VIGÉE LE BRUN painted her first portrait of Marie-Antoinette in 1778, Marie-Antoinette “en robe à paniers”. This
is a full-length, formal representation of the queen in court regalia,
wearing a splendidly decorated white satin hoopskirt. While the portrait
brilliantly demonstrates Vigée Le Brun’s virtuosity as a court painter,
it reveals little of its subject. But it was eminently in keeping with a
tradition of formal portraiture of the spouse of a monarch. The portrait
was executed for the queen’s brother, Emperor Joseph II, and Marie-
Antoinette was so pleased with it that she ordered two copies: one for
Catherine II, Empress of all Russias, and the other for her own apartments
at Versailles.
Read the rest of this entry »
Archive for the ‘Neoclassicism’ Category
During Winckelmann’s time in Rome another sculpture came to rival
—or even to surpass—the Laocoön in his esteem; indeed, he frequently
mentions the Apollo Belvedere alongside the Laocoön as contrasting
but equally compelling examples of beauty. While the Laocoön has
retained its high reputation, the Apollo has fallen from favour. In The
Nude (1956), one of the most widely read books on art of the twentieth
century, the art historian Kenneth Clark (1903–83) confessed himself
mystified that so learned a connoisseur as Winckelmann could admire
the Apollo, which for Clark displayed ‘weak structure and slack surfaces
which, to the aesthetic of pure sensibility, annul its other qualities’; in
no other famous work, Clark thought, ‘are idea and execution more
distressingly divorced’.
13
Dec
Johann Joachim Winckelmann- Reflections on the Imitation of Greek Works in Painting and Sculpture
I. Natural Beauty
Good taste, which is becoming more prevalent throughout the world, had its origins under the skies of Greece. Every invention of foreign nations which
was brought to Greece was, as it were, only a first seed that assumed new form
and character here. We are told that Minerva chose this land, with its mild seasons, above all others for the Greeks in the knowledge that it would be productive of genius.
Elisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun was a French painter. She earned an international reputation for her stylish portrayals of royalty and aristocratic society in France and throughout Europe during the period 1775–1825; before the outbreak of the French Revolution she was closely associated with Marie-Antoinette and the taste of the Ancien Régime. After 1789 she continued her highly lucrative career abroad, enjoying celebrity as one of the most successful portrait painters of her era. Her memoirs provide an intimate account of the life of a woman artist working in the orbit of the French court in the late 18th century.
Neoclassicism was a style with many contradictions. The word Neoclassicism was not mentioned in that time. Neoclassicism was official policy of an Academy in the middle of 19th century, but one segment of Neoclassicism enters in Romanticism while other became culminate phase in Enlightenment. It was the time when philosophers spoke about state, politics, moral.
Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768) was a scholar with wide interests. He studied most different scientific disciplines, and only in his manhood he began to study art by applying all kinds of scientific knowledge and methods.
First he was studying theology in the University of Halle , but then he bumped in books written by broad-minded English and French writers. He was normally listen Baumgarten’s classes about art, but Baumgarten approach as aesthetic did not satisfied Winckelmann. He thought that Baumgarten’s approach was boring, and empty which art categorize by some ahead composed schema, and not by analyzing.After listening Baumgarten’s classes he thought that it would be good to study mathematics, medicine and physics.
Neoclassicism held sway for roughly eighty years (1750 to 1830). This style originated in France, and than spread in all directions (Sidney, St Peterburg, Philadelphia etc.). It is known that Napoleon’s favorite style in art was neoclassicism. If we look back, we can see that everything in that time, from the middle of 18th to mid 19th century were dominated by one style: Neoclassicism. Houses, churches, museums, banks and shops were designed in that new style which penetrated all levels of society.
Subscribe
Recent Comments
- wedding flower arrangement on Chilandar part 2 -KATHOLIKON — THE MAIN CHURCH
- admin on Gothic art
- Steve P in Sparta, Wis. on Gothic art
- Conchita Stanley on Bayeux Tapestry
- admin on Sofonisba Anguissola biography
Pages
