Art History Flashcards
INTRODUCTION TO ART HISTORY
Art history is an academic discipline focused on understanding the social, cultural, and economic contexts of artwork creation.
It aims to understand art and its meaning within its historical moment.
Considers formal qualities, original function, artist/patron intentions, audience perspectives, and related questions.
Closely related to anthropology, history, and sociology.
Overlaps with aesthetics (philosophical inquiry into beauty) and art criticism (explaining current art to the public).
This introduction helps understand questions to deepen the understanding of art.
Methods and Inquiries of Art History
Art is broadly defined as visual material created by people with special meaning or aesthetic value.
Historically, focus was on "fine art" (paintings, prints, drawings, sculpture, architecture) for appreciation by a knowledgeable audience.
Today, includes "craft" (textiles, pottery, body art) and objects not intended as art (posters, advertisements, household items).
Meaning of art shifts over time and varies by viewer perspective.
Example: Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel paintings had different significance to the Pope (commissioner, theological knowledge, exclusive access) and a chapel cleaner (low literacy).
Factors influencing meaning: social status, education, access, religion, race, gender.
Meaning for a 21st-century Protestant, Muslim, or atheist differs from a 16th-century Catholic, despite aesthetic appreciation.
Meaning is not fixed; open to interpretations based on historical context.
The Nature of Art Historical Inquiry
Art historians analyze art through formal and contextual analysis.
Formal analysis:
Focuses on visual qualities of the artwork itself.
Assumes artist decisions reveal meaning intrinsic to the work.
Requires observation and description skills.
Begins study with the object itself.
Contextual analysis:
Looks outside the artwork to determine meaning.
Examines creation and consumption contexts.
Focuses on cultural, social, religious, and economic contexts.
Considers patronage, viewer access, physical location, cost, subject matter in relation to other works.
Art history emphasizes chronological development, assuming generational impact within a culture.
Comparative study (e.g., Gothic vs. Renaissance) clarifies unique features and stylistic changes.
Connects changes to historical context.
Provides information and insights that add background to the meaning and significance of works of art.
Places works in their cultural and historical context, connecting them to the long history of events that has led up to our present culture.
Sources, Documents, and the Work of Art Historians
Analysis begins with close examination of the artwork; direct examination is ideal.
Reproductions lose scale, three-dimensionality (sculpture), texture, and subtle color transitions (paintings).
Practical constraints often necessitate studying from reproductions.
Art historians analyze associated studies (sketches, models) and works by the artist and contemporaries.
Written sources (archives, libraries) provide contextual information.
Archival sources: letters between artist and patron, commission documents, contemporary art criticism.
Documentation about materials (cost, source) and artwork function (ritual practice).
Situating the work in the context of literature, music, theater, and history of the time period.
Interviews with artists and consumers, especially in oral history cultures.
Participant observation (guided by anthropology) to understand context (e.g., masquerade traditions in West Africa).
The Development of Art History
Art history as a discipline arose in the mid-18th century.
Earlier writers provided commentary on art.
Pliny the Elder (23–79 CE) analyzed historical and contemporary art in Natural History.
Giorgio Vasari (1511–74) compiled biographies of Italian artists in The Lives of the Artists, offering insights into changing artist roles and the concept of artistic genius.
Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–68) shifted from biographical emphasis to stylistic development related to historical context, influenced by Enlightenment philosophy.
19th and 20th-century art historians emphasized the interrelationship between formal qualities and context.
Histories reflect individual stories and biases.
Feminist historians revised art history, noting focus on white men as artists/patrons.
Art history expanded scope: broader, international, multicultural, inclusive, using Marxist, feminist, psychoanalytic methods.
Lessened concern with artistic geniuses and masterpieces.
Consideration of "visual culture": advertisements, film, photography, television.
BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THE ART OF THE WESTERN WORLD
Provides a basic understanding of important art historical periods as they developed chronologically.
Covers key artistic innovations over time, providing examples of artists and works in their historical contexts.
Sets the stage for an in-depth discussion of a case study focusing on the art of the Jazz Age.
Encourages exploration of other works from each of the periods discussed, beginning your own exploration of these works in their historical contexts.
