Art is the Solution

Still Life with Cheeses, Almonds and Pretzels Source: The Mauritshuis I might be making a generalization, but it seems to me that still life paintings are vastly under appreciated by modern viewers. In my experience, casual museum-goers often dismiss still lifes as boring or unimportant. My goal today is to convince anyone who might be harboring this belief (and is also reading this blog post) that still lifes are, in fact, as interesting as any other piece of art. Although modern viewers are often dismissive of still lifes, it is important to remember that constructing a still life requires just as much skill as creating a figurative painting. Both require deep consideration of light and composition, among other elements, as well as technical expertise. Furthermore, still lifes contain a symbolic language of their own, with particular flowers, objects, and foods holding specific significance to contemporary viewers. For example, a rose is traditionally a symbol of the Virgin Mar...

The Rhinoceros Source: The MET Today, I want to talk about one of my favorite artists, Albrecht Dürer. Dürer was a remarkable artist for many reasons; he was among the first to capitalize on selling art directly to ordinary people—thanks to the invention of printing, Dürer’s famous woodcuts and engravings could be reproduced and sold fairly easily—and was also one of the first artists to consistently sign his work. His iconic AD signature can be seen as the modern day equivalent of a trademark, used as a form of branding and to also differentiate his work from copy-cat artists. Like many artists of the Northern Renaissance, Dürer was interested in portraying the world around him in a naturalistic and accurate way. His work reveals that the artist meticulously studied the human body, as well as animals and even plants. In fact, Dürer even published a book about human proportions. Which is why it is ironic that Dürer’s most famous woodcut, The Rhinoceros , was not the result of stu...

Virgin Adoring the Sleeping Christ Child Source: Museum of Fine Arts Boston Today, I want to return to talking about the Mannerist movement. As I explained last month, Mannerism was a style that emerged in the as a reaction against the Renaissance obsession with proportionality and naturalism. Mannerism is typically characterized by purposeful distortion of the human form and a general sense of artificiality combined with artistic extravagance. Mannerism is a truly odd style, which is one of the reasons mannerist paintings are so visually interesting. Lavinia Fontana was one of great Italian mannerists of the sixteenth century and also happens to be one of the first Western, female artists with a well-documented career (there, of course, were many female artists before the sixteenth century, but their work was often anonymous or misattributed). At only six inches long Virgin Adoring the Sleeping Christ Child is one of Fontana's smallest paintings; however, it holds several...

What a Golden Beak! Source: Philadelphia Museum of Art I want to return to talking about one of my favorite subjects in art: Francisco Goya’s Los Caprichos series. Today I want to touch on the 53rd etching in the series, Que pico de Oro! (What a Golden Beak!) As I’ve noted before, Spain was slow to adopt the social and intellectual advances of the Enlightenment movement. The Spanish intellectual class was rather conservative, and was thus often decades behind the academic and scientific progress. What a Golden Beak! presents a criticism of Spanish scholars. Here, a group of men surround a parrot, perched on a raised dais. The men, open mouthed and idiotic, look up at the parrot intently; the image was sarcastically described by Goya as “an academic meeting” in the Prado Manuscript, which contains his contemporary descriptions of each piece. Goya’s title plays off the phrase “golden beak,” which a contemporary Spanish dictionary defines as “a speech given with energy, discretio...

Drowning Girl Source: Museum of Modern Art I don’t know much about pop art, but I’ve always been a big fan of Roy Lichtenstein’s most famous painting, Drowning Girl . If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you might have gathered that I’m an admirer of drama in art, and this painting has a simply incredible amount of inherent drama. As the MoMA explains , Lichtenstein was inspired by the melodramatic and highly emotional plots of comic books. The painting itself is actually an adaptation of the cover of a real comic book with a few small changes. Lichtenstein himself noted, “I was very excited about, and interested in, the highly emotional content yet detached, impersonal handling of love, hate, war, etc. in these cartoon images.” At its heart, the painting questions what art is. When you think of fine art, comic books probably aren’t the first things that come to mind. According to my research , contemporary critics were skeptical of the piece, questioning whether...

The Chess Game Source: Wikipedia More than almost any other painter of the Renaissance, Sofonisba Anguissola had a flare for depicting personality and emotion. When you encounter her paintings, you feel as though you’re being introduced to real, flesh-and-blood people. This is especially true of her earlier works. Contemporary social conventions limited female painters to a constrained set of subjects, which meant that Anguissola painted her family members many times as a young artist. The result is a sense of intimacy in her paintings, a connection between the subject and the viewer which must surely mirror the connection between the artist and her family. The Chess Game is a good example of this aspect of her work. The painting depicts Anguissola’s sisters, smiling and chatting as they play a game of chess. It is an engaging piece that not only reflects her sisters’ personality and intelligence, but also exhibits the rich and vibrant domestic life of the Anguissola household...

Judith Beheading Holofernes Source: Wikipedia Today, I want to switch topics and talk about one of the most famous artists of the Baroque era: Caravaggio. Caravaggio was a master of light and shadow; his work experiments with chiaroscuro and tends to be visually dramatic, two major characteristics of Baroque art. The drama of Caravaggio’s work has always appealed to me; in particular, I’ve always been fascinated by his masterpiece, Judith Beheading Holofernes . The painting depicts a scene from the Old Testament, in which Judith saves her people by killing Holofernes. Given the subject matter, the painting is inherently dramatic. However, Caravaggio’s use of contrast in this piece creates even more visual impact. The figures loom out of the dark, heavily shadowed background, drawing the viewer’s eye to the Holofernes’ anguished expression, spurting blood, and Judith’s face. Judith’s face is perhaps the most interesting part of the painting. The lines between her eyebrows ...