Aryan Izadi
Arts 2C
26 February, 2014
Colors of Adoration
When it comes to art, first thing that comes to our mind is the beauty of it; the realism, the story, the scale, or even sometimes the frame work. But what really brings all of these elements is one simple word, hue (color), with which you are able to play around with in order of changing the story and the drama of the art piece. Everybody is able to paint or draw, but the main key is how to play around with the colors in order to grab the attention of the audience.
When you enter the early European gallery of the Cantor Center, most of the artwork lookalike, because they mostly have the same color theme and the same story follow-up. But once you look deeper and actually get closer to the walls, you could find a triptych private devotional imagery named “The Adoration of the Holy Child”, presenting the Virgin with saints and angels. The size of this artwork is no larger than 20” x 20”. This artwork is unique in many ways, mainly the sizing, because this is one of the very few triptych artworks that are created with such size for personal purposes. This piece belongs to the Circle of Bonafacio Bembo which is family of painters with the name of Bembo from Cremona, the picturesque town located in the Northern Italy; Giovannit Bembo, Bonafacio, Benedetto, and Ambrosio. Bonafacio was involved with the dukes of Milan, region overlords, and many more and because of all these involvements, his art became the most famous of the Bembo brotherhood. The only unknown fact about this triptych is the commissioner of it. It could’ve been commissioned by a cleric or layperson.
Adoration of the Holy Child belongs to the 1460s and it’s an exquisite little alterpiece painted using Tempera on p...
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...e main colors that pop out are yellow and red which relate to the main story. The side panels and other colors are there just to mainly fill up the space and give this piece a little bit of a background story.
If we were about to compare this piece to a different artwork that was done during the same era, we could talk about Hugo van der Goes and the Portinari Altarpiece, c-1473-78 . In Hugo’s version of the Adoration, we can see the same elements such as the Child, the Virgin Mary, Angels, and many more. The only noticeable difference would be the choice of colors which is slightly different. In Hugo’s version we don’t see too much red, but we do see a lot of blue and that is because blue represents the Christ when it comes to colors in Bible. So now we can say that colors do make a big different, it’s not all about the artwork, but the choice of colors as well.
The Merode Altarpiece is a triptych painting that represents the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary. This work displays the main characteristics of the Northern Late Gothic period. There is so much detail in this work of art. Campin utilizes many symbols in this altarpiec. The setting of the painting is in a Flemish middle class house. The Annunciation theme is being depicted in the central panel. A scene of Saint Joseph at work as a carpenter occupies the right-hand panel. The portraits of the donors are depicted in the left hand panel. Campin failed to understand the scientific perspective. To illustrate, there is no focal point in the painting and the table looks tilted. Campin used no aerial perspective. To illustrate, the background is still very crisp when seen from a distance. The most important aspect of the painting is the symbolism. For example, the lilies represent Mary's purity, the candle represents the Holy Spirit, even the mouse traps represent trapping evil. Campin also made use of bright, rich colors. In the central panel, the drapery of the figures are filled with colors of red and white. Campin has also made a good use of illusion of the space by making the town seem to be far away by distance by making them appear blurry. Furthermore, Campin has created figures that are not in proper proportion. To illustrate, the figure’s head is small and the bodies are big and it seems that if they get will hit their head if they get up. They look very unrealistic. Although they are not in proportion, the figures seem to have very sharp edges. The figures also look very stiff and rigid. In Merode Altarpiece, the light is arbitrary and the figures do not cast any...
The Holy Trinity by Masaccio was a painting done in approximately 1428. It is a
By most accounts, the year 1500 was in the midst of the height of the Italian Renaissance. In that year, Flemmish artist Jean Hey, known as the “Master of Moulins,” painted “The Annunciation” to adorn a section of an alter piece for his royal French patrons. The painting tells the story of the angel Gabriel’s visit to the Virgin Mary to deliver the news that she will give birth to the son of God. As the story goes, Mary, an unwed woman, was initially terrified about the prospects of pregnancy, but eventually accepts her fate as God’s servant. “The Annunciation” is an oil painting on a modest canvas, three feet tall and half as wide. The setting of the painting is a study, Mary sitting at a desk in the bottom right hand corner reading, and the angel Gabriel behind her holding a golden scepter, perhaps floating and slightly off the canvas’s center to the left. Both figures are making distinct hand gestures, and a single white dove, in a glowing sphere of gold, floats directly above Mary’s head. The rest of the study is artistic but uncluttered: a tiled floor, a bed with red sheets, and Italian-style architecture. “The Annunciation” was painted at a momentous time, at what is now considered the end of the Early Renaissance (the majority of the 15th Century) and the beginning of the High Renaissance (roughly, 1495 – 1520). Because of its appropriate placement in the Renaissance’s timeline and its distinctly High Renaissance characteristics, Jean Hey’s “Annunciation” represents the culmination of the transition from the trial-and-error process of the Early Renaissance, to the technical perfection that embodied the High Renaissance. Specifically, “Annunciation” demonstrates technical advancements in the portrayal of the huma...
