Denver Art Museum: One of the Few Luxuries of Colorado Residents
Denver Art Museum
The Denver Art Museum is one of the few luxuries Colorado residents and tourists alike, have the pleasure of experiencing. It is truly a world class facility, from the outside in. Within the confines of its walls reside masterpieces from the likes of Monet, Degas, and Picasso. There is a broad spectrum of art from all corners of the globe represented here. This includes art from various European nations, as well as that of far eastern cultures to American Indian design. Each exhibit presented work which seemed to grasp and shed light onto the respective time period or culture represented. I found three particular compositions to be representative of their era or genre. The first of which is an oil painting on a wood panel by an Englishman named William Larkin to be completed in 1610. This piece, entitled Mary Radclyffe, is a portrait of King James’s wife, Mary Radclyffe. It is very obvious to see, after reviewing the Roman artistic style of idealizing an individual in a realistic way, that this is a idealized view of Radclyffe. As a matter of fact, William Larkin was one of the last artists to work in this refined, elegant portrait style of Elizabeth I. The clothing Radclyffe is donning in the aforementioned painting is typical of the high class during the time it was completed in the early 17th century. This piece can also be classified as having a Baroque nature about it. The Baroque cultural movement pertained to not only art, but music, dance, and literature as well. The artistic style emits a sense of awe and a tremendous attention to detail which is seldom mistaken for any other method. This Idealized style derives from Plato and the “higher reality of eternal truths” which he refers to in his book, the Theory of Forms.
“Plato’s theory of forms proposes that all sensory objects are imitations of Forms, which, like the simplest mathematical equations, are imperishable and forever true.” (Fiero I: 98) The next piece which caught
The Denver Art Museum is one of the few luxuries Colorado residents and tourists alike, have the pleasure of experiencing. It is truly a world class facility, from the outside in. Within the confines of its walls reside masterpieces from the likes of Monet, Degas, and Picasso. There is a broad spectrum of art from all corners of the globe represented here. This includes art from various European nations, as well as that of far eastern cultures to American Indian design. Each exhibit presented work which seemed to grasp and shed light onto the respective time period or culture represented. I found three particular compositions to be representative of their era or genre. The first of which is an oil painting on a wood panel by an Englishman named William Larkin to be completed in 1610. This piece, entitled Mary Radclyffe, is a portrait of King James’s wife, Mary Radclyffe. It is very obvious to see, after reviewing the Roman artistic style of idealizing an individual in a realistic way, that this is a idealized view of Radclyffe. As a matter of fact, William Larkin was one of the last artists to work in this refined, elegant portrait style of Elizabeth I. The clothing Radclyffe is donning in the aforementioned painting is typical of the high class during the time it was completed in the early 17th century. This piece can also be classified as having a Baroque nature about it. The Baroque cultural movement pertained to not only art, but music, dance, and literature as well. The artistic style emits a sense of awe and a tremendous attention to detail which is seldom mistaken for any other method. This Idealized style derives from Plato and the “higher reality of eternal truths” which he refers to in his book, the Theory of Forms.
“Plato’s theory of forms proposes that all sensory objects are imitations of Forms, which, like the simplest mathematical equations, are imperishable and forever true.” (Fiero I: 98) The next piece which caught
Bibliography: Fiero, Gloria K. The Humanistic Tradition, Vol. I, 5th ed. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2006.