Title: Third of May, 1808

Artist: Francisco Goya

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Significant Comment:

Goya's rejection of tight Neoclassical linearity and planarity and replacing it with feverish loose brustrokes, intense colors, and the dramatically receding line of soldiers ready to slaughter illustrates the theme of the senseless brutality of war and the intense sense of terror of one's own mortality.

Title: The Slave Ship

Author: J.M.W Turner

Significant Comment:

The picture is about the struggle of daily life and the role of fate as it is about the immortality of the slavers and Turner illustrates the struggle with loose, liberal, and expressive brushstrokes of blended reds, yellows, and oranges to merge the clouds, fire, sky, and sea, resulting in the frightening power of nature on humankind.

Title: Large Odalisque

Artist: Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

Significant Comment:

Ingres treats a Romantic subject in an essentially Neoclassical manner, with a cultivated beauty, and idealization of her curves and that creates an exotic female nude who reveals a sensuality in her beauty with the argable and  unusual quality of the 3 extra vertebrae and the flatness of her skin that lacks division of the body.

Title: Raft of the "Medusa"

Artist: Theodore Gericault

Significant Comment:

This Romantic, modern scene of humans against nature takes on a Renaissance idea with interest in Michelangelo's sharp twists and turns of the muscular, monumental figures to display the fight for survival, the misery, and the reflection of death from these castaways.

Title: The Haywain

Artist: John Constable

Signficant Comment:

During the Romantic Era, artists would create landscape paintings to show their national pride by painting their own countries with loving details that were not to be idealized and look like the classical, perfected past

Title: Women of Algiers

Artist: Eugene Delacroix

Significant Comment:

Delacroix establishes a new artistic style that is known as Impressionism in which he paints a sea of colors that cover the entire surface of the painting and a tecnique that dapples color and contours to capture the sultr feeling in the sensual den

Title: View of Rome

Artist: Corot

Significant Comment:

Corot displays an instinct for Classical clarity that creates a literal, objective presentation of "The Truth of the Moment," where his paintings accurately depicts landscapes.

Title: House of Parliament, London

Artist: Barry and Pugin

Significant Comment:

As the most famous Gothic-revival building, Barry and Pugin divert from the idea of sublime and revert back to the Gothic style that is largely picturesque and a style associated and specifically selected to build up England's sense of national pride.

Title: Tomb of the Metalli

Artist: Giovanni Battista Pernasi

Significant Comment:

This embodies Pernasi's own sense of awe in the face of Roman civilization as seen through the frightening scale of the monument that dwarfs the, also, awestruck tourists and he composes a melancholic reflection of the destructive ability of time to erode that once-great empire

Title: Wedgewood Vase (Hercules in the Garden of Hesperides)

Artist: John Flaxman

Significant Comment:

The subject is based on an ancient Greek design, but Flaxman increased the elegance and classicism of the original design by simplifying the drawing to show an 18th century revivial of classical aesthetics

Title: Chiswick House

Artist: Lord Burlington and William Kent

Significant Comment:

Their revival of classical architecture looks not only to Palladio's earlier classicism, but expresses moral values and an interest in Republican government by referencing the ancient Roman republic, a common characterisitc of Neoclassical art and architecure

Title: Oath of the Horatii

Artist: Jacques-Louis David

Significant Comment:

This painting is quintessentially Neoclassical because it represents the story of soldiers putting the state before family (the higher moral good as opposed to personal well-being) as noble and virtuous. It presents the image rationally through the clarity of the composition with clean lines, no ambiguity and the lack of Rococo ornamentation and frivolity

Title: The Death of General Wolfe

Artist: Benjamin West

Title: The Park at Stourhead

Artist: Wiltshire, England

Significant Comment:

The English picturesque landscape garden evokes the nobility of the classical past with historical and literary associations, such as the Pantheon-like structure and the path around the lake that is an allegorical reference to the journey of Aeneas through the underworld

Title: Death of Marat

Artist: David

Significant Comment:

David fitted religious iconography for secular glorification by reverting to the Classical elements such as the idealization of Marat's Greek god physique and his slumped positioning unmistakably referencing that of Christ in a Deposition, Lamentation, or Pieta scene with the sheets recalling Christ's shroud.

Title: Cupid and Psyche

Artist: Canova

Significant Comment:

To present the intense emotion of love and passion between Cupid and Psyche, Canova reverts back to the idealized beauty of Classical models and the noble simplicity to capture the tenderness between the two.

Title: Pilgrimage to Cythera

Artist: Jean-Antoine Watteau

Title: The Swing

Artist: Jean-Honore Fragonard

Significant Comment:

Fragonard epitomized the sensuality of the Rococo by offering the thrill and adventure of sexual opportunity that is tranlated to an outdoor stagelike setting that is distinguished by his skillfully balanced by his playful use of intimate pastels against the power and heaviness of the greens and blues of nature

Title: The Brioche (The Dessert)

Artist: Jean-Simeon Chardin

Significant Comment:

Chardin raised the form of still life painting in its simplicity and elegance to a newly appreciated level by exploring new territory with a painterly brushstroke that gave a general softening of the edges of the individualized objects that had a mix of geometry to give life and substance to a seemingly simple subject matter.

