Unit 4: Later Europe and Americas, 1750–1980 CE

Latin America

Spanish and Portuguese explorers conquered enormous swaths of territory in what is now known as ____.

Mestizo

someone of mixed European and Native American descent

Manila Galleon

Allowed commerce vessels to complete the four-month trek without interruption.

New World

The Spanish introduced the _____ to Roman Catholicism, a faith rich in imagery. Religious benefactors funded a staggering number of high-quality religious works.

Cusco, Peru

This became the first European art center in the Americas.

Frontispiece of the Codex Mendoza

Viceroyalty of New Spain (c. 1541–1542); The main scene depicts the founding of Tenochtitlán; Named after Antonio de Mendoza, viceroy of New Spain. The book uses glyphs created by Aztec artists that were later annotated in Spanish.

Angel with Arquebus (Asiel Timor Dei)

By Master of Calamarca (La Paz School)The angel is depicted with an arquebus (a form of rifle) instead of a traditional sword.one in a series of angel drummers, buglers, standard bearers, and holders of swords. The Master of Calamarca may have been José López de los Ríos

Screen with the Siege of Belgrade and a hunting scene

Circle of the González family (1697–1701)Only known example of an artwork that combines biombos and enconchados. Commissioned by José Sarmiento de Valladares. Displayed in Viceregal Palace in Mexico City.

Screen with the Siege of Belgrade (Hunting Scene)

suited to an intimate space for small receptions. Dased on tapestry designs for the Medici. The design is derived from prints exported from Europe

Screen with the Siege of Belgrade (War Scene)

more suited for a grander room of political importance. Depicts the contemporary event of the Great Turkish War; illustrates a scene of Hapsburg power.

Biombos

folding freestanding screens

Enconchados

shell-inlay paintings; tiny fragments of mother-of-pearl placed onto a wooden support and canvas and covered with a yellowish tint and thin glazes of paint

Virgin of Guadalupe

By Miguel González (1698)Based on original Virgin of Guadalupe. The painting describes an event in which Mary appeared to Native Americans on Tepeyac; Revelations 12:1

Tepeyac

a shrine sacred to a pre-Columbian goddess.

Spaniard and Indian Produce a Mestizo

Attributed to Juan Rodríguez Juárez (c. 1715)Spanish colonists commissioned these works to be sent abroad to show the caste system of the New World. Panel from the first known series of casta paintings

Casta paintings

paintings from New Spain showing people of mixed races

Portrait of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

By Miguel Cabrera (1750); Painting was done for her admirers 55 years after Sor Juana Inés’s death. Portrayed seated in her library surrounded by symbols of her faith and her learning.

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

She was a criollo woman who became a nun in 1669.a literary figure who wrote books that were widely read; she also wrote poetry and theatrical pieces, and maintained a great library.

Industrial Revolution

The ______ began in the latter half of the eighteenth century, and while it brought about improvements in quality of life, it was frequently countered by a new form of slavery to mechanized labor and harsh working conditions.

Enlightenment

A period of new intellectual development during which scientists and philosophers began to base their theories on logic and observation rather than on received wisdom and tradition.

Diderot

He organized and edited a massive 52-volume French encyclopedia in 1764

Johnson

He composed the first English dictionary singlehandedly in 1755

Rousseau

He discussed how a legitimate government was an expression of the general will in his 1762 Social Contract.

Johann Winckelmann

He publish The History of Ancient Art in 1764 when he discovered Pompeii

Academy

an institution whose main objectives include training artists in an academic tradition, ennobling the profession, and holding exhibitions

French Academy

They showcased selected works by its members in an annual or biannual event called the Salon, which greatly increased an artist's prestige and the value of their paintings.

Salon

a government-sponsored exhibition of artworks held in Paris in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

Grand Tour

in order to complete their education young Englishmen and Americans in the eighteenth century undertook a journey to Italy to absorb ancient and Renaissance sites

Fête galante

an eighteenth-century French style of painting that depicts the aristocracy walking through a forested landscape

Rococo art

This art is sensual and erotic, with playful scenes of love and romance that tease the imagination.

Rococo paintings

These paintings features curvy, delicate frames with limbs of figures spilling over the sides, blurring the line between painting and sculpture.

Pastel

a colored chalk that when mixed with other ingredients produces a medium that has a soft and delicate hue

Satirical Paintings

Eighteenth-Century English Painting was known mostly for _____.

Neoclassical buildings

These were not simply imitations of ancient architecture but rather a smart adaptation of classical principles for modern living.

Monticello

It is a “little mountain” in Italian, sited on a hilltop in Virginia.

exemplum virtutis

Paintings like the retelling of the story of the Horatii were called ____, as they emphasized self-sacrifice for the greater good.

