A basic history of western art

¶ … History of Western Art

Donatello's David is a clear influence of the classical style over the Renaissance art. The sculpture features a nude representation of carefully studied anatomy that depicts a certain level of feminity. It reminds of the Greek pursuit for beauty and realistic representation of the human figure, as well as the illustration of a major biblical event. It is an important work of art of the Renaissance period that shows a clear vision of the ideology of an era, where the religious crisis of the Christian church was bringing new solutions for society. On one hand, because of the many conflicts the church had over the middle ages period that resulted in a loss of spiritual faith from the people, the new age tried to recover the greatness of the ancient roman empire, by bringing into their lives the art style and ideological concepts of that time. The return to the Greek vision, that was one of the main influences in Rome's time of glory, was an attempt to recreate the spirituality and mind of a golden age.

Renaissance art tried to recreate the classic style, but included some innovations, like the introduction of perspective in painting. During the medieval ages, the Byzantine period was characterized by the use of flat background and little depth given to characters. Another aspect was the minor importance given to the portraitist qualities in painting and sculpture and the representation of a generic character with very few individual features. In Renaissance art the use of volumes becomes a major preoccupation for artists. Also the change in the palette used, bringing colors to become less bright, less fantastic but more realistic and harmoniously combined.

Michael Angelo's main interest was human figure, represented through different kinds of mythological and religious subjects, using allegories, like in "Day and night" where those elements take the form of humans. He had a strong preoccupation for realistic anatomic recreation and to communicate through his work feeling and expression. His work shows great realism in the spiritual state of the characters and the emotions they are meant to induce in the viewer. Some influence from classic art can be seen in works such as David or Pieta, that represent the clear Greek anatomical perfection, with a sense of delicate beauty in the harmony of lines.

The mannerism is the result of the application of the fixated rules of the Renaissance, but taken to the extreme. Renaissance was exhausting itself into the very strict rules of the stereotypes. In closed circles, like private courts of some nobles and princes, there was a new interest for a much exaggerated art, only accepted by those educated enough in the subject and open to such kind of violation of the pictorial rules. This was an unnatural art. The characters in those works suffer terrible distortions or appear in twisted postures impossible in real life. The colors are not natural, but they are cold and artificial, violently contrasting with each other instead of combining. Even academic scholars like Michael Angelo or Raphael experimented in their last years with the distortion or unfinished appearance of their work. Tizian, Correggio and Giorgione employed sophisticated symbolism in their work.

The difference between the artistic visions evolving in Rome or Florence than the one resulting in Venice comes from the different perception and preoccupation of those societies. Rome was trying to get back in touch with the antique classical art, taking as model the Roman art, in an attempt to reconstruct the Roman Empire in its greatness. To achieve this artists returned to the former preoccupation for human figure as the centre of all arts and as the connection between the gods and the human world. Their concern was for anatomy, portrait and representations of movement, postures, attitude and emotions.

Both Rome and Florence were big merchant cities, where interest for science and intellectual activities were taking over. The medieval conception that the artists was merely a worker was beginning to fade away as the artists became more intellectual, respected, and became closely acquainted with the most important scholars of their time. However in Venice, the conception was different, since that was a smaller city, less affected by the speed of modern world and more sensitive to preoccupations such as landscape, colors and beauty of nature. Venetian perception of esthetics was more inclined towards landscape that human figure. In Venetian works the representation of the landscape or background have higher importance than the characters involved. Venetian art was more linked to the Northern, Germanic and Netherlands school, than to what was happening in Rome.

Northern painting developed differently than Italian art during the 15th century period. In the northern school the preoccupation for landscape and nature were the main subject, while in Italy mythology, man and greatness were the main subject. In those countries the Protestant Reform brought a rupture between the church and the world of art, religious subjects losing interest. While in Italy there was great preoccupation with graphic expression, drawing and lines, the northern school was focused on the pictorial dimension of art, giving greater importance to color palette, light and shadow.

