Italy, 1500 to 1600

Learning Objectives:

  1. Describe the formal and iconographic characteristics of High Renaissance, Venetian, and Mannerist painting and sculpture.
  2. Identify the formal characteristics that distinguish High Renaissance from Mannerist architecture.
  3. Explain the religious and philosophical influences on High Renaissance art.
  4. Describe the materials and techniques of Renaissance painting and sculpture.
  5. Discuss the status of artists in Renaissance society.
  6. Explain how the experiments of 15th century art were employed by 16th-century artists.
  7. Compare the artistic philosophies that distinguished Venetian Renaissance art from contemporary Florentine and Roman work.

Notes:

Glossary

Sfumato – the technique of allowing tones and colors to shade gradually into one another, producing softened outlines or hazy forms.

Cartoon – a preparatory design, drawing, or painting (as for a fresco)

Neo-Platonic Thought – All Neoplatonists, regardless of religious orientation, shared a belief in the superior quality of immaterial reality and regarded Plato as the greatest of ancient philosophers.

Refectory – a room used for communal meals, especially in an educational or religious institution.

Madonna – an idealized virtuous and beautiful woman (usually Mary).

The Council of Trent – The Council of Trent, held between 1545 and 1563 in Trent, was an ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. Prompted by the Protestant Reformation, it has been described as the embodiment of the Counter-Reformation.

Apse – a large semicircular or polygonal recess in a church, arched or with a domed roof, typically at the eastern end, and usually containing the altar.

Portico – a structure consisting of a roof supported by columns at regular intervals, typically attached as a porch to a building.

Vatican City – an independent state forming an enclave in Rome, with extraterritoriality over 12 churches and palaces in Rome

pastoral – (especially of land or a farm) used for or related to the keeping or grazing of sheep or cattle.

bacchanalian – characterized by or given to drunken revelry; riotously drunken.

Venus – the Roman goddess of beauty and love, or the second planet from the sun.

Mannerism – a  principally Italian movement in art and architecture between the High Renaissance and Baroque periods (1520–1600) that sought to represent an ideal of beauty rather than natural images of it, using characteristic distortion and exaggeration of human proportions, perspective, etc.

Assumption of the Virgin – according to the beliefs of the Catholic Church, Eastern and Oriental Orthodoxy, as well as parts of Anglicanism, the bodily taking up of the Virgin Mary into Heaven at the end of her earthly life

Immaculate Conception – the doctrine that God preserved the Virgin Mary from the taint of original sin from the moment she was conceived; it was defined as a dogma of the Roman Catholic Church in 1854

Odalisque – a female slave or concubine in a harem, especially one in the seraglio of the sultan of Turkey.

High and Late Renaissance

High Renaissance

  • produced an amazing group of extraordinary geniuses
  • exalted the artist-genius.

The Neo-Platonists read in Plato’s Ion his famous praise of the poet:

“All good poets . . . compose their beautiful poems not by art, but because they are inspired and possessed. . .For not by art does the poet sing, but by power divine.”

Poetry had always been held in high regard.

The arts are now held to the same prestige as poetry.

Painters, sculptors, and architects came into their own

  • Advocated for their work alongside fine arts.

During the High Renaissance

  • Masters created a new profession
  • one having its own rights of expression
  • its own character
  • and its own claims to be recognized.

The “fine” artist today is able to do what they do because of artists who have come before beginning with those of the High Renaissance.

Not everyone made work that looked alike.

There are many regional differences.

The leading artistic centers of Central Italy

  • Florence and Rome
  • Three of the greatest artists who ever lived—Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo.

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Leonardo da Vinci

The heavens often rain down the richest gifts on human beings, but sometimes they bestow with lavish abundance upon a single individual beauty, grace and ability, so that whatever he does, every action is so divine that he distances all other men, and clearly displays how his greatness is a gift of God and not an acquirement of human art. Men saw this in Leonardo. (Vasari, on Leonardo)

Leonardo’s Early Life & Training
Leonardo was born illegitimate to a prominent Tuscan family of potters and notaries. He may have traveled from Vinci to Florence where his father worked for several powerful families including the Medici. At age seventeen, Leonardo reportedly apprenticed with the Florentine artist Verrocchio. Here, Leonardo gained an appreciation for the achievements of Giotto and Masaccio and in 1472 he joined the artists’ guild, Compagnia di San Luca. Because of his family’s ties, Leonardo benefited when Lorenzo de’ Medici (the Magnificent) ruled Florence. By 1478 Leonardo was completely independent of Verrocchio and may have then met the exiled Ludovico Sforza, the future Duke of Milan, who would later commission the Last Supper.

