Talk:European art

To add

• Gripsholm Castle

Meaning of "Classical"

I don't agree with this definition:

European classical art or Western classical art is visual art with origin in Europe, before it was superseded by modern and contemporary art.

To my understanding, Classical art is art from ancient Greece and Rome. It's not Medieval, it's not Renaissance, it's not Mannerist, etc. Can you find another name? Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:42, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

Traditional European art? /Yvwv (talk) 16:45, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

That phrase seems to imply the art of peasants or indigenous peoples, instead of Renaissance, Baroque or neo-Classicism. Maybe Pre-modern European art? /Yvwv (talk) 16:50, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

Pre-modern is not going to work because many people consider the Modern Age to have started around the time of the Renaissance, with the Age of Discovery and so forth. Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:58, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

In German there is the term "alte Meister" to distinguish e.g. Albrecht Dürer from e.g. Jackson Pollock. I don't know whether this term has an equivalent in English. Hobbitschuster (talk) 17:03, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

Periodization is usually difficult, especially for art. The art genres described by this article were for a long time described simply as "art", while non-European art was well into the 20th century described as "primitive art", while modern art was dismissed as "not art". /Yvwv (talk) 17:05, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

"Old masters", Hobbitschuster. But that phrase is usually used for the very greatest artists, I think. In music, we have a phrase "common practice harmony" to describe tonal classical music from around the time of Monteverdi through Wagner but not Debussy. If my father were alive, I'd ask him whether there is an equivalent word for the artistic tradition he was a part of other than "figuration", but it's basically representational art from the Gothic period (notably Giotto) through people like Matisse. But I guess the desire in this topic is to avoid all Modernist styles, therefore cutting things off before Cezanne and the Impressionists (Renoir, Monet). We need to figure out what to call this before we can reasonably have an article about it. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:13, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

The distinction makes sense to travellers, as it is institutional, with pre-modern and modern works typically collected in different museums (Prado vs Reina Sofia in Madrid, etc). There is however some overlap, as places such as Musée d'Orsay contains both romantic, impressionist and post-impressionist art. /Yvwv (talk) 17:17, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

I agree that what you are trying to describe is a real thing that's worth describing and significant to travelers. The problem is that we can't use the word "pre-modern", and even "pre-Modernist" doesn't get the sense of it across, because I believe the tradition you're describing more or less begins with Gothic and not Romanesque art. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:36, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

Old European art? It is certainly older than modern art. /Yvwv (talk) 03:11, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

I don't think "Old" is sufficiently clear. I'm struggling for a useful term. Are there any visual artists in the house who could help? Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:03, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

While none of the proposed titles so far are perfect, I think any of them would be better than European classical art. When I started reading this article I was confused at first, until I figured out that despite the title, it's not actually talking just about Classical art. Even European art would be better, I think—it's too broad, but at least it's less confusing than the current title, IMHO. Another possibility would be Medieval and Renaissance art (or Gothic and Renaissance art, or whichever periods this article is intended to focus on). —Granger (talk · contribs) 22:59, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Banner

Current banner (The School of Athens)

Suggestion 1 (The Last Supper)

Suggestion 2 (Mona Lisa)

Suggestion 3 (Bacchus and Ariadne)

The current banner is a double for Europe. Would you suggest another motif, which would be representative for the subject? /Yvwv (talk) 19:04, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Here's one possibility (The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci). The Creation of Adam would be ideal, but unfortunately it's already taken by Rome/Vatican. —Granger (talk · contribs) 19:26, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

I'm not satisfied, because "The Last Supper" is in poor condition in the picture. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:10, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Here are a couple more. —Granger (talk · contribs) 20:38, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Great job. At first I would vote suggestion 3, suggestion 2 could maybe seem obvious but is actually a great option, fully in context. Ibaman (talk) 20:40, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

The Mona Lisa is currently the banner for Paris/1st arrondissement. While the motif is representative for both articles, we should avoid using banners more than once. /Yvwv (talk) 20:53, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

You're right—I didn't notice. That makes three famous Renaissance paintings already used as banners in other articles... —Granger (talk · contribs) 20:59, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

That's OK because I think the banner of Bacchus and Ariadne is a very good banner and perfectly adequate. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:05, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Expansion

I had completely forgotten about this article.

