EUROPEAN ART FOR TRAVELERS: MEDIEVAL THROUGH MODERN

Lecture by Rick Steves Gates of Paradise – Ghiberti Textbook for today’s class: Europe 101: History & Art for the wins competition over Brunelleschi, good Traveler by Rick Steves and Gene Openshaw example of civic promotion of art ART I: MEDIEVAL 500-1400 Art steps away from the Early Medieval “Dark Age”, 500-1000 Church – Eve or Venus? Fall of Rome Donatello’s David Eastern Roman Empire, Byzantium, Justinian, Ravenna Albrecht Dürer Moorish civilization, 711-1492 in Spain Math diagram – Last Supper, Granada, Moorish palace, Alhambra Leonardo, merging art & Reconquista, St. James science, foreshortening Venice, St. Mark, Arsenale Brunelleschi’s dome Barbarians, Vikings Byzantine mosaics, Charlemagne 2-dimensional Ireland – Isle of Saints and Scholars, monks as scribes, Fra Angelico, the Annunciation illuminated manuscripts Grünewald, Isenheim Altarpiece, Need for natural fortifications without stability of Rome Colmar, 1515, to give hope Civita, Paris, Florence, Vernazza, Toledo to those in a skin-disease hospital Masaccio, The Trinity, architectural depth in 2-D The Year 1000 – Europe Kicks into Gear Botticelli – Primavera, 1478, Florence Feudalism – Fiefs, fealty, vassals, and lords, A.D. 1000 Diplomacy of artist walking classical-Christian tightrope Crusades Leonardo: Self-portrait, Sketches Inventiveness – Harness wind and water power Mona Lisa, 1503 Monastic movements Last Supper, Milan, 1495, unreal perspective intentional Michelangelo – Pietà, 1500 Romanesque, 1100 David, 1503, symbol of Florentine culture & grace overcoming its crude enemies Basilica plan for churches from ancient Rome Sistine Chapel, Ceiling, 15ll West portal, apse, north and south transepts, ambulatory, choir Last Judgment, 1540 Romanesque – Roman-style arches and columns, tympanum Dome of St. Peter’s, Rome Typical Romanesque-style cathedral Raphael –Synthesis of Michelangelo’s power, Leonardo’s grace Norman invasion, Tower of London, 1066, “Norman” Virgin of the Roses Bayeux tapestry, 1066, Romanesque painting style Raphael’s School of Athens -- Honor pre-Christian world Pisa, cathedral group, 1100 – church, bell tower, baptistery Venetian Renaissance, wealthy merchant patrons Gothic, 1200 Titian – Venetian master, Renaissance leader after Raphael dies in 1520; a painting a month for 80 years Skeleton of support, buttresses, pointed arches Titian’s Danaë and the Shower of Gold, Venus and Organ Player Windows = light Notre-Dame Paris, Köln Cathedral, Reims Ste-Chapelle, stained glass, Paris, 1250 Northern Renaissance, 1500 Orvieto, Siena, Milano, “Flamboyant” Gothic Brussels – La Grand Place, showpiece of Northern Renaissance Giotto – Frescoes tell Bible lessons prosperity Evolution of castles, motte and bailey Northern Renaissance grew out of Gothic, not so “renaissance” in River trade (Mosel, Rhine), robber-baron castles sense of rebirth Van der Weyden, Crucifix ART II: RENAISSANCE & BAROQUE 1400-1800 Northern attention to detail Arnolfini Portrait (newlyweds) Renaissance, 1400 Bruegel – Peasant Dance, slice-of-medieval-life artist Florence Bosch – Garden of Earthly Delights, 1505, Flemish painter New World riches, proud artists, rebirth of Rome Albrecht Dürer – Self-portrait, 1498, first real artist’s self-portrait; Inspired by Roman statues and ruins Dürer established Northern respect for artists “The Class of 1500”: Martin Luther, Columbus, Machiavelli, Melancholia, 1514, woodcut, first mass-produced artist Dürer, Lorenzo the Magnificent, Leonardo, Henry VIII, Riemenschneider – altarpiece, 1504, Rothenburg Michelangelo Baroque, 1600 Romanticism, 1800s St. Peter’s Basilica – designed by Michelangelo, his school kicked Géricault, Raft of the Medusa, 1818 off Baroque Goya – First artist with a social conscience; three