Wednesday's Class Overview: Intro to the Enlightenment

NOTE: The questions for Candide are in the post BELOW this one. 

In class today, I showed you three paintings that I felt gave a brief overview of some of the ideas of the Enlightenment, particularly regarding the role artists played in challenging the status quo (especially when the status quo was wealthy, entitled, and held the power of life and death over the populace). The three paintings we looked at are below (click on a picture to see a bigger version):

Sir Thomas Gainsborough's Portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Andrews (1750). Note how he shoved the couple to one side and focused more on the landscape, as if to say they were less important than nature. While this might have been asked of him, to showcase their impressive holdings, it does diminish the couple and their importance in the painting. And note how much 'truth' he offers us about the couple: he doesn't smooth them over or make them pretty. They seem somewhat frumpy, awkward, irritable, and totally removed from one another. The only thing happy in the painting seems to be the dog! Gainsborough seems to be satirizing the couple and diminishing their importance to posterity, letting the artist have the last word. 

In the next painting, Francisco Goya's Charles IV of Spain and his Family (1801), we get much the same thing, but much more audaciously. Goya has thrust the king and his family in a dark room, and shown them in the moment between the 'real' picture, when they would be posing in style and grandeur. Note that most people are looking away, looking bored, looking confused. The king looks a bit drunk; his wife looks proud and dignified, but also looks old--he didn't try to lie about her age or looks. The kids seem scared and lost. And Goya even inserted himself into the picture--you can see him in the shadows before his easel, painting the royal couple (and having a good laugh at their expense). His point? That even the royal family are just people, and can also look old and foolish. 

Finally, we get William Hogarth's Portrait of Miss Mary Edwards (1742). This was a portrait of a woman who was ostracized from society. Though she was once a rich heiress, she made an unfortunate match and her husband began burning through their money to fuel his gambling addiction. Soon they would be destitute, and her young son would have no future. So she took an unprecedented step: she had the priest burn her marriage records, making their union null and void. This, however, made her a whore (she had sex out of wedlock) and her son a bastard, which effectively removed her from society. But so what? She had her money back, and she defied anyone to make her feel shame about protecting her son. Hogarth depicts her as exactly that--proud, defiant, and more than a little beautiful. Does he flatter her? Maybe a little, but he truly seems to respect her, and includes a letter on her desk which is a copy of Elizabeth I's famous speech to her soldiers as the Spanish Armada approached. His point seems to be--this is our modern Elizabeth, a woman who can stand up to tyranny and inspire us! 

Look for these ideas when we read Candide, since it, too, is a portrait of the aristocracy and the elites of Europe in all their glory (and degradation). When you read the book, picture these images in your mind, since they come from the exact same period (Candide was published in 1759).