Week 03 - Images and Ideologies II PDF

Images and Ideologies II Week 03 FA 171 Introduction to Art, Design and Culture I Ways of Seeing by J. Berger chpt. 4 – (p. 65-81) chpt. 5 - “Oil Paint...

Images and Ideologies II Week 03 FA 171 Introduction to Art, Design and Culture I Ways of Seeing by J. Berger chpt. 4 – (p. 65-81) chpt. 5 - “Oil Paintings Often Depict Things” (p. 83-112) Ways of Seeing- Chapter 4,5 Oil paintings often depict things, things which are buyable in real life. To have a thing painted on canvas is like buying it and putting it in your house. Possessing & the way of seeing is incorporated in oil painting. A technique An art form Was established fully in the 16th century. Traditional oil painting, btw. years: 1500 – 1900 Forms many of our cultural assumptions, affects the way we see women, landscape, mythology...  Gerrit Willemsz. Heda, Still life with a nautilus cup, c. 1645 Levi Strauss (Anthropologist) was the first to analyze traditional oil paintings in terms of the idea of possession. What does it show? - a typical 17th century man, for whom painters worked. What are these paintings? - objects which can be bought & sold. - unique objects. These paintings show: - sights of what the owner may possess. - They confirm the pride and self-esteem of the owner: they are instruments of possession! Daniel Teniers the Younger, Archduke Leopold Wilhelm in his Picture Gallery in Brussels, c. 1650-1651 European Art Between 1500-1900, Cultural background: Renaissance painting was possible because: during 1400-1600, via sea-trade between East and West, Italian merchants in Florence had got immense fortunes. Then, they used painters to confirm their wealth & desirable possession through oil paintings... European Art Between 1500-1900, Cultural background: Art serves the ideological interests of the ruling classes. New attitudes: Property and commodity exchange began to affect the way of seeing! Impact of Capitalism: Everything became exchangeable because everything turned into a commodity. – Materiality! Comparison: Masterpiece x Average work - 1500 - 1900 The period of the oil painting = the rise of the open art market. After 17th Century: Average work = the selling of the painting was the most important, = the values conveyed via painting were trivial. Properties of Traditional Oil Panting, 1500 - 1900 Tangibility, texture, the solidity, richness of surface. Great potential of illusionism Means of celebrating wealth & the buying power of money. Shows the desirability of what money could buy. Depict things which are buyable. -- POSSESSION Confirm the owner’s wealth & style of living. -- POSSESSION Very realistic / elaborate painting: illusion as if looking at real objects. Conveys a sense of touch = tactile sensation. Objects with symbolic meanings. Celebrates buying power of money. Hans Holbein the Younger: the Ambassadors, 1533 SOCIAL EVENTS: Ocean trade, slave trades, to get the riches from other continents, 1519 Magellan’s sail around the world. SYMBOLISM: instruments on top shelve: navigation. the globe: voyage of Magellan book & lute = Europe is the most civilized. Anatolian (Holbein) carpet: popular luxury object in Europe, extraordinary craftsmanship and beauty. Mysterious slanted oval form. = a highly distorted skull // anamorphic image = Memento mori: medieval idea of using the skull as a reminder of the presence of death. Hans Holbein the Younger: the Ambassadors, 1533 Two ambassadors as men: confident and formal their stance/gaze: distant, individualized Presence They believed the world was at their service. CONTRADICTION: Oil painting is very tangible! That makes the painting close / intimate to the viewer. The Ambassadors: The Mysteries of Holbein’s Masterpiece HENI Talks  PROBLEM: Metaphysical symbols were usually unconvincing & unnatural, because painting method was plain, static and materialistic, tactile. Example: average religious paintings of the tradition: paintings of Mary Magdalene Mary Magdalene, 1519-1550 Story: Love of Christ made her to be sorry for her past and accepted the immortality of the soul. Contradiction: painting does not convey the essence of this story; no spirituality The painting conveys: a desirable woman, an object of pleasure. The exceptional case: Illustration to Dante’s Divine Comedy, by William Blake, 1757-1827 He seldom used oil painting against solidity & materiality painted transparent figures intangible figures He worked against the limitations of oil paint, to go beyond materiality. Formal portrait: The Beaumont Family, by Romney, 1734 - 1802 As tradition continued, the painting of the sitter’s face became more and more generalized. The Genres (Categories) of Oil Painting: Many oil paintings depicted things which money could buy. They conveyed the owner’s wealth, and status. Paintings of animals Paintings of objects Paintings of buildings Still Life with Fruit and Lobster, by De Heem, History or mythological picture = the highest category 1648-49 ‘Genre’ picture = picture of low life Landscape History or Mythological picture: Highly respected Lack of content; they were empty They had prestige Classics supplied a system of reference for how life should be lived for ruling classes. Mr. Towneley and Friends, by Zoffany, 1734 - 1810 Genre paintings: Picture of low life, Vulgar, not noble, Cheap. Purpose: to prove that virtue in this world was rewarded by social and financial success! Popular among the newly arrived bourgeoisie: created the illusion of substantiality=wealth a sentimental lie: the honest and hard-working prospers.. Comparison of Genre paintings: Adriaen Brouwer: Frans Hals: honest and prospered people: Scene from pictures of poor people taverns smiling happy people a bitter & direct realism any location they were never bought except by Rembrandt and Rubens Oil Painting and Property: Landscape paintings Not objects of capitalism. for scientific study. The subject not tangible: eg.: sky. Why a portrait with their landscape as background? Because they got pleasure from seeing themselves as proud landowners. & oil paint was able to render their land in all its substantiality=wealth. Essential character of Oil Painting: Misreading the Tradition and its Masters European Oil Painting conveys the European Society and Culture’s obsession with PROPERTY. Certain exceptional artists broke free of the norms of the tradition. They produced work that was opposing to the values of traditional oil painting – they go beyond being a representation of property. Ex: Vermeer, Rembrandt, Goya... These are the artists that are celebrated by art critics however «we should not confuse these Young Woman in Blue Reading a Letter, exceptional cases with the purpose and by Johannes Vermeer 1660 significance of the general tradition.» Essential character of Oil Painting: Misreading the Tradition and its Masters Rembrandt has turned the tradition AGAINST ITSELF: Portrait of Himself Self-Portrait, and Saskia, Rembrandt,1669 Rembrandt, 1606-1669 This was painted when he was 28: 30 years later: sort of an advertisement for Rembrandt’s All has gone. good fortune, prestige & wealth. Only his existence as an old man is -- formal & unfelt happiness to show off. present! & he only painted that fact. Essential character of Oil Painting: Misreading the Tradition and its Masters These artists (Vermeer, Rembrandt, Goya, Turner...) are acclaimed as the tradition’s supreme representatives. They did break free from the tradtion however a fundemental part of the truth is usually ignored. «If we look at the culture of the European oil painting leaving aside its own claims for itself, we will find that oil painting was before everything else a medium which cellebrated private possessions»