Crème de la crème Art - Monroe Dupuis

Jan Van Eyck was a Netherlandish painter from Belgium. He was part of the Northern Renaissance but there was a clear Gothic inspiration with the use of dark colors in his works. Not only did he use oil paints for those dark colors but he also used Egg Tempra. Which both took long to dry and master using. 

     Giotto, an Italian painter from Florence, was a talented man indeed. From his many works you can see the sentence color and emotion springing from each painting. You can clearly see that he was influenced by the religion surrounding Florence. He uses many depictions of Jesus and saints in his pieces. He was born and dies in the late Gothic/Proto Renaissance.

One reason for this is the belief that frightening figures could scare away evil spirits, and they were put on the outsides of buildings to do just that.

Greeks seemed to care more about the ritual aspect of these buildings. (Glorifying Gods, etc.) When Romans thought more oh how to further their empire with civic buildings.  Romans kept "death masks" in their home of ancestors, all of these were made of wax. The Colosseum is one of the largest buildings in the world and was laid out perfectly using methods stadiums use now.

Ara Pacis Augustae (the full name) is an altar or shrine found in Rome which was built for a Goddess. This Goddess named Pax represented Peace.

     When we went to the museum all of the exhibits held special places in my heart. From the human body to the marvels of those who lived 65,000,000 years ago all felt connected and exciting. I watched as friends stalked birds, saw as balloons were crushed after being taken out of liquid nitrogen, and I gawked at the giant fossils of reptiles from long ago. Everything was interesting, not one thing seemed out of place. The lightning show was quite electrifying and will probably remain the most exciting of all. Hearing both ghost busters and Super Mario themes played using Tesla coils was so fun. I enjoyed my whole time at the museum, and I was glad to marvel once again at the wonders of science.

Modern Masks Ancient Greek Masks In some cases these masks have little to no emotion especially with people of importance. It seems they were more interested in getting the face correct and giving them a more "Godly" look. For other characters , the style completely changes and supports a massive amount of emotion within the mask. I can see little bits of Greek masks peeking through into the modern world. You can see that present artists had some inspiration from them.

"Laocoan" , actually spelt "Laocoon" was a Trojan priest of Apollo. He heard of the plan of the Trojan horse and ended up warning his people of the attack. As punishment, him and his two sons were killed by two sea serpents. In the sculpture, the depiction of him and his sons is so detailed. The expressions in the faces and the positions show a sense of fear and urgency which brings a very dramatic aura around the sculpture.

The people of Greece used theatre to tell stories of religion, celebrate and worship gods and goddesses. It seems that all plays had a propose, moral or lesson. Nothing was meaningless or was just 'for the hell of it'. Greeks not only used body language, song and dance to portray feelings and characters. They also used a variety of masks and costumes. The types of masks and costumes would depend on the type of play. (Drama, tragedy, etc.)

    Aphrodite, a woman of many sides Goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation. In my opinion one of the strongest (If not the strongest) being of all. Love itself is the strongest force in the universe, its power is unlimited. Multiple origin stories have been seen, some say she was birthed by the sea foam from pieces of Uranus after he unmanned Kronos's father. Others believe that she is manifestation of nature itself, and all of its powers. A dove, a mirror, an apple and a scallop shell are attributes of hers all having to do with nature or her beauty. She is depicted in some cases to have come out of a giant shell, like she was the pearl. Men, god and human alike all seemed to fall for her absolute beauty. She had multiple affairs including one with Ares. She is not innocent, in fact quite devious. But in some cases her loyalty shines through like in the battle of Troy.