1.
Et in Arcadia ego
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Et in Arcadia ego is a 1637–38 painting by Nicolas Poussin. It depicts a scene with idealized shepherds from classical antiquity clustering around an austere tomb. It is held in the Louvre, Paris, Poussin painted two versions of the subject under the same title, his earlier version, painted in 1627, is held at Chatsworth House. An earlier treatment of the theme was painted by Guercino circa 1618–22, the translation of the phrase is Even in Arcadia, there am I. The usual interpretation is that I refers to death, and Arcadia means a utopian land and it would thus be a memento mori. During Antiquity, many Greeks lived in close to the sea. Only Arcadians, in the middle of the Peloponnese, lacked cities, were far from the sea, thus for urban Greeks, especially during the Hellenistic era, Arcadia symbolized pure, rural, idyllic life, far from the city. This reading was common in the 18th and 19th centuries, for example, William Hazlitt wrote that Poussin describes some shepherds wandering out in a morning of the spring, and coming to a tomb with this inscription, I also was an Arcadian. The former interpretation is now considered more likely, the ambiguity of the phrase is the subject of a famous essay by the art historian Erwin Panofsky. Either way, the sentiment was meant to set up an ironic contrast between the shadow of death and the usual idle merriment that the nymphs and swains of ancient Arcadia were thought to embody. The idea was taken up anew in the circle of Lorenzo de Medici in the 1460s and 1470s, in his pastoral work Arcadia, Jacopo Sannazaro fixed the Early Modern perception of Arcadia as a lost world of idyllic bliss, remembered in regretful dirges. Poussins own first version of the painting was commissioned as a reworking of Guercinos version. It is in a far more Baroque style than the later version, in the Chatsworth painting the shepherds are actively discovering the half-hidden and overgrown tomb, and are reading the inscription with curious expressions. The shepherdess, standing at the left, is posed in sexually suggestive fashion, the later version has a far more geometric composition and the figures are much more contemplative. The mask-like face of the shepherdess conforms to the conventions of the Classical Greek profile, according to an ancient tradition, this is the moment in which the art of painting is first discovered. Thus, the shadow is the first image in art history. But the shadow on the tomb is also a symbol of death, the meaning of this highly intricate composition seems to be that, from prehistory onward, the discovery of art has been the creative response of humankind to the shocking fact of mortality. The undated mid-eighteenth-century marble bas-relief is part of the Shepherds Monument, beneath it is the cryptic Shugborough inscription, as yet undeciphered
2.
Nicolas Poussin
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Nicolas Poussin was the leading painter of the classical French Baroque style, although he spent most of his working life in Rome. His work is characterized by clarity, logic, and order, until the 20th century he remained a major inspiration for such classically oriented artists as Jacques-Louis David, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Paul Cézanne. He worked in Rome for a circle of leading collectors from there and elsewhere, most of his works are history paintings of religious or mythological subjects that very often have a large landscape element. Early sketches attracted the notice of Quentin Varin, a painter, whose pupil Poussin became. There he entered the studios of the Flemish painter Ferdinand Elle and then of Georges Lallemand and he found French art in a stage of transition, the old apprenticeship system was disturbed, and the academic training destined to supplant it was not yet established by Simon Vouet. In Paris, Poussin was impressed by Italian art he viewed in the royal collection and he attempted to travel to Rome, but after reaching Florence he was forced, perhaps by ill health, to return to Paris. In 1622 he met Giambattista Marino, the poet to Marie de Medici. Marino employed him on illustrations for an edition of Ovids Metamorphoses. These Marino drawings preserved at Windsor Castle are among the few identifiable works of Poussin executed before his arrival in Rome. Marino took him into his household, and in 1624 enabled Poussin to rejoin him at Rome, Poussin was thirty when he arrived in Rome in 1624. At first he lodged with Simon Vouet, through Marino, he had been introduced to Marcello Sacchetti who in turn introduced him to another of his early patrons, Cardinal Francesco Barberini. However, their return from Spain in 1626 stabilized Poussin’s position, with renewed patronage by the Barberini and their circle. He fell ill at this time and was taken into the house of his compatriot Jacques Dughet, where he was nursed by Dughet’s daughter, Anna Maria and his two brothers-in-law were artists and Gaspard Dughet later took Poussin’s surname. During the late 1620s and 1630s, he experimented and formulated his own style and he studied the Antique as well as works such as Titian’s Bacchanals at the Casino Ludovisi and the paintings of Domenichino and Guido Reni. Peter’s, and an ingenious architectural imagination was emerging in works by Borromini, at the time the papacy was Rome’s foremost patron of the arts. Poussin’s Martyrdom of St. Erasmus for St and his subsequent career depended on private patronage. Louis XIII conferred on him the title of First Painter in Ordinary, in 1642, disgusted by the intrigues of Simon Vouet, Fouquières and the architect Jacques Lemercier, Poussin withdrew to Rome. There, in 1648, he finished for de Chantelou the second series of the Seven Sacraments and this painting shows the philosopher discarding his last worldly possession, his cup, after watching a man drink water by cupping his hands
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French art
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French art consists of the visual and plastic arts originating from the geographical area of France. Modern France was the centre for the European art of the Upper Paleolithic, then left many megalithic monuments. With Merovingian art the story of French styles as a distinct, in France there are some 5,000 megalithics monuments, mainly in Brittany, where there is the largest concentration of these monuments. In this area there is variety of these monuments that have been well preserved, like menhirs, dolmen, cromlechs. The Cairn of Gavrinis in southern Brittany is an example of megalithic art. The great broken menhir of Er-Grah, now in four pieces was more than 20 meters high originally, France has also numerous painted stones, polished stone axes, and inscribed menhirs from this period. The Grand-Pressigny area was known for its precious silex blades and they were exported during the Neolithic. In France from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age, one finds a variety of archaeological cultures, 4500–4000 BC, Beaker culture of c. 2800–1900 BC, Tumulus culture of c, 1600–1200 BC, Urnfield culture of c. 1300–800 BC, and, in a transition to the Iron Age, for more on Prehistoric sites in Western France, see Prehistory of Brittany. This art drew on native, classical and perhaps, the Mediterranean, the Celts of Gaul are known through numerous tombs and burial mounds found throughout France. The Celtic Vix grave in present-day Burgundy revealed the largest bronze crater of the Antiquity, the region of Gaul came under the rule of the Roman Empire from the first century BC to the fifth century AD. Southern France, and especially Provence and Languedoc, is known for its many intact Gallo-Roman monuments, lugdunum, modern Lyon, was at the time of the Roman Empire the largest city outside Italy and gave birth to two Roman Emperors. The city still boasts some Roman remains including a Theater, Merovingian art is the art and architecture of the Merovingian dynasty of the Franks, which lasted from the fifth century to the eighth century in present-day France and Germany. The advent of the Merovingian dynasty in Gaul during the century led to important changes in the arts. In architecture, there was no longer the desire to build robust, sculpture regressed to being little more than a simple technique for the ornamentation of sarcophagi, altars, and ecclesiastical furniture. The unification of the Frankish kingdom under Clovis I and his successors, the plans for them probably were copied from Roman basilicas. Unfortunately, these structures have not survived because of destruction by fire
4.
Prehistoric art
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At this point ancient art begins, for the older literate cultures. The end-date for what is covered by the term thus varies greatly between different parts of the world, from the Upper Palaeolithic through the Mesolithic, cave paintings and portable art such as figurines and beads predominated, with decorative figured workings also seen on some utilitarian objects. In the Neolithic evidence of early pottery appeared, as did sculpture, Early rock art also first appeared in the Neolithic. It also saw the development in areas of artisans, a class of people specializing in the production of art. By the Iron Age, civilizations with writing had arisen from Ancient Egypt to Ancient China, some cultures, notably the Maya civilization, independently developed writing during the time they flourished, which was then later lost. These cultures may be classified as prehistoric, especially if their writing systems have not been deciphered, the earliest undisputed art originated with the Aurignacian archaeological culture in the Upper Paleolithic. However, there is evidence that the preference for the aesthetic emerged in the Middle Paleolithic. Some archaeologists have interpreted certain Middle Paleolithic artifacts as early examples of artistic expression, there are other claims of Middle Paleolithic sculpture, dubbed the Venus of Tan-Tan and the Venus of Berekhat Ram. In 2002 in Blombos cave, situated in South Africa, stones were discovered engraved with grid or cross-hatch patterns and this suggested to some researchers that early Homo sapiens were capable of abstraction and production of abstract art or symbolic art. Several archaeologists including Richard Klein are hesitant to accept the Blombos caves as the first example of actual art, the oldest undisputed works of figurative art were found in the Schwäbische Alb, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The earliest of these, the Venus figurine known as the Venus of Hohle Fels, monumental open-air art in Europe from this period includes the rock-art at Côa Valley and Mazouco in Portugal, Domingo García and Siega Verde in Spain, and Rocher gravé de Fornols in France. A cave at Turobong in South Korea containing human remains has found to contain carved deer bones. Petroglyphs of deer or reindeer found at Sokchang-ri may also date to the Upper Paleolithic, potsherds in a style reminiscent of early Japanese work have been found at Kosan-ri on Jeju island, which, due to lower sea levels at the time, would have been accessible from Japan. The oldest petroglyphs are dated to approximately the Mesolithic and late Upper Paleolithic boundary, the earliest undisputed African rock art dates back about 10,000 years. The first naturalistic paintings of humans found in Africa date back about 8,000 years apparently originating in the Nile River valley, noted sites containing early art include Tassili nAjjer in southern Algeria, Tadrart Acacus in Libya, and the Tibesti Mountains in northern Chad. Rock carvings at the Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa have been dated to this age, contentious dates as far back as 29,000 years have been obtained at a site in Tanzania. A site at the Apollo 11 Cave complex in Namibia has been dated to 27,000 years, göbekli Tepe in Turkey has circles of massive T-shaped stone pillars dating back to the 10th–8th millennium BCE, the worlds oldest known megaliths. Many of the pillars are decorated with abstract, enigmatic pictograms, Asia was the cradle for several significant civilizations, most notably those of China and South Asia
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Medieval art
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The medieval art of the Western world covers a vast scope of time and place, over 1000 years of art in Europe, and at times the Middle East and North Africa. It includes major art movements and periods, national and regional art, genres, revivals, the crafts. Art historians attempt to classify medieval art into major periods and styles, in addition each region, mostly during the period in the process of becoming nations or cultures, had its own distinct artistic style, such as Anglo-Saxon art or Norse art. Medieval art in Europe grew out of the heritage of the Roman Empire. These sources were mixed with the vigorous barbarian artistic culture of Northern Europe to produce an artistic legacy. Indeed, the history of art can be seen as the history of the interplay between the elements of classical, early Christian and barbarian art. The period ended with the self-perceived Renaissance recovery of the skills and values of art. Since a revival of interest and understanding in the 19th century it has seen as a period of enormous achievement that underlies the development of later Western art. Many regions did not regain their population levels until the 17th century. The population of Europe is estimated to have reached a low point of about 18 million in 650, doubling by 1000, in 1450 it was still only 50 million. To these figures, Northern Europe, especially Britain, contributed a lower proportion than today, and Southern Europe, including France, the increase in prosperity, for those who survived, was much less affected by the Black Death. Until about the 11th century most of Europe was short of labour, with large amounts of unused land. The medieval period saw the falling away of the invasions and incursions from outside the area that characterized the first millennium. The impression may be left by the works that almost all medieval art was religious. Most churches have been rebuilt, often times, but medieval palaces and large houses have been lost at a far greater rate. The situation is similar in most of Europe, though the 14th century Palais des Papes in Avignon survives largely intact. Paper became available in the last centuries of the period, but was extremely expensive by todays standards. Art in the Middle Ages is a subject and art historians traditionally divide it in several large-scale phases, styles or periods
6.
