Art history 2 NEW
Chilkat blanket
Tlingit (c. 1900) - Chilkat blankets were collaborations between male designers and female weavers - Decorated with animal and abstract motifs, they were worn over the shoulder and where items of ceremonial dress
Street, Dresden
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1908) German: oil - Kirchner's perspectival distortions, disquieting figures, and color choices reflect the influence of the Fauves and of Edvard Munch, who made use of similar expressive elements
Machu Picchu
Inka, Peru (15th century) - Inka architects designed Machu Picchu so that the windows and doors frames spectacular views Inka masons cut large upright stones in shapes that echo the contours of nearby sacred peaks
beer street and gin lane
william hogarth 1751 england prints warning of consequences of alcohol on society. Beer was like water at the time and gin was considered very potent. Published in support of the Gin Act of 1751 which restricted distribution of gin to larger distillers
the death of marat
1793 jaques louis david oil on painting Marat did serve in the legislature missed a lot of meeting due to his skin disease, was more of a political operative, had a skin disease but a herbal bath would ease his distress which is why he missed a lot of meetings, such a prominent figure and attracted attention from people in the moderate monarchy ?... A lady who thought Marat was ruining the French revolution, went to Paris, bought a knife, managed to slip into his home, leaned in and stabbed him,painting kind of a memorial to Marat, setting of what he would usually be in - meaning the tub, upturned box for extra writing space, quill pen and ink pod, lies there dead, the list of what would have been the traitor corday in his hand, stray lettersthat explain a womans... box carries the inscription to Marat David, quite a restrained wound, only a little bit of blood drops down, a martyrdom with real etiquette, the pose is said to be the source of martyrdom - piet de tatandr the dying gaul, it is neoclassical and perhaps neo renaissance, commemorating what David means to be which is a portrait of a great man, typical of David for the message to be strained down with no extraneous elements, black bakground. David's intent is petagogical, powerful idealogical message but typically people construe this as a lie depending on how you see Marat on skin disease here is not visible, powerful work of art but with its core meaning and story which is construed as a lie is not well thought of in modern generations
the third of may, 1808
1814 francisco goya France, resides in madrid today oil painting from a pair of pendant paintings, painted after Napoleon had been defeated, very large 14 feet wide - etc, an uprising showing the people killing French soldiers and mercenaries, firing squad of the Bonapartean troops and Spanish people ... focal point is on the man in the white shirt brought about because of lighting, colour, real and implied line from the bayonets pointing at him, light is supplied by a blg block of lantern - which is a fairly new invention, man in the foreground adopting a reference from the Crucifixion, a pose of martyrdom, reference to religious art, soldiers bunched together in triangular poses - quoting David's work and turning it around in meaning to create an antithesis, making this a very sophisticated political artwork, brush work is quite loose, not very refined, most of the surface of the canvas is kind of rough and rough brush stronkes, however the blood is created with such density and redness that is really looks like real blood, even today, it is quite viceral, it is meant to appeal to emotions and to stand up and let people to take notice, it's bloody, gory, unifnished, rough and dark but was never intended to be pretty compared to the Death of Marat which is so aestheticized, Goya here appeals to the public and states that art doesnt have to be pretty or aesthetic as the meaning is more important so Goya is taking another step forward towards modernity
Marilyn Diptych
Andy Warhol 1962 American - Warhol's repetition of Monroe's face reinforced her status as a consumer product - Her glamorous visage confronting the viewer endlessly, as it did the American public in the aftermath of her death - 1 ft.
Travelers among mountains and streams
Artist: Fan Kuan date: 1000 location: North song? unknown This is a monumental landscape painting that represents the shift occurring between the tang dynasty, who believed in ancestral decendance and the passing of heirs through family to the song dynasty which implemented exams in order to decide who should be able to serve in government. the central focus here is the mountain peak. confucisans would suggest the peak represents the emperor, while daoists would focus on what isnt painted. this type of painting coincides with this change and rise in neoconfucianism. this would be hung in a government home.
