Week 8 assignment: essay – interrelationships reflection apa format | Applied Sciences homework help

4. If you were to purchase one of these paintings, which would it be? Why?

jac16871_ch04_058-090.indd 81 12/11/17 11:23 AM 82

CHAPTER 4

Claude Monet’s Impression, Sunrise (Figure 4-15) was shown at the first show of the impressionist painters in Paris in 1874, and it lent its name to the entire group. The scene in Sunrise has a spontaneous, sketchy effect, the sunlight breaking on glimmering water. Boats and ships lack mass and definition. The solidity of things is subordinated to shimmering surfaces. We sense that only a moment has been caught. Monet and the Impressionists painted, not so much objects they saw but the light that played on and around them. Edouard Manet was considered the leader of the impressionist group. His strik- ing painting A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (Figure 4-16) is more three-dimensional than Monet’s, but the emphasis on color and light is similar. In this painting the Im- pressionists’ preference for everyday scenes with ordinary people and objects is present. Details abound in this painting—some mysterious, such as the legs of the trapeze artist in the upper left corner. Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s joyful painting (Figure 4-17) also represents an ordinary scene of people dining on a warm afternoon, all blissfully unaware of the painter. The scene, like many impressionist scenes, could have been captured by a camera. The perspective is what we would expect in a photograph, while the cut-off ele- ments of people and things are familiar from our experience with snapshots. The use of light tones and reds balances the darker greens and grays in the background. Again, color dominates in this painting. Childe Hassam was well known for his cityscapes, particularly for his color- ful views of New York and Paris. But he also spent summers in the New En- gland countryside, capturing moments such as Summer Evening (Figure 4-18), FIGURE 4-15 Claude Monet, Impression, Sunrise. 1873. Oil on canvas, 19 × 24 inches. Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris. This painting gave the name to the French Impressionists and remains one of the most identifiable paintings of the age. Compared with paintings by Ingres or Giorgione, this seems to be a sketch, but that is the point. It is an impression of the way the brilliant light plays on the waters at sunrise. ©Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY jac16871_ch04_058-090.indd 82 12/11/17 11:23 AM FIGURE 4-16 Edouard Manet, A Bar at the Folies-Bergère. 1881–1882. Oil on canvas, 37¾ × 51¼ inches. Courtauld Institute Galleries, London. Typical of impressionist paintings, this one has for its subject matter ordinary, everyday events. Viewers may also surmise a narrative embedded in the painting, given the character in the mirror, not to mention the feet of the trapeze artist in the upper left. ©The Samuel Courtauld Trust/The Courtauld Gallery/Art Resource, NY recollecting an ordinary evening in New Hampshire. The sharp, diagonal figure of a woman is presented in contrast to the strong, horizontal lines of the window. Hassam creates a relaxed moment, a sense of the ordinary in life, by avoiding any studied traditional composition. He seems to depend upon a photographer’s “trick” called the “rule of thirds,” by placing the figure in the right third of the composition and placing the lower horizontal of the window one-third of the way up from the bottom of the canvas. By avoiding traditional centrality of organiza- tion, Hassam produces a painting that echoes a photograph, as if doing little more than recording a simple moment. Mary Cassatt’s sister Lydia is also posed in a sharp diagonal in Autumn (Figure 4-19). Cassatt’s intense autumn colors create a brilliance almost unexpected. For most 83 jac16871_ch04_058-090.indd 83 12/11/17 11:23 AM 84

