Printable Schedule and Class Notes for Art 219
(Copyright R. Aikin)
Table of Contents:
This is a Word document.
You may choose to print all of part of it.
Class Schedule and Reading Assignments
2
Aikin’s Welcome Speech
3
Course Objectives, Requirements, and Procedures (What do I have to know?)
4
Writing Assignments and Grading Criteria
5
How to do Well in This Class
7
How to Analyze a Painting
8
The Vocabulary of Art History
10
Study Guide for Exams
14
Class Notes, weeks 1 through 15
29
Web Resources
97
[Note: Aikin’s essay’s, Museums and Art History and the Humanities, are not included in this
document. You must read them on the course website.]
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Art 219 History of Art
Dr. Roger C. Aikin Ph.D., Art History, University of California at Berkeley, 1977
raikin@creighton.edu
280-1455
Aikin's Other Courses
129 Lied Office hours Tues\Thurs after class or call x1455 (I am usually in my office Wed. pm)
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Ars longa, vita brevis (Art lasts, life is short) -- Seneca/Hippocrates
we have no art-- We do everything as well as we can --Anonymous Neolithic man
You can observe a lot just by looking -- Yogi Berra
Education is what is left after you forget all the facts you learned -- anonymous
Course Goals and Requirements
Writing Assignments
Study Guide for Exams
Web resources
Timeline of Art History
Complete class notes
Vocabulary
____________________________________________________________________________
Class Schedule:
Week 1 (August 24) What is art? Learning to see (Read: text, Starter Kit and Introduction; web essays)
Week 2 (Aug. 29, 31) Prehistoric Art and Egypt; Begin Greece (Skim text 1and 2; Read chapter 4)
Week 3 (Sept. 5, 7) Greek and Roman Art (text chapters 4, 5, and 6)
Week 4 (Sept. 12, 14) Medieval and Romanesque Art (text 7 and 10)
Week 5 (Sept. 19, 21) Gothic Art and The Fourteenth Century (text 11)
Week 6 (Sept. 26, 28) Begin Renaissance Art (text 12)
Thursday: Museum Visit. Meet at the Joslyn! 10:00 sharp!
Week 7 (Oct. 3, 5) Renaissance Art; Michelangelo; The Sistine Ceiling (text 13)
Week 8 (Oct. 10, 12) More Renaissance Art: Mannerism and North Europe (text 13)
Tuesday: Museum assignment due Assignment
Thursday: Midterm Exam Study guide First page of quiz
Fall Vacation
Week 9 (Oct. 24, 26) Seventeenth-century Art (text 14)
Week 10 (Oct. 31; Nov. 2) More Baroque art and Rococo art
Week 11 (Nov. 7, 9) Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Realism (text 17)
Week 12 (Nov. 14, 16) Impressionism and Post-Impressionism (text 18)
Week 13 (Nov. 21/Thanksgiving) Early Modern art (text 19)
Week 14 (Nov. 28, 30) Contemporary art (text 20)
Week 15 (Dec. 5, 7) More contemporary art, special topics, and review
Final Paper due Tuesday
Assignment
Strategies for Academic Honesty
Final exam: December 11, 1:00 (No one can be excused from the final exam!)
Study Guide for Final Exam Picture Study Guide Vocabulary Complete class notes
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What you should do after class today:
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Save the course website to your favorites (Google "Roger Aikin": he's the first one.)
Print the "Printable Schedule and Class Notes for ART 219”—or as much of it as you like
Buy the book and skim it.
Get to know the course webpage--schedule, assignments, due dates, vocabulary, study guide.
Write the paper due dates, midterm, and final exam on your calendar.
Decide when and where you are going to study art history.
Aikin's Welcome Speech—
There are 168 hours in a week. I want 9 of them--3 for class and 6 for study.
What good is Art History? I could tell you that what you will learn here is important and useful, but you will
not believe me now, because most of the benefits of this class will come later in your life. Someday, you will
be very glad you took this class, and this will be one of the classes you will remember later in life. Ask me
that question at the end of class--or in thirty years.
This may be the hardest class you take at Creighton--if you do the work. It can also be the most fun--if you
do the work. Art History is all new knowledge for most of you, so "common sense" does not get you very
far. You need to study, prepare for class, pay attention, and take notes. You will not get anything out of class
time unless you come to class prepared.
The tests are based on the textbook and the class lectures. Lectures will not slavishly follow the book--there
will be new material that helps you to understand what you have read. If you do not understand something,
ask questions during class, after class, or in my office hours (Tues\Thurs after class or call x1455). You don't
have to even have a specific question, "I don't get this" is plenty.
If you are one of those people who puts things off until the night before, stop doing that now. Print out your
finished paper or assignment at least 24 hours before the due date (in case your "printer isn't working"). You
have the whole semester to do the assignments. If you are sick and cannot attend that class, you may email
your paper. But never ever miss a class because you have not finished an assignment. I've been teaching for
thirty years and I have heard every excuse in the book for late papers, but they all boil down to one--you were
lazy or careless. Here are the Top Ten Excuses Why my Paper is Late. Pick one.
The class period lasts 1 1/4 hours--a long time that will challenge your attention span. You need to be rested
and ready. Most college students do not get enough sleep--nine hours is recommended for people your age.
I will not wake you up if you are sleeping in class unless you are snoring, but you won't be learning
anything. SO, GET SOME SLEEP.
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ART 219: Course Objectives, Requirements, and Procedures
(What do I have to know????)
ART 219, History of Art, 3 credits: "Survey of the artistic heritage of the Western World from ancient Greece to the present,
emphasizing the period from the Renaissance to the 20th Century." No Prerequisites. Required of all Art majors.
General Educational Goals:
1. To learn the facts about what has happened in the history of art.
2. To learn to read artworks historically, in context.
3. To learn what it has meant to be a human being in the past.
4. To acquire an interest in art and the tools to make personal judgments about it.
5. To learn to see.
Learning Objectives: Students will be able to-1. Recognize and describe the formal and stylistic elements of artworks
2. Identify major artists, art movements, and styles in the history of art.
3. Demonstrate knowledge of the connections between art and civilization.
4. Frame and articulate literate written judgments about art that draw on formal content,
historical context, and personal reactions and that stress human values.
Expectations: Classes will consist of lectures, discussion, and web-based exploration. Class participation is encouraged
but not mandatory. Sample exams are linked on the course web page.
Grading will be loosely based on percentages, with 90% and above being an "A", 85% a "B+", 80% a B and so forth.
Exams will be graded objectively, and papers will be graded based on the criteria listed under writing assignments.
The various components are worth the following points:
Midterm:
Essays:
Final Exam:
Total:
100
150
150
400
points
points total (75 pts each)
points
points (360 or more = A)
Attendance will be taken. More than four absences will lower your grade. We will not attempt to differentiate between
excused and unexcused absences. This is a large class, and class participation is not required, although questions and
comments are encouraged. Watch the "Message Board" for class cancellations due to bad weather.
The Midterm Exam and Final Exam will cover all of the material presented in the textbook, other reading, lectures,
and discussions (including any videotapes shown in class).
Students are responsible for the artworks, facts, and ideas in the textbook, which can be reviewed at the complete
class notes link, the vocabulary link, and the exam study guide links.
There are no "right answers" in Humanities papers, only badly written ones. Art History is not like Mathematics-which has skills and operations that you can master and then move on to "higher" operations. Art History is open-ended:
what you decide to learn and think about it is ultimately up to you. That means it is hard for us teachers to write tests: I
will try to be as clear as I can about what you "need to know," but one of the goals of this course is creative looking and
thinking!
Art History is a discipline invented in the late-nineteenth century which aims, like History proper, to understand
ourselves by understanding the art of the past. Related disciplines are Aesthetics (a branch of Philosophy, which asks
what beauty and art are and what gives art meaning), and Art Criticism (which tries to differentiate between good art
and bad art). Ultimately (and let's be honest about this!), our goal should be to make judgments, and to relate the art of
the past to our own experience, but we should first try to be fair to the people who made the art by trying to find out what
they themselves intended. Many students are surprised to fine that Art History requires considerable knowledge of
facts--names, dates, and events--many of them in foreign languages. We should try to avoid both uniformed
condemnation or uncritical gushing.
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Art 219 Writing Assignments
Common errors in English
Vocabulary
Strategies for Academic Honesty
1. First paper: Joslyn Museum Scavenger Hunt.
Due: Tuesday, October 10, week 8 75 points.
Your Creighton ID gets you into the Joslyn Museum free. The museum is closed Mondays.
Print the scavenger hunt page here
2. Second paper: Art since 1930
Due Tuesday, December 15, week 15 3 pages. 75 points.
Go to the Joslyn Museum and choose an artwork made since 1930. Check the date on your artwork--not before
1930! You may visit any other museum--just e-mail me that you are going to use another museum. You must
actually see the work in person, however. You may not write about Grant Wood's "Stone City, Iowa"! (Guess
why.)
In the first part of you paper, discuss the artist and the art movement. Use Reinert Library and the Joslyn Library,
and go out on the web--especially Artlex (a massive visual arts dictionary with illustrated essays on artists, art
movements, and shoptalk/technical terms. My first choice for a basic search) Words of Art (a superb dictionary of art,
psychology, literary criticism, with short essays), or The Artcyclopedia ,which is the best search engine for artists and
their works. Or type "Minimalism" into your search engine, (E-mail Aikin any time for advice: raikin@cu).
On the next page or pages, describe and explain your artwork in detail, and "interpret" the artwork. What do
you see? Then compare and contrast your work to other artworks from same art movement or style, especially those in
Stokstad's textbook. Finally "interpret" the artwork. What is it about? What does it mean? What do you think? If you
are inclined not to like the work at first, can you at least describe what you think the artist was trying to do.
Please edit for style and clarity. I am getting really tired of papers that are written at the last minute off the top of the
head and not edited for style and clarity--and with spell check gotchas! Use the writing aids below like Plumbdesign to
find exactly the right words.
If you use material from the web, put it in quotation marks and cite it. Why?
See borrowing stuff from the web
Citing the internet in footnotes
Strategies for Academic Honesty
Creighton University's policies on academic honesty
Grading criteria for essays: (All papers must exhibit acceptable grammar, spelling, and style.)
Lacking in research, analysis, insights, point of view, organization, and coherence, and also lacking in basic editing and
proofreading—F
Lacking in research, analysis, insights, point of view, organization, and coherence--D
A coherent point of view, but lacking useful or creative insights, analysis, and clear, careful expression—C
Good research and analysis, some insights, clear expression of ideas, and a clear theme or point of view—B
Careful research, analysis, and attention to detail, useful and creative insights, clear expression or ideas, and an
important and interesting theme or point of view—A
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Paper Writing Aids:
Read this: Writing papers (by Aikin)
Read this: Common errors in English Always proofread after spell-check (homonyms and homophones!)
Read this: The Art of Persuasive Writing (from Michelli's Art History Browser) This is VERY good!
A humorous "what not to do"
More humor: "How to talk about art"
Actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays; read 'em and weep
Web dictionaries and word finders (thesauruses):
Plumbdesign is a fabulous, useful, fun 3-d tool for finding the right word.
Allwords is has multiple dictionaries, slang, quotes, etc. (lots of fun here!)
Bartleby's quotations and thesaurus is terrific.
Your Dictionary is also a good synonym source, with foreign language searches.
The Rhymezone is cool. (Type in "orange")
Word power: many dictionaries
Roget's Thesaurus
Dictionary.com
Creighton's grading philosophy
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How to do well in this class-- Read the textbook!
1. Read Art History at a regular time and place.
Read the assigned material before you come to class, and review after class.
2. Find a quiet corner in the library to read--anywhere you will not be disturbed.
3. Relax and focus your mind on the last art history class.
Have the right attitude: this class is fun! (If you don't think this class is fun, try working for a living!)
4. Review the textbook and the course website up to the chapter you are going to read. Where did we leave off?
Refresh the course up to the present. Chapter titles are important signposts about the course content.
5. Now skim the new chapter quickly for key names, dates, and artworks.
What countries and centuries are featured?
How does the art in the new chapter look different from previous art?
6. Now read the chapter slowly and look at the assigned websites:
What are the major new ideas and vocabulary?
Who are the major artists and artworks?
What was happening in history, politics, ideas, science, technology, and the other arts?
Learn the new vocabulary.
(Marking whole paragraphs with yellow pens is useless: underline only names or key words.)
You can't read a textbook "passively" like a novel or a magazine: just turning over pages will not cut it:
Stop and think while you are reading.
8. Now review.
Look at the illustrations again very closely.
Say names out loud.
Consider how the new chapter relates to the previous ones.
Learn the new vocabulary words.
9. Review the exam study guide. What writing assignments and exams are coming up?
10. Close the book and try to remember what you read. If you can not do this, you have not read the material.
11. Review the textbook again as soon as possible after the class lecture. What did Aikin say that the text didn't?
(15 minutes spent studying right after class is worth an hour the night before the exam!)
12. Make this procedure a habit in all your courses.
Take notes in class--and typing up your notes after class is an excellent way to review.
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How to analyze a painting
We can ask several different kinds of questions about every art work, some very factual in orientation, some very
general. We can say: "I like--or don't like this," "This is good," or "This is interesting or important." See the
Introduction to Stokstad’s text.
Who--artist, patronage
What--subject, medium, size, condition
Where--location (museum, city)
When--date
Why--purpose, patronage, "meaning," interpretation
1. Basic facts: artist's name, the medium, the title, the probable date of the work, its location now, its
condition, and provenance (or source--where it came from). Sometimes this information is known through
documentation, the art historian's best friend, but sometimes the art historian's purpose is to determine a likely artist or
date in the absence of any documentation. In the case of Greek are, for example, where almost no documents exist, a very
accurate chronology of artworks can be worked out nevertheless using the principles of stylistic development and
relative chronology. In fact, paintings were rarely signed before the eighteenth century. (A "medium" is something "in
between" that communicates between two people. Some art "media" are fresco, tempera on panel, oil on canvas, etching,
drawing, bronze sculpture, etc. Modern media are TV, film, radio, and computers.)
2. Subject matter. What is happening in the picture? Who are the people in the scene (if it is a narrative)?
Stories in history painting often come from literary texts like the Bible or Greek Mythology. Find the text and read it
carefully. This is not always so easy, even in the Bible, as the four evangelists--Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John--often
tell different versions of a story, and the painter may follow none of these, but rather a pictorial tradition. For a side by
side presentation of the synoptic gospels see a Harmony of the Gospels. How has the artists interpreted or "staged" the
story? What does he include or leave out? What decisive moment has he chosen? Good artists often seem like the
directors of a film or drama, and have clear personal feeling about the meaning of a story, since they are students of
human nature. Scrutinize the characters in your painting and describe their actions and attitudes. Some recent paintings
do not tell stories at all because they are abstract or non-representational, but remember that subject matter can be
anything from a place to an emotion. Finally, other artworks are often alluded to in painting, because artists look at other
art--both of the past and the present--at least as much as they look at "nature".
Iconography is a word art historians have invented to talk about subject matter in artworks. Often the exact subject of a
work will be obscure, or the text it is based on can not have been identified. For example, a bare-breasted woman may
be a lactating Virgin Mary, a personification or allegory of Liberty, or the pagan goddess Venus. A dog may stand for
Fidelity (Fides, Faith, Fido), or the Dominican Order (Domini Cane in Latin means "dogs of God"), or it may be just a
dog, just as “a cigar may be just a cigar.” These kinds of symbols or "hidden meanings" in paintings were common in the
Renaissance, but have largely gone out of fashion, so they must be recovered--a kind of detective work--if we are to do
the painting justice. See Symbols in Christian Art and Architecture or George Ferguson, Signs and Symbols in Christian
Art, a handbook of Christian iconography.
3. Formal qualities: line, color, brushwork or "handling," tactile values, volumes, modeling, proportion,
perspective or special construction, and composition are all ways to talk about the way the artist has conveyed his
subject and given his personal interpretation. If he is a good artist, his choices will always reinforce and give impact to
his original point of view. Good artists hate copying: they want to see problems in fresh ways and find new solutions.
An analysis of any artwork in terms of these formal qualities is called formal analysis. You can do an enjoyable formal
analysis of any artwork without "knowing" anything about it.
4. Style.
Style is the sum total of an artwork's formal qualities. Every work of art has its own style, that is, it looks
different from almost every other work of art. Every good artist also has a style, which can be differentiated from that of
other artists. In a broader sense, every country, city, century or decade has a style--hence, "the style of the Florentine
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Renaissance." So there is personal style, national style, and period style. The art historian--and anyone who wants
to--develops his eye so that he can see these differences. People who have developed this skill--or talent--to an
extraordinary degree are called connoisseurs. Any good art historian can look at a painting he has never seen before and
place it fairly exactly as to the time and place it was made. An expert connoisseur can place it exactly--like a wine
expert can tell the exact vineyard a bottle of wine came from (really). The fact that art changes, and that these changes
are recognizable, is the central mystery of art history, because--after all--why doesn't all art look alike?
5. Patronage.
Who paid for the work, and why? Was the patron a Pope, a King, or a private individual, or did the
artist make the picture "on spec" for nobody in particular--or simply for himself? Is there anything special about the
subject or style of the work which the patronage might help to explain? How did the patron react to the finished work?
In more general terms, what was the patronage system of the time and place, that is, was the Church a powerful patron,
as in the Italian Renaissance, or did artists paint on speculation, as in the market capitalists art world of seventeenthcentury Holland?
6. Historical context.
What does this painting tell us about the time and place where it was made? Can we
deduce anything about the human values of this civilization? What was important to them? What did it mean to be a
human being? What did they think art ought to be? These are important questions, and art historians believe that
artworks offer unique windows into the past, that is, that they can show us intimate details about life that no other kind
of historical evidence can. Nevertheless, the art historian is a historian, and is interested in the same kinds of questions
that historians are interested in. He simply begins with different kinds of evidence. For example, the artworks of the
Catholic Counter-Reformation of the seventeenth century can tell us much about the political and religious arguments
going on in Europe at that time.
7. Critical Judgment.
This is not really a historical question. Whether we like or dislike a work of art does not in
the least affect its significance to the people who made it. But the art historian does often ask whether the artwork
succeeded in its intended purpose, which is to judge it on its own terms. And it is also true that art historians tend to be
attracted to works of art which have stood the test of time and are still regarded as "masterpieces," because we think
they can tell us more. Also, we can admire the way an artwork embodies a particular value system without admiring that
value system. Generally, art historians find that it is fruitless to argue whether Leonardo was a "greater" painter than
Picasso, since they lived at such different times and places. Nevertheless, once we have tried to do justice to the
historical context of a work--and assuming that we are not missing anything crucial (a difficult assumption to make)--we
are justified in asking whether a particular painting pleases us. Most students of art history find that they more they
study, the more they like.
8. Interpretation:
How do we know if we are "reading" an artwork properly? What do artworks say and how do
we get at the meaning of artworks? A Historical approach would hold that it is desirable and possible to see the artwork
from the point of view of the person who made it and the people in the particular time and place to whom it was directed;
this view holds that we must therefore reconstruct the historical, political, social, religious, psychological and
technological context of the artwork as completely as possible in order to understand what the art "meant".
Unfortunately, such reconstruction is never completely possible, although this method can often keep us from making
horrible mistakes. For example, we can state with fair assurance that Michelangelo's David probably represented "the
defiant will of the city of Florence against its powerful adversaries," and we can infer that it stood for some kind of ideal
human beauty to Michelangelo himself, but we can never really "know" this. Art history aims to understand art through
historical knowledge and history through artistic evidence, but there is a point at which any supposed "true" or exact
"meaning" of any artwork must elude us. At that point we are justified in asking what the work means to us.
Interpretation is an art, and its means is language. There are no right or wrong interpretations, only poorly
expressed or uninteresting ones. Another word for interpretation is "criticism", which is really the art history of the
present. The critic aims to clarify and judge recent artworks for the modern public, because, unlike some other kinds of
history which use "persisting events" to understand the past, art history uses artworks, which are presumed to have
quality--that is, they are either good or bad art. And making a judgment about artistic quality is often the proper job of
the historian, who then becomes a critic. Examples of "interpretation": Sister Wendy Becket on Sargent and
Rembrandt More interpretations at the Artchive
Some types of interpretation include: Ekphrasis is the poetical description of the artwork and its story or subject.
Hermeneutics attempts to explain the artwork by understanding the personality of the artist (very risky business).
Divination is a third type of interpretation. The important point to remember is that no interpretation can ever be proved
to be right; the study of art is a humanistic discipline, not a science. See Mark Roskill, The Interpretation of Pictures.
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The Vocabulary of Art History
Know these words from the Stokstad's text and class lectures.
Use Artlex to look up these words. See also this huge vocabulary organized by chapter
This list does not include art styles or movements (see Artlex and the Study Guide for Exams)
abbey (church of a monastery)
abstraction (also "non-objective," "non-representational"--no recognizable subject)
academy, academic (conservatice, highly realistic, technically excellent artworks. The opposite of Modernism)
acropolis (a hill with a Greek temple on it)
aesthetics (the branch of philosophy that deals with "beauty"--what is it?)
allegory (an extended metaphor, or a personification)
altarpiece: predella, wings, diptych, triptych, polyptych (e.g. The Ghent Altarpiece, Duccio's Maesta)
appropriation (borrowing); also recycled art
arabesque (abstract decoration. "Figurative" art (representations of persons) is not allowed in Islam--"Arab"
architecture: use, site, function, decoration ("firmness, commodity, and delight," that is, structure, use, beauty)
art informel (formless art)
assemblage (three-dimensional "collage"--junk nailed together)
automatism, psychic automotism (the key to Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism)
avant-guard (very modern; French: "advance guard")
BC or BCE ("before Christ" or "before the Christian era)
AD (anno domini, Year of Our Lord), also CE (Common Era)
balustrade (a railing)
baldacchin (a canopy over an altar)
basilica, basilican plan, (a long church); central-plan churches (circles, squares, or octagons);
Greek Cross, Latin Cross (ground plans of churches)
Benday dots (method of magazine printing imitated in Pop Art)
biomorphic abstraction (opposite of geometric abstraction)
bronze casting (know all the media, their characteristics, and what they can do and can not do)
daguerreotype, calotype (early photographic process)
camera obscura (Latin: "dark room," or a machine for copying reality)
canon of proportions (canon--a standard or measure)
caricature (exaggerated features of a face)
cartoon (actual size preparatory drawing for a fresco)
catacomb (caves where early Christians worshipped, buried dead, and decorated)
chateau (French: castle)
chiaroscuro (Italian: "light-dark" or contrasts of light and shadow)
Church, parts of a church: pier, triforium, clerestory, vault, choir, crossing, ambulatory, crossing, arms, chapel,
colonnettes, engaged columns
Classical, classic, classicism, Neoclassicism (know the difference! Ask!)
collage (2-d paste-up)
color: hue, intensity, saturation, primary colors (major triad), complementary colors
combine painting (an assemblage c. 1960)
composition (how a picture is "put together;" two main types are planar composition and recessional composition)
connoisseur, connoisseurship (someone "in the know"--experts at evaluating art)
content, form (what an artwork says, vs. what it looks like)
contrapposto (standing at ease)
cross-hatching (a printmaking technique)
cruciform (in the form of a cross)
cycle (a series of paintings, perhaps fresco)
cycles (subjects: the times of day, five senses, seasons, etc.)
diorama (an illusionistic scenic design of the 19th century)
dome
drypoint (a printmaking technique)
earthworks (also "earth art" or "land art"; an art form that uses nature)
encaustic (painting in wax)
engraving (printmaking technique)
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etching (printmaking technique using acid)
Eucharist (the "host," or bread and wine; holy communion)
expressionism (art that aims to reveal the inner ideas or emotions of the artist)
facade (French: "face," or the front of a building)
fete galante (French: an outdoor festival)
figure/ground relationship (how your brain knows what is in front and what is behind)
foreground, middle ground, background
fine arts ("les beaux arts"), vs. the mechanical arts
flower piece (a still life painting)--also "Vanitas")
folio (a page in a book or manuscript)
foreshortening (any object presented from a sharp angle)
formalism (an artwork or a method of criticism that stresses visual aspects of art over content)
The Four Apostles (other things that come in four--seasons, temperaments, elements, etc.)
framed niche (usually a place for statues; also called an aedicula, a stupid word you don't have to know)
fresco (a wall painting on wet plaster)
geometric abstraction (the opposite of biomorphic abstraction; Mondrian, etc.)
gesso (the white plaster underneath the paint surface)
genre scene (pictures of lower classes or rowdy behavior)
gesturalism (also "action painting," a 20th century art style based on broad, emotional brushwork)
graffiti (wall markings; also an art style of the 1960's and 70's)
Grand Manner (also gran gout--high minded, academic art, official and formal)
graphic arts, graphic design
Greek "hybrid" creatures: griffins, centaurs (half man/half horse), satyrs (men with donkey parts)
Greek architectural orders: Doric, Ionic, Corinthian
Roman architectural orders: Tuscan (unfluted) Doric, Composite
Parts of a Greek/Roman temple: column, shaft, entasis, drum, flute, capital, abacus, echinus, entablature
(architrave, frieze, cornice), triglyph, metope, frieze, volute, moldings, pediment
grid
grisailles (painting in shades of gray)
happening (an art event or performance of the 1960's)
hierarchy of scale ("heiratic scale"=figures of different sizes, usually in Egyptian or Medieval art)
historicism (art that consciously repeats earlier art styles)
history painting (any painting based on a story or text; the "highest" genre in the hierarchy of painting)
horizon line (where the vanishing point is)
impost block (p. 226. This is really a misnomer. Stokstad means the "entablature" above the columns)
The Inquisition (a commission to protect official Catholic doctrine and dogma;
Torquemada: "You couldn't talk him outa' anything!)
icon, iconoclasm, iconography (know the difference!)
ideal, idealization (the opposite of naturalistic or realistic?)
illumination (manuscript illumination--painted scenes)
illusionism, illusionistic
intaglio (printmaking technique: the ink is in the "valleys" not on the "mesas"--which is "relief printing")
japonisme (French: interest in Japanese art among late-19th century artists)
kinetic sculpture (sculture that moves)
Kouros/Kore (Greek votive statues of young men and women; "archaic smile;" "contrapposto"
loggia (a porch, often with columns)
the "low countries" [Benelux--Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg]
linear, painterly (two contrasting styles of art--line vs. color)
lithograph (printing on limestone)
manifesto (an artistic statement of purpose)
manuscript ("hand-written:" related words are--illuminated, parchment, folio, vellum, droleries, animal interlace)
mimesis (Greek for imitation; see "realism")
monastery (a small city with monks or nuns)
modeled, modeling (in painting, showing light and shade, usually on the human figure)
monumental (seems larger than it is)
mosaic (wall art made of small bits of glass)
motif (a difficult word: something that makes a good picture)
mural (a painting on a wall, vs. panel painting or canvas painting)
naturalism, naturalistic (imitating appearance as closely as possible; see "realism")
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non-representational (abstract; the opposite of representational)
obelisk (Egyptian pointed monument)
odalisque (not an obelisk--a reclining female, or a woman in a harem)
orant figures (praying)
orthagonal (the lines that meet at the vanishing point)
painterly (lots of fluid brushwork; the opposite of "linear")
palette (not to be confused with your "palate"--the colors in a painting, or the actual flat board that holds the colors)
Paris Salon (an annual national exhibition of art from c. 1650 to 1900)
Salon des Refusee (Salon of the Refused--Manet, 1863)
passage (a small part of a painting or musical work that is especailly well done))
pieta (the mourning over the crucified Christ)
pastoral concert (text figure 2--a picnic in the country)
performance art (art as theater)
perspective: intuitive, atmospheric, scientific, linear, or one-point perspective
predella (the small picture beneath an altarpiece)
"pre-historic" civilizations (Paleolithic, Neolithic)
printmaking techniques (multiples: woodcut, engraving, drypoint, etching)
post-and-lintel construction (as opposed to masonry vaulting of various kinds)
putto, putti (little winged babies with wings--but not the same as real angels like Michael or Gabriel)
picture plane (the imaginary surface of a picture; the painted space is usually all behind it, but not always)
picturesque (any scene, landscape, or garden that looks like a painting)
pluralism (a period in art that allows for numerous different styles)
primary colors (red, yellow, and blue--secondary colors, tertiary colors, etc.)
printmaking techniques: woodcut, engraving, drypoint, etching, aquatint. litholgraphy
provenance (the documented history of an artwork's previous owners.)
(What makes artwork valuable? Desirability, rarity, condition, provenance, authenticity)
Quality and value in art
realism, Realism (realism, naturalism, verisimilitude, and idealism--see p. 392)
pottery: red figure/black figure, amphora, kylix (see the Greek art chapter)
"rayonnant" (radiant) style (late Gothic architecture); also "flamboyant" (flame-like) style
Reformation and Counter Reformation
representational (naturalistic)
rusticated, rustication (stonework that looks rough, like a fortress)
sacra conversazione ("sacred concersation"--usually a painting of the Madonna and Saints)
sacristy (the part of a church where the priests dress and the host is kept)
sand painting (American Indian technique using colored sand on a floor)
sarcophagus (Greek: "stone that swallows [a corpse]")
scientific perspective ("one-point," "linear, or "mathematical" perspective)
other types of perspective are "atmospheric" and "intuitive"
key terms: vanishing point, orthagonal, planar composition, recessional composition
sculpture in the round (fully 3-dimensional, not relief sculpture, which is flat)
sfumato (Italian: "smoky," Leonardo da Vinci's way of showing soft light)
site-specific sculpture, site-generated sculpture (a 1960's art method)
space, perspective, proportion, area, plane, mass
still life (a type of painting, features objects, not people or landscape)
stained glass
stretcher (the wooden frame under a canvas)
style (the particular, identifiable way an artwork looks--period style, national style, regional style, or personal style)
subject matter, or content (the opposite of "form")
superimposed orders (all the Greek or Roman orders one on top of the other. What building does this refer to? p. 267)
symmetrical, asymmetrical
taste (de gustibus non disputandum est--"there is no arguing about taste") (aesthetic judgment); quality and value
sympathetic magic (like "illusion"?)
shaman (medicine man or priest)
tenebrism, tenebroso (the special way of representing dramatic light invented by Caravaggio)
tempera (egg medium for pigments; vs. oil)
terra-cotta (clay)
tomb, tomb effigie
three-dimensional, two-dimensional, perspective, aerial perspective.
