And the artist of the week is... !

I've decided that since it would be impossible to talk about the hundreds of artists I learn about in my art history classes, I should focus on one of them per week. I will choose an artist whom I consider to be extraordinary and whose artwork caught my fancy in class. (We go through 10-20 different artists every class period, so only a few of them stick out.)

This week's artist is...

*cue drum roll*

(Psst. Here... I'll give you a clue...)

It's Caspar David Friedrich!

If you don't know who he is, that's fine. I hope you two will be well-acquainted by the end of this post.

Caspar David Friedrich (Sept. 5, 1774-May 7, 1840) was a German romanticist landscape painter who grew up near the Baltic coast. He grew up during a time when people were voluntarily turning away from the materialistic and embracing a more spiritual outlook on life. Friedrich believed that nature was God's creation and he intended to show that through his paintings. Many of them contain subtle religious connotations, the most popular one being the use of the number three.

Take Cross in the Mountains (1807-08) for example.

The three rays of sunlight symbolize the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - the Three in One. I love this painting in particular because of how majestic and well-composed it is.

The Trinity is also indicated in the rocks from Woman in Front of the Setting Sun (1818-20).

Friedrich experienced several tragedies early in his life. His mother died when he was just seven years old. At thirteen, he witnessed the death of his brother who fell through ice in a lake and drowned. He later lost two of his sisters. Even though the essence of melancholy in his paintings would lead us to believe that he was a very serious man, possibly because of his childhood, his friends contended that had a warm sense of humor and a gift for telling jokes.

He first studied art at the University of Greifswald (his home city) where he became influenced by Dutch seventeenth-century landscape painters. He later settled in Dresden, which is where he took up oil painting.

None of Friedrich's paintings contain the frontal view of a person, making them rather mysterious. This is demonstrated by the previous painting, by Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog (1818) [see first painting], in Monk by the Sea (1809-10), and Woman at the Window (1822).


*Side note: I was recently looking through a Dali book and came upon this painting that he did in 1925: (see any similarities?)

Friedrich first studied art at the University of Griefswald (his home city) where he became influenced by Dutch seventeenth-century landscape painters. He later settled in Dresen, which is where he took up oil painting. He became part of the Romantic movement, which was all about depicting heightened states of emotion through art.

All of the landscapes in his paintings are influenced by actual German landscapes, mainly around the Baltic coast where he spent his childhood.

Though the landscape in Nebel (fog) (1807) seems rather mundane, to Friedrich, it was beautiful.

Friedrich experienced much success and was a renowned artist in his lifetime. He suffered a stroke in 1835 which caused partial paralysis, making it very difficult for him to paint. He worked in different mediums for his death in 1840.

The things I love the most about Friedrich's paintings are the color and atmosphere. I think he demonstrated these talents best in my three favorite paintings of his: Moonrise Over the Sea (1822), Cloister Graveyard in the Snow (1819), and The Polar Sea (1823-25).




The naturalism is phenomenal, and I love the mystery that he captures in each one of his paintings. I think he, like many Romantic artists, was way ahead of his time. I mean, doesn't The Polar Sea look like something out of a Sci-Fi flick?

Anyway, I hope you and Caspar David Friedrich are well-acquainted now and will remain good friends in the future.

European 19th cent. art and sculpture project

The second research paper I did this semester was for my European 19th century painting and sculpture class. Since I love the Impressionists (who doesn't?), I chose to write my paper about them, specifically about their first exhibition in 1874 and how it came to be.

When you look at Impressionist paintings, with their bright tones, broad brushstrokes, and scenes of leisure, you probably don't think of them being very "radical."

Consider these three paintings.

Claude Monet, Impression Sunrise.

Paul Cézanne, The Hanged Man's House.

Edouard Manet, Olympia.*

* (While Manet is not technically an Impressionist painter, his loose brushstroke and innovative subject matter made him one of the greatest influences of Impressionism.)

All three of paintings above are examples of art that much of the French public found horrifying when they were first shown. Art critic Louis Leroy, after looking at Monet's Impression Sunrise, mockingly referred to the painters of this new, loose, radical style "Impressionists," which is where the term originates.

The French public and art critics detested Impressionism for many reasons. First and foremost, it simply wasn't considered tasteful. The highest regard was given to history and religious paintings, which could be viewed at the annual Salon.

