Art Blog - Art In History

I decided that, before leaving the topic of the Renaissance, there was more to say about the mastery of the depiction of solid form and three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface. This was a major thread in my last blog, the Annunciation of the Renaissance, as part of an exploration of the birth of Humanism. But the rendering of solid form and space is fascinating on its own. The work I am leading off with is clearly not the seminal moment; rather it represents the culmination of three centuries of trial and exploration. I start with it because it is one of my alltime favorite works, and arguably the most complex and subtle exploration of spatial ideas of the period… Continue reading… 3 comments

It is arguable that, as artists, one of our primary goals is to produce a reflection of what we understand as reality. If we are artists working in the Western Tradition, or simply raised in it, we are heirs to 600 years of realism. Though much Western art in the last 100 years has rejected this tradition, it is still a very powerful force. Whether it is a photorealist like Tennett, or the pervasive legacy of the impressionists, art dedicated to reflecting the real world is everywhere. But there are lots of choices, because there is no single definition of what is real. The strongest thread since Renaissance times had been to define reality as the world as it appears to us from a certain viewpoint… Continue reading… 4 comments

Artists all seem to have a common fantasy: that fame and riches will come to them posthumously. We may not really believe it, but it is a well entrenched part of artistic mythology. We could call it the Van Gogh Factor. This raises another interesting question: if our death is the first day of the rest of our artistic lives, what's the best time to die? There is abundant evidence that dying young may be a great career move; there is a similar wealth of examples proving that we should live to a ripe old age. Artists who die young may leave a vibrant and untarnished legacy; on the other hand there are many artists who reach new heights in maturity… Continue reading… 6 comments

I have been working through the great artists of the European Baroque, and I will be ending with Rubens. The reasons are hot and cold. Cold because Rubens does not appeal to me personally as much as Rembrandt or Velzaquez, or even the little Dutch Masters, though I am always in awe of his work. Hot because, of all the artists of the period, it is probably Rubens who most perfectly represents the age. Following the Renaissance age of invention, the Baroque was an age of utter mastery, taking the discoveries of the Renaissance to their supreme conclusion. And pershaps thearchtypal example of Baroque mastery is command of the human figure. The Baroque period displayed mastery of the human figure in its most violent action and aggressive foreshortening… Continue reading… 5 comments

My most recent blog featured the work of Caravaggio, an artist whose inventions were remarkable and whose influence was enormous, way out of proportion to his brief working life. At that time I mentioned that my next blog would be about another artist whose work was influenced by Caravaggio: the spanish master Diego Velazquez. I am leading off with an image which is not typical of his best know work, but which shows how strongly he was influenced by Caravaggio, and how much farther he was able to carry his realism. The "Watercarrier of Seville" is one of my favorite works. It has the presence of a caravaggio - massive figures close to the front - but with a subtlety which Caravaggio never acheived in his tumultuous career… Continue reading… 4 comments

In my piece on Monet I said that, while he was not as resonant for me as Manet or Cezanne, he was an artist whose inventions were so powerful that all later European artists had to react in some way to their implications. I realize that I have left behind another artist about whom the same can be said: Caravaggio. Coming at a time when the schism in the Christian church was dominating the European political and social scene, and when the implications of Renaissance naturalism were opening new avenues of artistic exploration, Caravaggio, in is short career, was a towering force. Caravaggio had three great inventions. The first was to abandon the idealizing classicism of the Italian Renaissance in favor of an uncompromising realism… Continue reading… 3 comments

It is interesting to speculate whether the art of Caravaggio - so stunning in its inventiveness and iconoclasm, yet so much the art of impetuous youth __ would have matured into something more profound with age, had he lived to have a late style. Certainly Rembrandt, who owes so much to Caravaggio for defining the possibilities of light and shade as a tool, was also impetuous in his youth, as evidenced in his earlier essay at the "Emmaus" subject. Ultimately one has to think that Caravaggio, the brawling and hard-living rebel, was not the man to have developed the depth and subtlety that Rembrandt did in his later years… Continue reading… 1 comment