Have you ever walked through an art gallery passing through a section that holds little interest to you, when suddenly you are stopped dead in your tracks? This happened to me when I was searching through the AGO for my essay topic. I never imagined I could be interested in an object involving religious subject matter. However here was a painting clearly different from the rest; it was smaller than usual, painted with primitive style yet highly gilded. Now, this painting spoke to me. I went looking for a curator to find out why and learned the painting was an important piece of propaganda art that transformed lives. (AGO.net). Upon further research, I could not agree more.
The Mass of St. Gregory, c. 1460 – 1465, created by Simon Marmion,
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The story is told that, the Pope overheard an onlooker express their doubts about Christ’s presence in the bread and wine used during the Holy Communion (the doctrine of transubstantiation) at the altar during mass. In response, the Saint’s immense faith was rewarded by a vision of Christ seeming to emerge from a crypt as a Man of Sorrows surrounded by the Instruments of the …show more content…
It was common practice for Church to use the arts to spread their faith, ideology, and ideas. Reaching the illiterate masses and persuading them to enter their church each week for communion would clearly benefit their purposes and advance their power and wealth around the world. The Church used religious images as their visual and written language to teach public morality, raise the worshippers’ spirituality, and record important events. The art also served less noble causes to glorify rulers, build elaborately decorated cathedrals and economically benefit the church. Having political and spiritual leaders working together to capture the minds, hearts and soul of the masses is clearly evident and proves that the Simon Marmion painting of The Mass of St Gregory was in fact a piece of propaganda
The painting caught my attention due to the message I received when I first laid eyes upon it. It illustrates a wise old man teaching an eager to learn young boy. I have been fortunate enough to have my very own replica of this painting in my bedroom and I have spent countless hours
The Holy Trinity by Masaccio was a painting done in approximately 1428. It is a
I have a tendency to forget to breathe when I'm sitting in my art history class. A double slide projector set-up shoots its characteristic artillery - bright colors, intense shapes, inscriptions in languages that are at times read merely as symbols by my untrained mind, archaic figures with bodies contorted like elementary school students on the recess monkey bars. I discuss Diego Rivera's "The Liberation of the Peon," Frida Kahlo's "Self-Portrait," and Anselm Kiefer's "To the Unknown Painter" with my classmates. The room is never silent as we marvel at these images. When the slide projectors give off that first glimmer of light, their Gatsby spot of a blurry green hope at the end of the dock, we depart on our collective imaginary field trips. The teacher doesn't need to coax, to pry, to pose multiple-choice questions. We are already on our way.
This book was also one of my first encounters with an important truth of art: that your work is powerful not because you convey a new emotion to the audience, but because you tap into an emotion the audience already feels but can't express.
I found The Raising of Lazarus and Annunciation to be interesting pieces on their own as well as to be compared. At face value, these paintings do not appear to contain many contrasting features. However, by examining these paintings closely, one can conclude that paintings with similar themes, mediums, and time periods can still differ in countless ways. Light, medium, subject, color, space, and viewpoint are just a few of the characteristics that can be considered when analyzing Wtewael and Caliari’s works. It is imperative that observers of art take a deeper look into the different features of artwork in attempt to uncover the intentions of the artist.
First, the size of the painting drew me in before all. It measures at 339.1 by 199.5 cm, surrounded by a large golden frame. The size alone is enough to bring in any person passing by. Once getting close, the really wonder happened. The story told by the painting
I never go anywhere alone. After a depressive Saturday morning I finally crawled out of bed and went to the Cummer Museum. Art is one thing that I don’t understand. How people can find deeper meanings from paint on a canvas is Japanese to me. When I look at a painting I see exactly what is being shown and nothing more. There is no deeper meaning evident. Being at this museum cranky and solo trying to find a picture I felt connected to was almost impossible. It took me about ten minutes to go through the whole museum. But in one of the last sections I went in there was finally something that my eyes were drawn to. An image that made me want to find the deeper meaning. Thomas Hart Benton’s June Morning.
