-Two young artists, Raphael and Michelangelo, were linked in service to Pope Julius II in the early 16th century
-Raphael and Michelangelo united Renaissance principals of harmony and balance with a new monumentality dynamic and synthetic whole, rich in color and controlled by cohesive design.
-Julius II intended the Stanza Della Segnatura, or room of the signature, to be his personal study
-he organized the mural program itself like a library, separated into divisions of theology, philosophy, the arts, and justice
-Italy was divided into states
-The 16th century was an age of social, intellectual, and religious ferment that transformed European culture.
-Cartographers began to acknowledge the Earth's curvature and the degrees of distance, giving Europeans a more accurate understanding of their place within the world
-At the state of the 16th century, England, France, and Portugal were nation-states under strong monarchs.
-The political maneuvering of Pope Clement VII led to a direct clash with Holy Roamn Emperor Charles V.
-16th century patrons valued artists highly and rewarded them well, not only with generous commissions buy sometimes even with high social status.
-Many artists recorded their activities-professional and private-- in diaries, notebooks and letters
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
David
When I saw the David in Italy, it was like an incredible experience and exactly the type of experience a sculptor would want. You walk down a long hallway and there it is, in the middle of the room (sort of).
The Last Supper...
Well, there is a lot to talk about here but what about this.. what if you knew you were about to have your last supper tonight?
Birth of Venus
- Botticelli was good at showing his light source.
- Putting a lot of saints and angels in his portraits.
- He worked in Florence, often for the Medici, then was called to Roman in 1481 by Pope Sixtus IV to help decorate the new sistine chapel along with other artists
-Botticelli returned to Florence that same year and entered a new phase of his career
-For the Medici, Botticelli produced secular paintings of mythological subjects inspired by ancient works and by contemporary Neoplatonic thought.
- Venus was the classical equivalent of the virgin mary
-Primavera was painted at the time of the wedding of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici and Semiramide d'Appiano in 1482.
-Several years later, some of the myth creatures appeared in Botticelli's Birth of Venus
-Botticelli's classical goddess of love and beauty, born of sea foam, averts her eyes from our gaze as she floats ashore on a scallop shell, gracefully aranging her hands and hair to hide-but actually drawing attention to her sexuality instead.
-Botticelli was later impacted by a spiritual crisis
-Many Florentines reacted with orgies of self-recrimination, and processions of weeping penitents wound through the streets
The Expulsion of Adam and Eve Paradise
Now here is something to talk about. As described, this italian painting (which amazingly only took 4 days!) Masaccio painted Adam and eve with the intent to portray the light source and the body's form with regards to the bone structure underneath not the muscle structure (flemish). It shows how these two have been thrown out into the world without being able to go back to paradise. This is just a scene out of two: this and The Tribute Money. It is interesting to discuss how Masaccio portrayed Eve with her hands covering her genitalia as well as breasts when he didn't depict Adam doing the same. He had Adam covering, with both hands, his eyes instead. It sends a message in a few ways. One could be that men can be seen as powerful and they can do anything they want, while woman cannot.
WOMAN: In different generations woman have been portrayed many different ways. You can see through the art history of the American painting of Madame X by John singer sargen, how her strap was falling and it was a huge controversy in c.1880. It was such an uproar that it had to be fixed. Then you see in woman portrayed in Italian art naked, without harsh criticism. Another way we can view woman is now woman can be completely nude and no one will say anything, it will finally be considered "art". Just like so many artists and photographers today.
The battle of the nudes- Antonio del Pollaiuolo
- it's an engraving
-reflects interest of Renaissance scholars
-a study in composition with the figure
-figure in action
-the background with the men seem to be from one man with many poses and a fake background
-depicts muscles from human body
-Italian patrons commissioned murals and large alterpieces for their local churches and smaller panel paintings for their houses and private chapels
The Four Crowned Martyrs
- According to tradition, these third century Christian martyrs were sculptors, exeuted for refusing to make an image of a pagan Roman god for Emperor Diocletian.
- Although the architectural setting is Gothic in style, Nanni's figures-with their solid bodies, heavy form-revealing togas, noble hair and beards, and portraitlike features- reveal his interest in ancient Roman sculpture, particularly portraiture.
-Standing as a testimony to this sculptor's role in the Florentine revival of interest in antiquity.
-They stand in a semicircle with feet and drapery protruding beyond the floor of the niche and into the viewer's space.
- The relief panel below the niche shows the four sculptors at work, embodied with a similar solid vigor.
