FINAL EXAM - Renaissance - Modern Art History

Neo Classism - Post Impressionism

David, Napoleon Crossing St. Bernard’s Pass

• Neo-Classicism

• David is hired by Napoleon to make several portraits of Napoleon.

• Grand dramatic lighting shining upon him

• Vivid red cloak that pops out and swirls around him

• puts his name in the rock.

• Grand Gesture, “Onward, we go.”

• Napoleon’s cloak adds in more sizeto him, horse looks small

• Napoleon complex, short man complex

• the reality, Napoleon crossed this mountain on a clear sunny day on a donkey.

Ingres, Grand Odalisque

• Neo-classicism

• controversial: wealthy people do NOT want to see that

• sex-slave in a harem

• turned away to tempt the viewer, pulling the curtain to cover herself

• average Turkish/Middle Eastern woman but depicted as a more European for his wealthy European audience.

• wanted to emulate Raphael

• borrowing a little from mannerism

• very long back

• inaccurate portrayal

• strongest example of orientalism

• popular at the time to be interested in exotic cultures

• She is seen as an exotic creature from a foreign land.

• peacock feathers, turban, jewelry, hooker

• hard to read face, often believed the audienece is viewing her as a captive animal in a zoo.

Fuseli, The Nightmare

• Romanticism

• when you sleep, the rational thinking side of your brain subsides and your other side roams free.

• ideas of what’s lurking when your rational side goes to sleep.

• The horse is an incubus that got rejected by a beautiful woman and has sex with sleeping women and various other acts.

• Exploring what happens when someone is not rational.

Goya, The Third of May 1808

• Romanticism

• most famous romanticism painting

• based on an actual event, when Napoleon is trying to invade and attack Spain. Tried to capture and murder the Spanish Royal family in Madrid.

• Huge uprising of Spainards citizens trying to stop them.

• On the 3rd of May, those who were arrested by Napoleon’s troops were ordered to be rounded up and shot.

• Evils, what one man can possibly do to another.

• Doesn’t have crisp or clear definition of the details.

• Loose brushstrokes ex.) white shirt and Hill

• Like “the Jolly Toper” by Hals

• very dark painting like Rembrandt

• back to more expressive, emotional faces

• some Spainards are hiding their faces, afraid of what is going to happen to them.

• Doesn’t give us the crisp look at it like Gentileschi; as it was a scene of revenge

• Central figure is Christ-like, typically the brightest figure, Christ-like sacrifice

• soldiers are painted together as a blob as if they are one solid piece. No faces depicted purposefully

• Goya was accused of heresy of the Spanish Inquisition, lost faith and moved to France and stopped making art.

Gericault, Raft of the Medusa

• Romanticism

• 16ft x 23ft

• life-sized figures

• reminiscent of mannerism, twisted positions

• unsettled, lots of movement, in turmoil, uncomfortable

• perfected Greek and Roman bodies

• based on a real event, there was a government ship from France, hit bad weather and had a shipwreck. Govt. officials and wealthy were the only ones saved. The rest were out there for at least 2 weeks. When rescue came to save the little amount of people who survived.

• disturbing

• very political, but still art aimed for the rich

• legends of mutiny and cannibalism

• possibility of the dark things that lurk in our minds and what one man can do to another.

• Violent portrayal of the sea, violence of nature is one level and then the level of human violence on the ship

• Very dramatic like baroque

Freidrich, Wanderer Above a Sea of Mist

• Romanticism

• another well-known ex. of romanticism

• Man deep in nature, looking over a mountain-scape or shores

• Sublime: refers to the awe or beauty of nature. OR awed by the possible power and/or danger of the nature arond you.

• could be inspired by the beauty or dangers of power of nature, could slip and fall

Courbet, The Stone Breakers

• Realism

• stone breakers made the gravel for roads and railroads

• Avant garde: military term “front guard” in French. Considered to be radical and new, often politically engaged as well and first associated w/realism

• pushing boundaries

• sledgehammers and only a tuff of hay to rest his knee. Everyday breaking big rocks into smaller rocks

• This job considered one of the lowest of the low

• Courbet purposefully chose this profession to portray

• the painting was deemed as repulsive by viewers and critics

• The clothing was shabby, the old man was wearing what seems to be his best clothes at some point, vest specifically. Old fashioned pants and shoes. The younger man has tattered but contemporary clothing.

