Art History-part 2

Northern Renaissance vs. Italian Renaissance

Northern= “external exactness,” natural, less focus on humans, more focus on landscape, nature, portraiture, symbolism

Italian= “compositional harmony,” human ideals, showing divine

International Gothic style (1300-mid1400s)

influenced North due to attention to detail in everyday life

Jan Van Eyke (1309-1441)

-First to use oil painting

-Shows how an artist in the North is a “recorder” instead of a “divine” like Michelangelo

Key work

Van Eyck, The Arnolfini Portrait, 1434

• shows off wealth through clothes, furniture, and dog

• Symbols: One candle=light of God, Orange=Garden of Eden, convex mirror=all seeing eye of God

• Artist signature placed in the photo above the mirror=recorder/was there

Key work

Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights, c. 1500

• Triptych (three panels): past/creation, present (life on Earth), future (hell)

Key work

Bruegel, Netherlandish Proverbs, 1559

• Peasant life

• Human flaws

• Proverbs=sayings/lessons, exp. “make ends meet”

Icon vs. Symbol

Icon: looks exactly like what it represents, exp: camera icon on phone

Symbol: Don’t look like what it represents, exp: light=God

Hieronymus Bosch

Strange art focussing on human sin

Protestant Reformation (1517)

Martin Luther creates faith based on the text of the Bible. He was frustrated with Catholicism.

The North took on this religion.

Iconoclasm

Churches become white washed to put less focus on images

Portrait

picture of “sitter” (individual) that record specific features of that person

Evolution of profiles in portraiture

1. side profile to better show features

2. ¾ view for men: relationship between sitter and view is formed.

3. ¾ view for women (Mona Lisa is the first!)

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519)

• “Renaissance man”

• Engineer, inventor, musical

Key work

Leonardo, Mona Lisa, 1503

• First portrait not showing off wealth, but instead personality

• Smile=captured moment in time

• painted at dusk=mood, harmony with her and background

• Sfumato=softened features to capture more realistic look

Baroque (1600-1700)

• Barocco= irregular pearl=curvy buildings

• First style to spread globally (Italy>Europe>world)

• Counter-reformation: Southern Italy keeping Protestant ideas from the north out by using magnificent art to show catholic images

Rembrandt

• Manipulates art market and becomes a highly skilled portrait painter

• Highlights sitter’s sense of identity, social conventions, and painter’s perception of identity

• Invented group portraiture

• Carved with paint

Key work

Rembrandt, Portrait of Nicolaes Ruts, 1631

• Fur trader

• Highlights naturalism of fur and hair

• Shadows help animate

• Show tired/worried face

key work

Rembrandt, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, 1632

Caravaggio (1571-1610)

• Unusual, troubled, angry

• Tells biblical stories in a dramatic way

Chiaroscuro

arrangement of light and shadows in a dramatic way

key work

Caravaggio, The Calling of St Matthew, c. 1599

• Jesus calling sinner, tax collector, Matthew

• Chiaroscuro

• Pregnant moment: Moment before Mathew sees Jesus

• Radical naturalism: dirty building, real bar, no ideals, figures are not symmetrical

Pregnant moment

moment right before the action actually occurs

Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598-1680)

• Interested in theater/drama

• Stage designer

• Adds drama to classical antiquity style

• Goes to France to work with Louis XIV (doesn’t get along)

key work

Bernini, David, 1623

• shows action/pregnant moment wight before throwing stone

• meant to walk around/interact with: breaking the 4th wall!

• easy to imagine scene where Goliath standing behind him

kew work

Bernini, The Ecstasy of St. Teresa, Cornaro Chapel, Rome, c. 1650

• Angel comes to saint

• plays with lighting to animate scene

• Illusionism of no ceiling=heaven

• Art around helps tell story/how to interact

• Break fourth wall

Absolutism

Government with sovereignty

Louis XIV (1643-1715)

• France

• Great patron of the arts

• Used art as propaganda to communicate his power

• starts the baroque in France

Baroque in France

• massive, luxurious

• in favor of classical antiquity (repetition, regularity)

• Rejects extreme emotion and naturalism

Key work

French, The Palace of Versailles, begun 1661

• Louis XIV moves court outside of Paris

• Displays his control over the court, nature, people of France

• Meant to surprise and overwhelm

Wall of mirrors/ inside of Palace

• very advanced for the time

• Meant to be huge

• Not a lot of furniture, more for display then living

• Kings bedroom=public

Enfilade

Series of open doors to show off a big space

Gardens

• huge/artificial

• Irrigation engineering

• exotic animals

Charles Le Brun

convinces Louis to make an art academy, but art has to promote the king (art=text)

Key work

Nicolas Poussin, The Holy Family on the Steps, 1648

• Shows intellectual parts of painting

• Lines over color

• painting as text

Desegno

Line/drawing vs. color

• Line=intelligent and tells story

• color: works with sense to help with reasoning, empiricism, persuasion

Rococo (17th-18th century)

• Birth of modern ideas: furniture designed for comfort, rooms have meanings/impact how we behave

• Intellectual revolution

• Quarrel of the ancients and moderns: Antiquity isn’t the major idea because we can use experiments to prove things

• Reason and empiricism

• Louis XIV dies: no more King’s watchful eye + court moves back to Paris

• Art exceeds bizarre design: curves, asymmetrical, luxury materials

Fete galante

Color over line to promote visual pleasure

Antoine Watteau (1684-1721)

• Promotes fete galante in academy

Key work

Antoine Watteau, The Embarkation for Cythera, 1717

• meant to scan canvas

• there is no real. meaning

• color is meant to enjoy

key work

Antoine Watteau, Gersaint’s Signboard, 1720-1721

• painting=material objects

• put Louis to rest

• consumer culture

key work

Jean-Honoré Fragonard, The Swing, 1767

The Swing reflects libertine attitudes because it celebrates secret romantic encounters, pleasure, and sexual flirtation rather than traditional moral restraint.

Libertine

A person who rejects traditional religious beliefs or lives without moral restraints, especially regarding sexual behavior.