Awaaz

Evolution of Arts
Painting: Art forms and the three legends

Rajesh Cheemalakonda
 Evolution of Arts

Assyrian Art:
It almost started in c.1500 B.C and lasted until 612 B.C. The main characteristics of
Assyrian Art form was the polychrome carved stone relief that decorated imperial monuments.
The precisely delineated reliefs concern royal affairs, chiefly hunting and war making.
Predominance is given to animal forms, particularly horses and lions, which are represented in
great detail. Human figures are also minutely detailed, as in triumphal scenes of sieges, battles
and individual combat. Mostly Assyrian art are preserved in British and Metropolitan Museums.

Egyptian Art:
The subjects were all based on the myths. For them doing art was near to God. The
combination of geometric regularity and keen observation of nature is characteristic of Egyptian
art. The best of the works are reliefs and paintings that decorated the walls of the tombs. In fact
these arts were not meant to enjoy, they were meant to keep alive. These reliefs and wall
paintings provide in extraordinary vivid picture of life as it was lived in Egypt thousands of years
ago. In fact, those artists had a very different way from ours to represent a real life. What
mattered in the works of Egyptian art was completeness not prettiness.
The artist's task was to preserve everything as clearly and as permanently as possible, so
they did not set out to sketch nature as it appeared to them from any fortuitous angle. They drew
from memory, according to strict rules which ensured that everything that had to go into the
picture would stand out in perfect clarity.

The similar method of Egyptian art was drawn by the children. The head was mostly seen
in profile so they drew it sideways. But if we think of the human eye, we think of it as seen from
the front. Accordingly, a full face eye was planted into the sideway of the face. The top half of
the body, the shoulders and the chest, are best seen from the front, for then we see how the arms
are hinged to the body. But arms and legs in movement are much more clearly seen sideways.
One foot was always forward. The seated statues had to have their hands on their knees; men had
to be painted with darker skin than women.
Greek Art: They were highly inspired by Egyptians. They were famous in pottery, ceramics.
They distributed lots of their works. They exported the pots. Gods were portrayed as resembling
 Evolution of Arts

human beings, not fantastic creatures. And the ruler, the lawmaker and judge was for the first
time the ordinary citizen. Their gods looked and acted like humans, complete with human foibles
and weaknesses. This is an essential difference between the Greeks and all previous societies.
While the artists and religious leaders of the East tried to find truth by distancing themselves
from the physical world, the Greeks studied the real, the physical, the natural in their search for
truth and wisdom. Before the Greek miracle, the great civilizations of the world produced art that
was rigid, formal, symbolic rather than realistic. By banishing the flesh, the art of the East
became mystical and supernatural; fantastic figures with multiple hands, arms, and breasts,
whirling in ecstasy, were symbols of spiritual truth. Within a stunningly brief period of time, the
representation of the human figure achieved its finest expression, idealized yet completely
natural frozen in perfect balance. The Greek miracle was complete.

Roman Art:
The Romans were a practical people. In their original works observation was the key;
portraits sculptures are often meticulously detailed and not idealized.

Italian Renaissance:

Mona Lisa- It's a 16th century portrait painted by Leonardo Da Vinci in oil. It is arguably the
most famous painting in the world. Leonardo began the painting in 1502 and, according to some
researchers; he had lingered over it for four years, left it unfinished. He is thought to have
continued to work on it again for three years and had finished shortly before he died in 1519.

It was not famous until the mid 19th century. Leonardo used a pyramid design to place
the woman simply and calmly in the space of the painting. Her folded hands form the front
corner of the pyramid. Her breast, neck and face glow in the same light that softly models her
hands. The woman sits markedly upright with her arms folded, which is also a sign of her
reserved posture.
Only her gaze is fixed on the observer and seems to welcome him to this silent
communication. Since the brightly lit face is practically framed with various much darker
elements (hair, veil, shadows), the observer's attraction to Mona Lisa's face is brought to even
 Evolution of Arts