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trompe l'oeil ("tromp loy"; French: to "fool the eye"; or--a very effective illusion)
tracery (stone carving in Gothic churches, usually on windows)
tympanum (thin half circle stone above the door of a church with sculpture on it)
typology (in iconography, the relationship of the old and new testaments); prefiguration
ukiyo-e (japonisme)
vanitas (Latin--vanity, or a painting that is about mortality, usually a still life)
Vault, vaulting, masonry vaulting (a stone roof, dome, rib vault, etc.) see also buttress, pier, compound pier
Vitruvian Man (Leonardo's figure of a man placed in a circle and a square)
votive (an "offering")
woodcut (a printmaking technique; ink is in the mesa, not in the valleys)
workshop, studio, circle, atelier, guild (an artists place of work, group, or style)
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Art 219/History of Art--Study guide for exams:
Know The Vocabulary of Art History
Click here for first exam
Click here for #final
General comments: Tests will come from the book and class lecture. Test will ask both specific questions (What is a
frieze?) and general questions (What is the difference between Romanesque and Gothic architecture? How is Roman
Baroque painting different from Dutch Baroque painting?) You should learn the artworks listed below by artist, title,
and date (which are a small selection from the huge number illustrated in the textbook), and you should learn the art
terms in the vocabulary. SO- Review the text, class website, class notes, and vocabulary, brush up on history and dates,
re-read Art History and the Humanities and How to analyze a painting, and review the Starter Kit and Introduction in the
textbook. You should be familiar with the words or terms, styles, and ideas in the text and in the lectures. Consider
especially whatever is new, different, or significant about each artist or artwork: How is this work new? What particular
problems did it solve? How did it change the current ideas of what was supposed to be? Does it say something
important about what it means to be a human being which helps us to understand the culture, time, and place were it was
made--or which helps us to understand ourselves, regardless of the time and place in which we live? Think
comparatively: how is each artwork similar or different than other works we have studied. Useful words are listed at
beginning of each lecture or underlined in the study guide.
Sample exam 1 Sample exam 2 Sample exam 3 Sample exam 4
Pet peeves and gotchas from the previous exams:
1. All Christian churches were built after the birth of Christ. Duh. (See next item.)
2. General knowledge of history appears to be weak: go to Hyperhistory on-line and learn what nobody in high school
seems to be teaching any more. Get a sense of when things happened.
3. Take more notes in class.
4. Read with purpose and method. (See Study habits and reading skills)
5. Study the vocabulary.
6. This is college. You do not get good grades for just showing up. If you are not satisfied with your grade, devote
more time to studying! There are 168 hours in a week! How many do you waste?!
7. Get some sleep!
8. What is a "dangling modifier"? Here is an example.
General Study Guide for exams:
Exams will consist of several sections, which may include:
1. Artwork identification, in which you will be shown an artwork from the text and be asked to name the artist (if
known), the title or subject, date, and place (for architecture). You are responsible for all the artworks in Wilkins and
Schulze (the main text). Slides which have been shown in the lectures may show up on the test in other kinds of
questions, but you will not be asked for a full identification as such unless the artwork is in the text.
15
2. Unknowns. These are artworks which may or may not come from the texts or lectures. You may be asked specific
questions about these, such as the probable artist, style or art movement, subject, approximate date, or historical
significance.
3. Which was made first, A or B? This question stresses concepts of development and relative dating.
4. Matching questions of various types: artist to style or art movement; artist to subject matter; artwork to country, etc.
5. True or False (the entire statement must be true, or it is false). These usually follow the text closely.
6. Multiple choice. Will also be taken from the main text, lectures, and discussions. Be sure you know the art
terminology in the text and glossary.
7. Quotation identification: who said this?
8. Short answer. Will tend to stress terminology
9. Essays.
You should be able to look at selected artworks in Stokstad and know-"who/what/when/where/why"
1. Purpose, function, or need (What caused this artwork to come into being?)
2. Medium (What material is it made of?): painting, vase painting (black figure and red figure), fresco (from ancient
Rome onward...), tempera on panel, oil on panel (from the Renaissance onward. . .), oil on canvas (canvas come in
about 1500), watercolor, mixed media
sculpture: (sculpture "in the round"--3 dimensional--vs. 2-d or "relief sculpture," "bas" or low relief), stone (marble),
bronze, clay (terra cotta), welded steel, etc.; pottery or ceramics (fired clay), manuscript illumination (pictures in
books), tapestry, stained glass, mosaic, drawing: silverpoint, ink, charcoal, pastel, chalk; printmaking: woodcut
(relief printing), engraving (intaglio printing), etching, lithography; architecture
3. Subject: What event, person, or thing is represented? Is there a title? Is there a text? Is it a narrative? ("history
painting")Biblical stories; mythological stories, or historical events? Is it "genre painting" (low life)? Or landscape,
still life, or portraiture?
4. Artist Describe the Style. Compare the work to other artworks in the text.
5. Patronage Why it was produced? for what purpose or function?
6. Civilization or culture When and where was it made?
Prehistoric (Paleolithic), or "Primitive" (Neolithic or "New Stone Age")
Egyptian (3000-200 BC)
Near Eastern: Assyrian or Persian (1st millennium BC)
Greek:
Pre-classical (800-500 BC)
Classical (500-400 BC; Fifth Century BC)
Late Classical (400-323)
Hellenistic (323-1st century BC)
Roman (Republican: 700 BC-1st century BC; Imperial: 31 BC to 313 AD)
Medieval (roughly 300 AD-1400 AD):
Early Christian (2nd century AD-600 AD)
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Byzantine (4th century AD-1400 AD
Carolingian (around 800)
Hiberno Saxon (700-1000)
Romanesque (1000-1200 or so)
Gothic (1144-1500 or so)
Renaissance:
Italian Renaissance (1400-1600)
North European Renaissance (1400-1600)
High Renaissance (1500-1520);
Central Italian Renaissance: Florence and Rome
Venetian Renaissance
Late Renaissance and Mannerism (1520-1600)
Baroque: Roman Baroque, Baroque Classicism, and Dutch Baroque (1600-1700)
Rococo (1700-1800)
19th Century:
Neoclassicism
Romanticism
Realism
Impressionism
Postimpressionism
Expressionism
20th Century
Modernism and Contemporary Art (numerous art movements and 'isms')
Study Guide for the First Exam (Chapters 1 to 13)
Click here for vocabulary
Key Ideas to Know:
Development and changes in art up to 1600 (see the comprehensive class notes )
How did art change, and why? How does art look different from the 17th to 20th centuries?
Any new media? New subjects? Why?
How does the social role of the artist change from 1600-2000? Women artists?
How does the concept of art and the purposes of art change?
The papacy? The Rich? Politics? The Middle Class?
Why are there so many different representations of the human body in Western art?
How does religion impact on art? the Reformation and Counter Reformation?
Who were some especially innovative or influential artists, and what did they do that was new?
What are "hidden" signs and symbols, and what do they do?
How can we explain the changes in art since 1945?
What is the future of art?
The types or "genres" of art (give examples):
history painting
portraiture
landscape
still life
"genre scenes" or "low life"
Modernism rarely has a literal "subject" as such): multimedia "installations, " "site specific," "site generated"]
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The concept of Style:
National style: What country was the artwork made in?
Period style: When was it made in (e.g. High Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, etc.)
What are the qualities of each style (for example, see Stokstad's text on Baroque, p. 306)
Personal style: Can you tell Michelangelo from Raphael or Titian? Rembrandt from Caravaggio?
You may be shown an artwork, maybe an unknown one, and be asked to identify the artist.
Go to the big virtual galleries like Google, The Web Gallery of Art, The Artchive, to get a feel for artist's styles.
Artworks:
Know the works in BOLD below for the identification section of the exam.
Know the artist (if known), title or subject, date (to nearest century), place, and medium.
You will see other artworks on the exam, but will not be asked to identify them as such.
Egypt:
*Palette of Narmer, c. 3150 BC
*Queen Nefertiti, c. 1348 BC, limestone, now in Berlin
*Tomb, coffin, and funerary mask of Tutankhamun, 1336 BC
Greece:
*Archaic period Kouros, New York, c. 600 B.C.
*"Kritios Boy" marble sculpture, c. 480 B.C.:
a transitional work between Archaic and Classical
"relative and absolute chronology" and The Persian War
the first contapposto: a complete human being at ease.
*Charioteer of Delphi, bronze, c. 470 B. C.
*Young Warrior, bronze, c. 460-450 BC
*Polycleitos, Spearbearer, a Roman copy after Greek bronze original, c. 450 BC.
Classical period, fifth century BC.
*Exekias (painter and potter), The suicide of Ajax, black figure amphora, c. 540 BC
"Black figure" and "Red figure" vase painting
*The Parthenon (Athena Parthenos), 447-438 BC, Doric order with an Ionic frieze inside the porch
*Nike tying her sandal, c. 410 BC
The "rich" style of c. 400; "Art for Art's Sake" ([Latin]"Ars Gratia Artis," [French] "l'art pour l'art")
Form and Content in a "Post-classical" style
*Praxiteles, Hermes and the Child Dionysos, 1st cent. BC copy of 4th cent. BC marble original
Hellenistic Art (after 323):
*Alexander the Great portrait head, c. 200 BC
*The Winged Victory (Nike) of Samothrace, 180-160 BC
*Dying Trumpeter (Dying Gaul), copy of 3rd century BC work
*Great Altar of Zeus at Pergamon, 2nd century BC Hellenistic "Baroque": melodrama and rhetoric
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Rome:
*A Roman temple, Portunus, late 2nd century BC: compare to Greek temples
*The Emperor Augustus (of Prima Porta), c. AD 15: compare to Spearbearer of Greek Classical age
The five Roman orders (Greek plus "Composite and Tuscan")
Building "types" in Rome: amphitheaters, baths, temples, roads, aqueducts, houses
The arch: a versatile form; made possible by concrete, centering, and keystone
"trabeated" vs "arcuated" (architrave vs archivolt)
*Pont du Gard, Nimes, France, a Roman aqueduct
*The Pantheon ("All the gods"), by Emperor Hadrian, AD 125
Early Christian and Medieval Art:
Iconography of the Life of Jesus, page 162 [Don't memorize it; just be aware of it.]
*Old St. Peter's Basilica, Rome, 333
The parts of a Christian church:
atrium, narthex (porch), nave, side aisles, transept, crossing, apse, clerestory.
note the difference between basislica plan and central plan churches
*Santa Sabina, Rome, 422
*Church of Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom), Istambul, Turkey, 532-537
Elements of architecture: domes, pendentives, "squinches," drum, oculus
*Andrey Rublev, Old Testament Trinity, c. 1410, tempera on panel
*The Book of Kells, c. 800 (an Irish National treasure)
*Bronze doors of Bishop Bernward, Abbey Church of St. Michael, Hildesheim, 1015
Story of creation and fall of man; narrative in art; Old and New testament
*The plan of St. Gall, c. 819--an ideal monastery [my old prof wrote the book on this document!]
Romanesque Art:
*St. Foi, Conques, 1080-1120, Abbey church. [Pilgrims: the St. Foi Reliquary, late 10th cent.]
*Gislebertus (artist), Last judgment, west portal, Autun Cathedral, 1125. signed.
*Tympanum, lintel, and trumeau (post), central portal.
*The Magi Asleep, capital from nave, Autun, c. 1120
This work is apparently not by Gislebertus, although in the same church--so the author is unknown.
*The Bayeux Tapestry, embroidery, c. 1066-1082. (William the Conqueror; Halley's comet)
Gothic Art:
*Abbey church of San Denis, Ile de France, France, 1140-44; choir, ambulatory, and chapels
Abbot Suger of San Denis; his Chalice (non nobis, domine, non nobis!)
A new unity of elements; a unique and timeless achievement
This is where the "Gothic" style was invented
*Notre Dame de Chartres, Cathedral, 1194-1220
*La Sante Chapelle, Paris, 1243-48, "rayonnant" (radiant) style
*Virgin and Child (of Queen Jeanne d'Evreaux), c. 1339, silver gilt statuette
Gothic "hip-shot" position; not quite "contrapposto"
*Jean Pucelle (artist!), Petites Heurs of Jeanne d'Evreux (a book of hours), c. 1325,
pages with Betrayal and Arrest of Christ. Grisaille and color on vellum.
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Painting c. 1300:
*Cimabue, Virgin and Child Enthroned, c. 1280 (late 13th century)
*Duccio, Maesta Altarpiece, Madonna Enthroned, 1308
*Giotto di Bondone, Madonna and Child Enthroned with Angels and Saints, c. 1310;
tempera on wood; see p. 247 for tempera technique
*Giotto, The Arena Chapel, Padua, fresco cycle, c. 1305
Scenes from the lives of Christ and Mary
Patron: Enrico Scrovegni; penance for "usury," which Aquinas said was a sin
*Lamentation frescos (pieta); The Kiss of Judas; The Last Judgment
Early Renaissance (14th Century) in the North
Robert Campin, Merode Altarpiece, (Annunciation Triptych), oil on panel, c. 1425
Jan and Hubert Van Eyck, Ghent Altarpiece, 1434
Jan Van Eyck, Giovanni Arnolfini and His Wife, oil on panel, 1434
Hugo Van der Goes, Portinari Altarpiece, (Nativity), tempera and oil on panel, c. 1474
The Limbourg Brothers, February, from the Tres Riches Heures of the Duke of Berry, mnscrpt illumination, 1414
Early Renaissance Italy:
Masaccio, Tribute Money, fresco, Santa Maria Novella, Florence, 1425
Piero della Francesca, The Duke and Duchess of Urbino, 1472, oil and tempera on wood, 1465
Donatello, Equestrian Monument of Erasmo da Narni--"Gattamelata" 1445
Donatello, David, bronze, Florenc, after 1428,
[SO, which one is "the first life size bronze since Rome"? Must be the David.]
Filippo Brunelleschi, Florence Cathedral and its DOME (duomo), 1420-36
Church of Santo Spirito, begun 1436
Andrea Mantegna, Camera Picta (Camera degli Sposi), Ducal Palace, Milan, 1465-74
Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus, tempera on canvas, c. 1485
Pietro Perugino, Delivery of the Keys to Saint Peter, fresco in the Sistine Chapel, 1482
The High Renaissance (16th century Italy):
Leonardo da Vinci,
Mona Lisa, oil on wood, c. 1503
TheLast Supper, refectory, Santa Maria della Grazia, Milan, failed technique, 1495-98
"Vitruvian Man," drawing, c. 1500
Raphael Sanzio, Philosophy ("The School of Athens"), fresco, Vatican City, Rome; 1512
Michelangelo Buonarroti,
Pieta, 1499, St. Peters, Rome, marble;
David, 1501-1504, over life size marble sculpture
St. Peters Basilica, 1506--1660
The Sistine Chapel ceiling, 1508-1512, fresco, commissioned by Pope Julius II
The Creation of Adam, c. 1511, angels (ignudi), prophets and sibyls
The Last Judgment, 1534-41, altar wall of Sistine Chapel
Titian, The Pesaro Madonna, 1519-1526, Venice, oil on canvas!
Tintoretto, Last Supper, 1592, church of Santa Maria Maggiore, Venice, oil on canvas
Jacopo Pontormo, Entombment, 1525. (Mannerism)
Benvenuto Cellini, Saltcellar of Francis I, 1543
Veronese, Feast in the House of the Levi (The Last Supper), Venice, 1573
Andrea Palladio (1518-1580), Villa Rotonda, Vincenza, 1550
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Northern (German and Netherlandish) Renaissance:
Matthias Grunewald, Isenheim Altarpiece, c. 1510
Durer, Adam and Eve, copper plate engraving, 1504
Hieronymous Bosch (died 1516), "Garden of Earthly Delights," c. 1505-1515
Peter Brueghel the Elder, Return of the Hunters, 1565
End of First midterm study guide
back to top
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Final Exam Study Guide (Chapters 14-20)
Go to the top of this document for general test information
Re-read the essay on Art History and the Humanities
Click here for vocabulary
Sample exam 1 Sample exam 2 Sample exam 3 Sample exam 4
Plan of attack:
*Read the Book!
*ArtLex on the web has excellent definitions and examples of all styles and vocabulary words.
*Review the "Starter Kit" and the "Introduction," which has pictures from chapters 17-20.)
*Review the class notes from chapters 17-20
*Re-read the essay on Art History and the Humanities and How to Analyze a Painting.
* Review class web pages and websites.
*Visit virtual galleries like Google, Web Gallery of Art, and The Artchive on the major artists and their styles.
*The website for Stokstad's text book also has not-so-useful exercises for each chapter.
You should be able to look at selected artworks in Stokstad and know "who/what/when/where/why"
--what need, purpose, or function caused this artwork to come into being?
--what medium it is made of-- (lots of new media in 20th century art!)
--what subject, event, person or thing it represents. (Lots of new subjects too!)
--the artist; compare the work to other art in the text
--why it was produced: patronage, purpose, or function
--what civilization or culture produced it.
Remember the kinds of questions we can ask about an artwork:
Patronage (how did the artwork come into being--can affect everything from subject matter to style
Physical location (any important issues, such as is it mobile or immobile? Where is it now? Why?)
Subject matter (what story or text and how it is approached)
Formal aspects (light, line, color, composition, space and perspective, etc.)
Style (the sum total of what the picture looks like--"Romanesque," "Hellenistic," "Florentine Early Renaissance,"
and "Art Deco" are all styles
Historical context (whatever in that time and place you think bears upon the meaning of the work)
Meaning or interpretation (the tough one!)
Your personal opinion (which your own business and yet--implicitly we study "great" works and nod "bad" one)
Parts of the exam may include-1. Artwork/ Slide identification
2. Unknowns. These are artworks which may or may not come from the texts or lectures.
You may be asked specific questions about these, such as the probable artist, style or art movement,
subject, approximate date, or historical significance.
3. Which was made first, A or B? This question stresses concepts of development and relative dating.
4. Matching: artist to style or art movement; artist to subject matter; artwork to country, etc.
5. True or False (the entire statement must be true, or it is false). These usually follow the text closely
6. Multiple choice. Will also be taken from the main text, lectures, and discussions.
7. Quotation identification: who said this?
8. Short answer. Will tend to stress terminology
9. Essays.
22
When you are learning the artworks for the final, learn the artist, title, date, and medium, but the
question of medium will only come up on multiple choice questions (I might show you a picture of an artwork and ask
what medium it is). Dates before Giotto can be in centuries, not exact years. (For example, "artist unknown, the
Pantheon, 2nd century AD", or "100's AD"--or "CE". For ancient Egypt, the right millennium is enough!) Don't worry
about the "place" unless the work is architecture. The issue of size may come up in the multiple choice questions in
some obvious ways. Read the book, look at lecture notes and the sample exams. Try to focus on the concepts we have
discussed in class like subject matter and stylistic development.
You should be familiar with the words or terms, styles, and ideas in the text and in the lectures. Consider especially
whatever is new, different, or significant about each artist or artwork: How is this work new? What particular
problems did it solve? How did it change the current ideas of what was supposed to be? Does it say something
important about what it means to be a human being which helps us to understand the culture, time, and place were it was
made--or which helps us to understand ourselves, regardless of the time and place in which we live? Think
comparatively: how is each artwork similar or different than other works we have studied.
The final exam will stress these concepts :
Development and changes in art from 1600-2000 (see the comprehensive class notes)
How did art change, and why? How does art look different from the 17th to 20th centuries?
Any new media? New subjects? Why?
How does the social role of the artist change from 1600-2000? Women artists?
How does the concept of art and the purposes of art change?
Why are there so many different representations of the human body in Western art?
Who were some especially innovative or influential artists, and what did they do that was new?
How can we explain the changes in art since 1945?
Abstraction ("non-representational" art: no literal "subject" as such)
New Modernist forms: multimedia "installations, " "site specific," "site generated"
Four main trends in 20th century art: Abstraction, Expressionism, Surrealism, Formalism:
What is the future of art? Postmodernism?
The types or "genres" of art (give examples):
history painting
portraiture
landscape
still life
"genre scenes" proper or "low life"
Modernism rarely has a literal "subject" as such): multimedia "installations, " "site specific," "site generated"]
The Concept of Style:
National style: What country was the artwork made in?
Period style: When was it made in (e.g. High Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, etc.)
What are the qualities of each style (for example, see the text on Baroque)
Personal style: Can you tell Michelangelo's style from Raphael's, or Titian's? Rembrandt from Caravaggio?
You may be shown an artwork and be asked to identify the artist, period, or style.
23
Artists and Artworks for the Final Exam
Know the works in BOLD for the identification section of the exam.
Know the artist (if known), title or subject, date (to nearest century), place, and medium.
You will see other artworks on the exam, but will not be asked to identify them as such.
Baroque Art (several national and religious styles)
"Catholic Baroque" (also Roman or Absolutist Baroque)
Hyacinthe Rigaud (French), Portrait of King Louis XIV of France, 1701
The Hall of Mirrors, The Palace at Versailles, France, built by King Louis XIV, 1678ff
Gianlorenzo Bernini (Italian, 1598-1680)
David, marble sculpture, 1623
St. Teresa in Ecstacy, Cornaro chapel, Santa Maria della Vittoria, 1650
St. Peter's Basilica and Square, Vatican, Rome, 1656
Fountain of the Four Rivers, Piazza Navona, Rome, 1650
Baldachino, St. Peters Basilica, bronze, 1624-33
G. B. Gauli and G. Bernini, The Triumph of the Name of Jesus, ceiling fresco, Church of the Gesu, 1676
Artemisia Gentilleschi (Italian), Self-portrait as Allegory of Painting, 1630
Michelangelo da Caravaggio (Italian, 1577-1610): The Calling of St. Mathew, 1604, oil on canvas
(The St. Mathew altarpiece: two versions, 1604)
Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish, 1577-1640)
Raising of the Cross, Antwerp Cathedral, 1610 [huge!]
Henry IV Receiving the Portrait of Maria de Medici 1621-25; in the Louvre Museum, Paris
Diego Velazquez (Spanish, 1598-1658) oil on canvas
The Water Carrier of Seville, 1619
Las Meninas (The Maids of Honor), 1656 (Portrait of the Infanta Margarita)
Dutch Baroque (Protestant Baroque):
Jan Vermeer (Dutch), Woman holding a balance, c. 1664
Judith Leyster (Dutch), Self Portrait, 1635
Rembrandt van Rijn (Dutch, 1606-1969) oil on canvas
Self-portrait, 1659
Three Crosses, 1663, drypoint and engraving
The Militia Company of Frans Banning Cocq ("The Night Watch"), 1642
Rachel Ruysch (Dutch), Flower Still Life, c. 1700
"Baroque Classicism"
Nicholas Poussin (French, 1594-1665), Landscape with St. John on Patmos, 1640
Annibale Carracci (Italian), The Loves of the Gods, ceiling fresco, Farnese Gallery, 1600
Counter Reformation Spain:
Bartolome Esteban Murillo, The Immaculate Conception, c. 1645 (very accessible)
Rococo (c. 1700-1800)
The Rococo Style in Painting:
Antoine Watteau, Pilgrimage to the Island of Cythera, 1717
Jean-Honore Fragonard, The Meeting, from The Progress of Love Series, 1771 (romantic love)
Architecture:
Germain Boffrand, Salon, Hotel de Soubise, Paris, 1736 (French Rococo)
Johann B. Neuman, Imperial Hall, Wurzburg, 1719-44 (Austian Rococo) Fresco by G. B. Tiepolo, 1751 (Italian)
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Artists, works, and art movements, Rococo to Modern (19th Century Art)
Portraiture:
Elizabeth Vigee-Lebrun, Marie Antoinette and her children, 1787
Adeladie Labille-Guiard, Self-Portrait with Two Pupils, 1785
Neoclassicism (c. 1750 to 1930): (The heritage of Palladio up to the present day)
Lord Burlington, Chiswick House, London, 1724
Robert Adam, Syon House, Middlesex, England, 1760
Thomas Jefferson, Monticello, Virginia, 1770ff
Jacques-Louis David [Da-Veed], Oath of the Horatii, 1784
Jacque Louis David, Napoleon Crossing the Alps, 1800
Angelica Kauffmann, Cornelia Pointing to her Children. . ., 1785
J. A. D. Ingres [An-Grrr], Large Odalisque [reclining nude], 1814
Johann Zofany, The Royal Academy, England, 1771 [where are the women members?]
Romanticism
Francisco Goya, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters [etching], 1796
Francisco Goya, The Third of May, 1808, 1814
Theodore Gericault [Jay-Ree-Coe], The Raft of the Medusa, 1818
Eugene Delacroix [De-La-Cwa], The Women of Algiers, 1834
Henri Fuseli, The Nightmare, 1781
Romantic Landscape:
John Constable, The White Horse, 1819
J. W. M. Turner, The Fighting Temeraire. . . , 1838
George Caleb Bingham, Fur Traders Descending the Missouri, 1845
Realism (See also realism and Realism)
Gustave Courbet, A Burial at Ornans, 1849
Rosa Bonheur, Plowing in the Nivernais, 1849
Edouard Manet [Man-Nay], Luncheon on the Grass, 1863 [Salon des Refusees]
Edouard Manet, Olympia, 1863
Edouard Manet, The Bar at the Follies Bergere, 1881 [Realism or Impressionism?]
Thomas Eakins, The Gross Clinic, 1875
Honore Daumier, Rue Trasmonian, April 15, 1834, 1834, lithograph
Photography
Louis Daguerre, The Artist's Studio, 1837
William Henry Fox Talbot, The Open Door, 1843
Julia Margaret Cameron, Portrait of Thomas Carlyle, 1863
Timothy O'Sullivan, Ancient Ruins, Canyon de Chelly, 1873
Later 19th Century Art (Chapter 18)
Impressionism
Claude Monet [Mow-Nay], Boulevard des Capucines, 1874
Claude Monet, Sunrise, Impression, 1872
Berthe Morrisot, In the Dining Room, 1886
Edgar Degas, The Rehearsal of the Ballet on Stage, c. 1874
Auguste Renoir, The Boating Party, 1881
Mary Cassatt, Maternal Caress, 1891
Henry O. Tanner, The Banjo Lesson, 1893 (Is this work really Impressionist?)
Post-Impressionism
Georges Seurat, Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, 1884-6
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Paul Signac, Place des Lices, Saint-Tropez, 1893
Paul Cezanne, Still Life with Basket of Apples, 1890
Paul Cezxanne, Mont Sante-Victoire, 1904
Paul Gauguin [Go-Gan], ), Mohana no atua (Day of the God), c. 1891
Vincent Van Gogh, The Starry Night, 1889
Vincent Van Gogh, Sunflowers, 1889
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec [Too-Loose-Low-Trek], Jane Avril, Lithograph, 1893
Sculpture:
Auguste Rodin [Row-Dan], Burghers of Calais, 1884 [the heir to Donatello and Michelangelo]
Camille Claudel, The Waltz, 1892ff
Art Nouveau
Victor Horta, Stairway, Tassel House, Brussels, 1892
Antonio Gaudi, Serpentine Bench, Guell Park, Barcelona, 1900
Modern Art: The Early 20th Century (Chapter 19)
Architecture of new materials: iron, steel, and glass
Abraham Darby III, The Severn River Bridge, Coalbrookdale, England, 1779
Gustave Eiffel, Eiffel Tower, Paris, 1887 (it has been sold twice!)
Romantic Historicism--means "eclectic borrowing from the past"
Charles Garnier, Paris Opera House Grand Staircase, 1861-74
H. H . Richardson, Marshall Field Warehouse, Chicago, 1885, demolished c. 1935
Louis Sullivan, Wainright Building, St. Louis, 1890
Gothic "Revival" Architecture: Sir Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin, Houses of Parliament, London, 1836-70
Academic Art (still continued up to 1900, and beyond--see The Art Renewal Center website)
Harriet Hosmer, Zenobia in Chains, 1859, marble
Edmonia Lewis, Hagar in the Wilderness, marble, 1875
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, La Pia de Tolomei, 1868
Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Phidias and the Frieze of the Parthenon, 1868 (Introduction p. 16)
Expressionism [also includes Van Gogh]
Edvard Munch [Mooonk], The Scream, 1893
Gustav Klimt, The Kiss, 1907 (is this Art Nouveau?)
Paula Moderson Becker, Self Portrait with an Amber Necklace, 1906
Kathe Kollwitz, The Outbreak [etching], 1903
Paul Klee, Hammamet with its Mosque, 1914 [also Fantasy Art or "Magic Realism"]
Expressionist Movements:
Fauvism Henri Matisse, The Joy of Life, 1905
Die Brücke "The Bridge"["German Expressionism"]: Ernst Kirchner, Street, Berlin, 1913
Kathe Kollwitz, The Outbreak, 1903
Der Blaue Reiter "The Blue Rider": Vasily Kandinsky, Improvisation Number 30, 1913
Cubism [Analytical]:
Pablo Picasso, Les Desmoiselles d"Avignon, 1907
Georges Braque, Violin and Palette, 1909
Cubism [synthetic]:
Picasso, Glass and Bottle of Suze, 1912
Cubist related Styles:
Italian Futurism: Umberto Boccioni, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, 1913
Russian “avant-guard” [Cubism plus Expressionism]:
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Natalia Goncharova, Electric Light, 1913; also: Haycutting, 1910
Kasimir Malevich (Russian), Suprematist Painting (Eight Red Rectangles), 1915
Max Weber [American Cubism], Rush Hour, New York, 1915
See also Constructivism, Cubism, Futurism, Orphism, Suprematism, and Vorticism [!]
