Annibale Carracci The Farnese ceiling- 1597-1601  depicting the Loves of the Gods, ceiling frescoes in the Gallery,  Palazzo Farnese, Rome. Venus and Anchises  (detail)

Annibale Carracci Farnese GalleryForm: The gallery of the palace is sixty-six feet long and twenty-one feet wide.  The vaulted ceilings reach thirty-two feet in height.  Its dual function was to hold receptions and display statues which were part of the Farnese collection. (now held in Naples) Iconography:  Overtly the ceiling deals with humanistic and neoclassical scenes.  Since the Cardinal Farnese commissioned the ceiling to celebrate the wedding of his brother, the pagan theme, love of the gods at first seems appropriate, however, the scenes are often profane, hedonistic, and erotic and therefore almost a rather odd choice of subject material for a cardinal.  All scenes are taken from classical mythology and strongly illustrate the power of love.  None of the scenes are linked to form a continuous narrative though they all echo and respond to each other in their form and idea.  Context:  Annibale, his brother Agostino, and their cousin Lodovico were Bolognese artists who designated their studio in a teaching academy.  Their aim was to combine the best elements of all the previous masters and start a classical revival.  Annibale was the major artist among the three--his fame resting on the decorations of the gallery of the Palazzo Farnese in Rome.  In a way, the Carracci family was making the equivalent of today's interior design companies or even a film production company.  One of the things they were attempting to do was to find and create a bigger market for their work and so, you will see that over all the Carracci worked with a variety of styles, palettes and themes. Venus and Anchises Form:  The color is strong and clear. Surrounding the couple are illusionistic stone statues resembling classical Atlas figures.  These trompe l’oeil figures and busts surrounding the painting are known as “terms.”   They are both classical architectural ornaments.  Iconography: Whenever you see someone's leg thrown over another's, there is an implication of sexuality.  In his book, The Sexuality of Christ, Leo Steinberg refers to this as the “slung leg theory.”  The union of Venus and Anchises resulted in the birth of Aeneas, the founder of Rome.  This is indicated on the footstool containing a quotation from Virgil’s Aeneid. Part of the iconography of these images is a reference to both the tradition of studying classic or "antique" works as a guide to making better art and the ceiling overall is a "tongue in cheek" reference to Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel.  However, in this case, the subject matter of the ceiling and scenes are not biblical and since they are so "sexy" in nature, they are also less than classic or platonic. Context:  Virgil modeled his book, the Aeneid on Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad.  The Aenied’s protagonist is Aeneas.  Like Homer’s Achilles, Aeneas was born of a mortal man (Anchises) and goddess (Venus).  Their union is featured in this fresco.  It is believed that Aeneas was the founder of Rome and that Julius Caesar and Augustus are his descendants.  written by Annette Abbott edited by Kenney Mencher

Annibale Carracci, Self  Portrait 1597

Form:  This self portrait incorporates a low key or earth toned palette combined with a very close point of view.  Annibale demonstrates a good mastery of the human face as well as the depiction of light and shadow across it which is called chiaroscuro(the play of light and shadow or shading) to create realism in this work.  According to the Brittanica, chiaroscuro (from Italian chiaro, "light"; scuro, "dark"), which is technique employed in the visual arts to represent light and shadow as they define three-dimensional objects.Carracci also uses an intense spotlight on his face while the rest of the picture plane is murky surrounding him.  This is calledtenebrism and it is a way of creating a focus on a particular element in a work and also gives the work a sense of heightened drama. The painting also feels like an immediate kind of "snapshot" of Carracci.  Carracci seems to be looking directly at you but what he is really doing is looking directly into a mirror and painting directly from observation.  Since this is the case, Carracci was probably  painting without using any previous studies or drawings.  This is called ala prima-(in the first) which means painting directly from observation onto canvas. Iconography and Context:  One of the skills that most painters needed to develop during the Renaissance period was the ability to paint portraits and accurate likenesses.  Often this skill was developed by painting with a the only model that one might have available which is one's self.  Obviously, since there are others in this image, Carracci could have had one of his assistants model for him so why then did he paint a self portrait? The answer probably lies in the basic premise of the Renaissance man.  The humanistic and platonic idea of perfectibility gave rise to self reflection and observation.  A portrait then is not just about the immediate appearance but also it is a symbol of the person.  In this image we see that Carracci is studying himself and also demonstrating his ability to create a strong psychological likeness as well a physical likeness.

Carracci Annibale Flight to Egypt 1604 Oil on canvas Galleria Doria Pamphili, Rome Robert Campin (the Master of Flemalle) Merode Altarpiece c. 1425 The Merode Altarpiece shares many of the same qualities with Carracci's Flight to Egypt.  How might Campin's work be a schema for it?

Form:  In contrast to the vivid colours of the frescoes of the Farnese Gallery, Carracci uses a low-key palette in his Flight into Egypt.  The earth tones of the landscape are employed to guide the viewer to gaze at the main characters at the front of the picture plane.  Carracci thought that Nature was an important element in painting and this is reflected most through his landscapes.  Many of the landscape scenes which he painted in Rome consisted of this classical landscape formula:  a vista of recessing diagonal lines containing castles, trees, winding rivers and hilltop towns. Iconography:  This is a genre scene and a pastoral or arcadian setting of sorts. Carracci incorporates elements of the classic arcadian scene with the genre elements that are meant to get the viewer to feel as if they might be able to identify with the principle characters in the scene.  We only know that this is not a simple landscape scene after noticing the halos on the figures and reading the title. After this then, we are expected to look for some sort of submerged symbolism.  The shepherd with his sheep in the middle of the picture plane represents Jesus, the Shepherd of humankind.    The gray clouds in the sky may indicate the “storm” taking place at that time. The peaceful boat, which delivered them to safety to the other side of the river, is symbolic of life.  White birds (doves?) are also indicative of either the Holy Spirit or of peace. Context:  This painting refers to the biblical story from Matthew 2: 1-21.  After hearing that another “king” had been born in Bethlehem, Herod orders all male children under the age of two to be killed in order to ensure his continual reign.  An angel appears to Joseph in a dream and instructs him to leave Bethlehem immediately with Mary and Jesus and go to Egypt where they all will be safe.  written by Annette Abbott

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ar.ca.di.an adj, often cap (1589) 1: idyllically pastoral; esp: idyllically innocent, simple, or untroubled 2 a: of or relating to Arcadia or the Arcadians b: of or relating to Arcadian Ar.ca.di.an n (1590) 1 often not cap: a person who lives a simple quiet life 2: a native or inhabitant of Arcadia 3: the dialect of ancient Greek used in ArcadiaAccording to the Brittanica,
Modern Greek ARKADHÍA, mountainous region of the central Peloponnesus of ancient Greece. The pastoral character of Arcadian life together with its isolation partially explains why it was represented as a paradise in Greek and Roman bucolic poetry and in the literature of the Renaissance. The region is not exactly coextensive with the present-day nomós (department) of Arkadhía, which extends on the east to the Gulf of Argolis. The capital of the nomos is Trípolis.

genre n [F, fr. MF, kind, gender--more at gender] (1770) 1: a category of artistic, musical, or literary composition characterized by a particular style, form, or content 2: kind, sort 3: painting that depicts scenes or events from everyday life usu. realisticallyhe.do.nism n [Gk hedone pleasure; akin to Gk hedys sweet--more at sweet] (1856) 1: the doctrine that pleasure or happiness is the sole or chief good in life 2: a way of life based on or suggesting the principles of hedonism -- he.do.nist n -- he.do.nis.tic adj -- he.do.nis.ti.cal.ly adv
neo.clas.sic or neo.clas.si.cal adj (1877): of, relating to, or constituting a revival or adaptation of the classical esp. in literature, music, art, or architecture -- neo.clas.si.cism n -- neo.clas.si.cist n or adj

pas.to.ral adj [ME, fr. L pastoralis, fr. pastor herdsman] (15c) 1 a (1): of, relating to, or composed of shepherds or herdsmen (2): devoted to or based on livestock raising b: of or relating to the countryside: not urban c: portraying or expressive of the life of shepherds or country people esp. in an idealized and conventionalized manner <~ poetry> d: pleasingly peaceful and innocent: idyllic 2 a: of or relating to spiritual care or guidance esp. of a congregation b: of or relating to the pastor of a church -- pas.to.ral.ly adv -- pas.to.ral.ness n ²pastoral n (1584) 1 a: a literary work (as a poem or play) dealing with shepherds or rural life in a usu. artificial manner and typically drawing a contrast between the innocence and serenity of the simple life and the misery and corruption of city and esp. court life b: pastoral poetry or drama c: a rural picture or scene d: pastorale 1b 2: crosier 1 3: a letter of a pastor to his charge: as a: a letter addressed by a bishop to his diocese b: a letter of the house of bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church to be read in each parish

ten.e.brism n, often cap [L tenebrae darkness] (1954): a style of painting esp. associated with the Italian painter Caravaggio and his followers in which most of the figures are engulfed in shadow but some are dramatically illuminated by a concentrated beam of light usu. from an identifiable source -- ten.e.brist n or adj, often cap
trompe l’oeil - (French: "deceive the eye"), in painting, the representation of an object with such verisimilitude as to deceive the viewer concerning the material reality of the object. This idea appealed to the ancient Greeks who were newly emancipated from the conventional stylizations of earlier art. Zeuxis, for example, reportedly painted such realistic grapes that birds tried to eat them. The technique was also popular with Roman muralists. Although trompe l’oeil never achieved the status of a major artistic aim, from the early Renaissance on, European painters occasionally fostered illusionism by painting false frames out of which the contents of a still life or portrait appeared to spill, or by creating window-like images suggesting actual openings in the wall or ceiling. (Brittanica)

Michelangelo Meresi Caravaggio  Boy Being Bitten by a Lizard c1600 oil on canvas Italian BaroqueTenebrism means using light as a spotlighting effect in a murky or dark scene. ala prima-directly onto canvas; paints directly form life chiaroscuro

Form:  This allegorical portrait incorporates a low key or earth toned palette combined with a very close point of view.  Caravaggio demonstrates a good mastery of the human face as well as  chiaroscuro .  According to the Brittanica, chiaroscuro(from Italian chiaro, "light"; scuro, "dark"), which is technique employed in the visual arts to represent light and shadow as they define three-dimensional objects.Caravaggio also uses an intense spotlight on his face while the rest of the picture plane is murky surrounding him.  This is called tenebrism and it is a way of creating a focus on a particular element in a work and also gives the work a sense of heightened drama. The painting also feels like an immediate kind of "snapshot" of a young boy dressed in neoclassic clothing caught at the instance when a lizard bites his fingers.  The immediacy of the painting is complimented by the direct gaze and the facial expression of the figure.  This painting appears to be painted directly from life without using any previous studies or drawings.  This is called ala prima- (in the first) which means painting directly from observation onto canvas. This painting also demonstrates Caravaggio's skill beyond his ability to paint the human form.  The clear vessel of water is what is referred to as an artist's conceit or concetto (italian for conceit) because painting a transparent vessel is one of the harder things to paint.  Caravaggio also has a fine command of painting drapery. Even though the figure in this painting is placed in the visual center of the picture plane the light which rakes in from the upper left hand corner creates a strong diagonal across the picture plane.  The use of a diagonal in the composition of the picture plane is a very Baroque device. Iconography:  Caravaggio was a rather outrageous and controversial man.  Many of his paintings demonstrate a rebellious and often ribald sense of humor.  This is an allegorical portrait of lust.  The young boy is probably the type of young man that Caravaggio held as the object of his desire.  Young male prostitutes were fairly common in cities during this time (as they are now) and it has been suggested by some sources that Caravaggio was a homosexual and a pederast.  The lizard hanging from the boy's finger may represent the cost of the lust and the cherries may be a reference to the concepts concerning "forbidden fruit" or possibly even virginity. Context:  Caravaggio was an, Italian baroque painter, who was the most revolutionary artist of his time and the best exemplar of naturalistic painting in the early 17th century. Originally named Michelangelo Merisi, Caravaggio was born September 28, 1573, in the Lombardy hill town of Caravaggio, from which his professional name is derived. Orphaned at age 11, he was apprenticed to the painter Simone Peterzano of Milan for four years. At some time between 1588 and 1592, Caravaggio went to Rome and worked as an assistant to Giuseppe Cesari, also known as the Cavaliere d'Arpino, for whom he executed fruit and flower pieces (now lost). Caravaggio's personal life was turbulent. He was often arrested and imprisoned. He fled Rome for Naples in 1606 when charged with murder. Later that year he traveled to Malta, was made a  knight, or cavaliere, of the Maltese order. In October of 1608, Caravaggio was again arrested and, escaping from a Maltese jail, went to Syracuse in Sicily. He died on the beach at Port'Ercole  in Tuscany on July 18, 1610, of a fever contracted after a mistaken arrest. source of quote http://www.mcs.csuhayward.edu/~malek/Caravaggio.html

Caravaggio, Basket of Fruit c. 1597  Oil on canvas, 46 x 64 cm  Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan Italian Baroque

Form: This is a still life painting which is painted from an extraordinary point of view.  The basket and its contents are depicted from eye level.  The virtuosity of how realistically the surfaces and details of the basket, its contents, the moisture on the fruit and even the hints of decay are expressions of Caravaggio's skills.  It's interesting to note that this is often referred to as the completely dedicated still life painting of its kind sincePompeii (79 CE).Iconography:  Paintings like this one depicting fruit is symbolic of the pleasures of every day life and perhaps of the delicacies one might desire.  Fruit was not available all year and it is one of the fleeting pleasures.  The depictions of fruit and other delicacies, such as Herakleitos' Unswept Floor (fig 6-58) are references to the wealth of the patron and the skill of the artist. The depictions of the decay caused by the worms in the apple and on the leaves may be a memento mori.  That although these are delicacies and treasured parts of enjoying life, sometimes such things are transitory and fleeting.

