Art History II(Dr. Schwarz)-Exam 3

Artist: Rembrandt Title: "Self Portrait with Palette" Stylistic Period: 17th Century-Dutch Baroque

As he aged, Rembrandt painted ever more brilliantly, varying textures and paint from the thinnest glazes to thick impasto (heavily applied pigments), creating a rich, luminous chiaroscuro, ranging from deepest shadow to brilliant highlights in a dazzling display of gold, red, and chestnut-brown. His sensitivity to the human condition is perhaps nowhere more powerfully expressed than in his late self-portraits, which became more searching as he aged. Distilling a lifetime of study and contemplation, he expressed an internalized spirituality new in the history of art. Rembrandt is holding his tools and wears his artist smock and hat. it looks like he is looking at himself in a mirror. he is concentrating. he isn't frowning but he has wrinkles. his expression is wisdom through the ages. he puts part of his face in the shadow to reflect how he shows his personality.

Artist: Bernini Title: "David" Stylistic Period: 17th Century-Italian Baroque

Bernini's DAVID, made for a nephew of Pope Paul V in 1623, introduced a new type of three-dimensional composition that intrudes forcefully into the viewer's space. The young hero bends at the waist and twists far to one side, ready to launch the lethal rock at Goliath. Unlike Donatello's sassy boy and Vercocchio's poised and proud adolescent-both already victorious-or Michelangelo's pensive young man contemplating the task ahead, Bernini's more mature David, with his lean, sinewy body, tightly clenched mouth, and straining muscles, is all tension, action, and determination. By creating a twisting figure caught in movement, Bernini incorporates the surrounding space within his composition, implying the presence

Artist: Velazquez Title: "Water Carrier of Seville" Stylistic Period: 17th Century-Spanish Baroque

Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez, the greatest painter to emerge from the Caravaggesque school of Seville, shared Zurbarán's fascination with objects. He entered Seville's painters' guild in 1617. Like Ribera, he began his career as a tenebrist and naturalist. During his early years, he painted scenes set in taverns, markets, and kitchens, and emphasized still life of various foods and kitchen utensils. His early WATER CARRIER OF SEVILLE is a study of surfaces and textures of the splendid ceramic pots that characterized folk art through the centuries. Velázquez was devoted to studying and sketching from life: The man in the painting was a well-known Sevillian water seller. Like Sánchez Cotán, Velázquez arranged the elements of his paintings with almost mathematical rigor. The objects and figures allow the artist to exhibit his virtuosity in rendering sculptural volumes and describing contrasting textures illuminated by dramatic natural light. Light reflects in different ways off the glazed waterpot at the left and the coarser clay jug in the foreground; it is absorbed by the rough wool and dense velvet of the costumes; it is refracted as it passes through the clear glass held by the man and the water drops on the jug's surface.

Artist: Van Dyck Title: "Charles 1 at the Hunt" Stylistic Period: 17th Century-Flemish Baroque

In addition to collaborating with Rubens, Anthony van Dyck had an illustrious independent career as a portraitist. Son of an Antwerp silk merchant, he was listed as a pupil of the dean of Antwerp's Guild of St. Luke at age 10. He had his own studio and roster of pupils at age 16 but was not made a member of the guild until 1618, the year after he began his association with Rubens as a specialist in painting heads. The need to blend his work seamlessly with that of Rubens enhanced Van Dyck's technical skill. After a trip to the English court of James I in 1620, Van Dyck traveled to Italy and worked as a portrait painter for seven years before returning to Antwerp. In 1632, he retuned to England as the court painter to Charles I, by whom he was knighted and given a studio, a summer home, and a large salary. Van Dyck's many portraits of the royal family provide a sympathetic record of their features and demeanor. In CHARLES I AT THE HUNT, of 1635, Van Eyck was able, by cleve manipulation of the setting, to portray the king truthfully and still present him as an imposing figure. Dressed casually for the hunt and standing on a bluff overlooking a distant view (a device used by Rubens to enhance the stature of Henry IV), Charles, who was in fact very short, appears here taller than his pages and even than his horse, since its head is down and its heavy body is partly of the canvas. The viewer's gaze is diverted from the king's delicate and rather short frame to his pleasant features, framed by his jauntily cocked cavalier's hat and the graceful cascade of his hair. As if in decorous homage, the tree branches bow gracefully toward him, echoing the curving lines of the hat.

