Read the text and find out what styles and art movements you can find in an art gallery.

Agnieszka Sękiewicz‑Magoń Treasures of Art

Welcome to the Fine Arts Gallery. It is quite small when compared to huge national or royal galleries, but our collection of old mastersold masters [old master]old masters and modern artmodern artmodern art will give you an insight into the world of art in a condensed, yet pleasant way. Since I dealt with curating the exhibitioncurating the exhibition [curate an exhibition]curating the exhibition, I will try to tell you a bit about the most important exhibitsexhibits [exhibit]exhibits. Let us begin our trip.

In the first room, there are works by Renaissance artists. They painted their subjects using a mix of accurateaccurateaccurate and believable proportions and spaces in order to create a very realistic representation of the world, which was something new in art. The oldest paintings here date fromdate fromdate from the 16th century. You can see the use of very interesting new techniques, like linear perspective,linear perspectivelinear perspective, trompe l’oeiltrompe d’oeiltrompe l’oeil or foreshorteningforeshorteningforeshortening, whose aim was to present people and objects as three‑dimensional and to create an optical illusion of depthillusion of depthillusion of depth. Artists of this epoch achieved great realismrealismrealism in painting portraitsportraits [portrait]portraits and still lifestill lifestill life, in part due to the use of oil paintsoil paints [oil paint]oil paints, which allowed a richer colour palettecolour palettecolour palette than temperatemperatempera or frescofrescofresco. Although most paintings showed religious or mythological scenes, you can also find non‑religious individual portraits, usually of people who were rich and famous or just interesting subjects to the painters, Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci being the most well‑known example.

Here, in the second room, you can admire the works of Baroque artists. Their art appealed to the public because they identified with ordinary people, showing them with emotions and dramatic expressions visible on their faces. However, they also painted landscapeslandscapes [landscape]landscapes and still lifes. Theatrical light and heavy contrast between light and dark is another characteristic feature often used in their paintings, making them look as if they had a spotlightspotlightspotlight, like in The Nightwatch by Rembrandt.

The next art movementart movementart movement you can see is Rococo art, characterised by pastel colourspastel colours [pastel colour]pastel colours and playfulness. It focused on depicting lovey‑doveylovey‑dovey lovey‑dovey themes and aristocracy at home or at play, usually in pastoral landscapespastoral landscapes [pastoral landscape]pastoral landscapes. This form of art was not intellectually deep or provocative, and you can see that even the size of paintings was much smaller, which made them ideal for decoration. This style contrasted with the next movements, here on the right: Neoclassical art with clear and sharp outlines and people draped in flowing Greek robes or Roman togas, looking like marble statues; and Romanticism, focusing on nature and often presenting mystical seascapesmystical seascapes [mystical seascape]mystical seascapes painted not only as oil paintingsoil paintings [oil painting]oil paintings, but also as watercolourswatercolours [watercolour]watercolours.

This room is all about modern art, not to be confused with contemporary artcontemporary artcontemporary art, and houses masterpiecesmasterpieces [masterpiece]masterpieces by Impressionists, characterised by visible brushstrokesbrushstrokes [brushstroke]brushstrokes on the canvascanvascanvas, which give a texturetexturetexture to the painting. The paintings depictdepictdepict outdoor scenes, including rivers, railroads, factories, cityscapescityscapes [cityscape]cityscapes, seascapes and landscapes. The artists were fascinated with the effects of colour and light in nature and tried to capturecapturecapture them in their paintings. Next to the Impressionists’ works, we also have some representatives of SymbolismsymbolismSymbolism, which used objects as symbols representing abstract ideas. Most of them show death, monsters, demons or angels, which are present even in artists’ self‑portraitsself‑portraits [self‑portrait]self‑portraits. You can also see the only abstract paintingabstract paintingabstract painting we have, which is our latest treasuretreasuretreasure.

We finish our tour in this last room, where you can see some exhibits of tools typically used by artists: an easeleaseleasel, canvas, coloured pencilscoloured pencils [coloured pencil]coloured pencils, some paints and brushesbrushes [brush]brushes, charcoalcharcoalcharcoal and different types of paper for creating sketchessketches [sketch]sketches, palettepalettepalette and palette knivespalette knives [palette knife]palette knives for mixing colours and two optical devices used by old masters, that is the camera obscuracamera obscuracamera obscura and the camera lucida.camera lucidacamera lucida. Our gallery doesn’t exhibit any sculptures, carvingscarvings [carving]carvings or etchingsetchings [etching]etchings, but if you are interested in these forms of art, I can recommend a few places. I hope you have enjoyed this walk.

1 Źródło: Agnieszka Sękiewicz‑Magoń, licencja: CC BY-SA 3.0.