The Salon, or "Exhibition of Living Artists," was basically an art show that allowed artists to show their work to the public. Getting work accepted in the Salon helped them obtain commissions, sell their works, and many times in the 1800s helped revitalize France's war-torn image. The cost was one franc, a fairly low price for most Parisians, and each show usually lasted a few months. Some Salons drew as many as a million visitors.

In order to be accepted into the Salon, the submitted artwork had to be reviewed by a jury. The jury often consisted of members of the French Royal Academy, who preferred the "academic style" of painting and, as was stated previously, history and religious paintings. Darlings of the Academy that were accepted time and again into the Salons included artists like William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Jean-Leon Gerome, and Alexandre Canabel.

William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Fardeau Agreable.

Jean-Leon Gerome, Un Combat de Coqs.

Alexandre Canabel, The Birth of Venus.

Precise lines, intense naturalism, and a love for mythological themes defined the academic style in the 1800s. That is part of the reason why the Salon jury rejected the Impressionists' work so frequently. That isn't to say that all the Impressionists experienced rejection - Degas and Morisot had quite a few works that were accepted. It was the jury's inconsistency, though, that infuriated them.

In 1863, a number of artists and Parisians were speaking out against the unfair policies of the Salons and the fact that so many artists were being rejected. Napoleon III intervened and decided that there should be a Salon for the rejected works - the Salon des Refuses. Poorly organized and poorly funded, the show was a joke to most of the public. Much of the ridicule was given to Manet's Olympia. Never before had a nude model been presented this way, with such a forward position and a cold stare. It was one of the first painted nudes that seemed to hold her own - an idea that was not appreciated in the mid to late 1800s.

Critics were so taken aback by the black cat in the painting, which was interpreted to represent the model's sexuality, that it became a symbol for Manet in satirical cartoons.

In my paper I also explained how the first Impressionist exhibit was influenced by the Salon of 1866 and the Universal Exposition, but I will not delve into these events for the purpose of keeping this post short. Throughout both events, the jury continued to reject a large number of submissions. Out of the 3,000 pieces that were submitted to the Salon of 1867 (which combined with the Universal Exposition), 2,000 were rejected.

It was around this time that Bazille, Monet, and the rest of the Impressionists began to throw around the idea of creating their own society. The idea came to realization in 1873 with the creation of the Société anonyme des artistes peintres, scupteurs, graveurs, etc. They decided to open their own exhibition in direct retaliation against the Salon.

So on April 15, 1874, the first Impressionist exhibition opened on the Boulevard de Capucines at photographer Nadar's famous studio.

Out of the 30 artists that presented work at the exhibition, less than half were Impressionist painters (and incidentally, most of their reputations were lost in obscurity after the show). Neverthless, the Impressionists were the stars of the show: Monet, Renoir, Morisot, Degas, Cézanne, Pissarro, and Sisley all presented works that were viewed quite positively.

Seven more exhibitions followed the one in 1874, but around 1889, Impressionism met its end. Still, the first exhibition garnered the Impressionists the attention and respect they deserved but could not obtain through a Salon.

Working on this project gave me a new appreciation for the Impressionists and their paintings. It's so interesting to think that they put so much hard work, effort, and time into getting their new style of painting accepted by other people. Today it's hard to imagine a person who doesn't admire the Impressionist paintings.

Baroque/Rococo research project

For my research project for Baroque and Rococo class, I took up the challenge of comparing and contrasting one piece from each period. Looking back, it would have been easier to compare two pieces from the same period because it was a little difficult to make connections between two artists and paintings that are so vastly different.

Nevertheless, I tried. I started with the Diego Velázquez painting Kitchen Scene with Christ in the House of Martha and Mary. It is also known simply as Christ in the House of Martha and Mary. It is believed to have been painted in 1618 during the Baroque period, shortly after Velázquez left the workshop of his master, Francesco Pacheco. It is both a genre painting and a bodegón. A genre painting is a scene of everyday life, mostly of the lower class. A bodegón is the Spanish word for a still life of food and kitchen items.

The genre painting portion is the two women in the foreground. The young woman is helping prepare a meal. Her flushed face and frown indicate that she is unhappy with the work that she is doing. The older woman gestures towards her as if to offer advice. The bodegón, of course, is the meal that is laid out on the table - garlic, fish, eggs, and a pepper.

