• the coal-burning steam engine replaced human and animal muscle power
• machines replaced the individual craftsperson
• the introduction of new materials: iron, steel and glass
• following from new materials: new methods of construction
• greater mobility of the population–leads to erosion of social distinctions
• new building types: factories, railroad stations, bridges, commercial buildings, more municipal buildings, middle class housing

The bridge at Coalbrookdale is the first cast-iron bridge, using construction techniques which will be more completely realized a century later in the Eiffel Tower and other buildings.
 

Abraham Darby III and Thomas Pritchard: Iron bridge at Coalbrookdale, England, 1776-79

Francois de Cuvillies: Hall of Mirrors, interior view at Amalienburg, in Munich, Germany, 18th cent. (a rococo interior)	Richard Boyle and William Kent: Chiswick House, near London, begun in 1725

Admittedly, it's difficult to compare an interior with an exterior, but I think we can imagine that the interior of Chiswick House will not be covered with vegetal forms "growing" along the ceiling and culminating in a chandelier that appears to be blossoming from the ceiling.  Rococo interiors will be important to a later generation of architects: art nouveau in the late 19th century.  The neo-classical revival in architecture was very important to architectural developments in the United States, as we know from Thomas Jefferson's use of the same Palladian model that Lord Burlington (Richard Boyle) used.  Of course, the capitol of the U.S. is another example, although in that case, the model is more monumental and is a revival of Roman architecture, rather than Palladio.
 

Thomas Jefferson: Monticello, Charlottesville, VA, 1770-1806

Watteau: Return from Cythera (1717-19)	Angelica Kauffman: Cornelia Presenting Her Children as Her Treasures, ca. 1785

As we have already seen, Watteau's painting was about the idyllic, leisure life of the aristocrats, tinged with fantasy.  We have also seen some examples of a different kind of change -- the sentimental narrative or moral genre style of painting, and the grand manner of portraiture.  Angelica Kauffman and Jacques-Louis David give us another response.  Her painting is based on the virtuous and exemplary life of Cornelia, the mother of two of Rome's political leaders in the second century b.c.e.  Rather than displaying her jewelry, as her visitor does, she displays her children.  Rejecting the aristocracy as her subject matter, Kauffman has taken a classical subject with a moral lesson and a historical setting.  The figures in her painting are dressed in ancient costume and shown in the austere setting of a classical interior.  Even the colors of her painting are a rejection of the pastels of a rococo painting and the light, feathery touch suggested by the flowing colors and forms in Watteau's Cythera.  If the figures in Watteau's painting were wearing costumes, they were doing so as part of their own "make-believe" theatrical games.  The figures in Kauffman's painting are not representations of aristocrats dressed up for amusement - her subjects are ancient Romans, and the painting is a combined history/morality lesson for someone living in the 1780s.
 

Jacques-Louis David: Oath of the Horatii, 1784, 11' x 14'

David's painting of the Oath of the Horatii is a model example of neo-classicism, even as it hints at the impending break-up of this style.  The complete story involves the Horatii family sons going out to battle against their cousins, the Curiatii.  One of the Curiatii happens to be the lover of the sister of one of the Horatii brothers, and a Curiatii sister is married to one of the Horatii. When this brother survives the battle by killing the lover of his sister, she curses him and he in turn kills her for her inappropriate behavior.  David does not show this scene but shows the sons getting ready to fight and declaring allegiance to their father. The painting reads as though it is a stage with a deep recessional space and an arcade framing the figures.  This forces us to focus on the father and the raised swords.  The women to the right offer a fluid contrast to the rigidity of the men.  But how should we view them?  Are they a prescient sign of the tragedy which will befall the sisters?  Does their weakness actually serve to confirm the bravery and morality of the men’s actions?  Or should we read a more personal message into this painting about David's personal life?  Many people choose not to see signs of the personal in this painting, but it is impossible not to see that David's neo-classicism is violating the rules, a violation which is hard to explain without acknowledging the place of the personal in this painting.  At the same time, we cannot overlook David's intention of creating a painting with a political, moral message about patriotic duty.

The revival of classical architecture, the use of classical legends and tragedies as subject matter, and a style which emphasized balance, rigor, and sculptural stability, appealed to a public which was looking for stability in life but also wanted to believe in the possibility of change.  To a large degree, this was a rejection of the dominant taste of the aristocracy -- a more florid, delicate, and seemingly feminine style which had characterized rococo art, architecture, poetry and music of the early 18th century.  Whether David or Jefferson, these are examples of a turn to the past because of dissatisfaction with the present and the hope that the future will be like an idealized vision of the past.  But at the same time, this is not a dramatic reenvisioning of the present.  It is rooted in rational thinking and ideas.  It is conceptual, which means that enlightenment thinking in and of itself would not have led to real change–the Industrial revolution followed by the French and American revolutions were certainly more critical to the revolutionary artistic and social changes of the 19th century.
 

