Week 9 Video Review

I chose to watch Leonardo da Vinci: The Mind of the Renaissance because I am very interested in Da Vinci’s work ever since reading about the supposed symbolism involved in The Da Vinci Code.  The video reviewed his entire life, including his exceptional intelligence since infancy and how he embodied The Renaissance in his quest to understand humans.  However, the most important part for me was learning about Da Vinci as an urban planner, since that is the field I am going into.  This part was especially interesting to me as I have spent a few days in Milan.  Also, I had no idea that Da Vinci was one of the first to secretly perform dissections.  I thought this film was very comprehensive, although the continuous music almost took away from that.  The film definitely related to everything we have discussed about the Renaissance and Renaissance from the text.

I watched The Night Watch because I was interested in the title although I had no idea what it would be about.  I have to admit I never heard of Rembrandt before this class, but after watching the film I can’t believe I have never heard of The Night Watch before since it is so important to the Dutch people; the sheer size of this painting is amazing.  It seems like this painting was very controversial because it has been stabbed and attacked with acid.  I learned that one of the achievements of Rembrandt in The Night Watch was the allusion of movement throughout the painting, unlike paintings before his time.  I most enjoyed learning about the small details of the history of the painting, such as how it had to be trimmed to fit in the door (“the greatest act of official vandalism in Dutch history”) and what the x-rays reveal.  His use of light and perspective reinforced the concept of chiaroscuro in that his use of light was very important to the overall mood of the piece.

I was attracted to La Primavera for no other reason besides that shrimp primavera is my favorite dish at Olive Garden.  It ended up being very interesting as I learned about how controversial and mysterious this work is.  I learned that there are many different interpretations for what the painting represents, including sex or humanism and neo-Platonism.  However, the nine figures in the painting represent mythological characters, including Venus.  This painting also has a lot of associations with marriage, as the themes of rape and violence are common in paintings for newlyweds since they show that adversity ends with a happy marriage.  Also, many of the flowers depicted are associated with marriage.  After watching the film, I still do not have a clear idea of what the painting is about, but maybe that is what draws people to it.  Also, this film went over some elements of the Renaissance discussed in the text, such as humanism and neo-Platonism.

I chose Albrecht Durer: Image of a Master after reading the description because I was interested in learning about the printmaking aspect of the artist’s work.  Durer is credited with bringing Renaissance art to Italy during the time of gothic art in Germany and is known for his skill in portraiture.  He is also considered the first landscape artist.  I was most interested in the fact that Durer’s woodcuts portraying angry images played a role in supporting Martin Luther because I remember learning about that in traditional history classes.  I found this video to be interesting and helpful as it tied in some of the discussions about religion that the text includes.