Explaining Artwork in a Social Context - Coursework Example

EXPLAINING ARTWORK IN A SOCIAL CONTEXT By Introduction Visual arts are viewed by the sense of sight and this caters forthe understanding of a particular artwork by the viewer1. The explanation, when being transferred from the viewer to another person or audience requires a mode of communication and that is mostly through words2. For someone to be able to explain something, they need to first of all understand it so that whatever they give an explanation of makes sense3. In the context of visual arts, say a painting, there exist some guiding elements which can apply when explaining it4. The social, technological, economic, and political contexts apart from assisting in interpretation are likely to have inspired the artists in creating the said works5. In short, art does not just come from anywhere, but it is inspired by certain factors upon which the artist dwells on, and that guides the explanation of the overall artwork6. To elaborate on explanation of an artwork, the following discussion text will evaluate the works of two artists; Leonardo DAVinci and Michelangelo and elaborate on the social aspect and how itinspired the creation of some of their works. The practitioners Leonardo DA Vinci Born in April 14527 as Leonardo DI ser Piero DA Vinci, this artist otherwise popular as Leonardo DA Vinci grew up to be a multi-talented genius, featuring in the fields of painting, sculpting, architecture, music, mathematics, geology, and botanist8 to mention but a few. He remains one of the greatest painters of all times9, having inspired a new tactic of painting under Renaissance art, and most importantly, his painting, Mona Lisa, which is the most popular painting in the world10. By the time of his death in 1519, he had transformed the world of art into a better form unbeaten to this day. Michelangelo He was born Michelangelo DI Lodovico Buonaroti Simon in March 147511 and grew into a world renowned painter, sculptor, engineer, poet, architect and poet12. He was a multi-skilled individual, but seemed to prefer sculpting of all his abilities. Together with Leonardo DA Vinci, they were responsible for steering the Renaissance period into the emergence of Western art; a period that saw art hit its all-time high13. His most popular works include Pieta and David which were sculptures, and although it was not his favorite, he went on to acquire an unbeaten status in the world14 after painting after decorating the ceiling and wall of the Sistine Chapel in Rome in painting The last Judgment15. He died in 1564. The dominant binding factor between these two is that they were both Renaissance artists, and Renaissance art periods had a lot of common (shared) factors16. The Social aspect Society in definition is the occurrence or existence of a group of people bound by common factors17. In a social setting, there exists three sub-branches to it, and that is compliant, internalization, and identification, and these affect the way people do their thing in ways acceptable in the societal context they exist in18. Society affects politics, religion, innovation and just how people perceive of everything that comes their way. Under society there exist many factors such as culture which affect the way of doing things or even thinking19. In the case of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, society determined their way of doing art. This is evident in the attributes manifested by works of the Renaissance period which manifested similar properties as the following figures from both artists support. Fig.1 Mona Lisa by Da Vinci Fig. 2 David by Michelangelo The social aspect about the works of the Renaissance demanded of such works to contain some unique attributes; first of all, Renaissance artists worked hard to adhere to the human anatomy20. That is the proportion of all body parts had to be realistic. This is evident in the two artworks above. Again, Renaissance works captured the fine details in an object without leaving any out21. As is seen in the Mona Lisa, the creases on the clothes and skin tone to the leafy backgrounds are all captured. Similarly, in the sculpture David, Michelangelo did not omit the areas where skin folds or the veins in the arms and even the protrusions caused by underlying bones. The other aspect that Renaissance art period dictated in artwork was observing how light affects shading or fading and including it in the pieces22. The Mona Lisa respected the rule as the face, chest, clothing, and hands show. They are lighter and more detailed where light falls on, and darker in areas concealed from direct light. Finally, works of the period were in three-dimensional23. In David, the sculpture is one in the round and one can lift, go round, see different angles of it, and manipulate it as an existing object. In the Mona Lisa, the three-dimensional features are brought out by the variety of colour tone and light intensity, in addition to overlapping of constituent elements24. This is evident in her hands, which are in 3-D and give one the “feel” that they can be held. In Renaissance Italy, the people in society believed that wealth and creativity went hand in hand25. This is to say that maybe those who commissioned artworks were wealthy, or better put, they could pay for work done. Artists were mostly found in urban centres26. Narrowing down to individual artists, the popularity of an artist (determined by skill) in turn affected how high or low they priced their artwork. Again, the economic ability of a commissioner determined the quality or size of artwork they could afford27. Fig. 5 The Slave Awakening by Michelangelo The Slave Awakening is amongst the series of unfinished sculptures28 done by Michelangelo, and which the world has never known why they were abandoned in raw stages. It was commissioned by Julius II, who asked for about 40 sculptures to adorn a tomb at the St. Peter’s29. It remains unclear why they were not done to completion