Leonardo in Milan
Four years later, Leonardo arrived in Milan bearing a silver lyre (which he may have been able to play), a gift for the regent Ludovico from the Florentine ruler, Lorenzo the Magnificent. Ludovico sought to transform Milan into a center of humanist learning to rival Florence.Leonardo flourished in this intellectual environment. He opened a studio, received numerous commissions, instructed students, and began to systematically record his scientific and artistic investigations in a series of notebooks. The archetypal “renaissance man,” Leonardo was an unrivaled painter, an accomplished architect, an engineer, cartographer, and scientist (he was particularly interested in biology and physics). He was influenced by a variety of ancient texts including Plato’s Timaeus, Ptolemy’s Cosmography, and Vitruvius’s On Architecture. Leonardo is credited with having assisted Luca Pacioli with his treatise, Divina Proportione (1509). Joining the practical and the theoretical, Leonardo designed numerous mechanical devices for battle, including a submarine, and even experimented with designs for flight.

In a now famous letter, Leonardo listed his talents to the Duke, focusing mostly on his abilities as a military engineer. The letter begins:

Having until now sufficiently studied and examined the experiments of all those who claim to be experts and inventors of war machines, and having found that their machines do not differ in the least from those ordinarily in use, I shall make so bold, without wanting to cause harm to anyone, as to address myself to Your Excellency to divulge my secrets to him, and offer to demonstrate to him, at his pleasure, all the things briefly enumerated below.

In ten short paragraphs, Leonardo enumerated the service he could perform for the Duke — he said (among other things) that he could build bridges, tunnels, fortresses, and “make siege guns, mortars and other machines, of beautiful and practical shape, completely different from what is generally in use.”

What might seem amazing to us is that it is not until the very last paragraph that Leonardo mentions art, and he mentions it so modestly! Here is what he wrote:

In time of peace, I believe I am capable of giving you as much satisfaction as anyone, whether it be in architecture, for the construction of public or private buildings, or in bringing water from one place to another. Item, I can sculpt in marble, bronze or terracotta; while in painting, my work is the equal of anyone’s.

Return to Florence, then France
In 1489, Leonardo secured a long awaited contract with Ludovico and was honored with the title, “The Florentine Apelles,” a reference to an ancient Greek painter revered for his great naturalism. Leonardo returned to Florence when Ludovico was deposed by the French King, Charles VII. While there, Leonardo would meet the Niccolò Machiavelli, author of The Prince and his future patron, François I. In 1516, after numerous invitations, Leonardo traveled to France and joined the royal court. Leonardo died on May 2, 1519 in the king’s chateau at Cloux.

Leonardo’s Death and the Changing Status of the Artist

Finally, having grown old, he remained ill many months, and, feeling himself near to death, asked to have himself diligently informed of the teaching of the Catholic faith, and of the good way and holy Christian religion; and then, with many moans, he confessed and was penitent; and although he could not raise himself well on his feet, supporting himself on the arms of his friends and servants, he was pleased to take devoutly the most holy Sacrament, out of his bed. The King, who was wont often and lovingly to visit him, then came into the room; wherefore he, out of reverence, having raised himself to sit upon the bed, giving him an account of his sickness and the circumstances of it, showed withal how much he had offended God and mankind in not having worked at his art as he should have done. Thereupon he was seized by a paroxysm, the messenger of death; for which reason the King having risen and having taken his head, in order to assist him and show him favour, to then end that he might alleviate his pain, his spirit, which was divine, knowing that it could not have any greater honor, expired in the arms of the King. (Vasari)

This story is a good indication of the changing status of the artist. Leonardo, who spent the last years of his life in France working for King Francis I, was often visited by the King! Remember that the artist was considered only a skilled artisan in the Middle Ages and for much of the Early Renaissance.

In the High Renaissance, beginning with Leonardo, we find that artists are considered intellectuals, and that they keep company with the highest levels of society. Quite a change! All of this has to do with Humanism in the Renaissance of course, and the growing recognition of the achievement of great individuals (something virtually unheard of in the Middle Ages!). Artists in the Early Renaissance insisted that they should in fact be considered intellectuals because they worked with their brains as well as with their hands. They defended this position by pointing to the scientific tools that they used to make their work more naturalistic (scientific naturalism): the study of human anatomy, of mathematics and geometry, of linear perspective. These were clearly all intellectual pursuits!

