Finals Notes

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Everything in Italics is text from the powerpoints Everything Underlined is notes from class. 14.8 Madonna Enthroned. Bondone. 14th c. 13th and 14th c. Italian. On nearly the same great scale as Cimabue's enthroned Madonna is Giotto's panel depicting the same subject, painted for the high alter of the Ognissanti (All Saints) church in Florence. Although still seen against the traditional gold background, Giotti's Madonna rests within her Gothic throne with the unshakable stability of an ancient marble goddess. Giotti replaced Cimabue's slender Virgin, fragile beneath the thin ripplings of her drapery, with a weighty, queenly mother. In Giotti's painting, the Madonna's body is not lost. It is asserted. Giotto even shoes Mary's breasts pressing through the thin fabric of her white undergarment. Gold highlights have disappeared from her heavy robe. Giotto aimed, before all else, to construct a figure that has substance, dimensionality, and bulk - qualities supressed in favor of a spiritual immateriality in Byzantine and Italo-Byzantine art. Works painted in the new style portray sculptural figures - projecting into the light and giving the illusion that they could throw shadows. Hiotto's Madonna Enthroned marks the end of medieval painting in Italy and the beginning of a new naturalistic approach to art. Arts of the 14th c influenced by: Neo-C lassicism French Gothic Byzantine Impact of Black Death, Humanism 15.4 Merode Altarpiece. Campin. 15th c. Burgandy and Flanders. One of the earliest masters of oil painting was the artist known as the "Master of Flemalle," who scholars generally agree was Robert Campin, the leading painter of the city of Tournai. His most famous work is the Merode Altarpiece. Similar in format to, but much smaller than, the Champomol retable, the Merode Altarpiece was a private commission for household prayer. It was not unusual in that respect. Based on an accounting of extant Flemish religious paintings, lay patrons outnumbered clerical patrons by a ratio of two to one. At the time, various reform movements advocated personal devotion, and in the years leading up to the Protestant Reformation in the early 16th century, private devotional exercises and prayer grew in popularity. One of the more prominent features of these images commissioned for private use is the integration of religious and secular concerns. For example, artists often presented biblical scenes as taking place in a Flemish house. Although this might seem inappropriate or even sac religious today, religion was such an integral part of Flemish life that separating the sacred from the secular became virtually impossible. Moreover, the presentation in religious art of familiar settings and objects no doubt strengthened the direct bond the patron or viewer felt with biblical figures. The popular Annunciation theme, as prophesied in Isaiah 7:14 occupies the Merode triptych's central panel. The archangel Gabriel approaches Mary, who sits reading. The artist depicted a well-kept middle-class Flemish home as the site of the event. The carefully rendered architectural scene in the background of the right wing confirms this identification of the locale. The depicted accessories, furniture, and utensils, contribute to the identification of the setting as Flemish. However, the objects represented are not merely decorative. They also function as religious symbols. The book, extinguished candle, and lilies on the table, the copper basin in the corner niche, the towels, fire screen, and bench all symbolize, in different ways, the Virgin's purity and her divine mission. In the right panel, Joseph has made a mousetrap, symbolic of the theological tradition that Christ is bait set in the trap of the world to catch the Devil. Campin completely inventoried a carpenter's shop. The ax, saw, and rod in the foreground not only are tools of the carpenter's trade, but also are mentioned in Isaiah 10:15. In the left panel, the closed garden is symbolic of Mary's purity, and they flowers depicted all relate to Mary's virtues, especially humility. The altarpiece's donor, Peter Inghelbrecht, a wealthy merchant, and his wife kneel in the garden and witness the momentous event through an open door. Donor portraits - portraits of the individuals who commissioned (or "donated") the work - became very popular in the 15th c. In this instance, in addition to asking to be represented in their altarpiece, the Inghelbrechts probably specified the subject. Inghelbrecht means "angel bringer," a reference to the Annunciation theme of the central panel. The wife's name, Scrynmakers, means "cabinet or shrine makers" referring to the workshop scene in the right panel. Art trends during Burgandy and Flanders time: 1.) Oils become preeminent 2.) Art is used as a political tool and an expression of power, dynasty, etc. 3.) Portraits became important (again) Done in oils which are rich and allow for richness and greater tonality. It dries very slow and allows for superimposition of glazes. Reworking and precision not allowed by Tempera paints. Early oil master: Robert Campin Private devotional work (Flemish patrons religious and secular); triptych. Triptych: a work of art (usually a panel painting) which is divided into three sections, or three carved panels which are hinged together and folded. Annunciation: Popular theme (after prophesy in Isaiah 7:14) Gabriel meets Mary Setting here=Flemish house BUT objects have symbolic value too Especially purity of Mary (basin, flowers) Right Wing: Joseph makes mousetrap. Christ "bait" for the Devil Carpenter's shop with accurate stuff. Also refers to bible (ax, saw, rod in Isaiah 10:15) Also refers to wife of patron (Screynmaker = shrine or cabinet maker) Left Wing: Donor portrait Purity and humility (of donors, virgin) Peter Inghelbrecht, a $$ merch; = "angel bringer" Last thought how do frames work? Private Devotional work. Attention to detail: textures, colors, and 3-dimesionality. Donor Portrait Shown at the event (mix of past and present) Frame and panels work with the piece. 16.8 Feast of Herod. Donatello. 