My Kid Could Paint That

Relating Music and Art

Curated by Becky Reilly

The Neoclassical era represented a departure from the supposed frivolity of the Baroque and sought a return to Classical civilization.  Art became more subdued and stately, and Roman and ancient Greek symbolism began to infiltrate architecture, music, and other media.  Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Napoleon Bonaparte's contemporary, bedecked his emperor in such in Napoleon I on his Imperial Throne.  He holds Charlemagne's scepter in his right hand, recalling the glory of the Holy Roman Empire, and celebrates the earlier Romans with his golden, Caesar-like laurel wreath.  On the rug, elevated by the step, lies the French Imperial Eagle, Bonaparte's own battle standard.  As Napoleon had seized the art stores of conquered kingdoms and transported them to the Louvre, Ingres had the opportunity to model his paintings on those of the old masters.  But critics disliked his interpretation of Napoleon at his coronation for its seeming confrontation and coldness.

Beethoven initially named his Third Symphony (Eroica, 1804) for Napoleon, believing he embodied the admired tenets of the French Revolution.  But Napoleon realized that stability was more crucial for France than continued pursuit of revolutionary idealism.  When Napoleon established his imperial rule in France, however, Beethoven denounced him as a dictator and destroyed his symphony's title page that carried the dedication.  The lengthy piece displays a large range of emotion, even within each movement.  It portrays the cycle of life, from a heroic march to funereal music and back.  The driving rhythm and incorporation of martial instruments evoke combat and triumphal marches.  The piece testifies to military and ideological heroism, enlightenment in the face of absolute monarchy, an idea it will not relinquish even as its movement in France dissolves.

Beethoven and Ingres present quite different portraits of the emperor.  Ingres, a student of Napoleon's court painter Jacques-Louis David, attempts to portray Napoleon as a new Augustus Caesar, founder of an empire.

Though known for his warm-color palettes and dabbing brushstrokes, Antoine-Jean Gros developed his style of painting under the guidance of the Neoclassical master Jacques-Louis David. His signature pieces include light brushstrokes, rosy complexions and splitting colors that highlight principal scenes when placed against his customarily blurred backgrounds. To gain influence in French Salons, Gros (falsely) romanticized Napoleon’s non-belligerent nature by commemorating the emperor’s kind deeds through a series of flattering portraits. Of these scenic paintings, Bonaparte Visits the Plague-Ridden of Jaffa portrays the ruler as the sympathetic authoritarian who lovingly visits Jaffa’s plagued populations. 

Emphasized by the striking crimson view of his hat’s feathers, Napoleon reaches out and touches an ill man’s bubo, a lump formed in the armpit or groin region as an indicative symptom of the bubonic plague, with his ungloved hand. In obvious disregard of the disease’s contagious nature, Napoleon’s gesture stamps “Napoleon is a benevolent ruler” across Gros’ portraiture campaign. A fallen soldier and imposing doctor from the background move to restrain the ruler from touching the deathly lump while acting as a framing technique that Gros uses to focus his audiences’ attention on Bonaparte’s optimistic gesture.

After watching their immortalized ruler visit the condemned, Bonaparte’s subjects elevated their ruler’s reputation. Unfortunately for them, Gros embellished the scene beyond the situation's reality.

The black plague, now classified as a respiratory disease, travels from sharing air with the victims. Therefore, touching the bubo of a plagued victim does nothing to heighten one’s chances of catching the disease, though it might spread the disease's pus-like discharge on the contact region. Furthermore, the real Napoleon Bonaparte never did that, anyway. The ruler actually fostered contempt for the plague-ridden patients housed in Jaffa. After his first visit to the disease-ridden pest house, he asked doctors to treat the terminally-ill patients with a fatal dosage of opium. When they refused to obey his orders, Napoleon visited the city one more time and paid his final, grand adieu to the almost-dead victims before turning his back on them and resuming his imperialistic wars.

Casper David Friedrich and Charles Baudelaire are products of this philosophical and artistic movement. Baudelaire’s poem “Elevation” describes a world unknown, which parallels Friedrich’s Wanderer Above Mist. The Romantic Movement is characterized by a regression to the outlook of the middle ages. Baudelaire expands on the souls function in the spiritual realm. He speaks of the soul moving “ with ease … blithely through boundless space.” As the man stands on a cliff overlooking the vast foggy valley below his soul moves with ease.

The luminous colors in Wanderer Above Mist represent the spiritual realm. The man stands above the fog, and contemplates his life his soul takes flight. Baudelaire speaks of the soul taking flight in “Elevation.” He states that he whose thoughts take flight hovers and understands life with ease. This imagery is presented perfectly by Friedrich’s painting. The man stands above his life with ease. He sees all and accepts all. The lightness that Friedrich approached this painting with embodies the thesis of the Romantic Movement.

Friedrich’s influence on 19th century art and philosophy is undeniable. With his use of color to the story he created, Friedrich took painting to an entirely new level.

That date holds some particular meaning, as falls in the middle of the Pennisular War, when the French, led by Napoleon, ruled over Spain. Goya, a Spanish court painter for Charles III and IV, would later vehemently deny that he cooperated with or assisted the French during the war from 1808-1814. Almost as a protest – though much later – Goya painted his famous Third of May, 1808, which shows French soldiers slaughtering unarmed civilians.

Six months after the crackdown on Madrid, Napoleon offered the following to the newly-approved Mayor of Madrid, “I have hastened to adopt measures calculated to tranquillize all ranks of the citizens, knowing how painful the state of uncertainty is to all men collectively and individually. I have preserved the spiritual orders, but with a limitation of the number of monks. There is not a single intelligent person who is not of the opinion that they were too numerous.” Napoleon continues, “Priests may guide the minds of men, but must exercise no temporal or corporeal jurisdiction over the citizens.”

The painting, ironically, demonstrates that French soldiers have no problem exercising that power.