Much of what we know of the earliest life on earth has been revealed through a study of the objects or artifacts that remain from early cultures.
Objects that remain are those made of enduring materials such as stone, metal, or fired clay, as opposed to those made of perishable materials like wood or fibers.
Environmental conditions also have a major impact on preservation.
The hot dry climate of the desert in Egypt, for example, enabled the preservation of even delicate materials like papyrus, and the sealed atmosphere of Egyptian caves and tombs likewise helped to preserve the objects contained within them for our wonder and enjoyment centuries later.
In contrast, the humid climate of West Africa means that objects made of perishable materials have had little chance of survival over the course of decades, not to mention centuries.
This is one reason that the history of art as a discipline has placed greater emphasis on Western cultures, often neglecting to focus on developments in Nonwestern cultures.
It is important to recognize that the civilizations that are most often studied in art history courses are not necessarily those where the most or the best art was made.
Rather, they are the civilizations whose art has been preserved and whose art has been discovered.
There are, for example, many sites of important civilizations in Central and South America that though known, remain yet unexplored.
Too often the story at these sites has been one of exploitation and destruction, as people carelessly take artifacts to sell them on the international market in antiquities.
Ancient Civilizations
Art of the Old Stone Age
Chauvet Cave paintings (southeastern France) are the oldest considered, dating from c. 30,000 BCE (Old Stone Age/Upper Paleolithic Period).
Estimated dates are contested and revised as new information arises.
Paintings/engravings used red ochre and black charcoal; depict horses, rhinoceroses, lions, buffalos, and mammoths.
Additional cave paintings discovered in France and Spain (Lascaux, Altamira).
Form: large colored drawings of animals (horses, bears, lions, bison, mammoths), outlines of human hands.
Earlier scholarship dismissed them as primitive scribbling, but further study revealed skilled artists/established tradition.
Artists used red/yellow ochre pigments and charcoal outlines.
Possible function: hunting ceremonies or ritual behaviors.
Small stone female figures with exaggerated bellies, breasts, and pubic areas.
Venus (Woman) of Willendorf (c. 28,000–25,000 BCE): 4 1/8 inches high.
Undefined facial features, barely visible arms, missing feet.
Scholars consider them fertility figures, but usage is unknown.
Art of the Middle Stone Age
Climate warmed during the Middle Stone Age (Mesolithic Period).
Culture produced art similar to Paleolithic cave paintings.
Cave dwellers moved to rock shelters due to warming temperatures.
Rock shelter paintings discovered in eastern Spain, dating from around 7000 BCE until 4000 BCE.
Rock shelter paintings demonstrate skill in depicting animal figures.
Rock shelter paintings differ from cave paintings in their depiction of the human figure.
Cave paintings (except for one at Lascaux) lacked human figures.
Rock shelter paintings portray human beings alone and in groups, emphasizing scenes where humans dominate animals.
Art of the New Stone Age
Art forms linked with the New Stone Age (Neolithic Period) are rings/rows of rough stones in Western Europe (dated as early as 4000 BCE).
Stones were exceedingly large (up to 17 feet high, 50 tons).
Called megaliths (great stones), culture termed megalithic.
Stonehenge (Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, England): most well-known rock arrangement.
Built in phases around 2100 BCE.
Features concentric rings of sarsen (sandstone) stones and smaller bluestones (indigenous to the region).
Outermost ring: huge sarsen stones in post and lintel construction (two upright pieces topped with a crosspiece, or lintel).
Next ring: bluestones encircling a horseshoe-shaped row of five lintel-topped sarsen stones (largest ones, weighing up to 50 tons).
Vertically placed "heel-stone" outside the formation to the northeast.
From the center, the heel-stone marks the point at which the sun rises on the midsummer solstice.
Art and civilizations considered next thrived in organized cultures with stable populations (great cities).
Ruling classes supported artists.
Tradition of protecting art in largely inaccessible locations (burial chambers, caves, tombs).
Ancient Mesopotamian Art
Civilizations in Mesopotamia (Tigris and Euphrates valley) developed writing and arts parallel with Egypt.
Mesopotamia lacked natural barriers, leading to successive conquests and destruction.
Use of perishable materials resulted in fewer art examples.