Bronze

It was the most expensive and highly prized sculptural medium before the Industrial Revolution.

13 colonies united in a cause

Washington leans on the Roman fasces: a group of rods bound together on the top and the bottom; the 13 rods symbolize the _________.

wild frontier

Arrows between the rods likely refer to Native Americans or the idea of America as _____.

Plow

____ behind Washington symbolizes his plantation as well as the planting of a new world order.

The Swing

By Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1767); Pastel palette; light brushwork; a dreamlike setting. Commissioned by an unnamed “gentleman of the Court.” Fragonard answers the libertine intentions of his patron by painting in the Rococo style.

Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun Self-Portrait

By Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (1790); Light Rococo touch in the coloring. The artist was 45 when this was painted, but she appears much younger. Subject in the painting looks admiringly upon the painter.

The Tête à Tête from Marriage à la Mode

By William Hogarth (c. 1743); Highly satiric paintings about a decadent English aristocracy and those who would have liked to buy their way into it. A series of six narrative paintings; later turned into a series of prints.

A Philosopher Giving a Lecture on the Orrery

By Joseph Wright of Derby (1763–1765); One of a series of candlelight pictures by Wright; inspired by Caravaggio’s use of tenebrism. Influenced by a provincial group of intellectuals called the Lunar Society. Each face in the painting is an aspect of the phases of the moon.

Monticello

By Thomas Jefferson (1768–1809); A brick building with stucco applied to the trim to give the effect of marble. Name itself is “little mountain” in Italian, sited on a hilltop in Virginia. Inspired by books by the Italian Renaissance architect Palladio and by Roman ruins Jefferson saw in France.

The Oath of the Horatii

By Jacques-Louis David (1784); Painted under royal patronage, Louis XVI. Story of three Roman brothers who do battle with three other brothers from the nearby city of Alba. Exemplum virtutis.

George Washington

By Jean-Antoine Houdon (1788–1792); Naturalistic details. Stance inspired by Polykleitos’s Doryphoros. Commissioned by the Virginia legislature. Meant to commemorate the central position for founding of American independence.

Enlightenment

Romantics reacted against _____, advocating for trusting the heart over the head.

Romantic artists

They sought pleasure in refined things or audacious adventures, and were influenced by the extremes of human endeavor

Photography

It was the greatest artistic invention of the period, but was initially not seen as a form of art

Charles Barry

A classical architect; he accounts for the regularity of plan in the Palace of Westminster

Augustus Pugin

A Gothic architect, added Gothic architectural touches to the structure of the Palace of Westminster

Palace of Westminster (Houses of Parliament)

By Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin (1840–1870); The building holds the two chambers of the United Kingdom’s government. Enormous structure of 1,100 rooms, 100 staircases, 2 miles of corridors. Building is a reaction against art as a mass-produced product of the Industrial Revolution

Big Ben

A clock tower; in a sense a village clock for all of England.

Central Lobby

Situated between the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Meant to be a space where constituents can meet their member of Parliament.

Westminster Hall

When the old Houses of Parliament burned to the ground, this hall survived and became the last vestige of the medieval parliament building. Perpendicular Gothic style of this hall inspired the design of the Houses of Parliament.

The sublime

any cathartic experience from the catastrophic to the intellectual that causes the viewer to marvel in awe, wonder, and passion

And There’s Nothing to Be Done (Y no hai remedio)

By Francisco De Goya (1863); from The Disasters of War (Les Desastres de la Guerra), Plate 15used a combination of etching and drypoint. Bitterly ironic and sardonic. Central figure is seen in a Christ-like pose.

Fatal Consequences of Spain’s Bloody War with Bonaparte and Other Emphatic Caprices

Original title of “And There’s Nothing to Be Done (Y no hai remedio)”

Caprice

usually a work of art that is an architectural fantasy; more broadly any work that has a fantasy element

Drypoint

an engraving technique in which a steel needle is used to incise lines in a metal plate. The rough burr at the sides of the incised lines yields a velvety black tone in the print

Odalisque

a woman slave in a harem

La Grande Odalisque

By Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1814); Commissioned by Caroline Murat, Napoleon’s sister, Queen of Naples.Raphael-like face.Not a traditional frontal nude.

Liberty Leading the People

By Eugène Delacroix (1830); Red/white/blue (colors of the French flag) echo throughout the painting. The painting symbolically depicts the July Revolution of 1830; Exhibited at the Salon of 1831 and then acquired by the French state

Slave Ship

By Joseph Mallord William Turner (1840); Based on a true story; slaves were insured against accidental drowning. Nature responds to the inhumanity of the slave trade.

Thomas Clarkson

Turner’s painting was inspired by an account of the scandal published in a book by ____, which had been reprinted in 1839.