15th c. Early Italian Renaissance. Donatello's mystery of relief sculpture is also evident in the Feast of Herod, a bronze relief on the baptismal font in Siena Cathedral. Some of the figures, especially the dancing Salome (to the right), derive from classical reliefs, but nothing in Greco-Roman art can match the illusionism of Donatello's rendition of this New Testament scene. In Donatello's relief, Salome has already delivered the severed head of John the Baptist, which the kneeling executioner offers to King Herod. The other figures recoil in horror in two groups. At the right, one man covers his face with his hand. At the left, Herod and two terrified children shrink back in dismay. The psychic explosion drives the human elements apart, leaving a gap across which he emotional electricity crackles. This masterful stagecraft obscures another drama Donatello was playing out on the stage itself. His Feast of Herod marks the advent of rationalized perspective space, long prepared for in 14th c. Italian art. As in Saint George and the Dragon, Donatello opened the space of the action well into the distance. But here he employed the new mathematically based science of linear perspective to depict two arched courtyards and the groups of attendants in the background. Trends in art during Early Italian Renaissance: 1.) Revival of fully-expressed contrapposto (donatello) 2.) One and two point linear perspective (Brunelleschi) 3.) Atmospheric perspective 4.) Classical subjects and types 5.) Revival of fully-expressed illusionism in painting. Master of sculpting techniques (in the round and relief) - Donatello Here: bronze relief from baptismal font in Siena Cathedral. Notice how classicizing the dancing Salome is. Note how the composition is balanced: John the Baptist's head at the Left, Salome group at right; groups split and heighten emotion. Notice the mastery of illusionism, especially in the background - perspective is being mastered. Revival of fully expressed contrapposto - Donatello Goes into classical art, yet in many ways surpasses it. Paragone: Competition between the artists. Is a debate from the Italian Renaissance in which one form of art (architecture, sculpture or painting) is championed as superior to all others The Feast of Herod though about ways to show depth without usin high relief. Fairly shallow stage (wall behind, floor) Figures reacting to what is going on around (emotional reaction) Dancing Salome = Hellenistic Can read 2 separate groups because of the separation V in the center of the table. 16.20. Holy Trinity. Masaccio. 15th c. Early Italian Renaissance. Masaccio's Holy Trinity fresco in Santa Maria Novella is another of the young artist's masterworks and the premier early 15th -century example of the application of mathematics to the depiction of space. Masaccio painted the composition on two levels of unequal height. Above, in a coffered barrel-vaulted chapel reminiscent of a Roman triumphal arch the Virgin Mary and Sait John appear on either side of the crucified Christ. God the Father emerges from behind Christ, supporting the arms of the cross and presenting his Son to the worshipper as a devotional object. The dove of the Holy Spirit hovers between God's head and Christ's head. Massaccio also included portraits of the donors of the painting, Lorenzo Lenzi and his wife, who kneel just in front of the pilasters that frame the chapel's entrance. Below, the artist painted a tomb containing a skeleton. An inscription in Italian painted above the skeleton reminds the spectator that "I was once what you are, and what I am you will become." The illusionism of Holy Trinity is breathtaking. In this fresco, Masaccio brilliantly demonstrated the principles and potential of Brunelleschi's new science of perspective. Indeed, some historians have suggested Brunelleschi may have collaborated with Masaccio. The vanishing point of the composition is at the foot of the cross. With this point at eye level, spectators look up at the Trinity and down at the tomb. About five feet above the floor level, the vanishing point pulls the two views together, creating the illusion of an actual structure that transects the wall's vertical plane. Whereas the tomb appears to project forward into the church, the chapel recedes visually behind the wall and appears as an extension of the spectator's space. This adjustment of the pictured space to the viewer's position was an important innovation in illusionistic painting that other artists of the Renaissance and the later Baroque period would develop further. Masaccio was so exact in his metrical proportions that it is possible to calculate the dimensions of the chapel. Thus, he achieved not only a succesful illusionbut also a rational measured cohearance that is respoinsible for the unity and harmony of the fresco. Holy Trinity, however, is much more than a demonstration of Brunelleschi's perspective or of the painter's ability to represent fully modeled figures bathed in light. In this painting, Masaccio also powerfully conveyed one of the central tenets of Christian Faith. The ascending pyramid of figures leads the viewers from the despair of death to the hope of resurrection and eternal life through Christ's crucifixion. Importance of Masaccio to Early Renaissance Short but important career Interested in monumentality, portrayal of character, and humanism work influenced other artists Linear perspective Atmospheric perspective Classical body types Chiaroscuro to create a more realistic picture, single light source from the right, modeling human anatomy to give figures weight. Balanced, symmetrical composition. Holy Trinity Fresco on nave wall of SM Novella Notice the skillful use of one point perspective and symmetry created by the pyramidal composition - see the repetition of triangles. 1st work to use Brunelleschi's one point perspective to look "through" wall "into" chapel. Notice the prominence of the donors (Ren interest in individual), classical art, and memento mori at base: "I was once what you are, and what I am you will also be." Addresses, mediates for viewer How do Renaissance advances in skill guide the viewer through the painting? How does the technique contribute to the message (and what is it?) Study of symmetry, balance, and single point perspective . Triangular composition. Emphasis of humanism. 17.8. Madonna in the Meadow. Raphael. 16th c. High and Late Italian Renaissance. Raphael spent the fours years from 1504 to 1508 in Florence. There, still in his early 20s, he discovered that the painting style he had learned so painstakingly from Perugino was already outmoded (as was Brunelleschi's architectural style). Florentine crowds flocked to the church of Santissima Annunziata to see Leonardo's recently unveiled cartoon of the Virgin, Christ, Saint Anne, and Saint John (probably an earlier version of 17-3) Under Leonardo’s influence, Raphael began to modify the Madonna compositions he had learned in Umbria. In Madonna in the Meadow, of 1505-1506, Raphael adopted Leonardo’s pyramidal composition and modeling of faces and figures in subtle chiaroscuro. Yet the Umbrian artist placed the large, substantial figures in a Peruginesque landscape, with his former master’s typical feathery trees in the middle ground. Although Raphael experimented with Leonardo’s dusky modeling, he tended to return to Perugino’s lighter tonalities and blue skies. Raphael preferred clarity to obscurity, not fascinated, as Leonardo was, with mystery. Trends in Art 1. Florence still important, but Rome and Venice become major centers, too 2. Artists working in all three areas (and beyond) continued Renaissance interest in perspective, anatomy and the classical – Chiaroscuro , atmospheric and linear perspective, sfumato , representation of texture developed further – Flo and Roman artists emphasized especially design , whereas Venetian ones were know for color • All three interested in psychological drama, emotion and mood (though not in identical ways) 3. Developments in architecture and architectural theory Spent 1504-1508 in Florance and learned more innovative techniques Whose do you see in play (think geometry, composition!) Leonardo’s triangular composition How is Raphael’s style his own? (think color, mood) Looked at Leonardo's work (triangular composition). Raphael emphasized color and mood Very sweet emotions. 