Anonymous

“ Yet, in depicting the niece of a high-ranking government official, the artist has given us a marvelously direct and sympathetic portrait. The innate, peculiarly Spanish sense of pride and self-discipline is evident in Sabasa García’s aristocratic posture and bold, unflinching gaze. Equally direct is Goya’s manner of painting, which captures the rough texture of the shawl as well as the gossamer quality of the mantilla lace. The result is a portrait of great intensity heightened by feminine beauty. ”

“ To symbolize Christ’s rule on earth as well, the artist included, in the rondels, images of angels bearing orbs and scepters. So typical of the art of the Byzantine Empire, this painting is an icon, or holy image, and reflects within its composition a fusion of ancient Roman and medieval Oriental styles. A feeling for classical solidity shows in the faces, which are modeled with cast shadows to suggest three-dimensional forms, whereas a Near Eastern love of decoration accounts for the flattened drapery patterns and their dazzling highlights. ”

“ The enigma of this intellectual and complex painting centers finally in the all-embracing arms—symbolic of the heavens and of the creator, who is seen as youthful rather than patriarchal but whose face is hidden. ”

“ At the beginning of the fifteenth century, northern European art was caught up by the same spirit of empirical inquiry and technical innovation that predominated in Italy during this period. Northern art, however, reflects neither the influence of classical art nor the development of a single-point perspective that are the hallmarks of the Italian Renaissance. Rather, Netherlandish artists such as Jan van Eyck achieved mastery in the new technique of oil painting. ”

“ The National Gallery of Art belongs to all the people of the United States of America. Established by a joint resolution of Congress, it is supported by public appropriation. The Board of Trustees consists of four public servants, ex officio, and five private citizens. Chairman of the Board is the Chief Justice of the United States. Under the policies set by the Board, the Gallery assembles and maintains a collection of paintings, sculpture, and the graphic arts, representative of the best in the artistic heritage of America and Europe. ”

“ Until after the Civil War, the best training was still abroad, but usually the American students returned to the United States, where a growing urban society with more leisure was providing a market for works of art.
During the first half of the nineteenth century, many untrained artists, working in the cities but more often traveling about the countryside, provided naïve or primitive pictures for the ever-increasing middle classes. Up to this time the artist had been mainly a portraitist ”

“ Cutting through the center of the painting, the arched curve of brilliant light transforms the reality of a gritty industrial scene into 21 an appealingly romantic seascape and brings the world of man into accord with nature. ”

“ Most heavily supported by the royal court, French artists were sent to Rome to study the arts of the Italian Renaissance and classical antiquity; some, like Claude Lorrain and Nicolas Poussin (gallery 52) , chose to remain in Italy. In Paris, an Academy, which rapidly became the ruling body for French art, was established in 1648. To enhance the brilliance of his reign in the latter part of the century, Louis XIV sponsored a ceremonial art—more idealistic than realistic in style—and built near Paris the largest palace in Europe, Versailles. ”

“ In the other three pictures completing The Voyage of Life series, Youth sets off on a meandering stream, striving toward a castle in the clouds, while Manhood weathers a storm on a tumultuous river and Old Age drifts into a quiet ocean where heavenly messengers wait to receive him. ”

“ Once a professional athlete himself, George Bellows understood the violence of the sport. Brutality is conveyed by the angular lines of the fighters’ bodies, the boldly slashing brushwork, and the lurid glare of spotlights within the gloomy arena. ”

“ French art during the second half of the 1800s is noted for its innovation and its diversity. Yet, although the paintings produced during this period differ in their visual effects, the artists of these works were all largely concerned with the same problem: how to treat nature and how to define reality. Thus, in reaction to the neoclassicists, who stressed line and color, and the romantics, who favored lush hues, exotic or unusual subject matter, and emotionalism, the realists sought to paint only what was before them, free from embellishment. ”

“ Because the Church defined much of the social and cultural structure of medieval life, Christian themes predominated as the subject matter for the arts of the period. In the National Gallery collections, works created in Florence, Siena, Rome, and Central Italy show the range of skills and styles prevalent in painting as it progressed from the highly religious art of the Middle Ages to the more secular art of the Renaissance. ”

“ With the agonized gesture of the hands, the ragged loincloth, the dislocated shoulders, and twisted feet, little remains to soften the tension of the painting; rather, the artist emphasizes the human suffering necessary for Christ to redeem mankind. Painted on the eve of the Protestant Reformation, this panel reflects the growing insistence in northern Europe upon the reality and importance of private religious experiences. ”

“ The Index of American Design is a collection of watercolor renderings of objects of popular art in the United States from before 1700 until about 1900. The renderings represent American ceramics, furniture, woodcarving, glassware, metalwork, tools and utensils, textiles, costumes, and other types of American craftsmanship. There are some seventeen thousand renderings and about five hundred photographs. These are available for study, by appointment. The works themselves may be loaned to organizations for exhibition outside the Gallery. ”

“ The combination of excellent seaports, a powerful navy, and strong mercantile interests made Holland a flourishing economic center. Dutch patrons, predominantly Calvinist and middle class, demanded not religious or mythological pictures, but landscapes, portraits, still lifes, and genres, or scenes of daily life. Their demands were met by an ever-increasing number of Dutch artists who, perhaps in response to a burgeoning and competitive market, specialized in a single type of subject. ”

“ In her eyes he has drawn a look of intelligence; in her bearing and the set of her mouth, there is a sense of determination and conviction. Punning on the name of his sitter, the artist has framed her head with a juniper bush—ginepro in Italian—and decorated the back of the panel with a juniper sprig. ”

