The Annotated Mona Lisa: Pages 56 - 59

Question 1

Vermeer: Master of Light

Answer 1

• Johannes Vermeer (1632-75)
• no painter except perhaps van Eyck was as skillful as Vermeer in use of light
• often applied paint in dabs and pricks so that the raised surface of a point of paint reflected more light

Question 2

English Baroque

Answer 2

• seventeenth century
• religious art was forbidden in Puritan churches
• limited to almost exclusively portraits

Question 3

Hogarth: The Artist as Social Critic

Answer 3

• William Hogarth (1697-1764)
• influenced by Fielding and Swift
• invented the comic strip

Question 4

Gainsborough: Back to Nature

Answer 4

• learned from Van Dyck
• painted landscapes
• refreshed British art

Question 5

Reynolds: Homage to Rome

Answer 5

• people say he became deaf from spending too much time sketching Raphaels that hung in the Vatican
• idealized reality

Question 6

Baroque Architecture: St. Paul’s Cathedral

Answer 6

• design by Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723)
• intended to rival Rome’s St. Peter’s Cathedral
• forty year undertaking
• Wren was a mathematician and astronomer praised by Sir Isaac Newton