PART II Court Influence: How 18th-Century Vienna Fueled One of Classical Music's Greatest Rivalries7/9/2017 The previous post featured the first part from one of my earlier journal publications on the nature of Antonio Salieri and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's rivalry and the conditions that bred such an environment. Previously I focused on context and history; today, the conclusion will delve further into analysis on the true nature of their relationship and their contributions to the greater history of Classical music. In the land of musicians, “the composer of a king had to be politically adroit to retain his position at court,” [i] and Salieri was more than adept. Securing prestigious teaching positions among Vienna’s nobility ensured continued financial security in addition to guaranteeing future patronage. In late 1781, the Duke of Württemberg arrived in Vienna with his daughter the princess Elisabeth Wilhelmine. She was betrothed to Joseph II’s nephew and heir, Franz. Joseph II sought a worthy piano teacher to educate Elisabeth for her future status. [ii] At this time, Salieri was already a well-respected instructor and knew the value of such a position. Although Mozart was aware of the tremendous opportunity such a role would bestow, he was inept in the court politics necessary to land the role of the Princess of Württemberg’s musical instructor. His carefree disposition often led to crass or inappropriate public comments about his peers or the Viennese nobility. While still vying for the instructor position, Mozart was quoted as calling the princess an “eighteen-year-old lout, a regular calf.” [iii] This impropriety cost him the job and favor among the courts. Salieri was awarded the role of piano instructor to the princess. By landing the coveted position, Salieri reasserted himself within the royal courts through aligning himself with the wife of the future Holy Roman Emperor.
was not of interest to Salieri, nor did he consider himself competent in the language. [v] Although Mozart’s opera was the only true success of the Nationaltheater experiment, it came all too late. The public’s interest in a national opera was waning. “The Emperor, knowing the restless curiosity of his Viennese subjects, again gave them…an Italian Opera [house].” [vi] With the closing of the Nationaltheater and reopening of the Burgtheatre, all opera was once again to be conducted in Italian. Fortunately for Mozart, he was fluent in Italian in addition to German, French, and Latin. [vii] Once only a peripheral menace to Salieri’s courtly clout and public popularity, Mozart was now an ever present threat with this sudden artistic shift. Competition for supremacy of court favor took a heightened turn. Upon the switch back to Italian opera, Salieri was named director and Kapellmeister. [viii] He was in an evermore influential role, capable of manipulating particular outcomes within his favor. History has not been favorable to Salieri; Academics continue to speculate on the numerous ways he hindered Mozart’s career and prevented him from attaining patrons or financial success. While this has been grossly exaggerated, Salieri did indeed use his cunning and authority to produce particular desired outcomes. When Mozart started writing Le nozze di Figaro, Salieri was involved with numerous clandestine attempts to cease production. The opera spanned over four hours, requiring a great deal of effort from its cast, crew, as well as audience. Salieri utilized the length as he tried to turn Mozart’s cast and royal spectators against him. Mozart and his father grew outraged at the attempts ranging from complaints on arias, to apparent royal prohibitions found within the opera. Mozart’s father, Leopold, complained in a letter to peers and patrons, “The cowardly alliance of undeserving people devoted its entire energy to hating, denigrating and disparaging the art of this immortal artist.” [ix] Nonetheless, Figaro took the stage in October 1785 and was relatively successful showing nine times until the September of the following year. His masterpiece was overshadowed, however, by Salieri’s more popular Grotta di Trofonio, showing an illustrious seventeen times during the same year as Mozart’s Figaro. [x] Mozart’s Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute were to meet similar unfavorable outcomes. Despite his genius, Mozart did not play to the royal Viennese tastes, nor was he given adequate support by Salieri and the aristocratic Italians in his operatic productions. While Mozart’s operas are considered masterpieces today, they were relative failures compared to the more popular contemporary works of Salieri. Mozart’s style was unrivaled, it was daring, and it was unconventional. Yet, there was not a strong enough audience in eighteenth-century Vienna to see the value of operas like Figaro or Don Giovanni. With an audience filled primarily by the royalty and its courts, an opera’s value lie in how closely it aligned with their traditional Italianophile tastes and Mozart’s work never catered to the conventional. Furthermore, it was commonly stated that Mozart’s work was simply “too much” for an audience-- royal or civilian--to absorb. They did not have the time or musical ear to fully grasp the rich beauty of his operas. [xi] The 1984 film, Amadeus, discusses