Art History For Dummies

Jesse Bryant Wilder is the founder, publisher, and editor of NEXUS, a series of interdisciplinary textbooks used in high schools around the country. He has written several textbooks on art and art history and was an art critic for The Plain Dealer and Cleveland.com.

• Introduction 1About This Book 1Foolish Assumptions 2Icons Used in This Book 2Beyond the Book 2Where to Go from Here 3Part 1: Getting Started with Art History 5Chapter 1: Art Tour through the Ages 7Connecting Art Divisions and Culture 8It’s Ancient History, So Why Dig It Up? 8Mesopotamian period (3500 bc–500 bc) and Egyptian period (3100 bc–332 bc) 9Ancient Greek period (c 850 bc–323 bc) and Hellenistic period (323 bc–32 bc) 9Roman period (300 bc–ad 476) 9Did the Art World Crash When Rome Fell, or Did It Just Switch Directions? 10Byzantine period (ad 500–ad 1453) 10Islamic period (seventh century+) 10Medieval period (500–1400) 10High Renaissance (1495–1520) and Mannerism (1530–1580) 10Baroque period (1600–1750) and Rococo period (1715–1760s) 11In the Machine Age, Where Did Art Get Its Power? 11Neoclassicism (1765–1830) 11Romanticism (late 1700s–early 1800s) 11The Modern World and the Shattered Mirror 12Responding to modern pressures 12Conceptualizing the craft 13Expressing mixed-up times 13Chapter 2: Why People Make Art and What It All Means 15Focusing on the Artist’s Purpose 15Recording religion, ritual, and mythology 15Promoting politics and propaganda 16When I say jump: Art made for patrons 16Following a personal vision 17Detecting Design 17Perceiving pattern 17Rolling with the rhythm 17Weighing the balance 17Looking for contrast 18Examining emphasis 18Decoding Meaning 19The ABCs of visual narrative 19Sorting symbols 19Chapter 3: The Major Artistic Movements 21Distinguishing an Art Period from a Movement 21Tracking Major 19th-Century Art Movements 22Realism (1840s–1880s) 22Impressionism (1869–late 1880s) 22Post-Impressionism (1886–1892) 22Moving Off the Rails in the 20th Century 23Fauvism and Expressionism 23Cubism, Futurism, Dada, and Surrealism 24Abstract Expressionism (1946–1950s) 25Pop Art (1960s) 25Conceptual art, performance art, and feminist art (late 1960s–1970s) 25Postmodernism (1970–) 25Part 2: From Caves to Colosseum: Ancient Art 27Chapter 4: Magical Hunters and Psychedelic Cave Artists 29Cool Cave Art or Paleolithic Painting: Why Keep It a Secret? 30Hunting on a wall 31Psychedelic shamans with paintbrushes 31Flirting with Fertility Goddesses 32Dominoes for Druids: Stonehenge, Menhirs, and Neolithic Architecture 33Living in the New Stone Age: Çatalhöyük, Göbekli Tepe, and Skara Brae 33Cracking the mystery of the megaliths and menhirs 34Chapter 5: Fickle Gods, Warrior Art, and the Birth of Writing: Mesopotamian Art 37Climbing toward the Clouds: Sumerian Architecture 38Zigzagging to Heaven: Ziggurats 38The Tower of Babel 39The Eyes Have It: Scoping Out Sumerian Sculpture 39Worshipping graven images 40Stare-down with God: Statuettes from Abu Temple 40Playing Puabi’s Lyre 41Unraveling the Standard of Ur 42Stalking Stone Warriors: Akkadian Art 43Stamped in Stone: Hammurabi’s Code 43Unlocking Assyrian Art 44Babylon Has a Baby: New Babylon 45Chapter 6: One Foot in the Tomb: Ancient Egyptian Art 47Ancient Egypt 101 48Segmenting the Egyptian periods 48Thanking the Nile 49The Art of a Unified Egypt 49Depicting the unification 49Noting art as history in the Palette of Narmer 50The Egyptian Style: Proportion and Orientation 51Excavating Old Kingdom Architecture 52Early mastabas and step pyramids 52Turning to stone 53Making the architecture great 53Spending life preparing for death 54The In-Between Period and Middle Kingdom Realism 55New Kingdom Art 56Hatshepsut: A female phenom 56Akhenaten and Egyptian family values 56Raiding King Tut’s tomb treasures 58Admiring the world’s most beautiful dead woman’s tomb 59Decoding Books of the Dead 59Too-big-to-forget sculpture 61Chapter 7: Greek Art, the Olympian Ego, and the Inventors of the Modern World 63Mingling with the Minoans: Snake Goddesses, Minotaurs, and Bull Jumpers 64Greek Sculpture: Stark