Both Jan van Eyck and Fra Angelico were revered artists for the advances in art that they created and displayed for the world to see. Their renditions of the Annunciation were both very different, however unique and perfect display of the typical styles used during the Renaissance. Jan van Eyck’s panel painting Annunciation held all the characteristics of the Northern Renaissance with its overwhelming symbolism and detail. Fra Angelico’s fresco Annunciation grasped the key elements used in the Italian Renaissance with usage of perspective as well as displaying the interest and knowledge of the classical arts.
As I walked into the first gallery, I saw a wood sculpture that stood in the center of the room. This carving depicted “the crucified Christ, flanked by the Virgin Mary and St. John the Evangelist with Angels holding instruments of the Passion”. It was painted oak and very appealing to the eye. It stood approximately 15 feet in the air. The origin of this sculpture is unknown, but it was found in a Belgium church. This kind of sculpture usually stood at the entrance or at the center of the alter in the church facing the congregation. This image of the suffering Christ relates to the Christian ideas of suffering and Christ’s salvation of all mankind.
The colors in the figure’s face consist of warm colors of red, yellow, green while the rest of the body consist of primary colors of yellow, blue, red along with seafoam green, white, and pink. However, the colors are mixed from one to another to create depth. To illustrate this, a viewer would focus on the figure’s right leg because of the luminous yellow and then to the soft sea green foam, which makes the yellow closer to the viewer, whereas the sea foam green is in the back, creating depth. In addition, the simplified forms such as the red triangle on the bottom right also helps separate the yellow and the sea foam green, which reinforces that they split to show depth. In addition, the two red dots, the triangle, the red on the face, and red on the arm also reinforces the viewer to look at the whole piece. Overall, Brown use specific colors around the drawing to make sure the viewer look at it as a whole rather than just looking at one
In his Crucifixion, with the Virgin and Saint John the Evangelist Mourning (c.1460), a piece within the Northern Renaissance collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Rogier van der Weyden portrays a stark image of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The right panel of the diptych depicts the gruesome image of a crucified Christ. Weight pulls the emaciated body down into a Y-shape, contrasting the T-shape of the cross it is mounted on. The only movement comes from the loincloth wrapped around Christ’s waist that dances in the wind. Blood visibly trickles from the corpse’s wounds. Behind the body, a red cloth is draped down the grey wall. At the base of the cross sits a skull and bone. The left panel portrays the Virgin Mary swooning in despair as Saint John attempts to support her weight. Her hands are clasped in prayer as she gazes up at her lifeless son. Both figures are clothed in pale draping robes. The vibrant red of the cloth that hangs from the grey wall in the background contrasts the subdued colors of the
In Benito Huerta’s “The Character of all Modern and Contemporary Characters”, an oil on velvet painting, he utilizes elements such as color and texture to form the figures. As a matter of fact, the element that stood out the most is color. Beginning with the basic use of colors in areas such as, little red and yellow dots on the snakes back, the skies blue horizon line, small sections of blue on the female’s hair, both of the snakes yellow features including the mouth of one snake and the stomach of the other and the yellow crescent of the moon are the use of primary colors. He uses a limited amount of secondary color in a general area such as the grass below the female and the back of the snake seems green and a bit of orange on the head of the snake on the
1420. Tempera on wood, gold ground, 25 1/8 x 19 in. (63.8 x 48.3 cm). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
While the Flemish were proficient in oil painting, Italian Renaissance artists continued their predecessor’s use of tempera. Furthermore, the paintings were ultimately created for different purposes and separate viewers. Although both works are centered on the defining moment of the annunciation, The Merode Altarpiece incorporates this scene into a secular setting, therefore differing from Fra Angelico’s The Annunciation which was painted for a monastery. Finally, Flemish and Italian Renaissance paintings differ in levels of realism. Although the Flemish painters were skilled in portraying realism of physical forms, they lacked a full understanding of linear perspective. In contrast, the Italian Renaissance artists were well versed in linear perspective but lacked a complete grasp of the natural
As previously pointed out the piece is full of many vibrant colors, like the floors a dull, muted yet dark brown that is accented with the pale almost teal colored shade of green, primarily in the far end on the floor. The glass on the window in the back has both light greens and yellow shades next to each other, yellow on the right side and the light green colors, covering more of the glass on most of the windowpanes, on the left side. The walls are a light blue with the occasional bundle of white lines or streaks of white. Both of the doors that are partially visible are similar shades of blue, one of them has blotches of a brownish grey color. The other door has a different colored doorframe, a green stripe on the left side, which is immediately followed by a white stripe.
The painting is of a young St. John the Baptist preaching to his congregation. St. John is an important figure in Catholicism not only for his preaching and baptisms in the River Jordan, but for his role as the last prophet and the forerunner of Jesus Christ. His preaching foretells the coming of Christ as the Messiah, and thereupon Christ’s baptism, the voice from Heaven told St. John that Jesus was God’s son. This piece by Calabrese captures John at the height of his oration. Fixed atop a decrepit tree trunk yet grappling for stability, John is shown here in his ascetic attire composed of camel hair, holding his staff and scroll bearing the words “Ecce Agnus Dei,” which translates into Beho...
Baxandall, Michael. “Conditions of Trade.” Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-century Italy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.
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
Larmann, R., & Shields, M. (2011). Art of Renaissance and Baroque Europe (1400–1750). Gateways to Art (pp. 376-97). New York: W.W. Norton.