1. Venus of Willendorf
• Paleolithic
• ca 28,000-25,000 BC
• Anatomical
Exaggeration
• Fertility Image

2. Menkaure and Khamernebty
• Gizeh, Egypt
• Ca. 2490-2472 BC
• Ideal Proportions
• No sign of affection or
emotion
• Carved from a block
• Obsessed with
permenance

3. Kouros and Kore
• Ancient Greece
• Funerary
Purposes
• Rigidly frontal
• Left foot
forward, arms
held at side, fists
clenched, thumbs
forward
• Liberated from
block

4. Kritios Boy
• Greece
• 480 BC
• Interested in how the
body naturally stands
• Contrapposto
(Counter Balance)

5. Contrapposto

6. The Quest for the Ideal Form
• Myron
• Diskobolos (Discuss
Thrower)
• 450 BC
• Greece
• Obsessed with
Movement

7. • Polykletos
• Doryphoros (Spear
Bearer)
• Greece
• Embodiment of ideal
male form
• Chiastic (Cross
Balance)

8. Aphrodite of Knidos and Venus de Milo
• Praxiteles
• Alexandros of
Antioch-on-the-
Meander
• 150-125 BC
• Tease

9. Mythology
by Virgil
Laocoon
and Sons

10. India
• Seated Buddha
Preaching First
Sermon
• Ca. 500
• Inspired by Greeks
• Softened Build

11. Renaissance
• Primavera (Birth of Venus)
• Sandro Botticelli
• 1482
• Lightness- moves without effort

12. Foreshortening
• Dead Christ
• Andrea Mantegna
• Ca 1501

13. Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640)
• Flemish Baroque
Painter
• Emphasized
movement, color, an
d sensuality
• Full-Bodied Women-
“Rubenesque”

15. Mannerism
• Artifice- emphasis on staged, contrived imagery
• Elegance and Beauty
• Not derived from nature
• Imbalanced
• Complex
• Restlessness, distortions, exaggerations
• Invention of human
• Idealized fantasy form
• Perfection and polish

16. • Bronzino
• Venus, Cupid,
Folly, and
Time (The
Exposure of
Luxury)
• Ca. 1546

17. Neo-Classical
• Ingres
• Le Grand Odalisque
• Combining the Ideal with the Exotic

18. Impressionist
• Paul Gauguin
• Where do we come from
• 1897

19. • Art Nouveau
(Modern)
• Gustave Klimt
• The Kiss
• 1907

20. Les Demoiselles d’Avignon
• Pablo Picasso
• 1907
• Painted the planes of the body at different angles, all at once
• “I paint forms as I think them, not as I see them.”

21. Synthetic Cubist
• Pablo Picasso
• Three Musicians
• 1921

22. Capturing the Sensation of Motion
• Umberto
Boccioni
• Unique
Forms of
Continuity in
Space
• 1931

23. • Marcel Duchamp
• Nude Descending
a Staircase
• 1912

24. The Figure in Art is an Invention
• It is up to OUR perception to determine the
ideal form, and how we represent it
• http://blog.ted.com/2013/01/16/model-
cameron-russell-gives-the-real-story-behind-
six-of-her-stunning-photos/

25. HOMEWORK
• Find images which use CONTRAPPOSTO
• Find images which use FORESHORTENING
• Find images in magazines which you would
consider to be contemporary MANNERISM
(invention of human idealized fantasy
form, perfectionism, polished, elegance and
beauty that is not derived from
nature, complex, unstable)
• Cut them out and bring them to class