Hi everyone! I saw some people on the group list that I recognized from last term, and I also saw a whole bunch of new people. I am looking forward to reading your blogs again, it's really nice to get a different perspective on these art styles.
Just some other stuff to get out of the way: my name is Amanda Hanson I'm a Senior BFA drawing and painting major here at CWU, though I still have a year left of college after this one. My favorite medium is watercolor and I have just now started to learn oils. I'm not a big fan of this artistic period, but I do like a lot about it; and I'm even less of a fan of what we will be learning in spring. However I am a very big fan of prehistoric to ancient Greek art.
When it comes to art in the 15th and 16th Centuries I am not entirely sure why it is held in such high regard in our culture. I also do not know why Renaissance art is considered better than other types of art. I do however think that it is all a matter of personal preference for people. Some may consider art from the Renaissance to be better while other people may consider contemporary art to be better, while others might say that both suck and prefer something else.
I also think that artists like Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and Raphael get the most attention in our culture because they were the artists that got a lot of attention in history. Michelangelo was working for the church, Da Vinci was literally doing everything, and Raphael was just as much of a prodigy as the other two were. They were the lucky ones in history to get the attention focused on them. And even I admit that they had talent, however I also say that for every good work of art that Michelangelo did there was always a woman painted in it who was horribly disfigured and looked like a man with a messed up boob job. But then again I also think that Gian Lorenzo Birnini was a better sculptor and makes Michelangelo look over rated. Its not that I have anything against Michelangelo, I think he was a talented artist with a good sense of humor in his work, but at the same time my personal preferences keep him out of my all time favorite artists.
In the past I have had an art history class that covered 14th to 17th Century art, but I am looking forward to learning about some of it again, and I am hoping that this time around I will be able to understand why people like it so much.
1 comment:
Hi Amanda! Welcome to 236! I look forward to reading your posts and working with you again. I also hope that you end up liking some of the periods that we will be discussing: both the Italian Renaissance and the Neoclassical period were strongly influenced by ancient Greek art!
I think you are right about how Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Raphael have gotten a lot of attention in history. Not only did they receive important commissions, but they also had writers (historians, really) who wanted to write ABOUT them. We'll be talking about Vasari, who is sometimes called the "Father of Art History" in the next few weeks. He wrote one of the earliest comprehensive biographies on artists from the Renaissance period - and he discussed Leonardo, Raphael and Michelangelo (especially Michelangelo!) in depth. Since Renaissance writers have left us information about these artists, today we know a lot more about them than artists from other periods. I think this is one reason why we pay attention to the Renaissance - simply because we have historical information about that era.
-Prof. Bowen
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