Characteristics:

1. Returning to classical forms like contrapposto and like the classic architecture in this painting (barrel vault and pillars) 

2. Incorporating Christian themes in art like Christ on the cross

3. Use of linear perspective shown through the architecture of this painting

4. Use of balance and pyramidal composition (the individuals in the painting positioned in a pyramid form)

Masaccio, The Holy Trinity (Santa Maria Novella, Florence (façade by Alberti): in his 20’s; turning point in painting (fresco) (died at 27)

Awareness of Brunelleschi; deep space, linear perspective (application of mathematics to pictorial organization)

standing in contrapposto which is a reference to classic style, depict the David who was a symbol of Florence's pride in art, were in different locations then moved, have realistic sculpted bodies (humanistic), sculpted from block of marble, is really large (18ft tall), more classical body type

Michelangelo returned to Florence; now a republic again; commissioned to build statue for Florence Cathedral

18-ft. block of marble, already worked on by another sculptor and discarded

When completed, committee decided to put it in front of the government seat: symbol of the republic

formal elements: linear perspective, lighting highlight is the girl (focal point, tenebrism), oil painting, oranges create contrast with blues (complementary colors), pyramid, soft loose brush work, The top portion of the painting is relatively dark and empty, in contrast with the lighter and busier bottom portion, The artist used loose brushstrokes in details such as the artist's hand and the girls' dresses,

Iconography: self portrait of the artist to the far left, king and queen in the mirror, perspective of the king and queen getting a painted portrait, the girl in the middle is the princess, the other girls around the princess are the maids of honor, man in the doorway is the Chamberlin, the little people at the far right by the dogs are the entertainers/dwarves, it could be a painting of a creating a painting

social historical: a genre scene, its a portrait of king queen princess and artist, the king has collected a lot of art (paintings on the wall) and its important to this royal fam in Spain, during the counter reformation in Spain, paintings by Rubens

other: Picasso also painted this, red cross on artist chest shows honor from the king and queen,

group portrait, genre scene (Prado Museum, Madrid)

Colorist like Titian: brushstoke streaks

Moment in time: natural human gestures and expressions (ordinary moment in the artist’s studio)

Who is center of interest? Princess Marguerita: lightest, center, attended to

King and queen (Philip IV and Maria Anna) image in mirror (could be us); different levels of illusion, portraiture

Claim to nobility of artist; used to be looked down on, used their hands; elevates both himself and the profession of painting

Emphasis on light; brushwork (had seen Titians in kings collection)

“To tell the truth, I do not like Raphael at all. It is in Venice that the finest things are to be found... It is Titian who carries the day". (Velazquez)

The painting is likely to have been influenced by Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait, of 1434. At the time, van Eyck's painting hung in Philip's palace, and would have been familiar to Velázquez.

• Drawn from Roman history, the story highlights the heroicism of the men who have sworn to defend Rome to the death.

• David's rendering of anatomy and use of lighting suggest the influence of Greco-Roman and Renaissance sculpture that he studied in Rome.

• David rejected the poetic excess of the Rococo style in favor of a paired down image and heavily structured composition.

• The story of the Oath of the Horatii emphasizes the heroicism of self-sacrifice for the sake of a greater moral cause instead of concern over one's own personal interests.

• Oath of the Horatii reflects the Enlightenment idea that

  women were too emotional and devoted to self and family.

Intended to be a moral example

Tight brushstroke, fine detail, Roman influence, heroic figures, stand for what it right, planarity,

Student of Boucher. Father killed in a duel, raised by uncles who were architects; wanted him to be an architect; disillusioned by the French court; wanted to paint noble, uplifting, moral scenes; also wanted paintings to be clear, precise, easy to read

13’, in the Louvre;

Painted while in Rome; came in contact with Mengs, Winckelmann, Hamilton and admired their work; this work became immediate sensation

Roman story: border dispute between Rome and neighboring Alba settled by a sword fight involving three soldiers from each side: Horatii brothers for Rome and Curiatii brothers for Alba; a Horatii sister was engaged to a Curiatii brother, and a Horatii brother was married to a Curiatii sister;

Scene: The Horatii, led by father, take a vow to fight to the death for their country

Compare with Boucher: What is neoclassical? Composition simple and striking; hard lines; austere space; stark columns (Tuscan Doric) firm stance contrasted with mourning women

Noble and virtuous action; country above personal feelings for family

Neoclassical elements: Planarity, Linearity (sharp lines), tight brushwork, sculptural forms, Classical figures (sculpturally rendered) and themes (also clarity), moralistic subject; strong men, weak women (common depiction at the time)

Austere; bare floors and walls/ Doric columns and arches show Roman setting and frame each grouping

Lighting: harsh light casts precise shadows (influenced by Caravaggio)

Setting and costumes carefully researched

Integrated message with style

Quintessential Neoclassical picture, but horror of impending violence, bloodbath—undercurrents of Romanticism

Influential in start of French Revolution (although David wasn’t a revolutionary at the time he painted it)

formal elements: The artist used complementary colors.

just painting it as it is

The name Impressionism comes from this work; derogatory term by a critic at the first Impressionist exhibition taken from the title; just impressions, not finished paintings; looked sketchy, unfinished

Shares characteristics with Realism: contemporary subjects, flat/unfinished look, record of the moment

Different: more about the nouveau riche and middle class; leisure activities

Focused more on landscapes and cityscapes than figures

Worked outdoors completely to record light, atmosphere

Rather than painting objects, they painted the colored light that reflected off objects

Painted what they saw, not what they knew (scientific)

Monet said himself that “it really couldn’t pass for a view of Le Havre”

“While Realism and Impressionism had sought to capture the essence of the modern world, Post-Impressionism, Symbolism, and Art Nouveau largely struggled to escape it and to provide an antidote.”

Feelings of modern society in Germany: decadent, immoral, materialistic; monstrous women

emphasis on shape and unnatural colors of greens and pinks, street seems tipped up perspective influence from Japanese woodblock (the scream), they named themselves, the bridge was their feelings on Germany that its become materialistic and this painting shows the downhill spiral society is going through, women are prostitutes

The initial response to Marcel Duchamp's Fountain was that It was not accepted into the show of American Independent Artists.

the artist shows an interest in questioning the definition of art, Absurdity, Art as philosophy

entered with fake name and his art was rejected and he said he is an artist and any art can be accepted, he can just use something random and make it art

Duchamp went to NYC to escape war

“DADA” applied in retrospect; similar goals

“Readymade”; entered in 1917 independent art show

Rejected (although non-juried show); Duchamp knew committee would not consider it art

Issues: What is art? Does it have to be created? (He CHOSE it); art is about ideas

Defies conventional notions of beauty

HUMOR

Jackson Pollock was interested in mythology and primitive art, psychoanalysis and looking inward, and pushing the boundaries of what painting could be

gesture painting, no focal point, can't recreate it, like handwriting, there's unity and variety pf forms and mixes of colors, order in the chaos,

After WWII: Turning point in the art world: focus shifted from Paris to NY

America’s first major art movement, Abstract Expressionism; evolved from Surrealism; influence of many European artists in NY during wars

Like Matisse, Picasso, Kandinsky—breaking new rules (how many?)

Story: Asked his wife Lee Krasner “Is this a painting?”

Gesture paintings: about process; Allover paintings: no focal point; culmination of trend of the emergence of the picture plane as an independent entity (since Cezanne—even Manet)

Existentialism reaction to destruction of world wars: no absolute truths

“The one thing that could be trusted and believed in was the self, and that became the sole subject of Abstract Expressionist painting”—individualism; no mistaking one artist for another (story about art teacher; students all did Pollock style);

Precedent to performance art; canvas totally gone, spontaneous, end product unknown

all of the kinds of soup that you can buy in 1964, used silk screen to make it go faster and called his studio a factory like its mass produced, "I am a Machine" he was a workaholic

Soup=letter

Andy Warhol, Campbell’s Soup Cans, 1961-64: images from everyday life (like Dutch art) but no reverence, not carefully arranged, no hidden symbolism or meaning

All 32 types of Campbell’s soups at the time; monotonous, repetitive (indifferent vs. emotionalism of abstract expressionism)

Called studio the Factory; used silkscreen process; removes artists’ hand, individualism

Workaholic, highly involved in process; but gave illusion of barely touching work

Art is a commodity; name brand product, not necessarily about technique or craftsmanship (you want to buy a Warhol)

Pervasiveness of advertising, mass production, uniformity, consumerism: a portrait of America

means nothing no emotion, just look at colors but people still make something out of it, it is what it is,

More than 11 feet wide;

Reduced painting to a barebones simplicity: Hard-Edge Abstraction; machine precision

Geometric shapes in solid primary and secondary colors; no figure and ground; all on same plane

Only about color and movement; no reference to artist; no reference to  subject or meaning; strips everything else away

Left side fixed, right side has movement?

Figure/ground relationships change?

Acrylic

Influenced by contours of typeface

Flat and sculptural

Representational and abstract

Historical and modern

Donatello, David: Once stood in the courtyard of the Medici palace: powerful ruling family and patrons of the arts for generations (now in Bargello Museum in Florence)

May be first free-standing, life-size nude statue made since antiquity

Expensive

Meant to be seen on every side (contrapposto)

Adolescent boy

David: symbol of Florence (threatened by Duke of Milan early 1400’s; Republic)

Self-awakening; David admires what he has done

Characteristics barrowed from International Gothic: the figures that seem to float, the elegant, elongated bodies, the flat patterns in the garden

example of a social-historical: The subject matter shows the interest in humanism and classical learning typical of the time this work was painted.

6’x10’

Very different in some ways from contemporary painting in Florence

Mythology; for Medici circle (oranges represent medici family as well as fertility)

The reading of the picture is from right to left: Zephyr, the biting wind of March, kidnaps and possesses the nymph Chloris, whom he later marries and transforms into a deity; she becomes the goddess of Spring, eternal bearer of life, and is scattering roses on the ground.

Venus and Cupid, 3 graces, Hermes (Roman equivalent of Mercury) or Mars

Typical of Renaissance: classical theme, clothing; clothing shows form underneath

Northern influence: detailed plants, flat, looks like tapestry, elegant poses, floating rather than weighty bodies, courtly elegance

Overall, the painting is a forceful example of the art of the High Renaissance, when many artists strove to attain Balance, stability, and order

The composition includes a spacious monumental structure that frames the figures and reflects the study of buildings from ancient Rome

It was commissioned by Pope Julius II in Rome for his library

a symbol of the republic and they viewed David as a symbol of Florence. The city got their pride from the various artwork and sculptures.

Man with black hat on right self-portrait (Vasari); puts himself with mathematicians and scientists: perspective mastered completely; Status of artists as intellectuals, not just craftsmen

Man deep in thought on steps portrait of Michelangelo (although rivals—emphasizes brooding?)

Any paintings this reminds you of? (Last Supper? Delivery of the Keys?)

Plato’s side: philosophers concerned with mysteries beyond the world (he points up); based on the image of Leonardo da Vinci

Aristotle’s side: concerned with earthly (points down)

Greek philosophers gathered around Plato and Aristotle; teach one another and inspire a new age in the spirit of calm reason

Euclid (based on image of Donato Bramante), Heraclitus (based on Michelangelo), Pythagoras, Ptolemy, Appelles (great Greek artist who painted Alexander the Great) is a self-portrait of Raphael

Message: the great artists of the day parallel the great ancient minds!

1517: Martin Luther posted 95 theses (statements) challenging the doctrine of Catholicism; whole regions left Catholic Church (mostly northern Europe); no longer 1 religious power

Protestant movement: some urged destruction of religious images (idolatrous)—called iconoclism

Colassal pilasters (more than one story) emphasize massiveness, strength

Dome: compare with Brunelleschi

Downward thrust vs. upward thrust (double columns, ribs; continue upward thrust of colassal  pilasters; continues in tall lantern on top

Almost all domes built between 1600 and 1900 were influenced by it (completed by Giaomo della Porta)

Upward thrust

Anti-classical; breaks rules (you have to know the rules to break them)

Parody of Bramante’s perfect classical style:

  Keystones:

  not fully settled or slipping out

  over rectangular niches (no arches)

  massive columns holding narrow architraves

  architraves break midway between columns

  triglyphs slipping down

Requires a sophisticated audience, patrons (Duke Frederigo Gonzaga)

According to standards of Vitruvius (classical) or Bramante (high Ren) everything wrong!

  pediment above door is broken

  pilasters around blank niches taper downward

  columns belong to no order; in pairs

  columnms have no supportive function (sunken)

  scroll backets support nothing

  mismatched staircase

  recessed columns (supposed to project from wall to stress separate identities)

Michelangelo dared to defy the classical system-

Florence: Mannerism

What has Fiorentino learned from Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael?

Expressive grouping = Mike

Chiaroscuro = Leo

grace = Raph

What’s different?

Colors unnatural (sky, Christ is greenish)

Light—irrational, spotlights

Background—flat, one plane, stagelike (no longer window looking onto nature)

Center is empty

Figures elongated

oil on panel, no background other than clouds

Descent from the cross: No cross; figures all pushed to front plane; space ambiguous

Colors more muted (desaturated)

Figures elongated, graceful (like International Gothic): Mannerists focused more on elegance, complicated compositions, emotion than on order, naturalism, rationality—courtly taste; the subject is elegance

Self-portrait to the right of Mary

Figures interwoven but no real interaction; personal grief; empty center

New Pope (Paul III) trying to strengthen Catholic Church after Reformation

Realized value of commissioning large-scale projects from leading artists

Called M to Rome, where he lived the rest of his life

Altar wall of Sistine Chapel (had to remove existing fresco as well as part of his own ceiling fresco (6 years)

Matt 24:29-31

M replaces physical torment with spiritual agony

Angels trumpet signal, Christ raises his arm, dead come out of the ground

Dead rise on left, plunge down to hell on right (through Charon on boat: ferryman of Hades)

Nudity: okay for mythology, some protested on religious paintings (M. thought human body was sacred and therefore okay to paint

Died 1564; one of his assistants commissioned to add bits of clothing

Correggio's pupil

Commissioned by a noblewoman for family chapel; all about elegance; aristocratic taste

Everything elongated—neck, bodies, hand, oval faces; amphora repeated in Mary’s body

Not going for perfect balance of composition but gracefulness, “cold elegance”?

Irrational perspective

Jupiter takes shape of a white bull, beguiles Europa, carries her off

Boston—Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum

Free brushwork, rich colors, detail

Impasto: loaded brush with paint rather than building up layers of tinted glazes

Larger canvas; makes rough surface rather than smooth, mirrorlike surface

Color and light emphasized over line

Important influence through workshop: El Greco studied before heading to Spain; Veronese and Tintoretto 2 leading painters after Titian’s death

Aimed for naturalism of Titian’s earlier work, added everyday reality (animals, food, clothing details) and monumental architectural frameworks and pageantry, huge scale (18’x42’)

Spirituality, psychology gives way to observation

Subject of Grand Inquisition for including “buffoons, drunkards, Germans, dwarfs, and similar vulgarities” unsuitable for a sacred scene; Veronese said, “I received the commission to decorate the picture as I saw fit. It is large, and it seemed to me, it could hold many figures.” In the end, the Inquisition just required him to change the title from Last Supper to Feast in the House of Levi

Expressive; compare with Leonardo (above)

Leonardo: balance, clarity

Tintoretto: sharp angles, not centered, deep perspective, Christ on side

Naturalistic?  everyday clutter

Angels, smoke in oil lamps, halo; blur between natural and supernatural; divine in everyday setting

Miracle of the Eucharist (drama of Judas downplayed)

Proud, sophisticated, intellectual—not merchant or worker

Cool demeanor; formal, arrogant?

