Test 4

Paul Cezanne Mont Sainte-Victoire, 1885-1887 Post-Impressionism

*Post-Impressionism* Cézanne dedicated himself to the study of what he called the "sensations" of nature. Unlike the Impressionists, however, he did not seek to capture transitory effects of light and atmosphere; instead, he created highly structured paintings through a methodical application of color that merged drawing and modeling into a single process. His brushstrokes, which vary from short, parallel hatchings to light lines to broader swaths of flat color, weave together the elements of the painting into a unified but flattened visual space. Photographs of this scene show that Cézanne created a composition in accordance with a harmony that he felt the scene demanded, rather than reproducing in detail the appearance of the landscape. His commitment to the painting as a work of art, which he called "something other than reality"—not a representation of nature but "a construction after nature"

Salon de la Princesse, Hotel de Soubise, 1732

-Rococo. designed by Germain Boffrand tried to look like Versailles- gold, glass, mirrors makes room look bigger-idea of extension. Louis XV moved his home and the French court from Versailles to Paris. The movement spread quickly across Europe Wealthy families were moving back into cities and salons (events held in them were known, were intimate, fashionable, and intellectual gatherings, often including splendid entertainments that mimicked in miniature the rituals of the Versailles court) were the setting for intimate gatherings of the Parisian aristocracy in the years prior to the French Revolution. The architectural elements rendered in sculpted stucco including arabesques (characterized by flowing lines and swirling shapes), S-shapes, C-shapes, reverse C-shapes, volutes, and naturalistic plant forms.

The Sukhothai Buddha

14th-15th century, bronze. Sukhothai period was a formative time of innovation in Thai art. Among the creations of Sukhothai artists was an elegant new style of Buddha image. Featuring draping, almost boneless, limbs and attenuated heads adorned with spire-like flames, the Buddha images of this period are immediately recognizable. Art historians have explored diverse explanations for the distinctive, otherworldly features of Sukhothai Buddhas. One strong possibility is that they are literally poetry given tangible form. The artists may have been working from descriptions found in the Indian Buddhist texts, which use evocative similes to describe the Buddha's beautiful appearance.

Joseph Mallord William Turner, The Burning of the Houses of the Lords and Commons

1834 Romantic Landscape. Dramatic and thrilling work on the tragic fire that severely damaged London's historic Parliament building. Blazing color and light dominate the foreground of the painting shows the south bank of the Thames packed with spectators. This fire was a national tragedy; these buildings had witnessed some of the most important events in English history. Turner himself was witness to the scene and hurriedly made watercolor sketches on site. The painting's true theme is the brilliant light and color that spirals across the canvas in the explosive energy of loose brushwork, explaining why Turner was called "the painter of light."

JACQUES-GERMAIN SOUFFLOT, Pantheon (Sainte-Genevieve), Paris, France, 1755-1792.

A Church in guise of Roman Pantheon (used to worship Roman gods). In comes French Revolution- against alliance between church and state, and before building was completed, the revolutionary government in control of Paris confiscated all religious properties to raise public funds. Instead of selling Sainte-Geneviève, they voted in 1791 to make it the Temple of Fame for the burial of Heroes of Liberty. Under Napoleon I, the building was re-sanctified as a Catholic church and was again used as such under King Louis-Philippe (ruled 1830-1848) and Napoleon III (ruled 1852-1870). Then it was permanently designated a nondenominational lay temple and a "memorial to the great men of France,"- heroes of the revolution. Neoclassical style- Corinthian columns, pediment, dome, entablature, dome.

Francisco Goya, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. 1796-1798

After the French Revolution, Charles IV, threatened by the possibility of similar social upheaval in Spain, reinstituted the Inquisition, halted reform, and even prohibited the entry of French books into Spain. Goya responded to situation by creating a series of prints -The theme is that reason ignored is a sleeping monster. The personification of Reason is asleep while haunted by a host of demonic-looking owls, bats, and a cat that are let loose when Reason sleeps. His goal with this series was to incite action, to alert the Spanish people to the errors of their foolish ways, and to reawaken them to reason.

Fransico Goya, Family of Charles IV, 1800

Almost Neoclassical but not idealized- Grand manner royal portrait reveals some of Goya's ambivalence towards Spanish monarchy. He is quoting Las Meninas by Velázquez, raising his own status as well as that of the king. Like Velázquez, Goya includes himself in the painting, to the left behind the easel. The king and queen at the center of this large family portrait, surrounded by family. The figures are formal and stiff. Goya seems to show his patrons as faintly ridiculous. Some seem bored; the somewhat dazed king, chest full of medals, stands before a relative who looks distractedly out of the painting; the double-chinned queen gazes obliquely toward the viewer (at that time she was having an open affair with the prime minister); their eldest daughter, to the left, stares into space; and another, older relative behind seems almost surprised to be there. At a time when the authority of the Spanish aristocracy was crumbling.

Mother India Abanindranath Tagore 1905 (watercolor on paper)

An example of resistance art. Tagore deliberately rejected the medium of oil painting and the academic realism of Western art. Tagore strove to create a style that reflected his ethnic origins. He creates a nationalistic icon by using Hindu symbols while also drawing upon the format and techniques of Mughal and Rajput painting. It is a Hindu woman with 4 arms (evocative if Hindu imagery which equates multiple hands to great power) holding items associated with Indian culture. Scripts, sheaves of rice (which was a local food and was promoted to boycott British imports), a piece of white cotton fabric (to promote indigenous materials and not depend on British imports) and a prayer beads. Colors in the painting allude to saffron- a highly coveted (by the British) Indian good. Fusing Mughal style and Rajput style colors while rendering of figure in a more naturalisitc manner. A woman clad in indigenous wealth.

