Part 4 of the multipart exploration of European art as a reflection of cultural transformation - The Era of Revolution
and Our final part, the battle between Liberalism ( Protestant, Iconoclastic, Republican, egalitarian, humanist, Urban, Bourgeois) and Authority ( Catholic, Artistic, Hierarchical, traditional, rural, aristocratic, Absolutism) has taken center stage in Europe. during the reformation, the Judaizing factions of the Protestants have taken firm control of England, both sides are waging war physically throughout Europe as well as intellectually/spiritually expressed through art as propaganda, reflecting the vision of each side’s ideals.
The Revolution
Art and Revolution: The Visual Language of Upheaval and Tradition in the Era of Revolution (1700–1900)
Following the protestant reformation, and the resulting upheaval in European culture, we reach the era of revolution, spanning from the early 18th to the late 19th century. This was a time of civilizational transformation in the politics, philosophy, as well as the arts and cultural structures of the Western world. Emerging out of the Enlightenment philosophy of Protestant England, as well as the intellectual salons of a reactionary, Absolutist France came a tidal wave of revolutions—Firstly American then French, Haitian, Latin American, and a multitude of European uprisings—that challenged monarchies, colonial empires, aristocratic privilege, the cultural and religious values held sacred in Europe for more then 1000 years, even challenged Christian civilization itself. Revolution was not limited to battlefields and parliaments; but extended into the realm of art. As we learned in the past lessons, Art was frequently mobilized by the state as propaganda, going back to pre-history. And the era of revolutions is no exception. In this turbulent period, art became a powerful tool of ideological expression. Artists aligned with revolution used visual art to evoke ideas of reason, virtue, and republicanism—best embodied by the Neoclassical movement and pieces of art like Liberty Leading the People byDelacroix —contrasting this came artistic movements like Rococo which were associated with counter-revolutionary artists and thinkers who clung to the aesthetics of pleasure, refinement, and elitist escapism to defend the values of the ancien régime. This essay explores the historical and philosophical foundations of the revolutionary period, the nature of counter-revolutionary thought, and how art reflected was fueled by and fueled both political forces. By examining Neoclassicism as a revolutionary visual language and Rococo as a symbol of counter-revolutionary nostalgia, we can better understand how art not only mirrored but actively shaped the ideological struggles of the age and with that, the path followed by history and culture to this very day.
The revolutionary era began as a philosophical awakening in the 17th and early 18th centuries, led by Enlightenment thinkers who questioned such concepts as divine right, monarchy, and the traditional 3 tiered hierarchy of feudal Europe and Roman catholic theology which presented this hierarchy of Roman Emperor-King-Clerics and Nobles- Commoners as divinely ordained. The enlightenment Intellectuals such as John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Montesquieu, and Voltaire emphasized reason, liberty, and the rights of man, providing the philosophical blueprint for political revolutions and all of them became foundational to the apex of Enlightenment philosophy; Liberalism. The enlightenment was preceded by the resurgent emphasis on Greco-Roman themes like civic duty, republicanism, empiricism and just the classical period in general that took place during the renaissance and resulted in Humanism of the renaissance period and started a philosophical interest in humanism and reason that stretched from the Renaissance, to the protestant reformation, to the enlightenment. Following the renaissance, the first embers of the flame of revolution were lit during the Reformation which in many cases was accompanied by a violent rejection of medieval Catholic social hierarchy, and the epic, often ostentatious displays of wealth and social power by the Church during the high medieval and renaissance.
