The project above was an assigned water based oil portrait. In which I chose a self portrait, primarily because of the vibrant colours. The aim of this project was to match the likeness of the photo, and to demonstate paint techniques, such as rendering the colour, the light, the textures and the flesh tones.
Antoni Plàcid Guillem Gaudí i Cornet
The Teresian School Source: http://paraviajarproject.blogspot.com/2016/03/barcelona-nick-j.html
During the second half of the 19th century, Barcelona was at its economical and social peak. The old part of the city, surrounded by walls and bounded by the sea, had become too small to accommodate the large buildings that were being put up by the new emerging society. In 1857 a decision was taken to annex neighbouring towns, which until then had been summer destinations where the middle class had constructed enormous mansions that still stand today.
Casa Vincens Source: https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2019/06/casa-vicens/
1878 marks the beginnings of Modernism in Spain when Catalan architect Domenech i Montaner published an article in the Catalan newspaper La Renaixensa entitled “The Quest for a National Architecture” where he expressed the need for Catalonia to develop its own individual style. From that moment on, buildings were constructed based on history yet characterized by the personality of the architect who transformed classical notions into new architectural interpretations. Casa Vincens (1878-1880), designed by Antoni Gaudí, is an example of this movement.
If indeed the year of 1878 was key, it was not until 1880 that the Modernist style came into its own. The 1888 Universal Exhibition held in Barcelona provided a platform for promoting and exhibiting the artistic novelties that would not take long to spread throughout society as a whole.
The Barcelona Exhibition served to demonstrate the power of the middle class, who believed they were fulfilling the dream of modernization thanks to the economic prosperity they had attained. After the Exhibition, the nobility and especially the middle class wanted to move to the Eixample, the new urban development space created by tearing down the walls of the city in order to gain more space, where they would take residence and commission the construction of spectacular works of architecture.
Due to the socio-political conditions in Catalonia between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century the Moderniste movement reached level unlike anywhere else in Spain. Notwithstanding, it would be an error to assume that Modernism solely took place in Catalonia, as it also played an important and varied role in Spanish cities a Madrid, Valencia, Zaragoza and Melilla, among others.
The Teresian College Source: https://www.skyscrapercity.com/threads/mijn-gaudi-tour.1454769/#post-85122212
Since 1906 Eugeni d’Ors, Catalan writer, essayist, journalist, philosopher and art critic, pioneered the term Noucentism through publication of a collection of writings published between 1907 and 1911 that set the aesthetic and cultural ideals advocated by the new movement, characterized by an adamant rejection of anything related to Modernisme. Despite these dates, however, Modernisme cannot be placed within an exact time period given that works displaying a distinct Modernista style continued to be built after 1906, including Antoni Gaudí renowned Casa Milá.
In this artistic milieu was Antoni Gaudí born in Reus, Tarragona, Spain in 1852. Son of a working-class family, he manifested his passion for art from a very young age. In 1873 he began his architectural studies at the Barcelona School of Architecture. The need for financial means to pay for his studies led him to work as a drafts in various workshops. Through his years as a student, Gaudi executed a number of designs and worked with renowned architects such as Francesc de Paula del Villar whom he aided in designing the sanctum and apse of the Montserrat monastery. He finished his architectural education in Madrid, finishing his studies in 1876. From then on he would design and build a vast number of works. Ever since his early years as a professional he demonstrated the attributes of a well-rounded artist. His are works as diverse as lamppost in Barcelona, furniture design, wrought iron, wood and glass display cabinets for gloves in the Paris Exhibition and a flower stand.
Teresian School Entrance. Source: http://www.gaudidesigner.com/es/autres-realisations-colegio-de-las-teresianas-1888-1890—barcelona—a.gaudi_575.html
Episcopal Palace, Astorga. Source: https://astorga.co/en/episcopal-palace-of-astorga-by-gaudi/
Gaudí’s extravagant style was surprisingly well received by Catalan society. In fact the architect undertook commissions for the Catalan bourgeoisie (Vincens, Calvet, Batlló and Milá and in some cases recently ennobled families such as the Güellls) who accepted his creations with a certain stoicism, as did the masses of Chistian devotees in their support of the colossal Sagrada Familia temple in Barcelona. It is also surprising that some of his commissions would take Gaudí to places so distant from his Catalan personality deep into Spain, such as Comillas (Santander). Leon or Astorga. However, they all had some sort of Catalan connection; in Astorga, for instance, the project was commissioned by the Catalan bishop that presided over the diocese of Leon.
