David’s Oath of the Horatii
Painted in Rome in the style of Neo-Classicism, Jacques Louis David’s Oath of the Horatii is one of the better-known examples of art produced by this artist of eclectic styles. This painting was hailed as the manifesto of a new school based on the fervent study of the antique and a return to classical techniques in the late 18th century. In this painting, completed in 1785 as an oil on canvas, David (DA-VEED) successfully coalesces the nascent and confused ideology of the Neo-Classical movement in a dramatic portrayal of the Horatii brothers swearing their allegiance to the state as their father stands with swords held high for them to grasp. An analysis of the painting’s historical background, and an evaluation of the lines, colors, and subject matter, will illustrate why Oath of the Horatii represents the defining characteristics of the Neo-Classical period.
David enrolled in the Académie Royal in 1766, when he was eighteen. In 1769 he competed for the first time in the Prix de Rome, and lost. It was not until his fifth attempt in 1774 that he finally won with his Antiochus and Stratonice. The Academy maintained a branch in Rome and winners of the Prix were sent there on a fellowship to continue their studies. David returned to France in 1779 as a well-skilled—if not yet well-known—artist and was able to display some work in the Salon. Over the next five years he gained notice as a supreme draftsman in studio nudes and as a man able to project classicism similar to Poussin. His work also appealed to the didactic philosophers of the Age of Reason. (Harber, 2)
In 1784 David received a commission from the Comte d’Angiviller (the head supervisor of all build and construction under the King of France, Louis XVI) for a painting based on a Corneillian subject. Corneille’s play, Horace, was being performed in Paris at this time. Oath of the Horatii was started in Paris, but David felt he needed to be immersed in the ambiance and culture of Rome to complete it. The painting created a sensation when first exhibited in Rome of 1885, and was seen as an allegorical cry for a Revolution in France. Indeed, it was only four more years until the French Revolution was underway. The painting is now kept in the Louvre, Paris.
Amir is, to be put bluntly, a coward. He is led by his unstable emotions towards what he thinks will plug his emotional holes and steps over his friends and family in the process. When he sought after Baba’s invisible love, Amir allowed Hassan to be raped in an alleyway just so that the blue kite, his trophy that would win his father’s heart, could be left untouched. In the end, he felt empty and unfulfilled with the weight of his conscience on his shoulders comparable to Atlas’ burden. Unable to get over his fruitless betrayal, he lashes out and throws pomegranates at Hassan before stuffing money and a watch under his loyal friend’s pathetic excuse for a bed, framing Hassan for theft and directly causing the departure of both servants from his household. Even after moving to America, finding a loving wife, and creating a career for himself in writing, he still feels hollow when thinking of his childhood in Afghanistan. Many years later, he is alerted of Hassan’s death and sets out on a frenzied chase to find his friend’s orphaned son. He feels that he can somehow ease his regrets from all of those years ago if he takes in Hassan’s son, Sohrab. He finds Sohrab as a child sex slave for Assef, who coincidentally was the one to rape Hassan all of those years ago. After nearly dying in his attempt to take back Sohrab, he learns that he can take the damaged child back to the states with him. Sadly, Hassan’s son is so
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.
Gentileschi’s Judith Slaying Holofernes epitomizes the style of artwork during the Italian Baroque era. By using a Catholic subject and key elements and techniques essential to baroque art such as chiaroscuro and foreshortening, she was able to create a piece that gushes drama and realism. Without the use of all of these elements the effect would be lost, but instead the piece is one that moves the viewer with its direct and gritty realism of the religious subject, evoking emotion in a way that leaves the viewer in awe.
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...
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
The decursio sides are representations of Antoninus Pius’ deification and funerary rites. The depiction consists of the cavalry circling the standing figures, two of whom carry military standards, while the rest are wearing their cuirass. These scenes represent the ceremony that is essential for the deification of the imperial members. The style that is used within these sides is in relief form, yet they also break from the traditional Classical style. The variation of the Classical style is prominent by depicting stocky human forms and using two types of perspective within a single space. The figures also lack the gracefulness of other works during this time that follow the Classical style. The perspective of the piece is unclear where the figures seem to be suspended in space for what seems to be an overhead view while at the same time using a single perspective. Despite the deviation of the Classical style this p...