The first major eruption came with the American Revolution (1775–1783), followed by the French Revolution (1789–1799), where ideals of equality, fraternity, and liberty were violently asserted against a deeply entrenched monarchy. These revolutions inspired others, including the Haitian Revolution (1791–1804)—the only successful slave revolt in history—and the Latin American wars of independence throughout the early 19th century. One of the most interesting aspects of the American revolution were its special emphasis on the Roman Republic, its culture, ideals, history and art, and in the structure of the newly born civilization that balanced neo-Roman ideals, with a commitment to liberal praxis.While the American revolution was the first, its possible the French revolution was more consequential. France became a testing ground for some of the most radically liberal expressions of political ideology, such as the banning of Christianity and replacing it with a atheistic state religion, “the cult of reason”, which itself descended into an almost orgiastic frenzy of violent anti-theism that had some cases which were so depraved that even bloody Robbespierre himself considered it too radical and banned it. The violence contrasted with the liberal ideals of the revolutionaries laid the foundation for the coming of Liberalism to the European continent, as well as leading to a reaction against it in the form of Counter-revolution, and something I will touch on later, Bonapartism, which became a kind of synthesis between revolutionary ideals, and Counter-revolutionary actions that resulted in something perhaps even more Reactionary then the Ancien Regime, while paradoxically espousing humanist liberal beliefs. Bonapartism played a role later on in European history as the ultimate boogeyman in the world view of Karl Marx and quite possibly there is an argument for Bonapartism as the inspiration for the most radical right wing revolutionary movements of the early 20th century, rather then the Counter-revolutionary royalist legitimism that heretofore had always dominated the right wing side of political philosophy (Marx, 1851). The French revolution was also spread, violently throughout Europe through conquest, and subsquently Europe saw a wave of uprisings in 1848, known as the “Springtime of Nations,” where people demanded national unification, democratic rights, and social reforms. Despite varied outcomes, these movements shared a commitment to reshaping society based on Enlightenment principles and breaking away from feudal and monarchical rule.
In response to the revolutionary surge, a powerful counter-revolutionary ideology emerged. Defenders of the ancien régime—a term used to describe the political and social system of France prior to the Revolution—sought to preserve traditional hierarchies, religious authority, and royal power. Thinkers like Edmund Burke and Joseph De Maistre criticized the violence and radicalism of the French Revolution, calling instead for slow, organic change rooted in custom and tradition(Fawcett,2020, Page 52-64). Monarchists, nobles, and conservative intellectuals rallied around ideas of divine right, social order-specifically the defense of natural and divinely created, hierarchies in mankind-and aesthetic refinement, all of which were increasingly under threat in revolutionary discourse throughout the era of revolutions. After the fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the Restoration period in France saw an attempt to roll back revolutionary changes, though this was hamstrung by France during a period of Nostalgia for the glory of France during the highest point of its absolutism, restore a branch of the Bourbon royal family known as the Orleans, whose candidate was a social liberal, and France in a period of ascendence for the cause of absolutism was left unsatisfied by a liberal monarch.. This counter-revolutionary sentiment was not limited to politics—it permeated the arts, shaping a vision of the past that stood in stark contrast to the austere, moralizing art of revolutionaries.
Art in the age of revolution became an active battlefield of ideas, and much like previous eras was a tool of ideology and propaganda. Revolutionary movements influenced by the resurgence in interest in ancient Rome and Greece,aimed to inspire values and virtues believed to be Roman or Greek such as heroic self sacrifice, civic virtue, and national identity. Neoclassicism, with its idealized forms inspired by Greco-Roman art, moral clarity, and neo-Roman ethical and philosophical themes, became the dominant artistic movement aligned with revolutionary ideals. It became the art of reason and public duty, echoing the rhetoric of the Enlightenment and the Roman republic. At the same time, Romanticism emerged as a reaction to both Neoclassicism and industrial modernity. While often not strictly revolutionary, Romantic artists explored themes of emotion, individualism, and often most importantly ethno-national identity, often sympathizing with the oppressed or heroicizing and mythologizing of revolutionary struggles and inspired numerous “National Awakenings” throughout Europe. In contrast, Rococo art, which had flourished in the courts of 18th-century France, remained deeply tied to aristocratic culture and was increasingly seen as a visual symbol of decadence and detachment. As revolutionaries denounced the frivolities of the court, Rococo became associated with the ancien régime's cultural propaganda, celebrating private pleasure and elite refinement as an implicit critique of revolutionary austerity.
