art history

Jacques-Louis David, Oath of the Horatii , oil on canvas, 1784 (Musée du Louvre) REAL PLACE IN THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD IN FRANCE COMPLICATED STORY OF WARFARE BETWEEN ROME AND ALBA SMALL BATTLE WOULD WIN THE WAR HORATII BROTHERS TOGETHER; OATH TO FIGHT TO THE DEATH TO PROTECT THE CITY RELATIVES MOURN COMING BATTLE ARISTOCRACY BENEFITING WHILE NATION IS BANKRUPT PAINTING MADE IN ROME, DAVID DECIDED TO LOOK BACK AT ANTIQUITY FOR INSP BIRTH OF NEOCLASSICISM FRIEZE OF FIGURES THAT LOOK LIKE THEY COME FROM A GREEK VASE, LINEAR, SIMPLE SPACE DIVIDED IN THREE BY ROMAN ARCHES OF DORIC ORDER; SHALLOW SPACE CREATED BY THE USE OF LINEAR PERSPECTIVE FIRM CONTOURS, INTEREST IN HUMAN ANATOMY DRAPERY REVEALS BODIES’ FORM LIGHT PASSES ACROSS THE SURFACE OF THE CANVAS; MAKES A TREMENDOUSLY SHARP CONTRAST GEOMETRIC AND RATIONAL SPACE VANISHING POINT WHERE HANDS AND SWORDS MEET MEN IN STIFF, ANGULAR POSITIONS; WOMEN DOMINATED BY CURVILINEAR SOFT FORMS FRAMED BY DRAPERY COMMISSION B...

Thomas Jefferson, Monticello , Charlottesville, Virginia, 1770-1806. Jefferson: Governor of Virginia, American minister to France, the first Secretary of State, the third president of the United States, and one of the most accomplished gentleman architects in American history.  One of the earliest proponents of neoclassical architecture in the United States. Jefferson believed art was a powerful tool; it could elicit social change, could inspire the public to seek education, and could bring about a general sense of enlightenment for the American public. Believed that the Wren-Baroque aesthetic common in colonial Virginia was too British for a North American audience.  Thus, when Jefferson began to design his own home, he turned not to the architecture then in vogue around the Williamsburg area, but instead to the classically inspired architecture of Antonio Palladio and James Gibbs.   Homes were usually in plantations. Jefferson decided instead to place hi...

Joseph Wright of Derby, A Philosopher Giving a Lecture at the Orrery (in which a lamp is put in place of the sun) , c. 1763-65, oil on canvas Two young boys, gazing over the edge of the contraption in playful wonder. A teenaged girl, her arms resting on the machine, in quiet contemplation. A young man shielding his eyes from the brilliance of the light emanating from the center, and a young woman staring unblinkingly. A standing man taking copious notes on the proceedings. Another man leaning back in his seat, listening intently to the gray-haired lecturer, captivating his audience like a magician. A key idea of the Age of Enlightenment—that empirical observation grounded in science and reason could best advance society—is expressed by the faces of the individuals in this piece Wright’s painting encapsulates in one moment the Enlightenment, a philosophical shift in the eighteenth century away from traditional religious models of the universe and toward an empirical, scientifi...