Episode 108: Venetian vs. Florentine Renaissance Art

Bellini, Madonna of the Meadow, abt 1500

Venice and Florence were powerful city states during the time of the Italian Renaissance. Venice was a port city which meant that all the exotic wonders of the world could be found there. This lead to experimentation with color that other European cities couldn't come anywhere near to emulating. Color was such a huge part of Venice that people created whole businesses that involved the making and developing of pigments and dyes. It is no wonder that Venetian art was known for its "colorito" approach.

Colortio was the Venetian approach to painting using lots of color and conveying extreme drama.

Titian, Bacchus and Ariadne, 1520

Colortio was the Venetian approach to painting using lots of color and conveying extreme drama.

Giorgione, The Tempest, 1505

Giorgione, Madonna and Child with Saints Liberale and Francis, 1505

Veronese, Feast in the House of Levi, 1573

Tintoretto, The Finding of Moses, Late Renaissance

In Florence, the city probably most well known for Renaissance art, draftsmanship, line and figural accuracy (disegno) were taken very seriously. The use of light, just like in Venice, was very important but took on a much different quality.

Antonio Pollaiuolo, Hercules Slaying Antaeus, ca. 1478

Domenico Ghirlandaio, Birth of the Virgin Mary

Bronzino, Portrait of a Young Man, 1530

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Venetian vs. Florentine Art. This is our last full episode for the summer but we will have Short But Sweet episodes up every Wednesday until our semester starts back up in August. Thanks for sticking with us through season three! We'll see you in a couple of month's for season four!

Short But Sweet: Episode 13: Hindu Art

Shiva with three faces

In Hinduism there are four goals in life while on earth and a person should aspire to all four. These four goals are: Dharma (righteous living), Artha (wealth earned through the pursuit of a profession), Kama (human and sexual love), Moksha (spiritual salvation).

Hindu temples are dedicated to a deity and aimed at helping the devotee toward his or her spiritual salvation, but the other three goals of life are often represented as well, mainly in sculpture. When a viewer understands these goals they will better understand the many sensuous and seemingly secular themes that can be found on the walls of Indian temples.

Unlike Christianity, Islam, Buddhism or many other religions, Hinduism had no single founder or prophet. Parts of Hinduism can be traced to the sacred literature of the Aryans called the Vedas, which are sacred Sanskrit hymns of praise dedicated to the gods. Other parts of Hinduism came from faith in the power of the mother goddess, a belief prevalent among indigenous peoples. How Hinduism is understood in the present day emerged at about the beginning of the Christian era.

Shiva the Lord of the Dance

This modern form of Hinduism emphasizes the supremacy of the god Vishnu, the god Shiva and the goddess Shakti.

In Hinduism there are many gods, this is called polytheism and can be confusing to people who believe in one god, or monotheism. Hindu’s view their gods as different facets of one diamond.

Vishnu

Shakti, also known as Durga

In Hindu art the viewer will notice deities often portrayed with many arms, this multiplicity emphasizes the power of the deity and the ability to accomplish many astonishing acts of power at one time. If two arms is good, six arms is great. Demons are often depicted with many heads, this is done to indicate their supreme power. When deities are shown with more than one head this is generally an attempt to show the different aspects of their character. For example, if you see the god Shiva portrayed with three heads, the head in the center is his “essential” character while the other two heads could depict his fierce and blissful characteristics.

In Hindu art, just like any religious art, the more you understand of the religion, the more you will appreciate and understand the art.

Lord Rama with Arrows

We apologize for not having the Kandinsky episode up, illness in the ranks prevented us from recording it. We hope you enjoy this SBS on Hindu Art. Join us next week for or first episode delving into fashion! Jo and Alisha will be talking about Christian Dior.

Episode 105: Victorian Fairy Painting

Fairy painting started in Victorian England and is uniquely British. It was heavily influenced by Shakespeare, especially Midsummer's Night Dream and The Tempest but was also influenced by books such as The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser and The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope.

Cultural issues, the difficulties of the Industrial Revolution, poverty and the fast changes in society were overwhelming for the general populous. People found their happy place in Fairy Paintings.

Fuseli, Fairy Mab,  c. 1815

Fuseli, Titania Awakening, 1785

William Blake, Oberon, Titania and Puck with Fairies Dancing, c.1786

 Fuseli and Blake can be considered the prototype of the Fairy genre.

Richard Dadd, Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke, 1855-64, Tate Britain

Richard Dadd is probably the most well know Fairy painter of the Victorian Age, but he was unknown in his lifetime, having spent most of his life in Bethlem Psychiatric Hospital.