Artist: Caravaggio Title: "Bacchus" Stylistic Period: 17th Century-Italian Baroque

Michelangelo Merisi, known as "Caravaggio" after his family's home town in Lombardy, introduced a powerfully frank realism and dramatic, theatrical lighting and gesture to Italian Baroque art. The young painter brought an interest, perhaps a specialization, in still-life painting with him when he arrived in Rome from Milan late in 1592 and found studio work as a specialist painter of fruit and vegetables. When he began to work on his own, he continued to paint still lines but also began to include half-length figures with them. By this time, his reputation had grown to the extent that an agent offered to market his pictures. Caravaggio painted for a small, sophisticated circle associated with the household of art patron Cardinal del Monte, where the artist was invited to reside. His subjects from this early period of the 1590s include not only still lives but also genre scenes featuring fortune-tellers, cardsharps, and glamorous young men dressed as musicians or mythological figures. The BACCHUS of 1595-1596 is among the most polished of these early works. Caravaggio seems to have painted exactly what he saw, reproducing the "farmer's tan" of those parts of this partially dressed youth's skin-hand and face-that have been exposed to the sun, as well as the dirt under his fingernails. The figure himself is strikingly androgynous. Made up with painted lips and smoothly arching eyebrows, he seems to offer the viewer the gorgeous goblet of wine held delicately in his left hand, while fingering the black bow that holds his loose clothing together at the waist. Is this a provocative invitation to an erotic encounter or a young actor outfitted for the role of Bacchus, god of wine? Does the juxtaposition of the youth's invitation with a still life of rotting fruit transform this into an image about the transitory nature of sensual pleasure, either admonishing viewers to avoid sins of the flesh or encouraging them to enjoy life's pleasures while they can? The ambiguity seems to make the painting even more provocative.

Artist: Caravaggio Title: "The Calling of St. Matthew" Stylistic Period: 17th Century-Italian Baroque

Most of Caravaggio's commissions after 1600 were religious, and reactions to them were mixed. On occasion, patrons rejected his powerful, sometimes brutal, naturalism as unsuitable to the subject's dignity. Critics differed as well. An early critic, the Spaniard Vincente Carducho, wrote in his Dialogue on Painting (Madrid, 1633) that Caravaggio was an "omen of the ruin and demise of painting" because he painted "with nothing but nature before him, which he simply copied in his amazing way." Others recognized him as a great innovator who reintroduced realism into art and developed new, dramatic lighting effects. Seventeenth-century art historian Giovanni Bellori described Caravaggio's painting as "...reinforced throughout with bold shadows and a great deal of black to give relief to the forms. He went so far in this manner of working that he never brought his figures out into the daylight, but placed them in the dark brown atmosphere of a closed room, using a high light that descended vertically over the principal parts of the bodies while leaving the remainder in shadow in order to give force through a strong contrast of and dark." Caravaggio's approach has been likened to the preaching of Filippo Neri, the Counter-Reformation priest and mystic who founded a Roman religious group called the Congregation of the Oratory. Neri, called the Apostle of Rome and later canonized, focused his missionary efforts on ordinary people for whom he strove to make Christian history and doctrine understandable and meaningful. Caravaggio, too, interpreted his religious subjects directly and dramatically, combining intensely observed figures, poses, and expressions with strongly contrasting effects of light and color. His knowledge of Lombard painting, where the influence of Leonardo was strong, must have facilitated his development of the technique now known as tenebrism, in which forms emerge from a dark background into a strong light that often falls from a single source outside the painting. The effect is that of a theatrical spotlight. As soon as he established himself as an up-and-coming artist during the 1590s, Caravaggio turned to a series of important commissions for religious paintings in the chapels of Roman churches. Unlike in the Renaissance, where frescos were applied directly to the walls, Caravaggio produced large oil paintings on canvas in his studio, only later installing them within the chapels to form coordinated ensembles. Several such installations survive, giving us the precious opportunity to experience the paintings as Caravaggio and his patrons intended. One of this intact programs, in the Contarelli Chapel of San Luigi dei Francesi, was Caravaggio's earliest religious commission in Rome, perhaps obtained through the efforts of Cardinal del Monte, who had supported the artist through the 1590s. This church served the French community in Rome, and the building itself was constructed between 1518 and 1589, its completion made possible by the patronage of Catherine de' Medici, Queen of France. The chapel Caravaggio decorated was founded in 1565 by Mathieu Cointrel-Matteo Contarelli-a French noble at the papal court who would serve as a financial administrator under Gregory XIII. Although earlier artists had been called on to provide paintings for the chapel, it was only after Contarelli's death in 1585 that the executors of his will brought the decoration to completion, hiring Giuseppe Cesare in 1591 to paint the ceiling frescos, and Caravaggio in 1599 to provide paintings of scenes from the life of the patron's patron saint" THE CALLING O ST. MATTHEW on the left wall and The Martyrdom of St. Matthew on the right, both installed in July 1600.