Symmetry to a Delicate Balance 66Kouros to Kritios Boy 66Golden Age sculptors: Myron, Polykleitos, and Phidias 68Fourth-century sculpture 70Figuring Out Greek Vase Painting 71Cool stick figures: The geometric style 71Black-figure and red-figure techniques 72Rummaging through Ruins: Greek Architecture 73Greece without Borders: Hellenism 76Sculpting passion and struggle 76Honoring the classical in a new world 77Chapter 8: Etruscan and Roman Art: It’s All Greek to Me! 79The Mysterious Etruscans 79Temple to tomb: Greek influence 79Smiles in stone: The eternally happy Etruscans 80Infusing Art with Roman Influence 80Linking the territory that was Rome 82Art as mirror: Roman realism andRepublican sculptural portraits 82Progressing on to propaganda 83Shirking idealism for authenticity 84Realism in painting 85Roman mosaics 86Revealing Roman Architecture: A Marriage of Style and Engineering 87Temple of Portunus 87Maison Carrée 88Roman aqueducts 88The Colosseum 88The Pantheon 90Part 3: Art after the Fall of Rome: ad 500–ad 1760 93Chapter 9: The Graven Image: Early Christian, Byzantine, and Islamic Art 95The Rise and Fall of Constantinople 95Christianizing Rome 96After the fall: Divisions and schisms 96Early Christian Art in the West 96Rejecting paganism 97Drawing on Roman art and culture 97Byzantine Art Meets Imperial Splendor 98Justinian and Early Byzantine architecture 98Amazing mosaics: Puzzle art 100San Vitale: Justinian and Theodora mosaics 101The mosaics of St Mark’s Basilica, Venice, Italy (Middle Byzantine) 103Icons and iconoclasm 103Islamic Art: Architectural Pathways to God 106The Mosque of Córdoba 107The dazzling Alhambra 109A temple of love: The Taj Mahal 110Chapter 10: Mystics, Marauders, and Manuscripts: Medieval Art 113Irish Light: Illuminated Manuscripts 114A unique Christian mission 114Browsing the Book of Kells, Lindisfarne Gospels, and other manuscripts 114Drolleries and the fun style 116Charlemagne: King of His Own Renaissance 117Weaving and Unweaving the Battle of Hastings: The Bayeux Tapestry 117Providing a battle blueprint 117Portraying everyday life in medieval England and France 118Peddling political propaganda 119Making border crossings 119Romanesque Architecture: Churches That Squat 120St Sernin 120Durham Cathedral 121Romanesque Sculpture 122Nightmares in stone: Romanesque relief 123Roman sculpture revival 123Relics and Reliquaries: Miraculous Leftovers 123Gothic Grandeur: Churches That Soar 125Building a church-and-state alliance 125Bigger and brighter 125Making something new from old parts 126Finishing touches and voilà! 127Expanding the Gothic dream 127Stained-Glass Storytelling 127Gothic Sculpture 128Italian Gothic 129Gothic Painting: Cimabue, Duccio, and Giotto 130Cimabue 130Duccio 132Giotto 133Tracking the Lady and the Unicorn: The Mystical Tapestries of Cluny 134Themes of love and desire? 134Themes with religious connotation? 135The questions remain 136Chapter 11: Born-Again Culture: The Early and High Renaissance 137The Early Renaissance in Central Italy 138The Great Door Contest: Brunelleschi versus Ghiberti — And the winner is! 138The Duomo of Florence 139Vanishing points and perspective 140Sandro Botticelli: A garden-variety Venus 144Donatello: Putting statues back on their feet 145The High Renaissance 146Reviving self-respect 146Elevating humanity in art 147Leonardo da Vinci: Renaissance man 147Leonardo’s techniques 147Leonardo’s greatest works 148Michelangelo: The main man 150Michelangelo’s greatest works 152Raphael: The prince of painters 153Chapter 12: Venetian Renaissance, Late Gothic, and the Renaissance in the North 157A Gondola Ride through the Venetian Renaissance 158First stop, Bellini 158A shortcut to Mantegna and Giorgione 160Dürer’s Venice vacations 161Touring the 16th century with Titian 162The Venice of Veronese 164Tintoretto and Renaissance ego 165La Tintoretta: Marietta Robusti 166Palladio: The king of classicism 167Late Gothic: Northern Naturalism 168Jan van Eyck: The Late Gothic ace 168Rogier van der Weyden: Front and center 169Northern Exposure: The Renaissance in the Netherlands and Germany 172Decoding Bosch 172Deciphering the dark symbolism of Grünewald 174Dining with Bruegel the Elder 175Chapter 13: Art That’ll Stretch Your Neck: Mannerism 177Detecting the Non-Rules of Mannerism 177Pontormo: Front and Center 178Bronzino’s Background Symbols and Scene Layering 179Parmigianino: He’s Not a Cheese! 