Caravaggio. Boy with a Basket of Fruit, c1593 oil on canvas, 27.5x26" Galleria Borghese, Rome Italian Baroque

In this image, Boy with a Basket of Fruit, c1593, Caravaggio combines the formal qualities and iconographic elements of Boy Being Bitten by a Lizard and Basket of Fruit.Why do you think he does this and what message is being communicated?

Conversion of St. Paul- 1601 by Caravaggio Italian Baroque

Form:  This painting is typical of Caravaggio's style and exhibits all the hallmarks of it.  Here we see heightened tenebrism and chiaroscuro as well as an ambiguous use of space.  Caravaggio almost always pushes al his figures up against the front of the picture plane and creates an ambiguous and unrecognizable environment.  For Caravaggio the background and environment are often unimportant and some critics have charged that he didn't bother with the background or had trouble unifying his composition and so just create a well of darkness to unify it.In this image Saul of Tarsus, the saint-to-be, is represented flat on his back, his arms thrown up, while an old servant appears to maneuver the horse away from its fallen master. The horse fills the picture as if it were the hero, and its explicitness and the angle from which it is viewed might betray some irreverence on the part of the artist for this subject.  One critic who objected to the intertangling of the limbs of the horse and figures called the painting an "accident in a blacksmith's shop." Caravaggio used real people for his models and so the clothing and faces incorporate a strong  genre element.  Iconography:  Light in Caravaggio's paintings is an icon of God's power and of enlightenment.  Caravaggio seems to literally be translating the imagery from the Bible.  According to Acts Chapter 27, Paul describes,

6

"On that journey as I drew near to Damascus, about noon a great light from the sky suddenly shone around me.

7

I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, 'Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?'

8

I replied, 'Who are you, sir?' And he said to me, 'I am Jesus the Nazorean whom you are persecuting.'

9

My companions saw the light but did not hear the voice of the one who spoke to me.

10 I asked, 'What shall I do, sir?' The Lord answered me, 'Get up and go into Damascus, and there you will be told about everything appointed for you to do.'

11 Since I could see nothing because of the brightness of that light, I was led by hand by my companions and entered Damascus.

12 "A certain Ananias, a devout observer of the law, and highly spoken of by all the Jews who lived there,

13 came to me and stood there and said, 'Saul, my brother, regain your sight.' And at that very moment I regained my sight and saw him.

14 Then he said, 'The God of our ancestors designated you to know his will, to see the Righteous One, and to hear the sound of his voice;

15 for you will be his witness ² before all to what you have seen and heard.

http://www.nccbuscc.org/nab/bible/acts/acts22.htm#v3

Also see Acts Chapter 9

For full text of the passage go here:  http://www.nccbuscc.org/nab/bible/acts/acts9.htm

Caravaggio  (1569-1609)  Calling of St. Matthew- 1597-1601,  Oil on canvas, located in the Contarelli Chapel, San Luigi dei Francesi. Italian Baroque   St. Matthew Cycle (Contarelli Chapel) c1602 Rome,St.Luigi dei Francesi The paintings in situ. Italian Baroque

Form: Even though the figures in this painting are arranged in a band across the front of the picture plane, the light which rakes in from the upper right hand corner creates a strong diagonal across the picture plane.  The use of a diagonal in the composition of the picture plane is a very Baroque device.From "Caravaggio", by Alfred Moir:  "The subject traditionally was represented either indoors or out; sometimes Saint Matthew is shown inside a building, with Christ outside (following the Biblical text) summoning him through a window. Both before and after Caravaggio the subject was often used as a pretext for anecdotal genre paintings. Caravaggio may well have been familiar with earlier Netherlandish paintings of money lenders or of gamblers seated around a table like Saint Matthew and his associates. "Caravaggio represented the event as a nearly silent, dramatic narrative. The sequence of actions before and after this moment can be easily and convincingly re-created. The tax-gatherer Levi (Saint Matthew's name before he became the apostle) was seated at a table with his four assistants, counting the day's proceeds, the group lighted from a source at the upper right of the painting. Christ, His eyes veiled, with His halo the only hint of divinity, enters with Saint Peter. A gesture of His right hand, all the more powerful and compelling because of its languor, summons Levi. Surprised by the intrusion and perhaps dazzled by the sudden light from the just-opened door, Levi draws back and gestures toward himself with his left hand as if to say, "Who, me?", his right hand remaining on the coin he had been counting before Christ's entrance. "The two figures on the left, derived from a 1545 Hans Holbein print representing gamblers unaware of the appearance of Death, are so concerned with counting the money that they do not even notice Christ's arrival; symbolically their inattention to Christ deprives them of the opportunity He offers for eternal life, and condemns them to death. The two boys in the center do respond, the younger one drawing back against Levi as if seeking his protection, the swaggering older one, who is armed, leaning forward a little menacingly. Saint Peter gestures firmly with his hand to calm his potential resistance. The dramatic point of the picture is that for this moment, no one does anything. Christ's appearance is so unexpected and His gesture so commanding as to suspend action for a shocked instant, before reaction can take place. In another second, Levi will rise up and follow Christ - in fact, Christ's feet are already turned as if to leave the room. The particular power of the picture is in this cessation of action. It utilizes the fundamentally static medium of painting to convey characteristic human indecision after a challenge or command and before reaction. "The picture is divided into two parts. The standing figures on the right form a vertical rectangle; those gathered around the table on the left a horizontal block. The costumes reinforce the contrast. Levi and his subordinates, who are involved in affairs of this world, are dressed in a contemporary mode, while the barefoot Christ and Saint Peter, who summon Levi to another life and world, appear in timeless cloaks. The two groups are also separated by a void, bridged literally and symbolically by Christ's hand. This hand, like Adam's in Michelangelo's Creation, unifies the two parts formally and psychologically. Underlying the shallow stage-like space of the picture is a grid pattern of verticals and horizontals, which knit it together structurally. "The light has been no less carefully manipulated: the visible window covered with oilskin, very likely to provide diffused light in the painter's studio; the upper light, to illuminate Saint Matthew's face and the seated group; and the light behind Christ and Saint Peter, introduced only with them. It may be that this third source of light is intended as miraculous. Otherwise, why does Saint Peter cast no shadow on the defensive youth facing him?"

Matthew
Chapter 9

1

¹ He entered a boat, made the crossing, and came into his own town.

2

And there people brought to him a paralytic lying on a stretcher. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Courage, child, your sins are forgiven."

3

At that, some of the scribes ² said to themselves, "This man is blaspheming."

4

Jesus knew what they were thinking, and said, "Why do you harbor evil thoughts?

5

Which is easier, to say, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Rise and walk'?

6

³ But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins" --he then said to the paralytic, "Rise, pick up your stretcher, and go home."

7

He rose and went home.

8

⁴ When the crowds saw this they were struck with awe and glorified God who had given such authority to human beings.

9

^5 6 As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the customs post. He said to him, "Follow me." And he got up and followed him.

10 While he was at table in his house, ⁷ many tax collectors and sinners came and sat with Jesus and his disciples.

11 The Pharisees saw this and said to his disciples, "Why does your teacher ⁸ eat with tax collectors and sinners?"

12 He heard this and said, "Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. ⁹

13 Go and learn the meaning of the words, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' ¹⁰ I did not come to call the righteous but sinners."

http://www.nccbuscc.org/nab/bible/matthew/matthew9.htm

Almost the the same account is given in Luke 5:27 http://www.nccbuscc.org/nab/bible/luke/luke5.htm

Caravaggio St. Matthew and the Angeldestroyed during WW II Italian Baroque

Caravaggio,  Inspiration of St. Matthew Italian Baroque

Form:  Although only a black and white reproduction survives the image entitled St. Matthew and the Angel, we know that originally would have looked very similar in color and value structure to theInspiration of St. Matthew.Some major differences do exist however.  The point of view is quite different in both as is the costuming and the interaction of the two figures.  In the image on the left, Matthew is bare legged, entwined with the angel in a transparent gauze like gown and his facial expression is rather dumb.  Although the viewer is placed in a vantage point from above, the viewer is still confronted with the bare feet of the saint as they project out into the foreground.  The image on the right is just the opposite in almost every way. Iconography:  The iconography of this scene concerns itself with an image in which Matthew composes his gospel long after the death and ascension of Jesus.  Matthew is described as having received divine inspiration and guidance for his account from an angel.  Nevertheless, the angel in the left hand image is guiding Matthew's hand in a rather provocative manner.  This manner, coupled with the bare legs and befuddled almost senile expression on the saints face is what ultimately led to this image being rejected by the patrons.  Caravaggio then painted its replacement the Inspiration of St. Matthew. Context:  It is precisely this kind of irreverence and rebellious "thumbing his nose" at the patron that both earned Caravaggio his notoriety as well as his infamous reputation.

Caravaggio St. Matthew and the Angeldestroyed during WW II Italian Baroque

Rembrandt St. Matthew and the Angel 1661 Dutch Baroque

Form:  As in the last comparison only a black and white reproduction survives the image entitled St. Matthew and the Angel, we know that originally would have looked very similar in color and value structure to the the painting by Rembrandt.Rembrandt painted his image more than 50 years after Caravaggio painted his but Rembrandt's portrait of the saint follows many of the same schema as Caravaggio.  Both usetenebrism as a way of creating a focus on St. Matthew and to heighten the drama.  In this way and for this reason, Rembrandt, and other artists who copy Caravaggio's style are often referred to as caravaggisti which literally means a follower of Caravaggio. Iconography:  Rembrandt depicts Matthew in a similar manner to Caravaggio however, in his depiction Matthew is not as aware of the angel as in either one by Caravaggio.  Rembrandt also incorporates and element of the genre imagery in his work.  Matthew looks like one of the Jews that he might have known in Amsterdam and Rembrandt also attempts to authenticate the Persian or middle eastern quality of the image by providing Matthew with a turbine. Context:  Many artists, including Rembrandt, Velázquez, Gentileschi and others took their cue form the works of Caravaggio and we refer to them all as Caravaggistis.

