You will be responsible for answering the question with the required 4 examples in 400-500 words. More instruction is in the file. Thank you.
Flanders 577
crown at his feet and resplendent in a deep-
scarlet mantle—presides in majesty. To God’s
right is the Virgin, represented, as in the Gothic
age and in a small Jan van Eyck diptych (two-
paneled painting; !”#. 20-10A), as the queen of
Heaven, with a crown of 12 stars on her head.
John the Baptist sits to God’s le$. To either side
is a choir of angels, with an angel playing an
organ on the right. Adam and Eve appear in
the far panels. %e inscriptions in the arches
above Mary and Saint John extol the Virgin’s
virtue and purity and Saint John’s greatness as
the forerunner of Christ (see “Early Christian
Saints,” pages 246–247). %e inscription above
the Lord’s head translates as “%is is God,
all-powerful in his divine majesty; of all the best, by the gentle-
ness of his goodness; the most liberal giver, because of his in&nite
generosity.” %e step behind the crown at the Lord’s feet bears the
inscription “On his head, life without death. On his brow, youth
without age. On his right, joy without sadness. On his le$, security
without fear.” %e entire altarpiece ampli&es the central theme of
salvation. Even though humans, personi&ed by Adam and Eve, are
sinful, they will be saved because God, in his in&nite love, will sac-
ri&ce his own son for their sake.
%e panels of the lower register extend the symbolism of the
upper. In the center panel, saints arrive from the four corners of
the earth through an opulent, ‘ower-spangled landscape. %ey pro-
ceed toward the altar of the Lamb and the octagonal fountain of life
(compare !”#. 20-2). %e book of Revelation passage that recounts
the adoration of the Lamb is the main reading on All Saints’ Day
(November 1). %e Lamb symbolizes the sacri&ced son of God,
whose heart bleeds into a chalice, while into the fountain spills
the “pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of
the throne of God and of the Lamb” (Rev. 22:1). On the right, the
20-10A VAN
EYCK, Madonna
in a Church,
ca. 1430–1440.
A SECOND OPINION
Giovanni Arnolfini and His Wife
In 1434, Jan van Eyck depicted Giovanni Arnolfini, a Lucca financier
who had established himself in Bruges as an agent of the Medici family,
and his second wife in their home (FIG. 20-11). Arnolfini holds the hand
of his spouse, whose name is not known. That much is certain, but the
purpose and meaning of the double portrait remain the subject of con-
siderable debate, with a few new interpretations having been advanced
just during the last several years. According to the traditional interpreta-
tion of the painting, Jan recorded the couple taking their marriage vows.
As in the Mérode Triptych (FIG. 20-8), almost every object portrayed car-
ries meaning. For example, the little dog symbolizes fidelity (the com-
mon canine name Fido originated from the Latin fidere, “to trust”). The
finial (crowning ornament) of the marriage bed at the right is a tiny statue
of Saint Margaret, patron saint of childbirth. (The bride is not yet preg-
nant, although the fashionable costume she wears makes her appear
so.) From the finial hangs a whiskbroom, symbolic of domestic care.
Indeed, even the placement of the two figures in the room is meaningful.
The woman stands near the bed and well into the room, whereas the
man stands near the open window, symbolic of the outside world.
Many art historians, however, dispute this interpretation because,
among other things, the room in which Arnolfini and his wife stand is a
public reception area, not a bedchamber. One scholar has suggested
that Arnolfini is conferring legal privileges on his wife to conduct busi-
ness in his absence. Another thinks that this may be a memorial portrait
of a wife who died in childbirth.
In any case, an important aspect of the painting is that the artist
functions as a witness to whatever event is taking place. In the back-
ground, framed by the arms and joined hands of the two figures, is a
convex mirror (complete with its spatial distortion, brilliantly recorded;
compare FIG. 22-40), in which Jan depicted not only the principals,
Arnolfini and his wife, but also two persons who look into the room
through the door. (Arnolfini’s raised right hand may be a gesture of
greeting to the two men.) One of these must be the artist himself, as
the elegant inscription above the mirror, Johannes de Eyck fuit hic (“Jan
van Eyck was here”), announces that he was present. The self-portrait
also underscores the painter’s self-consciousness as a professional art-
ist whose role deserves to be recorded and remembered.
20-11 J!” #!” E$%&, Giovanni Arnol!ni and His Wife, 1434.
Oil on wood, 29 90 ‘ 19 10 120. National Gallery, London.
Jan van Eyck played a major role in establishing portraiture as an important
Flemish art form. In this portrait of an Italian financier and his wife, he also
portrayed himself in the convex mirror on the rear wall.
