Essays on Chiaroscuro

Sarcophagus with the triumph of Dionysos is one of the most important specimens of the sculptural art of the Roman era. There are many other unique items of the Late Antiquity, which were dedicated to Dionysus; however, the sarcophagi represent a particular elegance and high quality. In 1972, the sarcophagus was bought out and is now exhibited at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. It was made of marble in AD 190– 210 in the Roman Empire (Hägele, 2013, p. 107). In addition, it has a large size: 77.5 x 208cm (Hägele, 2013, p. 107). Most likely ...

The history of the Modern Art dates back in the 19th century and continued in the mid-20th century, a time marked by rapid industrialization and commercialization such that the old hierarchical order of the nobilities that originated way back in the Middle Ages collapsed and in turn the growth of the ‘bourgeoisie’ spearheaded the modernization by changing the society on the following aspects: philosophy, government, and culture. The changing societies and perceptions contributed to the increase for the demand in visual arts; in turn, these visual arts also evolved from religious to the highly secular themes that reflect the ...

Surfaces in visual arts evolve according to the technology present in a particular time. Surface in art is defined by the sense of touch which is either rough or smooth. Materials also contribute to the visual texture of the arts; for instance, the medieval paintings are done using variety of materials such as mosaics, vellum, and regular wall paintings or frescoes. The surfaces of a mosaic artwork is rough due to the raised pebbles making the texture rough, vellum was an animal based material used for scrolls and books, an animal skin is rough, therefore, vellum paintings also tend ...

Introduction

Chiaroscuro is important in artistic photography. Chiaroscuro heightens the dramatic presentation of the lone subjects in painting; thereby putting the audience attention on the central icon of the photograph. Originally, chiaroscuro was a technique used in the Renaissance period and even today to create the illusion of three-dimensional perspective and volume; by the Baroque period in the 17th centuries, the level of chiaroscuro emerged as one of the components of artistic presentation enabling images to mimic the real world setting. In photography, the discourse regarding to chiaroscuro has been left out; yet, it has been ubiquitously used by many ...

Shomei Tomatsu’s black and white untitled photograph attempts to tell the audience the horrific repercussions of the Second World War II especially on the human life. On this picture, the photographer depicted a man emerging from the shadows, his face covered with wrinkled skin the rest of his face was hidden from plain sight but from the looks of his face, the audience can tell how great the damage brought by the atomic bomb blast on his face. The nuclear attack which destroyed nearly half of his face managed to create a large keloid scar on the right ...

The Modern period from the late 19th to the early phase of the 20th century served as the catalyst for the beginning of avant-garde works of different artists whose works isolated their styles from the rest of the artistic movements that emerged in the previous eras. These new designs spearheaded the development of the comic book art wherein the iconography of the subjects attempted to portray the real world yet in an animated way without closely resembling the reality. The artists who popularized these method includes Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, and Larry Rivers each of the defined the early ...

Bierstadt used light and shadow in a masterly fashion, which made his painting an extremely dramatic. Incredible contrasts reveal magnificent natural environment and its immense beauty made Bierstadt’s pictures popular. The viewer can easily determine three spaces of the artwork: The foreground is the nearest area to the viewer on the right part of the picture. This part shows a hunting scene of the Indians pursuing deer with horses and dogs. Still nearer on the right the mountain spring is visible, next to which a carcass of deer and some human items were left. At some distance three ...

The cultural event features some of the contemporary post-modernism artworks created by various artists. In this exhibit, the pictures present an interesting backdrop that attempts to illustrate the art of the 21st century. The first picture in the exhibit was Amber Garceau’s Dancer (see fig. 1), a photograph that depicts a man in the actual performance of dancing mid-air. The outlines of the right foot indicates the fast movement, the light shining from below creates the chiaroscuro and the shadows that emphasize the dancing male form. The random movement of dancing mid-air is truly a wonderful rendition on ...

Buddhism was one of the dominant religions in Asia that originated in India and spread across the continent such as in mainland China, Japan, and Korea. It also influenced other countries in Southeast Asia that also adopted the culture of China. The fact that Buddhism became a dominant religion even today not only influenced the lifestyle of the societies where it was adopted. The profound evidence of its lasting influence on the art can be found on the sculptures. The purpose of this essay is to conduct a sculptural analysis of the two reliefs from two opposing cultures: the ...

Today, the name James Welling is famous due to his skill in photography. However, it turns out that this finest American photographer did not really have a background on photography. A native of Hartford, Connecticut, he was born in 1951 and spent a lot of his childhood near the border of Simsbury. His interest in art was honed in 1963; together with his friend, Julie Post, he pursued to become an artist. By 1965, he enrolled in one of Hartford’s finest arts schools, the Wadsworth Atheneum where he began his first attempt in painting using watercolor pigments as ...

It has been a well-known fact that prostitution has been one of the oldest professions in the history for women. This profession does not only apply to specific women from another culture but rather this covers the lives of the women throughout the world. From the medieval times up to the late 19th century, prostitution became the booming industry reserved for women with no formal education, no family, and worst no dowry to gain a potential husband. Throughout their lives, women who worked as prostitutes had hard lives and often in poverty. Only very few of these women had ...

The goal of this essay is to provide artwork analysis of three contemporary paintings such as Whitney’s Cold Moon Dancer, Sheehan’s I Never Planned to Have You Here, and Dugas’ Wake. These three works of art exemplifies the influences of modernism due to the fact that artists explored different artistic styles in order to portray their subjects from a different perspective. From that point, the resulting paintings were brave, bolder, and revolutionary in a sense that these works broke the traditional art forms of either ‘humanizing’ or illustrating realistic and religious figures. For instance, Whitney’s Cold ...

The Ivy Bridge Devonshire (see fig. 1) was an oil painting created by the famous English artist Joseph Mallord William Turner from 1814 to 1815. The term ‘scenery porn’ aptly describes the artist’s magnificent use of lines as decorative element to create wonderful landscapes. The colors were mostly earth tones with chiaroscuro was highly executed, creating an unworldly appearance that illustrates the peaceful life of the common people in the early 19th century England. The painting shows a young man wearing a beret hat, running across the bridge towards the carriage probably echoing shouts to halt the carriage ...

Fabritius (1622-1654) was probably one of the most accomplished Dutch painters ever lived to create a replica following the Rembrandt style in painting. The painting is now in the custody of the LACMA Museum in Los Angeles where it has been valued as one of the valuable paintings from the 17th century. The theme of the painting is domestic farm life and several artistic devices were used in the painting. The cows and sheep for instance denote an overlapping of figures mainly to emphasize the narrow space of the surroundings; it is also possible that the artist had tried ...

Bernini’s David

This sculpture is definitely one of the greatest ever conceived and includes various facets which are typical of the artist in question. David’s poise is intrinsically beautiful with some aspects of homo eroticism in it and one can definitely identify with the sculpture in question. The sculpture shows David gathering momentum causing a strain in his body and his face conveys willpower and concentration. The biblical David was a common theme among artists in the Renaissance period for instance Michelangelo and Donatello. Though connecting with these works, Bernini’s David varies from them in some substantial ways for example, ...