Bernard Smith Collection

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Bernard Smith was an Australian art historian, art critic and academic, including at the University of Melbourne. He has been described as the founder of Australian Art History, and his presence and influence in Australian cultural life immense. This is one of many of his lectures given in the Fine Arts Department of the University of Melbourne between 1956 and 1966 and at a time when it was the only art history department in an Australian university. They are lectures in the history of art that range from Palaeolithic to the Romantic Movement. These lectures are presented as originally written and are archival in nature with no attempt to bring them up-to-date. They belong to their time

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 35
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    Assyrian art
    Smith, Bernard (1956)
    Lecture
    The last phase of Mesopotamian art that will concern us [is] Assyrian art. It covers a period from about 1350 B.C. down to 612 B.C. Assyrian art may be taken therefore to be roughly contemporaneous with the first two important phases of Greek art, that is the Geometric and the Orientalising phases. But the spiritual temper of Assyrian art was, remarkably different from that of Greek art.
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    Baroque and Rococo
    Smith, Bernard (1956-1966)
    Lecture
    This is one of 10 lectures in Smith's Renaissance art series. These include presentations on Baroque and Rococo; Dutch Art; Dutch Art in the Seventeenth Century; The Fifteenth Century; Giotto and Trecento Painting; High Renaissance; High Renaissance and Mannerism; Mannerist Architecture and Baroque; Rembrandt and Tiepolo. Despite new stirrings of originality in Italy, Italian thirteenth century architecture, sculpture and painting is still dominated by the Gothic style. France remained at this time the art centre of the world; and the current of influence still swept from north o south, from France and Germany into Italy. During the first half of the fourteenth century, however, that is, during the Trecento, Italy saw daring innovations and developments in the art of painting and in painting became the most advanced country of the west; so that for painting, at least, the current of influence, after many centuries, changed and began to flow from Italy to the north.
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    Carolingian art, Parts 1 and 2
    Smith, Bernard (1956-1966)
    Lecture
    By Carolingian art we refer to the art which was produced under the direct influence of the court of Charles the Great or Charlemagne who became king of the Franks in 768 and Emperor of the West in 800. Carolingian art marks an important chapter in the history of art because it may be said to mark the dawn, (or true beginning) of the art of western Europe.
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    Dutch art
    Smith, Bernard (1956-1966)
    Lecture
    This is one of 10 lectures in Smith's Renaissance art series. These include presentations on Baroque and Rococo; Dutch Art; Dutch Art in the Seventeenth Century; The Fifteenth Century; Giotto and Trecento Painting; High Renaissance; High Renaissance and Mannerism; Mannerist Architecture and Baroque; Rembrandt and Tiepolo. Despite new stirrings of originality in Italy, Italian thirteenth century architecture, sculpture and painting is still dominated by the Gothic style. France remained at this time the art centre of the world; and the current of influence still swept from north o south, from France and Germany into Italy. During the first half of the fourteenth century, however, that is, during the Trecento, Italy saw daring innovations and developments in the art of painting and in painting became the most advanced country of the west; so that for painting, at least, the current of influence, after many centuries, changed and began to flow from Italy to the north.
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    Dutch art in the seventeenth century
    Smith, Bernard (1956-1966)
    Lecture
    This is one of 10 lectures in Smith's Renaissance art series. These include presentations on Baroque and Rococo; Dutch Art; Dutch Art in the Seventeenth Century; The Fifteenth Century; Giotto and Trecento Painting; High Renaissance; High Renaissance and Mannerism; Mannerist Architecture and Baroque; Rembrandt and Tiepolo. Despite new stirrings of originality in Italy, Italian thirteenth century architecture, sculpture and painting is still dominated by the Gothic style. France remained at this time the art centre of the world; and the current of influence still swept from north o south, from France and Germany into Italy. During the first half of the fourteenth century, however, that is, during the Trecento, Italy saw daring innovations and developments in the art of painting and in painting became the most advanced country of the west; so that for painting, at least, the current of influence, after many centuries, changed and began to flow from Italy to the north.
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    Early Christian and Byzantine art , June 1958
    Smith, Bernard (1958)
    Lecture
    In order to understand how Christianity slowly fashioned a completely new form of art out of the art of the Roman world, we must appreciate how man's opinion of himself greatly changed from early classical times down to the late Roman Empire. The masterpiece of fifth century Greece, such as the Apollo on the west pediment of the temple of Zeus at Olympia represent the classical ideal of self-sufficient man. A man capable of both understanding and controlling his environment - it is ideal man - man seen and fashioned as one of the gods.
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    Early Christian and Byzantine art, 1957
    Smith, Bernard (1957)
    Lecture
    In order to understand how Christianity slowly fashioned a completely new form of art out of the art of the Roman world, we must appreciate how man's opinion of himself greatly changed from early classical times down to the late Roman Empire. The masterpiece of fifth century Greece, such as the Apollo on the west pediment of the temple of Zeus at Olympia represent the classical ideal of self-sufficient man. A man capable of both understanding and controlling his environment - it is ideal man - man seen and fashioned as one of the gods.
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    Giotto and Trecento painting
    Smith, Bernard (1956-1966)
    Lecture
    This is one of 10 lectures in Smith's Renaissance art series. These include presentations on Baroque and Rococo; Dutch Art; Dutch Art in the Seventeenth Century; The Fifteenth Century; Giotto and Trecento Painting; High Renaissance; High Renaissance and Mannerism; Mannerist Architecture and Baroque; Rembrandt and Tiepolo. Despite new stirrings of originality in Italy, Italian thirteenth century architecture, sculpture and painting is still dominated by the Gothic style. France remained at this time the art centre of the world; and the current of influence still swept from north o south, from France and Germany into Italy. During the first half of the fourteenth century, however, that is, during the Trecento, Italy saw daring innovations and developments in the art of painting and in painting became the most advanced country of the west; so that for painting, at least, the current of influence, after many centuries, changed and began to flow from Italy to the north.
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    Giovanni Battista Tiepolo
    Smith, Bernard (1956-1966)
    Lecture
    Giovanni Battista Tiepolo - or Giambattista, as he was commonly known - was, in his own day, undoubtedly the most famous artist in Europe. Certainly he could command the highest prices. But in English-speaking countries he is today not as well-known as Hogarth, Reynolds and Gainsborough - which is understandable - nor as well known perhaps Watteau and Boucher or even his fellow-countryman, Piranesi and Canaletto. Tiepolo is seen and enjoyed, if he is seen and enjoyed at all, as an end not a beginning. Since the romantics we have been trained to enjoy innovators rather than those who gather fruit from old wood. Tiepolo, as Rudolf Wittkower has neatly put it, 'was the last link in a long chain'. Certainly when one looks at the historical record everything seems to point that way. But was he really the last link in a chain?
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    Goya
    Smith, Bernard (1963)
    Lecture
    During the eighteenth century the Spanish Colonial Empire lost ground rapidly to France and England, and the Spanish Monarchy, unlike many European monarchies, did not respond to the ideas of the Enlightenment. But eighteenth century Spain inherited a great tradition of painting from such masters as El Greco (Fear in the House of Simon), Velasquez (Pope Innocent X), Zurbaran (St Jerome) and Murillo. It was a painterly tradition, and it was this painterly tradition which Francisco Goya inherited. In his work, the painterly fluency of the Baroque, the Rococo and of the Venetians, survived the neo-classical attack upon painterly painting. Goya has often been called the last of the old masters and the first of the new.