Artist: Gentileschi Title: "Judith Beheading Holofernes" Stylistic Period: 17th Century-Italian Baroque

One of Caravaggio's most brilliant Italian followers was Artemisia Gentileschi, whose international reputation helped spread the Caravaggesque style beyond Rome. Artemisia first studied and worked under her father, Orazio, one of the earliest followers of Caravaggio. In 1616, she moved from Rome to Florence, where she worked for Grand Duke Cosimo II de' Medici and was elected, at the age of 23, to the Florentine Academy of Design. One of her most famous paintings, and a clear example of her debt to Caravaggio's tenebrism and naturalism, is the painting JUDITH BEHEADING HOLOFERNESS, which she gave to Cosimo II shortly before she left Florence to return to Rome in 1620. The subject is drawn from the biblical book of Judith, which recounts the story of the destructive invasion of Judah by the Assyrian general Holofernes, when the brave and beautiful Jewish widow Judith risked her life to save her people. Using her charm to gain Holofernes' trust, Judith enters his tent with her maidservant while he is drunk and beheads him with his own sword. Gentileschi emphasizes the grisly facts of this heroic act, as the women struggle to subdue the terrified Holofernes while blood spurts widely from the severing of his jugular. The artist's dramatic spotlighting and a convergence of compositional diagonals rivet our attention on the most sensational aspects of the scene pushed toward us in the foreground. Throughout her life, Gentileschi painted many such images of heroic biblical women, which art historians have interpreted in relation to her own struggle to claim her rightful place in an art world dominated by overpowering men.

Artist: Titian Title: "'Venus' of Urbino" Stylistic Period: 16th Century-High Renaissance

Paintings of nude reclining women became especially popular in sophisticated circles, where male patrons could enjoy and appreciate the "Venuses" under the cloak of respectable Classical mythology. Seemingly typical of such paintings is the "VENUS" Titian delivered to Guidobaldo della Rovere, duke of Urbino, in spring 1538. Here, we seem to see a beautiful Venetian courtesan, with deliberately provocative gestures, stretching languidly on her couch in a spacious palace, her glowing flesh and golden hair set off by white sheets and pillows. But for its original audience, art historian Rona Goffen has argued, the painting was more about marriage than mythology or seductiveness. The multiple matrimonial references in this work include the pair of cassoni where servants are removing or storing the woman's clothing in the background, the bridal symbolism of the myrtle and roses she holds in her hand, and even the spaniel snoozing at her feet- a traditional symbols of fidelity and domestically, especially when sleeping so peacefully. Titian's picture might be associated with Duke Guidobaldo's marriage in 1534 to the 10-year-old Giulia Verano. Four years later, when this painting arrived, she would have been considered an adult rather than a child bride. It seems to represent not a Roman goddess nor a Venetian courtesan, but a physically and emotionally mature bride welcoming her husband into their lavish bedroom.

Artist: Dürer Title: "Adam and Eve" Stylistic Period: 16th Century-Northern Renaissance

Perhaps as early as the summer of 1494, Dürer began to experiments with engravings, cutting the metal plates himself with an artistry rivaling Schongauer's. His growing interest in Italian art and his theoretical investigations are reflected in his 1504 engraving ADAM AND EVE which represents his first documented use of ideal human proportions based on Roman copies of ancient Greek sculpture. He may have sen figures of Apollo and Venus in Italy, and his would have known ancient sculpture from contemporary prints and drawings. But around these idealized human figures he represents plants and animals with typically northern attention to descriptive detail. Dürer filled the landscape with symbolic content reflecting the medieval theory that after Adam and Eve disobeyed God, they and their descendants became vulnerable to imbalances in the body fluids that controlled human temperament. An excess of black bile from the liver would produce melancholy, despair, and greed; yellow bile caused anger, pride, and impatience; phlegm in the lungs resulted in lethargy and apathy; and an excess of blood made a person unusually optimistic but also compulsively interested in the pleasures of the flesh. These four human temperaments, or personalities, are symbolized here by the melancholy elk, the choleric cat, the phlegmatic ox, and the sanguine (or sensual rabbit). The mouse is a symbolic of Satan, whose earthly power, already manifest in the Garden of Eden, was capable of bringing human beings to a life of woe through their own bad choices. Adam seems to be releasing the mouse into the world of his paradise as he contemplates eating the forbidden fruit that Eve receives from the snake. Dürer placed his signature prominently on a placard hung on a tree branch in Adam's grasp and on which perches a parrot-possibly symbolizing false wisdom, since it can only repeat mindlessly what it hears.

