Hello everybody, welcome back. This is module 4, part 2. If you didn't watch part 1, go back and watch part 1. It covers drawing. Part 2 is going to cover the Renaissance Baroque and Rococo.
And again, make sure part 1 and 2 are on the same document. So, today we're going to be talking about, I like to say, we're going to be talking about the Ninja Turtles. But we're going to be talking about more than just the Ninja Turtles.
So, in case you didn't know, several of the most famous Renaissance artists are used to name the Ninja Turtles. And if you don't know what the Ninja Turtles are, you're really missing out. Google it.
It's a little car, well, it used to be a cartoon. I don't know if it still comes on as a cartoon anymore. There's also a live action movie.
And the CGI for the turtles is a little creepy. But Donatello, Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael are the Ninja Turtles artists. First, we're going to start with a non-Ninja Turtle artist.
This is Sandra Botticelli. This is The Birth of Venus. So, the Renaissance saw a move away from religious works of art to secular works of art. So, if you remember when we talked about medieval art, it was almost always somehow rooted in Christianity.
Even before that, a lot of the Roman and Greek art had to do with their deities. So we start to move away from that a little bit. This is referencing back to Roman art, but that's not to say that Botticelli worshipped Venus. He's more displaying the myth. Religious works of art were still being created, but due to new rules of decorum and the rise of a wealthy merchant class, more secular works were being created than ever before.
Humanism, the idea of humanism, was taking over and artists began looking to the classical past even when creating religious works. So this painting is considered a secular work of art by Botticelli. So it depicts a classical scene of the birth of Venus. So you have the Roman Venus, or the Greek equivalent of Aphrodite, was born from the sea when the Titan Kronos killed Uranus, his father, and his genitalia fell into the sea.
In this painting, we see a wind god blowing a nude Venus to the shore where a maiden waits with clothing. So if you don't know, Venus is meant to be the goddess of love. During the Middle Ages, nudes would have not been portrayed in art. If they were, it would have been meant to represent sin or punishment. So we saw nudity in our judgment scenes.
We saw nudity when we saw Adam and Eve. Because of the move towards humanism, nudes were again being displayed in art at the beginning of the Renaissance. So moving on to our first Ninja Turtle, we have Leonardo da Vinci. This is his fetus in the womb.
During the Renaissance or early modern period, we begin to get the idea of the Renaissance man. So a Renaissance man was a man who did everything or was trained in everything. Leonardo da Vinci is an example of this.
He studied science and anatomy. He was an artist and he created scientific inventions using physics and engineering. Renaissance men usually partook in three of the following activities. Painting, sculpture, architecture, anatomy, science, alchemy, engineering, physics, astronomy, philosophy, history, or religion. Some people partook in more than three, but it was at least three of those categories.
So today when people say that art is worthless, just know that some of the greatest scientists Some of the founders of modern science even were also artists. So we need creativity in science is important as well. It leads to new discoveries. So today it's sort of discouraged that we study more than one thing.
We're usually pushed into a niche. You need to study engineering. nothing else.
You need to study art and nothing else. But at the time, during this time, they were able to do this because they could begin studying one subject that interested them at an early age and they were encouraged to practice all of their interests. And so they started studying niche ideas earlier than we do.
So most people don't start college till 17, 18. Whereas Leonardo would have been apprenticing under an artist for painting at the age of seven or eight. They also didn't have formal education like we do today. So we get more education up front.
So this drawing demonstrates both Leonardo's scientific achievements as well as his artistic ones. So this drawing uses dry media and techniques such as hatching to build up the image. It is a sketch.
It would probably be included with other sketches sort of in a book type deal, maybe in a scroll. It was frowned upon at the time to autopsy bodies for a multitude of reasons, including sanitation, but also religious reasons. Autopsies were not yet common.
Some of the bodies Leonardo looked at were sanctioned because they were already damaged. Some of them may or may not have been stolen from their graves. There's not definitive evidence to say that he definitely robbed graves, but it's a possibility.
