Art Appreciation Chapter 4
Caravaggio's Judith and Holofernes
Baroque art
Gentileschi's Bathsheba and David
Baroque art; Bathsheba was the object of King David's lust
Caravaggio's Calling of St. Matthew
Baroque art; a drunken Matthew in a bar being called by Christ to be an apostle; of the Baroque style with its light coming from above Christ with no visible source
Gentileschi's Judith Beheading Holofernes
Baroque art; an image of two women in a darkened room, presumably the bedroom where Judith is beheading her fiancee Holofernes; the mysterious light creates an atmosphere of intrigue across the faces of Judith and her maidservant; theatrical with a unique blend of drama; Artemisia cuts off the head while her maidservant assists by holding Holofernes down; paints with rich colors of passion that have a lasting impression; Judith is played by Artemisia
Caravaggio's Martha and Mary Magdalene
Baroque art; biblical view of two sisters in conversation; Martha is attempting to persuade her sister Mary to convert from her old ways to a life in Christ; Mary is holding a flower in one hand and caressing a mirror with the other, symbolizing the earthly pleasures she would have to give up; Mary's face is the focus of the painting because the bright light is shining on it; in this very moment, Mary converts and gives her life to Christ
Artemisia Gentileschi
Baroque artist; female artist whose father had her trained to be a painter at a time when painting was considered a man's profession; follower of Caravaggio; most of her work is based on the lack of female rights using biblical scenes to produce her socially motivated theme "men and the evils they do"; raped as a child so she is anti-men
Caravaggio
Baroque artist; leading artist; a man given to fighting and corruption; the most important Baroque painter and inventor of the period; on his way to see the pope to be pardoned for murder but was killed by several men he had cheated; used everyday settings to portray biblical stories
Cimabue's Madonna of the Holy Trinity
High Renaissance art
Sanzio's The School of Athens
High Renaissance art; a fresco painting located in Pope Julius' personal library; has all the classic characteristics summed up by the Renaissance such as colors that are aloof, symmetrical composition, and figures all in a precise pose; two central figures are Aristotle and Plato; Aristotle is on the right, holding a book in his hand, and is indicating down to Earth to express putting his faith into science and beliefs of this world; Plato is barefoot and points up to the heavens indicating his faith in a higher being; Plato = Leonardo Da Vinci; Heraclitus = Michelangelo; Archimedes = Bramante (architect of the Vatican)
Da Vinci's The Vitruvian Man
High Renaissance art; aka "Canon of Proportions"; created sometime around 1490; illustrates how Leonardo would apply physical and mathematical principles to the human body; stems from the ancient Roman, Vitruvius, a first century B.C. architect, who believed that proportions of a temple had to correspond to the proportions of man, fitting into both a square and a circle; Leonardo studied anatomy for 20 years and dissected humans and animals illegally; writes from right to left so people couldn't look over and copy his work
Da Vinci's Mona Lisa
High Renaissance art; began the painting in 1503 and finished 4 years later; most famous work of art worldwide; Da Vinci also painted her when she was 16 years old at the request of her family; Mona Lisa is 24 years old, a wife to a wealthy banker, and a mother to 5 children in the famous Mona Lisa painting; she is smiling, but the smile fades the longer you look at her; X-rays have shown that there are 3 versions of Mona Lisa under the present one
Buonarroti's Sistine Ceiling
High Renaissance art; chapel was painted in 4 years; it is the 9 scenes from Genesis, from the creation of man to the fall of man; commissioned by Pope Julius II; over 300 figures on the ceiling; the human beings are not suffering their Earthly pain but rather they rise to a higher understanding of God's will for their lives; each figure is totally enraptured in a spiritual act of contemplation; God is reaching out to give Adam intelligence; believes than man is like God through intelligence
Sanzio's The Sistine Madonna
High Renaissance art; one of Raphael's best oil paintings; many consider this painting equally as good as Da Vinci's Mona Lisa; Mary and baby Jesus have a shocked/terror-stricken expression on their faces due to Jesus' future crucifixion
Da Vinci's The Last Supper
High Renaissance art; painted for a refectory in Milan, Italy; experimented with fresco base and medium, oil paint which did not mix well; the painting started falling apart during Da Vinci's lifetime and he tried to fix it with very little success; the whole painting is based on the number 7 which is a Christian New Testament symbol (7 windows, four groups with three figures in each group); Jesus is discussing how one of his men will betray him
Da Vinci's The Child Inside The Mother's Womb
High Renaissance art; produced between 1510 and 1512; his method of cross-sectional depictions of the fetus revealed an understanding of the birthing process;
Michelangelo Buonarroti
High Renaissance artist; a contemporary of Da Vinci; an artistic genius who understood the nature of color, form, composition, and how to unify the elements into a whole composition; renowned as a sculptor but is famous for his ceiling painting in the Sistine Chapel; genius with a sour attitude; good christian; 5 feet tall
Leonardo Da Vinci
High Renaissance artist; a genius, an artist, and a scientist; studied art, anatomy, engineering, and physics; say the world through different perspectives and asked questions;
Raphael Sanzio
High Renaissance artist; leading artist of the renaissance movement; studied with both Leonardo and Michelangelo and attempted to copy the best artistic qualities of each; the Renaissance period is characterized by his paintings; the synthesis of the Renaissance; died at age 27 from food poisoning
Warhol's Soup Can
High-renaissance art
Monet's Impression Sunrise
