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The Baroque period followed the period of Renaissance art. During the Renaissance, Christendom—i.e., the West aka Europe—was one: united in one faith, though consisting of several states. At the end of the Renaissance, a period in which the humanist style was popular, the Protestant Reformation and Scientific Revolution occurred. Europe broke apart as religious wars were followed by new doctrines and worldviews throughout the Continent. The Enlightenment and the Age of Romanticism followed. The Baroque came about as a kind of counter-Reformation style of art: it was anti-Puritan and full of drama and depictions of grand sweeping… Continue Reading...
gallery portrays exhibits by nation of origin and era, in suitably-designed galleries. For example, Italian Renaissance art gallery walls feature hand-painted plastering and Italian travertine paneling, with door- and base- surround decorations and inbuilt recesses for displaying sculptures. On the other hand, seventeenth-century Dutch artworks are portrayed in galleries having wood paneling for bringing to mind their real setting (National Gallery of Art, 2016).
A monumental sculpture garden can be found to the original edifice's west. In the midst of arcing paths and curvilinear native plant beds, I was delighted to come across Louise Bourgeois' Spidery, Roxy Paine's Graft, Roy Lichtenstein's House I, and Barry… Continue Reading...
word that is employed to describe 17th- and early 18th- century European art. The art form signified a shift from Renaissance art's classism and linearity (though a few artists from that period carried on with creating artworks in the older style). Baroque was also characterized by a shift towards drama, motion, theatricality, unpredictability, and impulse. This style thrived in many areas of the European continent including Italy, Spain, Flanders, and the Netherlands, and was marked by some common elements despite the existence of major distinctions between regions and artists. Baroque sculptures and paintings were structured around unpredictable diagonal lines, instead of the traditional pyramid or triangle.[footnoteRef:1] Self-portraits grew into a… Continue Reading...
Paul Barolsky, “Botticelli's Primavera and the Poetic Imagination of Italian Renaissance Art.” Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics 8, no. 2 (2000): 7.]
This realism is especially noteworthy because throughout Europe the first rumblings of the Protestant Reformation were approaching at the time that Michelangelo was working in the Sistine Chapel: Martin Luther would nail his 95 Theses to the church in Wittenberg in 1517 and Zwingli would join the call for reform in Switzerland shortly thereafter. John Wycliffe had already been active in calling for reform in the century prior in England, essentially setting the stage for rebellion, and… Continue Reading...
Sixtus IV (the chapel's namesake) -- includes the works of many different Renaissance artists -- but it is Michelangelo's work on the ceiling that stands out above all the rest. Commissioned by Pope Julius II, Michelangelo's ceiling tells the story of the Old Testament -- the laying of the foundations of the world and the coming of Christ. The nine central panel scenes describe, for example, God separating the light from the darkness, the creation of Adam, and the exile from the Garden of Eden. The centrals are framed by a painted architectural framework that adds dimension onto dimension, and the images… Continue Reading...
