Review the introduction and overview for the Jane Fortune Gallery provided in Module 1 here.

Then read the didactics (wall text) to familiarize yourself with the general contents of this gallery. It is not necessary to memorize this information. The following texts, written by Jenny McComas, Curator of European and American Art, are on the walls in the gallery.

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Jewish Art and Life in Pre-Modern Europe

Medieval Europe was home to two distinct Jewish diaspora populations: the Sephardim and the Ashkenazim. Despite their always precarious status in European society, Jews made significant contributions to European culture and economic life, often facilitating trade and communication with other parts of the world.

Sephardic Jews lived in the Iberian Peninsula; their ancestors likely settled there during Roman times. Jewish culture flourished in Spain under Islamic rule in the early Middle Ages, but the community was expelled in 1492 by Ferdinand and Isabella, the monarchs who united Spain as an exclusively Roman Catholic nation. Sephardic Jews later set up new communities in the Netherlands and the lands of the Ottoman Empire. Ashkenazi culture developed in the Rhineland and northern France between the ninth and eleventh centuries, after significant numbers of Jews first migrated north of the Alps. Due to religious persecution in Western Europe, many Ashkenazi Jews moved to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, where their communities were protected by Christian monarchs but internally self-governed until the late eighteenth century.

As a result of persecution, expulsions, and the Holocaust, very few art objects commissioned by Jews or produced by Jewish artists and artisans in pre-modern Europe have survived. Although Jewish practice requires the use of unique ritual objects and Hebrew script, extant objects show that both Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews were influenced by the artistic preferences of the cultures around them, whether Christian or Muslim. In addition to synagogue architecture and decoration, illuminated Hebrew books—siddurim (prayerbooks), Bibles, and haggadot (the liturgy for the Passover Seder)— and ritual objects used within holiday observances, the celebration of lifecycle events, and to facilitate prayer were the most common forms of art produced by and for Jewish communities before the nineteenth century.

Christian Art from Western Europe and Byzantium

Christianity was established as the official religion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century, and it spread throughout Europe in the subsequent centuries. Most surviving European art from the Middle Ages was made for use within Christian contexts. In 1054, the Christian world experienced a theological schism, prompted by doctrinal differences and disagreement over the authority of the popes in Rome. In Western Europe, the Roman Catholic rite was predominant until the Reformation of the sixteenth century. The Papal States, comprising a large portion of the Italian Peninsula, were a powerful political entity. Eastern Orthodoxy evolved within Byzantium, a multi-national empire encompassing parts of southeastern Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. Greek was the predominant language of Byzantium, and its capital was located at Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul). The empire fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, and a large percentage of its population converted to Islam. Churches, cathedrals, and monasteries were the most significant architectural monuments of the European Middle Ages. Their interiors were often richly decorated with mosaics, frescoes, painted and carved altarpieces, sculptures, and stained glass. These works typically illustrated Christian narratives, and were intended to serve as educational tools for a largely illiterate population. Aristocratic families regularly commissioned art for churches to enhance their prestige. Ritual objects, often crafted from valuable materials, were also created for liturgical use during communal worship. Other items, such as ivory diptychs and illuminated prayerbooks, facilitated private devotions in the home, while others were associated with pilgrimages to holy sites. Despite cultural, linguistic, and theological differences, there was a fruitful artistic dialogue between Western Europe and Byzantium in the Middle Ages. The blending of artistic traditions was particularly prominent in cities such as Venice, which were centers of international trade.

Spain from Al-Andalus to the Reconquista

The Eskenazi Museum's collection contains several significant objects from Spain, a country whose medieval history and culture diverged significantly from that of its European neighbors.

