Introduction 2
“The Gersaint’s Signboard” 2
“The Village Betrothal” 4
“Bonaparte visiting the Plague-Stricken of Jaffa” 5
Conclusion 7
Introduction
The main purpose of the current paper is to consider the influence of art upon the social events prevalent within a particular social environment and vice versa. In other words, the following paragraphs are aiming to prove that not only the contemporary pieces of art and architecture are able to represent some social significance and deliver a particular social message, but even the classic works of art are effectively doing so since their creation in the deep past. In this perspective, it is worth considering the extent, to which the classic works of art have represented and even highlighted the creation of anonymity and social isolation by the social system of those times. Therefore, the following paragraphs offer detailed description of three paintings created in a period within the 18th – beginning of 19th centuries.
“The Gersaint’s Signboard”
The first to discuss and analyze will be the painting by Antoine Watteau, “L’Enseigne de Gersaint” or “The Gersaint’s Signboard”, created in 1721. The painting’s importance lies within the fact that it appeared to be the last significant creative work by Watteau before his death. Therefore, the critics tended to identify the painting “as a kind of artistic testament, as a summation of Watteau’s attitudes about art”(Vidal). Such characteristic of the painting appears to be more than obvious due to the fact that it simply represents the realized creative potential of the painter, which is clearly visible through the depiction of gallery’s interior with its walls full of different painting along with the visitors and viewers of evaluating, presenting and delivering various pieces of art. What is more important, such composition does not appear as randomly chosen, representing only the direct visual meaning of the painting. The artists of the time followed the similar trend representing the artworks on their creations as the corresponding references to past tendencies, issues, traditions etc., while the subjects on them represented the objective reality in their attitude towards the particular artwork.
Considering the association between the visual and social meanings of the paintings, it is necessary defining the overall painting’s origin and its further genesis. Making to long story short, it is worth defining that the painting served as a symbol gratitude expressed by Watteau towards the hospitality of Gersaint offering the first place to live in and to work. Further, the painting has been specifically designed to serve “as an advertisement for his friend’s gallery”(Vidal). Particularly for this purpose, the painting has been put on top of the gallery’s entrance in order to attract its potential clients. Despite the fact that the painting has never been completed as a matter of commercial intent, its surprisingly great popularity has resulted in its purchase by Frederick the Great. Thus, according to the critics’ estimations “the artist had made something out of nothing” (Vidal).
The painting is full of various details and symbols that are hidden beneath the traditional subjects, objects and forms depicted on it. In other words, the artist has managed to create a balance between the aesthetics and their social significance. For example, the central couple represents the struggling dialogue between partners in a complicated relationship. Their clothes, postures and images are contradicting each other: “she is clothed in a shimmering pale dress, he is in a duller, darker costume” (Vidal), her faces turns away from her partner and the painting’s viewers, while his eyes are following her; furthermore, his posture appears to be static and within the boutique, while she is depicted in movement, only going towards it.
Apart from all the social messages, the most important appears to be the contradiction and struggle between the past art handing on the painting’s walls and the present in the form of people and objects present on the front of it.
“The Village Betrothal”
The second painting to discuss and analyze will be “The Village Betrothal” by Jean-Baptiste Greuze, created in 1761. It is worth stating first that Greuze and his creation could not be characterized as belonging to a particular genre of art traditional and popular among his colleagues in France of the 18th century – Baroque, Rococo, Neo-classicism, which represented the fundamental background to the pieces of art of those times. Correspondingly, for any artist not fitting into the aforementioned genres the probability of gaining acceptance, recognition and further popularity was the lowest.
Still, with the appearance of Greuze and his works, the critics started talking about the new genre - “Sensibilte” representing an interesting mixture of Rococo and Neo-classicism. Still, it is also worth accepting that this genre has not represented “an international visual style; and again differing from the macro-styles, it is defined as much by content as by purely formal management of imagery” (Bryson).Such fresh and interesting representation of the new concept of art not only avoided the negative consequences of not following the mainstream, instead the aforementioned picture has given the widest recognition to Greuze.
Still, it is worth stating that not only the radically new approach in terms of style and composition has given the author such popularity, but also the appearance of the significantly new social and cultural concept represented in 1760s not only in the paintings, but in other forms of art, as well, including literature, music, architecture etc. The new trend received the name of “the pursuit of happiness”, where the “virtue is not only a matter of reason or calculation, but of the heart” (Bryson) and vice versa. Furthermore, the completely new and updated idea of Humanity has been discussed. It presupposed the presence of all the categories of human existence, including ages and genders. The importance of this representation lied within the importance of showing the merging of the Humanity.
