Art Fundamentals

aesthetics

philosophical inquiry into the nature and expression of beauty

art criticism

explanation of current art events to the general public via the press

“fine art”

in the past, art historians limited their focus to art to paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures, and architecture produced specifically for appreciation by an audience who understood these objects as a work of art

• now art can be a visual material that has a special meaning or valued for its aesthetic appeal

• “craft”: textiles, pottery, body art, mass-produced posters/ advertisements, and ordinary household items

Michelangelo’s paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel

Purpose: meaning of art can shift over time and can be perceived differently through different approaches

1. Pope, who commissioned the work, and has background info on sophisticated theological knowledge

2. Worker, who cleaned the floors, has a lower level of literacy

Meaning of art is dependent on…

religious background, physical access to a work of art, social status, education, race, and gender

formal analysis

focused on visual qualities of the work of art itself that reveals meaning

contextual analysis

looking outside of the work of art in order to determine its meaning. Examining the context of when it was created and when it is consumed.

• Looks at cultural, social, religious, and economic context in which work was produced

• issues of patronage (not loyal to it), access, cost, and in relation to other art works

comparative study (contextual analysis)

contrasting the shift in techniques and stylistic changes and how they are an affect of each other

Direct examination vs reproduction

art historians settle with reproductions due to practical constraints such as damage or lost in time.

• when looking at a piece, they will also look for other works by the artist such as sketches, preparatory models, or completely different art pieces

participant observation

art historian will participate in the artists’ activities while observing behaviors and interactions

Pliny the Elder

analyzed historical and contemporary art in hi text Natural history (an encyclopedia of natural science that spanned thirty-seven books)

Giorgio Vasari

Gathered biographies of great Italian artists (past & present) in The Lives of the Artists

• Provided us with insight into the changing role of artists AND

• artistic genius: someone’s ability to invent and develop original ideas, express feelings beyond personal experience, and conjure artistic works that are unlike anything seen or heard before

• Emphasized rigorous study of stylistic development related to historical context

Johann Joachim Winckelmann

shifted focus to stylistic development in relation to historical context

• include diverse perspectives and a broader range of visual culture

Art of Old Stone Age (Upper Paleolithic Period)

c. 30,000 BCE | Old Stone Age or the Upper Paleolithic Period

cave paintings in Chauvet Cave

• Represents the Old Stone Age (Upper Paleolithic Period)

• paintings feature animals: horses, rhinoceroses, lions, buffalos, and mammoths

• Created with red ochre and black charcoal

cave paintings in Lascaux and Altamira

animals and human hands

Venus of Willendorf (example)

Small stone female figures with exaggerated features

• representative of the Old Stone Age

Art of the Middle Stone Age (Mesolithic Period)

climate got warmer

• rock shelter paintings emerged (animals and humans)

  • scenes where humans dominate animals

Art of the New Age (Neolithic Period)

• megaliths: large, rough-hewn stones arranged in rings or rows

  • Stonehenge (England): concentric rings of sarsen stones and bluestones.

    • "heel-stone" marks the sunrise point on the midsummer solstice.

Iconic example of megalithic architecture in the New Stone Age

stonehenge

In what conditions does art thrive?

organized cultures containing stable cities and ruling classes

• preservation in burial chambers, caves, tombs

survival of Mesopotamian art

Tigris-Euphrates valley and Egypt were vulnerable to invasion leading to the use of perishable materials have resulted in fewer surviving examples

Sumerians (Mesopotamian Art)

• created sculptures and buildings

  • ziggurats: massive stepped pyramids that served as temples and administrative centers

    • The Ziggurat of Ur

Akkadian Dynasty (Mesopotamian Art)

• Art depicted Akkadian rulers

  • emphasized loyalty to the king

Code of Hammurabi (Mesopotamian Art)

Hammurabi of Babylonia codified Babylonian law that was preserved on a stone stele with a relief sculpture

Assyrian art (Mesopotamian Art)

Relief carvings depicting battles and hunts

Neo-Babylonian Art (Mesopotamian Art)

Hanging gardens of Babylon and the Ishtar Gate

Persian Empire (Mesopotamian Art)

Well known for its architectural achievements such as the palace at Persepolis.