Gothic art
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Gothic art was a style of medieval art that developed in Northern France out of Romanesque art in the 12th century AD, led by the concurrent development of Gothic architecture. It spread to all of Western Europe, and much of Southern and Central Europe, in the late 14th century, the sophisticated court style of International Gothic developed, which continued to evolve until the late 15th century. In many areas, especially Germany, Late Gothic art continued well into the 16th century, primary media in the Gothic period included sculpture, panel painting, stained glass, fresco and illuminated manuscripts. The earliest Gothic art was monumental sculpture, on the walls of Cathedrals, Christian art was often typological in nature, showing the stories of the New Testament and the Old Testament side by side. Increased literacy and a body of secular vernacular literature encouraged the representation of secular themes in art. Gothic art emerged in Île-de-France, France, in the early 12th century at the Abbey Church of St Denis built by Abbot Suger, monastic orders, especially the Cistercians and the Carthusians, were important builders who disseminated the style and developed distinctive variants of it across Europe. Gothic art was often typological in nature, reflecting a belief that the events of the Old Testament pre-figured those of the New, Old and New Testament scenes were shown side by side in works like the Speculum Humanae Salvationis, and the decoration of churches. The Gothic period coincided with a resurgence in Marian devotion. Images of the Virgin Mary developed from the Byzantine hieratic types, through the Coronation of the Virgin, to human and initimate types. Artists like Giotto, Fra Angelico and Pietro Lorenzetti in Italy, and Early Netherlandish painting, brought realism, Western artists, and their patrons, became much more confident in innovative iconography, and much more originality is seen, although copied formulae were still used by most artists. Even in Last Judgements Christ was now usually shown exposing his chest to show the wounds of his Passion, the word Gothic for art was initially used as a synonym for Barbaric, and was therefore used pejoratively. Its critics saw this type of Medieval art as unrefined and too remote from the aesthetic proportions, Renaissance authors believed that the Sack of Rome by the Gothic tribes in 410 had triggered the demise of the Classical world and all the values they held dear. Gothic art was criticized by French authors such as Boileau, La Bruyère, Rousseau, before becoming a recognized form of art. Molière would famously comment on Gothic, The besotted taste of Gothic monuments, These odious monsters of ignorant centuries, in its beginning, Gothic art was initially called French work, thus attesting the priority of France in the creation of this style. Painting in a style that can be called Gothic did not appear until about 1200, or nearly 50 years after the origins of Gothic architecture and sculpture. Then figures become more animated in pose and facial expression, tend to be smaller in relation to the background of scenes, and are arranged more freely in the pictorial space, where there is room. This transition occurs first in England and France around 1200, in Germany around 1220, painting during the Gothic period was practiced in four primary media, frescos, panel paintings, manuscript illumination and stained glass. Frescoes continued to be used as the pictorial narrative craft on church walls in southern Europe as a continuation of early Christian
7.
French Renaissance
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The French Renaissance was the cultural and artistic movement in France between the 15th and early 17th centuries. The period is associated with the pan-European Renaissance, a word first used by the French historian Jules Michelet to define the artistic, the French Renaissance traditionally extends from the French invasion of Italy in 1494 during the reign of Charles VIII until the death of Henry IV in 1610. The reigns of Francis I of France and his son Henry II are generally considered the apex of the French Renaissance, the word Renaissance is a French word, whose literal translation into English is Rebirth. The word Renaissance was first used and defined by French historian Jules Michelet, in his 1855 work, as a French citizen and historian, Michelet also claimed the Renaissance as a French movement. His work is at the origin of the use of the French word Renaissance in other languages, for a chronological list of French Renaissance artists, see List of French Renaissance artists. In 1516, Francis I of France invited Leonardo da Vinci to the Château dAmboise and provided him with the Château du Clos Lucé, then called Château de Cloux, as a place to stay and work. Leonardo, a painter and inventor, arrived with three of his paintings, namely the Mona Lisa, Sainte Anne, and Saint Jean Baptiste. There are a number of French artists of talent in this period including the painter Jean Fouquet of Tours. Marie de Medici, Henry IVs queen, invited the Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens to France, another Flemish artist working for the court was Frans Pourbus the younger. Outside France, working for the dukes of Lorraine, one finds a very different late mannerist style in the artists Jacques Bellange, Claude Deruet and Jacques Callot. Having little contact with the French artists of the period, they developed a heightened, extreme, and often erotic mannerism, the old Louvre castle in Paris was also rebuilt under the direction of Pierre Lescot and would become the core of a brand new Renaissance château. To the west of the Louvre, Catherine de Medici had built for her the Tuileries palace with extensive gardens and they became an extension of the chateaux that they surrounded, and were designed to illustrate the Renaissance ideals of measure and proportion. Burgundy, the mostly French-speaking area unified with the Kingdom of France in 1477, was the center of Europe in the early. The Burgundian style gave birth to the Franco-Flemish style of polyphony which dominated European music in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. However, by the end of the 15th century, a French national character was becoming distinct in music of the French royal and aristocratic courts, guillaume Dufay and Gilles Binchois are two notable examples from the Burgundian school during the early Renaissance period. The most renowned composer in Europe, Josquin des Prez, worked for a time in the court of Louis XII, Francis I, who became king that year, made the creation of an opulent musical establishment a priority. By far the most significant contribution of France to music in the Renaissance period was the chanson, the chanson in the early 16th century was characterised by a dactylic opening and contrapuntal style which was later adopted by the Italian canzona, the predecessor of the sonata. Typically chansons were for three or four voices, without accompaniment, but the most popular examples were inevitably made into instrumental versions as well
8.
19th-century French art
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Many of the developments in French arts in this period parallel changes in literature. For more on this, see French literature of the 19th century, for more on French history, see History of France. The French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars brought great changes to the arts in France, the program of exaltation and mythification of the Emperor Napoleon I of France was closely coordinated in the paintings of Gros and Guérin. The comparison is however somewhat false, for Ingres intense realism sometimes gives way to amazing voluptuousness in his Turkish bath scenes, romanticism is a literary language based on feelings. Writers who illustrated this concept included John Keats and Benjamin Constant, auguste Rodin and Camille Claudel are the most famous sculptors of their time. Walter Benjamin called Paris the capital of the 19th century, yet there was also a second Paris at the limits of Haussmanns city on the hill of Montmartre with her windmills, cabarets and vineyards. What is more, the debate in the visual arts is also repeated in the same period in music, dance, architecture. This is the birth of Modernism, Édouard Manet represents for many critics the division between the 19th century and the modern period. Impressionism would take the Barbizon school one further, rejecting once and for all a belabored style, claude Monet with his cathedrals and haystacks, Pierre-Auguste Renoir with both his early outdoor festivals and his later feathery style of ruddy nudes, Edgar Degas with his dancers and bathers. Some of these techniques were made possible by new paints available in tubes and these painters were also to a certain degree in a dialogue with another discovery of the 19th century, photography. From this point on, the thirty years were a litany of amazing experiments. Vincent van Gogh, Dutch born but living in France, opened the road to expressionism, georges Seurat, influenced by color theory, devised a pointillist technique that controlled the Impressionist experiment. Paul Cézanne, a painter, attempted a geometrical exploration of the world. Paul Gauguin, the banker, found symbolism in Brittany and then exoticism and primitivism in French Polynesia, henri Rousseau, the self-taught dabbler, becomes the model for the naïve revolution. List of French artists of the first half of the 19th century List of French artists of the half of the 19th century Félix Louis Leullier Incoherents
9.
20th-century French art
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20th-century French art developed out of the Impressionism and Post-Impressionism that dominated French art at the end of the 19th century. After World War II, while French artists explored such tendencies as Tachism, Fluxus and New realism, the early years of the twentieth century were dominated by Neo-Impressionism and Divisionism, experiments in colour and content that Impressionism, Post-Impressionism and Symbolism had unleashed. The products of the far east also brought new influences, Les Nabis explored a decorative art in flat plains with a Japanese print graphic approach. From 1904 Les Fauves exploded in color, the influence of African tribal masks led Pablo Picasso to his Demoiselles dAvignon of 1907. Cubism in all its phases and divers styles would dominate Europe, World War I did not stop the dynamic creation of art in France. In 1916 a group of discontents met in a bar in Zurich and create the most radical gesture possible, at the same time, Francis Picabia and Marcel Duchamp were exploring similar notions. At an art show in New York in 1917 Duchamp presented a white porcelain urinal signed R. Mutt as work of art, the killing fields of the war had made many see the absurdity of existence. This was also the period when the Lost Generation took hold, rich Americans enjoying the liberties of Prohibition-free France in the 1920s, Paris was also, for African-Americans, amazingly free of the racial restrictions found in America. When Dada reached Paris, it was embraced by a group of young artists and writers who were fascinated with the writings of Sigmund Freud. The provocative spirit of Dada became linked to the exploration of the mind through the use of automatic writing, chance operations and, in some cases. The surrealists quickly turned to painting and sculpture, World War II ended the feast. Many surrealists like Yves Tanguy, Max Ernst, André Breton and André Masson fled occupied France for New York and the States, for a chronological list of artists from the period, go here. The French art scene immediately after the war went roughly in several directions and these artists included Wols, Jean Fautrier, Hans Hartung, Jean-Paul Riopelle, Jean Degottex, Pierre Soulages, Jean Messagier and Georges Mathieu. At the same time, Jean Dubuffet dominated the early years while exploring childlike drawings, graffiti. Meanwhile, François Fiedler went searching for the combination of color. The artist Christo joined the group in 1963, the members of the group saw the world as an image, from which they would take parts and incorporate them into their works. They sought to bring life and art together, and has often been compared with Pop Art. Fluxus artists preferred to work with materials were at hand
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Impressionism
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Impressionism originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s. The Impressionists faced harsh opposition from the art community in France. The development of Impressionism in the arts was soon followed by analogous styles in other media that became known as impressionist music. Radicals in their time, early Impressionists violated the rules of academic painting and they constructed their pictures from freely brushed colours that took precedence over lines and contours, following the example of painters such as Eugène Delacroix and J. M. W. Turner. They also painted scenes of modern life, and often painted outdoors. Previously, still lifes and portraits as well as landscapes were painted in a studio. The Impressionists found that they could capture the momentary and transient effects of sunlight by painting en plein air, the Impressionists, however, developed new techniques specific to the style. The public, at first hostile, gradually came to believe that the Impressionists had captured a fresh and original vision, even if the art critics and art establishment disapproved of the new style. In the middle of the 19th century—a time of change, as Emperor Napoleon III rebuilt Paris, the Académie was the preserver of traditional French painting standards of content and style. Historical subjects, religious themes, and portraits were valued, landscape, the Académie preferred carefully finished images that looked realistic when examined closely. Paintings in this style were made up of brush strokes carefully blended to hide the artists hand in the work. Colour was restrained and often toned down further by the application of a golden varnish, the Académie had an annual, juried art show, the Salon de Paris, and artists whose work was displayed in the show won prizes, garnered commissions, and enhanced their prestige. The standards of the juries represented the values of the Académie, represented by the works of artists as Jean-Léon Gérôme. In the early 1860s, four young painters—Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley and they discovered that they shared an interest in painting landscape and contemporary life rather than historical or mythological scenes. A favourite meeting place for the artists was the Café Guerbois on Avenue de Clichy in Paris, where the discussions were led by Édouard Manet. They were soon joined by Camille Pissarro, Paul Cézanne, during the 1860s, the Salon jury routinely rejected about half of the works submitted by Monet and his friends in favour of works by artists faithful to the approved style. In 1863, the Salon jury rejected Manets The Luncheon on the Grass primarily because it depicted a woman with two clothed men at a picnic. While the Salon jury routinely accepted nudes in historical and allegorical paintings, the jurys severely worded rejection of Manets painting appalled his admirers, and the unusually large number of rejected works that year perturbed many French artists
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Cubism
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Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. Cubism has been considered the most influential art movement of the 20th century, the term is broadly used in association with a wide variety of art produced in Paris during the 1910s and extending through the 1920s. The movement was pioneered by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, joined by Andre Lhote, Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Robert Delaunay, Henri Le Fauconnier, Fernand Léger and Juan Gris. A primary influence that led to Cubism was the representation of form in the late works of Paul Cézanne. The impact of Cubism was far-reaching and wide-ranging, Cubism spread rapidly across the globe and in doing so evolved to a greater or lesser extent. In essence, Cubism was the origin of a process that produced diversity. In France, offshoots of Cubism developed, including Orphism, Abstract art, in other countries Futurism, Suprematism, Dada, Constructivism, De Stijl and Art Deco developed in response to Cubism. Other common threads between these movements include the faceting or simplification of geometric forms, and the association of mechanization. Cubism began between 1907 and 1911, Pablo Picassos 1907 painting Les Demoiselles dAvignon has often been considered a proto-Cubist work. Georges Braques 1908 Houses at L’Estaque prompted the critic Louis Vauxcelles to refer to bizarreries cubiques, Gertrude Stein referred to landscapes made by Picasso in 1909, such as Reservoir at Horta de Ebro, as the first Cubist paintings. A second phase, Synthetic Cubism, remained vital until around 1919, english art historian Douglas Cooper proposed another scheme, describing three phases of Cubism in his book, The Cubist Epoch. Douglas Coopers restrictive use of terms to distinguish the work of Braque, Picasso, Gris. Alternative interpretations of Cubism have therefore developed, wider views of Cubism include artists who were later associated with the Salle 41 artists, e. g. John Berger identifies the essence of Cubism with the mechanical diagram. The metaphorical model of Cubism is the diagram, The diagram being a symbolic representation of invisible processes, forces, structures. A diagram need not eschew certain aspects of appearance but these too will be treated as not as imitations or recreations. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Europeans were discovering African, Polynesian, Micronesian, artists such as Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso were intrigued and inspired by the stark power and simplicity of styles of those foreign cultures. Around 1906, Picasso met Matisse through Gertrude Stein, at a time when artists had recently acquired an interest in primitivism, Iberian sculpture, African art and African tribal masks. Picassos paintings of 1907 have been characterized as Protocubism, as seen in Les Demoiselles dAvignon
