Velázquez, Painter and Courtier by Jonathan Brown is a voyage through the life of one of the great Baroque artists, Diego de Silva y Velázquez. Brown considers Velázquez life from both an artistic point of view and a biographical point of view. The purpose for Brown is to place Velázquez work "in the wider context of seventeenth century painting and theory." According to Brown, this is somewhat difficult to do because Velázquez was certainly not the normal artist for the time.
Velázquez was different in a number of ways. For one, Velázquez was very well educated, especially for an artist. Second, he had extensive time in which he travelled around Europe viewing foreign artists and their works. Finally, and most importantly, the patronages he received from Philip IV removed him from the normal "mainstream" of Baroque art in Spain. Brown claims that these reasons also contribute to Velázquez "attempting to find a new approach to the goals and methods of the art of painting." Still, Brown points out that their is little written evidence of Velázquez as either an artist or thinker on art. It is very difficult to understand the inner life of Velázquez because we lack the personal documents necessary. This makes it hard to understand Velázquez as a person with emotion instead of merely a man who can paint.
Brown felt that it would be especially interesting to understand Velázquez the man later in life as his career as a painter is changed. As Velázquez career progresses, the quality of his work noticeably declines. Brown attributes this mostly to the fact that Philip IV wanted Vel&#...
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...this new style was cut short with the change in his career as Court Decorator. Still, the understanding of this change in his life is vital to the understanding of Spain during the Baroque. Brown's points out that the Baroque was not only a time of painting, but a time of religious turmoil and change.
Overall, the book combined two central aspects to Velázquez career. It discussed not only the many different works which he created, but his life surrounding the production of these works. This concept is truly important in the understanding of the person behind the painting and certainly furthers the readers understanding of the Spanish Baroque. Furthermore, the straightforward manner of Brown's writing allowed the inexperienced reader of Baroque art understand and appreciate the time. This, ultimately was Brown's goal.
Pablo Picasso is one of the most famous and well-documented artists of the twentieth century. Picasso, unlike most painters, is even more special because he did not confine himself to canvas, but also produced sculpture, poetry, and ceramics in profusion. Although much is known about this genius, there is still a lust after more knowledge concerning Picasso, his life and the creative forces that motivated him. This information can be obtained only through a careful study of the events that played out during his lifetime and the ways in which they manifested themselves in his creations (Penrose).
The baroque has been called a theatrical style, one that deals in spectacle, grandeur, and dramatic contrast. Test these concepts in an essay that discusses the baroque as an expression of the Catholic Reformation, Protestant devotionalism, the Scientific Revolution, and the Age of Absolutism. Define your general statements with specific examples. The following essay will discuss the baroque period and how the Catholic Reformation, Protestant devotionalism, and the Scientific Revolution influenced it. The Baroque period generally refers to the years 1600 to1750. Classicism of the Renaissance has been replenished during the Baroque period. During the Baroque artistic period, the exploration of the fundamental components of human nature and the realm of senses and emotions were very crucial. The Baroque era was a very dynamic time that showed an abundance of radiance and color. Artists of this time were passionate and sensual. Their works were many times considered to have an overpowering emotional effect. The superficial form of light was fascinated during this period due to the thoughts of godlike sun or the truth of the Holy Spirit. The Baroque naturalism maintains the religious themes in content. The elements of perception in the Baroque art are how we perceived the natural human figures are in motion through space, time, and light. We present and analyze the extent of human actions and passions in all its degrees of lightness, darkness, and intensity. The scientific revolution also had a tremendous impact on art during this time. Scientists started to study the earth and it’s positioning in the universe. This was a time when the people started take more of an interest in astronomy and mathematical equations. During the time of the Catholic Reformation artists began to challenge all the rules that society has set for artistic design. Artist starting with Parmigianino, Tintoretto, and El Greco began to add a wide variety of colors into their paintings, challenging the way things have been done in the past. These artists also added abnormal figures or altered the proportions in paintings. This is displayed in Parmigianino’s painting, Madonna of the long neck. During this time the Catholic Church was in a transition period moving from their recent reputation and becoming a well-respected organization. During this reform, an autobiography written by Layola about Saint Teresa of Avila set a new tone for Catholics to follow. This influenced people to have a more spiritual outlook on life.