Henry Fox Talbot, The Open Door, 1843

At the same time of Daguerre, in England, Henry Fox Talbot made negative copies images by placing them on paper soaked in silver chloride and exposing them to light. The negative image on paper could be exposed again on top of another piece of paper to create a positive image. Talbot's negative could be used more than once, so he could produce a number of positive images inexpensively. The calotype (later patented and named photography) produced a soft, fuzzy image. Photographers experimented with the expressive possibilities of the new medium. Most of the photographs were of idyllic rural scenery or carefully arranged still lifes; they were presented as works of art rather than documents of reality. In this picture shadows create a repeating pattern of diagonal lines that contrast with the rectilinear lines of the architecture. And it conveys meaning, expressing nostalgia for a rural way of life that was fast disappearing in industrial England.

James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Nocturne in Black and Gold (The Falling Rocket), 1875

Avant garde- landscape with a musically derived title, Nocturne- from the titles of piano compositions by Chopin. Painting appears completely abstract, but it is a painting of a night scene depicting a fireworks show over a lake at Cremorne Gardens in London. Whistler sued Ruskins (critic) for libel after reading Ruskin's review.. He deliberately turned the courtroom into a public forum, both to defend and to advertise his art. On the witness stand, he maintained that art has no higher purpose than creating visual delight and denied the need for paintings to have "subject matter." Influenced by Japanese prints.

Mary Cassatt, mother and child, Impressionism

Born to a well-to-do family, she studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1861- 1865), then moved to Paris for further academic training. Because she was upper class, she was confined to her reality of women interior paintings, this was the world she knew best: the domestic and social life of bourgeois women. She is known for her sensitive representations of women with children, which sought to counteract the clichéd stereotypes of her age- she did not idealize the images of women and did not romanticize. Composition and subject recall much earlier portrayals of the Virgin and Child, Cassatt elevates this modest scene of private life into a homage to motherhood and a dialogue with the history of art.

Jainism

Both Buddhism and Jainism are monastic traditions. The Jain religion traces its roots to a spiritual leader called Mahavira (c. 599-527 bce), whom it regards as the last in a series of 24 saviors known as pathfinders (tirthankaras). Devotees seek through purification and moral action to become worthy of escaping the cycle of rebirth. Jain monks live a life of austerity. Committed to nonviolence.

The Nightmare John Henry Fuseli

British Romanticism 1781- Fuseli established himself as a history painter, but he specialized in dramatic subjects drawn from Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and Milton. His interest in the dark recesses of the human mind led him to paint supernatural and irrational subjects. In this painting is a sleeping woman sprawled across a divan, oppressed by a gruesome incubus crouching on her pelvis in an erotic dream. The incubus was believed to feed by stealing women and having sex with them. In the background a horse with wild, phosphorescent eyes thrusts its head into the room through a curtain. The image communicates fear of the unknown and unknowable, and sexuality without restraint.

Bunsei, Landscape, mid 15th century

Bunsei, Landscape, mid 15th century. Muromachi ink painting was heavily influenced by the aesthetics of Zen, but unlike earlier Zen paintings that had concentrated on portrayals of important individuals associated with the Zen monastic tradition, Chinese-style landscapes in ink also began to be produced. The painting illustrates well the pure, lonely, and ultimately serene spirit of the Zen poetic landscape tradition. Evocative of the idea of wabi sabi (focus on loneliness and humble simplicity, austerity and self meditation). Painting was considered a devotional meditation practice and painted by monks in a monastery connected to palace.

Krishna and the Gopis, 1525

Commissioned by AkbarGouache on paper Which was the main medium. Rajput style. from a series of poems about the human form of Vishnu (Krishna). Krishna sits in with a group of cowherd women. Radha peers through the trees, overcome by jealousy. Her feelings are indicated by the cool blue color behind her, while the crimson red behind the Krishna grouping suggests passion. The bold patterns of curving stalks and flowering vines express both the exuberance of springtime, embodies a series of emotion of passion, love, jealousy etc.

Luna Vasahi, Mandapa Ceiling

Dedicated to the 22nd Jain tirthankara, Neminatha, and was built in 1230. it has an ornate dome that crowns the mandapa hall. Corbeled dome is made of concentric bands of sculpted stone capped with a meticulously carved pendant which hangs down from the apex. decorative element are images of 16 goddesses of wisdom, attached individually to the surface of the dome.

Nadir al-Zaman, Jahangir and Shah Abbas, ca. 1618 (Mughal), India

Despite seeming a a painting about friendship and harmony, this painting was created in a moment of high tension between Shah Abbas and the Mughal throne. The city of Kandahar had been given to Shah Abbas's ancestor by the Mughal emperor Humayun, later, in the time of Akbar, the Mughals took back the city. Shah Abbas waited for a chance to reclaim it. When the Mughals were distracted he seized the opportunity and recaptured the city. He made conciliatory gestures to Jahangir, who was furious but unable to spare the military force needed to retake the city.Jahangir is depicted much larger than Shah Abbas, who appears to bow deferentially to the Mughal emperor. Jahangir's head is centered in the halo and he stands on the predatory lion, whose body spans a vast territory, including Shah Abbas's own holdings in Afghanistan and Iran. We see a Byzantine gold halo and cherubs as a sign of Ottoman influence.

kojoin guest house (shoin artchitecture), Onjoni Momoyama period 1601

Focus on simplicity. Floors covered in woven straw tatami mats- used as a unit of measurement to give dimensions of a room (an 8 mat room.) Walls are divided by wooden posts. Interiors were divided into shoin-style rooms by paper-covered sliding doors (fusuma). Main alcove- tokonoma is for hanging a painted scroll. Owner of the building or important guest would be seated in front of tokonoma. Next to this alcove is another alcove with shelves used to store important objects (such as tea ceremony items). Wide verandas open to the outside, there are no solid walls to separate man from nature. Buildings have the ability to morph to allow nature in or out. No furniture or carpets, only art used for meditation. Focus o

Jean-Antoine Houdon, George Washington, 1788-1792

French Neoclassical sculptor. The sculpture represents Washington in the Classical manner but dressed in contemporary clothes. In the portrait, Houdon includes Classical ideals of dignity, honor, and civic responsibility. Washington wears the uniform of a general, the rank he held in the Revolutionary War, but he also rests his left hand on a a bundle of 13 rods (representing the 13 colonies) and an axe face, that served as a Roman symbol of authority. Also included are both a sword of war and a plowshare of peace. Significantly, Houdon's Washington is not touching the sword.