Ancient Egyptian Art (techniques)

c. 3000 BCE to 332 BCE

• Hierarchical scale: size of figures reflects their status

  • Palette of King Narmer (larger than any other figure)

• Fractional representation: show each body part as clearly as possible.

• Burial Customs: mummification and entombmer

  • preserved many objects and images (ex. burial mask) found in Tutankhamun’s tomb (made of gold, blue glass, and semiprecious stones)

• Sculptures: created for tombs to ensure the deceased’s spirit had a place to dewell

Focus on Egyptian funerary art showcases intricate craftsmanship and its symbolic significance to its people

Egyptian Art (preservation)

Art remained consistent for 3000 years since it was deeply tied with religious beliefs about the afterlife

Conventions:

• Pharaohs were depicted as athletic & youthful

• Figures portrayed with a composite view (combining profile and frontal aspects)

• Hieroglyphs: record the pharaoh’s reign and lineage

Nubian Art

• Still revising art history about this African civilization

• Period when Nubia ruled Egypt, and the pharaohs were Nubian

(Nubia was located south of Egypt)

Cycladic Culture (Greek and Roman Art)

3200 to 2000 BCE in the Cyclades

• Produced simplified, geometric nude female figures, decorated pottery, and marble bowls and jars

Aegean Sea, Crete, Aegean coast

Minoan Culture (Greek and Roman Art)

Peak in the second millennium BCE

• Depicted sea life (ex: statues of a female snake goddess)

• Naturalistic pictorial style in frescoes and pottery design

Developed on Crete, centered around teh city of Knossos, home of the Minotaur

Mycenaean Culture (Greek and Roman Art)

• Built elaborate tombs

• Known for gold work and relief sculpture

Centered around the city of Mycenae on the Greek mainland

Archaic Period (Ancient Greek Art)

c. 660-475 BCE

• Greeks created marble and limestone sculptures

  • influenced by Egyptian and Mesopotamian stone sculptures

• Sculptures borrowed the frontal pose from Egyptian art but more dynamic and realistic human features.

• Temples built with Doric and Ionic columns

• Vase paintings had black silhouetted figures and Corinthian styles with floral backgrounds.

Classical Period (Ancient Greek Art)

c. 475-323

• Temples built with Doric columns

• Sculptures: solemnity, strength, and simplicity, focusing on figures before or after important actions

• shift from stiff frontal postures —> life-like figures

• “contrapposto” or counter positioning: pose where weighted is shifted onto one leg

• EX: Parthenon: Ancient Greek Temple for Athena

Influenced Greek sculpture influenced Western art for thousands of years

Late Classical and Hellenistic Periods (Ancient Greek Art)

c. 323-31 BCE

• Architecture decline after Athens was defeated in the Peloponnesian War

• Corinthian columns were more popular

• Hellenistic Period took in influence from Eastern civilization

• EX: Venus de Milo and Laocoön Group

Etruscan Art (Ancient Greek Art)

• Transition from Greece ideals to the pragmatic (philosophical) ideals of Romans

• Known for tomb decorations

• Etruscan buildings constructed of brick and wood w/ ceramic models depicting temples with tiled roofs and Greek-style columns

• Sarcophagus lids, and bronze work

• Funeral celebrations consisted of dancing and playing music (seen on paintings of tomb walls)

Roman Art (Ancient Greek Art)

• By the second century BCE, Roman artworks were variations of Greek works, with idealized presentations of Roman rulers based on Greek standards.