this notion in greater detail, that both the royal and civilian audience were simply not ready for Mozart’s musical innovation. Although Amadeus is a historical dramatization of the encounters between the two men, it captures the essence of their rivalry, works and the Viennese courts in a manner that few scholars can dispute. “I think you overestimate our dear Viennese, my friend,” [xii] states Salieri to Mozart in the film. While Mozart sought to outdo Salieri by creating the greatest operas to ever grace the stage, his rival knew how to out do him in a different manner. Although Salieri’s “artistic individuality was not strong… [or] important enough to impress upon the opera a new character,” [xiii] his operas were tuned perfectly to the ears of the nobility as well as the public. Italian opera was traditional and popular. So too, was Salieri: In other words…Mozart’s operas were less to the taste of the monarch and the public in Vienna than those of Salieri, and it was the same all through Germany. Whatever the appreciative few may have thought of Figaro and Don Giovanni, to the general operatic public, Salieri was certainly the greatest of the living composers. [xiv] Mozart was the genius, but Salieri was the composer of the people. Both men strove to gain what the other held and both men were fatally consumed by their envy to do so. While both musicians respected the other’s works, Salieri was crippled by his jealousy of Mozart’s musical talents. “Mozart’s superior gifts…made Salieri’s lifelong devotion to music meaningless.” [xv] He knew that Mozart’s abilities greatly surpassed his own. Regardless of all his power, prestige and fame, Salieri knew he could not compare to the child prodigy from Salzburg. The film Amadeus illustrates this beautifully through Mozart’s braying laughter, “directed towards all us common mortals who have been spitefully, maliciously denied the fire of creative genius.” [xvi] Salieri felt it was the mocking laughter of the gods, reminding him he could never attain the artistic brilliance he so greatly envied in Mozart. This further explains Salieri’s ever present desire to continually reassert his court influence in a clever and shrewd manner. His power and success stemmed directly from the Emperor, support Salieri had no intention of losing. When another composer of such genius is one’s contemporary, one must do whatever is necessary not to lose favor with the courts or the public. Mozart too was driven by envy, envy of Salieri’s power and success, especially among the nobility. In the final days of his life he was mysteriously commissioned to write The Requiem. Believing the work to be the supreme masterpiece of his career, the piece that would finally provide him with the success and recognition from the aristocracy he so desired. Mozart became consumed, his envy pushing him to madness. Driven to complete the composition for both the pecuniary and personal success he felt it would bring, Mozart worked himself into a state of physical and mental decline. He “began to speak of death and declared that he was writing the requiem for himself.” [xvii] Eerily prophetic, Mozart died weeks later on December 5, 1791. He continued to compose The Requiem while on his deathbed. [xviii]
circulate that Salieri poisoned the genius in order to maintain his position within the Viennese courts. Near the end of his life Salieri attempted suicide and claimed to have “murdered” Mozart, further perpetuating the myth. He had prevented the world from fully embracing the genius and beauty that was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart’s life was his art and his art had never come to full fruition, all due to Salieri. [xix] In a cruel twist of fate, Salieri realized he was living in a world that was slowly forgetting him, but Mozart was continuing to live on. Vienna and its courts no longer knew their most popular composer. The rivalry that consumed the latter portion of both Salieri and Mozart’s lives produced an outcome that neither could have foreseen. At the time of Mozart’s death in 1791, Salieri was the most powerful and popular composer in Vienna, while Mozart was buried in a poor, unmarked grave. Yet today, Salieri’s name is all but forgotten as Mozart is remembered as the pioneering musical genius of Vienna’s classical era. “Can you recall no melody of mine? I was the most famous composer in Europe,” [xx] laments Salieri in the beginning of the film Amadeus. The nature of their rivalry led to this unforeseeable conclusion. Salieri’s popularity was a direct result of playing into the contemporary tastes of the Viennese courts and public. Meanwhile, Mozart’s polarizing works fought tradition and introduced new musical styles. Ultimately, the lack of innovation within his traditional works led to Salieri being forgotten, but Mozart’s avant-garde compositions saw to it that he will always be remembered. Endnotes:
i Borowitz, “‘Murder’ of Mozart,” 284. ii Weber, “Musical Taste,” 180. iii Schenk, Mozart, 307. iv Ibid. v Ibid., 308. vi Braunbehrens, Maligned Master, 114. vii Heartz, “Figaro,” 257. viii Painter, “Mozart at Work,” 200. ix Braunbehrens, Maligned Master,114 x Ibid., 122. xi Braunbehrens, Maligned Master, 124. xii Thayer, Salieri, 97. xiii Schenk, Mozart, 368. xiv Shaffer, Amadeus, Film. xv Thayer, Salieri, 91. xvi Thayer, Salieri, 127. xvii Borowitz, “‘Murder’ of Mozart,” 282. xviii Marshall, “Film as Musicology,” 177. xix Borowitz, “‘Murder’ of Mozart,” 264. xx Ibid., 266