Caravaggio Death of the Virgin 1605-1606 Italian Baroque

This is another one of those paintings that Caravaggio got in trouble for.  This is an apochryphal story concerning the death of Mary.  In Caravaggio's depiction of the dead saint he depicts her in a very real way.  Her feet are dirty, her body and hair are disheveled and her skin is past an white.  Her appearance is so "life like" or really "death like" because Caravaggio used the corpse of a prostitute that the authorities had pulled from the Tiber river in Rome as his model.

al.le.go.ry n, pl -ries [ME allegorie, fr. L allegoria, fr. Gk allegoria, fr. allegorein to speak figuratively, fr. allos other + -egorein to speak publicly, fr. agora assembly--more at else, agora] (14c) 1: the expression by means of symbolic fictional figures and actions of truths or generalizations about human existence; also: an instance (as in a story or painting) of such expression 2: a symbolic representation: emblem 2apoc.ry.pha n pl but sing or pl in constr [ML, fr. LL, neut. pl. of apocryphus secret, not canonical, fr. Gk apokryphos obscure, fr. apokryptein to hide away, fr. apo- + kryptein to hide--more at crypt] (14c) 1: writings or statements of dubious authenticity 2 cap a: books included in the Septuagint and Vulgate but excluded from the Jewish and Protestant canons of the Old Testament b: early Christian writings not included in the New Testament
apoc.ry.phal adj (1590) 1: of doubtful authenticity: spurious 2 often cap: of or resembling the Apocrypha syn see fictitious -- apoc.ry.phal.ly adv -- apoc.ry.phal.ness n
ar.ca.di.an adj, often cap (1589) 1: idyllically pastoral; esp: idyllically innocent, simple, or untroubled 2 a: of or relating to Arcadia or the Arcadians b: of or relating to Arcadian Ar.ca.di.an n (1590) 1 often not cap: a person who lives a simple quiet life 2: a native or inhabitant of Arcadia 3: the dialect of ancient Greek used in Arcadia
According to the Brittanica,
Modern Greek ARKADHÍA, mountainous region of the central Peloponnesus of ancient Greece. The pastoral character of Arcadian life together with its isolation partially explains why it was represented as a paradise in Greek and Roman bucolic poetry and in the literature of the Renaissance. The region is not exactly coextensive with the present-day nomós (department) of Arkadhía, which extends on the east to the Gulf of Argolis. The capital of the nomos is Trípolis.

chiaroscuro

chiar.oscu.ro n, pl -ros [It, fr. chiaro clear, light + oscuro obscure, dark] (1686) 1: pictorial representation in terms of light and shade without regard to color 2 a: the arrangement or treatment of light and dark parts in a pictorial work of art b: the interplay or contrast of dissimilar qualities (as of mood or character) 3: a 16th century woodcut technique involving the use of several blocks to print different tones of the same color; also: a print made by this technique 4: the interplay of light and shadow on or as if on a surface 5: the quality of being veiled or partly in shadowAccording to the Brittanica,  Chiaroscuro (from Italian chiaro, "light"; scuro, "dark"), technique employed in the visual arts to represent light and shadow as they define three-dimensional objects. Some evidence exists that ancient Greek and Roman artists used chiaroscuro effects, but in European painting the technique was first brought to its full potential by Leonardo da Vinci in the late 15th century in such paintings as his "Adoration of the Magi" (1481; Uffizi, Florence). Thereafter, chiaroscuro became a primary technique for many painters, and by the late 17th century the term was routinely used to describe any painting, drawing, or print that depends for its effect on an extensive gradation of light and darkness.  "chiaroscuro."  and  Britannica 2001 Standard Edition CD-ROM.   Copyright © 1994-2001 Britannica.com Inc.   November 19, 2002.

genre n [F, fr. MF, kind, gender--more at gender] (1770) 1: a category of artistic, musical, or literary composition characterized by a particular style, form, or content 2: kind, sort 3: painting that depicts scenes or events from everyday life usu. realisticallyhe.do.nism n [Gk hedone pleasure; akin to Gk hedys sweet--more at sweet] (1856) 1: the doctrine that pleasure or happiness is the sole or chief good in life 2: a way of life based on or suggesting the principles of hedonism -- he.do.nist n -- he.do.nis.tic adj -- he.do.nis.ti.cal.ly adv
neo.clas.sic or neo.clas.si.cal adj (1877): of, relating to, or constituting a revival or adaptation of the classical esp. in literature, music, art, or architecture -- neo.clas.si.cism n -- neo.clas.si.cist n or adj

pas.to.ral adj [ME, fr. L pastoralis, fr. pastor herdsman] (15c) 1 a (1): of, relating to, or composed of shepherds or herdsmen (2): devoted to or based on livestock raising b: of or relating to the countryside: not urban c: portraying or expressive of the life of shepherds or country people esp. in an idealized and conventionalized manner <~ poetry> d: pleasingly peaceful and innocent: idyllic 2 a: of or relating to spiritual care or guidance esp. of a congregation b: of or relating to the pastor of a church -- pas.to.ral.ly adv -- pas.to.ral.ness n ²pastoral n (1584) 1 a: a literary work (as a poem or play) dealing with shepherds or rural life in a usu. artificial manner and typically drawing a contrast between the innocence and serenity of the simple life and the misery and corruption of city and esp. court life b: pastoral poetry or drama c: a rural picture or scene d: pastorale 1b 2: crosier 1 3: a letter of a pastor to his charge: as a: a letter addressed by a bishop to his diocese b: a letter of the house of bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church to be read in each parish
ped.er.ast n [Gk paiderastes, lit., lover of boys, fr. paid- ped- + erastes lover, fr. erasthai to love--more at eros] (ca. 1736): one that practices anal intercourse esp. with a boy -- ped.er.as.tic adj -- ped.er.as.ty n
rib.ald n [ME, fr. MF ribaut, ribauld wanton, rascal, fr. riber to be wanton, of Gmc origin; akin to OHG riban to be wanton, lit., to rub] (13c): a ribald person ²ribald adj (1508) 1: crude, offensive <~ language> 2: characterized by or using coarse indecent humor syn see coarse
ten.e.brism n, often cap [L tenebrae darkness] (1954): a style of painting esp. associated with the Italian painter Caravaggio and his followers in which most of the figures are engulfed in shadow but some are dramatically illuminated by a concentrated beam of light usu. from an identifiable source -- ten.e.brist n or adj, often cap
according to the Brittanica,
"in the history of Western painting, the use of extreme contrasts of light and dark in figurative compositions to heighten their dramatic effect. (The term is derived from the Latin tenebrae, "darkness.") In tenebrist paintings the figures are often portrayed against a background of intense darkness, but the figures themselves are illuminated by a bright, searching light that sets off their three-dimensional forms by a harsh but exquisitely controlled chiaroscuro . The technique was introduced by the Italian painter Caravaggio (1571?-1610) and was taken up in the early 17th century by painters influenced by him, including the French painter Georges de La Tour, the Dutch painters Gerrit van Honthorst and Hendrik Terbrugghen, and the Spanish painter Francisco de Zurbarán."
trompe l’oeil - (French: "deceive the eye"), in painting, the representation of an object with such verisimilitude as to deceive the viewer concerning the material reality of the object. This idea appealed to the ancient Greeks who were newly emancipated from the conventional stylizations of earlier art. Zeuxis, for example, reportedly painted such realistic grapes that birds tried to eat them. The technique was also popular with Roman muralists. Although trompe l’oeil never achieved the status of a major artistic aim, from the early Renaissance on, European painters occasionally fostered illusionism by painting false frames out of which the contents of a still life or portrait appeared to spill, or by creating window-like images suggesting actual openings in the wall or ceiling. (Brittanica)

Orazio Gentileschi Rest on the Flight into Egypt, 1628, canvas,  Musée du Louvre, Paris Italian Baroque

According to the Brittanica, from Caravaggio  Influence.The many painters who imitated Caravaggio's style soon became known as Caravaggisti. Caravaggio's influence in Rome itself was remarkable but short-lived, lasting only until the 1620s. His foremost followers elsewhere in Italy were Orazio Gentileschi, Artemisia Gentileschi, and the Spaniard José de Ribera. Outside Italy, the Dutch painters Hendrick Terbrugghen, Gerrit van Honthorst, and Dirck van Baburen made the city of Utrecht the foremost northern centre of Caravaggism. The single most important painter in the tradition was the Frenchman Georges de La Tour, though echoes of Caravaggio's style can also be found in the works of such giants as Rembrandt van Rijn and Diego Velázquez.

original name ORAZIO LOMI Italian Baroque painter, one of the more important painters who came under the influence of Caravaggio and who was one of the more successful interpreters of his style.
Gentileschi first studied with his half brother Aurelio Lomi. At some time in the late 1570s or early 1580s he went to Rome, where, with the landscape painter Agostino Tassi, he painted frescoes in churches of Santa Maria Maggiore, San Giovanni Laterano, and Santa Nicola in Carcere from about 1590 to 1600, executing figures for Tassi's landscapes.In the first years of the 17th century Gentileschi came under the influence of Caravaggio, also in Rome at the time. His paintings of this period (e.g., "David and Goliath," 1610?, and "St. Cecilia and the Angel," 1610?) employ Caravaggio's use of dramatic, unconventional gesture and monumental composition, his uncompromising realism and contemporary representation of figure types, and to some extent his strong chiaroscuro, or light-and-dark contrast. Shortly afterward Gentileschi developed a Tuscan lyricism foreign to Caravaggio's almost brutal vitality, a lighter palette, and a more precise treatment reminiscent of his Mannerist beginnings. From 1621 to 1623 Gentileschi was in Genoa, where he painted his masterpiece, "The Annunciation" (1623), a work of consummate grace that shows a weakening of Caravaggio's influence. The composition still depends on dramatic gestures, here of the Virgin and the angel, and there is still a strong immediacy to the incident and an absence of idealization. The mood, however, is more restrained and lyrical than in his earlier works, the colours are light, and the earlier chiaroscuro is absent.
After a stay in France, Gentileschi traveled to England in 1626 at the invitation of King Charles I; he remained there as court painter for the rest of his life, his work becoming increasingly conventional and decorative. His last major work is an ambitious series of ceiling paintings for the Queen's House, Greenwich, painted probably after 1635, and now in Marlborough House, London.

Italian painter, daughter of Orazio Gentileschi, who was a major follower of the revolutionary Baroque painter Caravaggio. She was an important second-generation proponent of Caravaggio's dramatic realism.A pupil of her father and of his friend, the landscape painter Agostino Tassi, she painted at first in a style indistinguishable from her father's somewhat lyrical interpretation of Caravaggio's example. Her first known work is "Susanna and the Elders" (1610), an accomplished work long attributed to her father. She was raped by Tassi, and, when he did not fulfill his promise to marry her, Orazio Gentileschi in 1612 brought him to trial. During that event she herself was forced to give evidence under torture. She married a Florentine shortly after the trial and joined the Academy of Design in Florence in 1616. While in Florence she began to develop her own distinct style. Her colours are more brilliant than her father's, and she continued to employ the tenebrism made popular by Caravaggio long after her father had abandoned that style. Although her compositions were graceful, she was perhaps the most violent of all the Caravaggisti; she illustrated such subjects as the story from the Apocrypha of Judith, the Jewish heroine, beheading Holofernes, an invading general.
Artemisia Gentileschi was in Rome for a time and also in Venice. About 1630 she moved to Naples and in 1638-39 visited her father in London. There she painted many portraits and quickly surpassed her father's fame. Later, probably in 1640 or 1641, she settled in Naples, but little is known of the final years of her life.

Artemisia Gentileschi.  Self Portrait as Allegory  of Painting or "La Pittura" 1630  Oil on Canvas Kensington Palace Italian Baroque Sofonisba Anguissola,  Self Portrait of the Artist  with Sisters and Governess. 1555  (The Chess Game) oil on canvas, 27"x37"  Nardowe Museum, Poznan, Poland Italian Renaissance/Mannerist

Form: This self portrait demonstrates her skill as a painter.  The angle from which she chose to paint herself is an awkward one and she almost certainly had to set up several mirrors in order to bounce her reflection around until she was able to see herself.  She uses many of the standard formal schemas of Caravaggio's work, tenebrism, a low key earth toned pallete and heightened chiaroscuro.  Like Caravaggio she also has a fine command of painting drapery.Iconography:  According to the Webgalleries website, An example of Gentileschi's mature work, this painting depicts the artist not only in a self portrait but also as Pittura, the originator of the art of painting. Artemisia has given us her image, painted in profile, and the attributes of the personification of painting in accordance with Ripa's Iconologia. Around her neck, she wears the golden chain and the mask of imitation. Her disheveled hair depicts the divine frenzy of artistic temperament, and the handling of color on her dress shows Artemisia's skill as an artist. Although other artists have depicted Pittura, Artemisia's portrait is unique because only a female artist would be able to depict herself as the allegory of painting. Until this time, the male artists who worked this theme had to add a female figurehead to represent Ripa's Pittura. http://www.webgalleries.com/pm/colors/gentile.html Artemisia also updates her depiction almost with the same use of genre as Caravaggio.  In this image she dresses her allegorical Pittura as a 17th century woman.Context:  Artemisia self portrait is interesting because her depiction of herself is quite different than one might expect a female painter to create.  Comparing her self portrait against Sofonisba Anguissola's may give you some insight as to how her past has influenced her life.

Artimisia Gentileschi,  Judith Slaying Holofernes c1620 Judith Beheading Holofernes Oil on Canvas Uffizi Gallery, Florence Italian Baroque Caravaggio, Judith Slaying Holofernesc1600 Italian Baroque

Artimisia Gentileschi  Judith with the head of Holofernes c1625 Detroit, Institute of Art Italian BaroqueGentileschi's images feel "real." The postures and movement in Gentileschi's images are fluid and naturalistic.  One feels the struggle the two women face in trying to escape. Unlike Caravaggio's painting, Judith and Holofernes,Gentileschi's image shows powerful women. In Caravaggio's the servant is an old woman as opposed to the young beautiful and powerful maid accompanying Judith in Gentileshi's images.

