Virtual Great Masters Museum
Kerry and Katies Voice thread!
http://voicethread.com/share/58280/
Liz and Amelia's Study on Baroque Art
Christ on the Cross With Landscape El Greco The Crucifixion of St. Peter Caravaggio
How Are These Paintings Baroque?
Both paintings are visually stimulating. They emphasize the contrast, from both each other and in the paintings themselves, due to the light thrown on the characters in the painting and the dark, for boding backgrounds. The contrast embodies the baroque idea of paradox. The paintings are dramatic and self-aware. The emotions of the paintings are concentrated in the faces of the subjects, which is the focal point of all three paintings, instead of the center, as was the trend in previous art movements. The paintings are very open ended in that all of the paintings are of someone dying. While the Caravaggio's painting of St. Peter portrays him as panicked and struggling, while the portrait of Christ shows him as very serene, almost as if he is willing accepting death. Another idea is that Christ is looking towards the heavens for salvation, showing the depth of his fate, while St. Peter is looking around him for someone on earth to save him. The background in the El Greco painting is distorted and hard to make out, emphasizing the way that Christ had accepted the unknown, while the background in the Caravaggio is clear, which is why St. Peter is so desperate to hold on to his mortal life.
Eric, Ami, and Anne's Great Masters Page: El Greco
A Baroque Interpretation of Johannes Vermeer
Brenna Duffy
Allegory of Faith:
In Allegory of Faith, Vermeer uses light and shadows to a great extent to convey a message. The lightest image in the painting is the woman in the center of the piece. While her physical features seem cartoonish to some extent, there is a realistic quality to the figures in the background painting and, to a great extent, to the different cloths in the image. Vermeer plays with extremes with all of these, juxtaposing dark against light to produce very realistic images. Though the painting may have been commissioned by a "Catholic patron," the lighting of each individual object could also be interpreted as a satirical view of Christian images, or more specifically Catholicism.
A Girl Reading a Letter by an Open Window:
Just as in his other paintings, Vermeer adds depth here with the use of high contrast, which appears again in folds of fabric. The "Essential Vermeer" (
www.essentialvermeeer.com) page for this painting also notes an element of the painting that is no longer visible to the naked eye. To now know that Vermeer had purposely concealed a painting in the background is proof of the effort to promote ambiguity in the piece. Though technology has (unfortunately, at least for Vermeer) revealed a more specific message, Vermeer’s original audience remained unaware of the true meaning. Because the painting is intentionally very vague, it is difficult to identify a specific sensation it provokes. The note suggests that Vermeer painted out an image of Cupid because he knew it would reveal to an observer the content of the letter the girl holds. Whether Vermeer’s intention was to keep the image (and its reputation) pure or just to make viewers ponder the content, the unknown nature promotes the Baroque qualities of the piece.
A Lady Standing at the Virginals:
Here, Vermeer employs contrast and reflective light on a few very different objects like the picture frame around the painting of Cupid (the same one originally included in "A Girl Reading a Letter by an Open Window"). The girl stands at the stringed instruments with a satisfied expression on her face. It is unsure whether or not she is actively playing the instrument at the moment, and despite the fact that it is a bright day outside and the rather pale girl is inside practicing an instrument, there is no expression of boredom on the girl’s face. Instead, she appears content with the matter of being occupied indoors. Additionally, Vermeer uses clean, simple lines as well as ornate details and curved lines in this painting, depicting the dual nature of a "luxurious" life (the "sophisticated" and the repetitive qualities) adding to the questionable nature of the painting.
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