-Donatello also received three commissions for the niches at Orsanmichele during the first quarter of the century.
- Although the architectural setting is Gothic in style, Nanni's figures-with their solid bodies, heavy form-revealing togas, noble hair and beards, and portraitlike features- reveal his interest in ancient Roman sculpture, particularly portraiture.
-Standing as a testimony to this sculptor's role in the Florentine revival of interest in antiquity.
-They stand in a semicircle with feet and drapery protruding beyond the floor of the niche and into the viewer's space.
- The relief panel below the niche shows the four sculptors at work, embodied with a similar solid vigor.
-Donatello also received three commissions for the niches at Orsanmichele during the first quarter of the century.
Friday, April 8, 2011
Monday, April 4, 2011
The Architect...
- He was born in 1377 and died in 1446
- His father was involved for the original plans for the cathedral dome in 1367 and achieved what was considered impossible.
- Solved the "dome" problem
- Brunelleschi was originally a goldsmith turned sculptor architect
- Brunelleschi devised a system in which temporary wooden supports were cantilevered out from the drum
- After Brunelleschi's death, this crowning structure, made up of Roman architectural forms, was completed by another Forentine architect, Michelozzo di Bartolomeo. The final touch- a gilt bronzed ball-was added in 1468 until 1471.
- His father was involved for the original plans for the cathedral dome in 1367 and achieved what was considered impossible.
- Solved the "dome" problem
- Brunelleschi was originally a goldsmith turned sculptor architect
- Brunelleschi devised a system in which temporary wooden supports were cantilevered out from the drum
- After Brunelleschi's death, this crowning structure, made up of Roman architectural forms, was completed by another Forentine architect, Michelozzo di Bartolomeo. The final touch- a gilt bronzed ball-was added in 1468 until 1471.
Chapter 19
Dome of Florence: The separate, central-plan building in front of the facade is the Baptistery. Adjacent to the facade is a tall tower designed by Giotto in 1334.
The defining civic project of the early years of the fifteenth century was the completion of Florence Cathedral with a magnificent dome over a high alter. The construction of the cathedral had begun in the late thirteenth century and had continued intermittently during the fourteenth century. As early as 1367, builders had envisioned a very tall dome to span the huge interior space of the crossing, but they lacked the engineering know-how to construct it. When interest in completing the cathedral revived, around 1407, the technical solution was proposed by a young sculptor-turned-architect, Filippo Brunelleschi.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Strike up conversation
I was talking to Jeff Silverthrone yesterday about a topic not many of us seem to discuss and fear to even mention. It is under the lines of "child porn". One thing that strikes me the most is that in 1487, a painting by Hans Memling called, Diptych of martin van nieuwenhove is a painting of a woman and a child is rather remarkable. As the text states, "a meticulously detailed portrait with a visionary apparition of the Virgin and Child, presented as a powerful fiction of their physical encounter in Maarten's own home." This kind of portraiture would never be allowed in today's society.
Even something so significant in our history, it is just something we do not speak of. Stokstad goes on about "The Virgin and Child on the adjacent panel are presented frontally, and the strong sense of specific likeness characterizing Maarten's portrait has given way to an idealized delicacy and grace in the visage of the Virgin that complements the extravagance of her clothing."
You can see how much trouble the photographer, Sally Mann got in when photographing a picture of a young boy naked. It's an interesting topic to discuss, or shy away from. Our society no longer accepts young children naked as "art".
Here is a question, do you think this will change over time? In 1487 it was acceptable. When did it become so unacceptable, and why?
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Jan Van Eyck
- In 1425, he became court painter to Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy who was the uncle of the king of France and one of the most sophisticated men in Europe
- The duke alluded to Jan's remarkable technical skills in a letter of 1434-1435, saying that he could find no other painter equal to his taste or so excellent in art and science.
- So brilliant was Jan's use of oil glazes that he was mistakenly credited with the invention of OIL PAINTING!
-Since these letters also form an anagram of his own name, most scholars see this painting as a self portrait in which physical appearance seems recorded in a magnifying mirror
-In his painting it appears as though his eyes do the same as the Mona Lisa does
-In his lifetime, one of the most famous works of Jan was a huge polyptych with a very complicated and learned theological program that he painted for a chapel in what is now the Cathedral of St. Bavo in Ghent.
-He has carefully controlled the lighting within this multi-panel ensemble to make it appear that the objects represented are illuminated by sunlight coming through the window of the very chapel where it was meant to be installed.
