ART HISTORY

ACADECA 2025 -2026

Aesthetics

Philosophical inquiry into the nature & expression of beauty.

Art Criticism

Explanation of current art events to the general public via the press.

What was considered "fine art" in the past?

Paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures, & architecture.

Formal Analysis

Focuses on the visual qualities of the work of art itself.

Formal qualities = "elements of art"

Contextual Analysis

Looking outside of the work of art in order to determine its meaning. Focuses on cultural, social, religious, & economic context the artwork was created.

When did the academic discipline of art history begin?

Mid-eighteenth century

Pliny the Elder

Roman historian who analyzed historical & contemporary art in Natural History.

Giorgio Vasari

Renaissance artist who wrote "The Lives of the Artists".

Johann Joachim Winckelmann

18th century Enlightenment philosopher who was a German scholar who shifted from Vasari's biographical emphasis to a study of stylistic development.

Old Stone Age (Upper Paleolithic Period)

1. Chauvet Caves in southeastern France that date from 30,000 BCE & date from 1994. Included minimal use of yellow & was created using red ochre & black charcoal. It depicts animals like horses, rhinoceros, lions, buffalos, & mammoths.

2. France & Spain -- Lascaux & Altamira. Large colored drawings with horses, bears, mammoths, bison, & lions & outlines of human hands. Use of yellow & red pigment to the black outlines.

3. Venus of Willendorf (4 & 1/8 inches high) Exaggerated bellies, breasts, & pubic areas. Facial features are undefined, arms are not visible, & feet are missing. Fertility figures?

Middle Stone Age (Mesolithic Period)

Climate warmed, meaning cave dwellers came out of their caves and used rock shelters. Rock shelter paintings demonstrate skill in the depiction of animals HOWEVER they also include human figures. Emphasis on humans dominating animals.

New Stone Age (Neolithic Period)

Stones used are 17 feet high & 50 tons in weight -- megaliths.

Stonehenge @ Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England. Features concentric rings of Larsen and small 'bluestones' rocks indigenous to the region. Outermost ring is comprised of huge Larsen stones in post & lintel construction. Next ring is composed of bluestone. Outside the formation is the vertically place heel-stone which marks the point at which the sun rises on the midsummer solstice.

Sumerians

Religion was the central aspect go Sumerian life. Built massive temples @ center of cities - Ziggurats.

Akkadians

Sargon of Akkad conquered Sumer. Even though the Akkadians spoke a different language, they assimilated Sumerian culture. Loyalty to the city-state was crucial & art reflects an emphasis on monarchy. Akkadian leaders depicted in freestanding and relief sculptures.

Akkadian rule came to an end with the Guti barbarous mountaineers.

Neo-Sumerians

Established the King of Ur. Ziggurats functioned primary as temples and administrative and economic centers.

Babylonians

Hammurabi centralized power. Code of Hammurabi is the oldest legal code known & is preserved in the Lourve Museum on a stone stele. Receiving inspiration from the sun-god, Shamash.

Assyrians

Dominated the North. Relief carvings depicting battles, sieges, hunts & other important events.

Neo-Babylonian

Hanging Gardens & gateway to the great ziggurat go the temple of Bel, called the Ishtar Gates. This is considered one of the greatest works on architecture in which figures (animals) are superimposed on a walled surface.

Persian Art

Palace of Persepolis - stone, brick, wood shows influence of Egyptian art.

Hierarchical Scale

Uses status of figures or objects to determine their relative sizes within an artwork.

Palette of King Narmer

Exemplifies hierarchical scale & is from the Old Kingdom. Slab of stone may have been used as a ceremonial palette for mixing cosmetics. He is shown as larger than other figures. Narmer is holding the hair of a fallen enemy with his arm raised to deliver a deathblow.

Fractional Representation

Figures presented so that each part of the body is shown as clearly as possible.

Cycladic Culture

Flourished in the Cyclades, a group of islands in the Aegean. Simplified geometric nude female figures. Decorated pottery, marble bowls & jars.

Minoan Culture

Centered around the city of Knossos on Crete with the legend of the Minotaur, who was half man half bull. Art depicts sea life and includes static's of female snake goddesses. Frescoes painted on palace walls & pottery design. Built four major palaces.

Mycenaean Culture

Centered around the city of Mycenae on the Greek mainland. Built elaborate tombs and their burial practices allowed for a large number of objects to be preserved. Objects made of gold. Skill in relief sculptures.

Contrapposto

Counter positioning - shows the body to its best advantage. Standing figure is posed with its weight shifted onto one leg for a more relaxed, naturalistic appearance.

Hellenstic Period

Influence of Eastern Civilizations & Greek styles with Asia Minor.

Venus de Milo & Laocoon Group which present the ideals of beauty.

Etruscan Art

Tomb decoration & sarcophagus lid. Only paintings that remain are those found on the walls & ceilings of tombs, done in bright, flat colors showing figures play music and dance.

Roman Art

Developed the equivalent of concrete.

Pioneered the arch - bridges & aqueducts.

Colosseum & Pantheon

Relief sculptures of Roman emperors or for funeral purposes.

