Final paper

Anthony Wu

Prof. Gwendolyn Shaw

Art 1010


Gian Lorenzo Bernini was an Italian sculptor and was well known for his sculptures In Italy. Gian Lorenzo Bernini was born in Naples and his own type of technique. He created the Baroque technique on his sculptors and many sculptors would follow or use this technique during this time period. He created a well known sculpture, which is Apollo and Daphne. Apollo and Daphne had a story within the sculpture and made a lot of people think of what is going. The sculptures that Bernini has made gives it a moving feeling to it. It’s like the sculpture is moving when you are walking around it. The Faun Teased by Children sculpture has a interesting and mysterious story. The creation and technique was essential in creating “The Faun Teased by Children” to become a fascinating art work in today’s’ period.

The Bacchanal: A Faun Teased by Children sculpture displays a man and three babies. The babies looks like cupids and other angelic child descendant from the religious catholic church. The man seems to be holding on the top of the tree. The tree is similar to the Apollo and Daphne sculpture. At first glance, I thought this was a continuous of the Apollo and Daphne sculpture story but they are separate. It has a similar resemblances to Apollo and Daphne because I thought the man was Apollo and Daphne was the tree. Also thought the cupids were the ones protecting Daphne from Apollo after she became a tree and hide from Apollo. I thought the cupids were pushing Apollo away from Daphne being the tree. Daphne’s father probably told the Cupids to watch over Daphne after she became a tree. This was my observation at first until I read the description of the sculpture. The sculpture had a different story than Apollo and Daphne by the same sculptor. Benini seems to sculpt people from greek gods or religious beliefs. Most of the stories about his sculptures would display a story or an imagination for the people looking at his art to think about. His sculptures shows a little movement within the structure because you can look at all of the points of view from any standings. His sculptures wants you to walk around and look at the sculptures on its significance details.

The man in the sculpture shows a follower of Bacchus. Bacchus was a god of wine and it shows one of the follower reaching to the tree. The trees show grapes on them and the Cupids or angels stopping him. It makes sense that the man was trying to get the grapes because wine is made out of dry grapes. The man was possibly trying to harvest the grapes and make wine out of it. He would return to Bacchus with a fresh bunch of wine from the grapes he picked earlier. The cupids tries to push him back and prevents him from getting the grapes. The sculpture also shows the same cupid pushing the man but the cupid next it is trying to resist. This could depict that both cupids are in differents sides or playing around with the man. It might also resemble the other cupids being a fallen angel and the other one being a good angel and pushing the fallen drunken man to stop. The sculpture may also show that the cupids are trying to the save the man life by stopping him from picking grapes and making wine out of it. I think the cupids are trying to tell the man that wine or any source of alcohol is bad for you. As a human being, drinking is bad for your health and people drinking is always natural because they drink traditional and maybe after their shift from work to get a drink. At the bottom of the sculpture shows a cupid at the bottom of his feet with a scared face that could mean the power of wine can lead to that face or it makes the cupid feel horrid. The Baroque technique displays a lot of details from different sides of the sculpture. His sculpture has that amazing motion that produce the drama more effectively than the other sculptures during the time period like Michelangelo. The Baroque technique was mostly used in Catholic churches because its shows divine and enlightenment feeling to the art or sculpture. I remember during the trip to MET, the painting that shows Mary carrying Baby Jesus. The painting shows Baroque technique making it look more realistic and in front of you like Bacchanal: A Faun Teased by Children.

I believe that this sculpture is great piece of art for today’s society because drinking is really bad habit and a lot of us drink for our relief and happiness. Drinking is a natural thing for people to do cultural but you can overdose from drinking. Drinking a lot can give side effects and shorten life. Drinking wine or alcohol means you are drinking to your death. I remember Socrates, a philosopher who liked to drink wine and other alcohol substances was killed from drinking poison. This shows that he loved to drink and didn’t look at what he was going to drink. This led to his death and it means you should drink responsibly instead of frequently. The sculpture model look very inspiring to most sculptor because the man in Bernini’s sculpture shows what superior man would look. A superior man would have a six-pack and would give eye contact to what’s in front of them. The six-pack shows a healthy man and strong strength during the 1600’s. In today’s society a six-pack would mean that person is fit and shows strength. Giving eye contact in Italy would depict the person is focus on what is in front of them like a problem that needs a situation to be solved. Eye contact in today’s society would show the person is respecting you and giving you attention. Bernini’s sculpture is like an influence to today’s society with a unique position with his sculptures.


Final Project: Paper Proposal

Topic: Humanism throughout history.

Thesis Statement: Although the humanism movement started during the time of ancient Greece and Rome it is still seen portrayed in artwork today.

Introduction: Humanism is the a movement in art history that shifted the  focus of art works from deities and worshiping the deities to a focus on humans, more specifically the ideal human. Instead of valuing a God or religion during the movement people began to focus more on valuing humanity therefore making themselves gods. equal to gods by putting themselves at the center of all social and moral concerns. Prior to the humanism movement art was typically made to worship the deities. An example of this can be seen in the photograph of the Standing Male Worshiper.
Prior to the humanism movement art was typically made to worship the deities. The Standing Male Worshiper is an example of a piece of artwork that was created before the humanism movement. As it can be seen in the photograph the creator of this sculpture did not put much effort into adding detail to the human represented in the sculpture. The artist of the sculpture created it to serve one purpose which was to be a praying stand in for the person it represented.  

