During the 19th and 20th centuries, the depiction of family life in art began to change as modernism and capitalist culture was introduced to French society. Edgar Degas, a French Impressionist painter,
Edgar Degas’ paintings on the bourgeois family life puts an emphasis on the “apartness and disjunction” of the family structure during 19th and 20th century.1 Interior with Two People represents Degas’ interest in the fragmentation and contradictions that riddle the common idea of the bourgeois family in the nineteenth century.2 The man and woman in Degas’ Interior with Two People seem to belong to the upper bourgeois class in French society as suggested by the clothing of the two. It could be speculated that Degas paints a husband and wife, yet unlike the love and intimacy commonly thought to be in a marriage, both individuals have their backs turned towards each other. In contrast to the warm colors Degas uses to paint the interior, the frigid and disjointed atmosphere of the painting symbolize the fragmentation of bourgeois family life. The woman expresses sorrow and the man, with his tense stance and fisted hand, expresses tenseness. Similar to Degas’ The Interior (also called The Rape, plate 2) or Sulking, the “yawning space between the gendered opponents and/or fragments or centrifugal composition constructs a disturbing sense of psychological distance or underlying hostility between the figures in question.”3,4,5
Corresponding to Interior with Two People, Degas’ family portrait, The Belleli Family, of his aunt Laura and her family is a painting about “the contradictions riddling the general idea of the high bourgeois family in the middle of the nineteenth century.” 6,7 The painting is considered a representation of “The ...
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...pite the joy, friendship, and amicability illustrated because the Greuze family is cut off from its neighbors and servants.
The 19th and 20th century bourgeois family relations were controlled by sex-role divisions. The husband remained to be the dominant figure in the family, providing for the family through work. The wife, thought to be weaker and less rational, was to concern herself with the home and raising the children with the “utmost attention.”22 This new degree of intimacy, however, is not shown by Degas in The Belleli Family, where Mme. Belleli, despite wrapping an arm around her daughter, remains cold and emotionless. In Interior with Two People, Degas paints the family home to be full of warmth and affection, yet, ironically the two people do not express such emotions. Ironically, in Name Day of the Madam, Degas paints a “family atmosphere,” which is “
Carol Armstrong begins her essay by pointing out the two main points that come about when discussing A Bar at the Folies-Bergere. These two points are the social context of the painting and its representation of 19th century Paris, and the internal structure of the painting itself with the use of space. She then goes on and addresses what she will be analyzing throughout her essay. She focuses on three main points, the still life of the counter and its commodities, the mirror and its “paintedness”, and the barmaid and her “infra-thin hinge” between the countertop and the mirror.
Louise Bourgeois and Constantine Brancusi were both two artists that had very abstract pieces of art. Though the two artists had very different pieces of work they also shared a lot in common. Bourgeois and Constantine both had very visually dramatic styles of art that focused on sexuality and reproduction in forms of the human body. In this paper I will be talking about both artists backgrounds and works as well as what they share in similiarity and the underlying message of their work.
Her family life is depicted with contradictions of order and chaos, love and animosity, conventionality and avant-garde. Although the underlying story of her father’s dark secret was troubling, it lends itself to a better understanding of the family dynamics and what was normal for her family. The author doesn’t seem to suggest that her father’s behavior was acceptable or even tolerable. However, the ending of this excerpt leaves the reader with an undeniable sense that the author felt a connection to her father even if it wasn’t one that was desirable. This is best understood with her reaction to his suicide when she states, “But his absence resonated retroactively, echoing back through all the time I knew him. Maybe it was the converse of the way amputees feel pain in a missing limb.” (pg. 399)
I chose to analyze the The Family, 1941 portray and The Family, 1975 portray, both from Romare Bearden, for this essay because they are very similar paintings but at the same time very different. To write a critical analyzes it was necessary to choose two different paintings that had similar characteristics. The text about critical comparison said that to compare things they have to be similar, yet different, and that’s what these paintings look to me. As I had already written an analysis of The Family, 1941 portray I chose to analyze and compare The Family, 1975 this time. Both works have a lot of color in it and through the people’s faces in the pictures we can feel the different emotions that the paintings are conveying.
Aristotle once claimed that, “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” Artists, such as Louise-Elizabeth Vigée Le Brun and Mary Cassatt, captured not only the way things physically appeared on the outside, but also the emotions that were transpiring on the inside. A part no always visible to the viewer. While both artists, Le Brun and Cassatt, worked within the perimeters of their artistic cultures --the 18th century in which female artists were excluded and the 19th century, in which women were artistically limited-- they were able to capture the loving relationship between mother and child, but in works such as Marie Antoinette and Her Children and Mother Nursing her Child 1898,
Adèle Ratignolle uses art to beautify her home. Madame Ratignolle represents the ideal mother-woman (Bloom 119). Her chief concerns and interests are for her husband and children. She was society’s model of a woman’s role. Madame Ratignolle’s purpose for playing the pia...