The most striking example of revolutionary art is Neoclassicism, which arose in mid-18th-century Europe as a reaction specifically against the excesses and perceived decadence of the Rococo art style and as a visual embodiment of Enlightenment rationalism. Drawing on the aesthetics and moral narratives of Ancient Rome and Greece, Neoclassical artists emphasized symmetry, order, stoicism, and civic virtue. Its idealized and heroic depictions were a sharp contrast and rebuke to the scenes of pastoral gaity and frivolity that appears throughout the Rococo/ It was the perfect style for an era seeking to revive republican values, and upon looking at several paintings of the neo-classical movement in the revolutionary period, the fact that it is a repudiation of the Rococo style. The movement was deeply intertwined with the French Revolution, and no artist represented this alignment better than Jacques-Louis David. His 1784 painting, "The Oath of the Horatii", became an icon of revolutionary Neoclassicism even before the Revolution officially began. The painting portrays three brothers swearing an oath to defend Rome, prioritizing duty and the collective good over personal relationships and even familial emotions. The three brothers, as good Romans are swearing to fight, the women weep in the background which depicts the costs of war. The brothers wear simple togas and are gathered in a spartan dwelling without furnishings, its abundantly clear it is meant to visually draw a contrast with depictions of luxury and slothe in quaint, peaceful surroundings that characterized Rococo art. Politically it was also meant to encourage people to choose France over personal loyalty, clan, or religion .The composition, is stark and dramatic. Organized in three clear arches (obviously showing classical architecture!), the scene is dividedinto three zones where the characters separate narratives are taking place: the father in the center, then the three sons on the left, and the grieving women on the right. Angular lines and Strong use of a triangular form that draws your attention — the three brothers form a pyramid with their outstretched arms converging at the swords-. The Roman setting emphasizes discipline and sacrifice and the way the different “narrative zones” contrast, seems to be Creating a sense of emotional conflict and contrast between the characters: the idealized stoic masculine resolve and duty vs.an emotional “feminine” despair, a theme that was quite common throughout Roman philosophy and art, and infact central to the Roman virtues, which unlike later Christian civilization did not rely on a Divinity as arbiter of right and wrong: Goodness was martial courage and what Rome perceived as Masculine . David later became the official artist of the Revolution, painting martyrs like Jean-Paul Marat, organizing public ceremonies, and designing visual propaganda for the new french republic. His art helped define the identity of the Revolution—one that was rational, moral, and unflinchingly heroic… from the perspective of the revolutionaries- Interestingly, Jacques-Louis David later on became associated with a resurgent form of counter-revolutionary art, that of the IMPERIAL (as contrasted with the pre-revolutionary Royal, and revolutionary Republican) culture, but I will discuss that later in the essay.
(David,Jacques-Louis, Oath of the Horatii . 1786. Oil on Canvas, https://emuseum.toledomuseum.org/objects/55069/the-oath-of-the-horatii , accessed 04/13/2025)
In contrast, the Rococo art movement embodied the spirit of the ancien régime-name for the political system of absolutist France and Europe in general. Rigid Hierarchy, absolute Monarchy, large amount of power held by the Church- and the counter-revolutionary cultural order. Originating in early 18th-century France during the reign of Louis XV, Rococo celebrated intimacy, playfulness, and aristocratic pleasure. It was in part an evolution of and paradoxically rejection of the grandeur of Baroque art in favor of lighter colors, flowing lines, and pastoral or mythological themes infused with eroticism and humor. Baroque was typically associated with the Monarchy, and absolutism, grand imposing themes, whereas Rococo spoke more to the culture of the aristocracy and their life of Leisure.One of the most iconic Rococo paintings is Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s "The Swing" (1767). The work captures a noblewoman playfully swinging in a lush garden, her dress flowing, while her lover hides in the bushes, peering up flirtatiously. A man behind her pushes the swing, seemingly unaware of the affair. The painting is luxurious, carefree, and subtly transgressive—it encapsulates the frivolity and moral detachment of the day to day life of the French(as well as European in general) aristocracy of the early modern era,just decades before the Revolution. The piece is really lacking much symmetry as far as I can tell, which is quite typical of art in the Rococo style— the scene is set with a carefree, circular, swirling motion and The young woman’s swing cuts diagonally across the canvas, creating a sense of movement and seeming weightlessness. Everything takes place in a lush mythological seeming garden, the aristocrats play like in a dream, it seems almost that a Satyr chasing some nymphs will burst out of the bushes at any moment as all laugh and play. The lighting is delicate and pastel, soft pinks, light greens, creamy white with a delicate otherworldly lighting, the sharp contrasts of baroque entirely absent. Airy, romantic and fanciful, a classic depiction of the Rococo style. During and after the Revolution, imagery like this was harshly criticized by revolutionaries as emblematic of elite decadence. However, in post-revolutionary France, particularly during the Restoration, Rococo saw a revival as a form of cultural nostalgia, evoking a "better time" of elegance, order, and pleasure. Thus, Rococo became a soft-power tool of counter revolution and depicts and celebrates a world that revolutionaries sought to destroy. Interestingly it also reminds me of some of the art styles that came out of the Antebellum American South, which had socially arranged itself in a kind of racialized feudalism, and unlike the Northern Industrialists and New England Intellectuals of the American elite, the Southern Plantation owning caste attempted to connect itself to Europe and present its culture as the last flowering of the gallantry and chivalry of a pastoral culture of American knighthood, and American Lords, living off their land and exercising a paternal hand over the slave populations, as well as a fraternal relationship with poor Whites.
