Reyes, Sheyron Mico

BSCE-1F

Baroque

The Calling of Saint Matthew

By Caravaggio

Caravaggio, one of the best artists of all time, is best known for his highly realistic
style of Baroque painting. What made Caravaggio so unique was the true-life naturalism
that made his figures seems completely real. Unfortunately, some conservative ecclesiastics
considered his style of painting to be too vulgar, although it was much sought after by art
collectors and other painters. After his death, his signature style of painting - based on his
use of tenebrism and chiaroscuro - would become known as Caravaggism and influence
painters throughout Europe. The Calling of Saint Matthew depicts the moment when Jesus
Christ inspires Matthew to follow him and become an apostle.

The Calling of Saint Matthew illustrates the passage in the Gospel of Matthew
(Matthew 9:9), when Jesus went into the custom house, saw Matthew at his seat and called
to him, "Follow me". According to the story Matthew rose and followed him. In the painting,
Christ (on the right, behind Peter) points to Levi, the tax-collector (the bearded man
wearing a beret, who also appears in the two other Matthew paintings in the chapel) - and
calls upon him to become the apostle Matthew. Although Levi is well to the left of the
picture, the viewer's attention is nevertheless drawn to him by the hands pointing at him as
well as by the intensity of the light shining on him.
Romanticism

Third of May

By Francisco de Goya

Considered one of Spain’s most important artists of the 18th and 19th centuries,
Francisco Goya created vivid and enigmatic artworks that reflected and commented on
Spain’s contemporary historical turbulence. Goya’s groundbreaking famous Romantic art,
The Third of May 1808, is arguably his most famous painting. It depicts Napoleonic troops
publicly executing Spaniards as retribution for the previous day’s uprising against the
French. The Spanish laborer who is about to be executed is represented in a manner that
imitates Christ’s crucifixion. The figures’ expressive faces and body language convey the
cruelty and the turmoil. A lantern on the ground is the only source of light, which divides
the scene into the light, highlighting the victims, and shadows, consuming the faceless
executioners.

Goya created famous Romanticism paintings that broke decisively from the past.
Goya aimed to witness and commemorate the Spanish opposition to Napoleon’s army. He
influenced generations of artists that followed him. Goya’s revolutionary painting, The
Third of May 1808, played a pivotal role in the rise of Realism and its honest depictions of
everyday life, in influencing Picasso’s representations of the horrors of war, and in
encouraging Surrealism’s examination of dream-like content.
Pre-Raphaelites

Ophelia

By John Everett Millais

John Everett Millais was an English painter and illustrator who were one of the
founders and leading members of the Pre-Raphaelites. He was born into a comfortable,
middle-class military family. At the age of eleven, he attended the Royal Academy of
London. In 1848, Millais founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood along with his fellow
students William Holman Hunt and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Later, in 1896, Millais was
elected president of the Royal Academy, where he excelled as a student.

His masterpiece Ophelia was meant to become one of the most famous paintings in
British art that transformed the landscape genre. It is based on Shakespeare’s play ‘Hamlet’
and features the scene of Ophelia’s death. It shows the moment after Hamlet murdered
Ophelia’s father, and she let herself fall into the river. Millais was the first artist to depict
Ophelia in the process of drowning. His model was the 19-year-old Elizabeth Siddal, who
later became Rossetti’s wife. The painter sought to bring naturalism and realistic detail
back to painting while portraying the tragic heroine floating in the water with her palms
upturned.
Realism

The Gleaners

By Jean-Francois Millet

Realist painters often portrayed life as it was for the everyday person in French
society where the movement truly took hold. Jean-Francois Millet was best known for his
ability to depict normal people engaged in everyday activities like working, chores, or even
enjoying leisure time with one another. His painting titled The Gleaners is a work that
perhaps best encapsulates everything about the Realism movement in one single painting
on canvas. This 1857 painting is one of a series of three works that focuses on peasant
women going about their daily business—in this case, they are gleaning, or gathering
leftover crops that are considered scraps left behind by those who were doing the initial
harvest.

This painting shows what is widely considered to be the lowest rank of French
society and Millet’s work was widely criticized by some art critics at the time as it
portrayed the opposite of what many in the art scene viewed as worthy of their scrutiny
and attention. The bland colors of the painting seem to reflect the mundane nature of the
lives of these three peasant women. It was works like these that brought the Realism
movement into the full attention of the public sphere as many aristocratic French citizens
were largely unfamiliar with the hardships that the average person had to endure.
Impressionism

Luncheon of the Boating Party

By Auguste Renoir

One of the finest and most versatile of Impressionist painters, Renoir drew his
artistic inspiration from many different sources. His first job, for instance, was painting
patterns onto ceramic pottery; he also studied at the traditionalist Ecole des Beaux-Arts;
copied works by Old Masters like Veronese and Rubens, as well as 18th century French
painting, at the Louvre; and was influenced by both the colour of Delacroix and the realism
of Gustave Courbet. He called them to the Maison Fournaise to pose in person, perfecting
each portrait one by one. Far at the back, in a top hat, sits noted art collector and historian
Charles Ephrussi. He is speaking with poet Jules Laforgue. To the right, Renoir's pals
Eugène Pierre Lestringuez and Paul Lhote are presented flirting with renowned actress
Jeanne Samary. Meanwhile, Renoir's affluent patron and fellow painter Gustave Caillebotte
sits in the lower right corner, conversing with actress Angèle Legault and Italian journalist
Adrien Maggiolo.

The painting breaks from early impressionist interest. In the early days of the
Impressionist movement, city scenes were one of the dominant themes. By 1881, when
Renoir finished the masterpiece, Impressionism was moving into new terrain, specifically
the suburbs. This mingling of men and women from different walks of life reflected how the
divisions of class in French culture were dissolving to create the new bourgeoisie.
Expressionism

The Scream

By Edvard Munch

Edvard Munch is regarded as one of the most significant and influential artists of
modernism. The Scream is one of the most iconic modern art pieces in the world. It is
renowned for embodying the profound sense of angst and anxiety that permeated the early
modernist era. The painting is largely autobiographical as it is based on Munch’s
experience hearing a piercing ‘scream of nature’ after being left behind by two of his
friends, who appear in the background of the piece.

When he painted The Scream in 1893, Munch was inspired by “a gust of