Diego Velazquez, “Las Meninas (The Maids of Honor),” 1656

• Hung in the King's office

• Red cross on Velazquez' chest stands for the Order of Santiago which he wanted to join (and eventually did, thanks to the Pope)

• Painting allows the viewer to feel like the king and queen that Velazquez is observing and painting

• Uses this painting to insert himself into the King's daily life to show his importance

• Not quite as dramatic or dynamic as other royal paintings to make it realistic or photographic

Gianlorenzo Bernini, “David,” 1623

• Compare to Michelangelo's David

• Gone from Renaissance (static form) to action, drama and dynamism (moving form)

Gianlorenzo Bernini, “Ecstasy of St. Theresa, 1645-52, Cornaro Chapel, Rome

• Takes a lot from contemporary plays and dramas

Caravaggio, “Conversion of Saint Paul,” c. 1601

• The man's head is very close to the viewer

• Shows chiaroscuro and tenebrism

• Made in your space and on your level

Caravaggio, “Calling of St. Matthew, c. 1597-1601

• Shows Levi (Matthew), tax collector, and assistants counting money

• Christ calls Matthew for greater cause

• His hand points to himself questioning if Christ is talking to him

Artemesia Gentileschi, “Judith Slaying Holofernes, c. 1614-20

• Explained that it's Gentileschi's feelings during the date-rape trial she was currently in

• Tenebrism

Peter Paul Rubens, “Elevation of the Cross,” 1610

• Competing directional forces that create dynamism

• Triptych

• Chiaroscuro and attention to detail = force and counter-force

Peter Paul Rubens, “Arrival of Marie de Medici at Marseilles,” 1622-25

• She wants Rubens to make her part of history

Gerrit van Honthorst, “Supper Party,” 1620

• Appeal to taste = man being fed chicken

• Lesson: do not overindulge, do not be a prostitute

• Man blocking light is called a Repoussoir figure, meaning to push or pull in, creates expansive space

Frans Hals, “Archers of St. Hadrian,” c. 1633

• Revolutionized group portraiture

• Identities stay separate as well as joined as a group

Judith Leyster, “Self-Portrait,” c. 1630

• Mouth is partially open, speaking to us

• Co-expansive space: her elbow in our space, chair and canvas cropped to the edge, and her eyes look at us, if not through us

• Meets our gaze with confidence, she is a master of her trade

Rembrandt, “Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp,” 1632

• Does not hesitate to interrupt the laws of symmetry

• Surgeons were earlier thought of as chopper-uppers, not life-savers

Rembrandt, “Return of the Prodigal Son,” c. 1665

• He paints to connect viewer emotionally

• Ragged garb of son is highlighted

Jan Vermeer, “Allegory of the Art of Painting,” c. 1670-75

• Curtain is drawn back so you can see the scene

• She is Clio, the muse of history. She is holding a book and trumpet.

• Artist is painting “history” which is portrayed as a woman.

Rachel Ruysch, “Flower Still Life,” after 1700

• Interest in botany and the exotic

• Flowers showing voni tas: life is fleeting, here today and gone tomorrow

Nicolas Poussin, “Burial of Phocion,” 1648

• Nature follows an order

• Symmetrical landscape, zig zag road leading back into space, plants framing work

• Heroic, tree framing idea is from Claude Lorrain

Claude Lorrain, “Landscape with Cattle and Peasants,” 1629

• Leaves behind drama

• Claudean trees framing piece

• Solitary shepherd

• Peasants making music

• Idealized, gold lining, unrealistic

Germain Boffrand, “Salon de la Princesse,” Hotel de Soubise, Paris, 1737-40

• Place to drink, play music, chat, be witty, and discuss ideas

• Sensuous S curves = Rococo art. Means shell.

Antoine Watteau, “Pilgrimage to Cythera,” 1717 ***

• Most noble thing to paint: history (mythological and biblical), next: portraiture, then: landscapes, also: everyday life, lastly: still-life

• Embarking to a mythological island of love

• Had everything you looked for in a frilly Rococo painting

• Came up with new category for paintings like this one that touched many genres: fete gallante

Jean-Honore Fragonard, “The Swing,” 1766 ***

• Man is looking up her skirt as she swings

• Kicks shoe at Cupid

• Framed and ensconced by nature

Jean Baptiste-Simeon Chardin, “Saying Grace,” 1740

• Artists retreated to a more intellectual mode

• Woman teaching children to say grace

Elisabeth Louise Vigee-Lebrun, “Self-Portrait,” 1790 ***

• Painting noble person, but she paints herself as though she is the most important

• She was a history painter for salons in Paris

• Made fun of in public press, called the “woman-man” because men usually paint things for salons

• She becomes so good at painting that she becomes a court painter

Angelica Kauffmann, “Cornelia Presenting Her Children as Her Treasures” or “Mother of the Gracchi,” c. 1785

• Marks emergence of neoclassicism

• Tribute to ancient Rome

• Cornelia is approached by a woman with lots of jewels; Cornelia tells the woman that her children are her treasures and riches

• Don't get caught up in earthly riches

Jacques-Louis David, “Oath of the Horatii,” 1784

• Neoclassicism: more concentration on line and edge, less frou-frou like rococo

• Family drama/feud

• Allegiance to the state is more important than emotional ties

• Gender painting: Men are standing firmly and confidently and being active, women are sitting down and laying heads in defeat

