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Fransisco Goya's work takes the themes Romanticism and cranks them up to 10. The era is characterized by drama, unsettling emotion effects, the vastness of nature, and critical depictions of current events and the ruling class of 18th/19th century Spain surrounding the Napoleon's invasion and the Spanish Inquisition While we stilll see the academic compositions of balance and royal portraiture, there is a deviation from the academic with Goya's brush strokes- the hand of the artist is present.
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Francisco Goya
King Charles IV Family
1800
Oil on Canvas
110” ×132”
Museo del Prado, Madrid In a nod to Velázquez's 1636 unique royal portrait Las Meninas, Goya's portrait of Spanish King Henry IV family features Goya himself painting in the background. There are several visual details aligning with Goya's political critiques and a departure from idealistic royal portraiture. Their facial expression are twisted as if corrupt, and a black dot signifies grandmother's syphilis. -
Francisco Goya,
3rd of May 1808
1814
O/C,
106” x 137”
Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain This history painting is an iconic depiction by Goya of the resulting asasinations following Napoleon's invasion of Spain and the Spanish Inquisition. Here a group of rebels is round up for execution, a central figure is depicted in a tube of light, his hands pierced like Christ's stigmata. This was yet another social critique that is typical of romanticism and Goya's style. -
Francisco Goya
Saturno Devorando a su Hijo (Saturn Devouring His Son)
1820-1823
Mixed media mural transferred to canvas
143.5cm ×81.4cm (56.5in ×32.0in)[1]
Museo del Prado, Madrid A unique surreal work of the Romanticism era, this part of Goya's Black Paintings, painting on the walls inside his own home, shows a surreal and emotionally evocative and disturbing work depicting the myth of Saturn cannibalizing his son out of paranoia of being usurped. -
The PRB exhibits a severe departure from the previous Academic style on principle. Formed by the three brothers; Hunt, Millais, and Rosetti, the characteristics of this unique sect of the English Romanticism era are pure naturalism, original depictions as opposed to classicist copies, and a heartfelt and detailed naturalism with intentional choices of species. Thematically, the works of the PRB pertain to medivialism, spirituality, and artistic truth- all depicted in bright and colorful hues.
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John Everett Millais
Ophelia
1851-1852
O/C, 2’6” x 3’8”
Tate Britain Milliais depiction of Ophelia reaffirms Victorian depictions of "the fallen woman", the visual trope of sex workers closing "salvation" from their lives of "sin" by throwing themself to the fates of watery suicide. PRB traits of bright colors and intentional naturalism - pansy's representing love, violets for chastity, and red poppy's communicating deep slumber, and perhaps even opium plants. -
William Holman Hunt
The Awakening Conscience
1853, O/C
30” x 22”
Tate, Britain In an image rife with colorful symbolic objects - clocks, spun out embroidery, a cat playing with its prey -a "fallen woman" rises in an awakening moment of clarity. This image shows a somewhat progressive perspective on sex workers, as the lush green fields in the window before her, reflected by the mirror behind, shows a potential future life beyond her amoral past and beyond the tragic victorian fate of sex work. -
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Lady Lilith
1866-68
O/C, 38” x 33.5”
Delaware Art Museum Rosetti's Lady Lilith is a modernized image of the Hebrew mythic demoness Lilith, first wife of Adam. Her connotations as evil woman and temptress would align with victorian sensibilities of the fallen woman. The red-haired subject gazes into her mirror and combs her hair, a signal of vanity. Rossetti has approached Lilith with bright colors and naturalist symbolism.