Artist: Rubens Title: "The Raising of the Cross" Stylistic Period: 17th Century-Flemish Baroque

Rubens's first major commission in Atwerp was a large canvas triptych for the main altar of the church of St. Walpurga, THE RAISING OF THE CROSS, painted in 1610-1611. He extended the central action and the landscape through all three panels. At the center, Herculean figures strain to haul upright the wood cross with Jesus already stretched upon it. At the left, the followers of Jesus join in mourning, and at the right, soldiers supervise the execution. The drama and intense emotion of Caravaggio is merged here with the virtuoso technique of Annibale Carracci, but transformed and reinterpreted according to Rubens's own unique ideal of thematic and formal unity. The heroic nude figures, dramatic lighting effects, dynamic diagonal composition, and intense emotions show his debt to Italian art, but the rich colors and careful description of surface textures reflect his native Flemish tradition.

Artist: Pozzo Title: "Glorification of St. Ignatius" Stylistic Period: 17th Century-Italian Baroque

This illusion painting is on the the large and curved nave of ceiling at the church of Sant' Ignazio. Pozzo created We can see all the walls rising up, blue sky, no more ceiling, clouds and we arguing further up into space, into the gold light (heaven). There are four groups in the four corners and they are Asia (top left), Europe (bottom left), Americas (top right), and Africa (bottom right). In Americas there is a crocodile, and in Asia there is a camel to emphasize the supremacy of their faith. The painting is the celebration of St. Ignatius going to heaven. All of the corners of the earth are celebrating him. St. Ignatius founded the Jesuits and they would provide schools and serve charities. And the Jesuits went on to build a very large church that happens to be Sant' Ignazio. Pozzo was a recent saint at the time so he painting this painting to pay recognition to St. Ignatius. Ignatius is in the middle of the sky, rising to heaven. Jesus is standing amongst the clouds. You can barely see the Holy Spirit because he has to make the painting believable. The real is made spiritual and the spiritual is made real. All of heaven is appearing about and it made realistic. The goal of this painting is to make you feel emotional.

Artist: Rembrandt Title: "The Return of the Prodigal Son" Stylistic Period: 17th Century-Dutch Baroque

This is of the story found in the new testament of Luke. In the gospel, Jesus tells the parable (a story with a moral or lesson) of the prodigal son. Jesus told stories with morals to make people think. It is a relatable story because it appeals to human nature. It is humanly natural but it is made for its spiritual morality. It is a quiet and contemplative painting. There is an archway and stairs coming down. There is a maid in the shadows and another coming forward. The son has come from our space to the front step and gets down on his knees and lowers his head. you can tell that his hands are in a pious forgiving pose. You can sense the humility of the boy. The father has come out and embraces him and they hold the pose. The father and son have become one. The son doesn't have hair and his clothes are torn but the father still takes him in. The other brother stands and watches with a serious expression and another friend or family member is also watching. This is a very profound and humanizing painting. The colors are warm which adds to the peacefulness. The main light is on he son and father for emphasis on their bond. The thick strokes and layered paint make the painting more alive. Rembrandt suffered a lot of hardship and the only one of his children that stayed alive only lived until 30 years old so the painting is most likely sentimental to him.

Artist: Bruegel Title: "Peasant Dance" Stylistic Period: 16th Century-Northern Renaissance

This oil on panel painting of peasants celebrating a holiday was made for the middle class. There are contemporary clothes and houses. The viewer sees the peasants living in harmony. The underlying symbolism is Christian morality images of everyday life. The painting is a representation of the temptation of the flesh. They are dancing, singing, listening to music, being romantic, etc. Couple dancing in poetry has been related to sex. The people are displayed as having an excessive expression of pleasure. Some figures are drunk and could be angry. The peasants are shown as sturdy and stereotyped as hefty and crude, just as the upper class would like to see. The well off owner of the painting would have been happy with this painting. The artist of this painting, painted what the wealthy want to see. The realism is not quite perfect, but the artist is getting there.