In 711 CE, Muslim forces from North Africa invaded the Iberian Peninsula. By the mid-eighth century, much of Spain was under the rule of the Umayyad dynasty from Syria. Islamic Spain, with its capital at Cordoba, was known as Al-Andalus. The region was renowned for its architecture, notably Cérdoba's mosque and Granada's Alhambra palace. Christian kingdoms such as Léon and Castile were established in northern Iberia. There, the Romanesque style flourished as numerous churches were constructed along the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela. In Al-Andalus, a remarkable flowering of Jewish culture also took place. Sephardic Jews (so called because the Hebrew name for Spain isSepharad) cultivated Hebrew poetry and rabbinic literature, commissioned illuminated manuscripts, and constructed elaborate synagogues. The Zohar, a highly influential work of Jewish mysticism, was composed in Spain during the thirteenth century.

Although the three cultures often coexisted peacefully, medieval Spain was not immune to religious intolerance. In the twelfth century, the Muslim Almohad dynasty forced many Jews and Christians to convert or emigrate. The northern kingdoms, meanwhile, battled to "reconquer" all of Spain as a Christian nation. Nationwide pogroms in 1391 encouraged many Jews to convert to Christianity, but the Inquisition, established in 1478, subsequently targeted these conversos. The Christian "Reconquista" was completed when the Muslim kingdom of Granada fell to the "Catholic monarchs," Ferdinand and Isabella, in 1492. They expelled Spain's Jews the same year. The Moriscos, the descendants of Muslims who converted to Christianity, would also be expelled in 1609. Simultaneous with its transformation into a theocratic nation-state, Spain established itself as a world power as it acquired colonies throughout the Americas.

Medieval Europe

The era known as the "Middle Ages" is generally considered to span approximately one thousand years, from the fall of the western Roman Empire in the late fifth century CE to the rise, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, of the Renaissance in Western Europe and the fall, in 1453, of the Byzantine Empire in the east. The early Middle Ages, prior to the year 1000, were marked by the migration of various peoples across the continent, and by the gradual Christianization of most Europeans. After 1000, the strongest political powers north of the Alps were England and France in the west, the Holy Roman Empire in Central Europe, and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to the east. Southern Europe was dominated by the Islamic caliphate in Spain, the Papal States in the Italian peninsula, and the Byzantine Empire in the southeast. Most artistic production in medieval Europe was linked closely with the needs of religious practice, and objects are generally characterized by fine craftsmanship and the use of valuable materials, such as gemstones, ivory, and gold.

The term "medieval" is popularly considered to refer solely to a European (or more specifically, Western European) historical era. This idea, a by-product of early nineteenth-century nationalism and Romanticism, is based on the assumption that medieval Europe was a culturally and religiously homogenous society. In recent years, historians have increasingly recognized the concept of a global Middle Ages, more readily acknowledging the religious diversity (as well as religious intolerance) present in medieval Europe, and as well as the international exchanges (intellectual, diplomatic, religious, and commercial) in which medieval Europeans participated. Several of the objects on view in this gallery attest to the contributions of Jews and Muslims to medieval European culture, or to the cross-cultural exchanges and influences that shaped the world of the Middle Ages.

The Renaissance

Coinciding approximately with the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the era known as the Renaissance was one of religious, scientific, and cultural transition in Europe. The Renaissance first flowered in Italy. In fifteenth century Florence, the powerful Medici family encouraged artistic innovation, making the city the center of Renaissance culture. In the sixteenth century, artists from throughout Europe flocked to Rome, eager to see its ancient ruins, but also famous contemporary works, such as Michelangelo's frescoes on the ceiling of the Vatican's Sistine Chapel. Renaissance aesthetics and philosophies exerted a strong influence north of the Alps as well, particularly in France, the Low Countries, and the German-speaking lands of the Holy Roman Empire.

The renewed interest in Greco-Roman antiquity was one of the most distinguishing features of the Renaissance. Artists gradually abandoned Gothic stylistic conventions in favor of features associated with classical art and architecture. Inspired by classical art, but also by new scientific discoveries about the natural world, early Renaissance artists strove for a sense of realism in their work. They employed perspective to create the illusion of depth, and studied anatomy in order to convincingly portray the human body in a variety of poses and actions. At the same time, artists imbued their work with an idealized sense of balance, symmetry, and clarity derived from mathematical principles. However, in the early sixteenth century, many artists lost interest in such idealized portrayals. A popular movement known as Mannerism—originating in Florence, but soon spreading throughout Italy and to northern Europe—was characterized by a sense of drama and tension, featuring distorted figures, highly expressive color, and flattened picture planes. Mannerism paved the way for the Baroque style, which dominated European art of the seventeenth century.

