Art History Final Exam Flashcards || with 100% Verified
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Rocaille correct answers Rocaille was a French style of exuberant decoration, with an abundance
of curves, counter-curves, undulations and elements modeled on nature, that appeared in
furniture and interior decoration during the early reign of Louis XV of France. It was a reaction
against the heaviness and formality of the Style Louis XIV. pebble + shell (heavily ornamented
and beautiful)
gilt stucco correct answers A plaster-like material consisting of lime, sand, water, and other
ingredients. Stucco can be used for covering walls, or, when molded or carved, for architectural
decoration.
Arabesque correct answers The arabesque is a form of artistic decoration consisting of "surface
decorations based on rhythmic linear patterns of scrolling and interlacing foliage, tendrils" or
plain lines, often combined with other elements.
Germain Boffrand, Salon de la Princesse, Hôtel de Soubise, Paris, French Rococo, begun 1732
correct answers Refurbished after dealth of Louis XIV
Rooms like this where the enlightenment will be born
The Hôtel de Soubise was created in the early 1700's for the Prince and Princess of Soubise
(Anne de Rohan-Chabot, a former mistress of Louis XIV).
an oval chamber embellished in finest Rococo fashion with intricate, gilded boiserie (carved
wood), cherubs, ceiling paintings and mirrors.
Boiserie is a highly-skilled art form in which wood paneling is carved in painstaking detail and
then gilded or painted. This spectacular boiserie ceiling in the Salon de la Princesse is featured in
Georgianna's book, Paris in Bloom,
Smaller venue for informal social gatherings
The room of the princess looks just like it sounds
Sumptuous organic elegance
Architectural decorations move beyond the border
Poussinistes / Rubénistes correct answers In 1671 an argument broke out in the French Royal
Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Paris about whether drawing or color was more important
in painting. On one side stood the Poussinists who were a group of French artists, named after
the painter Nicolas Poussin, who believed that drawing was the most important thing. On the
other side were the Rubenists named after Peter Paul Rubens, who prioritized color.There was a
strong nationalistic flavour to the debate as Poussin was French but Rubens was Flemish, though
neither was alive at the time. After over forty years the final resolution of the matter in favor of
the Rubenists was signalled when Antoine Watteau's The Embarkation for Cythera was accepted
as his reception piece by the French Academy in 1717. By that time the French Rococo was in
full swing.
Antoine Watteau, Pilgrimage to the Island of Cythera, French Rococo, 1717 correct answers The
Embarkation for Cythera is a painting by the French painter Jean-Antoine Watteau. It is also
,known as Voyage to Cythera and Pilgrimage to the Isle of Cythera. Watteau submitted this work
to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture as his reception piece in 1717.
The Pilgrimage to Cythera is neither a genre painting nor a landscape painting, but a new type of
picture known as La fete galante (a sort of allegory of courtship and falling in love).
Influenced by the Venetian Giorgione (1477-1510) and the Flemish master Rubens (1577-1640),
Watteau was regarded as one of the greatest Rococo artists, and this painting was his finest work
and one of the greatest genre paintings of the 18th century.
Set on Cythera, a fantasy island of love and romance where lovers go to find their ideal partner
(in classical mythology Cythera was seen as the birthplace of Venus, goddess of love), the
painting seems to depict the end of the journey when the lovers must re-embark for home,
although this remains moot: some critics believe the boat is about to set off to Cythera.
the painting's acclaimed qualities include its rhythmical structure along with its subtle sense of
continuity between the groups of figures, the liveliness of its brushwork, and the beautiful colour
scheme.
The dreamy distant landscape is another innovative feature of the painting, and signals the
influence of Giorgione and Leonardo da Vinci.
fête galante correct answers New category added to academy for Watteau. Fête galante is a
category of painting specially created by the French Academy in 1717 to describe Antoine
Watteau's variations on the theme of the fête champêtre, which featured figures in ball dress or
masquerade costumes disporting themselves amorously in parkland settings. When Watteau
applied to join the French academy in 1717, there was no suitable category for his works, so the
academy simply created one rather than reject his application.The Academy ranked scenes of
everyday life and portraits, the paintings most desired by private patrons, as lower than morally
educational paintings illustrating history and mythology. By portraying his patrons in scenes
reminiscent of the mythologized land of Arcadia, where humans had supposedly lived in
leisurely harmony with nature, Watteau was able to get his paintings the highest ranking at the
Académie and still flatter his buyers.
William Hogarth, Marriage à la Mode II, English Restoration, ca.1743 correct answers For
centuries, the English have been fascinated by the sexual exploits and squalid greed of the
aristocracy, and these are the subjects of the six-part series Marriage A-la-Mode, which
illustrates the disastrous consequences of marrying for money rather than love.
The basic story is of a marriage arranged by two self-seeking fathers - a spendthrift nobleman
who needs cash and a wealthy City of London merchant who wants to buy into the aristocracy. It
was Hogarth's first moralising series satirising the upper classes.
In Marriage A-la-Mode Hogarth challenges the traditional view that the rich live virtuous lives,
and satirises arranged marriages. In each piece, he shows the young couple and their family and
acquaintances at their worst: engaging in affairs, drinking, gambling, and numerous other vices.
This is regarded by some as his finest project, and the best example of his serially-planned story
cycles.
In the first of the series,he shows an arranged marriage between the son of bankrupt Earl
Squanderfield and the daughter of a wealthy but miserly city merchant. Construction on the
Earl's new mansion, visible through the window, has stopped, and a usurer negotiates payment
for further construction at the center table. The gouty Earl proudly points to a picture of his
family tree. The son views himself in a mirror, showing where his interests in the matter lie. The
,distraught merchant's daughter is consoled by the lawyer Silvertongue while polishing her
wedding ring. Even the faces on the walls appear to have misgivings. Two dogs chained to each
other in the corner mirror the situation of the young couple.