Look closely at this self-portrait. Isn’t it clear that Leonardo thought of himself as a thinker, a philosopher, an intellectual?

Leonardo’s Naturalism
Ancient Greek physicians dissected cadavers. The early church’s rejection of the science of the classical world, along with the possibility of bodily resurrection led to prohibitions against dissection.  Both Leonardo and Michelangelo performed them — probably exclusively on the bodies of executed criminals.  According to his own count, Leonardo dissected 30 corpses during his lifetime.

Leonardo's Sketches

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LEONARDO DA VINCI, The Fetus and Lining of the Uterus, ca. 1511–1513. wash, over red chalk and traces of black chalk on paper, 1’ 8 5/8”. Royal Library, Windsor Castle.

ANATOMICAL STUDIES

Leonardo completed very few paintings.

  • Was a perfectionist
  • constant experimentation
  • extensive curiosity diffused his efforts.

Note-books record his numerous ideas.

  • Focused mostly on science in his later years.

Investigated and drew anatomy

The Fetus and Lining of the Uterus

  • Not 100% accurate, but one of the first drawings of a fetus
  • This is the Renaissance…an exploration of everything
  • Was not the first scientist of the modern world
  • Was the first to illustrate science, especially cutaway views.
  • No photography, No xrays

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LEONARDO DA VINCI, project for a central-plan church, folio 22 recto of manuscript B, ca. 1487–1490. Chalk and ink on paper, 9 1/8” X 6 3/8”. Bibliothèque de l’Institut de France, Paris.

Known as both an architect and sculptor

  • Not sure if he actually built anything.
  • Interested in central-plan buildings.

As for sculpture

  • Numerous drawings of large horse statues
  • Made a full-scale model for a monument to Francesco Sforza.
  • The French used the statue as a target and shot it to pieces when they occupied Milan in 1499.

Due to the French presence

  • Leonardo left Milan and served for a while as a military engineer
  • Leonardo eventually returned to Milan in the service of the French.
  • At the invitation of King Francis I, he then went to France, where he died at the château of Cloux in 1519.

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The Vitruvian Man is a drawing created by Leonardo da Vinci around 1490.

  • It is accompanied by notes based on the work of the architect Vitruvius.
  • Pen and ink on paper
  • Male figure in two superimposed positions with his arms and legs apart
  • In both a circle and square.

The drawing and text are sometimes called the Canon of Proportions or, less often, Proportions of Man.

  • The drawing is based on the ideal human proportions as described by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius.

Vitruvius determined that the ideal body should be eight heads high.

Leonardo's Madonna of the Rocks

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LEONARDO DA VINCI, Leonardo da Vinci, Madonna of the Rocks, from San Francesco Grande, Milan, Italy, begun 1483. Oil on wood (transferred to canvas), 6’ 6 1/2” x 4’. Louvre, Paris.

MADONNA OF THE ROCKS

  • Central panel of an altarpiece for the chapel of the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception in San Francesco Grande.
  • Use of chiaroscuro, the subtle play of light and dark.
  • Pyramidal grouping.

Modeling with light and shadow and expressing emotional states were, for Leonardo, the heart of painting:

“A good painter has two chief objects to paint—man and the intention of his soul…”

The Madonna, Christ Child, infant John the Baptist, and angel seem to be coming out of the landscape.

  • Looks like a hazy atmosphere.

The figures pray, point, and bless, which brings them together.

  • The angel points to the infant John and, through his outward glance, involves the viewer in the tableau.
  • John prays to the Christ Child, who blesses him in return.

Mary’s left hand reaches toward Christ and her right hand rests on John’s shoulder.

  • Tries to express “the intention of his soul.”

Leonardo's The Last Supper

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LEONARDO DA VINCI, Last Supper, ca. 1495–1498. Oil and tempera on plaster, 13’ 9” x 29’ 10”. Refectory, Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan.

Leonardo imagined, and has succeeded in expressing, the desire that has entered the minds of the apostles to know who is betraying their Master. So in the face of each one may be seen love, fear, indignation, or grief at not being able to understand the meaning of Christ; and this excites no less astonishment than the obstinate hatred and treachery to be seen in Judas.

— Georgio Vasari, Lives of the Artists, 1568; translated by George Bull

St. Andrew, with his long grey beard, lifts up his hands, expressing the wonder of a simple-hearted old man.  St. James Minor…lays his hand on the shoulder of St. Peter – the expression is, ‘Can it be possible?  Have we heard aright?’  Bartholomew at the extreme end of the table, has risen perturbed from his seat; he leans forward with a look of eager attention, the lips parted he is impatient to hear more.

