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The Romantic Rebellion: Romantic Versus Classic Art
With his extraordinary knowledge, clarity and style Kenneth Clark discusses thirteen important artists representing one of the greatest periods in the history of art - the second half of the eighteenth century to the middle of the nineteenth century.
During the second half of the eighteenth century, when the spirit of revolution was rising through Europe, a division appeared in all the arts, deeper and more radical than any that had preceded it. Rivalry arose between two schools of painting, the Romantic and the Classic. The doctrine of Classic art aspired to the ideal found in Greco-Roman antiquities; subjects were drawn from episodes in antique history or poetry that pointed a moral - acts of self-sacrifice or patriotism. Romantic art appealed to the emotions, in particular the fear and exhilaration aroused by storm, bloodshed and ferocity, so prevalent at the time. The emotional effect of a picture was heightened by color, violent light and shade and exaggerated movement, made shockingly natural - far removed from the tranquility and sculptural forms of classicism. In practice, however, the two schools overlapped. Both attached importance to subject matter and looked to the past for it. "Every great classical artist was a romantic at heart and vice versa; the distinction between them is more convenient than real," writes Kenneth Clark.
To trace this "rebellion" Kenneth Clark brings into focus the artistic creativity of thirteen artists: David, Goya, Piranesi, Fuseli, Blake, Ingres, Gericault, Delacroix, Turner, Constable, Millet, Degas and Rodin - all but one successful and influential, all part of the European movement.
During the second half of the eighteenth century, when the spirit of revolution was rising through Europe, a division appeared in all the arts, deeper and more radical than any that had preceded it. Rivalry arose between two schools of painting, the Romantic and the Classic. The doctrine of Classic art aspired to the ideal found in Greco-Roman antiquities; subjects were drawn from episodes in antique history or poetry that pointed a moral - acts of self-sacrifice or patriotism. Romantic art appealed to the emotions, in particular the fear and exhilaration aroused by storm, bloodshed and ferocity, so prevalent at the time. The emotional effect of a picture was heightened by color, violent light and shade and exaggerated movement, made shockingly natural - far removed from the tranquility and sculptural forms of classicism. In practice, however, the two schools overlapped. Both attached importance to subject matter and looked to the past for it. "Every great classical artist was a romantic at heart and vice versa; the distinction between them is more convenient than real," writes Kenneth Clark.
To trace this "rebellion" Kenneth Clark brings into focus the artistic creativity of thirteen artists: David, Goya, Piranesi, Fuseli, Blake, Ingres, Gericault, Delacroix, Turner, Constable, Millet, Degas and Rodin - all but one successful and influential, all part of the European movement.
366 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1973
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553 people want to read
About the author
Kenneth M. Clark
68 books59 followersSir Kenneth Mackenzie Clark (1903 -1983) was a British art historian, museum director, and broadcaster. After running two important art galleries in the 1930s and 1940s, he came to wider public notice on television, presenting a succession of programmes on the arts during the 1950s and 1960s, culminating in the Civilisation series in 1969.
The son of rich parents, Clark was introduced to the arts at an early age. Among his early influences were the writings of John Ruskin, which instilled in him the belief that everyone should have access to great art. After coming under the influence of the connoisseur and dealer Bernard Berenson, Clark was appointed director of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford aged twenty-seven, and three years later he was put in charge of Britain's National Gallery. His twelve years there saw the gallery transformed to make it accessible and inviting to a wider public.
During the Second World War, when the collection was moved from London for safe keeping, Clark made the building available for a series of daily concerts which proved a celebrated morale booster during the Blitz.
After the war, and three years as Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford, Clark surprised many by accepting the chairmanship of the UK's first commercial television network. Once the service had been successfully launched he agreed to write and present programmes about the arts. These established him as a household name in Britain, and he was asked to create the first colour series about the arts, Civilisation, first broadcast in 1969 in Britain and in many other countries soon afterwards.