Title: Kaisersaal (Imperial Hall), Residenz

Artist: Balthasar Neumann and Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

Significant Comment:

The large quantity of daylight, the play of curves and countercurves, and the weightless grace of the stucco sculpture gave the Imperial Hall a spacious, light quality far from Roman Baroque and epitomizes Rococo with the tissuelike ceiling decoration with illusionistic opening of figures spilling over the sides

Title: Seated Young Woman

Artist: Watteau

Significant Comment:

Watteau often drew figures with various poses, gestures, and so forth as his basis for figures in his paintings, but his particular use of the technique, trois crayons, demonstrates his quick, yet skillful draftsmanship suggesting a vivacious contrast of the red, black, and white add spontaneity to the drawing, which is a Rococo quality.

Title: Charles Sackville, Second Duke of Dorset

Artist: Rosalba Carriera

Significant Comment:

Known for revealing the psychological intensity of her sitters, Carriera strategically uses pastels to suggest both line and color to reveal the Rococo elements of intimacy, immediacy, and the allusive sensuality. This unique use of pastels was considered to be a response to the debate between disegno and colore.

Title: He Revels (The Orgy)/The Rake's Progress

Artist: Hogarth

Significant Comment:

Hogarth was known for painting moral narratives that were entertaining and popular enough for his viewers not to feel overwhelmed by his stern sermon, which is why his worked were filled with Rococo elements of frivolity and witty visual cues to create a comical, casual quality to his satire of social evils

Title: Bucintoro On the Molo

Artist: Canaletto

Significant Comment:

Canaletto often painted Venetian scenes as images for tourist to have cultural documents of the "good life" in Venice, Rome using a brilliant theatrical display to display the livliness and sparkle of life that was appreciated during the Rococo period

Title: The Abduction of the Sabine Women

Artist: Nicolas Poussin

Significant Comment:

The historical event portrayed was admired as an act of patriotism ensuring the future of Rome and represented noble and serious human actions by stressing the statuesque, idealized figures reacting in a theatrical, classicized setting, demonstrating his allegiance to Classicism.

Title: Pastoral Landscape

Artist: Claude Lorrain

Significant Comment:

Claude succeeded in elevating the landscape genre's status, which had traditionally been given a very low status. He did this by embellishing his landscape with mythological subjects to evoke the poetic essence of a countryside with hints of Classicism and antiquity of ancient texts rather than a landscape with simply topographic accuracy

Title: Palace and Garden at Versailles

Artist(s): Louis Le-Vau, Jules Hardouin-Mansart, Andre Le Notre

Significant Comment:

Created to be a planned city, we witness a response of the landscape to the architecture and the engagement of your senses through the use of architecture, gardens, sculptures, and water works to establish the idea that King Louis XIV dominates all forms of nature under his rule

Title: St. Paul's Cathedral

Artist: Christopher Wren

Significant Comment:

He believed architecture must conform to "natural reason," which is the basis of eternal beauty; therefore, he reflects this beauty through his knowledge of French and Italian architecture by creating an "updated" Baroque design w/ a dome that rises above the main body of the building and dominating the facade to embody Baroque architecture

Title: Joseph the Carpenter

Artist: Georges de la Tour

Title: Portrait of Louis XIV

Artist: Hyacinthe Rigaud

Significant Comment:

All the arts fell under royal control in France at this time, so this royal portraiture promoted Louis's dominance of the French state with symbols of rulership and the monarch's reign as seen with the royal blue drapery, his pompous stance, and the red curtains, as if announcing his presence.

Title: Hall of Mirrors

Artist: Versailles

Signifcant Comment:

The uniqueness of the full-length mirrors, which served as a boundary between the physical and garden structure, represent the monarchy's great investment in the extravagant details and reinforce the majesty of both Louis's reign and of France

Title: Banqueting House, London

Artist: Inigo Jones

Significant Comment:

Jones is responsible for introducing Palladio's Renaissance Classicism to England and uses Classical vocabulary, such as the orders of pilasters, and the rules of proportion to compose the building in three parts

Title: Night Watch (The Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq)

Artist: Rembrandt van Rijn

Significant Comment:

Rembrandt believed that lighting isn't necessarily rational and that it conveys a state of grace that is very important and this is seen through his unnatural light source that gives a theatrical quality to pull the viewer into the excitement of this moment and this dramatic group portait, that signified the political actions of the time

Title: The Hundred Guilders Print

Artist: Rembrandt van Rijn

Significant Comment:

Rembrandt used light to show content and he distinguished his technique by using the light to take on additional significance to reveal the dramatic scene of Christ's compassion for the poor outcasts, as the light is clearly brightest in him to show the importance of his presence and teachings.

