Art and its Development through the
Ages
Art
"To evoke in oneself a feeling one has experienced, and then, by mean of movements, lines, colours, sounds or forms expressed in words, so to transmit that feeling is the activity of Art.” - Leo Tolstoy
Classification
Traditional and contemporary art encompasses activities as diverse as:
Architecture, music, opera, theatre, dance, painting, sculpture,
illustration, drawing, cartoons, printmaking, ceramics, stained glass,
photography, installation, video, film and cinematography etc. classified into
several overlapping categories such as: fine, visual, plastic, decorative,
applied and performing.
- Fine Art:
·
Drawings using
charcoal, chalk, crayon, pastel or with pencil or pen and ink.
·
Painting using
oil, watercolour, gauche, acrylics, ink and wash, tempera or encaustic.
·
Printmaking using
woodcuts or stencils, or techniques of engraving, etching or lithography or
modern methods like screen printing.
·
Sculptures in
bronze, stone, marble, wood or clay.
·
Calligraphy used
for highly complex stylised writing.
- Visual Art:
Includes all the forms of fine arts as well the new
media and contemporary forms of expression such as installation, conceptual,
performance arts as well photography and film
based forms like video and animation, and environmental land art.
- Performance Art:
The type refers to public performance events.
Traditional varieties include, theatre, opera, music, and ballet. Contemporary
performance art also includes any activity in which the artist's physical
presence acts as the medium. Thus it encompasses, mime, face or body painting,
and the like. A hyper-modern type of performance art is known as Happenings.
- Plastic Art:
The term denotes three dimensional works employing
materials that can be moulded, shaped or manipulated (plasticized) in some way
such as clay, plaster, stone, metals, wood (sculpture), paper (origami), and so
on.
- Decorative Art:
The category denotes ornamental art forms such as
works in glass, clay, wood, metal, or textile fabric; which involves all forms
of jewellery and mosaic art as well ceramics, decorated styles of ancient
pottery, furniture, furnishings, strained glass and tapestry art.
- Applied Art:
Involves activities of application of aesthetic
designs to everyday functional objects. Applied art creates utilitarian items
using aesthetic principles in their designs. Folk art, computer art, graphic
design, architecture, interior design as well as all decorative arts can be
classified under applied arts.
Origin
The origin of Art or Visual Language is unknown. It
dates to the prehistoric periods of mankind. It has acted as a mode of
communication. The art of storytelling was done in those days with the help of
gestures around a camp fire by the group leader who went on to hunt for the
group that he takes cares. He used to demonstrate the activities that he had to
undergo for the supper they are having to educate the younger and weaker
members in the group for them to be motivated. Later on they started producing
sounds to emphasise their thrill and to generate more enthusiasm in the minds
of the weaker. The cavemen also started to paint or draw the images of their
prey and hunting activities in the walls of the caves to demonstrate and
educate the younger and pass on the information.
These sort of activities of dancing around the fire
and as well painting on the walls of stones etc. can yet be found with some
very rare tribal groups, as a tribute to tradition and custom.
Development
The art had its origin from the prehistoric men and
had taken different forms from storytelling with gestures and illustrations to
the present mode of storytelling through cinema. As different civilizations
emerged, so did different forms of art and different styles, ideas and methods.
There had been different types of movements that effected the way the man sees
a piece of art, which resulted in generating new art forms with the view to
capture the minds of others.
Prehistoric Art
During
prehistoric period, art acted as form of communication. A set of group of men
went for hunting and they used to narrate the activities of their catching the
prey with gestures around a fire where the younger and weaker members of the
group used to gather around and listen with great enthusiasm. This enthusiasm
made the next generation to get more vigilant to hunting. They started to draw
illustration of the prey and activities they undertook while hunting. The art
of masonry was also developed slowly. Some of the art works dating back to even
1, 00,000 years have been found. Cave paintings of a horse from Lascaux cave, a
statue Venus of Willendorf etc. have been found which dates back to 24,000
years.
Ancient Art
As the group
of men started gathering around a certain area, there started a civilization.
The great civilisations that perched were around the areas of Ancient Egypt,
Mesopotamia, Persia, India, China, Ancient Greece, and Rome, as well in Inca,
Maya and Olmec. Each of these civilizations has given their own great
contributions to the work of art.
