Day two of my art course...
Today the forecast was for some rain, so I grabbed an umbrella before heading off for The Wallace Collection for day two of my course. This week we looked at the 16th Century baroque paintings. Firstly we learned a little bit of background of the Reformation (1519), the Counter-Reformation, and how quickly Protestantism spread across Northern Europe.
As a result, there was a lot of discussion about appropriate religious and secular artwork and it came down to making sure that the religious paintings should be 'dignified', should tell the religious parable or story clearly and there should only be nakedness if that was appropriate to the tale it was telling. The art should 'move the spectator'.
Under the cut for a bit of detail and some of the paintings we looked at.
We looked at work by Caravaggio who was popular but there were issues with how 'literal' some of his work was (including using a dead prostitute to depict the passing of the Virgin Mary), so his paintings were often rejected by the church. He used real people for models and often included their dirty fingernails and their realistic expressions. From around 1610 other artists started to copy Caravaggio's style (there were a lot of dirty fingernails appearing!).
One of the examples we looked at in the presentation was The Calling of Saint Matthew (1599-1600) with Matthew and his friends in contemporary dress, and Jesus in 'generic peasant garb' (with dirty feet). This is also a good example of 'chiaroscuro' the use of shadows and light to add focus to a composition :
However, some people preferred a more 'classical' style, and one painter who was popular for this Baroque Classical style was Annibale Carracci who often worked with his brother and his cousin. Realism, but not 'warts and all' realism is shown in this painting The Three Maries Mourning (1606) - this is in the National Gallery, so I shall be looking for it next time I visit.
Another popular painter was Sassoferrato and we saw one of his classical baroque paintings in the Wallace Collection - The Mystic Marriage of St Catherine (1650s). Very much the classical style and it shows how much Sassoferrato was a fan of Raphael.
Many churches would embrace both styles as it kept religious fervour high amongst the congregation.
There were other painters who influenced each other such as Velázquez who was very influenced by Ruben's style and was taken under his wing for a while and both of them were influenced by Titian's work. Rubens even went as far as to copy some of Titian's paintings to demonstrate to Velázquez the technique Titian used.
Around the Collection, we also looked at Murillo's work such as The Adoration of The Shepherds (1665-70) which shows the dirty feet and realism of the poor shepherds, but the divinity of the Virgin and child:
In passing we also looked at some of Velázquez's paintings in the Collection - Prince Baltasar Carlos in Silver (1633)
The Lady With the Fan (1640) - we had a 'spotlight' lecture on this and learned that the red coral on the end of the chain over her left arm was to ward off evil, but also make a little 'pop' of colour in the composition (as does the blue ribbon).
Once again - a very interesting day, and one that will have cross-overs with other days this week. It's so fantastic to see the real paintings when we've heard something about them in a lecture in the morning. I'm really enjoying it.
In other news - Youngest Cee made it to the top of Ben Nevis with his friends - they got very wet in the process as the weather wasn't kind (Scotland in the summer has a lot of liquid sunshine LOL!).
Today's question (another long one!) 11 - World Population Day: comes along each year to remind us that our present rate of population growth is unsustainable, and the present social and logistical issues we are experiencing to meet the demand of that population will only get worse if we don't do something. What can be done to slow population growth? Can we effectively fight climate change without addressing the global population issue?
I don't know enough about how population affects climate change to answer this - although drought affects food growth, so that would affect population I'm not sure of the other implications...
As a result, there was a lot of discussion about appropriate religious and secular artwork and it came down to making sure that the religious paintings should be 'dignified', should tell the religious parable or story clearly and there should only be nakedness if that was appropriate to the tale it was telling. The art should 'move the spectator'.
Under the cut for a bit of detail and some of the paintings we looked at.
We looked at work by Caravaggio who was popular but there were issues with how 'literal' some of his work was (including using a dead prostitute to depict the passing of the Virgin Mary), so his paintings were often rejected by the church. He used real people for models and often included their dirty fingernails and their realistic expressions. From around 1610 other artists started to copy Caravaggio's style (there were a lot of dirty fingernails appearing!).
One of the examples we looked at in the presentation was The Calling of Saint Matthew (1599-1600) with Matthew and his friends in contemporary dress, and Jesus in 'generic peasant garb' (with dirty feet). This is also a good example of 'chiaroscuro' the use of shadows and light to add focus to a composition :
However, some people preferred a more 'classical' style, and one painter who was popular for this Baroque Classical style was Annibale Carracci who often worked with his brother and his cousin. Realism, but not 'warts and all' realism is shown in this painting The Three Maries Mourning (1606) - this is in the National Gallery, so I shall be looking for it next time I visit.
Another popular painter was Sassoferrato and we saw one of his classical baroque paintings in the Wallace Collection - The Mystic Marriage of St Catherine (1650s). Very much the classical style and it shows how much Sassoferrato was a fan of Raphael.
Many churches would embrace both styles as it kept religious fervour high amongst the congregation.
There were other painters who influenced each other such as Velázquez who was very influenced by Ruben's style and was taken under his wing for a while and both of them were influenced by Titian's work. Rubens even went as far as to copy some of Titian's paintings to demonstrate to Velázquez the technique Titian used.
Around the Collection, we also looked at Murillo's work such as The Adoration of The Shepherds (1665-70) which shows the dirty feet and realism of the poor shepherds, but the divinity of the Virgin and child:
In passing we also looked at some of Velázquez's paintings in the Collection - Prince Baltasar Carlos in Silver (1633)
The Lady With the Fan (1640) - we had a 'spotlight' lecture on this and learned that the red coral on the end of the chain over her left arm was to ward off evil, but also make a little 'pop' of colour in the composition (as does the blue ribbon).
Once again - a very interesting day, and one that will have cross-overs with other days this week. It's so fantastic to see the real paintings when we've heard something about them in a lecture in the morning. I'm really enjoying it.
In other news - Youngest Cee made it to the top of Ben Nevis with his friends - they got very wet in the process as the weather wasn't kind (Scotland in the summer has a lot of liquid sunshine LOL!).
Today's question (another long one!) 11 - World Population Day: comes along each year to remind us that our present rate of population growth is unsustainable, and the present social and logistical issues we are experiencing to meet the demand of that population will only get worse if we don't do something. What can be done to slow population growth? Can we effectively fight climate change without addressing the global population issue?
I don't know enough about how population affects climate change to answer this - although drought affects food growth, so that would affect population I'm not sure of the other implications...