Artist: Titian Title: "Pesaro Madonna" Stylistic Period: 16th Century-High Renaissance

Titian's early life is obscure. He supposedly began an apprenticeship as a mosaicist, then studied painting under Gentile and Giovanni Bellini, perhaps working later with Giorgione. He certainly absorbed Giorgione's style, and completed at least one of Giorgione's unfinished paintings. 1519, Jacopo Pesaro, commander of the papal fleet that had defeated the Turks in 1502, commissioned Titian to commemorate the victory in a votive altarpiece for a side-aisle chapel in the Franciscan church of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in Venice. Titian worked on the painting for seven years and changed the concept three times before he finally came up with a revolutionary composition-one that complimented the viewer's approach from the left. He created an asymmetrical setting of huge columns on high bases soaring right out of the frame. Into this architectural setting, he placed the Virgin and Child on a high throne at one side and arranged saints ad the Pesaro family below on a diagonal axis, crossing at the central figure of St. Peter (a reminder of Jacopo's role as head of the papal forces in 1502). The red of Francesco Pesaro's brocade garment and of the banner diagonally across sets up a contrast of primary colors against St. Peter's blue tunic and yellow mantle and the red and blue draperies of the Virgin. St. Maurice (behind the kneeling Jacopo at the left) holds the banner with the papal arms, and a cowering Turkish captive reminds the viewer of the Christian victory. The arresting image of the youth who turns to meet our gaze at lower right guarantees our engagement, and light floods in from above, illuminating not only this and other faces, but also the great columns, where putti in the clouds carry a cross. Titian was famous for his mastery of light and color even in his own day, but this altarpiece demonstrates he could draw and model as solidly as any Florentine. The perfectly balanced composition, built on color, and on diagonals instead of a vertical and horizontal grid, looks forward to the art of the seventeenth century.

Artist: Vermeer Title: "View of Delft" Stylistic Period: 17th Century-Dutch Baroque

artist is from the city of delft (the city show in the painting) which was one of the many thriving cities. the city has many waterways and is not too far from the sea. these waterways were for importing and exporting, buying and selling, trading goods. delft was well known for their fabrics. vermeer's father owned a shop that wove fabrics. it is a highly structured and soft liquid painting. the atmosphere is quiet and has clear and even light. 2/3 sky and 1/3 land which composed of the city, water, and the opposite bank. we are on one bank as viewers and we see a few human figures. they are very tiny so they are not relevant to the painting. he altered certain features like positioning of some of the buildings to create an appealing composition and so that naturalistic view would also be balanced and ordered. the little towers/steeples are statically placed to create underlying stability. he staggers the steeples in different places in the city for balance. the white steeple is in the background not under the clouds like the dark steeples because it is in the sun light. subtle movement is communicated as he experiments with light on surfaces. we sense the water is moving by the reflected light and tiny ripples in the water. the reflections are blurry because the water is moving softly and slowly. with his observation of light we sense movement animating the painting and makes it comes alive.

Artist: Velazquez Title: "Juan de Pareja" Stylistic Period: 17th Century-Spanish Baroque

located in the Metropolitan museum in new york. he had been asked to paint a portrait of the pope but first he wanted to practice painting his assistant, juan de pareja, who was mixed. even though juan was partly black, velazquez painted him with dignity because black people were not tolerated at the time. people thought this to be truth. he took inspiration from raphael "baldassare castiglione" but in the opposite angle. he paints with a very lively feature. his head is highlighted by the white shirt and dark colors to make the head stand out. it looks like he is holding something under his coat like a hat of some sort. his pose does not suggest that he has been sitting there for long, as if he just stepped in. it is as if we can see him breathing in front of us because of how velazquez paints with light, time, space, etc. he took into account distance and light and color of the skin like orange, blonde, pink, and ocher. in high renaissance, they focus on detail but in baroque, it is more focused on realistically painting figures and objects - a brush stroke technique "varied, vivid, and visible". you can see the brushwork to make the future appear alive and animated.

Artist: Riguard Title: "Louis XIV" Stylistic Period: 17th Century-French Baroque

louis was a master of political strategy and propaganda. he created the identity of "le roi soleil" which means "the sun king" who was the center of the universe.

Artist: Vermeer Title: "Woman Holding a Balance" Stylistic Period: 17th Century-Dutch Baroque

this is a contemporary interior painting of a middle class woman weighing her pearls. this is not a portrait painting but she appears in many of vermeers works. she may be weighing them to see how much they would sell for. she wears a linen head covering which shows modesty or put on the head before stepping outside. there is black and white tile , specific contemporary middle class home in the city of delft. there is a calmness and quietness as if she could hold that pose for a long time. her gesture is soft and beautiful and slow. large objects take up the lower half and two rectangles take up the top half. it is a symmetrical. it is balanced because we have a heavy blue form on one side and a woman clothed in heavy blue on the other side. it is not obvious that it is balanced. there is a direct light coming in from the window and it casts a shadow. it is lifelike as if you can see her breathing in front of us. the objects on the table also serve as a still life. the brushwork is very smooth and hard to see compared to rembrandt. there is lavender and olive green blended into her face.