Jacques-Louis David: The Death of Marat, 1793, 5'4" x 4'1"	Joseph Roques: Death of Marat, 1794

Joseph Roques' painting gives us a more detailed expression of the same event and helps to demonstrate how the inclusion of seemingly realistic detail grounds the painting in banality, preventing it from having any meaning other than description of an event.  I include it here to emphasize just how much David "edited" reality in his painting.

Because you now have some experience with Baroque and Renaissance painting, you might observe how the space and lighting of David's painting remind you of paintings from those periods, especially those of Caravaggio.  This is what contributes to the tendency of some observers to relate the painting to paintings of saints and of the deposition of Christ.  But there are some subtle yet important contradictions in this painting, related first of all to the position of Marat's body.  Note how you cannot see at least half of Marat's body, and the part you can see is cast in shadow, slumped towards you, and twisted in perspective so that you look down on the body and straight at his face at the same time.  But the body is not the only "impossibility" in the painting.  The role of writing in this painting is important for the same reason:

1) although not the first example of real writing (as opposed to the suggestion or imitation of writing) in a painting, the writing in this painting contributes to its intended meaning;
2) it also contributes to the belief that the painting is one of real "history"  -- about current events, at the time of the painting;
3) in fact, the actual letters used by David were not the real letters held by Marat when he died. Once we know this, we realize that the painting is not a painting of true history;
4) the detail given to the bottom of the painting, partly because of the letters, is completely contradicted by the empty space of the top half.

David: The Coronation of Napoleon, 1805-08, 20'4" x 32'2"

Pierre Vignon: La Madeleine, Paris, France, 1807-42

After his release from prison, David accepted Napoleon's offer to become the "First Painter of the Empire."  The panting of the Coronation of Napoleon, as your book notes, includes some "fictional" information, despite the fact that it appears to be a highly accurate historical record.  If the Death of Marat suggested the beginning of a departure from neoclassicism, this painting appears to be a return to the neoclassical style, which was Napoleon's preferred style.  In terms of content, although it does not use classical history as a subject, it makes a debate between church and empire the subject and implies that the empire is the victor in this debate.  It should also be relatively clear that David's painting of the Coronation is the visual equivalent of the architecture of La Madeleine.  This building was originally intended as a "temple" to Napoleon, begun shortly after he had proclaimed himself emperor.  By the time of its completion, Napoleon was no longer emperor, and the temple of glory became a church.
 
 

Jean-Auguste Ingres: Apotheosis of Homer, 1827, 12'8 x 16'10

By the 1820s, few artists were still painting in a true neo-classical style.  Ingres, a student of David's, believed that David had abandoned neo-classicism for romanticism.  With the Apotheosis of Homer, Ingres essentially paints a manifesto of a style which was still popular but which was less and less the preferred style of artists.  With a painting such as this, Ingres is actually staking out a conservative position in the world of art, and he himself railed against the "modern" style of younger artists.  The painting could be a textbook of neo-classicism: classical "scenery" which includes references to Greek architecture, figures from Greek and Renaissance history, a balanced and symmetric composition, a narrative of moral certainty, and a theatrical relationship to the viewer in the sense that all of the figures are pushed into the front of the painting, as though sitting or standing on stage and performing for an audience, with the painted backdrop of classical Greece rising behind them.  Most important of all, the painting makes an allusion to Raphael's School of Athens although in this case, Ingres has created a pantheon of the artists and poets he personally chose to represent the classical ideal.

Ingres: Apotheosis of Homer, 1827	Giovanni Battista Piranesi: Carceri (Prisons), ca 1750, etching, ca. 16" x 25"

I put these two images next to each other to illustrate the fact that art does not progress in a linear, chronological fashion, even if we tell the story that way.  Ingres' neo-classical painting  was done 75 years after Piranesi's etching.  Although we do not typically identify Piranesi's etchings as examples of romanticism (they come too early), they nonetheless fully capture the meaning of the sublime, an aesthetic quality which is generally associated with romantic art.  But artists and writers were already exploring the notion of the sublime in the 18th century.

One of the contributions of the interest in historical revivalism was an awareness that different periods of history (and art) could produce different effects and experiences.  It was this awareness of the relativity of aesthetic experience that led Edmund Burke to write his treatise on the sublime:  A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757).

Burke described the sublime as awe mixed with terror.  He had noticed that the most intense human emotions were associated with fear and pain, but if they did not cause lasting injury, they were also the most thrilling.  In art, this translated into a preference for the macabre, the monumental, the occult and visions of the catastrophic, qualities which will be a part of Romantic art and which means that one of the characteristics of Romanticism is the sublime, a quality which exists in art, architecture, science, and literature. In science, Isaac Newton's scientific discoveries were considered sublime.