180Contrasting proportions and balance 181A surreal feel 181Arcimboldo: À la Carte Art 182Sofonisba Anguissola (1532–1625): Invading Art History’s Guys’ Club 183Finding a place in the Spanish court 183Rubbing elbows with the court painters 184El Greco: Stretched to the Limit 185Evolving a unique Mannerist style 185Drawing inspiration from mysticism 185How unappreciated was El Greco? 186Lavinia Fontana: The First Professional Female Painter 187Applying a rich education and broad network 187Supplying the missing female storyline 187Endowing Jesus with more humanity 188Finding Your Footing in Giulio Romano’s Palazzo Te 189Architectural surprises outside 190An inside to die for 190Chapter 14: When the Renaissance Went Baroque 193Baroque Origin, Purpose, and Style 194Annibale Carracci: Heavenly Ceilings 194Shedding Light on the Subject: Caravaggio and His Followers 195Elements of Caravaggio style 195Caravaggio style applied 196Orazio Gentileschi: Baroque’s gentle side, more or less 197Shadow and light dramas: Artemisia Gentileschi 197Elisabetta Sirani and an Art School for Women 199Sirani’s notable career 199Portraying brave and capable women 200The Ecstasy and the Ecstasy: Bernini Sculpture 202Embracing Baroque Architecture 203Maderno and the launch of Baroque architecture 203Bernini: Transforming St Peter’s Basilica 203Baroque style migrates northward 204Fischer: Harmonizing Baroque style 204Dutch and Flemish Realism 205Rubens: Fleshy, flashy, and holy 206Rembrandt: Self-portraits and life in the shadows 207Laughing with Hals 209Bold Strokes: Judith Leyster 209Vermeer: Musicians, maids, and girls with pearls 212French Flourish and Baroque Light Shows 213Poussin the Perfect 213Candlelit reverie and Georges de La Tour 213Versailles: Architecture as propaganda and the Sun King 214In the Limelight with Caravaggio: The Spanish Golden Age 215Ribera and Zurbarán: In the shadow of Caravaggio 215Velázquez: Kings and princesses 216Chapter 15: Going Loco with Rococo 219What You Get in Rococo Art 220Breaking with Baroque: Antoine Watteau 221Fragonard and Boucher: Lush, Lusty, and Lavish 222François Boucher 222Jean-Honoré Fragonard 222Flying High: Giovanni Battista Tiepolo 223Rococo Lite: The Movement in England 223William Hogarth 224Thomas Gainsborough 224Sir Joshua Reynolds 226Part 4: The Industrial Revolution Revs Up Art’s Evolution: 1760–1900 229Chapter 16: All Roads Lead Back to Rome and Greece: Neoclassical Art 231When Philosophers and Artists Join Forces 232The promotion of reason 232Enlightened views and political progress 232Angelica Kauffman: The Queen of Neoclassicism 233Focusing on women and brother- or sisterhood 233Not everyone loved the depictions 235Jacques-Louis David: The King of Neoclassicism 235Grand, formal, and retro 236Propagandist for all sides 237Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres: The Prince of Neoclassical Portraiture 238Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun: Portraitist of the Queen and Fashion Setter 239Illustrating fashion trends 240Fleeing for her life 241Adélaïde Labille-Guiard: From Ideal to Real and Royals to Revolutionaries 241Starting with socially acceptable miniatures 242Graduating to sizeable self-portraiture 242Working with the Revolutionaries 243Canova and Houdon: Greek Grace and Neoclassical Sculpture 243Antonio Canova: Ace 18th-century sculptor 243Jean-Antoine Houdon: In living stone 244Chapter 17: Romanticism: Reaching Within and Acting Out 247Kissing Isn’t Romantic, but Having a Heart Is 247Romancing independence 248Romancing spirituality 248Romancing the wild 249Far Out with William Blake and Henry Fuseli: Personal Mythologies 249Unifying body and soul 249Drawing on imagination 250Inside Out: Caspar David Friedrich 251The Revolutionary French Romantics: