Europe was perpetually in a state of political and geographical flux due to the French Revolution, the fall of the Spanish, Holy Roman, and French Napoleonic empires, and the expansion of the British and German empires.

Urbanization and significant social transformations accompanied the emergence of science as a distinct profession and two massive industrial revolutions, which ushered in the era commonly referred to as the “machine age” and affected all spheres of society while enhancing virtually every aspect of daily life.

19th century art, and painting in particular, was not any different. A dramatic transformation occurred over the course of a century, from the production of works in the manner of the historic “Old Masters” to the emergence of modernism.

In contrast to the previous practice of artists being commissioned to create works for clients or institutions, a significant shift occurred in the 19th century when artists began to autonomously produce works, delving into personal and novel domains of interest.

Emerging developments in transportation, particularly rail travel, facilitated cross-border communication, enabling the rapid dissemination of novel concepts and artistic influences across Europe.

Thus, numerous innovative and original art movements and styles emerged throughout the 19th century. Certain artistic movements were transient in nature, thriving solely in confined regions, whereas others achieved extensive dissemination and exerted a profound influence on the progression of the arts. This journal examines a selection of the most significant artistic movements and styles of the era to illustrate the transition in artistic freedoms from 1800 to 1900.

The Neoclassical style: c. 1780–1900
During the early 19th century, specifically in 1800, Neoclassicism emerged as the prevailing painting style across Europe. The artistic movement originated during the 18th century and was a component of a broader decorative style that included sculpture, architecture, and the decorative arts.

In the mid-18th century, the unearthing of the ancient sites of Herculaneum and Pompeii in Italy contributed to the rise in popularity of neoclassicism.

The fashion gained popularity in the 1780s, prior to the French Revolution, and flourished in the early 19th century during the reign of Napoleon I.

Although Neoclassicism persisted until approximately the 1840s, numerous elements of the movement influenced and transformed subsequent styles over the course of the century, most notably in the late 1840s with the likes of Frederic Leighton (English, 1830–1896) and Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (Dutch, 1836–1912).

Attributes associated with Neoclassical painting

Neoclassical paintings were created by applying a classical style to contemporary or newly conceived compositions, or they were inspired by themes from Classical antiquity.

Epic poems and stories from ancient Greece and Rome served as sources for or inspiration for the themes explored in the work. Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey served as prominent illustration of this.

Dominique-Auguste Ingres authored The Apotheosis of Homer.

1827 edition of The Apotheosis of Homer by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. The artwork portrays the venerable Homer, adorned with a wing-adorned figure that symbolizes triumph. In addition to Moliere and Dante, the painting depicts Virgil, Raphael, and Dante.

In accordance with the Neoclassical artistic movement, which placed significant emphasis on the skill of drawing, the surfaces of Neoclassical paintings were flawless and devoid of any brushwork.

Characteristically well-lit and with figures readily distinguishable from shadow, the paintings were exquisitely rendered. Shadows in paintings did not obfuscate or confound any compositional elements, and the viewer was able to readily identify the focal point of each work.

The aforementioned methodical and proportionate style of painting exemplified the French stance regarding the Revolution and the Enlightenment philosophies, also known as the Age of Reason. These eras advocated for solemn, lucid artworks that emphasized the magnificence of natural forms.

Generally speaking, neoclassical painting is a type of historical painting, a genre that traversed numerous aesthetics but was predicated on historical themes. Since the establishment of the Royal Academy in the 17th century, history painting has been regarded as one of the most significant genres within the well-established hierarchy of genres to which artists were required to adhere.

The Royal Academy gave history painting priority because it was retrospective in nature and depicted historical events in a way that aimed to inspire excellence in the present. Landscapes and genre painting came in third and second, respectively. Still, life was considered the most uncivilized form of painting.

Neoclassicism bore certain resemblances to the Renaissance-era Classical tradition, which had enjoyed considerable popularity since the late 15th century. However, it was notably political and socially charged, employing metaphorical allegories that stirred the imagination of both the general populace and its leaders.