Raft of the Medusa
Artist: Theodore Gericault date:1818-19' oil it's a shipwreck, from a great ship called the Medusa bringing colonists and the governer to the African coast, (the captain of the ship was newly appointed based on nepotism and didn't have much experience on the sea, 150 people on the raft initially, eventually the governor gets irritated and says to cut the rope that was pulling the raft, leaving the raft adrift, in the actual history all sorts of death happening, lost hope, conflict, crew trying to commit mass suicide, starvation and dehydration, eventually they resolved to cannibalism, in the end only 15 people were left, and only 7 people made it back to France), very large painting, painting in hopes of enetering it into the salon and winning, paints a life size version of the raft, reads all the entries from the survivors, paints dead people and severed limbs from the morgue to create this piece, lots of commotion and energy in the painting, lots of studies from life which is quite neoclassical, some pyramidal composition which is classical, triangular forms pulling into two different directions, a lot of motion and gesture among the survivors, flapping of cloth in the wind, neo baroque kind of quality, crashing waves behind and terror of nature up upon the raft, antiheros, what is more romantic is the subject matter, nature is too big to battle, etc. precise narrative moment when the ship's first pass but misses them,
Cherry blossom beneath the evening moon in the northern quarter
Artist: Utagawa Kunisada date: 1830s edo period woodblock print the floating world is the pleasure quarters, district of the brothels, courtesans, entertainment, orian are traditionally both highly trained entertainers and prostitutes, difference with them and with the geisha is that the geisha just entertain since the Japanese started getting self concious of the West's opinion of them, a lot of the best restaurants, most of them next to the brothels, theatres for Kabuki performances, in the foreground, the grand courtesans and ladies, in the right a celebrity an actor who is attracting some commoners attention, on the left is a samurai as he wears his sword, everything decorated up for spring, cherry blossoms in full bloom, hustle and bustle in the background woodblock print, ukiyo-e (pictures of the floating world), ukiyo-e is usually the subject matter and woodblock print is the medium but sometimes they can overlap
Liberty Leading the People
Eugene Delacroix (1830) France oil on canvas not about the French revolution, its about the 1830 july revolution, about the Bourbon restoration being opposed, situated in Paris, because out of the smoke in the background is the Notre Dame de Paris, piled up wood and furniture lie underfoot, on the right is a street .. fellow with dueling pistols probs stolen from a rich persons house, on the very left an industrial worker with his apron still on, here he commemorates the victory but also accentuates the negative aspect of violence, there is even a half stripped man towards the foreground of the composition, the woman is an allegory and is nude, which are mannerist characteristics, flag shows a republican trajectory, the concept she is meant to represent is shown through her phrygian hat which came to stand in for the symbol of freedom or liberty, she is leading the people towards the uprising... the rifle in her hand references stories of the revolution regarding the women in the revolution where the women, whether sister wife etc would pick up the gun if the man died in order to take his place
Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist)
Jackson Pollock 1950 American oil, enamel, and aluminum on canvas - Pollock's paintings emphasize the creative process - His mural - size canvases consist of rhythmic drips, splatters, and dribbles of paint that envelop viewers, drawing them into a lacy spider web
Homage to New York
Jean Tinguely (1960) Painted metal Swiss - Tinguely produced motor - driven devices programmed to make instant abstract paintings - To explore the notion of destruction as an act of creation, he designed this one to perform and then destroy itself
The Haywain
John Constable 1821 UK oil on canvas gives us landscapes of tranquility and ... theres nothing in the haywagon on the stream, in the distant fields, scattered agricultural workers, although by this time, the rural calm nature of the countryside had transformed radically as there were now machines to do these agricultural jobs, during the time, there were riots setting fire to agricultural machines, this was actually done in an incredibly disruptive time in England, Constable saying that England should go back to this rural time