Gericault and Delacroix 252Théodore Gericault 252Eugène Delacroix 253Francisco Goya and the Grotesque 255J. M. W. Turner Sets the Skies on Fire 257Rebels with a Cause 260Courbet and Daumier: Painting Peasants and Urban Blight 261Gustave Courbet 261Honoré Daumier: Guts and grit 262The Barbizon School and the Great Outdoors 263Jean-François Millet: The noble peasants 263Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot: From naked truth to dressed-up reality 264Rosa Bonheur: From a Horse Fair to Buffalo Bill 265Portraying the Paris horse fair 266Gaining world-wide renown 267Keeping It Real in America 267Along came Thomas Cole 267Westward ho! with Albert Bierstadt 269George Catlin, painter of western Indian tribes 271Edmonia Lewis 272Navigating sun, storm, and sea with Winslow Homer 272Boating through America with Thomas Eakins 273The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood: Medieval Visions and Painting Literature 273Dante Gabriel Rossetti: Leader of the Pre-Raphaelites 274Marie Spartali Stillman: From model to artist 275John Everett Millais and soft-spoken symbolism 276The Ten: America’s First Art Movement 276Celebrating the leisure class 277Creating art for art’s sake 278Ashcan Artists: Capturing the Grit of Urban Life 278Presenting the urban underbelly 278Illustrating the rough life 279Chapter 19: First Impressions: Impressionism 281M & M: Manet and Monet 282Édouard Manet: Breaking the rules 283Claude Monet: From patches to flecks 284Pretty Women and Painted Ladies: Renoir and Degas 286Impressionists and the movement’s midlife crisis 287Pretty as a picture: Pierre-Auguste Renoir 287The dancers of Edgar Degas 288Cassatt, Morisot, and Other Female Impressionists 289Mary Cassatt 290Berthe Morisot 291Eva Gonzalès 292American Impressionism 293William Merritt Chase: An Impressionist with Realist ties 293Frieseke in the Giverny American Art Colony 294Jane Peterson 295Chapter 20: Making Their Own Impression: The Post-Impressionists 297You’ve Got a Point: Pointillism, Georges-Pierre Seurat and Paul Signac 297Observing the science of color 297Applying the science of color 298Red-Light Art: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec 299Tracking the “Noble Savage”: Paul Gauguin 300Brittany paintings 301Tahiti paintings 302Gauguin’s influence 302Painting Energy: Vincent van Gogh 303Trading the ministry for art 303Expanding artistic energy 303Painting while confined 304Love Cast in Stone: Rodin and Claudel 304Auguste Rodin 305Camille Claudel 306The Mask behind the Face: James Ensor 306The Hills Are Alive with Geometry: Paul Cézanne 308Art Nouveau: Curves, Swirls, and Asymmetry 309Art Nouveau: Not a painting style 309Making functionality pretty 310Fairy-Tale Fancies and the Sandcastle Cathedral of Barcelona: Antoni Gaudí 310Part 5: Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Art 313Chapter 21: From Fauvism to Expressionism 315Fauvism: Colors Fighting like Animals 315Henri Matisse 316André Derain 317Maurice de Vlaminck 317German Expressionism: Form Based on Feeling 318Die Brücke and World War I 318Der Blaue Reiter 321Austrian Expressionism: From Dream to Nightmare 324Gustav Klimt and his languorous ladies 325Egon Schiele: Turning the self inside out 325Oskar Kokoschka: Dark dreams and interior storms 326Chapter 22: Cubist Puzzles and Finding the Fast Lane with the Futurists 329Cubism: All Views At Once 329Pablo Picasso 330Analytic Cubism: Breaking things apart 332Synthetic Cubism: Gluing things together 332Fernand Léger: Cubism for the commoner 333Futurism: Art That Broke the Speed Limit 333Umberto Boccioni 335Gino Severini 335Precisionism: Geometry as Art 336The Harlem Renaissance and the Jazz Age 338Chapter 23: Nonobjective Art: Dada, Surrealism, and Abstract Expressionism 343Suprematism: Kazimir Malevich’s Reinvention of Space 343The path to Suprematism 344Reinventing the world in shape and color 344Constructivism: Showing Off Your Skeleton 345Tatlin’s Tower 346A dance between time and space: Naum Gabo 346Piet Mondrian and the De Stijl Movement 347Dada Turns the World on Its Head 347Dada, the ground floor, and Cabaret Voltaire 348Dada: Influencee and influencer 348Marcel Duchamp: Nudes, urinals, and hat racks 349Hans (Jean) Arp: In and out of Dadaland 350Surrealism and Disjointed Dreams 351Max Ernst and his alter ego, Loplop 351Salvador Dalí: Melting clocks, dreamscapes, and ants 352René Magritte: Help, my head’s on backwards! 