The Best and the Worst of French Art

Have you ever been to Paris? Have you seen the art in Paris? If you answered no to any of these questions, you are in for a treat. After the seminar on Saturday I have learned a lot about how to become a better blogger and more information on French Art. I was able to kill two birds with one stone. The French had 12 different time period that lasted from 11th Century to the 20th Century. Yes, that 10,000 years of art that we learned in three hours. I'm really Impressed with myself because I usually don't like art, but Ms. Everett made the seminar fun and entertaining. The three time periods that I found interesting was Medieval, Rococo, and Romanticism. All three of these time period were different and have their own different styles. It made me thing twice before I call a painting or drawing stupid. In this blog, you will see the best, the worst, and I will be giving an overall grade of the time periods. Lets get started. 

Number 1: Medieval 

Medieval was during the 11th Century and lasted until the 12th Century. During the medieval time, architecture was created and grown during the late medieval time period. These architecture was made from gothics that was living in Paris in the 11th century and 12th century. 

Wikimedia common: Haley Skeens

The Best: Whenever I think of the word of gothics, I think of time where their were people that worships the devil and a dark time in history. However, I was wrong. The gothics during the medieval times worshipped god and made churches to honor god and the Catholic's population. I'm glad that every citizen was able to cooperate in the creation of the architecture in the medieval time. The gothics also add their own traits onto the architecture and it made the architecture look different and creative.  

The Worst: It was good that the Medieval period was the first time period in French art, but they could have done some different things to make their architectures look better. One thing that they can change is the pointed arch that they had on the top of the churches. It made it seem like they was trying to make the top of the churches look like the horn of the devils. It throw me off because churches are usually flat and don’t have any point edges. 

Overall Grade: B+ 

Number 2: Rococo 

Rococo was during the 16-17th century and it was influenced by an famous painter named Jean-Honoré Fragonard, who made immature painting during the 16th and the 17th century. 

The Best: Jean-Honoré Fragonard did made immature painting, however the paintings where made for a cause. The enlightenment thinkers thought that the pictures where to immature and that Fragonard should change the way he painted. I disagreed with the enlightenment thinkers because I liked the paintings. It shown me that if you want to make a change, you do it the best way you can.

Wikimedia Common: Jean-Honore Fragonard

The Worst: I didn't like that Fragonard changed the way he painted because the enlightenment thinkers told him to change the way he painted. If he really wanted to make a change, he needed to keep his painting the way it was, so that the people would be able to see it.  

Overall Grade: C+ 

Number 3: Romanticism 

Romanticism was created after the French Revolution and was inspired by the sculpture David, which was created by Michelangelo. Not to get confused with King David, that was also born in the same time period, but King David was in Bethlehem and was a king, not a sculpture. The Romanticism shown that the  emotions matters to them.  

 The Best: I really enjoyed this time period was the time period the most. The romanticism time period shown that the French artist cared about how they painted and the people that look at their paintings. 

                                                                                                                             

Wikimedia Common: Theodore Gercault

The Worst: The romanticism time period was good and really don't need that much fixing, but nothing is perfect. To me, the painters where lacking personal thinking skills. What I mean is that the painters were caring about what other people think and they didn’t add their own feeling or thinking to the paintings.  

  Overall Grade: A-  

Do you agree with my overall grade of the time periods? Leave your comment down below. Your comments matter. Don't forget to check out my recent blogs on http://tyttscholarship.blogspot.com/. Your be glad you did. I like to give a thanks to Ms. Everett and Context Travel, I'm learning a lot from the seminar and if I get a chance to go to Paris, I will use all of the skills that I have learned from the seminars. 

-Roynell Anderson 

Art and Effect

The first type of art to flourish in France was Gothic during the 11^th and 12^th century. This is personally my favorite out of all types of art and architectures throughout art history as I enjoy the strangeness of the art and how it is used in cathedrals. This art originated in France and lasted through the 12^th to the 16^th century and consists of pointed arches, ribbed vaults, and flying buttresses. A prime example would be the Notre Dame Cathedral, which includes all of the aspects of the Gothic architecture. Another cathedral famous for its strange and majestic Gothic look was the Chartres Cathedral.

Notre Dame Cathedral in France

One-hundred years later after the 16^th century, the French Baroque began. This art was encouraged by the Catholic Churches as a response to the Protestant Reformation. Simon Vouet, an artist, was credited for bringing Baroque from Rome to Paris. This art was overly-exaggerated, and dramatic with its grandeur sculptures, paintings, and architectures.