The development of dramas and
theatres was a great contribution from the side of Ancient Greece. There used
to be a culture of providing sacrificing animals and dancing to please the god
of wine and fertility Dionysus. The ritual slowly spread to main Greece and the
king of Athens, started a festive for 100 days every year during when dramas
were staged at amphitheatres and prizes were awarded for the best.
The Greeks also had provided their
contribution widely in the fields of Medicine, Literature, Science,
Architecture etc.
Mesolithic Age
Petroglyphs,
stylised cave paintings and hand stencils and bracelets, functional objects
like paddles and weapons of the Mesolithic Age were the art works during this
period.
Neolithic Age
During the
Neolithic age period, artworks became more enhanced by the use of metals like
copper and design of new tools. Free standing sculptures, statues, pottery,
primitive jewellery and decorated artefacts became more common. The advent of
hieroglyphic writing system in Sumer heralds the arrival of pictorial methods
of communication, while the greater prosperity leads to more religious activity
and religious art in temples and tombs.
Bronze Age
The Bronze
Age period witnessed the emergence of cities, the development of more
sophisticated tools led to wider range of ceramics. The art includes statues,
sculptures and paintings of God. The art of this period started assuming a
significant role in reflecting the community, its rulers, and relationship with
the deities it worshiped.
Egyptian Art
In ancient Egypt their monumental architecture and
associated sculptures were of most influence. In paintings, artists depicted
the head, legs and feet of their human subjects in profile, while portraying
the eye, shoulders, arms and torso from the front. Other conventions depicted
how God, Pharaohs and ordinary people should be portrayed and regulated the
size, colour and figurative positions of these images accordingly. Women were
painted with fair skin, men with dark skin. Much of the art in temples and tombs
(hieroglyphs, papyrus scrolls, murals, panel paintings and sculptures) reflects
religious themes, especially concerning the afterlife.
Minoan Art
Minoan Art and mural paintings uncovered from the
palaces of Minos illustrates the Cretan life and Aegean ways of design. The
murals were bright in colour, highly stylized in manner, and generally florid
in decorative accessory such as frieze or identical pattern. The medium of
fresco paintings is lime-plaster fresco, and the colours are separately blocked
on, usually without gradation and merging over an outline drawing. A few simple
bright colours suffice. These are in flat mural technique and standard fresh
colours. Occasionally frescos was superimposed on mural design modelled in
slight relief. The figures in paintings are beautifully set up, straight, the
men high-chested and the women with breasts full and firm. In murals, seals and
sculptures there was a convention of shoulders held back and waist pinched in,
heightening the impression. A second convention was that the male flesh was
indicated by dark tone and women’s by light tone.
Iron Age
Iron Age saw
a great growth in artistic activity, especially in Greece and around the
eastern Mediterranean and coincided with the rise of Hellenic culture.
Mycenaean Art
The Mycenaean art were dominated by the Minoan
culture. The painters and sculptors emphasized military and other mythological
exploits in a more formal geometric style than that of the Minoans. Their art
encompassed ceramics, pottery, carved gemstones, jewellery, glass ornaments, as
well as tomb and palace murals, frescoes and sculptures.
During
the Celtic period, two distinguished styles emerged: Hallstatt and La Tene. The
more advanced La Tene was characterised by its distinctive geometric designs
and stylised bird and animal forms exemplified by the decorative designs on the
stonework of Turoe stone. The Hallstatt art centred on ornamentation of utilitarian
items (weapons, chariots, armour, personal accessories) together with the
creation of high quality jewellery often employing fine techniques, contrasting
colour work and extravagant patterns with rigid symmetry.
Greek Art
The Classical Greek Art is divided into 3 periods:
early classical, high classical and late classical periods. The Greek grasp of
linear perspective and naturalist representation remained unsurpassed until the
Italian Renaissance. Greek artists used walls, panels of wood or marble,
terracotta slabs or plagues, and sometimes pieces of ivory, leather, parchment
or linen. On walls the method of painting were tempera and fresco; on wood and
marble, tempera and encaustic. In the terracotta metopes from the temples the
pictorial field is about two feet square and the figures occupy its full
height, but the style is that of Corinthian vase painting and the artist has
used the larger scale not to multiple the patterns of drapery. The colour
palette is no wider that the vase’s – black, white, light brown and purple (for
male flesh), all used in flat washes and Apollo’s at Thermon was restricted to
colours that would stand firing. A technical difference is that on metopes, the
outlines and lines of inner detail are drawn and not incised. In Panel
paintings the ground is white and the colours used were red, blue, black, light
brown and dark brown. In Etruscan Tomb paintings attic red-figures can be found
fairly numerous.
