Renaissance and Baroque Art

                                                           Art in the Renaissance 

Madona and Child (1520) by Francesco Granacci.

This painting is titled Madona and Child. It was painted by Italian artist Francesco Granacci in 1520. In this artwork, we can see how the virgin Mary and the baby Jesus are depicted in a realistic way. This is because
painters had discovered the significance of form and anatomy during this period of time. For this reason, painters tried to portray the human forms in a very accurate way. Humanism played an important role in Renaissance art. It minimized religious and secular dogmas and emphasized the dignity and value of the individual.
In this piece of art, we can see the use of bright colors. In the Renaissance, artists used bright colors and implemented other characteristics such as realism, expression, perspective and focus on the individual. For this reason, Mary and Jesus are clearly the focal points of this painting instead of the surroundings. It is interesting to me to see how the majority of the artworks from this period of time were religious or had religion as a theme.


                                                                       Baroque Art

Marie Antoinette with a Rose in 1783 by Vigee Le Brun. 

This painting titled Marie Antoinette with a Rose is one of the most popular artworks done by French artist Vigee Le brun. Le Brun painted this portrait of Queen Marie Antoinette in 1783. She was considered the official portraitist of Marie Antoinette. Baroque painters were more interested in light than in forms and figures unlike painters from the Renaissance.
This is why, we can see how the face, torso and arms of Marie Antoinette look brighter than the rest of the painting.
We can also see that Marie Antoinette is depicted in a realistic way as well as the background. The techniques of implementing light and dark shadows as well as realism made Baroque artworks look more dramatic and real than the ones from the Renaissance period. For this reason, this portrait of Marie Antoinette almost look like a photograph of her.

Assignment # 2 - Design Elements & Principles in Art

 1. Unity is the appearance or condition of oneness in an artwork. Artists achieve unity by adjusting the parts of a work in order to make them related to each other. However, if there is too much unity, the artwork might seem boring. Therefore, Artists have to make a balance by implementing variety to their artworks. An artwork is balanced if it has variety and unity. Ways in which artists unify their work are the use of repetition of color, objects and shapes. An example of unity in an artwork is the painting titled Butterflies by Marcia Baldwin. In this work, we can see how this artist uses the colors blue and white in a repeated way. This artwork also has variety because the butterflies seem to be flying in different directions.


2. Asymmetrical balance is when the left and the right sides of a work appear to be different. Some elements are balanced depending on their size, weight, color and also meaning. In other words, large forms are heavy and they can be balanced with two or more smaller forms in the other side. Warm colors can be balanced with cold colors. Shadows, light and dark sides are significant parts of these types of artworks. The painting above titled A Bigger Splash by David Hockney is an example of asymmetrical balance in an artwork. This is because, the building is placed off center, to the left. However, it is balanced by the impressive angle of the diving board and also its projection to the viewer's space.



3. Scale in art refers to the relationship that the size of one object has with another. This is one of the first things that an artist has to agree on before creating a piece of art. Scale could be too large or too small depending on the artist's intentions. By doing this, the artist shows or emphasizes the importance of the object. The picture above is a good example of scale in art. Narmer who was a predynastic ruler in Ancient Egypt appears to be larger than the other men that are depicted carrying the standards of some local gods. This shows the importance and power that Narmer had as a ruler over other men. For this reason, he is depicted as being larger than the other men in this piece of art.