Among many honours, Clark was knighted at the unusually young age of thirty-five, and three decades later was made a life peer shortly before the first transmission of Civilisation. Three decades after his death, Clark was celebrated in an exhibition at Tate Britain in London, prompting a reappraisal of his career by a new generation of critics and historians. Opinions varied about his aesthetic judgment, particularly in attributing paintings to old masters, but his skill as a writer and his enthusiasm for popularising the arts were widely recognised. Both the BBC and the Tate described him in retrospect as one of the most influential figures in British art of the twentieth century.
The son of rich parents, Clark was introduced to the arts at an early age. Among his early influences were the writings of John Ruskin, which instilled in him the belief that everyone should have access to great art. After coming under the influence of the connoisseur and dealer Bernard Berenson, Clark was appointed director of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford aged twenty-seven, and three years later he was put in charge of Britain's National Gallery. His twelve years there saw the gallery transformed to make it accessible and inviting to a wider public.
During the Second World War, when the collection was moved from London for safe keeping, Clark made the building available for a series of daily concerts which proved a celebrated morale booster during the Blitz.
After the war, and three years as Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford, Clark surprised many by accepting the chairmanship of the UK's first commercial television network. Once the service had been successfully launched he agreed to write and present programmes about the arts. These established him as a household name in Britain, and he was asked to create the first colour series about the arts, Civilisation, first broadcast in 1969 in Britain and in many other countries soon afterwards.
Among many honours, Clark was knighted at the unusually young age of thirty-five, and three decades later was made a life peer shortly before the first transmission of Civilisation. Three decades after his death, Clark was celebrated in an exhibition at Tate Britain in London, prompting a reappraisal of his career by a new generation of critics and historians. Opinions varied about his aesthetic judgment, particularly in attributing paintings to old masters, but his skill as a writer and his enthusiasm for popularising the arts were widely recognised. Both the BBC and the Tate described him in retrospect as one of the most influential figures in British art of the twentieth century.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
September 3, 2016
Clark's essays on thirteen artists who forged a separate path from their classic forefathers were adapted from television scripts, which in turn had been adapted from lectures given at Oxford University or the Phillips Gallery in Washington. As such, they are the pan drippings of a great educator and an exemplary mind, more flitting than thorough, unthreateningly erudite. Clark, like his counterpart in the arena of classical music, Leonard Bernstein, had the gift of delivering the profundities of culture to a mass audience with ease and familiarity.
He dispenses value judgments plenteously: Fuseli's "The Nightmare" is "a ridiculous work". Edmund Burke's Inquiry into the Origins of the Sublime is "original, intelligent and extremely boring". "...Rodin could be very good or very bad; and if he is to take his proper place as one of the greatest artists of the nineteenth century, and perhaps the greatest sculptor since Michelangelo, one must make an effort to discriminate between the genuine and the counterfeit in his work."
Rodin's drawings "are the most untrammelled and revolutionary of all his works. But in the end, how monotonous they become! There are said to be over four thousand in the Musee Rodin alone, and I must confess that even after a hundred or so this endless belt of sprawling women has a depressing rather than an exhilarating effect on me, and seems to reveal a kind of promiscuity which is foreign to the concentrated passions of the greatest artists." But his Balzac "is a work of genius and to my mind the finest thing Rodin ever did." "After all his adventures in other styles he has achieved something which is entirely his own and yet seems to spring from the heart of a universal tradition of sculpture. At the same time it is the most modern of Rodin's works, in the sense that the imitation of appearances is entirely subordinate to a sculptural idea. In the gardens of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, which contains the masterpieces of the 20th century sculpture, by far the oldest work is Rodin's Balzac. There they all are - Matisse, Laurens, Gargallo, Zadkine, Henry Moore, Giacometti - and the Balzac seems to meet them on their own terms and to dominate them."
You are always going to learn some fascinating historical titbit: "Since Van Dyck we have grown accustomed to the idea that portrait painters must be flatterers, but in the seventeenth and eighteen centuries great people were so sure of their status that they did not really mind what they were made to look like as individuals. In their portraits the later Medici look like criminal lunatics: they did not care - they were the Medici." "...fashionable people used to visit [madhouses] for amusement, just as people today go to horror films." "...the sensuous disorder of real flowers, which delighted Courbet, Manet and, of course, Renoir, disturbed [Degas]. Later in life when he went out to dinner he used to ask for them to be removed from the table. At most he would admit an aspidistra."