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Copyright 2020 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. WCN 02-200-203
808! CHAPTER 27 Romanticism, Realism, Photography: Europe and America, 1800 to 1870
ROMANTICISM
Whereas Neoclassicism’s rationality reinforced Enlightenment
thought, particularly Voltaire’s views (see “Voltaire,” page 779),
Romanticism owed much to the ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau
(see “Rousseau,” page 781). Rousseau’s exclamation “Man is born
free, but is everywhere in chains!”—the opening line of his Social
Contract (1762)—summarizes a fundamental Romantic premise.
Romanticism emerged from a desire for freedom—not only politi-
cal freedom but also freedom of thought, feeling, action, worship,
speech, and taste. Romantics asserted that freedom was the right
and property of all. !ey believed that the path to freedom was
through imagination and feeling rather than reason.
!e allure of the Romantic spirit grew dramatically during the
late 18th century, when the term originated among German liter-
ary critics. !eir aim was to distinguish peculiarly “modern” traits
from the Neoclassical traits that already had displaced Baroque
and Rococo design elements. Consequently, some scholars refer to
Romanticism as a phenomenon that began around 1750 and ended
about 1850, but most use the term more narrowly to denote an art
movement that “ourished from about 1800 to 1840, between Neo-
classicism and Realism.
Roots of Romanticism
!e transition from Neoclassicism to Romanticism in art was
more than a stylistic shi#. It represented a philosophical change in
emphasis from calculation to intuition, from reason to emotion.
Among the leading manifestations of Romanticism was height-
ened interest in the medieval period and in the sublime. For people
living in the 18th century, the Middle Ages were
the “dark ages,” a time of barbarism, superstition,
mystery, and miracle. !e Romantic imagina-
tion stretched its perception of the Middle Ages
into all the worlds of fantasy open to it, includ-
ing the ghoulish, infernal, terrible, nightmarish,
grotesque, and sadistic—the imagery that comes
from the chamber of horrors when reason sleeps.
Related to the imaginative sensibility was the
period’s notion of the sublime. Among the indi-
viduals most involved in studying the sublime was
the British politician and philosopher Edmund
Burke (1729–1797). In A Philosophical Enquiry
into the Origins of Our Ideas of the Sublime and
Beautiful (1757), Burke articulated his de$nition
of the sublime: feelings of awe mixed with terror.
Burke observed that pain or fear evoked the most
intense human emotions and that these emotions
could also be thrilling. !us raging rivers and
great storms at sea could be sublime to their view-
ers. Accompanying this taste for the sublime was
the taste for the fantastic, occult, and macabre.
John Henry Fuseli. !e Swiss painter Johann
Heinrich Füssli, better known by his English
name—J%&’ H(‘)* F+,(-. (1741–1825)—lived
in Rome from 1770 to 1778, settled in England
in 1799, and eventually became a member of the
Royal Academy of Art and one of its instruc-
tors. Largely self-taught, he contrived a distinc-
tive manner to express the fantasies of his vivid
27-8 J!”# H$#%& F'($)*, !e Nightmare, 1781. Oil on canvas, 39 3 340 + 49 1
1
20. Detroit
Institute of the Arts (Founders Society purchase with funds from Mr. and Mrs. Bert L.
Smokler and Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence A. Fleishman).
The transition from Neoclassicism to Romanticism marked a shift in emphasis from reason
to feeling. Fuseli was among the first painters to depict the dark terrain of the human
subconscious.
imagination. Fuseli specialized in night moods of horror and in
dark fantasies—in the demonic, the macabre, and o#en the sadistic.
In !e Nightmare (/.0. 27-8), a beautiful young woman lies
asleep, draped across the bed with her limp arm dangling over the
side. An incubus, a demon believed in medieval times to prey, o#en
sexually, on sleeping women, squats ominously on her body. In
the background, a ghostly horse with “aming eyes bursts into the
scene from beyond the curtain. Despite the temptation to see the
painting’s title as a pun because of this horse, the word nightmare
in fact derives from “night” and “Mara.” Mara was an evil spirit in
Scandinavian mythology who tormented and su1ocated sleepers.
Fuseli was among the $rst to attempt to depict the dark terrain of
the human subconscious that became fertile ground for later artists.
William Blake. In their images of the sublime and the terrible,
Romantic artists o#en combined something of Baroque dyna-
mism with naturalistic details in their quest for grippingly moving
visions. !ese elements became the mainstay of Romantic art and
contrasted with the more intellectual, rational Neoclassical themes
and compositions. !e two were not mutually exclusive, however.