Light Red Over Black
Mark Rothko 1957 oil on canvas American - Rothko's chromatic abstractionist paintings - consisting of hazy rectangles of pure color hovering in front of a colored background - are compositionally simple but compelling visual experiences
Der Krieg (The War)
Otto Dix (1932) German Oil on tempera and wood - In this triptych recalling earlier altarpieces, Dix captured the panoramic devastation that war inflicts on the terrain and on humans - He depicted himself as a soldier dragging a comrade to safety - Inspiration for the format The renaissance triptych altarpiece - Not clear if the soldiers are asleep or dead - Solders matching, smoke - Central panel Devastation, ruined building, dead bodies and a solder with a gas mask - Alarming, you expect to see a religious tryptic and all you see here is devastation
Guernica
Pablo Picasso 1937 Spanish oil on canvas - Picasso used Cubist techniques, especially the fragmentation of objects and dislocation of anatomical figures, to expressive effect on the Nazi bombing on the Basque capital
Jahangir preferring a Sufi Sheykh to Kings
artist: Bichitir medium: miniature painting date: 1615-1618 mughal empire the following portrait demonstrates teh ecclectisim of mughal art and the power of western influence in the work. the emperor Jahangir is shown in 3/4 view sitting on top of an hourglass, a ventiasse borrowed from western art showing that Jahangir is timeless. Below their is islamic inscriptions. their is a sufi sheykh handing jahangir a qaraun next to king james 1 of england, showing that he prefers religion to kings and outsider influsence. the floral border borrows from netherland paintings along with royal themes.
Founding of the nation
artist: Dong xiwen socialist realism 1952 socialist realisim two characteristics - accessible to the public and understandable by the public no hidden meanings and had to support the goals of the communist state, people in the communist party of the left, altered reality: Mao Zhedong here is really tall, subtle hierarchical scale is able to show he is the protaganist, scale of him towards the tiny people in the crowd make the Tianemen square seem really really big, much more vast and distant landscape, later revised because painting changes depeneding on the current politics for example if there is a person on the left not in politics anymore the face willvbe changed to somethig else
Beneath the wave of Kanagawa
artist: Katsushika hokusai 1830's edo woodblock? comes from a series featuring Mt. Fuji at different times of year at different perspectives,here shows unconventional view of Mt. Fuji from the sea from the Tokyo Harbour, Mt Fuji simply far off in the distance, author tends to dwell on possible Western impact, smaller scale on the horizon could show western influence in the composition, the blue is prussian blue which is an imported pigment which also accentuates a Western influence, because of it's rarity in the area, the series/print would be worth more, the Japanese elements are the stylized waves with the foam going back to the flat abstract rimpa style and the content is also very Japanese, this Wave off Kanagawa is a megawave not a tsunami, the wave that forms an inner tube when it curls, still snow capping the top of Mt Fuji suggesting early spring, in the maritime world in Japan in early spring is the arrival of Bonito Tuna (migratory fish), the deal is that this was a huge deal to be able to serve the first Bonito Tuna on your table as you got a lot of social credit, created an intensive market driven incentive, once the catch started, and they have caught the fish the fishermen rush back so they can charge the premium price, shows a Edo shows: vast populous consuming various versions of art, strikingly modern culture
Ashoka at Kalinga statue
artist: Meera Mukherjee date: 1972 bronze statue this image of Ashoka in kalinga serves as a passive protest against the violence that occured during the kalinga massacre. it is meant to represent the disparity between the massacre when kalinga was annexed to the transofrmatin of ashoka into a humane monarch. one hand rests victorious on the sword while the other rests passively, as the evil of the devastations settles in
Evening bell at the clock