This is brings up public health concern because HPV was usually widely known to infect mostly women and enforce to cause of cervical cancer. However, a head and neck cancer is also serious disease in worldwide by placing HNC as 5th most common cancer in 2008. Particularly, cohort studied from 1982 up to 2005 from Australia and Sweden showed HPV DNA positive incidence increased from about...
Hassan’s most significant characteristic is his utter devotion and loyalty to Amir. Even though Amir is his master, Hassan views Amir as his best friend and spends most of his free time with him. He frequently tells Amir, “For you a
The other source of tension in Amir’s life is his relationship with Baba, his hard-driving and demanding father. Desperate to win his father’s affection and respect, Amir turns to the sport of kite flying, and at the age of 12, with the assistance of Hassan, he wins the annual tournament in Kabul. Amir’s victory soon is tarnished when he witnesses a vicious assault against his friend, who raced through the streets of Kabul to retrieve the last kite, Amir had sliced from the sky, and fails to come to his aid. Amir’s cowardness is compounded by a later act of betrayal that causes Ali and Hassan to leave their home, and he now faces the nightmare, bearing the burden of his poor choices for the rest of his life.
The Oath of the Horatii by David was a symbolic painting for the French because it symbolized the war that was yet to come for them. This oil painting presents 3 brothers of Rome taking an oath to the swords that their father is presenting to them, and three women who are very emotional. During the Age of Enlightenment, they saw women as incapable of being heroic because they are too wrapped up in their emotions; and that may be something that David is trying to show. One of the women is crying because her brother killed her husband (which was one of the competitors from Alba fighting against the brothers; and they were enemies). Because the sister was so weak and emotionally unstable, the brother killed her. He also had Roman pride, and didn’t like that the sister was crying for the fall of a man from Alba and not cheering for the victory of Rome. This showed that the brothers were very patriotic for Rome, and would do anything for their beloved home. When looking at the artwork, we get a sense of it being Greek because of the figures which look like Greek sculptures, especially the...
“ I know, he said , breaking our embrace” Inshaalah we’ll celebrate later. Right now , I’m going to run that blue kite for you “ Hassan always shows loyalty and devotion to Amir, but eventhough the mutuality was not in the same level. Amir eventually fixed his mistakes .
Art In European History. “Neo-Classicism and French Revolution – Jacques-Louis David”. Boston College. Web. 5th May 2013.
Fragment of a Fresco is a piece created in one of the more turbulent and evolutionary times in Roman history. Painted during the time of transition, this piece does not depict a scene of glorious combat, but rather provides us with a sense of the art and culture of the time. This fresco also provides us with detailed insight to the interior design and decoration of Roman structures from this time period. While the Fragment of a Fresco may lack notable historical importance, it's present value could be exploited more ferociously. This particular piece has characteristics of both the First and Second Styles, yet is only classified in the Second Style. It should be used, along with frescos that share similar characteristics, to discredit the system of classification currently in place.
Larmann, R., & Shields, M. (2011). Art of Renaissance and Baroque Europe (1400–1750). Gateways to Art (pp. 376-97). New York: W.W. Norton.
HPVs are now identified as the etiological factors in nearly all types of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) and invasive cancer of the cervix. In fact, based on laboratory, clinical, and epidemiological evidence HPVs have been recognized as the ‘necessary cause’ of cervical cancer that is cancer of the cervix will not develop in the absence of persistent HPV infection.10 The relationship is stronger than that between cancer of the lung and cigarette smoking; but, the progression of cancer of the cervix from HPV infection is not inevitable. Studies have shown that only 100 000 or 10% of every one million women who are infected, progress to cervical dysplasia (that is pre-cancerous changes in cervical epithelial cells). Out of these,