— Mrs. Anna Jameson, Sacred and Legendary Art, 1848

Subject
The subject of the Last Supper is Christ’s final meal with his apostles before Judas identifies Christ to the authorities who arrest him. The Last Supper, a Passover Seder, is remembered for two events:

Christ says to his apostles “One of you will betray me,” and the apostles react, each according to his own personality.  Referring to the Gospels, Leonardo depicts Philip asking “Lord, is it I?”  Christ replies, “He that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me.” (Matthew 26)  These are the moments that Leonardo has represented.  We see Christ and Judas simultaneously reaching toward a plate that lies between them, even as Judas defensively backs away.

Christ blessed the bread and said to the apostles “Take, eat; this is my body” and he blessed the wine and said “Drink from it all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26).  These words are the founding moment of the sacrament of the Eucharist.

Iconography
Leonardo’s Last Supper is dense with symbolic references. This iconography must be read if the painting is to be understood.

Apostles
Attributes identify each apostle. Judas Iscariot is recognized both as he reaches to toward a plate beside Christ (Matthew 26) and because he clutches a purse containing his reward for identifying Christ to the authorities the following day. Peter, who sits beside Judas, holds a knife in his right hand. This foreshadows that Peter will sever the ear of a soldier as he attempts to protect Christ from arrest.

Neo-Platonism
The balanced composition is anchored by an equilateral triangle formed by Christ’s body. He sits below an arching pediment that if completed, traces a circle that would perfectly enclose the triangle. These ideal geometric forms refer to the renaissance interest in Neo-Platonism. In his allegory, “The Cave,” the Ancient Greek philosopher Plato emphasized the imperfection of the earthly realm. Geometry, used by the Greeks to express Heavenly perfection, has been used by Leonardo to celebrate Christ as the embodiment of heaven on earth. Neo-Platonism is an element of the humanist revival that reconciles aspects of Greek philosophy with Christian theology.

Paradise

Leonardo rendered a verdant landscape beyond the windows. Often interpreted as paradise, it has been suggested that this heavenly sanctuary can only be reached through Christ.

Trinity
The twelve apostles are arranged as four groups of three and there are also three windows. The number three is often a reference to the Holy Trinity in Catholic art. In contrast, the number four is important in the classical tradition (e.g. Plato’s four virtues).

Condition
The Last Supper is in terrible condition. Soon after the painting was completed on February 9, 1498 it began to deteriorate. By the second half of the sixteenth century Giovan Paulo Lomazzo stated that, “…the painting is all ruined.” Over the past five hundred years the painting’s condition has been seriously compromised by its location, the materials and techniques used, humidity, dust, and poor restoration efforts. Modern problems have included a bomb that hit the monastery destroying a large section of the refectory on August 16, 1943, severe air pollution in postwar Milan, and finally, the effects of crowding tourists.

Because Leonardo sought a greater detail and luminosity than could be achieved with traditional fresco, he covered the wall with a double layer of dried plaster. Then, borrowing from panel painting, he added an undercoat of lead white to enhance the brightness of the oil and tempera that was applied on top. This experimental technique allowed for chromatic brilliance and extraordinary precision but because the painting is on a thin exterior wall, the effects of humidity were felt more keenly, and the paint failed to properly adhere to the wall.

There have been seven documented attempts to repair the Last Supper. The first restoration effort took place in 1726, the last and most extensive was completed in 1999. Instead of attempting to restore the image, the last conservation effort sought to arrest further deterioration and where possible, uncover Leonardo’s original painting. Begun in 1977 and comprising more than 12,000 hours of structural work and 38,000 hours of work on the painting itself, this effort has resulted in an image where approximately 42.5% of the surface is Leonardo’s work, 17.5% is lost, and the remaining 40% are the additions of previous restorers. Most of this repainting is found in the wall hangings and the ceiling.

Leonardo's Mona Lisa

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LEONARDO DA VINCI, Mona Lisa, ca. 1503–1505. Oil on wood, 2’ 6 1/4” x 1’ 9”. Louvre, Paris

MONA LISA

Probably the world’s most famous portrait.

Still not sure who the sitter is

  • May be Lisa di Antonio Maria Gherardini, wife of Francesco del Giocondo, a wealthy Florentine
  • “Mona (an Italian contraction of ma donna, “my lady”) Lisa.”

Leonardo’s portrait is a convincing representation of an individual.

Unlike earlier portraits, it does not serve solely as a status icon.