It has been argued that this painting expresses Artemisia's psychological revenge on Tassi. It is, in fact, one of several canvas' which Artemisia based the Judith theme, but the subject matter was a popular one and was treated by many artists throughout the centuries. What makes this painting unique, however, is Artemisia's rendering of Judith as a strong and capable heroine. While many depictions of Judith show her after the slaying of Holofernes, Gentileschi gives us Judith in the act of killing the man. The subject matter is taken from the Book of Judith whereby Judith liberates her people by slaying the evil tyrant. She has entered the enemy camp under the guise of seducing Holofernes and when he falls asleep she hacks off his head with his sword. Carrying back his head in a bag, she presents it to her people, who then go on to defeat the Assyrians. The dark background and single source of light add psychological tension and drama to the scene and cause it to play out beyond the boarders of the canvas. We, as spectators, have become witness to a murder. http://www.webgalleries.com/pm/colors/gentile.html

Gentileschi, Susanna and the Elders c1640 Italian Baroque

.

al.le.go.ry n, pl -ries [ME allegorie, fr. L allegoria, fr. Gk allegoria, fr. allegorein to speak figuratively, fr. allos other + -egorein to speak publicly, fr. agora assembly--more at else, agora] (14c) 1: the expression by means of symbolic fictional figures and actions of truths or generalizations about human existence; also: an instance (as in a story or painting) of such expression 2: a symbolic representation: emblem 2apoc.ry.pha n pl but sing or pl in constr [ML, fr. LL, neut. pl. of apocryphus secret, not canonical, fr. Gk apokryphos obscure, fr. apokryptein to hide away, fr. apo- + kryptein to hide--more at crypt] (14c) 1: writings or statements of dubious authenticity 2 cap a: books included in the Septuagint and Vulgate but excluded from the Jewish and Protestant canons of the Old Testament b: early Christian writings not included in the New Testament
apoc.ry.phal adj (1590) 1: of doubtful authenticity: spurious 2 often cap: of or resembling the Apocrypha syn see fictitious -- apoc.ry.phal.ly adv -- apoc.ry.phal.ness n
ar.ca.di.an adj, often cap (1589) 1: idyllically pastoral; esp: idyllically innocent, simple, or untroubled 2 a: of or relating to Arcadia or the Arcadians b: of or relating to Arcadian Ar.ca.di.an n (1590) 1 often not cap: a person who lives a simple quiet life 2: a native or inhabitant of Arcadia 3: the dialect of ancient Greek used in Arcadia
According to the Brittanica,
Modern Greek ARKADHÍA, mountainous region of the central Peloponnesus of ancient Greece. The pastoral character of Arcadian life together with its isolation partially explains why it was represented as a paradise in Greek and Roman bucolic poetry and in the literature of the Renaissance. The region is not exactly coextensive with the present-day nomós (department) of Arkadhía, which extends on the east to the Gulf of Argolis. The capital of the nomos is Trípolis.

chiar.oscu.ro n, pl -ros [It, fr. chiaro clear, light + oscuro obscure, dark] (1686) 1: pictorial representation in terms of light and shade without regard to color 2 a: the arrangement or treatment of light and dark parts in a pictorial work of art b: the interplay or contrast of dissimilar qualities (as of mood or character) 3: a 16th century woodcut technique involving the use of several blocks to print different tones of the same color; also: a print made by this technique 4: the interplay of light and shadow on or as if on a surface 5: the quality of being veiled or partly in shadowAccording to the Brittanica,  Chiaroscuro (from Italian chiaro, "light"; scuro, "dark"), technique employed in the visual arts to represent light and shadow as they define three-dimensional objects. Some evidence exists that ancient Greek and Roman artists used chiaroscuro effects, but in European painting the technique was first brought to its full potential by Leonardo da Vinci in the late 15th century in such paintings as his "Adoration of the Magi" (1481; Uffizi, Florence). Thereafter, chiaroscuro became a primary technique for many painters, and by the late 17th century the term was routinely used to describe any painting, drawing, or print that depends for its effect on an extensive gradation of light and darkness.  "chiaroscuro."  and  Britannica 2001 Standard Edition CD-ROM.   Copyright © 1994-2001 Britannica.com Inc.   November 19, 2002.

genre n [F, fr. MF, kind, gender--more at gender] (1770) 1: a category of artistic, musical, or literary composition characterized by a particular style, form, or content 2: kind, sort 3: painting that depicts scenes or events from everyday life usu. realisticallyhe.do.nism n [Gk hedone pleasure; akin to Gk hedys sweet--more at sweet] (1856) 1: the doctrine that pleasure or happiness is the sole or chief good in life 2: a way of life based on or suggesting the principles of hedonism -- he.do.nist n -- he.do.nis.tic adj -- he.do.nis.ti.cal.ly adv
neo.clas.sic or neo.clas.si.cal adj (1877): of, relating to, or constituting a revival or adaptation of the classical esp. in literature, music, art, or architecture -- neo.clas.si.cism n -- neo.clas.si.cist n or adj

pas.to.ral adj [ME, fr. L pastoralis, fr. pastor herdsman] (15c) 1 a (1): of, relating to, or composed of shepherds or herdsmen (2): devoted to or based on livestock raising b: of or relating to the countryside: not urban c: portraying or expressive of the life of shepherds or country people esp. in an idealized and conventionalized manner <~ poetry> d: pleasingly peaceful and innocent: idyllic 2 a: of or relating to spiritual care or guidance esp. of a congregation b: of or relating to the pastor of a church -- pas.to.ral.ly adv -- pas.to.ral.ness n ²pastoral n (1584) 1 a: a literary work (as a poem or play) dealing with shepherds or rural life in a usu. artificial manner and typically drawing a contrast between the innocence and serenity of the simple life and the misery and corruption of city and esp. court life b: pastoral poetry or drama c: a rural picture or scene d: pastorale 1b 2: crosier 1 3: a letter of a pastor to his charge: as a: a letter addressed by a bishop to his diocese b: a letter of the house of bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church to be read in each parish
ped.er.ast n [Gk paiderastes, lit., lover of boys, fr. paid- ped- + erastes lover, fr. erasthai to love--more at eros] (ca. 1736): one that practices anal intercourse esp. with a boy -- ped.er.as.tic adj -- ped.er.as.ty n
rib.ald n [ME, fr. MF ribaut, ribauld wanton, rascal, fr. riber to be wanton, of Gmc origin; akin to OHG riban to be wanton, lit., to rub] (13c): a ribald person ²ribald adj (1508) 1: crude, offensive <~ language> 2: characterized by or using coarse indecent humor syn see coarse
ten.e.brism n, often cap [L tenebrae darkness] (1954): a style of painting esp. associated with the Italian painter Caravaggio and his followers in which most of the figures are engulfed in shadow but some are dramatically illuminated by a concentrated beam of light usu. from an identifiable source -- ten.e.brist n or adj, often cap
according to the Brittanica,
"in the history of Western painting, the use of extreme contrasts of light and dark in figurative compositions to heighten their dramatic effect. (The term is derived from the Latin tenebrae, "darkness.") In tenebrist paintings the figures are often portrayed against a background of intense darkness, but the figures themselves are illuminated by a bright, searching light that sets off their three-dimensional forms by a harsh but exquisitely controlled chiaroscuro . The technique was introduced by the Italian painter Caravaggio (1571?-1610) and was taken up in the early 17th century by painters influenced by him, including the French painter Georges de La Tour, the Dutch painters Gerrit van Honthorst and Hendrik Terbrugghen, and the Spanish painter Francisco de Zurbarán."
trompe l’oeil - (French: "deceive the eye"), in painting, the representation of an object with such verisimilitude as to deceive the viewer concerning the material reality of the object. This idea appealed to the ancient Greeks who were newly emancipated from the conventional stylizations of earlier art. Zeuxis, for example, reportedly painted such realistic grapes that birds tried to eat them. The technique was also popular with Roman muralists. Although trompe l’oeil never achieved the status of a major artistic aim, from the early Renaissance on, European painters occasionally fostered illusionism by painting false frames out of which the contents of a still life or portrait appeared to spill, or by creating window-like images suggesting actual openings in the wall or ceiling. (Brittanica)

Peter Paul RubensPeter Paul Rubens' work is original and powerful synthesis. He was always in search of new ideas. In 1598 he became a master. He was wealthy and spoke three to five different languages. He had two studios. He would first sketch a painting and then corrected it. He is known to be top in industry. Elevation of the Cross, 1610 oil on canvas, 15' 2" x 11' 2", Cathedral, Antwerp. This is a Triptych painting that shows foreshortened anatomy. The Christ cuts diagonally across the picture creating space and prospective. This is portrait of giants trying to lift Christ. It shows a man dressed in a medieval armor suite. Christ's complexion is pinkish European and also portrays light and shadow. Shows foreshortened anatomy and the contortions of violent action triptych - 3 pictures Christ's complexion - Dutch or French (red hair, pink flesh) blending of genre painting and classicism - a lot of emotion in painting, soldier wearing medieval suit of armor, men have perfect Greek God bodies Follower of Caravaggio

Rubens The Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus 1617 7'x10' Alte, Pinakothek, Munich. It portrays the demi-gods Castor and Pollux taking the two mortal women. This is a sensual theme to escape reality. The women show little resistance to the man. This is an erotic scene to be view by male gaze. Sfumato is showed in the background. Cupid is showed to be holding to a horse. Castor and Pollux abducting women Constructed for male gaze Covering the eroticism with a mythological story It is really an erotic picture, male sexual fantasy Girls are the ideal northern beauties (Phoebe and Hillarea) Castor and Pollux were brothers

Around 1625 Rubens did a series of paintings to commemorate the marriage and political alliance of Henry IV, king of France with Marie d' Medici a princess from Italy.  The union was to cement relations between the Catholic Church in Italy with the government of France.The paintings are an odd blending of classicism, genre, and religious imagery.	Rubens Arrival of Marie de' Medici at Marseilles1622-26 The Destiny of Marie d' MediciOil on canvas 155 x 115 1/4 in (394 x 293 cm)  Musee du Louvre, Paris
Rubens Arrival of Marie de' Medici at Marseilles 1622-26 (oil study)	Rubens Arrival of Marie de' Medici at Marseilles1622-26Oil on canvas 155 x 115 1/4 in The Destiny of Marie d' Medici
Juno Presents the Portrait of Marie d' Medici to Henry IV The Destiny of Marie d' Medici	Marriage By Proxy The Destiny of Marie d' Medici

Diego Velasquez Los Borrachos 1628 Oil on canvas 5'6''x7'6'' Located in Museo del Prado, Madrid

Caravaggio, Basket of Fruit c. 1597  Oil on canvas, 46 x 64 cm Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan Juan Cotan, Quince, Cabbage, Melon, and Cucumber, c. 1602 trompe l'oeil

Excerpted from,  Food for thought. by Robert Hughes. Time, 5/22/95, Vol. 145 Issue 21, following p70, 2p, 3c IN 17TH AND 18TH CENTURY SPANISH STILL LIFES, EVERYDAY OBJECTS ARE SET AGAINST A PERSPECTIVE OF FLEETING TIME AND DEATH "Tell me what you eat," said the French gastronome Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, "and I will tell you who you are." This is strikingly true of the way still life-the depiction of inanimate things, mainly food, drink and the vessels used to serve them-developed in Spain from the 16th century on. You might almost say that independent still life, painting that had no other purpose than to confront us with objects for their own sake, was a Hispanic reinvention. It was known to the ancient Greeks and Romans but then lost, and it did not come back in force until the end of the 16th century in northern Italy, Holland and Spain, all of which were under the sway of the Spanish Bourbon dynasty.  Still life is to eating what the nude is to sex, not a simple image but a complicated knot of cultural ideas about materialism and transcendence, illusion and reality, pleasure and denial, life and death. . . It begins with one extraordinary icon-an odd word for a painting of a cabbage, a quince, a cut melon and a cucumber, but no other will quite do. It is by Juan Sanchez Cotan (1560-1627), a painter from Toledo who is known by only a few works, all of which are remarkable for their careful, precise, yet unpedantic construction. This is one of the finest. No still life was ever so still. The black space behind the framing window looks infinitely deep; two of the objects (the slice of melon and the yellow tip of the cucumber) stick out a little into our space. Everything is painted with self-abnegating care, warts and all, becoming a tiny sample of the world as a marvel: not through weirdness or preciousness (as in the curio cabinets of the great) but through its ordinary, even blemished, but always singular character.  Cotan's work oscillates between desire and denial. Its fruit and fish and vegetables are more sacramental than gastronomic, emblems of the variety of God's creation (one of Cotan's still lifes contains a chayote from Mexico, an exotic rarity in 16th century Spain). Your eye can't wallow in such spareness, as it can in the abundance of Flemish still life. It sees the vegetable as Idea, a reading promoted by the fact that Cotan deliberately arranged the objects on strings and shelf to form a hyperbolic curve. The melon opens its delicious interior to you, but its geometric frame cancels the idea of eating it. It's food for thought. . . Seventeenth century Spain was notorious for the parsimony of its common diet: bread, beans, onions, a scrap of lamb or fish sometimes, and garlic, garlic, garlic. It was to French or Italian cooking what the crabby-looking servant girl grinding aioli in Diego Velazquez's Kitchen Scene with Christ in the House of Martha and Mary was to the sumptuous nudes of Titian or Veronese. A modern palate would recoil at the eggs slowly frying, or rather poaching, in oil on top of a clay stove in Velazquez's An Old Woman Cooking Eggs. But what an amazing act of skill the picture itself is, done in 1618 by a 19-year-old boy who wanted to display his total control over surface texture, form and light, from the transparency of the oil in which the eggs swim to the knife's curved shadow on a bowl to the marvelous fugue of circles and ellipses, melon and cooking vessels, that fills the lower third of the canvas.  The binding metaphor of 17th century still life was the vanitas, a term deriving from the text in Ecclesiastes, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." Such images were meant to show the fleeting nature of the world's goods, honors and sensual pleasures, setting them against the terrible perspective of death, time and judgment. They exemplified the desengauo del mundo, "disillusionment of the world," that was one of the chief tropes of Spanish Baroque art and literature. They could be small and simple-three moldy skulls and a pocket watch-or fulsome in their cascade of lessons.