Graceful hands

Masks=deceit; favorite device; maybe the young man is deceitful in his arrogance; wandering eye

The sitter is not known, but he must have belonged to Bronzino's close circle of literary friends in Florence, a number of whom sat for the artist. Bronzino himself composed verses in the style of the great Florentine poet Petrarch (1304–74), and the fanciful and witty details in this picture—the carved grotesque heads on the table and chair and the masklike face suggested in the folds of the youth's breeches—would have been appreciated by writers as comments on masks and identity. The book is doubtless a collection of poems.

twisted figures

Famous throughout Italy and beyond; exchanged drawings with Michelangelo

Hired by Philip II of Spain as his court artist (portraits); spent 20 years there

Asserts her status as an artist? Celebrity; her self-portraits were in high demand

Women artists: names & records of works in Greece and Rome recorded by Pliny

  records of women manuscript illuminators in Middle Ages (but vast majority of artists were anonymous until late Gothic)

  one of first women to emerge as a distinct artistic personality

1. Return to classical forms in sculpture and architecture (including
interest in perfect shapes and proportions)
2. Desire to combine classical forms with Christian beliefs
3. Understanding of contrapposto (weight distribution)
4. Linear perspective and understanding of how to depict things
mathematically
5. Understanding of light source, modeling, atmospheric
perspective
6. Beginning of use of oil paint in Italy with Mantegna and Bellini
7. Interest in balance, calm, order; pyramidal compositions
8. Mostly Christian subjects; some mythological
9. Influence of Northern Italy in love of pattern, detail, and ¾ view

Linear perspective, contrapposto perfected
Still looking to ancient architecture, sculpture, mythology,
philosophy
Fresco, oil, marble
Religious (Christian) subjects, portraits, mythology/history
Sfumato, pyramidal compositions, ¾ pose, naturalism in human
body and more complex poses
Idea of artist as genius; perfect proportions; elegance and
perfection
Venice: emphasis on mood, light, color, nature

For monastery church and hospital: theme of disease and healing

Main illness at hospital: St. Anthony’s Fire (caused by a fungus that grew on rye; caused convulsions and gangrene, often compelled amputation

2 moveable halves of the predella, if slid apart, made it appear that the legs of the body of Christ had been amputated (also one of Christ’s arms); also blackening of feet

View during the week: St. Sebastion (left) protects against plague

                St. Anthony Abbot (right) identified with miraculous cure; healer

                crucifixion in the center (heroic scale)

  Mary and John on left, Mary Magdelene below, John the Baptist on right (he must increase and I must decrease)

               expressive more than naturalistic: scale of Christ, supernatural light, gnarled fingers, muscles and lacerations;

Mood? “Dreadful ugliness of pain”

Made for open market (not commissioned); had to invest own materials and unpaid time, but they sold widely

Depiction of book of Revelation (played on fears of people about Second Coming of Christ in the year 1500)

Death trampling bishop

Famine swinging scales

War wielding sword

Pestilence drawing bow

Woodcut; but like engraving because of hatching; transformed technique of woodcuts all over Europe

Frontal pose usually reserved for images of Christ: powerful, idealized

Texture detail from northern tradition

painted for a town hall

The monumentality and weight of the figures, along with the naturalistic rendering of the folds in the cloth, were influenced by Italian Ren art

The placement of the figures, along with the text shown in the open Bible and in the writing beneath, symbolize Dürer’s allegiance to Martin Luther and his teachings

2 ambassadors

objects and dress of the 2 men show the active vs the contemplative life

painting style is characterized by linear perspective, anamorphic perspective, and intense detail (not loose brushstrokes)

references to the Protestant Reformation is The broken string on the lute (symbolizing discord), The open hymn written by Martin Luther, The hidden Christian elements of the crucifix and the distorted skull

(there are NOT references to the earthly knowledge and accomplishments)

Son of an artist, born in Germany; had to leave Switzerland to escape climate of iconoclasm

Friend Erasmus (humanist writer) sent recommendation to Thomas More, royal advisor in England: “Here in [in Basel] the arts are out in the cold

2 humanists; meticulous detail and interest in symbolism (northern influence) with perspective, stability, and balance (Italian influence)

Anamorphic image

Broke away from Catholic Church and started Church of England 1534 (why?) wanted divorce from Catherine of Aragon (no male heir to throne)

Supreme confidence: square figure (ruthless, commanding personality), opulent, frontal figure like Durer; public image of power

Master of textures—back to Jan van Eyck

Netherlands: revolted against Spanish rule for religious reform

Widespread iconoclasm in Netherlands; new subjects

Artists made works of art for open market instead of commissions

Market economy, everyday scene (Antwerp)

But religious subject in background (like a little window on the past): Mary and Jesus on the flight into Egypt giving bread to poor, who are ignored by worshipers lining up for church; tavern scene on right; oysters=lust, not a symbol of Christianity

Symbolism? Pretzels eaten at Lent (prayer—folded arms), fish crossed (twice)=Christianity; also meat hanging as Christ would hang from the cross; Joseph and Mary are saving him now but in the end he will die on the cross to fulfill his mission

Maybe still wanted to have Christian message but disguised as genre scene (scene from everyday life)

Physical vs. spiritual food

Explored landscape, peasant life (folk customs, daily life), moral allegory

Highly educated; wealthy merchants and humanists were his main clients

Depicts the months of the year (like les Tres Riches Heures): landscape is the subject

How does the artist draw us into deep space in the painting?

Diagonal lines, repetition of trees;

Elements of design: shape, repetition of shapes, blue/gray/green color, contrast

Disguised himself as a peasant to watch their activities

Looks storybookish or naive, but perspective mastered

Looks noisy

Martin Luther protest about Catholic Church, Selling of indulgences, veneration of Mary, saints, ;

Bible is authority, not pope (now available because of printing press and translations); also asserted grace over works

 
Iconoclasm: destruction of religious images
Anamorphic Perspective: distorted perspective where the viewer has to be in a specific vantage point to view the image
Genre Scene: scene from everyday life

On Sundays and feast days the outer wings opened: Annunciation, Angel Concert for Madonna and Child, Resurrection: jubilant! About salvation

Music, herbs, baths, and light: therapy for sufferers at the hospital (“St. Anthony’s fire”—from eating spoiled rye)

Hope to the sick, consolation to the dying

Rich color! Iridescent

Patronage more and more from rising middle-class merchants, bankers, and other private collectors

Key Points:

Rubens brings Baroque art to the north

   Patronage more and more from rising middle-class merchants, bankers, and other private collectors

   New subject matter: portraits, views of home interiors, still-lifes, genre scenes (depiction of everyday life) and landscapes

   Non-religious art with moral messages: vanitas symbols and memento mori themes

•

•New subject matter: portraits, views of home interiors, still lifes, genre scenes (depiction of everyday life) and landscapes

Characteristics

Drama

Energy and movement

Dynamic balance (diagonals, curves, countercurves, etc.)

High contrast (dark & light, etc.)

Emotion

Element of time

Viewer involvement

Naturalism of the Renaissance

Peter Paul Rubens

intellectual artist and ambassador, did tons of oil painted sketches of heads of people, he adds a lot of blues and greens and does loose brush strokes

Born in Antwerp, family Protestant; left because of war with Spain; at 10, family returned, converted to Catholicism; Rubens committed to Catholicism

At 23, went to Italy to study art for 8 years; returned and painted this, his first masterpiece

Look for characteristics of Baroque art:

Drama

Large scale

Energy and movement

Dynamic balance (curves, counter curves, etc.)

High contrast (dark & light, etc.)

Emotion

Element of time

Naturalism of the Renaissance

Caravaggio: tenebrism; uses light symbolically (Christ lightest)

Like Bernini, uses naturalism to show supernatural forces, energy

Naturalism of plants, dog, armor more northern in tradition (love of detail); mix of north and south

Expressive

Influence of Titian, Tintoretto: rich, vibrant color

Stark diagonal, heroic and victorious Christ: wanted to portray strength of Catholic Church: Message: “Catholicism continues to be victorious”

Flemish like Rubens; most valued assistant before age 20; left so as not to be under  Rubens’ shadow

Became court painter to Charles I in England

Style of Titian; colorist

Famous for portraits; emphasized costume, pose, detail, virtuosity

More informal for court portraits because outside; still grand (king of all I see?); off-center but still focal point: Why? He looks right at us (and down at us)

soon after this painting there was a civil war and Charles I was beheaded

Family life: presents

Details of clothing, home interiors

Moral of jealousy, greed, pettiness (Children receiving gifts on St. Nicholas day)

banquet piece

earliest significant woman painter of Dutch Baroque,

(artists began to specialize; niche in market)

Chose different textures and surfaces; shows off skill

Moralizing: peeled fruit (lemons rare; but don’t last), wine glass not full (pleasures don’t last); broken glass=transience of life, passing of earthly pleasures (vanitas again)

Feast for the eyes; super naturalism, handling of light, reflections (goes back to Jan van Eyck; but now the subject itself, not just background),

Almost monochromatic (unlike the ones from Flanders)

female painter specialized in flowers and insects, hidden "I Spy" in painting of insects, dramatic lighting, movement and diagonal lines of flowers like the one hanging down, fleeting element of time, passage of seasons (wilting flowers while others are young, grow at different times), life is short, viewer involvement with the hidden bugs, naturalistic, her father was a scientist and so her paintings were scientific in a way,

Rachel Ruysch one of the leading Dutch flower painters (also in Flanders)

Father was a professor of anatomy and botany; she knew each flower and insect she used (all accurately depicted)

Fallen flower=vanitas again, brevity of life

Still lifes ranked low in perceived quality so women were permitted to paint; theoreticians didn’t consider important, but people did! Loved to collect

“trompe l’oeil”= fool the eye: life size, flies or insects look real, drops of water; illusionism

people in distance are bleaching linen on their land

Mostly sky, light on workers; holy light? Now on regular people, spirituality in the work they do, fleeting time with the light and shy and clouds, appealed to collectors because they would like a painting of their city and the sky

Jordaens uses this painting to express his distaste for drunkenness with the motto inscribed at the top that translates "Nothing seems more like a madman than a drunkard" = moral, appealed to the middle class,

Impasto: thickly applied oil paint

Protestant Reformation: political and cultural movement that challenged Catholic church authority that led to Portestantism
Catholic Counter-Reformation: see pic
Tenebrism: strong contrast of light and dark
Colossal Order: columns/pilasters extends multiple stories of a building
Genre Scene: everyday life scene
Vanitas symbol: still life w/ symbolic objects to convey transcendence of life and worldly pleasures and death
Memento Mori: remember death
Baroque Classicism: art tech that draws on classic influence, popular in France 17th cent
Grand Manner: style popular in Europe, paintings that depict historical, mythic, or biblical scenes
Intellectual Style: subcategory of art theory and writing historiography
Ideal Landscape: beautiful and harmonious than reality
Idyllic Landscape: peaceful, charming, simple rustic life

Holland: New type of painting: group portraits; voluntary militia but also like club; formal portrait but look relaxed, as in genre scenes

Reminds us of Last Supper; also fb

Looks like a moment in time but monumentalized by big curtain, flags, sashes

allegory of the 5 senses

taste: wine

touch: holding wine

smell: wine

site: hes looking at us, were looking at him

mouth open slightly

frans hal worked in harlem and painted quickly

Dramatic moment from Caravaggio; spontaneity

Dashing brushstrokes (visible); suggest lace, etc.

Illusion of a quick sketch

had to make a masterpiece to become show her skills, painted herself painting another painting of a fiddler and they both have this look of joy, Most impt follower of Frans Hals; shows spontaneity of Hals

Shows her as a portraitist and a genre painter (about age 21); also shows her status by her fancy clothing; member of artists’ guild in Haarlem, became a master with her own students. loose brush stroke

Dramatic light (candle); suspenseful mood, intimacy

How does she feel? uncomfy

Different from other “proposition” scenes with jovial women; point of view of woman?

Signature J, L, and star; pun on name which means “leading star”

formal elements: The artist uses many diagonal lines to give a sense of energy and movement to the work.

characteristics typical of Baroque art: tenebrism, a sense of movement and action, diagonal lines

The Night Watch by Rembrandt was painted fora militia group,
The little girl in the light dress is a mascot figure

just a normal portrait of a militia group, on the side of in background is the artist, the little girl is a mascot,

Became famous for portraiture (Rembrandt’s largest painting)

Military company, night guards; each contributed money; R didn’t want it to be mechanically posed; some unhappy because not equally represented? legend; overlapping, Baroque lighting

Involves us psychologically—varied expressions, details; Widely admired

Christ healing, scenes of the sick, crippler, someone bringing their baby, John 8:12,

Christ preaching: etching and drypoint—no acid bath

Wide range of tonal values, light and dark

Mood? Gentle; how does he make Christ the focal point?

It is also called Christ healing the sick, Christ with the Sick around Him, Receiving Little Children, or Christ preaching, from

Gospel of Matthew chapter 19, including Christ healing the sick, debating with scholars and calling on children to come to him.^[4] The rich young man mentioned in the chapter is leaving through the gateway on the right.^[4]

Highlights? Hands and face (soul); knit eyebrows

Dramatic light and shadow, but subtle gradations, textures, effects of light

Clothing: liked to dress sitters (and himself) up in costumes

Age 52, mature artist: frontal pose usually reserved for whom? Christ, kings (see next slide)

Rembrandt portrays himself as a king (with scepter)—but king of painting

Scepter is really painter’s tool (mahl stick): hold with left hand against canvas, rest right hand to keep steady

Frick Museum, NYC

all about balance, shes perganant, Everyday scene, but disguised symbolism: Last Judgment scene in background=every soul is weighed (he was Catholic in Protestant Holland)

What does woman weigh? Riches vs. spirituality? Her own life or her unborn child’s?

How is painting balanced? Vanishing point near her pinky

Still moments; private (not boisterous like most Dutch genre scenes); reverence, holiness of the ordinary

Natural light, shimmering beads of light, light shines on her face

Careful compositions

Vermeer: light on earring, lips; shows their wetness

How does she look at us? Reproach, sympathy, uncertainty, empathy? All of the above

First time in U.S. 2013

Key Points:

Baroque Classicism

Absolute power

The Royal Academy is introduced

“Ideal” and “Idyllic” landscapes

Like Caravaggio; night scene, shows spirituality through dramatic light

Classical: dignity, order, restraint (not outwardly dramatic), simplified forms; rational composition

brought “classicism” to forefront; spent entire career in Rome except for the two years he was summoned by Louis XIII; artists at French Royal Academy chose his style to be model for French artists.