Artist: Ruisdael Title: "View of Haarlem from the Dunes at Overveen" Stylistic Period: 17th Century-Dutch Baroque

this is landscape painting of the manufacturing of linen. the dutch were producing linen at the time and the middle class was thriving and that is symbolism for dutch pride. on the ground, the people laid their linen for the sun to bleach. and after the linen was whitened, they would roll it up and sell it in the city. the view is up high on the dune looking down at the town of overveen and looking out at the city of haarlem in the distance. we can see the linen manufacturer's houses. there are windmills which also symbolize the wealth of the country. the composition consists of 2/3 sky and 1/3 land. the clouds are moving which adds to the reality.

Artist: Leyster Title: "Self Portrait" Stylistic Period: 17th Century-Dutch Baroque

A painting that had been praised as one of Hal's finest works is actually by Judith Leyster, Hal's contemporary. A cleaning uncovered her distinctive signature, the monogram "JL" with a star, which refers to her surname, meaning "pole star." Leyster's work shows clear echoes of her exposure to the Utrecht painters who had enthusiastically adopted the principal features of Caravaggio's style. Since Leyster signed in 1631 as a witness at the baptism in Haarlem of one of Hal's children, it is assumed they were close; she may also have worked in his shop. She entered Haarlem's Guild of St. Luke in 1633, which allowed her to take pupils into her studio, and her competitive relationship with Frans Hals around that time is made clear by the complaint she lodged against him in 1635 for luring away one of her apprentices. Leyster is known primarily for informal scenes of daily life, which often carry and underlying moralistic theme. Judith Leyster was a follower, if not a student, of the Dutch painter Frans Hals. Known for his portraits, Hals combined the Netherlandish love for detail with the Caravaggesque style introduced to the north by artists like Hendrick ter Brugghen. Leyster was influenced by Hals's approach to portraiture, but also established her own unique style of painting. Leyster's Self-Portrait conveys a sense of spontaneity, as the artist leans back from her painting, as if to acknowledge the viewer who has just entered her space. The artist has interrupted her work on a canvas that shows an informal genre scene similar the ones for which she was known. The man playing a violin may be a visual pun on the painter with her palette and brush. Therefore, a musical performance becomes a metaphor for painting, as the gesture of the violinist mirrors that of the painter. Analysis has shown that Leyster changed the subject matter on the canvas from her self-portrait to the violin player. She must have realized that the painting could serve as a self-representation as well as an advertisement of the types of merry genre scenes she was famous for painting. Even though Leyster depicts herself at work, holding her palette in one hand and a paintbrush in the other, she shows herself dressed in a rich garment and sitting in an elegant chair, as if to demonstrate her success as a painter. She represents herself as a "speaking-likeness" portrait, with her mouth open in an animated, self-assured expression. The painting ultimately serves as a statement about Leyster's own achievements as a woman painter of the seventeenth century. In 1633, she became a member of the Haarlem Guild of Painters at a time when women were discouraged to join, and, in 1635, she is recorded to have had three students. Compared to Frans Hals, who used very loose brushstrokes, Leyster's manipulation of the brush is often tight and controlled. Her face and delicate ruff are especially carefully painted, and can be contrasted with her skirt, which is depicted with broader applications of paint.Leyster emphasized the difference between her painted portrait and the painted canvas within the work by using looser brushstrokes and a lighter palette to depict the violin player. The warm spotlighting effects in the painting and the narrow range of colors are typical of Leyster's mature style. Portraiture was a well-established genre in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic. Artists focused on faithful descriptions of facial features and costumes, and the portraits ranged from depictions of single individuals to group portraits and allegorical representations. Ultimately, portraits served as records of sitters' identities as well as statements about their status. Judith Leyster's Self-Portrait exemplifies her mature painting style. The painting further serves as a statement about her own success as an artist, and even presents the viewer with the type of genre paintings for which she was known. The size and date of the work suggest that Leyster may have presented the piece for admission into the local painters' guild, the Guild of Saint Luke of Haarlem.