(Fragonard, Jean-Honore. The Swing . 1767, Oil on Canvas, The Wallace Collection. https://www.wallacecollection.org/explore/collection/search-the-collection/les-hazards-heureux-de-lescarpolette-swing/ , accessed 04-13-2025)
At last a topic I’d like to discuss, is the evolution of some elements of neo-classicalism into its own form of Counter-Revolutionary art. In his book “Practical Idealism” Coudenhove-Kalergi tells us that behind the scenes in the transition from Medieval to modern the aristocracy of Europe at first degenerates from a Rural, warrior caste that exercised physical superiority over the population, but lagged behind intellectually. The nobles were at their best, and unchallenged when consistently tempered by war, and conflict, and direct management of the rural peasantry who depended on them to keep the peace, in such circumstances, the level of income inequality between the “Nobility of the Blood and Sword” and the Peasantry of the high medieval age is far less then it is today. Louis the 14th brought the nobles away from their estates, to attend him in Versailles at the height of the Baroque period, and here they mostly wallowed in Luxury forgetting their past glories. Kalergi tells us “ Since the end of the age of chivalry, the upper nobility of continental Europe is, with scant exceptions, in a state of progressive decadence. Through its urbanisation the upper nobility has lost its physical and mental advantages… Since the conversion of European culture from a knightly-rural to a bourgeois-urban one, the hereditary nobility lagged behind the bourgeoisie in intellectual and cultural terms. War, politics, and the administration of the nobility’s estates kept them so busy that their intellectual abilities and interests often withered away… these historical causes of the modern twilight of the nobility were reinforced by physiological ones. Instead of the harsh, medieval military service, the modern era brought the nobility mostly a life of luxury free of work”(Kalergi, 1925,pg.37-45). When feudalism first came about, the aristocracy were a hereditary warrior caste, and by the time of Absolutism, they were a useless class in competition with the European Bourgeois that gradually replaced them as the elite of western civilization, today as liberalism and capitalism has become integral to our understanding of western civilization, the “Plutocrats”, the highest element of the Bourgeois exercise the greatest level of power among any group. Kalergi continues “In republican as in monarchical democracies, the statesmen are puppets, the capitalists mastermind… While the ideology of feudalism was heroic and religious, the plutocratic society knows no higher values than money and good living: a man's worth is judged by what he has, not by what he is.”. I find this sentiment deeply reflected in the Rococo art style. For the early modern aristocrats, a dreamlike existence of, to be frank sloth, and frivolity. Basically they were useless, their position allowing them to spend their time dancing and playing, and this contrasts with the scrappy and heroic idealism of the neo-classical.
(David, Jacques-Louis. Napoleon Crossing the Alps . 1800, Oil on Canvas. Chateau de Malmaison, https://www.napoleon.org/en/magazine/places/national-museum-of-the-chateau-de-malmaison/ , accessed 04-13-25)
One of the most interesting trends of this rejection of the pettiness of the nobles lifestyle, reflected in their art, is not just the emergence of counter-revolution celebrating and lionizing the decadence of the nobility as expressed through the art, but an inversion of neo-classical revolutionary sentiments towards a true paradox, a kind of revolutionary reaction. After many of the events of the French revolution and the seeming triumph of liberalism, a young Corsican nobleman stormed the central directorate of the Revolution and declared himself Counsel. Before long France was enraptured by Hero worship and recreated itself, from a newly born land claiming to be the champion of liberty, and equality, into an Empire. While espousing Liberal and enlightenment principles, he undid many of the changes of the revolution, he restored slavery, and in fact went further then the Monarchy ever had by banning interracial marriage. France before the revolution had been a country where people primarily referred to their regional identity as their ethnic origin, Bretons, Normans, Provincals, Corsicans…. Napoleon created a centralized identity and perhaps invented the modern idea of a distinctively French ethnicity, and even called himself “Emperor of the French” instead of Emperor of France. He created a entirely new nobility that he termed “the nobility of service”, which was primarily derived from commoners in the French army who showed heroism and competence. This can be seen as a direct nod towards the European Nobility before absolutism, and these Miitary men rapidly replaced the newly ascendent French bourgeois that dominated the French republic, but then lost all power during the