greater extent. The painting was among the first portraits to depict the sitter before an imaginary
landscape. It is also notable that Mona Lisa has no visible facial hair at all – including eyebrows
and eyelashes. Some researchers claim that it was common at this time for gentle women to
pluck them off, since they were considered to be unsightly. For modern viewers the missing
eyebrows add to the slightly semiabstract quality of the face.
Mona Lisa's smile has repeatedly been a subject of many - greatly varying –
interpretations. Sigmund Freud interpreted the 'smile' as signifying Leonardo's erotic attraction to
his mother. Others have described the smile as both innocent and inviting. The smile was so
pleasing that it seemed divine rather than human; and those who saw it were amazed to find that
it was as alive as original. Many researchers have tried to explain why the smile is seen so
differently by people. The explanations range from scientific theories about human vision to
curious supposition about Mona Lisa's identity and feelings.
Thus, for example, the smile appears more striking when looking at the portrait's eyes
than when looking at the mouth itself. Somebody has argued that the secret is in the dynamic
position of Mona Lisa's facial muscles, where our mind's eye unconsciously extends her smile;
the result is an unusual dynamicity to the face that invokes subtle yet strong emotions in the
viewer of the painting.
By looking at her eyes; before the smile, the thought that comes first, to many minds, is
that her eyes hold certain sadness. However, this leads people to question whether her smile was
of a positive reason, and it leads many critics to suggest deeper reasoning into Mona Lisa and her
smile. One long-standing mystery of the painting is why Mona Lisa apparently does not have any
eyebrows or eyelashes. In October 2007, Pascal Cotte, a French engineer and inventor, says that
he discovered with a high-definition camera that Leonardo Da Vinci originally did paint
eyebrows and eyelashes.
Creating an ultra-high resolution close-up that magnified Mona Lisa's face 24 times,
Cotte says he found a single brushstroke of a single hair above the left brow. The engineer claims
that other eyebrows that potentially could have appeared on the painting may have faded or been
inadvertently erased by a poor attempt to clean the painting.
 Evolution of Arts

Vincent van Gogh, for whom color was the chief symbol of expression, was born in Groot
Zundert, Holland. The son of a pastor, brought up in a religious and cultured atmosphere,
Vincent was highly emotional and lacked self confidence.
Between 1860 and 1880, when he finally decided to become an artist, van Gogh had two
unsuitable and unhappy romances and had worked unsuccessfully as a clerk in a bookstore, an
art salesman, and a preacher in the Borinage (a dreary mining district in Belgium), where he was
dismissed for overzealousness. He remained in Belgium to study art, determined to give
happiness by creating beauty. The works of his early Dutch period are somber-toned, sharply lit,
genre paintings of which the most famous is "The Potato Eaters" (1885). In that year van Gogh
went to Antwerp where he discovered the works of Rubens and purchased many Japanese prints.
In 1886 he went to Paris to join his brother Théo, the manager of Goupil's gallery. In
Paris, van Gogh studied with Cormon, inevitably met Pissarro, Monet, and Gauguin, and began
to lighten his very dark palette and to paint in the short brushstrokes of the Impressionists. His
nervous temperament made him a difficult companion and night-long discussions combined with
painting all day undermined his health. He decided to go south to Arles where he hoped his
friends would join him and help found a school of art. Gauguin did join him but with disastrous
results. In a fit of epilepsy, van Gogh pursued his friend with an open razor, was stopped by
Gauguin, but ended up cutting a portion of his ear lobe off. Van Gogh then began to alternate
between fits of madness and lucidity and was sent to the asylum in Saint-Remy for treatment.
In May of 1890, he seemed much better and went to live in Auvers-sur-Oise under the watchful
eye of Dr. Gachet. Two months later he was dead, having shot himself "for the good of all."
During his brief career he had sold one painting. Van Gogh's finest works were produced in less
than three years in a technique that grew more and more impassioned in brushstroke, in symbolic
and intense color, in surface tension, and in the movement and vibration of form and line. Van
Gogh's inimitable fusion of form and content is powerful; dramatic, lyrically rhythmic,
imaginative, and emotional, for the artist was completely absorbed in the effort to explain either
his struggle against madness or his comprehension of the spiritual essence of man and nature.
 Evolution of Arts

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973):

