AH Exam 2: Museum Checklist – Flashcards

This picture shows Saint Anne, who was particularly venerated in Germany, with her daughter, the Virgin Mary, and the Christ Child. The theme and emotional intensity of the work, which was intended for private devotion, suggest the influence of the artist's following of Martin Luther. Motif of sleeping infant - used for foreshadowing. Absence of background: highlights their intense devotional expressions/ cogitative reflection. Quiet sense of intimacy. Softened realism in features; softened rendering of flesh/ captures the life within the features (chiaroscuro). Combined with mathematical symmetry in the proportions. Human physiognomy is balanced and clear - as if they are sitting in front of us. St. Anne (mother of the virgin) forms the apex and there is a gesture of consolation towards her daughter. Captures the dramatic potential within his portraiture. Seems to be a melancholic calmness: knowing expression of what is to come.

One of the six panels painted for the suburban Antwerp home of his most enthusiastic/wealthy patrons. Shows a remarkable sensitivity to his observation of nature. Suppresses the traditional iconographic material of the Renaissance period by depicting a natural scene that is not idealized or associated with a biblical story. May have represented the August-September period of harvesting (shown by golden wash of light/ ripe field of wheat to be cut and stacked. The vastness of the panoramic perspective across the composition reveals that Bruegel's emphasis is not on the labors that mark the time of the year, but on the atmosphere and transformation of the landscape itself. A new form of humanism - values natural observations and no idealizing. Shows man's true relationship with the natural world. Anchors you in the foreground of the image as to look at the vast expanse of landscape in the distance. Figures are cleverly placed as to compliment the depth of the natural scene: a progression from early mannerism which used the natural landscape as a part of a story. Appreciates the natural world alone.

Kerstiaen de Keuninck continued the Flemish tradition of imaginary mountain scenery. This large panoramic landscape view, dominated by fantastic mountains and rock formations, is an early work of the artist and was probably painted in Antwerp. It illustrates his concern with contrasting pictorial effects—such as heavy passages of opaque paint set off against areas sketched in a very thin medium—and with bold motifs like the water spray formed by flicking the brush.

Peter is shown before a fireplace in the courtyard of the high priest, where a woman accuses him of being a follower of Christ. The pointing finger of the soldier and two pointing fingers of the woman allude to the three accusations and to Peter's three denials. The picture, a marvel of narrative as well as pictorial concision, was painted by Caravaggio in the last months of his tempestuous life and marks an extreme stage in his revolutionary style. In it he eschews delicacy and beauty of color and, with extraordinary psychological penetration, concentrates exclusively on the human drama. The painting is first recorded in 1624 in the Savelli collection in Rome, where it was studied by a number of artists. Caravaggio's late works depend for their dramatic effect on brightly lit areas standing in stark contrast to a dark background. These effects become exaggerated over time as the paint becomes more transparent.

"A prodigy of nature and a wonder capable of astounding all who see his works." With these words, Ludovico Carracci described the young Guercino, just two years before he painted Samson Captured by the Philistines, one of his most dramatic masterpieces. The Hebrew Samson was betrayed by his Philistine lover, Delilah, who literally sheared him of his strength by cutting his hair while he slept in her lap. Having accomplished her task, she summoned her countrymen to blind and bind him. Guercino grappled with how best to convey the Old Testament story without slipping into mere sensationalism and, after sketching out a number of compositional alternatives, decided to make the focus the strongman's beautifully modeled back, leaving the brutal goring of his eyes to the viewer's imagination. It is a solution of enormous power and artistry. Visceral and viewer involvement* harsher light of realism = resounding sensitivity

This magnificent portrait shows the artist with his second wife and one of their five children strolling in a "Garden of Love." The child wears male attire and must be Frans. He appears without his older sister because the picture is not a family portrait but an homage to Helena as wife and mother, one of whose most important attributes was providing her husband with a son. The gestures and glances of both male figures and symbols of fecundity such as the fountain and caryatid (female architectural column) pay tribute to Helena, who has the innocence and serenity of a female saint. There is a position of authority and protection in the way Rubens positions himself in relation to his young wife and their child. Helena became the model and the inspiration for many paintings by Rubens from that point on, particularly those dealing with themes of ideal beauty or love. The parrot, long a symbol of the Virgin Mary, suggests ideal motherhood, while the fountain, caryatid, and garden setting imply fertility and recall Rubens's own garden in Antwerp, where he frequently escorted Helena."