  • Does not wear jewelry nor holds anything that implies wealth.
  • Sits quietly
  • her hands folded
  • her mouth forms a gentle smile
  • she looks at the viewer.

Renaissance etiquette dictated that a woman should not look directly into a man’s eyes.

  • She engages the viewer.

The painting is darker today than 500 years ago

  • The colors are less vivid
  • uses chiaroscuro and atmospheric perspective.
  • sfumato (misty haziness).

The backdrop is a mysterious unknown landscape.

  • This landscape, with roads and bridges that seem to lead nowhere.

Originally, the artist represented Mona Lisa in a loggia (columnar gallery).

  • When the painting was trimmed (not by Leonardo), these columns were eliminated, but the remains of the column bases may still be seen to the left and right of Mona Lisa’s shoulders.

Portraits were once rare
We live in a culture that is so saturated with images, it may be difficult to imagine a time when only the wealthiest people had their likeness captured. The weathy merchents of Renaissance Florence could commission a portrait, but even they would likely only have a single portrait painted during their lifetime. A portrait was about more than likeness, it spoke to status and position. In addition, portraits generally took a long time to paint, and the subject would commonly have to sit for hours or days, while the artist captured their likeness.

The most recognized painting in the world
The Mona Lisa was originally this type of portrait, but over time its meaning has shifted and it has become an icon of the Renaissance, the most recognized painting in the world. The Mona Lisa is a likely a portrait of the wife of a Florentine merchant, and so her gaze would have been meant for her husband. For some reason however, the portrait was never delivered to its patron, and Leonardo kept it with him when he went to work for Francis I, the King of France.

The Mona Lisa’smysterious smile has inspired many writers, singers, and painters. Here’s a passage about the Mona Lisa, written by the Victorian-era writer Walter Pater:

We all know the face and hands of the figure, set in its marble chair, in that circle of fantastic rocks, as in some faint light under sea. Perhaps of all ancient pictures time has chilled it least. The presence that thus rose so strangely beside the waters, is expressive of what in the ways of a thousand years men had come to desire. Hers is the head upon which all “the ends of the world are come,” and the eyelids are a little weary. It is a beauty wrought out from within upon the flesh, the deposit, little cell by cell, of strange thoughts and fantastic reveries and exquisite passions. Set it for a moment beside one of those white Greek goddesses or beautiful women of antiquity, and how would they be troubled by this beauty, into which the soul with all its maladies has passed! 

Early Renaissance artist, Piero della Francesca’s Portrait of Battista Sforza (c. 1465-66) is typical of portraits during the Early Renaissance (before Leonardo); figures were often painted in strict profile, and cut off at the bust. Often the figure was posed in front of a birds-eye view of a landscape.

A new formula
With Leonardo’s portrait, the face is nearly frontal, the shoulders are turned three-quarters toward the viewer, and the hands are included in the image. Leonardo uses his characteristic sfumato—a smokey haziness, to soften outlines and create an atmospheric effect around the figure. When a figure is in profile, we have no real sense of who she is, and there is no sense of engagement. With the face turned toward us, however, we get a sense of the personality of the sitter.

Northern Renaissance artists such as Hans Memling (see the Portrait of a Young Man at Prayer, c. 1485-1494, right) had already created portraits of figures in positions similar to the Mona Lisa. Memling had even located them in believable spaces. Leonardo combined these Northern innovations with Italian painting’s understanding of the three dimensionality of the body and the perspectival treatment of the surrounding space.

A Recent Discovery
An important copy of the Mona Lisa was recently discovered in the collection of the Prado in Madrid. The background had been painted over, but when the painting was cleaned, scientific analysis revealed that the copy was likely painted by another artist who sat beside Leonardo and copied his work, brush-stroke by brush-stroke. The copy gives us an idea of what the Mona Lisa might look like if layers of yellowed varnish were removed.

Raphael

Julius II (r. 1503–1513) came after Alexander VI

  • Spiritual leader
  • Also wanted power over non-religious areas of life.

Very ambitious

  • Liked engaging in wars
  • Earned him the title “warrior-pope.”
  • Selected the name Julius after Julius Caesar
  • Roman Empire served as his governmental model.

Was Pope for 10 years

  • Was most notable for his contributions to the arts.
  • An avid art patron
  • Understood how art could be used for propaganda.

After his election

  • Commissioned artworks that would present an authoritative image of his rule and reinforce the role of the Catholic Church.

Commissioned

  • A new design for Saint Peter’s basilica
  • the painting of the Sistine Chapel ceiling
  • the decoration of the papal apartments
  • the construction of his tomb

In 1508, Julius II called Raffaello Santi (or Sanzio) to the papal court in Rome.