He probably returned them when he was finished, but he was probably not given permission to autopsy. the bodies in the first place. It's possible, but we don't know for sure that he was a grave robber, but he might have been.
We do know that a lot of his anatomical drawings are very, very accurate, so the likelihood of him actually seeing dead bodies or bodies cut open is very, very plausible. So we see his combination of science and art here. We see his artistic skill while also his interest in science.
Next we have Leonardo's Mona Lisa. So the Mona Lisa is one of his most famous works of art. This painting today is behind a very, very thick layer of glass, which gives it sort of a green hue when you view it in person.
If you can get to it to view it in person, there's usually a huge crowd. I've heard tons of horror stories about people going specifically to see the Mona Lisa and then not being able to. It's also very small.
It's 30 inches by 21, which is not very big, especially if you're having to view it from very far away. So the Mona Lisa is known for her mysterious smile. I don't really see it, but you know, to each their own.
Leonardo was commissioned to complete this piece by Francesco del Giocondo. It was meant to be a portrait of his wife, Lisa Garadini. However, the couple never received the painting. Francesco threatened to sue Leonardo multiple times because he paid up front, but Leonardo would assure him that it was almost finished every time.
There is debate as to whether Leonardo loved the painting so much that he didn't want to give it up, or if he hated it. and didn't think it was complete and did not want to give an incomplete painting to a patron. I will say there's evidence of dirt and debris and like footprints in the paint in different layers of the paint.
So a lot of people think that he hated it and that he like had it laying on the floor in his studio. But we don't know for sure. He never made a commentary about it.
So next we have Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper. This work of art by da Vinci uses linear perspective which was another advancement of the renaissance. So it was a mathematical way to create depth.
So linear perspective is also one point perspective which we talked about before. So the point is and the horizon behind Jesus's head everything sort of moves towards that point. So Another mathematical advantage of the Renaissance, it's math and art working together. So as discussed previously, Leonardo was a scientist as well as an artist.
So in this painting he experimented with paint. The method he took was not successful. So during his own lifetime the painting began to chip and flank off the wall. So he reworked parts of the painting during his lifetime but today it's rapidly declining. They only allow a certain number of people in to see it and even then most of it is falling off the wall.
So Leonardo was interested in oil paint but oil paint was not widely used yet in Italy and most of the time when you were painting on the wall at this period you would be using fresco which is sort of water-based using wet plaster and pigment to paint onto the wall so when you mix oil and water they don't mix So he tried to use the fresco techniques that he was familiar with, with pigment suspended in oil for oil paint. And it just didn't work. So plaster is falling off the walls.
The paint's flaking away. It's not in good shape. This is an older photo that has been taken and sort of touched up to show you the image.
But it's... it's not in good shape in person. Next, we're moving on to a different ninja turtle. This is Michelangelo. We have Michelangelo Bronrotti.
That is his name. You can use Michelangelo when you talk about this specific Michelangelo. There are other Michelangelos, so be conscious of that.
when you look at your textbook, when you look at art, when you look, when you're working on your reading worksheet, that's a mistake people commonly make is they'll talk about Michelangelo and they'll go on this big spill about this painting by Michelangelo and it's not by Michelangelo, not this one. It's got a different last name. So Buonarroti, if it has the Buonarroti last name, then it is the correct Michelangelo.
So this is his Sistine Chapel ceiling. It is one of his most famous works of art. We've talked about it a little bit before, or about his works of art in the Vatican, or in the Sistine Chapel. So the Sistine Chapel ceiling was commissioned by Pope Julius II. It depicts religious scenes in a way that was not exactly in line with decorum, but it was permitted by the Pope at the time during the early Renaissance.
Again, we have this idea of humanism. We can show some nudity. We're moving away from these very conservative medieval ideas. So we have a lot of scenes.
These are all biblical scenes. And we have, there are, there are just tons of them. So the most famous scene is the creation of Adam. And if you look, it's right here, which is not in the middle.
