From the Classicists to the Impressionists: Art and Architecture in the Nineteenth Century

by Elizabeth Gilmore Holt (Editor)

The increasing reaction to traditional forms and values which characterized 19th Century artistic expression is lucidly revealed in this unique collection of letters, journals, essays and other writings of the time. Delacroix's emphasis on the imagination as the key to art, Courbet's realism, and Manet's open-air technique are all different manifestations of the same spirit of revolt against the accepted standards of the past. This revolt also took the form of a pledge to the future, a pledge to create an art of free expression, unencumbered by convention, unstifled by the rules and methods of the academics. Such writings as Friedrich's Thoughts on Art, Gauguin's Letters, or Frank Lloyd Wright's A Home in a Prairie Town reveal some of the stylistic, philosophical and personal concerns of the artists. The critic's growing importance in the art world of the 19th Century is ingeniously illuminated by the editor's careful and deliberate selection of relevant material. David's explanation and defense of his "Painting of the Sabines" is sharply contrasted by Stendhal's criticism and near-mockery of the painting as expressed in his Salon of 1824. The excerpts from Zola's Mon Salon in which he defends Manet and the Impressionists reflect the constant tension between the artists and the patrons of "academic art."

This volume follows the editor's previous books, A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF ART, Volume I: The MIddle Ages and the Renaissance, and A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF ART, Volume II: Michelangelo and the Mannerists: The Baroque and the Eighteenth Century, both of which have been published in Anchor.

Genres: Art, Art History, 19th Century

540 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1966

About the author

Elizabeth Gilmore Holt was an American art historian. She taught at Duke University, American University, and Michigan State University and was editor of A Documentary History of Art, Volume II: Michelangelo and the Mannerists, From the Classicists to the Impressionists, Triumph of Art for the Public, 1875-1848, and The Art of All Nations: 1850-1873.