Impressionism Contrasting: Neoclassicism, Impressionism, and Abstract Expressionism

¶ … Impressionism

Contrasting: Neoclassicism, Impressionism, and Abstract Expressionism

The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries by Jacques Louis David portrays a historical subject that the painter David greatly admired. Neoclassicism, as its name implies, revived many of the conventions of Greek and Roman painting and sculpture, including an obsession with moral and physical ideals. Just as the Greeks and Romans portrayed their gods and goddesses in stone, David lionizes the exalted Emperor in his work. David created his painting during a time of tremendous political turmoil, during the height of the Napoleonic reign. Napoleon is portrayed as a great man, a hero, poised in his study, at work on the great achievements characteristic of his reign.

David intended the portrait to be representative of the whole of Napoleon's character and career: "He [Napoleon] is in his study. . . . The candles flickering and the clock striking four remind him that the day is about to break. . . . He rises . . . To pass his troops in review," David said of his work (The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries, 1812, NGA). "A volume of Plutarch's Lives positions him [Napoleon] with the great generals of ancient history and reinforces the meaning of the uniform, sword, and campaign maps...on the desk, rolled papers -- the Code Napoleon, whose reforms are the basis of French legal theory -- recall his civic role" (The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries, 1812, NGA). Neoclassicism showed an obsession with order and regularity, and a fascination with how the past could affect the present, as seen in Napoleon's perusing of Plutarch. "Neoclassical writers saw themselves, as well as their readers and characters, above all as members of society" (Introduction to Neoclassicism, n.d., Brooklyn CUNY).

While in Neoclassicism, the intention of the author is largely concealed, and the focus is on the historical subject, in Impressionist works like The Luncheon of the Boating Party (1880-1881) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, there is an attempt to show the soul of the artist rather than a dispassionate account of history. "The Impressionist style of painting is characterized chiefly by concentration on the general impression produced by a scene or object and the use of unmixed primary colors and small strokes to simulate actual reflected light" (Pioch 2006). The focus of Renoir's work, as typical of Impressionist paintings, is not upon great men, but upon ordinary, middle-class people, in this case the inhabitants of a boating party, enjoying the comforts of the bourgeoisie and their new cultural and social power. The subject, as well as the individuals is also the light and shade that catches the simple joys of the people at leisure. The subjects are casual in their demeanor, unlike Napoleon -- one woman plays with a dog at the table, while another flirts with a waiter. A man in a straw boater without a shirt sips a glass of wine, another man without a shirt gazes in the distance, while slightly more formally-dressed individuals cavort in the background. The food and wine consumed by the party is at the foreground create a scene of joy and plenty and offer ample opportunities for the artist to undertake a study of light and shade. Many of the people in the painting were Renoir's personal friends, in contrast to David, who likely never had Napoleon 'sit' for his portrait (The Luncheon of the Boating Party, 1880-1881, Blind Flaneur).