Art After World War I
Primitivism
Henry Moore, Reclining Figure, 1929
Constructivism: [Machine Aesthetic]:
El Lisitsky (Russian), "Proun" Space for Berlin ("Project for Affirmation of the New"), 1923
Gerrit Rietveld, Schroder Houise, Netherlands, 1924
De Stijl [Day Shteel]=The Style:
Piet Mondrian, Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow, 1930
Modernism in Architecture and "The International Style"
Bauhaus Walter Gropius, The Bauhaus, Dessau, Germany, 1925
Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe, German Pavilion, Barcelona Expo, 1929
Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe and Phillip Johnson, Seagram Building, NYC, 1954
Frank Lloyd Wright, Fallingwater, Pennsylvania, 1937
Dada-Dadaism
Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, he Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass), 1915-23
Hugo Ball, poem and performances, The Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich,, 1916
Surrealism [Magritte, Klee, Miro, Dali, Calder, Moore, Kahlo, and early Abstract Expressionism]
Salvador Dali, The Persistence of Memory, 1931
Joan Miro, Dutch Interior I, 1928
Alexander Calder, Lobster Trap and Fish Tail, 1939 (hanging "mobile")
Pablo Picasso, Guernica, 1937 (28 feet wide), for 1937 Paris World's Fair
Meret Oppenheim, Fur Covered Cup and Saucer, 1935 (The ultimate Surrealist Object!)
Constantine Brancusi (Romanian in Paris), Torso of a Young Man, 1924
Henry Moore (English), Recumbent Figure, 1938 (also "primitive" or non-Western art)
United States:
Ashcan School
Art Deco
Precisionism: Charles Sheeler, American Landscape, 1930
Farm Security Administration Photography: Dorthea Lange, Migrant Mother, 1936
Harlem Renaissance:
Aaron Douglas, Aspects of Negro Life: From Slavery To Reconstruction, 1934
Jacob Lawrence, During the World War there was a Great Migration North by Southern Negroes,
panel 1 from The Migration of the Negro, 1940
American Regionalism (denies Modernism--part of 1930's isolationism):
Grant Wood, American Gothic, 1930
Georgia O'Keeffe, Red Canna, 1924 ("Abstraction"? Surrealism?)
Edward Hopper, Nighthawks, 1942
Mexico and Canada:
Frida Kahlo, The Two Fridas, 1939
Diego Rivera, Man, Controller of the Universe, 1934, fresco
Emily Carr, Big Raven, 1931 (Her auction prices are also now through the roof)
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Bauhaus and Modern Architecture (International Style)
Gerrit Reirveld, Interior, Schroeder House, Utrech, Netherlands (your dorm room)
Le Corbusier, Plan for a City, 1922
Marianne Brandt, Tea and Coffee Service, 1924 Art Deco
Walter Gropius, The Bauhaus, Germany, 1925
Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe, German Pavilion, Barcelona, 1929 (curtain walls)
Mies and Philip Johnson, Seagram Building, 1954 (The skyscraper)
Frank Lloyd Wright, Fallingwater, Pennsylvania, 1937.
Excellent virtual tour http://www.learn.columbia.edu/fallingwater/
Elements of Architecture: The Skyscraper
"Degenerate Art" and Nazi Art
"Degenerate Art" exhibit, 1937
Art of the Third Reich (Hitler); Socialist Realism (Stalin)
Art Since 1945 (Chapter 20)
Abstract Expressionism (Pollock, Krasner, de Kooning, Rothko, Frankenthaler, etc.)
Antonio Tapies, White with Graphism, 1957
Jackson Pollock, Autumn Rhythm (Number 30). 1950 ("Action Painting," "Gesturalism" "psychic automatism")
Lee Krasner, The Seasons, 1939
Willem de Kooning, Woman I, 1950-52
Mark Rothko, Brown, Blue, Brown on Blue, 1951 Mark Rothko at The National Gallery of Art
Helen Frankenthaler, Mountains and Sea, 1952
David Smith, Cubi XIX, 1964 (see Introduction, p. 16)
Assemblage, Kinetic Art, and Combine Painting
Jean Tinguely, Homage to New York, 1960
Louis Nevelson, Sky Cathedral, 1958
Robert Rauschenburg, Canyon, 1959
Pop Art (the return of the object)
Jasper Johns, Target with Four Faces, 1955 (assemblage?)
Richard Hamilton, Just What Is It That Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing, 1956, collage
Roy Lichtenstein, "Oh, Jeff. . .I love you too. . .but," 1964 (benday dots)
Andy Warhol, Marilyn Diptych, 1962.
Claes Oldenburg, Lipstick (Ascending) on Caterpillar Tracks, 1969
Appropriation (see also readymade)
Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1917 [also Dada]
Minimalism and Op Art ("an art free of falsehood"):
Maya Lin, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, 1982
Donald Judd, Untitled, 1969
Bridget Riley, Current, 1964
Eva Hesse, Rope Piece, 1969
Ad reinhardt, Black Painting, 1961 [not in book]
Conceptual Art and Performance Art ("mental rather than physical activity"):
Joseph Kosuth, One and Three Chairs, 1965
Bruce Nauman, Self Portrait as a Fountain, 1966 (the artist as artwork!)
Photorealism
Duane Hanson, The Shoppers, 1976
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Late Modernism/Postmodernism or Pluralism): What is Postmodernism?
Earth art [Earthworks and Site-Specific Art or Environment Art ]
Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty, Salt Lake, 1969
Feminism and feminist art, Gender, and Autobiographical tendencies [See also The Gallery of Women's Art]
Miriam Schapiro, Personal Appearance #3, 1973, paint, fabric, and canvas
Judy Chicago, The Dinner Party, 1979 (See her Website)
Betye Saar, The Liberation of Aunt Jemima, 1972
Faith Ringgold, Tar Beach, 1988
Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still, 1978
Deborah Butterfield, Ruffian, wood sculpture (Who was Ruffian?)
Graffiti (Keith Haring); see also bad art, destruction, popular culture, and Fluxus
Pluralism
Elizabeth Murray, Chaotic Lip, 1986
Anselm Kiefer, Markishcer Heide, 1984
Magdalena Abakanowicz, Bakcs, 1976
Kiki Smith, Untitled, 1988
Wendle Castle, Ghost Clock, 1985
Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri (Australian), Man's Love Story, 1978
Art with Social Impact
Roger Simomura, Diary, 1978 (figure 27, page 29)
Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Gifts for Trading Land with White People, 1992
Installation and Video Art
Jenny Holzer, Selections from Truisms. . . , 1989 Truisms!
Nam June Paik, Electronic Superhighways, 1995
Bill Viola, The Crossing, 1996
Shirin Neshat, Production still from Fervor, 2000
More Truisms
American Craft Art:
Martin Puryear, Plenty's Boast, 1994
Dale Chihuly, Violet Persian Set with Red Lip Wraps, Glass, 1990 (figure 19, page 11)
Public Memory and Art: The Memorial:
Maya Lin, Viet Nam Veterans Memorial, Washington, D.C., 1982
Critical theory (box page 595)
Michael Aurbach, The Critical Theorist, 2002 (cooking equipment)
Architecture:
Frank Lloyd Wright, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1967 (figure 22, page 26)
Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe and Philip Johnson, Seagram Building, New York, 195
Frank Gehry, Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain, 1997
Santiago Calavatra, World Trade Center, Transportation Hub, 2006-2009
World Trade Center design competition: which one do you like best?
back to top
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Art 219/History of Art
home/class schedule
web resources
vocabulary
complete class notes
assignments
study guide
Week 1: Introduction
____________________________________________________________
Reading assignments (these are always required):
Stokstad, Art, A Brief History (main text): "Starter Kit and Introduction"
How to Analyze a Painting by Aikin
Art History and the Humanities by Aikin
Browse these class websites:
Course Goals and Requirements
Writing Assignments
Study Guide for Exams
Web resources
Timeline of Art History
Complete class notes
Vocabulary
What you should do after class today
Aikin's welcome speech and pep talk
How to do well in this course
Course Goals and Requirements
Web resources and using the the course web page
Class notes for week 1
Introduction to Art History 219
Read the assignments and links above.
Your textbook's "key features": looking forward, looking back, extended captions, maps, technique, etc.
Note Vocabulary (in green) at bottom of each weekly page. Complete vocabulary page here
Seeing Paintings
Seeing, Perception, and Art: the picture above; the Fed-X arrow, traffic lights, and the American flag.
Leonardo's Last Supper of 1494: kinds of questions we can ask about artworks. Intertextuality!
What is art and what is art history?
“There is no greater obstacle to the enjoyment of great works of art than our unwillingness to discard habits and
prejudices.” (Art Historian E.H. Gombrich)
What is art? There are many questions we can ask and observations we can make about artworks:
"Taste" or "likes” and “dislikes” can be argued but not "proved"--as in food. (De gustibus non disputandum est--"There
is no arguing about taste.") I like some foods and do not like others, and nothing will change my mind--at my age. But
there is something called an "acquired taste," because some food and drink takes a while to learn to enjoy. Indeed, some
of the most enjoyable foods and drinks, like wine, are acquired tastes. And the term can apply to any activity like music
or art that takes some effort to learn about and enjoy. In fact, part of their enjoyment is learning about them. “Quality”
or “value” in art is different. We can argue about these, but we have to be aware of the standards we are applying, and
there are several ways of judging the value of artworks. One way is “realism” or verisimilitude: how well does the
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artwork “imitate nature.” This method was dominant for several centuries from the Renaissance to the 19 th century,
but was challenged by artists like Vincent Van Gogh, whose works seem to express feelings or emotions, and the
criterion of “self-expression” is now a well-accepted way of judging artworks. Remember the artist Arikha in the film
we saw Painting and the Public who defined art that which "gives you the shivers." Great idea, but what give you
and me the shivers may not be the same thing. The problem is that we can never be sure that the emotions or feelings we
think we see in an artwork are those the artists had in mind! Works like Van Gogh’s Sunflowers feature bright colors,
flattened space and free handling of paint, and we can discuss these “formal qualities” (light, space, composition, color,
brushwork) objectively. (See “How to analyze a painting.”) The values of art can be listed as--material value, intrinsic
value, religious value, nationalistic value, and psychological value.
The concept of Style (text page xxviii): "the 'formal qualities' that make a work of art look distinctive." The word
derives from the stilus, the writing instrument of the ancient Romans, and like handwriting or a signature, it is specific to
each artist. The “3 Ps” of style:
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

Period: time or era, sometimes called “isms”
Place: geographic location
Personal: individual artist, artistic group or “school”
Formal qualities are all of the things we see when we look at an artwork (as opposed to other things we may know
about it) such as line, color, shape, mass, space, composition, and other qualities of the artwork that identify it as part of
some group of other artworks. Style is one of the key ideas in art history, and style can be interpreted as an expression of
important truths about artists, time periods, or places. Stylistic analysis is a practice or skill that helps art historians
identify the work of an artist, period, or region--so we can refer to "personal style" (the style of Michenalgelo, Van
Gogh, or Elvis Presley), "period style" (the style of Renaissance Italy, as opposed to Baroque Italy), "regional style" (the
style of Venice in 1500 as opposed to Florence). We can refer to "representational styles" like "realism, "naturalism," or
"illusionism," or to "abstract styles" like "nonrepresentational art" and "expressionism."
Art History is a discipline invented in the late-nineteenth century which aims, like History proper, to understand
ourselves by understanding the art of the past. "Art history combines two very different special studies – the study of an
individual work of art outside time and place (formal anaylsis and even art appreciation) and the study of art in its
historical context (the primary approach taken in this book).” Marilyn Stokstad in textbook, Art: A Brief History)
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

Formalism: Formal analysis is the main criteria by which an artwork is interpreted
Contextualism: Focuses on the cultural background (literature, history, economics, politics, social
developments) of an art object to explain its meaning
Tradition or Intertextuality: Tradition is the historical framework, or web, in which every work of art
occupies its own specific place. Intertextuality concerns how artists influence and reference one another, the
platform from which the artist makes a leap of the imagination .
Related disciplines are Aesthetics, which is a branch of Philosophy that asks what Beauty and art are and what gives art
meaning. Art Criticism tries to differentiate between good art and bad art. What constitutes beauty? Beauty is not a
constant, but is a standard that varies through time and is a function of taste. Ultimately (and let's be honest about this!),
our goal should be to make judgments and to relate the art of the past to our own experience, but we should first try to be
fair to the people who made the art by trying to find out what they themselves intended. We should try to avoid both
uniformed condemnation or uncritical gushing. “I know what I like” may really mean “I like what I know" (and I reject
whatever fails to match the things I am familiar with – there are wrong reasons for disliking a work of art). Many
students are surprised to fine that Art History requires considerable knowledge of facts--names, dates, and events--many
of them in foreign languages.)
Connoisseurship is the study of art based on formal, visual and stylistic analysis. Greater knowledge leads to greater
appreciation and can only come through much looking; “saturation” or seeing it all. This is what art historians, art
critics, curators and art dealers do, though one does not need an advanced degree to become a connoisseur. The
connoisseur has an eye for quality acquired through immersion, through looking at the originals but also through study;
reading the scholarly literature.
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The methods of art history are formalism (art for art's sake), iconography and iconology (content or subject),
Marxism (politics), Feminism (gender) biography and autobiography (art as expression), semiology or structuralism
(signs and symbols), deconstruction (question everything!), and psychoanalysis (art as libido energy).
Iconography is the study of subject matter and symbolism in artworks. We analyzed at length the “Wedding of
Giovanni Arnolfini” (not in your book unfortunately), which is a kind of puzzle, with exact meanings applied to real
objects (the dog, the shoes, the fruit, the candle). This picture illustrates another problem about reading and judging
artworks: the farther in the past they are, the more difficult and problematic it is to uncover the cultural conventions that
underlie the works. (Gesture language is an example: gestures transplanted into a new cultural context may have
unintended and disastrous consequences!) (The Iconography of the Life of
Jesus) A definition of Iconography
Art and Illusion: Until about 1910 all Western art, whatever its differences, had one basic premise--that the purpose of
art was to imitate visual reality, to "hold up the mirror to nature," to create the illusion that the painting was a
window into the world of three dimensions, and not a two-dimensional surface with marks and colors on it. As far back
as the ancient Greeks, painting and sculpture was thought to be good or successful insofar as it created the magical and
illusory imitation of Nature, and the Italian Renaissance perfected three-dimensional illusion through the use of shading
modeling and foreshortening. In a sense one could say that the artist set himself up in competition with nature, to
capture and compete with her (Nature is always, significantly, female), to improve upon her, and, symbolically, to
control her. In this respect, art was a kind of magical lie. Abstraction, on the other hand, insists that the artwork is not a
lie or an imitation at all, but its own separate truth and separate reality--a two dimensional surface with marks and colors
on it. About 1910 several different artists independently created paintings which we call "non-objective" or "nonrepresentational" in that they did not reproduce Nature or "reality" (because of course the painting of illusion was the
opposite of real), but were a reality of their own. Psychologically, one might say that the history of the West up to the
twentieth century was a kind of patriarchal attempt to dominate or conquer Nature through science, philosophy, and
technology--that is, through Reason. But by the early twentieth century it had become clear that this lust for control was
threatening Nature herself, as well as man, who was now coming to be seen as nurtured by and dependent on nature.
This new awareness was articulated, for example, in Sigmund Freud's Civilization and its Discontents, in which he
argued that the rational principle in man had gotten out of hand and needed to be balanced by what he called The
Pleasure Principle, or Eros. I do not suggest that there is necessarily any "cause and effect" connection either way
between Freud and abstraction, only that abstraction can be seen as a part of a general questioning of long-held attitudes
about the relationship between man and Nature.
There are no "right answers" in Humanities papers, only badly written ones. Art History is not like Mathematics-which has skills and operations that you can master and then move on to "higher" operations. Art History is open-ended:
what you decide to learn and think about it is ultimately up to you. That means it is hard for us teachers to write tests: I
will try to be as clear as I can about what you "need to know," but one of the goals of this course is creative looking and
thinking!
What is art? Some definitions:









"Art is self-expression” (a very recent and "Romantic" idea)
"Art is a persisting event."
"Man: the Art-making animal."
"Art is the only truly enduring investment of human labor." (Guess who said that!)
"Art is a visual language."
"Art is communication of ideas and attitudes."
“Art is an aesthetic object. It is meant to be looked at and appreciated for its intrinsic value. Its special qualities
set art apart, so that it is often placed away from everyday life, in museums, churches, or caves….Of course not
all art is beautiful to the eyes, but it is art nonetheless…Art is, however much more than decoration, for it is
laden with meaning… In art, as in language, we are above all inventors of symbols that convey new, often
multiple meanings and moods.” (Art Historians H.W. and Anthony F. Janson)
“The bottom line is that art can be almost anything…Art is when anyone in the world takes any sort of material
and fashions a deliberate statement with it.” (Former director of the MET Museum of Art, Thomas Hoving)
“Art is something made with form and beauty.” (Victorian period)
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

“Art is” (A contemporary assessment)
"The one constant thing about all art is that it is forever changing."
What is art? by Robert Belton See some more feeble attempts to define art here!
What are the purposes of art? Why is art created? These vary with the culture, era, patron, and artist:







Magic and survival
Immortality and prestige
Propaganda
Service of religion and ethics
Imagination and fantasy
Record of life, mirror of nature
Provocation
What are the basic elements of art?
Who--artist, patronage
What--subject, medium, size, condition
Where--location (museum, city)
When--date
Why--purpose, patronage, "meaning," interpretation or "content"
"Intertextuality": Art History at the Movies ("Fun with Art History")
The Wizard of Oz and the Portinari Altarpiece
Witness (and Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earning)
Dr. No (James Bond's double take--the painting had recently been stolen!)
Batman (who is Francis Bacon?!)
Further Websites to explore on this topic:
On semiotic codes and images (including Pinoneer 10 images and figure ground)
See this page for interpretations of several paintings, Hopper, Picasso, Vermeer, Velazquez
Sister Wendy Becket on Sargent, on Rembrandt
Check out the Wold Trade Center design competition: which one do you like best?
Digital Dude (what classroom/theater sound should sound like--"teaser 3")
What gives a painting "value"?
Some values of art are-- material value (money), intrinsic value ("aesthetic"), religious value, nationalistic value,
and psychological value.
Art is always about making judgments.
Video: Painting and the Public.
Websites on the art market and art at auction
The current art market is bullish
AskArt; http://askart.com/ source on American artists; images; dealers; prices
Christies: http://www.christies.com/home_page/home_page.asp
Sotheby’s: http://www.sothebys.com/
Auction records:
http://www.askart.com/AskART/interest/top_artists.aspx?interest=AskARTTopAuctionPrices&id=27
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Color: An essay on Color and Impressionism Monet's Sunrise and Poppies (hue, intensity, luminance, and
value)
--a basic color diagram
Vocabulary words, terms, and concepts for this chapter:
(See also the text vocabulary)
taste, value and quality in art
realism, verisimilitude, illusion, imitation (mimesis)
abstract, non-objective, non-representational
style (set theory):period style, personal style, regional style
formal analysis, form, material, medium,
space, perspective, proportion, area, plane, mass,
light, modeling, volume, composition,
three-dimensional, two-dimensional, perspective, aerial perspective.
taste (de gustibus non disputandum est--"there is no arguing about taste"), judgment.
schema/correction; making/matching ,
artistic tradition, artistic personality,
patron,
subject matter, text, story, iconography, symbols,
historical context,
chronology
naturalism, realism
interpretation, expressive content
balance, equilibrium; symmetrical, asymmetrical
outline, flatness
picture plane, picture surface
linear, painterly
color: hue, value, intensity, complimentary colors
harmony, movement, oblique motion
architecture: use, site, function, decoration,
"firmness, commodity, and delight" =
structure, use, beauty
art, craft, handicraft
fine arts ("les beaux arts"), mechanical arts
workshop, studio, circle, atelier, guild
treatise, theory, academy
avant garde,
canon
34
Art 219/History of Art
home/class schedule
web resources
vocabulary
complete class notes
assignments
study guide
Week 2: The Ancient World
Reading assignments:
(Skim text chapters 1and 2; Read chapter 4) (Begin Greek Art, text chapters 4 and 5)
Note Vocabulary (in green) at bottom of each weekly page
Paleolithic ("prehistoric") Art
"We have no art. We do everything as well as we can." --Anonymous Neolithic man
Review "What is art?" from last week. All art, including realism, is a kind of magic—a way of manipulating the
world.
The Caves at Lascaux, France, Paleolithic, c. [circa, "around"] 15,000 B.C. offer an opportunity to discuss the
meaning and purpose of art. Clearly an “aesthetic sensibility” approach to art based on 19 th century Romanticism
doesn’t work here. The cave art seems to have a ritualistic purpose having to do with the a hunt or cultural. "Prehistoric" means, "before writing."
Stonehenge, Salisbury plain, England, 2750-1500 BCE. Stonehenge appears to have been a calculating machine for
finding the exact days of the equinox and solstice and perhaps even the time of eclipses. Some Paleolithic or Neolithic
(so-called “primitive”) art is remarkably complex and sophisticated.
Key vocabulary: sympathetic magic, shaman, ancestor worship, "pre-historic" civilizations
Egyptian Art (Chapter 2)
N.B.: Artworks in the textbook are indicated in bold in "cinnamon" color:
(spearbearer)"
"Polycleitos, Doryphoros
A note about captions: artist (if known), title or descriptive name (sometimes in "quotes"), date (c. means
"circa"--around), original location, material or "medium," size, present location. Example: Jean Pucelle, p, 288,
chapter 11, number 16)
Key Egyptian Artworks: [all are in the text]
Funerary Mask of Tutankhameun, 1636-1627 BC ["second millenium B.C."]
Palette of Narmer, c. 3150 BC
Khafra, Dynasty 4, c. 2570 BC, diorite (a very hard stone)
Menkure and his Wife, c. 2500 BC
35
Great Pyramids, Giza, c. 2601-2515 BC
Ti Watching a Hippopotamus Hunt, Tomb of Ti, Saqqara, c.2500 BC
Funerary Temple of Hatshepsut, Deir-el-Bahari, c.1478 BC
Queen Nefertiti, c. 1348 BC, limestone, now in Berlin
Tomb, coffin, and funerary mask of Tutankhamun, 1336 BC
Egyptian Art Websites:
An Egyptian funerary scene with explanation
A complete description of the Palette of Narmer
Ancient Egyptian Virtual temple and hieroglyphics dictionary
The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (at ARTLEX)
All existing Egyptian Obelisks and their Current Locations
A better hieroglyphics dictionary
In Egyptian art we have the first “historical” or urban civilization, but very rigid and top heavy or “pyramidal” with
Pharaohs (gods) and a small elite at the top and the mass of poor at the bottom. We have many archaeological remains,
artifacts, luxury objects, and writing (hieroglyphics—which was deciphered in the early 19th century). Egyptian art is
mainly concerned with the dead and the afterlife (tombs, mummies, pyramids, mortuary temples) and also reflects the
Nile River cycle. Egyptian sculpture and architecture was, above all, meant to be monumental and durable.
Egyptian Proportions--how they drew the human figure The Egyptian idea of art depended on "schema" or patterns
which did not change much. They developed an approximation of the human figure which could be easily repeated.
Each part of the body was represented from its most characteristic point of view, which is the least difficult to do
artistically. “Foreshortening” was almost never employed, for example, although representations of laborers or lower
class people were freer and more experimental than pharaohs or nobles, who are always represented in the stiff,
traditional pose.
Egyptian rules of representation. The way that the Egyptian artist represents the landscape (the "garden picture"—not
in your book) is typical of how he thinks. It is totally logical in its rules, but does not depict the coherent rational,
optical space familiar from later western art. Again, each element is represented from its most characteristic point of
view. See also figure 2-31, Queen Nefertiti, and the objects on the table.
Key vocabulary terms and concepts:
sympathetic magic (like "illusion"?)
shaman
ancestor worship
"pre-historic" civilizations (Paleolithic, Neolithic)
hierarchy of scale ("heiratic scale"=figures of different sizes)
"figure/ground" relationship
pictographs
monumental
naturalism
votive (an "offering")
necropolis
obelisk
sarcophagus (Greek: "stone that swallows [a corpse]")
post-and-lintel construction
________________________________________________________________________________________________
A classic description of the Egyptian aesthetic by E. H. Gombrich (from The Story of Art):
For the Egyptians believed that the body must be preserved if the soul is to live on in the beyond. That is why they
prevented the corpse from decaying by an elaborate method of embalming it, and binding it up with strips of cloth. It was
for the mummy of the king that the pyramid had been piled up, and his body was laid right in the centre of the huge
36
mountain of stone in a stone coffin. Everywhere round the burial chamber, spells and incantations were written to
help him on his journey to the other world.
"But it is not only these oldest relics of human architecture which tell of the role played by age-old beliefs in the story of
art. The Egyptians held the belief that the preservation of the body was not enough. If the likeness of the king was also
preserved, it was doubly sure that he would continue to exist forever. So they ordered sculptors to chisel the king's head
out of hard, imperishable granite, and put it in the tomb where no one saw it, there to work its spell and to help his Soul
to keep alive in and through the image. One Egyptian word for sculptor was actually 'He-who-keeps-alive'.
The pictures and models found in Egyptian tombs were connected with the idea of providing the soul with helpmates in
the other world, a belief that is found in many early cultures. To us these reliefs and wall-paintings provide in
extraordinarily vivid picture of life as it was lived in Egypt thousands of years ago. And yet, looking at them for the first
time, one may find them rather bewildering. The reason is that the Egyptian painters had a very different way from ours
of representing real life. Perhaps this is connected with the different purpose their paintings had to serve. What mattered
most was not prettiness but completeness. It was the artists' task to preserve everything as clearly and permanently as
possible. So they did not set out to sketch nature as it appeared to them from any fortuitous angle. They drew from
memory, according to strict rules which ensured that everything that had to go into the picture would stand out in perfect
clarity...
"A similar method is often used by children. But the Egyptians were more consistent in their application of these
methods than children ever are. Everything had to be represented from its most characteristic angle. [Consider] the effect
which this idea had on the representation of the human body. The head was most easily seen in profile so they drew it
sideways. But if we think of the human eye we think of it as seen from the front. Accordingly, a full-face eye was
planted into the side view of the face. The top half of the body, the shoulders and chest, are best seen from the front, for
then we see how the arms are hinged to the body. But arms and legs in movement are much more clearly seen sideways.
That is the reason why Egyptians in these pictures look so strangely...contorted. Moreover, the Egyptian artists found it
hard to visualize either foot seen from the outside. They preferred the clear outline from the big toe upwards. So both
feet are seen from the inside, and the man on [a] relief looks as if he had two left feet. It must not be supposed that
Egyptian artists thought that human beings looked like that. They merely followed a rule which allowed them to include
everything in the human form that they considered important. Perhaps this strict adherence to the rule had something to
do with their magic purpose. For how could a man with his arm 'foreshortened' or 'cut off' bring or receive the required
offerings to the dead? ...
"It is one of the greatest things in Egyptian art that all the statues, paintings and -architectural forms seem to fall into
place as if they obeyed one law. We call such a law, which all creations of a people seem to obey, a 'style'. It is very
difficult to explain in words what makes a style, but it is far less difficult to see. The rules which govern all Egyptian art
give every individual work the effect of poise and austere harmony.
"The Egyptian style comprised a set of very strict laws, which every artist had to learn from his earliest youth. Seated
statues had to have their hands on their knees; men had to be painted with darker skin than women; the appearance of
every Egyptian god was strictly laid down: Horus, the skygod, had to be shown as a falcon or with a falcon's head;
Anubis, the god of funeral rites, as a jackal or with a jackal's head. Every artist also had to learn the art of beautiful
script. He had to cut the images and symbols of the hieroglyphs clearly and accurately in stone. But once he had
mastered all these rules he had finished his apprenticeship. No one wanted anything different, no one asked him to be
'original'. On the contrary, he was probably considered the best artist who could make his statues most like the admired
monuments of the past. So it happened that in the course of three thousand years or more Egyptian art changed very
little.
"Everything that was considered good and beautiful in the age of the pyramids was held to be just as excellent a thousand
years later. True, new fashions appeared, and new subjects were demanded of the artists, but their mode of representing
man and nature remained essentially the same."
37
Art 219/History of Art
home/class schedule
web resources
vocabulary
complete class notes
assignments
study guide
Week 3: Greek Art and Roman Art
_________________________________________________________________________________
Reading Assignments
Greek Art and Hellenistic Art (chapters 4 and 5)
Roman Art (Text chapter 6)
Dazzle Film Clips: Elgin Marbles, Olympics Greek Art
Greek and Hellenstic Art (Chapters 4 and 5)
[Remember, artworks in the textbook are indicated with this color: "Polycleitos, Spearbearer"]
Key ideas:
The development of Greek naturalism through mimesis (imitation) and competition
"Schema and correction": the process towards Greek naturalism
Greek art was both real and ideal: "They infused life into the ancient husks."
Development (change) in sculpture, vase painting, and architecture from 600 BC to 400 BC.
Absolute and relative dating
The human body was the vehicle of meaning for the Greeks (as for the Renaissance)
Chronology and dates in Greek Art and the 12 Olympian Gods (Greek and Roman)
Websites for Greek Art:
The Peplos Kore in technicolor More painted Greek sculptures!
Greek drinking parties
Greek and Roman art at the Metropolitan Museum in NY Excellent scans and details (see 1 mil dollar pot!)
Excellent pictures of Greek art and architecture
Greek civilization begins the continuous tradition leading to our own day. We have extensive evidence about the
Greeks--books, original artworks, and copies. We owe many of our ideas, life-structures, and words to them. (List the
Greek words to be found in the university catalogue--) Key concepts: competition; Olympic Games; rivalry, war,
"progress", politics, democracy, mathematics, philosophy, music, art, theater. Politically, Greece was composed of
small City-States, chief of which were Athens and Sparta. The Greek view of man is reflected in Greek Art: Man was
held to be reasoning and intelligent with, above all, the desire to know through imitation (Mimesis). Aristotle said, "All
men by nature desire to know." The word beauty meant to the Greeks not only good looking, but good in a moral sense,
as well as "well-born." Important parts of beauty were proportion, symmetry, and harmony. While exhibiting great skill
in the representation of nature, particularly the human body, Greek artists also sought the perfect norm, and the general,
rather than the particular; thus Greek Art is both realistic and idealistic at the same time. "They infused more and more
life into the ancient husks inherited from Egyptian art." The chief difference between Greek art and previous art is its
rapid development and change (compare Egypt). "They had embarked on a road from which there was no turning back."
as E. H. Gombrich has said. A map of Greece shows a land of sailors.
