Art F200X Alyssa Appel

Art Nouveau The Black Cat   The Black Ca t by Aubrey Beardsley was created circa 1894 (TheArtStory.org). It is a black and white drawing Beardsley designed among three other commissions to complement Edgar Allen Poe’s "Tales of Mystery and the Imagination." This specific illustration is intended for Poe's “The Black Cat”. Beardsley was appointed an art editor and illustrator for “The Yellow Book” in 1894. At this point, he moved into 114 Cambridge Street in London with his sister (ab2020.org). This is an example of an Art Nouveau piece. It relies on lines and curves to highlight the piece's focus. This specific illustration is just white and black; it is only negative and dark space. Additionally, it does not utilize hues, adding to the deliberate shapes that form in the contrasting values. The artist’s simple details bring out what attributes are present in the piece. The lines are all curved and short. The cat is the same tone as the darkness around him, separated f...

  Introduction The portrayal of heroism was popular during the neoclassical portion of the Classical Era. Neoclassical artists captured Roman ideals of heroic acts and virtuous behavior in art. I have selected three pieces I feel examine the gravity of heroic figures. There is an expectation that heroes are self-sacrificing that continues in stories and art expressed now. Morality is so thoroughly on display in art like this as a result of the times. The Enlightenment is a major influence on Classical art, and that is present in the subject of morality examined through heroic characters. The Enlightenment was a time for questioning, learning, and realizing. Is morality what people do because they must? Virgil reading the Aeneid to Augustus and Octavia The piece above was done in oil by Angelica Kauffman in 1788: V irgil reading the Aeneid to Augustus and Octavia . The distraught woman the painting seems to focus on is Octavia. I closely examined the Latin text of the Aeneid wh...

  Claude Lorrain was born in the town Chamagne within the duchy of Lorraine (NGA.gov). Lorrain painted The Judgment of Paris in oil circa 1645-1646. It was initially painted in Rome and then given to the French ambassador Francois de Val (commons.marymount.edu). The area he was born in was a victim of the hostility that occurred during the Thirty Years War. The harsh political environment may have been what spurred his leaving the territory. He trained as a baker, but left that as well, later finding a position where he could study landscape artistry under Goffredo Wals (Artble.com). The political tensions of the war contributed to the moving around in his life, and perhaps indirectly led to his career. I wonder if the tension-wrought scene on display here is fueled by his own experiences due to wartime. The entirety of Lorrain’s work exudes his careful examination of light. He depicted a lot of landscapes, drawing from naturalism and the impact of light (Artble.com). While this p...

          La Primavera by Sandro Botticelli is a striking example of the themes of the Italian Renaissance. Botticelli was born in Florence, Italy as Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, apprenticing under the artist Fra Filippo Lippi, who was an early Renaissance artist (ArtInContext.org). While the meaning of this piece continues to be debated, one can still pick out the main themes. For example, “primavera” means “spring” in Italian. This painting is believed to be commissioned by Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de Medici as a wedding gift to his wife Semiramide Appiani given “reportedly in 1482” (ArtInContext.org). Its dimensions are “207 x 319 centimeters” and it is “tempera paint on wood” (ArtInContext.org). Knowing about its commissioning highlights the presentation of love, fertility, and marriage in the piece.  As a former Latin student, I love allusions to Classical history in art. La Primavera is a piece that satisfies my passion for...