Wednesday, November 24, 2010
After the decline of the Carolingian Empire, the Holy Roman Empire was re-established under the Saxon Ottonian dynasty. From this emerged a rehabilitated faith in the idea of Empire and a reformed Church, creating a period of heightened cultural and artistic passion. It was in this atmosphere that masterpieces were created that fused the traditions from which Ottonian artists derived their inspiration: models of Late Antique, Carolingian, and Byzantine origin.
Ottonian monasteries produced some of the most magnificent medieval illuminated manuscripts. They were a major art form of the time, and monasteries received direct sponsorship from emperors and bishops, having the best in equipment and talent available.
Among the greatest talents was the so-called Master of the Regis rum Gregory, or Gregory Master, who worked chiefly in Trier in the 970s and 980s. He was responsible for several miniatures in the influential Codex Egbert, a gospel dictionary made for Archbishop Egbert of Trier, probably in the 980s.
However, the majority of the 51 images in this book, which represent the first extensive cycle of images depicting the events of Christ's life in a western European manuscript, were made by two monks from the island monastery of Reichenau in Lake Constance. Subsequently, the Reichenau scriptorium specialized in Gospel illustration in liturgical books, many of them, such as the Munich Gospels of Otto III and the Periscope Book of Henry II imperial commissions.
Other important monastic scriptoria that flourished during the Ottonian age include those at Convey, Hildesheim, Regensburg, Echternach, and Cologne. In addition, much very fine small-scale sculpture in metals--usually embroidered with gems, enamels, crystals, and cameos--and ivory were made during the Ottonian period.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Despite his status and condition, his fantastic subjects and extraordinarily detailed style were generally well-received, with one period reviewer describing his work as exquisitely ideal. He accompanied his masterpiece, The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke, with an elaborate poem providing historical, literary, or mythological context to each of the characters depicted.
Fairy painting was not exclusively the domain of outside art, however. The work of John Anster Fitzgerald debuted at London's Royal Academy. His work, in the form a series of Christmas-themed fairy illustrations, received wider public visibility in the Illustrated London News.
The Scottish artist Joseph Noel Paton exhibited two immensely detailed paintings based on the popular fairy scenes of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Even Edwin Landseer, sometimes named Victoria's favorite artist, produced a painting of Titanic and Bottom in the genre's style.
The genre also influenced the Pre-Rafaelita Brotherhood and the movement it began. Co-founder John Everett Millais produced a series of fairy paintings based on The Tempest, ending with his 1849 work Ferdinand Lured by Ariel.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, another of the Brotherhood's initial members, took a more sensual approach to the subject, in both painting and poetry. Others involved with the movement, such as Arthur Hughes and William Bell Scott, also contributed to the genre.
Although the Cuttingly Fairies briefly revived interest in foe subjects, the waning of Romanticism and the advent of World War I reduced interest in the styles and topics popular during the Victorian era.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
At its most flourishing time, there were over 45 inns in which travelers could rest, making it a rather large post town.Hiroshige largely confined himself in his early work to common Ukiyo-e themes such as women and actors.
Then, after the death of Toyohiro, Hiroshige made a impressive turnabout, with the 1831 landscape series Famous Views of the Eastern Capital which was critically highly praised for its composition and colors.
He dominated landscape printmaking with his unique brand of intimate, almost small-scale works compared against the older traditions of landscape painting descended from Chinese landscape painters such as Sesshu.
The travel prints generally depict travelers along famous routes experiencing the special attractions of various stops along the way. They travel in the rain, in snow, and during all of the seasons.
In 1856, working with the publisher Uoya Eikichi, he created a series of luxury edition prints, made with the finest printing techniques including true gradation of color, the addition of mica to lend a unique flickering effect, embossing, fabric printing, blind printing, and the use of glue printing .
One Hundred Famous Views of Edo was immensely popular. The set was published posthumously and some prints had not been completed — he had created over 100 on his own, but two were added by Hiroshige II after his death.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Ukiyo- is a genus of Japanese woodblock prints and paintings produced between the 17th and the 20th centuries, featuring motifs of landscapes, tales from history, the theatre, and pleasure quarters. It is the main artistic genre of woodblock printing in Japan.
Usually the word Ukiyo is literally translated as "floating world" in English, referring to a conception of an evanescent world, impermanent, fleeting beauty and a realm of entertainments, divorced from the responsibilities of the ordinary, everyday world; "pictures of the floating world", i.e. Ukiyo-e, are considered a genre unto themselves.
The art form rose to great popularity in the metropolitan culture of Edo during the second half of the 17th century, originating with the single-color works of Hishikawa Moronobu in the 1670s.
At first, only India ink was used, then some prints were manually painted with a brush, but in the 18th century Suzuki Harunobu developed the technique of polychrome printing to produce nishiki-e.
Ukiyo-e was affordable because they could be mass-produced. They were mainly meant for townsmen, who were generally not wealthy enough to afford an original painting.
The original subject of Ukiyo-e was city life, in particular activities and scenes from the entertainment district. Beautiful courtesans, bulky sumo wrestlers and popular actors would be portrayed while occupied in appealing activities.
Later on landscapes also became popular. Political subjects and individuals above the lowest strata of society were not sanctioned in these prints and very rarely appeared.
Sex was not a sanctioned subject either, but continually appeared in Ukiyo-e prints. Artists and publishers were sometimes punished for creating these sexually explicit shunga.
Ukiyo-e can be categorized into two periods: the Edo period, which comprises ukiyo-e from its origins in the 1620s until about 1867, when the Meiji period began, lasting until 1912.
The Edo period was largely a period of calm that provided an ideal environment for the development of the art in a commercial form; while the Meiji period is characterized by new influences as Japan opened up to the West.
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