-The Ghent alterpiece may have been Jan's most famous painting during his lifetime, but his best-known painting today is a distinctive double portrait of a couple identified as a Giovanni Arnolfini and his wife
-More normal on a signature would have been "Jan van Eyck made this" so the words "was here" might suggest that Jan served as a witness to a matrimonial episode portrayed in the painting.
- The duke alluded to Jan's remarkable technical skills in a letter of 1434-1435, saying that he could find no other painter equal to his taste or so excellent in art and science.
- So brilliant was Jan's use of oil glazes that he was mistakenly credited with the invention of OIL PAINTING!
-Since these letters also form an anagram of his own name, most scholars see this painting as a self portrait in which physical appearance seems recorded in a magnifying mirror
-In his painting it appears as though his eyes do the same as the Mona Lisa does
-In his lifetime, one of the most famous works of Jan was a huge polyptych with a very complicated and learned theological program that he painted for a chapel in what is now the Cathedral of St. Bavo in Ghent.
-He has carefully controlled the lighting within this multi-panel ensemble to make it appear that the objects represented are illuminated by sunlight coming through the window of the very chapel where it was meant to be installed.
-The Ghent alterpiece may have been Jan's most famous painting during his lifetime, but his best-known painting today is a distinctive double portrait of a couple identified as a Giovanni Arnolfini and his wife
-More normal on a signature would have been "Jan van Eyck made this" so the words "was here" might suggest that Jan served as a witness to a matrimonial episode portrayed in the painting.
What to say about this..
In the late nineteenth century, this triptych was associated with a group of stylistically related works and assigned to an artist called the Master of Flemalle, who was subsequently identified by some art historians as a documented artist named Robert Campin. Recently, however, experts have questioned this association and proposed that the triptych we now see was the work of several artists working within the workshop that created the stylistic cluster. Current opinion holds that the Annunciation was initially created a an independent panel, and a short time later expanded into a triptych with the addition of the side panels under the patronage of the donor in the foreground on the left. Finally, some time later in the 1430's, the figure of his wife was added behind him, presumably on the occasion of his marriage.
Chapter 18
*Fifteenth century Europe saw the emergence of wealthy merchants whose rise to power was fueled by individual accomplishment, rather than hereditary succession within nobel families
*Giovanni earned the right to have himself and his wife recorded by renowned artist Jan van Eyck
*Patron and painter are identified with conspicuous clarity
*The precise identity of the couple is still open to scholarly debate.
*No one is sure if it is a wedding, betrothal, or security for a shady financial deal?
*Recently has been interpreted as "loved and lost to death"
*All surrounded by luxury items like bed hangings, rare oranges, oriental carpet, very wonderful clothing, dog, mirror, and ability to pay for a portrait.
*A figure of St. Margaret- the protector of women in childbirth- is carved at the top of a post in the high-backed chair beside the bed, and the perky Affenpinscher in the foreground may be more than a pet
*Dogs back then, served as symbols of fidelity. As well as funerary associations but by having such a rare breed, it was most likely to show wealth.
*A major manifestation of the Renaissance in northern Europe was a growing and newly intense interest in the natural world manifested in the close observation and detailed recording of nature
*Artists depicted birds, plants, and animals with such accuracy.
*These carefully described subjects were situated into spatial settings, applying an intuitive perspective system by diminishing their scale as they receded into the distance.
*In the portrayal of landscapes--which became a northern specialty--artists used atmospheric or aerial perspective in which distant elements appear increasingly indistinct and less colorful as they approach the background.
*More names of artists survive from the fifteenth century, for example, than in the entire span from the beginning of the Common Era to the year 1400, and some artists begin regulary to sign their work.
*New power of cities in Flanders and the greater Netherlands provided a critical tension and balance with the traditional powers of royalty and the Church.
*The dukes of Burgundy were the most powerful rulers in northern Europe for most of the fifteenth century.
*They controlled not only Burgundy itself but also the Flemish and Netherlandish centers of finance and trade, including the thriving cities of Ghent, Burges, Tournai, and Brussels.
*The dukes of Burgundy and Berry (central France), not the king in Paris, were the real arbiters of taste.
*This new, composite style emerged in the late fourteenth century from the multicultural papal court in Acignon in Southern France, where artists from Italy, France and Flanders worked side by side
*The International Gothic style became the prevailing manner of late fourteenth-century Europe.
*One of Philip the Bold's most lavish projects was the Carthusian monastery, orchartreuse at Champmol, near Dijon, his Burgundian capital city.
