THE STORY OF ART
Chapter 7 Looking Eastwards
The making of images were forbidden, but art as such cannot so easily be suppressed, and the craftsmen of the East, who were not permitted to represent human beings, let their imagination play with patterns and forms.
Muhammed directed the mind of the artist away from the objects of the real world to his dream-world of lines and colors.
We can let our imagination wander through the moonlit fairy garden without ever getting too much of it.
In China they thought of art as a means of reminding people of the great examples of virtue in the golden ages of the past.
Chinese artist had mastered the difficult art of representing movement.
To meditate is to think and ponder about the same holy truth for many hours on end, to fix an idea in one's mind and to look at it from all sides without letting go of it.
Muhammed directed the mind of the artist away from the objects of the real world to his dream-world of lines and colors.
We can let our imagination wander through the moonlit fairy garden without ever getting too much of it.
In China they thought of art as a means of reminding people of the great examples of virtue in the golden ages of the past.
Chinese artist had mastered the difficult art of representing movement.
To meditate is to think and ponder about the same holy truth for many hours on end, to fix an idea in one's mind and to look at it from all sides without letting go of it.
Chapter 8 Western Art in the Melting Pot
The period after the collapse of the Roman Empire, is generally known by uncomplimentary title of the Dark Ages.
Egyptians drew what they knew to exist
Greeks what they saw
In the Middle Ages the artist also learned to express in his picture what he felt.
The shifting of guilt and the origin of evil are expressed with such forcefulness and clarity.- Adam and Eve
Chapter 9 The Church Militant
Church Militant- the idea that here on earth it is the task of the Church to fight the powers of darkness till the hour of triumph dawns on doomsday.
We must realize how great the possibilities were that opened up before the artists as soon as they finally discarded all ambition to represent things as we see them.
Painting is a form of writing in pictures.
It was this freedom from the need to imitate the natural world that was to enable them to convey the idea of the supernatural.
We must realize how great the possibilities were that opened up before the artists as soon as they finally discarded all ambition to represent things as we see them.
Painting is a form of writing in pictures.
It was this freedom from the need to imitate the natural world that was to enable them to convey the idea of the supernatural.
Chapter 10 The Church Triumphant
The new idea was born in France, it was the principle of the Gothic style. It was the discovery that the method of vaulting a church by means of crosswise arches could be developed much more consistently and to much greater purpose than the Norman architects had dreamt of.
It became the ideal of the architects to build churches almost in the manner in which we build greenhouses. They had to make them out of stone which needed a lot of careful calculation.
Cathedra- bishop's throne
Everything that was heavy, earthly or humdrum was eliminated. The faithful who surrender themselves to the contemplation of all this beauty could feel that they had come nearer to understanding the mysteries of a realm beyond the reach of matter.
In the time of the great awakening of Greece, they began to look at nature, not so much to copy it as to learn from it how to make a figure look convincing.
Frescoes- they must be painted on the wall while the plaster is still fresh.
Giotto's discovery of the frescoes enabled him to change the whole conception of painting. Instead of using the methods of picture-writing he could create the illusion that the sacred story was happening before our very eyes.
The painters didn't even signed their works, because it usually belonged to the cathedral to which they were offering their services.
It became the ideal of the architects to build churches almost in the manner in which we build greenhouses. They had to make them out of stone which needed a lot of careful calculation.
Cathedra- bishop's throne
Everything that was heavy, earthly or humdrum was eliminated. The faithful who surrender themselves to the contemplation of all this beauty could feel that they had come nearer to understanding the mysteries of a realm beyond the reach of matter.
In the time of the great awakening of Greece, they began to look at nature, not so much to copy it as to learn from it how to make a figure look convincing.
Frescoes- they must be painted on the wall while the plaster is still fresh.
Giotto's discovery of the frescoes enabled him to change the whole conception of painting. Instead of using the methods of picture-writing he could create the illusion that the sacred story was happening before our very eyes.
The painters didn't even signed their works, because it usually belonged to the cathedral to which they were offering their services.
Chapter 11 Courtiers and Burghers
Works of sculpture were not made for the public display, but where to be placed in a palace chapel for private prayer, they were meant to excite love and tenderness.