One of first “heroic deathbed” scenes

In Rome: studied ancient sculpture, paintings of Raphael

Story: (19 A.D.): Germanicus was a Roman general fighting against Germanic tribes; his adoptive father, the ruler in Syria, poisoned him

Left: loyal soldiers swear revenge; right: mourning family

Architecture is stage; figures horizontal (classical frieze) deep space but curtain backdrop makes shallow space

Poussin’s Grand Manner: subject should be heroic, dignity in execution (not too much minute detail—wouldn’t have liked early northern Renaissance art), linear perspective

Arcadia, referenced in Poussin's Et in Arcadia Ego, refers to a mythic and ideal place (based on an area in Greece). Longing for the past and the brevity of human life.

memento mori, they look classical, the tomb is older than them, the trees are older than the tomb = passage of time,

Three shepherds, accompanied by a girl, have come upon a tomb and stop to decipher the inscription carved in its surface: Et in Arcadia Ego

Slowly the realization dawns upon them that death is present even in Arcadia, that someone who once enjoyed the carefree life that they now lead is dead and buried in the tomb

·      What does “Arcadia” refer to

Refers to death, mystic ideal place

·      What period of art are the figures in this painting based on?

Ancient Greek and Roman classical period

·      What is the message on the tomb that one of the figures points to?

”I too am in Arcadia.” Or “I too once lived in Arcadia.”

·      What elements of the painting suggest a passage of time?

The setting sun in the landscape and the shadow on the tomb and the stone is worn and looks very ancient

invented “ideal landscape:” same idea with Sabine women: not a particular place but composed in his mind; trees balance composition,architecture parallel to picture plan

somber calm; stoic; rational, physical world showing spiritual, eternal ideals

Restraint, order imposed even on nature

John identified by eagle

Shows fall of different civilizations; Christianity will not fall (John is writing book of Revelation about apocalypse)

Places to rest in foreground, middle ground, background

·      What is the story behind this painting?

St. John writing the book of revelation in a peaceful landscape

·      What does the eagle in the painting symbolize?

St John

·      What is an “ideal landscape?” What are qualities of the “ideal landscape” in this painting?

Foreground with figure, a pathway, and trees, the middle ground with buildings, and the background with mountains and clouds

·      What elements of the painting suggest a passage of time?

Ruins of classical buildings/temple and an ancient obelisk

Difference from Poussin landscape? Still classical, but revels in beauty of nature; not moralizing; more luscious, atmospheric

 Idyllic: glowing color, light; soft transition between foreground, middle ground, and background; poetic (did sketches outdoors)

Also spent most of life in Rome, liked the countryside; made lots of drawings on site; also first artist known to have made oil studies outside

Still composed landscapes like Poussin; not interested in accuracy but in poetic quality; often based on ancient writings

Hazy atmosphere, How does he show space? gradual receding into space (but can identify foreground, middle ground, and background)

Elevated the status of landscape painting by adding historical, biblical, and mythological subjects

Poussinistes vs. Rubenistes: 2 groups of artist & critics in the French Royal Academy of Painting and sculpture, debated importance of drawing vs color in painting, line vs. color (started with Michelangelo/Titian; then Poussin/Rubens)

  Poussin: line appealed to the mind and is superior to color, which appealed to the senses;

  Rubenistes: color is truer to nature and appeals to everyone; line appeals only to the expert few; (Rubenistes win out)

The Grand Tour: cultural educat. trip from 17th-19th cent European aristocrats visited art and architecture across Europe

Moral Narratives: idea that art can teach viewers about ethical behavior and virtues

Just an apartment, party you would have, hosted by women, beautiful living room now in Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY

Opulent, decorative, highly detailed, gold and pastels

Rococo comes from word “rocaille”—shells and pebbles used for inlaid decorations

Salon—place for intimate gatherings full of witty conversation

Artifice valued

Social suicide: enthusiasm and sincerity

social-historical: Most works of art during this period were commissioned by the aristocracy.

The dance-like way the couples interact shows the artists personal interest in opera and theater

The use of color and open brushwork in this detail reflects Watteau's affinity with the Rubenistes

• The theme of the fête galante

• The playful treatment of love and sexuality

• The depiction of the aristocratic lifestyle

• The lush and sensuous painting style

elegant in nature, different stages in a dance, show aristocracy way of life, statue of Venus, cupid baby, entered into royal academy as reception piece, artist turn it in late. she painted this bc It was a reception piece for the French Academy.
The emphasis on color and open brushwork in Pilgrimage to Cythera reflects Watteau's affinity with Rubenistes

Subject?

Entrance piece for French Academy; didn’t fit any of the categories, but instead of reject the work, the judges created a new category; fete-galantes= scenes of love

Poussinistes vs. Rubenistes

Which side won the day? Colorists

Loved Rubens; made many drawings after his style; sensual use of color; adds golden haze

Started career painting sets for theater; most of his works have quality of being on stage (like a dance)

Idyllic images of aristocratic life; elegant figures luxuriously dressed in outdoor settings (back to the Limbourg brothers book of hours)

Subject: not historical or mythological; didn’t fit categories at French Academy, so they created a new category of painting: fetes galantes—scenes of love, sentimentality, melancholy

pilgrimage to Cythera=island of love in classical mythology, one of the settings for the birth of Aphrodite/Venus

Are they arriving or leaving? About to board boat? Looking back, melancholy, nostalgia

Sculpture of Venus on right; they pay homage to her; delicate colors suggest gentle nature of lovers’ relationships; subtle gradations of tone

Figures smaller in scale than most Baroque

After Watteau’s death, his art fell out of fashion. During the French Revolution, some eighty years after the work was painted, his depictions of lavishly set pastoral escapades were associated with the old days of the monarchy and a frivolous aristocracy. This particular piece, which had entered the collection of the Louvre in 1795, was used by art students for target practice; an account by Pierre Bergeret (1782–1863) describes the drawing students throwing bread pellets at it.^[3] In the early 19th century the curator at the Louvre was forced to place it in storage until 1816 in order to protect the painting from angry protesters. It was not until the 1830s that Watteau and the Rococo returned into fashion.

Gersaint’s Signboard, 1721

Posted outside of his friend’s art gallery

Watteau’s last work (died soon afterwards of tuberculosis)

People admired natural, elegant poses of figures, satin and fabrics

Portrait of Louis XIV being put in crate (he just passed away; out with the old)

Appealed to sophistication: art collectors, artists, mirrors, clocks

Studied with Watteau;  compare faces

court painter to Madame de Pompadour—Louis XV’s mistress and political advisor and major patron of the arts; known for being educated, cultured, beautiful, elegant, sophisticated;

Luxurious room, opulent dress, surrounded by accomplishments as an educated woman (books, papers)

Rococo: pastel colors, opulence, leisurely pose, aristocratic taste; also seductive (references to Venus: cupid, roses)

Artfinder (Art of the Day): This sumptuous portrait embodies the joie de vivre of the French Rococo style in general and Boucher’s style in particular: the cool harmony of colors, luminous effect, and conspicuous leisure. Here the sumptuously attired mistress of Louis XV is depicted reclining gracefully on a pillow-strewn divan. The model of physical perfection, she is also the embodiment of style and cultivation. The drawings, books, maps, and writing instruments allude to her considerable intellectual gifts and interests. One of many portraits Boucher painted of Pompadour, this celebrates her official elevation as lady-in-waiting to her lover’s wife.

guy behind her is her chaperone, the guy in front of her is her lover, scandalous in a aristocratic home, upper class had diff morals pupil of Boucher, colorist

Rococo: Fantasy, flirtation, licentiousness (cupid), pastel colors, private scene, lush landscape

From Venice, known for showing psychological intensity of sitters, international clientele; member of 3 artist academies including French Academy

Canaletto owned a camera obscura

also member of French academy but different background: rising middle class in France, influenced by Dutch still lifes and genre scenes; patrons were also members of middle class

Virtues of hard work, frugality, honesty, family life

Bubbles: vanitas symbol: brevity of life

Rococo: intimate, private moment; also play

Different tone than French Rococo! About aristocracy but painted for lower classes; laughing at foibles of aristocracy; moral but also humorous

English painter; satire paintings of social evils popular among aristocracy and newly prosperous middle class in England; “modern moral subjects . . .similar to representations on the stage.” depicted moral decline, call for return to simpler times and values; very popular; master of storytelling details.

Series were engraved and sold in large editions; first copyright laws emerged because pirated;

Lower classes had access; Hogarth knew they were his audience

Set in Rose Tavern, a famous brothel in London; full of visual clues (woman on his lap stealing his watch; black spots on their faces cover sores from syphilis) “ancestor to the storyboard” for films

R: loose brush strokes (won)

love of nature,

luxury, opulence
aristocratic tastes
conspicuous leisure
pastel colors
subjects of love, flirtation
fantasy
private, intimate scenes
lush landscapes

classical revival

The Enlightenment: Focus on Logic and Virtue

• 2 types of revolutions:

  Industrial Revolution (began in Britain c. 1760), Political revolutions (U.S. in 1776, France in 1789)

  
  

  Time of transitions:

  Rule by aristocracy to democracy

  Agriculture to industry

  Rural life to urban life

Characteristics of Neoclassical Art:

Planarity: things on a single plane, no foreground mid or background
Linearity
Tight brushwork
Even lighting
Sculptural forms
Classical architecture, figures, dress, and themes
Serious, moralistic subjects
Strong hero figures
Austerity (strict plain and simple not fancy) and reduction of form (simplified)
Nationalism expressed through patriotism (want art to be serious and move towards a cause)

The Death of Marat by Jacques-Louis David shows compositional similarities to early depictions of The Deposition of Christ

political martyr, propaganda, he's actually ugly and disfigured, the bathroom has been edited to look less lavish, the wooden box acts as a tombstone, could be romantic but its Neo

by 1791 became active in the cause of French Revolution (began in 1789); painter for the Revolution and for the new regime afterwards

His most famous portrait of the period;  a leader of the revolution and a close friend of David;

Marat was dedicated revolutionary; ruthless; a counterrevolutionary named Charlotte Corday brought him a fake petition and plunged a knife into his chest while he was reading it

Portable desk laid across his bathtub, where he spent most of his time due to  a lethal skin condition

Stark, (like Zurburan); attention to detail, sharp lighting (but not accurate; his bathroom was quite lavish, and Marat was unattractive in life); writing crate like a tombstone, Marat like poses of Christ

Planarity—in our face; horrific; also personal intensity (signature) Romantic (and idealization; not accurate; his bathroom was quite lavish, and Marat was unattractive in life; propaganda)

Qualities of Baroque: In our face: bloody knife; heroic martyr

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

Born in Switzerland, studied in Rome, moved to London in 1766; friends with Joshua Reynolds, first president of the Royal Academy founded 1768, and was a founding member (one of only two women admitted into the academy before the 20^th century; only female history painter of 18^th century

Story from Roman history (only female history painter of 18^th century; not content to paint portraits or still-lifes (most women did not have her opportunities)

Visiting friend is showing off her jewelry to Cornelia Gracchus and asks to see her jewels; Cornelia points to her children and says “These are my jewels.” (Her sons became great politicians)

Cornelia not just famous for motherhood but was one of the most powerful women in the history of the Roman Republic; model for Kauffman;

Popular subject; new interest in the importance of the family unit; Enlightenment teachings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who advocated that parents should nurture their children at home rather than sending them off to wet nurses and nannies until they were adolescents.

Neoclassical elements: Planarity (shallow space), Linearity (but softer than David), tight brushwork, even lighting, sculptural forms, Classical figures and themes (and dress), moralistic/virtuous subject

Austere; bare floors and walls; but delicate version of neoclassicism

Fascination with…

•Power of nature, the “Sublime” - when artist are looking at nature in its most powerful and frightening form

•Exoticism/Orientalism

•Supernatural elements, fantasy, dreams

•Violence/horrific themes

•Longing for the past

•Intense emotion, passion

•Nationalism expressed through a return to one’s personal past (revival of folk stories, folk music, native myths and architecture)

more about subject matter than the formal qualities

(Less consistent in formal qualities; can have tight or loose brushwork)

Art in the Age of Romanticism: (a sensibility, not a style)

Ideals of the Enlightenment seemed to have failed; instead of social reform and progress, there was turmoil; French Revolution gave rise to war throughout Europe; Napoleon gained power and claimed rights as emperor (end of France as a Republic; started Napoleonic Wars and occupied most of Europe until 1813

Wars accelerated Industrial Revolution; waves of people left countryside to work in manufacturing; experienced oppressive working conditions and poor housing

Period of Crisis: New Ideals arose—turning inward, faith in the individual rather than in society

Emphasis on powerful emotion, intuition, unrestrained creative genius (over rules, standards, logic, and of Neoclassicism)

Acknowledgment of violence, suffering, chaos, and ugliness rather than idealism

Uniqueness valued; also exotic, awesome forces of nature, nationalism (one’s personal language, culture, landscape as opposed to classical; Romanticism not a style, but an attitude;

• reflects a growing sense of nationalism

• shows a traditional hero figure

• emphasizes virtue and self-sacrifice

French and Indian war, patriotism, stage like, plane, noble pose classic pose, biblical Jesus taken from cross reference, martyr of Jesus, martyr of generals wife, storm clouds on half the sky = christ

history paintings should be historically accurate; so should contemporary history painting

British painter (American): raised outside Philadelphia; went to Rome in 1760 and studied with Mengs, Gavin Hamilton, studied ancient art and Raphael; settled in London in 1763, also a founding member of the Royal Academy in 1768 and became 2^nd president when Joshua Reynolds died; mentor for American artists and proud of his new world heritage; supported the American Revolution

Depiction of French and Indian War in Quebec; not classical in subject or costumes, but in spirit; General Wolfe a British national hero  at the moment he sacrificed his life for his country; contemporary costume and setting in Quebec (although not really historically correct); pose like images of Christ; shift of emotions from religion to nationalism

forces of nature reinforce emotional intensity

Public loved: witnessing current events (7 years earlier) before photography and film; also native American (noble savage)

French genre painting; sensation at Paris Salon

Salon: exhibition of members of the Royal Academy held in the Louvre; packed with paintings, attended by thousands of people from all classes of society; beginning of art critics

Neoclassical: virtuous, family life (neat, modest, hard-working, religious); lower class (Rousseau: poor are full of natural virtue, honest sentiment)

Corresponded with ideals of Rousseau: naïve poor are closer to nature and are thus more virtuous and moral than more cultivated aristocracy

People felt gestures and emotions were very authentic (compare to Poussin)

Shows impact of David’s Neoclassicism

Self taught because she was denied access to the Royal Academy; began painting portraits in her teens, but illegal because she didn’t have a license from the academy;

Married a painter and art dealer who gave her powerful contacts; became a favorite portraitist of Queen Marie-Antoinette; because of the queen’s influence, she was accepted into the Royal Academy in 1783

Reflects taste for classical (togas, Roman-style hairdo and headband; austere wall); life has begun to imitate art!

Also showed ideal of Rousseau—greater parental involvement in child-rearing (young children started showing up more in portraiture with their parents); still Rococo influence; soft contours, curvilinear patterns

Key Points:

Counter-Reformation

Art as a means to conversion

Caravaggio introduces tenebrism and influences Baroque art for the rest of the century

Velazquez carries on Titian’s technique of the loose brushstroke

First commission: 3 monumental canvases for church (not fresco) about St. Matthew

Caravaggio, The Calling of St. Matthew (guess subject)

What would it look like if a Renaissance artist painted it?