The
technique of the painters was still the outline drawing with economical linear
detail. Modelling, by hatching or gradation of colours came slowly and
intermittently. The outline of pelts and rocks were filled with an uneven wash
of dilute paint. Later by the second quarter of fifth century, the folds were
sometimes emphasized by thickened lines or shading, so giving some kind of
shadow. At about the same time, light hatching or shading now and then
reinforced the edge of round objects. Later by the end of the fifth century
human anatomy began to be detailed. The male flesh started to be modelled
strongly, though female flesh is not. There was a vogue for 4 colour paintings,
the colours being black, white, red and yellow and their combinations.
During
the Hellenistic art period, an almost Baroque-like dramatization of subject
matter took place. The classical realism was replaced with solemnity and
heroism. During this period, the artist’s interest was concentrated on his
figures, modelled with bold light and shade, expressive of feelings and
arranged in a crowded but carefully controlled composition. The brush work is
competently sketchy and in the distances the colours fade.
Roman Art
Roman paintings and sculptures remained largely
imitative of the Greek art and style. Early Roman art was realistic and direct.
Hellenistic Roman art was more heroic and the paintings were executed in
tempera or in encaustic pigments. Late roman art gave way to both Celtic and
Christian Roman art which was influenced by the Constantinople.
Indian Art
Indian art’s origin can be traced to pre-historic
Hominid settlements in 3rd millennium BC. The art forms in India
include plastic art such as pottery and sculptures, visual arts such as
paintings, and textile art such as woven silk. A strong sense of design is
characteristic in Indian art and can be seen with modern and traditional forms.
In spite of the complex mixture of religious traditions, the prevailing style
has been shared by major groups. Early Indian art can be dated to 650 CE from
early as 5000 BCE.
Rock
art of India includes rock relief carvings, engravings and paintings. It is
estimated to have existed since the Palaeolithic age at the Bhimbetka caves.
The style had varied with age and region, with the most common characteristic,
a red wash made using a - mineral called geru, which is a form of iron
oxide.
During
the Indus valley civilization period (5000 BC – 1500 BC), the art works
excavated and identified includes, works of gold; terracotta figurines of cows,
bears, monkeys, and dogs; majority of seals at sites of mature period
speculates part bull, part zebra, with majestic horns; and stone figurines of
girls in dancing poses which also reveals the presence of some form of dance.
The
Mauryan period (340 BC- 232 BC) marked the use of brick and stone for
architecture. The period also marked an impressive step in stone sculpture. The
Pataliputra capital has a strong Greek stylistic influence, with volute, bead
and reel meander or honeysuckle designs of a Persian lion. The period was
associated with various types of pottery of which a highly developed technique
can be seen with the Northern Black Polished Ware (NBP).
The
Buddhist art period (1CE – 500 CE) had seen a wide variety of Buddhist statues
and reliefs and illustrations of life of Buddha. Buddhism developed an increasing
emphasis on statues of the Buddha, which greatly influenced later Hindu and
Jain religious figurative art, which were also influenced by the Greco-Buddhist
art. This fusion developed in the far north-west of India, especially Gandhara.
The Buddhist Kushan Empire spread from Central Asia to include northern India
in the early centuries CE, and briefly commissioned large statues that were
portraits of the royal dynasty, a type of art that was otherwise wholly absent
from India until the Mughal miniature.
Chinese Art
From the
earliest Stone Age art to the Ming Dynasty in 1500 AD, Chinese artists took up
the same themes over and over again. They were interested in swirling lines.
They were interested in nature: animals, trees, flowers, rocks, water. Chinese
artists wanted to express the relationship between people and nature.
But there were
also big changes in Chinese art, some caused by new ideas within China, and
some by new ideas coming from India, Central Asia, or West Asia. In the Stone
Age, Chinese artists experimented with pottery. They used swirling brushwork to
decorate the pots - that continued throughout Chinese art. Beginning in the
Shang Dynasty, artists also cast bronze jars in molds with designs of dragons,
elephants, and other creatures. During the Zhou Dynasty, Chinese artists also
began to make all kinds of lacquered boxes. When Chinese people learned about
Buddhism, under the Han Dynasty, they also learned about Buddhist art styles in
India, and these new styles had a huge effect on Chinese art. Chinese sculptors
learned to make life-size stone statues.