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Dada
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Dada or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centers in Zürich, Switzerland at the Cabaret Voltaire, in New York, and after 1920, in Paris. The art of the movement spanned visual, literary, and sound media, including collage, sound poetry, cut-up writing, Dadaist artists expressed their discontent with violence, war, and nationalism, and maintained political affinities with the radical left. Others note that it suggests the first words of a child, evoking a childishness, still others speculate that the word might have been chosen to evoke a similar meaning in any language, reflecting the movements internationalism. The roots of Dada lay in pre-war avant-garde, the term anti-art, a precursor to Dada, was coined by Marcel Duchamp around 1913 to characterize works which challenge accepted definitions of art. Cubism and the development of collage and abstract art would inform the movements detachment from the constraints of reality, the work of French poets, Italian Futurists and the German Expressionists would influence Dadas rejection of the tight correlation between words and meaning. Works such as Ubu Roi by Alfred Jarry, and the ballet Parade by Erik Satie would also be characterized as proto-Dadaist works, the Dada movements principles were first collected in Hugo Balls Dada Manifesto in 1916. The movement influenced later styles like the avant-garde and downtown music movements, Dada was an informal international movement, with participants in Europe and North America. The beginnings of Dada correspond to the outbreak of World War I, avant-garde circles outside France knew of pre-war Parisian developments. Futurism developed in response to the work of various artists, many Dadaists believed that the reason and logic of bourgeois capitalist society had led people into war. They expressed their rejection of that ideology in artistic expression that appeared to reject logic and embrace chaos, for example, George Grosz later recalled that his Dadaist art was intended as a protest against this world of mutual destruction. According to Hans Richter Dada was not art, it was anti-art, Dada represented the opposite of everything which art stood for. Where art was concerned with aesthetics, Dada ignored aesthetics. If art was to appeal to sensibilities, Dada was intended to offend, as Hugo Ball expressed it, For us, art is not an end in itself. But it is an opportunity for the perception and criticism of the times we live in. A reviewer from the American Art News stated at the time that Dada philosophy is the sickest, most paralyzing and most destructive thing that has ever originated from the brain of man. Art historians have described Dada as being, in large part, a systematic work of destruction and demoralization. In the end it became nothing but an act of sacrilege, to quote Dona Budds The Language of Art Knowledge, Dada was born out of negative reaction to the horrors of the First World War. This international movement was begun by a group of artists and poets associated with the Cabaret Voltaire in Zürich, Dada rejected reason and logic, prizing nonsense, irrationality and intuition
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Surrealism
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Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for its visual artworks and writings. The aim was to resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream, leader André Breton was explicit in his assertion that Surrealism was, above all, a revolutionary movement. Surrealism developed out of the Dada activities during World War I, the word surrealist was coined by Guillaume Apollinaire and first appeared in the preface to his play Les Mamelles de Tirésias, which was written in 1903 and first performed in 1917. The Dadaists protested with anti-art gatherings, performances, writings and art works, after the war, when they returned to Paris, the Dada activities continued. Meeting the young writer Jacques Vaché, Breton felt that Vaché was the son of writer. He admired the young writers anti-social attitude and disdain for established artistic tradition, later Breton wrote, In literature, I was successively taken with Rimbaud, with Jarry, with Apollinaire, with Nouveau, with Lautréamont, but it is Jacques Vaché to whom I owe the most. Back in Paris, Breton joined in Dada activities and started the literary journal Littérature along with Louis Aragon and they began experimenting with automatic writing—spontaneously writing without censoring their thoughts—and published the writings, as well as accounts of dreams, in the magazine. Breton and Soupault delved deeper into automatism and wrote The Magnetic Fields, continuing to write, they came to believe that automatism was a better tactic for societal change than the Dada form of attack on prevailing values. They also looked to the Marxist dialectic and the work of such theorists as Walter Benjamin, freuds work with free association, dream analysis, and the unconscious was of utmost importance to the Surrealists in developing methods to liberate imagination. They embraced idiosyncrasy, while rejecting the idea of an underlying madness, as Salvador Dalí later proclaimed, There is only one difference between a madman and me. Beside the use of analysis, they emphasized that one could combine inside the same frame, elements not normally found together to produce illogical. The more the relationship between the two juxtaposed realities is distant and true, the stronger the image will be−the greater its emotional power, the group aimed to revolutionize human experience, in its personal, cultural, social, and political aspects. They wanted to people from false rationality, and restrictive customs. Breton proclaimed that the aim of Surrealism was long live the social revolution. To this goal, at various times Surrealists aligned with communism and anarchism, in 1924 two Surrealist factions declared their philosophy in two separate Surrealist Manifestos. That same year the Bureau of Surrealist Research was established, leading up to 1924, two rival surrealist groups had formed. Each group claimed to be successors of a revolution launched by Guillaume Apollinaire, the other group, led by Breton, included Louis Aragon, Robert Desnos, Paul Éluard, Jacques Baron, Jacques-André Boiffard, Jean Carrive, René Crevel and Georges Malkine, among others. Goll and Breton clashed openly, at one point literally fighting, at the Comédie des Champs-Élysées, in the end, Breton won the battle through tactical and numerical superiority
14.
Art of Europe
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The art of Europe encompasses the history of visual art in Europe. European prehistoric art started as mobile rock, and cave painting art, written histories of European art often begin with the art of the Ancient Middle East, and the Ancient Aegean civilisations, dating from the 3rd millennium BC. Parallel with these significant cultures, art of one form or another existed all over Europe, wherever there were people, leaving signs such as carvings, decorated artifacts and huge standing stones. Before the 1800s, the Christian church was an influence upon European art. The history of the Church was very much reflected in the history of art, in the same period of time there was renewed interest in heroes and heroines, tales of mythological gods and goddesses, great wars, and bizarre creatures which were not connected to religion. Secularism has influenced European art since the Classical period, while most art of the last 200 years has produced without reference to religion. On the other hand, European art has often influenced by politics of one kind or another, of the state, of the patron. European art is arranged into a number of periods, which, historically. Broadly the periods are, Classical, Byzantine, Medieval, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, Neoclassical, European prehistoric art is an important part of the European cultural heritage. Prehistoric art history is divided into four main periods, Stone age, Neolithic, Bronze age. Most of the artifacts of this period are small sculptures. The oldest European cave art dates back 40,800, rock painting was also performed on cliff faces, but fewer of those have survived because of erosion. One well-known example is the paintings of Astuvansalmi in the Saimaa area of Finland. When Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola first encountered the Magdalenian paintings of the Altamira cave, Cantabria, Spain in 1879, recent reappraisals and numerous additional discoveries have since demonstrated their authenticity, while at the same time stimulating interest in the artistry of Upper Palaeolithic peoples. Cave paintings, undertaken with only the most rudimentary tools, can also furnish valuable insight into the culture, the figures are generally rather sketchily depicted in thin paint, with the relationships between the groups of humans and animals more carefully depicted than individual figures. Other less numerous groups of art, many engraved rather than painted. The Iberian examples are believed to date from a period perhaps covering the Upper Paleolithic, Mesolithic. There are human heads and some fully represented animals, but full-length human figures at any size are so rare that their absence may represent a religious taboo, the Minoan culture is regarded as the oldest civilization in Europe
15.
Baroque
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The style began around 1600 in Rome and Italy, and spread to most of Europe. The aristocracy viewed the dramatic style of Baroque art and architecture as a means of impressing visitors by projecting triumph, power, Baroque palaces are built around an entrance of courts, grand staircases, and reception rooms of sequentially increasing opulence. However, baroque has a resonance and application that extend beyond a reduction to either a style or period. It is also yields the Italian barocco and modern Spanish barroco, German Barock, Dutch Barok, others derive it from the mnemonic term Baroco, a supposedly laboured form of syllogism in logical Scholastica. The Latin root can be found in bis-roca, in informal usage, the word baroque can simply mean that something is elaborate, with many details, without reference to the Baroque styles of the 17th and 18th centuries. The word Baroque, like most periodic or stylistic designations, was invented by later critics rather than practitioners of the arts in the 17th, the term Baroque was initially used in a derogatory sense, to underline the excesses of its emphasis. In particular, the term was used to describe its eccentric redundancy and noisy abundance of details, although it was long thought that the word as a critical term was first applied to architecture, in fact it appears earlier in reference to music. Another hypothesis says that the word comes from precursors of the style, Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola and he did not make the distinctions between Mannerism and Baroque that modern writers do, and he ignored the later phase, the academic Baroque that lasted into the 18th century. Long despised, Baroque art and architecture became fashionable between the two World Wars, and has remained in critical favour. In painting the gradual rise in popular esteem of Caravaggio has been the best barometer of modern taste, William Watson describes a late phase of Shang-dynasty Chinese ritual bronzes of the 11th century BC as baroque. The term Baroque may still be used, usually pejoratively, describing works of art, craft, the appeal of Baroque style turned consciously from the witty, intellectual qualities of 16th-century Mannerist art to a visceral appeal aimed at the senses. It employed an iconography that was direct, simple, obvious, germinal ideas of the Baroque can also be found in the work of Michelangelo. Even more generalised parallels perceived by some experts in philosophy, prose style, see the Neapolitan palace of Caserta, a Baroque palace whose construction began in 1752. In paintings Baroque gestures are broader than Mannerist gestures, less ambiguous, less arcane and mysterious, more like the stage gestures of opera, Baroque poses depend on contrapposto, the tension within the figures that move the planes of shoulders and hips in counterdirections. Baroque is a style of unity imposed upon rich, heavy detail, Baroque style featured exaggerated lighting, intense emotions, release from restraint, and even a kind of artistic sensationalism. There were highly diverse strands of Italian baroque painting, from Caravaggio to Cortona, the most prominent Spanish painter of the Baroque was Diego Velázquez. The later Baroque style gradually gave way to a more decorative Rococo, while the Baroque nature of Rembrandts art is clear, the label is less often used for Vermeer and many other Dutch artists. Flemish Baroque painting shared a part in this trend, while continuing to produce the traditional categories
16.
Classicism
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Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for a classical period, classical antiquity in the Western tradition, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. Classicism is a genre of philosophy, expressing itself in literature, architecture, art, and music, which has Ancient Greek and Roman sources. It was particularly expressed in the Neoclassicism of the Age of Enlightenment, Classicism is a recurrent tendency in the Late Antique period, and had a major revival in Carolingian and Ottonian art. Until that time the identification with antiquity had been seen as a history of Christendom from the conversion of Roman Emperor Constantine I. Renaissance classicism introduced a host of elements into European culture, including the application of mathematics and empiricism into art, humanism, literary and depictive realism, importantly it also introduced Polytheism, or paganism, and the juxtaposition of ancient and modern. The classicism of the Renaissance led to, and gave way to and this period sought the revival of classical art forms, including Greek drama and music. Opera, in its modern European form, had its roots in attempts to recreate the combination of singing and dancing with theatre thought to be the Greek norm, examples of this appeal to classicism included Dante, Petrarch, and Shakespeare in poetry and theatre. Tudor drama, in particular, modeled itself after classical ideals, studying Ancient Greek became regarded as essential for a well-rounded education in the liberal arts. They also began reviving plastic arts such as bronze casting for sculpture, for example, the painting of Jacques-Louis David which was seen as an attempt to return to formal balance, clarity, manliness, and vigor in art. Various movements of the period saw themselves as classical revolts against a prevailing trend of emotionalism and irregularity. The 20th century saw a number of changes in the arts, thus, both pre-20th century disciplines were labelled classical and modern movements in art which saw themselves as aligned with light, space, sparseness of texture, and formal coherence. Examples of classicist playwrights are Pierre Corneille, Jean Racine and Moliere, the influence of these French rules on playwrights in other nations is debatable. In the English theatre, Restoration playwrights such as William Wycherly and those of Shakespeares plays that seem to display the unities, such as The Tempest, probably indicate a familiarity with actual models from classical antiquity. Classicism in architecture developed during the Italian Renaissance, notably in the writings and designs of Leon Battista Alberti and this style quickly spread to other Italian cities and then to France, Germany, England, Russia and elsewhere. In the 16th century, Sebastiano Serlio helped codify the classical orders, building off of these influences, the 17th-century architects Inigo Jones and Christopher Wren firmly established classicism in England. For the development of classicism from the mid-18th-century onwards, see Neoclassical architecture, for Greek art of the 5th century B. C. E. See Classical art in ancient Greece and the Severe style Italian Renaissance painting and sculpture are marked by their renewal of classical forms, motifs and subjects. In the 15th century Leon Battista Alberti was important in theorizing many of the ideas for painting that came to a fully realised product with Raphaels School of Athens during the High Renaissance
17.