Joseph Noel Paton, The Reconciliation of Oberon and Titania, 1847

Joseph Noel Paton was the most well known Fairy painter of the Victorian era.

Turner, Queen Mab's Cave, 1846, Tate Britain

Even artists who were well respected for other genre's of painting, like JMW Turner, dabbled in Fairy Painting.

Edward Robert Hughes, Midsummer's Eve, 1908

John Anster Fitzgerald, The Captive Robin, 1864

John Anster Fitzgerald, Fairies looking through a Gothic Arch, C. 1864

John Atkinson Grimshaw, Spirit of the Night, 1879

Rackhum, A Fairy, A Midsummer’s Night Dream, 1906

Rackham, The Fairies of the Serpentine, 1906

The beginning of World War I brought the popularity of Fairy painting to an end, but Arthur Rackham created amazing fairy illustrations.

Here's a bonus painting for you! I love the rabbit.

We hope you enjoyed this episode. Next week Carrie and Carolyne will be talking about Kandinsky!

Episode 101: Jacques-Louis David: Neoclassical Painter and Revolutionary

This week we have a special guest, our very own Courtney Davis, who is an Assistant Professor of Art History here at UVU. Courtney has been our special guest a couple of times now so she's a pro at this podcasting thing and it was lots of fun having her back, especially to talk about the subject of David.

Self Portrait, 1794, Louvre

Jacques-Louis David was quite a character. Not only was he a talented artist but he was also a political revolutionary who was very luck to have survived the French Revolution with his head still attached!

David was born in Paris in 1748 and died exiled in Brussels in 1825. His father was a prosperous textile merchant who was killed in a dual when David was only ten years old, leaving him to be raised by his uncles.
He studied the classics and drawing and was apprenticed to Joseph-Marie Vien who was a history painter.

At the age of 18 David entered the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. After four failed attempts to win the Prix de Rome he finally won in 1774 with his painting, Antiochus and Stratonice.

Antiochus and Stratonice, 1774,  École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts

The Prix de Rome sent David to Italy where he studied Poussin and Caravaggio. He was very taken with Caravaggio's use of light and shadow, but his style is more classical like Poussin. It was also in Italy where he became interested in neoclassicism, a style that he would make popular in France. While in Italy David visited Pompeii and Herculaneum as well as the Doric Temples at Paestum which greatly influenced his art.

Poussin, Et in Arcadia ego, 1637 & Caravaggio, Calling of St. Matthew, 1599

He returned to Paris and married Marguerite Pécoul in 1782. She would divorce him after he voted for the execution of Louis XVI in 1792 and remarry him after his imprisonment in 1794.

David, Portrait of Marguerite Pecoul David, 1813

In 1784 he was elected into the Académie Royale for his painting Andromache Mourning Hector. This same year he returned to Italy where he painted Oath of the Horatii.

David, Andromache Mourning Hector, 1783, Louvre

David, Oath of the Horatii, 1784, Louvre

Courtney's head in the blue hat!

Oath of the Horatii was painted while David was in Rome, it is said to be inspired by the play Horace, but there is actually nothing in the painting related to the play at all. The use of rich yet somber colors, bare cubic space, clear lighting and linear perspective are the epitome of David's neoclassical style.

David, Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons, 1789

David, Portrait of Monsieur de Lavoisier and Wife, 1788

David is known for his historical paintings but his bread and butter was portraiture. This charming portrait of renowned French scientist Monsieur de Lavoisier and his wife is an excellent example of David's talent. You will have to listen to the podcast to get Courtney's full run down on this lovely painting, but I must say Monsieur de Lavoisier turns a fine ankle. :)

David, Death of Marat, 1793, Royal Museums of Fine Arts, Belgium

Jean-Paul Marat was a physician and radical politician during the French Revolution. He called himself a "Friend to the People" but he was responsible for thousands of beheading's at the guillotine, possibly including Monsieur de Lavoisier from the painting above. David was a friend of Marat's and is responsible for this fantastic work of propaganda. Marat was stabbed and killed by Charlotte Corday while he was in the bath.

David, Coronation of Napoleon, 1805-07, Louvre

Left: Show for scale. Right: A close up 

Napoleon was an ambitious young general who decided he wanted to be Emperor of France. This painting depicts the moment when Napoleon crowns his wife Josephine. The story goes that Napoleon brought the Pope from Italy to crown him Emperor, but as the Pope is placing the crown upon Napoleon's head, he takes it from the Pope and crowns himself.