Jan Vermeer,  Girl with a Pearl Earring c. 1665 Oil on canvas, 46,5 x 40 cm Mauritshuis, The Hague Dutch, Baroque

Context and Iconography:"Provenance: The provenance of this painting cannot be traced back very far. All earlier documents or sales catalogs cited by Blankert are pure guesswork. Vermeer seems to have painted a number of "heads," and various cited 'tronie', as they were called, cannot be further identified. We only know for certain that the work was purchased at the beginning of 1882 for the collection A. A. des Tombe of The Hague for fl. 2.30 in the sale Braam of the same city. The des Tombe collection was a public collection and bequeathed the picture in 1903 to the Mauritshuis. The girl is seen against a neutral, dark background, very nearly black, which establishes a powerful three-dimensionality of effect. Seen from the side, the girl is turning to gaze at us, and her lips are slightly parted, as if she were about to speak to us. It is an illusionist approach often adopted in Dutch art. She is inclining her head slightly to one side as if lost in thought, yet her gaze is keen.  The girl is dressed in an unadorned, brownish-yellow jacket, and the shining white collar contrasts clearly against it. The blue turban represents a further contrast, while a lemon-yellow, veil-like cloth falls from its peak to her shoulders. Vermeer used plain, pure colours in this painting, limiting the range of tones. As a result, the number of sections of colour are small, and these are given depth and shadow by the use of varnish of the same colour."

" The girl's headdress has an exotic effect. Turbans were a popular fashionable accessory in Europe as early as the 15th century, as is shown by Jan van Eyck's probable self portrait, now in the National Gallery in London. During the wars against the Turks, the remote way of life and foreign dress of the "enemy of Christendom" proved to be very fascinating. A particularly noticeable feature of Vermeer's painting is the large, tear-shaped pearl hanging from the girl's ear; part of it has a golden sheen, and it stands out from the part of the neck which is in shadow. In his Introduction to the Devout Life (1608), which was published in a Dutch translation in 1616, the mystic St Francis De Sales (1567-1622) wrote, "Both now and in the past it has been customary for women to hang pearls from their ears; as Pliny observed, they gain pleasure from the sensation of the swinging pearls touching them. But I know that God's friend, Isaac, sent earrings to chaste Rebecca as a first token of his love. This leads me to think that this jewel has a spiritual meaning, namely that the first part of the body that a man wants, and which a woman must loyally protect, is the ear; no word or sound should enter it other than the sweet sound of chaste words, which are the oriental pearls of the gospel."
 From this it is clear that the pearl in Vermeer's painting is a symbol of chastity. The oriental aspect, which is mentioned in the above extract, is further emphasized by the turban. The reference to Isaac and Rebecca suggests that this picture could have been painted on the occasion of this young woman's marriage. So to that extent it is a portrait.
 There is surely a similar explanation for the Head of a Girl dressed in a smart, grey dress (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). One must admire the artist's technique, which features application of the pigments in juxtaposition and melting, avoiding precise lines, and therefore blurring the contours of different colours so as to obtain effects that foreshadow those of the impressionists. The dark backgrounds that Vermeer chose in these two portraits enhance the plasticity of the models. "
http://www.kfki.hu/~arthp/highlight.cgi?file=html/v/vermeer/03b/22pearl.html&find=pearl

Jan Vermeer,  Girl with a Pearl Earring c. 1665 Oil on canvas, 46,5 x 40 cm Mauritshuis, The Hague Dutch, Baroque	Michelangelo Meresi Caravaggio  Boy Being Bitten by a Lizard c1600	Form: Jan Vermeer is at first glance very much a caravaggisti. His portrait demonstrates a good mastery of the human face as well as chiaroscuro and tenebrism.   Essentially there handling of value structure is the same.However, where Caravaggio might choose dull earth toned hues (colors), on closer inspection, you can see that Vermeer uses more intense and saturatedtones. In Caravaggio's painting he paints the flesh tones of the young man completely in browns and pinks.  Vermeer's flesh tones are much more colorful.

If you look closely at the core shadow of the girl's cheekbone and under her chin, you will see that Vermeer used some blue and grays in the shadows and that he also shows a bit of yellowish green on her jaw line which is the color of the light reflecting from her garment. The use of colors that you wouldn't expect to find in things like flesh tones are referred to as non-local color.  Vermeer looked very carefully at flesh tones, the colors of drapery, and the colors of walls and shadows and recorded in paint how color changes in response to the light that moves across it.

figure 1This strip (fig 1) is of the blue cloth across the top of her head.  In figure 2,  I reduced the colors to blocks of tones to allow you to see the value shift as well as the change in the hues.  In figure 2, if you are sensitive to color you may notice that the first two of blocks look kind of greenish.  The third block looks almost like it's pure blue and that the blocks on the far right are brownish blue.  This is because color changes as it moves across an object.Usually as things are closer to a light source they are yellower of "warmer" in tone and as they move away they become cooler. figure 2 figure 3In figure 3 all the other colors have been dropped out of the band.  It only consists of blue with no grays or any yellow are red.  Figure 3 demonstrates a lack of cool to warm relationships.  A similar relationship of warm green to cool blue green also occurs on her blouse.

Vermeer Girl Reading  1652 Vermeer Geographer 1669 Jan Vermeer, Lady with Her Maidservant  Holding a Letter c. 1667 Oil on canvas, 89,5 x 78,1 cm Frick Collection, New York

Form:  The composition of Girl Reading, 1652, at first seems simple and symmetrical but Vermeer creates a great range of space and a visual flow through the image in which the eye moves in almost a zig zag pattern from foreground to background.  By arranging a curtain in the foreground that partially blocks the view the viewer is forced to pause.  This creates a momentary stage like trompe l’oeil effect.  In the middle ground he provides another visual pause with the table containing the fruits and the Persian carpet.  The curtain is then echoed in the curtain hanging above the window and then the diagonal of the perspectives of the window frame moves the eye back to the image of the woman. The value structure initially is very Caravaggesque but on closer examination the range of value and the subtlety of the tonal transitions is a bit more complicate. The same is true of the color in this image.  The wall behind the woman is almost a rainbow of non-local colors that move from warm to cool and light to dark. Virtuosic conceits such as the reflection in the glass and the lace on the drapery serve to heighten the immediacy and realism of the image.  This painting and Vermeer's style returns to some of the ideas that we explored in the Arnolfini portrait and in otherNorthern painters. Iconography:  The subject matter of woman writing and reading letters became a popular one in the 17th century and is taken up in later British novels by Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters and in a racier way, in the French novel  Dangerous Liaisons,and in various Rococo paintings.  Some historians have postulated that in Vermeer's paintings, depictions of women reading and writing letters is an illustration of there world.  Woman were primarily confined to the internal domestic world and they were able to reach beyond it through letters.  Whereas depictions of men by Vermeer, show them with the trappings (such as globes and maps) and therefore in roles of the adventurer whose world is outside the home.  (see the Geographer) These paintings are a kind of still life and portrait mix.  The use of the still life, such as the fresh fruit which were delicacies and the Persian carpet which was considered a luxury items which are considered vanitas which is a kind of memento mori.  According to the Brittanica a vanitas was, (Latin: "vanity"), in art, an important type of still-life painting that flourished in the Netherlands in the early 17th century, consisting of collections of objects symbolic of the inevitability of death and the transience and vanity of earthly achievements and pleasures; a vanitas painting exhorts the viewer to consider mortality and to repent. The vanitas evolved from simple pictures of skulls and other symbols of death and transience frequently painted on the reverse sides of portraits during the late Renaissance. It had acquired an independent status by about 1550, and by 1620 had become a very popular genre. Its development until its decline in about 1650 was centred in Leiden, in the United Provinces of the Netherlands, an important seat of Calvinist learning, with its emphasis on man's sinfulness and its rigid moral code. Context: Many historians believe that Vermeer himself lead a very insulated and domestic life and that many of his paintings reuse the same props and the same room.  This would account for his consistent use of the window on the left in many pictures and the reoccurrence of the same garments, chairs, carpets and still life objects and this is why we have so many other kind of paintings, such as the landscape below.

Jan Vermeer,  View of Delft 1659-60  Oil on canvas, 98,5 x 117,5 cm Mauritshuis, The Hague More views of this image

"Topographic views of cities had become a tradition by the time Vermeer painted his famous canvas. Hendrik Vroom was the author of two such works depicting Delft, but they are more archaic because they followed the traditional panoramic approach that we remember from the two cityscapes by Hercules Seghers at the Berlin museum. The latter artist was one of the first to make use of the inverted Galilean telescope to transcribe the preliminary prints and their proportions (more than twice as high as wide) into the more conventional format of his paintings. Vermeer executed his View of Delft on the spot, but the optical instrument pointed toward the city and providing the artist with the aspect translated onto canvas, which we admire for its conciseness and special structure, was not the camera obscura but the inverted telescope. It is only the latter that condenses the panoramic view of a given sector, diminishes the figures of the foreground to a smaller than normal magnification, emphasizes the foreground as we see it in the picture, and by the same token makes the remainder of the composition recede into space. The image thus obtained provides us with optical effects that, without being unique in Dutch seventeenth-century painting, as often claimed, convey a cityscape that is united in the composition and enveloped atmospherically into glowing light.  We admire the town, but it is not a profile view of a township, but a painting, an idealized representation of Delft, with its main characteristics simplified and then cast into the framework of a harbour mirroring selected reflections in the water, and a rich, full sky with magnificent cloud formations looming over it. This is chronologically the last painting by Vermeer that was executed in rich, full pigmentation, with colour accents put in with a fully loaded brush. The artist outdid himself in a rendition of his hometown, which stands as a truly great interpretation of nature." Quoted from http://www.kfki.hu/~arthp/html/v/vermeer/02c/13view.html

Camera Obscura

It was believed that Vermeer used the device of the camera obscura.  There are several theories concerning his use of the device.  The first is that he used the device as means to just look at a flattened two dimensional image.  According to the Brittanica, the camera obscura, is the ancestor of the photographic camera. The Latin name means "dark chamber," and the earliest versions, dating to antiquity, consisted of small darkened rooms with light admitted through a single tiny hole. The result was that an inverted image of the outside scene was cast on the opposite wall, which was usually whitened. For centuries the technique was used for viewing eclipses of the Sun without endangering the eyes and, by the 16th century, as an aid to drawing; the subject was posed outside and the image reflected on a piece of drawing paper for the artist to trace. Portable versions were built, followed by smaller and even pocket models; the interior of the box was painted black and the image reflected by an angled mirror so that it could be viewed right side up. The introduction of a light-sensitive plate by J.-N. Niepce created photography. And according to the Cape Argus "CAMERA OBSCURA MARRIES MAGIC AND SCIENCE" February 15, 2001 Knowledge of the phenomenon has been around for well over 2 000 years.In essence, a camera obscura uses the property of light by which, if a room or container is darkened and a small hole is made in one wall or side, an image from the outside will be projected on to the opposite inside surface, but upside down and inverted. This ability of a small hole, or pinhole, to form an image was apparently known to Chinese scholars as early as the 4th century BC. The famous Greek philosopher Aristotle also knew about the phenomenon and used it to observe solar eclipses. Famous Renaissance artist and scholar Leonardo da Vinci wrote about it and produced a detailed account of the formation of images by the use of a small hole. Later, this concept was modified by the use of lenses, so that a 360BA view could be obtained - by using a lens mounted above the camera and able to swivel in a complete circle - and into portable forms which eventually became pinhole cameras. These instruments were often used by artists to aid perspective drawing, as the images are easily traced. Modern photography was born when the small reflex box obscura was combined with Daguerre's invention in 1839. Daguerre perfected the discovery of the effect of sunlight on silver nitrate to form photographic film and paper.