The middle, we sort of have this window-esque scene, not the creation of Adam, even though it's the most famous. But we're going to talk about this one because it is the most famous. This scene depicts an imaginary scene.
It's documented differently in the Bible than what's depicted. But it does display nudity, which was in line with the humanist beliefs at the time. So we've talked about that before when we talked about the Last Judgment, which is painted later.
You can see the top part of it over here in the blue. But these were painted at different times. So at the beginning of the Renaissance.
We can have nudity. By midway, we cannot. So let's talk about the last judgment a little bit.
We've talked about it before. And again, it's the depiction of the second coming of Christ and the final judgment of the Christian God on all of humanity. The dead rise and descend to their fates as judged by Christ. who's surrounded by prominent saints. Altogether, there are over 300 figures, with nearly all the males and angels originally shown as nudes.
Michelangelo began working on The Last Judgment 25 years after his completion of the Sistine Chapel ceiling. So if we go back, He worked on the Sistine Chapel from about 1508 to 1512. So it took him at least four years to complete the sealing. 25 years after that, he starts the Last Judgment. And then it takes him another five years to finish it.
Or about five years to finish it. So he originally accepted the commission from Pope Clement VII, but completed it under Pope Paul III. At the time the last judgment was completed, Michelangelo was accused of being insensitive to proper decorum in respect of nudity and other aspects of the work, and of pursuing artistic effect over following the scriptural depiction of the event. So, again, very, very different. We have a scene that is not portrayed in the Bible with nudity, and this was allowed in 1508, whereas 1536 or 1541, we can't have nudity.
It's not scripturally accurate. So just an idea of this, we have humanism, and then we sort of move out of it in religious works. Shortly after Michelangelo's death in 1564, again another 20 years after this was completed, the genitalia and the fresco were painted over with drapery by the Mannerist painter Danielle de Volterra. It's interesting that the ceiling remained untouched, but de Volterra was commissioned to work on the last judgment scene. In today's restoration efforts, the repainted areas have mostly been removed, revealing Michelangelo's original composition and figures.
Michelangelo was angry at the papacy because after completing the Sistine Chapel ceiling, he wanted to become exclusively a sculptor. Sculpture was worth more at the time. It was often viewed as more prestigious than painting. Michelangelo proposed a sculpture for the tomb of the Pope, and he was assured that he would be granted this commission if he also completed the fresco of the Last Judgment. He was furious and believed that the Pope did not see him as a serious artist, but after completing the fresco, Michelangelo was never commissioned to complete the tomb sculpture for the Pope.
This work of art is believed to express Michelangelo's distaste for the commission and the circumstances around it. So the figures are well done, but they are a bit bulky. This is not Michelangelo's best composition, and several members of the papacy are included in the judgment scene.
So I think we've talked about before, but the Pope's Master of Ceremonies, Biagio de Cassina, is reported by Vasari as saying, quote, It was most disgraceful that in so sacred a place there should have been depicted all those nude figures. exposing themselves so shamefully and that it was no work for a papal chapel but rather for the public baths and taverns. Michelangelo painted his face from memory as Minos, the judge of the underworld, with donkey ears, which indicates foolishness. In response, I don't think I included a picture.
No, he's over here somewhere. I never can find him. He's in this area though, but I just love that.
So petty. 10 out of 10. So next, moving on to another Ninja Turtle, we have Raphael. This is his School of Athens.
It was painted between 1509 and 1511. So if you look at those dates, 1509, 1511, what else was painted during those dates? but the Sistine Chapel ceiling. So yes, they were working on those at the same time.
Raphael saw the ceiling, Michelangelo saw Raphael's work, and they actually sort of spoke to each other about it. So as discussed in previous modules, the School of Athens uses one-point linear perspective. So this fresco depicts philosophers, mathematicians, and scientists from ancient Greece, including Archimedes, Plato, Aristotle, and Pythagoras, which if you studied You've probably heard those names before.