Diego Rivera was deemed the finest Mexican painter of the twentieth century; he had a huge influence in art worldwide. Rivera wanted to form his own painting fashion. Although he encountered the works of great masters like Gauguin, Renoir, and Matisse, he was still in search of a new form of painting to call his own (Tibol, 1983). His desire was to be capable of reaching a wide audience and express the difficulties of his generation at the same time, and that is exactly what h...
Pablo Picasso is the worlds most renowned artist of the 20th century. He did a variety of skills related to the world of art. Most people remember him as just a painter, but he was more than that. He could do sculpting, drawing, engraving, lithographs, and more. One of his most famous periods of all time, The Blue Period showed all that he was capable of. More than the paintings above all else he learned all his abilities self-taught from his father and the schooling his father helped provide.
Lorenzo De Medici can be considered as one of the most influential men of the 13th century. His work in political affairs and administration were renowned in all Italy and his family could count on him in every aspect. Lorenzo was also a promoter of a new period called Renaissance. He was one of the first “mecenate” to explore this new way of art. In this project, I will concentrate how he developed art in Florence, giving a clear example through an Artist of that period that was working for him: Sandro Botticelli. His work “The Spring” is a well-defined example of what we can call “art in the Renaissance”, in particular for the Italian Renaissance.
Born in 1886 Diego Rivera was born to a wealthy family living in Guanajuato, Mexico. At the age of two his twin brother died and a year later Diego Rivera started drawing, his parents caught him drawing on walls and instead of punishing him nurtured his artistic side by enabling him with the supplies he needed. Throughout his life Diego Rivera was dedicated to art, “He began to study painting at an early age and in 1907 moved to Europe. Spending most of the next fourteen years in Paris, Rivera encountered the works of such great masters as Cézanne, Gauguin, Renoir, and Matisse.” Influenced by the work of such great minds Rivera began the search for his own signature and contribution to modern art, “Rivera was searching for a new form of painting, one that could express the complexities of his day and still reach a wide audience.” Rivera found the medium he was looking for, a form of street art involving murals painted on fresh plaster, he returned to Mexico to introduce this new form of art to the public. Rivera soon sewed himself into the art community in America, “His outgoing personality puts him at ...
The article Artists Mythologies and Media Genius, Madness and Art History (1980) by Griselda Pollock is a forty page essay where Pollock (1980), argues and explains her views on the crucial question, "how art history works" (Pollock, 1980, p.57). She emphasizes that there should be changes to the practice of art history and uses Van Gogh as a major example in her study. Her thesis is to prove that the meaning behind artworks should not be restricted only to the artist who creates it, but also to realize what kind of economical, financial, social situation the artist may have been in to influence the subject that is used. (Pollock, 1980, pg. 57) She explains her views through this thesis and further develops this idea by engaging in scholarly debates with art historians and researcher, and objecting to how they claim there is a general state of how art is read. She structures her paragraphs in ways that allows her to present different kinds of evidences from a variety sources while using a formal yet persuasive tone of voice to get her point across to the reader.
Goldwater, Robert and Marco Treves (eds.). Artists on Art: from the XIV to the XX Century. New York: Pantheon Books, 1945.
... La Infanta Margarita and her two attendants draw the viewer’s attention, but the dark backdrop dominates the painting with its sheer vastness as it towers over the figures in this scene that are clustered at the bottom. The viewer of the painting is placed in the eyes of the king and queen, as they stand both inside and outside of the painting, reflected in the mirror as observers only. They can watch this scene as the royal couple watched their country crumble because of government debt and loss of territories. Diego Velázquez had always wanted to paint the truth, whether in the bodegón paintings of his earlier years or in the royal portraits he was commissioned during his career as the court painter. He did so in Las Meninas, during the final decade of his life, by depicting the condition of Spain’s government through an informal day-to-day scene of palace life.