By the time of the
Three Kingdoms, Chinese painting became much more important. Artists worked
with swirling brushstrokes to create striking line paintings. T'ang Dynasty
paintings depict people, horses, and elaborate landscapes coloured with green
and blue paints. Song Dynasty paintings, influenced by Taoism and Confucianism,
often show tiny people dwarfed by nature. Artists became concerned with economy
of line: one simple line makes us see the whole cliff, or flowers, or birds. They
began to draw just one flower, or one bird.The Mongol invasions brought a new
energy and enthusiasm to painting, but then under the Ming Dynasty artists
began to explore still-life painting, and to reconsider and revive the styles
of the past.
Medieval Art
The art that prevailed during the period of dark ages
(c. 500 to 1500 AD) spreading areas around Europe, Middle East and North
Africa. It includes major art movements and periods both national and regional
art. The Art historians classified the medieval art into 5 major periods based
on styles the artists followed; the Early Christian art, Byzantine art,
Pre-Romanesque art, Romanesque art and Gothic art.
The medieval art in Europe grew out of the artistic
heritage of the Roman Empire and the iconographic traditions of the early
Christian church. A remarkable artistic legacy was produced by adopting a
vigorous ‘barbarian’ artistic culture of Northern Europe. The period ended with
the self-perceived Renaissance recovery of the skills and values of the classical
art. The use of valuable materials was a constant in the medieval art. Gold was
used for objects in churches and palaces, personal jewellery and fittings of
clothes and fixed to the back of the glass tesserae as a solid background for
the mosaics, or applied as gold leafs to miniatures in manuscripts, and panel
painting. The even more expensive pigment ultramarine, made from ground lapis
lazuli, was used lavishly in the Gothic period.
Early Christian Art
The period of
art covered from 200 to until the onset of a fully Byzantine style. From the
start of the period the main survivals of Christian art are the tomb-paintings
in popular styles of the catacombs of Rome, but by the end there were a number
of lavish mosaics in churches built under imperial patronage. Figures are
mostly seen frontally staring out at the viewer, where classical art tended to
show a profile view. Some examples are the Arch of Constantine in Rome,
Ascension of Christ, and Consular diptych, Constantinople.
Byzantine Art
The art that
emerged from late Antiquity in about 500 CE and soon formed a tradition
distinct from that of Catholic Europe and influenced it, is of the Greek
speaking Byzantine Empire. Byzantine art was extremely conservative, for
religious and cultural reasons. It retained a continuous tradition of Greek
realism, which contended with a strong anti-realist and hieratic impulse. There
classical style was revived noticeable. Byzantine art’s crowning achievement
were the monumental frescoes and mosaics inside domed churches.
The Coptic art of Egypt after the mid-5th
century started producing a completely non-realist and naïve style of figures.
This was capable of great expressiveness. Coptic decorations used intricate
geometric designs. The textiles were often elaborately decorated with the
figurative and pattern designs.
A distinct style was followed around Ireland and
Britain from about 7th century to about 10th century,
called the Insular art. It followed an extremely detailed geometric, interlace
and stylised animal decoration with forms derived from secular metalwork like
brooches, spread across manuscripts usually gospel books like Book of Kells and
very few human figures were Evangelist portraits which were crude though they
followed Late Antiquity style. The insular manuscript style had a vital role in
the formation of later medieval styles.
Islamic Art and its influence on Western Art
Islamic art
was widely admired and imported by European elites. The art used artists and
sculptors trained under the Coptic and Byzantine tradition. Instead of wall
paintings, they used painted tiles and the process also spread to Europe.
Crusader art is a hybrid of Catholic and Byzantine
styles with an Islamic influence. The most part luxury products of the court
culture such as silks, ivory, precious stones and jewels were imported to
Europe in an unfinished form and labelled as "eastern" by local
medieval artisans. They were free from depictions of religious scenes and
normally decorated with ornament, and by the late Middle-Ages there was a
fashion for pseudo-Kufic imitations of Arabic script used decoratively in
Western art.
