Midterm Review: Intro to Mordern

Calotype

an early photographic process in which negatives were made using paper coated with silver iodide.

The Enlightenment

An attitude in the 18th century in Europe and the United States that emphacized reason, an optimistic attitude towards scientific inquiry and an enthusiasm for historical and archeological studies. It influenced art and architecture, but also philosophy and politics. See: Joseoh Wright of Derby- An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump).

Renoir, Moulin de la Galette

Bal du moulin de la Galette (commonly known as Dance at Le moulin de la Galette) is an 1876 painting by French artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir. It is housed at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris and is one of Impressionism's most celebrated masterpieces. ... From 1896 to 1929 the painting hung in the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris.

Academy and Ecole des Beaux Arts

France's school of fine arts—the academic branch of the Royal Academy. Training started with 2 years of only drawing Greek and Roman busts and body parts, either original sculptures or plaster casts made from the original. Emphasized technical draftsman skills. Then graduated to the entire body. Only worked from Greek and Roman sculptures. Several years of copying the same thing, which intensified the homogeneity of academic training. Classics were thought to be the most noble and honorable forms of art.

Seurat, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte

In his best-known and largest painting, Georges Seurat depicted people relaxing in a suburban park on an island in the Seine River called La Grande Jatte. The artist worked on the painting in several campaigns, beginning in 1884 with a layer of small horizontal brushstrokes of complementary colors. He later added small dots, also in complementary colors, that appear as solid and luminous forms when seen from a distance. Seurat's use of this highly systematic and "scientific" technique, subsequently called Pointillism, distinguished his art from the more intuitive approach to painting used by the Impressionists. Although Seurat embraced the subject matter of modern life preferred by artists such as Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, he went beyond their concern for capturing the accidental and instantaneous qualities of light in nature. Seurat sought to evoke permanence by recalling the art of the past, especially Egyptian and Greek sculpture and even Italian Renaissance frescoes. As he explained to the French poet Gustave Kahn, "The Panathenaeans of Phidias formed a procession. I want to make modern people, in their essential traits, move about as they do on those friezes, and place them on canvases organized by harmonies of color." Some contemporary critics, however, found his figures to be less a nod to earlier art history than a commentary on the posturing and artificiality of modern Parisian society. Seurat made the final changes to La Grande Jatte in 1889. He restretched the canvas in order to add a painted border of red, orange, and blue dots that provides a visual transition between the interior of the painting and his specially designed white frame.

Manet, Olympia

In the 19th century many people were painting what they saw as "everyday life". Manet came from a more privileged class, yet he chose to portray the lower classes or the less desirable. Like Victor Hugo, Manet captured the real life people of Paris. This was not always a popular thing to do as was made evident by the fact that when Manet's painting, Olympia was hung, in 1863, viewers had to be physically restrained so that they would not to ruin it. The public was confused by such details as a black servant and a black cat but were mainly outraged by the nude courtesan who, with her pale skin almost becomes one with the bed. The fact that this woman, a courtesan, is given a face, was cause for a lot of uproar. It humanizes prostitution which was not, in a time where no one wanted to be reminded of the shadier side of life, a very popular thing to do.

Cassatt, Mother and Child

Mother and Child represents a theme that Mary Cassatt often painted throughout her career as an artist. Creating complex, impressionistic lighting effects, a floor mirror reflects the scene in a hazy, indistinct manner. The models for Mother and Child may have been neighbors of Cassatt's near her country home outside of Paris. She often asked local women to sit for her, feeling that professional models posed self-consciously. For the sittings, Cassatt tended to dress the women in gowns she had bought from well-known Paris clothiers. As in most of her paintings, Cassatt does not glamorize or sentimentalize her subjects; instead she presents them as wholesome, attractive individuals. When Cassatt painted Mother and Child she was at the height of her artistic success. She drew on her many years of experience, working with ease and assurance. She captured the varying effects of light: pure strokes of green and gold suggest the sun flooding the artist's studio on a summer day, and glistening touches of pale yellow highlight hair, dress, and furniture.

Van Gogh, Starry Night

Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh has risen to the peak of artistic achievements. Although Van Gogh sold only one painting in his life, the aftermath of his work is enormous. Starry Night is one of the most well known images in modern culture as well as being one of the most replicated and sought after prints. From Don McLean's song 'Vincent' (Starry, Starry Night) (Based on the Painting), to the endless number of merchandise products sporting this image, it is nearly impossible to shy away from this amazing painting. One may begin to ask what features within the painting are responsible for its ever growing popularity. There are actually several main aspects that intrigue those who view this image, and each factor affects each individual differently.

Gauguin, The Day of the God

Paul Gauguin began to paint in his late 20s. A restless man, he traveled and worked in the French regions of Brittany and Provence as well as South and Central Americas. In 1891, he moved to the French colony of Tahiti in search of "ecstasy, calm, and art." He spent all but two of the remaining years of his life in the South Seas. When he returned to France in 1893, he spent most of his time in Paris promoting his work and writing and illustrating Noa Noa, a fictionalized account of his Tahitian experience. Day of the Gods (Mahana No Atua), one of the very few paintings Gauguin completed during this period, is closely related to his literary project. Set in a Tahitian landscape by the sea, the composition is divided into three horizontal bands. At the top, islanders perform a ritual near a towering sculpture. Like many figures in Gauguin's Tahitian images, the monumental sculpture was derived not from local religion but from photographs of carved reliefs adorning the Buddhist temple complex at Borobudur (Java). In the middle band, three symmetrically arranged figures are placed against a field of pink earth in poses that may signify birth, life, and death. The woman in the center, formally linked to the sculpture at the top, is similar in appearance to other depictions of Tahitian females who Gauguin used to suggest the Christian figure of Eve in paradise. The lower portion of the composition evokes brilliant, contrasting hues reflected in the water. Gauguin's Post-Impressionist style, defined by a decreasing tendency to depict real objects and the expressive use of flat, curving shapes of vibrant color, influenced many abstract painters of the early 20th century.