The Pythagorean Theorem comes from Pythagoras. It was meant to inspire the leaders of the papacy when making decisions for the church. So they're famous scientists meant to inspire ideas and leaders of the church. Artists contemporary to Raphael are pictured in the fresco, including Michelangelo, who was depicted as Heraclitus, and Leonardo, who was depicted as Plato.
Ultimately, this painting was meant to inspire the church leaders to be renaissance men themselves. They were meant to have broad interests beyond just religion and let new knowledge influence everything. Next, we're moving sort of back to the north. So all of that was happening in Italy. This is from Germany.
So this is Albrecht Dürer. We've talked about him before with his prints. This is one of his paintings.
And this is self-portrait at age 28. So Albrecht Dürer's self-portrait represents the individualism of the Renaissance. In the previous Middle Ages, all figures looked similar and did not show individualism. If you remember the jam figures, like you knew who they were because of the symbols they held.
Otherwise, their faces were very similar. We had standard haircuts, standard heights. Everybody looked sort of the same.
During the Renaissance, in the South, which is in Italy, artists were praised for their works, especially paintings. In the North, which would be France, Germany, England, Painting was a minor field and works such as tapestry and metalworking were more highly considered. Dürer visited Italy during this time and after his return he brought new ideas back to Germany about the worth of the artist.
So in this painting Dürer paints himself in the pose of Jesus, not exactly, but reminiscent of. And so he did this in order to argue that artists should be praised for their works. They should be more highly revered. So this argument sort of included his signature and date. So he dated it 1800, so that's when we know it was painted, and he signed it with his initials.
Next we have Durer's Melancholia I. So again, he was famous for his printmaking, and this is an example of that. This was made using engraving. So here we can see hatching and cross hatching and contour which we've talked about before. So these lines were carved into the surface of a block of wood or piece of metal filled with ink and then printed onto paper.
Der is the most famous if not only famous printmaker of the time. He elevated printmaking to a medium for art, not just reproduction. So prior to this, we've looked at a lot of prints before that say after so-and-so.
That usually means that they are reproductions of a painting. Sometimes the painting doesn't exist anymore and the print does. But the painting was the original work of art and the print was a reproduction of it. With Dürer's prints, there is no painting.
This is the work of art. The print is the work of art. And he's one of the very, very first to do this, if not the first.
Next, we have Jan van Eyck. This is the Luca Madonna. Again, we've talked about Jan before, but make sure you check this spelling. This is the correct spelling for his name.
We're still in Germany, or in the northern region. Actually, he worked in what is today the Netherlands. But this is his Luca Madonna.
So Jan van Eyck was considered the inventor of oil paint. by Vasari, but he really was just considered one of the first to perfect oil painting. Oil paint originated in the north and was mostly used by northern artists. Jan van Eyck is known for his intense detail, detail that could have only been created using oil paint as a medium. So here we see the Luca Madonna.
This image is quite small and reflects been used by a wealthy patron as a personal devotion piece. It's very small. It's like handheld. So with modern technology, we can scan paintings to see details under the paint. So this is often used with restoration efforts.
So that was done with this painting. The Getty Museum began a campaign a few years ago to restore many works by Jan van Eyck and took scans of the paintings as part of the restoration. So the Luca Bandana was one such painting.
We've also looked at the Ghent Altarpiece before, which was the main work restored during that project. But here we see infrared reflectography scans of the painting. We can see the underdrawing or pentimenti, which is another word for underdrawing.
So earlier in part one we talked about how drawing is used as a step in the creation process. sometimes part of the larger work. So it's preparatory sketches.
So this is sort of that same idea. It's drawn first onto the canvas and then the composition may be reworked. Things may be worked around before the paint is actually applied.
Because of the scans that we have today, we can see Jan van Eyck's under drawings that were then painted over. So all of this is under drawings. We have lines here. We have where he shaded in to know that that's going to be darker. So all that's underneath the original paint.
Here's a zoomed in so you can see sketch lines for shadow. We can see where things were reworked, so a knee coming up, going down instead, things like that. Next, we have Hieronymus Bosch.
