The Homosexuality As An Interdisciplinary Theorization Of Caravaggio 's Artwork

Michelangelo may perhaps be most known for the use of nudity in his art, ranging from paintings to sculpture. Therefore, there is no doubt how fascinated he was with the human body. The use of nudity might have reflected his own views towards that of humanism, being less concerned with the scholasticism ideas of the medieval times and more so with Greek philosophy. You can really see Michelangelo's’ appreciation of anatomy and it’s beauty in sculptures such as The Pieta and it’s very fragile themes. Instead of showing Christ as a gruesome mess he decided to instead focus on the serenity of Mary and the “meaning of Christ’s death,” (Hartt).

During the Renaissance period, sexuality impacted how people, both men and women, were treated and how they behaved. The lives of women were completely defined by the ideals of sexuality that were enforced during that time. Every area of a woman’s life from birth was influenced by outside influences rather than by they themselves. It took a particular type of woman to break past the clearly defined description of what a “Renaissance woman” should be.

In the article “Sexuality and Social Standing In Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini Double Portrait” the author analyzes the religious and social grammars of marriage. This short paper will be a reflection of Harbison’s article that discusses religious and marital norms throughout, with also analyzing various sections of van Eyck’s piece, for example: implying the piece as a marriage document or contract of the marriage, which immediately makes the viewer look deeper into the double portrait. All of this helped me realize that pieces of art are not simply “pictures,” rather they are narratives like a scene in a documentary. The author starts the article with a clear thesis of analyzing the social religious and marital norms when this piece was made.

Caravaggio’s demonstration of the power of art was using art as leverage to become a nonnoble in a chivalric order and to gain freedom for his crimes.

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.

However female homosexuality was never acceptable and was punishable by death. In contrast to the Roman views of female homosexuality, Ovid’s story about Iphis[3] suggests that he supported the behavior.

The reading claims that nudes throughout artistic history have been an important source of beauty and controversy. Nudes began to spike during the Baroque period as they were used for the more expressive and emotional arts of the time. In the nineteenth century, nudes became more common, yet became more sensitive. Artists would train by drawing nudes of ancient Greek statues and figures from myth. However, many artists would then move on to create works depicting prostitutes or peasant naked women. This would not please patrons as they were extremely societally taboo. However, this did not start artists from making them, as they moved into the twentieth and twenty-first century. This shows the importance of artistic nudes and their impact

An artist has the ability to connect with one’s audience through their art and the obscure connotations that appear beneath it, not just the image that lies on the surface. Artists Jan Van Eyck and Caravaggio communicate these implications through their work, utilising symbols and motifs. Van Eyck’s The Arnolfini Portrait (1434) explores the social status of the time, along with the issue of marriage between two unequals. Caravaggio’s The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist (1608) reflects the world of his time’s attitude on violence and the insensitivity of a positive resolution. Although, these two paintings showcase incredible technique and attention to detail, the context is what is integral to the audience’s understanding of their world

Caravaggio lived through a dark period of time. His behavior, however became more and more violent as he began to challenge the beauty of art. He becomes more and more of a murder and uses more dramatic composition heightening his view of the situation.

Each sculpture is pervaded with sexual imagery, portrayed sexual acts (most of which relate to same-sex relations) and priapic forms. This exhibit investigates the relationship between hetero-dominated narratives and alternative sexual expression and identities. Proving an understanding on the creation of gender and sexual identities with colonial societies. (David J. Getsy. “Histories of the Future: Visionary Identification in the Work of Carlos Motta” In Carlos Motta Deviations. New York: P-P-O-W, 2016)

The book Sexuality in Medieval Europe: Doing Unto Others written by Ruth Mazo Karras introduces the reader to a fresh new way of analyzing sex and gender related topics in the Middle Ages. The book takes on an argumentative approach as it explains the differences in sexual identity as defined by society today versus the way it was defined in a traditional medieval society. The book covers a range of topics in the study of sexual identity in the years between the fifth century and the fifteenth century. It is important to explore sex and gender issues in the Middle Ages because it is where many opinions held today originated from. The book delves into the differences in the way we experience gender and sexuality today and in the way it

I am writing about Caravaggio a famous artist in Rome. Caravaggio is known for his tenebrism technique that he used in his art. Caravaggio was known for getting in trouble by fighting a lot. He killed some on once and then not long after he fled Rome. Caravaggio has also painted a chapel.

The Baroque period saw many influential artists and sculptors, however, for the purpose of this assignment I am going to reflect on the works of Bernini and Caravaggio. Bernini’s sculpture, The Ecstasy of St. Teresa and Caravaggio’s painting, the Crucifixion of St. Peter will be what I am going to discuss. Both artists rose to prominence during the Baroque era by employing the artistic techniques unique to the era and playing into the vast influence the Catholic Church held over creativity of this period.

Some females chose to paint the same scenes as the male artist did just to speak up for feminism. For example Artemisia Gentileschi painting the same biblical scene, entitled Judith Beheading Holofernes, that artist Caravaggio painted. Both paintings show the same scene of Judith slaying Holfernes with the maidservant in the room as well as both pictures are painted with realism. Although they are the same scenes there are many differences portrayed through the paintings. Carvaggio grew up with no family figures after the plague struck his home town of Milan. This took a toll on Carvaggio. He had a very violent background as well as a very hot temper, he even murdered a man over a game which caused him to flea Rome (Whitting and Patrizi). This explains why he would choose to paint such a violet scene from the Bible. On the other hand, Gentileschi had firsthand account of what Judith experienced in the Bible. She was raped by her tutor and tried to stab him with a knife. (Brine, Ciletti, and Lähnemann). Gentileschi was able to paint and portray what she personally felt through that negative time in her life through the Judith painting. The biggest difference in the two paintings are how Judith is portrayed. In Carvaggio’s painting, it displayed the idea of the approval of society at that time. Caravaggio painted with realism in his

In Modernist literature, the artist is the most important occupation that a person can pursue. The artist is the person who is responsible for holding a mirror to the culture of the community. It is thus their responsibility to show that community exactly what the community was truly about, especially if that truth were particularly harsh or ugly. Paris, France is famous for being a location wherein one could indulge in every kind of sin, the more lascivious the better. This aspect of the city is often depicted in literature, but never as an exploration of that lifestyle, but instead as a comment on the true hollowness of such an existence. In the earliest half of the twentieth century, a growing number of people became dissatisfied with the world they had been living in following the First World War. These people became dissatisfied with the government, with their lives, and with the status quo. In the United States, women were abandoning their roles as wives and mothers in attempts to find an individual identity as a single human being. Men and women were finding themselves attracted to members of the same sex and, for the first time in American history, were unashamed to act on their feelings, although they would often have to keep their orientation a secret from the public world for fear of ostracism or violence. This new concept of sexuality and the belief of the artist as modernist critics are all interrelated. This is evident in the books Tropic of