The lecture we had to watch was filled with a lot of interesting information but what stood out to me the most was the presence of disguised symbols in portraits. This is because when I think of portraits, typically all that comes to mind is faces. Because of this, I did not stop to think of the symbolism that could be incorporated into portraits. For example, van Eyck’s painting of Giovanni Arnolfi and his wife included a lot of symbols such as the patten on the ground that represented that what they were standing on was sacred ground. The dog was also a symbol for fidelity and it was because of this positive image that it had that it was placed on the center axis to bring attention to it. The peaches on the windowsill were also there to represent fertility, something that was desirable to the woman. There was also meaning behind where they stood because Giovanni stood by the window because that was where he was connected to through work while his wife stood next to the bed because she was connected to housework and the domestic life. All the symbolism in Hans Holbein’s painting of the ambassadors was also very interesting, especially the items that stood between the two. The two shelves, for example, represented the heavenly and earthly realm and were represented by the globes that were placed there. The upper shelf represented the heavenly realm and therefore had a globe that showed the skies. The lower shelf represented the earthly realm and had a globe of the Earth. The tools places on each shelf only added to these meaning as the ones on the upper shelf were all tools used to measure the heavens while the ones on the lower shelf were earthly pursuits. Such symbols, rather than taking away from the face, give context to the people present in the portraits and gives a kind of story to the art that adds to their viewing experience.

A big theme in today’s lecture was portraiture as a form of manipulation. We discussed how portraiture was meant to project a calculated image of the sitter to the viewer of the work of art. First, we discussed the Mona Lisa. DaVinci highlights her forehead, chest, and hands in order to create a defined center line, drawing the viewer’s eyes in. Next, we discussed the portrait of Elizabeth the I. This painting is not entirely naturalistic, as she is depicted standing on top of a globe. This was meant to reflect her role as ruler, and emphasize that to the viewer as well, reinforcing her power. Lastly, we also talked about the portrait of Isabella D’Este by Titian. During the time the portrait was painted, she was actually in her sixties, but she looks much younger in this painting. This was done in order to reflect the idealization of rulers in Europe. This manipulation reflects her socio economic and political status. Portraiture was manipulated in order to project preferential messages about the sitters.

In Thursday’s class we analyzed everyone’s selfies, which was a great introduction to our larger discussion of portraiture. Professor Plesch described the spectrum that portraits can fall on—at one end is a very naturalistic, human portrait, and at the other end is caricature. This was an interesting concept for me, and makes me wonder how much the real people depicted in the portraits we will look at actually look like the version of them we will see. It is likely that the most true-to-life portraits will come from Northern artists, since they were known for including all the warts and weirdness of a person in their portrait, while Italians tended to do a bit of ‘airbrushing’ in their works. We also discussed how Petrus Christus was the first artist to place the sitter in a background with context—he put the sitter in front of a visible corner in a room. This opened up the possibilities for portraiture, because now the background could say more about the sitter than an amorphous background could. But that did not mean that artists stopped using amorphous backgrounds. Rogier van der Weyden was famous for his fantastic character details of his sitters (observing the face as if it were a landscape) with amorphous backgrounds.

We discussed portraits through analysis of selected selfies in this class. I was interested in how each represented a conscious choice to record a specific moment in time. Other choices, such as angle, background, and positioning support the depiction of that moment. This carried into our discussion of renaissance portraits. The choice of background and which details to emphasize was clear in each work. Campin’s Portraits of a Man and a Woman displays an amorphous background, drawing the eye to focus on the figures and emphasize their details. The Northern emphasis on realistic detail was evident through van Eyck’s portrait as well. This contrasted with the Italians, who leaned towards perfection and idealism. I found the comparison to Plato and Aristotle in Raffaello Sanzio’s School of Athens fascinating, as it seems to perfectly encapsulate the ideals of both regions. While Plato points up towards the sky, indicating a more heavenly or perfect goal, Artistotle gestures downwards as if suggesting a more earthly and realistic interpretation of the world.

In this class, we continued our discussion on portraiture in Renaissance art. We first looked at how the intention of a portrait affects the composition, looking at the more modern representation of this through the examples of the class’s selfies. One of the first innovations in portraiture that we saw was the movement from black, amorphous backgrounds to portraits with backgrounds that put the subject in context, both physically and through connections to their character, class, and familial history. An example of this comes through the comparison of Campin’s Portrait of a Man and Woman, and Christus’ Edward Grymeston. While the former has a portrait with the aforementioned amorphous background, the portrait of Edward Grymeston has a background that contains much to give information on Grymeston. The background contains a household that would have been contemporary at the time, with Grymeston holding a necklace and the coat of arms of his family in the background. We also saw how the different focuses of Italian and Northern artists in the Renaissance affected portraiture. Where Italian portraits might have come off as more airbrushed and were focused more on the wholistic portraiture, artists like Van Eyck created portraits that were more naturalistic and focused on small, accurate details.

