A new sensibility

A new sensibility

Baroque Art

Beautiful, Picturesque and Sublime

Museum Concept

Beautiful

The term beautiful refers to anything that is pleasant to both the sight and the mind. Paintings that had beauty as their theme depicted exciting views. The landscapes were painted in the presence of particular atmospheric conditions such as sunsets, moonlight, storms and sea storms. The natural places were chosen for their spectacularity: precipices, woods populated by suggestive trees and high peaks. Constable's landscapes use a collected and calm nature, not turbulent. The Hay Wain is a painting from 1821 which depicts a landscape that tells an episode of the English countryside of the early nineteenth century. The painting is set in the Suffolk countryside, near the River Stour, where Flatford Mill, owned by Constable's father, was located. In the foreground, two farmers are depicted crossing a low stream, driving an empty hay cart pulled by horses. At the side of the stream you can see a dog, in the distance you can see field workers and other figures including a woman drawing water and a boy casting a fishing line. In the scene represented in this painting there is a serene balance between natural and artificial elements. Constable made the images of the painting particularly alive and dynamic, making the viewer feel emotionally involved in the bucolic scene depicted.

Picturesque

The pictorial genre called "Picturesque" appeared in the 17th century and flourished in the 18th. The term "picturesque" needs to be understood in relationship to two other aesthetic ideals: the beautiful and the sublime. Picturesque arose as a mediator between these opposed ideals of beauty and the sublime. In England the word picturesque, meaning literally "in the manner of a picture; fit to be made into a picture," was a word used as early as, and derived from French pittoresque and the Italian pittoresco. According to Christopher Hussey, "While the outstanding qualities of the sublime were vastness and obscurity, and those of the beautiful smoothness and gentleness", the characteristics of the picturesque were "roughness and sudden variation joined to irregularity of form, colour, lighting”. Claude Lorrain was a well-known French painter, who had developed landscape painting in Rome and therefore one of the greatest exponents of the picturesque. The “Landscape with Nymph and Satyr Dancing” is an oil painting by Claude Lorrain in the Toledo Museum of Art signed and dated 1641. In this painting Claude Lorrain help pioneer the development of the “ideal” landscape: the balanced and harmonious composition is featuring by classical ruins and figures from ancient history or mythology. The late afternoon sunlight falls on the group through the columns of the crumbling temple, setting this enchanted glade apart from the civilized world represented by the distant town. It is the clarity of light in his paintings and its unifying effect that set Claude apart from many other landscape artists of the time.

Sublime

Among English Romantic painters, Turner is the most passionate and sensitive artist of the idea of the sublime, which concerns the manifestations of nature characterized by great bursts of energy that amaze and at the same time terrify man. One of the paintings depicting the "experience of the sublime" is "The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons," an event that occurred on the night of October 16, 1834, which destroyed the Houses of Parliament in London. A large crowd, among which Turner was also present, flocked to admire the spectacle: on the one hand there is a sense of terror at the immense disaster it destroys; on the other hand there is a sense of awe and admiration at the forces of nature. The sublime is represented by the cloud of fire that slowly involves the whole environment; the terror mixed with awe is represented by the reactions of the audience. The painting shows the building enveloped in flames forming a vortex; the bridge on the horizon suggests an infinite space in which the forces of fire and water, which occupy much of the painting, are beyond man's control. Warm tones and cold tones interact with each other, making nature the protagonist.

Sublime

Among English painters, Turner is the one who represents the aspect of the sublime to the maximum and this can be seen in his canvases which almost always feature fires or explosions that create a dramatic feeling in man. The painting under analysis is called "Eruption of Vesuvius" created by Turner between 1817 and 1820. If we see a depiction of Italian territory it is because the British painter had visited Italy in 1819; a journey during which he perfected his technique regarding color and light, studied and admired classical art and explored the Italian territory. The scene is completely dominated by the eruption of the mountain reported on the sheet in warm shades of orange and ocher within a dark, almost black sky. The colors of the eruption are in turn reflected in the sea, creating a second source of light. In this way Turner captures the precise moment of the evolution of nature which is, in and of itself, dramatic. His works are "alive" and "in movement", thus transporting the spectator inside the work to make him fully relive the phenomenon of the sublime and therefore to arouse in him feelings of pain and danger. Such a realistic creation derives from the fact that Turner was passionate about natural phenomena and geology, therefore he was able to bring them back

Thank you

Baroque Art

Cammise Rossella, Cosma Nicola, Lapenna Sabrina and Marzario Serena

Museum Concept