SNAPSHOT FOR ADULTS

LINKING GODS OR ANTIQUITY WITH THE RULING CLASSES IS A MAJOR ASPECT OF THE FRENCH ARTS, FROM THE EARLY 16TH CENTURY UNTIL THE END OF THE 19TH

This is a summary of what is more completely said here and here.

• The great example of that art is Rubens's series for the palace of Marie de Medici, that the preceding page introduces.

   Marie triumphant by Rubens, 1624

• Referring to Romans glorifies the Revolution.

 PHOTO

• Humble sailors with the bodies of gods and a goddess who leads the people in seizing a barricade, are artistically and politically revolutionary (after political events in 1816 and 1830):

The Raft of the Medusa by Géricault, 1818-1819

Liberty guides the people by Delacroix, 1831 (photo Julian Debure)

• The new elite born of the industrial revolution adopts the nobles' code. Mythology decorates the city rebuilt after that upheaval.

 

  On the corner of rues Saint-Denis and Réaumur, in north central Paris.

• Then Impressionnistes paint people who are young, handsome, happy and ordinary. 

Dance at the Moulin de la Galette by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1876, Musée d'Orsay / zoom

That innovation comes soon after La Commune (in 1871). It seems subversive and incites fury. 

But a generation later, the new middle class has forgotten the Commune and feels its victory over the nobles secure. It jettisons their code and adopts its own. 

Idealized everyday people 

replace the deities. 

They announce our ads.  

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Next,

Finding your way through the huge museum