Marriage in Renaissance Italy

Some of the most inventive and charming works of art created in Renaissance Italy were associated with marriage. Although systematic requirements for (Christian) marriage—such as the involvement of a priest and the presence of witnesses—were established by the Council of Trent only in 1563, elaborate marriage rituals were already practiced in Italy by the wealthy classes. These rituals included public ceremonies, feasts, gift- giving, and the commissioning of works of art for the bridal chamber. Most Renaissance brides received a chest (cassone) for their clothes and linens and smaller caskets for jewelry and personal items. Cassoni produced for the ruling classes, such as those on view here, were richly carved or painted.

Frescoes and paintings were also commissioned for wedding chambers. The subject matter of wedding-related art varied, but is notable for its largely secular nature. Artists drew on contemporary literature and classical texts for inspiration. Some works—such as the cassone lid on view here—portrayed the coats of arms of prominent families united through the marriage. This reflected the fact that marriages were often motivated by the desire to forge political alliances. Although love was hardly a prerequisite for marriage during the Renaissance, the topic of love was, nonetheless, popular in art. Frankly erotic subjects, as well as images extolling marital fidelity, are also found in paintings commissioned for nuptial chambers. The fresco displayed here illustrates a scene from Roman history popularly associated with marriage, while the painting thought to portray the Israelite heroine Judith was part of a series of paintings—likely produced in conjunction with the marriage of Silvio Piccolomini and Battista Placidi of Siena—depicting virtuous men and women from biblical and classical history.

The Age of the Baroque

The Baroque era is associated primarily with the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. European culture went through many changes during this period: religious, scientific, political, and aesthetic. Like their Renaissance predecessors, Baroque artists were interested in reviving classical art, but they pushed the boundaries of what was aesthetically acceptable during the Renaissance, frequently breaking the "rules" of classicism. And while Renaissance art is often associated with the ideals of rationality and logic, Baroque art is frequently characterized by a sense of theatricality and monumentality calculated to appeal to the viewer's emotions and sensory experience. Indeed, some of the most memorable expressions of the Baroque are found in Italian urban planning and garden design, mediums which allowed artists and architects to create immersive environments.

The most important patrons of Baroque art were the royal courts of Europe and the Catholic Church. The theology of the Protestant Reformation, spearheaded by Martin Luther in Germany in 1517, diminished the importance of visual art within religious practice. After Reformers accused the papacy of enabling idolatry through its lavish use of visual images, the Catholic Church responded by increasing its patronage of altarpieces and monumental religious paintings, arguing for their efficacy as aids to Christian education and worship. The rise of absolutist monarchs, such as Louis XIV in France, was accompanied by the construction of vast palaces, which also provided opportunities for Baroque artists, architects, and landscape designers. Some of these European monarchs also ruled vast colonial holdings. In their zeal to establish western culture and Christianity abroad, Europeans constructed lavish Baroque churches and administrative buildings in the Americas, Africa, and Asia. In turn, the aesthetics of non- western cultures, along with raw materials from the colonies, influenced the development of the Baroque style in Europe.

The Kunst-und Wunderkammer: Collecting in Renaissance and Baroque Europe

Collecting works of art, scientific instruments, and unusual natural objects became a prestigious activity among the intellectual and ruling classes of Europe during the Renaissance. Some objects, such as the portrait medals on view, were created specifically as collectible items. Renaissance collections were often housed in special rooms or elaborately carved cabinets known as Kunst-und Wunderkammern (a German term for cabinets of art and marvels), and may be considered precursors to the modern museum. These encyclopedic collections embodied the predominant interests of highly educated Europeans during the Renaissance—classical antiquity, science and the natural world, and aesthetics. The collectors' enhanced curiosity about the world was influenced by the voyages of discovery undertaken by European navigators. At the same time, Renaissance collections were predicated on the notion that humans (Europeans in particular) could dominate both nature and other peoples, an idea that underpinned the emerging trans-Atlantic slave trade and the establishment of colonial rule by Europeans in many parts of the world.