Pre-Romanesque Art
Pre-Romanesque
art period’s primary theme was the introduction and absorption of classical
Mediterranean and Christian forms with Germanic, creating innovative new forms
leading to the rise of Romanesque art in the 1100 CE. Before the Romanesque art
period there had been 2 styles followed in the northern Europe under the
Carolingian dynasty and Ottonian dynasty lasting from 780 to 900 AD and 936 to
1056 AD respectively.
Both the
dynasties focused more on the court and monastery art. Some centres of
Carolingian style pioneered on expressive styles in work like Utrecht Psalter
and Ebbo Gospels. The Carolingian art created innovative new forms such as
naturalistic figure line drawing. The Ottonian art moved towards great
expressiveness through simple forms that achieved monumentality even in small
works. The art was expressive in a different way with agitated figures and
drapery, best shown in pen drawings in manuscripts. The Ottonian art created a
period of heightened cultural and artistic fervour. It reflected the dynasty’s
desire to establish visually a link to the Christian Rulers of late Antiquity.
The monasteries were directly sponsored from the emperors and bishops, having
best in talent and equipment.
Romanesque Art
The
Romanesque art developed in the period of 1000 AD and lasted till the emergence
of Gothic Art in 12th century. It was the first medieval style to
become prominent all over Europe, though with regional differences. The arrival
coincided with a great increase
in church buildings, and in massive size of cathedrals and larger churches. The
Romanesque architecture is dominated by thick walls, massive structures
conceived as a single organic form, with vaulted roofs and round headed windows
and arches.
The different techniques of mural painting are:
fresco, distemper, wax painting and fresco al secco. For fresco, the mason
prepares a certain area of fresh, smooth mortar or plaster on which the painter
works directly, with slightly moistened brush full of ground colour. The colour
pigments penetrate the mortar while this is drying. This technique requires
great skill on the artist's part, since he cannot go over his first strokes or
make any corrections. The choice of colours is limited to those derived from
earth or chalk: whites, ochre, yellows, browns and reds, all rather subdued in
tone.
Distemper painting is done, like fresco, on a
previously prepared coat of plaster, which in this case is moistened afresh
completely. This involves working on a dry surface with colours soaked in water
mixed with size. This was chiefly used in France during the Romanesque period.
Melted wax painting, which had also been known for
centuries and even in Roman times, is carried out by mixing powdered colours
with wax, which is melted and introduced into the ground by means of a heated
spatula or piece of metal.
Fresco al secco is done straight on to the dry
plaster. It is done with colours soaked in water to which is added either white
of egg or glue made from fish bones or rabbit skins, which serves to fix the
colours.
For panel paintings and illuminated manuscripts, the
usual painting method was tempera.
Gothic Art
The Gothic Style refers to
styles of European sculptures, architectures and other minor art forms that
linked the Romanesque era to the early Renaissance period. The period is
primarily divided into Early Gothic (1150 - 1250), High Gothic (1250-1375) and
International Gothic (1375-1450). Gothic art, being exclusively religious art,
lent powerful tangible weight to the growing power of the Church in Rome. This
not only inspired the public, as well as its secular leaders but also it firmly
established the connection between religion and art, which was one of the
foundations of the Italian Renaissance (1400-1530).
Paintings
in Gothic period was practised in 4 media:
- Frescoes
- Stained Glass
- Manuscripts and printmaking
- Altar piece and panel painting
The Gothic
period is defined more by the Gothic Architecture. A flying buttress, ribbed
vault, and a pointed arch characterised Gothic architecture. The architecture
included sculpture as an important part of the style with larger portals and
figures on frontages. During the late stages, large carved altarpieces in
painted and glided wood became the focus. The Gothic architecture allowed for
larger windows and stained glass, is the type of art associated in minds of
most people with Gothic period.
Renaissance
The Renaissance, a period of great cultural change and
achievement in Europe that spanned the period from the end of the fourteenth
century to about 1600, marking the transition between Medieval and Early Modern
Europe. The word Renaissance means literally means “rebirth,” and the era is best
known for the renewed interest in the culture of classical antiquity. The
Italian Renaissance began in Tuscany, centered in the cities of Florence and
Siena. It later had a significant impact in Venice, where the remains of
ancient Greek culture provided humanist scholars with new texts. The Italian
Renaissance peaked in the late-fifteenth century as foreign invasions plunged
the region into turmoil. However, the ideas and ideals of the Renaissance
spread into the rest of Europe, setting off the Northern Renaissance centered
in Fontainebleau and Antwerp, and the English Renaissance.
The
Italian Renaissance is best known for its cultural achievements. They include
works of literature by such figures as Petrarch, Castiglione, and Machiavelli;
works of art by artists such as Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci; and great
works of architecture, such as The Duomo in Florence and St. Peter's Basilica
in Rome.