Louis XIII style
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Louis XIII was a monarch of the House of Bourbon who ruled as King of France from 1610 to 1643 and King of Navarre from 1610 to 1620, when the crown of Navarre was merged with the French crown. Shortly before his birthday, Louis became king of France. His mother, Marie de Medici, acted as regent during his minority, Louis XIII, taciturn and suspicious, relied heavily on his chief ministers, first Charles dAlbert, duc de Luynes then Cardinal Richelieu, to govern the kingdom of France. King and cardinal are remembered for establishing the Académie française, the reign of Louis the Just was also marked by the struggles against Huguenots and Habsburg Spain. This battle marked the end of Spains military ascendancy in Europe and foreshadowed French dominance in Europe under Louis XIV, his son, born at the Château de Fontainebleau, Louis XIII was the oldest child of King Henry IV of France and his second wife Marie de Medici. As son of the king, he was a Fils de France and his father Henry IV was the first French king of the House of Bourbon, having succeeded his ninth cousin, Henry III of France, in application of Salic law. Louis XIIIs paternal grandparents were Antoine de Bourbon, duc de Vendôme and his maternal grandparents were Francesco I de Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Joanna of Austria, Grand Duchess of Tuscany. Eleonora de Medici, his aunt, was his godmother. His mother Marie de Medici acted as Regent until 1617, although Louis XIII became of age at thirteen, his mother did not give up her position as Regent until 1617. Marie maintained most of her husbands ministers, with the exception of Maximilien de Béthune, Duke of Sully and she mainly relied on Nicolas de Neufville, seigneur de Villeroy, Noël Brûlart de Sillery, and Pierre Jeannin for political advice. Marie pursued a policy, confirming the Edict of Nantes. She was not, however, able to prevent rebellion by nobles such as Henri, Prince of Condé second in line to the throne after Maries second surviving son Gaston, Duke of Orléans. Condé squabbled with Marie in 1614, and briefly raised an army, but he found support in the country. Nevertheless, Marie agreed to call an Estates General assembly to address Condés grievances, the assembly of this Estates General was delayed until Louis XIII formally came of age on his thirteenth birthday. Although Louiss coming-of-age formally ended Maries Regency, she remained the de facto ruler of France, the Estates General accomplished little, spending its time discussing the relationship of France to the Papacy and the venality of offices, but reaching no resolutions. Beginning in 1615, Marie came to rely increasingly on the Italian Concino Concini, Concini was widely unpopular because he was a foreigner. This further antagonised Condé, who launched another rebellion in 1616, Huguenot leaders supported Condés rebellion, which led the young Louis XIII to conclude that they would never be loyal subjects. Eventually, Condé and Queen Marie made peace via the Treaty of Loudun, which allowed Condé great power in government, but did not remove Concini
18.
Mannerism
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Mannerism is a style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, lasting until about 1580 in Italy, when the Baroque style began to replace it. Northern Mannerism continued into the early 17th century, stylistically, Mannerism encompasses a variety of approaches influenced by, and reacting to, the harmonious ideals associated with artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and early Michelangelo. Where High Renaissance art emphasizes proportion, balance, and ideal beauty, Mannerism exaggerates such qualities, Mannerism is notable for its intellectual sophistication as well as its artificial qualities. Mannerism favors compositional tension and instability rather than the balance and clarity of earlier Renaissance painting, Mannerism in literature and music is notable for its highly florid style and intellectual sophistication. The definition of Mannerism and the phases within it continue to be a subject of debate among art historians, for example, some scholars have applied the label to certain early modern forms of literature and music of the 16th and 17th centuries. The term is used to refer to some late Gothic painters working in northern Europe from about 1500 to 1530. Mannerism also has been applied by analogy to the Silver Age of Latin literature, the word mannerism derives from the Italian maniera, meaning style or manner. Like the English word style, maniera can either indicate a type of style or indicate an absolute that needs no qualification. Vasari was also a Mannerist artist, and he described the period in which he worked as la maniera moderna, james V. Mirollo describes how bella maniera poets attempted to surpass in virtuosity the sonnets of Petrarch. This notion of bella maniera suggests that artists thus inspired looked to copying and bettering their predecessors, in essence, bella maniera utilized the best from a number of source materials, synthesizing it into something new. As a stylistic label, Mannerism is not easily defined, “High Renaissance” connoted a period distinguished by harmony, grandeur and the revival of classical antiquity. The term Mannerist was redefined in 1967 by John Shearman following the exhibition of Mannerist paintings organised by Fritz Grossmann at Manchester City Art Gallery in 1965. The label “Mannerism” was used during the 16th century to comment on social behaviour, however, for later writers, such as the 17th-century Gian Pietro Bellori, la maniera was a derogatory term for the perceived decline of art after Raphael, especially in the 1530s and 1540s. From the late 19th century on, art historians have used the term to describe art that follows Renaissance classicism. By the end of the High Renaissance, young artists experienced a crisis, no more difficulties, technical or otherwise, remained to be solved. The young artists needed to find a new goal, and they sought new approaches, at this point Mannerism started to emerge. The new style developed between 1510 and 1520 either in Florence, or in Rome, or in both cities simultaneously and this period has been described as a natural extension of the art of Andrea del Sarto, Michelangelo, and Raphael. Michelangelo from an early age had developed a style of his own, one of the qualities most admired by his contemporaries was his terribilità, a sense of awe-inspiring grandeur, and subsequent artists attempted to imitate it
19.
Marie de' Medici
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Marie de Medici was Queen of France as the second wife of King Henry IV of France, of the House of Bourbon. She was a member of the wealthy and powerful House of Medici, following the assassination of her husband in 1610, which occurred the day after her coronation, she acted as regent for her son, King Louis XIII of France, until he came of age. She was noted for her ceaseless political intrigues at the French court and she was born as Maria at the Palazzo Pitti of Florence, Italy, the sixth daughter of Francesco I de Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Archduchess Joanna of Austria. Marie was one of seven children, but only she and her sister Eleonora survived to adulthood, Marie is not a male-line descendant of Lorenzo the Magnificent but from Lorenzo the Elder, a branch of the Medici family sometimes referred to as the cadet branch. She does descend from Lorenzo in the female-line however, through his daughter Lucrezia de Medici, nonetheless this cadet branch produced every Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1537 to 1737, and the kings of France from Louis XIII in 1601 to Louis XVI in 1793. This cadet branch is already 700 years old, beginning with Averardo de Medici in 1320 and flourishes to this day with Louis Alphonse and her daughter, Henrietta Maria was queen consort of England, Scotland, and Ireland as the wife of King Charles I. Henrietta Maria, in turn, was mother of two successors, Charles II and James II. Lorenzo the Magnificents line instead became extinct shortly after the death of Lorenzo in 1492, at the time of his death the Medici Bank was already in bankruptcy. A portrait of Marie as a girl shows her with regular features. Her wavy hair was light brown in colour, and she had honey-brown eyes, the painter was from the school of Santi di Tito. She married Henry IV of France in October 1600 following the annulment of his marriage to Margaret of Valois. The wedding ceremony in Florence, Italy was celebrated with 4,000 guests and lavish entertainments, including examples of the newly invented musical genre of opera and she brought as part of her dowry 600,000 crowns. Her eldest son, the future King Louis XIII, was born at Fontainebleau the following year and her husband was almost 47 at the marriage and had a long succession of mistresses. Dynastic considerations required him to take a second wife, the marriage was successful in producing children, but it was not a happy one. The queen feuded with Henrys mistresses in language that shocked French courtiers, when he failed to do so, and instead married Marie, the result was constant bickering and political intrigues behind the scenes. Catherine referred to Maria as the fat bankers daughter, Henry used Maria for breeding purposes exactly as Henry II had treated Catherine de Medici, although the king could have easily banished his mistress, supporting his queen, he never did so. She, in turn, showed sympathy and support to her husbands banished ex-wife Marguerite de Valois. Marie was crowned Queen of France on 13 May 1610, a day before her husbands death, hours after Henrys assassination, she was confirmed as regent by the Parliament of Paris
20.
Louis XIII of France
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Louis XIII was a monarch of the House of Bourbon who ruled as King of France from 1610 to 1643 and King of Navarre from 1610 to 1620, when the crown of Navarre was merged with the French crown. Shortly before his birthday, Louis became king of France. His mother, Marie de Medici, acted as regent during his minority, Louis XIII, taciturn and suspicious, relied heavily on his chief ministers, first Charles dAlbert, duc de Luynes then Cardinal Richelieu, to govern the kingdom of France. King and cardinal are remembered for establishing the Académie française, the reign of Louis the Just was also marked by the struggles against Huguenots and Habsburg Spain. This battle marked the end of Spains military ascendancy in Europe and foreshadowed French dominance in Europe under Louis XIV, his son, born at the Château de Fontainebleau, Louis XIII was the oldest child of King Henry IV of France and his second wife Marie de Medici. As son of the king, he was a Fils de France and his father Henry IV was the first French king of the House of Bourbon, having succeeded his ninth cousin, Henry III of France, in application of Salic law. Louis XIIIs paternal grandparents were Antoine de Bourbon, duc de Vendôme and his maternal grandparents were Francesco I de Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Joanna of Austria, Grand Duchess of Tuscany. Eleonora de Medici, his aunt, was his godmother. His mother Marie de Medici acted as Regent until 1617, although Louis XIII became of age at thirteen, his mother did not give up her position as Regent until 1617. Marie maintained most of her husbands ministers, with the exception of Maximilien de Béthune, Duke of Sully and she mainly relied on Nicolas de Neufville, seigneur de Villeroy, Noël Brûlart de Sillery, and Pierre Jeannin for political advice. Marie pursued a policy, confirming the Edict of Nantes. She was not, however, able to prevent rebellion by nobles such as Henri, Prince of Condé second in line to the throne after Maries second surviving son Gaston, Duke of Orléans. Condé squabbled with Marie in 1614, and briefly raised an army, but he found support in the country. Nevertheless, Marie agreed to call an Estates General assembly to address Condés grievances, the assembly of this Estates General was delayed until Louis XIII formally came of age on his thirteenth birthday. Although Louiss coming-of-age formally ended Maries Regency, she remained the de facto ruler of France, the Estates General accomplished little, spending its time discussing the relationship of France to the Papacy and the venality of offices, but reaching no resolutions. Beginning in 1615, Marie came to rely increasingly on the Italian Concino Concini, Concini was widely unpopular because he was a foreigner. This further antagonised Condé, who launched another rebellion in 1616, Huguenot leaders supported Condés rebellion, which led the young Louis XIII to conclude that they would never be loyal subjects. Eventually, Condé and Queen Marie made peace via the Treaty of Loudun, which allowed Condé great power in government, but did not remove Concini
21.
Counter-Reformation
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It also involved political activities that included the Roman Inquisition. The 14th, 15th and 16th centuries saw a revival in Europe. This became known as the Catholic Reformation, several theologians harked back to the early days of Christianity and questioned their spirituality. Their debates expanded across the whole of Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries, whilst secular critics also examined religious practice, clerical behavior, several varied currents of thought were active, but the ideas of reform and renewal were led by the clergy. The reforms decreed at Lateran V had only a small effect, some positions got further and further from the churchs official positions, leading to the break with Rome and the formation of Protestant churches. Even so, conservative and reforming parties still survived within the Catholic Church even as the Protestant Reformation spread, the Protestant Church decisively broke from the Catholic Church in the 1520s. The two distinct positions within the Catholic Church solidified in the 1560s. The Catholic Reformation became known as the Counter-Reformation, defined as a reaction to Protestantism rather than as a reform movement, the regular orders made their first attempts at reform in the 14th century. The Benedictine Bull of 1336 reformed the Benedictines and Cistercians, in 1523, the Camaldolese Hermits of Monte Corona were recognized as a separate congregation of monks. In 1435, Saint Francis of Paola founded the Poor Hermits of Saint Francis of Assisi, in 1526, Matteo de Bascio suggested reforming the Franciscan rule of life to its original purity, giving birth to the Capuchins, recognized by the pope in 1619. This order was well-known to the laity and play an important role in public preaching, to respond to the new needs of evangelism, clergy formed into religious congregations, taking special vows but with no obligation to assist in a monasterys religious offices. These regular clergy taught, preached and took confession but were under a bishops direct authority, in Italy, the first congregation of regular clergy was the Theatines founded in 1524 by Gaetano and Cardinal Caraffa. In 1524, a number of priests in Rome began to live in a community centred on Philip Neri, the Oratorians were given their institutions in 1564 and recognized as an order by the pope in 1575. They used music and singing to attract the faithful, the Council upheld the basic structure of the Medieval Church, its sacramental system, religious orders, and doctrine. It rejected all compromise with the Protestants, restating basic tenets of the Roman Catholic faith, the Council upheld salvation appropriated by grace through faith and works of that faith because faith without works is dead, as the Epistle of St. James states. This reaffirmed the previous Council of Rome and Synods of Carthage, the Council also commissioned the Roman Catechism, which still serves as authoritative Church teaching. While the traditional fundamentals of the Church were reaffirmed, there were changes to answer complaints that the Counter-Reformers were, tacitly. Often, these rural priests did not know Latin and lacked opportunities for theological training
22.