Raphael's School of Athens

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RAPHAEL, Philosophy (School of Athens), Stanza della Segnatura, Vatican Palace, Rome, Italy, 1509–1511. Fresco, 19’ x 27’.

The School of Athens represents all the greatest mathematicians, philosophers and scientists from classical antiquity gathered together sharing their ideas and learning from each other. These figures all lived at different times, but here they are gathered together under one roof.

The two thinkers in the very center, Aristotle (on the right) and Plato (on the left, pointing up) have been enormously important to Western thinking generally, and in different ways, their different philosophies were incoporated into Christianity. Plato holds his book called The Timaeus.

Plato points up because in his philosophy the changing world that we see around us is just a shadow of a higher, truer reality that is eternal and unchanging (and include things like goodness and beauty). For Plato, this otherworldly reality is the ultimate reality, and the seat of all truth, beauty, justice, and wisdom.

Aristotle holds his hand down, because in his philosophy, the only reality is the reality that we can see and experience by sight and touch (exactly the reality dismissed by Plato). Aristotle’s Ethics (the book that he holds) “emphasized the relationships, justice, friendship, and government of the human world and the need to study it.”

Pythagoras (lower left) believed that the world (including the movement of the planets and stars) operated according to mathematical laws. These mathematical laws were related to ideas of musical and cosmic harmony, and thus (for the Christians who interpreted him in the Renaissance) to God. Pythagoras taught that each of the planets produced a note as it moved, based on its distance from the earth. Together, the movement of all the planets was perfect harmony — “the harmony of the spheres.”

Ptolemy (he has his back to us on the lower right), holds a sphere of the earth, next to him is Zaroaster who holds a celestial sphere. Ptolemy tried to mathematically explain the movements of the planets (which was not easy since some of them appear to move backwards!). His theory of how they all moved around the earth remained the authority until Copernicus and Kepler figured out (in the late 1500s) that the earth was not at the center of the universe, and that the planets moved in orbits the shape of ellipses not in circles.

Raphael included a self-portrait of himself, standing next to Ptolemy. He looks right out at us.

Raphael's Galatea

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RAPHAEL, Galatea, Sala di Galatea, Villa Farnesina, Rome, Italy, 1513. Fresco, 9’ 8” x 7’ 5”.

GALATEA

Pope Leo X

  • Second son of Lorenzo de’ Medici
  • Succeeded Julius II as Raphael’s patron.
  • worldly, pleasure-loving prince
  • spent huge sums on the arts.

Raphael’s friends were the elite.

  • young, good lucking, wealthy, and admired.
  • friendly, even-tempered, generous, and high-minded
  • Raphael was well liked, unlike Leonardo and Michelangelo.

The pope was not Raphael’s sole patron.

Agostino Chigi

  • wealthy banker who managed the papal (catholic/pope) state’s financial affairs
  • commissioned Raphael to decorate his palace on the Tiber River with scenes from classical mythology.

Based on a poem called Stanzas for the Joust of Giuliano de’ Medici by Angelo Poliziano

Two shapely dolphins pull a chariot: on it sits Galatea and wields the reins; as they swim, they breath in unison; a more wanton flock circles around them: one spews forth salt waves, others swim in circles, one seems to cavort and play for love; with her faithful sisters, the fair nymph charmingly laughs at such a crude singer.

  • Galatea flees on a shell drawn by dolphins
  • Tries to escape from her lover, Cyclops Polyphemus
  • Sea creatures and cupids surround her.
  • Unrestrained pagan joy and happiness.
  • Lots of diagonal lines create energy.

Cupids

  • fore-shortened,
  • create circling motion.

Raphael’s Galatea is more muscular and more accurate than Boticelli’s Venus.

Raphael's Castiglione

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RAPHAEL, Baldassare Castiglione, ca. 1514. Oil on canvas, 2’ 6 1/4” x 2’ 2 1/2”. Louvre, Paris.

BALDASSARE CASTIGLIONE

Raphael also painted portraits.

  • painted scholars and friends who surrounded Leo X,

One subject was the Pope’s close friend Count Baldassare Castiglione

  • author of a handbook on genteel behavior.

In Raphael’s portrait of the count Castiglione

  • Splendid yet reserved clothing
  • Looks directly at the viewer.
  • The figure is in half-length (the lower part with the hands was later cut off)
  • Three-quarter view, a pose Leonardo made popular with Mona Lisa.

