From the Paper "This paper will discuss a painting by Caravaggio (1571-1610) entitled A Concert, which dates from approximately 1595. This was an early work in Caravaggio's career. It was painted soon after his arrival in Rome from his rural birthplace near Milan. The painting depicts three young musicians preparing to play a concert. one boy is tuning his lute while another studies a musical score. The third boy holds an unusual looking horn. A figure representing Cupid sits behind them, holding a bunch of grapes.
The work was commissioned by the Cardinal del Monte, who was Caravaggio's first patron and helped the young artist to advance his career. The painting is representative of Caravaggio's early genre pieces. At this point in the artist's career, he had not yet started to paint the unique religious scenes that he is best..."
From the Paper "In the early twentieth century, Picasso introduced the style of painting which has come to be known as Cubism. This style is characterized by a distortion of figures, the breaking down of objects into basic shapes, and the depiction of multiple viewpoints all at once. According to the art historian Anna Moszynska, "this extreme fragmentation of form marked a fundamental break with existing modes of pictorial expression" (Moszynska, 1990, p. 11). Picasso's abstraction of reality was seen as being shockingly new at the time. However, Picasso was not alone in creating Cubism. In this, he was strongly influenced by the Post.Impressionist painters who came before him. Specifically, he was influenced by Cezanne's use of basic geometric shapes to depict landscapes and objects. Guided by the work of Cezanne, "Picasso began to treat solid forms in a more ..."
From the Paper "The Dutch painter Hieronymous Bosch (c. 1450.1516) was noted for his use of unusual symbols and imagery. This can be seen, for example, in his famous triptych the Garden of Earthly Delights, which is housed in the Prado Museum in Madrid. This paper will examine the inspirational sources for the imagery in this painting. In this way, an effort will be made to determine whether Bosch was influenced by religious, alchemical, or other types of symbols when he painted the work.
Some art historians have argued for a religious interpretation of the Garden of Earthly Delights. For example, Glum considers the work to be a scene depicting "divine judgment." According to Glum's view, the painting symbolizes the consequences of giving in to sensual pleasures, or sin. In this regard, the figures in the central panel are oblivious to the ..."
From the Paper " The Art of India
Many of the arts of India reveal the complex nature of the culture, a culture that includes rites of passage, fairs and festivals, performance, art and craft, all drawing from ancient myths, legends, and beliefs. Traditional Indian households celebrate every stage of life, and creativity abounds in many avenues of expression. It is the purpose of this paper to provide a general overview of the art, dance and music of India with special attention to the relationship of the arts to the Indian culture itself.
Vast religious, sociological, and cultural rivers have met and mingled in India--the food-gatherers, who claim to be descendants of Shiva; the nomadic tribes, who probably originated the Krishna legend; and the agricultural societies with their.."
From the Paper "The industrial revolution brought about massive technological change over a period of decades and continued this trend to the present day. The changes brought about in technology influences the development of new means of communication, contributing to the rise of the mass media and the art and craft of photography. In turn, this would have a profound effect on the growing middle class, bringing images, pictures, text, and ultimately sound and the moving image directly to millions of people who in the past would have been denied access to the information so provided. This meant a change from a society where knowledge was held by relatively few to a society where knowledge was accessible to almost everyone, and eventually this would lead to the information age in which we now find ourselves, an age where the media and technology have..."
From the Paper "Mary Cassatt is one of the less well-known of the Impressionist painters. Edgar Degas, her mentor, was one of the most important of the artists who participated in the Impressionist movement and who exhibited his paintings at Impressionist exhibitions. In many ways both were very different from other artists identifying themselves with this movement. Degas was one of the most helpful to other painters, including Cassatt, whom he also painted. The careers of these two painters are each somewhat out of the ordinary for the time and reflect different experiences, in part with differences based on gender.
There were four women classified as Impressionists--Berthe Morisot, Marie Bracquemond, Eva Gonzales, and Mary Cassatt. These four were very different artists, each of whom related to the artistic and political debates of her time in her own..."
