Supper At Emmaus

The ominous figure in the centre of the foreground - Jesus Christ hanging lifeless on the cross, in Luca di Tommè’s ‘The Crucifixion’, primarily catches the eye. The symmetrical arrangement of lamenting figures around the cross, as well as the gilded background, highlight him as the focal point of this artwork.

Barna da Siena’s Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine and Other Scenes from 1340 is vastly different in content, composition, and a number of other attributes from Fra Carnevale’s 1467 painting Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple. It is clear between the roughly hundred years between when the two were painted that advancements in realistic painting soared and a further appreciation for realism and humanism developed. The need to portray more than just the holy subjects, and to show how far painting had evolved is evident in the differences between Barna and Fra Carnevale’s works. Although, the emotion behind Barna’s work, and its significance are, in my eyes, far greater than that of Fra Carnevale’s.

"Pitching is the art of instilling fear" (Sandy Koufax). These are the words Sanford ¨Sandy¨ Koufax believed in, and strived towards throughout his entire Hall of Fame baseball career. Through his impeccable talents on and off the field, Sandy was able to engraft the characteristics of trust, loyalty, and determination into all of the hearts of those who watched him. Sandy Koufax was the most influential baseball player of the 1960s, because he had a lot of experience with the game of baseball since he was young, he had a great impact on the people who watched him because of his actions, and he helped pave the way for the game of baseball to become even better.

Heffernan’s paintings express her untamed imagination with majestic fantasy, dream-like subjects, yet she paints with a very classic technique. When I first viewed The Self Portrait as Wunderkabinett, Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel came to mind. Michelangelo illustrates the desire and describes the oneness that humans anticipate with God through salvation. The artists painting technique is traditional, with the sensible and realistic proportions of the human body, the distinguishing lines, the application of shadow, the intricate detail on every object within the painting, and the use of traditional complementary color pairs.

Upon walking into Gallery 250 of Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, one will find on the wall a particularly eye-catching piece of art. The piece, set high on the corner of the wall encompassed by pictures depicting scenes from the life of Jesus Christ, is Giulio Cesare Procaccini's The Scourging of Christ. In this piece, Procaccini's masterful use of light and shadows in a technique called chiaroscuro dramatically portray the torturing of Christ, and it is this very application of chiaroscuro that immediately caught my eye. Through his masterful rendition of value, Procaccini successfully evoked within me a crushing sensation of agony. While I did not initially realize that the piece was one of Christ, research enabled me to witness how

Aside from linear perspective, Calabrese incorporates other geometrical forms throughout the composition. One is the circle at the foreground of the painting, which Calabrese offers the audience to complete. More outstanding is the triangle that occupies the majority of the space. John’s body, parallel to his staff, begs the viewer to trace the triangle from his eyes, across the woman and the lamb in the foreground, up the staff, and through to his hand. This triangle is significant in its symbolism of the Holy Trinity: God the Father, God the Holy Spirit, and God the Son. The message here is clear; through Jesus, the lamb, one will be saved. It is also interesting that Calabrese places John between the lamb and his hand. It coincides with the paintings’ function as an altar piece in that John serves as an intercessor to the Divine. Through him, one has access to Jesus, and therefore God. The geometrical lines and shapes add to the painting’s dynamism and contribute to the optimistic promise the painting conveys.

Caravaggio’s, however, was darker and more dramatic. Caravaggio started an intense style called tenebrism. Tenebrism is a more prominent form of chiaroscuro, where there are vehement contrasts between light and dark. Fred Kleiner best describes Caravaggio’s style, “In his art, Caravaggio injected naturalism into both religion and the classics, reducing them to human dramas played out in the harsh and dingy settings of his time and place” (Kleiner, 681). Caravaggio painted during the Italian Baroque in the 1600’s. Italian Baroque artists like Caravaggio embraced theatricality and extravagant ornamentation, while Renaissance artists focused more on precise classical models. Now Caravaggio wasn’t exactly an upstanding member of society, most of what the art world knows about him is through his police reports. Caravaggio’s Entombment was created in 1603 and, like Giotto’s Lamentation, depicts the death of Jesus. While they both depict the same religious scene and use styles that are new for their time, Caravaggio’s painting has some drastic differences from Giotto’s. Caravaggio’s painting is oil painted on canvas, which gives Caravaggio the opportunity to be more detailed in his painting than Giotto can with fresco. Caravaggio creates these intense dramatic scenes of diagonals and intense movement. Unlike Giotto, Caravaggio uses linear perspective to direct his viewer’s attention to the body of Jesus. Caravaggio does this by using a diagonal cascade of mourners descending towards Jesus’ body. Inclusively, Caravaggio started a darker, more dramatic movement that gave naturalism a new realistic element.