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The development of Greek naturalism--c.800 B.C. to 450 B.C:
Egyptian art reached an acceptable "schema" to represent the human body already by 2500 BC, and did not change
much. In contrast the Greek artists took ever the Egyptian approximation of the human form and transformed it in about
200 years from a stiff, rather lifeless rock into a living, breathing, functioning, self-actuated and aware individual. This
invention of the modern human figure is perhaps the greatest miracle in the history of art, and we can see this happening
in all three media of Greek art, sculpture, vase painting, and architecture.
Greek sculpture: observe the development of naturalism in several Kouros figures dating from about 600 to 400 BC.
Simply look at the sculptures and described what you see--in detail: How does the figure stand? How do the limbs fit
together? How are the details of the face, hair, ears, mouth, ribcage, knees, and genitals depicted? How do the later
figures "correct" the "schemas" that were given to them to more closely match the human bodies that they could observe
in the Gymnasium? There are several key moments in this "development of naturalism:" the first appearance of
"contrapposto" in the so-called Kritios Boy of about 480 BC, which implies that this figure is a fully functioning,
biologically and psychologically integrated human being, and the perfect proportion and harmony of the classical ideal
represented by the "spearbearer" of about 450 BC, who looks like he could step forward using his own power.
Why did this happen? Competition between artists? In a larger sense, the Greeks were never satisfied: they wanted to
know more and to do things better. They were individuals who wanted to be the best--not just anonymous artisans. For
better or worse, they invented modern individualism--and the modern artist!
Greek "idealism:" Greek art features the nude human body almost exclusively. The Greeks were fascinated the the
human form, and their art is not about what individual real people really look like, but about what an ideal human being
should look like--the norm, not the particular.
Greek Sculpture: the "Kouros" (means "male standing figure")
The Getty Kouros: essay; discussion; article; a good undergraduate paper
Apollo from Thebes; bronze, c. 800 B.C. "Geometric" style.
"Archaic" period Kouros from Attica, c. 600 BCE, New York, Metropolitan Museum
Peplos Kore, Athens, c. 530 BC
Anavysos Kouros, c. 525 B.C. (the "naked" and the "nude")
Apollo of Piombino, bronze, c. 500 B.C. (transitional)
Kore from Chios, c. 510
"Kritios Boy" marble scupture, c. 480 B.C.:
a transitional work between Archaic and Classical;
relative and absolute chronology; Persian War;
contrapposto: a complete human organism standing at ease.
Charioteer of Delphi, bronze, c. 480 B. C.
Young Warrior, Reggio Calabria, c. 460-450 BC (He doesn't look all that young!)
Polycleitos, Spearbearer, Roman copy after Greek bronze original, c. 450 BC.
CLASSICAL period (Define the word "classic"--as in Coca-Cola or cars)
Zeus, c. 460 BC bronze, lost wax process
Myron, Discus Thrower, c. 450 B.C.
Follower of Praxiteles, Hermes and the Infant Dionysos, Roman Copy of Greek original (?),
c. 300 BCE
Absolute and Relative Dating: The "Kritios boy" raises the problem of "dating." that is, how we know when a work of
art was made. The artist of the Kritios Boy certainly did not know he was living in the 5th century BC! or oblige us by
carving a date on his sculpture. After the Persians "sacked" Athens in 480 BC and the Greeks returned, many of the
sculptures on the Acropolis were ruined and were simply tossed into land-fill. The Kritios Boy is the latest or most
"developed" (in terms of its knowledge of the body, etc.) and therefore must date "shortly before 480 BC" or circa
(around) 480. "Relative dating" means that the Kritios Boy dates before the Spearbearer and after the Anavysos
Kouros. Both dating methods are used in art history. In fact, the idea of signing or dating an artwork is a very recent
idea, and onoly comes about after the arrival of the modern way of looking at artworks as a commodity.
BC or BCE ("Before Christ" or "Before the Christian Era). AD (anno domini, Year of Our Lord), also CE (Common
Era) 5th century BC means 500 BC to 400 BC; 21st century AD means 2000 to 2100
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Beauty and Greek Art
The idea of beauty is explored at Beautyworlds: The Culture of Beauty
See The Psychoanalytical Construction of Beauty, and About Beauty, by Michael Sones, who writes:
“Over the past three decades the popular magazine Psychology Today has conducted several surveys on how people feel
about the appearance of their bodies. The changing results make for interesting reading. The dramatic changes in
American culture have significantly altered peoples' perceptions of themselves. In 1972 23% of American women were
dissatisfied with their appearance but by 1997 that figure had risen to 56%. In 1972 15% of men were dissatisfied with
their appearance but by 1997 that figure had risen to 43%. 38% of men are now dissatisfied with the size of their chests
compared to the 34% of women dissatisfied with their breasts. Men are getting pectoral implants. Millions of women
have had surgery to change the shape of their breasts or increase their size.”
What makes a human being "beautiful"?
Greek ideals of human beauty were--proportion, harmony, and symmetry--the same as Mr. Olympia today!
(Search "body building" or "fashion" on the web to enter this world)
See also this interesting photographic composite of "beautiful" women.
40
Vase Painting:
We see the same development as in sculpture--with exactly parallel problems, and at the same date.
Funerary Vase (The Mourning of the Dead), Geometric Krater vase, c. 750 B.C. from Dipylon Cemetery, Athens.
Blinding of Polyphemus, "Orientalizing" vase, c. 600
Black Figure Vase Painting:
EXEKIAS (painter and potter), The suicide of Ajax, black figure amphora, c. 540 BC
Exekais, Ajax and Achilles, black-figured archaic vase, c. 540 BC
Priam Painter, Women at a Fountain House, black-figure hydria, 520-510 BCE
Red Figure Vase Painting:
Euphronios and Euxitheos,
Foundry Painter,ABronze Foundry,red figure kylix, c. 490 BC
Greek vase shapes
Pan Painter,Artemis Slaying Actaeon,bell krater, c. 470BC
Euthymides, Soldier taking leave, Red-figured archaic vase, c. 500 BC
Euphronios, Three men dancing, red-figured vase, c. 490 B.C. Note the agile movement!
Euphronios, Death of Sarpedon, in the Metropolitan Museum, c. 515, red figure vase.
Bought by Hoving $1 mil in 1972.
The "Hot Pot" story More antiquities theft and international intrigue re- Euphronios
Foundry Painter, Centaur, 490 BC
popular ware for export
head of a woman, classical period; head of a man
The Other Side of the Vase, Greek pornography:
The Kleophrades Painter, Munich 2344, Satyrs and Menads
Classical sculpture (5th century BC):
Head of Athena
Pheidias, Athena Parthenos, Roman copy after colossal "chryselephantine" original of 447-432 B.C.
Polycleitos, Doryphoros (spearbearer), c. 450 BC, marble (Also known as "The Canon")
The Acropolis in Athens, Greece (see below)
Review Egyptian Art and Review development of Greek "naturalism" and "idealism"
The development of Kouros to 450 B.C.
Polycleitos' Spearbearer
The "Golden Section" and proportion
Greek architecture:
Temple of Hera at Paestum, Italy, 5th century BC
Learn the parts of a Greek temple: stereobate (base); column (shaft, fluting, capital): note the different
types of capitals in the different orders--Doric, Ionic, Corinthian were the three Greek "orders." The Romans
added the Tuscan (unfluted) Doric and the Composite orders. Look around Omaha to see if you can identify
the classical orders in some buildings here. entablature (architrave, frieze, and cornice); triglyphs and
metopes in Doric order; pediment, with famous sculpture now in London
41
The Greeks developed three architectural systems, called orders, each with its own distinctive proportions
and detailing. The Greek orders are: Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian (from Doria, Ionia, and Corinth)
Doric
Ionic
Corinthian
The Doric style is rather sturdy
and its top (the capital), is plain.
This style was used in
mainland Greece and the
colonies in southern Italy and
Sicily.
The Ionic style is thinner and
more elegant. Its capital is
decorated with a scroll-like
design (a volute). This style
was found in eastern Greece
and the islands.
The Corinthian style is seldom
used in the Greek world, but
often seen on Roman temples.
Its capital is very elaborate and
decorated with acanthus
leaves.
THE PARTHENON on the Acropolis at Athens, 450 BC, a peripteral temple in Doric order with an Ionic frieze
inside the porch (Athena Parthenos--the virgin Goddess)
The Parthenon has some interesting "refinements:" there are no right angles in this building, and the floor curves, the
four corners being about 5 inches lower than the center; the columns lean slightly inward, and--if extended on imaginary
lines--would meet at a point a mile above the earth; each stone in the temple is carved for one place and one place only,
that is, they are unique and not interchangeable like modern bricks (the same is true of Medieval Gothic churches). No
one is quite sure why the Greeks went to all the trouble to make these refinements--maybe just so rain water would run
off better! The Parthenon is also unique in that it is a Doric temple with an Ionic frieze going all around the inside of the
porch--about 600 feet total: this is the famous procession honoring Athena. Remember that the Greek temple is not a
"church" as we think of one: it has no "sanctuary" for "worship" in our sense. There was a dimly-lit interior with votive
offerings, sacrifice to the gods, and the colossal gold and ivory (chryselephantine) statue of Athena (The Temple of Zeus
at Olympia also had a colossal statue of Zeus, which was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World--by the artist
Phidias, who designed the sculpture on the Parthenon. Can you name the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World?)
Sculpture on the Greek temple (found in three places):
Pediment: Zeus and Athena, 438-432 BC, marble (Pediments were usually a scene from Mythology.)
Frieze: The Panathenaic procession: Marshals and young women, c 438 BC
The British Museum Controversy
Metopes: Battle of Lapiths and the Centaurs, c. 438 BC
An Ionic temple: the Erechtheion, 430-400 BC--The "Maiden Porch" and caryatids
(human figures as columns)
The "Elgin Marble" Controversy: read about it here
Dazzle Film Clips: Elgin Marbles, Olympic Games
Review Kouros and Kore figures, movement in Greek art; dying Amazon and dying Niobid;
body language and gesture
Late Classical sculpture:
Nike Tying her Sandal, from Nike Temple, c. 410 BC
The "rich" style of c. 400
"Art for Art's Sake" (Ars Gratia Artis)
42
Form and Content in a "Post-classical" style
Praxiteles, Hermes and the Child Dionysis, 1st cent. BC copy of 4th c. BC marble original
Praxiteles, Aphrodite (Venus) of Knidos, Roman copy after 4th century BC original
Alexander the Great portrait head, c. 200 BC
Key vocabulary terms:
BC or BCE ("before Christ" or "before the Christian era)
AD ("anno domini, Year of Our Lord), also CE (Common Era)
Classic/classical (this word has many meanings; "Classical Antiquity" is Greece and Rome)
naturalism
pottery: red figure/black figure, amphora, kylix
iconography
architecture: post and lintel system, cella, peristyle, caryatids
Greek orders: Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, column, shaft, entasis, drum, flute, capital, abacus, echinus, entablature
(architrave, frieze, cornice), triglyph, metope, Ionic frieze, volute, moldings, pediment
acropolis
sanctuary
Kouros/Kore: Archaic smile, "contrapposto"
Greek "hybrid" creatures: griffins, centaurs (half man/half horse), satyrs (men with donkey parts)
(For images of satyrs (hybrid men and donkey's) see the websites above and the wonderful Archaic amphora of c. 500
BC by the Kleophrades Painter [rated X], in which a drunken Satyr attempts to pull up the dress of a dancing Maenad
(female follower of Dionysis) who retaliates by preparing to bash the satyr. Note the skillful way the painter tells a
complex story with a series of actions and emotions. The expression on the face of the satyr about to be disabled is
especially well done.)
Class notes: "Hellenistic" Art (text chapter 5)
"Hellas" means Greece: The "Hellenistic Age" refers to the spread of Greek art and culture by Alexander the Great (died
232 BC) from the 4th to the 1st centuries BC, culminating in Ancient Rome, which borrowed Greek culture, art, and
religion.
Portrait of Alexander the Great, died 323 B.C. (Alexander defines the period; his teacher was Aristotle.)
Theater at Epidaurus, 3rd Century BC and later
The Winged Victory (Nike) of Samothrace, 180-160 BC
Aphrodite of Melos (The Venus de Milo), c. 150 BC, marble, 6'10", Louvre
Market Woman,1stcentury BC
Mosaic: Battle of Alexander and Darius, Roman copy of Hellenistic painting of c. 300 BC
Dying Trumpeter (Gaul), copy of 3rd century BC work
Great Altar of Zeus at Pergamon, 2nd century BC (Hellenistic "Baroque": melodrama and rhetoric)
Detail: Athena Attacking the Giants, marble frieze, in Berlin
Laocoon and His Sons, second or first century BC [This picture is in the Introduction, page 17]
(Note Michelangelo's "mis-restoration" of this work)
The Farnese Hercules, 3rd Century BCE, found 1546 in Rome (For comments, see above in "beauty")
Hendrick Golzius, Dutch Visitors to Rome looking at the Farnese Hercules, engraving, c. 1592
43
Roman Art (text chapter 6)
Chronology and History of Rome:
Republican age
c. 500-27 B.C.E.
Imperial age
c. 27 B.C. - 337 A.D.
Punic Wars (Carthage)
Murder of Caesar
"Pax Augusta"
Constantine the Great
Edict of Milan--Christianity becomes state religion
Seat of Empire moved to Byzantium/Constantinople
Sack of Rome by Alaric, the Visigoth
Fall of Rome
"Holy Roman Empire"
(Before the Common Era, or "Before Christ")
(Anno Domini)
260-201 BC
44 BC
14--193 AD
306 - 337 AD
313 AD
330 AD
410 AD
476 AD
800 AD to c. 1800 AD
Politics, Culture, and Art:
Map of the Roman Empire
Art of the Roman Republic
Roman Emperors.com {all the emperrors in order!}
The movie Gladiator showed the Emperor Commodus as a cruel tyrant who actually fought in the arena as a
gladiator.
How would we find out if that was true. Click here, and see esp. footnotes 16, 17, and 18
What does the word "arena" mean in the original Latin? Click Dictionary.com and search.
Our debt to Roman civilization: (list Latin words in Creighton Catalogue): law, language, war, bureaucracy,
Roman art was largely borrowed from Greece
Romans also borrowed the Greek Gods (with different names, see page 138)
Roman architecture was largely civil engineering with the Greek orders as dressing or decoration:
consider the function of the column in Greek and Roman architecture respectively
Rome, Artworks:
Dazzle Film Clips: The Pantheon
A Roman patrician with portrait heads of his ancestors, AD 15: individualized or "veristic"; filial piety ]
The Roman forum: history; Republic, Empire
Map of the Roman Empire;
Differences between Rome and Greek civilization
Roman Engineering: aqueducts, roads, they had administer an empire
Roman mosaic and fresco painting; illusionism
The Unswept Floor, mosaic, 2 century BC, Vatican Museums
Young Woman Writing, Pompeii, 1st century
[mystery religions (Bacchus, Mythra, Christ) ]
Wall niche from a Garden in Pompei, from Pomei, 1st c. BC
Wall painting, The Villa of Mysteries, Pompei, 1st century BC
Detail of a wall painting from a house in Pompei, 1st century BC
(Influenced the Renaissance--"grottoes" and "grotesque")
Still Life with Eggs and Thrushes, House of Julia Felix, before 79 AD
The Age of Augustus; The Pax Augustana
THE EMPEROR AUGUSTUS (of Prima Porta), c. AD 15, and color reconstruction!
Compare to The Spearbearer of Greek Classical age
Altar of Augustan Peace (Ara Pacis Augustae), 13-9 BC
Augustan "classicism": the first “Greek revival”
44
The City of Rome:
Apartment houses, Ostia
Imperial Forum
Bronze Equestrian Statue of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, 2nd c. AD
Arch of Titus, and relief of Roman triumph, 1st century AD
Column of Trajan, AD 113, and spiral sculpture
Roman sculpture and the Roman artists:
LAOCOON and his Sons, 1 c BC? (artists: "Three guys from Rhodes")
Young Flavian Woman (with the hair), 90 CE
Marcus Aurelius, gilded bronze, c, 161-180 AD
The Emperor Commodus as Hercules, c. 190 (See Roman Emperors.com--all the emperrors in order!)
The movie Gladiator showed the Emperor Commodus as a cruel tyrant who actually fought in the arena as a
gladiator.
How would we find out if that was true. Click here, and see esp. footnotes 16, 17, and 18
What does the word "arena" mean in the original Latin? Click Dictionary.com and search.
Nero also competed in the Olympic Games--on the violin; he won)
The Emperor Constantine, early 4th century AD, "colossal" head, hand, and feet
A series of portrait heads from Republican to late Imperial times: a reflection of history
Sculpture after Constantine emphasizes spirit, not appearance
Roman architecture: Concrete, the Arch, and the Vault
A Roman temple, Portunus, late 2nd century BC: compare to Greek temple;
The "Maison Caree" at Nimes, a Roman temple in southern France, 1st century AD
The invention of Concrete: Concrete can be molded like plastic:
The Temple of Fortuna Primigenia, Palestrina, 80 BC:
The Pont du Gard, Nimes, France, 1 cent. BC
The Arch: a versatile form made possible by concrete, centering, and the keystone
"Trabeated" vs "arcuated" (architrave vs archivolt)
Roman Vault forms: tunnel or barrel; cross or groin; dome
Atrium of a Roman House, Pompeii, (eruption of Vesuvius, 79 AD)
Plan of Timgad, Algeria, c. 100 AD
The Colosseum, Rome, AD 80; Compare to a Greek theater
[show clips from "Ben Hur and Gladiator" in dazzle fx]
N. B.: Roman use of the Greek orders is decorative "embedded " vs free standing columns
The Arch of Titus, and Spoils from the Temple of Jerusalem relief sculpture, c. 81 AD
The five Roman orders (Greek plus "Composite and Tuscan")
Building "types" in Rome: amphitheaters, baths, temples, roads, aqueducts, houses
Basilica of Constantine, AD 306
Baths of Caracalla, 211 AD
The Pantheon ("all the gods"), by Emperor Hadrian, AD 125
Transition to the Christian world (Chapter 7)
The Late Empire and Constantine:
Basilica of Constantine, Rome, 313 AD
Constantine the Great, colossal head
, 325 AD
The Palace of Diocletian, Croatia, c.300
The Arch of Constantine,312
Constantine Speaking to the People, ,relief panel on Arch of Constantine
Constantine: moves Capital to Istanbul, or Byzantium
Germanic tribes (Barbarians)
"Deified" emperors (Marcus Aurelius famous quote)
Constantine's conversion: "In hoc signo vincis;" St. Helen; The Edict of Milan, 313
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Early Christian art:
Church of Santa Sabina, Rome, 422
Elements of Architecture: basilica plan and central plan churches
Peter Striking the Rock, Cubiculum of Leonis, Catacomb of Commodilla, Rome, late 4th century
Christ as shepherd, Orants, and Jonah, Catacomb, Rome, early 4th century
Three Men in the Fiery Furnace [can you name them?!], catacomb painting, 3rd c. AD
(This work is not in the text, but it is a classic: compare this to the Laocoon.)
The Iconography of the Life of Jesus (Page 168)
A useful paradigm:
Egypt: what the artists knows
Greece: what the artist sees
Christian: what is important is soul , spirit, and meaning--not the body:
Christian art tells a story clearly, but with emphasis on its symbolic meaning
Meanwhile--in Meso-America:
The other great city: Teotihuacan, Pyramids of the Sun and Moon, c. 100 BC--AD 650
Heads of gods Quetzalcoatl and Tlaloc (rain god), fresco from palace
46
Art 219/History of Art
home/class schedule
web resources
vocabulary
complete class notes
assignments
study guide
Week 4: The Middle Ages ("Romanesque")
_________________________________________________________________________________
Reading Assignments
Medieval and Romanesque Art (text 7 and 10)
The Iconography of the Life of Jesus 
Vocabulary (at the bottom of this page)
Websites of interest:
Number symbolism in the Middle Ages
Visit dozens of medieval cathedrals
A Glossary of Medieval Art and Architecture
Class Notes: Medieval Art (chapters 7 and 10)
Historical Introduction:
History classes!
N.B. [Nota Bene, Note Well!] Students are expected to remember what they learned in
"The Middle Ages" a term invented by the Renaissance--why?
(also called "The Dark Ages." Why were they so dark?)
Map of the Roman Empire; head of Constantine
Map of Europe
Political empires: India, China, Maya and Aztecs in America, Carolingian, Ottonian in Europe
Large-scale commercial, cultural, scientific, religious exchange; Marco Polo
The beginnings of guilds (craft and trade unions)
Islamic preservation of Greek culture: many Greek writers known only via Islam
Inventions: gunpowder, medicine, astronomy crop rotation, horse collar (made possible cities)
Wars and Crusades
The growth of powerful proselytizing religions:
Islam: monotheistic; prophet Mohammed 7th century; Islam preserved Greek learning
Hinduism: reincarnation, caste system, fertility
Buddhism: teachings of Siddhartha; nirvana
Christianity: (competed with several mystery cults in Rome, e.g.
Mythraism, which also emphasized spirit and soul, and afterlife--not body
The Iconography of the Life of Jesus (p.168) and Christian Symbols (p. 182):
"ichthus," vines, wreaths, Alpha and Omega, peacocks-[Sarcophagus of Archbishop Theodore, 7th century; symbolism]
Relics (see Dazzle video/"middle ages relics"): nails, true cross, milk, etc. (Reliquaries)
See this irreverant article on relics!
Indulgences (see Dazzle video "vatican pope indulgences")
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Medieval art in Europe emphasizes Christian spiritual values and denies the classical traditions of naturalism,
individualism, and illusionism; although they used classical patterns (and often had books of patterns to copy), the
medieval artists no longer checked these against Nature through observation.
Issues that affect Medieval art
The medieval artist was largely anonymous or worked in groups
Monks and nuns (Yes, there were women artists in the Middle Ages)
Books (all were "manuscripts") were a major art form: Gospels, Psalters, Books of Hours; Scrolls
[When was the first printed book?]
The church ervice or liturgy and the altar became the focus of artworks
Artworks:
Good Shepherd, mosaic, Ravenna, Italy, c. 425 (5th century) (fig. 7-1)
Good Shepherd, Orants and Story of Jonah, painted ceiling, Rome 4th century
Compare The Three Hebrew Children in the Fiery Furnace, 3rd century catacomb painting.
A key work: message is faith, not beautiful art.
The Early Christian artists rejects the pagan view that the human body is beautiful.
They believed that only the soul is beautiful, and the body is neither beautiful or eternal.
How would the Greeks and Romans answer this?]
Early Christian architecture:
Note names and types of churches--traditional usage, dedications, and abbreviations of churches:
cathedral ("seat" of a Bishop), abbey, parish church, "notre dame" (Our Lady);
abbreviations: St. (saint), Sta. (Santa), S. (San), SS. (Santi), Ste. (Sainte-)
Church of Santa Sabina, Rome, 422
(Elements of Architecture: basilica plan and central plan churches)
Old St. Peter's Basilica, Rome, 333
The parts of a Christian church:
atrium, narthex (porch), nave, side aisles, transept, crossing, apse, clerestory.
Note the difference between basilica plan and central plan churches
Santa Maria Maggiore (Saint Mary Major--"greater"), Rome, 423-mosaic: Parting of Lot and Abraham
Why do some religions like Christianity have images and some like Islam don't? "The Iconoclastic Controversy"
(against figurative art) was settled by Pope Gregory the Great, 7th century; "Images can do for the illiterate what the
Bible can do for those who can read." Images can instruct, remind, and inspire the faithful [Interestinly, it was forbidden
to translate the Bible into any vernacular language until the 16th century, so the vast majority of people couldn't read (or
interpret) it, even if they had been literate.
Byzantine Art: (Byzantium=the Eastern Orthodox Church and its Empire)
Church of Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom), Istanbul, Turkey, 532-537
Elements of architecture: domes, pendentives, "squinches," drum, oculus
Church of San Vitale, Ravenna, 526-547, and mosaics:
Emperor Justinian and his attendants, mosaic c. 547,
Empress Theodora and her attendants, mosaic c. 547
Mosaic: The transfiguration of Christ with Saint Apollinaris, Ravenna, 533-Mosaic: Christ Pantokrator (ruler), Church of the Dormition, Daphni, 11th c.
Saint Mark, Venice, 1063; a Greek cross with five domes
Medieval Manuscripts (handwritten books) on "parchment" or velum
Christian symbols, page 182
Crucifixion page, from Rabbula Gospels, 586
Christ Washing the Feet of His Disciples, Gospel Book of Otto III, c. 1000
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The most common uses for illuminated (illustrated) manuscripts (from Koninklijke
Bibliotheek National Library of the Netherlands)
1. To reproduce Bibles, gospels, and religious books.
2. As a Psalter, also called the Book of Psalms, which is a collection of 150 poems or songs
from the Old Testament. The Psalms are a special part of the Old Testament that reveal
people’s feelings when faced with both the joys and sorrows of everyday life: hymns
praising God and prayers to God in times of trouble.
3. A Book of Hours (like Jeanne d'evreaux's) is a prayer book used by laymen for private
devotion, containing prayers or meditations appropriate to certain hours of the day, days of
the week, months or seasons.
4. A Bestiary is a collection of descriptions and illustrations of all sorts of animals, both real and imaginary, that often
include an accompanying moral.
5. Non-religious books such as romances, histories, legends that tell us about the everyday lives of people who lived
hundreds of years ago.
Websites on Manuscripts:
Dutch National Museum collection Best site by far! See introduction. And patron saints!
(St.Lawrence is the patron saint of cooks!)
(St. Stephen's patronage includes those who suffer from headaches, but also stone masons!)
Book of Kells with Latin text, excellent scans
Bodlean library images of manuscripts—see herbal mss. of 11th century
Koninklijke Bibliotheek National Library of the Netherlands
The Ecole Initiative, Hypertext Encyclopedia of Early Church History and Images
Getty Interactive site on Manuscripts (excellent images)
Speaking of Vikings--see Aikin's genealogy (click pedigree) Try your luck on this site.
Icons (Greek for "image") in the Orthodox (or "Greek Orthodox) Church:
Virgin and Child with Saints and Angels, in Monastery of St. Catherine, 6th c.
Archangel Michael icon, San Marco (St. Mark), Venice, 10th century
Andrey Rublev, Old Testament Trinity, c. 1410, tempera on panel
Saint Basil's Church, Moscow, 1555
Northern Pagan Culture Encounters the Roman Church
Anglo Saxon metalwork: The Sutton Hoo Purse Cover, c. 620 (pre-Christian pagan)
The BOOK OF KELLS, c. 800 (an Irish National treasure!) at Book of Kells.com with Latin text
"Hiberno-Saxon" manuscript illumination
Carpet page from the Lindisfarne Gospels, c. 698--not in our book
The artists: Bishops Eadfrith and Ethelwald, Bilfrith and Aldred the sinner [!]
Islamic Art: (Islam does now not permit "figurative" images)
The Great Mosque at Cordoba, 786
The Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem, c. 687
Elements of architecture: mosque plans, mihrab niche, qibla wall (jihad, Koran, hadj, Allah)
The Prophet Mohammed and His Companions Travelling to the Fair, 1594
"Christendon" vs "Islam"--the crusades and the Turks [still going strong]
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Carolingian Art: (A "renascence" of the year 800 AD)-under Charlemagne (Karl der Grose, Carolus Magnus, Charles the Great)
Two St. Mathews:
St. Matthew from the Gospel Book of the Archbishop Ebbo of Reims, early 9th
The Coronation Gospel Book, Aachen, 9th c.
Abbess Hitda and Saint Walpurga, Hitda Gospels, 11th century, vellum (migraine headaches?)
The Palace Chapel of Charlemagne at Aachen, 800
Bronze doors of Bishop Bernward, Abbey Church of St. Michael, Hildesheim, 1015
Typology of the Hildesheim doors The two panels of the door--Old and New Testament--are related
Typology is one of the most important concepts in Christian theology and art. A definition of typology
Story of creation and fall of man; narrative in art
These doors are the first monumental bronze since antiquity
The Year 1000 (millennium): "A white mantle of churches."
Symbols in Christian Art and Architecture and http://www.christiansymbols.net/
Cemetery iconography
Harmony of the Gospel on-line!
Multilingual Bible
The Medieval monastery:
Monasticism: (work, prayer, and meditation) was the major medieval institution; it preserved antique learning, was a
major landholder, great wealth, and a major educational institution; like C.U.! (See the book by E. Eco, The Name of
the Rose, also a film with S. Connery)
Feudalism and Manorialism: twin political institutions of Medieval Europe
The Rule of St. Benedict and the three vows: poverty, chastity, obedience (two out of three ain't bad)
Names of religious orders:
Benedictines, Cluniacs, Augustinians, Cistercians, Franciscans, Dominicans (mendicants)
[see web page on drinking habits of monastic orders]
THE PLAN OF ST. GALL, c. 819--an ideal monastery
Compare: Monastery, Cluny, France, as it looked in the mid-twelfth century.
Romanesque Art (1000- c. 1150) Chapter 10
The word "Romanesque" was invented by art historians who decided to split medieval architecture into two styles: the
earlier architecture (up to about 1150) was heavy and had round arches, like ancient Roman architecture (hence
"Romanesque"), and the later architecture retained the word "Gothic" (barbaric) which was the label applied by the
Renaissance. Note that both words are now descriptive and carry no connotations.
The year 1000 (the first millennium) started a building boom: "a white mantle of churches." This was also the period of
the "Crusades" organized by Western Christendom to recapture the Holy Land from Islam.