Artists and ideas travelled from one centre to another, and no one thought of rejecting an achievement because it was "foreign". The style which arose out of this mutual give and take towards the end of the 14th century is known among historians as the International Style.
Artists and ideas travelled from one centre to another, and no one thought of rejecting an achievement because it was "foreign". The style which arose out of this mutual give and take towards the end of the 14th century is known among historians as the International Style.
Chapter 12 The Conquest of Reality
The Renaissance means rebirth or revival. The idea of the revival was closely connected in the minds of the Italians with the idea of a rebirth of the "grandeur that was Rome".
Donatello's way of telling a story must have come as a shock, there was a desire to produce the effect of sudden chaos.
The artist became the perfect eyewitness in the truest sense of the term.
Van Eyck's art reached perhaps its greatest triumphs in the painting of portraits.
Donatello's way of telling a story must have come as a shock, there was a desire to produce the effect of sudden chaos.
The artist became the perfect eyewitness in the truest sense of the term.
Van Eyck's art reached perhaps its greatest triumphs in the painting of portraits.
Chapter 13 Tradition and Innovation: I
National differences had existed all through the Middle Ages, and this applied to the world of learning and even to politics. The learned men of the Middle Ages all spoke and wrote Latin, and did not much mind whether they taught at the University of Paris, Padua, or Oxford.
Artists were organized in guilds, similar to trade unions. It was their task to watch over the rights and privileges of their members and to ensure a safe market for their produce.
Arouse several schools of paintings, some which students would go to live with the family of the painters, they developed such a clear individuality of its own.
Alberti has merely "translated" gothic design into classical forms by smoothing out the barbaric pointed arch and using the elements of the classical order in a traditional context.
Ghiberti gives us only a hint of depth and to let his principal figures stand out clearly against a neutral background.
The church was heavily damaged by bombing WWII, and most of these wonderful painting by Mantegna were destroyed.
Mantegna uses perspectives to create the stage on which his figures seem to stand and move like solid, tangible beings.
The artist's means, his technical devices, can be developed, but art itself can hardly be said to progress in the way in which science progresses. Each discovery in one direction creates a new difficulty somewhere else.
Artists were organized in guilds, similar to trade unions. It was their task to watch over the rights and privileges of their members and to ensure a safe market for their produce.
Arouse several schools of paintings, some which students would go to live with the family of the painters, they developed such a clear individuality of its own.
Alberti has merely "translated" gothic design into classical forms by smoothing out the barbaric pointed arch and using the elements of the classical order in a traditional context.
Ghiberti gives us only a hint of depth and to let his principal figures stand out clearly against a neutral background.
The church was heavily damaged by bombing WWII, and most of these wonderful painting by Mantegna were destroyed.
Mantegna uses perspectives to create the stage on which his figures seem to stand and move like solid, tangible beings.
The artist's means, his technical devices, can be developed, but art itself can hardly be said to progress in the way in which science progresses. Each discovery in one direction creates a new difficulty somewhere else.
Chapter 14 Tradition and Innovation: II
Brunelleschi had put an end to the Gothic style in Florence by introducing the Renaissance method of using classical motifs for his buildings.
Flomboyant style: french gothic.
Churches began to be much simpler than those of the gothic ages.
The virgin mary was portrayed in many paintings, especially in her death as well as her seven joys of mary: beginning the cycle with the annunciation up to the resurrection of Christ.
Invention of printing helped to developed a technique called woodcut and engraving with copper through which they show their mastery of detail and their powers of observation
The printing of images ensured the triumph of the art of the Italian Renaissance in the rest of Europe.
Flomboyant style: french gothic.
Churches began to be much simpler than those of the gothic ages.
The virgin mary was portrayed in many paintings, especially in her death as well as her seven joys of mary: beginning the cycle with the annunciation up to the resurrection of Christ.
Invention of printing helped to developed a technique called woodcut and engraving with copper through which they show their mastery of detail and their powers of observation
The printing of images ensured the triumph of the art of the Italian Renaissance in the rest of Europe.