AP ART REVIEW

From Renaissance to Abstract1400 – 1960

1400-1500s ITALIAN RENAISSANCE: The Beginning of Modern Painting

• Early 1400s Florence, Italy• Rebirth of culture spread to Rome, Venice

then 1500 to the rest of Europe( known as the Northern Renaissance): the Netherlands, Germany, France, Spain and England.

• Realism, perspective, backgrounds, emotions• Still religious but beginning of secular scenes• Portraits, landscapes

Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa

Michelangelo's Sistine ChapelCreation with God and man at the center

Raphael’s “School of Athens”Secularism and classical knowledge

Free standing statues

Donatello’s David Michelangelo's David

1550s Northern Renaissance: Looked to nature; painted in exacting detail• Trademark of northern artist was incredible

ability to portray nature realistically, down to the most minute detail.

• Oil as medium invented by Flemish painter, Jan Van Eyck

• Still religious but also landscapes, peasants and portraits

Arnolfini Wedding by Van Eyck

Pieter Brugel the Elder

Census to Bethlehem The Blind Leading the Blind

German Artists

Hans Holbein, The French AmbassadorsAlbrecht Durer’s woodcuts and

engravings

1580s Mannerism

• Influenced by religious turmoil of Protestant versus Catholic

• Painted subjectively• Distorted figures• Harsh colors• Displays strong religious feelings

El Greco-

1590-1880: Baroque

• The art of Absolute Monarchs, Constitutional Monarchies and the Dutch Renaissance

• Catholic Reformation• Religious, grand, elaborate, formal and

emotional

Velazquez: Spanish court artist “Las Meninas” (The Maids of Honor)

Caravaggio’s “The Supper at Emmaus”

Palace at Versailles

Rococo Art 1660-1715Period of Louis XIV

• Playful, superficial, alive with energy• Interiors; gilded woodwork, painted panels,

enormous wall mirrors• Smaller scale than baroque• Cherubs, angels, curves, shells, twisted

columns, gardens• Unfashionable after death of Louis XIV 1715

Painting by Watteau; carefree rich

1780-1820 Neo-classism “Roman Fever”

• Return to simplicity, balance, • Subjects- patriotism, duty, sacrifice

(Think French Revolution)• Created by Jacques-Louis David

Jean-Louis David

Death of Marat Napoleon the Conqueror

1800-1850 - RomanticismPower of Passion

• Inspired by Medieval and Baroque eras, Middle and Far East

• Subjects: legends, exotica, nature, violence

Goya’s Third of May

Gericault, “Raft of the Medusa” 1818

Delacroix, “Death of Sardanapalus”1872

J.M.W. Turner, “Slave Ship”

1850-1900 Realism

• “New” realism (Renaissance began realism)• Precise imitation of visual reality without

alteration• Subjects; modern world experienced by the

artist (no gods, goddesses, heroes of antiquity OUT)

• Peasants and urban working class IN

Francois Millet, “The Gleaners”1850

Gustave Courbet, “The Stonebreakers”1849

Ford Madox Brown “The Last of England”1855

Architecture for the Industrial AgePaxton,” Crystal Palace” 1850

Impressionism 1860- 1886“Let there be color and light”

• Born in France• Rejects perspective and realism

(Camera invented 1840s)• Representations of visual sensations through

color and light

Similar But Not the Same:Manet : Contemporary scenes but with hard edge, dark patches of colorMonet: Landscapes, waterfront scenes, water lilies,; sunny hues, light reflections

Manet, “Bar at the Folies-Bergere” Monet,”Water Lilies ”

How to tell them apartDegas : Pastel portraits of human figures in stop action poses; ballerinas, horse races, cafes, nudes bathingRenoir : Rich reds, primary colors; voluptuous, peach-skinned female nudes, café society, children, flowers

Degas, “Prima Ballerina” Renoir, “Le Moulin de la Galette”

Post Impressionism 1880-1905

• French phenomenon• Wanted art more substantial than “impression”• 1st group – Seurat and Cézanne; focus on near

scientific design• 2nd group – Gauguin, van Gogh, and Lautrec;

emotion, and sensations through light and color

Focus on near-scientific designGeorges Seurat, “Bathers”Quasi-scientific style is pointillism Paul Czanne, “Large Bathers”

Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”Color and emotion

Paul Gauguin, Post-impressionist1891 moved to French Polynesia and did a series of

native paintings

Expressionism 1860-1940

• Norwegian artist, Eduard Munch was inspiration Expressionist movement

• Painting that reflects extreme emotions, like jealously, loneliness, joy

• Express emotion through distorting forms and color

Expressionism

Munch, “The Scream” Henri Matisse, “The Joy of Life”

Cubism 1908-1914

• “Art consists of inventing not copying”• Looks like objects broken down into little

pieces and glued back together

Piscasso, “Les Demoiselles D’Avignon”

Piscasso, “Guernica”German bombing of Spanish town 1936

Let’s look at the Sunbathers again.Can you identify the styles and artists?

Dada and Surrealism: Art Between the Wars 1919-1930s

• Surrealism• Influenced by Freudian psychology to portray

fantasies and dreams of the unconscious Salvador Dali’s“Persistence of Memory”

Dadaism: Protest madness of war

Abstract Expressionism 1940-1950s

• Shift to American art after World War II• Action painting• Give free reign to impulse• Impassioned act of painting as expression

Jackson Pollack“A man paints with his brains not his hands”

Arshile Gorky “Water of the Flowery Mill”