CHAPTER 4

people autumn suggests a duller pallette and a more somber mood. Lydia is dressed very warmly in a bulky but cheerful coat, with a warm hat and gloves, and while her expression is calm and perhaps enigmatic, she is restful in the midst of an explosion of colors. In this painting, line may be less significant in terms of composition than the vitality of the brushstrokes that seem to attack the canvas. The deep, resonant colors suggest the ripening of autumn vegetables and fruits characteristic of harvest time. FIGURE 4-18 Childe Hassam, Summer Evening. 1886. Oil on canvas, 121⁄8 × 203⁄8 inches. Florence Griswold Museum. The softness of both color and line implies a muted moment. Childe Hassam studied and painted in France and New York, but this scene commemorates a visit to New Hampshire. It has some of the influence of photography—an off- the-cuff pose, the figure and window both cut off—a characteristic of much impressionist painting. Hassam was considered an American Impressionist and famously connected with the Old Lyme, Connecticut, painters from the 1880s to the 1920s. Courtesy of the Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, CT FIGURE 4-17 Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Luncheon of the Boating Party. 1881. Oil on canvas, 51 × 68 inches. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. Renoir, one of the greatest of the Impressionists, portrays ordinary Parisians in Luncheon of the Boating Party. Earlier painters would have seen this as unfit for exhibition because its subject is not heroic or mythic. The Impressionists celebrated the ordinary. ©Album/Art Resource, NY jac16871_ch04_058-090.indd 84 12/11/17 11:23 AM 85

