BEST AMERICAN ART by Alexandra Jopp

Primavera, The Allegory of Spring c. 1482.  Nature, such an important presence in Renaissance art, is celebrated in Primavera with a profusion of light and colour. This painting is among the most mysterious in all the history of art, and scholars have long tried to unlock its arcane secrets. Even after the various personages have been identified, the overall meaning still remains uncertain. The expression of a culture imbued with symbolic and allegorical allusions like that of the 15th century, the painting lends itself to the most varied hypotheses for interpretation. The title, The Allegory of Spring, by which the work has been known for some time, is based on Vasari's description on Venus: "Venus, whom the Graces are covering with flowers, as a symbol of spring." The subject of this painting is difficult to interpret. Scholars have struggled for decades to elaborate theories to explain every detail of the picture, but no one has yet succeeded in revealing its mea...

By ALEXANDRA A.  JOPP Albrecht Dürer has been acclaimed as the greatest German artist. His influence has been profound, not only on his contemporaries and followers in the 16th century but also right down to the present day. Primarily known for his prints,  engravings, and woodcuts , he was also an accomplished painter, he was the son of a goldsmith from Hungary who had trained in the Netherlands and settled in Nuremberg, where Albrecht was born.  Early indications of his genius are evident in a charming and extremely competent self-portrait at age of 13 (1484) executed in the challenging medium of silverpoint. This was first of a series of self-portraits, in drawings and in paint, that he produced over the course of his life, which provide an invaluable insight into his character and personality, as well as his skill. The drawings are intimate insight into Durer's self-awareness, not intended for th public but for private ...

Mondrian's Eyeglasses and Pipe, 1926. André Kertész. Hungarian born Andre Kertesz has been living in Paris less than a year when he visited the studio of the Dutch painter Piet Mondrian. Mondrian's Eyeglasses and Pipe is among a group of beautiful still lifes that the photographer took that day. Within the austere clarity of these simple geometric forms- common manufactured items that Mondrian used daily - Kertesz captured the essence of this master of abstraction, both his aspiration to order and his slight and human divergences from it. The insistent angularity of the stark white table is offset by the sculptural curves of the glasses, bowl, and pipe, curves that were rigorously excluded from Mondrian's art. Ever since Kertesz began photographing, in 1912, and throughout his long career, he sough the revelation of the found still life, of an abstract or resonating image discovered in the elliptical view. His signature practice of snaring and fixin...

Self portrait, Thomas Eakins, 1904. National Academy of Design, New York.  After studying in Europe for nearly four years, the twenty-six-year-old Thomas Eakins returned to Philadelphia, his birthplace, in 1870, where he spent the rest of his life depicting the realities of his milieu with great force and beauty. An uncompromising realism characterizes Thomas Eakins's philosophy of work and life. His rejection of conventional ideas about artistic training (for instance, he required all his students - female, as well as male - to draw from the nude) led, in part, to his forced resignation as director of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1886. So, too, he rejected traditional ideas of beauty in his honest and revealing portraits. Not surprisingly, these essentially private portrayals were unpopular during Eakins's day. Thomas Eakins American, 1844-1916 Portrait of Mary Adeline Williams, 1899 Mary Adeline Williams, or Addie, was a ...

The Renaissance is one of the most beautiful periods in the history of humanity. It was a time when mankind was rejoiced and reborn after a long domination of the church to a new life full of pleasure and bright fulfillments. The early fifteenth century state produced official definitions of the roles of men and women based on their gender and elite status. The government and political institutes “gave official standing to the variations and nuances of womanhood by vocation, age, marital status and social class” (Stanley Chojnacki 84). The image of a woman was very ambiguous, and this ambiguity of a woman’s nature reflected her status in early modern Europe. The understanding of the role of women was ambivalent: on the one hand, in a context of common cultural values, a woman was a carrier of negative qualities, representing a negative pole of valuable hierarchy of the Christian world, combining a source of disasters for the man and a shelter of devil forces. On the other hand, a wom...

Images of the East in Renaissance Art Introduction The Renaissance, which most scholars agree links the Middle Ages to the Modern World, included a dramatic shift in thought and culture in Europe. It was a period of new ideas, a revisiting of classical thought, and an effort to bridge ancient concepts with the modern world. French historian Jules Michelet described the Renaissance as a movement that witnessed “the discovery of the world and the discovery of man.”1    For the purpose of this paper, I will focus on the Renaissance as a discovery of the world and increasing European interactions with the Middle East. European Renaissance art reflects the fact that Europe was engaging heavily in trade with the Middle East during the Renaissance and constantly receiving their ideas as well as goods is certainly reflected in European Renaissance art. The significance of Eastern imagery in Western art can offer key insights into the Western perspective toward the study of the ...