stages: light & Interior – Good example of this “controlled exuberance” airy, political, dark; covered thoroughly in Prado Bernini’s interior, baldachin, melted Pantheon ceiling Family of Charles IV Bernini (sculptor), Boromini (architect), Barberini (patron) 3rd of May, 1814 Bernini – Fountain of Four Rivers, Piazza Navona Dark Stage, Prado, Madrid, 1820 Bernini – Apollo and Daphne, 1622 Turner – Land and Seascapes, Tate Gallery in London Versailles – Louis XIV, Paris, 1st Baroque palace facade, Louis The “Religion of Nature” – awe-inspiring, England’s Lake was trendsetting Baroque-style king, pro-status quo art District, Wordsworth, poets Royal Palace, Madrid Musicians inspired by nature and national struggles Schönbrunn Palace, Vienna, Hapsburgs’ “Versailles” Symphonic Journey (Rick’s TV special at ricksteves.com) Humanism, the Reformation, prohibited books, the Dissolution Grieg – all art forms walk together through the ages of the Abbeys, Guttenberg National causes = Romantic Hus in Czech Republic, Knox in Scotland Germany and Italy both first united in about 1870 Counter-Reformation, iconoclasm Romantic struggles of nations seeking independence Protestant art – Focus on music, organs Neo-Gothic, Neo-medieval, over-the-top reconstructions Caravaggio – Most influential Baroque painter, psychological London’s Halls of Parliament, Big Ben realism, heightened emotions by harsh lighting, seedy Segovia castle, Neuschwanstein, “Mad” King Ludwig contemporary settings for religious topics Industrial art David with Head of Goliath Historicism – Neo-everything Velázquez –Self-portrait, Spanish royal court painter Conservative art vs. Realism (Manet, Olympia) Las Meninas, The Drinkers Rubens – Self-portrait, from Antwerp Impressionism, 1880s-1900 Rape of Daughters of Leucippus, 1615 “Out of the studio and into the light!” Catholic vs. Protestant art – New patrons, no more king and Monet, Walk in Garden, Giverny, Instantaneity church Renoir Dutch art = Protestant, merchants’ art, still life scenes Orsay Gallery, Paris Jan Van Steen – Typical Dutch slice-of-life, happy-go-lucky, small-middle-class-for-the-living-room painter 20th Century Art Vermeer, still lifes Van Gogh, Self-portrait, Post-Impressionist Frans Hals – Portrays groups equally, candid, unposed Art Nouveau, organic answer to Erector Set art Rembrandt: self-portrait Gaudí, Modernisme, Barcelona “The Night Watch” – Group portrait Mucha in Czech Republic St. Peter Denying Christ, experimented with light sources WWI, Expressionism Rococo, 1700, the overripe bursting of Baroque decoration and The Scream, Munch, 1893 asymmetry obliterates form; Fragonard Picasso – Guernica, Cubism Surrealism, Dalí Abstract vs. Realism ART III: MODERN, 1800-2000 Fascism and architecture – EUR, Mussolini’s Rome Neo-Classicism, 1800 Socialist Realism – Communist propaganda Age of Revolution, French Revolution, 1789 20th-century architecture, “form follows function” Making room in the feudal pie (nobility, clergy, peasantry) for the Destruction of WWII and rebuilding city big shots – a violent re-slicing Medieval (Munich) vs “Manhattan” (Frankfurt) Reaction to Baroque, stern, cerebral, Enlightenment Dresden cathedral Liberty Leading the People, Delacroix, 1830 Modern architecture Pantheon, just like good old Roman days Fun art Arc de Triomphe Boucher, Madame de Pompadour LEARN MORE David – Madame Hamelin Read: Rick Steves’ Europe 101: History & Art for the Traveler Canova and Thorvaldsen App: Rick Steves’ Audio Europe — Free audio tours and radio features Death of Socrates organized in geographic playlists, for iPhone and Android Coronation of Napoleon, 1805, Gothic cathedral was masked to fit Neoclassical taste Bath, England – Neoclassical = Georgian

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