Possibly the most curious part of this painting is the religious scene that is occuring in the top right. Velázquez was notorious for putting a "painting within a painting." (Las Meninas, anyone?) For a while, art historians couldn't decide if the religious scene was a painting on the wall, a mirror reflecting the scene from the room where the young woman is preparing the meal, or if it was occurring in the room adjacent to the working woman. The latter theory is now the most widely accepted one although the hole in the wall is a bit mysterious.

Anyway, the religious scene shows a man who is clearly Jesus talking with two women, whom art historians believe are Martha and Mary from the story depicted in Luke chapter 10. In the story, Martha gets mad at her sister Mary for sitting and listening to Jesus instead of helping her around the house. She asks Jesus to tell her sister to help her and Jesus says something along the lines of, "Mary has chosen what is best, and it cannot be taken away from her." Based on that story, it is believed that the young woman preparing the meal is a modern-day Martha (well, modern day meaning 17th century Spain.)

The painting I chose to compare and contrast Kitchen Scene with is The Shepherds, painted by Jean-Antoine Watteau around 1716 (again, no one knows the exact date).

Watteau was born nearly 25 years after the death of Velázquez. He is part of the Rococo movement, which started in France. The Rococo was a direct reaction to the extravagance and drama of the Baroque, which many people believed to be too much. It was also a reaction to the rule of Louix XIV who had recently banned the popular commedia della'arte, or Italian Comedy, which was performed in local French theaters to the delight of many. The French turned their attention away from the throne to idyllic scenes of love, pleasure, and leisure. There are no moral messages in Rococo paintings, but there is a lot of sensual symbolism.

The scene takes place in an unknown, secluded area (a popular theme in Rococo art...for more on this, see Fragonard's series of paintings called "The Progress of Love."). A boy in the back left of the painting pushes a girl on a swing. (Swings/the act of swinging were full of sexual innuendo during this period of painting.) At the bottom left, a young boy watches the dancing couple. Next to him, a man gropes a woman. Beside her, two people are either looking at the musician or the dancers.

Quick side note, it was a habit of the upper elite French aristocrats to go out in the country and dress up as shepherds or peasants, which is what this painting depicts. None of the people are poor, they basically just acted like it for fun. Even Queen Marie Antoinette had a countryhouse built for her where she liked to pretend she was a farmer.

Somehow I stretched out my research paper to be 8 or 9 pages long. I think I did a decent job on it and am very glad it's over with, but now I have 2 more research papers and a Spanish essay for my other classes... the fun never ends!

* P.S. the hyperlinks are not spam, they are legit websites.

Almost Thanksgiving

Apparently, I have been a horrible blogger. Has it really been three months since I last posted? Yikes.

I'll try to make this update short since I've got a meeting soon.

Life in St. Cloud has been wonderful. I can't say enough good things about my art history classes and the joy I feel when I'm in them. I just finished an 8-page research paper for my European 19th Century Painting and Sculpture class. Since I love the Impressionists so much, I wrote my paper about the first Impressionist exhibit in 1874. For my Baroque and Rococo class, I wrote a research paper that compared a work by Watteau with a work by Diego Velazquez. (I tried to take advantage of the fact that I could read sources in Spanish, but I didn't find any.)

As far as my Spanish class goes, I feel like I'm barely keeping my head above the water. My comprehension in class is fine, but when I'm doing Internet research for assignments and everything is in Spanish, I have a hard time discerning the meanings of most the words. It's very frustrating. I am reading my textbook, though, and trying to build up my vocabulary as that seems to be what my primary lack is.

My other two classes are not very challenging. Ethnic Studies is fairly interesting, and all we do in my Honors democracy class is write papers and meet once a week to discuss them.

I met with my Honors advisor on Tuesday to see what gen ed requirements I still needed to fulfill. Three of my gen eds from Olivet (Biology lab science, philosophy, and math) transferred but did not initially meet St. Cloud's requirements (or something). I was hoping that my advisor could pull some strings for me since I'm a double major and I would love to get finished in 3 semesters as planned. She thankfully accepted the three credits from Olivet, so now all I need for my gen eds is Communications (speech class) and a non-lab science. It was such a relief to know that I only have to take two more gen eds instead of five.

I still need to meet with both my Spanish and Art History advisors to not only talk about what classes I should take next semester but to discuss what could do with my majors after college. I haven't really thought about it too much... I know that may sound silly, but hey, it took me two years of college before I actually realized what I wanted to major in, so...

Anyway, it's meeting time. I will try to post more art-related news in the future.