Pablo Ruiz Picasso, often referred to simply as Picasso, was a Spanish painter and
sculptor. His full name is Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los
Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Clito Ruiz y Picasso. One of the most recognized
figures in 20th century art, he is best known as the co-founder, along with Georges Braque, of
cubism.
The young Picasso showed a passion and a skill for drawing from an early age. It was
from his father that Picasso had his first formal academic art training, such as figure drawing and
painting in oil Picasso's work is often categorized into periods. While the names of many of his
later periods are debated, the most commonly accepted periods in his work are the Blue Period
(1901–1904), the Rose Period (1905–1907), the African-influenced Period (1908–1909),
Analytic Cubism (1909–1912), and Synthetic Cubism (1912–1919). "Before he struck upon
Cubism, Picasso went through a prodigious number of styles - realism, caricature, the Blue
Period, and the Rose Period. The Blue Period dates from 1901 to 1904 and is characterized by a
predominantly blue palette and subjects focusing on outcasts, beggars, and prostitutes. This was
when he also produced his first sculptures. The most poignant work of the style is in Cleveland's
Museum of Art, La Vie (1903), which was created in memory of a great childhood friend, the
Spanish poet Casagemas, who had committed suicide. The painting started as a self-portrait, but
Picasso's features became those of his lost friend. The composition is stilted, the space
compressed, the gestures stiff, and the tones predominantly blue. Another outstanding Blue
Period work, of 1903, is in the Metropolitan, The Blind Man's Meal. Yet another example,
perhaps the most lyrical and mysterious ever, is in the Toledo Museum of Art, the haunting
Woman with a Crow (1903).
"The Rose Period began around 1904 when Picasso's palette brightened, the paintings
dominated by pinks and beiges, light blues, and roses. His subjects are saltimbanques (circus
people), harlequins, and clowns, all of whom seem to be mute and strangely inactive. One of the
premier works of this period is in Washington, D.C., the National Gallery's large and extremely
beautiful Family of Saltimbanques dating to 1905, which portrays a group of circus workers who
appear alienated and incapable of communicating with each other, set in a one-dimensional
space.
 Evolution of Arts

"In 1905, Picasso went briefly to Holland, and on his return to Paris, his works took on a
classical aura with large male and feminine figures seen frontally or indistinct profile, almost like
early Greek art. One of the best of these of 1906 is in the Albright-Knox Gallery in Buffalo, NY,
La Toilette. Several pieces in this new style were purchased by Gertrude (the art patron and
writer) and her brother, Leo Stein. The other major artist promoted by the Steins during this
period was Henri Matisse, who had made a sensation in an exhibition of 1905 for works of a
most shocking new style, employing garish and dissonant colors. These pieces would be derided
by the critics as "Fauvism," French word for "wild beasts." Picasso was profoundly influenced
by Matisse. He was also captivated by the almost cartoon-like works of the self-taught
"primitive" French painter Henri "Le Douanier" Rousseau, whom he affectionately called "the
last ancient Egyptian painter" because his works have a passing similarity to the flat ancient
Egyptian paintings.
"Here comes the awesome Les Demoiselles d'Avignon of 1907, the shaker of the art
world (Museum of Modern Art, New York). Picasso was a little afraid of the painting and didn't
show it except to a small circle of friends until 1916, long after he had completed his early
Cubist pictures. Cubism is essentially the fragmenting of three-dimensional forms into flat areas
of pattern and color, overlapping and intertwining so that shapes and parts of the human anatomy
are seen from the front and back at the same time. The style was created by Picasso in tandem
with his great friend Georges Braque, and at times, the works were so alike it was hard for each
artist quickly to identify their own.
The two were so close for several years that Picasso took to calling Braque, "ma femme"
or "my wife," described the relationship as one of two mountaineers roped together, and in some
correspondence they refer to each other as "Orville and Wilbur" for they knew how profound
their invention of Cubism was.
"Every progressive painter, whether French, German, Belgian, or American, soon took up
Cubism, and the style became the dominant one of at least the first half of the 20th century. In
1913, in New York, the new style was introduced at an exhibition at the midtown armory - the
famous Armory Show - which caused a sensation. Picasso would create a host of Cubist styles
throughout his long career. After painting still-life that employed lettering, trompe l'oeil effects,
color, and textured paint surfaces, in 1912 Picasso produced Still-Life with Chair-Caning, in the
Picasso Museum in Paris, which is an oval picture that is, in effect, a cafe table in perspective
 Evolution of Arts

surrounded by a rope frame - the first collage, or a work of art that incorporates preexisting
materials or objects as part of the ensemble. Elements glued to the surface contrasting with
painted versions of the same material provided a sort of sophisticated double take on the part of
the observer. A good example of this, dubbed Synthetic Cubism, is in the Picasso Museum,
Paris, the witty

