Russel Spiro Professor D’Ambra
Art History 106
Comparison Paper
Velazauez’s 1650 portrait of Juan de Pareja and Peale’s 1782 portrait of George Washington differ greatly in their places and times of origin, as well as the historical contexts in which they were painted. Their color palates and compositions appear as polar opposites to each other, and their subject matters are entirely dissimilar. Despite these apparent contrasts between the two works, they both preserve the likeness and honor the characters of their respective subjects. The comparison of these works illuminates how although both structure and context may vary significantly from portrait to portrait, there are characteristics inherent to many if not all portraits that remain unaltered even when in seemingly disparate contexts.
Although they do so in entirely different contexts, Velazquez’s Juan de Pareja and Peale’s George Washington share a common purpose: the glorification of the subject. Velazquez’s 1650 portrait of Juan de Pareja shamelessly departs from the portrait’s typical subject of powerful and wealthy men of honor, but it retains its function as a veneration of its subject. Juan de Pareja was Velazquez’s personal assistant, a Moorish slave that helped in the studio and the household. In the portrait, Velazquez honors Pareja without altering his identity. He stands powerfully and erect, his right arm pressed against his stomach. His facial expression is poised and collected as he calmly looks out towards the viewer. His dress appears clean and well kept, potentially indicative of the self-respect and discipline that he must have had as a slave; he is not dirty and unkempt, as his status would have entailed. Despite the reverence ...
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... For the same reasons behind the plainness of the color palate, Velazquez would not have seen the need to render Juan de Pareja with intense precision, for the personal piece was not meant to be put under heavy scrutiny. This was not the case for Peale while George Washington, whose politically charged nature ensured that it would be examined closely.
Velazquez’s Juan de Pareja and Peale’s George Washington differ greatly in their presentations and subject matter, as well the contexts in which they were painted. While George Washington was a famous and powerful leader, rendered with bright colors and a high level of precision, Juan de Pareja was a slave, painted with loose brush-strokes and in plain colors. Despite the apparent differences between these two works, they share a common purpose that is intrinsic to portraits, the exaltation of their subjects.
...t. Instead of using symbolism, which is a major part of The Arnolfini Portrait, Velasquez strove to create a more snapshot-like painting, focusing more on capturing the natural allure of the royal family and the royal palace. Both artists were trying to capture and portray the personalities and lifestyles of a family, but each did it in their own way.
water-seller himself stands to the far right of Velazquez’s painting, occupied with pouring water into a glass for the boy. He has lived longer than the other males in the painting and therefore has the most knowledge and the most experience of them all. The
Although both Fragonard’s and David’s work convey different ideals through their style of painting, they are still able to use light in a very similar form. The viewer’s attention is directed on a specific point in the painting through the use of light. Both artists cast a spotlight on the figure or action in the painting that they want the viewer to especially notice. It is what each artist decides to focus on that makes his work is different from the other. A young woman on a swing who enjoys the pleasures of life is clearly where Fragonard wants to direct the viewer’s attention. However, David focuses attention on a male figure, specifically Socrates. How does the use of light help the viewer understand the ideals of each form of art? While Fragonard chooses to focus on a female and David chooses to focus on a male, the viewer now understands how Rococo can be a feminine form of art and Neo-Classicism the opposite. In addition, other stylistic elements like color and form depict how each art form differs from the other. By using all this visual evidence, we will later see how the concept of deciding...
In the essay “Naturalism and the Venetian ‘Poesia’: Grafting, Metaphor, and Embodiment in Giorgione, Titian, and the Campagnolas,” Campbell explains the role of poetic painting, poesia, in Venetian artwork during the 1500s. Titian personally used the term poesia when he “[referred] to paintings he was making for [King Philip II] with subject matter derived from the ancient poets.” Poesia now refers to a type of sixteenth century Venetian painting, which Giorgione and Titian initiated and used within their works. Campbell’s main argument is that poesia is not simply aesthetic or reflective of poetry, but rather “grounded in the process of making – and in making meaning – rather than in an aesthetics of self-sufficiency or self-referentiality.” Like poetry, it is not self-contained; meaning lies outside of the work, within the interpretations of the viewers. He discusses the idea of grafting in poetry and how the same grafting model is utilized in the visual arts. Different images, such as pagan figures and contemporary figures and settings, are juxtaposed to create visual discordance and give an intrinsic meaning to the viewer. Campbell then uses many examples of writing, poetry, engravings, and paintings to explore his argument and the connections between artists during the 1500s.
Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun was one of the most successful painters of her time. Over the course of her life, spanning from 1755-1842, she painted over 900 works. She enjoyed painting self portraits, completing almost 40 throughout her career, in the style of artists she admired such as Peter Paul Rubens (Montfort). However, the majority of her paintings were beautiful, colorful, idealized likenesses of the aristocrats of her time, the most well known of these being the Queen of France Marie Antoinette, whom she painted from 1779-1789. Not only was Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun the Queen’s portrait painter for ten years, but she also became her close, personal friend. She saw only the luxurious, carefree, colorful, and fabulous lifestyle the aristocracy lived in, rather than the poverty and suffrage much of the rest of the country was going through. Elisabeth kept the ideals of the aristocracy she saw through Marie Antoinette throughout her life, painting a picture of them that she believed to be practically perfect. Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun’s relationship with Marie Antoinette affected her social standing, politics, painting style, and career.
Corresponding to Interior with Two People, Degas’ family portrait, The Belleli Family, of his aunt Laura and her family is a painting about “the contradictions riddling the general idea of the high bourgeois family in the middle of the nineteenth century.” 6,7 The painting is considered a representation of “The ...
While a distinction between fine art and illustration is often made, the work of Winslow Homer certainly appears to bridge the two. When comparing Homer's engravings to his paintings the artistic intent of his work is evident. Often Homer would take an engraving and develop it further as an oil painting. However, Homer occasionally would reverse this process. This interchangeability between a wood engraving, intended for mass reproduction, and oil painting reveals that regardless of medium Homer's artwork had substance. As an artist Homer had a clear message that he wanted expressed through each of his creations. This intention is what makes his images more than simply illustrations. As Albert Dorne stated “The form in which an artist chooses to create is secondary” (Dorne 1). Both Homer's woodblock engravings and their matching oil paintings were created with artistic intent and therefore gives them significance as pieces of fine art. In my essay I will compare and contrast Homer's oil painting Snap the Whip, 1872, oil on canvas with Snap the Whip, 1873, wood engraving published by Harper's Weekly. These two pieces reflect Homers's process of translating one of his painting to a wood engraving.
When first looking at George Washington by Horatio Greenough first thought that came to mind was Roman Art! George Washington by Horatio Greenough is a unique piece looking much like many Roman sculptures you may have seen, but upon the statues shoulders dawns George Washington’s signature non-smiling, tightly clenched face. From the neck down you’d never think that this sculpture wasn’t created in the liking of our first president George Washington, but more that of a god like Jupiter. With his bare chest exposed and muscles chiseled, you’d think George Washington was a statue of a god if his face wasn’t so recognizable. With his face determined, brows lifted and his eyes always looking at you at whatever angle, this statue surely grabs your attention.
Diego Rivera was deemed the finest Mexican painter of the twentieth century; he had a huge influence in art worldwide. Rivera wanted to form his own painting fashion. Although he encountered the works of great masters like Gauguin, Renoir, and Matisse, he was still in search of a new form of painting to call his own (Tibol, 1983). His desire was to be capable of reaching a wide audience and express the difficulties of his generation at the same time, and that is exactly what h...
Art movement’s characteristics vary from nation to nation, but painting can be used as a critique of the socio-political reality in a given nation. It is a creative way to communicate with a population about economic, education and social issues. Therefore, The History of Cuernavaca and Morelos: Crossing the Barranca (ravine) Detail (1929-30) Fresco by Diego Rivera is a good example of how an artist uses his creativity to connect with people in relation to Mexican history. Art is an inspired way to share the complexity and challenge of a community. It can be used a way to respond to them likewise. Therefore, the concept of accessibility takes ingenuity. With his deepen knowledge of European and ancient Mexican art, it was not a documentation
... La Infanta Margarita and her two attendants draw the viewer’s attention, but the dark backdrop dominates the painting with its sheer vastness as it towers over the figures in this scene that are clustered at the bottom. The viewer of the painting is placed in the eyes of the king and queen, as they stand both inside and outside of the painting, reflected in the mirror as observers only. They can watch this scene as the royal couple watched their country crumble because of government debt and loss of territories. Diego Velázquez had always wanted to paint the truth, whether in the bodegón paintings of his earlier years or in the royal portraits he was commissioned during his career as the court painter. He did so in Las Meninas, during the final decade of his life, by depicting the condition of Spain’s government through an informal day-to-day scene of palace life.