Peter Paul Rubens
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Sir Peter Paul Rubens was a Flemish/Netherlandish draughtsman and painter. He is widely considered as the most notable artist of Flemish Baroque art school, the catalogue of his works by Michael Jaffé lists 1,403 pieces, excluding numerous copies made in his workshop. His commissioned works were mostly history paintings, which included religious and mythological subjects and he painted portraits, especially of friends, and self-portraits, and in later life painted several landscapes. Rubens designed tapestries and prints, as well as his own house and he also oversaw the ephemeral decorations of the royal entry into Antwerp by the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand in 1635. His drawings are mostly extremely forceful but not overly detailed and he also made great use of oil sketches as preparatory studies. For altarpieces he painted on slate to reduce reflection problems. Rubens was born in the city of Siegen to Jan Rubens and he was named in honour of Saint-Peter and Paul, because he was born on their solemnety. His father, a Calvinist, and mother fled Antwerp for Cologne in 1568, after increased religious turmoil and persecution of Protestants during the rule of the Spanish Netherlands by the Duke of Alba. Jan Rubens became the adviser of Anna of Saxony, the second wife of William I of Orange. Following Jan Rubens imprisonment for the affair, Peter Paul Rubens was born in 1577, the family returned to Cologne the next year. In 1589, two years after his fathers death, Rubens moved with his mother Maria Pypelincks to Antwerp, religion figured prominently in much of his work and Rubens later became one of the leading voices of the Catholic Counter-Reformation style of painting. In Antwerp, Rubens received a Renaissance humanist education, studying Latin, by fourteen he began his artistic apprenticeship with Tobias Verhaeght. Subsequently, he studied under two of the leading painters of the time, the late Mannerist artists Adam van Noort. Much of his earliest training involved copying earlier works, such as woodcuts by Hans Holbein the Younger. Rubens completed his education in 1598, at time he entered the Guild of St. Luke as an independent master. In 1600 Rubens travelled to Italy and he stopped first in Venice, where he saw paintings by Titian, Veronese, and Tintoretto, before settling in Mantua at the court of Duke Vincenzo I Gonzaga. The colouring and compositions of Veronese and Tintoretto had an effect on Rubenss painting. With financial support from the Duke, Rubens travelled to Rome by way of Florence in 1601, there, he studied classical Greek and Roman art and copied works of the Italian masters
23.
Caravaggio
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Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was an Italian painter active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily between 1592 and 1610. His paintings, which combine a realistic observation of the human state, in scarcely a year or so’s sojourn in Naples, he rapidly established himself once more as the most prominent painter, exploiting high-ranking connections. It was not long before these connections gave him an opening to travel on in 1607 to Malta, governed by the Order of Knights Hospitallers, Caravaggio probably hoped that the Knights would provide a channel whereby he could obtain a pardon from the Papacy. Once more his talents made an instant impression, along with the support of noble patrons and his hopes dashed, he contrived to escape and flee once, which before the end of 1608 led to his cancellation from the rolls of the Order. He made for Syracuse in Sicily, where he was received as a guest by a friend from his Roman days, the painter’s face was disfigured and rumours started to circulate of his death. Various commentators have formulated opinions about his state from works supposedly executed at this period. In fact, Caravaggio’s end is shrouded in mystery, mystery that is rendered only denser by conflicting hypotheses, some speak of a natural death from a persistent fever, others of an assassination by emissaries of the Knights of Malta. The loss of the paintings put the deal and his future in doubt, there is evidence that dogged by a serious fever, he was tended by a local religious confraternity near Porto Ercole, then in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, but succumbed. His death was certified by them as taking place on 18 July 1610, if the story to this point is exact, it is likely he was buried in a paupers’ common grave. As to the place, though this continues to be contested. Famous while he lived, Caravaggio was forgotten almost immediately after his death, despite this, his influence on the new Baroque style that eventually emerged from the ruins of Mannerism was profound. The 20th-century art historian André Berne-Joffroy claimed, What begins in the work of Caravaggio is, quite simply, modern painting. Caravaggio was born in Milan where his father, Fermo, was an administrator and architect-decorator to the Marchese of Caravaggio. His mother, Lucia Aratori, came from a family of the same district. In 1576 the family moved to Caravaggio to escape a plague which ravaged Milan, Caravaggios mother died in 1584, the same year he began his four-year apprenticeship to the Milanese painter Simone Peterzano, described in the contract of apprenticeship as a pupil of Titian. Following his initial training under Simone Peterzano, in 1592 Caravaggio left Milan for Rome, in flight after certain quarrels, in Rome, where there was a demand for paintings to fill the many huge new churches and palazzos being built at the time. It was also a period when the Church was searching for an alternative to Mannerism in religious art that was tasked to counter the threat of Protestantism. Caravaggios innovation was a radical naturalism that combined close observation with a dramatic, even theatrical
24.
Georges de La Tour
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Georges de La Tour was a French Baroque painter, who spent most of his working life in the Duchy of Lorraine, which was temporarily absorbed into France between 1641 and 1648. He painted mostly religious chiaroscuro scenes lit by candlelight, Georges de La Tour was born in the town of Vic-sur-Seille in the Diocese of Metz, which was technically part of the Holy Roman Empire, but had been ruled by France since 1552. Baptism documentation revealed that he was the son of Jean de La Tour, a baker and it has been suggested that Sybille came from a partly noble family. His parents had seven children in all, with Georges being the second-born, La Tours educational background remains somewhat unclear, but it is assumed that he travelled either to Italy or the Netherlands early in his career. He may possibly have trained under Jacques Bellange in Nancy, the capital of Lorraine and his paintings reflect the Baroque naturalism of Caravaggio, but this probably reached him through the Dutch Caravaggisti of the Utrecht School and other Northern contemporaries. In particular, La Tour is often compared to the Dutch painter Hendrick Terbrugghen and he painted mainly religious and some genre scenes. He was given the title Painter to the King in 1638, and he worked for the Dukes of Lorraine in 1623–4, but the local bourgeoisie provided his main market. He is not recorded in Lunéville in 1639–42, and may have travelled again, Georges de La Tour and his family died in 1652 in an epidemic in Lunéville. His son Étienne was his pupil and these are believed to date from relatively early in his career. Unlike Caravaggio his religious paintings lack dramatic effects and he painted these in a second phase of his style, perhaps beginning in the 1640s, using chiaroscuro, careful geometrical compositions, and very simplified painting of forms. His work moves during his career towards greater simplicity and stillness—taking from Caravaggio very different qualities than Jusepe de Ribera and he often painted several variations on the same subjects, and his surviving output is relatively small. His son Étienne was his pupil, and distinguishing between their work in versions of La Tours compositions is difficult, the version of the Education of the Virgin, in the Frick Collection in New York is an example, as the Museum itself admits. Another group of paintings, of skill but claimed to be different in style to those of La Tour, have been attributed to an unknown Hurdy-gurdy Master. All show older male figures, mostly solitary, either beggars or saints, director Peter Greenaway has described La Tours work as a primary influence on his 1982 film The Draughtsmans Contract. Job Mocked by His Wife by La Tour appears in the 2003 Francis Veber film Le Dîner de Cons, a reference to a work purportedly by La Tour is featured prominently in the 2003 Merchant Ivory film Le Divorce. C. Tenebrism Joseph Wright of Derby Le Floch, Jean-Claude, Le Floch, La Tour, Le Clair et LObscur, Herscher,1995 Le Floch, Jean-Claude. Le signe de contradiction, essai sur Georges de La Tour et son oeuvre, Presses Universitaires de Rennes 2,1995 Thuilier, Georges de La Tour, Flammarion,1992 Wright, Christopher. The Art of the Forger,1984, Gordon Fraser, London, ISBN 0-86092-081-X Georges de La Tour at Gallery of Art Attributed painting at the Kimbell Art Museum of Fort Worth Georges de La Tour
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Le Nain
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The three Le Nain brothers were painters in 17th-century France, Antoine Le Nain, Louis Le Nain, and Mathieu Le Nain. They produced genre works, portraits and portrait miniatures, the brothers were born in or near Laon in northern France. By 1630, all three lived in Paris, where they shared the studio founded by Antoine, who was admitted to the Paris painters guild, within a few years they were receiving important commissions, Antoine painting a group portrait of the aldermen of Paris in 1632. In 1648 the three brothers were received into the Académie de peinture et de sculpture on the year of its founding. Because of the similarity of their styles of painting and the difficulty of distinguishing works by each brother, they are commonly referred to as a single entity. These genre paintings are noted for being remarkably literal, yet sympathetic. There remains some question, however, as to some of the assumed “peasants” were truly from the rural class—many seem to be simply the bourgeois at leisure in the country. Their sober execution and choice of colour recall characteristics of the Spanish school and their Adoration of the Shepherds in London is an exception, and many other civic and church works may have been lost in the French Revolution. Ariane in Naxos also appears to be an exception, as it depicts the Greek deity Bacchus, the brothers also produced miniatures and portraits. Mathieu became the painter of Paris in 1633, and much later was made a chevalier. Among his sitters for portraits were Marie de Medici and Cardinal Mazarin, Antoine and Louis died in 1648. Mathieu lived until 1677, and appears to have painted until the mid-1650s, the Le Nain paintings had a revival in the 1840s and, thanks to the exertions of Champfleury, made their appearance on the walls of the Louvre in 1848. Champfleury was a friend of the Realist painter Gustave Courbet, and they have remained popular through the 20th century
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Philippe de Champaigne
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Philippe de Champaigne was a Brabançon-born French Baroque era painter, a major exponent of the French school. He was a member of the Académie de peinture et de sculpture. Born of a family in Brussels, during the reign of the Archduke Albert and Isabella. In 1621 he moved to Paris, where he worked with Nicolas Poussin on the decoration of the Palais du Luxembourg under the direction of Nicolas Duchesne, whose daughter he married. According to Houbraken, Duchesne was angry at Champaigne for becoming more popular than he was at court, and it was only after he received news of Duchesnes death that he returned to marry his daughter. After the death of his protector Duchesne, Champaigne worked for the Queen Mother, Marie de Medicis and he made several paintings for the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, dating from 1638. He also drew cartoons for tapestries. He was made first painter of the Queen with a pension of 1200 pounds and he also decorated the Carmelite Church of Faubourg Saint-Jacques, one of the favorite churches of the Queen Mother. He also worked for Cardinal Richelieu, for whom he decorated the Palais Cardinal, Champaigne was the only artist who was allowed to paint Richelieu enrobed as a cardinal, which he did eleven times. He was a member of the Académie de peinture et de sculpture in 1648. Later in his life, he came under the influence of Jansenism, Champaigne produced a very large number of paintings, mainly religious works and portraits. Influenced by Rubens at the beginning of his career, his style became more austere. Philippe de Champaigne remains an exceptional painter thanks to the brilliance of the colors in his paintings and he portrayed the entire French court, the French high nobility, royalty, high members of the church and the state, parliamentarians and architects, and other notable people. In depicting their faces, he refused to show a transitory expression and his pupils were his nephew Jean Baptiste de Champaigne, William Faithorne, Jean Morin, and Nicolas de Plattemontagne. During his last period Champaigne painted mainly religious subjects and family members and he died in Paris in 1674. Selected works Portraits PhilippeDeChampaigne. org,98 works by Philippe de Champaigne ScholarsResource. com, Paintings of Philippe de Champaigne
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Cardinal Richelieu
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Cardinal Armand Jean du Plessis, Duke of Richelieu and Fronsac, commonly referred to as Cardinal Richelieu, was a French clergyman, nobleman, and statesman. He was consecrated as a bishop in 1607 and was appointed Foreign Secretary in 1616, Richelieu soon rose in both the Catholic Church and the French government, becoming a cardinal in 1622, and King Louis XIIIs chief minister in 1624. He remained in office until his death in 1642, he was succeeded by Cardinal Mazarin, Cardinal de Richelieu was often known by the title of the kings Chief Minister or First Minister. He sought to consolidate power and crush domestic factions. By restraining the power of the nobility, he transformed France into a strong and his chief foreign policy objective was to check the power of the Austro-Spanish Habsburg dynasty, and to ensure French dominance in the Thirty Years War that engulfed Europe. Although he was a cardinal, he did not hesitate to make alliances with Protestant rulers in attempting to achieve his goals. While a powerful figure, events like the Day of the Dupes show that in fact he very much depended on the kings confidence to keep this power. As alumnus of the University of Paris and headmaster of the Collège de Sorbonne, Richelieu was also famous for his patronage of the arts, most notably, he founded the Académie Française, the learned society responsible for matters pertaining to the French language. Richelieu is also known by the sobriquet lÉminence rouge, from the red shade of a cardinals clerical dress and this in part allowed the colony to eventually develop into the heartland of Francophone culture in North America. He is also a character in The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas. Born in Paris, Armand du Plessis was the fourth of five children, at the age of nine, young Richelieu was sent to the College of Navarre in Paris to study philosophy. Thereafter, he began to train for a military career and his private life seems to have been typical of a young officer of the era, in 1605, aged twenty, he was treated by Théodore de Mayerne for gonorrhea. King Henry III had rewarded Richelieus father for his participation in the Wars of Religion by granting his family the bishopric of Luçon. The family appropriated most of the revenues of the bishopric for private use, they were, however, challenged by clergymen, to protect the important source of revenue, Richelieus mother proposed to make her second son, Alphonse, the bishop of Luçon. Alphonse, who had no desire to become a bishop, became instead a Carthusian monk, thus, it became necessary that the younger Richelieu join the clergy. He had strong interests, and threw himself into studying for his new post. In 1606 King Henry IV nominated Richelieu to become Bishop of Luçon, as Richelieu had not yet reached the canonical minimum age, it was necessary that he journey to Rome for a special dispensation from the Pope. This secured, Richelieu was consecrated bishop in April 1607, soon after he returned to his diocese in 1608, Richelieu was heralded as a reformer
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Jansenism