In the second, The Tête à Tête there are signs that the marriage has already begun to break down.
The husband and wife appear uninterested in one another, amidst evidence of their separate
dalliances the previous ni
Jean-Honoré Fragonard, The Swing, French Rococo, 1767 correct answers The Swing, also
known as The Happy Accidents of the Swing, is an 18th-century oil painting by Jean-Honoré
Fragonard in the Wallace Collection in London. It is considered to be one of the masterpieces of
the Rococo era, and is Fragonard's best known work.
The painting depicts an elegant young woman on a swing. A smiling young man, hiding in the
bushes on the left, watches her from a vantage point that allows him to see up into her billowing
dress, where his arm is pointed with hat in hand.
A smiling older man, who is nearly hidden in the shadows on the right, propels the swing with a
pair of ropes. The older man appears to be unaware of the young man. As the young lady swings
high, she throws her left leg up, allowing her dainty shoe to fly through the air.
The lady is wearing a bergère hat. Two statues are present, one of a putto, who watches from
above the young man on the left with its finger in front of its lips in a sign of silence, the other of
pair of putti, who watch from beside the older man, on the right.
There is a small dog shown barking in the lower right hand corner, in front of the older man.
According to the memoirs of the dramatist Charles Collé, first asked Gabriel François Doyen to
make this painting of him and his mistress. Not comfortable with this frivolous work, Doyen
refused and passed on the commission to Fragonard.
The man had requested a portrait of his mistress seated on a swing being pushed by a bishop, but
Fragonard painted a layman.
This style of "frivolous" painting soon became the target of the philosophers of the
Enlightenment, who demanded a more serious art which would show the nobility of man.
Intrigue painting correct answers A painting designed to intrigue the viewer. The Intrigue is an
oil on canvas painting created by Belgian expressionist painter James Ensor. This painting is in
the possession of Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp and is part of the official inventory of
Flemish masterpieces.
Rococo correct answers aristocratic excess, romantic approach to landscape, exaggerated
baroque exuberance
Enlightenment, "doctrine of empiricism" correct answers In philosophy, empiricism is a theory
that states that knowledge comes only or primarily from sensory experience. It is one of several
views of epistemology, along with rationalism and skepticism. It emphasizes the role of
experience and evidence, especially sensory perception, in the formation of ideas, and argues that
the only knowledge humans can have is a posteriori (based on experience). Most empiricists also
discount the notion of innate ideas or innatism (the idea that the mind is born with ideas or
knowledge and is not a "blank slate" at birth). The doctrine of Empiricism was first explicitly
formulated by the British philosopher John Locke in the late 17th Century. Locke argued in his
"An Essay Concerning Human Understanding" of 1690 that the mind is a tabula rasa on which
, experiences leave their marks, and therefore denied that humans have innate ideas or that
anything is knowable without reference to experience. However, he also held that some
knowledge ( knowledge of God's existence) could be arrived at through intuition and reasoning
alone.
Winckelmann, "Greek style" correct answers Johann Winckelmann, (born Dec. 9, 1717, Stendal,
Prussia—died June 8, 1768, Trieste), German archaeologist and art historian whose writings
directed popular taste toward classical art, particularly that of ancient Greece, and influenced not
only Western painting and sculpture but also literature and even philosophy He was a pioneering
Hellenist who first articulated the difference between Greek, Greco-Roman and Roman art.
Writes that greek art is the true original art and that roman art is a copy of the true greek style.
Jacques-Louis David, The Oath of the Horatii, Neoclassicism, 1784 correct answers Oath of the
Horatii, is a large painting by the French artist Jacques-Louis David painted in 1784 and now on
display in the Louvre in Paris. The painting immediately became a huge success with critics and
the public, and remains one of the best known paintings in the Neoclassical style.
It depicts three men, brothers, saluting toward three swords held up by their father as the women
behind him grieve.
Similar subjects had always been seen in the Salons before but the physicality and intense
emotion of the painting was new and undeniable. The revolutionary painting changed French art.
The story of Oath of the Horatii came from a Roman legend first recounted by the Roman
historian Livy involving a conflict between the Romans and a rival group from nearby Alba.
Rather than continue a full-scale war, they elect representative combatants to settle their dispute.
The Romans select the Horatii and the Albans choose another trio of brothers, the Curiatii. In the
painting we witness the Horatii taking an oath to defend Rome.
The women know that they will also bear the consequence of the battle because the two families
are united by marriage.
One of the wives in the painting is a daughter of the Curatii and the other, Camilla, is engaged to
one of the Curatii brothers. At the end of the legend the sole surviving Horatii brother kills
Camilla, who condemned his murder of her beloved, accusing Camilla of putting her sentiment
above her duty to Rome.
David created a rigorously organized painting with a scene set in what might be a Roman atrium
dominated by three arches at the back that keep our attention focused on the main action in the
foreground. There we see a group of three young men framed by the first arch, the Horatii
brothers, bound together with their muscled arms raised in a rigid salute toward their father
framed by the
exemplum virtutis correct answers An example or model of virtue worthy of imitation; a
paragon.example of both men and women of virtue meant to inspire the viewer to do the same
(here, brothers willing to die for Rome)
French Revolution, 1789 correct answers The French Revolution began in May 1789 when the
Ancien Régime was replaced by a constitutional monarchy. An extended period of political
turmoil followed, which included the Execution of Louis XVI and the Reign of Terror. The
French Revolution lasted 10 years from 1789 to 1799. It began on July 14, 1789 when
revolutionaries stormed a prison called the Bastille. The revolution came to an end 1799 when a