17.13. David. Michelangelo. 16th c. High and Late Italian Renaissance. Michelangelo returned to Florence in 1501, seven years after the exile of the Medici. In 1495 the Florentine Republic had ordered the transfer of Donatello’s David from the Medici palace to the Palazzo della Signoria to join Verrochio’s David there. The importance of David as a civic symbol led the Florence Cathedral building committee to invite Michelangelo to work a great block of marble left from an earlier aborted commission into still another statue of David. The colossal statue – Florentines referred to it as “The Giant” – Michelangelo created from that block assured his reputation then and now as an extraordinary talent. Only 40 years after David’s completion, Vasari extolled the work which had been set up near the west door of the Palazzo della Signoria , and claimed that without any doubt the figure has put in the shad every other statue, ancient or modern, Greek or Roman – this was intended as a symbol of Liberty for the Palace, signifying that just as David had protected his people and governed them justly, so whoever ruled Florence should vigorously defned the city and govern it with justice. Despite the traditional association of David with heroism, Michelangelo chose to represent the young biblical warrior not after his victory, with Goliath’s head at his feet, but turning his head to his left, sternly watchful of the approaching foe. David exhibits the characteristic representation of energy in reserve that imbues Michelangelo’s later figures with the tension of a coiled spring. The anatomy of David’s body plays an important part in this prelude to action. His rugged torso, sturdy limbs, and large hands and feet alert viewers to the strength to come. The swelling veins and tightening sinews amplify the psychological energy of David’s foe. Michelangelo doubtless had the classical nude in mind when he conceived his David. Like many of his colleagues, he greatly admired the Greco-Roman statues, in particular the skillful and precise rendering of heroic physique. Without strictly imitating the antique style, the Renaissance sculptor captured in his portrayal of the biblical hero the tension of Lysippan athletes and psychological insight and emotionalism of Hellenistic statuary. His David differs from those of Donatello and Verrocchio in much the same way later Hellenistic statues departed from their Classical predecessors. Michelangelo abandoned the self-contained compositions of the 15 th –century David statues by abruptly turning the hero’s head toward his gigantic adversary. This David is compositionally and emotionally connected to an unseen presence beyond the statue, a feature also of Hellenistic sculpture. As early as 1501, then, Michelangelo invested his efforts in presenting towering, pent-up emotion rather than calm, ideal beauty. He transferred his own doubts, frustrations, and passions into the great figures he created or planned. Michelangelo Studied under Domenico Ghilandaio. Worked in Florance, Rome, Bologna Classicizing, humanistic work Popular, long-lived and volatile Michelangelo return to Florance in 1501. David as a symbol of Florance - anti-tyranny. Note formal and temporal differences from Donatello's and Verrochio's Davids - Michelangelo's focuses on the unseen foe. Unlike comtemporaries, his naturalism is experiential (derived from seeing, moving, interacting, not mathematical precision.) David=symbol off the city, anti-tyranny. No armor, completely nude Emotional Face. Showing moment before the killing of Goliath. Seen w/o head, gazing into distance at foe. Shifting of time of/around action. Mimetic - the statue reacts like the human body would. Convincing naturalism. 17.29. Villa Rotunda. Polladio. 16th c. High and Late Italian Renaissance. z Palladio’s most famous villa, Villa Rotunda, near Vicenza, is exceptional because the architect did not build it for an aspiring gentleman farmer, but for a retired monsignor who wanted a villa for social events. Palladio planned and designed Villa Rotunda, located on a hilltop, as a kind of belvedere (literally “beautiful view”; in architecture a structure with a view of the countryside of the sea), without the usual wings of secondary buildings. It has a central plan with four identical facades and projecting porches oriented to the four compass points. Each façade of the Villa Rotunda resembles a Roman Ionic temple. In placing a traditional temple porch in front of a dome-covered interior, Palladio doubtless had the Pantheon in mind as a model. But as Bramante did his Tempietto, Palladio transformed his model into a new design that has no parallel in antiquity. Each of the villa’s four porches can be used as a platform for enjoying a different view of the surrounding landscape. In this design, the central dome-covered rotunda logically functions as a kind of circular platform from which visitors may turn in any direction for the preferred view. The result is a building with functional parts systematically related to one another in terms of calculated mathematical relationships. Villa Rotunda embodies all the qualities of self-sufficiency and formal completeness most Renaissance architects sought. Palladio Was a master of theory and praxis. Palladio’s work was inspired by writings of the ancient Roman architect Vitrvius (lived in 1 st c BCE) Vitruvius was something of an armchair architect, but was a good thinker and recorder of much of what we know of ancient architecture and its major concerns. Villa Rotonda A social space on a hilltop that transforms classical models for a new era and for the purpose of enjoyment. Very learned, very structured Entry on all 4 sides . Key in developing personal style. Transcends classical architecture. 