The Terisian College, Gaudis first major work. Source: https://irbarcelona.org/barcelona-famous-buildings/collegi-teresianes/
Antoni Gaudí who always practised his profession independently and never worked as a public servant, never received any awards or honors by any academy, nor did he participate in any political organization. He was a magnificent artist, unclassifiable and always astonishing who exercised his craft with an extreme precision, a result of a fevered imagination. It is the result of this imagination that, even today, almost 100 years after his death, he continues to be regarded as one of the main attraction of Barcelona, the city that contains the most and best examples of Antoni Gaudí’s spectacular and creative work.
Casa Batlló. Source: https://www.timeout.com/barcelona/art/gaudi-barcelona-nine-of-the-architects-greatest-hits
Not given to writing about his esthetic preferences, he is known to have published only one article in 1881. During the late 1870s he met Eusebi Güell, who over the years would become his perfect patron, giving him total freedom in designing and executing the projects he was commissioned. Gaudi’s connection with both the bourgeoisie and the Catholic Church were of paramount importance for his long career, whose major masterpieces are a reflection of those relationships. His religious education and close friendship with clergymen and bishops from various cities helped create an impeccable Christian image of him.
In 1882, the first stone of the Sagrada Familia temple was laid. At that time, the young Gaudi was not yet associated with the project, although one year later he was commissioned to perform a study of the columns in the crypt. The first author of the project was Francesc de Paula del Villar, Gaudi’s teacher in the School of Architecture. Del Villar supervised the construction as far as the capitals of the crypt, after which abandoned the post due to a disagreement with the foreman over technical aspects of the project. On 3 November 1883 Gaudi was named the new supervisor of the construction of the Sagrada Familia. The young architect was barely thirty years old and would stay with this project until the end of his life.
The temple, when finished, will have 18 bell towers: one representing Christ, one for the Virgin Mary, four for the evangelists and 12 for the apostles.
Antoni Gaudí who always practised his profession independently and never worked as a public servant, never received any awards or honors by any academy, nor did he participate in any political organization. He was a magnificent artist, unclassifiable and always astonishing who exercised his craft with an extreme precision, a result of a fevered imagination. It is the result of this imagination that, even today, more than 100 years after his death, it continues to be regarded as one of the main attraction of Barcelona, the city that contains the most and best examples of Antoni Gaudí’s spectacular and creative work. Gaudí rarely drew detailed plans of his works, instead preferring to create them as three-dimensional scale models and moulding the details as he conceived them.
Francisco de Zurbarán (1598-1664) was born in Badajoz, Spain; he apprenticed with Pedro Diaz de Villanueva (1614-16). No paintings of his master have survived making it impossible to appreciate his influence on Zurbarán’s painting techniques and style.
Zurbarán, a contemporary of Diego Velazquez but in contrast with the court painter, Zurbarán remained all his life a provincial painter and par excellence painter of religious life. His clients included Dominicans, Jeronims and Carthusian monks. He had very few royal commissions. His style is defined as a Caravaggesque naturalism and tenebrism (extreme chiaroscuros, great contrast between light and dark).
His artistic career is divided into two different periods: the first period, characterized by tenebrism and an ascetic spiritualism. In the second period, during the middle of the century, delicate and soft forms take prominence, reflection of the Seville School of the period. This phase coincides with a crisis in his painting career with few commissions from his habitual clientele. This crisis also coincides with Esteban Murillo’s successful career as a popular religious painter.
