Auguste Renoir

                    Pierre Auguste Renoir or Auguste Renoir, in short, was leading French artist during the development of the Impressionist style . He was known with vibrant light and saturated colour in his paintings, and he often worked with the theme of female nude. Based on the characteristic of impressionist style, Renoir used brushwork and soft colours to blend his figures with other details. In addition,  He also was able to have the freedom to experience with his style which allow him to create some marvelous and unique painting.

           From 1881 to 1882, Renoir made several trips to Algeria, Italy, and Provence which created some significant influence on both his art and his life. He started to believe that all the previous Impressionistic technique was no longer suitable for him because using small brushstrokes with contrasting colours placed side by side did not allow him to paint the skin colour to his satisfaction. Moreover, he found out that the colour black prevents him from create a certain effect to his art works because it drowns other color and gives a intense mood to his art. He noticed that the color of shadows is not brown or black, it is the reflected color of the objects surrounding them.He began to use clear line to define a form, the expressive force of smooth painting when used to enhance the suppleness and modeling of a body.

                    One of his best known early works is the ” Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette” piece which is also an excellent example of his method to depict the shadow. To be more specific, Renoir illustrated an open-air scene which packed with people at the Butte Montmartre, a famous dance garden near his house. We can see the Impressionist style with a real-life view, full of sparkling colours and light.

 

                     Later year, under some influences Renoir change his art style again.To be more specific, He returned to using thinly brushed in some of his other art works and he also stared to paint more female nude.

 Example of Auguste Renoir works:

 

 

Source: https://www.pierre-auguste-renoir.org/biography.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Auguste_Renoir

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Geta or Japanese footwear  gained its popularity during the Edo period as people started to wear it for fashion. As the result,the skill of making Geta improved and more stores started selling them in high number. We now have many types of Geta to choose from such as Ippon Geta, Tengu Geta, Okobo Geta, and the list goes on.

 

 Kimono evolution rose significantly during the Edo period, and it reached its maturity that we can see in the modern day kimono’s design . The Kosode or kimono with smaller sleeves got popular during this period even though it was considered as a form of undergarment. However, city people began to wear it as a form of outwear. Kosode then created a trend within the society which adapted by all ages, genders, and classes.

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Source:

http://japanese-kimono.net/what-is-hadajuban/

Geta

https://www.library.metro.tokyo.jp/portals/0/edo/tokyo_library/english/fashion/page2-1.html

Tokyo-Edo Fashion

 

                       Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti or Dante Gabriel Rossetti was known as a British poet, illustrator, painter and translator. He was considered the most successful member of his family, the Rossetti family. Moreover, he was one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and he then became the main inspiration for the second generation of artists and writer influenced by the movement. 

In the beginning, Rossetti gained his popularity from his two portrait pieces of Maria as a young girl. These two art pieces were named ”Girlhood of Mary Virgin(1849)” and” Ecce Ancilla Domini( 1950)”. He highly inspired by the work of early Renaissance artists such as Botticelli and Fra Angelico, so he deiced to work with the Annunciation theme with his unique interpretation.  As Gombrich said in ” the story of art”, in the piece ” Ecce Ancilla Domini ” Rossetti want the audience to see the ancient story with a fresh mind. The piece illustrates the scene when Gabriel came to the Virgin and gave her a white lily. Rossetti successful painted the expression on the Virgin and her pose. The Virgin here look surprises and awkward since she was waking up from her sleep by an angel. Also, he also chose to paint this piece almost white and the three primary colours. Blue represents for heaven and it often associated with the Virgin. Red symbolized the blood of Christ.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rossetti’s relationships with his models and muses including Elizabeth Siddal, Fanny Cornforth and Jane Morris had a significant effect on his works.

In 1850,he met Elizabeth, she became his muse, his pupil and his passion and they then married in 1860. We got to see a handful of Elizabeth portrait and one of the most well known portrait piece of her is the ‘‘ Venus Verticordia ”. 

           Venus Verticordia – I love the colour palette in this piece. He depicts her as the Venus Goddess which look tremendously breathtaking. The colour of the skin look really realistic and I love her face expression.        

 

During 1860, he got influence on the development of the European Symbolic movement. He started to stylize women in his artworks. He would portray his new lover Fanny Cornforth as the epitome of physical eroticism, and he would also illustrate Jane Burden, the wife of William Morris as glamorous as an ethereal goddess.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dante_Gabriel_Rossetti

The story of art by E.H.Gombrich

Sir Joshua Reynolds was an English painter specializing in portrait in the 18th century, and the first president of the Royal Academy of Art.Beside creating large scale full body portrait, Reynolds also painted a large number of smaller works. During the late 1750s, in an average day he did about five to six portrait piece each for an hour. Moreover, he also did some other genre of drawing such as landscape and children portrait. To be more specific, his piece named the age of innocence was well known for emphasizing the child’s impression and her grace.

