I open with this statement to help provide the context and content of this essay. It is my opinion, like that of the great conceptual artist Sol Lewitt, that many individuals misinterpret art, especially the art of the past. In connection with this, I also believe each person has a right to their own opinions and thoughts. It is my hope that you as the reader will permit my upfront opinion found in this essay. It is my desire to compare and contrast the two pieces I have chased through their formal characteristics, the symbols they contain, and the cultural backgrounds of each piece of art. I have chosen two paintings depicting the same story, Christ being adored at his birth. The first piece, painted by Pietro Perugino in the years of 1470 to 1473, is titled Adoration of the Magi. The second painting is entitled Adoration of the Shepherds, and was painted by El Greco between 1612 and 1614. While both of these paintings depict similar scenes centered on the adoration of Christ they both differ in their functional purposes, the symbols they include, along with their formal or stylistic characteristics. I first to desire to describe the formal characteristics of both paintings. First, Perugino’s painting was created to be used as a functioning altarpiece and the cabinet that it may have once fit in was the shape that you see it to be now (Figure 1). The paint used in this piece is oil and it is on the canvas. The oil paint is well blended and there are no visible brush strokes that I can see. Because there is no great contrast between shadows and highlights, this painting appears quite flat to me, especially the whimsical background. The background is so appears so flat that it almost looks like a backdrop of a theatrical play. Ea... ... middle of paper ... ...y and purpose. Both paintings are similar in their theme but quite different in the symbols they contain, their formal or stylistic characteristics and their cultural backgrounds and histories. Works Cited Caffin, Charles H. “The Art and Influence of El Greco,” Art and Progress, January 1911. Grove Art Online “Greco, El [Theotokopoulos, Domenikos [Dominico; Dominikos; Menegos]].” Oxford Art Online. Accessed March 13, 2014. http://www.oxfordartonline.com:80/subscriber/article/grove/art/T034199. Lewitt, Sol. Paragraphs on Conceptual Art. New York: Art Forum, 1967. Williams, George C. Pietro Vannucci Called Perugino. London: George Bell & Sons, 1900. Williamson, George C. The Great Masters in Painting and Sculpture: Perugino. London: George Bell & Sons, 1900. - - -. Masters in Art. El Greco. Boston: Bates and Guild Company, 1908.
In conclusion, although Mycerinus and Kha-merer-nebty II and Augustus of Primaporta, do appear very different, come from entirely different geographic regions and were separated by thousands of years, they do have many things in common. When we consider subject, style, and function; perhaps other works of art have more in common than they appear to have.
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...
Ridgway, Brunilde S. Hellenistic Sculpture II: The Styles of ca. 200-100 B.C. Madison, Wisc.: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2000.
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
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.
This essay attempts to describe analyze and evaluate the famous painting "The Adoration of the Shepherd" by Giorgione (originally Giorgio Barbarelli). In the following essay there will be three main sections:
Burckhardt, Jacob, The Greeks and Greek Civilization, St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Ave, New York, NY 10010, 1998.
...r. "Ancient Greece." Gardner's art through the ages the western perspective. 13th ed., Backpack ed. Boston, Mass.: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2010. 101, 123,129. Print.
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
Buren, Albert W. Van. "The Ara Pacis Augustae." Journal of Roman Studies 3 (1913): 134-141.
The shift between the Middle Ages and Renaissance was documented in art for future generations. It is because of the changes in art during this time that art historians today understand the historical placement and the socio-economic, political, and religious changes of the time. Art is a visual interpretation of one’s beliefs and way of life; it is through the art from these periods that we today understand exactly what was taking place and why it was happening. These shifts did not happen overnight, but instead changed gradually though years and years of art, and it is through them that we have record of some of the most important changes of historic times.
Two paintings, both depicting the same scene with Oedipus and the Sphinx. Both depict Oedipus answering a riddle on the path to Thebes. The Sphinx that lived along that path stopped travelers and would give them a riddle, If the travelers could not solve the riddle, they would be killed. The paintings, one created by Gustave Moreau and another by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres were created in the same century, but carry many differences. Each painting is based on the same scene, so similarities are there.
K., C. F. "Greco-Buddhist Art." Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago (1907-1951) 17, no. 7 (Oct., 1923): 66-67.
Additionally, the styles changed; from Rococo, which was meant to represent the aristocratic power and the “style that (…) and ignored the lower classes” (Cullen), to Neoclassicism, which had a special emphasis on the Roman civilization’s virtues, and also to Romanticism, which performs a celebration of the individual and of freedom. Obviously, also the subject matter that inspired the paintings has changed as wel...
Art is important to religion in many different ways. Perhaps none has analyzed how art and religion have influenced and affected each other through the ages. Pictures painted of past events that help to bring back the feeling and importance of the past have been forgotten by some. To the one’s that haven’t forgotten are able to see the event’s as the bible says they happened. Not only can you see the events, but it also allows the younger students of the church to understand the events. The use of images of God became widespread after the second century. This religious art has defiantly been around for centuries and plays an important role to the history of religion as well as the future.