In our class today, we focused most of our time on manuscripts. We specifically focused on John, the Duke of Berry and his role as a collector of manuscripts. I think it’s interesting how involved he was in the art production at the time, especially since he encouraged the artists he commissioned to do better than the past artists when creating new books of hours (creating a sense of competition). I also liked how in class we discussed the social context of the time of gift gifting. I never thought of the concept of gift giving to be viewed as anything but a kind notion, but it makes sense how in a feudal society this would reinforce the idea of dominance and cement a subordinate’s role. I have been interested in the theme of the progression of the advancement of depicting depth in art, and I liked how we focused on how the manuscript brothers’ did a great job with working with white paint. I’ve never thought before how certain colors could be harder to work with, or thought about how artists have to intentionally think about what colors to make the shadows in their work (since black shadows makes it look dirty… especially white). I particularly liked this manuscript especially since it was apparently the first depiction of a winter scene.
Author: Julia Lagomarsino (Page 2 of 2)
In our class today, a part of our discussion focused on the practice of creating art through wood prints. This was a desirable medium of creating art because it was more favorable for mass production, as mass producing individual drawings would be much more time consuming and wood prints is more efficient. This reminds me of how the famous artwork “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” by Hokusai is also a woodblock print. It is interesting to see how artistic medium techniques are used across centuries as well as different cultures as well. Something else that interested me from our class discussion today was how 15th century people were attracted to manuscripts with the topic of the Book of Revelations. Since this part of the Bible is very apocalyptic, these manuscripts could be used for pleasure reading comparable to how people today watch / read horror movies or books. I thought it was interesting to see a similarity to pastimes in humans even though we are centuries a part.
Our discussion in Tuesday’s class focused on the theme of story telling / narratives. We looked at Vittore Carpaccio’s narrative “Scenes from the life of st. ursula”. To me, it was interesting how the artist invited the audience into the painting / removed the separation between the work itself and the audience through the open railing and ascending staircase from the viewers point of view. These artistic choices invite the audience into the scene. This artwork also exhibits artistic choices that promote the narrative style with the left to right flow of events (the delegation being to the right of the painting). I thought it was interesting how the multiple images told one cohesive story (how St. Ursula and the 11,000 virgins were inevitably killed by the Turks).
Today we discussed several more altarpieces. I really enjoyed our conversation about the Isenheim altarpiece. I think it’s interesting to think about the huge size of this altarpiece, even when it’s closed, and how that would impact the audience given the setting (many sick people in the hospital would view this art). To me, it is important to understand the context of this time period and how there were no medical advancements to stop this disease, so the monks were just there to pray for the patients in hopes they will be able to go to Heaven. In a way, the altarpiece was also helping their healing process as well. I enjoyed learning about the two specific saints depicted and why the artist chose these. To me, it is interesting how Saints could have one primary purpose / message, yet also be used for other situations for prayer. For example, St. Sebastian is a popular saint to pray to in terms of the plague however he is depicted here since his arrow wounds distorted his skin, so the patients could pray to him as well since they were dying of a skin disease.
This lecture we explored and talked about some northern altarpieces. I really liked how the altarpieces we discussed depicted 2D realistic looking sculptures as well as used the light from the windows of the church it would be in in the work itself to make it look like the altarpiece was cohesive with the church as well as in the same space. These altarpieces also possessed themes we have already been talking about, like the connection between the Virgin and the Church. I was intrigued by the amount of detail in these altarpieces in the brocade as well as the jewels on the crown. It was also interesting to see how beauty standards of the time influenced how artists depicted women (Eve’s body and her forehead).
In today’s lecture, we spent most of our time talking about the different ways the Madonna enthroned is depicted / the sacred conversation. It was really interesting to see how the skill of showing depth perception advanced throughout time and how artists used specific shading, eye gazing, and colors to illustrate a more naturalistic image. This progression also has a cultural component in Italian art as it was more or less a competition between artists to always do better than the previous artist. We also talked about how altarpieces are ritualistic in mass with the priest elevating the body of Christ and how this action would juxtapose with the altarpiece of the Virgin and baby Jesus. We also talked about the different ways artists tried to depict baby Jesus, from illustrating him larger than life (hierarchitic scale) and also showing him naked with human body parts to show incarnation.
I found it to be very interesting in our discussion about altarpieces about how there was a distinct change from the gold background to the more realistic altarpieces. The gold background lacked a realistic setting, and appeared in an other world which elevated the feelings of holiness to me. It is interesting to think about how orthodox churches still to this day have more gold / Byzantine altarpieces. The newer style of altarpieces has a more realistic background and has much better depth perception. It was also interesting to dissect such a long contract with unique requests for the time period (like asking for the holy trinity to all be represented identically).
In the second class, we discussed how the term “middle ages” insinuates that the medieval time period was a period of transition and lacked individuality. The term renaissance as “rebirth” shows that there was a notion that the classics died and had to be revived during the renaissance. We explored this bias also in our discussion about Vasari. First, we talked about the context of Italy at the time and campanilism. Vasari was openly bias towards Florentine art and the superiority of Florence. This led to our discussion of how the emphasis placed on masterpieces can be harmful because it reduces artistic diversity as the more common, mass produced art is left out of conversations in art history. We also talked about the different views on life on Earth between the middle ages and the Renaissance , specifically between “Viator Mundi” and “Faber Mundi”. Art changed in the era of humanism as artists began signing their work and society became more secular than the middle ages.
Something I took away from our first class today was how it is important to take into account the historical context of viewing art. It was interesting to talk about how altarpieces in the past were viewed with a ritual / functional manner while now this art infiltrates pop culture, like how the two angels are commonly seen on t shirts or phone cases. I also thought it was interesting how Vasari’s commentary on art is bias and brings up the idea that how historical narratives can possess biases which alter how the audience views Renaissance art. I thought it was interesting how the French Renaissance began after the French fought wars in Italy and were exposed to Italian art that they used for their own inspiration.