The introduction of the printing press affected the vision of the world since many books became available for the common people while new theories about religion, politics and history began to appear and new ideals and interests occurred. Information traveled easier and was more accessible. It also changed the vision of art because it offered a chance to make multiple copies of a drawing, introducing a new art form, related to drawing -etching and xylography. During the Renaissance Germany had many publications and artists were usually qualified to make wood carvings as well as drawings. Most artists began their career in printing workshops illustrating different papers.

The Reformation had its influence in German art, bringing into the northern countries and especially the Netherlands the baroque movement. In 1517 Martin Luther published his work where he strongly criticized the church as being corrupt and false. This was a change in the artistic vision of society, since the church lost power and was no longer the commander of the art, the religious scenes lost interest and artists centered more on portraying the lives of the common people. Attention drove from religious subjects to every day scenes, and special attention was placed on new techniques like the effects of lights, dramatic shadows and the portraying of different materials. It was aimed to the senses, not the spirituality.

Albert Durer was strongly influenced in his work by a Flemish school and the gothic German tradition. His work show great achievement in recreating the effects of light and shadow and the arrangement of figures in the composition, as well as difficult perspectives. During his first years when he made many printings for local papers, his work shows a clear attention for drawing contour, geometric proportions and details, especially seen in his series of self-portrait. He mastered the graphic vision of creating different shades through the use of lines, which gave his printings volume and dimension in a pictorial way.

The design of Versailles and the Louvre show in their greatness and exquisite design the power of the royal court. The most carefully selected artists were assigned the task of creating great masterpieces to showcase the luxury of the royal family. They resemble the Rococo style, as they are greatly decorated with complicated ornamentations that fill the entire space. The French taste of the period is reflected in the great gardens that surround the constructions. The Royal Academy of fine arts was founded in 1648. It served the Neoclassicism and Romanticism movements. The art influenced under the teachings of this institution is called academic art. The purpose was to teach artists to follow very specific rules that had the purpose of bringing art to a higher level of technique and quality. The main teaching method was to have students copy the works of past masters. Many countries in Europe followed the example of the French academy and founded their own institutions for the teaching of fine arts. In England it was the Royal Academy.

The Rococo is characterized by a very elaborated and heavy ornamentation. Its period was around the reign of Louis XV, king of France. Good examples are the works of jean-Antoine Watteau, whose delicate colors of aristocratic scenes break the heroic style of Louis XIV. The word Rococo comes from the French rocaille, which means little rock. Decoration was contained mainly arabesques, curves and seashells. Its esthetic vision was based on asymmetry, pale and pastel colors and richness of lines. The painting became ornamental and monumental. In France it was aimed for the royal house. In other countries served the nobility. It featured the life of the aristocracy, no longer the interests of the church, as the reform caused the church to lose power and interest from the artists. The most representative were Francois Boucher and Jean-Honore Fragonard. This style was exported quickly to other countries, especially Germany and Austria, creating a sumptuous style as it mixed with the baroque, and became accepted for churches and religious spaces. The rococo was aimed towards the French court and nobles. The main message was not a religious one, but aimed the upper classes and focused on their lives, houses and celebrations. In France this style gave way to the austere neoclassic style at the end of the xviii century and disappeared with the French revolution in 1978, suddenly and completely.

Neoclassicism appeared as a return to the classical ideology in art. It was designed to serve political interests as a form of propaganda, to portray the greatness of the government by copying the great style of the masters of the past. It was also a change in ideology as the royalty fell with the French revolution, as well as the aristocracy, two major clients that artists would no longer deal with. Color achieved a secondary importance and drawing became the main expressive key for paintings. Contrasting with the Baroque style, which accentuated light and shadow effects to the extreme, Neoclassical images are rather flat and have little volume. The most important element was line and contour.

Romanticism was also used as political propaganda for napoleon. In this period art becomes social and with a sort of commercial side. Its heroic subjects and approach serve the French revolution and new political ideas to promote in people's minds ideas for freedom and protest against the aristocracy rules. Gericault "Raft of the Medusa" is a good example of romantic art. It shows a crowd of characters in despaired attitude, bravely confronting the tempest, in hopeful manner, facing bravely ahead, and advancing, with optimism and resolution. Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres represent both Neoclassic and romantic, as we can see in works like "The Valpincon bather," where the nude shown is drawn in clear lines and present little light effects, the dark contrasting background accentuating the flat atmosphere created. However he leans towards exotic subjects, with distant places and mysterious characters, which was typical of Romantic style, as we can see in works like "The Turkish bath" and "Odalisque with a slave," as well as heroic topics like "Napoleon in his imperial throne."