Radical naturalism/realism

Common setting, common people: Used live models; people he knew, ordinary people; not idealized

sacreligious/irreverent?

Who is Christ? “Follow me”: precise moment of his calling to Matthew; personal conversion; Matthew is having a spiritual awakening

Who is Matthew? (“Who, me?)

Left: blind to the entrance of Christ (glasses)

Element of light impt.; looks natural? but directs attention of viewer; contrast in light and dark intensifies subject, charges with symbolic meaning; The drama in Caravaggio's Calling of St. Matthew is reinforced by the use of tenebrism, The use of light symbolizes a moment of Conversion

Cross in window refers to Christ’s death and resurrection and indicates a rebirth for Matthew

Contrast between wealth and poverty (bare feet of Peter)

Tenebrism again; muted colors, no strong line (painted directly on canvas; no known drawings)

Sacred subject but ordinary (and contemporary people); unidealized; no sign of angels, halos, etc.

Foreshortening of Paul: pushes to foreground and makes more immediate to viewer; we are present; theatrical

Hot temper; killed a man in a duel; on the run

Night scene: light is the vehicle for meaning: no light source, spiritual light; dramatic light and dark for a dramatic conversion (personal conversion again); spiritual experience through art

Story from Apocrypha: Judith saved her people by beheading Assyrian general Holofernes who was about to attack Jews: popular during Baroque—liked drama, violence, suspense, exotic scenes

Diff. from Caravaggio: rich palette

One of first narrative subjects for a woman artist (usually portraits, still lifes; couldn’t get instruction in figure drawing and anatomy)

Opportunity by being born in artistic family; she was the first woman to be admitted to the Accademia del Disegno in Florence.

Elevation of role of artist, women in art

Letter in book (p. 669) made sketches and was cheated out of a commission: “If I were a man, I can’t imagine it would have turned out this way . . .”

Crescendo of colossal order (two stories): musical term?

Pilasters in corner, become closer and closer together and more freestanding

Bronze canopy under dome of St. Peter’s at crossing  and above tomb of St. Peter; dramatic presence at crossing and brings to human scale the enormous ceiling; creates visual frame for sculpture at the end representing the throne of St. Peter.

4 spiral columns (used in original Early Christian St. Peter’s basilica and thought to have originated in Solomon’s temple—historical tribute: and shows constancy of church; ENERGY; leaves, vines, fruits, lizards cast in bronze for decoration; fusion of sculpture and architecture; unifies space

8 stories high, but in context with scale of church; combines opulence with spirituality

Angels and scrolls; symbol of victory of the Catholic Church over the pagan world (cross on top of orb symbol since Constantine of the church’s triumph)

Alive with expressive energy; epitome of Baroque style

Designed entrance into St. Peter’s; molded open space in front of façade; piazza; feels sculptural; huge scale; dramatic entrance, separation from world

Classical in style; symbolic of keyhole?

Dramatic gesture of embrace to all who enter the piazza, symbolizing the welcome the Roman catholic Church gave its members during the Counter-Reformation

Bernini called them “the welcoming arms of the church”

Play of curves and counter-curves, concave and convex

Blends architecture and sculpture (continuation of Michelangelo tendency)

Primary sculptor to 8 popes, leading sculptor of the Baroque period; religious: wanted his art to be dedicated to the glory of God

Bernini; classical influence, but learns different lessons from ancient art than Michelangelo; more like Laocoon (next slide)

Baroque: mid-action, implied presence of Goliath; active relationship with space; split second of maximum action; moment frozen in time; involves us (we want to get out of the way)

Physical energy bursting forth; contrast to confined energy of MIchelangelo

Intense expression (face is self-portrait) patron held mirror (Cardinal Barberini, became Pope Urban VIII; got along well with patron)

Example of the Bel Composto: a stylistically and thematically unified interior space that transgresses Renaissance boundaries between painting, sculpture, and architecture

Quintessential form of the Baroque and Rococo

Tomb chapel for the Patriarch of Venice, Federigo Cornaro, in the Carmelite church of Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome

Space is shallow—surprises viewers

Stretches every medium beyond its limit: painted stucco overlaps architecture, sculpture overlaps painting

Altarpieces traditionally painting; switches roles

Emphasizes the third dimension by making the marble altar frame with its paired columns and broken pediment expand into the viewer’s space; explosive sense of movement animates the whole chapel

Shares qualities of opera, a musical form of Baroque that combines all of the arts

Here combines architecture, painting, and sculpture to create drama

Sculpture hangs, lit from hidden window above

Painting above escapes ceiling, burst of light; all work together

Theater boxes on side with members of the Cornaro family (like donors in paintings, but part of the action; watching

Bernini devout Catholic, believed he was inspired directly by God; practiced “Spiritual Exercises” of Ignatius of Loyola (from Spain)

Teresa of Avila (from Spain), one of the saints of the counter-Reformation, canonized in 1622, known for mystical visions (physical in nature):

Celestial quality: sunlight shines in from hidden window, illuminates, effect of illusion and reality merging

St. Teresa was a nun canonized during this century; contemporary

Lifesize marble sculpture representing her vision as she recorded it: saw an angel who seemed to pierce her heart with a flaming arrow of gold, giving pain and pleasure and leaving her “all on fire with a great love of God”

Turbulent drapery suggests inner emotion; joy and pain at the same time

Dramatic realism in art part of effort to revitalize church; counter-Reformation

Celebrates visionary ecstasy as a path to divine communion

Saint Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises: manual that encouraged worshiper to make use of all five senses

Bernini practiced the Exercises himself and also helps viewer to engage with all five senses

: SPAIN

Does he have anything in common with Bernini? Differences? How does it fit in Baroque tradition?

Influence of Caravaggio? Like still life: black background gives starkness, simplicity, purity pictorially and spiritually

Dramatic light and dark; beautiful folds in drapery

Mood? Quiet intensity, piety; invokes wonder, reverence (spiritual experience through looking at art); hung in funerary chapel of monastery; it would have been the brightest thing in the room

St. Serapion murdered by pirates in 1240

Christ figure; we identify with his strength more than his suffering

Naturalism

Balance; composition

Signature and label of St. Serapion on paper

Spain at height of political and economic power (Golden Age of Spain); colonies as well as power in Europe; bond with Italy and Catholicism; even stricter than Italy

Learned still life from Dutch painters; borrow super naturalism but make their own style

Stark; clear order; Caravaggio light; effective shadow, makes it almost mystical; (Cotan was a Carthusian monk—simplicity)

space: cucumber juts out, enters our space

Relates to discoveries in astronomy; Galileo, Isaac Newton both 17^th-century scientists

all four of the items here were introduced from Europe for cultivation in the New World, perhaps alluding, however obliquely, to Empire and conversion

Discuss balance, composition, principles of design

San Diego Museum of Art

Court painter to Philip IV of Spain, favorite  of the king

Famed as a portrait painter; his assistant and servant (tear in sleeve); shows dignity

Colors:

Loose brushwork. This technique not only compensates for the subdued autumnal palette, but also imbues the subject with a vitality that is almost palpable. A contemporary noted that the portrait was so striking in its similitude that when it was sent to some friends for their criticism, “they stood looking at it and Pareja in awe . . . not knowing to whom they should speak or who would answer them.”

*in preparation for his official portrait of Pope Innocent X.

France was Catholic: emphasis on natural virtue and on Eucharist

·      What class of people was this painting created for?

Middle class

·      What were the artists trying to portray about the peasant family?

The simplicity and goodness of this family even though they are in poverty

·      What are “classical” characteristics of this painting?

The lighting coming through, folds of the cloth, contrasts of light and dark,

·      What are three ways simplicity is emphasized in this work?

1, their dress

2, their environment

3, the food: salt, wine, and one loaf of bread

Loved to dance and wanted to show off his shapely legs; big hair, huge column and drapery; nobody else in picture

So popular that Rigaud had many copies made in his studio; one at Getty Museum in LA

Louis XIV established the French Academy

Name 4-5 ways that the artist shows us that this king has absolute power?

1, it is a life sized and full body portrait of the king

2, He is slightly anged body but his face is facing us with confidence and directness

3, the silk curtains and fancy carpet show the kings wealth

4, a column in the background symbolizing the strength of the monarch and classic style

5, His pose looks down on the viewer

6, his clothes are really nice and symbolize the French monarchy and military might

·      What did King Louis IV mean when he said, “L’etat, c’est moi”?

“I am the state” he is the ruler with authority from God

·      Which Greek god did Louis IV compare himself to?

Apollo

·      How did this work serve as a proxy for the king in his absence?

 The King loved it so much that he put it over his throne and those who walked by were forbidden to turn their backs on it

opulence and grand scale on interior (not so much restraint; king’s desire for lavishness)

Mirrors were extravagant; reflected outdoors as well as interior light

·      Why did Louis XIV move his court to this palace?

So that the sun would rise and set aligned with his home

·      What was the hall used for in Louis XIV’s day?

It was used for parties, a wedding, and military agreements

·      What covers the two main walls of the Hall of Mirrors?

a wall of windows so that lets the light in to reflect on the mirrors

·       What notable even took place in this hall in 1919?

A military agreement where the Treaty of Versailles were signed that officially ended World War 1

White House, Capitol building; also churches, banks, government buildings

Thomas Jefferson amateur architect; designed his home (Monticello)

The poses are natural and unorganized, not a fan of the family and subtly painted this as an informal painting,

Propaganda to affirm family’s divine privilege and superiority?

Exposes their ordinariness

Goya meant it to be compared with Las Meninas (artist at easel); everyone in court would know it; Queen Maria Luisa strikes same pose as Velazquez’s infanta

What are they looking at? Mirror—missing element

Awkwardness; uncomfortable

Dynamic handling of paint on clothes, jewelry, medals; Charles IV did not reject painting

These qualities distinguish this painting from earlier traditions of European painting,

• the anti-heroic depiction of the central figure.

• the graphic depiction of warfare.

• the emphasis on human pathos.

The figure of this man about to be shot suggests a reference to Jesus Christ

The painting conveys sorrow over man's inhumanity to man.

Napoleon's Invasion of Spain

Firing squad faceless and inhuman like, some of the people had nothing to do with the revolt and were shot, guy in middle has stigmata's (marks on his hands) relates to Christ about to get shot, anti war, the painting had to be hid until napoleon was no longer in power, strong baroque lighting,

Spain was occupied by Napoleon’s troops; Napoleon put his brother, Joseph Bonaparte, on the throne in Madrid; at first the Spaniards supported Napoleon’s ideals and made friends with troops, but after a series of atrocities, they rapidly became disillusioned; national uprising against the French; a firing squad was set up to shoot anyone who appeared in the streets.

Vivid portrayal of brutalities; indictment against French troops

RECENT past; even more contemporary than Benjamin West’s; precedent to photojournalism

Comment on what happens when people lose control of reason

Church in background—why?

Indebted to Baroque: strong contrast in light for impact

Anonymous nobodies; Christ-like figure, but shows their fear

Compare with Jacques-Louis David, Oath of the Horatii, 1784

Clearly structured pattern of light and dark gives impact (Caravaggio influence)

Firing squad: faceless, mechanical uniformity

Not heroic; protest against war

Real event, but universal in significance

Symbols of incomprehensible cruelty; fascination with irrational

Prophecy that one of Saturn’s sons would dethrone him

Jupiter/Zeus escaped and prophecy came true

Corrupt power; power turning on one’s own (Napoleon)

Flesh/meat/bone quality of figures

Swiss; was a minister but left to become an artist; Fuseli interested in psychology, the concept of the antihero (one who follows personal passions to attain freedom and fulfill individual needs)

Studied in Rome but dismissed Winckelmann’s adulation of the calm grandeur and noble simplicity of Greek sculpture and the perfect harmony of High Renaissance

Gravitated to Michelangelo’s twisting, muscular figures on Sistine Chapel ceiling and Last Judgment and admired distortions of Mannerists

(Thor dies from serpent’s poison); story from German equivalent of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey; Norse epic instead of Greek mythology (Odin hovers above)

Neoclassic planarity? tight drawing? consistent lighting? smooth handling of paint? None

Dramatic light, loose brushwork, dramatic composition with extreme angles (foreshortening); we are on level with serpent; feel stormy water, chill, fear

Romanticism: horrific theme, violence, forces of nature; turn to fantasy world when life is too mechanized (Industrial Revolution)—similar to today—Iron Man, Star Wars, etc.

Sublime terror; ignores what paintings are supposed to be about

Incubus=evil spirit

Poet and artist from England; sought spirituality and felt divinely inspired, goal to explain reason for existence (who are we, why we are here);

Wrote in a letter to artist John Flaxman that his mind was filled with “books and pictures of old, which I wrote and painted in ages of Eternity before my mortal life.” (Geoffrey Keynes, ed., The Letters of William Blake, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968, 41-42) quoted in The God Who Weeps, by Terryl and Fiona Givens

Critic of European materialism, lack of spirituality, inequality of women; also felt the Enlightenment had failed because of reign of terror after French Revolution

Joined Royal Academy in 1779 but felt it repressed imagination, creativity; not acclaimed in his lifetime for art (but was well-known for his poetry)

Shunned oil painting (too much associated with academy); monotype (in book)

looked to medieval manuscript painting for inspiration

Elohim creating Adam: painful ( pose like Christ on cross); compare with Michelangelo, compared to mikes creation of Adam which is graceful and God barely touching Adam but in this one Gids manhandling Adam and it seems life is not going to go so well

Elohim is a Hebrew name for God. This picture illustrates the Book of Genesis:

Haywain=the horse drawn wagon crossing the ford (in Constable’s native Suffolk)

Landscape painting; need to escape growing effects of Industrial Revolution in England, search for truth

Suffolk County; previously considered too ordinary to be subject matter for a painting; new national pride

Constable admired Claude Lorrain, loved nature; considered painting a science (close observation)

Did numerous oil sketches outdoors, but completed painting in studio; large—6-foot canvas; strategy for elevating landscape to a higher status

Attention to intangibles: light, weather, atmosphere

The Haywain in Paris exhibition in 1824; French artists very impressed; Delacroix said to have been so inspired he repainted sky in one of his works

New vibrance through sky, light, weather; Flecks of white to suggest shimmering light, broken color

Focuses on wonder of ordinary, humble settings, but not idealized or classical

Details: dog, boat, harvesters in distant field, puffs of smoke coming from mill; doesn’t show financial pressure on the Constable property, new way of life taking over (already nostalgic?)

not about a hero, but the hero is the man in white in the far bottom right corner (Hannibal), nature lives on/lasts

2^nd major British landscape artist in Romantic period; wanted to express sublime (powerful, awesome forces in nature)

Also interested in atmosphere, light but more expressive

Looked to great landscape painters of the past and tried to outdo them; penchant for spectacular, grandiose; turned landscapes into mythological and historical paintings on epic scale;

Hannibal: from Carthage led troops across French alps in 218 B.C. to launch a surprise attack on the Romans

“human sea of turmoil” (looks like Moses parting Red Sea); Hannibal in right corner on elephant; insignificant to wild storm; dramatic light and dark

Reference to Napoleon’s 1800 march across Alps to invade Italy? Theme: folly of empire building; human activity insignificant compared to sublime universal forces (less interested in reproducing a specific landscape)

Helped to inspire French Impressionists

Writing Topic: The Sublime

Review the Tate’s website, The Art of the Sublime and then post a comment to the discussion board that relates an idea or a painting on this site to a personal experience of the sublime that you have experienced. Your post should be substantive and descriptive. Discuss the meaning of the word “sublime” in relation to your own experiences. Once you have posted your statement on the sublime, be sure to read what others have posted and comment on at least a few of these.

