Neoclasicism- Representing a Hero

Neoclassicism in “Napoleon on Horseback at the St. Bernard Pass”, by Jacques-Louis David, expresses the heroism of a character with great precision in the drawing details and precision. David freezes the movement and enhances the figure of Napoleon, looking like a hero of antiquity. Again the political blurb brings out the emperor with boldness and courage is capable of leading France through the vicissitudes of history.

Throughout the long career of Jacques-Louis David, demonstrated various elements that reflected their membership in the neoclassical movement: the admiration of antiquity, the desire to express political messages and moral care of the formal aspects; also the cult of Napoleon. Indeed, abundant carved and painted portraits were part of the revolutionary blurb strategy of the rule of Napoleon, the first modern dictator.

Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama filmed by Orson Welles. The film traces the life and career of Charles Foster Kane, a man whose career in the publishing world born of idealistic social service, but gradually evolves into a ruthless pursuit of power.

This film depicts the heroism of a social icon, as well as the empire he created his name in history, according to the film. Orson Welles uses techniques, such as neoclassicism, to represent the virtuosity and presence of its main character. This character was based on a leading businessman of the era, William Randolph Hearst, the film explicitly the entrepreneur's life, but changing the names and some circumstances in it.

The most innovative technical aspect of Citizen Kane is the extended use of deep focus. In nearly every scene in the film, the foreground, background and everything in between are all in sharp focus. Another unorthodox method used in the film was the way low-angle shots were used to display a point of view facing upwards, thus allowing ceilings to be shown in the background of several scenes. We can find several scenes that show the lead character, like Napoleon Bonaparte, but there is one specific scene that shows the viewer the potential and power of Citizen Kane. This scene is where citizen Kane postulated himself, and was on a dais. The angle of the camera, the background of his face, the chiaroscuro of the scene, the feeling of superiority and posture of the character fascinating insight into the potential of an image on the viewer, an image of explicit heroism that Neoclassicism was showed a long time ago.

Only a picture?

Even though western society has generally changed and is more open to the public expression of sexual freedom, there are still rules of taste for images to be viewed by the mainstream public. Fragonard's paintings show us that the French upper class in the late 18th century was frivolous and carefree, and they had a playful regard for sexuality and relationships. Today's ads show us that middle class North American society in the 20th century is all about consumerism and disposable income, and that pop culture has an open and easy perspective on sexuality. Ads in mainstream magazines use erotic symbolism as a useful tool to sell products. A person who owned a Fragonard painting in the 18th century, or CK underwear and Camels cigarettes in the 20th century, reveal that they share their respective society's views on sexuality. They believe that the producers of their chosen products are skilled professionals and can attest to the product's quality. Fragonard and advertisers use different symbols in different ways, and for different purposes, but the fact is that we continue to use them because western society still respects rules of modesty and taste, even we often try to break them.

Many Rococo artists, including Fragonard, used symbols in their work. New symbols were developed for art, revolving around love and mythology. Statues of Venus, Cupid, and Psyche represented different aspects of love and were usually painted in the background to mirror the actions and sentiments of couples in the foreground. Flower gardens are symbols of blossoming love, while a floral crown is a symbol of sexual consummation or commitment. A woman's shoeless foot or parted skirts mean that she is unchaste; the same thing may be said about a man without a hat. The presence of a cat represents promiscuity while the dog is a symbol of fidelity. The presence of a letter often indicates letters of love. All of these symbols can be found in Fragonard's work, and are used with great success. Some examples of Fragonard's symbolic paintings are “The progress of love” and “The swing” in 1766.

The couple in the painting appear to be having a secret affair, or are about to have one. This is indicated by the statue of Cupid holding a finger to his lips. The swing is a symbol of the fickle, playful woman. As the woman is swinging, her skirts part so that the man laying below is able to see up them. The man pushing the swing may be a bishop, or perhaps he is the woman's father or husband who is unaware of what is going on. The man holds out his hat and offers it to the woman as she loses her shoe, which suggests that they are both promiscuous. Her shoe flies through the air and will land in the bushes, where the couple will likely meet for a tryst.

Many companies commonly use sexual symbols in advertising because the suggestion of sex helps them sell products; it fuels the fantasy of the sexy qualities that the product allegedly provides. The use of sexual symbols in 20th century advertising is very common and recognizable to most of those who see them. Skimpy and revealing clothing, lots of makeup, and overdone hair on a female model implies that she is sexually available. Men and women in intimate relationships in alcohol ads are depicted as having free and easy lifestyles, and this is especially true in their relationships. Cigarettes have become associated with sexual daring and sophistication. Romantic settings that include bedroom scenes with candles, exotic sheets and sleep wear, etc. implies a setting where sex is about to be initiated.

