idealism in art

At its most general, Idealism asserts that the physical world is less important than the mind or the spirit which shapes and animates it. Idealists choose the soul, the mind or the psyche over the body, the material and the historical. When ideals (of appearance, or proportion for example) regulate the way an artist represents the world his work can be described as Idealist.

Plato's Theory of the Forms was the the most important Classical influence on Renaissance Idealism. The Ideas, or Forms, contain all that is necessary and universal and are therefore perfect and unchanging while the material world is simply a deceptive procession of changing appearances which have no more reality than shadows.

The leading artists of the High Renaissance--Leonardo, Raphael and Michelangelo --are all associated with slightly different forms of Idealism. Michelangelo's was most identified with the Platonic Forms because of his reliance on ‘disegno’(design). The term is used to describe art which is shaped by the artist's imagination rather than by his imitation, or copying, of a natural model. Michelangelo's art also idealised the body by giving it monumental proportions. His figures are usually astonishingly muscular.

Michaelangelo - Leda and the Swan (1530)

Raphael's figures are equally idealised but they are characterised by sweetness of expression, serenity, elegance, clarity of line and beauty of colour rather than physical grandeur.

Raphael - Saint Catherine of Alexandria (1508)

Leonardo's Idealism was different again. It was characterised by an emphasis on finding the Divine in the perfectly human. Beauty, subtle facial expression, the unity of the figure with its setting and the elimination of unnecessary detail to suggest emotion, were all aspects of his Idealism.

Leonardo di Vinci - Benois Madonna (1478)

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Renaissance artists strove to paint the Ideal, not because they shied away from looking at the world, but because they wanted to capture the absolute and universal truth hidden within it.

establishment art

Academicism promoted Classical ideals of beauty and artistic perfection and established a clear hierarchy within the visual arts, preferring grand narrative or history painting and advocating life-drawing and classical sculpture.

George Stubbs - Whistlejacket (1762)

Stubb's Whistlejacket was an example of the meticulous attention to the figure which characterised Academic painting. Within the Academy tradition artists were expected to have a sound knowledge of anatomy.

Joshua Reynolds - Colonel Tarleton (1782)

Reynolds was one of the advocates of the 'grand manner' in painting. His Colonel Tarleton is a perfect example of the grand manner adapted for a portrait. The portrait displays Colonel Tarleton's military virtues - his nobility and bravery - and his personal triumph over everything base inhuman nature. His clothes are relatively plain and the activity in the background has been simplified to avoid any overt theatricality.

romanticism

Casper David Friedrich - Tree with Crows (1822)

The trees look dead but they are set against a sunset, reminding us that death is inevitable, part of the cycle of nature and not to be feared. However, the painting invites a melancholy response in the viewer rather than a philosophical indifference. Romanticism privileged nature as a source of truths about human experience which could be most effectively expressed in art and best understood intuitively or emotionally.

realism

Gustave Courbet - The Artist's Studio (1855)

Realists aspired to paint what they saw, even what was dirty and unpleasant. The Artist's Studio can be read as Courbet's critique of this failure to engage with the real world as he saw it: the artist's studio is grimy and crowded, but the painting on his canvas shows a beautiful landscape which bears no relation to the world in which the artist lives. Courbet was also showing himself to be both a master of Realist painting and of the style of painting he was rejecting.

heat

Andre Derain - Bridge over the Riou (1906)

Derain has simplified his landscape subject matter into a colourful pattern that flattens the landscape almost entirely. It's difficult to work out what is in the foreground and what is in the distance. Shadow and light are shown as different (through related) colours rather than as darker and lighter shades of the same colour. Derain uses a characteristic intensity of colour to capture the vividness and heat of the Cote d' Azur landscape and climate.

kosuth

Joseph Kosuth - Clock (one and five) (1965)

This work is composed of five elements: a photograph of a clock, a clock and entries from an English/Latin dictionary for the words 'time', 'machine' and 'object.' By placing a real clock beside a photograph of one, Kosuth questions why we consider a photograph but not the object itself to be art. This juxtaposition also challenges the idea that art is beautiful and/or functionless.

the viewer, not the artist

Sol LeWitt - Wall / Floor ("Three Squares") (1966)

Sol LeWitt has assembled aluminium beams covered with enamel to obtain a simple cubic form. The artist intends the work to be "created" through the perception of the spectator. The "creation" will change according to how the object is viewed.

The opportunity for multifarious objective interpretations to validate the work defies the conventional belief that art objects express or explore the artist's personal experiences. A further challenge to preconceptions forces us to judge the work as a concept not as an object made by LeWitt.