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PART I Court Influence: How 18th Century Vienna Fueled One of Classical Music's Greatest Rivalries24/8/2017 The next two weeks will feature writing from one of my earlier journal publications on the nature of Antonio Salieri and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's rivalry and the conditions that bred such an environment. This week will focus on context and history while the conclusion will delve further into analysis on the true nature of their relationship and their contributions to the greater history of Classical music. From the baroque glories of the Habsburg courts arose a city that became the world’s musical epicenter, Vienna. Ruled by two great patrons of the arts in the eighteenth-century, Maria Theresia and Joseph II, Vienna gave birth to the artistic genius of numerous musical composers including Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert. Yet, the underlying politics necessary for landing Vienna’s powerful court patrons created an atmosphere of intrigue and fierce competition—a place where mediocrity could rule supreme with proper noble favor and innovative genius overlooked due to royal tastes. For Joseph II’s court composer, Antonio Salieri, and emerging virtuoso, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, this was the world in which they lived. During the ten years of their intense rivalry, success and failure were determined not just by musical ability, but by the power and opinion of Vienna’s royal courts. Despite his comparative lack of musical talent, Salieri was a force in the musical world due to his ability to work within the court systems, while Mozart’s failure to comply led to his lack of success. Thus, it was the musical court politics of eighteenth-century Vienna that cultivated an environment of heightened artistic competition and led to the rivalry between two seemingly disparate composers: Antonio Salieri and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The emergence of Italian opera in the seventeenth-century was the catalyst responsible for making Vienna the musical capital of the Western world. As opera came to prominence in Naples, it drew the attention of the Austrian monarchy, the wealthy and powerful Habsburgs. The Holy Roman Emperor of Austria and his future successors began to summon Italian court composers to Vienna to start an operatic tradition within the ruling city. [i] Such actions had several powerful consequences that
Italian culture. Despite emerging attempts at integrating local German culture into the theaters, the public--and an overwhelming majority of Viennese aristocracy--favored the tradition of Italian operas. Privately, some nobility even promoted Italian culture within their homes. [iii] Not until Emperor Joseph II converted his mother Maria Theresia’s Burgtheatre into the Nationaltheatre in 1776 was there a deliberate and outward embrace of German opera or music.[iv] But thirdly, and most importantly, since the Habsburgs ‘began’ this musical revival, music and opera became the symbol of high society and ultimately a monopoly maintained by the royal courts. Upon the first arrival of Italian composers, the Habsburgs held a court monopoly on all theater production in Vienna. [v] Therefore, nearly all musical creations within the city were dictated by nobility; they were the city’s sole patrons. Musicians could be employed by others as teachers, but their large scale works needed to be commissioned by royalty in order for them to be showcased to the public in Vienna’s theaters. Once again, Emperor Joseph II challenged the norms and lifted the court monopoly in 1776, [vi] opening up the possibility of patronage to other members of Vienna. Nonetheless, Joseph II became the theatre director for the newly minted Nationaltheatre. While there was a new semblance of freedom, there was no escaping the power or control of the Viennese courts. In addition, musical patronage distinguished the wealthy as cultured and worldly among Vienna’s elite. Although music appreciation was now practiced by peasants and the lower middle-class, it was truly the mark of the upper-class bourgeoisie and nobility. The middle-classes still needed time to arise as patrons of prominence following the lift of the court monopoly. Despite the repeal, nobility during the eighteenth-century maintained unofficial control over theatre production. Music “loomed large in the rites and pleasures of the courts” [vii] as royalty continued to use classical music and opera in every aspect of their celebratory events. Aristocrats and ambassadors regularly held private concerts within their homes. [viii] Upper-class civilians hired musical instructors to educate their wives and children. Musicians flocked to the city, and patrons welcomed them with open arms, eager to showcase their status. Thus, Vienna became the “adoptive home of musicians and men of intellect.” [ix] Within an environment flooded with wealthy patrons, classical music, opera, and Italian culture, an aspiring composer arrived to make his indelible mark on the eighteenth-century Viennese Habsburg courts: Antonio Salieri.
