There's Much More

I found this last seminar to be very difficult. There was so many different topics that caught my attention and though I took this exact class before, I learned a few new things. Besides the history and the variety of great artists that prevailed during the Renaissance age, I was focused on 3-D art. Architecture and scultptures happened to be my favorite above all the painting that went on. We know that Romans were influenced by the Etruscans which helped a whole lot with building because of the architectural engineers. With that information, buildings were being created like crazy and art took a turn for the best in Rome. Such things like the Boroque movement with Borronini and Bernini took architecture to a whole other level.

 My only question is why was there so much competition? The colosseum was by the grandest creation in architectural history, but that didn't stop artists then. They wanted to create more than just a building for mass destruction, they wanted something breath taking that would say, "He is by far the best." The Renaissance period was more than just a creation of art everyday and every minute with new artists being born or discovered, it was about smarts and I realize that now. It took about the smartest most educated person to figure out the form of a human being in order to paint it on canvas. I guess people wanted to be on top as artists and would gain the education to create the best art.

 What interested me in the current seminar was the evolution of the art. Everything was created so still, but as time passed, pictures and paintings and statues were soon created in movement. Though it took a long time, it was worth the time for the new era of art, It is known as history. To me I felt that all the art was the same then. Time now shows different types of art.

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 Besides all religious items, architecture, busts, statues, mosaics, paintings, forums, aqueducts, sculpture, portraits, frescoes, science, mathematics, pietas and Baliscas, I believe there is way more. With all the questions I have left unanswered, I know that art is much more than just a creation of something new. That it is much more than just education. It is something unexplainable, but it felt by the heart, body, and soul. It is something much more.

-Meryssa Mayshack 

Caravaggio, The Non-Traditional Artist

            I found Saturday’s seminar very interesting. I really like learning about art and its history. I think that art expresses who the artist is and how they view the world. What makes art so interesting is that it can be interpreted in many different ways. There is no specific way to look at art and it all depends on who the viewer is. Art can be seen from many different perspectives and that’s why I love it.
            During the seminar I learned about many artists. I learned about Borromini, Boronini, Raphael, and many more. The artist that stood out the most to me was Caravaggio. Caravaggio was a painter during the era of Baroque. Baroque was an art movement that was commissioned by the Roman Catholic Church. Caravaggio stood out the most because he was considered to be not like other artists during this time period. Caravaggio’s artwork was thought of as offensive and gritty. He was very different from the other artists.
            Caravaggio stands out when compared to other artists like Raphael. Caravaggio painted using live models which wasn’t traditional. Other artists used idealization for their work while Caravaggio used reality. Caravaggio had his own opinion on what art should look like. Since he followed his opinion, which was non-traditional, he was thought of as rebellious.
            Caravaggio’s painting “Madonna and Child with St. Anne, 1606” really caught my eye during the seminar. This painting was considered to be non-traditional. The fact that the setting of the painting can not be determined and that Christ was naked was offensive. This painting wasn’t well liked by the papal grooms. I don’t understand why these things are non-traditional, but that’s probably because the Roman tradition from the past is very different from our tradition today.
            I learned so much on Saturday. Everything that I learned from this seminar will really influence the way that I interpret art.

Photo Credit: Google Images

-Haven

Pantheon! Not Parthenon

Photo credit: www.aviewoncities.com

           The seminar on Saturday was a very interesting one. The subject of the seminar was Art History. My fellow applicants and I learned many things in those 3 hours, such as architecture, Baroque, the High Renaissance period and much more. There was so much material that Ms. Everett  didn’t have time to cover. This encouraged me to do further research on the history of art in Rome. One topic that definitely caught my attention during the seminar was the Pantheon.

Photo credit: Wikipedia

          The Pantheon is a huge temple originally built in honor of all the Roman gods but was turned into a church around 609 AD. The Pantheon has a more than 43 meter high dome and on the top of the dome is a large opening known as the oculus. The oculus is the only source of light in the church. Grates were installed in the center of the Pantheon to allow water to drain when it rained. The dome is considered the most remarkable feature of the Pantheon. What interests me most about the Pantheon is that it contains the tombs of several kings and of the famous artist Raphael. I wonder exactly where Raphael is buried within the Pantheon and if other tombs inside the church have been discovered. Wouldn’t it be fascinating if the Pantheon was haunted due to these tombs? Believe it or not, multiple pictures have been taken in the Pantheon of apparitions and ghostly silhouettes, it is yet to be determined if the Pantheon is in fact haunted. The Pantheon is still used and visited even today and is considered the best preserved Roman monument.      
         The Pantheon is a magnificent building that impacts all who have the wonderful opportunity to see it with their own eyes. It is a legendary place in Rome’s history and the 1800 year old building still stands tall in all its fame and beauty and immortalizes the ingenious Romans who built it long ago. Photographs simply don’t do it justice; the more I research about the Pantheon the more I yearn to go to Rome and experience this extraordinary building for myself. I hope I have the opportunity to visit the Pantheon because it is truly a sight to see.