Theodore Gericault, The Raft of the Medusa, 1819

French Romanticism. Grand Manner history painting portraying the scandalous shipwreck of the Medusa. In 1816, this French ship bound for Senegal ran aground close to its destination. Its captain- incompetent aristocrat commissioned by newly restored monarchy of Louis XVIII, reserved all six lifeboats for himself, his officers, and government representatives. 152 passengers were abandoned on raft. When those on raft were rescued 13 days later, just 15 had survived, some by eating human flesh. Since the captain had been a political appointee, the press used the horrific story to indict the monarchy for this and other atrocities in French-ruled Senegal. Painting fits the definition of a history painting in dimension (16 by 23 feet), multi-figured composition that represents an event in history, but it is NOT ennobling. The hero of this painting is not an emperor, king, or intellectual but a black man from French Senegal who showed endurance and emotional fortitude in the face of extreme danger. Placing him at the top of the pyramid of survivors, giving him the power to save his comrades by signaling to the rescue ship, Géricault suggests metaphorically that freedom is often dependent on the most oppressed members of society.

Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre, The Artist's Studio (1837)

French inventor of the first practical photographic process, the daguerreotype. Before daguerreotype, the only way of creating an image was through ability of a human to do it by hand. Photography was revolutionary and was a cheaper and much more democratic way of allowing people of all classes to commemorate a loved one rather than paying a painter to do it. Daguerre presented daguerreotype to National Academy of Science- this sparked discussion of whether or not photography could be considered art. Composition of photograph mimics the conventions of still-life painting. A single smooth image on a copper plate that could not be reproduced

Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson, Jean-Baptiste Belley, 1797

Girodet trained under David. This portrait was a political statement. Senegalese-born Belley was a former slave who was sent to Paris as a representative to the French Convention by the colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti). The Haitian Revolution of 1791, in which African slaves overturned the French colonial power, resulted in the first republic to be ruled by freed African slaves. In 1794, Belley led a successful legislative campaign to abolish slavery in the colonies and grant full citizenship to people of African descent. In the portrait, Belley leans on the pedestal of a bust of the abbot Guillaume Raynal, a French philosopher whose 1770 book condemned slavery and paved the way for such legislation—making the portrait a tribute to both Belley and Raynal.

Jacques- Louis David, Napoleon Crossing the Saint- Bernard 1800-1801

Grand Manner Style Painting. With the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte, Jacques-Louis David re-established his dominant position in French painting. David saw in Napoleon hope for realizing France's Enlightenment, and Napoleon saw in David a tested propagandist for revolutionary values. As Napoleon gained power across Europe- reforming law codes and abolishing aristocratic privilege, he commissioned David to document his deeds. Napoleon is represented Grand Manner style, and David ennobled the idea of how he might have appeared as he led his troops over the Alps into Italy. Framed by red drapery, he exhorts his troops to follow as he charges uphill on his powerful horse. The horse's flying mane and wild eyes, combined with the swirl of the cape, convey energy, impulsiveness, and power, backed up by the heavy guns and troops in the background.

Theodore Gericault, Study of Hands and Feet 1818-1819

Géricault made separate studies of many of figures, as well as of actual corpses, severed heads, and dissected limbs supplied to him by friends who worked at a nearby hospital. For several months "his studio was a kind of morgue. He kept cadavers there until they were half-decomposed, and insisted on working in this charnel-house atmosphere ..." He drew from corpses and body parts in his studio to make sure that he understood the nature of death and its impact on the human form.

Diwan-i-Khas

Hall of Private Audience. Mughal architects were heir to a 300-year-old tradition of Islamic building in India. The third emperor, Akbar, presided over a period of openness and expansion. His inclusive policies and tolerance toward religious difference did much to help solidify and stabilize his massive empire. A dynamic, humane, and just leader. Column quotes Ashokan Buddhist Pillars as a symbol of continuation of Indian form of government and not appear foreign.

The Park at Stourhead

Henry Flitcroft and Henry Hoare 1744- 1765 example of the English picturesque garden: Its conception and views intentionally mimic the compositional devices of "pictures" by French landscape painter. In the background we see a miniature version of the Pantheon in Rome. The park is punctuated by other Classically inspired temples, copies of antique statues, artificial grottoes, a rural cottage, a Chinese bridge, a Gothic spire, and even a Turkish tent. The result is a delightful mixture of styles and cultures that combines aspects of both the Neoclassical and the Romantic.

Cornelia Pointing to Her Children as Her Treasures, 1785

History painting had long been considered the highest form of art. The Swiss history painter Angelica Kauffmann trained in Italy and was one of the greatest exponents of early Neoclassicism. Was an ardent practitioner of Neoclassicism. The painting took place in the second century bce during the republican era of Rome. A woman visitor shows Cornelia her jewels and then asks to see those of her hostess. In response, Cornelia shows off her daughter and two sons, saying: "These are my most precious jewels." Cornelia exemplifies the "good mother," a popular theme among some later eighteenth-century patrons who preferred Classical subjects that taught metaphorical lessons of civic and moral virtue.

Claude Monet, Impression: Sunrise, 1872

Impressionism Sketch-like quality -Lack of finish. Painting is rendered almost entirely of strokes of color. Monet records the ephemeral play of reflected light and color and its effect on the eye, rather than describing the physical substance of forms and the spatial volumes they occupy. Monet's hasty brushstrokes are not an attempt at a realistic rendering- there are now photographs to do that- his focus is on portraying the artist's impression. Inspired by Japanese art.

Manet, Olympia, 1863

Impressionism- Painting caused a lot of controversy. Manet portrayed prostitution openly- a statement about higher class and superficial morals. -stages a set of power relationships between viewer and viewed that becomes a part of modernism. Olympia was based Renaissance painting of Titian's "Venus" (at that time believed to be a Venetian courtesan)of Urbino. However, Olympia is not an homage to Titian's. Manet made Olympia the very antithesis of Titian's. Composition is flat and a less realistic rendering- this was Manet's way of rejecting classical ideas of the idealization of nudes in guise of Mythological goddesses and muses- but instead confronted the bourgeois members of society who were also clients of sex workers of the time.