This is the Garden of Earthly Delights. This is held in Spain at the Prado. However, it was originally painted in the north. So, Hieronymus Bosch is an artist that has become increasingly more popular in the modern age.
His works inspire a lot of modern artists. So, earlier in one of the earlier modules, we talked about how Renaissance artists didn't really use abstraction. Hieronymus Bosch is sort of the exception to this. So, this work of art is a triptych, which means it has three panels. So, one, two, three.
The middle panel is meant to represent Eden, before sin, possibly the paradise of heaven. The left is meant to represent the joining of Adam and Eve. And the right is meant to represent hell or the last judgment. Although this is a triptych with religious themes, it is unlikely that it would have been displayed in a church, much less as an altarpiece. It's most likely that it was commissioned by a layperson and either held in their private chapel or held in their home.
All of Bosch's figures are nude and multiple races are depicted in the central garden, which is important to note. That wasn't really done at the time. So we have a lot of abstraction in these weird little building shapes. We have sort of the surrealism that did not exist at the time.
Nobody else was doing this. Every time I look at this painting I find more weird things. So we have this bird feeding this man and then in the hell scene we have this bird eating this man. So it's sort of a contrast. So we have sort of this abstraction of musical instruments happening.
We have sort of here in the middle, we have this harmony between people and nature. But then we have these enlarged things like this bird is huge in comparison to this man. Whereas the hell we sort of have the opposite. But then we have sort of like this is an abstraction of an ear.
And there's just a lot happening. If you are interested, you can zoom into this. Look it up in Zoom. into it.
It's very weird. It's very cool. Moving on, we're going to talk about the Statue of David.
There are three different ones we're going to talk about, and we're sort of going to talk about how they changed throughout the Renaissance to represent different ideas of the Renaissance as the Renaissance progresses. So this is our last Ninja Turtle, Donatello, and this is his version of David. It was created about 1440. So these are all going to be from Italy, so we're back in the south.
We've been in the north for a minute, back in the south in Italy. So this David is early Renaissance, and it's a depiction of a religious figure. We can see the humanist influences in the nude and the contrapposto stance.
So we've talked about contrapposto before where he's got one straight, one bent of everything. It's sort of this twisting shape as well. Donatello also uses bronze like the Greeks did.
So we see that Greek influence. Bronze sculpture was making a comeback in the Renaissance because they didn't need it for weapons like the Romans did. Donatello shows a mostly nude youth as David.
He is poised and composed after the defeat of Goliath. He's wearing a hat and boots that would have been common dress during the period the sculpture was made, not during the time that David would have existed. So the boots would have been 1440s era and the hat would have been 1440s era.
He's also holding a sword. Some people believe this would have been Goliath's sword, since historically with the story of David, he used a slingshot. We also have him standing propped up on Goliath's head. So he's sort of poised and confident and stoic like that. early Greek art, that early Roman art was.
So in case you're unfamiliar, the story of David comes from the Bible. Many previous depictions show David as the king of the Jews, not as the young man who defeats Goliath. Because of Donatello, we see the shift to the depiction of David and Goliath. So the story of David and Goliath is the Philistines. and the Israelites were at war.
So they met on the battlefield and the leaders agreed to choose one champion each to fight. Goliath, described as a giant, was chosen by the Philistines. The Israelites had trouble finding someone to fight Goliath until David, a youth, stepped forward. David was not even old enough to fight in the army at the time. He was actually there to bring food and water to his brothers who were fighting.
So the Israelites fitted David with armor and a sword, but he was so uncomfortable and so little, he was unable to wield the sword. So he took off all the armor and discarded the sword. He picked up his sling and a bag of rocks and told the people that God would help him win. So they went to the battlefield. David fitted a rock in his sling and hit Goliath on the head, killing him.
David won and the Israelites defeated the Philistines. So this story became a popular story of courage and strength during the Renaissance. So we see a lot of depictions of it.
We have different styles at every stage of the Renaissance. We have sort of a different style of David. So this is early Renaissance.