*Land was acquired in 1377 and 1383, and construction began in 1385.
*The duke ordered a magnificent carved and painted alterpiece for the Chartreuse de Champmol.
*The exteriors of the protective shutters of this triptych were covered not by carvings but by two paintings by Melchior Broederlam showing scenes from the life of the Virgin and the infancy of Christ.
*His lavish use of brilliantly seductive colors foregrounds one of the features that made International Gothic so proud.
*According to legend, Mary was an attendant in the Temple prior to her marriage to Joseph. The tiny enclosed garden and conspicuous pot of lilies are symbols of Mary's virginity.
*Giovanni earned the right to have himself and his wife recorded by renowned artist Jan van Eyck
*Patron and painter are identified with conspicuous clarity
*The precise identity of the couple is still open to scholarly debate.
*No one is sure if it is a wedding, betrothal, or security for a shady financial deal?
*Recently has been interpreted as "loved and lost to death"
*All surrounded by luxury items like bed hangings, rare oranges, oriental carpet, very wonderful clothing, dog, mirror, and ability to pay for a portrait.
*A figure of St. Margaret- the protector of women in childbirth- is carved at the top of a post in the high-backed chair beside the bed, and the perky Affenpinscher in the foreground may be more than a pet
*Dogs back then, served as symbols of fidelity. As well as funerary associations but by having such a rare breed, it was most likely to show wealth.
*A major manifestation of the Renaissance in northern Europe was a growing and newly intense interest in the natural world manifested in the close observation and detailed recording of nature
*Artists depicted birds, plants, and animals with such accuracy.
*These carefully described subjects were situated into spatial settings, applying an intuitive perspective system by diminishing their scale as they receded into the distance.
*In the portrayal of landscapes--which became a northern specialty--artists used atmospheric or aerial perspective in which distant elements appear increasingly indistinct and less colorful as they approach the background.
*More names of artists survive from the fifteenth century, for example, than in the entire span from the beginning of the Common Era to the year 1400, and some artists begin regulary to sign their work.
*New power of cities in Flanders and the greater Netherlands provided a critical tension and balance with the traditional powers of royalty and the Church.
*The dukes of Burgundy were the most powerful rulers in northern Europe for most of the fifteenth century.
*They controlled not only Burgundy itself but also the Flemish and Netherlandish centers of finance and trade, including the thriving cities of Ghent, Burges, Tournai, and Brussels.
*The dukes of Burgundy and Berry (central France), not the king in Paris, were the real arbiters of taste.
*This new, composite style emerged in the late fourteenth century from the multicultural papal court in Acignon in Southern France, where artists from Italy, France and Flanders worked side by side
*The International Gothic style became the prevailing manner of late fourteenth-century Europe.
*One of Philip the Bold's most lavish projects was the Carthusian monastery, orchartreuse at Champmol, near Dijon, his Burgundian capital city.
*Land was acquired in 1377 and 1383, and construction began in 1385.
*The duke ordered a magnificent carved and painted alterpiece for the Chartreuse de Champmol.
*The exteriors of the protective shutters of this triptych were covered not by carvings but by two paintings by Melchior Broederlam showing scenes from the life of the Virgin and the infancy of Christ.
*His lavish use of brilliantly seductive colors foregrounds one of the features that made International Gothic so proud.
*According to legend, Mary was an attendant in the Temple prior to her marriage to Joseph. The tiny enclosed garden and conspicuous pot of lilies are symbols of Mary's virginity.
Ginovanni Arnolfini and his wife
looking closely at the mirror and how you can see the reflection so well.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Vocabulary...
STYLE
Period Style
Regional Style
Representational Style
--> realism and naturalism
--> idealization
-->illusionism
Abstract styles
--> nonrepresentational or nonobjective art
-->expressionism
Linear
Painterly
MEDIUM AND TECHNIQUE
Painting
Graphic Arts
Photography
Sculpture
Ephemeral Arts
Architecture
-->plans
-->sections
-->isometric drawings
Art History Volume II
Synopsis:
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Do you like how I am constructing this?
Hi Rebecca,
This is going to be a great tool for us to communicate through, share pictures, information and schedule meetings!
I will see you today at 3:30!
Lots to discuss! :)
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Chapter 1: Prehistoric Art in Europe (Part III)
-Lion-Human c. 30,000-26 BCE Germany
-Woman from Willendorf 24,000 BCE Vienna
-Woman from Ostrava Petrkovice 23,000 BCE Czech Republic
-Woman from Brassempouy 30,000 BCE France
-Spotted Horses and Human Hands 25,000 BCE France
-Bird-headed Man with bison 15,000 BCE Cave...?