• Artists made the paintings in hopes that the wealthy would buy it, yet Courbet chose the lowest of the low

• Not planned or displayed poses, real scene in their lives and not crisply rendered

• limited color palette, very brown

• looks unfished and unskilled

• purposefully doesn’t portray their faces, as that is what the wealthy views them, unimportant but common people paving the way for their luxuries.

• If the wealthy saw a stonebreaker, they would’ve viewed them as anonymous unseen workers

• un-thanked and unthought of, force the wealthy to see them. Roads aren’t magically made.

• the roads and modernizing of the city is on the backs of people like this.

• Shows both a younger and older man to show the trap or circle of the poor, the old man used to be the younger man at some point and vice-versa, working until you die or get sick.

• Often critiqued on being very confrontational, no foreground

• Purposefully using techniques that the Art Academy doesn’t like, limited color palette, loose brushstrokes, dark blob background, very flat, using space badly.

Millet, The Gleaners

• Realism

• after the main crop is harvested, the Gleaners come through picking up even the grains of wheat, whatever is left behind.

• lowest of the low agricultural job

• some usage of space, more of a foreground compared to other Realism paintings

• Millet’s paintings are more hopeful depictions of the lower class. Showing more dignity as they are depicted less harshly.

• Unseen faces, to show how the wealthy view the lowest class, cannot emotionally connect w/them. just viewed as workers.

Degas, Place De La Concorde

• realism

• new social type of person, Flaneur - to stroll in French, someone strolling around the city, way they experience life, slowly like a stroll.

• Flaneurs were typically wealthy men, well-dressed and well-mannered but detached observer of city life, check it all out at a leisurely pace.

• At this time it is popular to have exotic pets, likes monkeys and turtles, flaneurs are sometimes described as if they were walking their pet turtle.

• There is a flaneur on the far left, barely in the painting, has a walking stick, gloves, ascot, etc.

• The family and the dog depict mental vacancy, none of them are looking at the same place, have a glazed overlook.

• Background: lack of details, loose brushstrokes, flattens the space.

• no true foreground, figures are in our space, confrontationally close to us.

• no focal point, nothing in the center, figures are on the side.

• gets the audience into the sense of mental vacancy, as we are simply another person in the street not looking at anything.

• unfinished, looks like a sketch, goes against the Art Academy, especially the coats, very smooth.

Manet, Luncheon on the Grass

• Impressionism

• Immoral, indecent

• 2 women are seen as prostitutes

• prostitutes, lowest of the low being shown in art

• hints at other well-known paintings Giorgione and Renaissance’s Best painters, critics believes he was too bold to even think about inserting himself into the same level as them.

• Piles of clothes in the foreground, implies that the women were wearing clothes as well.

• The look of the women’s face, not ashamed of her nudity and boldly looks at the viewers, “I’m nude, so what?”

• Not a perfect goddess body, regular women’s body, not crisply rendered.

• weird scale, does not go together, not a good perspective.

• 2nd lady in the background, too close to fore-figures and too large compared to the water.

• 2nd lady is also too crisp compared to the background

• unfinished and unskilled

• Manet was thrilled w/ the scuttlebutt, but was hurt that the critics didn’t understand how he did all those techniques on purpose.

• The pants of the man on the right, very unfinished, black brush strokes for the folds.

Manet, Olympia

• Realism

• prostitute at work, lowest of the low shown to us at work.

• “Olympia” super popular novel, character that’s a prostitute.

• accepted into a salon, a little less sketchy, but very controversial

• borrowing from Titian Venus of Urbino & Ingres Grande Odalisque

• not a goddess, not a nymph

• nude w/ jewelry, flower, and shoes, more nude than without.

• awkward position, short proportions

• black cat, fading into the background, cats represent sexuality.

