PERFECT ARTS - EUROPE AND ASIA

Decorative and plastic art

2007-12-10T16:51:00.000-08:00

The winged attendant of this massive Assyrian Bull moves like a robot and is treated decoratively, the head facing the spectator, the body in profile. The human-headed bull is almost fre-standing and is shown with five legs because it is designed to be viewed from either the side or the front, a characteristic feature of Assyrian sculpture.

Formal Design In Art

2007-11-23T23:05:00.000-08:00

The rout of san Romano, by Paolo Uccello, showing a cavaly victory of the florentines over he Science in 1432, and Sunday at the grande jatte painted by Georges seurat in 1884, have much in common, though they belong to ifferent countries and epochs. Both Uccello and seurat were men of scientific intellect: Uccello was devoted to the study of perspective, seurat to the science of related colours. Their pictures are attempts to solve the problems which interested them, and demand in each case that natural fact should be organized into a system of forms. Thus the horses in the battle scene and the French bourgeois are conventionalized.

Naturalism in stone age drawing

2007-11-18T01:16:00.000-08:00

This bison from the cave of Altamira in Spain, was drawn by stone age man about 10,000 B.C. As far as naturalism goes it surpasses anythin created by our own primitive peoples or even the bet animal draughtsmen, and shows a still higher level of accomplishment then the draing by the Bushman reproduced on the opposite page. It reveals the same astonishing power in drawing of capuring with the utmost sobriety and precision a momentary effect.

South African Bushman Art

2007-10-16T17:33:00.000-07:00

Primitive drawing often resembles that of children; it is dominated by the concepts of lanuage and bears little relation to actual appearances. The most striking characteristic of this drawing executed by a South African Bushman is its realism; a momentary action has been treated with photographic verisimilitude, and an extremely complicated pose rendered with extraordinary ease and precision. In primitive art it is usual for such features as the eyes and ears to be drawn disproportionately large. Here the eye is only suggested and all detail is subordinated to the general character of the form of the subject dealt with.

Measures beauty

2007-09-17T22:44:00.000-07:00

Cool, remote and impersonal, the beauty of Piero della Francesca's Nativity in the National Gallery is such as we usually associate with classical antiquity. The way in which each figure takes its inevitable place in the stillness and luminosity of the surrounding space recalls the slow and measured deliberation of Hellenic architecture. The simplified forms are like marble columns. The effect of suspended motion and timelessness is gained by Piero's skillful rendering of the silvery atmosphere and the precision with which he ha related shapes and color masses.

Venetian Landscape Painting

2007-09-04T23:57:00.000-07:00

Giorgione(c.1478-1511) was one of the greatest of the Venetian school of painters: he exerted considerable influence on his contemporaries, including Titian. Like Constable's Cornfield the design of the tempest depends on a vista seen through trees. The subject of this picture, now in the Venice Gallery, has not been identified. Despite the storm raging in the background, the figures suggest ease and peace which somehow is lacking from constable's beautiful presentation of the English countryside.

English Landscape Painting

2007-09-03T23:48:00.000-07:00

It was inheritance from his wife's father that, by making him financially independent, enabled constable (1776-1837) to devote himself exclusively to the unremunerative painting of landscapes. His avowed intent was faithful representation of nature.His work had considerable influence not in England only but also, when exhibited in the Paris Salon, on Landscape painting in France. The design of the Cornfield depends on a vista seen through groups of trees. The picture is now in the National Gallery.

La Belle Jardiniere

2007-09-02T22:03:00.000-07:00

Raphael's picture in the Louvre of the Virgin and child with St. John was painted, like most of his Madonas, between the years 1504 and 1508 which the artist spent in Florence where he gained much valuable experience.

Mona Lisa Gioconda

2007-08-31T21:59:00.000-07:00

Leonardo da Vinci worked for four years from 1502 on this inimitable portrait, now in the Louvre. Boldness of drawing is combined with the most subtle modeling and variation of light and shade.

