Visual Art: Art Periods, Themes, Styles, Historical and Cultural Aspects

Tympanum – scenes painted on arches, Murals showing Christ in an oval frame called mandorla, Decorative arcades in the form of “blind” arcades (series of archways with no openings and typically containing a wall behind it, Term first used by DeGerville to describe the architecture of the period

Romanesque

Lacked classical ideals of symmetry and beauty, Cephalophores – statues of beheaded saints, Divided into 3 Periods, Architecture originated in France – called Opus Francigenum (or French Work) – pioneered by Abbot Suger

Gothic

Cimabue

a. Christ Enthroned with the Virgin and St. John (1301 – 1320)

b. Santa Croce Crucifixion (1287 – 88)

b. Giotto

a. Ognissanti Madonna (1300 – 06)

b. The Betrayal of Christ (aka Kiss of Judas) (1305)

c. Lamentation (The Mourning of Christ) (1304 – 06)

Many movements

Renaissance

a. Comes from the Italian maniera - meaning style

b. Depicts human figure as twisted shape

c. Figura serpentinata – serpentine figure – reflected in the art

d. Heightened emotion

e. Figures often overly muscular with unreal anatomical proportions

f. Elongated necks and limbs

g. Expressive, exaggerated form

h. Sense of false color – blues, yellows, pinks, and greens

i. Skin tones – either washed out or overly cream colored

j. Stark contrasts of light and darkness

i. Parmigianino

Jean de Bologne

Benvenuto Cellini

Mannerism

More liveliness in subject matter

b. Means broken/flawed pearl

c. Stark realism

d. Focus on the immediate moment the event is occurring

e. Religious and biblical subjects as dictated by Church

f. Dramatic approach to art

g. Vibrant colors applied with wide swirling brushstrokes

h. Focused on expansive openness

i. Chiaroscuro

j. Tenebrism – started by Caravaggio

iii. Focus on dark areas of painting

iv. Designed to create a spotlight effect

k. Quadro Riportato

i. Means carried picture

ii. Artist paints a frame around the picture, which could be several fresco paintings

Baroque

Light and airy appearance

c. Lighter and brighter, almost transparent colors

d. Originated in Paris

e. Extravagance

f. Theatrical and ornamental design

g. Curving, serpentine forms

h. Asymmetrical values

Nature motifs like vines and leaves

j. Pastels, golds, and whites make up most of color

k. use of mirrors for interior spaces

l. C-shaped volutes in furniture and architecture

m. Attention to detail

2. Styles/Themes

a. Shepherd’s idyll – representing light, carefree life

b. Playful themes

c. Strong sense of whimsy

d. Lack of balance in ornamental features

e. Painting based on themes of love, playfulness, and nature

f. Classical myths

g. Rejection of Baroque style

Jean-Honore Fragonard

a. The Meeting (1771)

b. Stolen Kiss (1788)

c. The Swing (1767)

2. Jean-Antoine Watteau

a. Pilgrimage to the Isle of Cythera (1717)

3. Thomas Gainsborough

a. The Blue Boy (1770)

Rococco

Revival of Greek and Roman art

b. Revolt against opulence of Baroque and Rococo

c. Noble Simplicity

d. Didactic subject matter

e. Cleaner brushwork creating solidity of the images

f. True to nature color

KAAC Study Guides High School Arts & Humanities 72

2. Styles/Themes

a. Mythological scenes and storytelling in art

b. Moral messages in art

c. Heroism and seriousness in painting

d. Designed to teach lessons

e. Important Artists & Works

1. Benjamin West

a. The Death of General Wolfe (1770)

2. Jacques-Louis David

a. The Oath of the Horatii (1784)

b. Death of Marat (1793)

3. Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

a. La Grande Odalisque (1814)

Neoclassicism

H. Romanticism (1800 – 1850)

1. Characteristics

a. Exploration of the intangible

b. Emotions and the subconscious

c. Effects of shadows and lights in English and French

d. Plein air painting

2. Styles/Themes

a. Exploration of the intangible

b. Emotions and subconscious

c. Way natural world made people feel

d. Rejection of order, harmony, and rationality

e. Emphasis on individuality and imagination

f. Focus on passion, emotion, and sensation over intellect and reason

g. Nationalism

h. Justice and equality

i. Landscapes

j. Shipwreck imagery

k. History painting

l. Important Artists & Works

1. William Blake

a. Descent of Man into the Vale of Death (1813)