Geometric Composition: The Guitar (1913). The most accomplished pictures of the fully
developed Synthetic Cubist style are two complex and highly colorful works representing
musicians (in Philadelphia and the Museum of Modern Art, New York). He produced fascinating
theatrical sets and costumes for the Ballet Russe from 1914 on, turned, in the 1920s, to a rich
classical style, creating some breathtaking line drawings, dabbled with Surrealism between 1925
and 1935, and returned to Classicism. "At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, Picasso was
appointed the director of the Prado. In January, 1937, the Republican government asked him to
paint a mural for the Spanish pavilion at the world exposition in Paris. Spurred on by a war
atrocity, the total destruction by bombs of the town of Guernica in the Basque country, he
painted the renowned oil Guernica in monochrome (now in Madrid's Museum National Centro
de Arte Reina Sofia.) Something of an enigma in details, there's no doubt that the giant picture
(which until the death of Franco was in New York's Museum of Modern Art) expresses
Goyaesque revulsion over the horrors man can wreak upon fellow man. The center is dominated
by a grieving woman and a wounded, screaming horse illuminated, like Goya's Third of May,
1808 by a harsh light.
"Picasso lived in Paris through the war, producing gloomy paintings in semiabstract
styles, many depicting skulls or flayed animals or a horrifying charnel house. He joined the
Communist party after the war and painted two large paintings condemning the United States for
its involvement in the Korean War (two frightfully bad paintings about events that never
happened – like American participation in germ warfare). He turned enthusiastically to sculpture,
pottery, and print-making, and, in his later years, preoccupied himself with a series of mistresses
and girlfriends, changing his style to express his love for each one, and, finally, making superb
evocations of the works of old masters like Diego Velazquez. Whatever Picasso had a hand in
turned out to have an unquenchable spark of utter genius."
 Evolution of Arts

Raja Ravi Verma (1848-1906): He was an Indian Painter who achieved recognition for his
depiction of scenes from the epics of the Mahabharata and Ramayana. He is most remembered
for his paintings of beautiful sari clad women, who were portrayed as very shapely and graceful.
After a successful career as a painter, he died at the age of 58. He is considered as one among the
greatest painters in the history of Indian art. He was taught oil painting by a British painter,
Theodor Jenson. The power and forceful expression of European painting fascinated Ravi
Verma, which came across to him as strikingly contrasting to stylized Indian art work.
He traveled throughout India in search of subjects. He often modeled Hindu Goddesses
on South Indian women, whom he considered beautiful. Ravi Varma is particularly noted for his
paintings depicting episodes from the story of Dushyanta and Shakuntala, and Nala and
Damayanti, from the Mahabharata. Ravi Varma's representation of mythological characters has
become a part of the Indian imagination of the epics. He is often criticized for being too showy
and sentimental in his style. However his work remains very popular in India.
Raja Ravi Varma is often criticized for the fact that his paintings overshadowed
traditional Indian art forms because of their widespread reproduction as oleographs, flooding
Indian culture with his version of Indian myths, portrayed with a rather static realism. In
comparison, Ravi Varma's approach clearly lacks this dynamism of expression. Moreover, his
approach of frontality has severe limitations in terms of space and movement. By rejecting the
traditional models of representation (for example, the Chitrasutra, the treatise on art outlined in
Vishnudharmottara Purana), he has reduced mythic heroes to the level of ordinary humans, a
form that has been copied in many depictions of mythic history in other media such as cinema
and television. Dadasaheb Phalke, considered the father of Indian cinema, is thought to have
been influenced by Ravi Varma's static realism.

P.S: Corrections, comments and remarks are welcome.

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