Sumerians (from around 4000 BCE) created impressive sculptures and buildings.
Religion was central; built massive temples (ziggurats) at city centers.
Around 2334 BCE, Sargon of Akkad ruled Sumer; assimilated Sumerian culture.
Shift from city-state loyalty to loyalty to the king; art emphasized monarchy.
Around 2150 BCE, Akkadian rule ended with the Guti invasion.
50 years later, Sumer reasserted control; Neo-Sumerian ruler established as King of Ur.
Greatest works: ziggurats served as temples and administrative/economic centers.
Babylonians: Hammurabi (c. 1792 BCE) centralized power.
Code of Hammurabi: oldest legal code known in its entirety.
Stone stele with Hammurabi's code carved; sculpture depicts Hammurabi receiving inspiration from sun-god Shamash.
Assyrians dominated northern Mesopotamia from about 900 BCE to around 600 BCE.
Notable relief carvings depict battles, sieges, hunts, and important events.
Neo-Babylonian period (c. 612–538 BCE): Babylonia became dominant again.
Famous hanging gardens of Babylon constructed.
Ishtar Gate: gateway to the ziggurat of the temple of Bel, with animal superimposed on a walled surface.
Persian Art
Persian Empire (c. 538 BCE–330 BCE) in present-day Iran.
Impressive architecture, most important was the palace at Persepolis of stone, brick, and wood, reflecting Egyptian influence.
Ancient Egyptian Art
Ancient Egyptian civilization (c. 3000 BCE–332 BCE, Alexander the Great's conquest).
Monuments: Sphinx, pyramids at Giza, statues of Pharaohs, portrait head of Queen Nefertiti.
Egyptian art emphasizes hierarchical scale: figure status determines relative sizes within an artwork.
Palette of King Narmer (Old Kingdom): ceremonial cosmetic palette; King Narmer depicted centrally, larger than other figures.
Narmer holding hair of fallen enemy, preparing deathblow; defeated enemies in lowest section.
Organization, sizes, and poses recurred in ancient Egyptian art.
Figures presented with each body part shown clearly (fractional representation).
Head in profile with eye in frontal view, torso in full frontal view, lower body/legs/feet in profile.
Style endured for centuries.
Excellent preservation conditions in Egypt.
Burial customs (mummification, lavish furnishings, symbolic servants, jewelry) resulted in rich object stores.
Tutankhamun's tomb (boy king) remained intact until 1922.
Excavators found a treasure-trove of objects, including Tutankhamun's burial mask.
Made of gold, decorated with blue glass and semiprecious stones; idealized portrait of the young king.
Nubian Art
Kingdom of Nubia south of Egypt.
Contemporary historians are revising art history to include Nubian art.
Nubia ruled Egypt for a period; Pharaohs of that era were Nubian.
Few collections feature Nubian works, but this may change as the story of art continues to be revised.
Greek and Roman Art
Cycladic, Minoan, and Mycenaean Art
Aegean island cultures were important precursors of the Greeks in art production.
Cycladic culture (c. 3200–2000 BCE) in the Cyclades islands.
Simplified, geometric nude female figures appeal to modern sensibilities.
Produced decorated pottery, marble bowls, and jars.
Minoan culture (island of Crete): pinnacle in the second millennium BCE.
City of Knossos: legend of the Minotaur (half-man, half-bull) and his maze.
Maze was the royal palace, a sprawling complex.
Art depicts sea life, statues of female snake goddess, naturalistic pictorial style.
Paintings: frescoes on palace walls and pottery designs.
Architecture: four major, unfortified palaces in a light, flexible, and organic style.
Collapse of Minoan civilization coincided with the pinnacle of Mycenaean culture.
Mycenaean culture (city of Mycenae on Greek mainland).
Elaborate tombs, burial practices allowed for object preservation.
Gold objects show mastery in goldsmithing; demonstrated skill in relief sculpture.
Ancient Greek Art
Archaic Period (c. 660–475 BCE): influenced by Egyptian and Mesopotamian stone sculptures.
Created sculptures carved in marble and limestone, used frontal poses, more dynamic and realistic human features.
Temples built with early Doric and Ionic decorative styles.