From the Paper "In his theory of art, John Dewey emphasizes the importance of continuity within the art object. In this regard, Dewey seems to be insisting that organic unity is the essence of all aesthetic experiences. According to Dewey, a work of art is an experience in which meanings or values "are expressed, or shown, rather than stated or said". As such, art stimulates an experience which can be said to be "qualitative" in nature. Dewey considers art to be a very special kind of experience, or consummatory experience. A consummatory experience can be defined as one which is both fulfilling and satisfying. In his 1934 book "Art as Experience", Dewey claims: "Such an experience is a whole and carries with it its own individualizing quality and self-sufficiency". Bernstein relates the consummatory ... "
From the Paper "This paper will discuss the life of Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564), who is "the most famous artist who ever lived and many would say the greatest" (Hibbard 10). Michelangelo was an Italian Renaissance artist who is most widely known for his sculptures David and the Pieta, as well as the frescoed ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Michelangelo was born on March 6, 1475 in the village of Caprese, where his father Lodovico Buonarroti, "was serving a short term as mayor (podesta) - almost his first job" (15). The family had once been wealthy, but by the time Michelangelo was born they had lost most of their fortune. Even so, they were proud people who continued to live as though they were still rich. For example, Michelangelo's father "took on the grand manner of a decadent nobleman and would not work" (Besdine 15). Michelangelo was the second of five ..."
From the Paper "Pablo Picasso's Weeping Woman with Handkerchief (1937) comes from one of his most productive periods, an era in which he was producing works demonstrating a new emotional tension, a brooding sense of foreboding, and a preoccupation with anguish and despair. His works display a concern with the mythological image of the Minotaur and the images of the dying horse and the weeping woman (Osborne 434). Picasso's works were involved with a new way of depicting perceptions, seeking the essence of a subject rather than a strict recreation of reality. Andre Breton stated that Picasso was an heir to Surrealism (Osborne 424). The art of the time was also much influenced by changes in science and society reflecting less reliance on tradition and a different view of the uncertainties of surface structure, and these conceptions were embodied in the idea of Modernism."
Abstract The paper compares and contrasts these two Renaissance interpretations of the Madonna and Child. It looks at the differing stylistic elements and discusses why the paintings are significant works of art for their timeframe. The attempt to blend the real world with the spiritual is explored and the painters? different techniques in their quest to achieve that blending are studied. The paper concludes with a concise summary of the similarities and the differences between these two paintings.
From the Paper "Raphael spent several years in Florence where he produced seventeen images of the Virgin Mary and Child. During that time, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo were his primary teachers, which would account for his stylistic rendering of the Madonna and Child. The Small Cowper Madonna, which was done in oil on wood and was completed around 1505, reflects the innovations that he learned form his years with Leonardo. He mirrored the Florentine method of painting that concentrated on intimacy and simplicity of the setting."
Abstract The "American" public has always had an interest in the lives of Native Americans. During the early 1800, this curiosity blossomed in a fascination. The paper shows that unfortunately, most Americans were content to relegate all Native Americans into this caricature of the "noble savage", dehumanizing them, and few settlers sought to understand the culture of the Natives whose land they were occupying. Fortunately two nineteenth century artists, Edward Sheriff Curtis and George Catlin did not share the same view. This paper discusses how these men dedicated their lives to the study and preservation of Native American tribal culture for posterity by creating imagery based on the Native American people. Although their methodology, content, and style were dissimilar, (Curtis used the camera and Catlin worked with oil paint), their goal was the same, to capture and record the essence of America's indigenous people through art.
From the Paper "Countless numbers around the globe have benefited from the information gathered during the 1800's by Edward S. Curtis and George Catlin.
Without these records many of the customs and heritage that we know of as "Native American" might be lost today.
It is easy to be critical of Catlin's paintings when judging it against the realism of Curtis? photographs, but the goals of the two men were the same. The sincerity, accuracy, and honesty of the collections that were compiled by the ethnographists transcend their work from the category of mere art to the palate of life."
Abstract Before the notoriety of ancient Rome, Italy was the home of a nation called Etruria, whose inhabitants were known as Etruscans. Unfortunately, bitter Roman or ancient Greek historians have misconstrued the Etruscan legacy, in most cases tainting their accounts with a blatant anti-Etruscan bias. This paper considers why there exists such a lack of information about the Etruscans and further illuminates the extent to which surviving artwork offers insights into their culture.
From the Paper "From excavations at certain Etruscan sites, it is clear that art was a vital part of life. In Murlo, a seventh century Etruscan villa was unearthed revealing that large, painted terracotta panels typically adorned the entrances to buildings. Elaborate polychrome reliefs and frescoes indicate that the Etruscans used colour generously, even from the earliest times (Gore, 701)."
Abstract This paper is a review of the work of Henry Moore who had a long artistic career producing numerous sculptures. The writer reviews several pieces of his work. The paper presents Moore as a highly challenging artist whose work forces participation on the part of the viewer.