Copyright 2001 The Chronicle Publishing Co.
The San Francisco Chronicle
JULY 8, 2001, SUNDAY, FINAL EDITIONSECTION: SUNDAY REVIEW; Pg. 65
LENGTH: 386 words
HEADLINE: How Vermeer may have used a camera obscura
BYLINE: Reviewed by Kenneth Baker
BODY:Vermeer's Camera,Uncovering the Truth Behind the Masterpieces
By Philip Steadman
OXFORD; 207 PAGES; $25
--------------------------------------------------
Did the rise of photography prepare the way for Johannes Vermeer's rediscovery after two centuries of neglect?
More than that, Philip Steadman argues in his new book, "Vermeer's Camera," Vermeer (1632-1675) may have paved the way for photography itself by his use of a camera obscura.
Most art historians now believe that Vermeer used this optical convenience, but no one has taken more trouble to prove it than Steadman, a professor of urban studies at University College London. The principle of the camera obscura -- Latin for "dark chamber" -- had been known to European scholars since the early Renaissance. As to how Vermeer might have learned of it, Steadman must speculate.
Open a small hole in the wall of a dark room and an inverted image of the scene outside, given enough light, will appear on the opposite interior wall. Lenses and mirrors can right and focus a projected image. The same principles work in a portable "box camera," as in the cameras that launched photography.
Steadman's argument rests on the assumption that Vermeer made a number of his most famous paintings in the same room.
Working backward from the pictures' internal perspective, Steadman infers the dimensions of the room itself, including the position of a back wall that we, the painting's viewers, necessarily never see.
On that back wall, Steadman believes, Vermeer projected his camera obscura images of the room. He imagines Vermeer's camera as a curtained cubicle in which the painter could sit alone.
When Steadman calculated the sizes of those hypothetical projections, based on his reckoning of the paintings' viewpoints -- that is, the position of the camera obscura's lens -- they approximate those of Vermeer's canvases to a startling degree.
Steadman's account of his research can be hard to follow at points, but his argument seems decisive.
The camera obscura hypothesis, Steadman concludes, suits not only the look of Vermeer's mature paintings but also his situation as a man seeking peace in a financially pressed household of 11 children.
E-mail Chronicle Art Critic Kenneth Baker at kennethbaker@sfchronicle.com.

Jan Vermeer. The Lacemaker 1669-70 Oil on canvas transferred to panel, 2 3.9 x 20.5 cm  Musée du Louvre, Paris Dutch, BaroqueForm:  This portrait is a very straightforward and naturalistic representation.  The composition is simple and there is no great range of space.  The value structure initially is very Caravaggesque but on closer examination the range of value and the subtlety of the tonal transitions is a bit more complicate. The same is true of the color in this image.  Vermeer does use some intense or saturated hues as well as a few non-local colors in the face and hands. This image is one of those images that tends to support Vermeer's use of the camera obscura.  If you look closely at the detail below of the red lace you will find that Vermeer's lace becomes blobs of color rather than the red lines we would anticipate a painter rendering for individual strands.  If you look closely at the details of any photograph you will find that details become blurry in this same fashion. Another facet of this detail also supports this conclusion.  If you look closely at the details of the strands you will also see that there are little disks or rings of color that seem to have no purpose for being there.  These disks are actually what one would see if you looked through a cheap or poorly made lens on a camera.  They are caused by some imperfections in the lens condensing or refracting light in an odd fashion. Iconography:  Almost all of Vermeer's paintings are allegorical in some way.  As this the young woman makes lace her hands are propped up on a prayer book.  This juxtaposition of prayer book to her embroidery seems to pay homage to the cliché that "idle hands are the work of the devil."  This may be the case because there are many accounts of Dutch housewives obsessive creation of lace ornamentation,  however, this was not just to keep their hands busy.  Lacemaking was also a good source of extra income for many housewives.  If you look at almost any image from Rembrandt to Vermeer you will see that the clothing usually included an ornate lace collar and sometimes sleeves and other ornaments.  So lace is also a sign of wealth when it was worn.

Color TemperatureThe terms "warm" and "cool" are used to express those hues that connote these respective qualities. In general, reds, oranges, and yellows "feel" warm, while blues, greens, and purples "feel" cool. Distinctions between warm and cool colors can be very appear either warmer or cooler depending upon the slight influence of red or blue. The same applies to gray and black (fig.12).

fig.12color wheel
The wheel of color are helpful tool that show the basic organization and interrelationships of colors. It is also used as a tool for color selection. This color wheel provides basic color terminology that anyone working with type and color should be completely familiar with. Many color wheel models exist, and some are quite complex. Below are color wheel that contains 12 basic colors (fig.6). It is conceivable for a wheel to consist of an infinite number of variations, too subtle for the human eye to discern. Contained within the circle of color is a circle of black, which is obtained by mixing together all of the surrounding colors. Though this color wheel consist of only 12 colors, it is the root of all colors, a pure statement of chromatic harmony, and a fountain of imagination and emotion are important.

fig.6

HueHue is simply another name for color. The pure hues are identified by familiar names such as red, violet, green, purple, yellow. In the world of commercial products and pigments, hues have been given thousands of names. Woodland Green, Sienna, Apache Red etc. may evoke romantic and exotic thoughts, but these names, aside from their marketing value, have little to do with the composition of the colors they represent. In reality, few legitimate names exist for hues. The basic 12 color-wheel pictured on the opposite page features the primary hues red, yellow and blue; the secondary hues orange, green, and violet; and the six tertiary hues red-orange, orange-yellow, yellow-green, blue-green, blue-violet, and red-violet (fig.9). Primaries are considered absolute colors and cannot be created by mixing other colors together. However, mixing together the primaries color into various combinations creates an infinite number of colors.

fig.9



me.men.to mo.ri n, pl memento mori [L, remember that you must die] (1596): a reminder of mortality; esp: death's-head
me.men.to n, pl -tos or -toes [ME, fr. L, remember, imper. of meminisse to remember; akin to L ment-, mens mind--more at mind] (1580): something that serves to warn or remind; also: souvenir
non-local colorThe use of colors that you wouldn't expect to find in things like fleshtones are referred to as non-local color.
prov.e.nance n [F, fr. provenir to come forth, originate, fr. L provenire, fr. pro- forth + venire to come--more at pro-, come] (1785) 1: origin, source 2: the history of ownership of a valued object or work of art or literature
Saturation
It also called chroma or intensity, saturation refers to the brightness of a hue. The highest saturation occurs in colors that are pure and unmixed. Any color mixture will diminish intensity. However, adding white, gray, black, or a complementary color most radically compromises intensity (fig.10). Variations of a single hue dulled in intensity by different amounts of an added complement are often referred to as tones. When complementary colors are placed in close proximity, the intensity of each is increased. This vibrant condition is referred to as simultaneous contrast (fig.11).

fig.10

fig.11

trompe l’oeil - (French: "deceive the eye"), in painting, the representation of an object with such verisimilitude as to deceive the viewer concerning the material reality of the object. This idea appealed to the ancient Greeks who were newly emancipated from the conventional stylizations of earlier art. Zeuxis, for example, reportedly painted such realistic grapes that birds tried to eat them. The technique was also popular with Roman muralists. Although trompe l’oeil never achieved the status of a major artistic aim, from the early Renaissance on, European painters occasionally fostered illusionism by painting false frames out of which the contents of a still life or portrait appeared to spill, or by creating window-like images suggesting actual openings in the wall or ceiling. (Brittanica)
Value Structure
Is the lightness or darkness of a color or shade.  Chiaroscuro and tenebrism both employ the use quick shifts of light and dark.
Value refers to the lightness or darkness of a color. It is a variable that can substantially alter a color's appearance, and as we will see later, it is also an important factor in achieving legibility with type and color. A hue changes in value when either white or black are added to it. A color with added white is called a tint (fig.7) ; a color with added black is called a shade (fig.8). Generally speaking, pure hues that are normally light in value (yellow, orange, green) make the best tints, white pure hues that are normally dark in value (red, blue, violet) make the most desirable shades. The palettes colors below shoes a spectrum of tints and shades based on the hues from the colors clearly shows that changes in value greatly expand color possibilities.

fig.7

fig.8

vanitas (Latin: "vanity"), in art, an important type of still-life painting that flourished in the Netherlands in the early 17th century, consisting of collections of objects symbolic of the inevitability of death and the transience and vanity of earthly achievements and pleasures; a vanitas painting exhorts the viewer to consider mortality and to repent. The vanitas evolved from simple pictures of skulls and other symbols of death and transience frequently painted on the reverse sides of portraits during the late Renaissance. It had acquired an independent status by about 1550, and by 1620 had become a very popular genre. Its development until its decline in about 1650 was centred in Leiden, in the United Provinces of the Netherlands, an important seat of Calvinist learning, with its emphasis on man's sinfulness and its rigid moral code. (Brittanica Encyclopedia)

Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin Self Portrait at the Easel, 1771,  pastel on blue paper over canvas stretcher,  Musée du Louvre, Paris Jean- Baptiste Simeon Chardin-  Grace at Table (also called Le Bénédicité "Benediction") 1740 o/c Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin.  Soap Bubbles, c1733 oil on canvas, 36 5/8 x 29 3/8 in. French Rococo .

Context according to the Brittanica, Chardin, Jean-Baptiste-Siméon  b. Nov. 2, 1699, Paris, Fr. d. Dec. 6, 1779, Paris  French painter of still lifes and domestic scenes remarkable for their intimate realism and tranquil atmosphere and the luminous quality of their paint. For his still lifes he chose humble objects ("Le Buffet," 1728), and for his genre paintings modest events ("Dame cachetant une lettre" [1733; "Lady Sealing a Letter"]). He also executed some fine portraits, especially the pastels of his last years. He was nominated to the Royal Academy of Painting in 1728.Born in Paris, Chardin never really left his native quarter of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Little is known about his training, although he worked for a time with the artists Pierre-Jacques Cazes and Noël-Nicolas Coypel. In 1724 he was admitted to the Academy of Saint Luc. His true career, however, did not begin until 1728 when, thanks to the portrait painter Nicolas de Largillière (1656-1746), he became a member of the Royal Academy of Painting, to which he offered "La Raie" ("The Skate") and "Le Buffet," both now at the Louvre Museum. Although not yet established, he was beginning to gain a reputation. In 1731 he married Marguerite Saintard, and two years later the first of his figure paintings appeared, "Dame cachetant une lettre." From then on Chardin alternated between paintings of la vie silencieuse ("the silent life") or scenes of family life such as "Le Bénédicité" ("The Grace") and half-figure paintings of young men and women concentrating on their work or play, such as "Le Jeune dessinateur" ("Young Man Drawing") and "L'Enfant au toton" ("Child with Top," Louvre) (and Soap Bubbles, c1733). The artist repeated his subject matter, and there are often several original versions of the same composition. Chardin's wife died in 1735, and the estate inventory drawn up after her death reveals a certain affluence, suggesting that by this time Chardin had become a successful painter. In 1740 he was presented to Louis XV, to whom he offered "La Mère laborieuse" ("Mother Working") and "Le Bénédicité." Four years later, he married Marguerite Pouget, whom he was to immortalize 30 years later in a pastel. These were the years when Chardin was at the height of his fame. Louis XV, for example, paid 1,500 livres for "La Serinette" ("The Bird-Organ"). Chardin continued to rise steadily on the rungs of the traditional academic career. His colleagues at the academy entrusted him, first unofficially (1755), then officially (1761), with the hanging of the paintings in the Salon (official exhibition of the academy), which had been held regularly every two years since 1737 and in which Chardin had participated faithfully. It was in the exercise of his official duties that he met the encyclopaedist and philosopher Denis Diderot, who would devote some of his finest pages of art criticism to Chardin, the "grand magicien" that he admired so much. An anecdote illustrating Chardin's genius and his unique position in 18th-century painting is told by one of his greatest friends, the engraver Charles-Nicolas Cochin, who wrote a letter shortly after Chardin's death to Haillet de Couronne, the man who was to deliver Chardin's eulogy to the Academy of Rouen, of which Chardin had been a member. One day, an artist was making a big show of the method he used to purify and perfect his colors. Monsieur Chardin, impatient with so much idle chatter, said to the artist, "But who told you that one paints with colors?""With what then?" the astonished artist asked. "One uses colors," replied Chardin, "but one paints with feeling." He was nearer to the feeling of meditative quiet that animates the rustic scenes of the 17th-century French master Louis Le Nain than to the spirit of light and superficial brilliance seen in the work of many of his contemporaries. His carefully constructed still lifes do not bulge with appetizing foods but are concerned with the objects themselves and with the treatment of light. In his genre scenes he does not seek his models among the peasantry as his predecessors did; he paints the petty bourgeoisie of Paris. But manners have been softened, and his models seem to be far removed from Le Nain's austere peasants. The housewives of Chardin are simply but neatly dressed and the same cleanliness is visible in the houses where they live. Everywhere a sort of intimacy and good fellowship constitute the charm of these modestly scaled pictures of domestic life that are akin in feeling and format to the works of Jan Vermeer. Despite the triumphs of his early and middle life, Chardin's last years were clouded, both in his private life and in his career. His only son, Pierre-Jean, who had received the Grand Prix (prize to study art in Rome) of the academy in 1754, committed suicide in Venice in 1767. And then too, the public's taste had changed. The new director of the academy, the all-powerful Jean-Baptiste-Marie Pierre, in his desire to restore historical painting to the first rank, humiliated the old artist by reducing his pension and gradually divesting him of his duties at the academy. Furthermore, Chardin's sight was failing. He tried his hand at drawing with pastels. It was a new medium for him and less taxing on his eyes. Those pastels, most of which are in the Louvre Museum, are highly thought of in the 20th century, but that was not the case in Chardin's own time. In fact, he lived out the remainder of his life in almost total obscurity, his work meeting with indifference. It was not until the middle of the 19th century that he was rediscovered by a handful of French critics, including the brothers Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, and collectors (the Lavalard brothers, for example, who donated their collection of Chardins to the Museum of Picardy in Amiens). Especially noteworthy is the LaCaze Collection donated to the Louvre in 1869. Today Chardin is considered the greatest still-life painter of the 18th century, and his canvases are coveted by the world's most distinguished museums and collections. (P.M.R.)  "Chardin, Jean-Baptiste-Siméon."   Britannica 2001 Standard Edition CD-ROM.   Copyright © 1994-2001 Britannica.com Inc.   December 28, 2002.

