[Republicanprofessor]

So it is your turn for discussion now. Which pieces do you like best, and why? What have I omitted that you would like to add? Can you tell which ones I like least?

[Republicanprofessor]

Art Appreciation/Education ping list.

It's been a while since I had a chance to do another "lecture" on art history. So here goes.

Let me know if you want on or off this ping list.

[conservativebabe]

I find Rembrandts works very pleasing. I love his use of color and light. His works have a softness about them that is very calming and sedate to me.

There seems so much passion in the subjects also.

[Fierce Allegiance]

If it's not baroque, don't fix it!

[End Times Sentinel]

Note:  I'm not an art appreciater, but at least I'm not stupid enough to say "That looks like crap" or "I could do that".  I just don't "get" most art.

Art tends to break into three groups for me:

1.  Stuff I just don't understand.  Modern Art, Mondrian, Picasso, stuff like that.  I don't know what I'm supposed to look at, or experience.  I get nothin' (but at least I know I couldn't do that).

2.  Stuff where I do understand and have endless questions I don't have any way of getting an answer to - "That's interesting.  I wonder if the shark ate that lady, and why was she in the water anyway."  "What happend to that kid?  Were they poor, or did everyone live like that?  What season was it?  How many hours did they work?  Why wasn't the kid in school?  Did they even have a school?  Could he read?"

3.  Rubens, Renoir, guys who painted a significant amount of female nudes.  Those I like 'cause I think the female body is beautiful, but somehow, maybe more is supposed to be going on there.

That's why I sort of like Dali, Man Ray, Duchamp, those guys.  At least when I see a painting of a spoon or a bottle rack, I know what I'm looking at.

JRBC, what are your thoughts (and anyone else who doesn't feel the need to point out that I don't know anything about art.  I already know that.)

Owl_Eagle

(If what I just wrote makes you sad or angry,

 it was probably sarcasm)

[najida]

First off, I love all things Baroque. From the music, to the architecture to the jewelry making of the period. The detail, the lush colors, the gilding and pomp all appeal to me.

And both Rubens Leucippus and Judgment of Paris are favorites of mine. For many reasons, but mostly, because the women look like normal women. Bodies that are mocked now-a-days were considered goddesses then (I was so born in the wrong era).

I've become a fan of Vemeer in the last few years. I guess a light went on in my head (no pun intended) about how precious light was in a pre-electrical era. With long, cloudy winters, and windows kept shut to ward off drafts, art that seemed to shine from within appeared to be magical.

[x]

Nice lecture, but why are the Versailles gardens so rigid and constrained? Why aren't they more exhuberant and ... well "baroque"?

[x]

I do see the answer now -- the different styles of the Baroque -- but it does make things a little confusing. The lines between Baroque and neoclassicism or rococco don't seem to be too strict.

[Rembrandt_fan]

Rembrandt's last self-portrait is one of my favorites (the one above with the circles on the wall behind him), but it's the portraits he painted of his mistress/common-law wife Hendrickje that I treasure most, particularly the one where she's bathing in a river--it's a painting full of life and love. I also don't think Rembrandt's work should be categorized as Baroque, although I suppose he must go somewhere. Rembrandt employed an economy of means, a lack of superfluity, that runs counter to the somewhat ornate, elaborate 'feel' I get from Baroque. I could gladly spend a lifetime studying his work and make a new discovery every day.

[MinuteGal]

I'm overwhelmed and grateful for the work you do for us in your absorbing posts.

As yo Bahama Mama, I'm tied up right now with the FReeps Ahoy 4 cruise and have little time to post comments in depth on this or other threads. But I have to let you know how much I appreciate your efforts.

I wish you could come on the cruise with us. I'd arrange for an art lecture by you for our freepers in some quiet ship's salon.

What could be more enjoyable than to hear you speak while a gently-waving sapphire-blue seascape rolls past as we gaze out the picture windows.

Leni

[PGalt]

Thank for this thread and the ping. Great artwork.

[P.O.E.]

Some awesome paintings of St. Paul's Conversion.

[Blind Eye Jones]

I love it! There is a light technique associated with Caravaggio called ciricocho (?) or some such thing that was used in the movie Blade Runner according to a postmodern prof I had in comparative literature that would make us read Stephen King novels as literature and host of other trashy books that I can't remember to save my life. But I do remember the reference to the light technique which I thought Caravaggio would never have dreamed that art students would be talking about 100s of years later unless he was in a bar and lucidly prophetic to the temptations of sin and seeing Gods plan for all sinners unfold into the future to the point where postmodern sinners could talk without any reservation about God grand mastery of light that reveals humans, as not politically correct, but as obscured as their words and deeds... no light there on the surface.

[TradicalRC]

Certain things could be touched upon in more detail: the influence of Michelangelo on Carravaggio, the contrast between the sumptuous Catholic paintings of Flanders versus the simpler pious paintings of Holland, and Rembrandt contributing a milestone to the art world with his "painterliness".