Again, we see that Greek influence, very stoic, contrapposto pose, but not a lot of movement. And then we see we have Michelangelo. This is Michelangelo, Bronradi. This is his David.
It was created 1501 to 1504. So again, 1440s, 1501 to 1504. So about 60-ish years later. By the time Michelangelo made his David, the Renaissance had embraced the full nude. So we still have some clothing. We have hat, we have boots.
Here we have nothing. This David is still in a stoic stance, but shows more determination on his face. This sculpture depicts David prior to the fight in a moment of contemplation.
Again, we see the humanist perspective of looking back to the classical past. The head looks similar to the Colossus of Constantine. and the stance is similar to the Doryphoros or the Polyglytis. Next we have Bernini's version. This is 1623 to 1624. So we've moved forward from 1440 to 1504 to now 1624. See, this is Gian Lorenzo Bernini's David.
So this is in the late Renaissance. So this is actually sort of getting into the beginning of the Baroque style. The Baroque style focused on the emotion and expression of a work of art.
Here we see David in the act of slinging the rock. He has a face of concentration. His entire body appears to be in movement. We see the addition of drapery, making the scene more modest than Michelangelo's, per the rule of decorum of the later Renaissance. So he's in the act.
He's wearing more things. He's got his bag of rocks. He's got drapery hanging over.
He has a pile of armor at his feet. We see this look of determination. And if you remember, even in the Roman period, we have these stoic stances for so long, and then we get the Hellenistic period, where we have emotion being shown.
And so that happens in the Renaissance as well. Towards the end of the Renaissance, we start to have emotion being shown in sculpture. So by looking at all three Davids side by side, we can sort of see the evolution of style through the Renaissance and into the Baroque period.
So now we're fully into the Baroque period. This is Annibale Caracci. This is the Bean Eater. It was becoming more popular in the late Renaissance and Baroque period to depict everyday people in scenes.
This painting was commissioned by a wealthy patron. During the time, there were philosophies about food and society, mostly class. So certain foods were considered to be for the rich, and certain foods were considered to be for the poor. It was believed that lower classes could not eat food of the upper class or they would get sick. And vice versa, if the upper class ate lower class food, they would get sick.
Beans were considered lower class food. So therefore, this painting was meant to be sort of a moralizing image for the wealthy patron. It was a reminder that should he lose his status, he would be eating the beans. Which is kind of sad, but you know, whatever.
That was that period of time. Next we have Caravaggio. So again, this is Michelangelo, but this is not Michelangelo Brunradi.
This is Michelangelo Maurizio de Caravaggio. We just call him Caravaggio. So this is the conversion of St. Paul on the way to Damascus. So in this painting, we see this chiaroscuro effect. We've previously talked about it in Modules 2 and 3. But we also see the more dynamic imagery of the Baroque style.
So we see foreshortening, which was used in painting to lend to the appearance of depth. So if things are coming at you, they seem shorter. So basically you shorten the top of something that's coming out at the viewer, even though you might feel like it should be lengthened.
So you can see that with the horse's leg, you can see that with his leg. Here we have Peter Paul Rubens. This is the death of the consul Publius Decius.
This painting by Rubens is another example of Baroque art. It still sticks with the humanist themes by looking to the Roman past. And so this image depicts a story of a Roman hero's battle. This painting is actually what was considered to be a cartoon. which was at the cartoon in this context is a painting or a model for something else, not our modern context of cartoon that we watch on the TV.
So this was a painting or model for or something else. In this case, it was meant to be a model for a tapestry. So this was painted by Rubens, then it was sent to someone who would weave it into a tapestry. So this painting has that dynamic composition of the Baroque period, full of emotion and action. We have a lot of movement, we have a lot of emotion in the facial features.
We see that also here with the conversion of St. Paul. A lot of movement, a lot of action. So next we have Diego Velazquez. This is Las Meninas. So this painting is a bit playful.