Impressionism art; an image of a harbor; original name was Port of Havre; renamed it to something general because he could not tell what port he painted; the viewer can make out images but must rely on their own experiences to create the whole image; a boat is in the foreground, the sun is rising, and there are boats and industrial buildings in the background; paint was applied in a thin layer
Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party
Impressionism art; illustrates atmosphere and the effects of light on objects; panoramic view; people are talking, enjoying lunch, and one woman plays with her dog; incorporates three types of image: portraits, a still-life, and a landscape; complementary colors of orange and blue are used to cool the image; zigzag composition
Claude Monet
Impressionist painter; painted images that reflected his life and places he would travel; painted flowers and nature
Auguste Renoir
Impressionist painter; produced colorful scenes of people enjoying themselves at parties or doing leisurely activities; had arthritis and cataracts; painted sad looking scenes; painted night life and common scenes; orchestras; ballet dancers
Gericault's The Raft of Medusa
Neo-Classical/Romantic art; almost life-size (16' x 24'); based on the story of a naval ship which sank while traveling to West Africa in 1816; the captain and crew abandoned ship using the longboats and left 146 men and 1 woman to survive on an unstable make-shift raft; the passengers spent 13 days on the raft and only 15 survived due to starvation, cannibalism, fights, and suicide; the image is painted at the very moment when all hope was lost but miraculously a ship appeared on the horizon saving their lives; depicts the reality of human suffering and the horrible conditions that were drawn out over a period of days; Gericault interviewed the survivors and used models and the make-shift raft for the painting
David's The Death of Socrates
Neo-Classical/Romantic art; creates dramatic imagery as Socrates is about to take hemlock and give up his own life; Christ and His 12 disciples around him; Socrates is pointing upwards signifying his belief in a creator; strong lighting with no visible source
David's The Death of Marat
Neo-Classical/Romantic art; passionate overtones; Marat, a friend of David, is lying in a bathtub with a letter in one hand and his pen in the other; dramatic, theatrical, and no visible light source like Baroque, but its Neo-Classical/Romantic because its documenting an actual event; Marat suffered from a skin affliction which caused him much discomfort, so he would soak in a tub of water with cooling minerals and wear a turban soaked in vinegar to alleviate scalp irritation; a woman named Corday "visited" him one day and severed his carotid artery with a knife to kill him; Corday was beheaded and slapped in the face; thought killing him would end the war and save lives, but it only made things worse; Charlotte was killed by guillotine for her murder of Marat; head is cut off and she is smiling at everyone during and after her head is cut off; shows the pen is mightier than the sword.
Theodore Gericault
Neo-Classical/Romantic artist
Jacques-Louis David (Daveed)
Neo-Classical/Romantic artist; main artist of the movement; developed the Neo-Classical style and created compositions in their symmetrical and static imagery; also borrowed from the Baroque with dramatic lighting and theatrics
Father of Abstraction
Paul Cezanne, created a path for modern artists like Picasso
Gauguin's The Vision After the Sermon
Post-Impressionism art; a landscape scene where we see people praying after a sermon; the fight between Jacob and the angel exists only in the minds of the praying women; image is out of proportion; combines two pictorial planes into one composition; tree bisects the painting to reinforce the division between the natural world and the spiritual world; uses red for the ground and the deep blues, yellows, and oranges for the imaginary figures to separate the spiritual world from the lifeless dull reality of the women
Van Gogh's Starry Night Over Rhone
Post-Impressionism art; first version of Starry Night
Van Gogh's Starry Night
Post-Impressionism art; most famous painting of van Gogh's; painted while he was committed to an insane asylum at Saint-Remy; unable to see the night sky so he painted it from memory; remarkable for its color, texture, and personal style created in the night sky
Paul Gauguin
Post-Impressionist artist; changed photographs so that the subject became the most important part of the conceived painting
Breton's Song of the Lark
Realism art
Breton's The Communicants
Realism art
Millet's The Gleaners
Realism art; recreated rural life in the 19th century; three female figures gleaning leftovers of a wheat harvest; the farmer had reaped a huge harvest and allowed the old women to go pick the leftovers; symbolizes the poor remaining poor and the rich getting richer
Manet's Luncheon on the Grass
Realism art; shocked the public by painting a nude woman with clothed men in an outdoor setting; not an actual event that occurred, but it represents artistic freedom; rejected by the Academies and the public; the nude model and the nude woman bathing in the background do not fit in the scene; combined Greek statue and a Raphael sketch; a typical triangular Renaissance pose; three separate disproportional planes are present; painted to protest the Academies' harsh rules
Courbet's Interior of my Studio: A Real Allegory of my Life as an Artist
Realism art; shocked the public initially; Courbet invited two groups of people together to pose; the group on the left is peasants and common laborers which symbolized poverty and the group on the right is wealthy individuals, artists, clients, and intellectuals; no one is really paying attention to Courbet painting in the middle; the nude model may symbolize inspiration and/or nature and truth; the overall painting reveals layers of the artist's life
Courbet's The Stone Breakers