Leopold Gassmann. Vienna was not yet the musical epicenter it would become, so Salieri’s decision to leave with Gassmann to Vienna over Naples was quite unusual. Nonetheless, Gassmann took in Salieri as his pupil and the two arrived in Vienna on June 15, 1766. [xii] Joseph II, who maintained a strong affinity for Italian opera, immediately set out to meet the young Italian musician whom his court Kappellmeister now called pupil. [xiii] Thus began Salieri’s swift ascendency within the royal courts of Vienna. He started asserting himself within the royal circles, and a mere ten years after first arriving in Vienna, Salieri was appointed chamber composer and Kapellmeister. Salieri was no longer confined to working within Vienna alone, either. He had over eight operas to his name and showcased them around the world in Munich, Naples and Paris, solidifying his universal reputation. [xiv] In addition to becoming a world-renowned composer, Salieri was a well-respected teacher of singing and composition. His pupils included Austrian soprano Caterina Cavalieri, Beethoven, Schubert, and Liszt. [xv] While Salieri ascended swiftly within Vienna’s musical scene, it was his political favor with the emperor that proved of greater importance. “Because of his favor with Joseph II…and of his successive roles as court composer, director of the Italian Opera, and court conductor, Salieri was able to wield powerful influence over the availability of theaters and patronage.” [xvi] This influence would soon prove beneficial. For it was during this time, nearing the peak of his career, that Salieri was introduced to Mozart, the young musical genius who would challenge him artistically throughout the rest of his career. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was an Austrian born musical genius, renowned for his works by the age of ten. Born in Salzburg on January 27, 1756, he had an extraordinary musical ability from an early age. By the age of three Mozart began playing the clavichord, and at the age of four began writing short compositions. One day when he was six, he was found playing the violin and sight-reading music despite having never received private lessons. [xvii] His father Leopold, who maintained a firm influence over his life, took him on numerous concert tours throughout Germany, England, Italy, and eventually Austria. Mozart made his first appearance in Vienna at the young age of twelve. In 1768, he composed his first opera, the singspiel Bastien und Bastienne, with Joseph II and his then unmarried sister, Marie Antoinette, in the audience. [xviii] These musical feats caught the attention of the Prince Archbishop of Salzburg and Mozart began to work under the controlling patron for several years. Mozart’s carefree nature and behavior bordering on impropriety did not bode well with the archbishop, regardless of the musician’s capabilities. Ultimately, the relationship between musician and patron was a disaster. Several years later in 1781, Mozart returned to Vienna to an astounding reception. Believing in his innovative genius and counting on the support of the captivated Viennese nobility, Mozart made a radical and unprecedented decision by severing ties with his patron, the Prince Archbishop of Salzburg. [xix] Typically, such a move meant the certain death of one’s future artistic career. Mozart, however, was more confident. “You are altogether wrong if you imagine that I shall be thought the less of by the nobility and the Emperor,” Mozart wrote to his father. “The Archbishop is hated here, by the Emperor most of all.” [xx] He was correct, as he immediately gained a commission by Joseph II to create a German opera for the Nationaltheatre. Upon this break with his former patron and a new royal commission, “there was no trace of the popular to be found in his compositions, no further concessions.” [xxi] Mozart was a free man. This new transition marked the beginning of Mozart’s Viennese period and the most artistically creative phase of his career. While his innovative works were indeed polarizing, Mozart’s talent could not be ignored. It was declared by some that, “When the young man of twenty-five, [sic] settled in Vienna, he needed but the opportunity and he would utterly cast all other composers in Vienna into the shade.” [xxii] Therefore, Mozart presented a tremendous threat to existing musical foundations of Vienna, most notably to those who were prospering greatly within the current system. Mozart’s genius was a direct imposition to the success and lifestyle of court composer Salieri. As a result, Salieri cunningly wielded “his adroitness in Viennese opera politics and his prestigious position” within the courts as a weapon against the music of Mozart. [xxiii] And so began one of music’s greatest rivalries. ENDNOTES