Rococo art during the 16^th and 17^th century were considered to be immoral and indecent after his paintings had hidden parts around the main area of the canvas. An example of Rococo was Fragonard’s painting “The Swing” which included a woman casually riding on a swing with extreme lighting on her complexion and dress. It looks harmless at first, but around the woman are people attempting to look up her skirt like a pervert, which led to bad critique of this form of art.

Fragonard, The Swing

French Classicism then came after Rococo, which required paintings to be extremely proportionate and sobriety, so basically… no fun. This led to Neo-Classicism, which was the total opposite of Rococo in that it used appropriate paintings. The brush strokes had to look smooth and proportional, as well as the use of Greek and Roman forms of iconography. This form of art was also the birth of the Enlightenment.

Romanticism is also one of my favorite forms of art in France, as it required much time and effort with little brief brush strokes. Romanticism began in France during the 19^th century and used loose and flowing brush stokes to compose a colorful and emotional picture. A famous Romanticist artist was Delacroix, who was rebellious and had paintings full of emotions, color, and loose brushwork.

Thomas Cole, Voyage of Life Youth

Impressionism then came after; it was first as a rebellion against the established artistic standards of the Academy. This form of art was not necessarily realistic, but full of color and unique brush stroke technique. A famous artist was Monet, a French painter who rejected traditional approach to landscape painting.

Cubism came during the early 20^th century, Picasso made this famous along with Georges Braque; they were inspired by Cezanne, Monet, and Manet. Picasso’s art was revolutionary and controversial, as it led to anger and disagreement with his friends. The faces of the people he painted was thought to be influenced by African, tribal masks as it looked very unusual. However, Picasso denies.

Georges Braque, Violin and Candlestick

Interpreting Stories in a Painting

       Last Saturday I learned about different styles of art used in France. One thing about art is that I enjoy it but it has always been hard for me to interpret it correctly. After Saturdays seminar I was able to interpret one of the paintings which was called The Swing a rococo painting by Fragonard. This is why rococo is now my favorite style of paintings. Rococo was the outcome of baroque style of painting staring in France in the late 18^th century. This form of painting used more colors and is more playful but was not liked much  because of the themes of the paintings so it came to a quick end. In this blog I posted a few rococo paintings that I enjoyed along with the interpretations of them. I suggest that you should try and interpret paintings before reading it is more exciting that way.

wikkimedia commons: Jean-Honoré Fragonard

When looking this painting, The Swing, I thought the woman in the picture was just having fun on a swing .Then I noticed the man under her just staring up at her and she is swinging her legs seductively. I thought at first maybe it was just me until Ms. Evertt also pointed it out. Looking further into rococo art I learned to start noticing the statues. What I did not notice before was the statues which tell the bigger scandal. First you have Cupid with his finger up to his lips indicating to not say anything looking down at the other two statues. One of the statues is staring up at the woman and the other statue looks away with a sour look on its face as if being displeased. Why would it be displeased?  The man pushing the woman, her husband, does not see the other man under the swing being hidden by the bushes. This is painting indicates an affair going on.

picturalissim: Jean-Honoré Fragonard

 With this painting, The Bolt,I was not so great with. Looking at this I thought the man is about to slap the woman in the painting. His hand is in the air one of her hands is up as if to stop him. when looking up information about the painting there is an opposite meaning of what I thought. The man is locking the door and the woman is supposedly is getting undressed. Then you have the apple being symbolism of the first sin showing that there is a sin soon to be committed.

wikkimedia commons: Jean-Antoine Watteau

 For interpreting this painting, Pilgrimage to Cythera, I went off of the swing painting and paid attention to the statues. I noticed cupid was getting his arrows taken away from him indicating he has been bad. Then you see all these couple together then you know what he has been up to. Going off of other interpretations the same things were said. Then in addition that it is like a progression from the woman in the pink dress to the couples down by the boat the couples become increasingly closer to each other. 

          I am glad I was able to learn about this. It helps me more with understanding art and seeing the symbolism. I found myself becoming more knowledgeable about what different things symbolize. I enjoy being able to just look at a picture and being told the story of it through the symbolism. I also enjoyed the process of having my own interpretation and adding it to what others got from it, the deeper it got the better the story was. This excites me more about possibly going to Paris because I have never been to an art museum so why not start at the best place to go for art. Who knew art could be so intriguing?

                                                                                        -Dazhawna Miller