The transition from representing things as they are known, with an intellectual awareness of their nature, to representing them as they are perceived by the senses, influenced by the environment and the subjective perception, brought the new movement of the xix century. Before the Impressionism was born many artists like Rembrandt, Velazquez, Hals, Watteau, Goya and others were preoccupied with studying the effects of light over things. In the second half of the xix century, the discoveries of physics over light awakened in the painters a higher interest about this phenomenon and its applications in painting. What we see are not actual objects, but colored spots that cover them in the light and atmosphere, and that was what they intended to paint.

The arrival of photography influenced the vision over painting and created new movements in the world of art. Now that the artists were relieved of their pressure of representing perfect reality, since the camera could take that task instead, they were free to explore the world of sensations, impression and subjective ideas. The apparition of the first monochrome photos brought an enthusiasm for colors and perception. They also brought new subjects: the capturing of the moment, the frozen figure in movement. Some impressionistic artists were inspired by the photographic images to create pictures representing the crowded streets of Paris, in compositions with many moving characters, such as Claude Monet's "Boulevard des Capoucines."

The post-impressionism appeared near 1880, as a rupture from the impressionistic movement. The first one was based on painting the appearance of things, the second reconstructs the form. This tendency was initiated by Cezanne, Van Gogh and Gauguin, that followed the esthetical visions of their own and opened new roads towards the 20th century art. Cezanne influenced the appearance of Cubism, Van Gogh the Expressionism and Gauguin the Fauvism.

The Post-impressionism was characterized by an interest for constructing the shape and form, the drawing of the object and expressivity of objects and human figures. The reconciling of the volumetric effect, opposing the impressionistic excessive light that diffused the figures. The conception of the image based on geometrical objects. The use of highly contrasting colors to define lines and planes. Brush strokes twisted, heavy and continuous, were used to express inner anguish. Interest rose towards the exotic subjects, as we can see in the work of Gauguin and his representations from Tahiti.

Cubism was an artistic movement that happened between 1907 and 1914. Its main creators were Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. It treats forms of nature through geometrical figures representing all of its parts in one single plane. It is the first form of art to break with the classical notions as it denies the first most important rule of modern painting: perspective. The representation of objects had no compromise with the real appearance of things. The term cubism was created by the critic Louis Vauxcelles that interpreted the use of cubes and geometrical forms in the art of Picasso and Braque. Its main preoccupations were stores, still nature and portraits. There are two tendencies of cubism. One was analytical, where painting was almost monochrome. Colors were not the most important detail but the use of geometrization and different planes. Those pieces look almost abstract because of the many different planes all mixed together, so the image resulting is almost impossible to decipher. The second period was the synthetic cubism, which was the first step towards the collage.

Duchamp's conception that art is anything that is declared art was an open door to all kind of new tendencies during the 20th century. He invented the term "ready-made" to introduce into the world of art objects of the everyday life that were not created by the artist, but merely given a new meaning. This theory that art can be anything turned over the conception of beauty, and the artists lost interest in techniques and academic work. He opened the door for a new exaggerated freedom in art that perhaps was not for the better as it started a chaos of short lived movements that became void of feeling and expression. Art transformed into a secret between creator and work, where the public was somewhat ignored from the game, as the meaning of the pieces was harder to understand.

At the beginning of the century there was a period of conflict, resulting in two major wars that devastated the western society. Since many European artists and intellectuals ran away from the devastated countries and moved to America, the capital of the arts moved from Paris to New York, where the open minded people, that refused traditional works and craved for novelties, were ready to receive any kind of innovative fresh ideas about esthetic conception and this gave freedom for the vanguard to flourish. New movements became more and more leaned towards abstractionism, towards stylized figures, reflecting the inner conflicts of the artists, in a world where society became more selfish and humans more lost and alone in the world. Ideologies were replaced by experimentations with all sort of different techniques.