Cultural Encounters

HUM 102

Renaissance Art

February 18

Michelangelo

Buonarroti,

The Last

Judgment,

1536–41,

Sistine Chapel,

Vatican

“Besides every beautiful detail, it is

extraordinary to see such a work painted and

executed so harmoniously that it seems to have

been done in a single day and with the type of

finish that no illuminator could ever have

achieved it…Although this was a marvellous

and enormous undertaking, it was not

impossible for this man…And how truly happy

are those who have seen this truly stupendous

wonder of our century! Most happy and

fortunate Paul III, for God granted that under

his patronage the glory that that writers’ pens

will accord to his memory!

Certainly his birth has brought a most happy

fate to the artists of this century, for they have

seen him tear away the veil from all the

difficulties that can be encountered or imagined

in the arts of painting, sculpture, and

architecture.

Michelangelo labored on this work for eight

years and unveiled it in the year 1541 on

Christmas Day, to the wonder and amazement

of all of Rome, or rather, of the entire world,

and that year, when I was living in Venice, I

went to Rome to see it, and I was stupefied by

it!”

Giovanni Vasari,

Lives of The

Most Excellent

Painters,

Sculptors, and

Architects, 1568

First edition (1550)

Published in

Florence

Dedicated to

Cosimo I de

Medici, Grand

Duke of Tuscany

Second, enlarged

edition (1568)

Lives of The Most Excellent Painters,

Sculptors, and ArchitectsThree prefaces

1) “Creation of man” / design / sculpture and painting as “sister arts” / the rise of the arts to perfection, their decline and their restoration (rinascita) / to perpetuate knowledge of artists

2) Discussion of architecture, sculpture, painting / division of the book into three parts

3) Discussion of the origins and nobility of the arts / surpassing the ancients / perfection of “rule, order, proportion, draughtsmanship, manner”

Organized into three periods:

Trecento (1300s)

Quattrocento (1400s)

Cinquecento (1500s)

Giotto, Meeting at the Golden Gate, Arena

(Scrovegni) Chapel, Padua, c. 1305

Personified figures of Humility and Pride, The Sinner

and the Hypocrite, Somne le Roi, manuscript

illumination, c. 1290, British Library Add. 54180

Left: Cimabue, Virgin and Child Enthroned (Santa Trinita Maesta), c. 1280, Galleria degli Uffizi

Right: Giotto, Virgin and Child Enthroned (Ognisanti Madonna), c. 1310, Galleria degli Uffizi

“There in a little time, by the aid of nature and the teaching of Cimabue, the boy not only equalled his master, but freed

himself from the rude manner of the Greeks, and brought back to life the true art of painting, introducing the drawing from

nature of living persons, which had not been practised for two hundred years.”

Vasari, Lives of Artists

Masaccio, Baptism of

the Neophytes,

Brancacci Chapel,

Church of Santa Maria

del Carmine, 1424–8

“…A nude trembling

because of the cold,

amongst the other

neophytes, executed

with such relief and

gentle manner, that it

is highly praised and

admired by all artists,

ancient and modern.”

Vasari, Lives of

Artists

Laocoön

Group,

Roman copy

(c. 27 BC-68

AD) of an

ancient

Greek

bronze

original

Discovered

in Rome in

1506

“…Such is the case with

the Laocoön, for

example, in the palace

of the Emperor Titus, a

work that may be

looked upon as

preferable to any other

production of the art of

painting or of [bronze]

statuary. It is sculptured

from a single block,

both the main figure as

well as the children, and

the serpents with their

marvellous folds. This

group was made in

concert by three most

eminent artists,

Agesander, Polydorus,

and Athenodorus,

natives of Rhodes.”

Pliny, Natural History,

XXXVI, 37

Michelangelo

Buonarroti, David,

1501–4. Marble,

height 4,09 m.

Galleria

dell’Accademia,

Florence

“… When the statue was finished

and set up Michelangelo uncovered

it. It certainly bears the palm

among all modern and ancient

works, whether Greek or Roman,

and the Marforio of Rome, the

Tiber and Nile of Belvedere, and

the colossal statues of

Montecavallo do not compare with

it in proportion and beauty. The

legs are finely turned, the slender

flanks divine, and the graceful pose

unequalled, while such feet, hands

and head have never been excelled.

After seeing this no one need wish

to look at any other sculpture or the

work of any other artist.

Michelangelo received four

hundred crowns from Piero

Soderini, and it was set up in

1504…”

Vasari, Lives of Artists

Ascanio Condivi, The

Life of Michelangelo

Buonarroti, 1553

“…because certain

persons who wrote

about this great man

without knowing him as

intimately as I do, partly

related events that had

never occurred and

partly omitted such as

would be very much

worthwhile noting.”

Florence Cathedral, late 13th century on / dome (by Filippo Brunelleschi): 1417–36

Baptistery of San Giovanni, 1059

Baptistery of San

Giovanni, Florence,

1059–1129

Southern doors by

Andrea Pisano (1330–

6), Eastern and

northern doors by

Lorenzo Ghiberti

(1403–1425; 1452–62)

Lorenzo

Ghiberti,

Sacrifice of

Isaac, 1401–3

Lorenzo Ghiberti, Gates of

Paradise (East Doors),

Baptistry of San Giovanni,

Florence, 1425–52

“All those things have given me the greatest

satisfaction and contentment because they are not

only for the honor of God but are likewise for my

own remembrance. For fifty years, I have done

nothing else but earn money and spend money;

and it became clear that spending money gives me

greater pleasure than earning it.”