Jean- Baptiste Simeon Chardin-  Grace at Table (also called Benediction) 1740 o/c Robert Campin (the Master of Flemalle)  Merode Altarpiece c. 1425

Form: Chardin's paintings differ from those of his Rococo contemporaries in many ways.  Chardin's use of color is closer to the Renaissance painters than the Rococo.  In these paintings he uses a low key earth toned palette.  His compositions, like this one, often deal with interior scenes that are dimly lit.  Still life elements are painted with the same consideration as the figures and his brushwork is more specific than the Rococo painters of his time.Iconography:  This is a genre scene in the most Renaissance and traditional sense and returns in some ways to earlier genre scenes such as in Robert Campin's Merode Altarpiece c. 1425.  The iconography is anti-Rococo because the scene deals not with a romantic encounter but with the moral instruction of two young women.  The subject matter is a middle class orbourgeoisie family in which either a mother or a governess serve a simple meal.  The children, knowing their place in in the world show they are grateful to God by saying grace before the meal.  Surrounding them are the trappings of a moral bourgeoisexistence.  The furniture, toys and clothing are simple but still of good quality. Context: Chardin's output of quiet domestic scenes in Dutch manner, usually on a small scale but really wasn't ever in great favor with the aristocracy but at times he did enjoy some popularity with the aristocracy because some of the ideas fell into place with Rousseau's ideas of morality and social order in texts such as his Social Contract and Émile. Émile in particular has bearing on this painting because it is a novel about the education of a little girl named Sophie.  Rousseau believed that people were born fundamentally good and if allowed to pursue the natural inclinations this goodness would manifest itself.  Émile, was a rejection of the traditional ideal: education was not seen to be the imparting of all things to be known to the uncouth child; rather it was seen as the “drawing out” of what is already there, the fostering of what is native. Rousseau's educational proposal is highly artificial, the process is carefully timed and controlled, but with the end of allowing the free development of human potential. http://www.factmonster.com/ce6/people/A0860819.html

Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin.  Soap Bubbles, c1733 oil on canvas, 36 5/8 x 29 3/8 in. French Baroque but not really Rococo

Jan Vermeer. The Lacemaker 1669-70 Oil on canvas transferred to panel,  23.9 x 20.5 cm Musée du Louvre, Paris Dutch, Baroque

Form: This painting uses a low key earth toned palette.  The composition of this image is shallow and somewhat symmetrical although not completely.  The design forces the viewer to focus on the image of the young boy who is highlighted in a tennebristic manner.  Still life elements are painted with the same consideration as the figures and his brushwork is more specific than the Rococo painters of his time.Iconography:  It is possible that this may be an overinterpretation of the iconography of this image however most historians believe that this is a type of vanitas or memento mori: "The boy enjoys a pleasurable pursuit as time wastes away, and the soap bubble itself is a traditional symbol of the fragile, fleeting nature of human life." http://www.uic.edu/~pbhales/ ah111/wk6hand.html  According to the National Gallery:  "A boy concentrates his full attention on a quivering bubble, which seems ready to slip from his pipe. Eighteenth-century French viewers would have recognized the soap bubble from Dutch and Flemish painting as a symbol of life's fragility and the vanity of worldly pursuits." http://www.nga.gov/collection/ gallery/gg53/gg53-997.0.html Context:  Interestingly enough, although most historians ascribe this new moralizing in Chardin's images to Rousseau's philosophies but similar the ideas are also evidenced in works such as Vermeer's The Lacemaker 1669-70.  Compare and contrast these two paintings and come up with some conclusions as to how each image is meant to convey a similar message.  Look at them both in terms of a  formal, iconographic and contextual framework.  How and why are they similar and or different.

Jean-Baptiste Greuze, 1725-1805 Broken Eggs 1756 French , New York: Metropolitan Museum French Romantic/Rococo

Form: Although painted during the Rococo period this painting is not very Rococo in its form.  This style of painting probably evolved somewhat from commedia and or some other types of performances because the composition of the picture plane is very shallow and stage like.  This oil painting uses a low key earth toned palette.Iconography: Stokstad discusses the idea that Greuze's paintings are expressions of the new moralizing philosophies expressed by French philosophers such as Diderot, Voltaire and Rousseau. Here is a young woman who has a basket of eggs that has been broken.  The egg is a symbol of life and also of a woman's womb and or virginity.  In this case the metaphor is that she has lost her virtue. The young woman's grandmother or mother stands behind her pointing the accusing finger while her brother looks on in a state of bewilderment.  The young boy is a rather Rousseau's interpretation of a young child's reactions.  Children will always try to do the right thing and here, the girl's younger brother vainly attempts to put the eggs back together and restore her to her former state. Context:  This image relates very clearly to the plot of various novels and poems of the period such as Moll Flanders in which when a woman loses here virtue she has started down the wrong path and it will lead to her demise.  The same ideas are expressed in the prints of William Hogarth in particular his prints entitledBefore and After c1736.

The engravings were aimed at a wide public, and their tremendous success immediately established Hogarth's financial and artistic independence. He was henceforth free, unlike most of his colleagues, to follow his own creative inclinations. To safeguard his livelihood from unscrupulously pirated editions, he fought to obtain legislation protecting artist's copyright and held back the eight-part Rake's Progress until a law of that nature, known as the Hogarth Act, was passed in 1735.

Beer Street and Gin Lane-(diptych) two images

In early 1730's there was an epidemic of alcoholic consumption. Gin was mass produced and started to replace beer as the main alcoholic drink of choice. The portrait shows everybody selling their goods in order to get more gin. It shows also that the KillMan Distiller, the undertaker, and the Pawnshop are doing very good in their business.Early 1700's an epidemic. People had to drink distilled spirits because the water was contaminated. A watery thin or "near beer" was the primary beverage. When gin was introduced Hogarth saw this as a corrupting drug. Gin is equivalent to Hogarth as heroine or crack is to ours.

William Hogarth 
Before and After c1736

Doryphoros (Spear Bearer) (also called "the Canon") by Polykleitos c450-440 BC Roman copy after a bronze original marble height 6'6" tree stump and leg brace are later Roman additions Classic, Greek

Form:  This frontally oriented sculpture of a young male figure is well over life sized, is idealized, and naturalistic.  Some of the features of the face, the musculature of the abdomen and above the genitals have been distorted to fit in with an ideal of physical beauty.  The hair, nose of the figure and eyebrows have a rather geometrically stylized aspect to them as does the overall anatomy of the figure.  There is still a hint of the archaic smile.The figure stands in a life like contrapposto pose (contra- against posto- posture) in which the body takes on an over all "s" curve.  There is a shift of weight at the hips and a majority of the figure's weight is on one leg.  The torso is turned in a slight angle opposite to the angle of the hips. The pose looks almost as if the figure is in movement. This is a marble sculpture made by Romans copied from a bronze original that used the hollow casting or the cire perdue or lost wax process.   The process is referred to as lost wax not because we have lost the process, but because the figure is originally sculpted from wax which is lost in the process.  The original is encased in clay.  Two drainage holes are placed in the clay and when the clay is heated, the wax runs out of the hole leaving a cavity.  Bronze is then poured into the cavity and when the bronze cools the clay mold is broken open revealing the bronze sculpture.  Since the bronze is a fairly soft metal, details can be etched and molded while the bronze is cool. (go here for diagrams)   Iconography: This sculpture depicts a perfect and beautiful young man the essence of kalos.  In Greek epic poetry the hero is always described as handsome or beautiful and their physical appearance is a reflection of the character's virtue.  The idealism or beauty of the Greek figure is linked to the concept that you can judge a book by its cover.  The Greek term for beauty is kalos (calos).  The term kalos can also be interchanged with and is synonymous with goodness.  Therefore, to call someone or something beautiful also means that that thing is also "good." The original sculpture was actually designed to be an icon that represented physical perfection of the human form and therefore a god-like kalos.  The Doryphoros by Polykleitos was considered so proportionately perfect that it was called the "canon"  (a set of rules or criterion or standard of judgment).  The contrapposto pose serves the same purpose as the archaic smile.  Both were designed to give the work a more lifelike illusion.  In the case of the archaic smile, it almost as if there is the beginnings of movement in the face and the same is true of the contrapposto that seems as if the body is about to move. Context: Schema and correction play heavily into this work.  There are elements derived from the original kouros figures, such as the step forward, the idealized form and the archaic smile, but, Polykleitos builds on the naturalism to make the sculpture more life-like. Since this is a Roman marble copy after bronze original, this would make this yet another corrected view.  This copy of the work is the "correction" on the Greeks original "schema" and so its accuracy is in question.  Historians and Romans have often called this work the Canon.  This work was designed by Polykleitos to be his canon or his treatise   (a complete guide of sorts) to making a perfect sculpture.  Unfortunately, neither his sculpture or his written texts survived but we do have Roman descriptions of the text and Roman copies of the sculpture and so the Romans referred to it as the "Canon."  The naming of this sculpture is complicated for this and other reasons. It is thought that the original bronze carried a long spear and that is where he gets his name.  Doryphoros in Greek translates as "spear bearer."  This marble sculpture of theDoryphoros is a Roman copy of the first original bronze by Polykleitos.  We are lucky enough to have a sculpture that was made at the same time as the original Doryphorosreferred to as the Riace Bronze or Young Warrior from Riace (c 460-450 BCE) that approximates what the original Doryphoros must have looked like.

Kouros from Attica (the region surrounding Athens) c600 BCE 6' 4" marble polychrome, encaustic Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY Archaic Doryphoros (Spear Bearer) (also called "the Canon") by Polykleitos c450-440 BC Roman copy after a bronze original marble height 6'6" tree stump and leg brace are later Roman additions Classic, Greek Another look at schema and correction:Summary of Gombrich Renown art historian Ernst Gombrich developed a theory to explain these adaptations and changes and refered to it asschema and correction.  If we were to look at the Archaic period's art and architecture as the plan or schema, we can see how the later Classic period might have taken the archaic art as its schema and updated it in order to make the designs more pleasing according to the  later tastes.  These changes are referred to as the correction. To understand his theory called "schema and naturalization," or "schema and correction." To understand it you basically just need to know the definitions of three words.  Schema is the cultural code through which individuals raised in a culture perceive the world. For example, we recognize stick figures to be humans. Correction is where you take that schema and you compare it to what your senses tell you about the world and then you make it more accurate. Mimesis is the process of correcting your schema. Gombrich's idea can be expanded to looking how later groups can take the earlier work of art and mimic it (mimesis).  This is a kind of Darwinian theory kind of like Darwin's theory of the "survival of the fitest."Read some more stuff by Gombrich if it interests you!

THE RIACE BRONZEc460-450 BCE Classical Greek bronze w/ bone, glass paste, silver & copper inlaid,h. 200cm Reggio Calabria: Museo Nazionale This sculpture was made in Greece, possibly by the Greek Sculptor Phidias.