Clark confesses that in certain moods he finds Ingres' "Bain Turc a slightly comic picture. No wonder that it was made into a greetings card, with the caption 'The whole gang misses you.'"
Ingres, The Turkish Bath, 1862-63, The Louvre.
By Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres - C2RMF: Galerie de tableaux en très haute définition: image page, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
How interesting that Delacroix and Ingres were such polar opposites in terms of intelligence. Clark notes that Delacroix's father had been deemed medically incapable of having children the year before his birth, and Delacroix was almost certainly the son of the brilliant statesman Talleyrand (wikipedia throws doubt on this, but there is an uncanny resemblance). "Delacroix was one of the most completely intelligent men of his century, but the very range and responsiveness of his mind made it almost impossible for him to be a painter. He could not abandon himself to his perceptions..." Ingres had left school at the age of eleven, was not terribly bright, "and partly owing to his impulsive, emotional character, he was incapable of reason." This was a surprise to me, as Ingres' style has such a cool, pristine virtuosity that you almost imagine his paintings emanate directly from his brain:
Ingres, Monsieur Granet, 1807, Musée Granet, Aix-en-Provence.
Ingres, Portrait of Louis-François Bertin, 1832, The Louvre.
By Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres - http://visipix.com/index.htm, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
In a discussion of J.M.W. Turner, Clark discusses color and the notion of the painter as a colorist. "Fine colour does not mean bright colour or brilliant colour: more often than not it means the reverse. ...Fine colour implies a unified relationship, in which each part is subordinate to the whole, and the transitions between them are felt to be as precious and beautiful as the colors themselves." He cites Rembrandt and Watteau as among the greatest colorists; in many of their works "there are very few identifiable colours. Watteau's Enseigne de Gersaint is almost a monochrome, in which colours are gradated and subdued in such a way as to achieve magical transitions." Watteau is not a subject of the book, but "Turner often referred to his debt to Watteau".
Antoine Watteau, L'Enseigne de Gersaint, 1720-21, Charlottenburg Palace, Berlin.
By Antoine Watteau - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
Throughout the essays Clark has been noting the irresolution that exists between the ideas of romantic and classic art. Like so many distinctions, it is to some degree a fiction in that there is a substantial amount of overlap between the two schools "and never more so than in the work of Jean-François Millet." The subjects of many of his works are romantic, but his "treatment of the human figure" is classical.
Jean-François Millet, Nude, 1850, The Louvre.
In passages like this you really get your money's worth. Clark writes of Millet (and later, similarly, on Degas) that he "was one of those artists on whom a few formal ideas make so deep an impression that they feel compelled to spend the whole of their lives in trying to lever them out. Perhaps this is the chief distinguishing mark of the classical artist; certainly it is what distinguishes his use of subject matter from that of the illustrator. The illustrator is essentially a reporter, his subjects come to him from outside, lit by a flash. A subject comes to the classic artist from inside, and when he discovers confirmation of it in the outside world he feels that it has been there all the time. He must give to his subjects an air of unchangeable inevitability, and this becomes a problem of formal completeness. That is why the classic artists, Degas no less than Poussin, return to the same motives again and again, hoping each time to mould the subject closer to the idea." For Millet one of these motives was gleaners in a field. For Degas, it was horse racing and the ballet.
March 15, 2012
This is, simply, a wonderful book. I am not sure how someone really informed about 19th century art would rate this, but for me it was a perfect fit. I found the earlier sections the best - especially on David, Pirenesi, Ingres, Goya, Turner, Gericault, Delacroix.
I also cannot say that I now know what Romantic means - in fact, Clark's thesis is that in every 'romantic', there resides a classicst - and vice versa.
But none of that matters for the ranking of this excellent book.
I also cannot say that I now know what Romantic means - in fact, Clark's thesis is that in every 'romantic', there resides a classicst - and vice versa.
But none of that matters for the ranking of this excellent book.