Table of Contents
"Reclining Woman"
"Reclining Figure"
"Family Group"
"Atomic Piece"/ "Nuclear Energy"
"Knife Edge Mirror Two Piece"
"Sheep"
From the Paper Henry Moore's long artistic career produced a multitude of sculptures with remarkably individualistic traits, although they are clearly the vision of a single creative mind. Their simplicity and mass combine with a curious gracefulness and lightness, making the viewer look closer and even attempt to interact with the work.
His sculpture "Reclining Woman", done in 1930 in Hornton stone, evokes the heavy power of his early works. Her big body is a series of undulating hills and simple peaks, like the rural countryside where Moore grew up.
Abstract This paper examines the art of Edgar Degas, a French Impressionist painter noted most for his ability to portray motion and sponteity in his work. It discusses how one of his favorite subjects to paint was dance and how his obsession with the female form drove him to become more skilled at painting dancing woman than anyone before or since. It looks at how none of his paintings were ever comissioned and he preferred to paint women going through the moments of daily life, unaware of the candid insights of voyeuristic beauty to be gained from their skilled observation.
From the Paper "Degas has captured young ballerinas of the Paris opera house at their most natural, when they are practicing unselfconsciously behind the scenes, not performing for the public. The ballet dancers resemble a sequence in a movie, all of the same fascinating for their totally innovating cuts, for the decentralized pagination, for the unusual angularity: in this sense, it is evident the influence from the orientalism, highly fashionable at his time, and from Japanese prints, of which Degas was a fond collector. "
Abstract This paper is about Sigmund Freud's concept of 'unconscious' and its relevance in the arts. The author discusses how Freud is commonly recognized as having invented the concept of the "unconscious". The author explaines that the subordination of the "pleasure principle" by the "reality principle" is done through a mental process that Freud refers to as sublimation. According to Sigmund Freud, dreams and fantasies (or phantasies) are the symbolic expression and fulfillment of wishes and desires that as a result of sublimation by the "reality principle" cannot be fulfilled through daily life and are consequently repressed into the ?unconscious.? To Freud, "the motive forces of fantasies are unsatisfied wishes, and every single fantasy is the fulfillment of a wish, a correction of unsatisfying reality" (Freud 485). Freud affirms that dreams are disguised, hallucinatory fulfillment's of repressed wishes. He concludes that if expressed in undisguised form, they would be so disturbing that it would wake the dreamer from sleep. Freud's fundamental assumption is that the sublimation of the artist's unsatisfied libido is responsible for producing all forms of art and literature whether it be painting, sculpting, or writing. David H. Richter notes in his introduction to "Sigmund Freud" that Freud was once criticized by Carl Gustav Jung, a fellow psychoanalytic theorist, for insinuating that artists were diseased individuals creating art out of their own personal neurotic needs. The writer feels that Freud insinuates that art is primarily an escapist method, that "in an ideal world in which everyone had matured sufficiently to replace the pleasure principle by the reality principle, there would be no need for art" (Storr 103).
From the Paper "The historical tradition of scholarly theory has been one in which literary texts are subjected to scrutiny regarding whether they are either implicitly or explicitly ideological in nature. Arguably so, nothing reflects a society's fears, hopes, and desires about gender, class, and power more than what the society maintains about art and artists. A literary text is credible of fully reflecting the culture in which it was written, that is to say, it has the potential to embody certain sociological assumptions presented in the dichotomy between "normal" and ?abnormal.? Sigmund Freud, the patriarch of psychoanalysis, is associated with Charles Darwin and Karl Marx as being "one of the three original thinkers who have most altered man's view of himself in the twentieth century" (Storr 145). Yet, even literary theorists, including Freud, realized that "any comprehensive vision of human nature such as he provides must have implications for the nature of happiness, and for the relation of man's natural capacities to his normal or ideal state" (Sousa 196). That is, numerous later theorists and critics believe that Freud's own theories about the function and nature of the mind uncovered some fundamental truths about how an individual's notions of "self" are formed and how culture and civilization operate and are affected by these notions. Coinciding with Freud's own account, the significance of everyday action is determined by motives that are far more numerous and complex than people are aware of or commonsense understanding takes into account. The most basic and constant of motives that influence our actions are those of the unconscious, moreover, those that are difficult to acknowledge or avow. Freud's conception of the unconscious and his rediscovery of the importance of dreams encouraged painters, sculptors and writers to pay serious attention to their inner world of dreams; to find significance in thoughts and images they previously would have dismissed as absurd or illogical. Therefore it is plausible that notions of art and literature as described by Sigmund Freud, are created through the ramifications of the unconscious or the sublimation of an unsatisfied carnal appetite."