The storm suggests the divine power of nature to punish the slave traders, but it remains indifferent to the struggle of the drowning slaves.

First owned by John Ruskin, Slave Ship was sold to an American abolitionist, reminding us that in 1840 slavery was still a charged political issue in the United States.

This painting by Joseph Mallord William Turner was inspired by an actual event

An innovative aspect of Turner's work is the artist's manipulation of freely applied pigments

The subject matter of this painting reflects...

• a new interpretation of the landscape genre

• atrocities of social injustice

• the Sublime force of nature

Painted for anti slavery and shown in an anti slavery society, a captain had slaves on his ship to sell and if they died on board then he wouldn't get insurance so if they fall overboard then he will get insurance, calling for change, really loose brushstrokes, if you look close you can see arms and legs and chains in the water

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

J. M. W. Turner was inspired to paint “The Slave Ship” in 1840 after reading The History and Abolition of the Slave Trade^[2] by Thomas Clarkson. In 1781, the captain of the slave ship Zong had ordered 133 slaves to be thrown overboard so that insurance payments could be collected. This event probably inspired Turner to create his landscape and to choose to coincide its exhibition with a meeting of the British Anti-Slavery Society. Although slavery had been outlawed in the British Empire since 1833, Turner and many other abolitionists believed that slavery should be outlawed around the world.

Friedrich's depiction of nature as vast and uncontrollable is characteristic of the philosophical notion of the Sublime

really abstract, monk is small, sublime power of nature, there was a guy that preached by the sea, nature itself is a holy place to preach

Small figure of monk dwarfed by landscape; insignificant; Industrial Revolution—man taming nature; here, shows nature can’t be controlled;

Sublime: landscape is beautiful, awesome, terrifying; God’s presence shown in nature rather than in a church (monk worships outside)

Influenced by Gotthard Ludwig Kosegarten, theologian who delivered sermons on the shores of the Baltic Sea

importance of the spiritual world, passage of human time, promise of rebirth and resurrection

the painting references pre-Christian spiritual traditions as the emphasis of the landscape of the painting

this painting and the Monk by the Sea are pendant painting which means they are a related pair of paintings.

oil paint, monk is dead, everything looks dead (the trees, the abbey, the earth, cemetery), the abbey is older than the abbey, the trees are older than the abbey, the moon is older (in the sky as a crescent moon), everything will come alive again

companion piece to Monk by the Sea: What is the mood? Silent, bleak; somber sky at twilight, cold (winter); everything dead or dying

What kind of abbey is this? Medieval, crumbling—age past; human achievement crumbling; funeral procession—thought to be of monk above; how significant are the people? What is more significant? Nature outlives achievements of man;

Any hope? New Moon: symbol of waxing/waning/rebirth? Morning will come, spring will come, Resurrection (crosses)

Sublime: awesome, frightening force of nature—wants us to see God’s presence in nature (more than in the church?)

“Every time I come across this painting I always just stop and stare in awe. It has that mystery and that wonder behind it.” Carlie Fullam

Compare with Turner (above): Similar force of nature but dissimilar in style: Friedrich is more detailed, harder lines; linear vs. painterly

Landscape is a metaphor for transience of life, human achievement

Nationalism: part of Romantic movement; Herder collected folk songs and made anthology, Grimm brothers collected folk tales; searching shared past united people more than an allegiance to an aristocracy;

No Germany in 1810; loose union of about 300 German-speaking states

Hopes for unification crushed under Napoleon’s rule; oaks and Gothic abbey (Goethe said Gothic architecture originated in Germany) symbols of demise of nationalism; reflection of the national mood, national crisis

first American art! Earlier, not a priority because struggling for survival and then Revolution; mostly portraiture;

In the early 1800’s art academies established in Pennsylvania, Boston, and NY

Struggle to find own national identity, separate from European roots: no churches of past like Europe;

Decided that the land itself was America’s spiritual heritage, unspoiled compared to Europe (overpopulated), full of natural resources;

Landscape became national symbol (in the Metropolitan Museum of Art)

America’s first art movement (1820’s) called Hudson River School (traveled along Hudson River Valley, made studies, and finished paintings in NY studios)

Oxbow made for exhibition at the National Academy of Design (he was a founding member)

Sublime? Blasted trees, storm; juxtaposed with cultivated fields (in harmony with nature?)

Human presence? (Cole by parasol)

Letters in hill spell Noah; upside down, Shaddai (Hebrew for Almighty)

Dead trees & seedlings: cycle of life, death, resurrection (similar symbol of Friedrich; mood? Optimistic)

American Transcendentalist movement: Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Nature (1836), Henry David Thoreaus’ Walden (1852)

But Cole already found the destruction of wilderness and lack of respect for the land disheartening; early environmentalist, wanted to keep landscape pure and live in harmony with the land; painted a cycle of 5 pictures called “The Course of Empire”:

Same site: Primitive, agrarian society, thriving empire, decadent empire, and state of ruin

Ghent Altarpiece in Napoleon Museum in the Louvre—booty from his conquests: references to God the Father; frontal pose; also emphasis on textures, details, opulence; Napoleon sanctioned by God, emperor by divine right;

Sharp lines, stark composition Neoclasical; exoticism Romantic

Golden scepter on the left of Charlemagne; ivory hand of justice of French medieval kings on the right; certify royal legacy

Ingres studied in Rome and sent back pictures for exhibition; not well received

The elements that distinguish this painting as an early example of French Romanticism is The exotic details and Islamic architecture

The sick were actually housed in an Islamic mosque

the artist uses light inspired by Baroque lighting

things that contribute to Napoleon's heroic depiction and divine status

• He is modeled on the Apollo Belvedere.

• He is shown surrounded with light.

• He appears unconcerned about contagion.

Jafa is in Palestine, the exotic architecture with horseshoe arch and pointed arch, not factual, everyone has the plague and Napoleon poisons them but he makes the artist paint him "healing" the sick and helping the people

Napoleon hired Gros to paint battle scenes and glorify military campaigns; propaganda; Napoleon made sure paintings were seen at Salons and reported by the press

This painting exhibited in Paris Salon 1804, highly acclaimed (23 feet wide)

Story: Napoleon visits his troops in sick house where bubonic plague has broken out; touches open wound; meant to show bravery, humanitarianism

Truth: Napoleon poisoned these same sick troops when he left Jaffa

Influences: dramatic light of Caravaggio; damned man by Michelangelo (last Judgment); muscular nudes of Michelangelo; framing arches like David (his teacher)

Romanticism? Exotic: Islamic architecture, attendants with costumes: this painting helped launch popularity of exotic subjects—like National Geographic; also horror of death

This work can also been seen as A criticism of the government, interest in horrific themes

This painting by Théodore Géricault shows an event from the artist's own times

The Raft of the Medusa exhibits...

• graphic representation of horror and despair

• a sense of immediacy and drama

• the use of sharply contrasting light and shadow

the source of Géricault's subject matter in this painting is a shipwreck off the coast of Africa

Understood as a contemporary political critique, Géricault's Raft of the Medusa is an indictment of The French Monarchy

A feature of Géricault's Raft of the Medusa distinguishes it as an example of Romanticism in France is the emotionalism and human suffering

the contemporary subject matter differ from history paintings of the past

Baroque dramatic lighting, diagonal, engaging the viewer, man vs nature, man vs man, cannibalism, only a few survived out of 150 , artist interviewed the survivors to get the whole story, ship in the distance, there's death and despair but with a little hope, social commentary criticizing the captain who was hired by the king and allowed this to happen

Event just 3 years earlier: Medusa (French government ship) foundered and the captain gave the six lifeboats to government officials; the remaining 150 passengers had to use a makeshift raft (built just before the ship sunk); it was set adrift at command of captain; When rescued two weeks later, only a handful were still alive; event condemned in the press as an example of corruption of new king, Louis XVIII (Restoration period: restoration of king (Napoleon defeated 1815)

Moment when a distant ship is sighted; despair, death and dying lead to hope, survival; man vs. nature (Romantic: wide range of emotions, force of nature, horror, suffering)

No single hero, explores man’s inhumanity to man--inhumanity of captain towards them; also inhumanity to each other (cannibalism); tendency of romanticism to ask questions

Diagonal composition, Baroque jutting into our space, Caravaggio light and dark;

G did studies of reconstructed raft, dead bodies at the morgue, limbs, drowned bodies; tried to capture details—realistic?; Still carefully planned, organized; bodies still muscular (classical), not gaunt;

In style of a history painting; elevating contemporary subjects (not classical, Biblical subject)

Delacroix called himself a modern Classicist: classical muscularity; presented like a frieze;

also contemporary event: Greeks revolution against ruling Turks; Turks raided Greek island of Chios and massacred or enslaved the whole population (20,000): Europeans supported Greek independence, passion for democracy and individual freedom; also sympathized because they were Christians vs Muslims

Foreground: group rounded up for slavery or execution (also rape); hopelessness, doom, suffering; no individual heroes, but treats Greeks collectively as martyrs; villains (unfeeling soldiers at apex of pyramids): Dead and dying reminiscent of Raft of Medusa;

When he saw Constable’s Haywain at the same Salon, he repainted sky at the last minute

Critics felt it was not a subject for painting, but he became known as the great “Romantic painter” (Gericault died this year) (before Romanticism had only been applied to music (Berlioz) and writing (Victor Hugo)

• It depicts a scene at a street barricade on the cobblestone streets of Paris during the French Revolution of 1830.

• Delacroix captured realistic details of the street violence.

• The representation of Liberty draws on the classical tradition in the profile pose but also appears more real, less ideal than classical figures.

• The revolution of 1830 ushered in a constitutional monarchy, but still only a small percentage of the population was eligible to vote.

French revolution, rich and poor, young and old, fighting together in the streets, great loss on both sides, woman is allegory figure (not real person), she is liberty, the 3 colors of the flag represent liberty equality and fraternity,

Letter to his brother:  "My bad mood is vanishing thanks to hard work. I’ve embarked on a modern subject—a barricade. And if I haven’t fought for my country at least I’ll paint for her."

Used Baroque lighting (like Goya) to heighten emotional impact; lots of “s” shapes—writhing, snakelike; skin tones have greens, blues—emotional use of color, loose

Romantic: Turbulent, sensual, passionate involvement, color vs. line, spontaneous movement, chaotic composition vs. cool, detached, formal neoclassicism; no redeeming moral, just fascinating horror

Realism vs. Naturalism
• French poet and critic Charles Baudelaire argued that the arts should reflect the here-and-now
• Emphasis on ordinary, everyday, modern experience; neither idealized nor dramatized
• Championed laborers and common people

naturalism: looks real to life

realism: is real to life

Realism themes

•French poet and critic Charles Baudelaire argued that the arts should reflect the here-and-now

•Emphasis on ordinary, everyday, modern experience; neither idealized nor dramatized

•Championed laborers and common people

WORKS TO KNOW
Gustave Courbet. Burial at Ornans. 1849–50
Gustave Courbet. The Stone Breakers. 1849
Rosa Bonheur. Plowing in the Nivernais. 1849
Édouard Manet. The Luncheon on the Grass (Le Dejeuner sur l’Herbe). 1863
Edgar Degas. The Dance Class, 1885
Thomas Eakins, Max Schmitt in a Single Scull, 1871 (Realism in America)

Edo was the name for Tokyo; residence of the emperor

Ukiyo-e school of painting (“floating world”); refers to the transience of material existence

Popular subjects: theater, dance, courtesans, everyday tasks, leisure, landscape and cityscapes, beautiful women

Linear details on face; almost no shading

3D forms? Created by contours, overlapping, foreshortening

One of the most famous works of art in the world

Impressionist artists were astounded by it; Debussy said this image inspired his famous composition La Mer

From the series 36 views of Mt. Fuji

displays the influence of Dutch art prints that came to Japan via western trade: his own form of linear perspective, low horizon line and the distinctive European color, Prussian blue.

All of the images in the series feature a glimpse of the mountain

Full of visual play; the mountain, made tiny by the use of perspective, appears as if it too will be swallowed up by the wave. Hokusai’s optical play can also be lighthearted, and the spray from top of the crashing wave looks like snow falling on the mountain

Mt. Fuji framed; wave creates a diagonal line leading our eye to its peak

Mount Fuji is the highest mountain in Japan and has long been considered sacred

interested in oblique angles, contrasts of near and far, and contrasts of manmade and the natural

Birds’ eye view

Ukiyo-e, which originated as a Buddhist term, means "floating world" and refers to the impermanence of the world.

emphasis on line and pure, bright color, as well as their ability to distill form down to the minimum.

moved away from the tradition of making images of courtesans and actors, which was the customary subject of ukiyo-e prints. Instead, his work focused on the daily life of Japanese people from a variety of social levels. 

1867 International Exposition in Paris, Hokusai’s work was on view at the Japanese pavilion. This was the first introduction of Japanese culture to mass audiences in the West, and a craze for collecting art called Japonisme ensued. 

The breathtaking composition of this woodblock print, said to have inspired Debussy’s La Mer (The Sea) and Rilke’s Der Berg (The Mountain), ensures its reputation as an icon of world art. Hokusai cleverly played with perspective to make Japan’s grandest mountain appear as a small triangular mound within the hollow of the cresting wave. The artist became famous for his landscapes created using a palette of indigo and imported Prussian blue.

Look for unity in the composition:

Repetition of shape, color, pattern (triangle of mountain, curves of boats, pattern in waves and crests)

Creates harmony in what could be a chaotic scene; harmony in nature

simple shapes, dark outlines,

1853 Commodore Perry opened up Japan to the west: fascination with Japanese—Madame Butterfly by Puccini, etc.)

Japanese prints: influenced by flat shapes, sharp contours, compressed space, cropping, angles (influenced French art)

• subject matter

• scale

• composition

this is 10x22 ft, genre painting of uncles funeral, trying to get into academy of art, his history just as important as other event, horizontal death scene with realism, people mourning doing their own thing not interacting, the dog is just a dog no real symbolism, classical = the cross and the skull, everyday people and everyday events are just as important

The main reason this work is part of Realism is that It shows everyday life that is neither idealized or dramatized,

Gustave Courbet's Stone Breakers is part of the artistic movement called Realism because The artist focused on real life.

