Revolutionary Century: session 2

Second session of a six week course at the Bishopsgate Institute looking at the art of the 19th century, a period of great changes in art and society.

The course is led by James Heard and this session looked at Romanticism in art and architecture. We compared the David which we’d studied last week with Gericault’s “Raft of the Medusa” to work out what he difference was between neo-classism and romanticism seeing that the later was more emotional, has less colour, was more muddle and disordered in style and had a great concentration on nature.

We then went on to look at other pictures and building which reflected the style and discussed the difference between the beautiful, the sublime and the picturesque.

We finished my looking in detail at Constable’s “The Cornfield”. I don’t think I’d ever looked properly at a Constable and it was fascinating to see what was real and what was heightened for effect. I was particularly interested that he didn’t use green paint all the shades of trees and grass came from blending blue and yellow.