James Stuart, fourth duke of Lennox, was made first duke of Richmond by his cousin, Charles I. In 1637, he married Mary Villiers, daughter of the king's favorite, the duke of Buckingham. It has been suggested plausibly that van Dyck painted this canvas in London just before or after his stay in the Netherlands (early 1634 to early 1635) in order to celebrate Stuart's investiture into the Order of the Garter. The Order's insignia are conspicuously displayed amidst van Dyck's masterful description of luxurious materials: the silver star on the mantle; the red and gold Jewel, or lesser George, on the green ribbon (to which the greyhound seems to refer); and the garter itself, behind the bow at the duke's left knee. The composition recalls Titian's famous Charles V with a Hound , which was then in Charles I's collection.

Post accompanied the governor for the West India Company in northeastern Brazil (1637-44). The artist's drawings became the basis for the first illustrated book on Brazil and for the exotic landscapes he painted back in his native Haarlem. Rare as an iguana or a cactus to Dutch eyes was Post's ability to describe foreign plants, animals, and other sights in great detail (native huts and ships appear in the distance) and—at the same time—land and sky as momentary glimpses of infinity.

Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) rests his hand reflectively on a bust of Homer, the blind epic poet of the Iliad and the Odyssey. A medallion representing Alexander the Great, whom Aristotle tutored, hangs from the heavy gold chain. This extravagant decoration must be an award for service and recalls the gold chains that princely patrons gave to Titian, Rubens, and van Dyck. It is generally supposed that Aristotle is contemplating the worth of worldly success as opposed to spiritual values. The gestures of the hands, accentuated by the cascading sleeves, and the shadows playing over Aristotle's brow and eyes support this interpretation. The philosopher contemplates material rewards as opposed to spiritual values, with the play of light and shadow on his features suggesting the motions of his mind. The picture also refers to Aristotle's comparison of touch and sight as a means of acquiring knowledge. It has also been suggested that this is Rembrandt's commentary on the power of portraiture. The study of a figure lost in thought is characteristic of Rembrandt, whose achievement here reflects his longstanding preoccupation with visual and emotional experience.

Typical of Dutch Golden age still life: luxury objects such as crystal goblet reflect the objects of a Dutch home. The contrasting shape/texture/colors of the skull, writing quill and books show his fascination with light's interaction with surface. Like most Dutch Still Life, his work his charged with allegorical meaning; a reminder of VANITAS; human mortality. Simplicity and directness has a mature style and emphasizes the futility of worldly efforts (e.g. expired lamp).

Gian Lorenzo Bernini was the heroic central figure in Italian Baroque sculpture. The influence of his father, the Florentine-born Pietro, can be seen here in the buoyant forms and cottony texture of the Bacchanal. *** ability to render giving flesh. The liveliness and strongly accented diagonals, however, are the distinctive contribution of the young Gian Lorenzo. Although about eighteen when he made this work, he already displayed what would become a lifelong interest in the rendering of emotional and spiritual exaltation. The Bacchanal reveals the young Bernini's intensive study of bacchic subject matter.Bucolic*

While an old gypsy crone tells his fortune, a naive youth is robbed by her accomplices, a subject popular among Caravaggesque painters throughout Europe in the seventeenth century. La Tour's painting can be interpreted as a genre or theatrical scene, or as an allusion to the parable of the prodigal son. However, although the Fortune Teller appears to be a 'genre' scene, taken from real life, perhaps as witnessed in a street, it is more likely to be based on one of the popular street-theatre productions (grey, muted background - stiffened gestural poses) which are thought to have provided the source for other genre paintings by La Tour.

History/landscape painting combined in a highly classicized order with a Baroque injection of theatricality. For his depiction of the gigantic hunter, Poussin drew on the Greek writer Lucian (De domo 27-29): "Orion, who is blind, is carrying Cedalion, and the latter, riding on his back, is showing him the way to the sunlight. The rising sun is healing [his] blindness." Poussin also studied a sixteenth-century commentary on the tale by Natalis Comes, which offers a meteorological interpretation. Accordingly he added Diana, standing upon the clouds that wreathe Orion's face, symbol of the power of the moon to gather the earth's vapors and turn them into rain. Toward the end of his life, Poussin scrutinized pebbles, moss, flowers, and plants, and his landscapes—such as this one, painted for Michel Passart in 1658—evoke the earth's early history in showing nature abundant and uncultivated.