Cosimo di Giovanni de Medici (1389–1464)

1. LINEAR PERSPECTIVE: a system

for creating an illusion of depth on a flat

surface. All parallel lines (orthogonals)

in a painting or drawing using this

system converge in a single vanishing

point on the composition’s horizon line.

THE PERSPECTIVE GRID

THE VANISHING POINT

(on the horizon)

1. linear perspective

2. atmospheric perspective

3. single source of light

Florence Baptistery, constructed between 1059 and 1128

-renowned for its three sets of bronze doors with relief sculptures (south doors created by Andrea

Pisano; north and east doors by Lorenzo Ghiberti)

Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446)-architect,

designer

Famous for designing the dome of the Florence

Cathedral (1417–36) and for developing the

mathematical technique of linear perspective

Figure from the 1804 edition of De Pictura (1435) of Leon Battista Alberti, showing the vanishing

point

Alberti’s treatise was the first surviving European treatise on

painting. Book I is a geometry of perspective. Book II describes the

good painting. Book III discusses the education and life-style of the

artist

Masaccio, The Holy

Trinity, 1427. Santa

Maria Novella Church,

Florence

“Masaccio was a very

good imitator of

nature, with great and

comprehensive

rilievo, a good

componitore and puro,

without ornato,

because he devoted

himself only to the

imitation of truth and

to the rilievo of his

figures.”

Cristoforo Landino,

1481

“Masaccio in painting

expressed the likeness of

everything in nature so well

that with our eyes we seemed

to see not the images of

things but things

themselves.”

Alamanno Rinuccini, 1472

“Painting…compels the mind of the painter to transform itself into the

mind of nature itself and to translate between nature and art, setting out,

with nature, the causes of nature’s phenomena regulated by nature’s

laws—how the likenesses of objects adjacent to the eye converge with

true images to the pupil of the eye; which of objects equal in size appears

larger to that eye; which of equal colors appears more or less dark…”

Leonardo da Vinci

Interior of the Brancacci Chapel, Church of Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence. Frescoes by

Masaccio and Masolino (c. 1423–28) and Filippino Lippi (c. 1482–84)

Masaccio. Tribute Money, fresco in the Brancacci Chapel, c. 1427. (2.3x 6 m)

“And since he had excellent judgment, he

reflected that all the figures that did not stand

firmly with their feet in foreshortening on the

level, but stood on tip-toe, were lacking in all

goodness of manner in the essential points, and

that those who make them thus show that they

do not understand foreshortening.”

Vasari, Lives of Artists

Leonardo da Vinci, Perspective Study for the Adoration of the Magi, Galleria degli Uffizi,

Florence

Leonardo da Vinci,

Vitruvian Man, c. 1490,

Gallerie

dell’Accademia,

Venice

Madonna, Rothschild Canticles,

turn of the 14th century, Yale

University Beinecke Rare Books

Library, MS 404

Raphael, Madonna of the Meadows, 1505–6,

Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Portrait of Giovanni

di Paolo Rucellai,

attributed to

Francesco Salviatio,

c. 1540

“…they serve the

glory of God, the

honor of the city,

and the

commemoration

of myself.”

Left: Page from the Bible of Borso d’Este, 1455–61. Modena, Bib. Estense, MS V.G. 12-13, lat. 422-3

Right: View of the Tornabuoni Chapel, Santa Maria Novella, Florence, 1485–90

Filippo Lippi, Sketch of an Altarpiece, 1457. Florence, Archivio di Stato (Med. Av. Pr., VI, no. 258)

“..And to keep you informed, I send a drawing of how the triptych is made of wood, and with its

height and breadth. Out of friendship to you I do not want to take more than the labor costs of 100

florins for his: I ask no more….”

Gentile da

Fabriano,

Adoration

of the

Magi,

1423,

Galleria

degli Uffizi

The patron, Palla Strozzi (detail), from Gentile da

Fabriano’s Adoration of the Magi

I've already grown a goiter from this torture,

hunched up here like a cat in Lombardy

(or anywhere else where the stagnant water's

poison).

My stomach's squashed under my chin, my beard's

pointing at heaven, my brain's crushed in a casket,

my breast twists like a harpy's. My brush,

above me all the time, dribbles paint

so my face makes a fine floor for droppings!

My haunches are grinding into my guts,

my poor ass strains to work as a counterweight,

every gesture I make is blind and aimless.

My skin hangs loose below me, my spine's

all knotted from folding over itself.

I'm bent taut as a Syrian bow.

Because I'm stuck like this, my thoughts

are crazy, perfidious tripe:

anyone shoots badly through a crooked blowpipe.

My painting is dead.

Defend it for me, Giovanni, protect my honor.

I am not in the right place—I am not a painter.

Michelangelo Buonarroti, Sonnet “To Giovanni da Pistoia”

and caricature on his painting the Sistine Ceiling. Casa

Buonarroti, Florence Archivio Buanarroti (XIII, fol. 111)