The combination of realism and religious sensibility relates the art of Zurbarán to the practical mysticism of the Jesuits. It was a style that lent itself well to portraiture and still life, but his most characteristic expression is found in his religious subjects. He uses naturalism more convincingly than other exponents for the expression of intense religious devotion. He renders traditional personages: apostles, saints and monks with heads rendered almost as portraits and sculptural modeling, with emphasis on the minute detail of their dress. At the end of his artistic career the figures become more idealized and less solid in form and the expression of religious emotions is a bit tinged with sentimentality. His pictorial art production is popular with monastic orders.
Citations:
Tiziana Frati,- ‘Zurbarán’. Clasicos del Arte, vol.17 , Editorial Noguera, Madrid 1984.
Encycloedia Britannica vol. 23 ‘Zurbarán, Francisco de.
Exposición Zurbarán en el III centenario de su muerte (1964)
Pictures:
Christian Europe from the medieval period to early modern Europe had broad orders of social hierarchy that divided society members into estates which defined the social position of persons within society. They were called estates of the realm or three-estates. The best known system is the French Ancien Regime (Old Regime), a three-estate system which categorized society into groups based on socioeconomic factors like wealth, income, race, education, ethnicity, gender and occupation. The system was used until the French Revolution (1789-1799). The monarchy in France included the king, Louis XVI, and the queen, Marie Antoinette. The system was made up of clergy (The First Estate), the nobility (The Second Estate), peasants, bourgeoisie and urban workers (The Third Estate), the Commoners.
France’s involvement in the American Revolution, along with extravagant spending practices by King Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette left the country on the verge of bankruptcy. War and debt broke the back of the monarchy. By 1788 the French government was bankrupt and a new land tax was proposed to be paid by all. Louis XVI called the Estates General, first since 1614, in hope of helping to advise him on the economical and agricultural crisis that France was facing. The voting system was by Estate and not by heads. Therefore, the deputies of the Third Estate, realized that in any attempt at reform they would be outvoted by the two privileged orders, the clergy and the nobility. They asked the King to allow a heads vote and he denied the request.
The Third Estate did not agree with king’s proposal which was to impose higher taxes on them. The king dissolved the meeting and closed the hall to prevent any further meetings. The Third Estate already paid most of the taxes: tithes to the Church, tax on goods brought to the city, poll tax, income tax, salt tax, land tax, and feudal dues for use of local manor’s winepress, oven, etc. Its deputies decided to call themselves the National Assembly and claimed the right to speak to the nation. They intended to make laws without royal approval. The king closed the hall where the National Assembly was to meet, so they met on a tennis court. On June 1789, the members of the French Third Estate took the Tennis Court Oath, vowing not to separate, and to reassemble wherever circumstances required, until the constitution of the kingdom was established. In the face of solidarity of the Third Estate, King Louis XVI relented and ordered the clergy and the nobility to join with the Third Estate in the National Assembly. An attempt at counter-revolution let them formulate their claims virtually based on privilege and social status. Mirabeau, an ex-noble, told the King that he was a stranger in the Assembly and did not have the right to speak there.
It was an important revolutionary act that displayed the belief that political authority came from the nation’s people and not from the monarchy. This was a pivotal event in the French Revolution. Estates-General ceased to exist and became the National Assembly two years later. Renamed National Constituent Assembly (1789).
Burdened by heavy taxes imposed by the First and Second Estates and continuous grievances against royal absolutism created a fertile soil for a spontaneous social upheaval that culminated with the storming of the Bastille; a hated prison in Paris where people were routinely held without charges. The fall of the Bastille spread the revolution to the provincial towns and the countryside. This event coincided with peasant attacks to nobles’ castles and general disorder.
Poor weather and harvests, and the withholding by police of public grain supplies from the royal stores in 1773-74 provoked a large-scale revolt, known as the Flour War. The price of bread in Paris had increased beyond the ability of many of the poorer residents to buy it. The situation subsided following wheat price controls imposed by Turgot, Louis XVI’s Controller-General of Finances (before the supply recovered), and the deployment of military troops. The combination of a bread shortage and high prices angered many French women, who relied on bread sales to make a living. Paris women’s initially stormed the city hall and then proceeded to march to Versailles, the site of the government. The ultimate goal was to bring King Louis XVI back to Paris where he would be responsible to the people, and to the reforms that had begun to be passed earlier. Thus, they would march to the Palace of Versailles and demand that the king respond. The king was finally convinced to appear before the crowd. The crowd accompanied the royal family back to Paris, where the king and queen and their court took up residence at the Tuileries Palace. Two weeks later, the National Assembly also moved to Paris. All feudal privileges were formally abolished by the Constituent Assembly and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen was declared its’ formal manifesto.