Caravaggio and his Influence

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) was one of the most innovative and influential artists of the Baroque era. While Caravaggio's eccentric personality, propensity for violence, and reputation for sexual license enhanced his fame during and after his lifetime, it was his unique style that attracted a wide circle of followers in the early decades of the seventeenth century. Born and trained in Milan, Caravaggio initially focused on portraits, still lifes, and genre scenes. After moving to Rome around 1592, he developed a revolutionary approach to religious painting. Eschewing the notion that biblical figures should be portrayed in an idealized manner, Caravaggio employed lower-class Romans as models for his biblical paintings, incorporating the dirt and ugliness of real life into his controversial compositions. In this way, he emphasized not only the physicality of the scene, but also the psychological dimensions.

Caravaggio is perhaps best known for his dramatic use of chiaroscuro—the handling of light and shadow. Most of his biblical scenes are lit from a single light source, often above the heads of the figures. This theatrical style of lighting was the aesthetic quality most often emulated by his followers. Caravaggio influenced many painters in Rome and elsewhere in southern Italy, but also attracted the interest of a sizeable number of Dutch and Flemish artists who settled in Rome. It is possible they were drawn to his sense of realism, which had affinities with the genre scenes popular in the Netherlands during the seventeenth century. In any event, his work offered an alternative to the formal classicism and idealization that dominated in much religious painting of the era.

The Dutch Golden Age

The seventeenth century is often regarded as a "golden age" for the Netherlands. After achieving independence from Spanish domination in 1581, the Dutch rejected monarchial rule and established the Dutch Republic. The republic distinguished itself as a maritime power and economic powerhouse, founding the world's first multi-national corporation, the Dutch East India Company, in 1602. International trade and a policy of religious toleration, which enabled the establishment of an important Sephardic Jewish community in Amsterdam, made the Dutch capital one of Europe's most cosmopolitan cities in the seventeenth century.

As a primarily Protestant republic, the Netherlands did not offer the forms of patronage that artists relied on elsewhere in Europe: the monarchy and the Catholic Church. An exception was in the predominantly Catholic city of Utrecht, where artists could receive religious commissions. However, most artists had to seek out new types of patrons—often members of the newly wealthy mercantile class—or produce works more speculatively for sale on the open market in Amsterdam. Distinct genres of painting developed during this time, as artists experimented with secular subject matter. Portraits, still lifes, and genre paintings (scenes drawn from everyday life) all flourished at this time, and offered insight into the material concerns of all classes of Dutch society. And at a time when artists began traveling abroad more regularly, the genre of landscape became increasingly prestigious and sophisticated. In fact, seventeenth-century Dutch landscapes would exert a strong influence on the development of British and American landscape painting during the subsequent two centuries.

Francesco Solimena and the Neapolitan Baroque

Naples emerged as a major artistic center in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and its painters cultivated a distinct style influenced by the handling of light, shade, and color in the work of Caravaggio, Spanish artist Jusepe de Ribera, and Luca Giordano, a native Neapolitan who had served as a court painter in Madrid. Under the rule of the Spanish Habsburgs for much of the seventeenth century, Baroque Naples also developed a culture which was both cosmopolitan and heavily influenced by Catholicism. In 1734 the Bourbon dynasty came to power in Naples. Under the patronage of the Bourbon king Charles Ill, many new palaces and churches were erected in and around Naples, providing new patronage opportunities for the city's artists. In the eighteenth century, the city's proximity to the ancient Roman sites of Herculaneum and Pompeii also made it a critical destination for tourists, many of whom also patronized local artists.