Artistic Neoclassicism during the 19th Century

Undoubtedly, Jacques-Louis David (1748–1825) stands as the preeminent figure among all Neoclassical painters. David is widely acknowledged for popularizing the term “Neoclassical painting” through the 1784 creation of the renowned Oath of the Horatii.

The Oath of the Horatii, an enormous painting, was an instantaneous triumph upon its debut at the Paris Salon, as it represented and encapsulated the French spirit in the pre-Revolutionary era through a composition of historic proportions.

With their father’s approval, the painting portrays three brothers preparing to fight for their city, Rome. The painting’s heroic nationalism served as enormous propaganda for the French Revolution.

David, an ardent Revolution supporter, rose to the position of principal painter to Emperor Napoleon I and created an abundance of Neoclassical paintings that served as revolutionary propaganda.

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (French, 1780–1867) was an additional significant Neoclassical painter renowned for his historical and portraiture subjects, which he created in an effort to represent the pinnacle of academic painting.

William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825–1905), a French artist, was an additional character of significance in landscape painting during the latter half of the 19th century. He was closely associated with Neoclassicism.

The Romantic era: c. 1750–1890
Italian in origin during the mid-18th century, Romanticism, like Neoclassicism, was a component of a broader artistic movement that encompassed architecture, literature, and painting.

The movement did not arrive in continental Europe until approximately 1820. From there, it coexisted with Neoclassicism until the mid-19th century, at which point it was either superseded or transformed into alternative styles.

In contrast to Neoclassicism, Romanticism prioritized the imaginative, sentimental, and personal in nature of art while rejecting the order and idealization that Neoclassicism advocated.

The movement emerged as a response, to some extent, to the philosophically logical era of the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. Conversely, it favored sentimentality, the senses, and an intense admiration for natural beauty over rationality and logic.

Additionally, spiritual beliefs, indigenous culture, and a fascination with the Middle Ages shaped a portion of the artwork produced during the Romantic era.

Although Romantic painting exhibited a wide range of subject matter, it particularly favored emotional portrayals, particularly those that were profoundly tragic or heroic in nature. From an aesthetic standpoint, Romantic paintings exhibited considerable variation. Indeed, they can exhibit striking dissimilarities in appearance, as the defining characteristic of this artistic movement was sentiment and emotion, which is precisely why it was dubbed Romanticism.

The paintings were characterized by vibrant, linear compositions and striking contrasts between light and shadow. While this does not apply to every Romantic painting, the majority of them have a grainy, impressionistic appearance with an inherent tenderness.

Romantic paintings, which originated in England during the 18th century, portrayed a variety of topics, including history and the relationship between man and God, as well as the position of man in the universe. These works were executed in the distinctive Romantic style. Additionally, landscape and seascape paintings were immensely popular.

Later on, Romanticism evolved and incorporated the contemporary into its aesthetics; paintings exalted the horror, valor, or melancholy of events. The influence of Neoclassicism on French Romantic painting is discernible, albeit with a distinct departure in style and inspiration.

William Blake (1757–1827) was an English painter and poet who established himself as a seminal figure in Romantic painting. His unique illustrations and watercolor creations depicted fantastical realms influenced by renowned authors such as Dante and Shakespeare, in addition to deities and mystical forces.

Theodore Gericault (1791–1824) was an additional French painter whose influence spanned the entire history of French painting and Romanticism. Gericault, in contrast to Blake, favored painting contemporary subjects that emphasized the more sinister aspects of human psychology.

Eugene Delacroix (1798–1863) is frequently regarded as the progenitor of Romanticism in France. Comparable to Gericault, he favored modern themes, which he naturally imbued with passion and romance.

Notwithstanding variations in subject matter, the Romantic painters’ unifying characteristic of depicting intense emotion in their works underscores the expansive scope of the Romantic movement in the medium of painting.