18.4. Great Piece of Turf. Durer. France and the Holy Roman Empire. Durer allied himself with Leonardo’s scientific studies when he painted an extremely precise watercolor study of a piece of turf. For both artists, observation yielded truth. Sight, sanctified by mystics such as Nicholas of Cusa and artists such as Jan Van Eyck, became the secularized instrument of modern knowledge. Durer agreed with Aristotle and Leonard that sight is the noblest sense of man. Nature holds the beautiful, Durer said, for the artist who has the insight to extract it. Thus, beauty lies even in humble, perhaps ugly, things and the ideal, which bypasses or improves on nature, may not be truly beautiful in the end. Disordered and ordinary nature might be a reasonable object of an artist’s interest, quite as much as its composed and measured aspect. The remarkable Great Piece of Turf is as scientifically accurate as it is poetic. Botanists can distinguish each plant and grass variety – dandelions, great plantain, yarrow, meadow grass, and heath rush. “Depart not from nature according to your fancy,” Durer said, “imagining to find aught better by yourself;…For verily art is embedded in nature; he who can extract it, has it.” Trends of art: Understand how the work continues traditions of the northern Renaissance (especially realism) but shows increasing interchange with the Italian Renaissance masters (humanism, perspective and so on) Albrecht Durer Nuremberg, trained as goldsmith Well-traveled Went to Italy to study in the 1490s and 1500s Published artistic treatises Had an agent, reached many (prints), copyright suit against an Italian Great Piece of Turf Influenced by contemporary Leonardo Northern in flavor – realism, Keep in mind it’s a watercolor Strong evidence of mimesis, however obvious he moved things around to make more appealing composition (still able to identify plant types so still realism) Watercolor 19.7. David. Bernini. 17th c, Italian Baroque. Although Bernini was a great and influential Baroque architect, his fame rests primarily on his sculpture, which also energetically expresses the Italian Baroque spirit. Baldinucci asserted: “There was perhaps never anyone who manipulated marble with more facility and boldness. He gave his works a marvelous softness…making the marble, so to say, flexible” Bernini’s sculpture is expansive and theatrical, and the element of time usually plays an important role in it. A sculpture that predates his work on Saint Peter’s is his David. Bernini surely knew the Renaissance statues by Donatello, Verrocchio, and Michelangelo portraying the young biblical hero. Bernini’s David fundamentally differs from those earlier masterpieces, however. Donatello and Verrocchio depicted David after his triumph over Goliath.. Michelangelo portrayed David before his encounter with the gigantic adversary. Bernini chose to represent the combat itself. Unlike he Renaissance predecessors, the Baroque sculptor aimed to cath the split-second of maximum action. Bernini’s David, his muscular legs widely and firmly planted, begins the violent, pivoting motion that will launch the stone from his sling. (A bag full of stones is at David’s left hip, suggesting that he thought the fight would be tough and long). Unlike Myron, the 5 th c. BCE Greek sculptor who froze his Diskobolos at a fleeting moment of inaction, Bernini selected the most dramatic of an implied sequence of poses so that the viewer has to think simultaneously of the continuum and of this tiny fraction of it. The suggested continuum imparts a dynamic quality to the statue that conveys a bursting forth of the energy seen confined in Michelangelo’s figures. Bernini’s David seems to be moving through time and through space. This kind of sculpture cannot be inscribed in a cylinder or confined in a niche. Its dynamic action demands space around it. Nor is the statue self-sufficient in the Renaissance sense, as its pose and attitude direct attention beyond it to the unseen Goliath. Bernini’s sculpted figure moves out into the space that surrounds it. Further, the expression of intense concentration on David’s face contrasts vividly with the classically placid visages of Donatello’s and Verrocchio’s David, and is more emotionally charged even than Michelangelo’s. The tension in David’s face augments the dramatic impact of Bernini’s sculpture. Chooses battle scene at point of highest action and drama to create dynamic interaction between narrative, viewer and statue. Expression, torsion. 19.18. Calling of Saint Matthew. Caravaggio. 16th c. Italian Baroque. A piercing ray of light illuminating a world of darkness and bearing a spiritual message is also a central feature of one of Caravaggio’s early masterpieces, Calling of Saint Matthew. It is one of two large canvases honoring Saint Matthew that the artist painted for the side walls of the Contarelli Chapel in San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome. The commonplace setting of the painting – a tavern with unadorned walls – is typical of Caravaggio. Into this mundane environment, cloaked in mysterious shadow and almost unseen, Christ, identifiable only by his indistinct halo, enters from the right. With a commanding gesture that recalls the Lord’s hand in Michelangelo’s the Creation of Adam, he summons Levi, the Roman tax collector, to a higher calling. The astonished Levi –his face highlighted for the viewer by the beam of light emanating from an unspecified source above Christ’s head and outside the picture- points to himself in disbelief. Although Christ’s extended arm is reminiscent of the Lord’s in C.o.A. the position of Christ’s hand and wrist is similar to that of Adam’s this reference was highly appropriate because the Church considered Christ to be the second Adam. Whereas Adam was responsible for the Fall of Man, Christ is responsible for human redemption. The conversion of Levi, who became Matthew, brought his salvation. • The rise of the Baroque style(s ) – Renaissance technique put to use to express the highest drama, greatest visual complexity – Didactic art Calling of Saint Matthew Notice other elements of his style: use of raking light, gesture, the temporal quality of the work. The shadowy quality is called tenebrism. How is tenebrism used to enhance the message? Darkness into light (metaphor) How is the genre setting (a tavern) also doing so? Sin to salvation Think about the way this gesture is used to infuse both works with meaning and tension. Think also about how Michelangelo locates that tension in a moment, Caravaggio in the unfolding of time. 20.9. Archers of Saint Hadrian. Hals. 17th c. Flanders and the Dutch Republic. Hal’s group portraits reflect the widespread popularity in the Dutch Republic of vast canvases commemorating the participation of Dutch burghers in civic organizations. These commissions presented a far greater challenge to the painter than requests to depict a single sitter. Hals rose to the challenge and achieved great success with this new portrait genre. His Archers of Saint Hadrian is typical in that the subject is one of the many Dutch civic militia groups that claimed credit for liberating the Dutch Republic from Spain. Like other companies, the Archers met on their saint’s feast day in dress uniform for a grand banquet. The celebrations sometimes lasted an entire week, prompting an ordinance limiting them to three or four days. These events often involved a group portrait. In Archers of Saint Hadrian, Hals attacked the problem of how to represent each militia member adequately yet retain