Development
Renaissance
politics developed from this background. Since the thirteenth century, as
armies became primarily composed of mercenaries, prosperous city-states could
field considerable forces, despite their low populations. In the course of the
fifteenth century, the most powerful city-states annexed their smaller
neighbors. Florence took Pisa in 1406, Venice captured Padua and Verona, while
the Duchy of Milan annexed a number of nearby areas including Pavia and Parma.
Lorenzo was
the first of the family to be educated from an early age in the humanist
tradition and is best known as one of the Renaissance's most important patrons
of the arts. Renaissance ideals first spread from Florence to the neighboring
states of Tuscany such as Siena and Lucca. The Tuscan culture soon became the
model for all the states of Northern Italy, and the Tuscan variety of Italian
came to predominate throughout the region, especially in literature. In 1447,
Francesco Sforza came to power in Milan and rapidly transformed that still medieval
city into a major center of art and learning that drew Leone Battista Alberti.
Venice, one of the wealthiest cities due to its control of the Mediterranean
Sea, also became a center for Renaissance culture, especially architecture.
Smaller courts brought Renaissance patronage to lesser cities, which developed
their characteristic arts: Ferrara, Mantua under the Gonzaga, and Urbino under
Federico da Montefeltro. In Naples, the Renaissance was ushered in under the
patronage of Alfonso I who conquered Naples in 1443 and encouraged artists like
Francesco Laurana and Antonello da Messina and writers like the poet Jacopo
Sannazzaro and the humanist scholar Angelo Poliziano.
In 1378, the
papacy returned to Rome, but that once imperial city remained poor and largely
in ruins through the first years of the Renaissance. The great transformation
began under Pope Nicholas V, who became pontiff in 1447. He launched a dramatic
rebuilding effort that would eventually see much of the city renewed. The
humanist scholar Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini became pope as Pius II in 1458. As
the papacy fell under the control of the wealthy families from the north, such
as the Medici and the Borgias, the spirit of Renaissance art and philosophy
came to dominate the Vatican. Pope Sixtus IV continued Nicholas' work, most
famously ordering the construction of the Sistine Chapel. The popes became
increasingly secular rulers as the Papal States were forged into a centralized
power by a series of "warrior popes."
The nature
of the Renaissance also changed in the late-fifteenth century. The Renaissance
ideal was fully adopted by the ruling classes and the aristocracy. In the early
Renaissance, artists were seen as craftsmen with little prestige or
recognition. By the later Renaissance, the top figures wielded great influence
and could charge great fees. A flourishing trade in Renaissance art developed.
While in the early Renaissance many of the leading artists were of lower- or
middle-class origins, increasingly they became aristocrats.
Sculpture
and Painting
In painting,
the false dawn of Giotto's realism, his fully three-dimensional figures
occupying a rational space, and his humanist interest in expressing the
individual personality rather than the iconic images, was followed by a retreat
into conservative late-Gothic conventions. The Italian Renaissance in painting
began anew, in Florence and Tuscany, with the frescoes of Masaccio then the
panel paintings and frescoes of Piero della Francesca and Paolo Uccello began
to enhance the realism of their work by using new techniques in perspective,
thus representing three dimensions in two-dimensional art more authentically.
Piero della Francesca even wrote treatises on scientific perspective.
The creation
of credible space allowed artists to also focus on the accurate representation
of the human body and on naturalistic landscapes. Masaccio's figures have a
plasticity unknown up to that point in time. Compared to the flatness of Gothic
painting, his pictures were revolutionary. At the turn of the sixteenth
century, especially in Northern Italy, artists also began to use new techniques
in the manipulation of light and darkness, such as the tone contrast evident in
many of Titian's portraits and the development of sfumato and chiaroscuro by
Leonardo da Vinci and Giorgione. The period also saw the first secular (non-
religious themes).
In
sculpture, Donatello's (1386–1466) study of classical sculpture lead to his
development of classicizing positions (such as the contrapposto pose) and
subject matter (like the unsupported nude – his second sculpture of David was
the first free-standing bronze nude created in Europe since the Roman Empire.)
The progress made by Donatello was influential on all who followed; perhaps the
greatest of whom is Michelangelo, whose David of 1500 is also a male nude
study. Michelangelo's David is more naturalistic than Donatello's and has
greater emotional intensity. Both sculptures are standing in contrapposto,
their weight shifted to one leg.