Edgar Degas, The Rehearsal on Stage, 1874

Impressionism. Especially drawn to the depicting ballet dancers. Several of the dancers look bored or exhausted; others stretch, perhaps to mitigate the toll this physical work took on their bodies. Ballerinas generally came from lower-class- showed their scantily clad bodies in public was something that "respectable" bourgeois women did not do. They were widely assumed to be sexually available, and often attracted the attentions of wealthy men willing to support them in exchange for sexual favors (hence slouching men in center right observing the dancers). Interest in portraying women as not only artists creating graceful movement with their bodies, but also laborers who put their body under serious strain for the entertainment of upper class. Cropping in L edge shows influence of photography and Japanese prints. No single angle of vision- instruments in orchestra seem unnaturally close- inconsistent with vantage point. Asymetrical composition. Careful class commentary.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Le Moulin de la Galette, 1876

Impressionist painter, focused most of his attention not on landscapes but on figures, producing mostly images of the middle class at leisure. In this painting he depicts a convivial crowd relaxing on a Sunday afternoon at an old-fashioned dance hall—the Moulin de la Galette. A naïve image of a carefree life of innocent leisure—a kind of bourgeois paradise removed from the real world—encapsulates Renoir's idea of the essence of art

Charles Garnier, The Opéra, Paris, 1861-1874

In 1848, after rioting over living conditions erupted in French cities, Napoleon III launched new reforms. Georges-Eugène Haussmann was hired to redraw the street grid and rebuild the city. Haussmann imposed a new, rational plan of broad avenues, parks, and open public places upon the medieval heart of Paris. He demolished entire neighborhoods, erasing networks, and medieval streets, quickly evicting the poor from their slums. He replaced what he destroyed with grand new buildings erected along wide, straight, tree-lined avenues that were more suitable for horse-drawn carriages and strolling pedestrians. Built at an intersection newly created grand avenues, accessible from many directions, the Opéra was designed with transportation and vehicular traffic in mind. Designed mostly from the Baroque style, revived to recall an earlier period of greatness in France. Building's primary function—as a place of entertainment for the emperor, his entourage, and the high echelons of French society.

Sebastian Salcedo, Virgin of Guadalupe, 1779

In the course of the Mesoamericans' forced conversion to Roman Catholicism, Christian symbolism became inextricably blended with the symbolism of indigenous religious beliefs. in 1531, a Mexican peasant named Juan Diego claimed that the Virgin Mary visited him to tell him in his native Nahuatl language to build a church on a hill where an Aztec goddess had once been worshiped, subsequently causing flowers to bloom so that Juan Diego could show them to the archbishop as proof of his vision. When Juan Diego opened his bundle of flowers, the cloak he had used to wrap them is said to have borne the image of a Mexican Mary in a composition used in Europe to portray the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, popular in Spain.

Frederick Stevens, Victoria Terminus, Mumbai, India, 1887

India was forcefully brought into contact with the West under the British Empire in the nineteenth century. British Empire influence extended even to the arts. The British insistence on European styles of architecture was most prominent in the early years of colonial rule. This train station was built in a Gothic Revival style, in 1887, the year of Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee. The building makes a few concessions to its South Asian setting, as with the inclusion of turret-like domes, while still using medieval architecture- spires, triphorium. Symbol of colonialism- building over sacred shrines to impose power. Burden of the white man "gifting" technology to the primitive and uncivilized. Building celebrates ideas of British technology and authority. In place of the saints that might normally decorate a cathedral, personifications of Progress, Commerce, Agriculture, and Science adorn the exterior.

MINARET, KUDUS MOSQUE

Indonesia is today the world's most populous Muslim country. Islamic monuments in Indonesia draw from a rich and diverse repertoire of styles and motifs. The brickwork and decorative niches are reminiscent of earlier Hindu shrine towers, but this structure served to call Muslims to worship five times daily. The lower bands of the tower are decorated with inset porcelain plates imported from China, which add color to the exterior. The various indigenous and international influences that helped shape this tower speak to the remarkably cosmopolitan nature of sixteenth-century Java.

Sen no Rikyu, Taian Teahouse

Momoyama period, 1582. National Treasure. Chanoyu, the Japanese ritual drinking of tea. Zen brought to Japan a different way of preparing tea, with the leaves ground into powder and then whisked in bowls with hot water. Tea ceremony was an intimate gathering in which a few people, often drawn from a variety of backgrounds—warriors, courtiers, wealthy merchants—would enter a small rustic room, drink tea carefully prepared in front of them by their host, and quietly discuss the tea utensils or a Zen scroll hanging on the wall. Focus on the aesthetic of modesty, refinement, and rusticity that permitted the tearoom to serve as a respite from the busy and sometimes violent world outside. A traditional tearoom combines simple elegance and rusticity. It is made of natural materials such as bamboo and wood, with mud walls, paper windows, and a floor covered with tatami. Non essentials have been eliminated, there is nothing to distract from focused attention. This tearoom aesthetic became an important element in Japanese culture.

Nagasawa Rosetsu Bull and Puppy Edo period, late 18th c

Nagasawa Rosetsu added his own boldness and humor to his master's tradition. Rosetsu liked surprising his viewers with odd juxtapositions and unusual compositions. The tiny puppy, white against the dark gray of the bull, helps to emphasize the bull's huge size through its contrasting smallness. The puppy's relaxed and informal pose, looking happily straight out at the viewer, gives this powerful painting a humorous touch that increases its charm

The Apotheosis of Homer, Josia Wedgewood

Neoclassical 1790-1795. Wedgewood opened a pottery factory called Etruria after the ancient Etruscan civilization in central Italy known for its pottery. His production-line shop had several divisions, each with its own kilns and workers trained in diverse specialties. As a talented chemist, Wedgwood perfected a fine-grained, unglazed, colored pottery which he called jasperware. His most popular jasperware featured white figures against a blue ground.The socially conscious Wedgwood, informed by Enlightenment thinking, established a village for his employees and showed concern for their well-being. He was also active in the international effort to halt the African slave trade and abolish slavery.