BAROQUE CLASSICISM: Contemporary of Poussin: Landscape represents ambitious historical subjects from ancient Roman poetry. The Trojan women set fire to their ships in an effort to end years of wandering after the fall of Troy. The clouds and rain in the distance presage the storm sent by Jupiter at Aeneas's request to quench the blaze. Claude noted that the picture was painted in Rome for Girolamo Farnese. The learned prelate, who returned to the city in 1643, must have chosen this episode from Virgil's Aeneid to allude to his years of itinerant service as papal nuncio combating Calvinism in remote Alpine cantons of the Swiss Confederation.

Madame de Pompadour, mistress of Louis XV, admired Boucher and was his patroness from 1747 until her death in 1764. This famous work was commissioned for the dressing room at Bellevue, her château near Paris. In 1750 she had acted the title role in a play, staged at Versailles, called "The Toilet of Venus," and while this is not a portrait, a flattering allusion may have been intended. The bodies of the goddess and her cupids are soft, supple, and blond. The carved and gilded rococo sofa, the silk, velvet, and gold damask drapery, are heavy and elaborate enough for the Victorian era.

The subject of this serene picture is an ideal woman in an ideal home, suggest ablutions at the beginning of the day. A string of pearls emerges from the jewelry box. Balanced shapes and colors (mainly the primaries) enhance the harmonious mood. In most of his early paintings, Vermeer offers a sympathetic view of women in service to someone else (whether Diana, Christ, a customer, or the mistress of a household). However, the artist's mature works are mainly concerned with courtship or with the type of woman to whom the seventeenth-century owner of such a picture might pay court. The subject here is an ideal woman in an ideal home, where beauty, luxury, and tranquility coexist. The map and jewelry box suggest worldliness, but the silver-gilt basin and pitcher would have been recognized (despite their expense) as a traditional symbol of purity. The linen scarves covering the woman's head and shoulders were usually worn during a morning toilette. = DELFT; ART AS AN OPEN MARKET The change in style between The Milkmaid and this painting of about five years later reflects their different subjects: an earthy woman described in tactile and sculptural terms, and an idealized beauty treated like a vision, an optical pattern of colors, flat shadows, and remarkable effects of light.

In its bold composition and brilliant brushwork, this painting is typical of Rembrandt: Old men of great character, set in interiors with evocative lighting, had been depicted by Rembrandt as early as 1627, but the scale and theatricality of this canvas are unprecedented. Ambitious painting of imagery from the orientals: the exotic subject was partly inspired by trade and diplomatic contacts with the Near East; exotically dressed foreigners were a familiar sight in the streets and marketplaces of Amsterdam. Brilliant brushwork and dramatic illumination; its exotic subject and style was surely intended for a knowledgeable collector. Rembrandt, as a history painter, was particularly intrigued by the Middle East, where so many of the Biblical stories he frequently depicted had taken place. Dutch collectors avidly sought to acquire exotica from all parts of the world, including shells, swords, musical instruments, and costumes, which they would then display for visitors to admire. Rembrandt owned such a collection, known as a kunstkamer, or cabinet of curiosities

Haarlem artist William Claesz Heda was fascinated by surface texture and light - the rough edges of the lemon/engraving of the silver goblet/light reflecting the corners of the window/mucus-like texture of the oysters. Heda was famous for such light effects which are heightened by the monochromatic tone of the painting. Table is laid with white wine, beer and half eaten-oysters sprinkled with pepper - broken glass suggests a narrative interruption. Someone had to leave the table abruptly; adds a strange pathos to the objects. Moral overtone of Vanitas; unstable composition and hasty departure is a reminder of transience/temporality.

Hague artist Beyeren moved to Amsterdam; was familiar with the still life movement through the various artistic centers. Composition and motifs is typical of the Dutch Golden Age still life; Rembrandtesque tenebrism illuminates and dramatizes the arrangement of fineries and opulent luxuries which would have catered to the refined taste of the aristocrats/courtiers of the Hague/Amsterdam. Elaborate objects placed in the context of an appealing watch; implies temporality and strikes a Vanitas footnote; warning of materialism in time on earth.