1848–1854: The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
The Pre-Raphaelites were a fraternity of British artists that originated during the Romantic era of painting. The group vehemently opposed the "ideal" in art that the Royal Academy favored, as seen in the Renaissance master Raphael's (Italian, 1483–1520) painting.

Pre-Raphaelite refers to the group that endeavored to revitalize British art by imbuing it with the same invigorating, dynamic, and imaginative qualities as late medieval and early Renaissance painting, predating the contributions of Raphael.

In 1848, John Everett Millais (English, 1829–1896), William Holman Hunt (English, 1827–1910), and Dante Gabriel Rossetti (English, 1828–1882) secretly founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

Prominent among the Pre-Raphaelites was the English art critic, writer, and social thinker John Ruskin (1819–1900), who advocated for the interrelationships among society, nature, and art.

The Brotherhood experienced demographic growth and went public in 1849; however, by 1854, it had ceased to exist.

Notwithstanding their brief duration, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood exerted a significant influence on the annals of art history, as its members attained eminent status within the Victorian art world and produced works that were universally admired.

The Pre-Raphaelites exhibited a diverse range of artistic expressions, incorporating literary and poetic subjects, spiritual and natural motifs, and religious compositions. However, at their core, they sought to convey profound and authentic concepts through paintings that explored serious topics like death and love. Sincerity was a primary driving force behind the Pre-Raphaelites’ endeavors.

Nature held the utmost significance in the Pre-Raphaelite style, and it was deemed critical to convey and illustrate it with reverence and caution. This was due to the opposition of the Pre-Raphaelite class to the Industrial Revolution; they yearned for the tranquility and splendor of nature to counterbalance the swift, mechanistic transformations that were occurring everywhere.

Pre-Raphaelite paintings revived the vibrant, bold colours of early Renaissance painting of the Quattrocento by devising a new technique of painting which involved painting thin glazes of pigment onto a damp white ground. This gave Pre-Raphaelite painting a distinctively luminous character.

Pre-Raphaelite painting also focused on extreme attention to detail and the ultimate majesty of nature. They intended to produce thoroughly excellent, amazing pictures and statues.

One of the most distinctive characteristics is the portrayal of long-haired women with delicate features and long, billowing costumes.

Realism, often referred to as Naturalism, originated in France in the 1850’s in the aftermath of the 1848 French Revolution. There were equivalents of the style that developed in many other European countries, most notably in Russia, but Realism was most firmly affiliated with France and French painters.

The term'realism'’ does not signify the realistic appearance of works, as in to be the opposite of abstraction. Up until this point, nearly all artworks desired a'realistic'’ portrayal of the composition. Rather, Realism was interested in the realism of the subject matter, signaling a departure from Neoclassical history paintings and Romanticism, which elevated subjects to monumental importance. Realism was interested in common laborers and normal, everyday people as its subjects.

Revolting against the dominant Romantic style, Realism was concerned with the truthful representation of subjects that avoided artistic embellishments or implausible elements.

The style was popular until the late 19th Century, when it gradually became overtaken by Impressionism.

Paintings in the Realist style depicted scenes of everyday life, seeking to appeal to the general public rather than just being aimed at the upper echelons of society.

Idealised, emotional and dramatic content was completely avoided in favour of matter-of-fact painted snapshots of interactions and scenes that did not shy away from the unpleasant aspects of life.

People of all walks of life, particularly those of the working class, were celebrated in Realism, in lifelike depictions within clear, logical compositions.

The most important and famous painter in the Realist style was Gustave Courbet (French, 1819–1877) who was entirely committed to painting exactly what he could see.

Courbet believed that the only possible source for art was the experience of the artist, and amongst his oeuvre he painted figurative compositions, landscapes and still life paintings.

Jean-François Millet (French, 1814–1875) is another famous painter who worked in the Realist style and is widely celebrated for his scenes of peasant farmers, as shown in the painting ‘The Gleaners’ below.