• Utilized concrete to construct large domed buildings

• Pioneered the curved arch for bridges and aqueducts

• Created sculptures, triumphal arches, relief sculptures for funerary purposes, and portraits

• Style that idealized Roman ideals rather than naturalistic depictions

Influenced (ex): Colosseum (72-80 CE) and Pantheon (c. 126 CE)

Byzantine and Medieval Art (Ancient Greek Art)

Context: Fall of the Roman empire, evolved into separate kingdoms but main one was Byzantium

• Mosaic work, using ceramic tiles, stone, or glass

  • Christian content

• EX: Hagia Sophia (532-537 CE) in Constantinople

• EX: Book of Kells and the Coronation Gospels: illuminated manuscripts that were works of art that exchanged artistic ideas

Metalwork (Byzantine and Medieval Art)

popular among nomadic Germanic people

• Abstract, decorative, and geometric designs on jewelry and ornaments.

Vikings (Byzantine and Medieval Art)

Name the style

• used wood for artistic designs and sculptures on their ships

• merged with Anglo-Saxon England and Celtic Ireland, resulting in the Hiberno-Saxon style.

Romanesque Church

Churches were a dominant art form using Romanesque - Roman arch

• Define - Stone vaulted buildings, forming a tunnel of arches (barrel vault)

  • Massive walls, small windows supported the arches

  • Door openings decorated with carvings and relief sculptures

Gothic style

pointed arches, ribbed vaults, and flying buttresses

• EX: Chartres Cathedral

Giotto di Bondone

1267-1336/37)

• Simple perspective, overlapping, and modeling figures to create the illusion of depth

Late medieval period money

paper money was first developed (vast fortunes for families like Medici

Late medieval period artists

artists seen as intellectual figure

• access to Greek, Roman art in Italy causing the influence of Renaissance art

Lorenzo Ghiberti (1381-1455)

Won the competition with figures from classical Greece

• Comp in Florence (1401) to design the city’s new baptistery doors (important event in the beginning of the Renaissance)

Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446)

Developed linear perspective and completed the dome of the Florence Cathedral

Masaccio (1401-28)

Used linear and aerial perspective in his frescoes

Botticelli (1444-1510)

Estabished an image of female beauty with his painting The Birth of Venus

“Renaissance Man”

Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) and Michelangelo (1475–1564)

• Leonardo de Vinci was an inventor, architect, engineer, painter, sculptor, scientist, and musician

  • Mona Lisa: known for its use of sfumato (mellowed colors and blurred outline)

David (1504) and other works

Created by Michelangelo

• Made by a flawed piece of marble

• embodiment of the spirit of Florence as a republic

Depicted the ceilings of the Sistine Chapel (1508-1512)

Raphael Sanzio (1483–1520)

employed numerous assistants to cover the Pope’s official chambers with frescoes and created the School of Athens.

Renaissance in Northern Europe (compared Souther Europe)

More realistic due to the use of new oil paints

• Although Italy experienced the Renaissance, European art north of the Alps remained Gothic Style

  • Lacked Italy's cultural connection to ancient Rome

  • Not in close proximity to ancient Roman works

• Northern artists used linear perspective and colors differently

  • Artists traveled to italy to study spreading Renaissance styles

  • Trade connections between German and Venetian merchants

Matthias Grünewald (1475?–1528)

Known for religious scenes

• EX: Christ's crucifixion

• EX: Isenheim Altarpiece (c. 1510–15), consisting of nine panels.

Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528)

most famous artist of Reformation Germany.

• combined naturalistic detail with Italian theoretical ideas.

• Traveled to Italy

• Published woodcuts and copper engravings

  • EX: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (c. 1498).

Hans Holbein the Younger (1497–1543)

one of the greatest Renaissance portraitists.

• Court painter to King Henry VIII of England. Set the standard for English painting until the nineteenth century.

Baroque Art

Produced from the late sixteenth to the mid-eighteenth century

• Differed from renaissance since it had more movement and energy

• Chiaroscuro: exaggerated contrasts between light and dark, creating a theatrical lighting effect

• Appealed largely to emotions in order to appeal to faith since the political landscape shifted between wars between cities then to empires

• During this time, rulers had the right to govern bc the right was given by God (ex: Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, Peter the Great, Catherine the Great of Russia, King Louis XIV of France)

  • Caused enlightenment thinkers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau to speak out against

  • ironic since rich were those that supported the artists

Caravaggio (1571–1610)

Italian Baroque painter

• Artworks using extremes of dark and light are termed "caravaggesque."