Oath of the Horatii. Jaques- Louis David, 1784-1785

Neoclassical. Jacques-Louis David- most important French Neoclassical painter of the era. work reflects the taste and values of Louis XVI who believed that art should improve public morals. The three sons of Horace (the Horatii), representing Rome, stand with arms outstretched toward their father, who reaches toward them with the swords on which they pledge to fight and die for Rome. Originally a royal commission, it quickly and ironically became an emblem of the 1789 French Revolution, since its message of patriotism and sacrifice for the greater good effectively captured the mood of the leaders of the new French Republic established in 1792. As the revolutionaries abolished the monarchy and titles of nobility, took education out of the hands of the Church

Death of Marat, Jacques-Louis David

Neoclassicism 1793 Jean-Paul Marat. Marat lived simply among the packing cases he used as furniture, writing pamphlets urging the abolition of aristocratic privilege. He suffered from a painful skin ailment, and would often write while sitting in a medicinal bath. A supporter of an opposition party stabbed Marat as he sat in his bath. David chose to portray not the violent event but its tragic aftermath—Marat slumped in his bathtub, his right hand still holding a quill pen, while left hand grasps the letter that his murderer used to gain access to his home. The wooden block beside the bath, Marat used as a desk, has dedicatory inscription with the names of both Marat and the painter—"to Marat, David." It almost serves as the martyr's tombstone.

Anton Raphael Mengs, Parnassus, 1761

Neoclassicism- Joachim Winckelmann- leading theoretician of Neoclassicism had become an expert on Classical art and published The History of Ancient Art (1764), considered the beginning of modern art-historical study. Winckelmann was the first to analyze the history of art as a succession of period styles. Winckelmann's closest friend and colleague in Rome was Anton Raphael Mengs. Cardinal Alessandro Albani commissioned Mengs to paint the ceiling of the great gallery in his new villa. It is significant as the first full expression of Neoclassicism in painting. The scene is taken from Classical mythology. Mount Parnassus in central Greece was where the ancients believed Apollo (god of poetry, music, and the arts) and the nine Muses (female personifications of artistic inspiration) resided. Mengs depicted Apollo—practically nude and holding a lyre and olive branch to represent artistic accomplishment

The Great Wave,Hokusai,1826-1833,woodblock print,Japan Art

One in a series of 36 woodblock prints of sacred mountain Fuji created for Japanese tourists, influential to Impressionist painters of Europe. The great wave rears up like a dragon with claws of foam, ready to crash down on the figures huddled in the boats below. Exactly at the point of imminent disaster, but far in the distance, rises Japan's most sacred peak, Mount Fuji, whose slopes swing up like waves and whose snowy crown is like foam. Revolutionary style. style of French and American nineteenth-century art that was highly influenced by Japanese art, became the vogue in the West, Hokusai's art was greatly appreciated, even more so than it had been in Japan: The first book on the artist was published in France.

Manet, A Bar at the Folies-Bergere, Impressionism

One of the largest cafe concert in Paris for lavish entertainment- circuses (notice legs on trapeze in upper L corner) vaudeville, drinking and a place where possible sexual transactions occur. Reflected in the mirror are member of the elegant crowd. Woman looking at viewer as if we were another customer, seems weary and tired. Reflection of woman seems to be addressing a man- but perspective is off- perhaps Manet's way of including a surreal narrative. The gold bracelet and band around woman's neck allude to rise in consumption goods in city of Paris and viewing barmaid as a product available for consumption. Woman is barely differentiated from products in background. This is Manet's last major painting, he maintains his focus on the complex theme of gender and class relations.

Van Gogh, Starry Night, 1889

Post Impressionism painter, Van Gogh was a socialist who believed modern life, with its constant social change and focus on progress and success, alienated people from one other and from themselves. His paintings are efforts to communicate his emotional state. His art contributed significantly to the later emergence of Expressionism, in which the intensity of an artist's emotional state would override any desire for fidelity to the actual appearance of things. Van Gogh painted Starry Night from an asylum. Idea of life and death is represented by the cypress tree, a traditional symbol of both death and eternal life. And the steeple which rises to link the terrestrial and celestial realms. The brightest star in the sky is Venus, which is associated with love: It is possible that the picture's extraordinary energy also expresses Van Gogh's euphoric hope of gaining in death the love that had eluded him in life. The painting is a riot of brushstrokes of intense color

Georges Seurat, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, 1884-86

Post- Impressionism painter, Seurat was interested in the "law of the simultaneous contrast of colors" formulated by Michel-Eugène Chevreul in the 1820s. Chevreul observed that adjacent objects not only cast reflections of their own color onto their neighbors, but also create the effect of their complementary color. Seurat's goal: create such retinal vibrations to enliven the painted surface, using distinctively short, multidirectional strokes of almost pure color in what came to be known as "Divisionism" or "Pointillism." The stiff formality of the figures, and the highly calculated geometry of the composition produce a solemn effect quite at odds with the casual naturalism of Impressionism. Seurat painted the entire canvas using only 11 colors in three values.Seurat may have intended to represent an ideal image of harmonious, blended working-class and middle-class life and leisure. But some art historians see Seurat satirizing the sterile habits, rigid attitudes, and domineering presence of the growing Parisian middle class.

Gustave Courbet, Burial at Ornans, 1849

Realism- Painted for the people, not for critics. Measuring 10 x 21 ft, depicts a rural burial. People form irregular rows across the width of the picture. Clergy seem indifferent (adding to the emptiness and no significance to the cross) while rural mourners—Courbet's heroes of modern life—weep. Painted on a scale befitting the funeral of a hero, this depiction has no idealization of traditional HISTORY painting; instead, it captures awkward, blundering numbness of a real funeral and emphasizes its brutal, physical reality. Intentional disrespect for the rules of academic composition, and even to the painting's lack of any suggestion of the afterlife by Courbet's . Courbet wanted to challenge the prescribed subjects, style, and finish of academic painting, to establish his position in the avant-garde, and to create controversy. Courbet constructed a temporary building and installed a show of his own works that he called the "Pavilion of Realism," boldly asserting his independence from the Salon.