2 laborers young and old showing both have to work and can't escape, shows struggle of poor, realism, focus of rough life of workers, rough style of art everything in painting has even focus making it more real, the workers represent working class of the time, there's no heroic qualities clothes tattered, looser brushstroke, cant see faces or expression, neutral

oil painting, tight brushstrokes more realistic, diagonal line of cows painting on large canvas normally for religious import events instead of landscape, about France and naturalistic, cows are focus people are background, 1 year after 3rd French revolution,

realism

closed salon but opened another called salon of rejects, this painting was rejected because it was inappropriate and it was a contemporary nudity, her clothes are taken off and thrown to the side with clothed men beside her and shes not idealized and confrontational, some non naturalistic things like how flat she is and the girl in the back her depth seemed off and the brush strokes seemed unfinished

Interest in capturing:
everyday subjects
on-the-spot outdoor scenes
fleeting moments, impermanence
atmosphere, light, colored shadow
modern urban life, leisure activities

upper middle class/nouveau riche
times of day/year
look of ukiyo-e (Japanese prints)

impressionists painted outside, Claude Monet - the leader of impressionism, impressionists wanted to convey truth in painting more like a visual truth (what the eye actually sees)

• capturing a fleeting moment in time

• a flattening of space

• a love of painting en plein air (outdoors)

In Monet's Gare St. Lazare, the artist wanted to capture

• Modern life in Paris

• The effects of light and atmosphere

• The new mixing of social classes

not a lot of detail up close but from a distance you can put together the picture, there's people but they are very simple, the painting has texture and it engages your senses with the movement and all of the steam and colors, its not about the people or train its about the color and light.

Monet also liked to show modern city life; made 10 paintings of this train shed to record busy people and grand new apartments behind; We can feel the steam and dampness, atmosphere

social: many people enjoying leisure activities outside and being with one another show the busy party life of the people

Friend of Monet; often painted side by side

Also liked to show modern life but especially loved painting people in social settings

Social life of young leisure class, emphasis on people rather than landscape

Flickering, transitory light

Popular restaurant for boaters; we can identify class by their hats; models were Renoir’s friends (he married the girl with the dog)

Dappled sunlight, momentary (also like photographs—people cropped, girl drinking)

Renoir started to model more; wanted to  go back to stronger line and drawing

Took part in all 8 Impressionist shows (only one to do all 8)

Painted outdoors like Monet

Emphasized abstract qualities; complex, structured compositions (compare with Impression: Sunrise); influenced later artists (Cezanne, Picasso); Cezanne said Pissarro was a father figure to him and a little like the Lord himself.

shows soft maternal instincts and focuses on domestic which male artists don't use, open brushstrokes light brushstrokes, she painted her sister and her sisters daughter, the pinks and red tones indicate the baby is a girl, pastel colors light colors and brushstrokes (baby showing through the veil of the crib

Berthe’s sister and baby; painted women and children (models most readily available); not frivolous; meditative and thoughtful

pastel colors

Wealthy women’s activities: gathering flowers, taking tea, child-rearing, reading, sewing, vacationing

Flickering paint, bold brushstrokes, strong diagonal (like Degas, Japanese prints)

Interest in capturing:
everyday subjects
on-the-spot outdoor scenes
 fleeting moments, impermanence
atmosphere, light, colored shadow
modern urban life, leisure activities
middle class/nouveau riche
times of day/year

Focused on people, esp. mother and child; painted women (like Morisot) at the opera, reading, visiting, taking tea, sewing, with children (never had children of her own)

New attention to child rearing in France, as well as women’s rights in France; agenda for better education for women

Bathing regularly was a new phenomenon

Emotional and physical involvement; also reminiscent of Madonna and child paintings of the Renaissance; importance of women’s role in society

High viewpoint like Japanese prints; also strong forms and contours

spirit of empiricism; studied nature; specialized in portraiture and depicted major thinkers of the Enlightenment, including Diderot, Rousseau, Louis XVI, Catherine II of Russia, and Benjamin Franklin;

Captured look and character of sitter

Terra-cotta cast from original plaster (one in LACMA)

Empiricism: sagging skin on neck, sunken mouth (toothless), slumping shoulders

Character: shows sharp intellect and wit, lively in spirit although weak in body

Classicized: Roman toga and headband, antique-style chair

This piece shows a lot of new things in the painting like the new piano, rug, and other furniture. It is very fancy and rich with color and design, but it is a sort of illusion of riches. This painting shows a kept country woman with her lover sitting on his lap while he plays piano in this new luxurious room. The woman is having a moment of awakening as she hears the song the man plays which reminds her of her childhood/innocent life before. This painting shows a fallen woman and her spiritual awakening and redemption.

The woman is rising and facing towards us, and we also see nature behind her in the mirror showing a spiritual side of things and how God can come to us in unexpected ways. There are also symbols in this piece like the cat catching the bird in the bottom corner which can relate to the woman being caught in this tempting fantasy with the man who has “caught” her, clock is at 12 aka the last hour

Very religious, came from a poor working-class family

Victorian morals;

Inspired by a passage in Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield

Prostitution in the city; perceived as only hope of bettering their situation

Woman becomes aware of the lyrics of the song they are singing, returns to her family

Cluttered with objects of consumerism, also cluttered with details

Compare with Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait, which was in collection of National Gallery in London in 1842

Symbolism like Van Eyck: cat and bird (kept woman’s position); clock: almost 12 (little time left for action); window reflected in mirror: freedom, beauty and simplicity of nature, freedom

Biblical passages on bottom

PRB best known for Biblical scenes and scenes from literature

Christ has received a wound in his hand and is comforted by Joseph and Mary

Disguised symbols of future role as Jesus as Savior: cut in his hand=wounds from the nails, John the Baptist (right) carries bowl symbolizing baptism (his future role); flock of sheep outside=Christ’s role as Good Shepherd; nails, tools on wall/ladder= crucifixion; dove=Holy Ghost; triangle=trinity

Social statement: supports quality workmanship and labor instead of poorly-crafted, mass-produced products of Industrial Revolution

Identifies Christ with working class: dirt under the fingernails (like Courbet did with the stonebreakers)

Realistic detail: went to carpenter’s shop to study wood shavings and musculature of a carpenter

The model was an American expatriate who married a French banker, and became notorious in Parisian high society for her beauty and rumored infidelities. She wore lavender powder and prided herself on her appearance.

Singer painted her in attempt to raise his reputation—no commission; received more ridicule than praise. Kept for thirty years, then sold to the MET; “I suppose it is the best thing I have done.”

Flattens

Abstracts

Expressive

Forces us to look at color, not objects

removing the naturalistic description function from color

Works to Know:

• Henri Matisse. Femme au chapeau (Woman with a Hat). 1905

• Henri Matisse. The Red Studio. 1911

Synthetic Cubism: building up images; use of collage; “real” vs. illusion

• Pablo Picasso. Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (The Young Ladies of Avignon). 1907 (Pre-Cubism)

• Georges Braque, The Portuguese, 1911 (Analytical Cubism)

• Pablo Picasso. Guitar, Sheet Music, and Wine Glass. 1912 (Synthetic Cubism)

Patchy, “slablike” brushstrokes: make it monumental looking

Space/Perspective? Strange perspective in dishes, tabletop climbs up the canvas; changes viewpoints

Subject is structure, form; felt that all forms in nature were based on cones, spheres, and cylinders

Push and pull between flat and 3-D again: leaves in wallpaper look 3-D/ table looks flat

Cloth: shadows make it look 3-D, but strong feeling of just paint makes it look 2-D

Representational, but acknowledges that it is first paint on a canvas; arrangement of lines and colors (like Whistler)

Subject: still life traditions in the 17^th century: breaking rules of naturalism

20^th Century:
rapid change
individualism
exploration
new inventions
challenging assumptions of the past

Also designed pedastol, height of display (low for newborn, high for bird in space)

We don’t see a bird; Spirit of flight

bronze polished, stone, wood

The Fang people of Gabon associate large heads with infancy, an age in a state of greater harmony with ancestors

Placed on a reliquary chest as a guardian figure

Symbolizes connection with ancestors and desire for continuation (children)

timelessness

Formal elements? Geometric shapes, flat

Headdress

Body abstracted to diamond shape framing empty space (negative space)

Also covered a reliquary containing ancestral bones; traditional (ironically inspired breaking with tradition in western Europe)

Ancestor cult: they lay the deceased out in the forest and later buried in the earth; later, skulls of important leaders were excavated and placed in large baskets with other remembrance objects.

Baskets sealed and preserved in sacred shrine huts

Reliquary guardian figures attached to each vessel with triangular portion reaching into the vessel

Baskets brought out for important ceremonies, opened and contents presented, explained, honored

Refer to the mythic culture hero Ci Wara, a divine force conceived of as half man and half antelope. Bamana oral traditions credit Ci Wara with introducing to humanity agricultural methods and an understanding of earth, animals, and plants

Worn in village-wide performances that celebrated the skills of successful farmers. These performances featured a pair of dancers wearing sculpted headdresses, one representing a male antelope and the other a female. They held sticks in their hands to paw the earth just as the mythic Ci Wara did when he first taught men to plant seeds.

Used to help with conception

Demonstrates three important qualities of womanhood (wisdom (large forehead), girth (ringed neck is intended to denote rolls of fat, showing that woman is capable of bearing a healthy child), and the prime of life) that relate to her physical and mental abilities.

Akua’ba figures were important fertility aids among Akan-speakers in Ghana in the past. They depict an abstracted female form in wood and were created by male carvers.

Depicts a highly abstracted and idealized woman in the prime of life 

The figure is also always female, since Akan culture is matrilineal.

Taken out of the Akan context, altered by Western tastes (which might add beads and paint), and marketed as a universal symbol of Africa, the akua’ba figure is now part of Western popular culture.

colors do their own thing, freedom with color

Die Brücke: dissatisfaction with industrial modern life; looking to German past with woodblock prints

Der Blaue Reiter: looking for spirituality and “universal truths;” Abstract art vs. non-objective art, non-narrative art, non-representational art

German Expressionism: Die Brücke (The Bridge)

• Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Street, Dresden. 1908

• Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Street, Berlin, 1913

German Expressionism: Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider)

• Vasily Kandinsky, Improvisation 28 (second version), 1912

• Vasily Kandinsky. Sketch I for “Composition VII.” 1913

• Paul Klee. The Niesen. 1915

• Paul Klee, Twittering Machine, 1922

Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (The Young Ladies of Avignon), 1907 (stop at 7)

What rules of western art from the past 400 years does Picasso break?

Forms unreadable

Perspective skewed

No shadow or doesn’t make sense

Color--not representative

Space—impossible to read

Notions of feminine beauty

Influences?

Manet—women look straight at us, confront viewer

Cezanne-planes, different points of view

Matisse-color

African and Iberian masks

Opened up artistic freedom: line, plane, color, mass, void all freed from representational roles and can take on a life of their own

Synthetic Cubism: in 1912 Braque and Picasso began working in collage; complicates notion of real and illusion; paper/ wallpaper/ chair caning is real and an illusion (a picture)

Pablo Picasso, Guitar, Sheet Music, and Wine Glass, 1912.

complicates notion of real and illusion; paper/ wallpaper/ chair caning is real and an illusion (a picture)

Woodgrain was painted by Picasso and cut out

“Instead of a window, the picture surface became a tray on which art was served.” (art is on top of the canvas, not behind)

What has the most depth? She modeled glass, which is the only thing drawn?

Instead of breaking down images, now building up

Introduced a variety of textures and colors  (in analytic Cubism they used monochromatic colors)

Used musical themes because music is abstract, like their art; also notes are abstract symbols

Play with space: guitar soundhole should be negative space, but it is a solid circle of paper

Le Jou—again, pun about Le Journal, jouer (to play)

La Bataille s’est Engage (the battle is joined): First Balkan war in Europe; also battlefield between Picasso and Braque working on a new medium

James Abbot McNeill Whistler. Nocturne in Black and Gold: ca. 1875
John Singer Sargent, Madame X, 1897
John Singer Sargent, Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose, 1885-86

INFO

• Art that focused on formal elements of art rather than story-telling or symbols

• Whistler compared art to music, which depends on harmony and form rather than subject
  matter

• “As music is the poetry of sound, so is painting the poetry of sight, and the subject matter has nothing to do with harmony of sound or of color.” - James Abbott McNeill Whistler

• art is like music and it can have a subject matter but still very abstract, art can be about harmony, texture, rhythm, mainly just be about formal elements, doesn't have to mean anything

Morris started company that manufactured beautifully crafted fabrics, wallpaper, tapestries, carpets, tiles, furniture, and stained glass; he designed most of the wallpaper and fabrics

From nature, considered spiritual

Gold background above wainscoting=12 months of the year; like late Gothic art, cycles of seasons and life

Emphasized truth and quality: no disguising materials, no pre-fabricated materials, no cheap materials

Launched Arts and Crafts movement, which soon spread to the US

helped to erase Renaissance-influenced perceptions that valued the so-called “higher” art forms over the “lower” work of traditional craftsmen.

WORKS TO KNOW:
Kitagawa Utamaro, Naniwa Okita Admiring Herself in a Mirror, ca. 1790–95
Katsushika Hokusai, The Great Wave, from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, c. 1830-32
Utagawa Hiroshige. Plum Estate, Kameido, from the series 100 Famous Views of Edo. 1857

INFO: In 1854 Commodore Perry, US naval officer, led an expedition that forced Japan to end its policy of isolation

This opened up trade between Japan and US and Europe

Japanese prints were shown in the Paris Universal Exposition of 1867; these prints influenced art in US and Europe

Woodblock printing had begun in China in the 4^th cent. AD; in the 6^th Cent Buddhist missionaries brought the technique to Japan

First used for printing words; in the 16^th cent.  Artists began to use them to illustrate texts

17^th-cent they began using color

Ukiyo-e (Japanese prints)
flat shapes
sharp contours
compressed space
cropping
angles
asymmetry
Color Theories: Optical Blending, Complementary Colors
Leisure Time (upper and upper-middle classes)
Art for Art’s Sake
Communist Manifesto (support of workers’ rights)
Independent Art Shows

Different: structural, formal, frozen; even sky looks structural

Push and pull between depth and flat space: brushstrokes are flat marks asserting the surface of the canvas (conflict between abstraction and representational: we know it’s a real scene, and we also know it’s a flat canvas with lines, color, and paint; no longer a window onto nature—ideal since Renaissance)

Looks quickly done, but meticulous about every mark (each painting took a couple of years)

looked for geometric substructure in all things; shapes echo each other (curves in tree, slope; diagonals in field, mountains, paint strokes

Becomes increasingly abstract

More compressed; less depth

Balance between observation of nature and a desire to abstract nature: show things as color, shape

Paint strokes stand on their own; Freed painting from representational role

Had a powerful influence on Picasso and Matisse

this differed from impressionists in the method of paint application

The technique shown in this work, described by Georges Seurat as Neo-Impressionism but also known as divisionism or pointillism, received these names because the artist wanted to let our eyes blend the colors instead of mixing the colors on the palette

Georges Seurat was interested in:

• Portraying mixed social classes

• Using scientific color theory

• Bringing a sense of classicism to modern painting

Made a few very large paintings with dozens of preliminary studies; only lived to be 31

Felt art should be based on a scientific system

Impressionist influence: subject (middle class leisure activities), brilliant colors, sunlight; shows social types (boatman on left corner, courtesan on right with monkey)

Different: very controlled: firm contours, frozen formality, calm, timeless stability instead of fleeting moment (like Renaissance); structure

Classical: figures silhouetted in profile, ¾ view, or frontally (not casual placement); said he wanted to make modern figures file past like figures on the frieze of the Parthenon;

6x10 feet—like monumental history painting

Did detailed studies—like a stage set: made monumental

Brushstoke: broken, but systematic, impersonal

Brushstrokes became dots (theory that they would merge in the viewer’s eye and produce more luminous color than if mixed on palette (pointillism, divisionism)

In his painting Moulin Rouge, the artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec included:

• Famous performers

• A self-portrait

• Unusual cropping

Painted night life of Paris; optimistic? Garish light, cropped

Self-portrait in back (crippled by a genetic disease; very short); Spent life in night spots of Paris, died of alcoholism

Became widely known for his lithographic posters

Influence of Japanese prints: flat silhouettes, block shapes, cropping, tilted space,

Influence of Degas: above and subject matter

Different: more abstract, cartoonish, caricature, simplified; minimum of marks, more flat planes and outlines

Makes very 2-D

Moulin Rouge--Cabaret

Dancer: Louise Weber, credited with creating the cancan

Profile in front: “Valentin the boneless,” known for his idiosyncratic dancing

Satirical: Appealing? Illusion of gaiety, but emptiness:

Psychological isolation of dancer, weary expression;  lurking profile of Valentin; dark shapes of onlookers

We can feel rhythm of the dance: repeated feet, movement, repeated words, yellow gas lamps (rhythm), lines of floorboards)

Yellow shape on left: globes of the modern electric chandelier that hung over the dance floor

Wanted to “express the terrible passions of humanity by means of red and green”

Symbolic use of complementary colors: makes harsh, acidic, sour (green light in waiter’s hair)

Also tipped perspective: puts us at dis-ease; looks threatening

Psychological isolation

The main reason this work is part of Post Impressionism is that It emphasizes the artist's inner state of mind rather than physical reality.

