Art and Revolution (AHIS20016)

What does the art of nineteenth-century Europe tell us about the society that made it? This period was marked by immense social and cultural change: political upheaval; rapid industrialisation; an expanding colonial empire; a society altered by shifting attitudes to class, race, gender, bodies, senses and emotions; rapid urbanisation (and dislocation) as people moved from countryside to city. Artists responded to these changes in revolutionary ways of their own, defying the traditional approaches of the academy and creating their own modes for representing their world. From Romanticism and Orientalism to Impressionism and the avant-gardes of the late-nineteenth century, these artists’ shifting representations of social relations, the landscape, the human body, and sexual and gender identity fundamentally altered both the function of visual art and the role of the artist.

In this subject, students will explore how painting and sculpture of nineteenth-century Europe was instrumental in creating new identities and new modes of being in and imaging the world amid the conditions of modernity and the emergence of Industrial capitalism. Although the primary case study will be France, art from other European countries will also be discussed. Engaging with recent scholarship, students will be encouraged to question and critique the ways in which art has the capacity to embody, reflect, and challenge ideologies of its time.