The following works are for the 8th Graders' Survey of Art History which begins with the Renaissance and ends with Modern 20th Century art.
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a period during which artists looked back to the ancient past, to the Classical World of ancient Greece and ancient Rome for ideas and imagery. Many of the artists saw themselves as breaking away from the relative simplicity and idealism of the medieval period (the Middle Ages), choosing to focus on ideas of Humanism and realism. Artists of the Renaissance were attentive to detail, especially in the Northern Renaissance tradition. Renaissance artists were also attentive to creating a realistic sense of space through their use of linear perspective (perhaps first developed by Filippo Brunelleschi in the early 1400s), atmospheric perspective, modeling (shading), and more believable overlapping and proportions.
During the Renaissance, artists worked more and more with Classical imagery alongside the Christian imagery popular during the medieval period. Over the course of the Renaissance, more and more artists also worked with contemporary, secular subjects as secular patrons gradually replaced religious patrons in many parts of Europe.
Below are four pieces from the Renaissance, the first from Northern Europe (the Netherlands) and the last three from Italy.
Jan Van Eyck. The Arnolfini Portrait. 1434.
Note the attention to detail and to the rendering of light and shadow in Van Eyck's painting.
What are possible reasons for Van Eyck creating this piece? What do some of the items in this painting possibly symbolize or represent?
Andrea Mantegna. The Lamentation of Christ. c.1480.
What scene is Mantegna depicting in this painting?
How does Mantegna created depth in this painting? How is it realistic and how is it not realistic?
What scene is Mantegna depicting in this painting?
How does Mantegna created depth in this painting? How is it realistic and how is it not realistic?
Raphael. School of Athens. 1509-10.
How does Raphael create depth in this painting? How does this piece connect to ideas of the Renaissance?
How does Raphael create depth in this painting? How does this piece connect to ideas of the Renaissance?
Sofonisba Anguissola. The Chess Game or Lucia, Minerva and Europa Anguissola Playing Chess. 1555.
How does Anguissola create depth in her painting? What might she be trying to say with this piece?
How does Anguissola create depth in her painting? What might she be trying to say with this piece?
Baroque
The Baroque was a period during which many artists took the realism of the Renaissance in new directions. Some of the Baroque artists were part of the Catholic Counter-Reformation. Using chiaroscuro (or tenebrism), the placement of dark values next to light values to create depth, many of these artists added more drama to their compositions.
Other Baroque artists, especially in Northern Europe, focused on secular subjects. In many cases, their patrons were not religious. Instead, they were hired by individuals who wished to have their portraits painted or to be part of a group portrait, or who wished to have a genre, landscape, or still life painting.
Caravaggio. Supper in Emmaus. 1601.
How does Caravaggio create depth in this painting? How does he try to add drama or a sense of surprise to the scene he is depicting?
How does Caravaggio create depth in this painting? How does he try to add drama or a sense of surprise to the scene he is depicting?
Rembrandt. The Night Watch or Officers and Men of the Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq and Lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburch. 1642.
What type of scene is Rembrandt depicting? Why is he depicting this type of scene?
What type of scene is Rembrandt depicting? Why is he depicting this type of scene?
Johannes (Jan) Vermeer. The Art of Painting. c.1668.
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What scene is Vermeer presenting with this painting? How might Vermeer have created such realistic light and shadow in this piece?
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What scene is Vermeer presenting with this painting? How might Vermeer have created such realistic light and shadow in this piece?
Rococo
Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun. Marie Antoinette and Her Children. c.1787.
What scene is Vigee Le Brun depicting in this painting? Why might she depict this scene?
What scene is Vigee Le Brun depicting in this painting? Why might she depict this scene?
Neoclassicism
Jacques Louis David. Napoleon Crossing the Alps. 1801-05.
This is one of five versions of Napoleon Crossing the Alps created by David between 1801 and 1805.
What scene is David depicting in this painting? Why might he be depicting this scene?
This is one of five versions of Napoleon Crossing the Alps created by David between 1801 and 1805.
What scene is David depicting in this painting? Why might he be depicting this scene?
Romanticism
Francisco Goya. The Third of May 1808 or El tres de mayo de 1808 en Madrid. 1814.
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What is Goya presenting in this painting? Why might Goya be presenting this scene as he is?
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What is Goya presenting in this painting? Why might Goya be presenting this scene as he is?
Realism
Rosa Bonheur. The Horse Fair. 1852-55.
What scene is Bonheur depicting in this painting? What makes this painting a Realist painting different from paintings of the past?
