
Starr Career Workshop

A Blogs@Baruch site
This past week, my friend and I took a trip to the metropolitan Museum of Art. Out of all the amazing exhibits that they have, we chose to go to the European exhibit. We walked around the beautiful art pieces, from sculptures to paintings. Out of all the art pieces we passed by, two Italian pieces stood out. One of the paintings that was interesting was a portrait from 1470 of a young man painted by Biagio d’Antonio. Biagio d’Antonio was influenced by Andrea Verrocchio. The depiction of the young man himself was drawn in great detail, but the background scenery was drawn with even greater detail. Biagio detailed the hills, a lake, trees and drew it wonderfully, using different perspective techniques (that we learned in art history class) such as overlapping and atmospheric perspective. The second art piece that I had admired was a piece painted by Francesco Francia in 1550-1540. This picture was painted for a great Renaissance collector, Isabella d’Este. Her son, Frederigo Gonzaga was taken as hostage by the papal court in Rome as a hostage, therefore they gave her this painting (that was of her son) to help console her. These paintings, amongst many others, are magnificent to look at. Each piece of art has its own history and reasoning for it, and it is so interesting to look into. Another reason why this trip to the museum was so interesting for me is that I can understand techniques and reasoning’s for these art pieces. Taking art history gave me a different outlook on the pieces of art and left a long-lasting appreciation for it too.
-Sarah Natanov