Title: Bleaching Grounds Near Haarlem

Artist: Jacob van Ruisdael

Significant Comment:

As a genre painting, Ruisdael shows the rising importance of landscape paintings to the Dutch as he uses the prominence of the sky that meets land with the Church at the horizon and the bleaching fields in the foreground to celebrate the creation of a new land, new economy, and the new freedoms in the Netherlands

Title: Officer and Laughing Girl

Artist: Jan Vermeer

Significant Comment:

Vermeer's use of light distinguishes his work by using old and new (camera obscura) techniques which give an unparalleled quality of light and texture that leads to the vanishing point between the two figures and the very seduction of their unknown relationship

Title: The Garden of Love

Artist: Peter Paul Rubens

Significant Comment:

Rubens loved using his family and home as subjects, so this piece serves as a glowing tribute to life's pleasures and the sensuality as seen through the couples, cupid, and the statue of Venus, to parallel the changes in his life

Title: Still Life with Fruit and Flowers

Artist: Clara Peeters

Significant Comment:

Peeters took the low ranking status of still lifes to the next level by exploring various textures of fruits, flowers, coins, and especially the knife, which is inscribed with her name, showing still lives symbolized deeper subjects; this one particularly, the celebration of her marriage as seen through symbolism of fruit and flowers as the bounty and hopefulness of the event

Title: Banquet of the Officers of the St. George Civic Guard

Artist: Frans Hal

Significant Comment:

This painting depicts a secular, yet ceremonial event with 12 Civic Guards around the table, begging a comparison to Leonardo's Last Supper, connecting the important of ritual in militarial and religious sense

Title: Self-Portait

Artist: Judith Leyster

Significant Comment:

Many female artists at this time painted themselves painting, indicatign their new professional status and unique position; this is why Leyster also displays her mastery as both a portrait and genre painter, advertising her talents on the easel, revealing her technical skill as she "casually" converses with her audience

Title: St. Peter's Dome & Design

Artist: Michelangelo

Significant Comment:

With the desire for compactness and organic unity, Michelangelo created a Greek cross central plan that resulted in a simple, clearer, and stronger design than Bramante, proving that simplicity can still have dramatic and ornate decor to win people back over to the Catholic church during the wake of Reformation

Title: Triumph in the Name of Jesus

Artist: Gaulli

Significant Comment:

This work combines sculpture, painting, and architecture to convery Baroque Illusionism, which uses trickery and illusion to give the appearance of the heavens entering the church, which signifies the Catholics response to the Reformists that Jesus is the Light of the World

Title: St. Peter's Piazza and colonnade

Artist: Gianlorenzo Bernini

Significant Comment:

While a Baroque artist, Bernini differs from his predecessors through his creation of a theatrical, illusionistic, yet balanced architecture to meet the Pope's desire to restructure the plaza by using the curving colonnades to serve as welcoming arms that lead Catholics to the central path to the Vatican to give a theatrical moment of being stunned by the magnitude of entering this holy area

Title: Baldachino

Artist: Bernini

Significant Comment:

As the epitome of Baroque Art, this fusion of sculpture and architecture symbolically stand directly below Michelangelo's dome and above St. Peter. This structure comes alive with expressive energy with details such as the dramatically curved scrolls that raise a cross above a gold orb, symbolizing the triumph of Christianity, and more importantly Catholicism, throughout the world to counteract the Reformation

Title: St. Teresa in Ecstasy

Artist: Bernini

Significant Comment:

Bernini wanted to push the definition of Baroque by setting up a theatrical stage set using the unclassical oval shape sculpt box seats for the priviledged Cornardo Family to watch the scene of St. Teresa in religious, borderline sensual, ecstasy

Title: The Calling of St. Matthew

Artist: Caravaggio

Significant Comment:

His paintings have a quality of "lay Christianity" that spoke to both Catholics and Protestants, making his works become a source of secular scenes using ordinary people to convey religious history; distinguished his style that became known as Carravagism, including features such as Tenebrism- the dramatic lighting of darks and lights- seen here where Jesus and the natural light(strategically from the window above the painting's location) to call Matthew

Title: Judith and Maidservant with the Head of Holofernes

Artist: Artemisia Gentileschi

Significant Comment:

Placement of the light and the use of tenebrism through the hushed, candlelit atmosphere against the dark red of the curtain creates a mysterious mood to heighten the air of suspense and intrigue of Judith's emotional state in a typical Baroque theme of violence and eroticism

Title: Water Carrier of Seville

Artist: Diego Velazquez

Significant Comment:

Velazquez created a genre painting, more specifically a Bodegon (still lifes of painting and food), where his technique uses focused light and the revelation of shapes, textures, and surfaced that powerfully grasp the individual character and dignity of a seemingly ordinary, every day scene, yet still showing appreciation for the solemnity and spirit of ritual

Title: Las Meninas

Artist: Diego Velazquez

Significant Comment:

This work is an expression of personal ambition as it is a claim for both the nobility of the act of painting and that of the artist himself as he paints the presence of Spain's king and queen as a hopeful affirmation of his status at court and him painting himself as being worthy of such a status