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Jansenism was a Catholic heretical theological movement, primarily in France, that emphasized original sin, human depravity, the necessity of divine grace, and predestination. The movement originated from the published work of the Dutch theologian Cornelius Jansen. It was first popularized by Jansens friend Abbot Jean Duvergier de Hauranne, of Saint-Cyran-en-Brenne Abbey, through the 17th and into the 18th centuries, Jansenism was a distinct movement within the Catholic Church. The theological centre of the movement was the convent of Port-Royal Abbey, Paris, which was a haven for writers including Duvergier, Arnauld, Pierre Nicole, Blaise Pascal, Jansenism was opposed by many in the Catholic hierarchy, especially the Jesuits. Although the Jansenists identified themselves only as rigorous followers of Augustine of Hippos teachings, Jansenist leaders endeavored to accommodate the popes pronouncements while retaining their uniqueness, and enjoyed a measure of peace in the late 17th century under Pope Clement IX. However, further controversy led to the apostolic constitution Unigenitus Dei Filius, promulgated by Pope Clement XI in 1713, the origins of Jansenism lie in the friendship of Jansen and Duvergier, who met in the early 17th century when both were studying theology at the University of Leuven. Duvergier was Jansens patron for a number of years, getting Jansen a job as a tutor in Paris in 1606, two years later, he got Jansen a position teaching at the bishops college in Duvergiers hometown of Bayonne. The duo studied the Church Fathers together, with a focus on the thought of Augustine of Hippo. Duvergier became abbot of Saint Cyran Abbey in Brenne and was known as the Abbé de Saint-Cyran for the rest of his life, Jansen returned to the University of Leuven, where he completed his doctorate in 1619 and was named professor of exegesis. Jansen and Duvergier continued to correspond about Augustine, especially Augustines teachings on grace, upon the recommendation of King Philip IV of Spain, Jansen was consecrated as bishop of Ypres in 1636. Jansen died in a 1638 epidemic and this manuscript, published in 1640 as Augustinus, expounded Augustines system and formed the basis for the subsequent Jansenist Controversy. Jansen emphasized a particular reading of Augustines idea of efficacious grace which stressed that only a portion of humanity were predestined to be saved. Jansen insisted that the love of God was fundamental, and that only perfect contrition, Duvergier was not released until after Richelieus death in 1642, and he died shortly thereafter, in 1643. Jansen also insisted on justification by faith, although he did not contest the necessity of revering saints, of confession, Jansens opponents condemned his teachings for their alleged similarities to Calvinism. Pascal himself claimed that Molinists were correct concerning the state of humanity before the Fall, the heresy of Jansenism, as stated by subsequent Roman Catholic doctrine, lay in denying the role of free will in the acceptance and use of grace. Jansenism asserts that Gods role in the infusion of grace cannot be resisted, Catholic doctrine, in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, is that Gods free initiative demands mans free response—that is, humans freely assent or refuse Gods gift of grace. However, on August 1,1642, the Holy Office issued a decree condemning Augustinus, in 1602, Marie Angélique Arnauld become abbess of Port-Royal-des-Champs, a Cistercian convent in Magny-les-Hameaux. There, she reformed discipline after an experience in 1608
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French Baroque architecture
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French Baroque architecture is the name given to the French architecture during the reigns of Louis XIII, Louis XIV and Louis XV. French Baroque profoundly influenced 18th-century secular architecture throughout Europe, in particular, the Palace of Versailles and the jardin à la française were copied by other courts all over Europe. For the first time, the corps de logis was emphasized as the main part of the building, while the side wings were treated as hierarchically inferior. The medieval tower has been replaced by the central projection in the shape of a monumental three-storey gateway. De Brosses melding of traditional French elements with some italianate quotations came to characterize the Louis XIII style, probably the most accomplished formulator of the new manner was François Mansart, a tireless perfectionist credited with introducing the full Baroque to France. In his design for Château de Maisons, Mansart succeeded in reconciling academic and baroque approaches, maisons-Laffitte illustrates the ongoing transition from the post-medieval chateaux of the sixteenth century to the villa-like country houses of the eighteenth. The structure is symmetrical, with an order applied to each story. The frontispiece, crowned with a separate aggrandized roof, is infused with remarkable plasticity, mansarts structures are stripped of overblown decorative effects, so typical of contemporary Rome. Italian Baroque influence is muted and relegated to the field of decorative ornamentation, from the main cornice to a low plinth, the miniature palace is clothed in the so-called colossal order, which makes the structure look more impressive. The same three artists scaled this concept to monumental proportions in the hunting lodge and later main Palace of Versailles. On a far grander scale, the palace is a hypertrophied and it was both the most grandiose and the most imitated residential building of the 17th century. Mannheim, Nordkirchen and Drottningholm were among many foreign residences for which Versailles provided a model, Hardouin-Mansart profited from his uncles instruction and plans to instill the edifice with an imperial grandeur unprecedented in the countries north of Italy. The majestic hemispherical dome balances the vertical thrust of the orders. The style, which softened then dissolved architectural elements in interiors, was pioneered by Nicolas Pineau, sculpture, paintings, furniture, and porcelain tended to overshadow architectural divisions of the interior. French Baroque and Classicism Henry A. Millon, The Triumph of the Baroque, Architecture in Europe, frédérique Lemerle & Yves Pauwels, Baroque Architecture, Flammarion,2008
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Louis XIV of France
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Louis XIV, known as Louis the Great or the Sun King, was a monarch of the House of Bourbon who ruled as King of France and Navarre from 1643 until his death in 1715. His reign of 72 years and 110 days is the longest of any monarch of a country in European history. In the age of absolutism in Europe, Louis XIVs France was a leader in the centralization of power. Louis began his rule of France in 1661, after the death of his chief minister. By these means he became one of the most powerful French monarchs, under his rule, the Edict of Nantes, which granted rights to Huguenots, was abolished. The revocation effectively forced Huguenots to emigrate or convert in a wave of dragonnades, which managed to virtually destroy the French Protestant minority. During Louis reign, France was the leading European power, and it fought three wars, the Franco-Dutch War, the War of the League of Augsburg. There were also two lesser conflicts, the War of Devolution and the War of the Reunions, warfare defined Louis XIVs foreign policies, and his personality shaped his approach. Impelled by a mix of commerce, revenge, and pique, in peacetime he concentrated on preparing for the next war. He taught his diplomats their job was to create tactical and strategic advantages for the French military, Louis XIV was born on 5 September 1638 in the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, to Louis XIII and Anne of Austria. He was named Louis Dieudonné and bore the title of French heirs apparent. At the time of his birth, his parents had married for 23 years. His mother had experienced four stillbirths between 1619 and 1631, leading contemporaries thus regarded him as a divine gift and his birth a miracle of God. Sensing imminent death, Louis XIII decided to put his affairs in order in the spring of 1643, in defiance of custom, which would have made Queen Anne the sole Regent of France, the king decreed that a regency council would rule on his sons behalf. His lack of faith in Queen Annes political abilities was his primary rationale and he did, however, make the concession of appointing her head of the council. Louis relationship with his mother was uncommonly affectionate for the time, contemporaries and eyewitnesses claimed that the Queen would spend all her time with Louis. Both were greatly interested in food and theatre, and it is likely that Louis developed these interests through his close relationship with his mother. This long-lasting and loving relationship can be evidenced by excerpts in Louis journal entries, such as, but attachments formed later by shared qualities of the spirit are far more difficult to break than those formed merely by blood
31.
Gian Lorenzo Bernini
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Gian Lorenzo Bernini was an Italian sculptor and architect. While a major figure in the world of architecture, he was the sculptor of his age. Bernini was also a figure in the emergence of Roman Baroque architecture along with his contemporaries, the architect Francesco Borromini. Early in their careers they had all worked at the time at the Palazzo Barberini, initially under Carlo Maderno and, following his death. Later on, however, they were in competition for commissions, Peters Basilica, completed under Pope Paul V with the addition of Madernos nave and facade and finally re-consecrated by Pope Urban VIII on 18 November 1626, after 150 years of planning and building. Berninis design of the Piazza San Pietro in front of the Basilica is one of his most innovative, during his long career, Bernini received numerous important commissions, many of which were associated with the papacy. At an early age, he came to the attention of the nephew, Cardinal Scipione Borghese. Although he did not fare so well during the reign of Innocent X, under Alexander VII, he again regained pre-eminent artistic domination. Bernini and other artists fell from favor in later neoclassical criticism of the Baroque, the art historian Howard Hibbard concludes that, during the seventeenth century, there were no sculptors or architects comparable to Bernini. Bernini was born in Naples in 1598 to Angelica Galante and Mannerist sculptor Pietro Bernini and he was the sixth of their thirteen children. Gianlorenzo Bernini was the definition of childhood genius and he was “recognized as a prodigy when he was only eight years old, he was consistently encouraged by his father, Pietro. His precocity earned him the admiration and favor of powerful patrons who hailed him as ‘the Michelangelo of his century’” and his father was so impressed by his son’s obvious talent that he took him to Rome to showcase him to the cardinals and Pope. Bernini was presented before Pope Paul V, for whom he did a sketch of Saint Paul, once he was brought to Rome, he never left. “For Bernini there could be only one Rome, ‘You are made for Rome, ’ said Pope Urban VIII to him, ‘and Rome for you’”. It was in world of 17th century Rome and religious power. Under the patronage of the wealthy and most powerful Cardinal Scipione Borghese. By the time he was twenty-two, he was considered talented enough to have given a commission for a papal portrait. Berninis reputation, however, was established by four masterpieces
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Propaganda
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Propaganda is information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view. Propaganda is often associated with material prepared by governments, but activist groups, in the 2010s, the term propaganda is associated with a manipulative approach, but propaganda historically was a neutral descriptive term. Propaganda is a modern Latin word, the form of propagare, meaning to spread or to propagate. Originally this word derived from a new body of the Catholic church created in 1622, called the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide. Its activity was aimed at propagating the Catholic faith in non-Catholic countries, from the 1790s, the term began being used also to refer to propaganda in secular activities. The term began taking a pejorative or negative connotation in the mid-19th century, primitive forms of propaganda have been a human activity as far back as reliable recorded evidence exists. The Behistun Inscription detailing the rise of Darius I to the Persian throne is viewed by most historians as an example of propaganda. During the era of the American Revolution, the American colonies had a network of newspapers and printers who specialized in the topic on behalf of the Patriots. During the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic era, propaganda was widely used, abolitionists in Britain and the United States in the 19th century developed large, complex propaganda campaigns against slavery. The first large-scale and organised propagation of government propaganda was occasioned by the outbreak of war in 1914, after the defeat of Germany in the First World War, military officials such as Erich Ludendorff suggested that British propaganda had been instrumental in their defeat. Adolf Hitler came to echo this view, believing that it had been a cause of the collapse of morale. Later, the Nazis adapted many British propaganda techniques during their time in power, most propaganda in Germany was produced by the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. Joseph Goebbels was placed in charge of this ministry, the 1930s and 1940s, which saw the rise of totalitarian states and the Second World War, are arguably the Golden Age of Propaganda. Leni Riefenstahl, a filmmaker working in Nazi Germany, created one of the propaganda movies. US war films in the early 1940s in the United States were designed to create a patriotic mindset, the West and the Soviet Union both used propaganda extensively during the Cold War. Both sides used film, television, and radio programming to influence their own citizens, each other, george Orwells novels Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four are virtual textbooks on the use of propaganda. During the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro stressed the importance of propaganda, Propaganda was used extensively by Communist forces in the Vietnam War as means of controlling peoples opinions. During the Yugoslav wars, propaganda was used as a strategy by governments of Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Croatia
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Palace of Versailles
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The Palace of Versailles, Château de Versailles, or simply Versailles, is a royal château in Versailles in the Île-de-France region of France. Versailles is therefore not only as a building, but as a symbol of the system of absolute monarchy of the Ancien Régime. First built by Louis XIII in 1623, as a lodge of brick and stone. The first phase of the expansion was designed and supervised by the architect Louis Le Vau and it culminated in the addition of three new wings of stone, which surrounded Louis XIIIs original building on the north, south, and west. After Le Vaus death in 1670, the work was taken over and completed by his assistant, charles Le Brun designed and supervised the elaborate interior decoration, and André Le Nôtre landscaped the extensive Gardens of Versailles. Le Brun and Le Nôtre collaborated on the fountains, and Le Brun supervised the design. During the second phase of expansion, two enormous wings north and south of the wings flanking the Cour Royale were added by the architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart. He also replaced Le Vaus large terrace, facing the garden on the west, with became the most famous room of the palace. The Royal Chapel of Versailles, located at the end of the north wing, was begun by Mansart in 1688. One of the most baffling aspects to the study of Versailles is the cost – how much Louis XIV, owing to the nature of the construction of Versailles and the evolution of the role of the palace, construction costs were essentially a private matter. Initially, Versailles was planned to be a residence for Louis XIV and was referred to as the kings house. Once Louis XIV embarked on his campaigns, expenses for Versailles became more of a matter for public record. To counter the costs of Versailles during the years of Louis XIVs personal reign. Accordingly, all materials that went into the construction and decoration of Versailles were manufactured in France, even the mirrors used in the decoration of the Hall of Mirrors were made in France. While Venice in the 17th century had the monopoly on the manufacture of mirrors, to meet the demands for decorating and furnishing Versailles, Colbert nationalised the tapestry factory owned by the Gobelin family, to become the Manufacture royale des Gobelins. In 1667, the name of the enterprise was changed to the Manufacture royale des Meubles de la Couronne, the Comptes meticulously list the expenditures on the silver furniture – disbursements to artists, final payments, delivery – as well as descriptions and weight of items purchased. Entries for 1681 and 1682 concerning the silver used in the salon de Mercure serve as an example. 5 In anticipation, For the silver balustrade for the bedroom,90,000 livres II
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Louis Le Vau
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Louis Le Vau was a French Classical architect who worked for Louis XIV of France. He was born and died in Paris and he was responsible, with André Le Nôtre and Charles Le Brun, for the redesign of the château of Vaux-le-Vicomte. His later works included the Palace of Versailles and his collaboration with Claude Perrault on the Palais du Louvre, sulpice, and Hôtel Lambert, on the Île Saint-Louis, Paris. La peinture à Versailles, XVIIe siècle, Louis Le Vau, Mazarins Collège, Colberts Revenge. La Collection de portraits de lAcadémie royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, Peintures entrées sous le règne de Louis XIV (1648–1715, université de Paris IV,1994, pp. 164–166. Portraits des premiers architectes de Versailles, Revue des Arts, March 1955, françois dOrbay, Architecte de Louis XIV. Media related to Louis Le Vau at Wikimedia Commons
35.
