NINA RELF FINE ART
ART HISTORY
Essays written for the Art History course of my BA (Hons) Fine Art and Art History program.
THE RENAISSANCE IN FLORENCE
March 2018
After a field trip to Florence, we had to compare a 'artwork' in it's original context and location, and compare to an 'artefact' that has been taken out of its context and moved to the Uffizi gallery. I decided to compare Giotto's 'Ognissanti Madonna' in the Uffizi and Fra Angelico's 'Madonna of the Shadows' fresco from the San Marco Dominican convent.
POWER, PATRONAGE AND IDEOLOGY: ASPECTS OF ITALIAN RENAISSANCE ART
December 2017
I chose to write about Ambrogio Lorenzetti's fresco cycle, entitled 'The Effects of Good and Bad Government' from the Palazzo Publicco in Siena. I discuss how this cycle reflects the government concept of 'common good and peace' in Siena at the time.
THE INTERDISCIPLINARY CITY: VIENNA 1900
December 2017
My response to the question ‘Select 3 works from Vienna circa 1900. Construct an argument about the relationships of your 3 works to each other AND to the context in which they were produced.’ I decided to compare Gustav Klimt's 'Water Snakes I' (1904-7), Gustav Klimt's 'Portrait of Margarethe Stonborough-Wittgenstein' (1906) and Otto Weininger's book 'Sex and Character' (1903), whilst discussing female sexuality.
PAULA MODERSOHN-BECKER AS A NON-CANONICAL ARTIST
February 2017
My response to the question 'Choose one Non-Canonical artist and compare two contrasting representations of them in texts'. I chose to study Paula Modersohn-Becker, a German artist born in 1876 who has been excluded from the Art History Canon, despite her involvement in the modernism period.