Art in Context

Presented by Annalee Andres, Art Historian

Conflict + Crisis: Imagery of Revolutionary Europe

November 2 | Spanish Response and the Art of Goya

Napoleon’s incursion into Spain will wreak havoc on Spanish- French associations. The work of Goya offers an extraordinary understanding of this dynamic. As a painter to the King, he is privileged and like the elites, a strong supporter of French Enlightenment thinking. However, as war reigns he will become disillusioned of the promises of Rationalism and will move to the darker territory of the Irrational.

November 9 | Business as Usual: The Restoration

By 1815, with the defeat of Napoleon, the Bourbons are restored to the French throne and Europe enters a deeply conservative era. Historicism will rule the day as artists and their patrons purposely revive the style of the past, particularly, the Middle Ages, to recall an era of political stability, monarchal and ecclesiastic authority and power.