Salon

The semi-annual juried exhibition that was put on by the Royal Academy. It was the only place for artwork to be publically shown. Artworks hung on the wall from the floor to the ceiling. Had to be approved by the royal academy and set the style for "official" acceptable art (bought by wealthy people).

Cezanne, Mont Sainte-Victoire

The Montagne Sainte-Victoire is a mountain in southern France, overlooking Aix-en-Provence. It became the subject of a number of Cézanne's paintings. ... Cézanne is skilled at analysis: he uses geometry to describe nature, and uses different colours to represent the depth of objects.

Gericault, The raft of Medusa

The Raft of the Medusa—a major work in French 19th-century painting—is generally regarded as an icon of Romanticism. It depicts an event whose human and political aspects greatly interested Géricault: the wreck of a French frigate off the coast of Senegal in 1816, with over 150 soldiers on board. The painter researched the story in detail and made numerous sketches before deciding on his definitive composition, which illustrates the hope of rescue.

Industrial Revolution

The rapid development of industry that occurred in Britain in the late 18th and 19th centuries, brought about by the introduction of machinery. It was characterized by the use of steam power, the growth of factories, and the mass production of manufactured goods.

Degas, The Rehearsal of the Ballet on Stage

There are three similar versions of this scene, and their precise relationship has bedeviled scholars for decades. The largest, painted in grisaille (Musée d'Orsay, Paris), appeared in the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874. The two others, tentatively dated the same year, are in the Metropolitan's collection. This painting probably preceded the version in pastel (29.100.39), which is more freely handled. The importance that Degas attached to the composition is evident in the preparatory drawings that he made for almost every figure, from the dancer scratching her back in the foreground to the woman yawning next to the stage flat.

Monet, Boulevard des Capucines, Paris

a painting of the boulevard done from the photographer Nadar's apartment at no. 35. Monet painted the subject twice and it is uncertain which of the two pictures, that now in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, or that in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City (shown here) was the painting that appeared in the groundbreaking 1874 exhibition, though more recently the Moscow picture has been favoured

Daguerreotype

a photograph taken by an early photographic process employing an iodine-sensitized silvered plate and mercury vapor.

Pointillism

a technique of neo-impressionist painting using tiny dots of various pure colors, which become blended in the viewer's eye. It was developed by Georges Seurat with the aim of producing a greater degree of luminosity and brilliance of color.

Synthetism

is a term used by post-Impressionist artists like Paul Gauguin, Émile Bernard and Louis Anquetin to distinguish their work from Impressionism. Earlier, Synthetism has been connected to the term Cloisonnism, and later to Symbolism.

Plein Air

denoting or in the manner of a 19th-century style of painting outdoors, or with a strong sense of the open air, that became a central feature of French impressionism.

Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People

is a painting by Eugène Delacroix commemorating the July Revolution of 1830, which toppled King Charles X of France.

Courbet, Burial at Ornans

is a painting of 1849-50 by Gustave Courbet, and one of the major turning points of 19th-century French art. The painting records the funeral in September 1848 of his great-uncle in the painter's birthplace, the small town of Ornans.[1] It treats an ordinary provincial funeral with unflattering realism, and on the giant scale traditionally reserved for the heroic or religious scenes of history painting. Its exhibition at the 1850-51 Paris Salon created an "explosive reaction" and brought Courbet instant fame.[2] It is currently displayed at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, France.

Optical Mix

is when you create paint colors not by mixing them on the palette (or physically), but through knowledge of color theory and how the eye perceives colors that abut or overlay each other. Glazing is the most common optical mix technique used in painting.

Avant-garde

new and unusual or experimental ideas, especially in the arts, or the people introducing them.

Orientalism

style, artefacts, or traits considered characteristic of the peoples and cultures of Asia.

David, Oath of the Horatii

• Shows painting in his studio in Italy, and then again back in Paris, and the public and other artists are very excited by the painting, and see it as a manifesto of a new style of painting. He will become the most famous and sought after artist in France. • So famous that he eventually becomes the director of the French Academy, which then codifies his Neoclassical style as the officially acceptable formula. • Subject was from a play David saw in Paris called the Horatii - the story about a war between Alba and Rome and emphasized the virtues of honor, bravery and patriotism. The artwork appeals to the intellect and suggests that we should be gover3end by reason and heroism. Notice the difference in the treatment of the men versus the women and what that says about David's attitude toward gender differences. • This painting was eventually read as anti-monarchist (i.e. against the king). David eventually goes on to become a member of the anti-government movement and joins the revolution. After the revolution, Napoleon eventually comes to power and instead of imprisoning David for his political affiliations, he asks David to become his official court painter. • David sets up three rules for painting at the Ecole des Beaux Arts: (1). All art must be historical (biblical, mythological, or historical) (2). Art must have an important ethical/moral message. (3). Draftsmanship (drawing) must be technically emphasized and is more important than painting.