The Romantic movement emerged in France in the late 18th century,towards the end of Neoclassicism, and was rooted in an unease that reflected the troubles of the time on a political and economic level, as much as on a social and cultural one. From the end of the Ancien Régime to the vain hopes of the Revolution in 1848, artists lived through a century of upheaval and disappointments that led them to reconsider, or even to redefine, the purpose of their art. In Neoclassicism, whose great masters included David, Girodet and Gérard, violence, often justified, imposed itself as part of the artistic theme. Often culminating in the honourable death of the hero, it also marked the beginning of a period of dialogue between the living and the dead in the after life.Thus, from the time of the French Directoire and throughout the Romantic era, there was an abundance of artwork, often little known, that addressed the supernatural or even morbid. During this time, terror, political upheaval and the Napoleonic war horror was non longer merely the subject of historical paintings but an everyday reality. Bringing together French works by David, Delacroix, Géricault and Ingres, some of which have never before been seen, the exhibition shows the progression from dramatic, controlled violence at the end of the 18th century towards a French form of fantastical and black Romanticism, inspired as much by the trauma of the Revolution as by historical and contemporary literature.
See more at: http://parismusees.paris.fr/en/exhibition/faces-terror
Address:
Musée de la vie romantique
Hotel Renan-Scheffer
16, rue Chaptal
75009 Paris
France
Tel. : 33 (0)1 55 31 95 67
Opening hours:
Tuesday to Sunday between 10am – 6pm.
Closed on Mondays and public holidays.
Langue(s) : French