Elements of Romanesque and Gothic Architecture:
Websites: Visit dozens of medieval cathedrals A Glossary of Medieval Art and Architecture
Parts of the church plan: nave, aisles, crossing, transept, choir (chevet), apsidal chapels, west front,
portal, bay, buttresses
Parts of the vertical elevation: nave arcade, triforium, clerestory, vault, wooden truss-roof
Types of vaulting: dome, barrel, groin & ribbed vaults (quadripartite and complex)
Types of churches:
Cathedrals: Cathedra means "chair" or "seat" of a Bishop
Abbeys (monasteries)
Parish Churches ("Regular" clergy are "cloistered," monks and nuns. "Secular" clergy are Priests)
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St. Foi, Conques, 1080-1120, Abbey church, and The St. Foi Reliquary, late 10th cent.
Pilgrims and relics--what are they?
Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe, Poitou, France, c. 1100
Church of Mary Magdelene, Vezelay, France, before 1132
Durham Cathedral, England, vaults constructed 1093-1153
Saint-Etienne, Caen, Normandy, France, begun 1064, facade late 11th, spires 13th
St. Sernin, Toulouse, 11th century: A pilgrimage church; note number symbolism
Dover Castle, 12th century
Church of Saint James, Santiago de Compostela, Spain, 1078ff
Romanesque sculpture:
Wiligelmus, Creation and The Fall of Adam and Eve, Modena Cathedral, west facade, c. 1100
Gislebertus (artist!), Last judgment, west portal, Autun Cathedral, 1125. signed.
Curch portals: tympanum, lintel, and trumeau (post), central portal
Compare Last judgment, tympanum, St. Foi, Conques, 1120; mandorla
The Magi Asleep, capital from nave, Autun, c. 1120 (See all the Autun capitals here)
Virgin and Child in Majesty, oak and "polychromy" (colored paint), c. 1150, Met. Museum
Tomb cover with effigy of Rudolf of Swabia, bronze, after 1080
The St. Foi Reliquary, c. 1000
Pilgrims and relics--what are they?
2-dimensional art ("The Cloister Crafts"):
Christ Washing the Feet of His Disciples, Gospel Book of Otto III, c. 1000
Christ in Majesty, from San Clemente, Tahull, Spain, c. 1123, fresco
St. Mark from a Gospel book at Corbie. 11th c.
Page of facsimile with Hildegarde's Vision, 1150-1200 (lost WW II)
Page with self-portrait of the nun Guda, Book of Homilies, 12th century
[St. John from the Gospel of Abbot Wedricus, 12th c.]
[The month of October from a twelfth c. calendar manuscript]
The Bayeux Tapestry, embroidery, c. 1066-1082. (William the Conqueror)
The Good Samaritan and Charlemagne, Stained Glass, Chartres Cathedral, c. 1220:
Art vocabulary for chapters 7 and 10:
"Iconography of the Life of Jesus," Stokstad page 162
composition
picture plane
picture space--compare Byzantine art and Western art
"reverse perspective"
mosaic
catacombs
Christian symbols
Elements of church architecture (see above); basilica, central-plan churches
orant figures (praying)
illusionistic
manuscript
parchment
folio
icon
iconoclasm
stylites (hermit monks who sat on columns--really!)
Christ Pantokrator
repouse
cloisonne
mandorla
Byzantine
Scriptorium
vellum
51
animal interlace
Monasticism/monastery/abbey
Carolingian
Ottonian
arabesque
mosque
minaret
Romanesque
types and parts of vaulting
cruciform (Latin and Greek crosses)
tomb effigies
embroidery
Gothic
stained glass
parts of the church: compound piers, triforium, clerestory, ambulatory, tracery, colonnettes, cloister,
buttress, tympanum
grisaille
mural painting, panel painting, altarpieces
tempera
typology (prefiguration--or the relationship between the Old and New Testaments
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Art 219/History of Art
home/class schedule
web resources
vocabulary
complete class notes
assignments
study guide
Week 5: Gothic Art
Reading Assignments:
Gothic Art and The Fourteenth Century (Text 10)
The architecture of Notre-Dame of Chartres: the victory over darkness
Renaissance Medicine: Aikin's essay on Medieval/Renaissance medicine Essay on the Four Humors
Websites to visit:
The Glory of the Gothic Page
Do: Interactive Feature: A Gothic manuscript page is broken down into its key elements.
Ameins Cathedral, especially "flash animation" illustrating the change from Early Christian to Romanesque to Gothic.
St. Bernard's attack on sumptuous church architecture
Gothic Art
(Chapter 10 continued)
Film Clips:
Short lecture on Medieval Cathedrals by Eugene Webber (in Dazzle/Art History)
Chartres and Beauvais Cathedrals
Visit this website to see a demonstration of the changes from Early Christian to Romanesque to Gothic church
structure. Go to the bottom of the page where it says "flash animation." Requires Flash plug-in.
Introduction: The word "Gothic" used to be a pejorative term invented by the Renaissance to describe architecture they
thought "barbaric." (What did they know?!) "Medieval," is a term also invented by the Renaissance to describe the time
"between" Classical Antiquity (good!) and its "rebirth "(Better!). Romanesque, and Gothic are now neutral words in art
history that mean, respectively, art from c. 1000 to c. 1200, and "medieval" art after 1200; they refer to two styles of
architecture, and also to revivals of those styles, Romantic fiction ("Gothic" novels) and a certain style of modern dress
and attitude.
History: new urban centers, banking, Paris university. The "dark ages" were over.
Nota Bene (Note Well!): The development of Medieval architecture from the fourth century to late Gothic is a
continuum, motivated by the desire for lighter and clearer structure and more windows: light and height. Necessity is the
mother of invention and the Gothic architects dared to challenge the engineering limits of their materials and techniques
without the aid of computers. As the middle ages go on we see higher, clearer, lighter, more unified buildings, with more
complicated sculpture programs, stained glass, and interior richness, producing a mystical radiance. These architects
probably showed their inventiveness most in the invention of various forms of vaulting--the stone covering of the nave,
which incidentally protected the wooden roof above from fire. There is no one Gothic style and no perfect Gothic
building; we rarely even find one building built in a single style, as the style was always evolving, especially during the
long construction periods of the Cathedrals, which could last hundreds of years. So, for example,
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The Abbey church of San Denis, Ile de France, France, 1140-44; choir, ambulatory, and chapels
Chalice of Abbot Suger of San Denis, 11th century (see page 8) (non nobis, domine, non nobis!)
What is the Gothic style?
A new unity of pre-existing architectural elements; a unique and timeless achievement
Gothic has several key architectural/structural elements:
pointed arches, rib vaults, stained glass windows, cluster piers, flying buttresses (sometimes!)
A better general definition of the Gothic style might be "a feeling of expanded spaciousness,"
or, the idea of light: both "light" as in delicate, thin construction and spiritual light--or "illumination."
The Ile-de-France (the area around Paris) and High Gothic Architecture
Map of Europe and France
Notre Dame de Chartres, Cathedral, 1194-1220
Elements of Architecture: The Gothic Church
Elements of Architecture: rib vaulting
Dazzle/middle ages Chartres/Bourges
Gothic Geometry
built very rapidly by medieval standards!
groundplan: larger choir (chevet)
skeletal structure; inside/outside not tied to support
the development of roofing and vaulting
Gothic architecture and Scholasticism (E. Panofsky)
Reason and Faith; Thomas Aquinas
Enumeration and Clarification plus mysticism
Stained glass at Chartres Cathedral, Tree of Jesse, rose, and lancets, c. 1220.
On glass and Light see I. Panofsky, Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism
"Notre Dame del la Belle Verriere"
Gothic sculpture: West facade, Chartres Cathedral, Ancestors of Christ, c. 1145
Later Gothic Architecture:
Notre-Dame at Reims, Cathedral, 1230s-1260
Annunciation and Visitation jamb sculptures, mid 13th century, Reims Cathedral. "classical" revival
[compare Ekkehart and Uta, Naumberg Cathedral: classical]
[Vierge Doree (Golden Virgin), Amiens Cathedral, c. 1250]
Amiens Cathedral, 1225-35. See excellent Ameins Cathedral site at Columbia
Christ, know as Beau Dieu, sculpture, central portal, c. 1220
La Sante Chapelle, Paris, 1243-48. "rayonnant" (radiant) style
St. Maclou, Rouen, 1434, "flamboyant" (flame-like) style
Salisbury Cathedral and tower, 1220ff. English Gothic
Later English Gothic:
The Rose window at Lincoln Cathedral, 1350;
Wells, 1338; Bath Abbey ("perpendicular" style), 14th c.
Cloister, Gloucester Cathedral, fan vaulting, 14th century;
Chapel of Henry VII, Westminster Abbey, London, 1503: "pendant" vaulting; contemporary with Mona Lisa!
Secular Art ("secula" means "time")
Virgin and Child (of Queen Jeanne d'Evreaux), c. 1339, silver gilt statuette
Gothic "hip-shot" position; not true "contrapposto"
Jean Pucelle (artist!), Petites Heurs of Jeanne d'Evreux (a book of hours), c. 1325, grisaille and color on vellum.
Note the size! See website at the Met Pages with Betrayal and Arrest of Christ.
The Limbourg Brothers, The Very Rich Hours of the Duke of Berry (Tres riches heures du Duc de Berry),
1415, A "book of the hours." Compare to "The month of January"; a poor man's book of the months
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A digression: Gothic in Southern France, Italy, and Spain
(like wine and cheese, each country and region of Europe has its own "flavor" of the Gothic)
San Giovanni e Paolo, Venice, 13th century
Narbonne Cathedral, southern France, 14th century
Albi Cathedral, southern France, 14th century
Cistercian Abbey at Fontfroid, southern France, 13th-14th century
Barcellona (Catalan Gothic): S. Maria del Mar, 14th century
Shipyards: transverse arches: a very functional form
Toulouse, Jacobin Church--two naves
Abbey at Fossanova, Italy
Gerona Cathedral, Spain: the ne plus ultra (the be all and end all!)
The Fourteenth Century (1300-1400)
The "re-development" of naturalism: Madonna and Child paintings
Cimabue, Virgin and Child Enthroned, c. 1280 (late 13th century)
Duccio, Maesta Altarpiece, Madonna Enthroned, 1308
Giotto, Madonna and Child Enthroned with Angels and Saints, c. 1310
tempera on wood; see p. 247 for tempera technique
GIOTTO, The ARENA CHAPEL, Padua, fresco cycle, c. 1305
Lamentation fresco (pieta); The Kiss of Judas fresco; read texts in Bible;
Last Judgment fresco
Giotto's Arena Chapel and scenes from the life of Christ: Kiss of Judas and the Raising of Lazarus
Compare the Bible storiy (John 18:2-12): Peter and the sword Lazarus
Lazarus in Harmony
A complete Harmony of the Gospel on-line! Look at the other languages! Latin!
Scenes from the lives of Christ and Mary
(See The Ecole Initiative for extensive list of images grouped by subject--e.g. "Mary")
Patron: Enrico Scrovegni; "usury" (Aquinas said no!)
A key monument: the beginning of the Renaissance ideal of the painting as a window
History painting (dramatic narrative) begins here; based on the text (bible, mythological, etc
Fresco technique (see Dazzle--"fresco")
Bible text
Medieval and Renaissance Medicine:
Life in the Middle Ages and Renaissance was "cruel and short" (see A Distant Mirror by B. Tuchman). The Black
Death killed at least a third of the population of Europe from 1347-50: Petrarch's brother, for example, who was a monk
in Italy, buried all 25 of his monastic brothers and walked away from his deserted monastery. The Plague returned about
every ten years with somewhat less devastating effects. It was especially bad in Florence in 1401.
Many concepts in the Middle Ages and Renaissance were based on numbers, for example, the "things that come in
fours" (which is the number of Man): the four elements, temperaments, humors, winds, evangelists, compass, seasons,
times of day. The Four Temperaments, which corresponded with their appropriate humors, elements, seasons, ages,
etc., were-Sanguine (blood; air; Spring; youth; hot and wet)
Phlegmatic (phlegm; water; Winter; old age; cold/wet)
Choleric (yellow bile; fire; Summer, maturity; hot/dry)
Melancholic (black bile; earth, Fall, middle age; cold/dry)
See this article on medieval medicine and The Four Humors by N.S. Gill
55
Medieval medicine was based on classical antique writings, especially Aristotle and Galen. Aristotle, the greatest
ancient philosopher, and revered by the Middle Ages, had said that there were four Elements--Earth, Water, Air, and
Fire, and it was believed that each of these had its equivalent in a "humor" or fluid substance in the human body. It was
obvious that people are not identical, and it was thought that this was due to a different mixture of humors or elements in
each human being caused by the date and time of one's birth. The sun and planets were thought to determine each
individual's particular mixture, and therefore his physical appearance and his character and personality--which the
Middle Ages referred to as his "temperament," of which there were four--Sanguine, Phlegmatic, Choleric, and
Melancholic, which in turn were modified by the position of the planets at one's birth and their present configuration.
The job of a medical doctor, therefore, was to put the humors back in "balance" through the elimination or addition of
one or more of them and their qualities--hot, cold, wet, and dry. So, for example, an individual of Sanguine temperament
(predominant humor--blood) might have difficulty if the red planet Mars (related to blood), were inhabiting an "air" sign:
the indicated treatment--bleeding. We must remember that Christian doctrine held that all men are damned for the sin of
Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (The Fall of Man); had they not sinned, they clearly would have lived forever, that
is, their bodies never would have been out of balance. But "the wages of sin are (is?) death" and the best any man can
hope for now is a relatively healthy imbalance. Incidentally, you recall that when Adam and Eve were cast out of
Paradise, Adam's punishment (besides death) was to till the soil, and Eve's to bear children, neither of which would have
been necessary in Eden.) This scientific/medical theory may seem like nonsense to us who can see microbes in
microscopes and believe that the body--and the universe--is a machine, but it was widely accepted in the Middle Ages
and Renaissance, and forms the basis for the modern pseudo-science of Astrology. This theory is frequently referred to in
literature and art of the period, for example, when Shakespeare says about Hamlet (who is the classic case of the
Melancholic temperament), that "all the elements were mixed in him.. .," and it survives in our own day in leftover
words like choleric, melancholy, phlegmatic, sanguine, and humorous, as well as planetary words like mercurial, jovial,
saturnine, and lunatic. We still believe that you can "catch a cold" by going out in the rain--that the element water
(cold/wet) will increase its parallel humor in the body, phlegm.
Things that come in Sevens: [can you name them?] Sins, Virtues, Liberal Arts, planets, etc.
[Why was it so hard to believe that Gallileo had discovered moons around Jupiter?]
Another Digression: Life in the Fourteenth century:
(These are not in your book.)
Death and war were ubiquitous; roving armies back from the Crusades
Revival of good antique Latin: Petrarch
(The revival of good Latin "grammar" in architecture by Brunelleschi by 1400)
The rise of cities: Sienna, Venice; new city halls, c. 1300
The "refined style" of 14th century art; the precious object,
as well as the coarse and brutal realism of Germany: Cult of the Virgin
Peter Parler, architect of Prague, the first self-portrait
Siennese painting: Simone Martini
The International Gothic Style: Wilton Diptych, c. 1410
Gentile da Fabriano, Adoration of the Magi, 1425
The Tres riches heures du Duc de Berry, 1415, A "book of the hours"
The month of January; a poor man's book of the months
Pisanello, Elephants and Monkeys
The city of Florence, population in 1400, over 20 thousand
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Week 6: Renaissance Art
Reading Assignments: Renaissance Art (Text 11)
Websites to browse:
Basic Italian Spelling and Pronunciation: it helps to say the names out loud.
Metropolitan Museum web essay: The Ghent Altarpiece
See The Ecole Initiative for extensive list of images grouped by subject (e.g. "St. Mark")
Class Notes: The Early Renaissance
(text chapter 11)
Leon Battista Alberti, Renaissance artist, dedicated his book, On Painting (Della Pittura), of 1440, to Filippo
Brunelleschi: "I used to both marvel and regret that so many excellent and divine arts and sciences, which we know from
their works and from historical accounts were possessed in great abundance by the talented men of antiquity, have now
disappeared and are almost entirely lost. Painters, sculptors, architects, musicians, geometers, rhetoricians, augurs and
suchlike distinguished and remarkable intellects, are very rarely to be found these days, and are of little merit.
Consequently, I believed what I heard many say that Nature, Mistress of all things, had grown old and weary, and was no
longer producing intellects any more than giants on a vast and wonderful scale such as she did in what one might call her
youthful and more glorious days. But after I came back here to this most beautiful of cities from the long exile in which
we Albertis have grown old, I recognized in many, but above all in you, Filippo [Brunelleschi], and in our graet friend
the sculptor Donatello and in the others Nencio, Luca and Masaccio, a genius for every laudable enterprise in no way
inferior to any of the ancients who gained fame in these arts. I then realized that the ability to achieve the highest
distinction in any meritorious activity lies in our own industry and diligence no less in the favors of Nature and of the
times."
Alberti's definition of beauty:
"That to which nothing can be added, or taken away, except for the worse."
Maps: Europe, Italy, countries, Italian "city-states" and politics; compare to Ancient Greece
The Ottoman Empire; Rome; Florence; Venice
Italy seen from the air Caprarola, Florence, etc.!
Florence and Flanders; a view of Florence: the two towers stand for new dual powers in life
Notes on terminology:
The 1400's = Fifteenth Century = Quattrocento
The 1500's = Sixteenth Century = Cinquecento, etcetera
Northern and Italian art contrasted--two paintings:
Masaccio, The Tribute Money, fresco, 1427
Rogier Van der Weyden, Deposition of Christ, oil on wood, 1435
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The new idea and social role of the artist:
Self portraits by Jan van Eyck and Lorenzo Ghiberti
The artist as hero and genius: competition; collecting; social status and money issues
Renaissance Art in the "Low Countries" (Holland and Belgium)
Artists and artworks
Robert Campin, The Merode Altarpiece (Annunciation Triptych), c. 1425, oil on panel
Oil Paint (See the Met's page on oil at the Timeline of Art History with its huge index of topics.)
Notes on media: fresco, oil painting, tempera painting on panel all have different "looks"
Signs and symbols: a lost language
Symbols in Christian Art and Architecture and Christian Iconography
Harmony of the Gospel on-line!
Multilingual Bible
Christian signs and symbols survive in cemetery art
Jan and Hubert Van Eyck, Ghent Altarpiece, 1432
Jan Van Eyck, The Annunciation, c. 1434
Jan Van Eyck, Giovanni Arnolfini and His Wife, 1434, oil on panel, National Gallery, London
Rogier Van Der Weyden, Deposition, c. 1442
Petrus Christus, Saint, Eloy (Eligius) in his Shop, 1449, oil on panel
Hugo Van der Goes, Nativity, "The Portinari Altarpiece," c. 1475
Note the numerous flowers and their symbolism
Intertextuality alert! Where have you seen the three shepherds before?
(Hint: you would know this "if you only had a brain.")
See: Art Historians Guide to the Movies (appearances of and references to famous works of art in the movies).
The Limbourg Brothers, February, from the Tres Riches Heures of the Duke of Berry, 1413
The Unicorn Tapestries, c. 1500
Martin Schongauer, Temptation of St. Anthony, c. 1480, engraving
Portugal: Nuno Concalvez, Saint Vincent with the Portuguese Royal Family, c. 1471
Note the patron, Prince Henry the Navigator, who wore a "hair shirt" [what is that?]
Renaissance Art in Italy
"Humanism" and the idea of a Renaissance
Bernardo Rossellino, Tomb of Leonardo Bruni, Florence, 1445: recalls ancient Rome
Art theory: The books of Leon Battista Alberti: on painting, on architecture, on the family
The union of classical and natural; Renaissance fascination with Rome, the classics, and the classical style
Why the Renaissance happened in Italy: Ancient Rome was in their back yard. The Roman Forum, The Pantheon
History:
Money, commerce, and banking: The Medici Bank
Machiavelli and Power: The Popes as conquerors and princes: Alexander VI and Cesare Borgia; Henry I of France
Patronage:
Piero della Francesca, Duke and Duchess of Urbino, 1472, oil and tempera on wood, 1465
The new Renaissance man: Francis I ("Le Roi Grand Nez") and Cesare Borgia
Early Renaissance sculpture:
Donatello, Equestrian Monument of Erasmo da Narni--"Gattamelata," 1455
Bronze, Padua, 1443; the first "life size" bronze since ancient Rome; compare to Marcus Aurelius statue
Donatello, St. Mark, marble, 1411, Guild Hall, Florence--[not in our book; important]
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compare Gothic Madonnas, portal sculptures, and Greeks
Renaissance Italians reinvents contrapposto
Donatello, David, after 1428, bronze
Donatello: Prophets from the duomo bell tower: the "Zucchone"
Lorenzo Ghiberti, The Gates of Paradise, Florence Baptistry, 1425-1452
Early Renaissance Painting:
Masaccio (1201-1428!), Holy Trinity with Virgin Mary and Donors, c. 1425, fresco, Sta. M. Novella, Florence
[His full name: Tomasso di ser Giovanni di Simone Guidi]
Masacciuo, Madonna Enthroned, c. 1425; compare: several Madonnas leading up to Masaccio
Masaccio, The Tribute Money, Brancacci Chapel, Santa Maria del Carmine, frescos, 1425
Compare Three Men in the Fiery Furnace from 4th century catacomb
Read: the concept of "Narrative Content and Context," text p. 252
Masaccio, Adam and Eve: the nude in Renaissance art
Scientific Perspective (also "one-point linear" or "mathematical" perspective")
See 3-part dazzle video on perspective (if time)
Review "Starter Kit"
Key words: vanishing point, orthagonals, atmospheric perspective
Pietro Perugino, Christ Giving Keys to St. Peter, 1482
Masaccio's Tribute Money, 1425 [above]
Andrea Mantegna, Camera Picta, frescoes, Mantua, 1465, ceiling
Paolo Uccello, The Battle of San Romano, c. 1430s, tempera on wood panel
Other examples not in the book:
Uccello, perspective drawing of chalice, c. 1430
Donatello, Baptismal Font, Feast of Herod, relief sculpture of gilded bronze, 1425
Lorenzo Ghiberti, Doors of Florence Baptistry, bronze, 1425-52, ("The Gates of Paradise")
Story of Jacob and Esau. (quote Gombrich on the competition for the doors)
The Renaissance in Italy, Part Deux
Architecture:
Filippo Brunelleschi, Florence Cathedral and its Dome (the duomo), 1420-36
Filippo Brunelleschi, Church of San Lorenzo, begun 1421
Proportion in Renaissance Architecture: Alberti's Santa Maria Novella:
A brief history of proportion: Medieval churches were based on symbolic numbers (San Sernin, Toulouse), like 3, 4
and 12. Renaissance architecture was based on whole numbers and their ratios, a theory which derived from antiquity
(Pythagoras). These simple whole number ratios were most clearly expressed in music; for example, 1/2 (octave), 2/3
(fifth), 3/4 (fourth), 4/5 (major third) and so forth. It was believed that these beautiful ratios were the work of God, and
that therefore the use mathematics in building and art was a way to express the Divine. The Renaissance also used the
"Golden Section" 1 to 1.618.
The Renaissance Palace (palazzo):
Anonymous, An Idea City, c. 1500
The Medici Palace, Florence, 1446, imitates the City Hall (Palazzo Vecchio)
Sienna, Town Hall, c. 1300
Venice, Town Hall, 1300
Florence, Palazzo Vecchio, c. 1300
Leon Alberti, Rucellai Palace, Florence, 1455:
First use of orders on a private house; Compare Colosseum
Another ancient source was triumphal arches (Arch of Titus) for church facades
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Decorating the Palaces; The Medici Family; new kinds of patrons
Donatello, David, 1440s?, life-size bronze
Donatello, Equestrian Monument of Erasmo da Narni (Gattamelata), Padua, 1443
Antonio Pollaiuolo, Hercules and Antaeus, c. 1470, bronze
Paulo Uccello, Battle of San Romano, 1450s, tempera on wood
Lorenzo de Medici as patron
Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus, tempera on canvas, c. 1485
Botticelli, Primavera (Spring or "The Realm of Venus"), tempera, c. 1482
Andrea Mantegna, Camera Picta (Camera degli Sposi), Ducal Palace, Milan, 1465-74
"Foreshortening": Mantegna and Durer
Piero della Francesca, Resurrection, Fresco, c. 1460
Piero's main patron, Duke Federico Montefeltro of Urbino, 1465
Federico and his son Guidobaldo: books and armor
Piero, Madonna and Child with Saints, 1474 (where is Federico's wife, Battista Sforza
Compare to Giovanni Mansueti, Madonna, Child, donor, and saints, Joslyn Museum
Piero, Nativity, 1460; humor in Renaissance Art. (See Umberto Eco’s book, The Name of the Rose; did Christ ever
laugh?)
Pietro Perugino, Delivery of the Keys to Saint Peter, fresco in the Sistine Chapel, 1482
Printmaking:
Woodcut and engraving technique
Antonio del Pollaiuolo, Battle, c. 1465
Martin Schongauer, Temptation of St. Anthony, c. 1480
Albrecht Durer, Melancholia I, 1514 [next chapter]
Vocabulary:
narrative content and context
foreshortening
linear or scientific perspective
orthagonal
vanishing point
picture plane
atmospheric and "intuitive" perspective
tempera and oil paint
gesso
altarpieces: diptych, triptych, polyptych, wings
manuscript illumination
rustication
niche
putti (little boys with wings--not angels)
balustrade
modeling
woodcut
engraving
high relief
intaglio
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Week 7: The High Renaissance
Reading
The High Renaissance (Text 12)
Websites:
Vasari's biographies of the artists (e.g. Leonardo)
Visit the Web Gallery of Art for more works by Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael, Titian, etc
Videos in class: "Vatican/Pope/Indulgences" and "Shoes of the Fisherman"
Class Notes: The High Renaissance (Text Chapter 12)
Introduction: The Italian Renaissance was like Athens in the 5th century BC, a brief classical moment that seems to
transcend its time. The art of the High Renaissance seems to belong to no "school," but can be characterized as a unity
of opposites--lofty, grand, intimate, serene, balanced, measured, reasoned, tranquil, and both real and ideal at the same
time.
History:
Julius II and the Papacy; Rome vs. northern Europe
Holy Roman Emperor Charles V; The Habsburg Dynasty
The Sack of Rome in 1527 by German troops; France vs. The Holy Roman Empire
The Ottoman Empire (perceived as a threat not unlike the "Red scare" of the 1950's
The New World and Spain
The 16th century (1500's) was a century of religious strife (Reformation/ Counter-Reformation)
Intellectual and scientific developments:
"The 100 Most Important People of the last 1000 Years" Several lists: Time Another list
Guttenberg's printing press: ideas could no longer be controlled!
Vesalius: Human Anatomy, 1543
Copernicus: De revolutionibus, 1543 (heliocentric universe)
The modern view of universe did not come easily: Galileo vs. the Papacy
Can you prove that the earth really does revolve around the sun, or do you just believe what you are told?
Hint: who was Foucault? (Actually, in order to make the heliocentric universe work, you need "gravity.")
Martin Luther and the Reformation
Pope Leo X (1512-22); Vatican construction and decoration; the sale of indulgences
Luther's challenge to the Pope and the Roman Church: The "95 theses," 1517
The Reformation and political realities: The Peace of Augsburg, 1555 (the religion of the ruler rules subjects)
The Spread of Protestantism: Henry VIII of England (the Divorce, etc.); threatened Rome
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The Church's Answer: The Counter-Reformation and the Council of Trent, 1545-1563
Reaffirmed traditional Catholic doctrine, especially the Priesthood, Papacy, Saints, Sacraments
The Inquisition (Torquemada; Mel Brooks)
Ignatius of Loyola founds Jesuit Order in 1534
The role of art in religion was reaffirmed by Catholic church, but attacked by Protestants:
(Recall Pope Gregory the Great's support of religious art--it should instruct, remind, inspire)
The Artist as Hero: Great Geniuses in the 16th century
Three Madonnas: Giotto, Masaccio, Leonardo
A paradigm of three centuries--1300, 1400, 1500. ("Three steps onto the Mountain of Nature"--Varasi, 1550)
The High Renaissance style "aspires to three-dimensionality in all media," "pyramidal" composition
Painting has a new softness achieved through "modeling," often called" sfumato" as in Da Vinci's Mona Lisa
The sixteenth century artist now has a new authority and social role
He is no longer a manual laborer, but an intellectual (and a social climber)
The story of Titian and Charles V (Charles bent down to pick up Titian's brush. Yeah, right.)
Benvenuto Cellini's Autobiography: the artist as hero
Giorgio Vasari, wrote the first Lives of the Artists, 1550; Michelangelo is the ne plus ultra (the best)
Vasari founded the Florentine "Academy of St. Luke" (an academy of art, not a "workshop")
The profession begins to open its ranks to women (Sophinisba Anguissola, Artemisia Gentileschi)
Leonardo da Vinci (1453-1519) : The model of the "Renaissance Man" (Dazzle on Leonardo)
Vasari's introduction to his life of Leonardo
Leonardo's "resume" (his letter to the Duke of Mantua seeking employment)
Explore Leonardo's studio
Leonardo: Independent Professional
Leonardo's Mysterious Machine Quiz
Leonardo as a student--Andrea del Verrocchio, Baptism of Christ c. 1475; angels by Leonardo and di Credi
Mona Lisa, oil on wood, c. 1503, Louvre, Paris
Last Supper, 1495-98, refectory, S. M. della Grazia, Milan, 1495: bombed, cleaned
The "Vitruvian Man," c. 1490, ink (the problem of Pi)
More works by Leonardo:
Virgin Child and St. Anne, 1498, charcoal on paper ("cartoon")
Drawing of Madonna and child with cat
Drawings by Leonardo: medicine, machines, war, horses, plants, church, landscape
Grotesques heads
Raphael Santi (1583-1520) (Dazzle Raphael)
Raphael, The Small Cowper Madonna, c. 1505 (compare later Madonnas by Parmagianino and Caracci )
Raphael , Philosophy ("The School of Athens"), Stanza della Segnatura, 1512, Vatican City,
Center figure is a portrait of Leonardo as Plato; elaborate "program"
History Painting: Masaccio, Leonardo, and Raphael could also do mythology and portraiture:
Baldassare Castiglione, author of The Book of the Courtier
Raphael’s late Madonnas--extremely graceful
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Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564): "Il Divino" (The Divine Michelangelo)
Vasari's life of Michelangelo: introduction
Michelangelo's Birthday, Wednesday, March 6
Michelangelo is Vasari's hero ("Il Divino"), the master of sculpture, painting, architecture and poetry
Michelangelo is the culmination of his "three steps onto the mountain of Nature":
1300's--Giotto; 1400's--Masaccio; 1500's Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo
Giorgio Vasari: "the good, the better, and the best"
Michelangelo and the Renaissance artist now compete with and surpass the Ancients
This structure has implications for a theory of history: cycles, or rise and fall
His appearance and character: about 5 feet tall, broken nose.
