Cogniet, L. (1836). La Garde nationale de Paris part pour l’armée. Oil on canvas in
    The Grand-Palais, Paris. https://pin.it/wsH3MEn

    Mirzoeff, N. (1997). Revolution, Representation, Equality: Gender, genre, and


    emulation in the Académie royale de peinture et sculpture, 1785-93. Eighteenth-
    Century Studies, 31(2), 153–174. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30053297

    You might also like