Restoration: the fall of Napoleon in the course of European art, 1812-1820

Abstract

As the French Empire collapsed between 1812 and 1815, artists throughout Europe were left uncertain and adrift. The final abdication of Emperor Napoleon, clearing the way for a restored monarchy, profoundly unsettled prevailing national, religious, and social boundaries. In 'Restoration', Thomas Crow combines a sweeping view of European art centers -Rome, Paris, London, Madrid, Brussels, and Vienna- with a close-up look at pivotal and significant artists, including Antonio Canova, Jacques-Louis David, Theodore Gericault, Francisco Goya, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Thomas Lawrence, and forgotten but meteoric painters Francois-Joseph Navez and Antoine Jean-Baptiste Thomas. Whether directly or indirectly, all became linked in a new international network in which changing artistic priorities and possibilities emerged from the ruins of the old. Crow examines how artists of this period faced dramatic circumstances, from political condemnation and difficult diplomatic missions to a catastrophic episode of climate change. Navigating ever-changing pressures, they invented creative ways of incorporating critical events and significant individuals into fresh artistic works. Crow discusses, among many topics, David's art and pedagogy during exile, Ingres's drive to reconcile religious art with contemporary mentalities, the titled victors over Napoleon all sitting for portraits by Lawrence, and the campaign to restore art objects expropriated by the French from Italy, prefiguring the restitution controversies of our own time.

Contents

Moscow burns / the pope comes home : David, Gros, and Ingres test the Empire's facade -- At the service of kings, Madrid and Paris, 1814 : aging Goya and upstart Géricault face their restorations -- Waterloo sunset, 1815-17 : Napoleon returns, David crosses borders, Géricault wanders plebian Rome with Thomas -- The religion of ancient art from London to Paris to Rome, 1815-19 : Canova and Lawrence replenish papal splendor -- The Laboratory of Brussels, 1816-19 : the apprentice Navez and the master David redraw the language of art -- Redemption in Rome and Paris, 1818-20 : Ingres revives the codes of chivalry while Géricault recovers the dispossessed.