ROMAN RENAISSANCE STYLE

FLORENTINE RENAISSANCE continued

ROMAN RENAISSANCE STYLE I of II

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

Birth of Venus

-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)

Adoration of the Magi

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. 9.2)

Madonna of the Rocks
(Fig. 9.28)

Da Vinci avoids Philosophy and Literature, but makes focused observations of Nature

Uses atmospheric perspective

Last Supper
1495-1498

Jesus is calm, central figure; outstretched arms of Jesus form triangle

Around Christ is turmoil

"Surely not I, Lord"

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

Classical Humanism:

"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

Scientific Naturalism

Renaissance Individualism

Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince

Utilitarianism and practicality versus the ideal (Real world or utopia?)

What is human nature?

On generosity, On cruelty, On being loved or feared: American foreign policy

ROMAN RENAISSANCE II of II

Michelangelo Buonarroti

"The man who bears the palm of all the ages, transcending and eclipsing all the rest, is the divine M. Buonarroti, who is supreme not in one art only but in all three at once." (Vasari)

Michelangelo considers himself first and foremost a sculptor

Sculpture

Pieta
; 1498-9
Pyramidal composition (see Francesca, Da Vinci)

Mary: pensive and not overrun with unconstrained sorrow

Jesus: classical god-like design, shorter than Mary for compact effect

Projected tomb for Julius II

Bound Slave

Boboli Captive

Moses

The biblical Moses and the Renaissance Moses

Painting

Sistine Ceiling frescoes
The three levels and Neoplatonism

The return to God, Neoplatonism, and an introduction to Hinduism

"In the words of Pico della Mirandola, the human being ‘withdraws into the center of his own oneness, his spirit made one with God.’ "

Hinduism’s Atman and Brahman; samsara and moksha

Brahman® universal soul

Atman® individual soul

samsara® cycle of rebirth

moksha® release from this world

From anthropomorphism to true knowledge? (Creation of Adam) to (God Dividing Light from Darkness)

Michelangelo: Architecture

Dome of St. Peter’s

Raphael: an artist-scholar

School of Athens
; 1501-11

How different are Plato and Aristotle?

Writing style

Idealism versus scientific materialism

Mode of gaining knowledge

Ideas: Humanism, Revival of Classical Forms, Pagan versus Christian Ideals