The 16th century artist is now an educated humanist
Michelangelo's sculpture technique seen in the unfinished St. Mathew: he takes the surface back to reveal the form.
His drawings are "carved" his like sculpture
Why did he and Leonardo leave so many works unfinished?
Pieta, 1499, St. Peters, Rome, marble, c. 1500
compare to late Florentine Pieta, 1550, in the Duomo (Cathedral) of Florence:
unsettling emotional content: reflects psychology or Mick. himself and tumult in Europe?
compare to a German pieta--national differences
The David, 1501-1504, Academia, Florence, height about 14 feet, marble
David as a symbol of Florence
Compare to Donatello's David and the quattrocento (1400's) generally
Michelangelo's Plan for St. Peters, 1546, and his exterior design (figure 12-10)
St. Peters Basilica: torn down under Julius, very ambitious
Bramante's plan: "Put the Pantheon on top of Basilica of Max."
Bramante's "Tempietto," 1500; very three-dimensional
The "Sistine" Chapel, 1508-1512
Dazzle: Michelangelo (The Agony and the Ecstasy 1; fresco 2, ceiling, etc.)
Patronage:
Painted for Pope Julius II (1503-1513); Michelangelo had been working on his tomb
The chapel is named after Julius' uncle, Pope Sixtus IV--hence "Sistine"
Why did the pope want to decorate it?
The Idea of Rome in the Renaissance: to revive ancient Rome-Popes Sixtus IV and Julius II; their goals for the Papacy: the successors of both Peter and Caesar!
The Iconography or "program" of the chapel-The Chapel contains all of World History from the Creation to the Last Judgment
(which should occur at the fall of the new Christian Roman Empire or the advent of the Antichrist)
Three "ages" are depicted on the chapel ceiling and walls:
The world Before the Law (ante legem),
Under the Law (sub legem), and,
Under Grace (sub gratia)
Michelangelo's original commission was The Twelve Apostles only: ("they were poor")
His final solution revolutionized painting
Many levels of illusion in Michelangelo's design: architectural frames
The Nude: for Michelangelo, the nude figure was the vehicle of meaning: the body is the "earthly prison"
(The ignudi are angels without wings)
The philosophy of Pico della Mirandola: God placed man in the center of the universe:
"Man has no specific nature, but can choose which course to follow."
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The Creation of Adam, c. 1511
The restoration of the ceiling
The ancestors of Christ (the "begats”) were the painted last, some in one day!
The ceiling has two stories that move in opposite directions:
God's story, Genesis, and Michelangelo's story, his epic battle with the ceiling
Michelangelo invents, masters, and surpasses the classical style in this place-Change and development in art are now very rapid
The Last Judgment, 1534-41, altar wall of Sistine Chapel
Much has changed because of the Reformation and Michelangelo's own spirit
Compare to Giotto's Last Judgment in the, Arena Chapel, 230 years earlier
More Sculpture after the ceiling:
Moses, 1514, San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome
Michelangelo returns to sculpture after the chapel
Hellenistic sources: the Laocoon and the Belvedere Torso
The "Slaves" for the Tomb of Julius II, 1530s
Florentine Pieta, c. 1550. Why is one leg missing?
Medici Chapel, Florence, 1524-34, tomb chapel:
Note new expressiveness, and elongated figures; even the moldings are alive
The "Rondanini Pieta," 1560s; unfinished again Michelangelo as architect: fortifications (gunpowder)
Drawings: resurrection; crucifixion; portals
Poetry: A Sonnet by Michelangelo, 1554:
Giunto e` gia'l corso della vita mia,
con tempestoso mar, per fragil barca,
al comun porto, ov'a render si varca
conto e ragion d'ogni opra trista e pia.
Onde l'affettuosa fantasia
che l'arte me fece idol e monarca
conosco or ben com'era d'error carca
e quel c'a mal suo grado ogn'uom desia.
Gli amorosi pensier, gia` vani e lieti,
che fien or, s'a duo morte m'avvicino?
D'una so'l certo, al'altra mi minaccia.
Ne' pinger ne' scolpir fie piu` che quieti
l'anima, volta a quell'amor divino
c'aperse, a prender noi, 'n croce le braccia.
(My course of life already has attained,
Through stormy seas, and in a flimsy vessel,
The common port, at which we land to tell
All conduct's cause and warrant, good or bad,
So that the passionate fantasy, which made
Of art a monarch for me and an idol,
Was laden down with sin, now I know well,
Like what all men against their wild desired.
What will become, now, of my amorous thoughts,
Once happy and vain, as toward two deaths I move,
One known for sure, the other ominous?
There's no painting or sculpture now that quiets
The soul that's pointed toward that holy Love
That on the cross opened Its arms to take us.)
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Week 8: The Late Renaissance (the 16th Century)
Reading Assignments
More sixteenth-century art (text 12)
Veronese and the Inquisition Kurt Wenner, modern steet painter!
Video: "The Appearance of Jesus"
The Renaissance in Venice and Northern Europe
Artistic regions ("schools") of Italian art:
Central Italy (Florence and Rome): Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo
Venice: Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto, Palladio
Mannerism: Parmagianino, Cellini, El Greco
Germany and Northern Europe: Grunewald, Durer, Bosch, Breugel
The Renaissance in Venice: "The Most Serene Republic"
The City of Venice: (expanding on-line map) (cute virtual tour) (Venetian masks) (also here)
Was the largest city in Italy in 1500; 200,000 by 1600 (now has only 70k or so!)
A melting pot; prostitutes, trade, books: The Aldine Press; incunabula (printed books published before 1500)
Venice was the bitter enemy of Rome, closer to the Ottoman Empire (Islam vs. Christendom)
Topography; gondolas, Piazza San Marco, a city of magic!
The "Ca d'Oro" (house of gold), a 14th century private house
Art in Venice: "light, color, and paint." Art in Central Italy: "modeling, line, and volume"
Giovanni Bellini:
St, Francis in Ecstasy, 1470's
The Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints, 1505, Church of San Zaccharia, Venice
A "sacra conversazione" (sacred conversation); the church is now a museum
Bellini, The San Giobbe Altarpiece, 1485
Bellini, The Tempest, 1505
Check out this cool website on Bellini's The Feast of the Gods with x-ray spyglass feature.
What pigments were used (note "white lead"!) The complete site is here
Tiziano Vecelli ("Titian"): 1478?--1576!
Titian was the master of all genres, and changed the way artists were viewed in society:
The story of Titian and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V
Titian has been called the first "modern" painter because his technique was new: very fluid or "painterly;"
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Michelangelo's criticism of Titian (from Vasari's Lives):
One day Michael Angelo and Vasari went together to see Titian in the Belvedere, and he showed them a picture he had
just painted of Danae in the shower of gold, and they praised it much. After they had left him, talking over Titian's work,
Buonarroti commended him greatly, saying that his colour pleased him, but that it was a mistake that at Venice they
did not learn first of all to draw well, [!] for if this man, he said, were assisted by art as he is by nature, especially in
imitating life, it would not be possible to surpass him, for he has the finest talent and a very pleasant, vivacious manner.
Titian, The Pesaro Madonna, 1519-1526, church of the Frari, Venice, OIL ON CANVAS!
Oil on canvas necessary because of the climate in Venice--too wet for fresco
Canvas makes possible new size, color, light, atmosphere; canvas became preferred method up to the present
Note the oblique viewpoint of the spectator: responds to placement in the church
Titian, Isabella d"Este, 1535, oil on canvas, Este a famous patron of the arts
Titian (formerly attributed to Giorgione), Pastoral Concert, c. 1510, oil on canvas
Titian's teacher Giorgione ("Big George"; note Italian pronunciation and suffixes)
Sleeping Venus, c. 1510
The Tempest (Landscape with Gypsy and Soldier), c. 1505
Laura, c. 1505 and Col Tempo, c. 1505
.
Titian, Venus of Urbino, 1538, oil on canvas
Contrast to Central Italian (Rome and Florence) attitude towards male and female nude
Venus and Cupid: compare Veronese, Venus and Cupid in Joslyn Museum
Rape (abduction) of Europa, 1559-62
The Italian Renaissance loved mythological stories, and could "allegorize" them if needed:
Thus, Jupiter abducting a mortal could stand for God "wooing" the human soul. Really.
Compare: Correggio's Jupiter and Io; another abduction
Bacchanale of the Andrians, c. 1520; young people having fun
Portraits: Man with a Glove, c. 1540; a new type; compare to Mona Lisa
Joslyn Falconer (the sport of princes; leisure and hunting)
Paolo Veronese, Last Supper/Feast in the House of the Levi, 1573 (note its size: 18 x 42 feet)
History: the Reformation and Martin Luther
The Counter-Reformation; Council of Trent (1563); map; religious wars; France; the Armada: the Inquisition:
ReadVeronese's testimony before the Inquisition
Iconography: see The Ecole Initiative for extensive list of images grouped by subject (e.g. "St. Mark")
Tintoretto, Last Supper, 1592, also large, 12 x 19 feet
Compare to Leonardo's and Veronese's treatment of this subject
Notice how perspective is used to create drama
Andrea Palladio (1518-1580), Villa Rotonda, Vincenza, 1550 Andrea Palladio architecture
The complete text and pictures of Palladio's Four Books on Architecture
Thomas Jefferson owned the only copy of Palladio's book in America
More architecture of Andrea Palladio: *San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, 1566
Also here
"Mannerism" --a 16th century style
Mannerism is another derogatory term that became useful in art history as a name for a style (the word comes from
"Maniera" or manner/style), like Middle Ages, Gothic, Baroque, Rococo, Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism. The great
masters of the High Renaissance actually posed a dilemma for artists who followed--"what do we do now? Mannerism is
not a "period style," but a kind of attitude present in some artists between 1520 and 1600; it is a style which is decidedly
"Post-classical": self-consciously arty and artificial ("art for art's sake"). The opposite of High Renaissance art,
Mannerist art is unbalanced, restless, lithe, bizarre, extremely grace, self-conscious, obscure, arcane, obscure, intricate,
contorted, and seeks extremes, especially extreme grace. The Italian word "sprezzatura," defines Mannerism well.
Invented by Baldassare Castiglione in his famous Book of the Courtier, it means, "nonchalance" or "disdain" --the "devil
may care" look of a celebrity. “Post-classical" phenomena like Mannerism can be observed at other times and places in
the history of art, e.g. after about 400 BC in Greece, and in the late Gothic architecture.
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Examples of Mannerism--mainly in Italy
Archimboldo, Allegory of Fire, c. 1550
Two Annunciations: Botticelli, c.1490, and Lorenzo Lotto, c. 1520
Leonardo da Vinci writes: ". . .some days ago I saw the picture of an Angel, who, in making the Annunciation, seemed
to be trying to chase Mary out of the room, with movements showing the sort of attack one might make on some hated
enemy; and Mary, as if desperate, seemed to be trying to throw herself out of a window. Do not fall into errors like
these." (Digression on gesture language)
Later Raphael is Mannerist: Madonna of the Goldfinch, c. 1505--normative High Renaissance style:
balance between form and content.
Raphael, Fire in the Borgo, c. 1518, is not longer calm and orderly: an emphasis on extreme grace
Michelangelo's Mannerist phase: the late ignudi (angels) and the Victory
Giovanni Da Bologna, Astronomy, c. 1573 Note extreme twisting pose
Giambologna (Giovanni da Bologna), "Rape of the Sabines", 1583, and Mercury
Parmagianino, "Madonna with the Long Neck," 1534-40 [not in our book, but a great work]
Agnolo Bronzino, Portrait of a Young Man, c. 1540; Bronzino, Allegory of Time and Lust, 1545
Benvenuto Cellini, Saltcellar of Francis I, 1543 (the year of Copernicus)
Jacopo Pontormo, Entombment, 1525
Primaticcio, Stucco and Wall Painting, Fontainebleau, France, 1540
Giulio Romano's house; Palazzo del Te: Sala dei Giganti; various gates, grottoes, and windows
Two Women Painters:
Sofinisba Anguissola, Self-Portrait, c. 1552. S. Anguissola, Child Bitten by a Crayfish, c. 1558
Lavinia Fontana, Noli Me Tangere ("Don't Touch Me"), 1581
Architecture in "Counter-Reformation" of the late 16th Century:
Giacomo da Vignola and Giacomo della Porta, Church of the Jesu, 1568-1584
Baroque and "Rococo" church facades
German and English Art in the 16th century
Albrecht Durer (1471-1528), "The German Leonardo da Vinci"
Self-portrait; Did Durer visit Venice and meet Leonardo?
Rhinoceros, woodcut; Durer a great printmaker; sold art to the masses
Artist Drawing a Lute with the Help of a Mechanical Device, woodcut, 1525
Adam and Eve, copper plate engraving, 1504; compare to The Apollo Belvedere, a Greek sculpture in Vatican
Durer's three "Master Engravings"
Knight, Death, and the Devil, 1513, engraving
St. Jerome in His Study, engraving, 1514
"Active" life vs. "Contemplative" life, as in Michelangelo's Chapel
Melancholia I, 1514, engraving; Aristotle: "all artists are by nature Melancholic"
Digression on the Four Temperament (Hamlet, Horatio, Laertes, Fortinbras); see "Renaissance medicine" above
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, 1497, woodcut
Praying Hands, 1508, brush on paper: Was Durer a Protestant?
The Four Apostles, 1526, oil on panels
Matthias Grunewald, Isenheim Altarpiece, c. 1510, now in Colmar
Tilman Reimenschneider, Altarpiece of the Holy Blood, c. 1500, limewood, Germany
Hans Holbein the Younger, King Henry VIII, c. 1540
Albrecht Altdorfer, Danube Landscape, c. 1525 The first purely landscape painting (See also Breughel below)
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Netherlandish and Spanish Art
Review: Jan Van Eyck (Flemish), Arnolfini Wedding Portrait, 1434
The paradigm of northern painting: Nature is the sum total of carefully observed details
In contrast, for the Italians, Nature--and art--are generalized and perfect ideals
Hieronymous Bosch (died 1516), "The Garden of Earthly Delights," c. 1505-1515
A precursor to Surrealism? Part of a cycle on the seven deadly sins?
What ARE these people DOING in this picture?
Other works by Bosch are equally puzzling:
The Hay Wain Triptych, c. 1510
Christ Carrying the Cross, c. 1510
Compare to Leonardo da Vinci's Grotesque Heads and "Vitruvian Man:" Italy vs. the North
Peter Brueghel [pronounced "brew-ghel"] the Elder, Return of the Hunters, 1565
The first "modern" landscape; landscape had been visible in the background in earlier art-for example, Piero della Francesca's Resurrection, and portraits like Mona Lisa
More Brueghel-Last Judgment (a masterpiece)
Peasant Wedding Feast, 1566
Blind Leading the Blind, 1568
Men begging (How people they view the disabled at that time?)
Genre (pronounced "john-ruh")--a French word meaning "type"
The various kinds of painting subjects:
History Painting: any narrative or story, Biblical, historical, mythological--considered the highest genre
Portraiture
Landscape
Still Life (includes flower and game pieces, also "Vanitas" pieces)
Low Life or "genre painting" proper
Catherine van Hemessen, Self-Portrait, 1548
El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos), Burial or Count Orgaz, 1586
Note the fine El Greco, St. Francis, in the Joslyn Museum, about 1585
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Art 219/History of Art
home/class schedule
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Week 9: 17th Century Art
Reading Assignments
Seventeenth-century Art (Stokstad, text chapter 13)
Aikin, Art Museums
Aikin, Late Renaissance Art in Rome: The Sala dei Capitani (Originally in Sixteenth Century Journal, 1986)
Browse: Women in Art
Practice your languages!:
Guercino, The Burial of St. Petronilla (description in Italian)
Caravaggio, The Night Prince (in French)
Baroque Art--the 17th and 18th Centuries (1600 to 1800)
(text 14)
Begin with Baroque Videos (Baroque Intro--)
Review basic ERAS and DATES of European History [we need help on this!]
Antiquity--Greece and Rome, before Christ, 500 BC to 300 AD
The Christian Era--officially begins with the conversion of Emperor Constantine, 313 AD
The Middle Ages ("Dark Ages")--c. 400-800, or, if you like, until the year 1200 or later
Early Middle Ages--400-800
Age of Charlemagne--800
Romanesque art--1000-1200
Gothic art--1200 to 1400 (or later in northern Europe)
The Renaissance--1400-1600
The Age of the Baroque--1600-1750 (that is--the 17th and 18th centuries)
The Enlightenment (Rococo and Neoclassical styles)--1700-1900
The Modern World--1789 to the present [Why 1789?]
History:
By 1600, Europe was now more prosperous, because of international commerce and the New World
There were now large, vibrant cities: Amsterdam, Paris, London, Rome, and Fargo
The great monarchies of Europe had now emerged, and they employed art to glorify their dynasties-and legitimize their despotic absolute power. (What was "The Divine Right of Kings"?)
See map of the Hapsburg possessions and the Holy Roman Empire, page 382
Religion:
Religion was the chief obsession of the age, and religious "tolerance" was still not an option.
"Heretics" were either Protestant or Catholic, depending on your point of view.
(What does the word "catholic" mean?)
"Infidel" were Muslims or Christians, depending on your point of view.
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The Reformation of 1517 had inspired, in turn, the Catholic Counter-Reformation Tour new St. Peters
Islam and the Ottoman Empire were a threat to Christendom. (See map of the rise of Islam)
New saints like St. Teresa and Ignatius of Loyola were "canonized" by the Roman Church
The Council of Trent (1545-63) had affirmed the valued of art
The word "Propaganda" was invented in Rome (to "propagate" the Faith)
Art was a key element in the battle for souls.
European culture and art were more pluralistic, and different nations and cultures had different art styles-The Netherlands, became free from Spain in 1609; it was Protestant, middle class, and tolerant of Jews
France: had 19 million people, Europe's largest country; absolute monarch was Louis XIV (The "Sun King")
TheDecline of Spain (Golden Age?), conservative, rigid, Catholic
Rome (urbis et orbis: "city and world"); a resurgent papacy; new energy; Jesuit order
Rome became a glorious rebuilt Baroque city in the 17th century
Class Video: Understanding Cities, Rome
Germany: devastated by the 30 Years War (to 1648); not much new art until 1700
England: Henry XIII formed the Church of England; turmoil and revolution; Charles I overthrown 1648
Intellectual and cultural activity:
The Enlightenment began in Northern Europe in the late 17th century
More literacy, more interest in "secular" things.
Intellectual giants: Shakespeare, Bacon, Galileo, Newton, Harvey, Kepler, Locke, Descartes, Pascal (text p. 413)
New philosophy of "universal doubt" and science (Rene Descartes); not very important for Roman Baroque art!
Copernicus and the heliocentric universe [The moon's size? How big is your head in the mirror?]
Academies of science, poetry, art, drama
Opera is born in 1605, Monteverdi's Orfeo
Three Styles of 17th century Art
1) The "Baroque Style" (also "Baroque Illusionism," "Roman Baroque," or "Catholic Baroque")
"Baroque" was originally a derogatory term invented by later "Neoclassical" critics; now it is a neutral term
--like "Gothic" or "Impressionism"
Baroque began in Rome and spread north to Germany and Austria)
The Baroque style was especially suited to goals of autocratic rulers of the Church and Counter-Reformation
Baroque has these qualities: grand scale, rhetorical, asymmetrical composition, powerful movement, strong lighting,
and dramatic interpretations of subject matter
In sculpture: rich materials, surprising lighting sources
Baroque art is dynamic and energetic
Catholic Baroque religious art glorifies the lives of Christ and the Saints
History painting also much used in countries with strong courts
2) "Baroque Classicism" is like the High Renaissance, but grander:
It was usually for mythological subjects: example, Caracci's Farnese Gallery ceiling , 1600
3) Dutch Baroque:
Featured realism and naturalism, also on a smaller scale
Showed everyday subject matter; no royal patrons; the decline of mythological subjects
Market Capitalism was major factor in 17th century art world: there were now an "art market" and "collectors"
Some typical Baroque artworks:
Gianlorenzo Bernini, Saint Teresa in Ecstasy, 1645. Read St. Teresa's description of her vision.
Hyacinthe Rigaud, Portrait of King Louis XIV of France, 1701
Frans Hals, The Merry Drinker, 1628; and Hals. Male Babe
Annibale Carracci, Ceiling, Farnese Gallery, 1600
Compare Michelangelo, Sistine ceiling
Exemplifies "academic" painting, Carracci had a huge studio
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The Seventeenth Century Artist: a prodigious genius
Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish), Self-portrait with Isabela Brandt, 1609;
Rubens had a huge workshop; international reputation
Women artists: there are many more women painters now because of market capital system in north
Judith Leyster (Dutch), Self-portrait, 1635; typical Dutch familiarity.
Artemisia Gentilleschi (Italian), Judith with the Head of Holofernes, 1625
Self-portrait as Allegory of Painting, 1630
Women in Art, excellent site, with the life and art of Artemesia Gentileschi
[What is an "allegory"? What is a "personification"? See Caravaggio's Amor Vincit Omnes!
Baroque Art in Rome
Map of Europe in 1648 :
The Treaty of Westphalia ended The 30 Years War
The papacy in 17th century; The Counter-Reformation
Pope Sixtus V (1585-90) and the resurgent papacy
Video: Sixtus' Plan for the City of Rome
Jacopo Vignola, Church of Gesu (Jesuit order), Facade, 1577 ("Devotion of forty hours;" temporary decorations)
Sixtus rebuilt Rome as a giant reliquary! (What is a reliquary?) Sixtus' street reorganization
Rome became a center of art and religion [still is: American Academy]
Rome still has no real industry except politics and religion!
Sixtus' character; he tried to reform corrupt church practices like simony, nepotism, greed, etc.
Before Sixtus you did not even have to be a priest before being named a Cardinal, just pay for the office
Raphael, Leo X and His "Nephews" (What is a "nephew" in Italian?)
Pope Paul III (Farnese) had four sons (and if you saw his mistress you would understand why).
The continuing building history of St Peters' Basilica:
Dazzle "Vatican Shoes of the Fisherman conclave 3" and "Vatican San Pietrini"
Bramante, Michelangelo, and Carlo Maderno: plans for St. Peters The main church completed in 1590.
St. Peters today; dome; side; temporary canopies facade; colonnade; roof statues; interior; statue of St. Peter
Gianlorenzo Bernini, Colonnade, St. Peters, 1656
G. B. Bernini, Baldachino (canopy) over High Altar, 1624f; "What the Barbarians Couldn't Do, the Barberini Did"
Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598-1680):
David, marble sculpture, 1623
Compare Donatello's and Michelangelo's Davids (Video: "Bernini 3 Davids")
Portrait Bust of Scipione Borghese, 1633:
Compare Hals' Merry Drinker, 1628-30 (The "speaking likeness")
Drawing of Cardinal Borghese
Portrait Bust of Costanza Bonarelli (a "ritratto d'amore')
Pluto and Persephone, 1622
Damned soul, 1619
ST TERESA, Cornaro chapel, Santa Maria della Vittoria
New Baroque Illusionism Compare Rubens, St. Theresa interceding in Purgatory.
Read the description in Stokstad, p. 306--a good summary of Baroque style
Gesu Church ceiling, Bernini and G. B. Gaulli, Triumph of the Name of Jesus, 1676-79
Compare Fra Pozzo, ceiling and done of S. Ignatius, 1700
G. B. Bernini, Fountain of the Four Rivers, Piazza Navona, Rome, 1650
Roman piazze (or plazas--city squares):
Piazza del Popolo, "scenographic" vistas
Francesco de Sanctis, Spanish Steps, 1725
Trevi Fountain, 1720's
Sant'Agnese in Piazza Navonna
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Arcitecture: Francesco Borromini (1599-1667)
San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, 1665
Sant'Ivo della Sapienza, 1640
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1573-1610): The Bad Boy of Roman Baroque
A Documentary history of Caravaggio's brief, tragic life
An Essay on light in Caravaggio Two essays by Alfred Moir on the Calling and St. John
Self-portrait. Caravaggio was a complex man, a criminal, and great innovator
Boy with Fruit Basket, c. 1595
Bacchus with Wine Glass, c. 1595
David's Hockney's theories: did some painters use "optical aids"?
"60 Minutes" Dazzle film clip on Hockney
"Amor Vincit Omnes," c. 1595
The Musicians, c. 1600 (Compare Vermeer's painting of similar subject)
St. John the Baptist (a "quotation" from Michelangelo?)
Scenes from the Life of St. Mathew, Contarelli Chapel, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome, 1600
St. Mathew Writing the Gospel, two versions (Compare them! Why was the first rejected?)
The Calling of St. Mathew, 1600 (a great masterpiece)
A new way of showing light: tenebroso, or tenebrism
Question: do you have to be religious to be a great religious painter? or an actor?
Entombment of Christ, 1603-4
Death of the Virgin, c. 1605. "She looks like a prostitute who has been pulled out of the Tiber River."
Christ with the Doubting St. Thomas, c. 1602; literal and physical
Conversion of Paul and Crucifixion of St. Peter, 1601
The Influence of Caravaggio was immense throughout Europe, even on Rembrandt in far away Holland
Artemisia Gentilleschi (Italian), Judith with the Head of Holofernes, 1625
Women in Art, with the life and art of Artemesia Gentileschi
Gerrit van Honthorst (Dutch), The Prodigal Son, 1620
Judith Leyster (Dutch), Gay Cavaliers, 1628
Baroque "Genre Painting" (also influenced by Caravaggio):
Trompe l'oiel painting exhibition at the National Gallery of Art
Diego Velazquez (Spanish), Water Carrier of Seville. c. 1619
Diego Velazquez, Las Meninas ("The Maids of Honor"), 1656
A key work, but what genre is it? Portrait? Genre? History?
What is happening in the picture? Note the brilliant and fluid paint handling.
Jan Vermeer (Dutch), 1660, woman holding a balance, c. 1664
Jan Vermeer, Maidservant Pouring Milk, c. 1660: very small, intimate, quiet; (a knockout!)
Louis le Nain (French), Peasant family, 1640
Counter Reformation Spain:
Bartolome Esteban Murillo, The Immaculate Conception, c. 1645 (very accessible)
Sebastian Salcedo, Our Lady of Guadalupe, 1779 (Catholic art in the New World)
More Websites on Baroque Art:
Tours of Rome:
Forum Romanum: virtual tour, dictionary of mythology. Four stars!
Vedute di Roma: wonderful Baroque views and modern pictures
Vasi's map of Baroque Rome with modern pictures
Rome: City and History: models, tours, plans, etc. From Finland
Roman Museums:
Capitoline Museum (very good site, good scans, text in Italian)
Borghese Museum (also Barberini, Corsini, Spada: Practice your Italian!
Galleria Doria Pamphili (link to collection)
Vatican Museums (wretched scans, but lots of pics and links)
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Museums especially relevant to Baroque Art
Metropolitain Museum New York
National Gallery Washington
Rijksmuseum Amdsterdam (beautiful web design)
Mauritshuis The Hague (several masterpieces)
Prado Madrid
National Gallery London
The Louvre virtual tour and collections; the official site
Uffizi Florence: ugly site but fair scans
The Hermitage St. Petersberg (HotMedia: best virtual tour yet!)
Royal Museum Brussels
Royal Museum Antwerp
Architecture:
St. Peters: http://www.christusrex.org/www1/citta/0-Citta.html
The Palace at Versailles: http://www.chateauversailles.fr/EN/110.asp
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Art 219/History of Art
home/class schedule
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Week 10: More Baroque
Reading Assignment:
More Baroque Art and Eighteenth-century Art (text 14 and 17)
Browse this great website: The Essential Vermeer
Baroque Art in Flanders, Holland, France, and Spain
Flanders:
Where is Flanders? See the map. Scenes of Bruges: "the Venice of the North"
Name some other famous Flemish painters? (e.g. Van Eyck)
Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640)
Self portrait, 1609. Rubens had an honorary degree from Cambridge; was multilingual, educated, ambassador, rich
Rubens' house in Antwerp
His training--studied Leonardo, Caravaggio, ancient sculpture; knew Titian; met Velasquez in Spain in 1620
Rubens has been called, paradoxically,"The greatest Italian painter of the 17th Century" [sic].
["sic" is Latin for "just so"--meaning, "You read that right--it is not a mistake."]
The Raising of the Cross, Antwerp Cathedral, 1610. Huge!
Daughters of Leucippus and the Twins Castor and Pollux, 1616 . Compare to Michelangelo (another quotation)
The Maria de Medici Cycle: Henry IV Receiving the Portrait of Maria de'Medici, 1621-25
Louvre Virtual Tour of Maria de' Medici cycle
(museum/virtual tours/paintings/2nd floor Richelieu Wing/Galerie Médicis, Flanders) (also here)
The Arrival of Maria de Medici at Marseilles, 1621
Jan Breughel and Rubens, Allegory of Sight (from The Five Senses), c. 1617, oil on panel, Madrid
Baroque Allegory: What is "allegory" and how is it different from "symbol" "metaphor," "personification," etc?
Allegory of the Outbreak of War, 1638 (and companion piece, The Blessings of Peace)
Mystical Betrothal of St. Catherine (Madonna and Saints), 1628; an oil sketch:
Rubens had a huge studio or factory and would give a sketch of the work to his assistants
The Expulsion from Paradise--compare Masaccio
Fall of the Damned--compare Michelangelo
Dance of Peasants; compare Brueghel Peasant Wedding and Bosch
Atalanta and Meleagher--a “northern” painter
The Judgment of Paris, c. 1630
Andromeda; an allegory of Antwerp under Spanish domination;
compare Titian's Danae (in the Prado, Madrid)
Helene Fourment in fur (Rubens' second wife: he was 53, she was 14!)