 

Reynolds’s belief in art maybe somewhat boring to us, the modern people; but it had stood firmly in the neoclassicism period. He considered that an artist should carefully study and imitate the dignity of classic Italian masters; and the pieces that were worthy of the name of Art are only those that were grand and impressive, like those landscape painting that had even the smallest detail. However, his actual works were mainly portraits, the kind of painting that was always in high demand in England. Even though, with great elegance and gracefulness, his portraits still established a standard for its kind, that even painters of later generation wanted to reach. In one of his notable work, “Miss Bowles with her dog”, Reynolds brought out the impression of a sweet child and the affection between her and her little pet. Later, this way of setting up became a common concept among photographers, but it was quite original at his time, and cannot make light of due to imitation from the later time.

For me personally, I can understand why he is so famous for his portrait pieces they all look so lively and the viewer can almost sense somewhat of the model’s personality. He putted lots of effort to illustrate human’s expression and  love how he painted  eyes in  all of his art work.

 

 

 

 

 

Blue and white glazed pottery (14th century – early 17th century )

              Getting to know pottery:

Blue and white pottery are often decorated with blue pigment (cobalt oxide), and then the maker would glaze it to protect the blue colour from fading. Pottery would typically be painted by hand with brush painting, but people also develop some other alternative methods such as stenciling or transfer printing to push the  production. The reason why cobalt pigment is so comment pottery decoration is that it can resist high temperatures during the firing process. For other colours, pottery would need over glaze decoration and a second firing at low temperature to preserve its pigment.

 

               Blue glazed pottery was originated in Iraq from the 14th century to replicate the colour of Lapis Lazuli (a type of deep blue expensive rock) after they learned how to make pottery from Chinese people. Decorating with cobalt blue became well known during the Yuan Dynasty and remained famous until now.  Furthermore, blue and white pottery became the mainstream pottery during the Ming area and reached its  peak during the time of Kangxi emperor of the Qing Dynasty. Also, during the 15th century,  Europe start to became interested in the beauty of pottery, and it then became the symbol of wealth to western people.

       So, what type of decorate style was developed from the 14th century to 17th century?

The evolution of blue and white pottery began during the beginning of the 14th century, and it gradually replaced the blush white ware pottery (Qingbai). The European came to China then got interested in these blue and white pottery and brought it into the international trade market. From the 14th to 15th century,  pottery would be decorated with flower or pattern; some would also add the dragon image ( representing power and wealth).

 

               Going to the 16th century, we get to see the character of the Persian and Arabic script on pottery as   decoration which was influenced by the Islamic and Muslim

 

                            During the 17th century, the Chinese began to produce pottery to export the European market. We start to see English, and Latin letter on blue and white pottery and the decorating style also got highly inspired by  Europe. People began to illustrate western scene or symbol on the pottery.

                   Lecture summary : 

In this week lecture, we get to know more about the evolution of typography with Roman style with show a great progress comparing to want we learn last week. Roman style typography using thick line but still quite humanist. This time we also see the first book ever printed in English William Caxton and later on we also see the ” On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres” which marking the beginning of the scientific revolution. In art, we see the Baroque art style with dramatic lighting and composition. One thing that I really like about this lecture is Baskerville typeface and punch cuter who pull of some impressive work.

 

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          Frans Hals 

Franz Hals was a notable artist of the Baroque style in Holland during the seventeenth century. However, unlike some other, he had a financial unstable life. Franz started his career as a restorer of religious arts, then changed to portraiture when the market for religious theme started declining. Compare to the painting from previous decades, or even some of the same time, which felt like that the model had stayed for hours in a same neutral pose patiently; the portraits of Hals ware like camera snapshots that captured people “at a characteristic moment”, bringing emotional feeling into the canvas. This can be observed easily in many of his work, like “The Lute Player” in 1624, or “The Banquet of the Officers of the St George Militia Company in 1616”, a group portrait featuring a militia company at their diner hall. In addition, Hals’s portraits did not seem to be symmetrical as earlier ones often were. On the first glance, it could be perceived as a quick and easy-going approach; but actually, this impression could only be achieved through a very careful and calculated effort, to be able to keep the balance staying without following any visible rule. I personally love his new art style of simplify all the details, and using soft brush stroke. All these elements had made his work look natural and we can clearly  distinguished between a low class citizen and high class people in his works.

 

                 Genghis Khan, the leader of the Mongol empire leaved his throne to one of his son Ogeide Khan. Since then, Ogedei Khan decided to follow his father footstep, finishing his work of establish a world of empire. He then conquered the rest of Persia, Korea and witnessing the destruction of the Jinn dynasty. In the year 1235, he began to build a plan to invade Europe (Battle of Mohi). The entire conquest lasted for two decade long.

