Class Discussion

It is hard for me to come up with something to discuss from lecture this past week. It seemed as if we quickly went through the differences/similarities in visual arts that existed between the different style periods. However, it was a ton of material to cover in a short amount of time, so I understand the rush. What is interesting though is the how the changes in the artwork styles were directly due to a change in society or the changes in artwork style caused a change in society itself. In many cases, the changes in style and the development of new art techniques were done so in order for a society to better portray their belief system. For example, the development of statues that represent more humanistic poses and weight shifts (Contrapposto). This development allowed sculpture artist during the Greeks periods to better portray their ideas about the perfection of the human body and add emotions to statues representing Greek mythological ideas. The development of Chiaroscuro during the counter-reformation was used to pull on the emotions of those viewing the artwork in order to pull the viewer into the church fold. Counter-reformation artist also depicted characters in their artwork as if they could have been normal members of the patronage society. All of this change in style was done in order to cause a change in normal members of society. Tamparas was also developed to add more life and humanistic style to artwork. Often, this was used in religious artwork to portray a hierarchal form between the characters of a biblical theory. The hierarchal form would therefore aid church patronage to better understand biblical accounts and stories. Therefore, the change in style usually occurred to better represent the views of society or to change the views of the working class. During times of revolution, artist portrayed more liberating ideas in their artwork such as in the Oath of the Horatii. The men in the piece appear as if they are about to fight for their own liberty and freedom of their fellow compatriots. The clothes of the three men appear as if they are patriotic men willing to give their lives for their country and the orders of their older, wiser companion. As one may have thought, this painting occurred during a time when individuals were rising up against the bondage or their own country or the bondage by other countries. Therefore, the artist portrays the views of the times and furthers the cause of liberation by reminding fellow compatriots of their desire for liberation at no cost. I appreciate the style changes that occur through time. This leads to new developments in artwork and allows societies to demonstrate their view through a variety of different styles of artwork. As you can see studying the transitions between the different stages, new styles of artwork and the development of new medium usually occurs from playing off the ideas of older styles.