At first glance, John Taylor and Howling Wolf’s visual representations of the treaty signing at Medicine Creek Lodge appear very different from one another. It is more than apparent that the two artists have very different interpretations of the same event. This paper will visually analyze both works of art by comparing and contrasting the compositional balance, medium, and use of color, as well as how the artists narrated their views using different visual elements.
The title of Soto’s “Black Hair” is very ordinary. The image that forms from the color “black” serving as an adjective to describe the common noun “hair” paints a mundane picture that does not allow for any analysis beneath this concrete image. But in cases where the title is not an attention getter, the content of the poem is usually more of a challenge and Soto’s “Black Hair” is a perfect example. As the title suggests, there are many concrete images and figures presented throughout the poem, but after a close reading it is apparent that the underlying themes of family and culture lay beneath these tangible images through the poetic elements of the metonymy, the metaphor, color imagery, and the pun.
The artists of the Baroque had a remarkably different style than artists of the Renaissance due to their different approach to form, space, and composition. This extreme differentiation in style resulted in a very different treatment of narrative. Perhaps this drastic stylistic difference between the Renaissance and Baroque in their treatment of form, space, and composition and how these characteristics effect the narrative of a painting cannot be seen more than in comparing Perugino’s Christ Delivering the Keys of the Kingdom to St. Peter from the Early Renaissance to Caravaggio’s Conversion of St. Paul from the Baroque.Perugino was one of the greatest masters of the Early Renaissance whose style ischaracterized by the Renaissance ideals of purity, simplicity, and exceptional symmetry of composition. His approach to form in Christ Delivering the Keys of the Kingdom to St.Peter was very linear. He outlined all the figures with a black line giving them a sense of stability, permanence, and power in their environment, but restricting the figures’ sense of movement. In fact, the figures seem to not move at all, but rather are merely locked at a specific moment in time by their rigid outline. Perugino’s approach to the figures’themselves is extremely humanistic and classical. He shines light on the figures in a clear, even way, keeping with the rational and uncluttered meaning of the work. His figures are all locked in a contrapposto pose engaging in intellectual conversation with their neighbor, giving a strong sense of classical rationality. The figures are repeated over and over such as this to convey a rational response and to show the viewer clarity. Perugino’s approach to space was also very rational and simple. He organizes space along three simple planes: foreground, middle ground, and background. Christ and Saint Peter occupy the center foreground and solemn choruses of saints and citizens occupy the rest of the foreground. The middle distance is filled with miscellaneous figures, which complement the front group, emphasizing its density and order, by their scattered arrangement. Buildings from the Renaissance and triumphal arches from Roman antiquity occupy the background, reinforcing the overall classical message to the
The formal analysis of The 3rd of May, 1808, Francisco Goya, 1814, oil on canvas. In the following written composition I will examine The 3rd of May, 1808 in a context which will allow me to identify formal elements that Goya manipulated to influence the viewers with a specific outlining message. This work was completed in 1814 using oil on canvas medium. This piece of art stands at approximately 266 by 345cm. This was common for historical paintings to be substantially grander in size. Goya’s goal in this specific painting is to depict the sorrow and heartache connected with the Peninsular war. In this specific work The 3rd of May 1808 he highlights the honor of the massacred Spanish rebellions opposed to the savage French troops. This formal analysis will examine the important technique used by Goya to organize societies depiction of the visual information. Within this work I will concentrate on these elements of color, texture, shape, lines, space, and the value to bring about my own opinion of Goya’s work. Using this strategy applied to The 3rd of May, 1808 work I hope to demonstrate a comprehension how to translate what I see into written words.