ArtBabble: Smarthistory

Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper (1495-98)

Smarthistory — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 01:39:12 +0000

A conversation about Leonardo's famous fresco in the monastery of Santa Maria della Grazie in Milan. We discuss the characteristics of the High Renaissance style, the terrible condition of the painting, how Leonardo's version of this subject is so unique, and what makes this such an important painting in European art history.

Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris, Dr. Steven Zucker

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Moulin de la Galette 1876 (Musée d’Orsay)

Smarthistory — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 01:37:12 +0000

A conversation about Renoir and the Impressionist style, with its interest in modern Paris, leisure, outdoor light and open brushwork. Here though, we see Renoir's unique interest in pleasure and social interaction, a focus which is very different from his contemporaries, and fellow-Impressionists Degas and Monet.

Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris, Dr. Steven Zucker

Gianlorenzo Bernini, St. Teresa in Ecstasy, Cornaro Chapel, 1645-52 (Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome)

Smarthistory — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 01:35:28 +0000

Gianlorenzo Bernini's intersection of painting, sculpture, and architecture in real and depicted space is the frame for one of the most controversial and successful commissions in Counter-Reformation Rome.

Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris, Dr. Steven Zucker

Michelangelo, The Sistine Ceiling: Vassar's Recreation of the Sistine Chapel in Second Life

Smarthistory — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 01:32:06 +0000

Smarthistory correspondents in the virtual world of Second Life visit the recreation of the Sistine Chapel on Vassar's campus there and talk about Michelangelo's ceiling. And of course, because it's a virtual version of the chapel, they can fly up to the ceiling and see it up close!

Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris (Max Newbold), Dr. Steven Zucker (Sez Zabelin)

Jacques Louis David, The Death of Socrates, 1787 (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Smarthistory — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 01:30:31 +0000

One of David's great pre-revolutionary canvases, The Death of Socrates speaks to the ideals of reform and virtue that preoccupied the French enlightenment and created the context for this magnificent realization of Neo-Classicism.

Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris, Dr. Steven Zucker

Michelangelo, The Last Judgment: Vassar's Recreation of the Sistine Chapel in Second Life

Smarthistory — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 01:26:54 +0000

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1474-1564), The Last Judgment, fresco, 1534-41 (Sistine Chapel, Vatican)

A conversation in the virtual world of Second Life, in the recreation of the Sistine Chapel on Vassar's campus there. Begun twenty-two years after Michelangelo completed the ceiling, this violent image of the Second Coming of Christ harks back to the themes of the Medieval era even as it challenges the triumphs of Renaissance painting.

Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris (Max Newbold), Dr. Steven Zucker (Sez Zabelin)

Baroque Art in Flanders and Holland: An Overview

Smarthistory — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 01:24:57 +0000

A conversation about the Baroque style in Catholic Flanders and Protestant Holland as exemplified by Peter Paul Rubens's Elevation of the Cross, oil on canvas, 1610-11 (Cathedral of Our Lady, Antwerp) and Rembrandt van Rijn's Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp, oil on canvas, 1632, (Mauritshuis, The Hague).

Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris, Dr. Steven Zucker

For the Beginner: An Brief Introduction to Key Issues in the History of Art

Smarthistory — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 01:22:08 +0000

Using examples from across history and cultures from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, we discuss the ways that works of art communicate meaning.

Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris, Dr. Steven Zucker

Works of art discussed:

1. Hatshepsut, c. 1473–1458 B.C.E., New Kingdom, Dynasty 18, Egyptian, limestone (Met)
2. Marble statue of a kouros (youth), c. 590–580 B.C.E., Attic Greek, Archaic (Met)
3. Polykleitos, Diadoumenos, c. 69–96 C.E. (Roman copy)/430 B.C.E. (original Greek bronze), marble (Met)

Otto Dix, Portrait of the Journalist Sylvia von Harden, 1926 (Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris)

Smarthistory — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 01:19:21 +0000

A prototypical Neue Sachlichkeit portrait by German painter Otto Dix (1891-1969) depicting the journalist Sylvia von Harden, a habitue of Berlin's famed Romanisches Cafe. Dix's critical realism verges on a caricature of the Neue Frau in the Weimar Era, while his style of oil painting and attention to physical details serve to heighten the character's individuality in this fascinating image.

Speakers: Dr. Juliana Kreinik, Chad Laird

Manet, A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, 1882 (Courtauld Gallery, London)

Smarthistory — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 01:13:20 +0000

A conversation about this paradoxical image by Édouard Manet. Who is reflected in the mirror? How are we implicated in the painting? What is the barmaid thinking? And how does this image relate to the rebuilding of Paris and its transformation into a modern city?

Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris, Dr. Steven Zucker, Eric Feinblatt