Correspondingly, the Greuze’s painting follows all the aforementioned characteristics of the newly created trend. For example, the idea of humanity is represented in full. Childhood is pictured with the little children – the village bride’s sisters and brother that do not seem to understand what is going on and where exactly they are. Thus, their attention is not focused on the central event happening in the painting; instead, they are painted as bored and not interested in it. Old age is obviously also presented here, “the mother worn out by it” (Bryson) and white-haired father “for whom the ceremony is another nail in the coffin” (Bryson).The maturity is clearly visible through the images of the couple, creating an impression of central, but distinct group.
Still, it is worth stating that despite the union of all the ages and genders represented in the painting, the overall composition creates a list of contradictions. For example, it appears hardly believable that such old and weak-looking mother has given birth to such a beautiful girl, while the “aged, defeated man [is the] father to the horde of young children who swarm the painting” (Bryson). Still, the overall concept of young maturity is represented by the physiological gracefulness and beauty, contradicting the images of their aging parents. Thus, the overall nature of humanity is illustrated in more than realistic and explicit manner.
“Bonaparte visiting the Plague-Stricken of Jaffa”
Third painting to consider is the piece created by Antoine-Jean Gros, “Bonaparte visiting the Plague-Stricken of Jaffa” in 1804. Here it is also worth discussing the historical significance of the painting apart of its social meaning. The painting represents a scene of Napoleonic Egyptian expedition, which main purpose was “to render [Egypt] completely open, to make it totally accessible to European scrutiny” (Grigsby). Such military intervention into the lands of Egypt has simply been defined as a violent act of aggression towards a weaker political system.
What is more important, the actual success of this piece of art literally outlived the time of the painting’s official recognition. Moreover, it has received the official status of “history painting honorable to the national character” (Grigsby). In addition, the painting has been publicly introduced to the masses in the period within the controversial and extremely tense transition from Consulate to the Empire. Still, it is still necessary to state that the painting of Gros should never be identified as “a propagandistic image inserted into the silence of a fully policed public sphere” (Grigsby). Instead, the painting has managed to offer significant capacity to maintain the instability of contradicting interpretations of its content along with its environment.
In this regard, it is worth stating that the painting has generally been criticized for its representation of Arabs being illustrated as examples of human chaos, regression, passivity and heightened sexuality; in other words, primitive according to the standards of modern French values system. Still, none of those critics emphasized upon the fact that it was actual influence of French armies that resulted in such passive and hopeless state of the Arabs. Such image of Arabs described in the pieces of art of those times created a corresponding stereotype of weak and primitive people living across the lands of Egypt. What is more important, such stereotype can easily be seen in the reactions of Gros’s contemporaries towards this painting in this dialogue: “Sir, are these Egyptians who have the plague? No, they are Frenchmen. Have they then take on the air and character of the country?” (Grigsby). In other words, here it is clearly visible that the painting both stimulated and disapproved the stereotypes against the Egyptians.
The historical aspect of the painting also appears more than important, as it appears one of the most explanatory and explicit illustration of the Egyptian campaig in 1798, when a number of French soldiers caught bubonic plague, with the most severe ratios of infection and severe symptoms in Jaffa, where about 30 soldiers have been dying daily. It is still worth reminding that the overall disease is spreading with the flea bites and not with the direct contacts with the diseased. Still, a number of medics died from the disease trying to cure the soldiers, which is also visible on the painting. The fear of the disease has resulted in considerable demoralization of French army, as a great number ended with suicide once realized they had been infected. However, the history knows that Napoleon “touched plague-stricken men in order to arrest terrifying rumors” (Grigsby) about the disease’s danger and its inability to be cured.
Conclusion
Summarizing everything that has been mentioned above, it is worth stating that the pieces of art have definitely served as not only the tools of entertaining the masses, but also to picture the historically significant and important events in an easily accessible form. What is more important, the social importance of all the aforementioned pictures discusses the place of a human in different social conditions.
The first painting shows the internal isolation of a person willing to conduct personal relationships with his partner apart from the messages of continuous struggle of the new forms of art with the traditional ones. The second shows the each stage of isolation and loneliness during each period of life, as during the childhood the people simply do not understand the necessity of the majority of social events and become bored, during their maturity they find themselves isolated against any inability to change and accommodate them, while during their older age they appear to be lonely and physically isolated from their children. The third, however, shows the isolation of the people that are defined as superior in comparison to the rest of the nations and their fear towards a sickness that can be cured. In addition, the paintings define the place of the country’s rulers and governors, being the conservatives in the first painting, the tired of their own subordinates in the second and as the heroes in front of them – in the third.
Works Cited
Bryson, Norman. Word And Image. Cambridge [Cambridgeshire]: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Print.
Grigsby, Darcy Grimaldo. "Rumor, Contagion, And Colonization In Gros's Plague-Stricken Of Jaffa (1804)". Representations 51 (1995): 1-46. Web.
Vidal, Mary. Watteau's Painted Conversations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992. Print.
