Lectures 12&13

Question 1

Answer 1

Jules Hardouin-Marsat & Charles Lebrun, Hall of Mirrors, Versailles, 1678

windows instead of columns- sun comes in window and bounces off windows- right next to kings bedroom

paying homage to classical ideals

• architectural symmetry & effects by lining interior wall opposite windows with venetian glass mirrors the same size and shape as the windows- reflected natural light and gave impression of larger space
• decorated vaulted ceiling with paintings glorifying reign of Louis XIV and his military triumphs assisted by classical gods
• glorification of the king as Apollo the sun god

Question 2

Answer 2

Antoine Watteau, Pilgrimage to the Island of Cythera, 1717

• nobles getting into boat- island of love, pleasure eroticism
• curvature- couples- intimacy conersation, flirtation, seduction- temporal moments
• coming back o going to cythera? ambiguous

part of ensemble- in private domestic spaces of versailles

framing elements are very flat- play b/w flatness and depth

• portrayed an imaginary idyllic and sensual life of Rococo aristocrats but with same melancholic undertone that hints at fleeting quality of human happiness
• depicts a dream world in which couples conclude their days romantic trysts on cythera, the island sacred to venus, whose garlanded statue appears at extreme right
• idyllic and wistfully melancholic vision charmed Paris and Europe

Question 3

Answer 3

François Boucher, The Setting of the Sun, 1752

Apollo coming back to his lover after long day of riding in chariot

swirling- no straight lines- not grounded- energy dynamism

Question 4

Answer 4

Jacques-Louis David, Oath of the Horatii, 1785

• reflects tastes of Louis XVI, who was sympathetic to the enlightenment- art should improve public morals
• inspired by the drama Horace- patriotic oath-taking incident – 7th century- rome and its rival city-state settled a border dispute and averted a war by holding a battle to the death between the three sons of Horacea and the three Curatii
• Horatii stand with arms outstretched toward their father where they pledge to die for Rome- power running through their fingers to their father almost makes him step back
• contrasted by weeping women and frightened children- weep for lives of both Horatii and Curatii
• composition is separated between the men and the women and children spatially using framing background arches, dramatically contrasts the young mens stoic and willing self-sacrifice with the womens emotional collapse
• emblem of French revolution= patriotism and sacrifice for greater good

Question 5

Answer 5

Jacques Louis-David, Marat at his Last Breath, 1793

• writing in bathtub whe assasinated- had skin condition- medicinal baths
• right after he has been stabbed-knife
• barren, stark background
• crucifix in form of table and bath-verticality of arm
• writing letter to poor woman who needed money- shows him as good person
• presence of women- 1 good and 1 bad- symbolically instrument of ideas & instrument of death- opposite
• Pieta- Christlike in his martyrdom
• same font of his name and Marat- marat bigger
• avoids potential for sensationalism by portraying aftermath
• grasps letter Corday used to gain access to his home
• tightly composed, powerfully stark
• color of his pale body is echoed by bloodstained sheets, framed by dark background and green blanket
• transformed ugly brutal scene into one of somber eloquence

Question 6

Answer 6

Francisco Goya, Execution of the Third of May 1808, 1814

• violence of war
• resurgence of spanish nationalism
• reference to jesus on the cross- victim
• corpse right in middle and front-tragedy of war

Question 7

Answer 7

Théodore Gericault, Raft of the Medusa, 1819

• figures double the size- seems closer
• triangle spilling out into our space
• cannibalism
• see other ship (moment of hope)
• moody atmosphere of seascape
• play of light and shadow
• chaos and death- dynamic triangle
• historical painting- - ship carrying 400 french colonists bound for Senegal, its captain reserved all 6 lifeboats for himself, his offiers, and several government representatives- 152 set adrift on makeshift raft- rescued 13 days later only 15 had survived, some by eating human flesh, used story to idict monarchy for this and other atrocities

Question 8

Answer 8

Gustave Courbet- Burial of Ornans- 1849-1850

provincial people

• equally identifiable & detail to every face
• thick layers of paint- palate knives
• illusion of great volume or mass
• group portraiture
• lower class, unruly group

–burial on a life size scaled

• clergy seem distratcted and bored, reflecting indifference of the institutional order of France
• weep in various states of grief
• painted on a scale befitting funeral of a hero, has none of the idealization of traditional history painting- shows blundering numbness of a real funeral, with emphasis on its brutal physical reality
• objected at the time because of elevation of a provincial funeral to the scale of history painting – lack of any suggestion of the afterlife
• purposefully challenged the prescribed subjects, style, and finish of academic painting to establish his avant-garde position and to create controversy