The piece I found during the Baroque Era is called “The Winter Landscape with Skaters”. This piece stuck out to me because I love the scenery and the story that I get from it. I also really enjoy that I can tell how much thought and focus the artist, Hendrick Avercamp, put into every part of this piece. As stated in the attachment in the lesson on the Baroque Era, Hendrick was one of the known Dutch artists. The scenery tells a story to the audience and gives them an idea of what Amsterdam may look like during the winter time. Another reason I enjoy this piece is because there are many different activities and scenes happening in this one piece of art. When I first saw this piece it brought me excitement and joy, because it reminds me of Christmas time. I thought the presentation of this piece was done very well. I believe the backstory to this piece is personal for Avercamp. Since he was born in Amsterdam, and this piece takes place in Avercamp, I thought that this could be an important location for him (Wikipedia,2019). Avercamp brought many different details into this piece. The colors that Avercamp added, gave this piece the warm feeling that I see throughout this painting. The first thing that caught my attention, was actually the blue church. The bright blue color made the church come to the front of the picture. While reading about this art piece, I learned that this is an example of genre painting. This stuck out to me, because genre painting is something that I learned about through the lesson in class. Another note I learned while reading about this era (Wikipedia, 2019).
Another piece that I really enjoyed in this era was created by another important Dutch artist. The painting that stuck out to me is called, “The Night Watch”, which is painted by the artist is named, Rembrandt. When I first saw this piece it reminded me of a scene out of a movie, it isn’t, but the scenery made me think of it, which made me excited to research more about this picture and what it was about. This piece stuck out to me because of all the colors and details. Something that I thought was unique, was that Rembrandt chose to focus on three people in this piece, which made me think he was making the rest of the people shown, as being less significant to the artwork by having being shaded differently, and the lights above them are turned off on them. However, despite my idea that the other people in this piece were not as significant, I researched more into this artwork and I learned that the lighting was actually caused by the picture darkening too soon, I thought that was so fascinating (Visual Arts Encyclopedia, 2019). This piece is also a great example of a genre painting. While reading about this artwork, I learned that the backstory of this piece was that Rembrandt was painting a militia group (Visual Arts Encyclopedia, 2019).
In conclusion, while doing my research on how the Dutch were involved in the Baroque Era, I learned that Amsterdam, Netherlands was one of the countries that had an increase of their Merchant classes during the Baroque Era. Overtime, the merchant classes around the Netherlands became more known, and easier to classify (Visual Arts Encyclopedia, 2019). The Merchant classes were important to the people of this era, to show who had a higher rank.
“Hendrick Avercamp.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 2 May 2019, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hendrick_Avercamp.
“Dutch Baroque Painting (C.1600-80) Types, History, Characteristics of Dutch Realism School.” Dutch Baroque Art, 2019, http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/history-of-art/dutch-baroque.htm.
While looking for a painting to write about for this blog I noticed a few similarities between the Renaissance Era and the Baroque Era. For example, throughout these paintings I noticed the use of chiaroscuro, frequently, and consistently. This art effect helps bring the important subjects of this piece to the main focus. Another similarity that I see carry over from the Renaissance Era was that a couple of the important forms of art was painting and architecture, etc.
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