I selected Albrecht Durer: Image of a Master because his The Four Riders of the Apocalypse always used to scare me a little bit, and I would like to know more about the man who created it. I chose The Night Watch because I'm frankly embarrassed over how little I know about Rembrandt. The same goes for El Greco: Rediscovering a Master--I know even less about him. Lastly, I chose Velazquez, because I've always been intrigued by his paintings, and he was a major influence on many later artists whom I like.
Albrecht Durer: Image of a Master gives a quick biography of the German master painter and printmaker. He was born in Nuremberg and showed his talent at an early age. He gained fame in Venice, where he learned how to paint solid forms in fine brushstrokes that were much different from his earlier, stiff-posed figures. He took what he learned in Venice and returned to Nuremberg, bringing Germany out of the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance. Most of his income came from his prints, which were often religious in nature and very highly detailed. He switched from woodcuts to copper engravings so he could further get fine detail and subtle plays of shadow and light. He was interested in painting the perfect body, and thus was a tad narcissistic, obsessed with painting his own "perfect" face. He also highly respected Martin Luther, and his Protestant leanings were obvious in his final major painting of four of the Apostles, which had text at the bottom warning people to not follow false prophets (the papacy).
The Night Watch is a mammoth-sized painting, painted by the Dutchman Rembrandt, that has become the Netherlands's national treasure. It has become an object of pilgrimage, that every Dutch person should see at least once in their lives. Now housed at the Rijksmuseum, it was originally commissioned by a civic militia guild, as was traditional in the 17th century. Rembrandt, however, did not paint it the way these sorts of group portraits were typically painted. Instead of having all the people lined up in a rigid, formal way, Rembrandt painted it like a history painting, in a moment of action. He added many additional figures to the painting, to make it feel more like a crowd, and many of the real people's faces are somewhat obscured or in shadow. Everything in the painting, be it the dog or the boy or the drummer, is moving, and the painting is so dynamic that the eye moves all around it. There is a strange, glowing little girl in the painting, whose purpose is somewhat mysterious. The bird's claw that she has on her belt, however, is the symbol of the militia, so she could be meant to symbolize the militia.
The pigments and varnish had darkened significantly over the years, making the painting appear like it took place during the night (thus its title), but really it took place during the day. Unfortunately, the painting has been vandalized a number of times. First, a shield was painted into it 8 years later by someone else, that gave all the militia members' names. Then the painting was officially trimmed so it could fit into a space that was too small for it. Then, it managed to survive World War II, but was no match for a disturbed man with a knife, who slashed it in the 1970s. It was carefully repaired, only to have acid thrown on it in 1990, but this luckily did not get past the layer of varnish. The painting can be seen everywhere today, from coffee mugs to other artists' collages to replicas in porcelain, even though it was originally intended to be just a simple group portrait.
El Greco: Rediscovering a Master is about the life of Domenikos Theotokopoulos, who was born in the 16th century on the island of Crete. He was probably trained as a Byzantine icon painter, but traveled to Venice and Spain in order to paint like a Renaissance painter. He often struggled with the counter reformation, which accused his paintings of putting style over the religious content. His work, however, was stylistically different from his contemporaries. In The Disrobing of Christ, for instance, he bathes Christ in a bright red cloak, drawing the viewer's eyes to him. He was a magnificent portrait artist, painting expressive faces with brilliant eyes. After his death, El Greco was criticized as capricious, and then forgotten. He was rediscovered by the Romantics, however, who loved his personal vision of reality over simply trying to paint realistically. Artists like Manet and Degas admired him and his genuine, saddened heroes. At the end of the 19th century, the modernism movement began, breaking away from established schools of art. El Greco was considered a father figure of this movement, centuries ahead of his time. El Greco paintings were paraded about, and he even influenced Picasso. Portrait of a Painter, in the 1950s, was largely influenced by El Greco. El Greco's bewitching paintings continue to haunt people today, half a millennium later.
Velazquez tells the life of the 17th century Spanish painter, who seemed to live a quiet life. He served King Philip IV, who was also his only friend. Rubens inspired him to visit Italy and study Italian Renaissance painting, which somewhat changed his style of painting. Feast of Bacchus, for instance, incorporates Greek/Roman mythological figures. He was interested in making the myths feel real. He wanted his paintings to look "artless," like he didn't specifically arrange them in a certain way. He and his wife's deaths feel arranged, however, for the two died within a week of each other, after closely shared lives. Velazquez tried to paint the truth, such as the painting of the young prince on horseback, which was fundamentally about childhood. In some ways he was an abstract painter, for his landscapes are more about ideas than actually depicting nature. Also, his portraits of royalty captured the actual person, not just the mask of royalty. One can feel their personality and character.
He also painted portraits of the palace jesters, who were often crippled and mentally disabled, but some were also very clever. These paintings often showed the humanity of the figures while still realistically portraying their physical deformities, by having the viewer look into the people rather than just at them. He painted them transcending above their disfigurements, even though he makes pains to depict all of their physical flaws. Both the royalty and the jester portraits were reflections of his own self, his own humanity. Not many paintings were religiously-themed, and those were always commissioned, but they, too, showed the figures as real people, not just icons.
The videos feature artists from the time period we just read about in the text. None of the above artists, however, were terribly thoroughly dealt with (though Durer and Rembrandt both have had those one page biographies on them). The Night Watch and the El Greco videos explained how those artists are still influencing the art and culture of today. It would be nice if the text had some sort of past-present connection section of each chapter, that explained how the things we are reading about relate to our lives today. The text does fairly often do this, but it would be nice if it was more regular. While the text can only have a general overview of movements, as it's covering centuries of art movements, the videos give us a chance to focus in on a few key players.
I enjoyed the videos, though the El Greco one was at times slow and difficult to understand completely--too much history was given without enough context, at least for me. It was nice to see the drive these artists had to continue bettering their artistic selves. It allows you to understand how the Renaissance and succeeding art movements advanced artistic thinking and techniques so quickly. Velazquez, Durer, and El Greco, for instance, traveled across Europe to see new approaches in art, and then brought those approaches back home with them. Even in an era with nothing close to the internet, ideas were able to spread across vast distances. I like that we first read the text, so that we get the overview and some information on a variety of artists, and then we can pick the videos ourselves, based on whatever interested us the most in the text. While many people might initially be interested in learning more about certain paintings, artists, or movements, they probably wouldn't bother looking further into it if it wasn't for the mandatory watching of the videos.
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