Ancient Greece

 History of Arts

         History of arts is the history of any activity or product made by human in a visual form for aesthetic or communicative purpose, expressing ideas, emotions or in general.

        The best periods of art history for me is, the ancient art. It was largely, but not entirely based on the nine great ancient civilizations: Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, Greece, Rome, India and Maya. Each of these centers of early civilization developed a unique and characteristics style in it’s art. And for me the most influential ear of art is the ancient Greece. Because Greece had the most influence on the development of aesthetics. This period of Greek art saw a veneration of the human physical form ad the development of corresponding skills to show musculative, poise, beauty and anatomically correct proportions. Now I know that the Greek philosophers initially felt that aesthetically appealing objects were beautiful in and of themselves. He felt that beautiful objects incorporated proportion, harmony, and unity among their parts. An example of ancient aesthetics in Greece through poetry is Plato's quote: "For the authors of those great poems which we admire, do not attain to excellence through the rules of any art; but they utter their beautiful melodies of verse in a state of inspiration, and, as it were, possessed by a spirit not their own."

I choose this history, because I believed that for us to have a perception of beauty there must be a transcendent form for beauty in which beautiful objects partake and which causes them to be beautiful also. Beauty in art reflects the beauty in Art.

Who is Mona Lisa?

           Who is Mona Lisa? Who created Mona Lisa? Who is this woman behind the smile? Let's see. I found out that Mona Lisa  is quite possibly the most well-known piece of painted artwork in the entire world. It was painted by the infamous Leonardo Da Vinci, an Italian artist. It is perhaps the most studied piece of artwork ever known. The subject’s facial expression has brought about a source of debate for centuries, as her face remains largely enigmatic in the portrait. And Mona Lisa is famous for a variety of reasons. One of the reasons, of course, for the popularity of the painting is the artist himself. I think Leonardo da Vinci is perhaps the most recognized artist in the world. This portrait was doubtless painted in Florence between 1503 and 1506. It is thought to be of Lisa Gherardini, wife of a Florentine cloth merchant named Francesco del Giocondo - hence the alternative title, La Gioconda. However, Leonardo seems to have taken the completed portrait to France rather than giving it to the person who commissioned it. It was eventually returned to Italy by Leonardo's student and heir Salai. It is not known how the painting came to be in François I's collection

               The Mona Lisa is an oil painting, with a cottonwood panel as the surface. It is unusual in that most paintings are commissioned as oil on canvas, but the cottonwood panel is part of what has attributed to the fame of the painting. Because of the medium used for the image, the Mona Lisa has survived for six centuries without ever having been restored–a trait very unusual when considering the time period of the piece.
While most of the artwork of the Renaissance period depicts biblical scenes, it was the style and technique of the paintings of this period which make them distinguished from other eras of artwork. Anatomically correct features are one of the identifiable marks of this period of history in art, and the Mona Lisa stands out amongst the great paintings for the detail in her hands, eyes, and lips. Da Vinci used a shadowing technique at the corners of her lips as well as the corners of her eyes which give her an extremely lifelike appearance and look of amusement. Her portrait is such that to an observer, they are standing right before Lisa Del Giocondo, with the arms of her chair as the barrier between the observer and the subject of the painting.

While most of the artwork of the Renaissance period depicts biblical scenes, it was the style and technique of the paintings of this period which make them distinguished from other eras of artwork. Anatomically correct features are one of the identifiable marks of this period of history in art, and the Mona Lisa stands out amongst the great paintings for the detail in her hands, eyes, and lips. Da Vinci used a shadowing technique at the corners of her lips as well as the corners of her eyes which give her an extremely lifelike appearance and look of amusement. Her portrait is such that to an observer, they are standing right before Lisa Del Giocondo, with the arms of her chair as the barrier between the observer and the subject of the painting.
This is how Leonardo Da Vinci make the Mona Lisa.

           And I also found out that there is a meaning behind  Mona Lisa famous smile, it represents the sitter in the same way that the juniper branches represent Ginevra Benci and the ermine represents Cecilia Gallerani in their portraits, in Washington and Krakow respectively. It is a visual representation of the idea of happiness suggested by the word "gioconda" in Italian. Leonardo made this notion of happiness the central motif of the portrait: it is this notion which makes the work such an ideal. The nature of the landscape also plays a role. The middle distance, on the same level as the sitter's chest, is in warm colors. Men live in this space: there is a winding road and a bridge. This space represents the transition between the space of the sitter and the far distance, where the landscape becomes a wild and uninhabited space of rocks and water which stretches to the horizon, which Leonardo has cleverly drawn at the level of the sitter's eyes.