Quiz 9
"Apotheosis of the Pisani Family, Giambattista Tiepolo, ceiling fresco in the Villa Pisani, Stra, Italy. (29-8)
A master of illusionistic ceiling painting in the Baroque tradition, Tiepolo adopted the bright, cheerful colors and weightless figures of Rococo easel paintings for huge frescoes. The Italians do not get a frivolous with their painting in the Rococo period.
"Riva degli Schiavonni, Venice", Antonio Canaletto, oil on canvas, Toledo Museum of Art Toledo. (29-20)
Canaletto was the leading painter of Venetian vedute, which were treasured souvernirs for 18th-century travelers visiting Italy on a Grand Tour. He used a camera obscura for his on site drawings.
"Saying Grace", Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin, oil on canvas, Louvre, Paris. (29-12)
Chardin embraced naturalism and celebrated the simple goodness of ordinary people, especially mothers and children, who lived in a world far from the frivolous Rococo salons of Paris. At this time the peseant was considered the salt of the earth. In Versailles, Marie Antoinette built a cabin with dirt floors where she would go to pretend to be poor.
"Portrait of Paul Revere", John Singleton Copley, oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. (23-19)
Early American Naturalism. In contrast to Grand Manner portratiture, Copley's Paul Rever emphaxizes his subject's down to earth character, differentiating this American from its European counterparts. Revere was a silver smith by trade. Hero of the American Revolution, Copley was self-taught until he went to the French Academy.
"Death of General Wolfe", Benjamin West, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.(29-18)
Early American Naturalism. West's great innovation was to blend contemporary subject matter and costumes with the grand tradition of history painting. Here, West likened General Wolfe's death to that of a martyred saint. The scene is about the French and Canadian wars. The composition includes native allies. The general is depicted in the pieta position. At this time the best paintings, for religion and history, were considered the ones with the most figures.
"A Philosopher Giving a Lecture at the Orrery", Joseph Wright of Derby, oil on canvas, Derby Museums and Art Gallery, Derby. (29-10)
English artist. Age of Enlightenment. Wright's celebration of the inventions of the Industrial Revolution was in tune with the Enlightenment doctrine of progress. In this dramatically lit scene, the wonders of science mesmerize everyone present.
"Village Bride", Jean-Baptiste Greuze, oil on canvas, Louvre, Paris. (29-13)
Greuze was a master of sentimental narrative, which appealed to a new audience that admired "natural" virtue. Here, in an unadorned room, a father blesses his daughter and her husband to be. The scene is of an engaged couples families negotiating a middle class wedding dowry arrangements one for the bride one for the groom. France now has a merchant middle class.
"Breakfast Scene", William Hogarth, oil on canvas from a series called, "Marriage a la Mode", National Gallery, London. (29-15)
Hogarth won fame for his paintings and prints satirizing 18th-century English life with comic zest. This is one of a series of six paintings in which he chronicled the marital immoralities of the moneyed class.
"Lord Heathfield", Sir Joshua Reynolds, oil on canvas, National Gallery, London. (29-17)
In this Grand Manner portrait, Reynolds depicted the English commander who defended Gibraltar. Typical of this genre, Heathfield is large in relation to the canvas size and stands in a dramatic pose. He is the English commander that lost the Revolutionary war with the United States. The loss shook western Europe because England was the greatest naval power and strongest country at the time. For a colonized society to rise up against the nation that founded it and win was unbelievable.
"Cupid a Captive", Francois Boucher, oil on canvas, wallace Collection, London. (29-7)
In this Rococo canvas, Fraincois Boucher, painter for Madame de Pompadour, portrayed a rosy pyramid of infant and female flesh and fluttering draperies set off against a cool, leafy background. The women took him hostage. One of them is holding his arrows.
"The Swing", Jean-Honore Fragonard, oil on canvas, Wallace Collection, London. (29-1)
In this painting epitomizin Rococo style, pastel colors and soft light complement a sensuous scene in which a young lady flirtatiously kicks off her shoe at a statue of Cupid while her lover waches. The older husband is swinging her, it customary for younger women to marry older men, then take lovers on the side. This painting is almost a dream like state.
"Pilgrimage to Cythera", Antoine Watteau, oil on canvvas, Louvre, Paris. (29-6)
Watteau's, fete galante paintings depict the outdoor amusements of French upper-class society. the haze of color, subtly modeled shapes, gliding motion, and air of suave gentility match Rococo taste. This was the masterpiece he painted to graduate from the French Academy. Aphrodite's home was Cythera. This painting is about how infatuation wears off, and you have to come back to reality.
"Satyr Crowning a Bacchante", Clodion, terrcotta, Louvre, Paris. (29-9)
The erotic playfulness of Boucher's and Fragonard's paintings is evident in Clodion's tabletop terracotta sculptures representing sensuous fantasis often involving satyrs and bacchantes, the followers of Bacchus. Bacchus was the god of wine, women and song.
"L'Indifferent", Antoine Watteau, oil on canvas, Louvre, Paris. (29-5)
This small Rococo painting of a languid, gliding dancer exhibits lightness and delicacy in both color and tone. It contrasts sharply with Rigaud's majestic portrait of the pompous Louis XIV. This era is noted for the fancy, ornate, pastel type color. The period's compostions include love, gentile living, extravagance, you might have 13 forks at the dinner table.
"Self-Portrait", Elisabeth Louise Vigee-Lebrun, oil on canvas, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence. (29-14)
Vigee-Lebrun was one of the few women adbitted to France's Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. In this self-portrait, she depicted herself confidently painting the likeness of Queen Marie Antoinette. There are more women being recognized as artists.