action and variety in the composition. Whereas earlier group portraits in the Netherlands were rather ordered, regimented images, Hals sought to enliven his depictions. In the Archers portrait, for example, each man is both a troop member and an individual with a distinct physiognomy. The sitters’ movements and moods vary enormously. Some engage the viewer directly. Others look away or at a companion. Whereas one is stern another is animated. Each man is equally visible and clearly recognizable. The uniformity of attire – black military dress, white ruffs, and sashes – did not deter Hals from injecting spontaneity into the work. Indeed, he used those elements to create a lively rhythm that extends throughout the composition and energizes the portrait. The impromptu effect – preservation of every detail and fleeting facial expression- is of course, the result of careful planning. Yet Hals’s vivacious brush appears to have more instinctively, directed by a plan in his mind but not traceable in any preparatory scheme on the canvas. Approach in part fueled by egalitarian beliefs as royal conventions deemed inappropriate (to Dutch Calvinists) Instead, Hals gives us casual spontaneity in composition and execution. Civic militia emphasizes the group, while the individual is also given his du e. 20.16, Christ with the Sick Around him, Recieving the Children (Hundred Guilder Print). Rembrandt. 17th c. Flanders and the Dutch Republic. One of Rembrandt’s most celebrated etchings is Christ with the Sick around Him, Receiving the Children. Indeed, the title by which this work has been known since the early 18 th c., Hundred-Guilder Print, refers to the high price it brought during Rembrandt’s lifetime. Christ with the Sick demonstrates the artist’s mastery of all aspects of the printmaker’s craft, for Rembrandt used both engraving and etching to depict the figures and setting. As in his other religious works, Rembrandt suffused this print with a deep and abiding piety, presenting the viewer not the celestial triumph of the Catholic Church but the humanity and humility of Jesus. Christ appears in the center preaching compassionately to, and simultaneously blessing, the blind, the lame, and the young who are spread throughout the composition in a dazzling array of standing, kneeling, and lying positions. Also present is a young man in elegant garments with his head in his hand, lamenting Christ’s insistence that wealthy need to give their possessions to the poor in order to gain entrance to Heaven. The tonal range of the print is remarkable. At the right, the figures near the city gate are in deep shadow. At the left, figures some rendered almost exclusively in outline are in bright light – not the day light but the illumination radiating from Christ himself. A second, unseen source of light comes from the right and casts the shadow of the praying man’s arms and head onto Christ’s tunic. Technically and in terms of its humanity, the Hundred Guilder Print is Rembrandt’s supreme achievement as printmaker. • What we learn is that he doesn’t need color to achieve a similar result. • He can also establish a similar mood – humanity, humility – with different subject matter. • Rembrandt was successful financially in his lifetime. Etching became popular in the 17 th c . Process: Cu plate, wax, etch, acid Doesn't need color to be painterly Humility=theme through work Values of Protestantism Tenebrism 20.24. Et in Arcadia Ego. Poussin. 17th c. France 1600-1700. Poussin’s Et in Arcadia Ego (I, Too, In Arcadia, or Even in Arcadia, I [am present]) draws on the rational order and stability of Raphael’s paintings and on antique statuary. Landscape, of which Poussin became increasingly fond, provides the setting for the picture. Dominating the foreground, however, are three shepherds, living in idyllic land of Arcadia, who study an inscription on a tomb as a statuesque female figure quietly places her hand on the shoulder of one of them. She may be the spirit of death, reminding these mortals, as does the inscription, that death is found even in Arcadia, supposedly a spot of paradisiacal bliss. The countless draped female statues surviving in Italy from Roman times supplied the models for this figure, and the posture of the youth with one foot resting on a boulder derives from Greco-Roman statues of Neptune, the sea god, leaning on his trident. The classically compact and balanced grouping of the figures, the even light, and the thoughtful and reserved mood complement Poussin’s classical figure types. – Poussin was from Normandy; studied in Rome and developed a treatise in which he outlined a system of classical painting – a grand style • According to Poussin , classicism is consists of four elements: • Subject (theme) and thought (mentality) (= content & approach ) – Subject must be heroic (battles, gods) – the grand style – Artist must avoid minutiae • Structure and style (= formal qualities ) – Beauty depends on arrangement (composition), measure (commensurability, harmony of scale [size]), and form (graceful line, juxtaposed light and shadow [color]) • In short, Poussin’s system was very proscribed and rational – and incredibly influential • Very often the paintings did a lot of “work,” whether telling a story or conveying moral qualities Et in Arcadia Ego: Formal qualities : note solidity of comp, treatment of landscape (think Raphael), solidity of figs (sculptural) Formal qualities : note that Poussin palette (the sky, the robes, the trees). Content & Approach : “Even in Arcadia, I . . .” – antiquity as setting for the confrontation of the ideal and the mortal Classical Type. 3-D statuesque figures. Note the color palette Even in arcadia I exist Even in the idealistic Arcadia, death is present, it exists. Strong moral message. 21.24. Death of Marat. David. 18th c. Enlightenment and Neoclassicism. When the French Revolution broke out in 1789, David threw in his lot with Jacobins, the radical and militant revolutionary faction. He accepted the role of de facto minister of propaganda, organizing political pageants and ceremonies that included floats, costumes and sculptural props. David believed that art could play an important role in educating the public and that dramatic paintings emphasizing patriotism and civic virtue would prove effective as rallying calls. However, rather than continuing to create artworks focused on scenes from antiquity, David began to portray scenes from the Revolution itself. He intended Death of Marat not only to serve as a record of an important event in the struggle to overthrow the monarchy but also to provide inspiration and encouragement to the revolutionary forces. Jean-Paul Marat, a writer and David’s friend, was tragically assassinated in 1793. David depicted the martyred revolutionary after Charlotte Corday, a member of a rival political faction, stabbed him to death in his medicinal bath (Marat suffered from a painful skin disease.) David presented