3 Vermeer Masterpieces

Imagine pondering into a reconstruction of reality through only the visual sense. Without tasting, smelling, touching, or hearing, it may be hard to find oneself in an alternate universe through a piece of art work, which was the artist’s intended purpose. The eyes serve a much higher purpose than to view an object, the absorptions of electromagnetic waves allows for one to endeavor on a journey and enter a world of no limitation. During the 15th century, specifically the Early Renaissance, Flemish altarpieces swept Europe with their strong attention to details. Works of altarpieces were able to encompass significant details that the audience may typically only pay a cursory glance. The size of altarpieces was its most obvious feat but

Cliché is often used as a pejorative term. Sometimes clichés can be the way a major breakthrough of understanding can occur. As I embark into the world of art, this cliché was a good thing. It was positive because as I studied paintings for the first time. I realized that as I was the beholder and the observer of the painting, I was responsible for making the effort of finding the beauty beyond a simple statement. The purpose of assignment was to observe and take note on pieces of art at a prominent museum. I was fortunate enough to visit the Museum of Modern art in New York City and I hoped to critique very famous paintings like Pollock 's drip paintings and The Persistence of Memory. However, it was a Saturday afternoon in the middle of July in New York City. I wasn 't afforded the luxury of being able to observe famous paintings such as those without a large crowd forming around it. In order to complete my assignment I went to the Getty. I found that finding a painting to study was harder than it seemed. I made a return trip to the Getty after brushing up on Art and Physics. The Getty is home to a variety of artwork dating as far back as the 1300s. I focused on art that was featured in different galleries of the museum including Italian Renaissance era and early Christian work. The paintings that I finally decided to write about were The Portal of Rouen Cathedral in Morning

Johannes Vermeer is a man that many art critics and everyday people would consider to be one of the most brilliant artists in history. Vermeer’s work was so precise and realistic that a few people had actually made theories on the techniques and the equipment he used to get the astonishing results that he did. One of those people who was very determined to understand how Vermeer painted so elegantly was Tim Jenison. In the documentary film Tim’s Vermeer Mr. Jenison insisted that Vermeer not only used the camera obscura, but had addition help from mirrors. Mr. Jenison stated he was not an artist of any type before he started to undertake the experiment and he had impressive results. During Mr. Jenison’s documentary he proved anyone can become

mission of proving Johannes Vermeer painted using optical tools. For most of the duration of this film, I felt disgusted with Jenison and his attempt to lesson the genius of Vermeer. It wasn’t until I saw the painting in person that I became interested in what he was trying to do. I needed to know that he appreciate the artistry of Vermeer. After that point, I felt less offended by his mission.

Jan Vermeer was a Dutch painter who fascinated by the use of light in his paintings. “Unlike Caravaggio and Rembrandt, who used light for dramatic emphasis, Vermeer concentrated on the way light reveals each color, texture, and detail of the physical world” (Preble 307). Vermeer

Renaissance artwork never took perspective into account within any of its altarpieces or frescos. Most artists never thought it of in any sense and just drew items and humans however they wanted as long as the story was relayed well enough to readable. Than out of the early 15th century, a man named Brunelleschi came out of the artist community and brought up this bizarre idea of perspective and how it can create visual interest in in a piece. In “The Architecture of Brunelleschi and the Origin of Perspective“ by Giulio Carlo Argan, he talks about the shift into perspective artwork, and focuses on the positives it brought, and how other artists took up the challenge to make their images more life like and as if it could be a real event. The article also discusses the differences between traditional and modernist views on

Two painters in history are known for their abilities to depict scenes in such realistic manners that you would never know they are actually producing paintings. These painters are named Johannes Vermeer and Albert Bierstadt. Both men came from different times and ethnic backgrounds. Dutchman, Johannes Vermeer was born in the year 1632 and passed away in 1675. Over his lifetime Vermeer used a style of painting that causing modern day historians and art lovers to struggle to figure out how he painted such realistic scenes that mimicked photographs. His style combined many pictorial depth cues while maintaining a strong sense of realism throughout the relatively few paintings he produced. Next is Prussian artist Albert Bierstadt, who was born in the year 1830 and passed away in 1903. Bierstadt is widely known for his highly realistic paintings of the American West landscape. Combining pictorial depth cues and visual realism were his specialties, while raising a large degree of ‘illusionism’ in his paintings. In his lifetime Bierstadt produced over 500 paintings, most of which pertained to the places he visited on his journey across the United States. While Bierstadt and Vermeer were two very different men, their works shared common elements. Vermeer’s The Music Lesson and The Concert and Bierstadt’s Yosemite Valley share many of the same pictorial depth cues, realism, and even a sense of illusionism. In order to analyze how these works of art are alike, three questions must be

Summary: This is an academic journal written by Tomas Garcia- Salgado. The title of it is The Reverse Outlining Perspective of Leonardo’s Last Supper and Its Image Formation. It was written on April 2008.’’ This article focuses on the perspectives on which the painting was created and how that effects the outcome.’’(Garcia-Salgado, Tomas ).According to this article the perception of this painting depends on 3 concepts. These include the perspective plan and the observers distance, the aperture of his or her visual field, and the limits of the perspective plane. This article explains what these points mea and how does it affect how we view or perceive the painting.