Vase painting: black silhouetted figures, Corinthian style (figures against floral background), Athenian-style (black figures, linear, larger scale), red-figure vases.
Classical Period (city-state of Athens): best-known ancient Greek art.
Early Classical Period: temples with sturdy Doric columns.
Sculpture: solemnity, strength, simplicity of form; focused on moment before/after important action.
Significant advances in sculptural techniques; abandoned stiff frontal postures for complex, life-like figures.
Greek statuary evolved from stiff, frontal presentation to increasingly natural-looking figures.
Contrapposto (counter positioning): standing figure with weight shifted onto one leg, for a relaxed, naturalistic appearance.
Greek sculpture set the model for thousands of years in Western art.
Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassical artists aspired to equal the perfection displayed by surviving Greek statues.
Middle Classical Period: important advances in architecture.
Parthenon (restored in 447 BCE) is one of the most admired works of all ages.
Use of columns as exemplified in the Parthenon has been a principal feature of Western architecture for more than two thousand years.
Late Classical Period: architecture declined as Athens was defeated in the Peloponnesian War.
Temples still built using simple Doric columns, but more decorative Corinthian columns became popular.
Hellenistic Period: increasing influence from Eastern civilizations as Greek styles blended with those of Asia Minor.
Notable: Venus de Milo and Laocoön Group, designed to present ideals of beauty.
Etruscan Art
Transitional phase from Greek ideals to Roman pragmatism.
Etruscan civilization (present-day Italy) arose in the first millennium BCE.
Known largely from the arts of tomb decoration.
Etruscan buildings were constructed of brick and wood.
Ceramic models depict temples with tiled, gabled roofs supported by columns in the fashion of the Greeks.
Extant: sarcophagus lids, baked clay, bronze work.
Paintings on tomb walls and ceilings: bright, flat colors, figures playing music and dancing as part of funeral celebrations.
Roman Art
Story of Rome: conquest and empire building.
Early Roman art reflected Etruscan influence.
2nd century BCE: Roman sculptures and artworks were variations of Greek works, standards for idealized presentations of Roman rulers were based on those of the Greeks.
Pioneering advancements in architecture and engineering.
Discovery of the equivalent of modern concrete was a major contribution to architecture, as it enabled Roman builders to fill the spaces between their stone walls with rocks and rubble bound together by the concrete mixture.
Use of the curved arch to build bridges and aqueducts.
Structures were part of a paved road system.
The Colosseum (72–80 CE) and the Pantheon (c. 126–128 CE) remain as monuments to the engineering genius of the Romans.
Colossal triumphal arches: relief sculptures portraying Roman emperors/military victories.
Relief sculptures for funerary purposes (tombs and sarcophagi).
Narrative subject matter.
Sculpted portraits (busts to huge statues).
Republic: members of funerals carried small carved images of the deceased family member.
Later: statues in memory of great statesmen erected in public areas.
Funerary sculptures and public statues did not present naturalistic depictions of their subjects but favored an idealistic style that highlighted Roman ideals.
It had a tremendous influence on the art of the Middle Ages, but also had a notable impact on the art of the Renaissance and much of the art that followed.
Byzantine and Medieval Art
Fall of Roman Empire: connections disintegrated; what was once a vast empire evolved into separate and often warring kingdoms.
Even as the empire collapsed in Western Europe, it continued in Byzantium.
Mosaic work in which small ceramic tiles, pieces of stone, or glass were set into a ground material to create large murals.
It can best be studied in the glimmering, shining walls of the great churches of Ravenna.
Hagia Sophia (532–537 CE), built in Constantinople, is considered one of the greatest architectural achievements in history.
During these times, the majority of the population was illiterate; formal education was largely limited to the noble class and the clergy.
The international language was Latin, and books were hand copied on vellum or parchment.
The preservation and production of books was largely confined to monasteries, where the monks spent time copying and illustrating the books in their collections, which were so valuable that they were chained to the tables where they were read.
These illuminated manuscripts were remarkable works of art and helped facilitate the exchange of artistic ideas between northern and southern Europe.
Notable from the early medieval period (c. 375–1025) is the art of nomadic Germanic peoples, particularly their metalwork.