the scene with directness and clarity. The cold neutral space above Marat’s figure slumped in the tub produces a chilling oppressiveness. The painter vividly placed narrative details – the knife, the wound, the blood, the letter with which the young woman gained entrance – to sharpen the sense of pain and outrage and to confront viewers with the scene itself. Death of Marat is convincingly real, yet David masterfully composed the painting to present Marat as a tragic Martyr who died in the service of the revolution. David based the figure of Marat on Christ in Michelangelo’s Pieta in Saint Peter’s in Rome. The reference to Christ’s martyrdom made the painting a kind of “altarpiece” for the new civic “religion,” inspiring the French people with the saintly dedication of their slain leader. Impact on art: • Content • Engineering • “Natural philosophy” and “natural” art ( Rousseau ) • Grand Tour ( seeing revives a particular kind of Classicism ) • Revolution ( political art) • Now David becomes intentionally radical and propagandistic, a friend of Robespierre • Here the assassination of a fellow Jacobin revolutionary, stabbed in his bath by Charlotte Corday • Do you see the formal reference? Michelangelo's Pieta • But here emotional coolness reigns and actually serves to underscore through starkness it’s important message of suffering 22.8. Grande Odalisque. Ingres. 19th c. France under Napoleon As a true Neoclassical painter, Ingres condemned “modern” styles such as Romanticism. But despite his commitment to ideal form and careful compositional structure, Ingres also produce works that, like those of Gros and Girodet, his contemporaries saw as departures from Neoclassicism. One of those paintings was Grande Odalisque. Ingres’s subject, the reclining nude figure, followed the tradition of Giogione and Titian. The work also shows Ingres’s admiration for Raphael in his borrowing of that master’s type of female head. The figure’s languid pose, small head and elongated limbs, and the generally cool color scheme reveal his debt to Parmigianino and the Italian Mannerists. However, by converting the figure to an odalisque (woman in a Turkish harem), the artist made a strong concession to contemporary Romantic taste for the exotic. This rather strange mixture of artistic allegiances – combination of precise classical form and Romantic themes – prompted confusion, and when Ingres first exhibited Grande Odalisque in 1814, the painting drew acid criticism. Critics initially saw Ingres as a rebel in terms of both the form and content of his works. They did not cease their attacks until the mid-1820s, when another enemy of the official style, Eugene Delacroix, appeared on the scene. Then they suddenly perceived that Ingres’s art, despite innovations and deviations, still contained many elements that adhered to the official Neoclassicism – the taste for the ideal. Ingres soon led the academic forces in their battle against the “barbarism” of Delacroix, Theodore Gericault, and the Romantic Movement. Gradually Ingres warmed to the role his critics had cast for him, and he came to see himself as the conservator of good and true art, a protector of its principles against its would be destroyers. For us, an exercise in style and (versus?) content: an established type – remember the Venus of Urbino (Titian, 16 th c .) proportions +cool palette recall Mannerists, some features (head) Raphaelesque . Notice how seamless and cool it is versus how exotic the content (Harem woman, lux trappings and fabrics). Would seem controversial and not very Neoclassical until Delacroix (et al.) showed them what rebellion against Neoc was really all about. Elongated limbs yet relaxed, cool pose. Cool color palette Member of a Turkish harem - Iconography Olympia. Manet. 19th c. Realism and the Pre-Raphaelites. Even more scandalous to the French viewing public was Manet’s 1863 painting Olympia. This work depicts a young, white prostitute (Olympia was a common “professional” name for prostitutes in the 19 th c.) reclining on a bed that extends across the foreground. Entirely nude except for a thin black ribbon tied around her neck, a bracelet on her arm, an orchid in her hair, and fashionable mule slippers on her feet, Olympia meets the viewer’s eyes with a look of cool indifference. Behind her appears a black maid, who presents her a bouquet of flowers from a client. Olympia horrified the public and critics alike. Although images of prostitutes were not unheard of during this period, the shamelessness of Olympia and her look that verges on defiance shocked viewers. The depiction of a black woman was also not new to painting, but the viewing public perceived Manet’s inclusion of both a black maid and nude prostitute as evoking moral depravity, inferiority, and animalistic sexuality. The contrast of the black servant with the fair-skinned courtesan also made reference to racial divisions. One critic described Olympia as “a courtesan with dirty hands and wrinkled feet…her body has the livid tint of a cavadear displayed in the morgue; her outlines are drawn in charcoal and her greenish, bloodshot eyes appear to be provoking the public, protected all the while by a hideous Negress.” From the statement it is clear that viewers were responding not just to the subject but to Manet’s artistic style as well. Manet’s brush strokes are rougher and the shifts in tonality are more abrupt than those found in traditional academic painting. This departure from accepted practice exacerbated the audacity of the subject matter. • Characteristics of Realist art – Subjects : the everyday (not the grand, not the irrational), the familiar (in one’s own time and space) – Emphases : empiricism (observation - evidence) and positivism (promotes scientific empiricism in all things), often a social message and exploration of hardship (political mood) – Enlightenment thinking continues – Style : somewhat varied, but notice how color is used, how the human figure is a key subject and is manipulated for message, how Renaissance illusionism is rejected (by Manet ) • What makes Manet’s nude more socially scandalous that Ingres’ or Titian’s? (what is the emphasis ) What else makes this work a Manet ? (what is the style ) 23.21. Basket of Apples. Cezanne. 