Module 9- Video Review

1. Explain why you selected each of the TWO videos you choose from the selection listed above.

I selected El Greco: Rediscovering a Master and Albrecht Durer: Image of a master. I chose these videos because they were about two artists I don't feel incredibly familiar with and I wanted to learn more about them, their work, and their contribution to art history.

2. For each video list/discuss the key concepts you learned.

Albrecht Durer lived in Nuremburg, Germany from 1471-1528. He spent many years as a traveling craftsman, making money from his traditional woodcuts. He was called home to marry, and shortly after traveled to Italy. On these travels, he was inspired by landscapes and began to incorporate them into the backgrounds of his portraits. He heavily documented these travels with many watercolor landscape paintings as well. By 1506, he was famous due to his prints and was commissioned an altar piece in Venice called The Feast of the Rose Gardens. He also spent much time studying perspective. When he returned to Nuremburg, he set up a studio in his home, and had much success documenting religious and political themes as well as daily life in his prints. The most interesting thing to me was how hard Durer worked to refine his skills, and used so many different mediums to do so. I also found it interesting how his depictions of his subjects always had a real, darker undertone to them; as opposed to idealized. 

El Greco was trained as an icon painter in the Byzantine style. In the height of the Renaissance, he went to Venice to finish his training and expand his ideas, and gain fame. He learned under Titian and worked on many big projects in Rome and went back to Spain after he received a large commission. In the following years, he received many commissions from royalty, yet, many were rejected due to the price. He used Renaissance techniques in his work, but also broke tradition often. He surrounded himself with a circle of high society thinkers and creatives, and created portraits with expressive faces and had rejected the painting norms of the court painters. El Greco set up a studio in Toledo, and created many masterpieces in his life.  His death coincided with new ideas in painting where naturalism was becoming popular, his work faded into oblivion and was forgotten for centuries in spite of being held with great esteem by many great painters and colleagues. During the Romantic period, his works were uncovered, and inspired many painters of this time. His paintings embodied everything they believed about painting; expression, color, and imagination. He was a model for the Romantic painters,\used as inspiration for the Impressionists and was held as an idol for the Modernists. During the Modernist movement in Spain, a pandemonium honoring his work broke out, and later led to a statue honoring El Greco was erected. His influence can be seen even in Picasso's work.

2. How do the videos relate to the readings in the text?

The videos expanded upon the same time periods and movements within art, however, they touched on two artists I was not very familiar with. The reading did not really explain the works of El Grego or Albecht Durer, and it was great to learn about these two artists.

3. What is your opinion of the films? How do they add depth to understanding of the readings and art concepts?

I enjoyed the two films. I felt the Durer film was a bit short and I wished it was a little longer so I could've seen more of his works and learned about him more in depth. The El Greco film was very informative, however, I felt it jumped around quite a bit and was at times hard to follow. However, I really enjoyed learning about both El Greco and Durer, as I did not really feel familiar with their work. I found it most interesting how much influence El Greco had on the artists after his time; specifically Picasso. It was sad that his work was forgotten for so long, as it seems he was ahead of his time with his expressive, imaginative figures, but it was neat to see his influence on artists that everyone knows.