in the midst of the 1800's there was a flap of failed popular revolutions all throughout Europe, and in the aftermath of their failure the biedemeirer movement of art rose in response. This art (and furniture and literary) movement focused on the bourgeoisie comfort and middle class family as a subject matter and encouraged a turning inward,, its reminiscent to the cottage core aesthetic a lot of people turned to during the 2020 uprisings
Some classic examples
okay those are not my favorite paintings, just context.
so while this art movement is in full swing Jean-François Millet paints and shows this
very much so in conversation with the fantasy of agricultural leisure of the wider movement, depicting the poorest of these communities with the same language as other artists were using to depict the people who caused these women to need to resort to gleaning. people haaaated this painting and its one of my favorites.
if I can share one more paintings, fifteen years later Gustave Caillebotte cited this as inspiration for his painting The Floor Planners which critics at the time referred to as anti-art lol
anyways. I just love laborers getting to be painted with such beauty and care at a time where culture was violently trying to disregard their existence. I didn't have much energy to write out everything so I really recommend looking up more about these artists as there's a lot more there
Big fan of Georges Braque's Houses at Estaque. Braque was making reference to one of Paul Cezzane's favorite places to paint, but taking it much further into abstraction. This really is my 2nd favorite painter doing an homage to my favorite painter and I'm just a sucker for that. Good thing it's also an amazing painting. Braque's delicate, textural brushwork brings so much life and softness to cubism.
I went with my gut. This is the first work that came to kind.
Alexander Roslin's 1768 painting of his wife, artist Marie Suzanne Giroust. It has so much obvious love and affection poured into it, and she's depicted so beautifully, with her little smile, that it just charms me. So many artists spent all their talent and affection on mistresses or whatever, it's just really delightful to see a guy who paints a mischievous portrait of his cute wife and it's arguably the best work of his career.
One of my favorite paintings is Night Scene at the Yoshiwara, Katsushika Oi, 1844 (吉原格子先之図, 葛飾応為, 1844).
I'm no art aficionado and my knowledge of Hokusai's work is limited to what I learned about through pop culture exposure, but poking deeper and seeing the work his daughter Oi (or Oei, or Oui) did later on floored me. It's an incredible shift from Hokusai's iconic style and the general perception of Ukiyo-e work as the slightly flat look associated with stuff like The Great Wave at Kanagawa to this one with advanced use of light and shadow and a lot of implication rather than direct representation, something wholly apropos of a scene set in Edo's notorious pleasure quarter.
I have a second pick actually.
This is Judith Slaying Holofernes as painted by Artemisia Gentileschi. She was influenced by Caravaggio 's work when she was younger but her depiction of this scene kicks the ass of his. Look at those women. They're women at WORK and that work is BUTCHERING. They're gonna kill the fuck out of this son of a bitch. It's gonna hurt the whole time.
This painting by Ford Madox Brown, is still lodged in my brain
Though unfinished after the death of his own 10month old, the picture when presented by one of the only good art teachers I've had, explained how this suggests a moment where a affluent man is coming to terms against his will with his fooling around
This picture is haunting
The face, the lighting, the juxtaposition of all that warm baby skin full of life next to everything else, ESPECIALLY her expression