Gustave Courbet, The Stone Breakers, 1849

Realism. Courbet was one of the first artists to call himself avant-garde or a Realist. A socialist and a supporter of the revolution, he depicts a young boy and an old man crushing rock to produce the gravel used for roadbeds. Stone breakers represent the disenfranchised peasants on whose backs modern life was being built. Dressed in tattered shirt and trousers but wearing modern work boots. His older companion, seemingly broken by the lowly work, pounds the rocks as he kneels, wearing the more traditional clothing of a peasant, including wooden clogs. The boy seems to represent a grim future, while the man signifies an increasingly obsolete rural past. Both are conspicuously faceless. Courbet making a political statement. By depicting labor at the size of a history painting—the canvas is over 5 by 8 feet—Courbet intended to provoke. In academic art, monumental canvases were reserved for heroic subjects, so Courbet was asserting that peasant laborers should be venerated as heroes.

Edouard Manet, Luncheon on the Grass, 1863

Realism. The scandalous aspect of the painting was the "immorality" of Manet's theme: a suburban picnic featuring two fully dressed bourgeois gentlemen seated alongside a naked woman with another scantily dressed woman in the background. Manet's audience assumed that these women were prostitutes, and the men their customers. In contrast, one of the paintings that gathered most renown at the official Salon in that year was Cabanel's Birth of Venus which, because it presented nudity in a conventionally acceptable, Classical environment and mythological context, was favorably reviewed and quickly entered the collection of Napoleon III. In this painting, Manet referemces a Renaissance painting- The Pastoral Concert, attributed to Titian and Giorgione. History sized painting- but not ennobling. Technique and composition are Manet's way of rejecting classical training.

Seated Buddha from Angkor Thom

Reign of Jayavarman VII, late 12th-early 13th century. Sandstone. A major theme in Southeast Asia is the connection between Buddha and the king (like in church and state in Western society) concept of the god-king or, in his case, the buddha-king (buddharaja). Scholars believe that this is a face portrait of Jayavarman VII seated serenely in the guise of the Buddha. Political move to co-opt religion to validate own power.

Joshua Reynolds, Lady Sarah Bunbury Sacrificing to the Graces, 1765

Reynolds was able to combine his own taste for history painting with his patrons' desire for images of themselves by developing a type of historical or mythological portraiture called the Grand Manner. The large scale of the canvas suggests that it is a history painting, and its details evoke a Classical setting. Framed by a monumental Classical pier and arch and dressed in a classicizing costume, Lady Sarah plays the part of a Roman priestess making a sacrifice to the Three Graces, personifications of female beauty. Portraits such as this were intended for the public rooms, halls, and stairways of aristocratic residences.

The Swing, Jean Honore Fragonard

Rococo- 1767 sensually explicit. young woman is suspended on a swing, her movement created by an elderly guardian obscured by the shadow of the bushes on the right who pulls her with a rope. On the left, the girl's blushing lover hides in the bushes, swooning with anticipation. As the swing approaches, he is rewarded with an unobstructed view up her skirt, lifted on his behalf by an extended leg. She is seductively slinging one of her shoes toward him. The playful abandon of the lovers, the complicity of the sculpture of Cupid on the left, his shushing gesture assuring that he will not tell, the putti and dolphin beneath the swing who seem to urge the young woman on, create an image that bursts with anticipation and desire.

Pilgrimage to the Island of Cythera, 1717

Rococo. Watteau portrayed an imagined vision of the idyllic and sensual life of Rococo aristocrats, but with the same undertone of melancholy that hints at the fleeting quality of human happiness. This is a dream world in which beautifully dressed and elegantly posed couples, accompanied by putti, conclude the romantic trysts of their day on Cythera, the island sacred to Venus, the goddess of love, whose garlanded statue appears at the extreme right. It is classified as fête galante, or elegant outdoor entertainment, to describe this genre.

Auguste Rodin, Burghers of Calais, 1884-1889. Bronze.

Rodin focused on defiance of conventional expectations and an interest in emotional expressiveness. This sculpture was commissioned by French city of Calais to create a sculpture that to commemorate the heroism of 6 Burghers men that were willing to sacrifice themselves for their city. in tattered clothes, bodies are thin and malnourished- not stylized or ennobled. No focal point, multiple perspective, no hero. Rodin rejected idea of a pedestal. Placed sculpture at ground level so people could see it close and study expression and emotions. Town council of Calais rejected sculpture as being inglorious.

Newton William Blake 1795

Romantic- Blake became a lifelong advocate of probing the uninhibited imagination. Blake was interested in exploring the nature of good and evil and developed an idiosyncratic form of Christian belief that drew on elements from the Bible, Greek mythology, and British legend. In this painting, Isaac Newton- the epitome of eighteenth-century rationalism, heroically naked in a cave, obsessed with reducing the universe to a mathematical drawing with his compasses—an image that recalls medieval representations of God the Creator designing the world.

Francisco Goya, The Third of May, 1808, 1814

Romanticism- Grand manner in size but not ennobling. In 1808, Napoleon launched a campaign to conquer Spain. At first many Spanish citizens, Goya included, welcomed the French, who brought political reform, including a new, more liberal constitution. But on May 2, 1808, a rumor spread through Madrid that the French planned to kill the royal family. The populace rose up against the French, and a day of bloody street fighting ensued. Hundreds were executed in a convent (French revolutionaries intentionally chose a religious site to emphasize disdain for the church) by a French firing squad before dawn on May 3. Goya intentionally portrays the soldiers without showing faces to dehumanize. Man in the center quoting the crucified Christ. It is an image of blind terror and desperate fear, the essence of Romanticism—the sensational current event, the loose brushwork, the lifelike poses, the unbalanced composition, and the dramatic lighting. There is no moral here, only hopeless rage.