Artist: Velazquez Title: "Las Meninas" (The Maids of Honor) Stylistic Period: 17th Century-Spanish Baroque

Perhaps Velázquez's most striking, certainly his most enigmatic work is the enormous multiple portrait, nearly 10 1/2 feet tall and over 9 feet wide, known as LAS MENINAS (THE MAIDS OF HONOR), painted in 1656, near the end of his life. This painting continues to challenge viewers and stimulate debate among art historians. Velázquez painted Las Meninas (The Maids of Honor) while serving as the royal court painter to King Philip IV of Spain. The painting is a complex group portrait featuring King Philip IV and Queen Mariana, their daughter (the Infanta Margarita), attendants of the royal family, clergy members, and the artist himself. Velázquez shows himself at work on an enormous canvas, the scale of which is comparable to Las Meninas. This large size of the canvas is evident both through a comparison with the figure of Velázquez and with the paintings on the back wall. As a Baroque painter, Velázquez uses tenebrism, bathing the Infanta Margarita in bright light against a darkened background, thereby drawing attention to her importance. The details of her costume are painted with loose brushstrokes, a typical flourish of Velázquez's painterly style. At the center of the painting is Infanta Margarita, the daughter of King Philip IV and Queen Mariana, and the future heiress of the Spanish throne. While the Infanta occupies a prominent position in the work, there are numerous other details in the composition that compete for the viewer's attention. Reflected in the background mirror are King Philip IV and Queen Mariana, whose exact location is not clear. If they were standing next to the viewer, their reflection would be smaller. If their portraits were reflected from the canvas that Velázquez is painting, the angle of the canvas would be different. Velázquez played with space in the composition to create a complex viewing experience for the beholder. Velázquez included a portrait of himself at work within the painting. His position next to members of the royal family serves as a powerful statement about the rising status of the artist. Velázquez's Las Meninas served as an important influence for Francisco Goya, who also included his self-portrait in a painting of the Spanish royal family, Family of Charles IV. Velázquez was nominated to the Order of Santiago in 1658. King Philip IV had the symbol of the order added to the painting after Velázquez's death in 1660 as a further acknowledgment of the artist's achievements. Among the Infanta's attendants are the court jester Nicolasito, shown teasing a dog, and a female dwarf. Dwarfs were a common part of ceremonies and festivals in European courts at this time, and Velázquez painted them with a sympathetic eye, as his position within the court would have been similar to theirs. Las Meninas is painted in a Baroque style, and further reflects the affluence of the Spanish court in the seventeenth century. The painting exerted significant influence over later artists, including Francisco Goya, Pablo Picasso, and Édouard Manet. Velázquez's painting served as an important statement about the artist's rising status and his role as court painter. The work also features a complex viewing game, in which the artist's play with perspective and reflection leads the viewer to question the position of the figures depicted as well as the exact focus of the painting. One possible reading of the work is that Velázquez has placed the viewer in the same position as the king and queen, standing in front of the Infanta.

Artist: Bruegel Title: "Return of the Hunters" Stylistic Period: 16th Century-Northern Renaissance

So popular did the works of Hieronymus Bosch remain that, nearly half a century after his death, Pieter Bruegel began his career by imitating them. Like Bosch, he often painted large narrative works crowded with figures, and he chose moralizing or satirical subject matter. He traveled throughout Italy, but, unlike many Renaissance artists, he did not record the ruins of ancient Rome or the wonders of the Italian cities. Instead, he seems to have been fascinated by the landscape, particularly the formidable jagged rocks and sweeping panoramic views of Alpine valleys, which he recorded in detailed drawings. Back home in his studio, he made an impressive leap of the imagination as he painted the flat and rollings lands of Flanders as broad panoramas, even adding imaginary mountains on the horizon. He also visited country fairs to sketch the farmers and townspeople who became the focus of his paintings, presenting humans not as unique individuals but as well-observed types, whose universality makes them familiar even today. Cycles, or series, of paintings unified by a developing theme or allegorical subject-for instance, the Time of the Day, the Four Seasons, or the Five Senses-became popular wall decorations in prosperous Flemish homes during the sixteenth century. In 1565, Pieter Bruegel the Elder was commissioned to paint a series of six large paintings, each over 5 feet wide, surveying the months of the year, two months to a piece. They were made to be hung together in a room-probably the dining room since food figures prominently in these pictures-in the suburban villa of wealthy merchant Nicolaes Jonghelinck, just outside Antwerp.

