Art History
Poverty and wealth have been recurring themes in artworks since prehistory to modern day. The patients from Prehistory to Gothic period often depict peasant undertaking backbreaking field work. The subjects of these artworks are usually low-life people bent and crumpled, with anonymous faces, and painted in realistic tones. The theme for this exhibition is poverty and wealth in artwork.
Poverty and Wealth themes in Art from Prehistory to the Gothic Style
Old Market Woman(ca. 150-100 BCE) (in Gardner’s chapter 5) is a marble statue, depicting the theme of poverty characteristic in Hellenistic sculptures that depicted old women and men from the lowest ranks of the social order. The Old Market Woman shows a haggard old woman, with outward protruding collar bones and sagging breasts, clutching on a baskets of fruits and chickens for sales at the market. Her face is wary with wrinkles, her body bent with old age, and her spirit shuttered by a lifetime of abject poverty (Kleiner & Gardner, 2009). In her feet are rusty sandals and her head covered with ivy leaves. Her dress is slipped off one shoulder representing the restrictions on elderly women of the childbearing years. One popular interpretation of The Old Market Woman is that she is sad, stressed pathetic, tired, and empty. The only reason she goes on with life is because she must as opposed experiencing pleasure from life.
Coronation of Napoleonis a painting by Jacques Louis David that depicts the colorful coronation of Queen Josephine by Napoleon I in 1804. It shows much motifs of power and royalty, and thus wealth. The painter used an arcade for the imposing frame of the imperial couple, surrounded by a colorful congregation. The Pope and bishops are present, as well as the great dignitaries of the Empire bearing such symbols of imperial power as the globe, the eagle-topped scepter, and the hand of Justice. The Napoleon’s mother can been seen from her vantage point the VIP gallery(Kleiner & Gardner, 2009). The painter utilized exceptionally rich palette of color shades to show the velvets, satins, furs, and lames of the ceremonial costumes and furnishings of the high and mighty imperial family, the clergy, and the court at the coronation.
The Thankful Poor is an 1894 painting by Henry Ossawa Tanner, a pioneer African-American artist. The painting depicts pride and dignity of American Americans leading very humble daily lives. In the painting, an African American man is sitting at the table with his young son, with heads bowed and hands clasped in prayer before a meal (Kleiner & Gardner, 2009). Their rather plain for their time demonstrate to their low living standards. Also, the room is bare plain with very basic table and chairs. The room noticeably lacks the adornment of the era known for fancy furniture and clothing. Regardless of their evident poverty, they are grateful for meal and pray for it.
Blanche of Castile, King Louis IX (1226-1234) is a Gothic art depicting Blanche of Castle and her 12 year-old son Louis, recently crowned King following the death of his father. The painting, a truly dazzling illumination, features a cleric and a scribe underneath the royalty. Each of the figure is set against a floor of burnished gold, seating beneath a trefoil arch. Above their heads, are stylized and colorful buildings that suggest a sophisticated, urban setting, most probably Paris(Kleiner & Gardner, 2009). There is a moralized Bible that was exclusively made for the French royal house, and includes lavishly illustrated and abbreviated passages drawn from the Old and New Testaments. As a ruler-to-be, Louis was obligated to take lessons of the moral Bible to heart together with those from other biblical and ancient texts. The upper register has the queen and enthroned in traditional medieval open crown having fleur-de-lys-a stylized iris that symbolized the political, religious, and dynastic right of the French Monarch to rule. Louis holds a scepter in his right hand to denote his kingly status. It is approximated that such a lavish manuscript would require at least eight to ten years to be completed (Kleiner & Gardner, 2009).
House of Bourges Coeur (1433-1451)is a splendid representation of the Late Gothic architecture, a house of Jacques Coeur – an immensely wealthy Bourges merchant and financier. It an elaborate symbol of the period’s sensational secular spirit, representing the great accumulation of wealth and public manifestation of it on the part of the secular owner (Kleiner & Gardner, 2009). It also demonstrates the owner’s increasing calculus of power and influence at the time – Jacques Coeur was advisor to King Charles VII of France. The house depicts the French Flamboyant variation of Gothic tradition that entailed repeated twisting, intricate decoration and flame-like shapes.
The Gleaners (1857) is a painting by Francois Millet depicting the French country life. The painting shows three impoverished peasant women collecting the last wheat scraps left in the field following a harvest. These women were members of the lowest social class of the peasant society permitted by landowners to gather the remainders left in the field (Kleiner & Gardner, 2009). The work was very tedious and time-consuming. The author’s tendency to afford the poor so much solemn grandeur in his painting was met with disapproval from the prosperous classes.
Third Class Carriage (1862) by Honore Daumier depicts the plight of the lowly masses of the 19th century industrial era – an anonymous group of peasants cramped together in dirty third class railway carriage. The passengers are so poor that all they can afford are third-class tickets (Kleiner & Gardner, 2009). The third-class carriages had hard benches and riders had to cram together. The poor in the 1860s thronged the cities and were depicted as insignificant, anonymous, and dumbly patient with less they could do to change their sorry state.
Isabella d’Este (174-1539) is a painting by Titian, which depicts one of the most wealthy and powerful women in the Renaissance era. She was married to the marquis of Mantua which enabled her become a major art patron. In the painting, Titian depicts her in her 20s as she had demanded, demonstrating her high social and political status gave the power to having control over the artwork produced by artists she commissioned (Kleiner & Gardner, 2009).
The Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève (1850) is a painting by Henri Labrouste depicting his redefinition of library as a type of demographic public space. It depicts the artist’s experimentation and creation of new art forms responding to the new social, economic and cultural conditions (Kleiner & Gardner, 2009). The painting shows Labrouste’s response to the problem of creating a new form of library – one designed to be used by everydat readers as opposed to the wealthy book-collector connoisseurs.
Olympia (1863) by Edouard Manet (in Gardner’s chapter 12) is a painting of a nude woman prostitute and her black maid carrying a bouquet of flowers from a client. At the time of the painting, prostitution had infiltrated almost every aspect of the Parisian social scene, including the poor in the ragged streets and the wealthiest of high society.
Le Moulin de la Galette (1876) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (in Gardner’s chapter 13) is painting of popular open-air Parisian dance hall. It depicts happy couples, mostly Renoir’s friends and professional models. It is a portrayal of Parisian life for the well-off who liked having fun in such open-air dances.
Reference
Kleiner, F. S., & Gardner, H. (2009). Gardner’s art through the ages: A global history. Australia: Thomson Wadsworth.