Francesco Solimena dominated Neapolitan painting in the first half of the eighteenth century. He was a particular favorite of Charles Ill, who commissioned a series of paintings for the Palazzo Reale in Naples on the occasion of his marriage in 1737 to Maria Amalia of Saxony. Solimena's adjacent painting Allegory of the Four Parts of the World formed part of this commission. Solimena also received numerous commissions from churches and royal courts around Europe, including the Bourbon royal palace of La Granja de San lldefonso near Madrid. Solimena operated a large studio in Naples and was renowned for the quality and rigor of his instruction. Among his best students was Francesco de Mura, who may have painted the Triumph of David, on display to the right. This composition is a variation of a work by Solimena, likely painted for the Madrid court.

The Italian Renaissance through the Kress Collection: Expanding the Canon

The term "Renaissance" describes a chronological period (primarily the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries) and an artistic style particularly associated with the early modern Italian states. Florence and Tuscany are generally held as the pinnacle of artistic creation during the Italian Renaissance. With artists like Giotto, Botticelli, and Michelangelo working primarily in Florence it is understandable that the Tuscan city retains such notoriety. Florence's early and continued claim to excellence is due in part to Giorgio Vasari's (1511—74) biographical work Lives of the Artists. First published in 1550, it established an artistic hierarchy that progressed from the early to the High Renaissance and reached perfection with Michelangelo. Milan and Venice were also acknowledged artistic centers and home to famed artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Titian. Even though many artists are associated with a particular city, travel and competition were important during the Renaissance, and encouraged communication between artists, if not a cohesion of styles.

This collection of paintings features artists primarily from Northern Italian states such as Milan, Lombardy, and Venice. While these artists and workshops are not part of the dominant canon of Renaissance art, they represent an enriched picture of artistic practice during the period and demonstrate a wealth of creativity and production beyond the narrower definition of the canon.

Italian Renaissance Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Study Collection

A gift of fourteen paintings to the Eskenazi Museum of Art from the Kress Study

Collection was made in 1962, the same year in which the museum moved from its first gallery space (in the no longer extant Mitchell Hall) to a new location in the Fine Arts Building (now the Grunwald Gallery). Thus, it is fitting that most of the paintings from this collection are on view for the reopening of the newly renovated Eskenazi Museum of Art.

In 1896. Samuel H. Kress (1863-1955) established a wildly successful retail empire of stores that supplied affordable, durable, and cheerful domestic merchandise. Working with art dealer Joseph Duveen, Kress began collecting Italian Renaissance art in the 1920s, primarily works of the Italian Renaissance and Baroque schools. At the time, such paintings were thought to be "old fashioned," so he was able to purchase them at relatively low prices. In 1929. he established the Kress Foundation. Guided by the desire to increase access to great art, the foundation developed a program to distribute part of the collection to colleges and universities around the country in the early 1960s. Schools with art history departments were selected for donations of original Renaissance paintings that would serve as teaching aids: "these authentic paintings, which have survived several hundred years, will bring something of the beauty and spirit of the Renaissance to your institution." In addition to the paintings on view in the focus exhibition, works from the Kress Study Collection (by Paolo Veneziano, Matteo di Giovanni, and the Workshop of Taddeo Gaddi) are on view elsewhere in this gallery.

Samuel Henry Kress at the National Gallery of Art, date unknown.

Photo: Courtesy of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.

This installation was curated by Karen Page, curatorial graduate assistant for European and American art.

Landscape Painting in the Romantic Era

Landscape emerged as one of the most important and popular genres in European and North American painting during the Romantic era, corresponding with the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Nineteenth-century artists emulated the palettes and compositional formats of the seventeenth-century Dutch and eighteenth-century British landscape paintings that were prized by collectors (especially in Great Britain), but were also inspired by their direct experience of the countryside, as industrialization facilitated tourism and other forms of travel. In the first half of the nineteenth century, landscape artists were highly influenced by aesthetic philosophies associated with the Romantic movement in Britain and Germany. Romantic artists and intellectuals described landscapes dominated by mountains, waterfalls, and other dramatic features as "sublime," and artists strove to imbue their portrayals of such landscapes with a sense of spirituality, hoping to convey their awe at the power of nature. Such imagery was also a reaction to rapid industrialization, which was quickly altering the character of formerly pristine landscapes and spurring urbanization.