[i] Marboe, Book of Austria, 109. [ii] Link, “Theatrical and Musical Life,” 223. [iii] Ibid. [iv] Heartz, “Figaro,” 256. [v] Link, “Theatrical and Musical Life,” 230. [vi] Ibid. [vii] Weber, “Musical Taste,” 190. [viii] Link, “Theatrical and Musical Life,” 210 [ix] Marboe, Book of Austria, 359. [x] Braunbehrens, Maligned Master, 14. [xi] Ibid., 16. [xii] Ibid., 17. [xiii] Ibid., 23. [xiv] Schenk, Mozart, 311. [xv] Borowitz, “‘Murder’of Mozart,” 270. [xvi] Ibid., 272. [xvii] Marboe, Book of Austria, 113. [xviii] Ibid. [xix] Schenk, Mozart, 291. [xx] Ibid. [xxi] Heartz, “Figaro,” 256. [xxii] Marboe, Book of Austria, 113 [xxiii] Thayers, Salieri, 96. *This is the fourth installment of a five-part series on the evolution of large-scale French Painting as seen in the premiere wings of the Louvre in Paris.**
As a flagship painting of the Romanticism movement, The Raft of the Medusa by Theodore Gericault was actually one of the first to usher in the new style at the beginning of the nineteenth-century. Gericault was primarily self-taught as he only received a few years of academic artistic training. He traveled throughout Europe spending most of his time in Rome, like Ingres and David. Yet, Gericault favored the drama and movement within Baroque and Mannerism rather than looking to the classical ideals of the Renaissance and ancient Rome. The Raft of the Medusa illustrates how Gericault utilized these movements to improve upon the burgeoning Romanticist tendencies. The painting also highlights the schism that was starting to form within the Parisian salons as artists began to venture away from the dominant Academic style of David and Ingres. Romanticists felt that the Neo-classical emphasis on line, balance and order left paintings rather static and stiff. They favored color over line as their means of evoking the necessary emotions within the dramatic scenes. In addition, Romanticism artists like Gericault preferred contemporary stories from the headlines that were removed from mythology and the ancient past or the kings, queens and imperial rulers of their day. Painting needed to be like The Raft of the Medusa: current, dramatic and highly expressive. The Raft of the Medusa cannot be understood fully without knowing the story behind the image. Gericault took the dramatic story of the Medusa straight from the French headlines. In 1816, the Medusa set sail alongside three other ships to the African coast of Senegal. The boat out sailed the others and while staying dangerously close to the coast, it ran aground. Eventually all passengers had to abandon ship. The wealthy were dispersed into the lifeboats while a large group of nearly one-hundred and fifty less fortunate individuals was forced to create a make-shift raft. Either accidently or on purpose, the raft was cut loose from one of the lifeboats and was abandoned at sea for nearly two weeks. Eventually, the people were rescued, but only fifteen survived. Shortly after, stories of murder, cannibalism, deathly storms and insanity arose. The story was perfectly suited for Gericault’s Romanticist ideals. Gericault directly challenged the academies by placing a modern subject on such a large-scale. Typically, large-scale painting was reserved for historical painting like the Oath of the Horatii or to commemorate historical events such as The Coronation of Napoleon. Even Ingres scaled down his image of a concubine in La Grande Odalisque in order for his work to be deemed more acceptable. Gericault, however, chose a story from his day filled with scandal and intrigue. As later Romanticism artists continued to believe, Gericault felt modern subjects were just as worthy of being placed on the grand-scale as he showed with The Raft of the Medusa. The artist continued to break away from the academic style and showed his alignment with Romanticism through his dramatic use of color, composition and modeling. In stark contrast to the Neo-classical and academic paintings of David or Ingres, Gericault’s Raft of the Medusa is all about movement and drama. Rather than arranging them stiffly as David did in Horatii, Gericault captures the movement necessary to evoke the desperation experienced by those on the raft through a less orderly composition. Figures are arranged along a sharp diagonal of despair to hope. The lower left and other parts of the foreground are filled with people flung about dead, dying or decaying. Figures in the top right, however, frantically wave to a ship along the horizon, the Argus— the ship that will eventually be their salvation. To further the contrast between hope and desperation, Gericault utilizes a less extreme form of Caravaggio’s