                                                     Artist: N/A
Title: Standing Male Worshiper   
Date: 2900–2600 B.C.                   
Museum: The Metropolitan Museum of Art 

As time began to progress so the idea of humanism began to form and the shift from making art that focused on deities and worshiping them to making art that worshiped humanity and focused on the ideal human body. An example of an artwork that showed the start of the transition from focus on deities to a focus on humans is the Statue of Kouros. Unlike the Standing Male Worshiper which had almost no detail on the human body, the Statue of Kouros focuses soley on the human body. It is a representation of a young nude male. The artist of this sculpture adds small but noticeable details such as the outlining of the mans abs and chest. Another faint but drastic difference between the two sculptures is the sense of movement that can be seen in the legs of the Statue of Kouros. As seen in the photograph below, the left leg of the statue strides forward giving the sculpture a feeling of movement.
Artist: N/A
Title: Statue of Kouros
Date: 600 BCE  
Museum: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

As more time passed the humanism movement became larger and lead to much more drastic changes in the art world. An example of a artwork that shows drastic a drastic change due to the humanism movement is the statue of Polykleitos. Similar to the statue of Kouros, the Doryphoros has a sense of movement but different to the Kouros, the Doryphoros has no symmetry. Instead the statue of Polykleitos has contrapposto. Contrapposto is the use of counter balancing to form "an asymmetrical arrangement of the human figure in which the line of the arms and shoulders contrasts with while balancing those of the hips and leg."(Google definition).By giving the statue contrapposto it the artist was able to show that the statue is suppose to represent a person walking.

Artist: Polykleitos
Title: Doryphoros (Roman copy)
Date: 450-440 BCE
Museum: Museo Archaeologico Nazionale (Naples)

Proposal/Task: The student is to select five modern pieces of artworks and explain how they represent/show that the humanism movement is still a part of art to this day.

Requirements: Assemble a minimum of five works of art that relate to the thesis statement. Images should have the following information: artist, title, date.

Conclusion: After gathering and explaining the 5 artworks you have chosen the reader/ grader of this assignment should be able to easily tell how each individual piece of art relates to the humanism movement and how it is similar or different to the 3 artworks that I have listed above.  

Work Cited:Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Beth Harris, "Standing Male Worshipper (Tell Asmar)," in Smarthistory, December 16, 2015, accessed December 17, 2018,

“Standing Male Worshiper.” The Met's Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History,

Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, "Marble statue of a kouros (New York Kouros)," in Smarthistory, December 20, 2015, accessed December 17, 2018,

“Marble Statue of a Kouros (Youth).” The Met's Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History,

Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, "Polykleitos, Doryphoros (Spear-Bearer)," in Smarthistory, August 8, 2015, accessed December 17, 2018,


Blog Post 1

First, search up: “  log in with your email and password

Then you locate “Fall 2018 Art 1010” under your sites.The top left, click on new post and add a title and submit your blog.Find  the appropriate categories and class catergories.

Finally, click publish on top right once everything is complete.

Annotated Bibliography

“Baroque Art, an Introduction.” Smart History, 17 Dec. 2018, to-baroque-art/
This article gives an overall history course on the Baroque period. Using this information will give the necessary background to set the paper proposal.

“Baroque period.” New World Encyclopedia, 17 Dec. 2018,
The facts in this article are also about the history of the Baroque period but are more detailed which will elaborate on this background information in my paper proposal.

“Baroque vs. Rococo: Similarities and Differences, Explained.” In Good Taste, 17 Dec. 2018,
The differences of the Baroque and Rococo periods are highlighted and explained. This article will give an understanding to the final stage of Baroque period.

Stechow, Wolfgang. “Definitions of the Baroque in the Visual Arts.” The American Society of Aesthetics, vol. 5, no. 2, 1946, www-jstor-org.ez- 468886a954b3. Accessed 17 Dec. 2018.
Wolfgang digs deeper into the characteristics of the Baroque period. Particularly the proper way how defining the term baroque which also coincides with how baroque should be identified. When outlining the key components in the selected artworks, this article will be able to give a deeper analysis to the shared components.

Pijoan, Jose. “Romanesque Baroque.” The Art Bulletin, vol. 8, no. 4, 1926, www-jstor-org.ez- 28940dc2cd82b. 17 Dec. 2018.
This article makes a point in claiming that different art period throughout history are often a reaction to its precedent art period and can show a blend of the itself and the precedent art period in the beginning and blend of itself and its subsequent art period. This main point can aid in following the time events of the Baroque period.

final project


First off I am not really “good” at drawing but am proud that I could figure out the anatomy of the body. I think  got the idea of the male figure close enough but it still needs proper proportions.

The first problem that I had to over come was finding where to start for portions.  The length of the torso did not mach well with the rest of the body because I had started on the shoulders first and the rest of the body sort of didn’t fit into the structure and made the legs way too small and arms too short

The second one I had started on the chest down so it could better manage the portions to scale but it had issues with drawing the legs and arms. The thighs are some how small than the legs  and it looks weird the top haft seem fine but i couldn’t get the muscles to look quite right.

So I tried again with a bigger scale and it work pretty well. it fix my focus on the overall structure of the body but I still suck at drawing hands and feet so it still a failure

last one is really the better one where I learn more about curvature of lines than trying to correct them get the lines in one go or redo it because it makes it clearer. Final thoughts would be that I’ll keep drawing for a while see if i improve