User talk:Rowen77

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Thanks very much for looking at my site Amandajm. I appreciate the thorough feedback, really great! I will take all your points into consideration. I don't know that much about Art, just a few grains about Leo and michel, and this inspires me to do other artists like Bourgereau. I'll fix up the errors, improve the navigation and such, then maybe resubmit to wikipedia.

thank you very much!

Rowen77 (talk) 05:49, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Leonardo da Vinci
Hi Rowen77! Welcome to Wikipedia! I took a look at your website, and it is a good beginning. It certainly looks elegant and seems to work quite well. I like the quotations, and particularly enjoyed reading the Michelangelo quotes. But it is not quite ready when it comes to accuracy and information.

I found:
 * a lot of spelling mistakes
 * wrong formatting, eg Leonardo Da Vinci instead of Leonardo da Vinci
 * dates stated in a definite way that we really cannot be too sure about, eg the date that Leonardo went to Florence. I have discussed this somewhere. I think that it is on the Discussion page of the Wiki article.
 * info such as the books and artworks in his family home, and the fact that his father taught him to paint. You need to provide a citation for this.
 * Some of the expression used is not really accurate. When you say that Verrocchio asked him to help paint the "Baptism of Christ", what you are talking about here is the relationship between a master/employer and a boy/apprentice. So it probably wasn't a matter of Verrocchio "asking", in the way that someone might ask their superior or their equal for help. Verrocchio would have simply instructed his apprentice to assist him on that work. It was agreat opportunity for him, of course. The right way to express it is to say that he "assisted Verrocchio" with the painting.
 * Likewise, further down, you use the term "asked to paint....". The right word to use is "commissioned". This was not a favour. This was an important business agreement which would have been subject to a written contract. When Leonardo broke a contract, as his did over the "Adoration of the Magi" when Lorenzo Medici sent him off to Milan, then it was a big deal. He was lucky that they didn't sue him.
 * there is another point at which you use a term which is not general. I think you say "set down" or something like that. It is better to use thhe word "started" or "commenced painting"
 * There are a few dates which are definitely known, because they are tied to well-known historic events, but are not included in your timelime, such as the year he went to Venice, etc. This was an important trip because it exposed him to the work of the Bellini family, who painted in oils. He also would have visited the famous Arsenal where they wre building and equipping the finest battleships in the world. Venice also stimulated his interest in hydro-dynamics.

About some of the other things on your site: Nowadays, people have forgotten many of the symbols that in other centuries were well understood. So when there was a revival of interest in these pretty pictures, a lot people who like "realistic" artworks said "Wow, doen't he paint well!" but missed the point that many of his pictures are erotic art focussing on a pubescent girl, and her even-younger sister. What I have written here is entirely my point of view, and is not for publication. It can't be published here on wiki because it is POV. I'll come back and delete this about B. in a day or so, because it it not relevant to the discussion on Leonardo.
 * You have a title referring to Michelangelo's Paintings but showing his sculpture, for which he was first and foremost famous. It should probably say "Artworks" or just "Works".
 * Many of the pictures that you have reproduced as Raphaels are not the finest examples of his work because they are largely the work of his assistants. The work of at the Vatican was a big commission, and Raphael, unlike Michelangelo, did it with a team of paintters. This is just as well, because hhe didn't live very long. It would be good it you put Raphael's pics in a more chronological order, an included some Madonnas and protraits because these are his best known works.
 * With regards to Bourgereau, I realise that his meticulous and pretty "neo-classical" style and his painting of angels has made him recently popular. However, he doesn't rate up there with Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael and Carravaggio. The reason for this is thhat although he was a very meticulous craftsman and could draft a figure and paint it with great accuracy, that is all he did. In other words, he was in every way a follower, not a leader. I personally hate his work with a bitter and angry hatred. If you want to know why, then don't look at his soppy madonnas, his fat bummed cherubs and his big boobed Venus. Look hard at the paintings of young peasant girls, in particular, the sorrowful face of the dark-haired 12 year-old, and the coy and knowing face of her beautiful little sister. These two young girls posed for the artist many times, probably sent around by their poor parents because he paid them well. The older girl is often shown carrying a water pot. The rich men who paid for these paintings would have recognised the water pot as the symbol of her vagina. Bare feet being held, put into shoes or dipped into water, which all occur in paintings of this girl, were a well-known symbol of sexual intercourse. She hated the artist. You can see this in almost every painting that he did of her. And for that reason, as a woman, and a mother, and a teacher, I hate him too.
 * How annoying! my connection dropped out. I've come back to sign off! Amandajm (talk) 02:31, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Bouguereau
I went and had a look at the Wikipedia website and added my comments, at considerable length to the discussion page. I might say that I have argued this ine out before with people who really like his work, and don't want to acknowledge the nature of his "peasant paintings". You would probably be interested in the gallery I just put on that page. I'm sure it will result in lively discussions, and I will be accused of reading things where nothing was intended. The one of the two little 5 yr olds about to have a swim is a very interesting work because the attitude of the little boy is both dominant and menacing. I will await the outcome.

Meanwhile, one artist whose quotations are very interesting when teamed with his pics is Vincent van Gogh. He wrote a lot of letters to his brother Theo which were later published.

If you are particularly attracted to classical painters like Bouguereau, then you should check out Jacques Louis David and Dominique Ingres who were his two famous French forerunners. There were two philosophies of painting (and poetry and music): Classical and Romantic. Then Romantic being in general a little later than the Classical, but with the Classical continuing. So David, Ingres and Bouguereau were Classical, while Gericault (pr. Jerico approx), Delacroix and Daumier were Romantics. Of these artists, David was born around 1750 and was hugely influential, Ingres around 1780, Gericault about 1790 and died very young, Delacroix and Daumier were born about 1810 and B. in 1825. Ingres lived a long life so his Classical works overlap with the Romantic ones and carry the influence of David right up to the middle of the 1800s.

It is interesting to see the way that styles swung from one thing to another in France. The French court of the early 1700s loved frilly fluffy paintings, often of silly females, (see Watteau and Fragonard) but at the same time Chardin was painting very simple realistic portraits of servants, children and ordinary people, in a more Classical style. Then the French Empire period wanted to see itself as imitating the Golden Age of Rome or Ancient Greece, which resulted in a Classical style, where ladies of the court had themselves depicted like Greek statues. The French Revolution had everybody's emotions running high, and "Romantic" painting was the favoured style. Romantic doesn't have to do with "love" but rather with any strong emotion- fear, anger, patriotism etc. A "Romantic" landscape is one in which the forces of nature are at work, eg Turner.

The styles of painting that I have mentioned here can be seen in the art of other countries as well as France. For example, Danish Painting has a Classical "Golden Age" exemplified by the works of Eckersberg, Romantic painting in Germany can be seen in the works of Caspar David Friedrich. Look him up! They are very beautiful. A good place to find pics is on Wikimedia Commons. You will see a link to it on many articles.

The main official art schools, (generally known as academies) of each country often favoured artists who were meticulous and worked in a very disciplined manner. So academies tended to produce Classical painters. Major art competitions also favoured them. Many people liked Classical work because it looked accurate, so people felt that they could judge whether it was "good" art or not. This is probably one of the reasons for Bouguereau's popularity. So when a group of French painters started painting small quick pictures that tried to capture the landscape just as it was at a particular time on a particular day, many art critics were very scornful and called them Impressionists. Because their work was refused by the main art show in Paris, they held their own exhibition, and of course soon became the most famous painters of the late 19th century. Bouguereau was almost completely forgotten until the 1990s.

Amandajm (talk) 10:30, 28 July 2008 (UTC)