The Oxbow

By Thomas Cole (1836); The View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm. Painted as reply to a British book that alleged that Americans had destroyed a wilderness with industry. Manifest Destiny.

Thomas Cole

the founder of the Hudson River School.

camera obscura

Experiments in photography go back to the seventeenth century, when artists used a device called a ____ to focus images in a box so that artists could render accurate copies of the scene before them.

Photosensitive paper

It was introduced that could replicate the silhouette of an object when exposed to light.

Photogram

an image made by placing objects on photosensitive paper and exposing them to light to produce a silhouette

Daguerreotype

a type of early photograph, developed by Louis Daguerre that is characterized by a shiny surface, meticulous finish, and clarity of detail. Daguerreotypes are unique photographs; they have no negative

Calotype

a type of early photograph, developed by William H. F. Talbot that is characterized by its grainy quality. It is considered the forefather of all photography because it produces both a positive and a negative image

Still Life in Studio

By Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre (1837); Long exposure times required. Produced on a metallic surface; photos have a glossy finish.

Japonisme

an attraction for Japanese art and artifacts that were imported into Europe in the late nineteenth century

Lithography

a printmaking technique that uses a flat stone surface as a base. The artist draws an image with a special crayon that attracts ink. Paper, which absorbs the ink, is applied to the surface and a print emerges

Caricature

a drawing that uses distortion or exaggeration of someone’s physical features or apparel in order to make that person look foolish

Modernism

a movement begun in the late nineteenth century in which artists embraced the current at the expense of the traditional in both subject matter and in media. Modernist artists often seek to question the very nature of art itself

Plein-air

painting in the outdoors to directly capture the effects of light and atmosphere on a given object

Positivism

a theory that expresses that all knowledge must come from proven ideas based on science or scientific theory; a philosophy promoted by French philosopher Auguste Comte (1798–1857)

Skeleton

the supporting interior framework of a building

Zoopraxiscope

a device that projects sequences of photographs to give the illusion of movement

Avant-garde

an innovative group of artists who generally reject traditional approaches in favor of a more experimental technique

Drypoint

an engraving technique in which a steel needle is used to incise lines in a metal plate. The rough burr at the sides of the incised lines yields a velvety black tone in the print

Aquatint

a kind of print that achieves a watercolor effect by using acids that dissolve onto a copper plate

Realist painters

They believe in depicting things that can be experienced with the five senses.

The Stone Breakers

By Gustave Courbet (1849); Browns and ochres are dominant hues reflecting the drudgery of peasant life. Reaction to labor unrest of 1848, which demanded better working conditions.

Nadar Raising Photography to the Height of Art

By Honoré Daumier (1862); Originally appeared in a journal, Le Boulevard, as a mass-produced lithograph. The print satirizes the claims that photography can be a “high art;” irony implied in title.

Olympia

By Édouard Manet (1863); The maid delivers flowers from an admirer; a cat responds to our entry into the room. Manet creates a dialogue between the nude prostitute and the clothed black servant

The Valley of Mexico from the Hillside of Santa Isabel (El Valle de México desde el Cerro de Santa Isabel)

By Jose María Velasco (1882); The painting depicts Tepeyac and offers a sweeping view of the Valley

Jose María Velasco

He rejected the realist landscapes of Courbet; he preferred the romantic landscapes of Turner.

Leland Stanford

The Horse in Motion is hired by ________ to settle a bet to see if a horse’s four hooves could be off the ground at the same time during a natural gallop.

The Horse in Motion

By Eadweard Muybridge (1878); Albumen Print; Zoopraxiscope is used; very fast shutter speeds, nearly 1/2000th of a second. One photograph with sixteen separate images of a horse galloping.

avant-garde

Impressionism is a modernist movement led by ____ artists.

bourgeois

Impressionism was originally anti-academic and anti-bourgeois, but it is now seen as the hallmark of ____ taste.

The Saint-Lazare Station

By Claude Monet (1877); The painting depicts the interior of a train station in Paris. Shows modern life in Paris with great industrial iron output

The Coiffure

By Mary Cassatt (1890–1891); The work contains contrasting sensuous curves of the female figure with straight lines of the furniture and wall. Japanese influence

Starry Night

By Vincent van Gogh (1889); Heavy application of paint called impasto. Dutch church, crescent moon, Mediterranean cypress tree.

Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?

By Paul Gauguin (1897–1898); Gauguin thought the painting was a summation of his artistic and personal expression. The figures in foreground represent Tahiti and an Eden-like paradise; background figures are anguished, darkened figures.

Mont Saint-Victoire

By Paul Gauguin (1902–1904); Used perspective through juxtaposing forward warm colors with receding cool colors. One of 11 canvases of this view painted near his studio in Aix in the south of France; the series dominates Cézanne’s mature period.