The first identifiably American style of painting arose within the context of Romanticism. The Hudson River School is a term used to identify a group of New York City-based painters known for their portrayals of the American landscape between the 1830s and the 1870s. The emergence of the Hudson River School was directly linked to the establishment of organized tourism to the Catskills and the Hudson River Valley in the 1820s. Most of the Hudson River School artists also traveled and studied in Europe, where they absorbed the aesthetic conventions of Romantic landscape painting, subsequently applying those lessons to their representation of American scenes. The concept of the sublime translated particularly well to depictions of dramatic sites as Niagara Falls and the Rocky Mountains. A second generation of Hudson River School painters, active in the 1860s and 1870s, preferred to emphasize the effects of light and atmosphere in their landscapes.

Neoclassicism

From the mid-eighteenth century through the Napoleonic era, European and American culture was dominated by a movement known as Neoclassicism. In the arts, Neoclassicism exerted a profound influence not only on painting and sculpture, but also on the decorative arts, architecture, and even fashion. European artists and intellectuals had admired Greco-Roman antiquity since at least the Renaissance, but major archaeological discoveries in the eighteenth century—including the excavation of the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum—inspired a renewed fascination with the ancient Mediterranean world. The rise of organized tourism in the eighteenth century also brought more Europeans (and eventually, Americans) into contact with the physical remains of classical antiquity. An extended stay in Rome, a city renowned for its ancient ruins, was the primary objective of many eighteenth-century tourists. Often, these travelers also paid a visit to Naples, which was adjacent to many archaeological sites.

While the classical architecture and archaeological sites of Italy served as inspiration for artists, the Neoclassical movement flourished most prominently in France. In Paris, artists such as Jacques-Louis David painted scenes from ancient Roman history in an austere, simplified style that strongly influenced an entire generation of artists. David and other Neoclassical painters, many of whom were strong supporters of the French Revolution, drew connections between Roman history, ancient Greek philosophy, and the politics of their own era, during which powerful monarchies began to give way to more democratic forms of government. Simultaneously, artists—rather than aristocratic or religious patrons—took on new agency as shapers of culture, imbuing their work with political and ideological meaning of their own choosing. The enhanced social and political role of the artist accompanied the rise of the modern art market and the establishment of Europe's first public art museums, beginning with the Louvre in 1793.

Plein-Air Painting and the Barbizon School

In the seventeenth century, landscape began emerging as a new—and increasingly prestigious—genre in European art. In 1816, the French Academy introduced a Prix de Rome for "historical landscape painting," intended to promote the production of idealized scenes incorporating references from history or classical mythology. But artists—even those able to study in Rome— expressed greater interest in a more naturalistic approach to landscape painting. In the early nineteenth century, new technologies increasingly enabled artists to sketch and paint directly in nature, a practice known as plein-air painting. The development of new forms of transportation, especially trains, facilitated access to once-remote parts of the countryside, as well as travel further afield. And the invention, in the 1840s, of commercially prepared oil paints in metal tubes further liberated artists from their studios, enabling them to work entirely outdoors. Painting in nature encouraged artists to experiment with new techniques, including the rapid application of brushwork to create a fresh, spontaneous aesthetic. Sometimes, plein-air works served as preparatory studies for paintings completed in the studio, but increasingly, they were admired as finished works of art in their own right.