The period
known as the High Renaissance represents the culmination of the goals of the
earlier period, namely the accurate representation of figures in space rendered
with credible motion and in an appropriately decorous style. The most famous
painters from this time period are Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo
Buonarroti. Their images are among the most widely known works of art in the
world. Leonardo's Last Supper, Raphael's School of Athens, and Michelangelo's
Sistine Chapel Ceiling are the textbook examples of this period.
Architecture
In Italy,
the Renaissance style, introduced with a revolutionary but incomplete monument
in Rimini by Leone Battista Alberti, was developed, however, in Florence. Some
of the earliest buildings showing Renaissance characteristics are Filippo Brunelleschi's
church of San Lorenzo and the Pazzi Chapel. The interior of Santo Spirito
expresses a new sense of light, clarity, and spaciousness, which is typical of
the early Italian Renaissance. Its architecture reflects the philosophy of
Humanism, the enlightenment and clarity of mind as opposed to the darkness and
spirituality of the Middle Ages. The revival of classical antiquity can best be
illustrated by the Palazzo Ruccelai. Here the pilasters follow the
superposition of classical orders, with Doric capitals on the ground floor,
Ionic capitals on the piano nobile and Corinthian capitals on the uppermost
floor.
In Mantua,
Leone Battista Alberti ushered in the new antique style, though his culminating
work, Sant'Andrea, was not begun until 1472, after the architect's death.
The High
Renaissance, as we call the style today, was introduced to Rome with Donato
Bramante's Tempietto at San Pietro in Montorio (1502) and his original
centrally planned St. Peter's Basilica (1506), which was the most notable architectural
commission of the era, influenced by almost all notable Renaissance artists,
including Michelangelo and Giacomo della Porta. The beginning of the late
Renaissance in 1550 was marked by the development of a new column order by
Andrea Palladio. Colossal columns that were two or more stories tall decorated
the facades.
Different
Art Moments in the 20th Century
Cubism
Cubism, an early-20th-century
avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, had
also inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. Cubism
has been considered the most influential art movement of the 20th century. The
term is broadly used in association with a wide variety of art produced in
Paris during the 1910s and extending through the 1920s.
The movement
was pioneered by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, joined by Jean Metzinger,
Albert Gleizes, Robert Delaunay, Henri Le Fauconnier, Fernand Léger and Juan
Gris. A primary influence that led to Cubism was the representation of
three-dimensional form in the late works of Paul Cézanne. In Cubist artwork,
objects are analysed, broken up and reassembled in an abstracted form—instead
of depicting objects from one viewpoint, the artist depicts the subject from a
multitude of viewpoints to represent the subject in a greater context.
The impact
of Cubism was far-reaching and wide-ranging. Cubism spread rapidly across the
globe and in doing so evolved to greater or lesser extent. In essence, Cubism
was the starting point of an evolutionary process that produced diversity; it
was the antecedent of diverse art movements.
Cubism
formed an important link between early-20th-century art and architecture. The
historical, theoretical, and socio-political relationships between avant-garde
practices in painting, sculpture and architecture had early ramifications in France,
Germany and Netherlands. There are many points of intersection between Cubism
and architecture. Most often the connections are made by reference to shared
formal characteristics: faceting of form, spatial ambiguity, transparency, and
multiplicity.
Architectural
interest in Cubism centred on the dissolution and reconstitution of
three-dimensional form, using simple geometric shapes, juxtaposed without the
illusions of classical perspective. Diverse elements could be superimposed,
made transparent or penetrate one another, while retaining their spatial
relationships. Cubism had become an influential factor in the development of
modern architecture from 1912 onwards with the simplification of building
design, the use of materials appropriate to industrial production, and the
increased use of glass.
Modernism
Modernism, a
philosophical movement that, along with cultural trends and changes, arose from
wide-scale and far-reaching transformations in Western society in the late 19th
and early 20th centuries. Among the factors that shaped modernism were the
development of modern industrial societies and the rapid growth of cities,
followed then by the horror of World War I. Modernism also rejected the
certainty of Enlightenment thinking, and many modernists rejected religious
belief.