354Dissecting Frida Kahlo 354Joan Miro 356My House Is a Machine: Modernist Architecture 357Frank Lloyd Wright: Bringing the outside in 357Bauhaus boxes: Walter Gropius 359Le Corbusier: Machines for living and Notre-Dame du Haut 359Abstract Expressionism: Fireworks on Canvas 361Arshile Gorky 361Jackson Pollock: Flick, fling, drip, splash, swirl — action painting 362Lee Krasner: Almost patterns 363Willem de Kooning 364Chapter 24: Anything-Goes Art: Fab Fifties and Psychedelic Sixties 365Artsy Cartoons: Pop Art 365The many faces of Andy Warhol 366Blam! Comic books on canvas: Roy Lichtenstein 367Fantastic Realism 368Ernst Fuchs: The father of the Fantastic Realists 368Hundertwasser: Organic architecture and art 369Louise Nevelson: Picking up the Trash and Assemblage 370Louise Bourgeois: Sexualized sculpture 371Less-Is-More Art: Rothko, Newman, Stella, Frankenthaler, and Others 372Color Fields of dreams: Rothko and Newman 372Helen Frankenthaler 373Minimalism, more or less 373Photorealism 374Richard Estes: Always in focus 374Clinical close-ups: Chuck Close 375Helen Hardin: Native American Futurism 375Performance Art and Installations 376Fluxus: Intersections of the arts 376Joseph Beuys: Fanning out from Fluxus 377Carolee Schneemann: Body art and breaking taboos 378Chapter 25: Photography: From Science to Art 381The Birth of Photography 381Transitioning from Science to Art 382An early attempt to “artify” photography 383Focusing on documentary photography 384Alfred Stieglitz: Reliving the Moment 384Recognition for photography as high art 385Picturesque pictures 385Henri Cartier-Bresson’s uncanny eye 386From painting to photography 386Stealth and the “Decisive Moment” 386Group f/64: Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham, and Ansel Adams 387Dorothea Lange: Depression to Dust Bowl 388Margaret Bourke-White: From Industrial Beauty to Political Statements 389Photographing for Fortune 389Photographing for Life 389Fast-Forward: The Next Generation 391Chapter 26: The New World: Postmodern Art 393From Modern Pyramids to Titanium Twists: Postmodern Architecture 393Viva Las Vegas! 394Chestnut Hill: Case in point 394Philip Johnson and urban furniture 395The prismatic architecture of I M Pei 395Deconstructivist architecture of Peter Eisenman, Frank Gehry, and Zaha Hadid 396Making It or Faking It? Postmodern Photography and Painting 399Cindy Sherman: Morphing herself 399Gerhard Richter: Reading between the layers 400Installation Art and Earth Art 401Judy Chicago: A dinner table you can’t sit at 401It’s a wrap: Christo and Jeanne-Claude 402Robert Smithson and earth art: Can you dig it? 403Glow-in-the-Dark Bunnies and Living, Genetic Art 404Part 6: The Part of Tens 407Chapter 27: Ten Must-See Art Museums 409The Louvre (Paris) 409The Uffizi (Florence) 410The Vatican Museums (Rome) 410The National Gallery (London) 410The Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYC) 410The Prado (Madrid) 411The National Gallery of Art (D.C.) 411The Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam) 411British Museum (London) 412The Kunsthistorisches Museum (Vienna) 412Chapter 28: Ten Great Books by Ten Great Artists 413On Painting, by Leonardo da Vinci 413Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, by Giorgio Vasari 413Complete Poems and Selected Letters of Michelangelo 414The Journal of Eugène Delacroix 414Van Gogh’s Letters 414Rodin on Art, by Paul Gsell 414Der Blaue Reiter Almanac, edited by Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc 414Concerning the Spiritual in Art, by Wassily Kandinsky 415The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait 415Hundertwasser Architecture: For a More Human Architecture in Harmony with Nature, by Friedensreich Hundertwasser 415And Others 415Index 417