• Bouquet from a client, represents sexuality, fertility

• confrontational positioning of characters, very in our face

• very flattened painting, especially the background

• body not idealized enough, hypocritical, don’t like how she’s nude, but if she is going to be nude, must be depicted like a goddess.

• puts us, the audience, as the next client, her face has a bit of seduction but mainly like “next,”

• clothes woman of color, depicted as her servant more below her. Manet could’ve intentionally depicted the social hierarchy in Paris.

• Courbet said that the painting was like the Queen of Spades is getting out of the bath, very good.

Degas, Orchestra of the Paris Opera

• Realism

• The musicians of the Orchestra aren’t shown much attention, unlike the ballerinas, dancers, etc.

• Blob of tuxedos, very crowded, not one focal point

• depicted tiredness

Caillebotte, Paris Street: Rainy Day

• Realism

• life sized fore-figures

• photography starts being more readily available

• W/rising popularity w/photography, artists were worried about their jobs, so they started making paintings like photographs

• No focal point or focus, no poses, mainly walking like a snapshot, no one looking in the same direction

• Cobblestones painted like actual wet cobblestones, shadows being depicted

• Very wet scene

Monet, Impression Sunrise

• Impressionism

• entire movement of impressionism started from this painting

• his version of a sunrise. general idea

• laborers working even before the sun rose. Industry is happening even in this hour of the day.

• limited color palette, tended to use paint straight from the tube

• very visible loose brushstrokes

Renoir, The Boating Party

• Impressionism

• Start to see places w/a mixing of social classes (in Paris)

• 2 men in tank tops and straw-hats w/ well-dressed ladies and a flaneur

• 2 men w/ straw-hats are the people running the boat

• white on white, glass, “hard to paint” subjects

• the background is full of brushstrokes, made the painting off the rails. “Ruins” the painting according to critics.

Manet, The Bar at the Follies-Bergere

• Impressionism

• Manet is dying, at the end of his life while painting this, bc of syphilis

• most deaths at the time were either due to syphilis or tubercolocis,

• his final work, to go off with a big bang

• a debate about whether the waitress is behind a bar or there’s a mirror behind her.

• mental vacancy, glazed over look of boredom at work

• most audience of the day know that bar maidens with a flower on her chest indicate a prostitute

• Flaneur client, is us, the next man

• mirror or no mirror, Manet wants us to think it through

• all modern life in the city is not great or ideal, mental vacancy

• One of many in the bustling city life

• trapeze in the left upper corner.

• darker side to modernism

Seurat, Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jette

• Post-Impressionism

• brand-new thing to give people Sundays off

• people on their day off, near water, beautiful scenery

• mixing of social classes, pet monkey w/ a wealthy lady

• man w/ a cap and tank top, near wealthy lady and a flaneur

• Seurat studied a lot about the eye, the optics of the eyes, and how they perceive, specifically color and color theory + other color studies.

• the eye can mis colors together better than physically mixing colors

• entire painting made up of dots, pointillism

• puts a very light wash of one color, short strokes of other solid colors like shadows, then covers it in dots

• 8ft x 10 ft

• sense of mental vacancy

• critics still hate post-impressionism as much as impressionism

• not excitingly happy or intimate interactions

• wants to show us how modern life has not improves our lives w/ sociability, isolation, or alienation.

• critics said that it is “a sea of individual loneliness,” “a landscape of suicides.”

Cezanne, Mount St. Victoire

• Post-Impressionism

• tended to use palette knives to make brushstrokes, leading to patchiness

• starts getting more abstracted, farther from representing an actual valley

• doesn’t have political commentary like impressionism

• Cezanne also studied a lot about human perception. human brains process paintings in 2 ways. 1: simultaneously, as we take in the painting we see a landscape w/a mountain & a tree. 2: consecutively, first we start at the bottom of the painting and we process a landscape, then a valley, then a mountain, sky, and then suddenly hit branch.

• Putting the branch so close to the mountain, flattens the painting as your brain is pushing and pulling w/ the information. Slightly irritating

Van Gogh, Night Cafe

• Post-Impressionism

• Signature brushstroke, described as in motion, or having movement.