In this research paper I will be looking at two different artworks by the same artist. The two I will be looking at are the Sistine Chapel Ceiling (1508-1512) and The Last Judgment (1534). Both of these painting are painted in the Sistine chapel which is located in the Vatican. I am going to attempt to evaluate these two pieces of art painted by Michelangelo and explain the cultural and religious aspects of them. I will also look to other scholars to get their perspective and their reactions to the paintings. The last step of my research will be to formulate a theory about the relationship between culture and religion and use my topic to help defend my theory.

The great thing about art, is that there are multiple portrayals of one idea but, the artist’s own personal style allows one to feel something that another may not. Early Renaissance painters, Giotto di Bondone and Duccio di Buoninsegna established their own unique style to depict a biblical scene known as, The Betrayal of Christ. Through a close analysis of each artist’s representation of, The Betrayal of Christ, one is able to compare and contrast the artists own understanding of the scene through their attention to detail, character, and space throughout the painting. When examining these two works, one will have a stronger emotional response towards Giotto’s interpretation rather Duccio’s, due to his methods of handling organization, figures, and space.

The present work is focused on undertaking an in-depth analysis of two famous religious paintings: The Virgin and Child by Barnaba da Modena, an Italian painter from the fourteenth century, and The Elevation of the Cross by Peter Paul Rubens, a seventeenth century Flemish artist and diplomat. Following, by comparison, a thorough account of the two works' features, careful observation reveals more than one interpretation.

The subject of religion has captured the attention of artists for centuries, working its way throughout the years, in and out of various of styles and movements. The artists of this era often found themselves reliant on this subject matter due to Churches being a steady Patron throughout the Renaissance all the way to the Baroque period. Whether it was because of the rich cultural impact to society or the enforcement of strong divine beliefs, depicting biblical narratives have struck an everlasting cord within this medium. Two particular ones, in fact: The Deposition from the Cross (Entombment of Christ) by Jacopo Pontormo and The Entombment of Christ by Michelangelo Caravaggio. Both of which provide an excellent example of how culture and artistic style combined can alter the message of the same iconic scene and still evoke different emotions.

Tintoretto’s portrayal of the Last Supper is one of dramatic Metaphysicalism. It features the dinning table diagonally along the left half of the work behind it Jesus and his Disciples before the table there is a woman cleaning and in the area above them are the angelic presence of cherubs. There are a number of smaller scenes present within the artwork and there are a number of focal points, which lead the viewer’s eyes over them. The work is full of emotion and is largely unbalanced this is reflective of the time in which the work was created when there was a lot of social outrage and anger. Tintoretto used fantasy, to the point of surrealism in this work; Cherubs and halos are used to emphasize the religious significance of the event. This work has the presence of women. There is a strong contrast in this work with very deep shadows and vibrant bright highlights due to the dramatic lighting. There is an extremely strong use of colour and chiaroscuro.

The Annunciation is a Christian celebration of the iconic moment that the archangel Gabriel announced to the Virgin Mary that she would conceive and become the mother to the Son of God, Jesus. The story of the Annunciation derives chiefly from the biblical Gospel of Luke, and has been portrayed abundantly and variously in many visual art forms from the earliest centuries of Christianity and Christian iconography. This essay will explore the depiction of the Annunciation and symbolism in the period of the Italian Renaissance and pay particular attention towards the development of the focus on spiritualism towards naturalism through the refined language of expression and gesture from the 14th century to the late 15th century.

In this essay, I will discuss the startling differences between two depictions of the story of Judith and Holofernes. “Judith with the Head of Holofernes”, 1495, created by Andrea Mantegna, is a small-scale painting that was completed during the Renaissance. The second is a Baroque painting, “Judith Slaying Holofernes”, c.1620 by Artemisia Gentileschi and is on a larger scale than the version created by Mantegna. Both artworks take inspiration from the religious story that appears in the Catholic editions of the Bible. The story is about a young widowed Jewish woman, by the name of Judith, who murdered an enemy army general, Holofernes, to spare her people from death. I will compare and contrast how the scene has been depicted in rather different ways by each of the artists and the influencing factors that contributed to the overall outcome of both works. I will also be discussing how form and naturalism are portrayed between the two paintings, use of colour, symbolism and religion, as well as the Renaissance and Baroque eras.

This paper will compare the themes found in the paintings "Madonna and Child with St. John the Baptist and an Angel" by Domenico di Bartolomeo Ubaldini (Puligo) and "Madonna Enthroned" by Giotto. Both paintings deal with fables from the Christian faith but were executed during different periods in art. The Giotto painting was created around 1310 and the Puglio painting was executed between 1518 – 1520. Here, these two paintings have similar themes both at the extreme beginnings and endings of the Italian Renaissance, and as such they serve to present an exceptional example of the developments in art that occurred within that time. This paper shall compare