Sistine Modonna and the Swing Paintings The Swing and the Sistine Madonna are both masterpieces of their era, long lasting in both technical success and celebration of their chosen subjects. Raphael and Fragonard approach their sources with deliberate composition through color, texture, lines and shapes, creating images of powerful resonance. The Sistine Madonna tells the story of great abandonment and celebration of lavish sensuality, while the Sistine Madonna explores the

The artworks prevalent during the early Middle Ages in many ways stand between these two extremes. The art of this period was one that was both religiously inclined but also celebrated the human form and human nature that was to become so prominent in the Renaissance. In many ways much of early Medieval art was similar to the abstract and decorative art that we find in Islamic examples. An example

Eyes Egyptian, Greek, and Roman Sculpture Different cultures see the world in different ways. Religion, society, and even politics, shape our views, and give form to our human environment. Architecture, music, literature, dress -- all are visible manifestations of a people's values. This is no less true in the realm of sculpture. A religious people will create works of art that express its most deeply held spiritual beliefs; a cerebral people,

Roman Sarcophagi sculptures, one sarcophagus of portraying Roman deity as portrayed on the Sarcophagus with the Indian Triumph of Dionysus' triumphal return from India, contrasted with the other the Sarcophagus Depicting a Battle between Soldiers and Amazon made for a military leader. During the second and 3rd centuries, inhumation became more and more used than cremation, and this created a push for a greater need for sarcophagi, as the departed

This is one of the reasons why it is difficult to differentiate when the actual Roman work first emerged that stood on its own apart from the Etruscan works. It is also true that the time periods overlapped, and something is only known as Roman because it is consists of specific Roman items such togas. Both the Etruscan and the Roman bronzes had very fine detail in the folds of

(269) It would seem that the artists and the press of the era both recognized a hot commodity when they saw one, and in this pre-Internet/Cable/Hustler era, beautiful women portrayed in a lascivious fashion would naturally appeal to the prurient interests of the men of the day who might well have been personally fed up with the Victorian morals that controlled and dominated their lives otherwise. In this regard, Pyne