Europe Northern 1500- 1600
Historical Context
o Protestant Reformation -1517
Dissatisfaction with church; very corrupt, selling of indulgencies
and appointments
Martin Luther 95 thesis
o Iconoclasm (construction of images) and wariness of images for worship
Cultural Context
o Focus on everyday world outside the church
o Discovery of world through exploration and business
o Northern humanism filtered from Italy
Stylistic characteristics
o Continued interested in descriptive realism of particulars and
fragmentary realism
o Incidental detail (stuff) without religious symbolism
o New genres that focused on the worldportrait, still-life, landscapes
o Immediacycapturing the unposed gestures and details of the scene.
Mattias Grunewald, Isenheim Altarpiece, 1510-1515
Focus on worldcontext of the work is bound up with the specifics of its setting
in a hospital
o You go to hospitals to die; gruesome painting
o Opened, Jesus loses an arm, two legs; amputation
Sun burns off clothes to show angelic Jesus
o Physical illness= manifestation of spiritual illness
Portraiture
o Quintin Massys, Portrait of a Man With Glasses, 1515
Incidental detail
o Idiosyncratic gesture, Realistic gesture, human-like
o Response to surroundings
o Personalized facial features; Flabs of skin, bulbous
nose, beady eyes. showing age
o Objects
Immediacy of the moment
o Not a posed picture
o Almost a photographic, snapshot like quality;
captured in spontaneous moment
o Domenico Ghirlandio, Giovanna Tornabuoni, 1488
o Sandro Botticelli, Man Holding a Medal, 1470
o Hans Holbein the Younger, The French Ambassadors, 1533
Importance of detail and objects
Puzzle-like treatment of space
Scull distorted in picture
Anamorphosis
Have to move yourself to side of picture to see the scull
Albrect Durer, A Small House In The Middle Of The Pond, 1495, watercolor
Albrect Durer, Fall of Man (Adam and Eve), 1504
Thought artist needed to be a craftsman, educated thinker
Took trip to Italy, learned contrapposto
Albrect Durer, Great Piece Of Turf, 1503
o Incidental detail
o Italian influencescientific study of landscape
Joachim Patnir, Landscape with Saint Jerome, 1520-1524
o Landscape is subject
o Landscape organizes religious elements
o Inverted composition landscape dominates religious content
(Jerome went into the wilderness to get away from world (stormy sky) pulls
thorn out of Lions foot, becomes his pet)
Quintin Massys, Money-Changer and His Wife, 1514
o New genre of still life, maybe portrait
o Incidental detailstuff on table and shelves
o Immediacy- very human like glance of wife, acting hands
1. Immediacy: The subjects are not posed, they are involved in their work of
counting the money, eyes both fixed on one coin. She is in the middle of turning
one page in her book. His fingers are curved around the coin unnaturally.
(weighing coin to make sure there are no shavings)
2. Incidental detail: The table is full of trinkets as well as the bookshelf behind them.
The woman is supposed to be reading her book of prayers, but she is more
interested in the money.
3. New genre: Objects- Coins, cups, books, a mirror, an apple, the virgin and Jesus
in her book, a person in the mirror on the table. Just there, no meaning to objects.
Italy and Spain, 1600 1700
Historical context
o Italian Baroque
o Counter-Reformation (fight against Martin Luther)
o Catholic church was leading patron of art
Cultural Context
o Need to educate and persuade Christians
o Propaganda
Stylistic characteristics (Baroque)
o Movement, action, change
o Pathos, emotion, and high drama
o Marvelous spectacle (very wow, meant to get to you) and
theatricality
o Direct address and involvement of the viewer in order to persuade
(Comparison: Last Supper, Leonardo, 1495 all about balance, order, structure: complete
turn around with Baroque)
o Gianlorenzo Bernini, St. Peters Piazza, 1656-1667
o Movement sweeping gesture of colonnades, dynamism of oval and
trapezoid
o Theatricality and spectacle- colonnades embrace the viewer
o Gianlorenzo Bernini, Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, 1645-1652
o Pathosecstasy: physical pain with spiritual well being
o Depicts dynamic moment in St. Theresas experience
o Emotion, cultural belief you can display whats going on inside: on
your face constant shift of emotion on face
o Spectacle
o Combination of painting, sculpture, and architecture creates an immersive
environment
o Sculpted viewers emphasize the theatricality
o Special effect of lighting
o Tenebrismshadowy use of dark and light: spotlight
Caravaggio: move along diagonal signifies movement, open composition arms jut out
o Caravaggio, Conversion of St. Paul, 1601
o Movement, action, change
Falling off horse
Moment of transformation
Center of composition is empty
o Pathos, emotion, and high drama
Upraised arms
Blinding light
o Spectacle and theatricality
Tenebrismshadowy use of darks an lights (light of god)
o Direct address or involvement of the viewer
Figure slides into our space
Figures are like us
Fra Andrea Pozzo, Glorification of St Ignatius, 1691-1694
Architect and stage designer
o Jesuit Seminary was right across the way, propaganda
o Quadratura use of perspective to extend architecture with paint.
