Nerding Out: Art School Style

Part I: Romanticism & Impressionism

Romanticism (adjoined with Neoclassicism) dates from the mid 18th century to the mid 19th century. The themes which run through Romantic works are themes which often contrast the neoclassicism movement. These artists love unpredictable chaos, emotion and spontaneity, irregularity and complexity, have an adoration of nature, love exotic and foreign, and love heros.

Impressionism came directly after Romanticism in the art movements. The manifesto for impressionism is the theory of light- how light changes, or abstracts, objects and things. (Much like the post-impressionist artists who are technically considered impressionist artists but use colors and forms in a different, and sometimes warped way in comparison to the impressionists).

Going through the Impressionism exhibit, I was very shocked to see very little of Paul Cezanne. He was not only a very important French artist, but also a major player in the art world; he was the artist who in a way branched impressionism & post-impressionism to cubism. I was very happy to see works by J.M.W. Turner, a truly great landscape romantic artist.

Part II: Early Christian Art & The Renaissance

During this trip when asked about light illuminating a sculpture, I mentioned a sculpture which is located in the Cornaro Chapel, Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome, 1642-1652, Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini. The infamous statue in this chapel is the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa. This sculpture was apart of the Italian and French Baroque period. The story behind the sculpture is that Saint Teresa had numerous dreams where an angel would come down from the heavens and pierce her heart with an arrow.

Bernini used this story as his inspiration and created a beautiful marble sculpture portraying this. The light which catches the gold illuminates the sculpture making it more realistic and magnificent- as if God were really there. Furthermore, the light casts shadows creating a realistic looking cloud beneath her and a texturized attire.

For the majority of the time the art in which we focused on/saw was religious art- both Early Christian (pre-Renaissance) and Renaissance art. Much of the Early Christian art was created using a gold paint- paint in which gold was melted into the mixture to create the luminosity and richness that is still preserved to this day. Much of the Renaissance art was created using a paint mixture which included egg yolk (the reason for why it was cracking on the canvas or board it was painted on).

Renaissance artists focused very heavily on religious thees was because of whom they were commissioned by. Next to the Medici family the biggest commissioners during the Renaissance period was the church. Therefore, artists would paint whatever was necessary for them to get the job (much like today).

Although I am not a big fan of this type of art (going to a Catholic school for 10 years and not being Catholic probably has something to do with it). However, I do admire and deeply respect both the artist and those who appreciate it.

On exiting the museum I was a bit sad; I didn’t see three of my favorite painters which I would have thought we would have passed: Caravaggio (Medusa, 1598; Crucifixion of St. Peter, 1601), Jacques-Louis David (The Oath of the Horatii, 1784; Death of Marat, 1793; Napoleon Crossing the Saint-Bernard 1800-1801), Mary Cassatt (Woman in a Loge, 1879; Maternal Caress, 1891). All are very famous artists of their time; Caravaggio a Baroque artist, David a Neoclassicist and Romantic painter (depending on who commissioned him), and Mary Cassatt an impressionist painter. However, on a happier note we did see one of my other favorite artists of the past: Théodore Géricault (one- if not his most- famous work, The Raft of the “Medusa” 1818-1819), a Romantic painter.

One day I hope that my work will be shown in an exhibit in which I have many admirers. And hopefully I will be alive to see this some day.