Hierarchy of Genres, Chinoiserie, Fete Gelante - Essay Example

Winckelmann is the hero who founded modern archeology and is famed for articulating the difference between Greco-Roman, Greek, and Roman art.
Enlightenment is a period in the 17th century that saw the emergence of the cultural movement that focused on individualism and reason as opposed to traditions. Thus, artists through their works concentrated on individualism themes and reason to reform society from reliance on traditional and faith-based ideologies.
Pastels are raw pigments in the form of a stick containing a binder and powdered pigment mixed into a thick paste.

History painting is defined by subject matter as opposed to artistic style whereby the historical events depicted in the painting hold significance to the society or country.
The anamorphic image in Hans Holbein’s The Ambassadors is in the skull. It represents Jean de Dinteville and his friend who acted as French ambassadors to England and the Republic of Venice respectively.

Part 2: Essay
The hierarchy of genres in order of importance is history painting, portrait painting, genre painting, landscape painting, animal painting, and still life painting. History painting involved uplifting or inspirational messages in religious, historical, mythological, classical, or literary contexts. History painting marked the demonstration and conclusion of skills acquired within the academy system. Portrait painting is the second in the genre and is represented by large portraits of heroic figures for public viewing, and in some cases for private portraiture. This came after a rigorous course by academy students to master the skill, which first started withdrawing from plaster casts, copying the established portraits, and finally creating live models. Genre paintings involved scenes of ordinary life containing animals, landscapes, people, portraits, or touches of still life. The academy artists employed skills with occasional humor that put this genre at number three in the hierarchy.

Landscape painting involved painting art pieces whose focus was the portrayal of lovely sceneries of rivers, mountains, seascapes, townscapes, or countryside. This type of painting required less technical ability from the academy artists as compared to the first three genres. Animal painting in the fifth category dealt with a painting of animals originating from the popularization of a horse painting from 1724-1806. Finally, still-life paintings consisted of a representation of flowers, kitchen implements, and fruits among other foodstuffs in a painting. Because they involved inanimate objects, the paintings required the least expertise from the academic artist, but this meant that artists earned low incomes from such paintings. Read More