El Greco's artistic formation in Rome and Venice, reflects the influence of roman mannerist designs (e.g Michaelangelo's masterfully polished drawings) and that of the Venetian school of painting with its emphasis in the richness and variety of colors, the use of pigments to achieve the impression of depth and brightness, represented by Tiziano. However, after his long stay in Toledo, Spain, El Greco's painting style transformed from one of marked Italian influence to another more personal and dramatic , in which the artificial and unreal elements were intensified. However, his painting were not just the product of spiritual visions or emotional reactions but of the intentional creation of an artificial and antinaturalistic art.
The painting was so popular, that he made its numerous versions with sightliest differences. The version presented in Metropolitan Museum, descended through the famil...
Velazquez’s Juan de Pareja and Peale’s George Washington differ greatly in their presentations and subject matter, as well the contexts in which they were painted. While George Washington was a famous and powerful leader, rendered with bright colors and a high level of precision, Juan de Pareja was a slave, painted with loose brush-strokes and in plain colors. Despite the apparent differences between these two works, they share a common purpose that is intrinsic to portraits, the exaltation of their subjects.
The tendencies of Baroque translated differently in parts of Europe. In Italy, it reflected the return of intense piety through dense church ornamentations, complex architecture, and dynamic painting. Calabrese’s work exhibits the combined artistic stimuli of the 17th century and culminates in the acquired Caravagesque style that alters how paintings were composed from then on. Executed at the height of Calabrese’s most creative phase, St. John the Baptist Preaching is indicates the monumentality of change in urbanization as well as the return of Catholic permanence in the 1600’s. Aside from the Baroque power of the artwork, Calabrese’s St. John is a piece worth gravitating to and stands as reminder of the grandiose excesses of Baroque art.
...laced on the style and materials presented in the painting. While evaluating and comparing various paintings the author feels that at the beginning of the Renaissance era the skill level of the artist was often not acknowledged whereas materials were, but at the end of the era, skill level played a larger factor in who was chosen to complete the artwork. Therefore, fresco painting, which emerged near the end of the period, changed this so called “deposit”, along with the relationship of the artist and the patron, allowing for the talent and skill of the artist to shine.
The artists of the Baroque had a remarkably different style than artists of the Renaissance due to their different approach to form, space, and composition. This extreme differentiation in style resulted in a very different treatment of narrative. Perhaps this drastic stylistic difference between the Renaissance and Baroque in their treatment of form, space, and composition and how these characteristics effect the narrative of a painting cannot be seen more than in comparing Perugino’s Christ Delivering the Keys of the Kingdom to St. Peter from the Early Renaissance to Caravaggio’s Conversion of St. Paul from the Baroque.Perugino was one of the greatest masters of the Early Renaissance whose style ischaracterized by the Renaissance ideals of purity, simplicity, and exceptional symmetry of composition. His approach to form in Christ Delivering the Keys of the Kingdom to St.Peter was very linear. He outlined all the figures with a black line giving them a sense of stability, permanence, and power in their environment, but restricting the figures’ sense of movement. In fact, the figures seem to not move at all, but rather are merely locked at a specific moment in time by their rigid outline. Perugino’s approach to the figures’themselves is extremely humanistic and classical. He shines light on the figures in a clear, even way, keeping with the rational and uncluttered meaning of the work. His figures are all locked in a contrapposto pose engaging in intellectual conversation with their neighbor, giving a strong sense of classical rationality. The figures are repeated over and over such as this to convey a rational response and to show the viewer clarity. Perugino’s approach to space was also very rational and simple. He organizes space along three simple planes: foreground, middle ground, and background. Christ and Saint Peter occupy the center foreground and solemn choruses of saints and citizens occupy the rest of the foreground. The middle distance is filled with miscellaneous figures, which complement the front group, emphasizing its density and order, by their scattered arrangement. Buildings from the Renaissance and triumphal arches from Roman antiquity occupy the background, reinforcing the overall classical message to the