o Four corners of the earth
Jesuit orders reach
Diego Velazquez, Water Carrier of Seville, 1619
Spectacle of description
o Ripped clothing, water falling over etc
o Accuracy of presentation
Genrekind of category or painting
Genre scenescene of everyday life
Diego Velazquez, Las Meninas (The Maids of Honor), 1656
Spain
o Wanted to keep up appearances even though they were going through
economic turmoil
o Nothing royal going on, just people hanging out
Direct viewer address
Painting as object
Multiple kinds of images that can all be painted
painterliness
Awareness of our looking selves (we are placed behind a
painting, out of picture)
Painter is able to make us see things that arent really there
(man in doorway on stairs looks like another framed
painting)
Importance of painting and the artist
o Drama and theatricality
Tenebrism
Stage-like setting
Northern Europe, 1600-1700
Historical Context
o Dutch Republic ruled by burghers
o Amsterdam- financial center
o Flanders ruled by court life
o Monarchical leadership influenced by religious pope
Cultural Context
o Calvinism did not allow images
o Patronage from church was uncommon
o Calvinist work-ethic
Had spiritual quality, perform worldly duties
o Artists created images that would appeal to people who bought them and
show the fruit of Calvinist labors
o French were Catholic and used images to reaffirm Catholicism
Stylistic characteristics
o Flemish and Dutch Baroque
o Motion and change
Composition in motion just (not figures moving, painting is
moving All the difference elements of the composition seem to
flow together.)
Painterly brushwork (active and animated compositions)
Portraiture mobile sensibility: changeable personality: sense of
self that can change depending on how you look at painting.,
depending on how you look at self.
o Drama and spectacle
Spectacle of description
Drama of the everyday (how do you make going to class
dramatic? artists do that)
o Viewer involvement immediacy and liveness
o Importance of genre scenes (scenes of everyday life) Landscapes,
portraits
Peter Paul Rubens
o Light, Tenebrism
o People are sculptural, bumpy rippled
Peter Paul Rubens, Arrival of Marie deMedici at Marseilles, 1622-1625
Arrival from Spain (Son banished her once he took over, wanted people to see the
glory of her arrival)
Flemish Baroque
Spectacle of allegory and myth meant to impress viewer
Composition in motiondynamic weaving of figures and ground
Painterly brushworkpaint and mark emphasized for own sake and to create
movement
Frans Hals, Archers of Saint Hadrian, 1633
Dutch Baroque
Mobile sensibility- militia group creating their own story
Immediacy and liveliness figures see, not just look, poses and gestures are
natural and spontaneous
Painterliness emphasizes dynamism and mobility
Jan Vermeer, The Letter, 1666
Dutch Baroque
Genre scene
Home-place of comfort, family, intimacy
Immediacy
o Handing off the letter voyeurism
Spectacle of description
o Mundane household items painted with virtuosic care
o Beautiful stability of quadrilaterals
Genre scene: painting of everyday life
Drama of everyday:
o Religious serenity
o Realistic light that infuses and theatricalizes the interior
Pieter Claesz, Vanitas Still Life, 1630s
Vanitaspaintings that delights in the accumulation of things tempered by
realization of their transience
Memento morireminder of death
French Classicism
Stylistic Characteristics
o Return to Renaissance and Classical styles
o Balance and symmetry
o Classical referencesmyth and landscape
o Emotional harmony
o Louis XIV and the rhetoric of control (ruled 70 odd years since he was 4)
Nicolas Poussin, Et in Arcadia Ego, 1655
French Classicism
o Balanceunified figure group
o Classical referenceArcadia, shepherds in ancient garb
o Emotional harmonyeven and clear light
Claude Lorrain, Landscape with Cattle and Peasants, 1629
French Classicism
Fantasy and imagination instead of Poussins intellectualism
Classical referenceideal pastoral landscape
Balancesymmetrical and balanced composition: trees frame the picture; fore