Gros, Girodet-Trioson, and Ingres e1ectively integrated elements of
Neoclassicism with Romanticism. So, too, did the visionary English
poet, painter, and engraver W.–.23 B-24( (1757–1827).
Blake greatly admired ancient Greek art because it exempli-
$ed for him the mathematical and thus the eternal, and his work
o#en incorporated classical references. Yet Blake did not align
himself with prominent Enlightenment $gures. Like many other
Romantic artists, he also found the art of the Middle Ages appeal-
ing. Blake derived the inspiration for many of his paintings and
poems from his dreams. !e importance he attached to these
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Copyright 2020 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. WCN 02-200-203
of the status quo gave rise to the notion of an artistic avant-garde.
!e term, which means “front guard,” derives from 19th-century
French military usage. !e avant-garde were the troops sent ahead
of the army’s main body to scout the enemy’s position and strength.
Politicians who deemed themselves visionary and forward thinking
subsequently adopted the term. It then migrated to the art world
in the 1880s, when artists and critics used it to refer to the Realists,
Impressionists, and Post-Impressionists—artists who were ahead of
their time and who transgressed the limits of established art forms.
Today, art historians generally use the term to describe more nar-
rowly the modernist art movements of the opening decades of the
20th century.
FAUVISM
In 1905, at the third Salon d’Automne (Autumn Salon) in Paris, a
group of young painters exhibited canvases so simpli”ed in design
and so shockingly bright in color that a startled critic, Louis Vaux-
celles (1870–1943), described the artists as Fauves (“wild beasts”).
!e Fauves were totally independent of the French Academy and
the “o#cial” Salon (see “Academic Salons and Independent Art
Exhibitions,” page 853). !eir aim was to develop an art having the
directness of Impressionism but employing intense color juxtaposi-
tions for expressive ends. Building on the legacy of artists such as
Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin, the Fauves went even further
in liberating color from its descriptive function and exploring the
e$ects that di$erent colors have on emotions. !e Fauves produced
portraits, landscapes, still lifes, and nudes of spontaneity and verve,
with rich surface textures, lively linear patterns, and, above all, bold
colors. In an e$ort to release internal feelings, they employed star-
tling contrasts of vermilion and emerald green and of cerulean blue
and vivid orange held together by sweeping brushstrokes and bold
patterns.
!e Fauve painters never o#cially organized, and within “ve
years, most of the artists had departed from a strict adherence to
Fauve principles and developed their own more personal styles.
During its brief existence, however, Fauvism made a signi”cant
contribution to the direction of art by demonstrating color’s struc-
tural, expressive, and aesthetic capabilities.
Henri Matisse
!e dominant Fauve artist was Henri Matisse (1869–1954), who
believed that color could play a primary role in conveying meaning,
and consequently focused his e$orts on developing this notion. In
an early painting, Woman with the Hat (fig. 29-2), Matisse depicted
his wife, Amélie, in a rather conventional manner compositionally,
but the seemingly arbitrary colors immediately startle the viewer,
as does the sketchiness of the forms. !e entire image—the wom-
an’s face, clothes, hat, and background—consists of patches and
splotches of color juxtaposed
in ways that sometimes pro-
duce jarring contrasts. Matisse
explained his approach in this
painting and his contemporary
Le Bonheur de Vivre (fig. 29-2A):
“What characterized Fauvism
was that we rejected imitative
colors, and that with pure colors
we obtained stronger reactions.”1
For Matisse and the Fauves, therefore, color became the formal
element most responsible for pictorial coherence and the primary
conveyor of meaning (see “Henri Matisse on Color,” page 890).
Harmony in Red. !ese color discoveries reached maturity in
Matisse’s Red Room (Harmony in Red; fig. 29-3). !e subject is the
interior of a comfortable, prosperous household with a maid plac-
ing fruit and wine on the table, but Matisse’s canvas is radically dif-
ferent from traditional paintings of domestic interiors (for example,
figs. 25-19 and 25-19A). !e Fauve painter depicted objects in
simpli”ed and schematized fashion and .attened out the forms. For
example, Matisse eliminated the front edge of the table, rendering
the table, with its identical patterning, as .at as the wall behind it.
!e window at the upper le/ could also be a painting on the wall,
further .attening the space. Everywhere, the colors contrast richly
and intensely. Matisse’s process of overpainting reveals the impor-
tance of color for striking the right chord in the viewer. Initially, this
work was predominantly green. !en Matisse repainted it blue, but
blue also did not seem appropriate to him. Not until he repainted
the canvas red did Matisse feel that he had found the right color for
the “harmony” he wished to compose.