19th c. Post Impressionism and Symbolism. Still life was another good vehicle for Cezanne’s experiments, as he could arrange a limited number of selected objects to provide a well-ordered point of departure. So analytical was Cezanne in preparing, observing, and painting still lifes (in contrast to the Impressionist emphasis on the concept of spontaneity) that he had to abandon using real fruit and flowers because they tended to rot. In Basket of Apples the objects have lost some of their individual character as bottles and fruit and almost become cylinders and spheres. Cezanne captured the solidity of each object by juxtaposing color patches. His interest in the sturdy volume and solidity is evident from the disjunctures in the painting – the tables edges are discontinuous, and various objects seem to be depicted from different vantage points. In his zeal to understand three-dimensionality and to convey the placement of forms relative to the space around them, Cezanne explored his still-life arrangements from different viewpoints. This resulted in paintings that, although conceptually coherent, do not appear optically realistic. Cezanne created what might be called, paradoxically the architecture of color. In keeping with the modernist concern with the integrity of the painting surface, Cezanne’s methods never allow the viewer to disregard the two-dimensionality of the picture plane. In this manner, Cezanne achieved a remarkable feat – presenting the viewer with two-dimensional and three-dimensional images simultaneously. • Here we see another popular subject for Cezanne, the still life • Notice how forms are being reduced to their structural elements • At the same time as he achieves depth, he never denies the 2-D surface • We will look at Paul Cezanne and his interest in form , which revolutionized art and paved the way for Cubism 24.12. Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. Picasso. 1900s. Cubism. The influence of “primitive” art also surfaces in Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (The Young Ladies of Avignon), which opened the door to a radically new method of representing form in space. Picasso began the work as a symbolic picture to be titled Philosophical Bordello, portraying two male clients (who, based on surviving drawings, had features resembling Picasso’s) intermingling with women in the reception room of a brothel on Avignon Street in Barcelona. One was a sailor. The other carried a skull, an obvious reference to death. By the time the artist had finished, he had eliminated the male figures and simplified the room’s details to a suggestion of drapery and a schematic foreground still life. Picasso had become wholly absorbed in the problem of finding a new way to represent the five female figures in their interior space. Instead of depicting the figures as continuous volumes, he fractured their shapes and interwove them with equally jagged planes that represent drapery and empty space. Indeed, the space, so entwined with the bodies, is virtually illegible. Here Picasso pushed Cezanne’s treatment of form and space to a new level. The tension between Picasso’s representation of 3-dimensional space and his conviction that a painting is a two-dimensional design lying flat on the surface of a stretched canvas is a tension between representation and abstraction. The artist extended the radical nature of Les Demoiselles even further by depicting the figures inconsistently. Ancient Iberan sculptures inspired the calm, ideal figures of the three young women at the left, as they had the head of Gertrude Stein. The engergetic, violently striated features of the two heads to the right emerged late in Picasso’s production of the work and grew directly from his increasing fascination with the power of African sculpture, which the artist studied as well as collected and kept in his Paris studio. Perhaps responding to the energy of these two new heads, Picasso also revised their bodies. He broke them into more ambiguous planes suggesting a combo of views, as if the observer sees the figures from more than one place in space at once. The woman seated at the lower right shows these multiple angles most clearly, seeming to present the viewer simultaneously with a three quarter back view from the left, another from the right, and a front view of the head suggestsseeing the figure frontally as well. Gone is the traditional concept of an orderly, constructed, and unified pictoral space that mirrors the world. In its place are the rudimentary beginnings of a new representation of the world as a dynamic interplay of time and space. Clearly Les Demoiselles represents a dramatic departure from the careful presentation of a visual reality. Explained Picasso, “I paint forms as I think them, not as I see them” • Here we can see one result of his restlessness: a new approach to the relationship between form and space • What do we see? • A brothel with five women, posed • A curtain peeled back • A table with fruit • African masks • But this identifying/seeing is only a small part of it • Shapes are fractured and combined in unanticipated ways, form & color abstracted • The space is quite hard to read in traditional ways • Depth is lacking, despite layering of forms • We can see here a relationship with Cezanne: 2D/3D tension • We can see here a relationship with Cezanne: form, structure • And Picasso goes beyond: form shown from multiple perspectives Form as “thought” not seen Key concept for modernism = avant garde means front guard innovators, groundbreakers, intellect, creative restlessness, and dissatisfaction with the status quo. 25.10. Red Blue Green. Kelly. 1960s. Post Painterly Abstract Attempting to arrive at pure painting, the Post-Painterly abstractionists distilled painting down to its essential elements, producing space, elemental images. An example of one variant of Post-Painterly Abstraction, hard-edge painting, is Red Blue Green by Ellsworth Kelly. With its razor-sharp edges and clearly delineated shapes, this work is completely abstract and extremely simple compositionally. Further, the painting contains no suggestion of the illusion of depth – the color shapes appear resolutely two-dimensional. • Post-Painterly Abstraction – Think of PPA as the opposite of AE (even though some artists worked in both styles) – The word “post” implies a movement away from, even beyond, painterly art – For Clem, this meant something more pure • Post-painterly abstraction is distilled to basic elements and without modulation • Here a so-called hard-edge painting thanks to its perfect (hard) forms 25.19. Hang-Up. Hesse. 