Rick Steves' Europe
Art Bites 167: Royal Portraits and Velázquez
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Painters, such as Velázquez, were paid to make royals look more divine than they were.
Royal portraits were like the Tinder of 1st-century court life in Europe. Painters were paid to make royals look more capable and more divine than they were. Velázquez painted the royals capably in his “Las Meninas,” but he clearly had an affinity for the common man, too.
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Rick Steves' Europe
Art Bites 167: Royal Portraits and Velázquez
Clip | 3m 33sVideo has Closed Captions
Royal portraits were like the Tinder of 1st-century court life in Europe. Painters were paid to make royals look more capable and more divine than they were. Velázquez painted the royals capably in his “Las Meninas,” but he clearly had an affinity for the common man, too.
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorshipAs Europe█s nations grew bigger, many centralized around an old reliable institution— the monarchy.
This was the era of Europe█s great kings and queens.
They claimed their authority came directly from God— by “divine right”— and that their power was “absolute.” Through the ages, portraits had been one of the ways royals showed off their power and their divine right to rule.
They hired Europe█s best artists to paint them in all their glory from the powerful renaissance royals and rulers of France█ Spain█ Venice█ to England.
Baroque artists captured the over-the-top style of the age.
By then, Europe was ruled by a handful of powerful families who used such portraits to stay in touch and, like Baroque dating aps, to arrange marriages.
And court painters pulled out all the stops: from making young princes look impossibly good on a horse to making a mere mortal look as divine as can be.
Diego Velazquez was one of the greatest portrait artists.
A virtual court photographer, he was the Spanish master of realism.
As well as standard portraits of the Spanish king and queen, Velazquez loved to keep it real with behind-the-scenes glimpses of the rest of the court—their cute kids█ even the court jester.
In this masterpiece, the artist paints himself at work on a portrait as a princess and her servants look on.
The unique perspective— notice how they█re all looking out— is ambiguous.
Perhaps they█re looking toward the king and queen as they pose— who█d be standing right where we are as viewers.
The royal couple can actually be seen reflected in the mirror at the back of the room.
With his mastery of realism, Velazquez created a wonderfully 3-D world where Spain█s royal court comes to life— as if you could step right through the canvas and into their lives.
Beyond royal portraits, Velázquez gave life to everything he touched: dramatic bible stories█ astonishingly realistic classical scenes... graceful nudes█ and great moments in history█ all infused with his affinity for the common man.
With his mastery of unvarnished realism, he could turn a Greek myth into a candid group-selfie in a blue-collar bar.
Bacchus, the god of wine joins a bunch of tipsy Spanish peasants.
The radiant god sits on the left, gritty peasants to the right, and uniting the two halves is the kneeling man being crowned by the ultimate hedonist.
The center of the composition?
It█s the cup of wine, of course.
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Clip | 1m 29s | What began as tagging and street graffiti has evolved into a new art form. (1m 29s)
Art Bites 195: Social Realism, the Art of Communism
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Clip | 1m 51s | The art of Communism diligently promoted the heroic symbols of the state as propaganda. (1m 51s)
Art Bites 194: Picasso’s "Guernica"
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Clip | 2m 54s | With the large Cubist-inspired painting, Picasso put a human face on “collateral damage.” (2m 54s)
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Clip | 1m 36s | With heavy outlines and brilliant colors, Chagall celebrated nature and its creator. (1m 36s)
Art Bites 192: Surrealism and Salvador Dalí
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Clip | 2m 34s | Surrealists explored the subconscious painting everyday images in jarring juxtapositions. (2m 34s)
Art Bites 191: Edvard Munch and Expressionism
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Clip | 2m 6s | Expressionism captured emotions, trauma, and cynicism with distorted and garish works. (2m 6s)
Art Bites 190: Romanticism and Romantic Era Painting
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Clip | 2m 43s | Epic, melodramatic canvases, images that stir the emotions, and an embrace of nature. (2m 43s)