Painted after he committed himself to a mental institution

Mood?

Emotional intensity

Surging, rhythmic lines

Everything in the landscape is echoed in the town:

Cypress trees planted beside graveyards as symbols of eternal life (echoes church steeple)--spiritual

Lit houses in rural village protected by surrounding hills

Yellow in windows and in the stars; light, spiritual light

Expressive: not realist or Impressionist

People in harmony with the universe (Van Gogh’s desire); commitment to humanity

Committed suicide 1 year later

“I think my favorite piece was probably Van Gogh’s “Starry Night.” As cliché as it sounds, I just really love this painting, and I have loved it since I was a kid. I’ve always admired Van Gogh’s use of color and his thick, loose brushwork. Also, I’m a huge fan of the swirls in the sky and the stars. A spiral pattern is my favorite shape and composition to work with, so the fact that Starry Night is full of swirls and spirals just makes me love it more. Plus, I really love night scenes.” Anna Earley

Paul Gauguin imitates each of these characteristics of Japanese woodblock prints

• the flat shapes

• the strong diagonal cutting across the compositionthe strong outlines and lack of modeling

Felt western civilization lacked spirituality—too materialistic

Believed art of ancient and non-western cultures had more spiritual strength

Went to Brittany (western France) to live among peasants; seeking a simpler society in tune with nature

Religion still part of everyday life for peasants; still wore distinctive regional costume? tried to depict their simple, direct faith through art that was direct, authentic, and free of civilized influences (perspective, shading)

Looked at folk art, children’s art, medieval art, medieval stained glass windows

Women have just heard a sermon about Jacob wrestling with the angel; they see a vision of the story along with a cow (spirituality in every thing—struggling shapes have shape of cow)

Shapes reduced to flat, curvilinear, outlined areas; little shadow (like Japanese prints and stained glass)

Background plane tilted up, flat red (mystical; felt deep space was distracting to message)

Diagonal of apple tree like Japanese prints

Perspective of Degas

Hats, bonnet strings look animated

Influenced a lot of other painters

Visual poems (not illustrations); evoke world of Poe’s imagination

Soft, hazy, indistinct

Balloon morphs into a hairy eyeball, head severed at the nose

Life, death, eternity; uncertainty, troubling

Hard edges of Ingres, looks simplistic, charming, direct

Also seeking simplicity of pre-civilization

Not widely recognized during his lifetime; later Picasso and his circle admired his flatness, abstraction, directness, untaught style

(Norway)

Influences?

Influenced by curvilinear forms of Gauguin, intense brushwork and color of Van Gogh

Explored psychology, subconscious

About deep, inner anxiety; universal anxiety of modern man

Skull-like head, compressed, writhing

Landscape is oozing, unstable

Violent perspective

(forget what we know about perspective, modeling, etc.)

A passage in Munch’s diary dated January 22, 1892, and written in Nice, contains the probable inspiration for this scene as the artist remembered it: “I was walking along the road with two friends—the sun went down—I felt a gust of melancholy—suddenly the sky turned a bloody red. I stopped, leaned against the railing, tired to death—as the flaming skies hung like blood and sword over the blue-black fjord and the city—My friends went on—I stood there trembling with anxiety—and I felt a vast infinite scream [tear] through nature.” 

We don’t hear the scream, but we feel it resonating inside of us.

Fascination with patterns and shapes, jewel like (gold like Byzantine mosaics)

Passion beautiful, dangerous (abyss)

Decorative; wanted to break down the hierarchy between fine arts and decorative arts (Vienna Secession: avant-garde artists’ organization; anti academic art)

Son of a preacher; religious imagery

We are in the sky with the angels looking down on holy land; shepherds and fire

Material world dissolved, ethereal

In exchange for the 6 burghers, the English agreed to lift the siege and spare the town (6 were eventually freed)

Emotionally charged: confront death with fear, resignation, anguish

Study question: The city of Calais commissioned this sculpture to memorialize an event from the city’s past. Discuss ways in which the sculptor’s conception, which was not acceptable to city officials, broke with traditional notions of heroic sculpture.

Wrought iron columns, railings in stairwell; linear patterns of sinuous curves; organic fluidity (things growing)

furniture, jewelry, interiors; related to styles of Beardsley, Munch, Gauguin

Like Whistler

Felt music was free from imitation: color, line, form counterparts of notes, chords, rhythms, harmonies

improvisation can also be a term for music and incorporated that into his paintings, he had synesthesia where he can se colors for different music notes and saw certain shapes as colors, oil paint, one of the 1st artists that broke the rules of art and shows abstract art

artists were talking about universal truths, which is not a particular religious belief but still wants us to feel something spiritual with the art and he feels that we should feel something when we see art

Completely non-objective; wanted to express universal spiritual forces, abstract mystical powers;

Simple, direct, spiritual

Combined influences found in The Blue Rider Almanac, including children’s art, tribal art, music

Grid of Cubism

Colors like Matisse, Kandinsky

Directness and naivete of children’s and folk art

Luminescent colors of stained glass windows

Sense of spirituality

Symbols: Jewish star of David, Islamic crescent moon, primitive hieroglyphic suns

Tree: life (same rays as suns: earth and sky connected)

Rectangular planes: trees, ,plants, fire, sky, earth?

Understated; strips everything inessential

• Umberto Boccioni. Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, 1913

• Giacomo Balla, Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash, 1912

  
  

sought to reject the past and bring Italy into the future; interest in new
technology, speed, and movement

Wanted to convey motion, dynamic imagery, and social progress

extreme naturalism, felt they were behind in tech and the artists wanted to catch up so they broke away from Italian renaissance, burned books, war would be a great cleanse, moving photography was a start to futurism and were trying to figure out how the horse moved properly and proved the horses legs are always on the ground in movement

bronze sculpture, look to the future, speed, and machines, movement in space, there is an indication of a moving figure

The Futurists said they were inspired by

• Cubism

• Photography

• New machines and technology

theres a machine like quality

Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2, 1912: (2-minute masterpieces: start at :27)

Influenced by Cubism, Futurism

Machinelike: idealizes progress, motion, modernity, science’s ability to improve the world

1913 Armory show: an art critic for the New York Times wrote that the work resembled "an explosion in a shingle factory," and cartoonists satirized the piece. It spawned dozens of parodies in the years that followed.

he chose this art bc he is the artist and put these 2 together to show how art can just be anything an artist creates/

Significance of “Readymades”: Art is about ideas, not just something beautiful to look at

Challenges notion that art requires technical skill and craftsmanship

Interpretations? Pedastol with bust?

relationship between animals and people, tree of life,

Influences: Cubism (fracturing), stained glass windows (worked in that medium), folk art

symbolism?: circles=cycles of life

Blooming bush=birth

Farmer with scythe=death

Tree of life

Having been in Paris for just one year, Chagall painted this work from memories of his native village outside Vitebsk, Belarus. The cow and the man stare directly into one another’s eyes, suggesting the mutual dependence of peasants and animals. For orthodox Jews, animals were humanity’s link to the universe; look closely and you’ll see the sun, the earth and the moon in orbit. In reference to his very personal response to Cubism, Chagall once said "Lines, angles, triangles, squares, carry me far away to enchanting horizons.”

Chagall saw Jesus on the Cross as a universally recognizable symbol of human suffering. Chagall hoped that Jews and non-Jews alike would be able to relate to this symbol. By making Jesus unmistakably Jewish, he was highlighting the fact that the Romans crucified Jesus as a Jew. In the midst of the Holocaust, Chagall wanted to make the universality of Jesus’ crucifixion specific again, he wanted the world to look at Jewish suffering.

Strong diagonal lines, disjointed space like Cubism

Classical buildings, figurative=allegiance to classical past

Suprematism: refers to the “supremacy” of feeling

Influences: Russion icons (corner of room), folk art

Trying to portray feelings through a new language, new vocabulary

Malevich called his style "Suprematism," based on the "supremacy of feeling." In this work, Malevich wanted to make art that only the educated could understand

Trying to show experience of flying; new relationship to the universe

Reproductions don’t show organic qualities, hand of the artist

Art=Mondrian animation

Wars=Newsies I’m the King of New York

Theme= I Will Survive (Covid)

Inward=O Holy Night

looked to art that was irrational instead of rational

Reaction against World War I
Focused on absurdity, element of chance
(Enlightenment values of logic and reason only lead to war)
Challenged status quo in art, culture, etc.

French word for “hobbyhorse.”: Two German poets stabbed knife into dictionary and point landed on that word; association with childishness, chance, absurdity

Logic and reason (Enlightenment) only leads to war

was going to let fate/chance decide where the squares go and how he made art

Movement started in Zurich (center for war protests)

Made abstract collages by dropping pieces of torn rectangular paper on the floor; where they fell determined the composition (chance=nature, truth)

Sought to capture abstract universal forces (like Kandinsky)

• Hans Arp, Squares Arranged According to the Laws of Chance, 1916-17

• Marcel Duchamp. Fountain. 1917

• Raoul Hausmann. Mechanical Head (Spirit of the Age). ca. 1920

• Hannah Höch, Cut with the Kitchen Knife through the Beer-Belly of the Weimar Republic,
  1919

• Käthe Kollwitz. Never Again War! 1924

Photomontage

Images of contemporary life made by photographers for popular press; camera is another machine associated with technological advances that led to war

Manipulated images by hand; cut with kitchen knife (no machinery); humanized the mechanical; antiwar

Antiwar Kathe Kollwitz at center, antidada at sides

Didn’t use collage to make something beautiful or refined; looked crude and anti-art; message of protest about modern society and regime of Weimar Republic

1930’s
Element of chance (like Dada)
Randomness related to dream states
Juxtaposition of unrelated objects
Exploration of the subconscious mind
Dream images
Stream of consciousness

Exploration of the unconscious mind
Dream images
Juxtaposition of unrelated objects
Randomness related to dream states
Stream of consciousness

In common with Dada: element of chance, randomness (not politically charged); also nonsense

flat lines and shape

From Barcelona, went to Paris, started painting from his imagination (or hallucinations brought on by starvation, he claimed)

Wiry line, childlike drawing of Paul Klee

Biomorphic forms float on top of minimal color field (behind drawings)—oil, but thin like washes

Suggest microscopic forms, spirits, prehistoric forms; mythic images, primal state

(how many ways can we not show depth?)

Focus on ideas, Not all surrealist art was nonrepresentational

Claims superiority of unconscious mind over conscious mind

Iris like eclipsed sun, behind which lies unconscious; eye absorbs only the visual world, but not the inner world of the unconscious

the artist brings up a push and pull between naturalism and abstraction, objective vs. subjective reality, and the irrationality of memories and dreams

It is an example of Surrealism, The medium is oil on canvas, It was inspired by scenery from Spain, the artist's native country.

very small painting, clocks are melting, merging and changing shapes like dreams, insects swarming objects, very irrational, Dali came from Spain the cliffs and ocean side came from his countryside and this painting represents, a memory and time seems to go very slowly,

Stream of consciousness process: one thing led to another

Time? Rational, measured

Death, deterioration

Everything is irrational—attack on the rational

Viewers’ own unconscious

Surrealist object

Gift for composer Erik Satie

Tacks glued onto flat side of an iron

Suggests pain, violence, uselessness?

Daughter of a Jungian psychologist

Juxtaposition two desirable things; becomes disturbing

American, settled in Paris, befriended Miro and Mondrian

Started making mobiles in the early 1930’s; painted sheet metal, balanced so that movement in air makes them glide and turn in space

Organic shapes like Miro and Arp; suggest natural forms

Sculpture? Flat; like drawing in air; but moves in space

Simple colors: primary, secondary, black and white

Childlike, joyous

Flat space and depth combined

Influenced by Brancusi, Arp, Miro, Picasso

Also non-western art, including Pre-Columbian art

Reminiscent of a Classical reclining river-goddess; but based more directly on Pre-Columbian figures.

Interested in portraying elemental and universal

We see woman but know it is also stone; millions of years old; one with the stone

Earth goddess or fertility figure; also a landscape; mother earth

Interplay between solid and void; suggests womb or tide pools

Many interpreters liken the undulating form of his reclining figures to the landscape and hills of his birthplace, Yorkshire. His ability in later life to fulfill large-scale commissions made him exceptionally wealthy. Yet he lived frugally and most of the money he earned went towards endowing the Henry Moore Foundation, which continues to support education and promotion of the arts.^[1]

• Georgia O’Keeffe, Yellow Calla, 1926

• Georgia O’Keeffe, Deer’s Skull with Pedernal, 1936

• Stuart Davis, Hot Still-Scape for Six Colors - 7th Avenue Style. 1940

American Regionalism

Representational
Local (Midwest) imagery

• Georgia O’Keeffe, Yellow Calla, 1926

• Georgia O’Keeffe, Deer’s Skull with

• Pedernal, 1936

• Stuart Davis, Hot Still-Scape for Six Colors - 7th Avenue Style. 1940

Harlem Renaissance

• “In the North the Negro Had Better Educational Facilities,” from the Migration of the Negro
  series, 1940-41

Mexican Art between the Wars

• Diego Rivera, Flower Carrier, 1935

• Frida Kahlo, The Two Fridas, 1939

Protest Art

• Pablo Picasso. Guernica. 1937

Social Realism

• Edward Hopper, Night Hawks, 1942

• Dorothea Lange. Migrant Mother, California. 1936

Precisionism

• Charles Demuth, My Egypt, 1927

formal elements: The artist used primary colors plus black and white, The artist tried to eliminate perspective in this work, The artist used smaller blue and yellow rectangles to balance the large red square

called it the international style, he wanted everyone to have this style

Mondrian with other artists in Amsterdam founded a movement called De Stijl:; spiritual mission;

Friend and philosopher Schoenmaekers wrote that there was an underlying mathematical structure to the universe that constituted true reality;

Mondrian based art on this theory; called it Neo Plasticism

Asymmetrical but harmonious; no foreground or background; all on same plane (asserts the presence of the picture plane—going back to Manet, Cezanne, etc.)