The Two Lifes

A clear example of the significance of Renaissance paintings to twentieth-century art can be seen in the works below. Frida Kahlo, influenced by the symbolism in Renaissance paintings, refers to the way they express everyday life, like people could look in one work of Hans Holbein portraits.

The first picture is Portrait of the Merchant Georg Gisze, 1532, Oil and tempera on oak. Hans Holbein painted this large portrait at the beginning of his second period in England in search of work. From the objects shown in this portrait it is evident that the sitter was anxious that not only his likeness but also something of his way of life should be presented. On the surface, the picture appears super-realistic; but on closer inspection it contains a series of deliberate optical paradoxes. The walls, for example, are not at a right angle, and the table, as shown in the bottom right of the painting, where objects overhang its edge, is not rectangular. Certain objects on the table are not painted flat to the surface, and the vase and the money tin are precariously positioned. The overlapping of the book by the note, or cartellino, fixed to the wall by sealing wax, is an optical illusion given the bulk of the book. The balance hangs unstably from the shelf; and next to it is inscribed Gisze's motto: "Nulla sine merore voluptas" (no pleasure without regret), implying a symbolic connection with the scales.

The merchant is depicted standing in his workroom, behind a table covered with a richly embroidered cloth. Among the many objects on the table and the wall which illustrate his trade, the Venetian-glass vase, containing carnations and other flowers, clearly has a special significance; in the medieval language of symbols the carnation was a sign of betrothal.

In 1939, the Mexican bohemian artist Frida Kahlo completed one of her most telling self-portraits, The Two Fridas (Las Dos Fridas). This painting depicts the traditionally Mexican minded, traditionally Mexican dressed Frida hurt and exposed, sitting next to, and holding the right hand of the strong, independent, cosmopolitan Frida, who is obviously the protector of the weaker, more traditional Frida. The hearts of both Fridas are visible, and the heart of the traditional Frida is cut and torn open. The main artery, which comes from the torn heart down to the right hand of the traditional Frida, is severed. She uses surgical pincers to try to stem the flow of blood, yet it continues to drip down onto her white dress, forming an expanding crimson pool. The heart of the strong Frida, however, is fully intact and is feeding lifeblood through a connecting vein to the weaker, traditional Frida.

Frida Kahlo existed in a society that taught her to desire to be a perfect mother and wife. The circumstances of her life, however, would never allow for that. Each person is affected by a lifetime of individual experiences. What an individual does with those experiences is a true indicator of character. Frida Kahlo is a perfect example of one’s life experiences being used to educate and strengthen an individual. She lived for only 47 hard, painful years, yet she proved herself a woman who would not live according to the social expectations of her time and culture. The strong Frida in Kahlo’s portrait The Two Fridas is the woman she became when she realized that her society's traditions and cultural expectations were unreachable and unrealistic. The traditional Frida in the portrait does not convey any physical disability. Instead, what is laid before the audience is a woman whose traditional clothes are torn and stained, her shattered heart exposed. What is seen is a woman beaten down by the life she was expected to live. The traditional Frida’s saving grace is that the strong Frida recognized these quixotic demands for what they were, and adjusted her life accordingly. What emerged is the Frida Kahlo that feminists have proudly been able to hold up as an icon of strength, leadership, and rugged individualism.

The two works show the lifestyle of the characters at different times and different circumstances. Holbein in his painting shows a typical day in the life of the trader, while Frida Kahlo shows in his way of life and feelings at that time. The two paintings express his life with different symbols, for example, with objects, background, and to position the same character. Finally, the viewer perceives the sensation of being at the time or feel what the artist expresses in his work.

The Quattro Coronati, Four US Presidents

Nanni di Banco was a Italian sculptor from Florence. Nanni sculpted the group called Quattro Santi Coronati for his own guild, the Arte dei Maestri di Pietra and Legname (Guild of the Stone and Woodcutters). The life-size figures arranged in a semi-circle represent Claudius, Castor, Symphorian and Nicostratus, four Christian sculptors who refused to execute a statue of Aesculapius for the Emperor Diocletian; they were confused with Christian soldiers, were martyred for not venerating the Emperor and were worshipped as the Quattro Coronati.