Other Realist artists included Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (French, 1796–1875), who was known for his paintings of interior scenes, particularly people reading, as well as his landscapes, and Honoré Daumier (French, 1808–1879), whose Realist works were highly politicised and included depictions of politicians amongst other works depicting interior scenes.

Impressionism Period 1870's
Impressionism was a stylistic movement of painting that emerged in the 1870’s in France and became popular throughout Europe for the next fifty years.

The movement originated with a group of radical Parisian painters who gained fame during the period for their violation of the rigorous rules of academic painting, which favoured carefully finished, realistically precise paintings at the time.

These artists were initially heavily criticised and could not exhibit at the prestigious Paris Salon, and so went about founding the Société Anonyme Coopérative des Artistes Peintres, Sculpteurs, and Graveurs, (the Cooperative and Anonymous Association of Painters, Sculptors, and Engravers), where they could exhibit independently.

The forerunners of the Impressionist movement shared interests in painting ‘from life’, outside in the countryside, favouring landscape scenes and social situations over grand, overly dramatic scenes.

However, unlike Realism, which placed all importance on representational honesty and a photograph-like appearance, Impressionism was not just a movement; it introduced a whole new set of visual and technical styles for painting.

Key features of Impressionist paintings

Impressionism comes from the word ‘impressionist’, which was used pejoratively in response to an exhibition in which the works, which we now know as Impressionism, were shown. The term was meant to mean that the works were not solid and meaningful, they were merely an impression.

The key features of Impressionism are the fine, light, highly visible brushstrokes that wash across the paintings and the importance of attention to the accurate depiction of the light throughout the day or night.

The Bridge at Argenteuil by Claude Monet, 1874. In the painting, it is clear to see the small, visible brushstrokes that make up Impressionist paintings, as well as the contrast of the yellows and blues in the water, which makes use of colour theory to contrast against one another strongly.

The Impressionist movement coincided with significant advances made in paint technology — premixed paints in new, vibrant colours became available in tubes, which allowed artists to work more spontaneously and very easily outside and so in some Impressionist paintings there are even grains of sand or blades of grass that became stuck to the canvas whilst the artist was working out of doors.

The Impressionists also made use of new developments in colour theory that were published by Michel Eugene Chevreul in the mid-19th Century on the perfect harmony of contrasting colours. These contrasting colours make each other more vivid when used together.

Impressionist painters of the 19th Century

Impression, sunrise by Claude Monet, 1872. The most widely celebrated was Claude Monet (French, 1840–1926), and it was after his work ‘Impression, sunrise’, painted in 1872, that the entire movement was named.

Monet is famous for his landscape scenes and his paintings of gardens, particularly waterlilies, in vibrant, pastel shades.

Another important Impressionist artist, who bridged the gap between Realism and Impressionism, is Édouard Manet (French, 1832–1883). Manet painted several highly controversial works which make subtle use of Impressionistic techniques yet capture the essence of the movement.

Déjeuner sur l’herbe by Édouard Manet, 1863. This painting was initially highly criticized because the nude woman was seen at the time to be distasteful.

Post-Impressionism
Post-Impressionism was the last important European artistic movement of the 19th century, which took place predominantly in France between the years 1886 and 1905.

The movement was born out of many artists’ dissatisfaction with the blurred, blended appearance of Impressionist subjects and compositions, which they thought lacked structure. The Post-Impressionists sought to restore order and structure to paintings, to make solid, durable art that celebrated a distinct, artistic style.

What were the characteristics of post-impressionist paintings?
Post-Impressionist painting was not unified by one overarching style, and was instead made up of a wide range of techniques and styles that were associated with the artists that developed them.

However, most Post-Impressionist paintings were unified by their emotive qualities and rich symbolism. Thick, painterly brushstrokes characterised many Post-Impressionist paintings, and were arranged in orderly, directional patterns to make up a composition.

The colours used were bold and vivid, bordering on unnaturally vibrant, and subject matter ranged from landscape painting to still life painting, encompassing genre scenes and social compositions as well.