The metal arts of this time period were abstract, decorative, and geometric and often took the form of small-scale, portable jewelry or ornaments made of bronze, silver, or gold and covered with patterns of jewels.
Artifacts from this era also exist from the seafaring culture of the Vikings in Scandinavia.
While metalwork was popular with the Germanic peoples, wood was the most important medium to the Vikings, who carved artistic designs and sculptures on their wooden ships.
Due to Viking invasions, the artistic styles of the Vikings eventually merged with those found in Anglo-Saxon England and Celtic Ireland. The style is often termed Hiberno-Saxon.
Every city, town, and village had a church at its center, and the largest of these are masterpieces of art that often took more than a century to complete.
The earliest churches of this period used a Roman arch as the basis of their design, and so the style used is called Romanesque.
Romanesque churches were stone vaulted buildings that often replaced earlier churches that had highly flammable wooden roofs.
Romanesque churches are usually formed of a tunnel of arches called a barrel vault.
A vault is an arch-shaped structure that is used as a ceiling or as a support to a roof.
Massive walls had to be built to support the heavy stone arches of the Romanesque style.
Consequently, window and door openings were usually kept quite small and were often decorated with carvings and relief sculpture.
The Gothic style developed in the first half of the twelfth century and remained popular into the sixteenth century.
One characteristic of the Gothic style was the use of pointed arches, which gave an upward, soaring sense to Gothic interiors.
Another important element of the Gothic style was the addition of ribbed vaults, a framework of thin stone ribs or arches built under the intersection of the vaulted sections of the ceiling.
Architects learned that the downward and outward pressure created by the arches of the barrel vault could be counteracted by the use of flying buttresses—additional bracing material and arches placed on the exterior of the building.
This advance allowed for larger windows, many of which were filled with beautiful stained glass, and higher ceilings.
Effect: tall arches and brightly colored light from stained-glass windows directs attention heavenward.
The Renaissance Southern Europe
History is much more complicated and subtle.
The styles from this period cannot be neatly identified as either Gothic or Renaissance, but rather involve a mix of the two.
The artist most often mentioned in connection with this transitional time period is a Florentine named Giotto di Bondone (1267–1336/37), who is best known for his frescoes.
Use of a simple perspective, achieved in large part by overlapping and modeling his figures in the round.
This technique created the illusion of a stage for his figures, giving the viewer a sense of looking into the event.
Gave his figures powerful gestures and emotional expressions.
His artistic innovations must have had quite an impact on viewers at the time, who were accustomed to the flat, unexpressive, and stylized figures of the Gothic style.
Like the art of ancient Greece, the art of the Renaissance continues to have an impact on art today.
It was in this time period that paper money was first developed, and its use led, in part, to the vast fortunes accumulated by notables such as the Medici family.
These wealthy families were the major patrons of the arts during the Renaissance era.
Another important factor was the fact that examples of Greek and Roman art were readily available in Italy, and these classical works of art had a tremendous impact on the art of the Renaissance.
Emphasize the lives and works of individual artists, while this has not been the case in our discussion of earlier periods.
In part, this can be attributed to a new emphasis on the individual and the concept of individual genius that emerged during the Renaissance.
Until the time of the Renaissance, painters and sculptors were considered artisans.
During the Renaissance, the role of artists in society changed, as great artists came to be recognized as intellectual figures.
Artists were accorded a special place in society.
An important event near the beginning of the Renaissance was a competition held in the city of Florence in 1401 for the design of the doors for the city’s new baptistery.
The winner of that competition was Lorenzo Ghiberti (1381?–1455), who designed a door panel that had figures harkening back to those of classical Greece.
Soon after the doors were installed, Ghiberti was asked to make a second set for another entrance to the cathedral. This second set took more than twenty-five years to complete.
This second set took more than twenty-five years to complete. Michelangelo called them the “Gates of Paradise,"
The second-place winner in the competition was Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446).
After losing the competition, he concentrated on architecture and won a competition to complete the dome of the cathedral in Florence, which had remained unfinished for many years because architects had not been able to construct the huge vault that was required to span the open space.
Brunelleschi is also credited with developing linear (single vanishing point) perspective.