but there are hints that the required Carrara marble was quite expensive to acquire and so the 40 sculptures were not made30. This further creates an assumption that did Julius II and Michelangelo falls out during negotiations for the pricing making Michelangelo to leave them uncompleted31? Or might it be that Michelangelo did not have the tools for the job32? Fig.6 Virgin of the Rocks altarpiece by Leonardo da Vinci The above painting was commissioned by the Brothers of the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception as an altarpiece for their church in Milan33. Panel pieces are rather complicated in creation, particularly in material owing to the different shapes, framing, and paints used. They were thus expensive34. In addition, they were meant for display to the masses, and had to be perfectly done, thus the artist had to invest time and receive hefty returns35. Italy was undergoing major transformations towards modernity and this saw great improvements made in tools and techniques of doing daily activities during the renaissance. This in turn affected the society of that time and that nobody wanted to be left behind, and artists too accepted the changes so they moved with the society’s trends. In short, there was some innovation in society’s ways of doing things. By definition, innovation is the use, making, and advancement of tools and techniques to aid in solving particular problems or puzzles36. Innovation had, and still has the ability to largely influence art in two main ways; the first in inspiring what an artist has to compose37, and secondly, how they execute the composing38. Better put, it can be said that when airplanes were the talk of the day, artists in pursuing current issues would include them in their work. In the second aspect, when innovations on brush making and paints were done, artists could paint better or new styles of doing art were born39. Fig. 3 Body anatomy sketches by Da Vinci Fig. 4 The Last Judgment on the ceiling and wall of the Sistine chapel Wherein most people would not look beyond the drawing of the hands (Fig. 3) and including the muscle structures, there is more to it. During Da Vinci’s time, Italy was undergoing progress towards innovation and modernization owing to new discoveries and emerging innovations40. Da Vinci being an individual immersed in vast fields had the knowledge of both art and biology as he was a botanist41. As such, the biological discoveries concerning the human body which he made were noted down on paper – artistically42. The biological discoveries cater for innovation, and these inspired the artist to draw, so that was an interconnection between art and advancement43. In Michelangelo’s painting of The Last Judgment on the Chapel’s ceiling (Figure 4), innovation played two roles. First, he reached ceilings and walls of the chapel because innovation in terms of (seemingly) ladders enabled him to paint at the heights44. Secondly, Renaissance art was unique and enabled style variations was that oil paints replaced tempera colours45. Oil paints do not crack46, do not dry out fast47, they allow for easy mixing48, and produce effects such as glowing49, luminosity50, and translucency51 unlike temperas. Tempera coloursdry out fast and are opaque, thus cannot produce effects like translucency52. In the 1500’s era, which was during the Renaissance, the people were ruled by not so powerful systems of government and the church, particularly the catholic church. The society of those days was deeply engrossed in religion and that made them adhere to whatever the church dictated them to do. Dressing, language, art, and just everything in the society was based on the church’s preferences. The popes and cardinals were more of kings and had the power to control most of the society’s aspects. The first mode of affecting art was by “forcing” artists to base their artwork on Christian themes which was indeed viral as all works of the Renaissance portrayed a Christian aspect in them. The virgin was the most highlighted element53. Although it might not have been actual forcing, the artists had to adhere to Christianity so as to remain relevant to what the people wanted, or brought from the church. The most outstanding evidence that the people overly feared the church is seen in Michelangelo’s painting of The Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel. It is said that Michelangelo did not wish to paint the chapel and even refused the offer given to him by Julius II. Upon escaping from Rome, Michelangelo was hunted down by guards sent by Julius II and brought back to do the painting of the chapel. He did not do it willingly but because the ruling church made him54 and just like everyone in society, he wanted to fit in. Conclusion The evaluation of how social (society’s) demands are impacting on the creation of artworks are sufficient to elaborate how one can understand thus explain the origin of a piece of art. The conclusion is that wherein the explanations might not be overly correct in trying to explain the artworks, they are closely related and create a sensible understanding of them. The explanations on their part create a common ground between the artist and audience, and go beyond the “seeing” part and creating reasoning as to what inspired the work. In a nutshell, society had its demands, all of which as the above study illustrates successfully inspired the featured pieces by Leonardo and Michelangelo. This is because social factors determine whether one successfully integrates with the society they exist in, and these two artists really adhered to the social demands. Bibliography Adler, R. B., George, Rodman, and Athena, DuPré.Understanding Human Communication. (Oxford University Press 2014), 32. Art Lark. “Leonardo Da Vinci, Freud and Psychoanalysis.” Art Lark Org 2014. ,accessed 17 April 2014. Beck J. H. “Renaissance Art and Architecture.” 2000. accessed 17 April 2014. 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