: British and French Painting in the Age of
Romanticism
"Crossing the Channel: British and French Painting in the Age of
Romanticism," is on exhibit at The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
1000 Fifth Avenue, through January 4. The show will fully explore
for the first time the important exchange of art and ideas that
originated between France and England during the decades
following the fall of Napoleon in 1815 -- a crucial period that
saw the full flowering of the Romantic revolution. The exhibition
will bring together major works by artists such as Constable,
Bonington, J.M.W. Turner, Delacroix and Gericault, all of who
played a key role in this unprecedented dialogue between the two
national schools.
The exhibition was organized by Tate Britain, in association with
The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Minneapolis Institute of
Arts.
Whereas traditional views have tended to stress the impact that
early Nineteenth Century French painters had on their British
counterparts, "Crossing the Channel" reveals the important
influence that English innovations -- notably a new emphasis on
pure landscape painting, the experimental, impressionistic
techniques of the English watercolorists and the works of the
British Romantic writers -- exerted on French art at this time.
The selection of approximately 140 paintings and works on paper,
garnered from more than 40 collections worldwide, includes such
icons of Romantic art as Turner's "A Disaster at Sea;"
Constable's "The White Horse" and "View on the Stour near Dedham'
(both never before loaned by their host institutions), and
Gericault's first study for "The Raft of the Medusa."
With the defeat of Napoleon in 1815 and the restoration of peace,
French and English civilians could, for the first time in almost
20 years, cross the channel in safety. Among them were artists,
connoisseurs and collectors, eager to rediscover and explore the
culture of their erstwhile enemies.
Following the end of the Napoleonic regime, however, a conviction
also grew that the Eighteenth Century Enlightenment ideals of
rationalism, confidence and order -- given artistic expression in
the smooth perfection of the neoclassical style -- were no longer
valid. A new array of attitudes and aesthetic sensibilities,
which came to be called Romanticism, now celebrated extremes of
emotion, the irrational and the power of nature to awe and
inspire.
This need to break with the past and explore new modes of
expression was felt keenly on both sides of the channel. While
French artists -- led by the twin titans of Eugene Delacroix and
Theodore Gericault -- became the supreme exponents of Romantic
painting, their achievement depended importantly on the example
of contemporary English art and culture.
Organized thematically, "Crossing the Channel" explores the
affinities and exchanges between British and French painters in
terms of subject matter, sources of inspiration and technical
innovations. The exhibition also examines the cultural,
commercial and political events that fostered this artistic
dialogue, focusing especially on the crucial period from 1820 to
1840.
The curator of the exhibition is Patrick Noon, Patrick and Aimee
Butler Curator of Painting at The Minneapolis Museum of Art and
principal author of the catalog. Gary Tinterow, Engelhard Curator
of Nineteenth Century Europe Painting, organized the exhibition
at the Metropolitan, with the assistance of Kathryn Calley
Galitz, research associate. The exhibition is accompanied by a
fully illustrated catalog, Crossing the Channel: British and
French Painting in the Age of Romanticism, published by Tate
Publishing.
"Crossing the Channel" has already been on view at Tate Britain,
London, and the Minneapolis Museum of Art.
Two slide-illustrated lectures on various aspects of Romanticism
in French and British paintings by scholars Robert Rosenblum of
the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and Patrick Noon
of the Minneapolis Museum of Art will take place on Sunday,
December 7, 3 to 5 pm, in the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium.
These programs are free to the public with museum admission.
For information, 212-535-7710 or www.metmuseum.org.
