Queation 1
Please note that there was a significant difference between the art of Northern Europe and Southern Europe during this time. The term Renaissance means a renewal or a rebirth--in this context of the styles and ideas of the Greek and Roman (Classical) past. While both areas continued to use Christian themes, the style, or the manner in which the images are put together and presented to the viewer, differed substantially from North to South. The North continued to be quite medieval or Gothic in styles, while the South (chiefly Italy), relied heavily on its Classical (Greek and Roman) past. During this period, you will see that the human figure, especially the nude, in an echo of the Classical past, appears again in Italy. The North will come to admire and to use the nude only with Albrecht Duerer, a major German artist of the late-fifteenth and early-sixteenth centuries. He will be the first Northern artist to participate in the developing humanist and classical interests of Italy. It is with this artist that the North enters into the "spirit" and the subject matter of the Italian form of the Renaissance.
Describe the development of the Northern Renaissance images with respect to the use of very detailed, ordinary objects symbolic of religious ideas. Contrast that with the Classicism of the Italian works.
Please address, briefly, the role of the artist's patron in the Italian Renaissance.
Use illustrations and quotations from your text to make your points and include quotations and illustrations from web sites to enhance your discussion.
Please follow the stated course guidelines for your assignment.
Question 2
In this section of the text, you will become acquainted with art of the Americas and Africa and the Neo-Classical, Romantic and Realist styles of late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth-century European works. The pace of stylistic change will begin to keep up with the faster pace of life. Here you will look at the remnants of the Classical world in the Neo-Classical (or new classical) examples, which are sometime pitted against the more intuitive, less doctrinaire works of the Romantic artists. Here, too, you will begin to look at the American works, drawn from European ideas and styles, but adapted for a new country and a new need for art. Sometimes the styles or labels of the categories of art will become blurred, making absolutes difficult to determine. I am sure that, by now, you will say, "But all periods are divergent; all periods have variants which make labels and categories uncertain." And, you will be correct. The momentum for change and for the existence of multiple ideas and styles within a specific place and time merely increases and the changes seem to be more drastic. The Realism of European and American works will seem, perhaps, to be a continuation of the reality of the Renaissance and Baroque periods, but you will see many distinctions from the earlier movements in the nineteenth century.
American art (not the US) will also encompass and wide range of styles and ideas. You will see architecture which may remind you of much earlier works from a world away from the Americas. You will also learn about African art of this time. You will see many images of people--often rulers--perhaps more than you will see in the American examples.
Write an essay which outlines the basic features of the Neo-Classical and Romanticism. What, if anything, do they share? Where are the greatest differences?
Outline the major characteristics of Realism. Does this movement share any ideas or subjects with the Neo-Classical or Romantic? If not, does it share characteristics with previous movements you have seen? Give details.
Please describe the subjects found in American art. Do this briefly. Please do the same for the African examples you see. Are there any common ideas or features? What, if any?
Use illustrations and quotations for your text to make your points and include quotations and illustrations from web sites which enhance your discussion.
Please follow the stated course guidelines for your assignment.
Question 3
The nineteenth century is, in terms of the visual arts, perhaps the most revolutionary century. At its beginning, Realism or, at least, representation is supreme. By its end, artists have broken every rule in the book: art is no longer seen as a representation of the real, nor as a symbol of the true, the beautiful or the good. The path of artists has moved from the idea of images as a means to communicate to a large public viewing population to the idea that artists create their own, often very private, worlds. The symbols once so easily read within a society have become more covert; more ambiguous. Art is no longer chiefly the means of public expression, but rather it becomes a means of self-expression. Art from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century was a history of artists attempting to re-create what they saw, what was essential to their society. At the end of the nineteenth century, art becomes both more and less than that. Artists still worked to re-create the world around them, but many worked to explore colour, form, line, shape, and a kind of personal symbolism. At the end of this section, you will be poised on the threshold of all that is modern and destructive--or energizing and constructive, depending upon your own preference and definition. We leave the history of art at a heady time.
Write an essay describing the transition of the realistic image from French Realism and photography through the Impressionists, for whom Nature and the reality of its colour, structure and appearance was paramount. How does the notion of reality change during the half-century or so from Realism to the end of Impressionism?
How does Post-Impressionism differ from Impressionism? Do you see any logical connection between Impressionism and the work of the Post-Impressionists? If so, what would that connection be?
What works or what artist most impresses you in this final section of the work? Why?
Use illustrations and quotations from your text to make your points and include quotations and illustrations from web sites to enhance your discussion.
Please follow the stated course guidelines for your assignment.
Question 4
Compare and contrast the following pairs of monuments on the basis of culture, use, presentation, subject matter or style. Be complete and accurate and concise. Include materials and web sites you use. Numbers are text illustrations of the compared works.
1. Reims Cathedral (11-10) and Chartres Cathedral (11-7 and 11-4)
2. Worcester Chronicle (10-27) and Book of Durrow (10-3)
3. Old St. Peter's (7-6) and Hagia Sophia (7-12 and 7-13)
4. Poet on a Mountaintop (9-14) and Monk Sewing (9-23)
5. Virgin and Child Enthroned (11-26 and 11-27) (Cimabue and Giotto)
Question 5
Compare and contrast the following pairs of monuments on the basis of culture, use, presentation, subject matter or style. Be complete and accurate and concise. Include materials and web sites you use. Numbers are text illustrations of the compared works.
1. Annunciations (12-3 (central panel) and 12-26) (Merode Altarpiece/Master of Flemalle) (Fra Angelico)
2. Last Suppers (13-3 and 13-22) (Leonardo) (Tintoretto)
3. Davids (13-9 and 14-4) (Michelangelo) (Bernini)
4. Landscape with St John on Patmos (14-35) and Pilrgimage to Cythera (17-3) (This from a chapter you haven't yet read.)
5. Self-portraits (13-31 and 14-24) (Duerer) (Rembrandt)
Question 6
Compare and contrast the following pairs of monuments on the basis of culture, use, presentation, subject matter or style. Be complete and accurate and concise. Include materials and web sites you use. Numbers are text illustrations of the compared works.
1. Marie Antoinette & Children (17-10) and Mother and Child (18-30)
• Marie Antoinette & Children (Vigee-LeBrun)
• Mother and Child (Cassatt)
2. Luncheon on the Grass (18-19) and Moulin de la Galette (18-27)
• Luncheon on the Grass (Manet)
• Moulin de la Galette (Renoir)
3. Starry Night (18-34) and Mont Sainte-Victoire (18-37)
• Starry Night (van Gogh)
• Mont Sainte-Victoire (Cezanne)
4. Portrait Head of Lord Pakal the Great (15-6) and Crowned Head of a Ruler, Ife (16-1)
• Lord Pakal
• Head of a King, Ife
5. Large Odalisque (17-16) and Olympia (18-20)
• Large Odalisque (Ingres)
• Olympia (Manet)