Doge Leonardo Loredano

2007-08-31T00:08:00.000-07:00

Nothing could be farther removed from the high spirits of the Laughing Cavalier than the gravity and sobriety of this portrait by Giovanni Bellini in the National Gallery. Gravity is as much a keynote of Bellini's art as Jollity is of Hals. Gentile and Giovanni were the sons of Jacopo Bellini: all three were noted painters, Giovanni being the most celebrated. Leonardo Loredano became Doge of Venice in 1502 and died in 1521.

Laughing Calvalier

2007-08-29T22:43:00.000-07:00

Frans Hals observed the smile and laugh in all phases. Despite its robust joviality this familiar portrait from the Wallace collection is a penetrating and realistic study of character treated in a bold and broad manner. Frans Hals, the elder, is regarded as the founder of the Dutch school of genre-painting, that is of paintings from everybody life. Both his brother, Dirk and his sons, of whom Frans Hals, the younger, became best known were painters of considerable ability.

Pageantry Of Veronese

2007-08-26T23:14:00.000-07:00

The art of decoration and pageantry which had been practiced iv Venice from the time of Gentile Bellini and Carpaccio, reached a culminating point in the magnificent compositions of Paulo Veronese, the greatest of all pageant painters. He has treated the Marriage at Cana (Louvre), the scene of the miracle preformed by Christ of turning water into wine, not as a religious theme, but like a sumptuous Venetian festival with all the display of brocades, silks and satins customary on such occation. The picture painted for the refectory of San Giorgio was begun in 1562 and 972 ducats, furnished with canvas and colors and was provided with food and a cask of wine. Most of the figures in the design are portraits. On the left are Suleiman the Sultan; Charles V; Francis I; Vittoria Colonna and Eleanor of Austria. Grouped round the table in the foreground are Veronese himself playing the viol, Tintoretto accompanying him, and Bassano seated by them. It was on account of this picture, where the figure of Christ is relegated to a minor position in the middle distance, that Veronese was summoned before the Inquisition. He made out a good case and was permitted to resume his work.

Titian And Classical Mythology

2007-08-26T23:12:00.000-07:00

Classical mythology was of more vital interest to the Renaissance painters than to Rubens for it had all the glamor of a new discovery, moreover Titian was painting in Venice. Bacchus and Ariadne was painted about 1520 for Alfonso I of Ferraro and is now in the National gallery.

Rubens And Classical Mythology

2007-08-26T23:11:00.001-07:00

In the seventeenth century it was customary for the subject of a large composition to be taken either from the Bible or from classical mythology. Rubens liked to paint mythology subjects;this and his passion for paintin flesh can be discerned in The Judgment of Paris which is in the National Gallary. Like many other works of Rubens, this picture, Which was painted in the years 1635-36 is on wood.

Painting The Supernatural

2007-08-26T23:09:00.000-07:00

The great altar-piece of the Adoration of the Lamb, at Ghent, was painted by the brothers van Eyck probably between the years 1415 and 1432. One of the eleven paintings, that on the central panel shown here, depicts the minutely detailed landscape in the background which are as precise as a photograph and there is realism in the individual portraits of the ecclesiastics and citizens who, with saints and angels, reverently worship the Lamb. The van Eyck s painted the supernatural with conviction and feeling.

Fifteenth-Century Scene By an Italian Master

2007-08-26T23:04:00.000-07:00

Little is known of the life of Vittore Carpaccio, even the date of his birth being uncertain. First mention of him is in 1472 in the will of his uncle. His series of mine pictures for the School of St. Ursula in Venice are his best known as well as his earliest dated works. They were painted between The years 1490 and 1495 and are now housed is a single room in the Venice gallery. The Dream of St. Ursula (above), most celebrated painting of the series, affords a delightful glimpse into a Venetian bedroom of the fifteenth century. The picture is painted with thick, rich color an a rather rough canvas, a method which was to become one of the outstanding features of the works of the later Venetian school of painters.