A Lion Attacking a Horse, George Stubbs 1724-1806, British, (between 1768 and 1769). Oil on panel
In spring 2015, the Yale University Art Gallery and the Yale Center for British Art presents their first major joint exhibition, bringing together treasures of the Romantic art movement from their respective collections. The Critique of Reason: Romantic Art, 1760 –1860 comprises more than 300 paintings, sculptures, medals, watercolors, drawings, prints, and photographs by such iconic artists as William Blake, John Constable, Honoré Daumier, David d’Angers, Eugène Delacroix, Henri Fuseli, Théodore Géricault, Francisco de Goya, John Martin, and J. M. W. Turner that expanded the view of Romanticism as a movement opposed to reason and the scientific method. The broad range of works selected challenges the traditional notion of the Romantic artist as a brooding genius given to introversion and fantasy.
The exhibition’s eight thematic sections juxtapose arresting works of art that reveal the Romantics to be attentive explorers of their natural and cultural worlds as well as artists deeply engaged with the mysterious and the spiritual. Two sections of the exhibition explore the tension between subjective expression and scientific description in the Romantic era. “Nature: Spectacle and Specimen” showcases works that straddle the line between art and science; these range from spectacular views of Mount Vesuvius to anatomical and botanical studies. George Stubbs’s A Lion Attacking a Horse (1770), for example, presents an exacting depiction of mammalian anatomy while dramatizing the wildness of its subjects in a highly theatrical composition. “Landscape and the Perceiving Subject” one of the largest sections in the show — boasts some of the most breathtaking works in Yale’s museum collections. In this section, paintings such as Constable’s Hadleigh Castle, The Mouth of the Thames — Morning after a Stormy Night(1829) exemplify how the Romantics used their careful observation of nature, space, light, and weather to evoke mood and meaning.
Wreckers — Coast of Northumberland, with a Steam-Boat Assisting a Ship off Shore (1833 – 1834), Joseph Mallord Willam Turner, 1775-1851, British. Oil on Canvas.
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