Art Bites 189: Pablo Picasso: Cubism, "Guernica," and Much More
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Clip | 5m 14s | Picasso invented Cubism, captured the horror of warfare, and found freedom in abstraction. (5m 14s)
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Clip | 1m 35s | Gustav Klimt, with paintings like “The Kiss” captured a simmering hedonism in Vienna. (1m 35s)
Art Bites 187: Toulouse-Lautrec
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Clip | 1m 46s | Toulouse-Lautrec painted the turn-of-the-century bohemian scene on Paris’ Montmartre Hill. (1m 46s)
Art Bites 186: Modern Art and the Isms of the 20th Century
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Clip | 4m 31s | 20th-century art was a parade of isms: Fauvism, Expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism. (4m 31s)
Art Bites 185: Art Nouveau, Mucha, and Gaudí
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Clip | 5m 3s | Art Nouveau went organic with willowy maidens, melting eaves, and an embrace of nature. (5m 3s)
Art Bites 184: Vincent van Gogh
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Clip | 3m 1s | Van Gogh’s wild brush strokes and vivid colors portrayed the world he felt so intensely. (3m 1s)
Art Bites 183: The Post-Impressionists: Seurat, Cézanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh
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Clip | 3m 51s | Dots, slabs, primitive Tahitian scenes, wild brush strokes, and vivid colors. (3m 51s)
Art Bites 182: Claude Monet and His Waterlilies
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Clip | 2m 10s | The true subject of Monet’s “Waterlilies” is the changing reflections on the pond. (2m 10s)
Art Bites 181: Rodin, Impressionism in Sculpting
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Clip | 1m 27s | Auguste Rodin brought Impressionism to stone with iconic statues like “The Thinker.” (1m 27s)
Art Bites 180: Impressionism, Monet, Renoir, and Degas
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Clip | 6m 20s | The Impressionists revolutionized art with a focus on nature: light, shadow, and color. (6m 20s)
Art Bites 179: Northern Baroque Painting: Hals, Steen, Vermeer
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Clip | 4m 53s | Hals, Steen, Vermeer painted slices of regular life and group portraits of city bigwigs. (4m 53s)
Art Bites 178: Baroque Music, Bernini for Your Ears
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Clip | 2m 5s | This mini piano concert demonstrates how Baroque music can be like Bernini for your ears. (2m 5s)
Art Bites 177: Rubens, a Master Painter of the Northern Renaissance
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Clip | 3m 28s | Rubens painted mythic battles, Catholic miracles, bloody hunts, and “Rubenesque” women. (3m 28s)
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Clip | 1m 53s | Gritty realism, stark lighting, and drama gave Caravaggio’s art an emotional punch. (1m 53s)
Art Bites 175: Bernini and Baroque Sculpture
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Clip | 5m 37s | Rome was Bernini’s gallery where you can see his squares, fountains, and finest statues. (5m 37s)
Art Bites 174: Baroque Art as Propaganda
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Clip | 3m 29s | Baroque art was propaganda for the state or for the Church. (3m 29s)
Art Bites 173: Baroque Art, the Catholic Church, and the Virgin Mary
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Clip | 3m 42s | Pro-Vatican Baroque featured big canvases, dramatic statues, and exuberant architecture. (3m 42s)
Art Bites 172: The Reformation and the Baroque Age
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Clip | 5m 6s | The roots of Baroque go back to the 1500s when it told the story of the religious wars. (5m 6s)
Art Bites 171: Neoclassical Art, the Age of Revolution, and Napoleon
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Clip | 5m 6s | The French Revolution came with art that celebrated liberty, equality, and brotherhood. (5m 6s)
Art Bites 170: Neoclassical Art and Architecture, the Age of Enlightenment
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Clip | 5m 49s | Neoclassical was a stern, no-frills style that celebrated a new age of science and reason. (5m 49s)
Art Bites 169: Rococo Art and Architecture, Baroque Gone Wild
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Clip | 2m 7s | Rococo art featured aristocrats playing in their Baroque palaces and bucolic backyards. (2m 7s)
Art Bites 168: Royal Palaces of the Baroque Age and Versailles