artist: Suzuki Harunobu date: 1765 proportions are a bit more natural, outlines are more fluid, shows ladies about their everyday lives, on the right: lady toying with her hair talking to a lady putting food in a bag with cold water to keep it cool, left: brothel can afford to have a mechanical clock, one of the ladies is done bathing, the other lady is helping her tie her kimono up behind her, elevated point of view, Japanese representing architectural spaces, roof is popped up, standing screen with bamboo painting, tatami mats, propping out of the garden wall to get a view of the ladies which is kind of a tittilating image, made it as a series to make more money, more likely for someone to buy a collection if an image is part of a set, with the Harunobus there are brocade prints on the kimonos (in the right block print), shows how the artists thinks about how the pattern ondulates and wraps around the figures body,
Kabuki theatre
artist: Torri kiyotada edo 1743 down below is the orchestra and cheap tickets where there is hustle and bustle which are separated by plane like divisions, there's a snack vendor, sometimes used by actors, private boxes on the right, shoji screens at the very top,
Galloping Horse
artist: Xu Beihong date: 1939/41 created during the Japanese occupation, horses in Chinese tradition are aristocratic animals - only soldiers and high ranking people could ride them, so it symbolizes martial valour and heroism, not just a revival of the Chinese brush painting tradition but is also a blended work, being academically trained in the West - there is now an obersvation of light and shadow, as seen in the torsos - there are white highlight to show the reflection of lights, used his brush strokes to create the body of the horse, makes it more volumetric
The soap bubble
artist: jean baptiste simeon chardin date: 1739 medium oil painting france Chardin was a naturalist. Drew inspo from 17th century Dutch genre tradition. Soap bubble = transience of life aka momento mori
Breakfast: shortly after the marriage from marriage a la mode
artist: william hogarth date: 1745 england very satirical, skewed marriages of upperclass life Shed light on skewed marriages of the upper class societies and warned of the misery of them. Very satirical.
Sunrise
by Claude Monet (1872) French oil on canvas impressionism, (impressionists painted scenes but nowhere near capturing detail but because their primary focus was light and colour), brush strokes are legible, no point of reference for measurement in this painting, no chiaroscuro, so no depth of volume that you can really tell, it gives the whole thing a flat decorative quality,
Olympia
by Edouard Manet (1863) oil on canvas closely sketched out and defined as a figure, she rests on top of this throw which the patterns and it itself is loosely painted which sits on top of a mattress which looks naturalistic, reference to Venus of urbino, embraces a scandalous theme as olympia was a common name that prostitutes used during this era,
The Scream
by Edvard Munch (1893) Norway Oil, tempera, pastel and crayon on cardboard
A Sunday on La Grande Jatte
by Georges Seurat (1884-6) French Oil on Canvas Pointilism, pointallist style but at the time they called themselves the neo-impressionists, developing a systematic version for colour, from these dots come geometric shapes, thousands of colours layered on top of another, poses are either frontal or in profile, harkening back to increase monumentality, monumentalizing daily life, a park in suburban paris,
The Stone Breakers
by Gustave Courbet (1849) French Oil on Canvas Realism, relatively large canvas, subject is hard, manual labour, they are paving a road, very strenous work, their clothes are ripped and, the mans vest is ripped, their knees have more patches not only for repair but for padding as well since they're working on the paves so much, wearing brownish clothing, humble colours, salon sized canvas and filled it with ordinary people and colours that are simple, and figures that they can't recognized, this is courbet doing raportage, trying to give a political commentary, showing people what society really is, (he was a socialist), this painting was incinerated, using a big canvas but not painting an important historical event, which is what was expected, rather a scene of ordinary people working
Eiffel Tour
by Gustave Eiffel (1889) Paris, France Wrought Iron The Eiffel Tower, La Tour Eiffel in French, was the main exhibit of the Paris Exposition — or World's Fair — of 1889. It was constructed to commemorate the centennial of the French Revolution and to demonstrate France's industrial prowess to the world
The Night Café