Tries to convey complexity and simplicity of universe; everything fits together

Mondrian felt that art can be a catalyst for change; new language (like Malevich)

Cubist influence; also stained glass

Shown at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1930 (still there), brought Wood to national attention

Window into Midwest world where Wood grew up and lived

What can you tell about these people?

Fictitious father and spinster daughter, God-fearing descendants of settlers

Religious: numerous crosses: windows, porch, overalls (repeats pitchfork pattern), church steeple, Gothic window

Neat and clean: crisp drawing, verticals and horizontals

Industrious: pitchfork, plants on porch

Frugal: old-fashioned clothes, nothing modern (time of Depression)

Frida Kahlo, The Two Fridas, 1939: began painting while recovering from a bus accident at age 18; interested in native folk art and dress; introspective and about emotional and physical pain

Left: European Frida; pale, Victorian dress (father was Hungarian Jew); right is Mexican Frida, darker and in peasant costume (mother Indian and Creole)

European Frida cuts the blood connection to the indigenous self

Grant from FSA (Farm Security Administration) under Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal

Captures destitution, emotional distress of migrant workers

Immediate impact: government sent food to CA and opened relief camps for migrant workers; power of images

Close-ups of flowers; image so magnified it becomes abstract (influenced by close-up photography of Paul Strand)

Critics felt it had sexual references

O’Keeffe denied that they were about sexuality;  “if you see other things in the flower, it is because of the universality present in nature”

Quote: “I’ll paint it big, and they will be surprised into taking time to look at it. . . I will make even busy New Yorkers take time to see what I see of flowers.”

Essence of the modern experience through abstraction—influenced by Armory Show: flying in an airplane, looking down from a towering skyscraper, riding in a speeding car, advertising, jazz, pulse and energy

Like synthetic Cubism

Grain elevators

Hard-edged, geometric, Cubist; Precisionism (not only because of precise line, but also because of precision of machines and industry; unlike Cubism, not distorted

Title: Americas pyramids; mighty

Fascist rise to power: Mussolini in Italy, Hitler in Germany, Franco in Spain, Hirohito in Japan

Spanish Civil War: Hitler provided military support for the Nationalists under leadership of fascist dictator Franco; Nazi pilots used saturation bombing to attack the undefended Basque town of Guernica, killing thousands of civilians.

Painted as a protest;  This large canvas embodies for many the inhumanity, brutality and hopelessness of war (compare to Goya 3^rd of May); crucifixion pose

Why black and white? Thought color would distract

Why lines of hatching? Newspaper look; immediacy of journalism; contemporary event

Bull=forces of brutality and darkness; horse=the people

Bird=dove of peace (annihilated)

Picasso refused to let Gernica be displayed in Spain while Franco was still alive

Last major history painting; end of belief that a painting can be a catalyst for change (we are too bombarded by images daily)

Pablo Picasso, “Guernica”.  Oil on canvas. 1937.

This painting of Pablo Picasso has a very strong and emotive purpose. The storyline is very powerful and he knew how to narrate it in a perfect way. What I admire the most about this painting is that Picasso portrayed in a marvelous way the drama and effusion of the moment where the people of Guernica were attacked by a bomb in the Spanish civil war. The colors are very cold and hopeless which portray a sense of despair, sadness and drama. The subjects in the painting are disfigured and portray a feeling of pain and destruction. The painting is a symbol of the terrible suffering that the war violates human beings. I believe that Picasso wanted to show how art has always been and will be a form of social expression, a way to "speak without words" and sensitize the viewer. We should look at art not in the simple forms or colors, but to look beyond and try to perceive what the author wants to tell us. 

Postwar to Postmodern (1945-1980)

Theme: Breaking Boundaries

Abstract Expressionism = Action Painting

artists/abstract artists were limited during the war and moved to America to have more freedom to do it here

Breaking Rules!
Abstract Expressionism (two branches—Action Painting and Color Field Painting):

Influenced by Surrealism
Art about emotion, myth, universal forces
Brought attention to the paint on the canvas (rather than hiding)
Brought NYC to the center of the art world

Post-Painterly Abstraction
“Stain painting”

Post Abstraction
“Combines”

Action Painting

• Jackson Pollock Autumn Rhythm: Number 30. 1950

Color Field Painting

• Mark Rothko No. 61 (Rust and Blue), 1953

Post-Painterly Abstraction

• Helen Frankenthaler. Mountains and Sea. 1952

Postwar Sculpture

• Louise Nevelson. Sky Cathedral—Moon Garden Plus One. 1957–60

Post Abstraction

• Robert Rauschenberg. Odalisk. 1955–58

• Jasper Johns. Three Flags. 1958

quote by Mark Rothko - "I am not interested in relationships of color or form or anything else . . . I am interested only in expressing the basic human emotions—tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on—and the fact that lots of people break down and cry when confronted with my pictures shows that I communicate with those basic human emotions. The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them.  And if you . . . are moved only by their color relationships, then you miss the point!”

Flip side of Abstract Expressionism: Color-Field Painting

Mystical quality: Large meditative planes of color to express universal forces; sublime (vast, large canvases)

Main color-field painters: Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, Clifford Still; all started out by making Surrealist paintings based on mythical themes

Rothko: flat planes of color; no storytelling, no symbols; mystical, oneness with cosmic forces

Thin layers of paint; glowing,  “spiritual light”; ragged edges, cloudlike, organic; suggest infinity, spiritual aura

puts paintings on floor and didn't paint with brushes and would thin her oil paint and pour it on to unprimed canvas and would tip the canvas to make these large stained paintings

Developed Stain painting: put canvas on the floor like Pollock, made quick charcoal sketches, poured thin oil paint on it, tilted it to allow paint to run (didn’t use brush)

Paint bled into unprimed canvas; translucent like watercolor; not tactile like impasto; couldn’t see artist’s hand: post-painterly abstraction (evolved from abstract expressionism)

Black boxes filled with found objects; fragments of furniture and architecture; also became larger, wall-sized

Fragments of civilization, of one’s life, of the cosmos

Nevelson wanted her black works to be illuminated by a blue light, suggesting twilight, when things begin to look different and to change into something else—moment of transformation

New generation of artists rejected Abstract Expressionism

Rauschenberg: “It was all about suffering and self-expression and the State of Things. I just wasn’t interested in that, and I certainly did not have any interest in trying to improve the world through painting.”

Took off where Duchamp left off: painted canvases completely white; in response, avant-garde composer John Cage wrote a piano piece called 4’33”, first performed in Woodstock, NY in 1952: pianist opened keyboard, did nothing else for 4 minutes and 33 seconds; audience listened to sounds of the real world; then the keyboard case was shut, signaling the end of the piece

“I don’t want a picture to look like something it isn’t. I want it to look like something it is. And I think a pictures is more like the real world when it’s made out of the real world.”

Combines: works that combined painting, sculpture, collage, found objects

Odalisk: lamp (electric light inside); magazines, newspapers, thrift shops, garbage—mass production, throwaway

Title: pun on odalisque and obelisk; sexual allusions but no explanation; this is life

Chose everyday, familiar forms

Takes readymades and paints over them

Paintings about painting: non-illusionistic, no specific meaning or emotion (can you remove emotion from flag?)

Wax-based encaustic; painterly

3 canvases stacked: 3-D from canvases, not from illusionistic painting; an image is a sign or symbol of something else, not the thing itself (this is a painting of a flag, not a flag—Magritte: This is not a Pipe)

Predecessor to Pop Art

Environments or installations

Interested in Rauschenberg, Nevelson using objects from everyday life

Allover look of Jackson Pollock (wrote that the next step after Pollock was to make environmental art)

Not permanent

Walk through it, experience

No meaning attached; left to viewer

Performance Art, Happenings

Simultaneous actions: painting, juicing oranges, speaking fragments of sentences: human participation, element of change

Like a combine in time and space

Reminds me of switching channels on tv or radio

Lots of performance art followed

George Brecht: Motor Vehicle Sunset Event: people drew cards with instructions: at a parking lot revved engines, honked horns, rolled down windows, slammed doors shut, opened and closed hoods and trunks

Finding beauty in everyday ordinariness?

How different from theater? Takes place in an art context

Response to Happenings/Performance ArtFrozen environments; white, plaster figures (plaster casts using plaster medical bandages)Alienation of contemporary life; lethargic, very alone, drained of lifeModern objects, advanced technology, but meaningless; no spirituality or human interactionWhat is the meaning of modern existence? Like Edward Hopper

Autobiographical: fighter pilot in Hitler’s Luftwaffe in WW2; told story that his plane was shot down in a snowstorm over Crimea and that nomads saved him from freezing by covering him in animal fat and felt (materials here reflecting humanity and spirituality: felt on shoe, fat on chair; steel attached to right foot to show hard reason; face covered in honey (life force) and cold—magical, shaman-like

Moved lips for 3 hours instructing dead hare about pictures surrounding him; meaninglessness of conventional picture-making that has to be explained; art should be spiritual, direct, understandable to viewer.

• Roy Lichtenstein. Drowning Girl. 1963

• Andy Warhol. Campbell’s Soup Cans. 1961–64

Imagery of mass media; took “low art” forms (commercial art) and made it into “high art”; Revealed manipulative impact of mass media

Make art that doesn’t look like art (idea from Environments, Happenings)

Looked to comic books, newspapers; liked the bold outlines, lack of depth/dimension

Known for seeing beauty in low art

Blurs distinctions between fine art and mass culture

Used benday dots; when seen up close, they become flat abstract patterns

Reveals cultural stereotypes of men and women at the time

Artist’s hand/presence not visible; machine-like (opposite AE artists)

• Ellsworth Kelly. Red Blue Green. 1963

• Frank Stella. Empress of India. 1965

• Donald Judd, Untitled. 1969

Entirely flat, pinstripes=lines of canvas showing through

Canvas now has a life of its own—not rectangular; sculptural (blurs distiction between painting and sculptures)

No push-pull of space

“What you see is what you see.” No hidden meanings, symbols, references: stripped down vocabulary=Minimal Art

(so why title?)

Geometrical precision

Reliance upon geometry, mathematical measurements; emphasized conceptual rather than emotional content; favored materials and processes of mass production

Lacks artists’ hand; not personal; no sign of artist except in concept

Non-art materials: plexiglass, fluorescent tubes, galvanized steel

Wanted to make art that did not look like art—nothing but what you see; no references

Admire what you see: scale, color, texture, proportions; takes away base, glass case—props that announce an object to be a work of art

The earth is the canvas
Interactive
Out of the gallery—less elitist
Not collectable

• Robert Smithson. Spiral Jetty, Great Salt Lake, Utah. 1970

• Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Running Fence Sonoma and Marin counties, California. 1972–76

social-historical: Artists of this period were interested in environmental issues.

Robert Smithson, the creator of Spiral Jetty, wanted touse the earth as his canvas, suggest ancient symbolism, and make art less elitist, It can be seen on the shore of the Great Salt Lake.

this work of art you can go see today, artist wanted to show the flux of nature and how things in nature change, the spiral is a symbol pf eternal life, sometimes the spiral was completely covered by water now there is no water around it, its a work that's never the same, its open to everyone not like an art piece in a gallery

The earth is the canvas; environmental scale

Just as time erodes civilizations and all things, the jetty will eventually disappear

Subject is entropy and change (salt encrusted, etc.)

How can art compete with mass media? The masses don’t go to art museums, so he decided to bring art to the people

Not lasting museum pieces: felt that the creative process was more important than the finished work:

  the recording of the work by the media (let the media work for you—like Salvador Dali, Andy Warhol)

  working with farmers to get their permission to use their land

  getting local people to help with the construction

  beauty of finished project: Jars us into seeing the environment in a new way; natural element of wind

Local people skeptical at first, but many were proud of it at the end; hard-hat workers moved by the experience; also by his total belief in what he was doing; charismatic, converted people to his art (story about one rancher who had fought it slept next the the fence one night with his son and had a transformative experience

Not elitist—brought art experience to normal people; link between fine art and real world

Cost 3 million dollars; Christo funded himself through drawings, but hundreds of thousands saw it vs. painting sold to private collector and never seen

take a stereotype and and use an icon and empower it, doesnt believe in violence but saw that was empowerment so a rifle is added

Betye Saar’s found object assemblage, The Liberation of Aunt Jemima (1972), re-appropriates derogatory imagery as a means of protest and symbol of empowerment for black women.

Emerging from a historical context fraught with racism and sexism, Saar’s pivotal piece works in tandem with the civil rights and feminist movements. The cotton balls at the feet of the Jemima figure, the broom, and the image of the woman with the white child each speak to specific roles into which African American women were historically allocated. Saar takes these painful memories and alters them, arming the stereotypically docile mammy figure with a gun and hand grenade and giving agency to the traumatized icons of the past.

Aunt Jemima has been armed and empowered with a new identity. She’s done making pancakes.

Began feminist art movement

Background as a minimalist (one of the boys); not included in reviews of shows

Cutting edge group of artists still very traditional in one way: domination by males

Decided to pay homage to important women throughout history, many ignored in history books

Extensive research

39 place settings, 13 at each side (symbolism?)

919 other women’s names inscribed in tiles

Hand-painted ceramic plates in period style, embroidered runner also in period style: mediums associated with women: needlework, painted china, ceramics

Sense of community and ritual (Last Supper now spiritual communion of women)

Nam June Paik, electronic Superhighway: Continental U.S., 1995:

Video art

Monitors behind each state with different imagery

Prevalence of tv in America, rapidly changing

Most Americans experience the world through tv screens; tv=real life

In 1949 the term was used to describe a dissatisfaction with modern architecture and led to the Post-modern architecture movement. Post-modernism in architecture is marked by the re-emergence of surface ornament, reference to surrounding buildings in urban architecture, historical reference in decorative forms, and non-orthogonal angles.

After that, Post-modernism was applied to a whole host of movements, many in art, music, and literature, that reacted against tendencies in the imperialist phase of capitalism called ”Modernism," and are typically marked by revival of historical elements and techniques.

Discovered near a palace in Ife (in Nigeria); believed to have been used in royal burials/funerary ceremonies

Portrait quality

Ife believed to be the land of the gods, first holy city, center of creation

Related to the garden of Eden

Head=center of power

Lost wax casting technology

scarification

More than one moment at a time; impermanence;  influence of Cubism, photography

Optimism of modernity: machines, motion, etc.

• Kazimir Malevich. Suprematist Composition: Airplane Flying. 1915 (dated 1914)

• Kazimir Malevich, White on White, 1918

Activist Art

• Betye Saar, The Liberation of Aunt Jemima, 1972

Feminist Art

• Judy Chicago. The Dinner Party. 1979

Video Art

• Nam June Paik. Electronic Superhighway: Continental U.S. 1995

Installation Art

• Yayoi Kusama, A Dream I Dreamed, 2014

Installation Art

• Allan Kaprow, Yard, 1961

• Yayoi Kusama, Infinity Mirrors, 2017

Performance Art

• Joseph Beuys, How to Explain Paintings to a Dead Hare, Nov. 26, 1965