Modernism
includes the activities and creations of those who felt the traditional forms
of art, architecture, literature, religious faith, philosophy, social
organization, activities of daily life, and even the sciences, were becoming
ill-fitted to their tasks and outdated in the new economic, social, and
political environment of an emerging fully industrialized world. Its
innovations, like the stream-of-consciousness novel, inharmonious and
twelve-tone music, divisionism painting and abstract art, all had precursors in
the 19th century.
A notable
characteristic of modernism is self-consciousness and irony concerning literary
and social traditions, which often led to experiments with form, along with the
use of techniques that drew attention to the processes and materials used in
creating a painting, poem, building, etc. Modernism explicitly rejected the
ideology of realism and makes use of the works of the past by the employment of
reprise, incorporation, rewriting, recapitulation, revision and parody.
Modernism can
be defined as a mode of thinking—one or more philosophically defined
characteristics, like self-consciousness or self-reference, that run across all
the novelties in the arts and the disciplines. From this perspective, modernism
encouraged the re-examination of every aspect of existence, from commerce to
philosophy, with the goal of finding that which was 'holding back' progress,
and replacing it with new ways of reaching the same end. Another focus on
modernism was as an aesthetic introspection, which facilitates consideration of
specific reactions to the use of technology in the First World War, and
anti-technological and nihilistic aspects of the works of diverse thinkers and
artists spanning the period from Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) to Samuel
Beckett (1906–1989).
Realism
Realism was
an artistic movement that began in France in the 1850s, after the 1848
Revolution. Realists rejected Romanticism, which had dominated French
literature and art since the late 18th century. Realism revolted against the exotic
subject matter and exaggerated emotionalism and drama of the Romantic movement.
Instead it sought to portray real and typical contemporary people and
situations with truth and accuracy, and not avoiding unpleasant or sordid
aspects of life. Realist works depicted people of all classes in situations
that arise in ordinary life, and often reflected the changes brought by the
Industrial and Commercial Revolutions. The popularity of such
"realistic" works grew with the introduction of photography—a new visual
source that created a desire for people to produce representations which look
objectively real.
The Realists
depicted everyday subjects and situations in contemporary settings, and
attempted to depict individuals of all social classes in a similar manner.
Classical idealism and Romantic emotionalism and drama were avoided equally,
and often sordid or untidy elements of subjects were not smoothed over or
omitted. Social realism emphasizes the depiction of the working class, and
treating them with the same seriousness as other classes in art, but realism,
as the avoidance of artificiality, in the treatment of human relations and
emotions was also an aim of Realism. Treatments of subjects in a heroic or
sentimental manner were equally rejected.
Realism as
an art movement was led by Courbet in France. It spread across Europe and was
influential for the rest of the century and beyond, but as it became adopted
into the mainstream of painting it becomes less common and useful as a term to
define artistic style. After the arrival of Impressionism and later movements
which downgraded the importance of precise illusionistic brushwork, it often
came to refer simply to the use of a more traditional and tighter painting
style. It has been used for a number of later movements and trends in art, some
involving careful illusionistic representation, such as Photorealism, and
others the depiction of "realist" subject matter in a social sense,
or attempts at both.
Romanticism
Romanticism
was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe
toward the end of the 18th century and in most areas was at its peak in the
approximate period from 1800 to 1850. Romanticism was characterized by its
emphasis on emotion and individualism as well as glorification of all the past
and nature. It was partly a reaction to the Industrial Revolution, the
aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment, and the
scientific rationalization of nature. It was embodied most strongly in the
visual arts, music, and literature. Its long-term effect was on the growth of
nationalism was perhaps more significant.
The movement
emphasized intense emotion as an authentic source of aesthetic experience,
placing new emphasis on such emotions as apprehension, horror and terror, and
awe. It considered folk art and ancient custom to be noble statuses, but also
valued spontaneity, as in the musical impromptu. In contrast to the rational
and Classicist ideal models, Romanticism revived medievalism and elements of
art and narrative perceived as authentically medieval in an attempt to escape
population growth, early urban sprawl, and industrialism.
The movement
was rooted in which it preferred intuition and emotion to the rationalism of the
Enlightenment, the events and ideologies of the French Revolution were also
proximate factors. Romanticism assigned a high value to the achievements of
"heroic" individualists and artists, whose examples, it maintained,
would raise the quality of society. It also promoted the individual imagination
as a critical authority allowed of freedom from classical notions of form in
art. There was a strong recourse to historical and natural inevitability in the
representation of its ideas. In the second half of the 19th century, Realism
was offered as a polar opposite to Romanticism.
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