FLORENTINE RENAISSANCE
STYLE
Renaissance Backdrop
- Three major
transitional figures
- The Paradox of the
Church’s over-concern for secular issues
- Clergy amasses
worldly goods, political power, and seems to have little concern for the
downtrodden
- Popes get
involved in military battles
- Church loses
credibility; who assumes control?
- Economically-
rise of merchant class (especially in Florence)
- Socially- return
to classical idea that "man is the measure of all things" (Cf.
Protagoras)
Florence:
The Cradle of Civilization
Competition in sculpture
- 1401; six
sculptors asked to submit bronze sculptures portraying the Sacrifice of
Isaac
- Filippo
Brunelleschi
- Lorenzo Ghiberti
- Ghilberti
wins; goes to work on Baptistry panels for
north doors (20 over 24 years)
- East doors:
1425-1452
- Story of Adam
and Eve
Brunelleschi after the competition: J or L ?…
- Away with
Donatello to Rome
- Pazzi
Chapel
Brunelleschi’s attempt to design the Medici’s Palace
Architecture in Paintings
- Architecture is
clearly an established, recognized art form with an importance and value
far beyond its pragmatic utility
Donatello
- "the
immediate artistic ancestor of Michelangelo"
More sculptors: Pollaiuolo and Verrochio
- Antonio Pollaiulo, Hercules Strangling Antaeus
- Andrea Del Verocchio, David
Painting
- Atmospheric
perspective- painting characters in space with factors of environment
(e.g., light, mass, air):
- A feature of
sculpture brought to painting
- Expulsion from
the Garden : Brancacci Chapel
o
Light- shadows, body, space, time (haste in
leaving…)
o
Nakedness in church? Yes, if the subject
matter was appropriate.
o
Light- shadows
o
Peter appears three times: spatial separation
of scenes
- Mystic painter:
"found angels as real as his fellow human beings"
- Vision-like
depiction
- Light and
shadows are not as natural or prevalent as Masaccio’s frescos
- Annunciation :
Monastery of San Marco
Video questions for Art of the Western
World: Early Renaissance:
Describe the challenge that adding a dome to Florence cathedral presented?
What is the general plan of Brunelleschi’s dome?
Describe the relationship between architecture and Florentine Renaissance
painting.
Painting (revisited)
Mosaccio
Fra Angelico
Fra Filippo Lippi
-Worked with Fra
Angelico
-Teacher of Botticelli
Benozzo
Gozzoli
o
Unlike Angelico, focus is on this world
o
Journey of the Magi
o
Why the well-to-do liked this story
o
Piero
Medici- Son of Cosimo; art patron- leads procession
Paulo Uccello
- Known for
grappling with the problem of linear perspective (how to use lines
to create appearance of depth)
- E.g. Battle of
San Romano
- Never solved the
linear problem; and worse, focusing so much on the problem of l. p.
detracted from his development of light/shade and depth of characters
(esp. horses)
"Always a pupil;
never a master"?
Piero
del Francesca
- Becomes master of
linear perspective;
- Knowledgeable of
atmospheric perspective
- But his figures
are less naturalistic than Mosaccio
- Resurrection
- Baptism of
Jesus
Sandro
Botticelli
- Recall: Botticelli
received training from Lippi;
- Botticelli shares
some of Angelico’s spiritual emphasis
- Allegory of Spring
(La Primavera) 1478
-From right to left:
Zephyrus (wind god), Chloris (spring nymph), Flora
(goddess of flowers), Cupid (above Venus), Venus, Three Graces (daughters of
Zeus), Mercury (messenger of the gods)
-Venus is pregnant; (Mary
the Mother of Jesus?)
-background is more like a
scene from a Hitchcock movie than a natural backdrop
-figures seem to float
(spiritual)
-Contrast with Mosaccio; compare to Angelico
-spiritual truth caught b/t
winds of passion and comfort of reason
-Neoplatonic
expression; the soul is free to choose b/t the world of appearance (the sensible,
material world for Plato is only a mere copy of True Reality) and the world of
ideas (true beauty for Plato is to be found in the non-sensible world of Ideas)
Leonardo da Vinci (1495-1498)
-born in Vinci (within 25 miles of Florence)
- Virgin and Child with
St. Anne and St. John the Baptist
(Fig. 9.25)
- Madonna of the Rocks
(Fig. 9.26)
- Da
Vinci avoids Philosophy and Literature, but makes focused observations of
Nature
- Uses
atmospheric perspective
- Jesus is calm,
central figure; outstretched arms of Jesus form triangle
- Apostles in 4
groups of 3
- Judas is juxtaposed
in group b/t John and Peter (for contrast)
- The last two faces painted-
Jesus, Judas
- For artistic
purposes, Da Vinci paints on dried plaster using
oils and tempera. Effects on permanence?
IDEAS
"There is
nothing to be seen more wonderful than man…the intermediary between creatures,
the intimate of higher beings and the king of lower beings, the interpreter of
nature by the sharpness of his senses, by the questing curiosity of his reason,
and by the light of his intelligence, the interval between eternity and the
flow of time…"
-Pico della
Mirandola Oration
http://news.discovery.com/history/michelangelos-david-as-it-was-meant-to-be-seen.html
Scientific
Naturalism
Renaissance Individualism
Niccolo
Machiavelli’s The Prince
- Utilitarianism
and practicality versus the ideal (Real world or utopia?)
- On
generosity, On cruelty, On being loved or feared: American foreign policy