● How do Baroque-era artworks differ between Northern Europe and Southern
Europe? Make sure to focus on one example of each and discuss the historic
context/reasons behind these differences
Sample Solution
Northern European Baroque artworks are generally focused on religious and spiritual themes, with strong influence from the Catholic Church. For example, Rembrandt’s The Prodigal Son is an excellent example of a Northern European Baroque artwork that depicts the Christian parable of the same name. This painting demonstrates the dark and lit contrasts characteristic of Northern European Baroque-era artwork, as well as its focus on religious narratives.
Southern European Baroque artworks are often much more theatrical and dynamic than their Northern counterparts, due to their close connection with public performances like opera and theatre. One example is Francisco de Zurbaran’s Immaculate Conception (ca 1640), which features a powerful female figure surrounded by angels in a vivid landscape. This painting exemplifies Southern European Baroque’s grandiosity along with its focus on dramatic i
Sample Solution
Northern European Baroque artworks are generally focused on religious and spiritual themes, with strong influence from the Catholic Church. For example, Rembrandt’s The Prodigal Son is an excellent example of a Northern European Baroque artwork that depicts the Christian parable of the same name. This painting demonstrates the dark and lit contrasts characteristic of Northern European Baroque-era artwork, as well as its focus on religious narratives.
Southern European Baroque artworks are often much more theatrical and dynamic than their Northern counterparts, due to their close connection with public performances like opera and theatre. One example is Francisco de Zurbaran’s Immaculate Conception (ca 1640), which features a powerful female figure surrounded by angels in a vivid landscape. This painting exemplifies Southern European Baroque’s grandiosity along with its focus on dramatic i
The U.S. intelligence additionally failed in Iraq because of poor planning and approach to Iraq’s domestics after the invasion, thus failing in its aim to create a democratic American control state in the Middle East. The reason failure begins from the foundations, where general Steve Hawkins was given the role of planning the occupation and reconstruction of Iran, however Hawkins had no Iraq-specific knowledge (Fitzgerald and Lebow 2007) making him a questionable choice from the authorities. Before the invasion the CIA had multiple simulations to foreshadow a post-Saddam Iraq, which demonstrated high civil disorder, as a result the CIA ordered the Pentagon to not view these trials. This makes us question if the intelligence really wanted this intervention in Iraq to succeed or wanted to propagate further chaos in the area in order to have long-term war effects to create weapon trade system and prolong the duties of the intelligence agencies. Additionally, if the Pentagon showed that the postwar situation would be dangerous the Congress would not have been as willing to support the invasion (2007). The results of the simulations matched the reality, the illusion that the U.S. wanted as saviors remained an illusion replaced by the world’s view of the U.S. as invaders. The U.S. aimed to have further control on Iraq and Middle East by placing a puppet leader, but this failed because the new leader had no support of the Iraqi population and failed to build coalition with the citizens’ opinions (Lebow 2008). This resulted in violent resistance against the new regime that as we know today has lead to the polarization of groups in the area. The reason of failure of U.S. intelligence once in Iraq is again fueled from self-interest, it wanted influence in the area but resulted in creating further chaos, it expected the people to welcome democracy but completely ignored the different perspectives and culture shock of different nations, it ignored the fact that not every country is America. Additionally, they also assumed that Iraq’s regime wasn’t as corrupt and that their economy would be stronger. U.S. aimed to depose Saddam’s regime, liberate Iraq and watch the nation rebuild itself (Fitzgerald and Lebow 2007), a completely unrealistic foreign policy analysis, the invasion would have been a complete metamorphosis of Iraq’s ideals its impossible to expect direct change and success. This once again demonstrated the weak nature of the U.S. intelligence and leaders due to their lack of analysis and their correct application, making us question why they would delude themselves if it would result in their failure.
