Locating Beethoven in Art History

Art has swung between the classical and the romantic over several eras:


Eras in the Arts (dates are approximate): 

     1000 - 1200   Romanesque / Byzantine   Classical 

     1150 - 1450   Gothic   Romantic

     1400 - 1600   Renaissance   Classical

     1600 - 1750   Baroque   Romantic    

               (1700 - 1750:  Late Baroque - J.S. Bach & G.F. Handel)  

     1730 - 1820   Neoclassical Era (in music: Classical Era) 

               (1760 - 1800:  High Classical -  Haydn & Mozart)

     1800 - 1910   Romantic Era

               (1795 - 1826:  Beethoven's composing years)


      Classicism in the Visual Arts through the Renaissance


      Romanticism in the Visual Arts into the Baroque Era



     Early 1700s  -  Late Baroque era (Baroque's high point) 
                              Important composers: G.F. Handel and J.S. Bach


          Bartolomeo Christofori invents the piano, but it is unstable and inadequate for serious music.
          The harpsichord and organ will be the primary keyboard instruments until the classical era. 

Late Baroque Architecture - Rococo 
Busy, ornamental, complicated, sensual

 Palace of Versailles (France) 

Asamkirche Munich, Germnay (1733 - 1746)

     (Example of the complexity and busyness of counterpoint in Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 3)


     1730s  -  The classical era's nascent beginnings; Baroque's popularity fades.

         For the younger generation, late Baroque music, like late Baroque architecture (Rococo),
         seemed overly busy and complex; an overloading of the senses.  The development of Style Galant
         begins a simplifying of music from Baroque's complexity.   J.S. Bach's sons C.P.E Bach and
         J.C. Bach, are major figures in the transition.

Ludwigsburg Palace Theater, remodeled neoclassical, c. 1750.
Simple, stately, dignified, elegant

     1750s   -   Bach & Handel die, Baroque is over. 

     1756    -   Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is born.  Haydn is 24 and already composing.

   1759   -   Haydn's first symphony.  The high period of the classical era begins.

                              The piano begins challenging the harpsichord as the preferred keyboard.


      1763   -   The Seven Years' War comes to an end

Anton Raphael Mengs' Prince of Asturias (future Charles IV of Spain), c. 1765
Still, calm, poised, confident, intelligent   

Joesph Wright of Derby - An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump - 1768

     1770   -   Beethoven is born.  Mozart, 14, is reaching his musical maturity. 

Jacques-Louis David - The Death of Socrates (1787)

    1789    -   The French Revolution begins. 

     Dec, 1791   -   Mozart dies at age 35 in Vienna.

     Dec, 1792   -   Beethoven arrives in Vienna. Haydn is 60. Beethoven takes lessons with him

     1795 - 1800  -  Beethoven's compositions begin to challenge the classical forms of Haydn and Mozart.

    c.  1800   -   The first generation of fully romantic poets and painters have
                         already emerged (e.g. William Blake).

William Blake  -  Newton  (1795, reworked 1805)

   Beethoven leads the transition from classicism towards romanticism in music in his 31 years career:

      Early Period     c.  1795 - 1802

      Middle period  c.  1803 - 1814

      Late Period      c.   1815 - 1826.

Théodore Géricault, The Raft of Medusa (c. 1819) - Nature, Drama, Turmoil

     1827     -   Beethoven dies on March 26.

    1830   -  Hector Berlioz's Symphony Fantastique premiers.

                Frederic Chopin, Franz Liszt, Robert Schumann soon emerge.  Although opera remains very
               popular, instrumental music is now very  accessible to the public and is also very popular.
               The instrumental composer-virtuoso, especially Franz Liszt, becomes extremely popular.