Artist: Dürer Title "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" Stylistic Period: 16th Century-Northern Renaissance

Studious, analytical, observant, and meticulous-and as self-confident as Michelangelo-Albert Dürer was the foremost artist of the German Renaissance. He made his home in Nuremberg, where he became a prominent citizen. Nuremberg was a center of culture as well as business, with an active group of humanists and internationally renowned artists. It was also a leading publishing center. Dürer's father was a goldsmith and must have expected his son to follow in his trade. Dürer did complete an apprenticeship in gold working, as well as in stained-glass design, painting, and the making of woodcuts-which he learned from Michael Wolgemut, illustrator of the Nuremberg Chronicle. It was as a painter and graphic artist, however, that he built his artistic fame. In 1490, Dürer began traveling to extend his education. He went to Basel, Switzerland, hoping to meet Martin Schongauer, but arrived after the master's death. By 1494, Dürer had moved from Basel to Strasbourg. His first trip to Italy introduced him to Italian Renaissance ideas and attitudes and, as we considered at the beginning of this chapter, to the concept of the artist as an independent creative genius. In his self-portrait of 1500, Dürer represents himself as an idealized, Christ-like figure in a severely frontal pose, staring self-confidently to the viewer. On his return to Nuremberg, Dürer began to publish his own prints to bolster his income, and ultimately it was prints, not paintings, that made his fortune. His first major publication, The Apocalypse, appeared simultaneously in German and Latin editions in 1497-1498. It consisted of a woodcut title page and 14 full-page illustrations with the text printed on the back of each. Perhaps best known is THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE, based on figures described in Revelation 6:1-8: a crowned rider, armed with a bow, on a white horse (Conquest); a rider with a sword, on a red horse (War); a rider with a set of scales, on a black horse (Plague and Famine); and a rider on a sickly pale horse (Death). Earlier artists had simply lined up the horsemen in the landscape, but Dürer created a compact, overlapping group of wild riders charging across the world and trampling its cowering inhabitants, men and women, clerical and lay. Dürer probably did not cut his own woodblocks but employed a skilled carver who followed his drawings faithfully. Dürer's dynamic figures show affinities with Schongauer's Temptation of St. Anthony. He adapted Schongauer's metal-engraving technique to the woodcut medium, using a complex pattern of lines to model the forms. Dürer's early training as a goldsmith is evident in his meticulous attention to detail, and in his decorative cloud and drapery patterns. Following the tradition established by his late fifteenth-century predecessors, he fills the foreground with large, active figures.

Artist: Rembrandt Title: "The Company of Captain Cocq" Stylistic Period: 17th Century-Dutch Baroque

The most important painter working in Amsterdam in the seventeenth century was Rembrandt van Rijn. One of nine children born in Leiden to a miller and his wife, Rembrandt studied under Pieter Lastman, the principal painter in Amsterdam at the time. From Lastman, a history painter who had worked in Rome, Rembrandt absorbed an interest in the naturalism, drama, and tenebrism championed by Caravaggio. By the 1630s, Rembrandt was established in Amsterdam primarily as a portrait painter, although he also painted a wide range of narrative themes and landscapes. Prolific and popular with his Amsterdam clientele, Rembrandt ran a busy studio, producing works that sold for high prices. The prodigious output of his large workshop and of the many followers who imitated his manner has made it difficult for scholars to define his body of work, and many paintings formerly attributed to Rembrandt have recently been assigned to other artists. Rembrandt's mature work reflected his cosmopolitan city environment, his study of science and nature, and the broadening of his artistic vocabulary by the study of Italian Renaissance art, chiefly from engravings and paintings imported by the busy Amsterdam art market. In 1642, Rembrandt was one of several artists commissioned by a wealthy civic-guard company to create large group portraits of its members for its new meeting hall. The result, THE COMPANY OF CAPTAIN FRANS BANNING COCQ, carries the idea of a group portrait as a dramatic event even farther. Because a dense layer of grime had darkened and obscured its colors, this painting was once thought to be a nocturnal scene and was therefore called The Night Watch. After cleaning and restoration in 1975-1976, it now exhibits a natural golden light that sets afire the palette of rich colors-browns, blues, olive-green, orange, and red-around a central core of lemon yellow in the costume of a lieutenant. To the dramatic group composition, showing a company forming for a parade in an Amsterdam street, Rembrandt added several colorful but seemingly unnecessary figures. While the officers stride purposefully forward, the rest of the men and several mischievous children mill about. The radiant young girl in the left middle ground, carrying a chicken with prominent claws (klauw in Dutch), may be a pun on the kind of guns ( klower) that gave the name (the Kloveniers) the company. Chicken legs with claws also are part of its coat of arms. The complex interactions of the figures and the vivid, individualized likenesses of the militiamen make this one of the greatest group portraits in the Dutch tradition.