Helene with children
Portraits: Earl of Arnudel, Thomas Howard, and the Duke of Mantua (Billy Joel)
Anthony Van Dyck, King Charles I at the Hunt, 1635. Rubens' most famous student
.(Note the "Van Dyck beard"!)
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Holland (The Protestant Netherlands):
Introduction:
Pictures of Delft
Map and History--where is Holland and how did it get its name? Habsburg Spanish control and revolt.
Bruges, canal scene, northern light; urban life
Jan Van Eyck, Arnolfini Wedding, 1434
Rubens was Flemish and Catholic, not Dutch and Protestant.
Religion in Holland was Protestant:
Here is a Dutch church interior (burials took place in churches under numbered stones; see Hamlet's gravediggers)
Examples of Dutch painting:
Hendrick Terbruggen, Boy with Glass, c. 1630
Gerrit Van Honthorst, The Merry Flea Hunt, 1630 (See other pictures of "fleas.")
Judith Leyster, Self-Portrait, c. 1630
Jan Vermeer (1632-1675)
Girl with the Pearl Earring, c. 1666, in the MauritsHuis, The Hague ("top ten"--one billion dollars?)
Woman Holding a Balance, c. 1664
Servant Pouring Milk, 1660 (Note it's small size: Andre Malraux's "Le Musee Imaginaire" on size and scale)
Vermeer's short hard life; only 35 paintings by him are known.
The Essential Vermeer ("museums," "paintings in scale," "in frames," "The Dissius Auction")
All the paintings of Vermeer
(Also: http://www.mystudios.com/vermeer/index.html)
The "View of Delft" exhaustively analyzed
Wheelock, Vermeer and the Art of Painting
The story of the forger Han Van Meegeren (click on "Master Art Forgers")
How to tell Vermeer from Van Meegeren
If time: video on Van Meegeren
Rembrandt Van Rijn (1606-1969)
The world's "most wanted" works of art
Portrait of Jan Six, 1656 The most expensive artwork still in private hands? (estimated value: $150 million)
Self-portrait, 1658, oil on canvas, Washington DC
There are 62 Rembrandt Self-portraits made between c.1626-1662; the chronicle of a soul . [Why so many?]
The Last Supper, after Leonardo da Vinci, 1630's
Man Rowing a Boat, pen and wash drawing, c. 1650
Two women teaching a child to walk, chalk, c. 1637
Elephant, 1637
The Militia Company of Frans Banning Cocq ("The Night Watch"), 1642. A Dutch Baroque group portrait.
Frans Hals, Officers of the Haarlem Militia Company, c. 1627
Frans Hals, Officers of the Civic Guard of St. George, 1627
Rembrandt, Anatomy lesson of Doctor Tulp, 1632
Lady with a Pink, c. 1650
Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer, 1653 (Bought for 2.3 mil in 1960)
The Prodigal son, 1662-68 (Rembrandt and Caravaggio are two of the greatest religious painters.)
The Jewish Bride, 1662
Bathsheba, 1654. There is no "action" in this picture, only reflection; compare to Roman Baroque
Susanna, 1630 So much for the Italian ideal of female beauty.
Adam and Eve. (Compare to Durer)
Saskia in a straw hat, silverpoint drawing. 1633
Hendricke Stoffels, 1660
Rembrandt's Son Titus. (A funny story about this painting and the collector Norton Simon )
Rembrandt website: 3 essays by Simon Schama
Print-Making techniques: etching and drypoint
Durer, Melancholia I, and Knight Death and devil, 1513
Rembrandt, Saskia in a straw hat, silverpoint drawing, 1633
Rembrandt, Christ preaching, 1652, etching
Rembrandt, The Three Crosses, 1663, drypoint and engraving
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Dutch Still-life Painting:
Rachel Ruysch, Flower Still Life, c. 1700 (her father a professor of anatomy and botany)
"Two guys from Holland," Flower Piece with Curtain (Introduction, page 2), 1638
trompe l'oeil ("tromp loy"; French: to "fool the eye"; or--a very effective illusion)
Maria Van Osterwyck, Still life with "vanitas" theme, 1668
Willem Kalf, Still Life with Oranges and Ming Vase, c. 1660 ,
The Royal Museum, Brussels
Dutch landscape and interior painting: assembly line; boom and bust; patriotic
Peter Breughel, Return of the Hunters, 1565, the first true landscape
Mindert Hobbema, Avenue at Middelharnis, 1669
Emanuel de Witte, Portuguese Synagogue, Amsterdam, 1680
Jan Steen, The Drawing Lesson, 1665 (Introduction, page 12)
Jacob Van Ruisdael, From the dunes at Overeen, c. 1670; compare to the present day countryside
Van Ruisdael, landscape, 1660
Rubens, Landscape with Castle Steen, 1636
Jan Van Goyen, seascape
Aert van der Neer, winter scene with golfers (!)
Jan Vermeer, view of Delft, compare present day Brugge
France and Spain:
Nicholas Poussin (French, 1594-1665), Landscape with St. John on Patmos, 1640
The debate between the "poussinites" and "rubenistes" (Classic vs. Baroque; linear vs. painterly)
Arcadian shepherds, c. 1660 ("Et in Arcadia Ego")
Heroic landscape with the Body of Phocion Carried out of Athens, 1648
Hyacinthe Rigaud, Portrait of Louis XIV, 1701
The Palace of King Louis XIV (the "Sun King") at Versailles, by Louis le Vau and Jules Hardoin Mansart, 1669f
The Hall of Mirrors, 1678 ("Let them eat cake!")
Gardens, by Andre le Notre, 1661-68 (compare to the plan of Washington D.C.)
Bust of Louis XIV by Bernini
Compare to the ground plan of the huge Bourbon Royal Palace at Caserta, Italy, 1750
Diego Velazquez (Spanish, 1598-1658), The Water Carrier of Seville, 1619
Juan de Pareja, 1650
Portraits of Royal Family; prince Balthasar Carlos on horseback
Dwarves; Sebastian de Morra (the court "fool" tradition)
Diego Velazquez, Las Meninas, 1656 ("The Maids of Honor"/Portrait of Infanta Margarita), 1656, oil on canvas
Kenneth Clark's essay on Las Meninas (a model essay)
The Eighteenth Century: Rococo and Neoclassicism (text 14 and 17)
History:
"The 18th Century marks a great divide in Western History. . . ." (text. p. 487)
The Enlightenment begins about 1700: Voltaire, Locke, Empiricism, and real science.
Science: Anna Merian, Insect Generations in Surinam, 1719, hand-colored engraving
A time of conflict, contrast, and change
An age of revolution; the rise of democracies
Decline in power of the Church
The Industrial Revolution begins in England
Marriage for love becomes an option
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Rococo and Neoclassicism: the Two Main Styles in 18th century Art and Architecture
Rococo: Germain Boffrand, Salon, Hotel de Soubise, Paris, 1736
Johann Balthasar Neumann, Kaisersaal (Imperial Hall), Wurzburg Germany, 1719-44 ("Austrian Baroque")
Neoclassicism: Robert Adam, anteroom, Syon House, England, 1760-Baroque and Rococo Architecture: (click on "Holy Roman Empire. . .")
Art Academies:
Founded in the 16th and 17th centuries to train "artists," not "craftsmen"
The 18th century was an age of art critics: Joshua Reynolds and Winckelmann
The idea of "good taste" and The "Grand Manner" (Gran Gout)
History painting was king
Subject matter in painting could be moralizing or solely for pleasure--which was new
The Rococo Style in Painting:
Antoine Watteau, Pilgrimage to the Island of Cythera, 1717
Jean-Honore Fragonard, The Meeting, from The Progress of Love Series, 1771 (romantic love)
Fragonard, Happy Accidents of the Swing, 1767. Very naughty. What is the subject of this painting?
The "Hidden" signs and symbols (the swing and the shoe) are not Christian!
Fragonard, Bathers; cotton candy; frankly erotic; painting as pleasure ("the pursuit of happiness")
Printmaking: Giovanni Battista Piranesi: images; prints for sale; 3-d images
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Art 219/History of Art
home/class schedule
web resources
vocabulary
complete class notes
assignments
study guide
Week 11: 19th Century Art
Neoclassicism, Romanticism,
and Realism
Featuring!-- Black Romancitism!
Reading Assignments:
19th-century Art: Neoclassicism, Romanticism, and Realism (Text 17)
Websites:
Artlex for all art styles and art movements on the final exam
Hyperhistory.com for history, timelines, maps, biographies, etc.
Nineteenth Century Art (text 17)
The 19th Century was an age of REVOLUTION--in politics, ideas, technology, art ("40 Yrs of Revolution," p. 460)
Eugene Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People, 1830 [a French national treasure--Les Miz!]
Liberals and the lower bourgeoisie (middle class) now a new power in France--peasants can vote by 1850
The style of the Delacroix's painting is Baroque (or rubeniste) from the style of Titian and Rubens
Test your knowledge of technology and history:
Technology: What year was photography invented? Movies?
What year was the automobile invented? The first subway? Street lights? The first sewer system?
The first iron bridge? The elevator? The machine gun? The tank?
Telegraph? Telephone? Fax? Radio? Television? Radar?
Birth control: when was the condom invented? See WebMD
Science: The first vaccination? Penicillin? First effective treatment for syphilis? Tooth Brushes?
Geology? Biology and Evolution? Theory of Relativity? The nuclear bomb?
Art: The first "artificial" or chemical colors?
The invention of photography
May have had a profound influence on the way artists thought about the purpose of painting.
Why compete with a machine to imitate nature exactly?
If you were never going to see your parents again, would you want a painting of them, or a photograph?
(The "Irish Wake")
History and Culture:
Joseph Wright of Darby, An Experiment on a Bird in an Air-Pump, 1768
An example of Enlightenment desire to popularize science; note the symbolic lighting
The Industrial revolution, mechanization, factories, cause cities to increase population:
Workers stream into cities, work and live in horrible conditions, causes several revolutions, 1830, 1848, 1870, etc.
Expanding lower and middle classes; democracy
Communications, travel, world culture, railroads, photography and the popular press, literacy
Napoleon and the charismatic leader
Russian Revolution, Nationalism
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Decline in power of Church (after the French Revolution of 1798)
Intellectual and scientific revolution: Geology, Biology, Darwin, Marx
On the origins of Geology and Genesis contradicted, see this article
On Bishop Ussher's calculation, the exact date of "creation," and problems with the calendar, see this great article
Drugs: Two popular drugs may account for some cultural and political changes around 1800. Guess what they are.
Hint: People got together in "cafes" to discuss new ideas, and they got very excited.
MUSIC! The 19th Century is the great age of music. "The artist as hero."
Compare "Baroque" Bach and "Classical" Mozart to "Romantics" Beethoven, Berlioz, Mussorgsky,
Chopin (Liszt), and Wagner, Tchaikovsky. (Have another cuppa coffee!)
On the music of Richard Wagner: a wonderful sight at Texas with mp3's
The Salon--annual public exhibition (like our Oscars)
Honore Daumier, This Year, Venuses Again. . .Always Venuses, 1864
The "Linear" and "Painterly" styles: "outline" vs. "color" (text, p. 409)
J. D. Ingres [pronounced "anger"], Large Odalisque, 1814
Francisco Goya, The Family of King Charles V of Spain, 1800 (They look like the local butcher and his family.)
The Art World:
France was the center of European culture
The development of "Historicism" or "consciousness of history" affected the subjects of 19th century Art, which
varied widely-Traditional history painting included religious themes, genre, working classes, vulgar subjects
Both style and subjects became a choice artists could make. "Should I be a Classicist or a Romantic?" "What should I
wear today?"
Exhibitions: galleries, the Salon, and the Salon des Refusees
A growing gulf between conservative and revolutionary artists
Photography
Popular prints: a vehicle for social protest; Daumier
The Art Academies continued: Johann Zoffany, Academicians of the Royal Academy, 1771
The 18th and 19th century was an age of art critics: Joshua Reynolds, Winckelmann, Zola
The ideas of "good taste" and The "Grand Manner" (Gran Gout) were under attack by 1850
The artist had a new sense of individuality and personal freedom
The emergence of the modern conception of the artist as a political and social liberal with bonds to lower classes.
New "vulgar" subjects.
A new social and economic position of artist: the change from "manual laborer" to "genius" or "hero."
A sequence of movements or styles (a series of statements and reactions--why do styles change?)
Neoclassicism, balance, order: "edele einfalt und stille grose"
Romanticism, stressed strong feelings and distrust of reason
Historical revivals: Greek, Roman, and Gothic
Academic art: still going strong
Realism
Impressionism
Post-Impressionism
Expressionism
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The Styles of 19th Century Art:
The Continuation of Neoclassicism (c. 1750 to 1930) (especially for public buildings)
Napoleon favored this style for its aura of stability, tradition, and heroism
Jacque Louis David, The Oath of the Horatii, 1784
(video--David/Marat in "Art of the West" 18th Century)
Jacque Louis David, Napoleon Crossing the Alps, 1800 (Neoclassicism or Romanticism?)
Antonio Canova, Cupid and Psyche, marble, 1790
Lord Burlington, Chiswick House, England, 1724
Robert Adam, Syon House, England, 1760
Johann Zofany, The Royal Academy, England, 1771 [where are the women members?]
J. D. Ingres, Odalisque, 1814 [what is an "odalisque"?]
Jean Francois-Therese Chalgrin and Others, Arc de Triomphe, Paris, 1806-36
Antonio Canova, Napoleon, 1806, marble, Wellington Museum,
Jean-Auguste Ingres, Jupiter and Thetis, 1811; sources: classicism, Raphael, Poussin, David
Portraits have high neck lines this year: Napoleon's wife was pregnant ("confinement")
Horatio Greenough, George Washington, 1832-41 (Ugh!)
Many new Women Artists:
Angelica Kauffmann, Cornelia and her Children, 1785
Elizabeth Vigee-Lebrun, Marie-Antoinette with Her Children, 1787
Adelaide Labille-Guiard, Self-portrait with pupils, 1785
Angelica Kauffmann, Self-portrait, 1794
A Moralizing alternative to the hedonistic Rococo:
William Hogarth (English Middle Class), The Marriage Contract, from Marriage a la Mode, scene II, 1743
Joseph Wright of Darby, An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump, 1768
Portraiture:
John Singleton Copley, Samuel Adams, 1770, (The first American artist in our textbook! But not for long.)
Thomas Gainsborough, Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, 1785
Neoclassical Architecture:
Richard Boyle and Lord Burlington, Chiswick House, England, 1724-Thomas Jefferson, Monticello, Virginia, 1768-82; 1796-1809
Compare to Palladio's Villa Rotonda (chapter 12)
Guess who owned the only copy of Palladio in America?
The University of Virginia, 1817
The State Capitol, Richmond, VA, 1785
The idea of the "Picturesque" (See Artlex)
Henry Filtcroft et al (and others), The Park at Stourhead, 1743
Romanticism: Sex and Violence
Definitions and websites:
Romanticism hit like a storm about 1800.
Goethe's definition: "Classicism is health; Romanticism is disease." [!]
Wackenroder's book: Outpourings from the Heart of an Art-Loving Monk, 1796
Neoclassicism and Romanticism compared (Neoclassicism and Classicism defined; Romanticism defined)
See this excellent essay on Romanticism and its sources also: The Enlightenment
Moonlight in Romanticism at the Met
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The Gothic and Black Romanticism
Origins of Gothic Horror in Literature
Origins of Gothic Horror in Cinema
The Top 20 Gothic Horror Films
Francisco GOYA (1746-1828)
The 3rd of May, 1808, (painted 1814) (video in Art of the West/18th century)
The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, from a series Los Capricios, etchings, 1796
The Family of Charles IV of Spain, 1800 (compare to Velasquez's royal portraits)
The Disasters of War Series, etchings, 1810-15 (little known until the 1840's)
The Black Paintings: Insane asylum, Saturn Devouring His Children (see above on this page)
More Romanticism:
Theodore Gericault, The Raft of the Medusa, 1818-19 (video in Art of the West/18th Century)
(to see the size of these huge works, go to the Louvre, and click on virtual tour/paintings/first floor/"Mollien"room)
Henri Fuseli, The Nightmare, 1781
Fuseli was called "painter to the Devil": See "Black Romanticism"
The violinist Paganini: the first "rock star," who allegedly sold his soul to the devil. (Charlie Daniels?)
Eugene Delacroix (1800-1863), Women of Algiers, 1834
Liberty Leading the People, 1830. Sources are Titian, Rubens ("rubenistes vs poussinistes")
Self-portrait (the "lion")
Portrait of Chopin (Romantic composer)
Death of Sardanopolis (sex and violence)
Francois Rude, the Volunteers of 1792 (known as "La Marseillaise"), 1833-36--"Les Miserables"
Romantic Landscape Painting (landscape was very popular in 19th century--still is)
John Constable (English), The White Horse, 1821
Salisbury Cathedral and Wivenhoe Park (the English are very keen on pastoral art)
Caspar D. Friedrich (German), Abbey in an Oak Forrest, 1809
Moonlight in Romanticism at the Met (Beethoven's "Moonlight" Sonata)
Wreck of the Hope, 1823 (Man vs. Nature)
Monk by the Seashore, 1803 ("Sehnsucht" or "longing" [quoted in movie Wall Street])
J. M. W. Turner, The Fighting Temeraire towed to its Last Berth, 1838
The Slave Ship, 1840
In the USA
Thomas Cole, The Oxbow, 1836 (Note the two sides and moods in the picture.)
George Calbe Bingham, Fur Traders Descending the Missouri, c. 1845
John James Audubon, Common Grackle, from Birds of America, 1826-39
Audubon is the perfect American artists--totally self taught
(What is "American" about American art?)
Japanese Prints
Hokusai, The Great Wave, c. 1823
Hiroshige, Cotton Goods Lane, Edo, 1858
The Political Print (lithography):
Honore Daumier, Rue Trasmonian, April 15, 1834, 1834, lithograph (dates as titles)
Honore Daumier, This Year, Venuses Again. . .Always Venuses, 1864
Honore Daumier, The Third Class Carriage, 1850's (make up a story)
James Watts, The Famine of 1848 (How many of us Americans are Irish? Why?)
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Naturalism and French Realism in Europe
(Realism with a Capital "R" --realism with a small "r" is a generic term that means, roughly, "naturalistic.")
Theodore Rousseau, The Valley of Tiffauges, 1837 ("naturalistic" landscape)
Gustave Courbet, A Burial at Ornans, 1849
The Stone Breakers, 1849, destroyed 1945. (compare Millet, The Gleaners, 1859 )
Courbet's "Realist Manifesto": "Show me an angel and I'll paint one"
Rosa Bonheur, Plowing in the Nivernais: The Dressing of the Vines, 1849
Ilya Repin, Bargehaulters on the Volga, 1870
Art 219/History of Art
home/class schedule
web resources
vocabulary
complete class notes
assignments
study guide
Week 12: Later 19th Century Art
_____________________________________________________
Reading Assignment:
Stokstad Chapter 18
Websites
Visit the virtual "First Impressionist Exhibiton" of 1874 (and read the critics' reactions)
Monet's Rouen Cathedral series: excellent website!
An essay on Color and Impressionism
Monet's Sunrise and Poppies (an excellent demonstration of hue, intensity, luminance, and value)
Later 19th Century Art
(Realism, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism)
Architecture:
New materials: iron, steel, and glass
Abraham Darby III, The Severn River Bridge, Coalbrookdale, England, 1779
Gustave Eiffel, Eiffel Tower, Paris, 1887 (it has been sold twice!)
Victor Horta, Stairway, Tassel House, Brussels, 1892
Antonio Gaudi, Serpentine Bench, Guell Park, Barcelona, 1900
Romantic Historicism--means "eclectic borrowing from the past"
Charles Garnier, Paris Opera House Grand Staircase, 1861-74
H. H . Richardson, Marshall Field Warehouse, Chicago, 1885, demolished c. 1935
Louis Sullivan, Wainright Building, St. Louis, 1890
Gothic "Revival" Architecture: Sir Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin, Houses of Parliament, London, 1836-70
In America: Greek and Gothic revival:
Demopolis, Ala., 1842. (The ante-bellum south loved Greek culture. Why?)
Alexander Jackson Davis, Rotch House, New Bedford 1845 ]
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Academic Art (still continued up to 1900, and beyond--see The Art Renewal Center website)
Harriet Hosmer, Zenobia in Chains, 1859, marble
Edmonia Lewis, Hagar in the Wilderness, marble, 1875
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, La Pia de Tolomei, 1868
Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Phidias and the Frieze of the Parthenon, 1868 (Introduction p. 16)
Adolphe-William Bouguereau, Spring, in the Joslyn (see here for a recently cleaned picture at the Getty)
Vibert, The King of Rome, in our Joslyn Museum
Photography
Invented 1820-1839. (See "How Photography Works," p. 480.)
Louis Daguerre, The Artist's Studio, 1837
William Henry Fox Talbot, The Open Door, 1843
Julia Margaret Cameron, Portrait of Thomas Carlyle, 1863
Timothy O'Sullivan, Ancient Ruins, Canyon de Chelly, 1873
Art Nouveau
Victor Horta, Tassel House, Brussels, 1892
Antoni Gaudi, Serpentine bench, Guell Park, Barcelona, 1900
Art in the United States:
Timothy O'Sullivan, Ancient Ruins at Canyon de Chelly, Arizona, 1873
Winslow Homer, The Blue Boat, 1892, watercolor
Thomas Eakins, The Gross Clinic, 1875
Henry O. Tanner, The Banjo Lesson, 1893
Impressionism:
Visit the virtual "First Impressionist Exhibiton" of 1874 (and read the critics' reactions)
Change is the essential element in the history of art, because the one thing a good artist never does (at least in the
Western traditiion) is copy or repeat what came before. This is true in the fine arts as well as fashion and music, which
are all part of "popular culture." So the question every artists has to ask is--"What do we do now?" Artists at this time
were dependent for publicity and patronage on The Salon, a huge annual or biennial juried exhibit (often under royal
patronage) that presented the latest art to an eager public, and if you could not get in, you didn't rise to the top. Many of
the Impressionists and younger artists were excluded from the salon by conservative juries (who had a lot to protect!), so
they began to bypass the salone and reach the public in other ways. Many of these younger artists considered themselves
"outsiders."
Impressionism is a "watershed": signals the end of the Renaissance interest in 3-d space and "verisimilitude."
Photography could do that better anyway. The movement was named by critic Vauxcelle in 1874 (based on Monet's
painting Sunsrise: Impression). Impressionism portrays only the flickering, colorful surface of reality, rarely a story or
text. Impressionists were interested in Color (and the new science of color), Everyday life, Light, Brushstrokes, Outdoor
settings, and Weather and atmosphere. These French artists were also seeking an infusion of new ideas from outside the
West, and especially like the flat, color art of Japanese Prints (Hokusai, The Great Wave, c. 1823, and Hiroshige, Cotton
Goods Lane, Edo, 1858) which came to be known as Japonisme
Color:
a basic color diagram
An essay on Color and Impressionism
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Edouard Manet (1832-1883)
Le Dejeuner sur l'erbe (The Picnic), 1863; (placed in the "Salon des Refuses")
Manet's source: a Renaissance print
Olympia, 1863. Courbet--this painting was like "a queen of spades getting out of a bath".
A brief history of the reclining nude :
Venus of Willendorf, 25,000 BC
Giorgione, Sleeping Venus
Titian, Venus of Urbino
Velazquez, Rokoby Venus
Ingres, Odalisque
Cabanel, Birth of Venus
Manet and his influence at NGA
The Piper, compare Velazquez
Portrait of Emile Zola; "Japonisme"
TheRaces at Longchamp, lithograph, 1872. (Compare-- Peter Frith, Derby Day, 1856--"seeing" vs "knowing."
Edouard Manet, A Bar at the Folies-Bergere, 1881. A late work.
Claude Monet (1840-1926), Impression, Sunrise, 1872 (named the movement)
Boulevard des Capucines, Paris, 1873
Water Lilies, c. 1920
Gare St. Lazare, 1877
Monet's Series: Haystacks; Rouen Cathedral; Flags
Monet's Rouen Cathedral series: excellent website!
Monet's Sunrise and Poppies (an excellent demonstration of hue, intensity, luminance, and value)
An essay on Color and Impressionism (the Land's End Catalogue and mauve)
Edward Manet, Monet's "studio," 1874
Berthe Morisot, In the Dining Room, 1886
Edgar Degas, The Rehearsal of the Ballet on Stage, 1874
300 thumbnails in Degas virtual museum
The Tub, 1885
Dancers (compare Japanese prints)
Bathers, 1890s
Ballet dancer, 1881 (sculpture)
Auguste Renoir, The Luncheon of the Boating Party, 1881
La Loge, 1873
Mary Cassatt, Maternal Caress, 1891
James MacNeill Whistler (1834-1903)
Nocturne in Black and Gold, 1874 (What is a "nocturne"? Musical titles in art)
Arrangement in Black and Gray (Mother), 1871
Woman in White ("art for art's sake")
Post-Impressionism (Chapter 18 continued)
Vocabulary:
"Post-Impressionism" (a term invented by the Critic Roger Frey in 1913), expressionism, representational, nonrepresentational, nonobjective, abstract, expressionism, formalism, femme fatale (fatale woman), fin de siecle (end
of the century)
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Review the history of ILLUSION: Impressionism was a "watershed"; no more perfect illusion is possible!
Masaccio, Madonna
Leonardo, Madonna (Vasari, "three steps onto the mountain of Nature")
Bernini, David
Monet's Sunrise of 1872 is both an end and a beginning.
SO--What do we do now?! "Expressionism"?
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Major Post-Impressionists:
Paul Cezanne (died 1906)
Still life with Basket of Apples, 1890-94
Mont Ste.-Victoire, 1904-6
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903), Mohana no atua (Day of the God), c. 1891
Also: Vision After the Sermon, 1888, Self-portrait, Two women (ripe fruit imagery)
Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? 1897
"The Talisman": a key breakthrough. [Find the quote: "What color are the trees? Paint them that color"]
Vincent Van Gogh (Dutch, 1853-1890)
Starry Night, 1889
Sunflowers, 1888
The Potato Eaters, 1885; The Night Cafe, Arles, southern France, 1888 ; Cypress Trees, 1888
Videos:
Lust for Life (The Magic of Provence)
Van Gogh--A Stroke of Genius
The Vincent Van Gogh Gallery--all the paintings and letters!
Van Gogh and Gauguin
Van Gogh fakes: pictures of downgraded or questionable works
Visit the Virtual Van Gogh exhibit at the National Gallery!
George Seurat (1859-1901), A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, 1884
"Divisionism." Also called "Pointillism" or "Neoimpressionism"
New science of color by Chevreul: "simultaneous contrast" of colors
Paul Signac, Place des Lices, Saint-Tropez, 1893
Video: Ferris Bueller
Other Post-Impressionists:
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Jane Avril, 1893
The Paris night club scene; free mixing; cruising; lithography, and posters
Compare to Suzuki Harunobu, Geisha, 18th century (text page 237)
Videos: Moulin Rouge (2)
Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), The Burghers of Calais, 1884
Also Balzac, The Gates of Hell , The Thinker
Camile Claudel, The Waltz, 1892-1905
Edvard Munch, The Scream, 1893 (next class)
The City Review of recent art auctions
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Art 219/History of Art
home/class schedule
web resources
vocabulary
complete class notes
assignments
study guide
Week 13: Early Modern Art (text 19)
Reading Assignments
Early Modern Art (Text 19)
Barr's diagram of styles See Artlex for definitions and examples of art movements
World War I website
The Nazi "Degenerate Art" exhibition of 1937
Websites to browse:
Edvard Munch: the complete paintings organized by subject
The Vincent Van Gogh Gallery--all the paintings and letters!
The Mondrian machine
Art of the First World War (the triptych "War" by Otto Dix)
ARTiculation: The Art Critiquing Process
Europe and North America in the early 20th Century (text 19)
An Age of "Isms:" some styles and movements in 20th century art.
Fauvism
Cubism
Futurism
Expressionism
Abstraction
Machine Aesthetic / Constructivism
De Stijl ("Day Shteel"= The Style)
Dadaism
Surrealism
Abstract Expressionism
Hard Edge
Post-painterly Abstraction
Pop
Op (optical)
Assemblage
Appropriation
Minimalism
Neo-Dada
Conceptual Art
Postmodernism (pluralism)
Land Art, Earth Art, or Environmental Art
Feminist and Autobiographical "tendencies"
Public Art
Globalization/Internationalization
Artlex
Barr's diagram of styles
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"Modernism"
The word "Modernism" has no agreed-upon definition (see text box p. 469). There are three main tendencies in
Modernism--Expressionism, Formalism, and Surrealism. Expressionism is the manipulation of visual elements in a
work of art to convey intense feeling. Formailsm is the aesthetic arrangeement of shap[es colors and forms. In a
modernist work, both approaches may take precedence over the naturalistic or realistic representation of a subject. Often
artists in Europe were attracted to the "primitivism" they saw in non-western cultures.
European society had grown increasingly "secularized" since the Renaissance, and religion came to play less of a role in
most peoples lives. The French Revolutionaries had purposely displaced religion from civic life, and took over and tore
down many church buildings. The Romantics had sought to replace traditional religious beliefs with a belief in "Nature"
or the "sublime," or even art itself. We find many explicit statements about the new "religion of art" throughout the 19th
and 20th century, such as Edvard Munch" 'I would paint such pitcures. . .[so that] people would understand the
sacredness of them and take off their hats as if they were in church."
The modern art museum now with its "temple-like" atmosphere of hushed silence and reverence now resembles church
for many people. See the excellent observations by Carole Duncan, "The Art Museum as Ritual," 1995. Caveat: our text
follows "modernist" art, but most art in 1900 was still "academic," realistic or "anecdotal"--appealing to conservative
middle class taste, as it still is today. Recall works in the Joslyn Museum like "The King of Rome," and "Spring." (Visit
the huge site on "academic art" at the Art Renewal Center.)