Realism art; two men working alongside the road; Courbet had asked the two men if they would pose for him in his studio; a life size matter-of-factly painted image with no sentiment; their faces are not shown because the young man is too young to be doing hard labor and the old man is too old to be doing hard labor
Jules Breton
Realism artist; became popular with the Realist painters; trained as a Neo-Classicist and greatly influenced by Jacque-Louis David; superior at painting the common every day plight of peasants; each composition told a story of the downtrodden lives of common ordinary people; his paintings have an observed light that is felt before it is seen; his best works represent laborers and festivals
Gustave Courbet
Realist artist; created art that exemplifies heroism in modern life; led the Realist painters to their pursuit of naturalism
Jean Francois Millet
Realist painter; a French landscape painter who mainly painted melancholy scenes of peasant workers at their labor
Edouard Manet
Realist painter; was the first to utilize Courbet's ideals and incorporate them in his paintings
Neo-Classical/Romantic Period (1750-1800)
Romantic artists would put emotion over intellect in choosing their subject matter; Church was no longer in charge and responsibility shifted to the public; corresponds with the American Revolution of 1776 and the French Revolution of 1779; human feelings were determined by reason rather than an established authority; documentation paintings; felt like man was like nature, wild and unbounded; guns and killing
Absolutism
a time when the government and the church set forth rules the people would not challenge
Abstract Expressionism
altering nature while creating images purely from one's own emotions
Salons
art galleries
Impressionism (1870-1890)
artists were primarily a group of French friends and artistic rebels who determined that they wanted to redefine art; they wanted their images to represent their generation in their own instinctive way; first group to rely on the wealthy to buy their work; painted images people wanted such as people boating, people at parties, or people enjoying leisurely time; set up their canvases out-of-doors and painted nature as they saw it; their paintings did not become popular until 1975 because they were ahead of their time; Impressionists were rejected from the Academies and art galleries for producing art that was "ugly" and "out-of-focus"; artists guided their viewer through their works or art and controlled how the viewer saw paintings
Paul Cezanne
believed that Impressionism would not last, so he searched for ways to capture intense color in timeless landscape and still-life paintings; studied how light affected color and changed its tone; analyzed every brush stroke he made; is seen as the Father of Abstraction today; created a path for modern artists like Picasso to create abstract images
Cezanne's Mount of St. Victoire
color shapes indicate houses, trees, and the mountain in the background; harmonized color and created the visual map to direct the viewer's eye; limited color palette of blues, greens, and yellow-browns; every mark has a purposeful meaning to Cezanne
High Renaissance (1495-1525)
colors are cool and aloof; meant to be viewed as an outsider watching the scene; very little emotion or interpretation is asked of the viewer; figures are often arranged in a triangular composition; symmetrical because the human body was symmetrical; madonna and child scenes; images do not invite us into the scene
Post-Impressionism (1886-1892)
followed in the footsteps of the Impressionists, but were liberated completely from the academic tradition of the past; created works that have less to do with reality and more to do with color relationships and complex compositions
Renoir's Two Sisters on the Terrace
impressionism art; people from all over come to see this painting
Morisot
impressionism artist; female painter; female painters painted differently than men; looks a lot like Sandra Bullock; paints her sister and her sister's daughter a lot because she wanted to be a mom; landscapes, daytime scenes
Realism (1850-1880)
means naturalism or objective observation of facts; portrays the subject in a straight forward manner; was a reaction to the French Academies who dictated what artists could and could not paint; artists struggled to satisfy their own desires while still meeting the demands of the Academies; nature and truth are the main principles of Realism
Vincent van Gogh
most famous Post-Impressionist artist; led a tragic life; was dissatisfied with the values of the industrial society and began a mission to paint as he interpreted life; his paintings seem intensely personal and full of his own emotions; became an artist at 27 and died 10 years later of a self-inflicted gunshot wound; created more art in those 10 years than most artists created in a lifetime; minister who then turned into an artist; had epilepsy; cleaned his brush by swiping it through his mouth; paint gave him diseases and started to make him blind to colors; shot himself in the stomach
Fresco
paintings created by applying a thin coat of plaster over an area large enough for the artist to paint before the plaster dries. Typically artists would use tempera paint
Atmosphere
something you could see but couldn't touch; example: sun filtering through the trees casting shadows on the ground; key to the Impressionists' goal of creating images that reflected the effects of light on objects
Fra Lippi's Madonna and Child
the Madonna is holding her son who is staring back at the viewer; the typical image Renaissance artists would portray
Baroque Period (1600-1700)
the art was dramatic, bold, theatrical, and filled with emotion; darkened image with no apparent light source; artists used common everyday scenes to portray a religious message; occurred during the time of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation where the structure of the church was chaotic; an era of absolutism; a time of re-evaluating humanity and trying to understand its relationship to the universe; occurred mostly in Spain; invited into the scene to participate; Beheading of Holofernes was a reoccurring theme.
Static
very little movement shown in the image; Renaissance images are described as this.