Diana Holcombe Art History 103A April 30, 2001 Professor Mencher  A Great Reason to Scuba Dive Scuba diving in exotic places can be great exercise, as well as a fun thing to do with your friends.  But there might be another surprising advantage to this rather extreme hobby.  You could actually discover buried treasure!  The Young Warrior from Riace (c 460-450 BCE) was discovered in exactly that way.  A tourist was scuba diving off the southern coast of Italy and found what appeared to be a human arm sticking out of the ocean floor. After more careful investigation he discovered it was a metal human arm, and after careful excavation it was discovered that the statue was almost six feet tall, and made out of very heavy bronze.  After the statue was retrieved and revived, theories flew around about how, and where the Riace Warrior came from.  By studying the form, and iconography of the sculpture, and then comparing these traits to the context in which the sculpture was made, I will attempt to analyze the Young Warrior from Riace as in depth as possible.  The sculpture was made using the cire perdue (lost wax) process.  This process was a favorite for Greek sculptors because it enabled them to make sculptures that were in much more life like poses.  (Stokstad 181)  The first step of this rather complex procedure is to make the sculpture out of wax, and then cover the wax with clay.  Then the clay is fired which melts the wax so that the clay embodies a hollow form.  Molten bronze is then poured into the hollow space.  Once the bronze is cooled, the clay shell is removed, and you have your finished, beautiful, bronze sculpture!  Sound easy?  I'm sure it's not.  Which makes some of the other details of the statue even more incredible.  The eyeballs are made of carved bone, and colored glass.  And each eyelash and eyebrow are of separately cast bronze. The nipples, and lips, are a pinkish copper, and the teeth are made from silver.  The entire statue is of a Greek Warrior that has a young body, but an old face.  He is about six feet tall with a contrapposto stance, and an almost naturalistic, but still very idealized body form.    His body is very smooth, and athletic looking, but his face has deep lines, and bags under the eyes.  The hair, and beard are both done very purposefully with separate strands all overlapping each other.  He would be holding a sword, and a shield if he were in his completely original form. The iconography of this statue is fairly clear.  The purpose of this statue was probably to instill a sense of pride about the Greek army, and to illustrate the strength and wisdom that Greek men were expected to have. The body form is exaggerated because of the height and the muscle structure in the stomach, but is still realistic enough to make men and women feel that Greek men could, should and do look this way.  The beard is symbolic of wisdom, but the long hair is a sign of youthfulness.   A major contradiction, but also an image that is being radiated to men.  Telling them it is possible to achieve great intellectual achievements while you are still young?  If only you were Greek!  The athletic body andcontrapposto stance is symbolic of an athlete or warrior.  And the smoothness of the body makes it fairly obvious this was a young man.  This statue is from the Classical period of Greek art (480-350 BCE). This was a time of expansion to farther parts of Europe.  Including colonies in Italy, and Sicily.  It is accepted that the statue was being exported, or imported to a Greek colony located on the tip of Italy. (Stokstad 182)  How the statue wound up in the ocean is all speculation. Perhaps the ship was in distress and the statue was thrown over board intentionally, or it could have been lost in rough seas.  Either way, that part remains a mystery. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, this period of Greek history is one of expansion, but mainly a peaceful time, where the Greeks embraced their heritage and developed miraculous strides in their architectural, and artistic methods.  Trade flourished, and so did the cultural trading of ideas.  Pericles came to power and brought with him refreshing ideas to change the face of the Greek temple, and the Greek government.  The Parthenon was erected, as well as numerous other temples, and altars.  During this mostly governmental and architectural renaissance, sculpture was being seen as an even bigger way to express wealth, and power.  Much like our models in magazine photographs, sculptures capture the essence of a time period, or of a person.  They can be used as propaganda, or as a way to record history. The Young Warrior from Riace does both.  He is a good looking warrior, selling his image to the people of Greece.  And yet he represents a time period, so he captures the events taking place during the Classical period of Greek life.  Many things have been found hidden beneath the vast waters of the ocean. But few have matched up to this statue.  We have looked at the form, and iconography of the statue.  We also looked at some of the things surrounding its creation.  It's not hard to understand why the Greek government and its people loved this statue, and the things it stood for.  It was a representation of the country's power, and pride.  It showed the exquisite craftsmanship that the Greeks were capable of.  And last, but not least: for the last thirty years it has inspired people all over the world to go scuba diving.

Kritian Boy by Kritios, "Ephebe of Kritios" c480BCE marble, height 46" Greek, Classic,

Form:  This sculpture shares much in common with the Doryphoros:  it is of a young male figure, it  is idealized,  naturalistic and shares in the same stylizations.  Some of the features of the face, the musculature of the abdomen and above the genitals have been distorted to fit in with an ideal of physical beauty.  The hair, nose of the figure and eyebrows have a rather geometrically stylized aspect to them as does the overall anatomy of the figure.  There is still a hint of the archaic smile.The figure stands in a life like contrapposto pose (contra- against posto- posture) in which the body takes on an over all "s" curve.  There is a shift of weight at the hips and a majority of the figure's weight is on one leg.  The torso is turned in a slight angle opposite to the angle of the hips. The pose looks almost as if the figure is in movement. Iconography:  This sculpture, like the earlier Kouros figures, was actually designed to be an icon that represented physical perfection of the human form and therefore a god-like kalos.  This sculpture might even have been the schema for the Doryphorosby Polykleitos.  Context: This sculpture was found in the rubble underneath the Acropolis and was preserved in the same way as the Moscophoros.  Since the only sculptures that survived by Kritios were Roman marble copies, this sculpture was considered quite a find and was attributed to the sculptor based on its formal and stylistic similarities to Roman copies.

Blonde Boy's Head 480B.C.-

This sculpture is a good formal example of the idealized distortions made by Greek sculptors of the human head and face.  Side view facial features are idealized.  Hair is perfect. No indention from nose to forehead, known as a "Greek Nose." The ear is too high and far back. This sculpture is made based on their conception of physical beauty. They simply decided to make nature over according to their tastes.

Diskobolos (Discus-thrower) by Myron  c450BCE 5'1" Roman marble copy after a Greek bronze original Greek Classic

Form:  This sculpture shares much in common with the Doryphoros and Ephebe of Kritios:  but aside from the idealized stylizations of these sculptures it appears to be in movement.  In actuality the sculptor Myron has chosen to freeze an actual moment in the process of an athlete throwing a discus.  Nevertheless, the sculpture, like all Greek sculptures, whether in the round or relief style, is frontally oriented.  There is only one way the sculptor meant for the viewer to see the image.Iconography:  This is a symbol of Greek male athleticism and therefore the ideal citizen and soldier.  The athletic activity he is participating in is probably also a reference to heroism during the Olympics. Context: This sculpture is one of the first examples of a figure caught in a convincing frozen moment.  The original sculpture would have been cast from bronze and this possibly would have eliminated the need for the tree stump and for one of the arms to be engaged or connected with the leg.  This sculpture also demonstrates the ability of the Greeks to actually observe nature and mimic the movement of the human body convincingly.

Hermes (Mercury) and the Infant Dionysus. by Praxiteles or his followers c340-320 BCE marble with remnants of red paint on the lips and hair height 7' Classic or Hellenistic

Hellenistic Art 800-700 B.C.= Oriental Influence 700-500 B.C.= Archaic Period 480-350 B.C. = Classic Age 350-100 B.C.= Hellenism (Hellenistic Art)Form: This statue's anatomy is considerably more realistic than earlier sculptures.  The musculature is softer, and more sensuous and there is even a bit of body fat.  Although the statue is in contrapposto position to indicate slight movement the "S" curve of the body is heightened and the movement is more exaggerated by the arm that is held aloft.  The head of the adult figure is turned towards the infant that is reaching towards the extended arm.  This sculpture although still frontally oriented, is even more in the round than others.  The viewer can begin to move to the far left and right to see a more interesting and complete view of the figure.Iconography:  This sculpture probably represents Hermes and Dionysus.  Hermes is the wing footed messenger god who served as a temporary "nurse maid" for Dionysus in order to protect the young god from Hera.  Hermes is holding out a bunch of grapes, and young Dionysos's reaching for them is prophetic symbol of  Dionysos's role as the god of wine.  The scene is a bit of a genre scene and probably symbolizes the more humanistic or playful attributes of the gods. Context:  Stokstad asserts that this is probably a copy because of the anachronistic elements of the footwear and the fact that Romans often used braces and other elements to further support their sculptures.  I believe that this sculpture is really Hellenistic because it exhibits the more dramatic and lifelike qualities of that period. This sculpture represents a break with the earlier periods in the fact that the anatomy is a bit more sensuous and realistic and that the scene is more of a dramatic and interactive moment. Stokstad (page 210) discusses the idea that Greek art around 320 BCE goes through a marked shift and begins to change into a style that stresses life-like and less general themes.  Hellenistic style art is very similar to the changes in film between the 1950 and the 1980's in the United States.  If one was to think of a gangster film from the 1950's the themes, dialogue, sexual content, and violence were fairly restrained and the moral of the film would usually be that good conquers over evil or something just as high minded.  Today, we have films that are much more violent, more dramatic and the higher moral them is harder to understand.  The same dramatic shift happens in Greek art between the classic age and the later Hellenistic phases.  The sculpture by Praxiteles is an excellent example of this shift.  It is a fine example of a transitional work of art between the two periods.

Nike of Samothrace 190 B.C.E. by Pythokritos of Rhodes? Marble, height 8' Louvre, Paris Hellenistic

Form:  This sculpture is a massive sculpture of a composite creature known as a Nike.  The convincing anatomy is heightened by the use of wind whipped wet drapery of her chiton and the forward moving posture of the figure.  Originally this sculpture would have had extended arms and probably a face with a fierce facial expression.She is placed on the prow of a stone boat.  Gardner describes that the setting of the sculpture would have been augmented with the sculpture's placement in the upper basin of a two tiered fountain that would have suggested to all the senses that the ship was moving and splashing through the water. Iconography:  Homer and other poets often described victory as being "winged."  Images of flight and floating above the water are almost part of every culture's collective unconscious.  The iconography of the the figure is clearly defined and augmented by her location on the prow of a stone boat as winged victory leading the navy into victorious battle.  The massive size, movement, and youthful body of the figure are symbols of power as well. Context:  Stokstad describes the conditions and condition the sculpture was found in her book.

Laocoon and his sons, c1C BCE by Hagesandros, Polydoros, and Athenadoros of Rhodes, marble 8' tall Vatican Museum, Rome Hellenistic

Form: The anatomy of each of the three figures are illustrations of ideal anatomy for their ages.  The counterpoise and twisting of the figures, while not contrapposto (which is a standing pose) is a pose that inspired Michelangelo.  Michelangelo referred to such twisting and turning as serpentata (serpentine).  The individuals' faces are highly dramatic and expressive and the figures themselves interact with each other and with the serpent that attacks them.  Overall, this is one of the best examples of how Hellenistic art pushed the envelope from the Classic period.Iconography:  This sculpture represents an episode out of the Roman poet Vergil's Aeneid. This particular scene recounts an event about the Fall of Troy. Laocoon, a celibate priest in the service of Poseidon, was punished by Poseidon, for acts of hubris against the god. (Hint: Notice he has children)  Another interpretation of this tale and his subsequent punishment was that he warned the Trojans "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts" when they opened the gates and were presented with the famous Trojan horse in which Odysseus and his men hid.  Either interpretation of this yields that this sculpture is a warning against interacting with or offending the gods.  Context:  The origins or provenance of this work is still in question.  One of the questions that arises in the study of this sculpture is, is it a Roman copy or a work of art made by late Greek Hellenistic sculptors Hagesandros, Polydoros, and Athenadoros?  Who was the work made for?  Either way, the work was found in the remains of the emperor Titus in Rome in 1506.  Recently evidence seems to suggest that this work is the original and not a copy.  According to Gardner, there are accounts by a historian from Titus' time named Pliny of the sculpture and several fragments illustrating similar stories from the Odyssey were found 6o miles from Rome in the seaside villa of first century emperor Tiberius.  One of the fragments was signed by Hagesandros, Polydoros, and Athenadoros. The fact that this work was almost certainly made for a Roman audience by Greek artists inspires another interesting observation.  Greek art under Roman patronage might have been freed to become even more dramatic and violent.  Parallels of this exist in a possible comparison between the accounts of the fall of Troy as portrayed in the literature of the Greek Odyssey, and Roman Aeneid.  The Greek account barely mentions Laocoon while the Roman account is a bit more detailed.  (Hint: This would make an awesome paper topic)

canon
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English, from Late Latin, from Latin, ruler, rule, model, standard, from Greek kanOn
Date: before 12th century
4 a : an accepted principle or rule b: a criterion or standard of judgment c : a body of principles, rules, standards, or norms
1 a : a regulation or dogma decreed by a church council b: a provision of canon law
2 [Middle English, prob. from Old French, from Late Latin, from Latin, model] : the most solemn and unvarying part of the Mass including the consecration of the bread and wine
3 [Middle English, from Late Latin, from Latin, standard] a: an authoritative list of books accepted as Holy Scripture b: the authentic works of a writer c: a sanctioned or accepted group or body of related works canon

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