• uses very thick and heavy application of paint

• Van Gogh was a very troubled, sensitive man, suffering from undiagnosed mental conditions and would turn to alcohol like most people suffering at the time

• chopped his ear off and also suffered from seizures and medicines for seizures could cause users to see fuzziness to light sources.

• cannot 100% prove that he took such medicine, but can also assume that he depicted light as such to show movement

• odd angle of the pool table, unsettling vibes, lone men, isolated

• night cafes are open all night, for people with nowhere else to go or be

• slice of life, interior lives, sense of sadness and melancholy

• exaggerated coloration by Van Gogh

• remnants of people partying and then leaving to go home.

Van Gogh, Starry Night

• Van Gogh often left unpainted canvas showing

• Undiagnosed mental illnesses, at the end of his life he was put into a mental asylum in France

• One of his last painting of his time, while he was in the asylum

• painted it entirely from memory, shown clearly by the town depicted, not a French town. He’s Dutch, but moved to France for his art career.

• Dutch style town from his memory

• Cypress tree, very common in cemeteries, could be a symbol of death OR a symbol of eternal life.

• The whitest and brightest star is believed to be Venus, symbol of love.

• beautifully rendered, but unsettling, unstill painting.

Gauguin, Vision After the Sermon

• Post-Impressionism

• subject matter: their faith is so strong that when they gather to pray they can see Jacob

• Borrowed from Mary of Burgundy, praying in her home.

• Jacob wrestling w/the Angel, well-known bible story

• using unusual colors

• blood red grass

• painterly technique, very flattened application where you cannot see the brushstrokes.

• Dry and Flat applicaiton

• very flattened space, no depth, no space

• Red isn’t meant to imply blood or war

Munch, The Scream

• Post Impressionism

• subject matter: The internal life of the man

• showing us the reality of city life

• figure shoved to the bottom of the canvas and traveling/ echoing up

• understandable, relatable subject

• described that the figure is alien or skull-like

• inspiration from Van Gogh, lots of movement in the brushstrokes

• odd angle of the bridge, coming right towards us

• very particular sky either representative of something

• Scientists determined that there was a massive volcanic eruption in Tahiti, and that it was the loudest noise known to man at the time

• The ash spread around for months, and changed the color of the sky

• Could be an actual representation of the sky

• Munch says that he felt a gust of melancholy and the sky turned blood red, as he trembled with anxiety and felt a vast scream

• Anxiety brought upon modern life

Klimt, The Kiss

• Post-Impressionism

• Trying to show us the inner desires of each person rather than the actual kiss

• passion and love shown

• shiny metallic gold background

• known for decorative patches of flowers

• man, masculine decorative patches on his cloak

• feminine floral patches on the woman’s cloak

• critics were a little less harsh, as it doesn’t look as unfinished as others, but very decorative, but still has very bizarre poses.

Matisse, Woman with a Hat

• Fauvism

• doing something new and interesting with color

• liberating and freeing color from rules and restrictions

• seen in Gaugain’s painting w/red grass

• no perspective at all with the different blotches of paint in the background, weird nowhere space

• no details at large

• just the color alone is mapping out the painting

• portraying his wife

• critics were losing their minds, believing that the artists are lost it.

Matisse, The Joy of Life

• Fauvism

• very simple trees

• crazy perspective, figures dancing in the background, doesn’t fit in scale

• conflicting scale of figures

• very simple outlines of figures

• critic says that this represents an orgy of colors and called these artists wild beast, which is “Fauv” in French.

Picasso, Demoiselles D’Avignon

• Cubism

• D’Avignon Red light district in Barcelona

• showing low class workers

• showing the same prostitute at 5 different angles

• side view, top down viewing (laying down on the bed), other side view, and head spinning around on back view

• sneaks in fruit, represents female sexuality, fertility, fruit for sale, women for sale.

• Picasso saw a traveling exhibit of African masks, added to these figures possibly.

