Nineteenth-Century Art: From Romanticism to Art Nouveau

The nineteenth-century holdings of the Walters Art Gallery are unique amongst museum art collections from this period. This new title presents the highlights from this collection. These include a series of paintings by the foremost masters of the Romantic era, J. A. D. Ingres and Eugene Delacroix, as well as landscapes by painters associated with the Barbizon school. Likewise, the "transportation" series of watercolors that William Walters bought from Honore Daumier in 1864 is generally recognized as the highpoint of nineteenth-century Realism. However, it is in the field of academic art, which dominated French art during the Second Empire (1852-70), that The Walters excels. The conflicts between the academic painters - especially Jean-Leon Gerome and Alexandre Cabanel - and the impressionists are demonstrated by the museum's collection. The author presents the work of Edouard Manet in close proximity to that of his teacher, Thomas Couture, and the landscapes of Claude Monet and Alfred Sisley are juxtaposed with a highly idealized, poetic vision of Egypt by Charles Gleyre, with whom they trained.