I need Help for My Humanity Homework!

“In modern societies, we’re surrounded by images, pasted, posted, or projected. The image that most readers think of as a “painting” is a painted canvas hanging on a wall, probably in a museum or a wealthy household. These are one-of-a-kind images, not like the mechanically or electronically reproduced images that bombard the viewer on the streets of Tokyo or New York.” (Beginner's Guide 2) This week, we are going to examine the painted image in its various guises, beginning with the Renaissance painters we are reading about in the main book.

Two things to note: firstly, you are viewing these images second-hand (obviously) and the impact you are receiving is therefore via the medium of printing or pixels, so we are therefore losing a great deal in terms of texture and purity of color. Secondly, because of the variations in the reproductive qualities of both print and pixels, many versions of these pictures will show different color densities and shades. Make a point of comparing the ones you have in the book and those I have linked to on line, and check as well other versions to see how different they are.

 

 

The Beginner's Guide offers a fairly comprehensive breakdown of factors to consider when viewing a work of art: consider each category and the exercise that goes with each one.

1.  Imagery and Subjects (p5) 

We saw straight away in this week’s reading that the Renaissance ushers in a dramatic change in subject matter, moving away from the purely religious and towards the mythological and representational. Works like Titian’s “Bacchus and Ariadne” are straight out of Greek mythology (even though they use Roman names) and Holbein’s “Ambassadors” and Gower’s Elizabeth 1” are crammed full of symbolic images.

Exercise 1 

Find some works in the book or online (NOT the ones mentioned above) which make use of imagery or symbolism. Provide a URL or page number reference and explain how the painting demonstrates the principle and what the images or symbols represent.

2.  Medium and Materials (pp 5-6)  

Frescoes were very popular in the Middle Ages, and still persisted to an extent in the Renaissance (see, for example, Masaccio’s “The Tribute Money” on page 197 [201] of the Adventures. On the same page is Botticelli’s Primavera , made using a different medium and material “Tempera on panel,” while most of the work from Northern Europe is oil on wood or panels (e.g. the Durer self-portrait (Adventures, 232 [238]).

Exercise 2 

Find some works in the book or online (NOT the ones mentioned above) which use different media and materials. Provide a URL or page number reference and explain how the medium and/or materials affect the overall result of the painting or are important in its presentation.

3.  Form and Composition (pp6-7)  

On pages 196 [200] (Masaccio’s Holy Trinity ) and 200-201 [202-203]of the Adventures, Bishop discusses the Key Concept of Linear Perspective, which is basically the application of mathematical principles to the construction of an image. In Figs. 8.20 [8.14] and 8.21 [8.15] this technique is demonstrated with regard to Perugino’s Christ Giving the Keys to St. Peter .

Exercise 3 

Find a painting in the book or online (NOT the ones mentioned above) which demonstrates the technique of perspective. Provide a URL or page number reference and explain how the painting demonstrates the technique.

4.  Color and Light (pp7-8) 

In the main textbook Bishop offers some examples of paintings that illustrate the use of color and light, demonstrating the technique of chiaroscuro (Beginner’s Guide 8, Adventures 449 [448]) as a guiding principle, rather than just color itself. Caravaggio (e.g. “David Holding the Head of Goliath,”)   and later on, Rembrandt (Adventures 282-83]) are both major practitioners of this technique.  As an example of the juxtaposition of colors, we might also look at a mediaeval stained glass window (Adventures 156 [162] and 169-70]), which serve to demonstrate a point about light.

If we compare the textbook image of the stained glass window to the one on Wikimedia, we can see that the use of light is critical in the study of art, not only external light (crucial in the design of stained glass, where the sun flooding in completely changes the impact of the colors) but also of internal light, as in Caravaggio’s “The Calling of St. Matthew,” Adventures 262 [264]) and Rembrandt’s “The Night Watch,” (Adventures 281 [283]). Painters use light as a means of drawing attention to the focal point of their painting, whether it be strongly contrasting like Caravaggio, moody like Goya’s “Executions of the Third of May,” (Adventures 336 [336]) or brilliantly illuminating like Turner’s “The Slave Ship,” or Bierstadt’s “Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains,” (Adventures 340-41 [339-40]). This is something we see also in the medium of photography . In both genres, artists make use of both natural and artificial light and often, as in the Bierstadt (above) and the Constable landscape, (Adventures 339 [339]) play also with reflected light to make a point about color or composition. 

Exercise 4 

Find a painting in the book or online (NOT the ones mentioned above) which demonstrates the technique of chiaroscuro or exceptional use of light and color. Provide a URL or page number reference and explain how the painting fulfils the technique.

5.  Miscellany  

People tend to denigrate graffiti as something which messes up our environment, but in some cases (like Keith Haring ) it is clearly “art”. Check out some of these works by my favorite modern graffiti artist, Banksy .

Exercise 5

What are your thoughts about graffiti?  Do you love it/hate it?  Do you have any favorite artists?