September 29, 2019
Clark uses romantic (Romanticist?) and "classic" (classical?) without definition and skates the problem as a vulgar one. He hates Mengs who, apparently, is "insipid" and so can be Ingres, who is also "commonplace." Some figures painted by Turner are dismissed as "boring." That's about the typical level of Clark's criticism. His taste is narrow, restricted to realistic nature scenes, sensuous bodies, psychologically expressive faces, and dramatic postures or hand gestures. In short, he likes their literary aspects. Someone like this is not equipped to appreciate what Berenson called the "ineloquent" in art: the bland and neutral expressions you find so often in Piero della Francesca or Poussin. A few things struck me as culturally "off" about Clark: he says romanticism began with Candide after suggesting Horace Walpole as its entry into England; and he calls all totalitarian art inherently "classic." Romanticism was a German movement; most would suggest Werther as a useful beginning. And I can think of no examples of "classic" totalitarian art: maybe Le Corbusier or Albert Speer would fit how Clark sees it, but the most well known fascist artists have been romantics or modernists.
April 13, 2025
I have been a great fan of BBC art documentaries since Kenneth Clark's "Civilisation" first appeared on North American television in the 1970's. I never possessed the necessary qualities to be either an artist or an art historian which perhaps explains why I loved Clark who intends simply to guide those members of the general public who enjoy visiting art galleries.
I missed "The Romantic Rebellion: Romantic versus Classic Art" when it appeared on ITV in the 1970's but found great pleasure in the print version which I read in the chaos of the current Christmas season. The book provides commentary of the art and anecdotes on the lives of eleven painters, one drawer/sketcher and one sculptor active between 1750 and 1920. Most of the artists are French (David, Ingres, Géricault, Delacroix, Millet, Degas, and Rodin). The second largest group is English (Blake, Constable and Turner). Also included are Goya (Spain), Piranesi (Italy) and Fuseli (Switzerland). Germany's Caspar David Friedrich is inexplicably absent.
Clark's main thesis is that a conflict classic and romantic ideals dominated the visual arts in the first half of the 19th century. Clark argues that the battle lines were drawn by Johann Joachim Winckelmann ("Reflexions on the Imitation of Greek Art", 1755) and Edmund Burke ("Inquiry into the Origins of the Sublime", 1757). Winckelmann argued that art should possess noble simplicity through strong forms. Burke said that art should excite human emotions particularly fear. The romantics according to Clark use colour aggressively to provoke emotions. Clark feels that the rebelliousness of romantic art is a myth that grew out of the works of David and Blake.
Although Degas and Rodin are in chronological terms outside of the conventional Romantic era, Clark still analyzes their works. Degas is classified as a classicist because his works are note emotional and are dominated by forms in particular the poses of his ballerinas. Rodin, Clark argues, was the last great heir of the Romantic ideals. His works were highly emotional. While forms dominated Rodin's works, he did not confine himself to those of classical art. The "Squatting Woman" is cited as an important work by Rodin with a new form not found in the classical canon.
I intend now to watch the series which is available on Youtube. The book in truth does not work very well. Most of the illustrations are in black and white which worked only for Piranesi and Rodin. The chapters on Turner, Delacroix, Constable and Degas were absolutely wretched. I paid $ 2.99 for a copy that I found at Value Village. Do not spend any more to get yours.
I missed "The Romantic Rebellion: Romantic versus Classic Art" when it appeared on ITV in the 1970's but found great pleasure in the print version which I read in the chaos of the current Christmas season. The book provides commentary of the art and anecdotes on the lives of eleven painters, one drawer/sketcher and one sculptor active between 1750 and 1920. Most of the artists are French (David, Ingres, Géricault, Delacroix, Millet, Degas, and Rodin). The second largest group is English (Blake, Constable and Turner). Also included are Goya (Spain), Piranesi (Italy) and Fuseli (Switzerland). Germany's Caspar David Friedrich is inexplicably absent.
Clark's main thesis is that a conflict classic and romantic ideals dominated the visual arts in the first half of the 19th century. Clark argues that the battle lines were drawn by Johann Joachim Winckelmann ("Reflexions on the Imitation of Greek Art", 1755) and Edmund Burke ("Inquiry into the Origins of the Sublime", 1757). Winckelmann argued that art should possess noble simplicity through strong forms. Burke said that art should excite human emotions particularly fear. The romantics according to Clark use colour aggressively to provoke emotions. Clark feels that the rebelliousness of romantic art is a myth that grew out of the works of David and Blake.
