ARTH 1100 Lecture Notes - Yolk, Quattrocento, Jean-Antoine Watteau
ARTH 1101
Art: The Renaissance to the Present
Prof Office Hours Thursday 12:00-2:00 IN St-Patricks 477
January 11th, 2018
TA office hours Thursday 12:30-1:30
SP467
agial ualit ou get to epeiee
quote in essay
humanism – dates back to late antiquity
✓ Sees human as flawed
✓ Humans ability to design and think
✓ As God’s geatest gift
In the note section write the information on the images
January 18th, 2018
The early renaissance in Italy and the north
✓ Oil paint and disguised subject matter in northern Europe
✓ Classical antiquity and the visual arts in the quattrocento
Labelling historical periods
✓ Helps understand factors which influenced change
Characteristics in Renaissance
✓ Flatness
✓ Not trying to recreate what we see and the way we see it
✓ Not eause the ould’t, just a diffeet pupose i the at
✓ Artworks seen as icons (replacing a sacred object) – mediated someone
Romanesque smaller period in medieval
✓ Technical advances here – different mediums
Tempera
✓ Pigments mixed with diluted egg yolk
✓ Thin, quickly-drying coat of paint
✓ Gold colour mixed with egg yolk makes it shine and represent the hierarchy
Oil
✓ Pigments mixed with linseed or nut oil
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✓ Slow-drying, could be blended and modified
✓ Ca e applied i diffeet as: fo thi glazes to ipasto
Painting on panel: oil or tempera
✓ Thin panel of wood (oak, pine, fruitwoods, poplar)
✓ Covered with gesso (fine plaster) creating a smooth surface and preventing paint from
seeping into the wood
✓ Under drawing made on dried gesso
✓ Pigments (colours, often from vegetable and mineral sources) were ground and mixed
with a binding agent
Ghent Altarpiece
✓ Altar important part of the whole piece
✓ Altar is where a religious person would sit
✓ Altar symbolizes the last supper
✓ essentially a table where religious rites in the church take place
✓ spiritual and visual goal
✓ moveable piece of artwork – tryptich
✓ tryptic means panel with three components
✓ because of the hinges it opens and closes
✓ things are smaller as they recede into the background
✓ drapery use coming from classic antiquity
✓ (Ghent altarpiece closed 1432 oil on panel)
✓ two people on the inside are painted sculptures, two on the outside are people
✓ colours are dull representing marble statues
✓ altarpiece would be closed throughout the week but on religious Sunday events the
altarpiece would open
✓ inside is much more visual and bright and exciting
• in this altarpiece, biblical scene is Gabriel the angel is telling virgin Mary she will bear
the son of god
• this scene is called the annunciation
• immaculately impregnated
• atists ae takig ilial sees ad settig the toda to eate a sese of
engagement
• inside is Christ enthroned with virgin Mary and st john the Baptist and Adam and eve on
the outside
• this represents the old and new testament – Jewish and Christian bible
• bottom of the painting is a scene known as the sacrifice of the lamb of god (lamb is
Christ)
• he is sacrificed for the soul of humanity
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iconography and iconology (Erwin Panofsky)
levels of meaning in art
1. pre-iconographical
a. based on practical experience
b. description in plain language of what you see (males, females, seated, standing,
wings, flowers)
2. iconographical
a. based on knowledge of bible myths, literary sources, etc.
b. interpreting what you see based on your prior knowledge of narrative
3. iconological
a. based on knowledge of historical context
b. looks at the painting as a historical object – understand context in which the
work was produced
simone martini and lippo – annunciation
tempera and gold on wood 1333
• ioogaphial tells e it’s a auiatio eause of the agels pesetig igi
marry with flowers and angel Gabriel telling virgin marry that she will bear the child of
God
• iconological tells me not only an auiatio it’s a altapiee since it would be in a
huh, thee’s a use of tepea ith the gold
Robert Campin, the mérode altarpiece 1425-1430 oil on panel
✓ tryptic
✓ ou a tell it’s a auiatio ith the seated oe, keelig figue ad agel
✓ wearing a Jewish prayer shall
✓ assue she’s eadig the ile – assume her piety (faith)
✓ infant Christ flying into the room with the cross
✓ looks like the man (joseph) on the right is sitting on a church pu
✓ you can see in that panel on the window sill a mouse trap
✓ mouse – thee’s a pat of the ile that sas Jesus is a tap fo the deil ad so the tap
represents this part of the bible
✓ joseph might be building a wine press - squish grapes – symbol for the Eucharist
✓ on the other side are donors – people who would have paid for the work to be produced
✓ istead of eig i a huh it’s i a hoe - worship
Jan Van Eyck – the arnolfini portrait 1434 – oil on panel
✓ small painting – incredible detail within the painting
✓ pre-iconographic: man holding pregnant ife’s had
✓ symbolism: getting pregnant before getting married was not common in the 15th
century
✓ she is’t eall pegat, foldig the fai o top of he stoah
✓ why would she want to look pregnant in a wedding picture – this is a symbol of fertility
✓ fist she’s shoig hat she ould look like
✓ seod she’s shoig a sese of audae ith the eess fai i the dess – wealth
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