The group of artists most closely associated with the rise of plein-air painting in France was known as the Barbizon School. Beginning in the 1830s, a group of Paris-based artists began painting in the Fontainebleau Forest outside the city, often meeting together at an inn in the village of Barbizon. Unlike many of the Romantic and Hudson River School landscape painters, the Barbizon artists preferred undramatic subjects: forest clearings, village roads, or agricultural scenes. Théodore Rousseau was among the most dedicated of the Barbizon painters, specializing in naturalistic depictions of the Fontainebleau Forest's trees. Thanks to his efforts, in 1853 the Emperor Napoleon Ill established a nature preserve in the forest to protect it from industrial development. The Barbizon aesthetic had a strong influence on younger generations of painters in France, Germany, and even the United States, serving as a forerunner of Impressionism.

Art Nouveau and Symbolism

From the 1880s until World War l, artists throughout Europe and North America developed a series of related styles and movements that signaled their rejection of artistic conventions and their ambivalence about the rapid pace at which their societies were modernizing. Variously termed Art Nouveau, Symbolism, and Secessionism, these movements shared key aesthetic principles that made them precursors of the modernist movements of the early twentieth century, such as Expressionism, Fauvism, and abstraction. Art Nouveau ("new art") is primarily associated with the applied arts and architecture, but has many parallels in painting. Designers in the style took great inspiration from the natural world, utilizing curvilinear lines and floral forms in their work. Japanese woodblock prints, widely available in Europe

in the late nineteenth century, also influenced their bold approach to color, line, and form. Symbolism is distinguished by its emphasis on subjectivity and interiority, and stylistically by an emphasis on pattern, bright or non- naturalistic color, and, often, expressive brushwork. In France, a group of Symbolist painters calling themselves the "Nabis"—derived from the Hebrew for "prophet," navi to express a visionary, spiritual sensibility in their work. In several Central European cities, Art Nouveau and Symbolist artists "seceded" from the official art academies to establish their own exhibition societies. The Vienna Secession promoted the principle of "art for art's sake," valorizing individual expression over socially engaged art.

Although aesthetically radical and connected to international artistic networks, many artists associated with Art Nouveau and Symbolism were politically and socially conservative. Through their art, they often sought an escape from modern urban society, which they considered decadent and psychologically isolating. In Art Nouveau and Symbolist art, women— who were fighting for equal rights at this time—are frequently fetishized as symbols of death or dangerous sexuality. Artists also responded to new ideas about race that normalized antisemitism and fueled nationalist rhetoric.

Impressionism

The term "Impressionism" was coined in 1874 at the first Paris exhibition of a group of painters whose experimental techniques would shape the direction of modernist art. Critics contended that the paintings on view were mere "impressions"—that is, their broken, loose brushwork gave them an unfinished appearance in comparison to the highly polished painting surfaces produced by academically trained artists.

The Impressionists were influenced by a range of visual sources, including the Barbizon artists' plein-air (outdoor) paintings, Japanese woodblock prints, and photography. While the practice of plein-air painting encouraged the Impressionists to cultivate a spontaneous, seemingly casual, brushwork technique, Japanese prints and photography offered important lessons in composition. Cropping, the strategic use of line and diagonals, and a shallow picture plane became hallmarks of Impressionism. The Impressionists also embraced bright, pure color, taking advantage of new, synthetic pigments that appeared on the market in the late nineteenth century. Although the style is most closely associated with painting, a number of sculptors also adopted its aesthetic. Auguste Rodin and Henri Matisse modeled their works in clay, leaving visible fingerprints and roughly textured surfaces that are analogous to the sketchy brushwork of Impressionist paintings.

Working mostly in and around Paris, the Impressionists took modern life as their primary subject. The streets of Paris itself—especially the wide boulevards constructed in the mid-nineteenth century according to the designs of the city planner Baron Haussmann—appear frequently in Impressionist painting, as do trains, factory smokestacks, and other symbols of industrialization. But as indicated by Monet's view of the Seine River town of Argenteuil and Caillebotte's snapshot depiction of his family's suburban property outside Paris, the Impressionists were equally drawn to the countryside, which became integral to modern life with the rise of tourism. Likewise, leisure activities and spaces—the opera, the café, seaside resorts, and gardens—are another important facet of modernity seen frequently in Impressionist paintings.