Category: Art

We learned about still lifes this week. On the surface, they were beautiful depictions of flowers, food, etc., but dig a little deeper and they held deep meaning and were often associated with momento moris. Here’s a little more on them if you need it: https://www.getty.edu/news/what-is-a-still-life/
This is actually going to be an artistic exercise for everyone. Create your own still life. You can do this two dimensionally (painting, drawing) or three dimensionally by using what’s around you and taking a picture to submit. If you want to do a different medium, please email me for approval. Look back at Clara Peeters and Rachel Ruysch and see how there’s just a dark background. Is yours like that or not? If not, what is in the background and why is that important to your still life?
Please embed in the text box, not as an attachment.
There needs to be at least six items – three items need to be as if you were painting in the 17th century, the remainder can be modern (like cell phones or photographs).
It needs to be in some kind of arrangement, not just laid out on a table.
Provide a couple paragraphs (not bullet points) explaining what you’ve included and why
I’ve included two links below that will give you some guidance on symbolism.
https://www.thecollector.com/still-life-paintings-what-they-mean/Links to an external site.
https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/small-guide-still-life-symbols-part-1/Links to an external site.

ART PIECE IS PROVIDED!! No AI OR PLAGIARISM I WILL REPORT YOU!!!Write a 3 page paper on Kara Walkers pieces. Due Friday Morning.

Part 1
Lecture Video
Reading1 – Florentine Codex
Reading 2 – Featherworks
Questions
(1) After watching the lecture, briefly describe the way that elites in Europe experience the “discovery” of the new world. You should reference a SPECIFIC examples from the lecture.
(2) After reading the article on the Florentine Codex, use a direct quotation, describe the process Bernardino de Sahagún used for gathering the information included in the Florentine Codex.
(3) What is the evidence for Nahua artist’s absorbing the style of European art? Explain which SPECIFIC techniques they used.
(4) After reading the section “A Nahua Perspective?” describe how the Florentine Codex becomes a site for documenting indigenous history and resistance to colonialism.
(5) Let’s move on to the article on the featherwork Mass of St. Gregory. Who is likely to have made this? Describe the “clash” of traditions in this work of art. How does this work of art compare to the Florentine Codex in terms of the agency of indigenous artisans?
Part 2
Lecture Video
Outside Video
Reading – Friends, I have pasted in the quotations I used in the lecture below. I am also attaching the entire original article, but it is quite long and dense.
If one of Alessandro’s parents was of African ancestry, we must recognize that this may not have been scandalous or entirely anomalous. We must be prepared to go back to a period before the hegemony of race, when differences were perceived but not invariably conceived of as signs of natural hierarchy among varying groups.
This period has been almost lost to history, beneath the crushing weight of the Atlantic slave trade and European colonialism, which in certain respects destroyed a horizontal multicultural world and established instead a fatal culture of racism, in which mixing or blending became the monstrous exception.
What has been lost in the debate about Alessandro’s racialized looks is the human reality of the Mediterranean as a thriving world of cultural traffic and familial exchange, where differences were not always reduced to matters of race or skin color. The multicultural Mediterranean world is evident in the literature of Italy, which features many accounts of economic, political, and romantic contacts between Italian cities and those of Africa and the Levant.
Mistaken Identities?: Alessandro de’ Medici and the Question of “Race”
Mary Gallucci
Questions
In the first half of our lecture we discuss two portraits of Alessandro de’Medici.
(1) How is Alessandro’s background described on the Uffizi website?
(2) The scholar Mari Gallucci suggests that we should approach these portraits with caution because our modern categories of race are difficult to apply to the early modern period. Select a portion of one of her quotes from lecture and explain how it applies to the situation of Alessandro.
Next, let’s turn our attention to the Americas, where Spanish authorities institute a very rigid hierarchy for considering racial mixing.
(3) Broadly describe what “Casta” paintings consist of–what is the idea behind these works of art? How do they attempt to address the “anxiety” over racial mixing? According to the video, what is the purpose of these works of art? Setting aside the issue of racial categorization, what other representations of life in the Americas are included in these images?
(4) Compare and contrast the strategies for representing race in the Alessandro de’Medici Portraits and Casta paintings? How do they represent a shift as the world moves towards the modern era?

We learned about still lifes this week. On the surface, they were beautiful depictions of flowers, food, etc., but dig a little deeper and they held deep meaning and were often associated with momento moris. Here’s a little more on them if you need it: https://www.getty.edu/news/what-is-a-still-life/
This is actually going to be an artistic exercise for everyone. Create your own still life. You can do this two dimensionally (painting, drawing) or three dimensionally by using what’s around you and taking a picture to submit. If you want to do a different medium, please email me for approval. Look back at Clara Peeters and Rachel Ruysch and see how there’s just a dark background. Is yours like that or not? If not, what is in the background and why is that important to your still life?
Please embed in the text box, not as an attachment.
There needs to be at least six items – three items need to be as if you were painting in the 17th century, the remainder can be modern (like cell phones or photographs).
It needs to be in some kind of arrangement, not just laid out on a table.
Provide a couple paragraphs (not bullet points) explaining what you’ve included and why
I’ve included two links below that will give you some guidance on symbolism.
https://www.thecollector.com/still-life-paintings-what-they-mean/Links to an external site.
https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/small-guide-still-life-symbols-part-1/Links to an external site.

We learned about still lifes this week. On the surface, they were beautiful depictions of flowers, food, etc., but dig a little deeper and they held deep meaning and were often associated with momento moris. Here’s a little more on them if you need it: https://www.getty.edu/news/what-is-a-still-life/
This is actually going to be an artistic exercise for everyone. Create your own still life. You can do this two dimensionally (painting, drawing) or three dimensionally by using what’s around you and taking a picture to submit. If you want to do a different medium, please email me for approval. Look back at Clara Peeters and Rachel Ruysch and see how there’s just a dark background. Is yours like that or not? If not, what is in the background and why is that important to your still life?
Please embed in the text box, not as an attachment.
There needs to be at least six items – three items need to be as if you were painting in the 17th century, the remainder can be modern (like cell phones or photographs).
It needs to be in some kind of arrangement, not just laid out on a table.
Provide a couple paragraphs (not bullet points) explaining what you’ve included and why
I’ve included two links below that will give you some guidance on symbolism.
https://www.thecollector.com/still-life-paintings-what-they-mean/Links to an external site.
https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/small-guide-still-life-symbols-part-1/Links to an external site.

We learned about still lifes this week. On the surface, they were beautiful depictions of flowers, food, etc., but dig a little deeper and they held deep meaning and were often associated with momento moris. Here’s a little more on them if you need it: https://www.getty.edu/news/what-is-a-still-life/
This is actually going to be an artistic exercise for everyone. Create your own still life. You can do this two dimensionally (painting, drawing) or three dimensionally by using what’s around you and taking a picture to submit. If you want to do a different medium, please email me for approval. Look back at Clara Peeters and Rachel Ruysch and see how there’s just a dark background. Is yours like that or not? If not, what is in the background and why is that important to your still life?
Please embed in the text box, not as an attachment.
There needs to be at least six items – three items need to be as if you were painting in the 17th century, the remainder can be modern (like cell phones or photographs).
It needs to be in some kind of arrangement, not just laid out on a table.
Provide a couple paragraphs (not bullet points) explaining what you’ve included and why
I’ve included two links below that will give you some guidance on symbolism.
https://www.thecollector.com/still-life-paintings-what-they-mean/Links to an external site.
https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/small-guide-still-life-symbols-part-1/Links to an external site.