Renaissance to Impressionism

 Renaissance → Mannerism→ 16 th Century Printmaking and Painting→ Baroque→ Rococo→ American Painting→ Neoclassicism→ Romanticism→ Realism→ Impressionism

 Early Renaissance 1. Spiritual mysticism of Gothic era challenged by logical thought 2. Humanism revived 3. Scientific naturalism 4. Individualism

 High Renaissance  Cultural center moves from Florence to Rome  Stable without being static/dull  Varied without being confused  Harmony, order, clarity  Lucidity, proportion, balance  Calm, rational, idealized  Set standards that were followed in European art for almost 400 years

 Donatello (Early)  Leonardo da Vinci (High)  Michelangelo Buanarroti (High)  Raphael Sanzio (High)  Titian (High/Venetian)

 Characteristics  Sophistication, elegance, poise  Art of the human figure, almost exclusively Emphasis on hands and feet Compositions with numerous figures: crowded, intricate Figures willfully distorted and elongated Elegant, complex, twisted (strained) poses, juxtaposition Positions and actions have little to do with subject matter (emotional affect)  Discrepancies of scale; unusual spatial effects  Unnatural color: vivid, pastel, often harsh

 Sudden awareness of advances made by Italian Renaissance  Desire to assimilate this new style as rapidly as possible

 Taste for dramatic action and violent narrative scenes  Color and light dramatically contrasted and surfaces are richly textured  Compositions are usually asymmetrical, sharp diagonals  Landscape, genre, and still life become more numerous

 Age of Enlightenment  Style expression of wit and frivolity, with somber and satirical under currents  Typical picture depicts the aristocracy gathered in parks and gardens.  Classical gods and goddess in amorous pursuits  World of fantasy and grace

 New (neo) investigation of classical art of Rome and Greece  Correctness: following the rules established by the academics  Message of high moral order  Sharpness of drawing, crisp lines, firm outlines  Formal, restrained compositions  Style and subject matter: Classical Greece and Rome  Reaction to earlier art styles( and courtly life-style)  Time of revolutions, American and French

 Subject matter: biblical and literary themes, the exotic and remote  Emphasis on:  Emotion (not reason)  Drama turbulent emotion  Complex compositions, asymmetry  Individual interpretations  Color  First artists to totally reject servitude to a patron of any kind, influenced by themes from literature and or far away places, including escapism, exciting-subjective color, swirling diagonals, intense and sometimes violent and unpredictable, aggressive-painterly brushstrokes, hazy outlines

 Time of conflicts between the classes  Time of Industrial Revolution in England  Urban areas and their social ills  Time of Marx and Engels  Realist movement in art reaction against exotic escapism of Romantics

 They preferred genre subjects, like leisure activities, entertainment, landscape and cityscapes  They were influenced by Japanese prints and photography more so than political events  They were more concerned with optical realism and the natural properties of light  Watched light and how it changed with time of day and during different weather conditions, and seasons  They also studied artificial light  They were at first rejected by the French Academy and the public. In response, held their own eight exhibitions between

Georgia O’Keeffe: Early Abstraction Pablo Picasso: Cubism and between the wars Vincent Van Gogh: Post- Impressionism Salvador Dali: Surrealism