29-2A MATISSE, Le Bonheur
de Vivre, 1905–1906.
29-2 Henri Matisse, Woman with the Hat, 1905. Oil on canvas,
29 7 340 × 19 11120. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco
(bequest of Elise S. Haas).
Matisse’s portrayal of his wife, Amélie, features patches and splotches of
seemingly arbitrary colors. He and the other Fauve painters used color not
to imitate nature but to produce a reaction in the viewer.
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Copyright 2020 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. WCN 02-200-203
1006! CHAPTER 32 Contemporary Art Worldwide
Kehinde Wiley. !e paintings and photographs
of Basquiat, Marshall, and Simpson, which all fea-
ture African Americans as subjects, stand in vivid
contrast to the near-total absence of blacks in
Western painting and sculpture until the past half
century. One major contemporary artist who has
set out to correct that discriminatory imbalance
is Los Angeles native K”#$%&” W
A characteristic example is Napoleon Lead-
ing the Army over the Alps (*$+. 32-4) based on
Jacques-Louis David’s painting (*$+. 27-2A) of
the same subject. To evoke the era of the original,
Wiley presented his portrait of an African Ameri-
can Napoleon on horseback in a gilt wood frame.
Although in many details an accurate reproduc-
tion of David’s canvas, Wiley’s version is by no
means a mechanical copy. His heroic narrative
unfolds against a vibrantly colored ornate wallpa-
per-like background instead of a dramatic sky—a
distinctly modernist reminder to the viewer that
this is a painting and not
a window onto an Alpine
landscape.
Faith Ringgold. Like Bas-
quiat and Wiley, M”‘,$%
E&-./&0 (b. 1937) has
examined the lives—or,
more precisely, the death by
lynching (*$+. 32-4A)—of
African American men in
his art. Similarly, Simpson
32-5 F!”#$ R”%&&'(), Who’s Afraid of Aunt
Jemima? 1983. Acrylic on canvas with fabric borders,
quilted, 79 60 * 69 80. Private collection.
In this quilt, a medium associated with women, Ringgold
presented a tribute to her mother that also addresses
African American culture and the struggles of women to
overcome oppression.
32-4A EDWARDS,
Tambo, 1993.
32-4 K+$”%)+ W”(+,, Napoleon Leading the
Army over the Alps, 2005. Oil on canvas, 99 * 99.
Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn (Collection of Suzi
and Andrew B. Cohen).
Wiley’s trademark paintings are reworkings of famous
portraits (FIG. 27-2A) in which he substitutes young
African American men in contemporary dress in order
to situate them in “the field of power.”
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Copyright 2020 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. WCN 02-200-203
“( (b. 1977).
Wiley earned his BFA at the San Francisco Art
Institute and his MFA at Yale University and is
currently based in New York City, where he was
artist-in-residence at the Studio Museum in Har-
lem in 2001–2002. Wiley has achieved renown for
his large-scale portraits of young urban African
American men. His trademark paintings, however,
are reworkings of historically important portraits
in which he substitutes )gures of young black men
in contemporary dress in order to situate them in
what he calls “the )eld of power.”
A characteristic example is Napoleon Lead-
ing the Army over the Alps (*$+. 32-4) based on
Jacques-Louis David’s painting (*$+. 27-2A) of
the same subject. To evoke the era of the original,
Wiley presented his portrait of an African Ameri-
can Napoleon on horseback in a gilt wood frame.
Although in many details an accurate reproduc-
tion of David’s canvas, Wiley’s version is by no
means a mechanical copy. His heroic narrative
unfolds against a vibrantly colored ornate wallpa-
per-like background instead of a dramatic sky—a
distinctly modernist reminder to the viewer that
this is a painting and not
a window onto an Alpine
landscape.
Faith Ringgold. Like Bas-
quiat and Wiley, M”‘,$%
E&-./&0 (b. 1937) has
examined the lives—or,
more precisely, the death by
lynching (*$+. 32-4A)—of
African American men in
his art. Similarly, Simpson
32-5 F!”#$ R”%&&'(), Who’s Afraid of Aunt
Jemima? 1983. Acrylic on canvas with fabric borders,
quilted, 79 60 * 69 80. Private collection.
In this quilt, a medium associated with women, Ringgold
presented a tribute to her mother that also addresses
African American culture and the struggles of women to
overcome oppression.
32-4A EDWARDS,
Tambo, 1993.