Charles Le Brun
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Charles Le Brun was a French painter and art theorist. Declared by Louis XIV the greatest French artist of all time, he was a dominant figure in 17th-century French art, born in Paris, he attracted the notice of Chancellor Séguier, who placed him at the age of eleven in the studio of Simon Vouet. He was also a pupil of François Perrier, in Rome he remained four years in the receipt of a pension due to the liberality of the chancellor. There he worked under Poussin, adapting the latters theories of art, on his return to Paris in 1646, Le Brun found numerous patrons, of whom Superintendent Fouquet was the most important, for whom he painted a large portrait of Anne of Austria. Employed at Vaux-le-Vicomte, Le Brun ingratiated himself with Mazarin, then secretly pitting Colbert against Fouquet, Colbert also promptly recognized Le Bruns powers of organization, and attached him to his interests. Together they took control of the Academy of Painting and Sculpture, and the Academy of France at Rome, another project Le Brun worked on was Hôtel Lambert. The ceiling in the gallery of Hercules was painted by him, Le Brun started work on the project in 1650, shortly after his return from Italy. The decoration continued intermittently over twelve years or so, as it was interrupted by the renovation of Vaux le Vicomte. In 1660 they established the Gobelins, which at first was a school for the manufacture, not of tapestries only. He was the originator of Louis XIV Style and gave a direction to the national tendencies which endured centuries after his death, the King had declared him the greatest French artist of all time. From this date all that was done in the palaces was directed by Le Brun. In 1663, he director of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture. While he was working on The Battles, Le Bruns style became more personal as he moved away from the ancient masters that influenced him. Le Bruns decoration is not only a work of art, it is the monument of a reign. This contributed to the illness which on 22 February 1690 ended in his death in his private mansion, Le Brun primarily worked for King Louis XIV, for whom he executed large altarpieces and battle pieces. His most important paintings are at Versailles, besides his gigantic labours at Versailles and the Louvre, the number of his works for religious corporations and private patrons is enormous. Le Brun was also a fine portraitist and an excellent draughtsman, but he was not fond of portrait or landscape painting, what mattered was scholarly composition, whose ultimate goal was to nourish the spirit. For Le Brun, a painting represented a story one could read, nearly all his compositions have been reproduced by celebrated engravers
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Vaux-le-Vicomte
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The Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte is a baroque French château located in Maincy, near Melun,55 kilometres southeast of Paris in the Seine-et-Marne département of France. At Vaux-le-Vicomte, the architect Louis Le Vau, the landscape architect André le Nôtre, and their collaboration marked the beginning of the Louis XIV style combining architecture, interior design and landscape design. The gardens pronounced visual axis is an example of this style, Fouquet was an avid patron of the arts, attracting many artists with his generosity. When Fouquet became King Louis XIVs superintendent of finances in 1657, he commissioned Le Vau, Le Brun and Le Nôtre to renovate his estate, fouquet’s artistic and cultivated personality subsequently brought out the best in the three. To secure the necessary grounds for the plans for Vaux-le-Vicomte’s garden and castle. The displaced villagers were employed in the upkeep and maintenance of the gardens. It was said to have employed 18 thousand workers and cost as much as 16 million livres, the château and its patron became for a short time a focus for fine feasts, literature and arts. The poet Jean de La Fontaine and the playwright Molière were among the close to Fouquet. At the inauguration of Vaux-le-Vicomte, a Molière play was performed, along with an event organized by François Vatel. The celebration had been too impressive and the superintendents home too luxurious, Fouquets intentions were to flatter the king, part of Vaux-le-Vicomte was actually constructed specifically for the king, but Fouquets plan backfired. Jean-Baptiste Colbert led the king to believe that his ministers magnificence was funded by the misappropriation of public funds, Colbert, who then replaced Fouquet as superintendent of finances, arrested him. Later, Voltaire was to sum up the famous fête, On 17 August, at six in the evening Fouquet was the King of France, La Fontaine wrote describing the fête and shortly afterwards penned his Elégie aux nymphes de Vaux. After Fouquet was arrested and imprisoned for life and his wife exiled, the king seized, confiscated or purchased 120 tapestries, the statues and all the orange trees from Vaux-le-Vicomte. He then sent the team of artists to design what would be a larger project than Vaux-le-Vicomte. Madame Fouquet recovered her property 10 years later and retired there with her eldest son, in 1705, after the death of her husband and son, she decided to put Vaux-le-Vicomte up for sale. Marshal Claude Louis Hector de Villars became the new owner without first seeing the chateau, in 1764, the Marshals son sold the estate to the Duke of Praslin, whose descendants would maintain the property for over a century. In 1875, after thirty years of neglect, the estate was sold to Alfred Sommier in a public auction, the château was empty, some of the outbuildings had fallen into ruin and the famous gardens were totally overgrown. The huge task of restoration and refurbishment began under the direction of the architect Gabriel-Hippolyte Destailleur, when Sommier died in 1908, the château and the gardens had recovered their original appearance
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Nicolas Fouquet
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Nicolas Fouquet, marquis de Belle-Île, vicomte de Melun et Vaux was the Superintendent of Finances in France from 1653 until 1661 under King Louis XIV. He had a career, and acquired enormous wealth. He fell out of favor, accused of peculation and lèse-majesté, the king had him imprisoned from 1661 until his death in 1680. While still in his teens, he held positions of responsibility. In 1640, he married the rich Louise Fourché, who died a year later, during Mazarins exile, Fouquet remained loyal to him, protecting his property and keeping him informed of the situation at court. Fouquet received around 160,000 Livres from the marriage dowry, as minister of finance, he soon had Mazarin almost in the position of a supplicant. His closest friend, and maybe mistress, was Suzanne de Rougé, Colbert, perhaps seeking to succeed Fouquet, fed the kings displeasure with adverse reports upon the deficit and made the worst of the case against Fouquet. The extravagant expenditures and displays of the superintendents wealth served to intensify the ill will of the king, Fouquet had bought the port of Belle-Île-en-Mer and strengthened the fortifications with a view to taking refuge there in case of disgrace. Here he gathered the rarest manuscripts, paintings, jewels and antiques in profusion, the table was open to all people of quality, and the kitchen was presided over by François Vatel. Jean de La Fontaine, Pierre Corneille and Paul Scarron were a few of the artists who enjoyed his patronage. The coat of arms of Fouquets family traditionally showed a squirrel, the symbol can be found in many rooms and decorations at Vaux-le-Vicomte. The choice of this animal derives from the name foucquet, which in the dialect of Angers means squirrel, by August 1661, Louis XIV was already set upon Fouquets destruction. Louis was entertained at Vaux with a fête rivaled in magnificence by only one or two others in French history, at which Molières Les Fâcheux was produced for the first time, the splendour of the entertainment sealed Fouquets fate. But the king, then only 22 years old, was afraid to act openly against so powerful a minister, as Superintendent, Fouquet headed the enormously wealthy and influential corps of partisans, who, if challenged as a group, could have caused the king serious trouble. By crafty devices, Fouquet was induced to sell his office of procureur général, thus losing the protection of its privileges, after his visit to Vaux, the king announced that he was going to Nantes for the opening of the meeting of the provincial estates of Brittany. He required his ministers, including Fouquet, to go with him, when Fouquet was leaving the council chamber, flattered with the assurance of the kings esteem, he was arrested by Charles de Batz-Castelmore dArtagnan, lieutenant of the kings musketeers. The trial lasted almost three years, and its violation of the forms of justice is still the subject of frequent monographs by members of the French bar, Louis acted throughout as though he were conducting a campaign, evidently fearing that Fouquet would play the part of a Richelieu. A report of his trial was published in the Netherlands, in 15 volumes, in 1665-67, a second edition under the title of Oeuvres de M. Fouquet appeared in 1696
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Jean de La Fontaine
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Jean de La Fontaine was a famous French fabulist and one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century. He is known above all for his Fables, which provided a model for subsequent fabulists across Europe and numerous versions in France. After a long period of royal suspicion, he was at last admitted to the French Academy, evidence of this is found in the many pictures and statues of the writer, as well as later depictions on medals, coins and postage stamps. La Fontaine was born at Château-Thierry in France and his father was Charles de La Fontaine, maître des eaux et forêts — a kind of deputy-ranger — of the Duchy of Château-Thierry, his mother was Françoise Pidoux. Both sides of his family were of the highest provincial middle class, though they were not noble and he then apparently studied law, and is said to have been admitted as avocat/lawyer. He was, however, settled in life, or at least might have been so, somewhat early. In 1647 his father resigned his rangership in his favor, and arranged a marriage for him with Marie Héricart, a girl of fourteen, who brought him 20,000 livres, and expectations. She seems to have been beautiful and intelligent, but the two did not get along well together. There appears to be no ground for the vague scandal as to her conduct. One son was born to them in 1653, and was educated, even in the earlier years of his marriage, La Fontaine seems to have been much in Paris, but it was not until about 1656 that he became a regular visitor to the capital. The duties of his office, which were only occasional, were compatible with this non-residence and it was not until he was past thirty that his literary career began. The reading of Malherbe, it is said, first awoke poetical fancies in him and his first serious work was a translation or adaptation of the Eunuchus of Terence. At this time the patron of French writing was the Superintendent Fouquet, to whom La Fontaine was introduced by Jacques Jannart, a connection of his wifes. Few people who paid their court to Fouquet went away empty-handed and he also began a medley of prose and poetry, entitled Le Songe de Vaux, on Fouquets famous country house. In the same year he wrote a ballad, Les Rieurs du Beau-Richard, Fouquet fell out of favour with the king and was arrested. La Fontaine, like most of Fouquets literary protégés, showed some fidelity to him by writing the elegy Pleurez, just at this time his affairs did not look promising. He found, however, a new protector in the duke and still more in the Duchess of Bouillon, his superiors at Château-Thierry. He was then forty-three years old, and his previous printed productions had been comparatively trivial and it was about this time that the quartet of the Rue du Vieux Colombier, so famous in French literary history, was formed
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Jean-Baptiste Colbert
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Jean-Baptiste Colbert was a French politician who served as the Minister of Finances of France from 1665 to 1683 under the rule of King Louis XIV. His relentless hard work and thrift made him an esteemed minister and he achieved a reputation for his work of improving the state of French manufacturing and bringing the economy back from the brink of bankruptcy. Historians note that, despite Colberts efforts, France actually became increasingly impoverished because of the Kings excessive spending on wars, Colbert worked to create a favourable balance of trade and increase Frances colonial holdings. He also founded royal tapestry works at Gobelins and supported those at Beauvais, Colbert worked to develop the domestic economy by raising tariffs and by encouraging major public works projects. Colbert also worked to ensure that the French East India Company had access to markets, so that they could always obtain coffee, cotton, dyewoods, fur, pepper. In addition, Colbert founded the French merchant marine, Colbert issued more than 150 edicts to regulate the guilds. One such law had the intention of improving the quality of cloth, the edict declared that if the authorities found a merchants cloth unsatisfactory on three separate occasions, they were to tie him to a post with the cloth attached to him. Colberts father and grandfather operated as merchants in his birthplace of Reims and he claimed to have Scottish ancestry. A general belief exists that he spent his youth at a Jesuit college, working for a Parisian banker. Before the age of 20, Colbert had a post in the war office, Colbert spent some time as an inspector of troops, eventually becoming the personal secretary of Le Tellier. In 1647, through means, Colbert acquired the confiscated goods of an uncle. In 1648, he and his wife Marie Charron, received 40,000 crowns from an unknown source, in 1657, he purchased the Barony of Seignelay. Colbert was recommended to King Louis XIV by Mazarin, while Cardinal Mazarin was in exile, Louis trust in Colbert grew. In 1652 Colbert was asked to manage the affairs of the Cardinal while he was away and this new responsibility would detach Colbert from his other responsibility as commissaire des guerres. Although Colbert was not a supporter of Mazarin in principle, he would defend the cardinals interests with unflagging devotion. Colberts earliest recorded attempt at tax reform came in the form of a mémoire to Mazarin, showing that of the taxes paid by the people, the paper also contained an attack upon the Superintendent Fouquet. The postmaster of Paris, a spy of Fouquets, read the letter, in 1661, Mazarin died and Colbert made sure of the Kings favour by revealing the location of some of Mazarins hidden wealth. In short, Colbert acquired power in every department except that of war, a great financial and fiscal reform at once claimed all his energies
