Did you know?

Some of the earliest Roman fresco figure paintings (c. 30 B.C.) are found on the walls of the Villa of Mysteries, a house located in the ancient city of Pompeii, which was covered by volcanic ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D. The ash protected the site until it was discovered and excavated in the eighteenth century.

Unit 6

realism

The nineteenth-century art movement developed in reaction to the idealistic subject matter of the French art academy in favor of commonplace, everyday, even ugly subjects.

words in context: Realism, broadly, is the representative, unembellished rendering of natural Forms. Major realists include Courbet, J. F. Millet, and Daumier.

romanticism

A European movement (late eighteenth to mid nineteenth centuries) that rejected a return to the classical ideals of neoclassicism. Romanticism emphasized emotion and spontaneous expression over reason. The subject matter was dramatic and usually painted in energetic, brilliant colors.

words in context: Romantic artists were Delacroix, Gericault, Goya, Turner, and Blake.

Impressionism

A late nineteenth-century French school that emphasized transitory visual impressions often painted directly from nature. Impressionists focused on the changing effects of light and color on natural objects.

words in context: Monet, Renoir, and Pissarro were important impressionists.

Symbolism

A painting movement that emerged in Paris in the 1880s. Subject matter was suggested, rather than presented directly, in stylized, evocative images.

words in context: Symbolism grew out of literature in France in reaction to realism. Baudelaire was leader of the movement in poetry. Other symbolists included Mallarme, Rimbaud, and Verlaine; Maeterlinck in drama; and Debussy in music. (Debussy was also considered to be a musical impressionist. Such terms may have slightly different connotations when describing different forms of artistic expression.}

After studying the definitions above, use these new words in the sentences below.

1. A decorative painting movement in France opposed to realism was called

.

2. The work of artists who often worked outdoors, painting natural forms and emphasizing light and color was called .

3. artists such as Goya and Turner valued emotion more than reason and worked spontaneously.

4. is a nineteenth-century French art movement that rejected idealized subject matter and took ordinary, everyday objects, people, and scenes as its subject.

Test Yourself: Place the letter next to the number to match word and meaning.

1. romanticism a. poets led the way to this evocative art

2. symbolism b. a French school of artists who loved light and color

3. impressionism c. art painted from ordinary, natural forms

4. realism d. spontaneous, emotional art, dramatic and bright

On a separate sheet of paper, write a sentence using each of these new words