presented below is a 12” x 18″ gouache landscape painting from a photographic reference of our choice. I personally chose a reference that showed a cityscape and gave the feeling of isolation, as a reflection on the year 2020. Because the image was originally vertical and smaller than the size specified in the brief, I used the gridding system from our first assignment to make sure proportions were correct when resizing.
Who is Wycliffe and Hus?
What is known as the “Protestant Reformation Era” in 16th century Europe, is typically attributed to Martin Luther (1483 – 1546). But prior to Luther there were pre-reformers that started to question the Papacy, in particular John Wycliffe from Yorkshire England (1300 -1384 ) and Jan Hus from Husinec, Bohemia (1369-1415). John Wycliffe was a highly respected theologians that had studied at Oxford, Europe’s most well respected University at the time. He questioned the Roman Catholic Church and their governing power. He started to identify the churches sense of divine rights and discrepancies between their behaviour and Bible scripture, in fact Whycliffe is accredited with being the first to translate the Bible with the intention to provide public access to the literature. Whycliffe fought against the Papacy and had a firm belief that there should be a divide between church and state. Although he later retired in his former years his teachings continued to spread throughout Europe and a following was later developed with the help of a priest in Prague.
John Hus (1369-1415) was a Preacher at University of Prague and “leader of the Czech reform party”(Cohn-Sherbok, Lavinia). At that time, he had students coming from Oxford University, showcasing the works of Whycliffe. His controversial teachings intrigued Hus, and he continued the fire of church reform and identifying the injustices of selling indulgences, while having to live in exile for his heretic nature.
During the Middle Ages the clergy were authorized by the Catholic Church to absolve penitents from the guilt of his sins and from punishment in the inferno of the hereafter, but it did not absolve them from doing penance on earth as a result of their sins. Indulgences did just that, they were sold by the Church so the sinner would not have to do penance, at the same time diminishing the time period that the sinner was to suffer in purgatory for remission of his sins. It was a well thought policy by the Church to increase its coffers. In 1414 Hus was invited to the Council of Constant, a Ecumenical council, where his attendance was only secured under the promise of “safe conduct” from the Emperor. Three weeks later he was imprisoned and acclaimed the “greatest Heretic of all history”. Shortly after he was tried and burned at the stake.
The Beginning of Protestant Reformers
Luther continues and accelerates what has been instigated by Whycliffe and Huss, he starts a denomination in the church. One of the reasons Luther was able to progress was due in great part to his defender the Elector of Saxony, Frederick III, who sponsors and protects Luther. Martin Luther so much decried the selling of indulgences as he did the libertine lifestyle he found among the princes of the Church: Cardinals, bishops and other high members of the clergy when visiting Italy. He opposed the Holy See’s spiritual power to remit sins and soon his religious ideas moved him away from the official tenets of the Church. This brought him to nail his “95 Theses” on the door of the Castle Church at Wittenberg on November 1, 1517. The idea that salvation could be reached through faith and divine grace only and the primacy of the Bible rather than Church officials as the ultimate religious authority were part of those Theses. Their impact transformed for ever the spiritual/religious scene of the times and offered the believer a new interpretation of Christian theology, until then monopolized by the Catholic Church. His unsuccessful attempt to reform the Church created the ground for a new Christian faith.
Throughout his life he published numerous books and tracts: ‘A Treatise of Christian Liberty’, ‘On Monastic Wows’, ‘Dialogue’ among others, that the Church publicly burned after finding their content heretic and disrespectful to the Holy See. He established the tenets of the Lutheran faith. He ordained the first Lutheran minister in 1525. Luther influenced new religious faiths; Lutherans, Calvinism, Hussite.