Artists started paying more attention to the subject’s personality and psychic state.

  • The muted and low-keyed tones befit the temper and mood of this reflective middle-aged man
  • The background is entirely neutral
  • no usual landscape or architecture.
  • The head and the hands illustrate the book he wrote on proper etiquette.

Michelangelo

Leonardo and Michelangelo on Painting versus Sculpture

  • Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo each produced work in a variety of artistic media
  • Were painters, sculptors, architects and draftsmen.
  • The two disagreed on the merits of different media.

Leonardo

Who was rational and analytical preferred painting to sculpture.  Said sculpture was just manual labor.

Michelangelo

Worked in a more intuitive manner.  Was primarily as a sculptor.

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Michelangelo

Pope Julius II loved his work

  • Architect, sculptor, painter, poet, and engineer,
  • He thought of himself first as a sculptor
  • Being a sculptor was superior to that of a painter
  • Sculpture has the ability to make things, not just create illusions of them

Ideas for sculptures are created by witnessing beauty.  It is the artist’s job to release that beauty from the stone.

Michelangelo did not believe that math and proportion guaranteed beauty.

  • Measure and proportion, he believed, should be “kept in the eyes.”
  • “It was necessary to have the compasses in the eyes and not in the hand, because the hands work and the eye judges.”
  • The artist could find things that were beautiful that may not be mathematical.

Said that the artist had a right to express their talent and ideas and to, if needed, break the rules

Michelangelo created works in architecture, sculpture, and painting.

Michelangelo

  • isolated himself
  • had periods of intense creativity
  • proudly independent
  • very dominating
  • was an apprentice to the painter Domenico Ghirlandaio
  • Made detailed drawings.
  • Came to the attention of Lorenzo the Magnificent
  • When the Medici fell in 1494, Michelangelo fled from Florence to Bologna.

Italians used the word terribilità to describe him and his work, which means, the sublime shadowed by the awesome and the fearful.

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564), commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance sculptor, painter, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art. Despite making few forays beyond the arts, his versatility in the disciplines he took up was of such a high order that he is often considered a contender for the title of the archetypal Renaissance man, along with fellow Italian Leonardo da Vinci.

Michelangelo was considered the greatest living artist in his lifetime, and ever since then he has been held to be one of the greatest artists of all time. A number of his works in painting, sculpture, and architecture rank among the most famous in existence. His output in every field during his long life was prodigious; when the sheer volume of correspondence, sketches, and reminiscences that survive is also taken into account, he is the best-documented artist of the 16th century. Two of his best-known works, the Pietà andDavid, were sculpted before he turned thirty. Despite his low opinion of painting, Michelangelo also created two of the most influential works in fresco in the history of Western art: the scenes from Genesis on the ceiling and The Last Judgment on the altar wall of theSistine Chapel in Rome. As an architect, Michelangelo pioneered the Mannerist style at the Laurentian Library. At 74 he succeeded Antonio da Sangallo the Younger as the architect of St. Peter’s Basilica. Michelangelo transformed the plan, the western end being finished to Michelangelo’s design, the dome being completed after his death with some modification.

In a demonstration of Michelangelo’s unique standing, he was the first Western artist whose biography was published while he was alive.  Two biographies were published of him during his lifetime; one of them, by Giorgio Vasari, proposed that he was the pinnacle of all artistic achievement since the beginning of the Renaissance, a viewpoint that continued to have currency in art history for centuries. In his lifetime he was also often called Il Divino (“the divine one”). One of the qualities most admired by his contemporaries was histerribilità, a sense of awe-inspiring grandeur, and it was the attempts of subsequent artists to imitate Michelangelo’s impassioned and highly personal style that resulted in Mannerism, the next major movement in Western art after the High Renaissance.

Michelangelo was known as “il divino,”  (in English, “the divine one”) and it is easy for us to see why. So much of what he created seems to us to be super-human. When Michelangelo was in his late 20s, he sculpted the 17-foot tall David. This colossus seemed to his contemporaries to rival or even surpass ancient Greek and Roman sculpture. David, and his later sculptures such as Moses and the Slaves, demonstrated Michelangelo’s  astounding ability to make marble seem like living flesh and blood. So much so, it is difficult to imagine that these were created with a hammer and chisel.

In painting, if we look at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, with its elegant nudes and powerful seated figures, and the now-iconic image of the Creation of Adam, Michelangelo set a new standard for painting the human figure, one in which the body was not just an actor in a narrative, but emotionally and spiritually expressive on its own.