So similar to Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini portrait that we've talked about before, Velazquez shows himself in this painting. So this is an interesting take on a royal portrait. Our focal point is the little girl, who is the princess infanta, Margaret Teresa, who is surrounded by her entourage consisting of maids of honor, dwarves, and her dog. So we see the artist behind his easel to the left, and this tells us that he's not depicting himself painting the young princess.
The artist shown in the image is actually painting the king and queen. So here in the very back, right beside the doorway, you see a mirror. This mirror also sort of appears to glow to draw attention to it.
So these are paintings that we can't, they're obscured, we can't really see, but this right here sort of glows. We see the queen and king. So these are really meant to be our implied subject, but instead we get this dynamic scene of everything surrounding the painting of the royal portrait. Still lifes became more prominent in the Baroque period. People wanted to show off their wealth, and still lifes were a great way to do this.
We've looked at one before with the oranges and porcelain and roses. So we've previously talked about how patrons wanted their wealthy items, such as oranges and porcelain, displayed. So it was documented that they had these items. So this painting, is actually a memento mori.
So memento mori means remember your death. Memento moris were popular through the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance. They were used as a way for people to remember to live life to the fullest because everyone must die.
So next, we have the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles in France. The Hall of Mirrors was commissioned by King Louis XIV. It was one of the first symbols of French opulent wealth.
The windows of the hall look out onto the Versailles gardens, and the mirrors on the opposite side reflect the light and imagery around the room. The mirrors also help to make the hall feel larger than it actually is. This Baroque work led to the Rococo period in France.
So Rococo happened mostly in France. So here's another view. This was designed by Jules Hardin-Mansart, and that was really bad. My pronunciations are not great today.
And Charles Lebrun, both of them designed this room. So we have a lot of crystal. We have a lot of gold. We have these opulent ceiling frescoes with gold. Very, very wealthy.
Next we have Jean-Henri Fragonard's The Swing. So this is an example of Rococo art. Rococo art is known for being very frivolous and meaningless.
It was meant for enjoyment and beauty and little else. It doesn't have a meaning. It was just meant to be pretty. In this image, we see a young woman on a swing with a man in the bushes below.
The woman raises her leg as her shoe falls off of her foot, revealing her underskirts. We have a man in the background pushing the swing. And the scene is quite scandalous, but it was not against decorum in the French courts. So he's looking up her skirts. She's letting him, making eye contact with him while he does.
Next we have Elizabeth Vigie Lebrun's Marie Antoinette in court dress. So this work of art is by a female artist at the French court. Charles Lebrun, who designed the Hall of Mirrors, is actually Vigie Lebrun's husband.
So, Vigée Le Brun painted many portraits of the Queen Marie Antoinette and was very close to the Queen and her children. This portrait is an example of Baroque and Rococo art and is a royal portrait but was ultimately painted just to be beautiful. It shows the Queen in her full court regalia. She would have worn these lavish, expensive outfits daily. It was said that she never wore anything twice.
The Rococo period was the peak of opulence, but it would be short-lived. Such frivolous displays by the monarchy angered the people who were ultimately paying for such things, but we'll talk about that at a later date. So that sums us up for Rococo. So you should see your lecture notes questions on the screen.
Name one of the artists labeled a Ninja Turtle and list your favorite work of art by them. And then why is it your favorite? Don't forget to answer the why. And then how might you use drawing in your life or field of study?
So if you're a teacher you can talk about drawing with your students. I'm not going to give you the answers, but there's a lot of examples of how you might use drawing. For five bonus points, If you put a gif or meme of the Ninja Turtles at the end of your notes, you'll get five extra bonus points on this lecture notes.
If you made it all the way to the end and you actually watched the lecture, then you'll get five points if you include a meme or gif of the Ninja Turtles. Or a Ninja Turtle. A Ninja Turtle funny at the end. So that's it for module 4. I will see you all in module 5. Don't forget to put part 1 and 2 in the same document and don't forget to answer your lecture notes questions.
As always if you have any questions about assignments or the lecture just send me an email.