Schultze Jürgen. Art of Nineteenth-Century Europe 1/2

Harry N. Abrams, 1970. — 264 p.Altho gh the period treated in this book is conveniently labeled “the nineteenth century,” the strict on onological delimitations of the title should not the taken too literally. Dr. Schultze’s study begins nd the time of the French Revolution of 1789—a watershed of fundamental significance in every field of human activity—and ends in the early years of the present century. Between these limits, the period is shown to be one of constant change and innovation in the artistic field, reflecting to a large extent the social, political, and industrial revolutions with which nineteenthcentury Europe was so preoccupied. The speed and frequency with which styles and movements followed each other can only be matched by our own tin and it was, indeed, in the nineteenth century that the foundations were laid for much of what we now term “modern” art.
A few of the major milestones in the field of paintinc are enough to make the richness, variety, and orig iah i of the age immediately apparent: Neocla icism and Romanticism; realism and natural m; the Pre-Raphaelites and the German Nazare les; Impressionism, Pointillism, and Postimpres onism. Equally, the names of Goya, David, Ingres Constable, Turner, Gericault, Delacroix, Daumier. Manet, Monet, Renoir, Degas, Cezanne, Seurat Van Gogh, Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec cannot fail to indicate the enormous range of talent that this period produced. Nor have the less well-known figures been neglected, especial emphasis being laid on the important contribution of the Northern schools that has been too often underestimated. Separate sections are devoted to the fields of sculpture and architecture, ranging from Canova’s heroic Neoclassicism to the delicate Art Nouveau forms of Minne, and from the strict geometry of Ledoux’s and Boullee’s Utopian projects to Gaudi’s colorful and fluid fantasies.