In this class, we continued talking about Giotto’s fresco. We talked about how well Giotto was at showing each of the characters’ emotions, the holiness of all the scenes, and the continuous story of Joachim and Anna. Then we moved on to talk about St. Francis and his impact on the church. He leaves his family to learn about the world and learn about people. He reminded me a little of Buddha, who left his family and money to understand people. We went on to talk about Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights which I loved so much because there is so much going on. I did the online experience and I really loved pressing on different scenes and hearing the music, so eerie. I thought that it was interesting that there was a relation between alchemy and this painting. There are so many hybrids that must have been seen as a bad thing in the renaissance era.

This class stuck with me because of the Giotto di Bondone fresco in the Scrovegni chapel. At the beginning of the class we saw The Original Sin by the Limbourg brothers. I thought that it was interesting because of the continuous narrative and how Adam and Eve were walking to the white page, our world. Michele da Carcano’s sermon I thought was a good explanation for art. Didactic, emotional, and mnemonic tactics is one of the ways how art get through people. I like to think that art leaves people with a greater impression than words or book, it depends on the author.

I really liked Giotto di Bondone fresco in the Scrovegni chapel because of the final judgment that was painted above the entrance. I really liked it, that I wanted to include in my exhibition. I thought that Giotto did a good job displaying Joachim’s sadness after being rejected at the temple. He looked so sad, that I felt sad. Giotto does a good job of showing enough in the fresco, playing with the colors and setting of where everything was going on. I really liked the fresco.

In this class, we first discussed selfies that are provided by our classmates. It is amazing to see how choices, such as pose, expression, background objects, color, etc, are chosen consciously or unconsciously when taking these selfies. Deconstructing the massage each selfie conveys is also interesting! When I took my selfie I didn’t realize that so much information, such as our intimacy, time and location information, etc, is presented from our pose and background settings.

Then we continued our class on portraits. We looked at Robert Campin’s Portraits of a Man and a Woman, where the amorphous background, i.e. totally dark black, is used to emphasize the character in the center. It’s also interesting that the difference in creating portraints between Notherners and Italians is alanogous to Aristotle and Plato, respectively, in the Raffaello Sanzio’s School of Athens. In the painting, Plato is pointing up to the sky, which implies that Italians prefer to create ideal portraits so they hide or exclude the imperfections in their works. On the other hand, Aristotle is pushing his hand down to ground, which refers to northerners’ preference of keeping all details, including imperfections, in their portraits.

In today’s class we continued our discussion on portraits. We started with Robert Campin’s Portraits of a Man and a Woman. What made this one stand out was its plain black background. Backgrounds done this way were called amorphous backgrounds. It was this type of background that let Campin place an emphasis on the faces with intense close ups.

The next artist we discussed was Jan van Eyck and his portrait of what is believed to be Cardinal Niccolo Albergati. We were able to use this artwork to see how portraits were painted since it would not be possible to ask the sitter to pose for the painting for hours upon hours. The way they avoided this was through silver point drawings that were done using a literal silver stylus and parchment coated in a specific material that when touched by silver oxidizes leaving marks. They would use these tools to create a sketch of the person and the pose they are in as well as take notes on the different details and colors so that they would be able to paint it later.

While van Eyck included a lot of details into his faces, Petrus Christus focused more on expressing the character of his subjects as seen in his paintings Portrait of a Carthusian and Edward Grymeston where details about their personalities are evident through pose, accessories, and clothes.

We concluded our class today with a discussion on the differences between the Southern/Italian way of drawing portraits versus the Northern way. The difference was that Southerners aimed to show perfection to the point that they would not draw some features of people in order to get a more perfect looking face. Northerners were more interested in showing reality how it was which is why they aimed to capture every detail of a person realistically in their portraits.

Robert Campin’s Mérode Triptych stood out to me because of all the disguised symbolism Campin includes in this work of art. I found the inclusion of symbolism of both the Old and New Testament a unique take on the Annunciation scene because it neatly alludes the move from old to new and depicts the start of something new: the Birth of Christ. Additionally, I found Campin’s use of Rising Perspective to be an effective method of allowing for as much detail as possible in the painting. Additionally, the slanted nature of the table makes it seem like the viewer is looking up at the scene which is very fitting of the subject. While there is a significant move towards more naturalism in this work of art, parts seem unnatural. For example, the detail of a tiny figure shooting down into Mary’s womb is very unique take on how Mary became impregnated but not very realistic. However, given that this triptych is for personal use I think the depiction of Mary’s impregnation is quite fitting since it adds a fun, humorous aspect to this decor.