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Clip | 5m 36s | Versailles, with its heavenly painted ceilings, was the ultimate Baroque palace. (5m 36s)
Now PlayingArt Bites 167: Royal Portraits and Velázquez
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Clip | 3m 33s | Painters, such as Velázquez, were paid to make royals look more divine than they were. (3m 33s)
Art Bites 166: Rembrandt, The Great Dutch Master
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Clip | 3m 51s | Rembrandt earned a living painting and told Bible stories with a subtle mastery of drama. (3m 51s)
Art Bites 165: Sandro Botticelli
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Clip | 2m 24s | Botticelli painted big colorful celebrations of the Renaissance like a fertile springtime. (2m 24s)
Art Bites 164: The Medici Family, Patrons of the Florentine Renaissance
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Clip | 3m 27s | The Medici family nurtured and employed the great Florentine Renaissance artists. (3m 27s)
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Clip | 2m 6s | A humble monk, Fra Angelico frescoed exquisite sacred scenes for his monastery. (2m 6s)
Art Bites 162: Early Renaissance Painting: Giotto, Masaccio, Fra Angelico
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Clip | 5m 26s | These painters brought art from medieval two-dimensional to more life-like 3-D. (5m 26s)
Art Bites 161: Donatello and Early Renaissance Statues
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Clip | 3m 12s | The sculptor Donatello gave his proud statues unprecedented realism and emotion. (3m 12s)
Art Bites 160: Renaissance Artists: Ghiberti, Brunelleschi, Donatello
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Clip | 4m 58s | Florence, home of the Renaissance, was also home to three early artistic heroes. (4m 58s)
Art Bites 159: The Renaissance Defined
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Clip | 3m 30s | For two centuries, the Renaissance was an explosion of secular learning, art, and culture. (3m 30s)
Art Bites 158: Hieronymus Bosch and "The Garden of Earthly Delights"
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Clip | 2m 7s | Bosch’s three-paneled masterpiece takes you from earthly delights to a nightmarish Hell. (2m 7s)
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Clip | 2m 6s | Weyden’s exquisitely detailed Last Judgment is filled with symbolism. (2m 6s)
Art Bites 156: Pieter Brueghel the Elder for a Slice of Flemish Life
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Clip | 2m 14s | Brueghel was a master of slice-of-life scenes capturing country folk at play. (2m 14s)
Art Bites 155: Oil Painting, an Improvement over Tempera
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Clip | 2m 9s | Oil paints freed artists like Jan van Eyck, Raphael, and Leonardo to raise the bar. (2m 9s)
Art Bites 154: The Northern Renaissance, Flemish Painting, and Jan van Eyck
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Clip | 3m 10s | Flemish paintings were happy slice-of-life scenes, feel-good, and affordable. (3m 10s)
Art Bites 153: Albrecht Dürer, Realism, Humanism, and the Master Engraver
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Clip | 1m 54s | Albrecht Dürer’s meticulous attention to detail was ideal for his work as an engraver. (1m 54s)
Art Bites 152: El Greco and Mannerism
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Clip | 4m 8s | El Greco painted supernatural visions, faces that flicker, and otherworldly altarpieces. (4m 8s)
Art Bites 151: The Age of Discovery: Portugal and Spain
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Clip | 5m 52s | Portugal had lacy Manueline architecture and Spain’s emperor had far-flung tastes. (5m 52s)
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Clip | 6m 53s | Michelangelo sculpted “David,” painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling, and designed St. Peter’s. (6m 53s)
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Clip | 3m 36s | Raphael’s sweet Madonnas set a new standard in High Renaissance painting. (3m 36s)
Art Bites 148: Building a Gothic Cathedral Out of 13 Tourists
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Clip | 2m 2s | Gothic church design is best illustrated by building one with 13 travelers. (2m 2s)
Art Bites 147: Gothic Church Architecture, the Pointed Arch and More Light
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Clip | 6m 51s | The Gothic Age was famed for its towering churches filled with glorious stained-glass windows. (6m 51s)
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