1960s. Minimalism A minimalist in the early part of her career, Eva Hesse later moved away from the severity characterizing much of minimalist art. She created sculptures that, although spare and simple, have a compelling presence. Using nontraditional sculptural materials such as fiberglass, cord, and latex, Hesse produced sculptures whose pure Minimalist forms appear to crumble, sag and warp under the pressures of atmospheric force and gravity. Born in Hitler’s Germany, the young Hesse hid with a Christian family when her parents and elder sister had to flee the Nazis. She didn’t reunite with them until the early 1940s, just before her parents divorced. Those extraordinary circumstances help give her a lasting sense that the central conditions of modern life are strangeness and absurdity. Struggling to express these qualities in her art, she created informal sculptural arrangements with units often hung from the ceiling, propped against the walls, or spilled out along the floor. She said she wanted her pieces to be non art, non connotative, non anthropomorphic, non geometric, non nothing, everything, but of another kind, vision, sort. Hang-Up fulfils these requirements. The piece looks like a carefully made empty frame sprouting a strange feeler that extends into the room and doubles back to the frame. Hesse wrote that in this work, for the first time, her idea of absurdity or extreme feeling came through. It has a kind of depth I don’t always achieve and that is the kind of depth or soul or absurdity of life or meaning or feeling or intellect that I want to get. The Sculpture possesses a disquieting and touching presence, suggesting the fragility and grandeur of life amid the pressures of the modern age. Hesse was herself a touching and fragile presence in the art world. • German-born American Eva Hesse takes minimalism a step farther • Her work is expressive, engaging • She uses non-traditional (sometimes ephemeral ) materials in ways that challenge art as art, art’s power to refer, the sanctity of the museum, the space of the viewer • American minimalism was mainly a sculptural movement with practitioners like Judd advocating sculpture over painting (see p . 755, my emphasis): “ Three dimensions are real space. That gets rid of the problem of illusionism . . . [one of the] most objectionable relics of European art.” 25.53. A Short History of Modernist Painting. Tansey. 1980s. Modernist. This kind of interaction between artists and critics also underscores the self-consciousness on the part of contemporary artists about their place in the continuum of art history. For many postmodern artists, referencing the past is much more than incorporating elements from earlier works and styles in their own art. It involves a critique of or commentary on fundamental art historical premises. In short, their art is about making art. In his humorous A Short History of Modernist Painting American artist Mark Tansey provides viewers with a tongue-in-cheek summary of the various approaches to painting artists have embraced over the years. Tansey presents a sequence of three images, each visualizing a way of looking at art. At the far left, a glass window encapsulates the Renaissance ideal of viewing art as though one were looking through a window. In the center image a man pushing his head against a solid wall represents the thesis central to much of modernist formalism – that the painting should be acknowledged as an object in its own right. In the image on the right, Tansey summarizes the postmodern approach to art with a chicken pondering its reflection in the mirror. The chicken’s action reveals postmodern artists’ reflections on their place in the art historical continuum. • So what characterizes Postmodernism ( PoMo )? – Many things, often contradictory or confusing • It’s okay to not understand (yet) so long as you know what it is • So what characterizes Postmodernism ( PoMo )? – The idea of being “past” or “post” Modern includes: • (Hyper-) awareness of art’s own history , as here: – Renaissance window, Modernist surface, PoMo reflection • A lack of distinction between high- and low-brow – Pop had already started this process • Investigation of “how things mean” – Of the relationship between author (artist) and text (cultural product/work of art) and reader (viewer) – I.e. of constructs (cultural products) and the process of desconstruction (Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida; French, Algerian) – Here’s one way to think about it • You have a cultural product (“text”) – say a painting • You acknowledge that the meaning of the painting is not absolute or fixed – As such, many meanings are simultaneously valid – But these meanings aren’t random; they are culturally determined – The painting’s meaning is, however, instable » In fact, meanings may be discovered that are very different from what a painting appears to be saying » Can be contradictory, subversive » Can speak to what the painting lacks (the gap) – In fact, no painting can have a meaning 25.86. Mansheshe. Oursler. 1990s. Contemporary While many artists present video and digital imagery to the audience on familiar flat screens, this reproducing the format in which we most often come into contact with such images, Tony Oursler manipulates his images, projecting them onto sculptural objects. This has the effect of taking such images out of the digital world and insinuating them into the real world. Accompanied by sound tapes, Oursler’s installations, such as Mansheshe, not only engage but often challenge the viewer. In this example, Oursler projected talking heads onto egg-shaped forms suspended from poles. Because the projected images of people look directly at the viewer, the statements they make about religious belifs, sexual identity, and interpersonal relationships cannot easily be dismissed. • Much of the work seems to be about manipulation of expectations 24.26. Collage Arranged According to the Laws of Chance. Arp. 1910s. Dada. A dada artist whose works illustrate Richter’s element of chance was Zurich-based Jean Arp. Arp pioneered the use of chance in composing his images. Tiring of the look of some Cubist-related collages he was making, he took some sheets of paper, tore them into roughly shaped squares and haphazardly dropped them onto a sheet of paper on the floor, and glued them into the random arrangement. The rectilinearity of the shapes guaranteed a somewhat regular design (which Arp no doubt enhanced by adjusting the random arrangement into a quasi-grid) but chance had introduced an imbalance that seemed to Arp to restore to his work a special mysterious vitality he wanted to preserve. Collage Arranged According… is a work he created by this method. The operations of chance were for Dadaists a crucial part of improvisation. As Richter stated: “For us chance was the unconscious mind that Freud had discovered in 1900… Adoption of chance had another purpose, a secret one. This was to restore the work of art its primeval magic power and to find a way back to the immediacy it had lost through contact with…. Classicism.” Arp’s renunciation of artistic control and reliance on chance when creating his compositions reinforced the anarchy and subversiveness inherent in Dada. • Dada grew up during the early years of the first World War • It is a reaction to the futility, chaos and horror of a war in which technology had grossly outstripped tactics • Dada began in several areas at the same time and reflects a reactive mindset more than a movement • What was Dada about? • Reason and logic had led to extreme pain and horror, so what would their opposites contribute? • Intuition , absurdity , even anarchy were explored as important states • Here Jean Arp (Swiss) explores the importance of chance • What happens when an artist gives over control? • Finds that composition can be freed from consciousness Title Important Trying to explore creative opportunity Doesn't have to start as something to produce an idea.