32-4 K+$”%)+ W”(+,, Napoleon Leading the
Army over the Alps, 2005. Oil on canvas, 99 * 99.
Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn (Collection of Suzi
and Andrew B. Cohen).
Wiley’s trademark paintings are reworkings of famous
portraits (FIG. 27-2A) in which he substitutes young
African American men in contemporary dress in order
to situate them in “the field of power.”
1 ft.
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Copyright 2020 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. WCN 02-200-203
You will be responsible for answering this question with the required number of examples and historical periods.
Please respond to the following question in 400-500 words. Your short essays should be well-organized, thoughtful analyses that engage the course material. Your responses must discuss specific works of art/architecture and provide ample visual evidence from the textbook to support your argument. Use the lecture notes and textbook for support, but you do not need to consult outside sources. Your response will run through TurnItIn software, so be sure to cite the textbook, when necessary.
Question:
Over the course of the five hundred years we have studied this semester, the representation of subjectivity in portraiture has changed drastically.
Please choose four examples and discuss the changing approach to subjectivity by considering not only aspects such as realism and style but also qualities such as the implied movement/activity of the sitter, the gaze, attributes, etc. At least one of your examples (but no more than two) must be from before the first half of the semester (prior to the midterm). You may analyze how the different concepts of subjectivity relate to the culture/society in question. Your four examples must come from four different stylistic periods. Each of the four examples must be identified by artist, title, date, medium, and cultural/historical period.
4 Examples:
Jan van Eyck, Giovanni Arnolfini and His Wife, 1434. Oil on wood, 29 90 × 19 10 120. National Gallery, London.
John Henry Fuseli, The Nightmare, 1781. Oil on canvas, 39 3340 × 49 1120. Detroit Institute of the Arts (Founders Society purchase with funds from Mr. and Mrs. Bert L. Smokler and Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence A. Fleishman).
Henri Matisse, Woman with the Hat, 1905. Oil on canvas, 29 7 30 × 19 1110. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco
Kehinde Wiley, Napoleon Leading the Army over the Alps, 2005. Oil on canvas, 99 × 99. Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn (Collection of Suzi and Andrew B. Cohen).
SAMPLE ESSAY
Question: Compare Michelangelo and Titian’s approach to color and nature.
“Michelangelo and Titian are both outstanding artists who have made huge impacts on the subject of art, though their approaches to their work can be hugely different. Influenced hugely by High Renaissance artists Leonardo Da Vinci and Raphael, Titian encourages imaginations and participations from viewer. Michelangelo, on the other hand, references more to human anatomy and the central belief of Humanism: beauty of body. The way they expresses such difference is mainly through colors and contour: Michelangelo cast more emphasis on the harsh contour as well as the contrast between colors; while Titian neglects contour and focuses more on natural color.
Firstly, the color styles of the two are significantly different. Take Last Judgement (1541) as an example. In this masterpiece, the artist depicts a scene where one line of people is elevating to the heaven while the other line falling into the hell. In an attempt to express the seriousness of the religions and holiness, as well as the perfection of human bodies, Michelangelo mixes his colors with black and white, as a mean to raise the contrast level between each objects that make up the space, so that the skins can look perfectly pale and the holiness can be highlighted. Clearly contradicting the color style of Michelangelo, Titian tend to use more soft, natural colors, of which the brightness and intensity are often not very high. His Meeting of Bacchus and Ariadne (1523) marks his signature natural way of using colors. In this work, he used variety of earth toned red and yellow to detail the figures, clothings, and animals. Even the color selections for negative space, sky and ground, does not like abrupt at all, due to his avoidance of high contrast between elements.
Secondly, the two artists have a different view on the use of contour lines as well. Michelangelo advocates harsh contours as he believes it singularizes the beauty of human and makes movements vivid. In Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam (1512), he made huge emphasis on the contour of every object within the painting. From god, Adam, to the smaller details like the fabrics behind them. If you look closely, the contour around the body of Adam is so harsh that it looks as if Adam is floating. On the other hand, preferring imagination over reality and stressing the nature over perfection, Titian avoids all forms of clear lines and harsh contours. In Titian’s pastoral symphony (1510), there is barely contour lines since he gives positive space a very natural colors that mesh well with the negative space. As a result, the contour is barely seen and the painting as a whole, looks more like natural world where no contour lines exist.
To sum up, both Michelangelo and Titian are outstanding masters with respect to their eras. And their ways of using color and contour, though vastly different from each other, reflect their own background, style, and school. Most importantly, both styles are intriguing to the futurity.”