EARLY RENAISSANCE ART IN EUROPE
CHAPTER 17
(Contiued)
15th Century--Italy (p. 643):
During the 15th century in Italy, artists understand linear perspective, aerial perspective, foreshortening, anatomy, contrapposto, and modeling with light (need to understand each term). As the artist turns to the world around him for inspiration (people and nature), we find figures occupying real space and atmosphere, walking and moving freely on the picture plane, casting shadows, and expressing human emotions. Models are used, and biblical scenes are brought into the 15th Century. The most important painter of the early part of the 15th century in Italy was Masaccio. When you look at the scenes in The Tribute Money (part of the Brancacci Chapel frescos), the narrative of the story is skillfully portrayed in three scenes. Each person seems human and stands on ground that is perspectively correct. They gesture and respond emotionally to the moment. They also cast shadows, and the background appears to be filled with atmosphere and depth. Another favorite painting of Masaccio's that I like (it is from the Brancacci Chapel, as well, but not on our test) is the Expulsion. It shows human emotions like shame and agony on the faces and body language of Adam and Eve. The other painting that I put on the slide review is The Holy Trinity. He has mastered one-point perspective and has placed the viewer down lower on the picture plane so that our eyes are even with Christ's feet. (Note the illusionistic barrel vault painted. It looks exactly as if it is a real one.) The Web Gallery of Art shows a drawing of the perspective, as well as close-ups of the painting and a biography link.
In sculpture, Ghiberti does the same thing in relief sculpture as Masaccio does in painting. When you look at the panels on the Gates of Paradise, his figures occupy real space in perspective, and he uses different groupings to narrate the stories of the Old Testament. They gesture and display human emotions, and seem to walk on real ground in real space. Be sure and read about the competition between Ghiberti and Brunelleschi for the commission for the second set of stores on the Florence Cathedral Baptisty. The Gates of Paradise doors were actually the third set on the Baptistry and was awarded to Ghiberti outright. Brunelleschi was so upset over losing the competition to Ghiberti, that he left sculpting altogether and concentrated on architecture. He will be awarded the contract for designing the dome over Florence Cathedral. This, too, is on our test. The other famous sculptor was Donatello. He frees his figures from their architectural framework. He understands anatomy, weight-shift and uses real people as his models. Note the difference between his portray of the different prophets (St. Mark) and his St. George. Donatello's David is the first free-standing nude since antiquity. Donatello, Masaccio and Ghiberti will greatly influence Michelangelo. In the latter part of the 15th century, Verrocchio and Della Robbia (p. 652-53) are two sculptors that we will also study in class. Compare Verrocchio's David to Donatello's, and his equestrian monument of Bartolommeo Colleoni to Donatello's Gattamelata and the Roman sculpture, Marcus Aurelius. Luca della Robbia and his family/workshop made molds to duplicate popular work in terra-cotta, enameling them with clear blues, greens, white, and pale yellows. There was such a demand for architectural sculpture, that this was a popular solution. I like to compare his Madonna and Child with Lilies (p. 653) to Fra Fillipo Lippi's Madonna and Child with Angels. Both have a soft, idealized interpretation of the subject.
The architects that we will be covering in this chapter are Brunelleschi and Alberti. Brunelleschi not only designed the dome over Florence Cathedral, but he also designed numerous other buildings like the Pazzi Chapel and the Hospital of the Innocents. Remember when I told you that the addition of a proposed dome design in the 14th century couldn't be completed because they didn't have the engineering know-how to construct it. In 1407, however, the technical solution was proposed by the young Brunelleschi. His design was simply the put a smaller dome inside the large one to buttress it (p. 645). Alberti designed Santa Maria Novella. He is known for his "treatise on architecture and believed that the central plan was ideal, deriving from the humanist belief that the circle was a symbol of devine perfections and that both the circle inscribed in a square and the cross inscribed in a circle were symbols of the cosmos." Check out the article in your book called "Renaissance Perspective Systems" on page 650. Two favorite artists of mine are in the second half of the 15th century in Italy. They are Fra Fillipo Lippi and Botticelli. Both artists had very interesting lives. I think you would enjoy reading about them. There are a number of web sites that have additional information on their styles and lives. Fra Flippo Lippi's Madonna and Christ Child with Angels is different from the other representations of the same subject (remember the three Madonna and Child Enthroned on the last test). She is dressed in 15th century upper-class clothes, is occupying a place in a landscape that is of the physical world and not the spiritual one. Her son looks like a little boy and not "a little old man", and the angels' wings look like real feathers and appear to actually be able to fly. He used his own wife and son as models. His son later becomes an artist himself. Botticelli studied with Fillipo Lippi and their styles are similiar. Botticelli will introduce us to the first pagan subject since antiquity in his Birth of Venus. You should note that she is more like a rendering of Madonna than Venus, even if she is nude. Read about neoplatonic philosophers and poets conceiving of Venus as having two natures in your book on page 660. Symbols (more than one meaning associated with a subject) were very popular in Italy as we explore them in this painting. The zephyr winds are blowing Venus toward the shore, where spring is waiting to clothe her in a garment of flowers. This combination of sacred with secular is new to art in the 15th century. Check out other important works of Botticelli, like his Primavera and portraits. Stokstad states that "Primavera may have been intended as a painting on the nuptial theme of love and fertility in marriage." Venus is dressed in contemporary fashion with Cupid hovering overhead. Chloris is being ushered in by the winter wind god Zephyr with flowers cascading out of her mouth. Flora stands to the right of Venus and is the symbol of Spring. The Three Graces pose beneath the arrow of Cupid, and Mercury preens like a peacock on the far left side. The Dominican monk, Savonarola, denounces the worldliness of Florence and causes the Medici family to be expelled from there. Botticelli will come under his influence and his later paintings are more highly emotional and religious. As with our Millennium, in 1500 many people feared the end of the world. Botticelli painted the Mystic Nativity (p. 661) with overtones of references to the Book of Revelations and when Christ has come to save humankind. Savonarola had been burned at the stake two years before this painting. Eventually, Botticelli will give up painting completely.
In other regions of Italy, we will study Della Francesca, Mantegna, Perugino and Bellini. Starting on page 674, read about European Printmaking and Book Printing. There are many terms that you should become familiar with.
Words to know: Humanism, triptych, polyptych, tempera paint, fresco, buon fresco, sinopia, cartoons, oil paint, atmospheric perspective, intuitive perspective, linear perspective, vanishing point, foreshortening, tondo, tapestry, trompe l'oeil, sacred art, secular art, neoplatonism, stigmata, woodcut, engraving, block books, movable-type printing, cross-hatching, watercolor
Important people to know: Savonarola, Cosimo de' Medici, Lorenzo de' Medici
Artists to be covered in class: Giotto, Sluter, Limborg Brothers, Van Eyck, Van der Weyden, Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Alberti, Donatello, Verrocchio, Della Robbia, Masaccio, Fra Angelico, Fra Fillipo Lippi (not in book), Ghirlandaio, Botticelli, Della Francesca, Mangegna, Perugino, Bellini, Schongauer
Updated 11-10-99