Masaccio (1401–28), a Renaissance painter, is given credit for putting Brunelleschi’s theory into practice, as he used both linear and aerial perspective in his frescoes.
The development of linear perspective had a tremendous and lasting influence on the world of art.
Among the most remarkable of Renaissance artists was Donatello (1389?–1466), who is widely considered the founder of modern sculpture.
The influence of classical antiquity on his sculpture was strong, as evidenced by his best-known work, a bronze statue of David (c. 1420s–60s).
This work was the first known freestanding nude statue to have been cast since antiquity.
His sculptures reflected a greater emphasis on naturalism and the expression of character and dramatic action.
A generation later, the work of Botticelli (1444?–1510), particularly his best-known painting, The Birth of Venus (c. 1482), established an image of female beauty that has lasted through the centuries.
His long-necked Venus with her languid pose and flowing hair was one of the first paintings of a full-length nude female since antiquity.
The generation of artists that followed are often referred to as High Renaissance artists.
Two well-known artists of this time period, Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) and Michelangelo (1475–1564), are the models for the term “Renaissance Man.”
Two of his paintings, The Last Supper (c. 1495–98) and the Mona Lisa (c.1503–05), have become so well known that they are now icons of popular culture.
Leonardo’s key innovation in painting, which is readily apparent in the Mona Lisa, is the use of sfumato.
Sfumato allows forms to blend subtly into one another without perceptible transitions.
At the same time that Leonardo was working in Florence, another artist, Michelangelo di Buonarotti, was at work on the piece that would establish his reputation as a sculptor.
Michelangelo created his vision of David (1504).
The statue is larger than life-sized, as it was originally meant to be placed high on the façade of the cathedral in Florence and would have been viewed from far below.
Seen as the very embodiment of the spirit of Florence as a republic.
Throughout his stormy career, Michelangelo created a large number of other important sculptures, but it is a painting that often comes to mind when people hear his name. In 1505, Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to design his tomb.
However, in the midst of this commission, the Pope canceled the project for uncertain reasons.
The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. It took Michelangelo four years, from 1508 to 1512, to cover the seven hundred square yards of the ceiling
The great masterpiece of the Sistine Ceiling has received renewed attention in recent decades, as restorers set about cleaning the great frescoes. The cleaning removed the accumulation of oil, wax, and grime that had accumulated over the centuries, and the colors have returned to their original brightness.
“Is about this restoration, as the restoration of artworks in general continues within the art world.
One of the most influential painters of the High Renaissance was Raphael Sanzio (1483–1520).Julius II gave him several commissions.
Raphael learned much from Michelangelo, his older rival.
Raphael was not a loner but employed numerous assistants to help him cover the Pope’s official chambers with large, sumptuous frescoes, notably the School of Athens (c. 1508–11), an homage to the great Greek philosophers and scientists.
Raphael is considered the most influential painter of the Madonna.
Rome and Florence were not the only locations to witness an incredible flowering in the arts, Venice, too, became a center of artistic creativity.
Giorgione (1477/78–1510) is credited with making innovations in the subject matter of landscapes, as he painted scenes not taken from the Bible or from classical or allegorical stories.
The landscape became the subject of the painting—the figures depicted are of lesser importance than the storm that threatens them.
Titian Vecelli (c. 1488–1576) was one of the most prolific of the Venetian painters. Titian is well known for his portraits of his patrons, and he is also recognized as having been the greatest colorist of the Renaissance artists.
Tintoretto (1518–94), another great Venetian painter, is often linked with an artistic style called Mannerism that grew in popularity in the late sixteenth century.
Mannerist works are characterized by the distortion of certain elements such as perspective or scale and are also recognizable by their use of acidic colors and the twisted positioning of their subjects.
The Renaissance in Northern Europe
During the fifteenth century, the artworks being produced in northern Europe were smaller in scale than those of contemporaneous artists to the south.
Located primarily due to their use of new oil paints, the work of northern artists displayed a degree of realistic detail beyond what can be seen in works of the south (primarily due to their use of new oil paints).
During the Renaissance was occurring in Italy, much of European art north of the Alps was still Gothic in style.
