Art of the French Enlightenment and Romanticism: David, Ingres, Géricault and Delacroix

The French Revolution sought an expression of civic order and liberty in visual culture, which found broad expression in the ideas of the Enlightenment. The Revolution’s greatest master, Jacques Louis David, achieved this by converting Classical forms and history painting into symbols of democratic ideals. His pupil, Ingres infused a classical style with conservative ideology. Soon the Romantic artis Géricault and Delacroix began to explore contemporary subjects in a subjective way, and rejected classical and public art. Creatively, Romanticism eventually triumphed over Classicism, but not without perpetuating Utopian trends, movements and believed. We will also glance across the channel at British Neoclassicism and Romanticism in the work of Sir Joshua Reynolds and J. M. W. Turner.

Emeritus Professor Richard Read is a Senior Honorary Research Fellow in Art History at the University of Western Australia where he was Professor of Art History.  He wrote the first book on the British…