Upon viewing the works of famous French artist Edgar Germaine Hilaire Degas, I noticed a similar theme. No matter the scene conveyed, his works appear mysterious and ominous. Why are his works depicted in this way? Why are the women in his works not portrayed in such a fashion as other artists of the time? Degas admired Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, even though their works contrasted immensely. This is due to the obscurity inside of Degas’ mind. It was said that you would never want to meet Degas the person, but Degas the artist is incredible. What could have caused such a conflict in how he perceived women?
This time was filled with a great amount of fear as well as optimism. However, like Friedrich Nietzsche would agree, the West has lost its passion. People became increasingly focused on starting a democracy that they lost their love of their passions. Artists, like Mary Cassatt, Childe Hassam, and Theodore Robinson, were the impressionists of the 11th century in America ("American Art: History of Fine Arts in America" 4). These artists were consumed with their art and other artists’ art, in addition to the overall cultural growth in the nation. As the age of art was flourishing in the States, leisure activities often included going to the theatre and opera. Moreover, familial relationships began to lose importance as more and more people had hired help to assist with the raising of children as well as sending children off the boarding school. These Westerners let other people raise their children so that they could have more time for work and the few leisure and artful activities they enjoyed. As seen in the beginning of the United States, it is clear to see how the present state of American follows Nietzsche’s theory of Western oppression of
During the Art Deco era the calla lily became one of the most popular flowers around. Whether in florist shops or on artist canvases the calla lily became a recurring theme. Like many flowers before it the calla lily came to be more than a flower on its own but it represented the idea of femininity. The calla lily was used by artists such as Tamara de Lempicka, Diego Rivera and Georgia O’Keeffe as a symbol of femininity and feminism. Through examining their works, in relation to their own lives and the events of the day, I will explore how the calla lily came to represent a new type on femininity and feminism.
The aim of this essay is analyse women´s images in The Yellow Wallpaper and in The Awakening, since the two readings have become the focus of feminist controversy.
Although from the same artist group, these Impressionists originated from backgrounds that seemed worlds apart. Claude Monet, known as the “Master Impressionist” varied the themes in his artwork more than any other artist did. Monet’s work “Impression Sunrise”, of which the term “Impressionist” originates also gives rise to the title “Master Impressionist”. Edgar Degas started his career as an artist with nothing in common with Monet but the era in which they lived. From themes to brushstrokes and choices of colours, Monet and Degas started their relationship as Impressionist artists on opposite ends of the earth. However, towards the climax of their lives as artists, Monet aided Degas in adopting Impressionist Aesthetic qualities.
Cubism was a movement that started in 1908 and ended roughly by the end of the 1920’s and is often synonymous with the works of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, two of the most influential and important of the cubist painters, each coming up with their own first cubist painting near 1908. They tended toward the structural and architectural form of Cubism that was hinted at by post-impressionist Paul Cézanne, whose death would provoke an exhibition of work for future cubists and other modern painters to admire and learn from. On the other hand, near 1912-14, cubism took a different turn with the help of Picasso’s papier collé, (Golding 120, Green Synthesis 88, Gopnik 81). The collages produced by papier collé managed to change analytical cubism,
When concerning the home front of 19th century Europe, women were “the cult of domesticity” and were highly regarded as wives, mothers, and part of the working class. A lofty character was necessary in completing the demanding tasks surrounding the home life. Images of women ranging from newspapers to fine art all displayed the univ...
...epth perception, and clear lines make Sebastians Still Life with Glasses seem real. Brushstrokes, unclear lines on the table, and distance not visible to the viewer but symbolic, make Jeans’ Still Life with Kitchen Utensils more of a work of art, than a depiction of what is real.Jean portrays a table in a house of a commoner and Sebastian, a table in the house of the wealthy. The viewer of both of these paintings, is himself of nobility. On the one hand he sees this lush kitchen table of Sebastians’ and relishes in his own wealth, but on the other, he seems separated from the poverty of Jeans table. The wealthy man has the grapes, but not the onions, not the wisdom of the poor that leads them to seek virtuous things rather than material objects.He is inevitably separated from both the pain of poverty, and the wisdom of the righteous not self seeking but humble man.
Pablo Picasso was one of the most recognized and popular artist of all time. In Pablo’s paintings and other works of art, he would paint what he was passionate about and you can see his emotions take control throughout his paintings and other works of art. Pablo Picasso works of art include not only paintings but also prints, bronze sculptures, drawings, and ceramics. Picasso was one of the inventors of cubism. ” Les Demoiselles d'Avignon” is one of Picasso famous paintings; this is also one of Pablo’s first pieces of cubism. Picasso went through different phases in his paintings; the blue period, rose period, black period, and cubism. Picasso was a born talented artist, with his dad setting the foundation; Picasso became the famous artist of the twentieth century.