Art History Paintings in American History

The history of the United States is a wild and crazy one. From the early fifteenth century onward people have been colonizing the continent of North America. People wanted to preserve the history that was being laid out before them. Some of them wrote books, and many others did great art history paintings to remember the past.

The subjects of many of the first paintings done were the colonists themselves. Before most Europeans even arrived, the Spanish had already begun settling Mexico, the southwest, and Florida. Many of the Spaniards had valiant portraits of themselves done, reflecting the conquistadors of their age.

The Spanish also painted many pictures of the natives in Mexico. Many paintings of the Mayans and Aztecs were done before the Spaniards started their conquest of Mexico. These paintings give us an idea about Aztec and Mayan life.

The French were the next to come into the Americas and they mainly started settling in the St. Lawrence River area of Canada. These people took up a lucrative fur trade with the native population. Pictures of trading posts and friendly relations with Indians were done frequently here.

When the British arrived in the Americas, there was not an influx of art like during the Spanish and French arrivals. The British were mainly concerned about setting up a dependent colony in the Americas. This was successfully done at Jamestown in the middle of the seventeenth century.

Painting did not start to pick up again in the Americas until the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Once again, the subjects of most of these paintings were the native peoples that gathered and hunted on the land. Many of these paintings sold for high prices.

When the Indian population of the Americas started to deteriorate, famous painter Catlin went to capture pictures of Indians untouched by civilization. He wanted to show people what was happening to civilized Indians. Catlin traveled up the Missouri River and painted over one thousand paintings.

There are many criticisms to the paintings that Catlin did. Most of his critics were people that had been up the Missouri River. They claimed that nothing Catlin painted was even close to how it actually was. As a painter, Catlin painted what he wanted people to see. He would embellish scenes to make his paintings easier to sell.

Catlin tried to sell his enormous collection to the United States government. This goal was never achieved before he died. Catlin gave us paintings that offer a glimpse, however not a very accurate one, of the native populations before mass settling of the west started.

Many paintings of the era were focused on the new idea of Manifest Destiny, which is the idea that settlers had a right given to them by God to settle the west and displace the natives. Many of these paintings used stark color changes. Some of them made the east look bright and holy, while the west was being consumed by the light as settlers moved west. The art history paintings can give us a glimpse into the not so distant past.

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Start Your Italian Vacation With Roman Art History

You have chosen to go to Italy for your vacation this year, to find that ancient Rome which is said to assert, even these days, its influence in all areas of our cultural, intellectual, and technical life. In a sense, you are delving into your individual roots, even in the event you also plan to check out the contemporary scene, the shops, the restaurants, the bustling cities. You are individual experiences at home have prepared you for an appreciation of the modern, but are you prepared to appreciate the historic civilization of Rome, the artifacts which are left of the empire and that stand out as visible reminders of bygone times? In the event you wish to fully appreciate that past, prior to you go, take a little time out of your hectic schedule to study Roman art history, Roman painting, Roman sculpture, Roman architecture, in order that once you stand just before it, its speaks to you as it spoke to individuals Romans long ago at the dawn of Western man.

As soon as you open a book on Roman art history, you will find that the Romans have been lovers of Greek art. Outstanding in literature, poetry, history, philosophy, the Romans seemed to let their fascination with Greek art dominate their entire outlook on art, so significantly to ensure that numerous art historians fail to see something that clearly sets Roman art off from Greek art. To some extent, this is true. The Romans imported Greek art from every age of Greek art, from the Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods. Not only did they import these styles, but they also imported Greek artists to produce new operates for Rome. Roman writers on art in individuals times hardly wrote something on Roman art, but they wrote copiously on Greek art, lauding it as the height of artistic endeavor. So fascinated have been they by the Greeks, the Romans did not even record the names of their individual artists, yet the art criticism from people times lavish praises on the Greeks: Phidias, Praxiteles, Polyclitus and other famous Greek artists. Entranced by the Greeks?who would not be?the Romans had been without question, artistic imitators of the Greeks.

You may well do well when preparing for your vacation to Italy to give some consideration to Greek art history, seeing how influential the art of Greece was in Roman art history. Perhaps, if you’re going primarily to witness the artistic tradition of the West, you may do just too to very first visit Greece, Athens, in order to obtain a full sense of the origins of Western art.

In the event you have time only for Rome, you will still be exposed to the Greeks styles expressed through the vision of historical Rome. Your reading in Roman art history will also help you distinguish individuals contributions that happen to be distinctively Roman?yes, they did expand on Greek art, creating a specifically Roman expression. The Romans had been not able to totally eliminate their personal unique history from their operates. The influence of their Etruscan forefathers emerges in a lot of the sculpture and architecture of the later Roman period. Read a history on Roman art and learn far more on what distinguishes Roman art from Greek art. Once you stand previous to the temple of Sibyl in Tivoli, outside the Sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia, inside the Colosseum, inside Pantheon of Rome, you will see much more than architecture; you will see historical Rome.

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