Western Art History and Appreciation
Scope
Western art history and appreciation tests periods, artists, media and visual analysis from prehistory to the 20th century. Expect chronology, stylistic identification and comparison.
Periods
Prehistoric cave painting at Lascaux and Altamira; Egyptian frontal-profile convention; Greek idealism and contrapposto; Roman realism and engineering; Byzantine gold-ground mosaics; Renaissance perspective and anatomy (Giotto, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael); Baroque drama and chiaroscuro (Caravaggio, Rembrandt); Neoclassicism, Romanticism and Realism; Impressionism with light and broken brushwork; Post-Impressionism (Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin); Cubism (Picasso, Braque); Expressionism; Surrealism (Dalí, Magritte); Abstract Expressionism (Pollock, Rothko).
Worked example
Compare Courbet's Realism with Monet's Impressionism. Courbet paints ordinary labour with earthy tones and solid forms; Monet paints light itself with broken colour and visible strokes. Reasoning: Courbet's subject and finish assert social truth; Monet's technique asserts perceptual immediacy. The comparison should name period, technique and intent.
Traps
Do not place the Renaissance before the Middle Ages; Giotto is proto-Renaissance, not High Renaissance. Impressionism is not Post-Impressionism: Cézanne and Van Gogh came after. Chiaroscuro is light-dark modelling; tenebrism is extreme darkness. Do not attribute Cubism to Matisse.