Collection Of European Painting And Sculpture example essay topic

European Painting and Sculpture The collection of European painting and sculpture comprises works of art from the twelfth through the early twentieth century. Ranging from paintings in oil on panel, canvas, or onyx through sculptures in alabaster, bronze, terra-cotta, marble, wax, silver, and painted wood, these works of art come primarily from Italy, France, Spain, the Low Countries (Holland and modern Belgium), Germany, Austria, England, and Switzerland. The collection of European painting and sculpture can be found on the first and second floors of the Ahmanson building and in the B. Gerald Cantor Sculpture Garden. It includes masterpieces of European art from the Middle Ages through impressionism and the followers of Rodin. Renowned for an outstanding representation of Italian baroque paintings as well as for world-famous masterpieces like Georges de La Tour's Magdalen with the Smoking Flame (c.

1638-40), Rembrandt's Raising of Lazarus (c. 1630), Degas's The Bell elli Sisters (1862-64), and C'e zanne's Sous-Bois (1894), the collection also boasts paintings by Jacopo Bellini, Rosso Fiorentino, Veronese, Titian, Frans Hals, Rubens, Boucher, Fragonard, Hubert Robert, Tiepolo, Delacroix, Monet, Pissarro, and Gauguin among others. The sculpture collection is shown integrated with the paintings. The museum displays the only collection of medieval sculpture in Southern California and is famed for its Renaissance and baroque polychrome sculptures.

Of particular note are the French eighteenth-century terra-cotta's, with examples of the work of Tu by, Clod ion, China rd, and Pa jou. The nineteenth century is richly represented with sculptures by David d'Angers, Rude, Carrier-Belle use, D alou, Fal gui " ere, and above all, Auguste Rodin, to whom an entire gallery is devoted. A selection of approximately 150 medals, from the Renaissance through the 1930's, is a representative group from the 1300 medals and in the collection. GEORGES DE LA TOUR atop atop (France, 1593-1652) Magdalen with the Smoking Flame, c. 1638-40 Oil on canvas 46 x 36 1/8 in. (116.8 x 91.8 cm) Gift of The Ahmanson Foundation, M. 77.73 Although Georges de La Tour spent his entire artistic career in provincial France, far from cosmopolitan centers and artistic influences, he developed a poignant style as profound as the most illustrious painters of his day.

In his lifetime his work appeared in the prominent royal collections of Europe. La Tour's early training is still a matter for speculation, but in the province of Lorraine he encountered the artist Jean Le Clerc, a follower of the Italian painter Caravaggio. From this source likely came La Tour's concern with simplicity, realism, and essential detail. Mary Magdalen was traditionally depicted in her grotto or as an aged woman. The absence of explicit narrative in this painting emphasizes Mary's state of mind and heart rather than time and place. The simple composition of vertical and horizontal shapes draws the viewer into the Magdalen's contemplative world.

The skull, books of Scripture, and scourge set the mood, but the chief symbol and true subject of the work is the candle at which Mary gazes in her meditation. Rendered in extraordinary detail and modulation, it emits the light that followers of St. John of the Cross called 'the living flame of love,' toward which spiritual pilgrims are drawn out of the 'dark night of the soul. ' La Tour scrupulously conveys the tactile quality of surfaces. The polished skull and leather books have different reflective qualities; Mary's heavy skirt, thin, wrinkled blouse, smooth flesh, and hair are meticulously distinct. Each spare detail is carefully regulated to achieve an overall balance of form and light. to achieve an overall balance of form and light. JEAN-BAPTISTE SIM " EON CHARDIN atop atop (France, 1699-1779) Soap Bubbles, after 1739 Oil on canvas 23 5/8 x 28 3/4 in.

(60 x 73 cm) Gift of The Ahmanson Foundation, M. 79.251 Jean-Baptiste Sim " eon Chardin's work gained public attention just as a reaction to the elaborate style of rococo art was setting in. He was admitted to the French Royal Academy as a still-life painter in 1728, a rare honor, as still life was then considered far less valid than paintings of historical, mythological, or courtly subjects. Even though his work reflected the ordinary images, decorum, and morality of the bourgeois life from which he came, Chardin's talent was recognized in artistic and aristocratic circles. Chardin began to paint genre subjects in the late 1730's, evoking through his observation of everyday life a contemplative atmosphere that in France had largely remained the domain of religious painting. In some ways his compositions heralded the values of the art of the Enlightenment, with its emphasis on rational content, naturalistic imagery, and qualities of truth and directness in subject matter. Soap Bubbles is carefully composed in the simplest of geometries, with the window forming a rectangular space to frame the pyramidal grouping of the youth and the boy transfixed by the spherical bubble; these shapes are reinforced by the masonry, angles of the youth's arms, and the pair of heads.

Chardin renders surfaces carefully but without distracting detail. A sense of timeless contemplation transforms the ephemeral pastime of the pair into a compelling allegory about the transitory nature of life. This is far from being a scene of carefree, youthful abandon. The European collections were founded with donations from William Randolph Hearst, of which the medieval stained glass, Renaissance Italian majolica, and Renaissance French painted enamels from Limoges are the most famous and most extensive.

In addition, there is a wide selection of glass and works of art, especially sixteenth-century German silver, from the collection of Hans and Varya Cohn. From the eighteenth century there are collections of European and English pottery and porcelain, silver and furniture. Then from the period 1880-1920 there are furniture, ceramics, and silver by significant designers, mostly from the Pale vsky collection.