Wednesday, March 17, 1999

Announcements:

• none

       The Maids of Honor, Velazquez, 1656

• informal moment in palace life -- Enfante with maids in waiting
• Velazquez's studio in royal palace
• light from natural source, possibly from another source
• shadows
• splashes of paint, not carefully planned
• figures at rear made from intangibles
• smoky
• blurred
• regulation--cannot show king/queen informally
• gets around this by showing their child and a reflection of them in the background
• Velazquez in the painting looking out at us
• genre scene
• painting examining painting
• summation of the painter's attitudes about the world

Holland during Baroque Period

•     concerned with middle class concerns
• community status
• landscape celebrating native land
• shipping, maritime trade
• moral content
• enjoyment of material world

Rembrandt

• possibly the most famous
• religious subjects
• printmaker
• Protestant perspective on the world
• 19th and 20th centuries romanticized him
• from Leiden
• influenced by followers of Caravaggio

"Self Portrait" 1658
"Self Portrait with Saskia" (wife), 1635

"Supper at Emmaus", 1629

• rethought in a later (1648) version
• more inwardness
• not so theatrical
• manifestation of Christ
• suddenly reveals himself

  "Descent from the Cross", 1635

• lighting (Caravaggio's approach)
• foreground cast in shadows
• group portraits--Dutch tradition

"Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicholas Tulp", 1632

• intimate setting: lecture hall
• dissection (only done to criminals, as an extension of their punishment)

"The Night Watch" (The Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq), 1642.

• group portrait, natural grouping of figures
• not night scene
• uses light and dark for emphasis
• imaginary event
• but reflects parades and marches that did take place
• arch, city walls of Amsterdam
• shows readiness of forces
• combines contemporary and traditional costumes to symbolize long history of military patriotism
• little girl with chicken hanging from belt
• chicken claw is a military symbol
• little girl is the brightest
• has the strongest highlight
• all figures are identifiable

Etching

is done instead of engraving

the line is less precise, more emotional

it is an artistic printing process

Rembrandt was a master of this process