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Artisan
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Artisans practice a craft and may through experience and aptitude reach the expressive levels of an artist. The adjective artisanal is sometimes used in describing hand-processing in what is viewed as an industrial process. Thus, artisanal is sometimes used in marketing and advertising as a word to describe or imply some relation with the crafting of handmade food products, such as bread. Many of these have traditionally been handmade, rural or pastoral goods but are now commonly made on a larger scale with automated mechanization in factories. Artisans were the dominant producers of products prior to the Industrial Revolution. In ancient Greece, artisans were drawn to agoras and often built workshops nearby, during the Middle Ages, the term artisan was applied to those who made things or provided services. It did not apply to unskilled manual labourers, Artisans were divided into two distinct groups, those who operated their own businesses and those who did not. Those who owned their businesses were called masters, while the latter were the journeymen, one misunderstanding many people have about this social group is that they picture them as workers in the modern sense, employed by someone. The most influential group among the artisans were the masters, the business owners, the owners enjoyed a higher social status in their communities. Shokunin is a Japanese word for artisan or craftsman, which implies a pride in ones own work. In the words of shokunin Tashio Odate, Shokunin means not only having technical skill, a social obligation to work his best for the general welfare of the people, obligation both material and spiritual. Applied art Artist Arts and Crafts movement Caste — Tarkhan Guild Handicraft The dictionary definition of artisan at Wiktionary History of Artisans
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Hierarchy of genres
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A hierarchy of genres is any formalization which ranks different genres in an art form in terms of their prestige and cultural value. Below that came lyric poetry, and comic poetry, with a ranking for drama. The novel took a time to establish a firm place in the hierarchy. In music, settings of words were accorded a higher status than merely instrumental works, at least until the Baroque period, any element of comedy reduced the status of a work, though, as in other art forms, often increasing its popularity. The hierarchies in figurative art are those initially formulated for painting in 16th century Italy, idealism was privileged over realism in line with Renaissance Neo-Platonist philosophy. The term is used within the field of painting, and from the High Renaissance onwards. This had not been the case in Medieval art and the sectors of society took a considerable period to fully accept this view. The Raphael Cartoons are an example of the continuing status of tapestry. Until the 19th century the most extravagant objéts dart remained more expensive and these matters were considered of great importance by artist-theorists such as Leon Battista Alberti, Leonardo da Vinci, and Giorgio Vasari. He placed emphasis on the ability to depict the interactions between the figures by gesture and expression, theorists of the Early and High Renaissance accepted the importance of representing nature closely, at least until the later writings of Michelangelo, who was strongly influenced by neoplatonism. By the time of Mannerist theorists such as Gian Paolo Lomazzo, ideas of decorum also fed into the hierarchy, comic, sordid or merely frivolous subjects or treatment ranked lower than elevated and moral ones. On the other hand, numbers of courtly sitters and their parents, the question of decorum in religious art became the focus of intense effort by the Catholic Church after the decrees on art of the Council of Trent of 1563. Paintings depicting biblical events as if they were occurring in the households of wealthy contemporary Italians were attacked, until the challenge of Caravaggio at the end of the century, religious art became thoroughly ideal. Although similar developments occurred in all advanced European countries, they were most evident in the enormously productive schools of Dutch Golden Age painting and Flemish Baroque painting. The unhappy history of Rembrandts last history commission, The Conspiracy of Claudius Civilis illustrates both his commitment to the form and the difficulties he had in finding an audience. In Flanders, as well as quantities of pure genre works, there was a trend towards history paintings with a major genre element, whether animals. Often the different elements were painted by different artists, Rubens and Frans Snyders often co-operated in this way, the size of paintings, and very often the prices they realized, increasingly tended to reflect their position in the hierarchy in this period. Until the Romantic period the price and saleability of what were essentially landscapes could be increased by adding small mythological or religious figures, a practice that went back to the beginnings of landscape painting in the Flemish world landscapes of Joachim Patinir in the early 16th century
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History painting
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History painting is a genre in painting defined by its subject matter rather than artistic style. History paintings usually depict a moment in a story, rather than a specific and static subject. The term is derived from the senses of the word historia in Latin and Italian, meaning story or narrative. Most history paintings are not of scenes from history, especially paintings from before about 1850, History paintings almost always contain a number of figures, often a large number, and normally show some type of action that is a moment in a narrative. The genre includes depictions of moments in religious narratives, above all the Life of Christ, as well as scenes from mythology. These groups were for long the most frequently painted, works such as Michelangelos Sistine Chapel ceiling are therefore history paintings, History painting may be used interchangeably with historical painting, and was especially so used before the 20th century. Where a distinction is made historical painting is the painting of scenes from secular history, in the 19th century historical painting in this sense became a distinct genre. In phrases such as historical painting materials, historical means in use before about 1900 and he placed emphasis on the ability to depict the interactions between the figures by gesture and expression. This view remained general until the 19th century, when artistic movements began to struggle against the establishment institutions of academic art, which continued to adhere to it. Scenes from ancient history had been popular in the early Renaissance, and once again became common in the Baroque and Rococo periods, and still more so with the rise of Neoclassicism. In some 19th or 20th century contexts, the term may refer specifically to paintings of scenes from history, rather than those from religious narratives. Scenes from ancient history and mythology were also popular, artists continued for centuries to strive to make their reputation by producing such works, often neglecting genres to which their talents were better suited. The large works of Raphael were long considered, with those of Michelangelo, un Peintre qui ne fait que des portraits, na pas encore cette haute perfection de lArt, & ne peut prétendre à lhonneur que reçoivent les plus sçavans. He who produces perfect landscapes is above another who only produces fruit, a painter who only does portraits still does not have the highest perfection of his art, and cannot expect the honour due to the most skilled. By the late 18th century, with religious and mytholological painting in decline, there was an increased demand for paintings of scenes from history. Classical history remained popular, but scenes from national histories were often the best-received, the unheroic nature of modern dress was regarded as a serious difficulty. When, in 1770, Benjamin West proposed to paint The Death of General Wolfe in contemporary dress and he ignored these comments and showed the scene in modern dress. Although George III refused to purchase the work, West succeeded both in overcoming his critics objections and inaugurating a more historically accurate style in such paintings. M. W, conveniently their clothes had been worn away to classical-seeming rags by the point the painting depicts
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Rhetoric
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Rhetoric is the art of discourse, wherein a writer or speaker strives to inform, persuade or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. As a subject of study and a productive civic practice. Its best known definition comes from Aristotle, who considers it a counterpart of both logic and politics, and calls it the faculty of observing in any case the available means of persuasion. The five canons of rhetoric, which trace the traditional tasks in designing a persuasive speech, were first codified in classical Rome, invention, arrangement, style, memory, along with grammar and logic, rhetoric is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. From Ancient Greece to the late 19th century, it was a part of Western education. Scholars have debated the scope of rhetoric since ancient times, although some have limited rhetoric to the specific realm of political discourse, many modern scholars liberate it to encompass every aspect of culture. Contemporary studies of rhetoric address a diverse range of domains than was the case in ancient times. Many contemporary approaches treat rhetoric as human communication that includes purposeful, Public relations, lobbying, law, marketing, professional and technical writing, and advertising are modern professions that employ rhetorical practitioners. Because the ancient Greeks highly valued public political participation, rhetoric emerged as a tool to influence politics. Consequently, rhetoric remains associated with its political origins, however, even the original instructors of Western speech—the Sophists—disputed this limited view of rhetoric. According to the Sophists, such as Gorgias, a successful rhetorician could speak convincingly on any topic and this method suggested rhetoric could be a means of communicating any expertise, not just politics. In his Encomium to Helen, Gorgias even applied rhetoric to fiction by seeking for his own pleasure to prove the blamelessness of the mythical Helen of Troy in starting the Trojan War. Looking to another key rhetorical theorist, Plato defined the scope of rhetoric according to his opinions of the art. He criticized the Sophists for using rhetoric as a means of deceit instead of discovering truth, in Gorgias, one of his Socratic Dialogues, Plato defines rhetoric as the persuasion of ignorant masses within the courts and assemblies. Rhetoric, in Platos opinion, is merely a form of flattery and functions similarly to cookery, thus, Plato considered any speech of lengthy prose aimed at flattery as within the scope of rhetoric. Aristotle both redeemed rhetoric from his teacher and narrowed its focus by defining three genres of rhetoric—deliberative, forensic or judicial, and epideictic, when one considers that rhetoric included torture, it is clear that rhetoric cannot be viewed only in academic terms. However, the enthymeme based upon logic was viewed as the basis of rhetoric, however, since the time of Aristotle, logic has changed. For example, Modal logic has undergone a major development that also modifies rhetoric, yet, Aristotle also outlined generic constraints that focused the rhetorical art squarely within the domain of public political practice
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Interior design
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An interior designer is someone who plans, researches, coordinates, and manages such projects. Interior design is the process of shaping the experience of interior space, in the past, interiors were put together instinctively as a part of the process of building. The profession of design has been a consequence of the development of society. The pursuit of effective use of space, user well-being and functional design has contributed to the development of the interior design profession. The profession of design is separate and distinct from the role of Interior Decorator. The term is common in the UK where the profession of interior design is still unregulated and therefore, strictly speaking. In ancient India, architects used to work as interior designers and this can be seen from the references of Vishwakarma the architect - one of the gods in Indian mythology. Additionally, the sculptures depicting ancient texts and events are seen in palaces built in 17th century India, in ancient Egypt, soul houses or models of houses were placed in tombs as receptacles for food offerings. Architects would also employ craftsmen or artisans to complete design for their buildings. Large furniture firms began to branch out into general interior design and management and this business model flourished from the mid-century to 1914, when this role was increasingly usurped by independent, often amateur, designers. This paved the way for the emergence of the interior design in the mid-20th century. In the 1950s and 1960s, upholsterers began to expand their business remits and they framed their business more broadly and in artistic terms and began to advertise their furnishings to the public. Firms began to publish and circulate catalogs with prints for different lavish styles to attract the attention of expanding middle classes, as department stores increased in number and size, retail spaces within shops were furnished in different styles as examples for customers. One particularly effective advertising tool was to set up rooms at national and international exhibitions in showrooms for the public to see. Some of the firms in this regard were Waring & Gillow, James Shoolbred, Mintons. This type of firm emerged in America after the Civil War, the Herter Brothers, founded by two German emigre brothers, began as an upholstery warehouse and became one of the first firms of furniture makers and interior decorators. A pivotal figure in popularizing theories of interior design to the class was the architect Owen Jones. His most significant publication was The Grammar of Ornament, in which Jones formulated 37 key principles of interior design, in 1882, the London Directory of the Post Office listed 80 interior decorators
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