This painting shows the transition between old France and new France. You can see the blue and gold of the monarchy and the red and yellow of Napoleon as well as the old symbol of the fleur de lis and Napoleon's symbol of the honeybee. All the people to the left of Napoleon are his supports, all the people to the right are the Catholic clergy. David also added Napoleon's mother into the painting, she hadn't been at the coronation.

Here is the link for the Rococo episode: http://artsandfacts.blogspot.com/2013/01/episode-51-rococo-and-whimsical.html

We hope you enjoyed this weeks podcast! Next week Carolyne and I (Julia) will be talking about the color Blue.

Episode 100: Our Favorite and Least Favorite Pieces of Art

This is our 100th episode!  It is an exciting milestone for us and we want to thank all of our listeners for sharing this journey with us!  We also want to thank all of our alumni whose work in the podcast over the years we treasure!  We have included messages from some of them in this episode.  We miss you Marie, Kenna, Mary, Megan, Chloe, Zach, and Lauren!

In this episode we each chose an example of our most favorite and our least favorite artists or pieces of art and had a bit of a smackdown!   As we discuss art together, we often find that we have such differing opinions.  Yet none of them are wrong because there is no universally agreed upon example of "best" or "worst" art. What we gain from our debates is a better understanding and greater appreciation for artists and their creations. 



Alisha's Picks
Love:  Winged Victory, or Nike of Samothrace, Unknown Greek artist, c.200-190 BCE
Hate:  Russian Suprematism-- ie:  Red Square by Kazimir Malevich, 1913

Carolyne's Picks
Love:  Apollo & Daphne by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, 1622-1625
Hate:  Mona Lisa (La Gioconda) by Leonardo da Vinci, 1503-1517

Jo's Picks
Love:  The Slave Ship by J.M.W. Turner, 1840
Hate:  Dada-- ie: Fountain by Marcel Duchamp, 1917

Carrie's Picks:
Love:  Antoni Gaudi-- ie: Casa Batllo, 1877
Hate:  Willem de Kooning-- ie: Woman V, 1952-1953

Julia's Picks
Love:  Red Room by Henri Matisse, 1908
Hate:  Street, Dresden by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, 1908

Thank you for listening today, we hope you enjoyed our 100th Episode! Next week we have a special guest host, Assistant Professor Courtney Davis talking with Julia about the famous French Neoclassical painter David.

Have a great week!

Episode 99: UVU's Possible BA in Art History

Recently Julia and Lauren met with Dr. Steven Bule and Associate Professor Courtney Davis to talk about the Bachelor of Arts in Art History that is in the works at UVU.

Utah Valley University

Episode 96: Exiled Artists

Probably as far back as written history artists have exiled from their homeland for being subversive, political activists, out spoken or just a little bit to much of a free spirit. Some artists have fled their homeland due to death threats while others, like David, were officially exiled by their government. War is another reason artists have left their homes, like Walter Gropius who left Germany and moved to the US to teach at Harvard University. 

Jacques-Louis David

Jacques-Louis David, Self portrait, 1794

Jacques-Louis David, Oath of the Horatii, 1784

The fact that David made it through the French Revolution with his head still attached to his body is amazing, but he also managed to get his King beheaded, become known as the "Art Dictator of France", become the court painter to Napoleon and still died a natural death in Brussels. Although his heart can still be found in Paris. 

David's headstone at Pere Lachaise Cemetery, Paris

Michelangelo Merisi o Amerighi da Caravaggio

Ottavio Leoni, Chalk portrait of Caravaggio, circa 1621

Caravaggio, David with the Head of Goliath, 1610

When Caravaggio was attacked by his enemies in Naples, his face was so disfigured that he was almost unrecognizable. The Head of Goliath is Caravaggio's self portrait after the incident. You can listen to Episode 15 on Caravaggio on iTunes. Our Caravaggio post is here.  

Walter Gropius

Bauhaus Building

Harvard Graduate Center or “Gropius Complex”. Commissioned in 1948

John F. Kennedy Federal Building, Boston, MA, 1963

Pan Am Building, now the MetLife Building, Manhattan, NY 1958-1962

Gropius House, Lincoln, MA 1937-38

Walter Gropius fled Germany during WWII. He took at job at Harvard's Graduate School of Design and went on to design many of the US's familiar modern structures. 

We hope you enjoyed this episode! Come back next week for our St. Patrick's Day episode with Jo and Alisha! Have a great week!