Areas of southern Germany witnessed a flowering of artistic production, from the fifteenth century into the early decades of the sixteenth century.
Matthias Grünewald (1475?–1528) and Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) are often considered the greatest artists of the Renaissance in northern Europe.
Dürer’s early training was largely influenced by late Gothic works, but as the ideas of the Italian Renaissance spread northward in the sixteenth century, Dürer’s work began to reflect some of these new influences.
Dürer aimed to achieve a style that combined the naturalistic detail favored by artists of the north with the theoretical ideas developed by Italian artists, such as The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (c. 1498).
Baroque Art
The terms that are employed, to all artworks produced late 16th-18th century.
Baroque styles differed from those of the Renaissance in that Baroque artworks tended to be less static than Renaissance examples; the Baroque is characterized by a greater sense of movement and energy.
Baroque art appealed largely to the emotions, and thus, these artists, influenced by the Counter-Reformation, aimed at dramatic and moving appeals to faith.
The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Europe were a time when society was governed by a ruling class that viewed its power as a divine right.
It was the patronage of the wealthy ruling class that gave rise to the great works of art of the period.The word “baroque” has come to represent the richness of color and ornamentation that heightened the energy and emotion that were characteristic of the great works of art of this period.
Baroque painters exaggerated the contrasts between light and dark to create a theatrical kind of lighting that made the subject appear to be in a spotlight.
A woman named Artemisia Gentileschi (1593?–1652?) has also joined the ranks of important Baroque artists.
The most important Baroque artist, Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598–1680), the son of a sculptor, was a child prodigy who received recognition from the Pope at age seventeen.
He treated his medium in a new way as well. He did not adhere to the classical calm and natural flow of drapery around the figure that had been used in the past.
Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–69), a Dutch artist, created some of the best-known works from the Baroque period.
Broke with tradition and grouped the members of the company in a way that gave more attention to some members than to others Which as well, ultimately caused the decline of his career.
Louis XIV had come to power, and his long reign was marked by a blossoming of French culture. Louis XIV united all of France and built a lavish palace at Versailles beginning in 1669.
The opulence and power of this “sun king,” around whom the world of the court revolved, became a model that contemporaneous monarchs tried to emulate.
Louis XIV’s court system helped influence art well into the 19th century.
Spanish court to try to emulate the court of France and his court painter was Diego Velázquez, 1599 to 1660, was a contemporary of Bernini.
Rococo, Neoclassicism, and Romanticism
Three artists who excelled capturing elegance and wit so valued by them. The Aristocratic patrons are considered the greatest masters of the rucoco style Jean Antoine Watteau, the leader of a new generation and, with the innovative of a new genre of painting.
Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806) was also promoted by Madame Pompadour. Fragonard studied with Boucher, and his works strongly reflect Boucher’s influence.
An attempt to hearken the democratic ideas of the ancient world. Art of this period demonstrating a revival of interest in the art of classical Greece and Rome. This style called Neoclassicism was influenced by enlightenment ideas.
Realism and Impressionism
Style was inspired by the idea that painting must illustrate all these features of its subjects including the negative ones, and also to show the lives of ordinary people is as important than historical or real topics dominated by the art exhibitions to the day.
The most strongest person was Gustave Courbet one of the most flamboyant and outrageous person who was to challenge convention by showing some artists of the works that would be sponsored at that time.
His work also had many implications in politics during the 1848 rise of art. Movement.
Impressionist has largely grew out of the dissatisfaction of the rigid rules come. To dominate the salons recognize artist for each year.
I didn’t want his works showed light by juxtaposing bright. Contrasting colors, no less, give them an inspired inspiration following him.The scandal was around its violation where, no return or contemporary art, were classical figures or women in exotic settings.
This cause an uproar. When making in his impression during the period this would lead them to explore the techniques that would help make the medium portable.
Post-Impressionism
The artist has various different features of Impresionism.
Most influential was Paul Cezanne he defined setting for in terms of form. It can be structured as a series planes with. Clear to the grand middle ground to the background.
Cezanne was set of rules for many students to try to create the brilliance the colors of the impressions
Van Gough. He developed the theory that a colorful, to show human inner emotions, which influenced many of the art works around that