Wolfflin in the 21st Century

I thought it would interesting to try to apply Wolfflin's categories of the Classic and Baroque to a 17th c. American painting and a 21st c. installation piece by Kiki Smith both at the de Young Museum.

The Mason Children of 1670 demonstrates Wolfflin's principles of linearity, the development of a 2-d plane, closed composition, multiplicity and unity and absolute clarity of the subject.

Kiki Smith incorporated copper silhouettes of 2 of the figures from this painting into an installation piece that was commissioned for the re-opening of the de Young in 2005. They are framed by a deconstructed aluminum casting of a cardboard box. To the left are 200 glass teardrops hung from the ceiling by wire threads. When viewed at eye level from a 2nd story vantage point, this piece still exemplifies some of the classic elements of the original painting. But when seen from below, on the first floor of the contemporary gallery, it explodes into a shifting semblance in 3 dimensional space demonstrating Wolfflin's Baroque in an artwork of the 21st century.