Parsing time, Parsing styles (~1400)

• Limitations of parsing styles
• Three major transitional figures
• St. Francis
• Giotto
• Dante
• The Paradox of the Church’s over-concern for secular issues
• The old problem again: What on earth is the kingdom of God?
• An acceptable answer?:
• A minimum ideal for this world?:
• Church should care about moral issues, fair-play in economics, providing for the poor, and at least working towards a world that is consistent with what is to come (St. Benedict: have your focus on spiritual things)
• What’s really going on:
• 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
• Socially- return to classical idea that "man is the measure of all things" (Cf. Protagoras)

• 1401; six sculptors asked to submit bronze sculptures portraying the Sacrifice of Isaac
• Filippo Brunelleschi
  

• Lorenzo Ghilberti
  
• Ghilberti wins; goes to work on Baptistry panels for north doors (20 over 24 years)
• East doors: 1425-1452
• Story of Adam and Eve
  

• Away with Donatello to Rome
• Brunelleschi’s Dome
  

• 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"
  

• The Prophet
  

• David
  

• See Hellenic Praxiteles:
  

• Repentant Magdalene
  

More sculptors: Pollaiuolo and Verrochio

• Antonio Pollaiulo, Hercules Strangling Antaeus
  

• Andrea Del Verocchio, David
  

Painting

• Masaccio

• 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

• Light- shadows, body, space, time (haste in leaving…)

• Nakedness in church? Yes, if the subject matter was appropriate.

• Tribute Money
  

• Light- shadows
• Peter appears three times: spatial separation of scenes

• Fra Angelico

• 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)

• Adoration ; 1459

• Features worth noting:

• Pupil of Angelico

• Unlike Angelico, focus is on this world

• Journey of the Magi 

• Why the well-to-do liked this story
• Piero Medici- Son of Cosimo; art patron- leads procession

• 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)

• Becomes master of linear perspective;
• Knowledgeable of atmospheric perspective
• But his figures are less naturalistic than Mosaccio

• Resurrection 
• Baptism of Jesus