-DeRael

Creating a Clean Slate

Last Seminar! We have all come so far through this process and even though it is a competition, being able to surround ourselves with other people passionate about learning is a refreshing experience that has made all the work worth while. Like the first seminar this year, I attended the same one last year and even though I felt I already knew what the criteria was (especially after having done the timeline) I came away with a new understanding of what Renaissance art and the Reformation meant to religion and the development of artistic techniques and purposes of the time.
       The relationship between the Roman Catholic Church and the people became one shrouded in the abuse of power and neglect of the church to maintain the true meaning of attending church and proper  practices of faith. After the factioning of the church when people began to develop their own opinions on their faith, the church began to faction and see a drastic decrease in the number of those who attended regularly. In order to restore the concept that people needed to attend church in order to be closer to God, the Church was forced to reform in a way that would draw people back. This came in the forms of great artists such as Bernini, Michaelangelo, Raphael, Borromini, etc. Through art and architecture, it was the goal to create a feeling of being close to God by the atmosphere and grandiose appearance of the churches. Despite its holy purpose, competition and heated rivalry developed between some of the greatest minds and artists to ever live for the right to being the main man to be hired by the pope. I found this extremely interesting because I had always been aware of how great these men were, awed by their legacies, that I would never stop to think that any of them would feel threatened and territorial over where they worked. I wouldn't have thought that Michaelangelo would feel spiteful towards anyone for "encroaching on his space" because I would think a great mind would be above something so trivial.

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       You would think as men of many talents and gifts they'd all form a camaraderie and work together for their common interest and maybe lighten the work load. But by seeing how even the best and seemingly most enlightened individuals still are people with basic emotions and self centered issues. This seminar was definitely another highlight of this process; I could really imagine myself experiencing and almost feeling how I would react to these amazing, transcending masterpieces. This just reinforces my excitement to continue! Can't wait for San Francisco.
Simone Sheppard

Art a Universal Language.

I’m late I’m late for a very important date! No, not really. What a way to start your morning when your alarm doesn't go off. It’s bittersweet knowing that this is the last Saturday seminar. All we have left to do is the San Francisco walk and then the competition is over, I have a lot of respect for all of the applicants that I have met in this competition. It’s been fun coming to the seminars and learning about stuff that is of a huge interest to you. Especially learning it from people who are so passionate about what they are teaching. Thank you Mrs. Everett, Mr. Dundov, and Mrs. White!

We were so ready to get started with our seminar that we set the school alarm off! At first I was scared that we weren't going to be able to proceed with our class, but thank goodness for Coach Doherty he was able to turn it off and restore hearing to all our ears. While we waited for everyone to arrive, Mrs. Everett had some books laid out on the tables that we could look at. I immediately went to the book about Michelangelo because I wanted to see if he had any sketches inside of it. I've been really into my sketches lately and I've been trying different techniques, and I wanted to just look at the way he did his shading. I’m not going to lie I wanted to steal Mrs. Everett's book it had so much information and so many of his sketches.

Bernini "Apollo & Daphne"
Photo Credit : Google Images 

What I noticed during this session is that most Roman art is religious. With the legalization and spread of Christianity, artists developed new ways of doing art in order to represent religious figures and stories. Frescoes, Sculptures, and Mosaics were the most famous types of art. The most interesting to me were Frescoes, which are paintings on wet plaster with pigments that are layered on top of each other.  With this technique an artist needed to work quickly with the wet plaster to ensure that it didn't dry before they were done painting. I was then reminded of one the most talented sculptors known to man, Bernini. Pluto and Proserpina, Apollo and Daphne are the two most beautiful pieces of art I have ever seen in my life. I can’t imagine what they must look like in real life; I am just dying to find out. The way Bernini captured such emotion it looks like he just captures a specific moment and froze it forever. Just to think about how he got such detail in marble will drive a person insane. 

Michelangelo "Cardinal Carafa"
Photo Credit : Google Images 

Michelangelo
Photo Credit : Google Images

Michelangelo is such an interesting person to learn about. I wonder what he was like as a person. It’s funny to learn that after a dispute with Cardinal Carafa, because Michelangelo painted naked people in the last judgment, he was accused of immorality and obscenity. Well he sure got his revenge by painting Cardinal Carafa in the last judgement; Cardinal Carafa is depicted naked in hell while his “part” is getting bitten by a snake. Very dramatic! But I love it! I want to know why he painted himself as a drooping skin in between heaven and hell out of all 400 characters in his ceiling? Who was Michelangelo really behind the art?

