Favorite Smiles in Art

As I was searching the internet, I came across the Guardian's slide show about favorite SMILES in art. The Mona Lisa's smile has been talked about for years.

Edvard Munch's The Scream in NOT a smile. As you review for the AP TEST...notice how expressive faces and one's body language communicate to the viewers of an artwork.

Animals in Art

The Arnolfini Wedding and Las Meninas contain dogs. Scholars believe the Arnolfini Wedding is a marriage portrait while Las Meninas (Ladies in Waiting) is a portrait of the Spanish Princess Margarita.

Dogs have often been viewed as signs of FIDELITY. The dog in The Arnolfini Wedding could symbolize the couple adhering to their marriage vows while the dog in Las Meninas could symbolize the companionship of the ladies in waiting to the princess. The dog is a symbol of their loyalty to her.

Doves are viewed often in religious paintings as a symbol of the Holy Spirit or of peace. Jan van Eyck's closed Ghent Altarpiece displays the dove appearing to Mary and giving her the news that she will bear Jesus.

Cats have been given a mixed reputation in art. In the Egyptian culture cats were viewed as eternal companions of pharaoh's. Cats were embalmed with their masters and taklen with them to the afterlife. In more modern times, Manet's Olympia contains a black cat, a symbol of lewdness in Paris of the late 1800s. Warhol commercialized cats in the mid 1900's with his Pop Art rendition of the felines.

Westminster Abbey...an English Gothic Church

Watching the Royal Wedding today I was in awe of the architecture of Westminster Abbey, an English Gothic Church founded in 960. According to the church's website, the abbey is "a treasure house of paintings, stained glass, pavements, textiles and other artifacts". The beautiful icons, elaborate altarpieces and ornate decorations were constructed with attention to each and every detail.

Romanesque and Gothic architecture has regional variations. English Gothic Architecture is detailed on www.smarthistory.com. Gothic architecture is built TALL to allow for LIGHT to enter. It is a tall and slim church structure with pointed arches, ribbed vaults and stained glass windows. Gothic churches were large enough to allow for the growing number of faithful to be included within the building.

Mosaics, Murals and Tapestries

The Roman Empire was a time for creation of MOSAICS. They lined the floors for decoration as well as for a cleans walkway, as opposed to walking over dirt floors.

Check out NOVA for glimpses of Mosaics from their LOST ROMAN TREASURE episode.
Watch Rome Reborn for a recreation of the city at the time of the creation of the mosaics.

Mosaics were popular forms of decoration in Early Christian Churches as well. Justinian and Theodora were memorialized in mosaics in the church of San Vitale.


MURALS were not only a means to decorate a wall, either interior or exterior. Murals were also a method of communicating with the public. They depicted the city's great accomplishments such as Diego Rivera's the Detroit Industry Mural inside the Detroit Institute of Arts. Visit Diego Rivera's Virtual Web Museum to learn more about this mural as well as others he created in his home country of Mexico.


TAPESTRIES were used as decorative elements in medieval castles. The tapestries were not only decorative but functional; they serves as heating and cooling elements along the cement and stone walls of castles and fortresses. They were generally enormous in size and took years to create. Two well known tapestries of the era include the Bayeux Tapestry and the Unicorn Tapestry.

Medieval Art

Medieval Art...art between the GLORY days of Greece and Rome and before the Renaissance. This era often gets overlooked in our studies. It contains numerous works on paper as well as decorative elements.

Where can you search for a plethora of images of MEDIEVAL ART in the internet? How can one best understand this era of increasing regional identity?

First, look to the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. The Augsburg Display Cabinet is a great interactive display - the cabinet itself acts like a mini art museum in a home.

Smarthistory chronicles the emergence of Christian Art in this era.

Les Tres Riches Heures de Duc de Berry explained on this university of Chicago site.

Medieval Jewish Art is on display at the MET. Many works of art in this era are Christian in theme as Christianity had been underground until Constantine declared Christianity the official religion of the empire in the 300s. The Met's collection of Thematic Essays contains scholarship about ANIMALS used in art at the time, manuscripts, armor, the cult of the Virgin Mary and more.

Dunae Hansen...Sculptures

Look at the Saatchi Gallery for works by Duane Hansen (1925-1996). His work is classified as VERISTIC with a commercial/social context twist. His early works dealt with physical violence or social issues, his later work seems to portray passive, isolated figures as victims of society and negative values.

When one encounters his sculptures in a museum they are thrown aback. The people are life size. The only thing that separates the sculptures from museum visitors today is the clothing and hairstyles the sculptures wear. The clothing and hairstyles reflect the era in which they were created, not 2011.

Vincent Van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh came to painting after his attempts at other careers did not work. He explored the idea of following in his father's footsteps as a preacher but was unsuccessful. He created a large body of work during his career but only found success posthumously. During his lifetime he sold only one work of art(pictured here), Red Vineyard in Arles. Art historians classify him as a POST-IMPRESSIONIST artist. His thick application of paint, often with a palette knife, is called IMPASTO technique.

One of Van Gogh's most well known artworks, on view at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, is Starry Night (1889). Watch the Smarthistory discussion of this work.

The Masterpiece Cards Blog explores Vincent Van Gogh and his relationship with other artists of his day.

View his work at the National Gallery of Art
Read more about his life and his mental breakdown on the Metropolitan Museum of Art website