Material for Class Discussion

What Values are Implicit in these Two Paintings?



Jacques-Lous David, The Coronation of Napolon, 1807



Eugene Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People (1830)

What Values are Implicit in Each of These Passages

Let me hear no more of that absurd maxim: "We need the new, we need to follow our century, everything changes, everything  is changed." Sophistry -- all of that! Does nature change, do the light and air change, have the passions of the human heart changed since the time of Homer?  "We must follow our century": but suppose my century is wrong.

•    Ingres

The object  of painting is to express,  according to the  nature of the means  at  its  disposal, the  society  which   produced  it.  This is the  way  a mind  free  from  the  prejudices of education should  conceive  of it;  this  is the  way the  great  masters  of all  times  have  understood and  practiced

CASTAGNARY, The Triumph of Naturalism, 1863



What is being valued in the decision to create each of these spaces? What mattered most to the society that created them?




Boulevard Haussmann, Paris

Eastland Plaza, Bloomington, Indiana

What is being foregrounded in each passage? What does that tell us about the values of each author?

Dear child! It is the old Paris that is lost, the city was narrow, unhealthy, insufficient, but picturesque, varied, charming, full of memories. We had our favourite walks a step or two away, and our favourite sights, all happily grouped together! We had our little outings with our own folk:  how nice it was!... Nothing left of the things which once constituted our own little world. . .What is  it  we  are  losing, by God?  Everything! This is not Athens any longer, it is Babylon! It is not the capital of France, but of Europe! A wonder, we shall never see the like – a world! – agreed . . . Nevertheless, it isn't Paris and there are no Parisians any longer.

 . . the Paris he [Napoleon III]built remained. In the broad new boulevards and avenues, the public buildings, the parks and squares, the networks of water mains and sewers, he left a permanent impression on the city. By 1870 his public works had given Paris its present appearance. . . . but the tree-lined boulevards, the broad avenues, the many public parks and squares, the monumental buildings terminating long vistas were all there in 1870; and together with public markets, aqueducts and reservoirs, and great collector sewers created at the same time they have continued to serve Paris to this day.