2D Visual Art - CLEP Humanities

The Arts and Crafts Movement began for several reasons. The low quality of manufactured items in England in the 1800's caused the reactionary move toward handcrafted, individually made goods. The style is similar to medieval art, influenced by the level of craftsmanship of medieval guilds.

The Impressionists adopted a critic's use of the word "impression" to describe their work. Their focus, particularly in painting, was the use of color to convey light and shadow. They influenced the Post-Impressionists and the Fauves.

Key Post-Impressionists included Cezanne, van Gogh, and Seurat. They were influenced by the Impressionists, and attempted to develop many Impressionist ideas. The Post-Impressionists influenced many art movements, including German Expressionism and Symbolism.

Art Nouveau developed in both Europe and the United States. Tiffany's work with stained glass and Antoni Gaudi's unique architectural style both had many elements from nature. These natural elements included flowers, leaves, and flowing, wavelike patterns.

This painting is by the Medieval artist Fra Angelico and known as the Cortona Annunciation. Painted from 1433-1434, it depicts the archangel Gabriel telling the Virgin Mary that she is pregnant with the Christ child. The Annunciation, as a key moment in the Bible, was a very popular theme in Medieval European art. This particular painting was part of an altarpiece in a church in Cortona, Italy, and painted by a priest.

Saint Sebastian was a martyr of the early Christian church who died in the Diocletian persecutions of the third century CE. He became a popular figure in medieval art, usually shown as being tied to a tree with arrows in his sides. This image was to convey what an appropriate Christian martyr should look like.

As one of the most revered figures in Christianity, the Virgin Mary was a constant theme of medieval religious art. In order to function as a highly visible symbol in a mostly illiterate culture, many different symbols were used to distinguish Mary. Most important was her robe, which was typically a bright blue color, which denoted expensive silks.

Saint Stephen is traditionally considered the first martyr of Christianity, and his death by stoning is told in the biblical book of Acts. Due to the circumstances of his death, he was usually depicted with a stone implanted in his skull. Thanks to his position as "the first martyr," Saint Stephen very commonly depicted in Medieval art.

While Christian iconography and themes feature as the most common subjects in Western art, certain periods were more heavily indebted to Christian tradition. During the period of Gothic art, which was roughly synonymous with the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries in Europe, Christian themes were almost the only ones used. Even in royal portraits, such as the Wilton Diptych from England, featured saints and angels next to the King.

During the American Civil War, the medium of photography was still relatively new, having only been invented a few decades before the outbreak of war in 1861. The photographer Matthew Brady was the pioneering figure in developing photography throughout the war. By capturing war in the realistic medium of photography, Brady both helped people see war in a different manner and appreciate the possibilities of photography.

Paul Gauguin was an important Post-Impressionist whose early work experimented with color and symbolism, but Gauguin's work took on a new form after visiting Tahiti in the 1880s. Gauguin began capturing the culture of Polynesia and started using symbols of Polynesia and images of Polynesians themselves in his art. In the 1890s, he permanently moved to the island of Punaauia in French Polynesia, and painted more and more symbolic paintings that played with color and structure.

Sandro Botticelli's The Birth of Venus is one of the signature paintings of Early Renaissance art from Italy, and as such deals with many themes prominent in the era. Botticelli chose the ancient goddess of love, appearing nude and fully formed from the ocean on a clam shell, instead of a Christian theme. Additionally, the picture's symbolism and color focus more on Platonic ideals than the Christian symbolism that was so prevalent in late Medieval art.

Rembrandt van Rijn was one of the great masters of the Dutch Golden Age of painting during the seventeenth century. His style was notable for featuring bold colors and dramatic lighting in "everyday scenes" of commonfolk, as well as portraits and scenes out of the Bible. Almost all of Rembrandt's paintings featured people, and he almost never drew landscapes.

Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828) was one of the very first well known American painters. During the Revolutionary Era, Stuart became essentially the "court painter" of the early American government because of his portraits of leading figures. Stuart's work includes the most famous portraits of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and many other of America's Founding Fathers.

Ansel Adams (1902-1984) was a famous photographer and technical innovator who developed a process of developing film known as "the Zone System" and used the newest photographic technology of his time. The ability of Adams and his technology was seen through his many photographs of National Parks, particularly in the American West. Adams' photographs were most well known for their sharp focus and deep shading in black and white.

Piet Mondrian was a Dutch artist who belonged to the artistic movement known as De Stijl ("The Style" in Dutch.) The principles of De Stijl were to reduce artistic forms to their simplest, most functional forms. Mondrian's specific form, which he developed in Paris between the World Wars and called "Neo-plasticism," featured mostly white canvases, which were bisected at various parts by perpendicular black lines and had fields of color only in the three primary colors.

Wassily Kandinsky was the most influential expressionist of the early twentieth century. Kandinsky's style, which was dominated by abstract forms, expressive lines, and flowing brushstrokes, would prove to be immensely popular among fellow artists, while his theoretical writing, which connected art to music, also proved influential. Kandinsky had to flee both the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Nazis in the 1930s because of his controversial artwork.

Regionalism was an art movement that sprung up after World War I in America that sought to paint naturalistic scenes of regional America. Foremost among the Regionalists was Thomas Hart Benton, who was inspired by politically conscious muralists like Diego Rivera to make large-scale works about his native Midwest. Benton's work often had political overtones that supported left-wing positions, and he was influential as an art teacher.

Picasso's 1907 painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon is largely considered one of the first cubist paintings. As such, Picasso broke with traditional forms of representation, but did so by including many different influences, particularly impressionists like Paul Cézanne and trends toward a primitivism in art. Picasso also began creating the piece after seeing an exhibition on tribal art that included African masks like those portrayed in the painting.