tennebrism. Light is not evenly filtered as seen previously, but now it is starkly contrasted to evoke a particular emotion from the viewer. Although every figure is perfectly modeled and formed, their muscle structure is highly idealized in order to further capture the movement within the painting. Gericault studied from real models and cadavers, but also recalls Michelangelo’s Mannerist ignudi by adding muscles to emphasize movement through the composition. Little criticism can be drawn from the Academics, however, when Ingres also took artistic liberties with the human form. Although Gericault’s Raft of the Medusa marks the beginning of Romanticism, he still utilizes the sharp brushstroke of the academics. As the movement develops and progresses, ultimately, this will diminish over a looser, more painterly line that further emphasizes the drama necessary for a Romanticism painting. *This is the third installment of a five-part series on the evolution of large-scale French Painting and a personal favorite of the author*
Although Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres’ La Grande Odalisque continues to mark the shift in style and subject for French large-scale painting, it is still emblematic of the nineteenth century Academic style. Ingres was a student of David’s; they soon parted ways, however, due to artistic differences--differences that would become emblematic of Ingres' style. Nonetheless their academic and professional backgrounds are strikingly similar. Ingres trained in the Academic style that was now rooted in the Neo-Classicism David introduced in his Oath of the Horatii. In 1801, Ingres also won the coveted Prix de Rome, but did not travel to Italy until 1807. During this time he, too, gained commissions from the emperor, Napoleon, with the aid of his teacher, David. Staying true to the academic style set forth by David, Ingres painted large-scale images of mythology or the grand past with several grandiose images of Napoleon himself. It was not until Ingres finally set forth on his travels to Rome, however, that he would finally paint La Grande Odalisque. Ingres’ La Grande Odalisque is quite unique in its focus on precise draftsmanship mixed with figural distortion. Like David, Ingres favors line over color. The woman’s figure is beautifully rendered through use of chiaroscuro, her golden skin highly realistic. Every textile is expertly painted to accurately capture its own unique texture. Ingres still utilizes color to emphasize the odalisque’s form and sensuality, but his artistic focus does not lie there. What is so unusual, however, is that despite the close attention to form, line, and texture, Ingres paints a female whose figure is not one of nature. In fact, it appears as though she has just a few too many vertebrae. This ultimately becomes a trademark of Ingres’ female nudes. David painted figures exactly as they were, to illustrate his true ability to capture the human form accurately. Although Ingres’ stylistic idiosyncrasy steers him away from being a perfect prototype of the academic style, he was still deemed its champion in the beginning of the nineteenth-century to combat the changes that were starting to arise with the advent of Romanticism. The painterly evolution continued as Odalisque introduced a thoroughly modern and exotic subject matter. As Napoleon began his campaign to Egypt in 1798, the fascination with the Near East began. Orientalism was introduced and paintings were slowly becoming more exotic to reflect this newfound interest. Paintings became increasingly erotic, sensual and filled with women from harems. Ingres, too, was fascinated with this new subject matter and made it the focus of Odalisque. The woman is a concubine within a harem, as the term odalisque implies. There is nothing grand or mythological about Odalisque. Nonetheless, with a powerful painter and Prix de Rome winner such as Ingres now painting Orientalized figures, it helped usher in a full Orientalist movement within the Academic style that ultimately influenced future artists such as Jean-Léon Gerôme. Although Ingres appears to be breaking from tradition in several ways with Odalisque, there were several aspects about his painting that allowed viewers to more readily accept these changes. Academics typically painted royal portraits, mythological scenes or dramatic images from the ancient past; Ingres did not. Thus, part of what made the painting acceptable was its size. For although Odalisque is large, roughly three-feet by five-feet, it is not painted on the same grand scale as the Horatii or Coronation. Furthermore, while there appears to be a sharp break in subject matter, Ingres was clearly influenced by his studies in