Artemisia Gentileschi "Judith Slaying Holofernes"
Photo Credit : Google Images 

I learned a lot this seminar but what I enjoyed the most is when Mrs. Everett introduced us to Caravaggio and Artemisia Gentileschi. I don’t know what it is about these two artists but their use of chiaroscuro (use of light and dark elements in a work of art) made their paintings more appealing to me than any of the other paintings I have seen. It’s unbelievable that the talented Gentileschi was just a teenager when she was painting these magnificent pieces of art. I definitely am going to continue researching more about her and her art.

At the end of this seminar I realized that there are a lot of hidden meanings and interpretations that art has. I definitely want to study art and its many meanings. On my way home I was talking to my mom about some of the new things that I wanted to research and as I was looking out the window there was a billboard and Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa was on it. Art is everywhere it is a way of life and it is a way of expression, it’s also a language that everybody understands and that’s what I love so much about it.

- Courtney Bucknor 

The Mysterious Etruscans

Etruscan Hut Urn (Photo Credit: Google Images)

So many things interested me during this Roman Art History Seminar, but the subject that was the most intriguing for me was the Etruscans. No one really knows exactly what happened to them, but their art and the ideas that they left behind made a huge impact on Ancient Romans, and even on us today. The fact that they are so mysterious makes me want to learn more about them.

During the seminar, it was so interesting to find out that Etruscan towns are buried under present day cities but are, however, too dangerous to excavate. Knowing this makes me very anxious to see if archeologists will ever find a safe way to excavate the remains of the Etruscan towns and possibly solve the mystery of who exactly they were and what happened to them.

I decided to do a little more research on the Etruscans and their influences. I found that the Etruscans might have originally come to Italy from Lydia. They were once considered a “superpower” along with Greece, and many countries they established are still around today, like Florence. Even though none of the Etruscans’ history or literature was ever recovered, it is still known that they taught the Romans the alphabet and that Ancient Roman art and culture was influenced by them. I also found that in 510 B.C., they were driven out of Rome because the Romans believed they acquired too much power. However, much of this I already knew because of my research done while creating my timeline.

In my extra research, I just kept wishing there was more information about the Etruscans. More and more questions continued to pop up in my mind: How did they become so dominant? Where did their art and culture influences come from? How did they just disappear? None of these questions had a definite answer. I’ve never been this curious to learn more about something in my life! Of all, it was still amazing to learn about these mysterious Etruscans for the mere fact that we can only make inferences about them based on their influences on Roman art, architecture and culture. 

~Aurea Colston

I WILL NOT BE FORGOTTEN!!!

How dare him!! Where does he get the nerve? To paint me in Pope Julius’s library, and in my own style! That little Raphael knows what he’s doing. He’s trying to psych me out, to make me fail on the Sistine Chapel. Well, it won’t work! I've worked too hard to sit around and let a rookie take my place in Rome! I was born from nothing but thankfully the Medici family took me in and gave me the proper schooling I needed. My apprentices think I’m paranoid but they are probably in on it too. Those sneaky little rats! I must calm down and act unaffected by this problem known as Raphael. He told me that he only painted me to honor me that he respects me. LIES!!!!! I know it! I can feel it in my blood. My grandmother had a sixth sense you know. I can tell it is running through my veins! Raphael painting the school of Athens and the guy even had the nerve to paint himself! So if he can do it so will I!

Cardinal Carafa came and saw my unfinished work and got highly upset. Why you must ask? Because I painted all the angels and God nude. I don’t understand how this is offensive, when God created Adam and Eve they were both naked and only got ashamed of it when they sinned. So Cardinal Carafa, have you sinned? That’s why you’re ashamed? I want you to go and try to paint for four years on one project. So while the Pope was away Carafa came and made people paint cloth or fig leaves over the art. So I painted Carafa going to hell, which is his fault for censoring my art.  At this point I don’t even care. No one can appreciate me anymore since Raphael came.

I did not even want to paint this chapel. I am not a painter, I am more of a sculptor or logical thinker. The stress of the Sistine Chapel is taking a toll on me, I feel like standing like this for long periods of time have made me gone insane. I have spent four years of my life on this project. How can I ever recover from this? I have painted myself as a glob of loose skin depicting how this job has affected me mentally and physically. I also painted myself halfway to hell and halfway to heaven because I have no idea where I will go when I perish. I just want to get back working on the tomb for Pope Julius II but he asked me to work on this chapel instead. I cannot wait to be done with this and move on with my life before it is over.....

Signed, Michelangelo (Myriah Catalano)