Art Review

*Style Characteristics of Italian Renaissance artwork:

*How different in the North?

*Early Renaissance Artists: (pre-1500s)*Masaccio – humans as 3D – painted “Tribute Money”*Donatello – sculptor – “David” – first in-the-round sculpture*Botticelli – Famous for his nudes – “Birth of Venus”*Ghiberti – Doors of the Baptistry*Brunelleschi – Dome in Florence

*High Renaissance Artists*Michelangelo * architect, sculptor, painter, poet, and engineer* Pieta, Sistine Chapel, David

*Leonardo *Architect, sculptor, painter, engineer*Mona Lisa, Last Supper, his “notebooks

*Raphael*Rich and wildly successful* School of Athens, many Madonna and child

*Titian* Established oil on canvas as preferred medium*Venetian school – textured, color, and mood

Botticelli, The Birth of VenusMasaccio, Tribute Money

Italian Ren. Northern Ren.

Specialty Ideal beauty Intense realism – extremely detailed

Style Simplified forms Lifelike features

Subjects Religious/Mythical Religious/domestic scenes

Figures Heroic male nudes Prosperous citizens

Portraits Formal, reserved Individual personality

Emphasis Anatomical structure Visible appearance

Technique Fresco and oil Oil on wood panels

*Low Countries:*Jan van Eyck

*credited with inventing oil painting*Extreme Detail – Arnolfini Wedding

*Bosch

*Irrational dream imagery – bizarre imagination*Paintings suggest punishment for sinners

*Bruegel

*Landscapes Common*Painter of Peasants – Peasant Wedding

*Germany:

*Hans Holbein the Younger*Known as the greatest portraitist ever*Court painter for Henry VIII

*Albrecht Durer:*Big on woodcuts – *first to use printmaking as a major medium for art

*Style Characteristics:

*Term negatively used to mean ostentatious and overwrought*Started by Italian Popes in Counter-

reformation to display Catholic triumph*Found in Italy, Belgium, Netherlands,

Spain, England, and France – all had different styles*Also architecture: Palace of Versailles –

Hall of Mirrors

Early Style (1622-1642) Late Style (1643-1649)

Used dramatic light/dark contrasts - chiaroscuro

Use golden-brown, subtle shadings

Design seems to burst frame Static, brooding atmosphere

Scenes featured groups of figures

Scenes have a single impact

Based on physical action Implied psychological reaction

Vigorous, melodramatic tone Quiet, solemn mood

Highly finished detailed technique

Painted with broad, thick strokes

*Caravaggio

*Conversion of St. Paul, specialized in large religious works

*Secularized religious art – make saints look human

*Bernini

*Dynamic, explosive energy

*Ecstasy of St. Theresa masterpiece

*How is it different from Baroque? A few keys… (seen by some as height of Baroque)*Only in Paris in the reign of Louis XV

*Decorative, nonfunctional – primarily used for interior decoration – “pretty”*Mood is playful, alive, light, graceful –

curves featured over straight lines

*Pastel and metallic hues

*Pretty pink nudes – naked babies!

*Reflected “the glory that was Greece, and the grandeur that was Rome.” – Edgar Allan Poe*Made world care when Greek

independence movement occurred in 1830*Revival of Classicism in painting,

sculpture, and architecture*Directly resulted from the Enlightenment’s

need for order and progress*Solemn style, subjects are often famous

Greek/Roman figures or gods*Founded by Jacques-Louis David (1748-

1825)

Death of Marat

Death of Socrates

*Reaction against the reason and order of the Enlightenment and Neoclassicism

*Intuition, Imagination, Emotion

*Subjects: Legends, exotic, nature, violence

*Light and dark contrast common

*Nature is very tempestuous

*Began with Gericault’s Raft of the Medusa

Arabian Horses Fighting in a Stable

Lady Liberty Leading the People

Wanderer Above a Sea of Fog, Caspar Friedrich

*Developed after 1848 Revolutions*Direct result of the harsh realities of the Industrial Revolution*Different from previous art in that subjects are not idealized or sensationalized*Centered on precise imitation of visual perceptions without alteration*Focused primarily on peasants and the working-class*Edgar Degas

The Gleaners, Jean Francious Millet

The New Orleans Cotton Exchange, Edgar Degas

*Rejected balance, perspective, idealized figures, and chiaroscuro

*Represented immediate visual sensations through color and light

*Portrayed the “impression,” the initial sensation of the moment by the artist

*Shows how color changes with different light

*Short, choppy brushstrokes

*Famous artists include:

*Manet – contemporary scenes with a hard edge

*Monet – landscapes, waterfront, water lilies

*Renoir – voluptuous females, café society, children, flowers

*Degas – ballerinas, café societies, horse races

Renoir, Luncheon of the Boating Party

Monet, Rouen Cathedral

Degas, Prima Ballerina

Monet, Waterlilies

* French phenomenon – distinguished from Impressionism by their brightly lit canvases – wanted art to be substantial and not a “fleeting, passing moment”

* Divided into 2 camps:* Formal, near scientific design* Seurat – pointillism – painted leisure activities in

Paris* Cezanne – still lifes with fruit, landscapes – pre-

Cubism focus on geometric shapes

*Emotional and sensation-driven design* Gauguin – exotic primitivism* Van Gogh – Passionate, vibrant self-portraits and

flowers* Toulouse-Latrec – cabaret nightlife

Van Gogh, Starry Night

Seurat, A Sunday on La Grande Jette

Toulouse-Latrec, At the Moulin Rouge

Cezanne, Mont Sainte-Victoire

*Insisted that art should express the artists’ feelings instead of images of the real world

*Use of distorted, exaggerated forms and colors for emotional impact

*Began in Germany

*Wood-cuts also typical

Edvard Munch, The Scream

*Broke objects into a multitude of pieces and shapes – more about invention than realistic portrayal

*Picasso best

example

Picasso, Self-PortraitPicasso, Guernica

*“International Style” or Chicago Style of the 1920s

*Science and industry key, steamlined designs

*Glass and steel common

*Frank Lloyd Wright

Guggenheim Museum, New York

*“A World Gone Gaga”*Seemed nonsensical, but

protested the madness of war

*Goal is to overthrow all authority and cultivate absurdity

*Hoped to shock and awaken the imagination

*Grew out of Freudian free-association and dream analysis

*Incorporated the bizarre and irrational to express the real truths

*Main proponent

was Salvador Dali

Salvador Dali, The Visage of War

*Abstract Expressionism: stressed energy, action, kineticism, and freneticism

*Reaction to World War II and typical images

*Jackson Pollock

*abandoned the

paintbrush to slosh

pour, and drip

Jackson Pollock, Lavender Mist No. 1

*Determine subjects directly from Pop Culture

*Shiny colors, snappy designs, large size

*Best example:

Andy Warhol