Braque, The Portuguese

• Cubism

• Analytic Cubism, where the title doesn’t help you decipher the painting

• person playing guitar at different angles

• critics not happy w/cubism

• limited color palette because color doesn’t have add anything to their ideas and goals

David, The Oath of the Horatii

• Neo-classicism

• France

• David: most well-known painter of N-C

• linear perspective, lines in the floor

• roman clothing, known roman story

• perfected body, very muscular arms and legs, extremely detailed

• David, very political man, and apart of the French Revolution

• Horatii, the father asked his three sons to fight to the death in battle, wives and mother of the sons are on the right, full of grief.

• A time concerned about morals and making the right choice

• David cleverly uses linear perspective and the building to divide the painting into thirds.

Orientalism

• Western fascination with the culture of the Muslim world of North
  Africa and the Near East
  • Resulting in reductive and racist imagery, overly sexualized (exotic,
  erotic, desired)
  • Emphasizing the “primitive” Otherness of Arab/non-Western/non-Christian people

Avant Garde

• Military term--‘Front guard’ in French
  “At the forefront”

• Movements in art and literature considered to be radical and new,
  often politically engaged as well

Symbolism

Addresses fears, desires, and impulses of the human mind
• “A turn inward”—focus on internal or mind, the psyche, emotion, the
spiritual
• Not replicating reality but actually observation plus imagination and feeling

Fauvism

A relatively short-lived movement (ca. 1905-08)
• Not an organized group per se but a label given
to the exhibiting artists by an art critic who
found the “orgy of pure colors” so outrageous
that he called the artists “Fauves” (Wild Beasts)\

• 3 key elements:
• 1) Flattening
• 2) Simplified forms
• 3) Arbitrary, anti-naturalistic color

Cubism

• Rejection of traditional perspective.

• Instead, Cubists embrace of simultaneous
  viewpoints, and the use of collage.

• Interest in the 4th dimension and SIMULTANEITY

Post-Impressionism (Neo-Impressionism)

• push beyond loose brushstrokes and style + realism, worker’s life and such

• take loose brushstrokes to a new extreme in their own individual styles

• the political subject matter will still talk about their harsh lifestyles of the industrial age, but focuses on their inner lives, how they psychologically effect people.

• Modernity, city life.

• Big four artists: Seurat, Cezanne, Van Gogh, and Gaugin

Impressionism

• audience of the day and critics hated impressionism

• borrowing realism subject matter like laborers

• paintings were made even MORE against the Academy

• Impressionist painters considered themselves Anarchists

• Very political

Realism

• separate from realistic painting styles

• realist artists want to get to the truth/reality of life at this moment

• showing depictions of the poor, political movements, like Bruegel w/the Hunter & Peasant Wedding

• many moved from poor small towns to the city in hopes of making more money, but instead many got more poor.

• Beaux Art Academy, often referred to as The Academy becomes a school for artists to learn the “correct” way to make good paintings and what they look like. They decide which art belongs in a gallery or salon.

• Because of this, artists start adding things that go against the Academy and what good art is.

• Political in style and technique artists use.

Romanticism

• Not about romance or Rome at all

• Artists who followed this style, thought that the Enlightenment didn’t make things better for everyone, cities are now overcrowded, poor got poor-er. Unhappy with the results of Enlightenment, not all their ideas were good

• wanted to bring attention to the parts of the mind that did not have reason, dark aspects, darkness of humanity, and the human mind.

• examples: romantic literature, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

Neo-Classism

• The Enlightenment: “Age of Reason”

• finally out of the hold of Church having most of the art themes.

• Neo, New, Revival, Re-visiting

• Revival of Humanism

• Renaissance were the new ideas of classism (Greeks and Romans)

• Return of linear perspective, mastering Greek and Roman Bodies

• “Age of Reason,” the reasoning of the mind

• Big time of Scientific Discovery, importance of Knowledge, Democracy, Science, and Philosophy.

• Philosophers and Thinkers of Enlightenment begin to question religion, driving a wedge w/religion and the Church

• *Empiricism: Issac Newton → Scientific method: facts/data/observation.

  • John Locke: “Natural Rights of Man” → rights of life, liberty, and property were protected by the government

• Beyond religion → morals, civic duties for the greater good

• Problems of the world solved through reason

• Purposefully trying to be divergent from Baroque and Rococo.