I think artists through out history have had multiple purposes be it

I think artists through out history have had multiple purposes be it reflecting their culture, current events, political statements, and social commentary. And/or it can have a focus solely on aesthetics, studying the environment or the human form, and showcasing style and emotion which I think falls in line with academic art more. The renaissance and academic art were held in a high regard for capturing emotion, expressions and small details that would normally go unnoticed by the common folk which gained artists more respect. Even though artists could technically still be able to project themselves to the art with their own designs and interpretation, most of their art was done by commission from scientists or the church. Prior to the renaissance era, they might’ve been used as propaganda or pushing a sort of narrative. It was still centered around religious imagery and other subject matters held to high regard until realism was on the rise. “Realism insisted on precise imitation of visual perceptions without alteration”. “Artists limited themselves to facts of the modern world as they personally experienced”

“Annotated Mona Lisa” describes it as limiting, but I’d argue that they opened up more room for expression. This was when artists could truly express themselves with their own art by openly depicting more realistic settings and more mundane scenarios which I think is more relatable. At this period ig is where artists’ role mostly was capturing the beauty and detail of the world and to invoke emotion.

That theme was carried on to impressionism but one of the main differences was how they observed warm and cool colours from lights and shadows and they utilized it to give off a feeling of temperature. They also dabbled into some abstraction that resulted into finished pieces looking not as detailed as academic art intentionally, but this is one of my favourite art styles because it shows more emotion, and gesture from the brush strokes and it connects you to the artist more by partially seeing their process. It’s not a secret that it’s merely a painting unlike academic art that was trying to be more photorealistic. Impressionism and post impressionism in my opinion was a great middle ground between realism and style. Impressionism especially, but post impressionism which I still like was a little more “artsy” because they were “dissatisfied with impressionism and wanted art to be more substantial, not dedicated wholly to capture a passing moment which often resulted in paintings that seemed slapdash and unplanned”. That was the start of experimenting with even more style.

It spawned one of my favourite paintings as well from George Seurat “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte- 1884” as it was one of them the first art pieces where I felt the temperatures of the sunlight and shade. I never noticed that the brush strokes for that piece was just individual dots at the time, so with that fact aside, I was just taken back by the shading and the realization of cool and warm colours and light when I first saw it 10 or so years ago.

Then came cubism. Picasso famously was one of the pioneers of cubism, but formally started out with traditional realistic portraits and such. Until he got bored of just copying real life. So he co founded the cubism movement which had a focus on drawing the figure or subject at multiple angles or multiple moments at a time. It sounded like a neat idea and there are some decent executions out there, but this in my opinion is a huge jump from what came before. Other art styles were prioritizing wacky styles over the realism which I can’t seem to vibe with. This was also the start of how the artists role again was to tell a story, make a statement, or start a conversation which apparently can’t be done while looking nice aesthetically. Perhaps I’m one of those simpletons who just “doesn’t get modern art”. Contemporary art is an even bigger alienation from what I’m used to.It tries way too hard to be artsy yet I just don’t see the dedication or effort.

From what I saw of the Cezanne exhibit, what caught my attention was the multiple sketch books that showed his studies, and experimenting, and trial and error. I like how they showed sort of what he worked on behind tbe scenes when he was up and coming because that’s what all artists go though. The one page that was just titled “self portrait and an apple” pretty much sums up