Byzantine Art

Mosaic Work -- churches of Ravenna. Hagia Sophia built in Constantinople.

Books that exchanged artistic ideas

Book of Kells & Coronation Gospels

Vikings

Wood

Hiberno-Saxon

Germanic People

Metalwork

Barrel Vault

Tunnel of arches

Vault

Arch-shaped structures that is used as a ceiling or as a support of arches.

Gothic Style

Pointed arches

Ribbed Vaults

Flying Buttresses

Stained Glass

-Chartres Cathedral in France

Giotto di Bondone

Connection of Gothic & Renaissance. From Florence and is known for his frescos. Use of simple perspective. Gave figures powerful gestures & emotional gestures.

Lorenzo Ghiberti

Winner of the competition held in Florence for the design of doors of the new baptistery.

Depicted the sacrifice of Issac

Asked to make a second set of doors -- known as the "Gates of Paradise"(Michelangelo)

Filippo Brunelleschi

Lost to Ghiberti -- focused on architecture. Developed a double-shelled dome and linear (single vanishing point) perspective.

Masaccio

Put Brunelleschi's theory into practice as he used both linear & aerial perspective in his frescoes.

Donatello

Founder of modern sculpture. Bronze David is the first freestanding nine status to have been cast since antiquity.

Botticelli

The Birth of Venus -- established an image of female beauty. One of the first paintings of a full-length nude female since antiquity.

High Renaissance Artists

Leonardo da Vinci & Michelangelo & Raphael Sanizo

Leonardo da Vinci

Inventor -- designs of looks that control movements along canal

Submarines, helicopters

The Last Supper

Mona Lisa

Sfumato

Sfumato

Italian word, fumo meaning smoke.

Allows forms to blend subtly into one another without perceptible transitions.

Michelangelo di Buonarotti

David

Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to design his tomb -- Moses, The Dying Slave, the Bound Slave.

Took 4 years to do the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel

Raphael Sanzio

Also commissioned by Pope Julius II. He was not a loner and employed numerous assistants.

School of Athens

Madonna - Sistine Madonna created an image of the Virgin Mary that has endured in religious paintings.

Giorgione

Venice - innovations in the subject matter of landscapes as he painted scenes not taken from the Bible.

The Tempest - the landscape was the subject matter and the figures are less important than the storm that threatens them.

Titian Vecelli

Venetian painter. Portraits of patrons and is the greatest colorist of the Renaissance artists. Innovative portraitists. Used various elements of setting (column & curtain) as backdrop of his portraits instead of atmospheric neutral backgrounds.

Tintoretto

Venetian painter -- MANNERISM. Presented figures from dramatic angles. Used chiaroscuro. Work marked by spiritual subject matter & sharp perspective.

Mannerism

Late sixteenth century and is characterized by the distortion of certain elements, like perspective or scale.

Use of acidic colors and twisted positioning of their subjects.

Chiaroscuro

Exaggerated contrasts between light & dark to create a theatrical kind of lighting

Dominikos Theotokopoulos (El Greco)

Closely associated with Counter-Reformation. Influenced by Tintoretto's paintings and worked in Titans workshop. Left Italy for Toledo, Spain. Mannerist Painter. Dramatic use of elongated figures captures the religious fervor of the Counter-Reformation.

El Greco & Tintoretto

Bridging the end of Renaissance & beginning of Baroque Era.

Matthias Grunewald

Only 10 works have survived. Known for his religious scenes and depiction of Christ's crucifixion.

Isenheim Altarpiece is a work consisting of 9 panels mounted on two sets of folding wings.

Albrecht Durer

Work began achieve naturalistic detail favored by artists and theoretical ideas. He wrote about theories and published series of woodcuts and copper engravings -- The Four Horseman and the Apocalypse.

Hans Holbein the Younger

One of the greatest Renaissance portraitists. He became the court painter for King Henry VIII of England. Known for capturing the psychological character of his subjects. His work became a mode and standard for English painting up through the 19th century.

Baroque

Late 16th century to mid 18th century.

Less static than the Renaissance -- greater sense of movement and energy. Made use of chiaroscuro

Baroque Painters

1. Caravaggio

2. Artemisia Gentileschi

3. Gianlorenzo Bernini

4. Peter Paul Rubens

5. Rembrandt van Rijn

Caravaggio

Italian Baroque artist known for use of light & dark.

"Caravaggesque" - art using extreme light & dark.

Provocative use of naturalism. Portrayed the Virgin Mary and the apostles not as none figures in classical garb but rather as poor and simple folk. Used lower class individuals as models for his work

Artemisia Gentileschi

Baroque - daughter of a painter & had the opportunities to study in Father's studio. Known for her adaptation of Caravaggio techniques. Work includes self portraits and paintings of Old Testament Women.

Gianlorenzo Bernini

Ecstasy of Saint Teresa into the altar of the Cornaro Chapel. Pushed the use of marble in new directions and tried to make stone look like real fabric and even clouds.

Peter Paul Rubens

In Flanders -- established a huge workshop and produced works of great energy and color.