French Empire. And this turn was reflected in Neo-classicalism, much as it had idealized the Roman Republic, it came to idealize the Roman Empire. Here we see “Napoleon Crossing the Alps”, also by one of the most prolific artists of the revolution and republican era neoclassicalism in France, that turned now from civic greatness and commitment to the state, to deification of the one man Emperor. Napoleon is presented in an equestrian pose, he and his army are crossing the Alps-interestingly it is impossible to cross the Alps in this manner, so it shows the suggested divinity of Napoleon in the piece, and demonstrates an almost amazing evolution of art repeated. Just as Classical Roman art went from Realism to idealism in the turn from Republic to Imperial so too do we see this transformation in this neo-classical example. Napoleon is calm, and completely in control, detached from the muddy terrain around him which is no match for the mythic heroism of Napoleon. His position is diagonal and he appears in motion, almost seeming to be moving at speed, despite his cool calm demeanor. He is elevated by the pose and rearing of the horse, in a narrative sense and in a literal sense. The palette is crisp, red,golds, whites, and is a jarring contrast with the dull subdued rocky background, and the Lighting highlights Napoleon’s figure, which separates him from the rest of the scene and gives him an aura like a divine figure. What is depicted here is not simply a scene from Napoleon’s campaign (mostly because this didn’t happen) but is meant to represent a modern Caesar, leading a entire nation towards its destiny, and not to make the scenario too dark, but it reminds me of the mythological character of the national narrative that will later characterize ideological movements like fascism. Neo-classicalism is right in front of us in this piece, being redirected from enlightenment liberalism toward Imperial authority and a living divinity. We can almost watch liberalism give birth to not just itself, but also its greatest nemesis.
In conclusion, the era of revolution was as much a battle of aesthetics as it was of ideologies and armies and philosophies. As populations rose up and began to dismantle monarchies and empires, artists responded with images that reflected the changin world as well as their political convictions. Neoclassicism, born from the Enlightenment and modeled after the ancient world, provided the seemingly perfect visual vocabulary for revolutionaries who sought to inspire virtue, discipline, civic engagement, and other idealistic virtues like this as well as more down to earth notions as the brotherhood of man, freedom, rationality, realism, and empiricism. Through works like David’s "Oath of the Horatii", art became a tool of public education and as always, propaganda through moral persuasion. On the other side, Rococo, with its ornate beauty and erotic whimsy, celebrated a world of aristocratic privilege and leisure, acting as an aesthetic defense of the old regime. Paintings like Fragonard’s "The Swing" illustrate not just a style, but an entire worldview—one that countered revolutionary ideals with elegance, sensuality, and nostalgia. And yet later, with Napoleon’s crossing of the Alps, also by David, we see a subversion of the revolutionary ideals, back towards ideas that seem to pair better with counter-revolution then with the revolutionaries and their liberalism and humanism, and above all else, seem to reject the enlightenment view that leaders are merely humans, and instead bring back a sense of the leader as a mythical, semi-divine figure, whose destiny is also that of the entire nation. A man chosen by nature rather then God, to perhaps even rule the world. Together, these artistic movements reveal how the revolutionary era was not only a political transformation but also a radical redefinition of what art should be, who it should serve, and what it should say.
Works cited :
Coudenhove-Kalergi, R. N. (1925). Practical idealism (English Ver. 1.2) [PDF]. Internet Archive. https://ia601304.us.archive.org/26/items/practical-idealism-english-ver-1-2/Practical_Idealism_English_Ver_1_2.pdf
Fondation Napoléon. (n.d.). National Museum of the Château de Malmaison. Napoleon.org. https://www.napoleon.org/en/magazine/places/national-museum-of-the-chateau-de-malmaison/
Marx, K. (1852). The eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Marxists Internet Archive. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/
Miami University. (n.d.). The reign of reason and revolution. Art 188: History of Western Art from Renaissance to Modern. https://art188.lib.miamioh.edu/18th-and-19th-century-art/2-neoclassicism/
Elfrink, K. (n.d.). Rococo, reason, and revolution: The French intellectual and moral response to aristocratic indulgence as demonstrated through art [Undergraduate research paper, Lindenwood University]. Lindenwood Digital Commons. https://digitalcommons.lindenwood.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=student-research-papers