PAINTING

FIGURE 4-19 Mary Cassatt, Autumn (Profile of Lydia Cassatt). 1880. Musée du Petit Palais, Paris. Mary Cassatt and her sister Lydia shared an apartment in Paris. Lydia frequently modeled for her. This scene is rich with autumn colors set in a Parisian garden. ©RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY jac16871_ch04_058-090.indd 85 12/11/17 11:24 AM FOCUS ON The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood Historically, groups of painters have gathered together to form a “school” of painting. They are like-minded, often young and starting out, and usually disliked at first because they produce a new, unfamiliar style. The Impressionists in France faced a struggle against pre- vailing taste but eventually were accepted as innova- tive and marvelous. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood is such a school. In 1848 in England, Henry Wallis (Figure 4-20), Dante Gabriel Rossetti (Figure 4-21), Arthur Hughes (Figure 4-22), and William Holman Hunt (Fig- ure 4-23), along with a few other painters, began hav- ing monthly meetings to discuss their ideas. They felt that followers of Italian Renaissance painter Raphael (1483–1520) had moved painting in the wrong direc- tion, toward a realistic portrayal of life. Instead, they vowed to return to some of the medieval styles, those characterized by Giotto’s use of tempera (see Figure 4-2), although they used oil paint and watercolor. Much of their subject matter was spiritual and reli- gious. 1848 was a year of revolutions in Europe, and the Pre-Raphaelites felt they were revolting against corruption and immorality in modern life. The first paintings Rossetti and others exhibited included the letters “PRB,” signaling their associa- tion, which at the time was a secret society. Their first FIGURE 4-20 Henry Wallis, The Death of Chatterton. 1855–1856. Oil on canvas, 23¼ × 36 inches. Tate Gallery, London. Bequeathed by Charles Gent Clement 1899. Reference N01685. Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770) was a romantic figure. At age seventeen he committed suicide after having been rejected by critics. He had written a book of poems in a medieval style and passed them off as authentic relics. John Ruskin, a great writer and critic, praised the painting as “faultless and wonderful.” ©Peter Barritt/Alamy FIGURE 4-21 Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Proserpine. 1874. Oil on canvas, 49.3 × 24 inches. Tate Britain, London. Rossetti painted this many times in different tonalities. This version was the last he did, for a client, and soon after Rossetti died. The model was Jane Morris, a favorite of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Proserpine was taken to Hades to be wife to Pluto. Her mother, Ceres, asked Jupiter to let her go and he agreed as long as she did not eat of the fruit of Hades. But she ate one pomegranate seed and was lost forever. ©Art Collection/Alamy 86 jac16871_ch04_058-090.indd 86 12/11/17 11:24 AM paintings were not well received. Their purposes, how- ever, were stated clearly by William Michael Rossetti, who explained the aims of the brotherhood: to have genuine ideas, to study nature very closely, to respond deeply to medieval and renaissance art, to produce ex- cellent pictures. The result of their efforts is a style that is deeply sen- suous, with rich color; subject matter connected with re- ligion, myth, and literature; and careful attention to the smallest details of nature. Their style is rich with the sensa that we see in abstract painting, but it includes a narrative that explores a moral issue. FIGURE 4-22 Arthur Hughes, April Love. 1855–1856. Oil on canvas, 35 × 19½ inches. Tate Gallery, London. The rich color of the young woman’s gown contrasts with the green leaves (ivy?) and the bark of the trees. She looks down to the fallen petals, and the man behind her seems a vague presence. The scene is spring and the lovers have found a quiet grotto in which to talk. Hughes married the model for this painting, and it may be a tribute to their love. ©Tate, London/Art Resource, NY FIGURE 4-23 William Holman Hunt, Awakening Conscience. 1853. Oil on canvas, 30 × 22 inches. Tate Gallery, London. This is another painting like Fragonard’s The Swing, in that it needs to be “read” by the viewer. Because the standing woman has no wedding ring, it is clear that she is the young man’s mistress. The awakening conscience is her becoming aware that she must change her ways and become “respectable.” She is inspired by nature as she looks out the window to a brilliant spring garden—visible in the mirror behind her. The room is full of symbols: The music on the piano is a Tom Moore melody, “Oft in the Stilly Night”; the cat is toying with a bird; the man’s tossed off glove on the floor suggests her future; the tangled skein of wool in the lower right implies disorder. ©Christophel Fine Art/UIG/Getty Images continued 87 jac16871_ch04_058-090.indd 87 12/11/17 11:24 AM Typical of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood’s ap- proach to nature, the details of the leaves and the fallen petals are extraordinary. But the young woman’s gown is portrayed with a richness that, in the dark corner these two have found, radiates so powerfully that it seems to be a source of illumination. The detail of her scarf is also notable. Only the young man remains a mys- tery, although the bright floral opening in the distance implies a bright future. These paintings have a wide variety, yet they all pres- ent a richness of sensa, profound colors that dominate the composition. Their narratives are romantic and their attention to detail roots us in the worlds they portray. They are fascinating in that they are often profoundly sensuous at the same time that they seem to reject sen- suality and praise morality. We see this particularly in The Awakening Conscience. In the case of The Death of Chatterton, Wallis reminds us how fragile the life of the artist can be and pictures Chatterton as a victim of a world that did not appreciate his gifts. We are meant to be moved by the death of a youth, and most of Wallis’s audience were indeed moved. In the case of Rossetti’s Proserpine, the col- ors are deep and dark, suitable for a view of Hades, and the portrait of Proserpine is haunting. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood began with a small group of painters in the 1840s, but it left its mark on painting because its style was modern even as it declared that it was looking backward to the Renaissance. They achieved their success in part because of their subject matter and in part because they produced intense vi- sions in brilliant color and appealed to our sense of emo- tional understanding. fraMes Photographs of paintings, as in this book, usually do not include their frames, the exceptions being Figures 4-1, 4-2, and 4-10. In general, it seems obvious that a “good” or appropriate frame should harmonize and enhance rather than dom- inate the picture. For example, the frame of the Cimabue delicately picks up the colors and lines of the Madonna’s throne. Furthermore, an appropriate frame usu- ally should separate the picture from its surroundings, as again with the Cimabue. Sometimes the artist doesn’t bother with a frame. PERCEPTION KEY The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood 1. Which of these paintings is most dominated by detail? How does color control the detail? 2. In which of the portraits is the facial expression most mysterious? 3. What do these paintings reveal about their subject matter? With which of the paintings do you find it easiest to participate? 4. In which painting does line play the most important role? In which does color play the most important role? 5. Which painting has the most complex composition? Which has the simplest? 6. Which painting tells you the most about the painter’s personality? Which is most psychologically revealing? 7. Which of the paintings has the most original composition? 8. Using one of these paintings, block out the most important shapes and analyze the effectiveness of its composition. 88 jac16871_ch04_058-090.indd 88 12/11/17 11:24 AM EXPERIENCING Frames