Assignment #4: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Baroque Art

Baroque Art shows great energy and feeling. There is a dramatic use of light, scale and balance. The baroque period includes the seventeenth century and most of the eighteenth century. In Italy Baroque was used to refer to art that arose around the 1600 and spread throughout Europe during the next two hundred years. An example of Baroque art is the painting to the left named The Denial of Saint Peter by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio from Milan, Italy. The painting was painted around the year 1610. In the painting we see Peter being pointed at by one finger of the Roman soldier and two fingers of the woman. The woman is accusing Peter of being a follower of Jesus and Peter denies it three times. The three fingers can represent the number of times Peter denied Jesus. The dramatic use of light and darkness was Caravaggio’s formal element in this painting. He used the focus of light to show the subject of the painting which in this case is Peter. The light is focused on Peter mainly to show that he is guilty of what he is being accused of.

The Renaissance

The Renaissance was a time of discovery and rediscovery of the world and of human beings. The period began to take shape in the fourteenth century but reached its clear beginning in the early fifteenth century and came to an end in the early seventeenth century. During the Renaissance a new philosophical, literary and artistic movement called humanism began. Humanism is the philosophy or attitude concerned with the interests, achievements and capabilities of human beings rather than with the abstract concepts and problems of theology or science. It was a shift from religious to humankind. Humanism portrays feelings and human nature of human beings in humanistic art. An example of Renaissance art is the painting to the right named Madonna and Child by Filippino Lippi from Florence, Italy. This artwork was painted about 1483-84 for the wealthy Florentine banker Filippo Strozzi. Madonna can be said to represent Mary and the Child to represent baby Jesus. The artwork shows Madonna’s adoration and love for the child. In addition to the feelings portrayed a formal element would be the use of color, the richness of color brings out the emotion and refines the beauty of Madonna and the Child. In the artwork we also see depth of space, we are able to see a landscape of which is suggested to be the countryside around the Strozzi villa near Florence.