Notes, summaries, assignments, exams, and problems for Arts and Humanities

Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe by Edouard Manet: A Closer Look

Techniques and Styles

Unconventional painting methods angered the public. Manet abandoned chiaroscuro in favor of sharp contrasts between light and shade. He painted shapes with large patches of pure color for greater modernity and vitality. Critics called his style "spotty." The intense green enlivens the landscape, the yellows and reds dominate the still life, while the pure white and smooth skin tones reduce Victorine's body to nearly flat surfaces of light.

Manet, in his execution, leaves the careful style of academic literature. He draws the figures without contour lines. The background has no details, it is simply outlined. It has a total disregard for the rules of perspective. The... Continue reading "Edouard Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe: A Deep Dive" »

Key Features of Drama

1. Inseparable Link Between Text and Performance: Drama features a dual stage design, meaning the written text is intrinsically linked to its theatrical representation. While the text can be read individually, its true dimension is realized on stage.
2. Use of Verbal and Non-Verbal Codes: The staging process involves a variety of codes, including verbal (dialogue) and non-verbal elements like lighting and costumes.
3. Collective Communication: Drama is a collective communicative process, both in its creation (involving the author, stage manager, and others) and its reception (while individual reading is possible, the primary experience is collective, in a theater).

Theatrical Elements

Elements of the Written Text

• Text A: This includes

The Language

Symbolic Language: Opening a Shared World

Human speech is an interpersonal communication system that carries three functions:

• Representative: Linguistic signs are symbols used to represent states.
• Expressive: Language signs are signs that show the states of the speaker.
• Appeals: Linguistic signs are signals routed to the caller, for which a reaction is expected.

With this triple function, human communication and the creation of a shared world are achieved.

Knowledge and Language

Language has a very close relationship with both the activity known as to its outcome: knowledge.

Regarding knowledge acquired via linguistic knowledge, it is conserved through language and shared with others because we can communicate it.

These three relationships... Continue reading "Human Language: Knowledge and Communication" »

The House of Bernarda Alba

The culmination of Lorca's theater comes with The House of Bernarda Alba, written in the spring of 1939 and published in 1945 in Buenos Aires.

The book is subtitled A Drama of Women in the Villages of Spain. The subject of the play is an exaggeration of a rural practice where Bernarda Alba, after the death of her husband, requires her children to undergo a long and strict confinement. It has come to be said that the central theme of the play is the confrontation between authority and freedom, with Bernarda Alba representing authority.

In the play, there are a series of secondary issues such as social inequality and the status of women in society. The action takes place in a confined space (the house), which represents... Continue reading "Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba and Essay Writing" »

Literary Genres

Literary works are grouped according to their specific characteristics, giving rise to the literary genres: narrative, lyric, tragic, essay, and others.

Forms of Expression in Literary Works

• Narration: Refers to how to relate actions and events performed by the characters in a play.
• Descriptions: Points out the salient features of people, animals, places, objects, and events, rich in words and pictures.
• Dialogue: Plays the conversation of the characters, what they feel and what they think.
• Exposition: Presents, explains, and clarifies the content in an organized and understandable manner.

Elements of the Narrative

• The narrator describes what happens in the text and can be a character or a witness.
  • Protagonist: Presents the facts as if

The Scream by Edvard Munch

About the Artist: Edvard Munch

• Born: December 12, 1863, Løten, Norway.
• Childhood: Marked by profound loss (his mother and later his sister Sophie died of tuberculosis), which profoundly influenced his artistic themes of sickness, insanity, and death.
• Early Career: At 17, he decided to become a painter. He enrolled at Christiania Bohemia, where artists and writers sought to challenge societal hypocrisy and narrow moral and ethical principles.
• Paris (1889): During the Impressionist revolution, Munch wrote his manifesto against Naturalism.
• Later Works: From 1902, his paintings were integrated into a "Mural of Life," which included works like The Kiss, Anguish, and The Scream.
• Health: In 1908, Munch's anxiety reached such a

Principles of Visual Representation

1. Multiple Application: A single form can represent various objects or body parts.
2. Baseline: Characters and objects need a base or fulcrum, mirrored by a skyline.
3. Perpendicularity: Objects rest perpendicularly on their base, even on slanted surfaces.
4. Size Importance: The most important elements are larger than secondary ones.
5. Isolation of Parts: In sets, draw similar elements individually to show their properties (e.g., hand and fingers).
6. Territorial Imperative: Each element has inviolable space, avoiding overlaps. Hats are tangential to the head.
7. Exemplary Manner: Choose the representation that best highlights an object's main qualities, favoring orthogonal projections.
8. Depression: Draw vertical elements (people,

Analysis of Key Spanish Literary Works

The House of Bernarda Alba (20th Century) by Federico García Lorca

The House of Bernarda Alba is Lorca's last great drama. It exemplifies the theatrical style he developed during the final stage of his career. Perhaps the most important ethical lesson of the work is that moral codes should not supersede the needs of individuals, and society must adapt its principles to accommodate them. Federico García Lorca demonstrates that outdated rules lead to unfortunate situations for women. Bernarda creates and enforces a morality she inherited.

The House of Bernarda Alba is simple and severe in the following aspects:

• The structure consists of three acts.
• The language is generally medium register, although vulgar

Media: Transmitting Information

The media are systems through which information is transmitted to a wider audience, also called mass media. (Press, radio, and television).

Press: The Oldest Medium

In Spain, the first newspapers date from the eighteenth century.

Language of the Press

• Written word: Texts must be clear and easy to understand.
• Still image: Information complemented with images.
• Design elements: Major elements such as font and color.

Radio: Sound Medium

Verbal language, music, sound effects (recording or effects), silence.

Television: Moving Images

Its beginning dates back to 1929. Social influence. Aspects of the moving image. Uses music and sound effects. Dominates the spoken language.

Internet: Vast Hypertext

Multimedia language is used.

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