Saturday, November 3, 2012

Evolution of Art Through the Ages

Reflecting on all of the art we have studied so far this year, i notices a really drastic change in the use of color from the Greek times to the Renaissance. In the Greek times, though we can no longer see it, the colors they used were bold colors like red and blue and purple. Though it has faded away by now, they painted their temples with these colors. When the Roman time came, color changed a bit. Though most Roman art was sculpture, the Roman paintings used more shades of color and experimented with it a lot more. Finally, during the Renaissance times, the use of color changed drastically. Artists really started to experiment with color, mixing different hues and really creating a new style of painting. And then comparing the renaissance art to today, color had been continually experimented with and has changed completely over the ages.

2 comments:

TSHAH said...

I think the reason that a wider range of colors were uses as time progressed was due to the changes in painting mediums and techniques. As you stated Tyler, artist were experimenting back and forth with different pigments and the colors they produced when they were applied to certian methods - as seen by Da Vinci's attempt to paint the last supper on wood. Recently we looked a lot at frescoes, which were a little bit more limited in terms of color usage since the pigments had to be applied so quickly and direclty within the "golden period, or the artist would have to start all over.

wkuehne said...

I agree. I also believe that the fluxes from neoplatonism to a focus in how to achieve a more perfect depiction of the real world is interesting. The use of linear perspective and shadow that were experimented by artists such as Massacio did not always yeild the best art. The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden by Massacio is by no means a masterpiece, yet it is highly regarded by the art community because of its experimentation in atmospheric perspective, which in turn helped artists such as Michelangelo reach the level of art that they hoped even gods would appreciate.