Many discover life in the paintings of a dead artist in the most miniscule details: the number of colours used in a painting, the size of a flower, or the expression of a model. Looking back, one can remember how middle school art teachers would indulge our imaginations with lectures on the curiously complex intentions behind every colourful stroke of the painters brush. However, letters exchanged between artist reveal the truth behind not only the intentions of an artist but also the tactics used to create the sacrosanct works of art produced by one. Currently there are 844 surviving Vincent van Gogh letters, over 900 paintings, and over 1100 drawings. One man's life has been compiled into a medium sized pile of canvas, wood, and paper,

Johannes Vermeer was a Dutch painter that lived through the Baroque era along with the dutch holden age. He wasn’t exactly wealthy and produced very few paintings. For the most part Vermeer painted domestic interior scenes. His works are largely genre pieces and portraits and his subjects were usually middle-class 17th century Dutch society, anywhere from a milkmaid to higher-class merchantmen. Besides this, he also painted with religious, poetical, musical, and scientific elements. He worked with very expensive pigments and was known was his use of light in his work. He also used many earth colors to portray a warm light within the paintings interior. He was inspired by Leonardo DaVinci’s observation that the surface of an object takes the

From each ends of the table, the hallway appears to recede and the imagined lines meet behind the head of Christ where the vanishing point of the picture is. Leonardo Da Vinci skillfully applied the technique of linear perspective to give a sense of space of a hallway on a flat surface. Leonardo Da Vinci succeeds in drawing viewers into the picture by creating an illusion of depth. However, even while we are drawn into the scene, the long white table acts as a barrier between viewers and the otherworldly realm where Christ and his apostles are.

Vincent van Gogh’s work is a personally expression of art history for many viewers of his work. The lines used in his work are loose and free and seem barely controlled to form the paintings created by the famous artist. These forms of lines have become van Gogh’s trademark or a autographic. Sol LeWitt’s art approaches us the viewers with lines of mathematical perfection, precise, and controlled. While Van Gogh’s work was about self expression with emotionally input with almost chaotic lines that were captured by only Van Gogh himself. Van Gogh seems to be connected to his work emotionally and physically unlike LeWitt whose work is created by staff instead of the artist himself. If LeWitt’s work is featured in a museum, his work tends to complement

The utilization of perspective allowed the viewers to have a more intimate relationship with items of worship in a sacred setting. Many paintings were closely tied to sacred paintings as an item to assist worship or to retell the narrative of the Bible. the renaissance was also a time of fascination with realism, exampled by Vasari’s praise of “the bare torso for its perfection as an anatomic study” in regard to the Piero della Francesca. Art is also very complicated in that it “grounds its persuasiveness in the “truth” of optical experience” (Pardo, Giotto and the Thing Not Seen). The addition of perspective allows sacred paintings to appear three dimensional, adding a complexity to worshippers as it seems as the bible narrative or the person of worship (Mary, Christ, etc.) is appearing out of the painting directly to the worshipper. This interaction caused the viewer to feel more intimate in their worship as they felt that they had a genuine, almost tangible connection with the actual religious figures. Perspective in sacred use is further shown with “the possibility that the

Photography generated a sentiment of art because it could stop time in a single frame. “The best thing about a picture is that it never changes, even when the people in it do.” (Warhol, 1975)  was something stated in Andy Warhol’s loosely formed autobiography. A perfect example of this is the series of prints that were taken by Eadward Muybridge in the 19th century, called The Horse in Motion (Fig 9). These photographs were taken to prove that the horse fully left the ground when it ran. This displayed the beginning of the truth within art, these snap shots of daily life could settle certain debates like, what falls faster between a plate or a glass. There is clear influence from cubist painting within photography, research has found that Pablo Picasso's, Le Guitariste (Fig 10) is similar to another Paul Strand photograph From the Ei, 1915, where the painters were breaking form

Throughout history, drinking, transportation, apparel, and even tobacco use has changed overtime, which is shown through different paintings and visuals. There have been many similarities in culture and beliefs, as well as many differences in culture and beliefs. This all goes to show how history progresses and change overtime.