John Constable, The Hay Wain, 1821

Romantics saw nature as ever-changing, unpredictable, and uncontrollable, and they saw in it an analogy to equally changeable human emotions. They found nature awesome, fascinating, powerful, domestic, and delightful, and landscape painting became an important visual theme in Romantic art. The carefully rendered and meteorologically correct details of the sky seem natural. The painting is, however, deeply nostalgic, harking back to an agrarian past that was fast disappearing in industrializing England.

Sesshu, WINTER LANDSCAPE, Muromachi period, c. 1470s. Hanging scroll with ink on paper

Sesshu (1420-1506), has come to be regarded as one of the greatest Japanese painters of all time. Sesshu trained as a Zen monk at Shokokuji, where Shubun had his studio. worked under Shubun for 20 years. Wabi sabi aesthetic.

Paul Cezanne, Still Life with Basket of Apples, 1890-1894, Post-Impressionism

Spatial ambiguities appear in Cézanne's later still lifes, in which many of the objects may seem at first glance to be incorrectly drawn. The right side of the table is higher than the left, the wine bottle has two distinct silhouettes, and the pastries on the table next to it tilt upward toward the viewer, while we seem to see the apples head-on. Such shifting viewpoints are not evidence of incompetence; they come from Cézanne's rejection of the rules of traditional perspective. The composition as a whole, assembled from multiple perspectives, is consequently complex and dynamic. Instead of faithfully reproducing static objects from a stable vantage point, Cézanne recreated, or reconstructed, our viewing experiences through time and space.

Strawberry Hill, Walpole, 1749

The Gothic Revival emerged alongside Neoclassicism in Britain in the mid eighteenth century. Walpole remodeled his country house, strawberry hill, transforming it into a kind of Gothic castle. He added decorative crenellations, tracery windows, and turrets.

Rock Garden, Ryoanji, Kyoto

The dry landscape gardens of Japan, karesansui ("dried-up mountains and water"), exist in perfect harmony with Zen Buddhism. The dry garden in front of the abbot's quarters in the Zen temple at Ryoanji is one of the most renowned Zen creations in Japan. A flat rectangle of raked gravel, about 29 by 70 feet, surrounds 15 stones of different sizes in islands of moss. The stones are set in asymmetrical groups of two, three, and five. Low, plaster-covered walls establish the garden's boundaries, but beyond the perimeter wall maple, pine, and cherry trees add color and texture to the scene. Called "borrowed scenery," these elements are a considered part of the design even though they grow outside the garden. This garden is celebrated for its severity and its emptiness.

Grand Staircase Opera

The interior of The Opera of Paris, described as a "temple of pleasure," was even more opulent, with neo-Baroque sculptural groupings, heavy gilded decoration, and a lavish mix of expensive, polychromed materials. More spectacular than any performance on stage was the one on the grand, sweeping Baroque staircase, where members of the Paris elite displayed themselves. As Garnier said, the purpose of the Opéra was to fulfill the human desire to hear, to see, and to be seen.

Suzuki Harunobu,woodblock print,Japan Art

The scene takes place in the city of Edo (now Tokyo) in the 1760s, during an era of peace and prosperity that had started some 150 years earlier when the Tokugawa shoguns unified the nation. Edo was then the largest city in the world, with over 1 million inhabitants: samurai-bureaucrats and working-class townspeople. The commoners possessed a vibrant culture centered in urban entertainment districts, where geisha and courtesans, such as the lady and her young trainee portrayed in this woodblock print, worked. Looking through telescopes like the one in this print was a popular amusement of courtesans and their customers. It conveyed the sort of sexual overtones—because of the telescope's phallic shape. Printmaking was a collaborative work.

Paul Cezanne Large Bathers 1898-1906

This Painting returns in several ways to the academic conventions of history painting as a monumental, multi-figured composition of nude figures in a landscape setting that suggests a mythological theme. The bodies cluster in two pyramidal groups at left and right, beneath a canopy of trees. The figures assume statuesque, often Classical poses and seem to exist outside recognizable time and space. We see the white of raw canvas peeking through some of the figures- painting was not finished. This is a self reflective painting in dialogue with art history.

Joseph Mallord William Turner, Hannibal and his Army, 1812

Turner sought to capture the sublime, a concept defined by philosopher Edmund Burke. According to Burke, when we witness something that instills fascination mixed with fear, or when we stand in the presence of something far larger than ourselves, our feelings transcend those we encounter in normal life. It evokes the transcendent power of God. Turner translated this concept of the sublime through paintings of turbulence in the natural world and the urban environment. This painting epitomizes Romanticism's view of the awesomeness of nature. An enormous vortex of wind, mist, and snow masks the sun and threatens to annihilate the soldiers marching below it. Barely discernible in the distance is the figure of Hannibal leading troops through the Alps toward their encounter with the Roman army in 218 bce. Turner probably meant his painting as an allegory of the Napoleonic Wars. Napoleon himself had crossed the Alps, an event celebrated by David. But while David's painting presented Napoleon as a powerful figure, commanding not only his troops but nature itself, Turner reduced Hannibal to a speck on the horizon, threatened with his troops by natural disaster, as if foretelling their eventual defeat.

Akbar Inspecting the Construction of Fatehpur Sikri 1590

Unlike most Mughal emperors, Akbar did not write his own biography; instead he entrusted its creation to his high official. This text, details the actions and accomplishments of the emperor, including the events leading to the construction of Fatehpur Sikri.

