Author: Noam Reinhorn (Page 3 of 3)

Today, we continued our discussion of northern Europe and focused on a few artists. We looked at Jan Van Eyck and his painting “The Arnolfini Portrait”. This discussion of the painting was a highlight of the class for me. When talking about disguised symbolism, I realized that this is very prominent in art today. Disguised symbolism is really something that extends beyond art, as many objects in day to day life have meanings that extend beyond their expected meaning.

I found the use of the dog interesting partially because of how the symbol has remained the same. The small dog from the 15th century represented loyalty, and if the same dog were put in a painting today, people would still recognize it as a symbol of loyalty. Another piece of the painting that stuck out to me was the way that Van Eyck signed the painting right in the middle. He did it in a way that the signature looks to just be something on the wall and is seamlessly in the painting.

To start today’s class, we continued looking at altarpieces created by Cimabue and Giotto. What stuck out to me most about the comparison of the two was the clear and direct influence that Cimabue had on Giotto. The key artistic elements of the altarpieces may have their differences, like color pallets for example, but all in all the altarpieces have alot of similarities. This motivation from another is always interesting to see especially considering they are only one generation, or about 30 years apart. Another striking piece in the relationships of these two altarpieces is that they are now displayed in the same gallery for viewing. Being able to view the two side by side must be an excellent experience where one can notices even more of the motivation that Giotto got from Cimabue.

We then discussed northern Europe, where the people sought a more realistic representation of life. This part of the lecture focused on royal families and their collecting of the artwork. While I find learning about these families exciting, I am also excited to learn about other types of people who may have collected art or been involved in the art scene.

Today was our first class of AR112. The course is a survey where we will be looking at a wide range of western art from the renaissance all the way to today. I am excited to take a course with this wide variety as it will be my first time taking this type of survey. I have previously enjoyed deeper dives into specific periods but I think this course will be great for developing my general art history knowledge. 

An interesting part of our studies that we started with was establishing that the country of Italy did not actually exist until the 19th century. This is important because we will be studying a lot of art that took place in what is now modern Italy but was not Italy at the time. 

One thing that became clear through class is religion’s significance throughout this survey. There are some things I need to learn about outside of class to be appropriately prepared for this class. Generally, I am very excited about the prospects of this course.