  • Caravaggio portrayed religious figures as ordinary people in simple clothing.

Artemisia Gentileschi (1593?–1652?)

• Known for her adaptation of Caravaggio's techniques.

• Her works include self-portraits and paintings of Old Testament women.

Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598–1680)

sculptor, architect, painter, and draftsman

• EX: Ecstasy of Saint Teresa (1647-52) in the Cornaro Chapel with dramatic gold lighting

• Pushed use of marble to new limits, making stone look like real fabric and clouds

Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640)

Established a large workshop in Flanders and produced energetic and colorful works that became models for many artists.

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–69)

Dutch artist known as a painter, printmaker, and draftsman

• The Night Watch (1642): grouping members in a way that gave more attention to some than others

Louis XIV

The reign of Louis XIV in France marked a blossoming of French culture. He built the lavish palace at Versailles, which became a model for other monarchs.

The Salon

annual exhibition that established rules for judging art and influenced the art world

Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture

Established to impose aesthetic standards and principles of taste.

Diego Velázquez (1599–1660)

Court painter to King Philip IV of Spain.

• method of building figures from patches of color influenced later artists, including the Impressionists.

Rococo style

aim: celebrate gaiety, romance, and frivolity

emphasis: light-hearted decoration

colors: gold and pastel

Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684–1721) Rococo Style

Innovator of the fête galante genre, which depicted nobility enjoying leisure time in the countryside.

François Boucher (1703–70)

Favorite painter of Madame Pompadour, mistress to Louis XV. Transformed classical myths into scenes of courtly gallantry.

Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806)

promoted by Madame Pompadour and influenced by Boucher.

Neoclassicism

Revival of interest in the classical art of Greece and Rome - attempt to hearken back to the democratic ideals of the ancient world

• influenced by enlightenment philosophy

• direct challenge to Rococo style

Jacques Louis David (1748–1825)

His paintings, such as the Oath of the Horatii (1784), illustrated republican virtues.

• perfectly represented neoclassicism

• Dramatic scene from ancient times that emphasizes republican virtues and drawing inspiration from classical antiquity

Jean Dominique Ingres (1780–1867)

sharp outlines, unemotional figures, careful geometric composition, and rational order.

Romanticism

highly imaginative, exotic or melodramatic elements, took awe-inspiring natural wonders as subject matter

Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863)

• Centered on exotic themes and included foreign settings, violence involving animals, and historical subject matter.

Others: Théodore Gericault (1791–1824). William Blake (1757–1827)

Realism

(reaction to Neoclassicism and Romanticism)

• inspired by the idea that painting must illustrate all the features of its subjects, including the negative ones.

• aimed to show the lives of ordinary people as subjects as important as the historical and religious themes that dominated the art exhibitions of the day.

Gustave Courbet (1819–77)

Outraged audiences by showing ordinary workmen repairing a road at the official Salon in The Stonebreakers (1849–50), a painting that also had political implications.

• Vividly illustrates lives of ordinary laborers

Others: Honoré Daumier (1808–79), Jean François Millet (1814–75)

Impressionism

Focus on capturing everyday scenes and the effects of light and color, rather than precise detail

• rapid strokes to capture rapidly changing light

Édouard Manet (1832–83)

refferred to as the first Impressionist

• showed light by juxtaposing bright, contrasting colors, inspired and influenced the generation of artists

  • Le Déjeuner sur L’herbe (Luncheon on the Grass) (1863): caused scandal by depicting contemporary clothed men with a nude woman.

Claude Monet (1840–1926)

Impression, Sunrise (1872): Painting where the name “Impressionism” comes from

• urged artists to paint outdoors and use newly invented paints and brushes