I see a couple of avenues for expansion:

(1) Even though we are not going to want to give encyclopedic historical background, I think that we should discuss the predecessors in Roman and Greek a bit more, if not also Egyptian times, with appropriate pointers to Wikivoyage articles that focus on what's come down to us from those civilizations. In addition, we should start our discussion of post-Byzantine European visual art in the Romanesque period. I think it would be ideal to give some basic descriptions of aesthetics and style of the commonly recognized periods, with approximate dates, examples of some of the greatest and most recognized painters, sculptors, et al. from those periods and remarks about particularly recommended places to see such work. Off the top of my head, these are the periods:

Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Mannerist, Baroque, Rococo, Neo-Classic, Romantic, and then we get into Modernist styles, starting with Impressionism. I've probably left some style out unintentionally.

(2) Way more museums need to be listed. I don't have time to create the listings now, but let's start a list, and please add to it because I'm listing the ones I know and remember off the top of my head:

Florence: At least the Uffizi, Palazzo Pitti, Bargello, Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, but probably also the Accademia

New York: Metropolitan Museum

Washington, D.C.: National Gallery

Paris: Cluny for Medieval art, unless we're farming that out to another article

Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum

Los Angeles: LACMA

Philadelphia Museum of Art

Boston: Boston Museum of Art, Isabella Gardner Museum

Chicago Art Institute

I know that there are museums in Berlin, Munich and Vienna, among other places, that should be on the list.

One question is, with the headline "Here is a list of the most renowned and representative exhibitions", are we going to limit the list by including only broad-spectrum museums, such that a great museum of limited scope like the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo in Florence wouldn't qualify? Also, what about all of the great art in churches? This is a vast topic. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:05, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

• Yeah, E. H. Gombrich's History of Art definitely states that Greek sculptors and painters are disciples of the Egyptians; if we go from the very start, it should be Lascaux and Altamira. This topic is very very very broad. An example of this is that Gombrich himself, in his book's intro, excuses himself for not being able to devise a scheme for mentioning Etruscan (and Hindu) art; they are not mentioned in the text, as well as great masters such as Canaletto, Quercia etc. etc. Venice should be listed, for the Renaissance Venetian painting school, a style very different from the more popular Florentine and its "Ninja Turtles" masters (Leo, Raph, Mike, Donnie :). I'd be glad if a new custom-made banner (maybe Monet or Picasso or Dalí?...) was produced. There's a lot of potential here. Ibaman (talk) 19:45, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Probably none of those artists, as Modernism seems to be specifically excluded from this article. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:08, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Monet and his Water Lilies are present in the article! And this very painting, specifically, would make a great banner. As would any Tiziano masterpiece. Debating where to "draw the line" between Classic European and Modernistic European art will make a useful debate... where would Paul Cézanne go, for instance...? Ibaman (talk) 20:34, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Cezanne and the Impressionists are modernists. If we want to exclude all forms of modernism, I would end it with the Barbizon painters. I suppose in sculpture, w:Auguste Rodin wouldn't be included. Of course, if we want to draw some other line, we have to define that, but museums of modern art that don't focus almost exclusively on post-World War II ("contemporary") work definitely include Cezanne and Impressionism. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:01, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Which museums to include

The list of museums strikes me as (deliberately?) short. Should we include more? Hobbitschuster (talk) 18:54, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

Historical scope

"The art in European museums usually originates from what can be broadly called the early modern period: i.e., the 15th to 19th centuries."

Is that true? My impression is that the 15th century is very late, and that it would be truer to start no later than the 13th century, and possibly earlier if we want to include Romanesque art. Giotto was born c. 1267 and died in 1337, and he is usually considered the first great Gothic (and sometimes Renaissance or in some sense humanist) painter, with his teacher, Cimabue, considered among the greatest Romanesque painters. Ikan Kekek (talk) 13:24, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

As medieval European art is not covered anywhere else, it could certainly be described by this article. /Yvwv (talk) 16:03, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Listing details

Per Wikivoyage:Travel topic article template,

"If you add listings to specific venues, the full listing should go to a destination article. The listing in the travel topic article should describe the venue in the context of the topic, to help the reader to know whether they are interested. Details, such as street addresses, prices and phone numbers, should be omitted from the travel topic article. Instead link the full listing, or the section or article containing it."

I've removed the listings details. Please don't add any more. Ground Zero (talk) 02:51, 17 May 2023 (UTC)