Post on 19-May-2015
“The Renaissance Man”
Leonardo MichelangeloRaphael Titian
Europe, 1500-1600
ItalyDates and Places: • 1500 to 1600• High Ren. (1495-1520)
• Rome, Florence
Milan, and Venice
Events & People:• Humanism• Reformation/
Counter-Reformation• Powerful courts &
Catholic church• Artist-genius –
raised funds for elaborate art projectshighly competitive
ItalyThemes:• Life of Christ and the Virgin Mary,
saints• Portraiture• Classical mythology/antiquity• Allegory, poesia• Nature as muse
Forms:• Balance, harmony, ideal beauty
(Greco-Roman)• Disegno (drawing & design) • Venetian color (colorito), Mannerist
distortion• Fresco (buon and secco)
RAPHAEL, Madonna in the Meadow, 1505–1506. Fig. 9-6.
Italy
LEONARDO DA VINCI, Last Supper, ca. 1495–1498. Fig. 9-3., 13’x29’
Italy• Fresco secco (dried plaster)• Mathematical linear
perspective • Compositional
emphasis on Christ• Unity through pose
and movement• Studied emotion (fear/doubt)
and subtle action• Capturing the observable world
(halo behind Christ created by light)
• Numerical symbolism (4 & 3 = earthly & divine)
• Pictorial unity vs. iconography
LEONARDO DA VINCI, Last Supper, ca. 1495–church refectory, 1498. Fig. 9-3.
Where’s Judas?
Andrea del Castagno, Last Supper, 1447
Homage or Mockery?Appropriating Renaissance Art
Yo Mama’s Last Supper, Renee Cox, 1996
Andy Warhol’s Mona Lisa, 1963Serigraph
Marcel DuchampL.H.O.O.Q, 1917Assisted readymade
RAPHAEL, Philosophy (School of Athens), 1509–1511. Fig.9-7.
Italy• Pope Julius II, patron• Four branches of
knowledge - philosophy, theology, poetry, and law
• Philosophers of antiquity• Semi-circular
composition, illusionistic space (Roman vaults)
• Unity achieved through interlocking poses and gestures
• Michelangelo as Heraclitus, the loner in the foreground
RAPHAEL, Philosophy (School of Athens), 1509–1511. Fig.9-7.
Stanza della Segnatura, Library, Papal apartments
Apollo Athena
Plato Aristotle
heaven(metaphysical)
Earth(material)
Italy
MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI, David, 1501–1504. Fig. 9-9.
“…the hands work and the eye judges”
-Michelangelo
Italy• Visually pleasing
proportion (contrapposto), not mathematical rules (slight distortion)
• Classical figure; intense concentration
• Anticipation of battle with Goliath, not victory
• Symbol Florentine power over Medici (stood outside city hall)
• Carved out of single block of discarded marble ( “the giant”) MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI,
David, 1501–1504. Fig. 9-9.
17’
Donatello’s David, 1440-60
Italy
MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI, ceiling, Sistine Chapel, 1508–
1512. Fig. 9-10.
5,800 sq.ft!!
131’
43’
Italy• Pope Julius II, patron• Old Testament scenes on
ceiling, Judgment on wall• Creation, Fall, Redemption
narratives• Ignudi, ancestors, prophets,
sibyls (over 300 figures) • Curved, irregular leaky
ceiling w/ illusionistic paint.• Expressive and
hypermuscular male and female forms (“bags of walnuts”)
In Vatican (Pope’s chapel)
spandrel
lunette
Painted standing up. not lying down!
pendentive
MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI,
Detail of Sistine Chapel
(Cumaean Sibyl), 1508–
1512.
The Creation of Adam, MichelangeloSistine Chapel, fig. 9-11
Sculptural painting Nondescript, unformed landscape Spark of life given to Adam’s limp form Eve or Virgin Mary and Christ?
The Agony and the Ecstasy, 1965
http://www.reelz.com/trailer-clips/44748/the-agony-and-the-ecstasy-trailer/
Italy - Venice
Giorgione, The Tempest, 1510,
oil on canvas
Oil on canvas Colorito – love of color Nudes in landscape (nature as muse) Allegorical More secular
Italy - Venice
TITIAN, Venus of Urbino, 1538. Fig.9-20.
Italy - Venice• Painted for Duke of Urbino• Venetian painters love color
(colorito), atmosphere, texture
• Oil on canvas glows• Color organizes composition
(use of red)• Voluptuous body with smoky
shadow • Servants search for clothes in
background• In contemporary setting• Recognizable portrait
(courtesan?) or allegory? (Venus—Roman goddess of love, beauty)
Titian Venus of Urbino (1538) & Giorgione Sleeping Venus (1510)
Italy - Architecture
ANDREA PALLADIO, Villa Rotonda, ca. 1550–1570. Fig.9-16.
Italy• Private villa (for
entertaining)• Near Venice (Vicenza)• Central plan• Dome over crossing
(inspired by Roman pantheon)
• Four facades like Roman Ionic temple portals
• Wrote architectural treatise (like Alberti, studied Vitruvius)
ANDREA PALLADIO, Villa Rotonda, ca. 1550–1570. Fig.9-16.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byH_L1yo2Lw&feature=related
Italy - Mannerism
• Mannerist painting after 1520
• Courtly style • Self-conscious stylishness,
not window onto world • Complex, exaggerated,
difficult, ambiguous, intentionally distorted
• Unstable composition, unnatural color
• Often erotic in tone
Parmigianino, Madonna with the Long Neck, 1534-40, Fig. 9-22.