-Hall of bulls 15,000 BCE France
-Bison 12,000 BCE Altamira, Spain
-Lamp with Ibex design 15,00 BCE France
-People and animals 4000-2000 BCE Spain
-Stonehenge 2750-1500 BCE Wiltshire England
-Tomb interior with corbeling and engraved stones 3000-2500 BCE New Grange, Ireland
-Figures of a woman and a man 3500, Romania
-Vessels 3000-2000 BCE national museum of Copenhagen
-Horse and sun chariot 1800-1600 Trundholm, Denmark
-Openwork box lid 1st century National museum of Ireland, Dublin
Chapter 1: Prehistoric Art in Europe (Part II)
-Because the glaciers retreated gradually about 11,000 to 8,000 years ago, the dates for the transition from Paleolithic to Neolithic vary with geography
-However, to ensure consistent style throughout the book, which reflects the usage of art historians, which we will use BCE before the common era, and CE is common era to mark time
-Much is yet to be discovered in prehistoric art
-In Australia, some of the world's very oldest images have been dated to between 50-40 thousand years ago
-Africa as well is home to ancient rock art in both its northern and southern regions
-In all cases, archeologists associate the arrival of homo sapiens
-Researchers found that human beings made tools long before they made what today we call "art"
-Art, or image making, is the hallmark of the Upper Paleolithic period
-Before that time, as far back as 2 million years ago, during the Lower Paleolithic period in Africa, early humans made tools by flaking and chipping (knapping) flint pebbles into blades and scrapers wit sharp edges
-Evolutionary changes took place over time and by 100,000 years ago, during the late Middle Paleolithic period, a well-developed type of homo sapiens called Neanderthal inhabited Europe
-Cro-Magnons, fully developed humans like us, overlapped and probably interbred with the Neanderthals and eventually replaced them, probably between 40-50 thousand years ago.
-Called "Cro-Magnon" after the French site where their bones were first discovered, these modern humans made many different kinds of tools out of reindeer antler and bone, as well as very fine chipper-stone implements
-Cro-magnon were a social org and had rituals and beliefs that led them to create art.
Chapter 1: Prehistoric Art in Europe
-Prehistory includes all of human existence before the emergence of writing
-Everything about prehistory is based on writings
-First people to explore painted caves of France & Spain entered an unimaginable ancient world
-Chauvet cave in France, images of horses, deer, mammoths, aurochs and other 30,000 year old animals covered the walls
-Three-dimensional figures to two dimensional figures
-Using only formal language of line & color, shading and contour we know what they were thinking and meant
-Archaeologists and anthropologists study every aspect of material culture, while art historians usually focus on those things that 21st century eyes seem superior in craft and beauty.
-30,000 we were not making, what is known as art
-chauvet cave was often painted in areas far from the cave entrance, without access to natural daylight and were visited many years ago
-Walls were not flat canvasses but irregular natural rock forms
-What we perceive as "art" may been just to make images for reference
-Art provides clues to our past
-We can never find clues as to why these art forms were created in the first place
-The sculpture, paintings, and structures that survive are only a tiny fracture of what must have been created over a very long span of time.
-How and when modern humans evolved is the subject of ongoing lively debate, but anthropologists now agree that the species called Homo sapiens appeared about 200,000 years ago, and that the subspecies to which we belong, Homo sapiens, sapiens evolved about 120,000 - 100,000 years ago.
-Current evidence suggests that the vast movement of people took place between 1000,000 and 35,000 years ago
-Nineteenth century archaeologists struct by the wealth of stone tools, weapons and figures found at ancient sites named the whole period of early human development the Stone Age.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Introduction
This is my favorite! I started to flip through the introduction and saw it was briefly about Egypt and got very excited. Sort of made me wish I actually went but anyway. Here are my notes...
INTRO
- The Great Sphinx is carved from the Giza plateau
-body of a lion and king Khafre's body
-Has withstood the hot desert air and air pollution
-"symbolizes mysterious wisdom and dreams of permanence, of immortality"
-Egyptians may not have called it art back then but we now consider it art
Change of pace
I changed the blog from Tumblr.com to blogger.com because of how it kept switching me over to my personal blog rather than a separate blog. Now I am going to copy and paste over as much as I can from the previous blog on what I have read.
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