                 Shubuta was the one who in charge for the Mongol invasion. In order to secure his victory, Shubuta sent several spies around the central of Europe area. After having a clear vision of Europe and their army, he divided his soldiers in to three army which head to Poland, crossed the Carpathian Mountains and the Danube. The three armies then eliminate the opponent in a short amount of times, regroup and defeat Hungary at the Battle of Mohi in 1241.

     The invasion of Hungary

           In the beginning, the Hungary made their first mistake of defy the Mongol army since they did not acknowledge  how serious the situation is, some even expected that the royal army would handle everything. On top of that,  Mongol army was a real risk while Hungary was unprepared for the invasion after such a long time living in peace.

           The Mongol army used a strategy of attacking during the night time when the Hungary left their guard of. While  the king was able to escaped with the help of his bodyguard, his army was brutally killed.

          As a result, Mongol army killed up to half of the population and burn down most of the settles. Furthermore,    they even destroyed all record of cultural and economic.

            Lecture summary : This Wednesday lecture was a descriptive summary about printing and typography. We got to know the evolution of typography and a little bit about illustration in bibles from a long period of time. Furthermore, the lecture also included more information about the paper making process and how people know about it all over the world. I am personally really interested in all the example of old bibles especially ” the Book of hour ” which the designer had put a huge amount of detail to finish the entire book. I love the way they organized all the information in the book and making it interesting to the reader.

 

            Agnolo di Cosimo was an Italian painter who was create many breathtaking portraits during the High Renaissance period. Many people called him Bronzino due to his art style of adding dark complexion to the person in his portrait. Beside portrait painting, Agnolo also created several series of religious works such as The Resurrection of the Virgin Mary and The Martyrdom of San Lorenzo. For me personally, I think that Agnolo di Cosimo is a talented artist. For example, in the piece portrait of Bia de’ Medici he drew all the detail on the little girl’s dress so precisely, which gives the piece a three-dimension felling. However, he did not do a great job in capture the face expression because she looks sad and more mature than her real age. Moreover, I am not fond of the way he paints the eyes in some of his portraits, those figures in his piece look lifeless and dull. Overall, I can understand why Agnolo is so famous due to all his remain art works. It may have some errors in my opinion but he was able to achieve few things that others did not.

Late Gothic & Early Renaissance

Piero Della Francesca was known as one of the most important artist during the Renaissance period in Italy. Piero was an artist but also a well-known mathematical theorist which explain how he was able to deliver such precise proportion to his art. The audiences can see all the elements of geometric form, perspective that Piero had put into his art which is difficult for artist in his time area to achieve. To me personally, I am amazed with his ability to record the human face and how he was able to get the human figure in the right proportion to fit with the background in his art. Unlike other artist in his period, the face expression in his art was quite lively even though people in Piero’s painting  tend to look moody which I do not know if it is his intention to draw so or not. Lastly, I love how Piero chose the colour palette for his arts which is a lovely combination of all warm color with the touch of red that bring those pieces to live. Overall, Piero is truly a talented person who was able co-operate both his art skill and his mathematics knowledge to create such amazing arts that we still admire until now.

 

 

Early temples aka everything are giantic and it is all about worshiping god.

 

• History background of temples
• The Egyptian built temples with the purpose to honor their pharaohs and worship their god by holding festivals and rituals during the ancient time. It is also a link to communicate between Egyptian and their god. The pharaoh also built temples( mortuary temples) which linked to their tomb in order to maintain their spiritual after they pass away.
• The temple exact location usually chose base on religious reason such as mythical birthplace or to be use as monument for their god.
• In order to separate the noble house of god and pharaohs with the mortal’s shelter, Egyptian used stone as the main material to build their temple. They used limestone or sandstone which was easier to carve compare to others type of stone.

• Design and decoration
• The Egyptian temple design during this specific time period tend to be symmetry and monumentality since it is such a spiritual place.
• Relief and free-standing sculpture were the two main decorations in all temple. They covered walls, ceilings, columns, and beams with reliefs (bas relief or sunken relief) using fundamental colours to illustrate information such as festival calendars, myths and rituals depiction. It could be symbol or texts to tell others about all the rituals held in the temple.

• Sculptures often created in a large size of pharaoh’s figure and gods figured as figurative guardian of the place. The most common type of sculptured would be monumental sculpture which often made in pair to place in front of the pylons. A great example of these spectacular sculptures would be the status of Ramses the Great at the Great Temple of Abu Simbel which is 20-meter height.

• Summary of week 3 lecture 

The lecture includes lots of information about how the ancient people developed their own way to communicate through times. At first, people from different parts of the world used a range of symbols(pictograph and ideograph ) to note important messages then gradually they created their own alphabet which we are now using in the modern world. I am especially interested in Egyptian’s symbol, how they were able to combine several symbols to note someone name. Moreover, I also amazed by how they organized all those symbols for the others to read.