“ The Board of Trustees has full power to accept gifts, bequests, or devises of works of art, money, or other personal or real property, and either absolutely or in trust. Gifts and donations to the National Gallery of Art are deductible for Federal income tax purposes within the limits provided by law, and are welcomed in amounts of any size. ”

“ As objects for daily use, the decorative arts allow a close insight into cultures of the past. Among its holdings, the National Gallery has an extensive collection of European furniture, tapestries, and ceramics from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as well as medieval church vessels and Renaissance jewelry. ”

“ Known neither for his Christian themes nor for simplicity of organization, Dali has in this painting moved away from the surrealism that preoccupied him during his earlier years. The composition of the Last Supper is clearly defined in two main planes: foreground action and background scenery. The placement of the figures is symmetrical with a mirror-image repetition of the same figures from one side of the painting to the other. The men, their faces hidden, are more the idealized participants in a timeless Eucharist than specific men of a specific time and place. ”

“ In calculating the juxtaposition of color, the artist placed pale blue-green shadows on the child’s face to heighten her rosy complexion. In addition, the blurred impressionist brushstrokes create the effect of shimmering sunlight dissolving form and detail. Once in response to criticism about his work, Renoir said, “There are enough things to bore us in life without our making more of them.”
GALLERY 86: Claude Monet, Rouen Cathedral, West Facade, dated 1894
Monet, a founder of impressionism, became obsessed with the variations with natural light. ”

“ The most casual elements of this intimate portrait of human activity combine to create a masterful composition of complex and dynamic parts. The pose of the girl, shown with arm and head poised as she tunes her lute, generates a feeling of sustained movement. ”

“ In what appears at first to be a simple depiction of a woman holding a pair of scales, a framed painting of the Last Judgment included on the back wall of the scene suggests a more serious, allegorical meaning. Weighing the souls of mankind serves as a point of comparison to the woman weighing her worldly possessions. ”

“ With a feeling for theatricality, Gainsborough interplays the frail figure of a young woman and the powerful mood of nature to establish a perfect setting for this celebrated actress and wife of the playwright and politician Sheridan. Born Elizabeth Linley, she was Gainsborough’s lifelong friend. A motif common to the eighteenth century, the Age of Enlightenment, was the use of nature and an informal pose to achieve unaffected simplicity. ”

“ After the French Revolution of 1789, a school of neoclassical artists dominated painting, using themes of patriotic heroism and stressing severe beauty of line and firm modeling, over light and color. ”

“ Established as a subculture of the mother country, the American colonies looked to England for leadership in the arts. Ambitious painters, finding no opportunity for formal training in the colonies, went to study in Europe. Benjamin West, a Pennsylvania Quaker, after three years in Italy, in 1763 established himself in London, where he achieved such renown that he became History Painter to King George III and was later appointed second president of the Royal Academy of Arts. ”

“ The guards are under orders not to permit visitors to touch the paintings or sculpture under any circumstances. Fountain pens with fluid ink may not be used in the galleries. Smoking is forbidden in the exhibition areas.
PLANTS AND FLOWERS
Flowers and plants in the courts are grown in the National Gallery’s greenhouses and are changed frequently by the Gallery’s horticultural staff. There are special floral displays at Christmas and Easter in both the Garden Courts and the Rotunda. ”

“ Because oils blended easily together and because one could thicken these paints with pigments, artists soon established a more flexible technique. At the same time, they abandoned rigid wood panels for canvas supports, which allowed larger, lighter pictures. These innovations, combined with worldly subjects, soon had a significant impact on the rest of Europe.
GALLERY 21: Giorgione, The Adoration of the Shepherds, painted c. 1510
Dominated by a placid landscape bathed in the half-light of dawn, Giorgione’s composition focuses on the small group placed off-center in the foreground. ”

“ Other artists such as Monet and Renoir concentrated 25 upon recording the fleeting and subtle color impressions created by changes in sunlight. Because their technique was rapid and sketchy, these latter artists gave less attention to studiously modeled form, and their paintings, although “realistic” in their rendition of light and space, do not have the solid, tangible qualities so evident in Academic painting. ”

“ After the Civil War, however, these landscapes also appealed to a populace seeking relief in the ideal world of a quiet countryside away from the humdrum of dirty cities that were springing up everywhere, the result of the Industrial Revolution. ”

“ The combination of abrupt spotlighting and suggested deep space was characteristic of baroque painting in seventeenth-century Rome, and Gentileschi, an international court artist, transmitted this robust style to Genoa, Paris, and London.
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GALLERY 36: Giovanni Paolo Panini, The Interior of the Pantheon, painted c. 1740
In an era of travel, when men and women of wealth toured the continent as part of their education, factual renderings of interiors and cityscapes became important souvenirs. ”

“ The use of oil on wood panel permitted an extraordinary increase in the depth and richness of color, which, in turn, was coupled with the tradition of minute, craftsmanly detail established in late medieval manuscript illumination.
Around 1500, Italian humanism and Renaissance science had a discernable effect upon northern European painting. ”

“ Still other artists rejected impressionism’s concern with transitory moments in order to express either their intuitive reactions to the natural world or their personalized interpretation of the physical laws that order appearances. ”

“ Artists have often abandoned the direct imitation of reality, preferring instead to work through complex problems of pictorial design to express human feelings. A tremendous diversity of artistic styles has resulted, emerging in tempo with the rapid changes of modern society and technology. ”