Rembrand van Rijn

Dutch artist. Painter & Printmaker

The Night Watch

Sortie of Captain Banning Cocq's Company of the Civic Guard

Grouped members in a way that gave more attention to a certain members more than others.

Orangerie

Greenhouse

What was established under Louis XIV?

Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture

"Academy"

Diego Velázquez

Spanish court painter of King Philip IV of Spain.

Building his figures from patches of color, rather than from a drawing.

Influenced Impressionism.

Rococo

Celebrations of gaiety, romance, & frivolity of the grand life at court (Versailles).

Rococo Artists

1. Jean-Antoine Watteau

2. Francois Boucher

3. Jean-Honoré Fragonard

Jean-Antoine Watteau

Paintings called fete gallant -- depicted members of the nobility in elegant contemporary dress enjoying leisure time in the countryside.

Francois Boucher

Favorite painter of Madame Pompadour, mistress of Louis XV. His work is transformed the characters of classical myths into scenes of courtly gallantry -- emphasis on nubile nudes.

Jean-Honore Fragonard

Also promoted by Madame Pompadour. Studied with Boucher and his work is influenced by him.

Neoclassicism

In an attempt to harken back to democratic ideals of the ancient world, art in this period demonstrated a revival of interests in the art of classical Greece and Rome. It emerged in the decades leading up to the revolution and was influenced by the Enlightenment. Direct challenge to the Rococo and its association with the aristocracy.

Neoclassical Artists

1. Jacques Louis David

2. Jean Dominique Ingres

Jacques Louis David

Oath of the Horatii - illustrated republican virtues/ He became a dedicated paint to Napoleon Bonaparte.

Jean Dominique Ingres

David's pupils. Shows sharp outlines, unemotional figures, careful geometric composition, & rational order.

Romanticism

Hearkened back to the emotional emphasis on the Baroque and had similar characteristics though the subject matter was different. Highly imaginative, emotion, and dreamlike quality. Favor feeling over reasons. Exotic and melodramatic elements and often took awe-inspiring natural wonders as their subject matters.

Romantic Artist

1. Eugene Delacroix

2. Theodore Gericault

3. William Blake

Gustave Courbet

Realist. The Stonebreakers

Realist Artist

1. Gustave Courbet

2. Honoré Daumier

3. Jean Francois Millet

Impressionism

Grew out go dissatisfaction with rigid rules that had come to dominate the Salons.

Impressionist Artists

1. Édouard Manet

2. Claude Monet

3. Camille Pissarro

4. Alfred Sisley

Claude Monet

Impression, Sunrise. Urged fellow artists to work outside -- made easier through the invention that made painting more portable. Impressionist artist put their colors directly on the canvas with rapid strokes to capture the rapidly changing light.

Édouard Manet

First impressionist. His work showed the juxtaposition of light that is bight, with contrasting colors.

Le Dejéuner sur D'herbe (Luncheon on the Grass). Salon did not like this.

Paul Cezanne

Post-Impressionism. He wanted to redefine art in the terms of form. Had an influence on Cubism.

Post Impressionist

Ongoing search for more and more brilliant color.

Georges Seurat

Emphasized scientific rules of color. Applied his colors in small dots of complementary colors that blended in the eye of the viewer in optical mixing.

Paul Gaugin

Left his wife and family pursue his art career instead of being a stockbroker. He went to Tahiti.

Edgar Degas

Impressionist who combined the snapshot style of photography with a Japanese-like perspective from slightly above his subject.

Pre-Raphaelites

English artists who were dissatisfied with the effects of the Industrial Revolution. Made quasi-religious works that blended Romantic, archaic, and moralistic elements. Emphasized nature paved way for Art Nouveau.

Art Nouveau

A style of decoration, architecture, and design that was characterized by the depiction of leaves and flowers in flowing, sinuous lines.

Henri Matisse

Fauves, or wild beasts. They used arbitrary color and no longer believe color needed to replicate color seen in the real world.

Cubism

Picasso & Braque. Influenced by African art. Favored abstract over lifelike figures. Popular in the late 19th century and early 20th century.

Die Brucke

Ernest Ludwig Kirchner

Emil Nolde

German group that emphasized emotional responses to art. Took Fauvists and combined them with Edvard Munch Expressionism.

Der Blaue Reiter

Expressionist group in Germany. Led by Russia artist Vasily Kandinsky who started to paint with total abstraction.

Other pioneers of abstraction

Kazimir Malevich

Piet Mondrain -- De Stijl canvases consisted of flat fields of primary color.

Armory Show

Arranged by the Barnes Foundation was the first major showing of modern art in America.

1. Marcel Duchamps "Nude Descending a Staircase"

2. Picasso's "Les Demoiselles d' Avignon"

3. Brancusi's "The Kiss"

4. Kandinsky's nonobjective drawings.

Harlem Renaissance

Jacob Lawrence

Romare Bearden

Dada

After WWI @ Zurich. Protest everything in society.

1. Marcel Duchamp -- Mustache on Mona Lisa -- LHOOQ

Porcelain urinal called Fountain.

Bull's Head

Pablo Picasso ready-made. Used bike handlebars.