  • Active vs. passive

Jacques-Louis David, “Death of Marat,” 1793

• Stood for his “martyrdom” for his political group

Sir Joshua Reynolds, “Lord Heathfield,” 1787

• Holds key to victory

• Relaxation

Benjamin West, “The Death of General Wolfe,” 1771

• Revolution in history painting

• Shows not a historical event (long ago history like Rome) but an event that happened within a decade before the painting

• The people are also in their contemporary attire

John Singleton Copley, “Portrait of Paul Revere,” c. 1768-70

• Paul Revere was an artisan: made things from silver

• Tea pot = tea taxes = driving force of Revolution

• Regularly drank cider

• Attention to head and hands

Antonio Canova, “Pauline Borghese as Venus,” 1808

• Napoleon's sister

• Something that might have been offensive is sculpted with ancient Greek characteristics and made socially and artistically accepted

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, “Grande Odalisque,” 1814

• Romanticism develops: recognizes the heart

Henry Fuseli, “The Nightmare,” 1781

• Intuition, letting the mind flow

• Feeling made quite palpable

• “Mara” = horse that can steal the soul and breath of those sleeping

• Title is play on words = night-mare

William Blake, “Ancient of Days,” frontispiece to “Europe: A Prophecy”, 1794

Francisco Goya, “The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters,” from “Los Caprichos,” c. 1798

• Ignorance (bats) and craze (owls) bother humans when they sleep because they step away from reality

Francisco Goya, “Third of May, 1808,” 1814-15

• Lantern lights up the man in white shirt, who is sacrificing with arms outstretched, alludes to Christ's sacrifice

• Steeple of church crowns painting meaning the eye of God sees all

• Romanticism is used in this to show strong emotion

Theodore Gericault, “Raft of the Medusa,” 1818-19

• Appealed to romantic mindset

• Gericault was against slavery

• The one African American survivor is the one up highest in the painting waving for the boat

Eugene Delacroix, “Liberty Leading the People,” 1830

• Liberty is leading the people, let your gut feeling be the guide

• She is unafraid to lose her garb because she is so passionate to move forward = romanticism

J.M.W. Turner, “The Slave Ship (Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On),” 1840***

• Throwing slaves overboard to avoid not getting paid

• Very inhuman

• Greatly criticized for making something so horrid so colorful and happy looking

• Halation: light dissolving forms

• Hard edges of brutal reality are being blurred and abstracted for some experimental concert of colors

Thomas Cole, “The Oxbow (View from Mt. Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm),” 1836

• Wanted to paint a short-lasting or quickly disappearing landscape

• It includes nature untouched by man, but in the distance you can see the Connecticut River Valley which is cleared and man-made with houses and factories

• Machine vs. The Garden

• River creates a question mark asking why are we destroying out God-given gift of nature?

• Hebrew letters on mountain mean “The Almighty”

Gustave Courbet, “The Stonebreakers,” 1849

• Realist, interested in the here and now

• Slavery should not be passed down generationally

• Just because the parents were slaves, doesn't mean the children should be

• The next generation should be given a chance to better or improve themselves

Gustave Courbet, “Burial at Ornans,” 1849

• Vernacular: features the every day events

• Women at far right are sad, somber men in middle, clergy at back, people are thinking it's just another funeral

• No abstraction, he paints what is there. It is blunt and to the point

Jean-Francois Millet, “The Gleaners,” 1857

• Break from urban Paris

• Gleaner: someone who picks up what is behind (in this case, they pick up leftovers from a harvest)

Honore Daumier, “Rue Transnonain,” 1834

• Deaths cause by government

Edouard Manet, “Olympia,” 1863

• Highly criticized for it being of a courtesan (high-end prostitute)

• Manet never painted a nude again

• Since it's not based on a goddess, it was looked down upon

Winslow Homer, “The Veteran in a New Field,” 1865

• Veteran plays the part of veteran, but then he goes back to working and growing

Thomas Eakins, “Portrait of Samuel D. Gross (The Gross Clinic),” 1875

• Eakins believed that in order to portray realistic art, one must go beneath the surface to understand the structure

• Gross was a professor of surgery

• Highlight of forehead and scalpel = Gross worked with his head and his hands

• Gross brought the idea of “conservative surgery,” keeping the body part and just removing the diseased section

• Typical baroque triangle, topped with Gross' head

• Eakins also worked with photography

Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre, “Still Life in Studio, 1837

• One of the first photographs

• Understanding of light and shadow

• Wanted the picture to have the quality of a painting

Timothy O' Sullivan, “A Harvest of Death,” Gettysburg, 1863

• First major event captured in photo

• Brady and Sullivan manipulated the corpses of the dead soldiers to “sell” the war and achieve a picturesque effect

• Their bodies would become compost for a new crop

• Meaning = hope that good things can grow from bad

Claude Monet, “Impression: Sunrise,” 1872

• Impressionism: objective reality

• Focused on reflection of light

• Broken brushwork: intermittent line

Claude Monet, “Rouen Cathedral: The Portal (in Sun),” 1894

• The way light plays on it makes the view change from time to time

• Typical french impressionist concern for the fleeting effect of light

• Loose, broken brushwork of impressionism

Berthe Morisot, “Villa at the Seaside,” 1874

• Woman by herself

• It takes a female artist to show femininity in this

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, “Moulin de la Galette,” 1876

• Beer garden

• Where people go to be seen