A Timeline of Beauty

French art is a reflection of Parisian history and its beauty is based upon one’s perspective. Much of the art reflects major events or a time period in France. In order to completely understand the meaning of art you must know two major aspects of a majority of the art that came out of france: the time period and metaphors attached to those time periods. For example, Pablo Picasso’s painting “Guernica”, at first glance, looks like a pile of jumbled shapes and no direct meaning. However, if you know the time period you would know its the same time period of the Spanish civil war and was painted at an anti-war standpoint. Another form of French art that depicted the time period was the architecture. Before the seminar I had not quite realized how everything was in a cycle of recycling. Artists basically took previous ideas from the past and renewed them into a modernized version. The time periods were: Romanesque, Gothic, The Renaissance, Romanticism, and the Industrial Revolution. For instance, the Romanesque time period got its architecture from the Roman times just slightly more detailed; the gothic time period was an updated version of of the Romanesque. The renaissance was incorporated several looks of that of the Romans and Greeks. I must say my most intriguing topic was the Renaissance. Its time period had the most culturally diverse aspects incorporated into one time period.

The renaissance was dedicated to new ideas such as humanism, exploration, architecture, decor, and realistic art. Each aspect of the Renaissance had either a philosophy or were directly attached to political affair. Humanism promoted the idea of scientific inquiries and philosophies that would later determine the way the government was ran. Exploration expanded the borders of France’s land through conquest of discovered lands in the “New World”. The architecture was used in extravagant buildings of the political leaders, wealthy and political buildings, such as the Palace of Versailles. Decor, like ornate furniture, showed status of the elite because it was not often that a person of poverty owned such a rare form of furniture with such beautiful designs. Lastly, realistic art appeared during the renaissance time period. The renaissance reflected a lot of religion which directly impacted how the government was ran. Paintings incorporated multiple pious symbols such as Jesus with his adventures and angels reaching out to mortals.

The walk I would love to participate in is Versailles. Versailles is a big part of the renaissance period. It has an abundance of radiant art pieces in and outside of the palace. Even though I would not be able to see the inside, I could still see the intricate gardens on the exterior. The gardens are a prime example of an aristocratic society. They show a level of status because in order to to be able to have something so painstaking to design and get put together built you must have quite a bit of money. King Louis XIV wanted something to symbolize his prominence and status in the society that he looked over. Being a person of enormous interest into political subjects such as these, seeing the Palace of Versailles would be a huge eye opener and leave a permanent impact on anyone who was blessed enough to see it in person. I mean besides, who wouldn’t want to be surrounded by beautiful gardens smelling the various flowers.It may make people actually want to spend time with nature not new age electronics