Shwedagon Stupa (Pagoda)

Yangon. Myanmar. 15th Century. Shwedagon stupa (a stupa is a religious monument fundamental to Buddhist faith), enshrines relics of the four past Buddhas. Stupa is venerated as Buddha's physical representation. It is a pilgrimage site, practitioners circum-ambulate the structure as a form of worship. Shwedagon is designed as a Mandala (cosmic diagram of the universe) of Buddhist cosmos. Gold that guilds the stupa is in reference to text describing Buddha as having radiant golden skin. Gold also associated with Buddha's enlightenment. Tall spire- representation of axis mundi, access of the world imaginary line of earth with cosmos linking human and celestial realms. Stupa has been continually restored since its original construction

Taj Mahal

beautiful mausoleum at Agra built by the Mogul emperor Shah Jahan (completed in 1649) in memory of his favorite wife. Evokes both personal loss and imperial authority. Fruit trees and cypresses—symbolic of life and death, respectively—lined the walkways, and fountains played in the shallow pools. These features evoked paradise on earth. It is in the center of a four-part garden, a traditional Mughal tomb setting used for earlier tombs. Flanked by two smaller structures, one a mosque and the other a hall designed to mirror it. The tomb is built with white marble, a material previously reserved for the tombs of saints implying an elevated religious stature for Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal. The tomb is raised higher than these structures on its own marble platform, emphasizing its importance. This aggrandizement of the tomb is further achieved by having the minarets flank the tomb rather than the mosque. The portals are framed with verses from the Qur'an and inlaid in black marble, while the spandrels are decorated with floral arabesques inlaid in colored semiprecious stones, a technique known by its Italian name, pietra dura. There is controversy due to quoting of mosque architecture- iwan arches, and white marble reserved for male saints.

Daguerrotype of Samuel Finley Breese Morse

before Daguerre announced his photographic technique in France, the American artist Samuel Finley Breese Morse traveled to Paris to exchange information about his own invention, the telegraph, for information about Daguerre's photography. Morse introduced the daguerreotype process to America within weeks of Daguerre's announcement and by 1841 had reduced exposure times enough to take portrait photographs

Kano school Appreciation of Painting

c. 1606. commissioned from Kano School artists for the reception room in a subtemple of Ryonji- prominent monastery. Once installed within the hojo (or abbot's quarters) overlooking the famous rock garden at Ryoanji. From a set of the "Four Accomplishments"- painting, chess, music and calligraphy-Confucian scholarly arts.

Minakshi-Sundareshvara Temple

dedicated to the goddess Minakshi (the local name for Parvati, the consort of the god Shiva) and to Sundareshvara (the local name for Shiva himself). The temple complex stands in the center of the city and is the focus of Madurai life.exterior is embellished with thousands of sculpted figures, evoking a teeming world of gods and goddesses. Stages of gods to look over the sacred precinct. It allowed the practitioner to walk among gods.

Chiswick House c. 1725

example of British Neo-Palladianism. The plan shares the bilateral symmetry of Palladio's villa, although its central core is octagonal rather than round and there are only two entrances. The main entrance, flanked here by matching staircases, is a Roman temple front, an imposing entrance for the earl. Chiswick's elevation is characteristically Palladian, with a main floor resting on a basement, and tall, rectangular windows with triangular pediments.

Benjamin Henry Latrobe, U.S. Capitol

initially designed in 1792 by William Thornton, an amateur architect. His monumental plan featured a large dome over a temple front flanked by two wings to accommodate the House of Representatives and the Senate. In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson hired Benjamin Henry Latrobe to oversee the actual construction. Latrobe modified the design by adding a grand staircase and Corinthian colonnade on the east front. Seeking new symbolic forms for the nation within the traditional Classical style, he created a variation on the Corinthian order for the interior by substituting indigenous crops such as corn and tobacco for the Corinthian order's acanthus leaves. In 1817, And another major renovation, resulting in a much larger dome, began in 1850. Neoclassical design to symbolize idea of being ruled by law- not god.

Camille Pissarro, Wooded Landscape

new Impressionist image of the landscape, painting scenes where the urban meets the rural. Example of "plein air light and fugitive effects" by lightening color intensity and hue and loosening brushstrokes.Influenced by workers who rose up in France to establish the Commune, a working-class city government. Although it is a landscape- Impressionism was political statement to reject idealized styles.

Hiroshima Memorial Museum

one of the first monuments constructed after World War II. A memorial to those who perished on August 6, 1945, and an expression of prayers for world peace, it attests the spirit of the Japanese people at this difficult juncture in history. Tange Kenzo (1913-2005), who would eventually become one of the masters of Modernist architecture, designed the complex after winning an open competition. The building's design befits the solemnity of its context. Concrete piers raise its compact concrete form 20 feet off the ground. The wood formwork of the concrete recalls the wooden forms of traditional Japanese architecture

CHOJIRO, Tea Bowl, called Twilight , late 16th century

reflects Zen Buddhism. Every utensil connected with tea, including the water jar, the kettle, the tea scoop, the whisk, the tea caddy, and, above all, the tea bowl, came to be appreciated for its aesthetic quality, and many works of art were created for use in chanoyu. Japanese admiration for the natural and the asymmetrical found full expression in tea ceramics. tea masters urged potters to mimic their imperfect shapes. But not every misshapen bowl would be admired. A rarified appreciation of beauty developed that took into consideration such factors as how well a tea bowl fits into the hands, how subtly the shape and texture of the bowl appealed to the eye, and who had previously used and admired it. For this purpose, the inscribed storage box became almost as important as the ceramic that it held, and if a bowl had been given a name by a leading tea master, it was especially treasured by later generations. Reflects Wabi Sabi aesthetic- loneliness and poverty. Unglazed pottery conveyed simplicity and rusticity that symbolize communion with nature.

Temple of the Emerald Buddha (Thailand)

temple to house Thais' most sacred Buddha image. The Emerald Buddha ("emerald" refers to its color; it is actually made of jadeite) is featured in legends that place its creation in India under the direction of major Buddhist figures. The image has a special link to the world's foremost Buddhist kings, among whose lineage the Thai king is the most recent. The king himself ritually changes the image's golden garments three times a year. In one of these costumes the Emerald Buddha is dressed as a king, further strengthening the association between the Buddha and the state.

Ukio-e

transience of life, symbolized, for example, by the cherry tree which blossoms so briefly. Putting a positive spin on this harsh realization, they sought to live by the mantra: Let's enjoy life to the fullest as long as it lasts. This they did to excess in the restaurants, theaters, bathhouses, and brothels of the city's pleasure quarters, named after the Buddhist phrase ukiyo ("floating world"). These paragons of pleasure soon became immortalized in paintings and—because paintings were too expensive for common people—in woodblock prints known as ukiyo-e ("pictures of the floating world;" see "Japanese Woodblock Prints"). Most prints were inexpensively produced by the hundreds and not considered serious fine art.