mid and background are clearly related
Emotional harmonytimeless place that is spiritual as much as geographical
Claude Perrault, Louis Le Vau, and Charles Le Brun, east faade of the Louvre, 16671670
French classicism
Art as controlspeaks to authority of the King
Repetition and regimentation of columns
Stately and massive podium
Cornice and balustrade that consolidates the faade in an imposing way
Rhetoric of control: visual communication used as a repressive tool
Rococo: Historical Context
o Death of the Sun King and the court returns to Paris
Cultural Context
o French aristocrats returned to life of gaiety and intimacy
o Salon Gathering of aristocracy, wealthy, artistic, and intellectual elite
Stylistic Characteristics
o Softened architecture No clear spatial definitions
o Glittering and ornate details and surfaces
o Scenes of games and love
o High value colors (pastels)
Painting Stylistic
o Game playing, artifice, and acting
o Taste for love in grove and bower
o High value colors and tactile brushwork
*fete galanteamorous festival
o Neo-Classicism
Classical scenes and settings
Moral lesson Exemplum virtutis
Subdued colors, values, and settings
Balanced compositions
V. Rococo
Rococo Sculpture Stylistic Characteristics
o Glittering and ornate details and surfaces
o Softened architectures Space dissolves in decoration and mixture of
painting, sculpture, and architecture
o Spaces of equality Mixing of nobility and moneyed classes
Rococo Painting Stylistic Characteristics
o Game-playing, artifice, and acting
o Taste for love in grove and bower
o High value colors and tactile brushwork
o Fete galante Amorous festival
Neoclassicism: Historical Context
o French (1789) and America (1776) revolutions
o The Enlightenment Rigorously rational view of the world based on
reason and empiricism
o French philosophes and British scientists
Cultural Context
o Jean Jacques Rousseau rejected Rococo frivolity and embraced the
natural
o Educational value of art Moral and civic lessons
Stylistic Characteristics
o Classical scenes and settings
o Moral lesson Exemplum virtutis Model for the right way of living
o Subdued colors, values, and settings
o Balanced compositions
VII. Europe and America, 1800-1870
o A. Historical Context
o 1. Napoleon Bonaparte
o 2. The Enlightenment
o 3. Industrial Revolution
B. Cultural Context
o 1. Jean Jacques Rousseau- human reason liberated by emotion and
imagination
o 2. Dark side of natural world and the ideal
C. Romanticism Stylistic
o 1. Sublime- disturbing pleasure associated with the repellent
o 2. Art of association- art could evoke sublime states, be expressive and
suggestive of a deeper unknowable reality
o 3. Reportagedocumented contemporary events in dramatic, forceful, and
exotic ways
o 4. Dynamic compositions and extreme emotional states
o 5. Artist creative genius
*D. Francisco Goya
o 1. Reportageironically reporting on the superstitions and follies of his
time
o 2. Sought balance between reason and imaginationanimals of folly push
the artist to create
o 3. Art of associationpicturing a dream state
o 4. Dynamic composition set of diagonals
E. Gros (romanticism)
o 1. Modified neoclassicismbalance between French and Muslim forces;
use of architecture to structure composition
o 2. Emphasis on the exotic Eastern architecture and costume
o 3. Emphasis on reporting horror of death and suffering rather than the
exemplum virtutis of sacrifice
o Transcendental landscapelandscape that moves beyond description to
evoke spirituality and the sublime
Realism
o Stylistic Characteristics
Almost photographic observation of life
Factual sinceritytruth in the observes and mundane details
Anti-heroic historyheroism of modern life
A momentary and contemporary sense of time
photojournalistic
Wide range of subject matter often thought unsuitable for grand
paintinglabor, peasants, prostitutes
Realist timethe contemporary and the momentary
o Thomas Eakins, The Gross Clinic, 1875
Heroism of modern lifegrandeur of the everyday
Heroes were the common people that made society function