FA 30b Lecture Notes - Lecture 19: Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Israelites, Jean-Baptiste Colbert
4 Apr 2017
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Document Summary
Lower in status as a genre than narrative and portraiture. Viewed by the italians, as a northern crafty art. The story is very important to the work, and it lends a certain structure and quality to the work. Undignified end to an otherwise dignified life. Scant knowledge of ancient greece even in learned individuals of the time. Poussin uses roman architecture to suggest antiquity and reconstruct ancient athens. A series of planes receding into depth, that guide the viewer through the panorama. A hill with a tomb in the center of the composition. A tree on the right leaning over in sympathy, weeping. Adds a curve to the composition, which is otherwise very recta-linear. The landscape becomes the theatrical stage for the story. Landscape with burial and retrieval of ashes of phocion. Rocky outcropping, contrasting with rotund trees and the horizontals and verticals of the trees and the architecture.
