Analysis of Themes in Different Art Works.Visual & Performing Arts

Analysis of Themes in Different Art Works
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Question 1
The 15th and 16th centuries are described as the Age of Exploration due to the new lands and cultures witnessed in the European culture. The exploration resulted in new subjects and themes for visual culture and art. Some of these new ideas are described using Arnolfini portrait, vertumnus, and Melencolia I. There were new ideas on the subject matter, new ways of presenting visual information, and new themes found in art during the period. The images also involved new techniques, materials, and audiences, which developed as alternative and new ways of selling artworks. 
Arnolfini Portrait
This is an oil painting done on oak panel by Jan van Eyck, forming a full-length double portrait.1 It depicts Giovanni di Nicoao Arnolfini and his wife at their residence. The painting is among the most complex and original due to its complex iconography, beauty, expansion of picture space, and geometry (orthogonal perspective) through the use of a mirror.  
Eyck applied several layers of thin and translucent glazes in creating the painting to give it an intensity of color and tone.2 The glowing colors used highlight the realism and demonstrate the opulence and material wealth of that era. Further, oils make the portrait three-dimensional and enabled Eyck distinguish textures and capture surface appearances. 
The painting promotes the theme of illusionism, which was common during that time. Light is used to evoke space in the interior.3 Therefore, the artist used this approach to present a painting of real day to day life during the 15th century and modern times. This helped the painting gain relevance and increase sales. 
 Figure 1: Arnolfini
Vertumnus by Giuseppe Arcimboldo
Arcimboldo was a famous Italian painter famous for creating imaginative portraits of heads using vegetables, fruits, fish, flowers, and books.4 He made portraits for three Holy Roman Emperors and also produced various religious subjects such as colored drawings of exotic animals.  The still-life portraits he created were targeted to be whimsical curiosities so as to attract viewers and amuse the court. In creating vertumnus, the painter created the portrait of Rudolf II, the Holy Roman Emperor, but re-imagined it as vertumnus, the god of metamorphoses in life and nature.  
Arcimboldo used fruits and flowers from all seasons to symbolize the perfect harmony and balance experienced with nature during the reign of this emperor. The portraits also expressed the painter’s fascination with puzzles, riddles, and the bizarre, which was characteristic of this period (Renaissance).5 He also adopted this method as one of the ways of communicating some these like the relationship between good leadership and harmony; he also aimed at increasing sales. Although his traditional religious works were forgotten, his contemporaries greatly admired the portraits he had created using fruits and flowers.  
Figure 2: Vertumnus by Giuseppe Arcimboldo
Melencolia I
This engraving was created by Albrecht Dürer. It contains a gloomy and engigmatic winged female who is a personi...