Italy. What helped ease in Odalisque to the general public was its clear reference to the Venetian Renaissance master, Titian, and his Venus of Urbino. The subject may not be grand or mythological, but it is directly influenced by an earlier attempt to rekindle the Classical spirit of Rome by Titian. The same is true for his unusual elongation of the female form. Ingres was criticized for this feature, but once again it was eventually tolerated because of Michelangelo. Having studied in Rome and the Sistine Chapel, Ingres understood the artistic liberties one could take with the human form while still creating a realistic, but exaggerated figure. He drew upon this in Odalisque. One could criticize him, but not his inspiration. Thus, La Grande Odalisque was met with less critical scorn and eventually accepted. **This is the second posting in a five-part series on the evolution of large-scale French Painting**
Following the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror, Jacques Louis David aligned himself with Europe's most powerful force: Napoleon Bonaparte. In 1804, Napoleon commissioned David to paint his Coronation at Notre-Dame in Paris, France. The result was the aptly named Coronation of Napoleon, one of the largest paintings in history that also delivers an astute political message. David attended the nearly five-hour ceremony at the cathedral and sketched most of the images during this time. Nonetheless, many sketches were later changed and figures who were noticeably absent, such as Napoleon's mother, were inserted within the crowd. Also within the Louvre, is one of these very telling preliminary sketches. The sketch depicts the Pope--who begrudgingly came from Rome to Paris to attend the event--sitting indifferently as an assertive Napoleon crowns himself with his back cast towards the Church leader. As David illustrated in the Oath of the Horatii, he fully understood the power of a political message within painting and how to clearly illustrate that desired message to the public. Ultimately, the implication delivered by the sketch would be deleterious to Napoleon—a man who was already gaining an infamous reputation worldwide. Despite the changes, Coronation still maintains Napoleon's assertion of power over the Pope. Symbolically, his back is still turned towards him and Napoleon stands above the Pope, looming as a larger and more powerful force within the painting. Both painter and emperor are declaring Napoleon’s ultimate power over the people of Europe. This declaration of supreme authority is continued in the crowing of Josephine. No longer is Napoleon crowing himself, as seen in the sketch, rather he is crowning his wife and empress. The switch in imagery serves to benefit Napoleon's image by appearing less prideful as he crowns his wife rather than himself, but still allows him to assert authority over the Pope for he is the one to crown Josephine, not the Supreme Pontiff. Although Coronation initially appears to be in sharp contrast to David's other Neo-Classical masterpieces, the painting still upholds his traditional aesthetic as seen previously in the Oath of the Horatii. David is a master of balance; in a painting that contains well over fifty different figures, his ability to maintain pictorial stability and order is of the utmost importance. The ceremony takes place in the Gothic cathedral of Notre Dame, yet David only paints the part of the church that best resembles the simplistic symmetry of Roman architecture. Once again, David utilizes this architecture in the background to frame his figural groupings, allowing for the eye to move gracefully about the canvas. In addition, these figures are grouped together by clothing, ensuring the scene does not become too chaotic for the viewer. Despite all the figures, David still draws the eyes to Napoleon with his contrasting bright white and deep red clothing and eventually to the kneeling Josephine. Although the painting does not depict a moment from the ancient past, Coronation is still historical. History is now within present day, but the subject is still the same. The grand past is no longer the adequate means of describing the present. This shift will continue in the works of later French artists as they begin to look towards the present rather than the past for their large-scale images. All figures, objects and textiles are rendered naturally and each face is a true portrait of its subject as David continues his emphasis on draftsmanship as well. Although the changes within David's work and Neo-classicism are subtle, his work in Coronation of Napoleon still embodies the ideals of the academic style during the Neo-classical era. |
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