The Quattro Coronati (Four Crowned Saints; c. 1411-13) is considered his masterpiece. The group of figures is bound together by the spatial relation of each to the other and by a kind of mute conversation in which they all seem to be engaged.

One can find another kind of sculpture that represents a part of history, in this case, four presidents. The faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln look down from their stone heights and remind everyone that even the impossible is possible.

Mt. Rushmore National Memorial is a huge mountain sculpture of four US Presidents, located near Keystone, in the Black Hills of South Dakota. These four Presidents were chosen to represent the founding, growth and preservation of the United States. The work was designed by the sculptor John Gutzon Borglum. Bad weather and a lack of funding slowed work; although it took 14 years to finish the project, work was done for only about 6 of those years.

Two pieces have big dimensions to express the importance at the period of construction; both represent important people for his countries. Each character has a natural and pensive expression of humility and they create a union sense together. The sculptures are located on the top of the viewer, telling the witness the best way to admire the great work.

One important factor is the perception of one in the work; both show an added value on the position they are and the elements that surround them. For example, the Mount Rushmore is located on the top where clarify people can see a pyramid corner and nothing surround it; the Quattro Coronati, also has in the top a triangle, this is the visual tension point and this help to the right visual tour for the sculpture. At the end, this is a concentration point of viewer’s attention.

These monument's dimensions were determinate by the importance to civilization of the events commemorated, the constructive and dramatic moments or crises in our amazing history.

With Donatello and Ghiberti, Nanni di Banco is one of the artists responsible for the introduction of a new, fully realistic, and the individual style of expression of the sculpture, where a new generation monumental and heroic sculpture came into existence.

Giotto and Rivera

Today, people can enjoy and appreciate different artistic movements. These movements emerged from the Renaissance, and have influenced in actual artists, in his beginning and development. This is the case of Diego Rivera.

Diego Rivera was a featured Mexican muralist, active communist and famous for capture works of social contents in public buildings, and the creator of several murals in different parts of historic centre of Mexico City.

His complete name was Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, and he was married with Frida Khalo.

In 1907, Diego gets a scholarship that allows travel to Europe and study art works, such as Goya, El Greco, Giotto y Brueghel.

In renaissance for example, the artist search his own style, use of perspective, admiration of humans body, green and golden colours, religious topics, dark-light technique, triangular compositions, distinction of social classes, and finally, complex compositions with lot of characters.

Diego Rivera painted complex compositions with lot of characters, such as El Greco. Also, he used saturated, flat and vivid colors, he painted with all Mexican folklore, disproportions, many characters in a single work, he appears in all his works, landscapes with background generating a little sense of depth, and his primary technique was the Fresco, such as the Renaissance.

One can find many similarities between Giotto di Bondone and Diego Rivera. First, similitude with Gioto in the use lot of characters and how they are accommodated into the mural; second, in pay tribute to woman as most important and mother; third, the works are painted with encaustic technique and Fresco; next, use of similar colors; and finally, the men as the center of Universe.

Thanks to the Renaissance stage, because we can now enjoy a wealth of artistic expressions.

Brunelleschi´s vision

Artists like Giotto and the trecento had begun to conduct studies on perspective. Giotto needed to represent spatial relationships and volume to create a framework for the figures and objects of his narrative paintings giving them a more convincing as representations of reality.

The importance lies in the dynamic relationship between the subject and the object being seen or observed. Filippo Brunelleschi became the discoverer of linear perspective; this is a method to mimic the measurable space on a flat surface.

The contemporary artist Alex Grey uses these principles as a basis for their works. He studied art at Ohio, and in Harvard Medical School was working in the Anatomy department studying the body and preparing cadavers for dissection and for doing medical illustration.

With these details apparently objects are placed in three dimensional spaces, which pushed up the surface of the painting forward where is the observer, and in turn extends backwards where there is an imaginary spatial depth.

Brunelleschi's visual field was perfectly framed by the doorway, perhaps to use that way the door frame and create a grid in which each of its four sides indicating reference points located at equal distance from each other.

Brunelleschi also used polished silver for enhancing the optical illusion sky forcing the viewer to see the Baptistery painting since the location of the artist envisioned when the actual building. While Alex Grey highlights the vanishing point as representing spiritual and basically to attract the attention of the viewer. The image is thus transformed into a window where we see an artificial reality created but data based on actual experience, by appropriate scenery.

Brunelleschi's Legacy, to contemporary and Renaissance artists, was his vision of transform flat images and their discovery in the ideation of imaginary spaces.