2. Eugene Delacroix

a. Liberty Leading the People (1830)

b. Women of Algiers (1834)

3. Theodore Gericault

a. The Raft of the Medusa (1818-19)

4. John Constable

a. The Hay Wain (1821)

5. J.M.W. William Turner

a. Snow Storm: Hannibal and His Army Crossing the Alps(1812)

b. The Fighting Temeraire...(1839)

c. Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway (1844)

6. Thomas Cole

a. The Voyage of Life (1840) – series

Romanticism

First modern art movement

b. Began in France

c. Attention to accuracy

d. Detailed, lifelike depictions of subject matter

e. Common laborers became the subject matter

f. Sensuous nudity

g. Dark, earthy tones

1. Gustave Courbet – considered a leading artist

a. The Wheat Sifters (1854)

b. Burial at Ornans (1849-50)

c. The Stone Breakers (1849)

2. Jean-Francois Millet

b. The Gleaners (1857)

3. Honore Daumier

a. The Third-Class Carriage (1862-64) – series

b. Caricatures and political cartoons

Realism

A Modern Olympia (1873-74)

b. Landscape with Poplars (1885 – 87)

c. Mont Saint-Victoire (1890s)

a. The Large Bathers (1900 – 05)

b. Montagne Saint-Victoire with Trees and a House

Cezanne

a. Boulevard Montmartre at Night (1897)

b. The Red Roofs, a Corner of a Village, Winter Effect (1870)

c. Rabbit Warren at Pontoise, Snow (1879)

Pissaro

b. Woman in Black (1876)

c. Girl with a Fan (1881)

d. Boy with a Whip (1885)

Renoir

one of the founders of Fauvism

a. Charing Cross Bridge

Andre Derain

Fourth of July

Street Decked with Flags]

Fauvism

Raoul Dufy

Landscape near Antwerp

Fauvism

Georges Braque

1. Erich Heckel

a. The Village Pond (1910)

b. Two Men at Table (1912)

2. Emil Nolde

a. The Dancers (1920)

Die Brucke (The Bridge)-Expressionism

1. Wassily Kandinsky

b. Black Frame (1922)

c. The Blue Rider (almanac cover page) (1912)

2. Paul Klee

a. Memory of a Garden (1914)

Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider)-Expressionism

a. Portrait of Pablo Picasso (1912)

b. The Sunblind (1914)

c. Bottle of Rum and Newspaper (1914)

Juan Gris

1. Umberto Boccioni

a. Unique Forms of Continuity in Space (1913) – 1st sculpture exhibited in plaster and

later cast in bronze

b. Street Noises Invade the House (1913)

c. Dynamism of a Cyclist’s Head (1914)

2. Gino Severini

a. Red Cross Train Passing a Village (1915)

b. Suburban Train Arriving in Paris (1915)

3. Carlo Carra

a. Interventionist Demonstration (1914)

b. The Funeral of the Anarchist Galli (1911)

Futurism

a. Dada Manifesto (1916) – written and read aloud at the first Dada meeting

Hugo Ball

a. The Enigma of Isidore Ducasse (1920) readymade

b. The Gift (1921) – disappeared at exhibit

c. Iron and tacks – assisted readymade – original lost

d. Rayography (The Kiss) (1922) – one of his “Rayograms”

Man Ray

Collage with Squares Arranged According to the Laws of Chance (1916-17)

b. Birds in an Aquarium (1920)

Jean Arp

a. Oedipus Rex (1922)

b. Surrealism and Painting (1942)

c. The Angel of the Home or the Triumph of Surrealism (1937)

Max Ernst

a. Egg in the Church or The Snake (??) (1932)

b. Poem Objects (1935) – a collage of objects and inscribed poems

Andre Breton

a. Marilyn Monroe (1954)

b. Woman II (1952)

c. Woman and Bicycle (1952 – 53)

William Kooning

– committed suicide in his studio

a. The Black and the White (1956)

b. Green and Maroon (1953)

Mark Rothco

married to Helen Frankenthaler – one of the founders of Abstract Expressionism

a. Personage (Autoportrait) – (1943)

b. Ulysses (1947)

Motherwell

a. The Bed (1955) – key proto-Pop Artwork

b. Monogram (1959) – combine painting

Robert Rauschenberg

Anxious Girl (1964)

Masterpiece (1962)

Roy Lichenstein