Art Periods and Styles Essay Example
For this project, I have chosen to analyze and give background on three different time periods and styles of art. The types I will be going over are Italian Renaissance Art, Abstract Expressionism, and Baroque Art. These three art forms are each from different periods, some recent and some farther back in the past. I chose these because they are all so different from each other and I want to be able to talk about how diverse art forms can be. We will be diving into the world of culture, philosophies, techniques, and much more.
Starting with Italian Renaissance Art, everyone knows the famous Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci, but it’s time to learn about the upbringing and background of the well-known art style. The upbringing of the Italian Renaissance was created by the idea of a new age of learning and literature, art, and culture at the end of the 14th century that lasted until the 17th century. The new ways of life began in Florence, Italy, and made their way across all of Europe with the help of the strong banking system based in Florence. This led to wealthy Florentines becoming patrons, or supporters, of artists and intellectuals and turned the city into the cultural center of Europe and the Rennaisance. Because of the Florentine patronage, writers and thinkers of the era were able to travel Europe and study ancient ruins and texts considered to be of great wisdom. Their secularism, appreciation of physical beauty, emphasis on man’s achievements formed the principle philosophy of the Italian Renaissance known as “humanism.” Many artists and scientists were recognized in the Renaissance Era and became celebrities in their own right such as Michaelangelo, Da Vinci, and Botticelli. The time’s creations often used humanist principles to form their final ideas; for example, the use of roman architecture shapes and columns. As time went on, the most used practice for art was classified as chiaroscuro, which was to create an illusion of three-dimensional space on a flat canvas.
Next, I will be talking about Abstract Expressionism Art, which began in the late 1940s and lasted until the early 1960s in America and dominated the western territories in the 50s. The most prominent American Abstract Expressionist painters were Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, and Mark Rothko. Artists from this period used forms of abstraction to complete their works, depicting forms unrealistically and nonobjective. The era emphasizes spontaneous and personal expression and exercises freedom of technique and execution with emphasis on the exploitation of the physical character of paint to evoke expressive qualities. Abstract Expressionism had a great impact on the American and European art scenes during the 1950s. The movement marked the shift of the creative center of painting from Paris to New York City in the postwar decades.
The last art period I’ll be touching on was popular in the 16th to 18th centuries in Italy, Germany, and South America and is known as Baroque Art. The work that distinguishes the Baroque period is stylistically complex and obtains the desire to evoke emotional states by appealing to the senses in dramatic ways. Some of the qualities most frequently associated with the Baroque are grandeur, sensuous richness, drama, and more to blur distinctions between the various arts. Baroque art focused on classicist and realist modes, focusing on lush details of their subject matters with textures and vibrant colors. Three cultural and intellectual tendencies had a profound impact on Baroque art. These consisted of the emergence of the Counter-Reformation influences, the consolidation of absolute monarchies, and new interest in nature with a general broadening of intellectual horizons. The most well-known Baroque artists are Annibale Carracci and Caravaggio because they were the two Italian painters that ushered the start of the Baroque era and whose works represent the style respectively.
After learning about these three distinct styles and eras, Italian Renaissance Art, Abstract Expressionism, and Baroque Art; we can see just how diverse forms of creativity can be. Every form had its own philosophy or meaning and were all developed in different ways. Art is everywhere and it’s ever-changing. It is timeless in all aspects of life and can be depicted in so many different ways as artists learn and create.
Works Cited
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Baroque art and architecture - Architecture, painting, and sculpture.” Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/art/Baroque-art-and-architecture/Architecture-painting-and-sculpture. Accessed 17 March 2022.
History.com Editors. “Italian Renaissance - Da Vinci, Galileo & Humanism - HISTORY.” History.com, 18 October 2010, https://www.history.com/topics/renaissance/italian-renaissance. Accessed 17 March 2022.
Wainwright, Lisa S. “Abstract Expressionism | Definition, History, Facts, & Artists.” Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/art/Abstract-Expressionism. Accessed 17 March 2022.