Styles or Art Movements in Modernism
"We want more than a mere photograph of nature. We do not want to paint pretty pictures to be hung on drawingroom walls. We want to create, or at least lay the foundations of, an art that gives something to humanity. An art that
arrests and engages. An art created of one's innermost heart." (Edvard Munch.)
"I was out walking with two friends - the sun began to set - suddenly the sky turned blood red - I paused, feeling exhausted,
and leaned on the fence - there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city - my friends walked on,
and I stood there trembling with anxiety - and I sensed an endless scream passing through nature." (Edvard Munch)
Expressionism
Edvard Munch, The Scream, 1893
See the quote from Munch above: the painting portrays an agoraphobic attack
Munch (1863-1944) was Norwegian (pronounced "Moonk")
Edvard Munch: the complete paintings organized by subject
The Frieze of Life, 1903, The Sickbed, Puberty, 1894, The Kiss, Madonna,1895, Dance of Life
The neurotic male fear of the "fatal woman"--Femme Fatale; fin de siecle--end of century
Gustav Klimt, The Kiss, 1907 (is this Art Nouveau?)
Paula Moderson Becker, Self Portrait with an Amber Necklace, 1906
Fauvism: (See this short feature at the National Gallery of Art)
Henri Matisse (1869-1954), The Joy of Life, 1905, The Barnes Foundation
Study for Joy of Life, 1905, Blue Nude, 1907 , Dance, 1910, Le Dessert, 1908, Red Studio, 1911, Paper nude, 1953
Video: Matisse in Nice
German Expressionism: Die Brücke ("The Bridge") and others
Die Brucke show at MOMA—terrific graphics!
Kathe Kollwitz, The Outbreak, 1903
also Whetting the Scythe, 1905, and Nie Wieder Krieg; posters; social protest art
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Street, Berlin, 1913, MOMA, New York
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Der Blaue Reiter ("The Blue Rider Group"--more German Expressionism)
Wasily Kandinsky, Improvisation No. 30 (Cannons), 1913, Art Institute, Chicago
The first abstract watercolor? 1913
"Musical titles": "Compositions," "Improvisations," "Nocturnes" (Whistler)
“All art aspires to the condition of music” (Schoopenhauer)
Franz Marc, The Large Blue Horses, 1911
Paul Klee, Hammamet with Its Mosque, 1914, watercolor
Art and Money:
Picasso's Boy with a Pipe:
The most valuable work of art in private hands?
Cubism (chapter 19 continued)
The Origins of Cubism:
The word was first used by Matisse and the critic Vauxcelles in re- George Braque.
Paul Cezanne, Still life with Basket of Apples, 1890-94, and Mont Ste.-Victoire, 1904-6
Cezanne, Landscape, 1904
Pablo Picasso (Born Spain), Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, 1907
Compare!: Woman and Man from Romania, 3500 BCE (Intro. p. 29)
Compare: Gabon Mask ; Bobo Masks, Upper Volta, Africa
Analytical Cubism:
Georges Braque, Violin and Palette, 1909-10 ("passage" technique)
Pablo Picasso, Ma Jolie (Woman with Guitar), 1911-12
George Braque, Houses at l'Estaque, 1908
Synthetic Cubism:
Picasso, Glass and Bottle of Suze, 1912, Pasted paper guache, and charcoal
Picasso Still Life with Chair Caning, 1911-12; Three Musicians, 1921
The influence of Cubism:
Sonia Delaunay-Turk, Clothes and Customized Citroen B-12, Maison de la Mode, 1925
Umberto Boccioni, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, 1913.
Italian Futurism (See this excellent website: Futurism.org)
Compare: Nike of Sanothrace (read the Futurist "Manifesto"!)
Franc Marc, How the World Looks to a Horse, 1913 (Marc was killed in WWI)
Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase, 1912; compare: strobe light photograph
Russian “avant-guard”
Natalia Goncharova, Electric Light, 1913; also: Haycutting, 1910
Kasimir Malevich (Russian), Suprematist Painting (Eight Red Rectangles), 1915
Naum Gabo, Constructed Head, No. 1, 1915
See also Constructivism, Orphism, Suprematism, and Vorticism [!]
Modernist Tendencies in the United States:
Alfred Stieglitz, Spring Showers, 1901
Max Weber, Rush Hour, New York, 1915 (As fine a Cubist work as anything by Picasso)
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Albert Pinkham Ryder, Jonah, c. 1885. What do we do with this picture? is it Romanticism or Expressionism?!
Robert Henri, Laughing Child, 1907 (The Ashcan School)
Fantasy Art (sometimes also called Magic Realism):
Marc Chagall. Ten Marc Chagall paintings--very good scans
Giorgio De Chrico, Melancholy and Mystery of a Street, 1914
Paul Klee (1879-1940), Ad Parnassum, 1932; Clown, 1929; Protected Children; Red Baloon, 1922
Modernism and abstraction in Sculpture:
Constantine Brancusi (Romanian in Paris), Torso of a Young Man, bronze and wood
Bird in Space, 1930; The Kiss, Sleep, 1908; Sleeping Muse, 1909; Newborn, 1915
Picasso, Head of a Bull, 1943
Alexander Archpenko, Walking woman, 1912
History: 1914 and World War I ("The Great War")
WWI ended at 11:00, November 11, 1918 (11/11/11/18), "Armistice Day"
Play scene from Chariots of Fire (WWI)
Trench warfare, poison gas, millions of casualties. The flu. What were the causes and the lessons of the war?
1914 was a watershed year; there had been incredible changes in art between 1870 and 1914.
Art After WWI: two tendencies, rational and subjective
Henry Moore (British), Recumbant Figure, 1938. "Primitivism" invigorates the classical tradition
Constructivism: El Lisitsky (Russian), "Proun" Space for Berlin ("Project for Affirmation of the New"), 1923
De Stijl ("The style"):
Piet Mondrian, Composistion with Red, Blue, and Yellow, 1930
Gerrit Rietveld, Interior, Schroder House, Utrecht, 1924
Dada-Dadaism and Surrealism:
key ideas: "automatism," "biomorphic abstraction"
Dada was an artistic and literary movement, a nihilistic protest against all aspects of Western culture,
especially against militarism during and after World War I (1914-1918).
Tristan Tzara's statement of Dadaism! Various Dada texts Dada Online--with Dada poems, prose, and artworks
Dada Performance art: Hugo Ball reciting the sound poem "Karawane", 1917, at Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich
Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968)
Fountain, 1917 ("found object" and "appropriation")
The Bride Stripped Bare. . . (The Large Glass), 1915-1923
Nude Descending a Staircase, 1912, in The Armory Show, 1913
Pablo Picasso, Guernica, 1937 (28 feet wide), for 1937 Paris World's Fair
(Formerly in MOMA, now repatriated to Spain--Franco is still dead)
Giorgio de Chirico, Mystery and Melancholy of a Street, 1913
Meret Oppenheim, Fur Covered Cup and Saucer, 1935 (The ultimate Surrealist Object!)
Constantine Brancusi (Romanian in Paris), Torso of a Young Man, 1924
Salvador Dali, The Persistence of Memory, 1931
Joan Miro, Dutch Interior I, 1928 Also: Miro, Painting, 1933
Henry Moore (English), Recumbent Figure, 1938 (influence of "primitive" or non-Western art)
Alexander Calder, Lobster Trap and Fish Tail, 1939 ("mobiles")
Rene Magritte, Les valeurs personnelles (Personal Values), 1952
(bedroom with comb--a psychological interpretation)
Sigmund Freud and art of the 20th century: Civilization and It's Discontents
"Slips" of the tongue, ear, eye, and foot; my friend's wedding
For a great read, see Freud, The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (especially "Forgetting Foreign Words"!)
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The term "dada," a French word for "hobbyhorse," is said to have been selected at random from a dictionary by the
Romanian-born poet, essayist, and editor Tristan Tzara. Dada was originated in 1916 by Tzara, the German writer Hugo
Ball, the Alsatian-born artist Jean Arp, and other intellectuals living in Zürich, Switzerland. A similar revolt against
conventional art occurred simultaneously in New York City led by Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, and Francis Picabia, and
in Paris, where it became the inspiration for the Surrealist movement. After World War I the movement spread to
Germany, and many of the Zürich group joined French Dadaists in Paris. The Paris group disintegrated in 1922.
In their efforts to express the negation of all current aesthetic and social values, the Dadaists frequently used artistic and
literary methods that were deliberately incomprehensible. Their theatrical performances and manifestos were often
designed to shock or bewilder, with the aim of startling the public into a reconsideration of accepted aesthetic values. To
this end, the Dadaists used novel materials, including discarded objects found in the streets, and new methods, such as
allowing chance to determine the elements of their works. The German painter and writer Kurt Schwitters was noted for
his collages composed of waste paper and similar materials. French painter Marcel Duchamp exhibited as works of art
ordinary commercial products—such as a store-bought bottle rack and a urinal—which he called ready-mades. Although
the Dadaists employed revolutionary techniques, their revolt against standards was based on a profound belief, stemming
from the romantic tradition, in the essential goodness of humanity when uncorrupted by society. Dada as a movement
declined in the 1920s, and some of its practitioners became prominent in other modern-art movements, notably
surrealism. During the mid-1950s an interest in Dada was revived in New York City among composers, writers, and
artists, who produced many works with Dadaist features.
Art in North America Between the Wars:
United States:
Ashcan School (Guess who holds the record for the most expensive American artwork. See below)
Art Deco
Precisionism: Charles Sheeler, American Landscape, 1930
Farm Security Administration Photography: Dorthea Lange, Migrant Mother, 1936
Harlem Renaissance:
Aaron Douglas, Aspects of Negro Life: From Slavery To Reconstruction, 1934
Jacob Lawrence, During the World War there was a Great Migration North by Southern Negroes,
panel 1 from The Migration of the Negro, 1940
(There are three "Great Migrations" in American history: 1620, 1843, and 1914)
American Regionalism (denies Modernism--part of 1930's isolationism):
Grant Wood, American Gothic, 1930 (Compare Gordon Parks, American Gothic, photograph, 1942)
John Stuart Curry, Baptism in Kansas, 1928
Georgia O'Keeffe, Red Canna, 1924 ("Abstraction"? Surrealism?) See more Georgia O'Keeffe images.
Edward Hopper, Nighthawks, 1942 [How could our text leave this painting out?!] (Film Noir)
For a model of an interpretation of Nighthawks, see Sister Wendy's here
Edward Hopper, Two People in a Room with Piano. An excellent interpretation here (bottom of page)
American Art Websites:
Top Auction Prices for American Artists
Grant Wood
New Deal Art and American Scene Painting
A Depression Era Art Gallery (Very good pictures!)
Mexico and Canada
Frida Kahlo, The Two Fridas, 1939
Diego Rivera, Man, Controller of the Universe, 1934, fresco
Emily Carr, Big Raven, 1931 (Her auction prices are also now through the roof)
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Bauhaus and Modern Architecture (International Style)
Gerrit Reirveld, Interior, Schroeder House, Utrech, Netherlands (your dorm room)
Le Corbusier, Plan for a City, 1922
Marianne Brandt, Tea and Coffee Service, 1924 Art Deco
Walter Gropius, The Bauhaus, Germany, 1925
Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe, German Pavilion, Barcelona, 1929 (curtain walls)
Mies and Philip Johnson, Seagram Building, 1954 (The skyscraper)
Frank Lloyd Wright, Fallingwater, Pennsylvania, 1937.
Excellent virtual tour http://www.learn.columbia.edu/fallingwater/
Elements of Architecture: The Skyscraper
Art and the Third Reich (Nazi era): Censorship and Propaganda
See the triptych "War" by Otto Dix at Art of the First World War
Documenting Nazi plunder of art, and stolen art from German/Austrian Jews.
The best site on the Degenerate Art Ausstellung of 1937.
Buchenwald concentration camp website
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Art 219/History of Art
home/class schedule
web resources
vocabulary
complete class notes
assignments
study guide
Week 14: Contemporary Art
Reading Assignments:
Stokstad chapter 20
Websites to Browse:
Color Jumping: an excellent illustration of what colors do.
(Go to Art History with Michelli; go to Art History Browser/site list/color jumping demo.)
Virtual Calder exhibit at NGA
The Mondrimat (Create your own Mondrian!)
Truisms: A Jenny Holzer screen saver
Art Since 1945 (chapter 20): An Age of "Isms:"
See the bottom of this page for some styles and movements in 20th century art
For all "Isms" and art movements, see ArtLex) Barr's Diagram of styles
The Idea of the Mainstream (box page 569): "Greenbergian Formalism"omitted much recent art
(the art most people like)
The 20th Century offered many new definitions of art, and an unparalleled variety of expression.
(See the "definitions of art" in the notes for week 1)
Picasso's Head of a Bull, 1940. Is this art?
Modernism is "the tradition of the new." (an "oxymoron"--like "jumbo shrimp")
Art is life.
Art can be anything the artist claims it is, even just words.
Artists move out of the studio into the world, and also back into their heads
Art can be just an idea: Picasso's Bull's Head.
New media and combinations of media.
Many "media" not formerly considered "art" became topics of interest--like automobiles and pop culture and music.
"The ends against the middle": youth culture embraced the new art; the folks didn't.
Ad Reinhardt, "Art in art is art as art"
World War II: Art and the Third Reich, Censorship and Propaganda
See this excellent site on Art of the Third Reich (Nazi Art)
See the triptych "War" by Otto Dix at Art of the First World War
Documenting Nazi plunder of art, and stolen art from German/Austrian Jews.
The best site on the Degenerate Art Ausstellung of 1937.
The best book on Nazi art is Berthold Hinz, Art in the Third Reich, 1979
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Post-WWII History:
The Cold War: 1945-1990; American art as propaganda
The end of colonialism, the growth of global capitalism and global pop culture
"The Mainstream Crosses the Atlantic": displaced European artists come to New York (Mondrian, Ernst, Corbusier)
Abstract Expressionism and the New York School:
Antonio Tapies, White with Graphism, 1957
Jackson Pollock, Autumn Rhythm (Number 30). 1950
Video: Pollock ("drip 1") The birth of "Action Painting" in 1947
"Action Painting," or "Gesturalism" (drip painting) was based on Surrealist "psychic automatism.”
The rise of the critic: Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg (Tom Wolfe's The Painted Word)
Lee Krasner, The Seasons, 1939
Willem de Kooning, Woman I, 1950-52
Mark Rothko, Brown, Blue, Brown on Blue, 1951 Mark Rothko at The National Gallery of Art
Helen Frankenthaler, Mountains and Sea, 1952
David Smith, Cubi XIX, 1964 (see Introduction, p. 16)
Alexander Calder: Virtual Calder exhibit at NGA
Alternative Styles Following Abstract Expressionism (see ArtLex)
Assemblage and "Combine Painting"
Jean Tinguely, Homage to New York, 1960
Louis Nevelson, Sky Cathedral, 1958
Robert Rauschenburg, Canyon, 1959
Pop Art (the return of the object)
Jasper Johns, Target with Four Faces, 1955 (assemblage?)
Also: Flag, 1958, False Start, 1959, Painting with Two Balls, Two Ale cans
Richard Hamilton, Just What Is It That Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing, 1956, collage
Attacks the "High/Low Myth of Modernism," page 574 ("highbrow and "lowbrow" culture; kitsch)
Roy Lichtenstein, "Oh, Jeff. . .I love you too. . .but," 1964 (benday dots)
Andy Warhol, Marilyn Diptych, 1962. Celebreties as commodoties:
Also: Elvis, Car Crash, Campbell's Soup Can
Claes Oldenburg, Lipstick (Ascending) on Caterpillar Tracks, 1969
Appropriation (see also readymade):
Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1917 --
"readymades" and "found objects"
Minimalism and Op Art ("an art free of falsehood"):
Maya Lin, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, 1982
Donald Judd, Untitled, 1969 Marfa, Texas, Chinati Foundation, 100 aluminum boxes
Bridget Riley, Current, 1964
Eva Hesse, Rope Piece, 1969
Conceptual Art and Performance Art ("mental rather than physical activity"):
Joseph Kosuth, One and Three Chairs, 1965
Bruce Nauman, Self Portrait as a Fountain, 1966 (the artist as artwork!)
("It is not enough to love art--you have to BE art.")
John Cage: musician and guru of "Performance art" and "Happenings"
Napster: John Cage, Three Constructions
See this great Philip Glass Engine. He was a student of Cage
Photorealism
Duane Hanson, The Shoppers, 1976
(also: Richard Estes, Audrey Flack)
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Late Modernism or Postmodernism (Pluralism)
Earth art [Earthworks and Site-Specific Art or Environment Art ]
Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty, Salt Lake, 1969
Andy Goldsworthy. Google: Image results for Andy Goldsworthy
Nancy Holt, Stone Enclosure; Rock Rings, 1977; also Sun Tunnels
Simmonds, Mesa Verde in miniature
Richard Serra, Torqued Forms; The Tilted Arc controversy
Feminism and feminist art, gender issues and Autobiographical tendencies [See The Gallery of Women's Art]
Miriam Schapiro, Personal Appearance #3, 1973, paint, fabric, and canvas
Judy Chicago, The Dinner Party, 1979 (See her Website)
Betye Saar, The Liberation of Aunt Jemima, 1972
Faith Ringgold, Tar Beach, 1988
Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still, 1978
Deborah Butterfield, Ruffian, wood sculpture (Who was Ruffian?)
Graffiti (Keith Haring); see also bad art, destruction, popular culture, and Fluxus
Pluralism
Elizabeth Murray, Chaotic Lip, 1986
Anselm Kiefer, Markishcer Heide, 1984
Magdalena Abakanowicz, Bakcs, 1976
Kiki Smith, Untitled, 1988
Wendle Castle, Ghost Clock, 1985
Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri (Australian), Man's Love Story, 1978
Art with Social Impact
Roger Simomura, Diary, 1978 (figure 27, page 29)
Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Gifts for Trading Land with White People, 1992
Installation and Video Art
Jenny Holzer, Selections from Truisms. . . , 1989 Truisms! More Truisms
Protect me from What I Want, 1985
"Deconstruction" (box page 589): all texts or artworks are intertextual and decentered
Nam June Paik, Electronic Superhighways, 1995
Bill Viola, The Crossing, 1996
Shirin Neshat, Production still from Fervor, 2000
American Craft Art:
Peter Voulkos, Untitled Plate, 1962
Martin Puryear, Plenty's Boast, 1994
Dale Chihuly, Violet Persian Set with Red Lip Wraps, Glass, 1990 (figure 19, page 11)
Public Memory and Art: The Memorial:
Maya Lin, Viet Nam Veterans Memorial, Washington, D.C., 1982
Digital Rendering of the Tribute in Light memorial by artists Julian LaVerdiere and Pauyl Myoda, 2001
Critical theory (box page 595)
Michael Aurbach, The Critical Theorist, 2002 (cooking equipment)
Luis Jimenez, Vaquero, 1980, cast fiberglass and epoxy (figure 8, page 22)
Architecture:
Frank Lloyd Wright, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1967 (figure 22, page 26)
Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe and Philip Johnson, Seagram Building, New York, 195
Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, Seattle Art Museum Stair Hall, 1986
Norman Foster, Hongking and Shanghai Bank, 1979
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Frank Gehry, Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain, 1997
Santiago Calavatra, World Trade Center, Transportation Hub, 2006-2009
(Calavatra, Milwaukee Art Museum addition, 2001)
See Arcspace.com for exciting new modern architecture
World Trade Center design competition: which one do you like best?
An Age of "Isms:" some styles and movements in 20th century art:
(For "Isms" and art movements, see ArtLex)
Barr's Diagram of styles
Fauvism
Cubism
Futurism
Expressionism
Abstraction
Machine Aesthetic / Constructivism
De Stijl ("Day Shteel"= The Style)
Dadaism
Surrealism
Abstract Expressionism ("Action Painting")
Color Field Painting
Hard Edge
Post-painterly Abstraction
Pop
Op (optical)
Assemblage
Appropriation
Minimalism
Neo-Dada
Conceptual Art
Postmodernism (pluralism)
Land Art, Earth Art, or Environmental Art
Feminist and Autobiographical "tendencies"
Public Art
Globalization/Internationalization
Vocabulary:
Abstract art
biomorphic forms
art informel (formless art)
Abstract Expressionism
psychic automatism
formalism
assemblage
kinetic sculpture
Benday dots
Happenings
performance art
pluralism
earthworks and site-specific art
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Art 219/History of Art
home/class schedule
web resources
vocabulary
complete class notes
assignments
study guide
Week 15: More Contemporary Art
Reading Assignments
Contemporary Art (text 20)
Aikin's essay on museums
What is Postmodernism?
Cyborgs! A guide to the history of the cyborg
Eyes on Art Quiz
Technoculture from Frankenstein to Cyberpunk
Class Notes: Contemporary Art
The effect of Modernism on Art History: One of the interesting things that happened after Impressionism and
Postimpressionism--when art became almost entirely about form and not content--was a reassessment of older art.
Some artists of the past lost "stock" (academic painters) while others gained--especially painters with a strong sense of
surface like Piero Della Francesca, George de la Tour, and Vermeer. Other artists who were seen as precursors of
"Expressionism" also rose in esteem--like, above all, El Greco (who was by far the most popular artist of the 1930's),
Michelangelo, Rembrandt, and the entire Middle Ages.
Recently, Post-Modernism has had the opposite effect, and purely formalist art has lost ground to--wait for it-Academic Art! Prices of once reviled artists like Vibert (The King of Rome), Bouguereau (Spring) and Alma-Tadema
(who is he?!) have skyrocketed. See the huge website called the Art Renewal Center, which pimps for realistic and
sentimental art of all eras--and hotly denies the theories of David Hockney, who claims that many artists of the past used
(gasp!) mirrors, lenses, and other visual aids (Call the cops!) (See Hockney's recent book, Secret Knowledge.)
Who is the most popular artist in America today? Answer. (The triumph of sentimentalism, conservatism, and
savvy marketing.)
Highbrow, Middlebrow, and Lowbrow taste: The word "supercilious" means "highbrow," which can mean "cultured,
elite, elitist, snobish, or snooty. Highbrows are people who attend flashy, tony, cultural events like opera, and drink with
their little fingers extended--or at least that is often the perception in America, which has a long history of distrusting
elites (highbrows) of any kind. On the other side of the coin is "inverse snobbery," epidemic in America, which elevates
lowbrow taste looks down on traditional high culture (mainly from Europe) and praises anything "ordinary, real or
manly," like stock car racing, rodeos, and popular music. The preceding is a very stark (and somewhat black and white)
assessment of the state of current culture. American values do, however, tend to praise and favor people (especially
men) who are simple (not devious clever), smart (but not educated), and "democratic" in their tastes. Although millions
of Americans DO go to opera, classical concerts, and museums of old masters, many still consider abstraction (which has
been around for almost a hundred years) somehow a bit dangerous and immoral--a kind of art cheating.
Art is now a Commodity: Forgery and Smuggling in the Modern Art World
Art as subversion: The antics of Banksy London's most celebrated graffiti artist
An interview with Banksy
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Cool Websites:
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How do you get your art in famous museums? Just put it there! The antics of Banksy: Prehistoric
Banksy
Cyber*babes
Burning Man! http://www.burningman.com/ Need we say more?
Digital Dude's 2000 teaser
What flash and 3DSX can do: sound check
Minimal Art: The Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas: minimalist paradise in the middle of nowhere
Art History Goes to the Movies (Cool: quotations from artworks in movies)
Earth Art: www.robertsmithson.com
Conceptual Art: two great sites about Jenny Holzer: Truisms and Survival
Christo and Jean-Claude (they wrap things)
Art Crimes/Graffiti at www.graffiti.org
Modern kitsch that sells: Thomas Kincaid
Modern music and modern art: John Cage
One stop Warhol Shop
Pop Art at Auction; Sotheby's
M. C. Escher
SFMoma (best comtemporary scene museum; great design)
Digital art at Digital Art at SFMoma
Op Art homepage
Artnet.com (Cindy Sherman)
Star Wars and Richard Wagner's Ring compared (totally irrelevant to this course!)
Mona Lisa and her influence
Judy Chicago feminist pioneer
Art and Psychoanalysis: Freud's classic essay on forgetting foreign words (not required)
Freud's complete Interpretation of Dreams on line, plus other full-length books at Psychweb
Karen K's 20th Century Art course at CSULB: see how another art professor does things
Post-modern artist: Cindy Sherman's Masquerade: hard-hitting feminist art
Art that is not art:
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Electron microscope
Hubble Space Telescope Pictures: Move over Michelangelo!
Sounds of Space--cool!
Atmospheric effects, great stuff from Mother Nature Herself
Geology: Living Earth, USGS
Puzzles and illusions at The Art History Browser; see "Yes, but is it art?"
Bad Art
Mathematical illusions and Buckyballs at Dogfeathers: hyperstar, hypercube, spiral illusion, color illusion
Some art "stances" in Postmodernism or "Pluralism"
"Neo-Dada" (the same as Pop Art? Conceptual Art?)
Photorealism (Estes, Flack)
Conceptual Art (Holzer, Sherman)
Performance Art, Kinetic Art, Happenings (Tinguely, Kaprow)
Graffiti (Kieth Haring)
Land Art, Earth Art, or Environmental Art (Maya Lin, Jenny Holzer, E. Holt, Heizer, Smithson)
Feminist and Autobiographical "tendencies" (Sherman, Rothenburg, Quick-to-See-Smith, etc.)
Public Art (Maya Lin, Holzer, Holt, Heizer, Smithson)
Globalization/Internationalization (Puryear, Shimomura, Gehry, Christo, Tjapaltjarri
WTC design competition: which one do you like best?
We're outa' here! (Final assignment: please send me an art postcard someday!)
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Web resources
(History of Art 219)
Getting started with the web
Essential web resources:
Google (use "images" function to find any artwork)
Dictionary.com
Writing aids
Textbook web study guide
The Iconography of the Life of Jesus 
Timeline of Art History at the Met
Hyperhistory on-line
Artlex --visual arts dictionary with illustrated essays on artists, art movements, and technical terms. See "isms."
The Artcyclopedia is the best search engine for artists and their works.
Words of Art is a superb dictionary of art, psychology, literary criticism, with short essays.
Symbols in Christian Art and Architecture and Christian Iconography
Harmony of the Gospel on-line!
Multilingual Bible
Reinert Alumni Library Search Engine
Art History in the Movies (Movies with some reference to Art History)
Art Historians Guide to the Movies (appearances of and references to famous works of art and architecture in the
movies).
Geometry in Art and Achitecture
Image Data Banks:
When searching for an artist or artwork, start with--The Artcyclopedia is the best search engine for artists and their works.
The Web Gallery of Art, from Hungary, 6000 images, esepcially old masters
Mark Hardin's Artchive organized by artists, good pictures and biographies
Art Renewal Center a huge site of realist art from all periods; has excellent scans
The WebMuseum is also a huge useful
Carol Gerten's Fine Arts Gallery also has artists organized alphabetically
Tigertail Virtual Museum
Orazio Centari's image library
Christus Rex is the official Vatican site, with some old pictures, but good links, especially to-The Renaissance Paintings Gallery, with excellent reproductions
The Michelangelo home page (with merchandise)
Michelli's Renaissance Art home page lists Renaissance links
http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/irvinem/ see art sources, etc
Reference Materials:
Research Sources in Art History by Witcombe has links to databases
Biblical Subjects in art and movies search engine
The Bible: text and notes
Dictionary of Saints and Angels (but no pictures)
Dictionary of Symbolism An excellent cross-referenced dictionary of symbolism.
World Art Database has good images organized by period
Excellent links to research sources on the web by Wadsworth publishing
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Internet History Sourcebook: written texts in the public domain
Career Alternatives for Art Historians (very good)
The Art History Browser is the best general art history site, with great links.
The Art Renewal Center: excellent scans of representational painting of all eras
The Catholic Encyclopedia
The Art Market:
Ask Art; http://askart.com/ excellent source on American artists; images; dealers; prices
Christies: http://www.christies.com/home_page/home_page.asp
Sotheby’s: http://www.sothebys.com/
Auction records: http://askart.com/Interest/TopAuction.asp
Art Gallery index: http://askart.com/dealerdirectory.asp?type=dealer
Artists on the Web
To find any artist or artwork, first do a Google "image" search
Then check The Artcyclopedia, the Web Gallery of Art, and the Artchive,
Baroque Art:
Artemisia Gentileschi and the movies
Women in Art, comprehensive, with good scans
On-line tours of 17th century art at the National Gallery (scroll down)
Rococo and Baroque compared (wierd site, but good pics)
Other image banks or links:
Christus Rex official Vatican site, some old pictures, but good links
The WebMuseum is also a useful site.
Pippin Michelli's The Art History Browser is the best site, with great links.
Witcomb's comprehensive site links to the cloud of unknowing
The Mother of all Art History Sites (large and awkward)
Special topics:
Women in Art, comprehensive, with good scans
Architecture links:
Great Buildings On-line
Palace at Versailles: http://www.chateauversailles.fr/EN/110.asp
Baroque and Rococo Architecture at University of Virginia
St. Peters and Bernini works inside at Christus Rex
The Renewed facade of St. Peters
Digital Archive of European Architecture
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All the Museums in the World are linked here:
Some Famous Museums:
Metropolitain Museum New York
National Gallery Washington
Rijksmuseum Amdsterdam (beautiful web design)
Mauritshuis The Hague (several masterpieces)
Prado Madrid
National Gallery London
The Louvre virtual tour and collections; the official site
Uffizi Florence: ugly site but fair scans
The Hermitage St. Petersberg (HotMedia: best virtual tour yet!)
Royal Museum Brussels
Royal Museum Antwerp
American Art:
Whitney
Guggenheim (New York/Bilbao)
Museum of Modern Art
Roman Museums:
Capitoline Museum (very good site, good scans, text in Italian)
Borghese Museum (also Barberini, Corsini, Spada: Practice your Italian!)
Galleria Doria Pamphili (link to collection)
Vatican Museums (wretched scans, but lots of pics and links)