Italy
.
BRONZINO, Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time, ca. 1546.
Fig. 9-23.
Italy• Mannerist complicated
allegory • Symbolism (masks =
deceit; old woman = jealousy (or syphilis?)
• Folly of love revealed by time (see hourglass)
• Lascivious, sensuous (erotic interaction between Cupid and Venus)
• Strong contours, undulating and graceful treatment of extremities
BRONZINO, Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time, ca. 1546.
Fig. 9-23.
Holy Roman EmpireDates and Places: • 1500-1600• Germany
People:• Martin Luther• Protestant Reformation
(1517) - salvation by faith and grace, not works and ecclesiastical intercession
• Iconoclasm & change in politics, religion, art
ALBRECHT DÜRER, Four Apostles, 1526. Fig. 9-30.
Holy Roman EmpireThemes:• Life of Christ, Virgin Mary,
Saints • Temptation and suffering• PortraitsForms:• Renaissance illusionism
(anamorphic perspective)• Surface description• Naturalism• Printmaking
HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER, The French Ambassadors, 1533.
Fig. 9-31.
Holy Roman Empire
MATTHIAS GRÜNEWALD, Isenheim Altarpiece, ca. 1510-1515. Fig. 9-28.
Holy Roman Empire• Altarpiece for monastery
church with hospital (plague, syphilis, leprosy, etc)
• Gruesome description of wounds (Christ mirrors patients’ suffering – hands in rigor mortis)
• Emphasis on suffering and transformation (St. Anthony)
• Catholic inclusion of Lamb, Christ’s blood, plague saints MATTHIAS GRÜNEWALD, Isenheim Altarpiece,
ca. 1510-1515. Fig. 9-28.
11’
13’
1st State(closed)
MATTHIAS GRÜNEWALD, Isenheim Altarpiece, second state (open), ca. 1510-1515
2nd State (detail of center panel) 3rd State (detail of right panel)
Holy Roman Empire
ALBRECHT DÜRER, Melencolia I, 1514.
Holy Roman Empire• German artist & theorist
(treatise on perspective & human proportions)
• Widely-traveled (studied Italian art)
• Renowned printmaker (engraving)
• Self-Portrait of “artist’s psyche” and trade? (tools surround him – compass, hammer, sphere, polyhedron)
• Medieval medicine (four humours)
• Represents imbalance (excess of bile) thought to inspire and afflict artists
ALBRECHT DÜRER, Fall of Man (Adam and Eve), 1504. Fig. 9-29.
The Artist’s Temperament – Genius and Melancholy
Edvard Munch, Melancholy, 1894
Detail from Raphael’s School of Athens (possible portrait of Michelangelo
The NetherlandsDates and Places: • 1500 to 1600 • Holland, Belgium,
Luxembourg
People:• Protestants• Merchant class and
peasants• Seek independence
from Spain
CATERINA VAN HEMESSEN, Self-Portrait, 1548.
Caterina van Hemessen painted me /
1548 / her age 20
The NetherlandsThemes:• Scenes of everyday
life with subtle religious and moralistic content
• Peasant life• Fewer altarpiecesForms:• Naturalism • Surface description• Illusionistic space Quinten Massys, Money-Changer and
His Wife, 1514
The Netherlands
HIERONYMUS BOSCH, Garden of Earthly Delights, 1505–1510. Fig. 9-33.
The Netherlands• Unusual triptych• Triptych with Adam and
Eve, Hell, and “Garden of Earthly Delights”
• “Earthly delights” become instruments of torture in Hell (music, gambling, etc)
• Fertility symbols (strawberries, birds, etc)
• Maybe wedding gift• Secular commission for
private use• Alchemy? Judgment?
HIERONYMUS BOSCH, Garden of Earthly Delights, 1505–1510. Fig.
9-33.
7’
9’
Garden of Earthly Delights (details
of left panel)
Garden of Earthly Delights (details of center
panel)
Garden of Earthly Delights (details of right panel)
The Netherlands
PIETER BRUEGEL THE ELDER, Netherlandish Proverbs, 1559. Fig. 9-37.
The Netherlands – “The Topsy Turvy World”
• Human nature and man’s
folly • Detailed and clever
imagery• Nobility, peasants, clerics• Depiction of popular
proverbs (“the blind
leading the blind,” “they
both shit through one hole
(inseparable friends)” PIETER BRUEGEL THE ELDER, Netherlandish Proverbs, 1559.
Fig. 9-37.
“ambitious idiot”
Diagram of
NetherlandishProverbs
SpainDates and Places: • 1500 to 1600 • Iberian Peninsula and the Americas People:• Pious, Catholic • Conservative monarchs• Expanding empireThemes:• Life of Christ, Virgin Mary and
Saints • Portraits
JUAN DE HERRERA and JUAN BAUTISTA DE TOLEDO, El
Escorial, 1563–1584. Fig. 9-39.
Spain• Secular and religious
image
• Greek artist travels to Spain via Italy
• Expressive exaggeration, unnatural color = Mannerist style
• Spiritual and emotional, not physical, properties
EL GRECO, Burial of Count Orgaz, 1586. Fig. 9-40.