Review for Visual Art portion of Humanities final exam:
It should prove very helpful to look over the powerpoints which I’ve placed near the top of the “Resources” page on the Humanities website. These include the following:
- a new one-page powerpoint on Jacques-Louis David’s Oath of the Horatii with notes in the note panel highlighting some of the classical aspects of this work: this is the angle I’ll concentrate on in my question(s) relating to the painting: how does it exemplify classicism?
- two powerpoints with extensive material on Romanticism: for the final, concentrate on Gericault’s Raft of the Medusa and on works by Caspar David Friedrich and Thomas Cole. As was the case for our Romanticism assessment, I will not ask questions relating to works by Constable, Delacroix, or Goya.
- a few powerpoints relating to Courbet’s painting The Studio of the Painter (1855): the one I’d suggest concentrating on is titled: courbet - the painters studio 1855 with additional material.ppt I will not ask you to identify any specific figures in the painting by name, apart from the artist himself, but you should be able to provide some characterization of at least a few of the figures, and should be able to explain Courbet’s own distinction between figures on the two sides of the painting. You should also be able to discuss, with reference to Courbet’s earlier works such as A Burial at Ornans and to his own words (see the Word document called “Realism – Primary Sources v.2, which you’ll find in the same area of the web page), the issue of what Courbet meant by “realism.” Finally, with reference to Courbet, you should be prepared to present a brief justification of the central portion of The Studio of the Painter, with its nude model and the artist painting a landscape that isn’t present, in the context of the artist’s insistence that this painting is a “real allegory.” Reviewing any notes you may have made of our class discussion on this topic would be very helpful.
- a powerpoint including one important and early Impressionist work by Claude Monet, Impression, Sunrise. This powerpoint shows some comparisons of how the painting would have looked if Monet had not painted the sun much much darker than it “really’ was: reviewing these images, which we discussed in class, should help prepare you to briefly discuss/explain some aspects of Impressionist art, including the interest the Impressionist painters had in studying and recreating various optical and sensory phenomena.
- two powerpoints with stills from the Fritz Lang film M (1932), and one Word file with annotations (discussions) of those film stills: be prepared to discuss one or two ways in which this film exemplifies expressionist concerns, such as psychology, intense emotion, pathology, etc., and/or expressionist strategies and motifs, such as the dramatic use of shadows, perspectives that isolate the individual, and exaggerated subjectivity (as we saw in the shots of the small old man confronted by the suspicious and very imposing younger man, early in the film)
I will offer the following extra credit question for the exam: Very briefly compare and contrast Gregor Samsa (from Kafka’s story The Metamorphosis) to Hans Beckert, the murderer and the protagonist in M. If you are interested in this question, think and plan ahead, and be sure to marshal some good evidence to support whatever points you wish to make.