Art has so many sides as to look creativity of the world. In chapter 20 Late Medieval and Early Renaissance Northern Europe by Fred S. Kleiner, you will see Disguised Symbolism which is a Bisociations of visual forms which occur so subtly that they are not directly or readily apparent to the conscious mind of the viewer. Adding onto that A Northern Renaissance technique of giving a spiritual meaning to ordinary objects in the painting so that these detail can carry the religious message. The 15th century, the majority of clients engaging artwork changed from ministry members to lay patrons. Due to the change, the images being represented altered to combine everyday life with a disguised religious symbol. Reconciling these
Imagine pondering into a reconstruction of reality through only the visual sense. Without tasting, smelling, touching, or hearing, it may be hard to find oneself in an alternate universe through a piece of art work, which was the artist’s intended purpose. The eyes serve a much higher purpose than to view an object, the absorptions of electromagnetic waves allows for one to endeavor on a journey and enter a world of no limitation. During the 15th century, specifically the Early Renaissance, Flemish altarpieces swept Europe with their strong attention to details. Works of altarpieces were able to encompass significant details that the audience may typically only pay a cursory glance. The size of altarpieces was its most obvious feat but also its most important. Artists, such as Jan van Eyck, Melchior Broederlam, and Robert Campin, contributed to the vast growth of the Early Renaissance by enhancing visual effects with the use of pious symbols. Jan van Eyck embodied the “rebirth” later labeled as the Renaissance by employing his method of oils at such a level that he was once credited for being the inventor of oil painting. Although van Eyck, Broederlam, and Campin each contributed to the rise of the Early Renaissance, van Eyck’s altarpiece Adoration of the Mystic Lamb epitomized the artworks produced during this time period by vividly incorporating symbols to reconstruct the teachings of Christianity.
It is said that art is like a mirror to the soul, a way to see what
Giotto’s Arena Chapel, Duccio’s Maestà, and Masaccio’s Trinity are only a few examples of the Church’s overarching influence on Renaissance art. Without the Church, there would have been no art. It was the increasing popularity of the Church with new orders of monks in the 1200s that created a greater need for religious images, and with more production of art, the style began to change. Religion was such an integral part of Renaissance culture that it makes sense that it would be the focus of its creativity.
When I saw Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring about five years ago at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., I felt something about the painting that I had never felt before when looking at artwork. I felt as if this girl, this young woman in the painting was real, hiding in the museum behind this canvas. She was in the flesh. Her skin was still dewy from three hundred-something years ago, the light across her face still glowing. She was in the round, her eyes followed mine, she was real. She was about to speak, she was in a moment of thought, she was in reflection. This girl was not crimson red or titanium white, she was flesh. Vermeer caught her, a butterfly in his hand. She was not just recorded on canvas, she was created on canvas. She was caught in a moment of stillness. Vermeer creates moments in his paintings. When viewing them, we step into a private, intimate setting, a story. Always, everything is quiet and calm. I realize now it is no wonder I had such a strong reaction to Vermeer the first time I saw him: he is a stillness seeker.
Paintings, like many forms of art, are very subjective—what one may find intriguing another may completely disagree. “Art is physical material that affects a physical eye and conscious brain” (Solso, 13). To glance at art, we must go through a process of interpretation in order to understand what it is we are looking at. Solso describes the neurological, perceptual, and cognitive sequence that occurs when we view art, and the often inexpressible effect that a work of art has on us. He shows that there are two aspects to viewing art: nativistic perception—the synchronicity of eye and brain that transforms electromagnetic energy into neuro-chemical codes—which is "hard-wired" into the sensory-cognitive system; and directed perception, which incorporates personal history—the entire set of our expectations and past experiences—and knowledge (Solso, preface)
Art is important to religion in many different ways. Perhaps none has analyzed how art and religion have influenced and affected each other through the ages. Pictures painted of past events that help to bring back the feeling and importance of the past have been forgotten by some. To the one’s that haven’t forgotten are able to see the event’s as the bible says they happened. Not only can you see the events, but it also allows the younger students of the church to understand the events. The use of images of God became widespread after the second century. This religious art has defiantly been around for centuries and plays an important role to the history of religion as well as the future.
"A picture can paint a thousand words." I found the one picture in my mind that does paint a thousand words and more. It was a couple of weeks ago when I saw this picture in the writing center; the writing center is part of State College. The beautiful colors caught my eye. I was so enchanted by the painting, I lost the group I was with. When I heard about the observation essay, where we have to write about a person or thing in the city that catches your eye. I knew right away that I wanted to write about the painting. I don’t know why, but I felt that the painting was describing the way I felt at that moment.