What scene is Bonheur depicting in this painting? What makes this painting a Realist painting different from paintings of the past?
Impressionism and Post-Impressionism
Claude Monet. Impression, Sunrise. 1872.
What scene is Monet depicting? How is he depicting this scene and why might he be depicting it this way?
What scene is Monet depicting? How is he depicting this scene and why might he be depicting it this way?
Georges Seurat. A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. 1884-86.
Seurat was one of the artists who developed Pointillism (or Divisionism), a painting technique with which individual colors are applied in small dots and dabs so that they blend together when viewed from a distance. Seurat, like many Post-Impressionists, was fascinated with color and with the way people perceive color, and that fascination led him to study the science being developed around vision and to his own experiments working with color.
Seurat spent several days on the Island of La Grande Jatte in Paris creating several sketches in the Pointillist style. He used many of those sketches to create his composition for A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. The Art Institute in Chicago possesses the original painting.
What scene is Seurat depicting? How is he depicting this scene and why might he be depicting it this way?
Seurat was one of the artists who developed Pointillism (or Divisionism), a painting technique with which individual colors are applied in small dots and dabs so that they blend together when viewed from a distance. Seurat, like many Post-Impressionists, was fascinated with color and with the way people perceive color, and that fascination led him to study the science being developed around vision and to his own experiments working with color.
Seurat spent several days on the Island of La Grande Jatte in Paris creating several sketches in the Pointillist style. He used many of those sketches to create his composition for A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. The Art Institute in Chicago possesses the original painting.
What scene is Seurat depicting? How is he depicting this scene and why might he be depicting it this way?
Vincent Van Gogh. Starry Night. 1889.
What scene is Van Gogh depicting? How is he depicting this scene and why might he be depicting it this way?
What scene is Van Gogh depicting? How is he depicting this scene and why might he be depicting it this way?
Mary Cassatt. The Child's Bath. 1893.
What scene is Cassatt depicting? How is she depicting this scene and why might she be depicting it this way?
What scene is Cassatt depicting? How is she depicting this scene and why might she be depicting it this way?
Modern Art
Umberto Boccioni. Dynamism of a Soccer Player. 1913.
Boccioni was part of a group which called itself the Futurists. The Futurists wanted to depict the modern world in which they lived through new types of music, poetry, and visual arts. For them, the modern world was always changing, constantly moving; it was vibrant and energized. Some of the Futurists tried to depict this movement and energy while still painting recognizable people or other items. Boccioni pushed the envelope a little more, working with abstraction, with color, with form, and with a Pointillist technique.
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What idea or image is Boccioni trying to depict in this painting? How is he trying to depict it?
Boccioni was part of a group which called itself the Futurists. The Futurists wanted to depict the modern world in which they lived through new types of music, poetry, and visual arts. For them, the modern world was always changing, constantly moving; it was vibrant and energized. Some of the Futurists tried to depict this movement and energy while still painting recognizable people or other items. Boccioni pushed the envelope a little more, working with abstraction, with color, with form, and with a Pointillist technique.
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What idea or image is Boccioni trying to depict in this painting? How is he trying to depict it?
Grant Wood. American Gothic. 1930.
Who was Grant Wood and what might he be depicting in this painting?
Pablo Picasso. Guernica. 1937.
What event from 1937 is Picasso depicting and how is he choosing to depict it?
Georgia O'Keeffe. Hibiscus and Plumeria. 1939.
Georgia O'Keeffe painted a variety of subjects throughout her career but she is perhaps best know for her paintings of flowers. Instead of depicting flowers in a traditional manner by showing them as part of a still life or in a landscape, O'Keeffe chose to zoom in on them. She composed her flower paintings so that parts of the flowers went off of the relatively large canvases. By depicting the flowers close up like this, O'Keeffe forces us to pay more attention to them and to think about the parts of the flower she is emphasizing. By depicting them close up, O'Keeffe is also able to simplify them so that they begin to become abstract images. Instead of depicting them in incredibly realistic detail, O'Keeffe focuses on the lines and shapes that give the flowers form. O'Keeffe also works with color to gain and to keep our attentions.
How did O'Keeffe depict flowers in this piece? How does it blur the line between realistic art and abstract art?
How did O'Keeffe depict flowers in this piece? How does it blur the line between realistic art and abstract art?
Frida Kahlo. Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird. 1940.
What might Kahlo be communicating to us with this painting? How is this painting cared for as it travels to exhibits away from the museum that possesses it?
Chuck Close. Big Self-Portrait. 1968.
How did Chuck Close describe the creation of this painting and how might the painting's size impact viewers?