by Vincent van Gogh (1888) Dutch oil on canvas relatively small canvas, working in a public space, in a dive joint, the colours don't relate what he's seeing, color is being used to present his own feelings and how it relates to the scene before you, I want to convey a place where one can ... oneself, go mad or commit a crime, radically diminishing room, forced perspective, flipped up the ground plane but the difference is that the vanishing lines in the floorboards are at different levels, the billiards table has a sort of anthropomorphism because of the legs, the painting has actual texture called impasto - this painting had a thick impasto,
Nocturne in Black and Gold (The Falling Rocket)
by Whistler (c. 1875) oil on canvas UK Nocturne is a slow piece of music usually played for the evening, this painting sent him into a big financial problem because he took this painting into court, this painting is an artistic arrangement, autonomous from the responsibilities of representation,
Akbar restrains the elephant Havai from Akbarnama
date: 1590 medium: gouache on paper painted for the Mughal empire the painting shows Akbar riding on an elephant, taming it as he rides. this shows the chaos of adventure and Akbar's prowess as a rider. serving as sort of an advertisement for the Mughal empire. the horizon line lies above the picture plane and the palace is shown in isometric view rather than
Taj Mahal
date: 1631-48 by: Shah Jehan The Taj Mahal was built for shah jehans wife as a burial tomb of sorts. built by the river jumba, the taj mahal features a massive masoleum, with its main feature the centaph for his wife, Arjuman begum, and shah jehan. The masouleum features two cenotaphs because shah jehan did not have enough time to build his own tomb. on the outside, decorative vegtal patterns deccorate the exterior where the Iwans reside. along the exterior their are quaranic verses describing judgement day, Beffiting that its main function is to house the dead shah Jehan and his wife.
Coatlicue
from Tenochtitlan (c. 1487-1520) Stone - Colossal statue that may have stood in the Great Temple complex - The beheaded goddess wears a necklace of human hands, hearts and skulls - Entwined snakes form her skirt - Female: cleavage - Aztec mother goddess - Fertility goddess. - All her attributes symbolize sacrificial death
Moai, Rapa Nui (Easter Island)
now Chile (c. 1250-1500) stone - The colossal stone sculptures of Easter Island predate the arrival of Europeans in Oceania by several centuries - Almost 900 moai are known, even through each statue took 30 men a full year to carve
Forbidden city
qing and ming dyansty, beijing. architect: Cai Xin and Nyugen An opened in 1420 location: beijing the city was designed to incorporate Fueng shui, the idea of harmonizing everyone with the enviroment. the palace, which was used by the ming and qing for over 500 years incorprated this into almost every aspect of its design. the bridge structure, and positioning of the palace wiht the mountains in the background are aspects of feng shui courtyard. demonstrates confucian heirarchy through plan of courtyard with empereor on top. their is a river flowing through the middle which is articifical given beijing s topography. 5 bridges and 7 gates which emphasize the feng shui and yin and yang. yang is masculine, and represented by odd numbers and yin is feminine Long version: river flowing through the middle, bilaterally symmetrical - hints that its artificial, due to feng shui they need running water in the south and mountains in the north, so they dug up a stream in the south and piled up dirt to make a mountain in the north - in Beijing they are building from a flat dry plane so not much topography, there are 5 marble bridges when you really only need one and several gates and doors and this has to do with the tai chi yin and yang symbol and principle - odd numbers are masculine and also has to do with emperors, whereas yin deals with feminine so that's why they use 5 etc, doubled eaved roofs, hierarchical roofs, taihe: double eaved hipped roof - roof which slopes on all four sides, top of the secular hierarchy in Chinese buildings, sits on three marble terraces, gold and some red, more horizontal emphasis than vertical, 11 bays across the building, hierarchy throughout, shows a manifesttation of confucian order where the emperor is at the top, emperor sits facing the south where his back is to the North, emperor sits on a dias platform showing hierarchy in height and being superior everyone else would have their backs to the south facing the emperor in the north,