Although Degas and Rodin are in chronological terms outside of the conventional Romantic era, Clark still analyzes their works. Degas is classified as a classicist because his works are note emotional and are dominated by forms in particular the poses of his ballerinas. Rodin, Clark argues, was the last great heir of the Romantic ideals. His works were highly emotional. While forms dominated Rodin's works, he did not confine himself to those of classical art. The "Squatting Woman" is cited as an important work by Rodin with a new form not found in the classical canon.
I intend now to watch the series which is available on Youtube. The book in truth does not work very well. Most of the illustrations are in black and white which worked only for Piranesi and Rodin. The chapters on Turner, Delacroix, Constable and Degas were absolutely wretched. I paid $ 2.99 for a copy that I found at Value Village. Do not spend any more to get yours.
January 23, 2011
This is a beautiful book with beautiful writing. Clark is one of the leading art historians and it is clear that he knows what he is talking about in this book. I picked up The Romantic Rebellion to just casually peruse and fell in love with art history. Definitely worth reading!!!
October 27, 2008
Lord Clark knocks us dead with his keen and penetrating mind as he describes the emergence of a more Emotional Art quite apart from the colder, more (historically) remote aims of the Classicists.
December 20, 2020
Leído en el contexto de la asignatura de arte del siglo XIX, supuestamente para entender el arranque y consolidación de la pintura romántica.
Digo supuestamente, porque cuanto más leo de romanticismo en el arte, más me doy cuenta de que formalmente es otra manera de entender el clasicismo, y el matiz está en el enfoque personal del pintor y por tanto, en ese sentido, este libro es más un repaso a los principales pintores del XIX que un estudio sobre romanticismo.
Estructurado en pequeñas monografías -de unas 20 páginas cada una- sobre 12 autores (algunos autores , Ingres y Turner, tienen 2 monografías), el interés varía en función a las afinidades de cada uno, por lo que, por ejemplo, la de Ingres se me hizo un poco pesada, pero en cambio la de Delacroix se me hizo breve. (Y hay algunas ausencias extrañas, como Courbett).
Ameno y fácil de leer, es un acercamiento muy bueno a la pintura del XIX, que, aun pecando un poco de formalista en su enfoque, deja algunas ideas muy buenas sobre que entendemos por romanticismo, y cómo, al igual que el barroco, puede pensarse más como una actitud que como un estilo concreto.
Muy recomendable si te gusta la historia de la pintura y la crítica, si no....pues nada.
Digo supuestamente, porque cuanto más leo de romanticismo en el arte, más me doy cuenta de que formalmente es otra manera de entender el clasicismo, y el matiz está en el enfoque personal del pintor y por tanto, en ese sentido, este libro es más un repaso a los principales pintores del XIX que un estudio sobre romanticismo.
Estructurado en pequeñas monografías -de unas 20 páginas cada una- sobre 12 autores (algunos autores , Ingres y Turner, tienen 2 monografías), el interés varía en función a las afinidades de cada uno, por lo que, por ejemplo, la de Ingres se me hizo un poco pesada, pero en cambio la de Delacroix se me hizo breve. (Y hay algunas ausencias extrañas, como Courbett).
Ameno y fácil de leer, es un acercamiento muy bueno a la pintura del XIX, que, aun pecando un poco de formalista en su enfoque, deja algunas ideas muy buenas sobre que entendemos por romanticismo, y cómo, al igual que el barroco, puede pensarse más como una actitud que como un estilo concreto.
Muy recomendable si te gusta la historia de la pintura y la crítica, si no....pues nada.
January 20, 2018
Great overview of Romantic artists with paintings- great for romantic history or art history
May 6, 2018
Disappointed with all the art shown in the book in black and white :( Thorough and researched material on the artists. Focused on Degas.
May 14, 2016
A coworker slipped this sucker to me one day and it's just a lovely book. *Plus* I learned about some romantic artists I'd never heard of before and then *the very next day* went to an art museum and saw some of their sketches. It was a perfect coincidence.
May 30, 2011
nice one.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews