I loved the lecture from this week. I have never taken an art history class, so this particular lecture was a very unique experience for me. Art portrays so much meaning behind little details. For example, a candlewick could be a symbolic representation for the Lord giving up his only son to the Virgin Mary. Another aspect of art that I also didn’t realize existed before this lecture, was just how much you can learn about an era by looking at its art. Before Tuesday I understood that it is possible to know what period of time a painting was created in just by studying it, but I didn’t know you could also learn major aspects of society from paintings. For example, by studying art, one can see how painters shifted from painting the human body to painting the ‘invisible,’ and that one can see how the human race’s relation to reality changes as Christianity puts more emphasis on the afterlife.
One can also see the difference between different societies in art. For example, Italians have more airbrushed art while Northern art is more detailed. The more detailed art is known microscopic-telescopic art. It started to really become popular around the Italian Renaissance. The Italian Renaissance is known for its improvements on other paintings, painting them to be more detailed and improving the special relation. All in all, art is a great way to learn about a time period and look at beautiful paintings.