And then there is his architecture, where Michelangelo reordered ancient forms in an entirely new and dramatic ways.

It is no wonder then too, that Vasari, who knew Michelangelo, would write about how Michelangelo excelled in all three arts: painting, sculpture and architecture:

the great Ruler of Heaven looked down and…resolved…to send to earth a genius universal in each art…He further endowed him with true moral philosophy and a sweet poetic spirit, so that the world should marvel at the singular eminence of his life and works and all his actions, seeming rather divine than earthy.

Michelangelo was also poet. In the poem below, Michelangelo gives us a sense of the co-existence in his art of a love of both the human (particularly male) body and God.

Sculpture, the first of arts, delights a taste Still strong and sound: each act, each limb, each bone Are given life and, lo, man’s body is raised, Breathing alive, in wax or clay or stone.
But oh, if time’s inclement rage should waste, Or maim, the statue that man builds alone,
Its beauty still remains, and can be traced Back to the source that claims it as its own.

Michelangelo's Pieta

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MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI, Pieta, ca. 1498-1500. Marble, 5’ 8 ½” high. Saint Peter’s, Vatican City, Rome.

PIETÀ

Michelangelo’s goes to Rome

  • Around 1498, still in his early 20s, he produced his first masterpiece, the Pietà
  • The process took less than two years.
  • Made for the French cardinal Jean de Bilhères La-graulas
  • Commissioned for the chapel in Old Saint Peter’s
  • Would later be buried there
  • Many Pieta’s in French German art.

The theme

  • Mary cradling the dead body of Christ in her lap
  • He transformed marble into flesh, hair, and fabric with a sensitivity for texture.
  • Sadness of the beautiful young Mary as she mourns the death of her son.

The figures are quite out of proportion

  • depicting a fully-grown man in a woman’s lap.
  • Clothing hides most of Mary’s body, making it appear natural.

Christ seems to be asleep, not dead.  His wounds are barely visible.

Shortly after the installation of his Pietà, Michelangelo overheard someone say that it was the work of another sculptor.  He then carved Michelangelo Buonarroti, Florentine, made it on the sash running across Mary’s breast.  It was the only work he ever signed.

He later regretted his outburst of pride and swore never to sign another work of his hands.

Her age—seemingly less than that of Christ—was a subject of controversy from the moment of the unveiling of the statue.

Michelangelo explained Mary’s ageless beauty as an integral part of her purity and virginity.

Michelangelo himself said to his biographer and fellow sculptor Ascanio Condivi:

“Do you not know that chaste women stay fresh much more than those who are not chaste? How much more in the case of the Virgin, who had never experienced the least lascivious desire that might change her body?”

In subsequent years the Pietà sustained much damage.  Four fingers on the Virgin’s left hand, broken during a move, were restored in 1736.  The most substantial damage occurred on May 21, 1972 when a mentally disturbed geologist named Laszlo Toth walked into the chapel and attacked the Virgin with a hammer while shouting “I am Jesus Christ.

The Pietà was a popular subject among northern european artists. It means Pity or Compassion, and represents Mary sorrowfully contemplating the dead body of her son which she holds on her lap. This sculpture was commissioned by a French Cardinal living in Rome.

Look closely and see how Michelangelo made marble seem like flesh, and look at those complicated folds of drapery. It is important here to remember how sculpture is made. It was a messy, rather loud process (which is one of the reasons that Leonardo claimed that painting was superior to sculpture!). Just like painters often mixed their own paint, Michelangelo forged many of his own tools, and often participated in the quarrying of his marble — a dangerous job.

When we look at the extraordinary representation of the human body here we remember that Michelangelo, like Leonardo before him, had dissected cadavers to understand how the body worked.

Michelangelo's David

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MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI, David, from Piazza della Signoria, Florence, Italy, 1501–1504. Marble, 17’ high. Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence.

DAVID

  • Michelangelo returned to Florence in 1501
  • Seven years after the exile of the Medici

In 1495, Florentine Republic ordered the transfer of Donatello’s David from the Medici palace to the Palazzo della Signoria

The David Statue was seen as a civic symbol. Florence Cathedral building committee invited Michelangelo to create another statue of David. The huge statue—Florentines referred to it as “the Giant”— Michelangelo created from the block made his reputation.

The Board of Works for the Cathedral of Florence commissioned Michelangelo to sculpt David from an enormous block of marble that they had left over from another project. It was commissioned with the idea that it would stand in a niche on one of the cathedral’s buttresses, way up high. Of course, when Michelangelo was finished, they realized that it was far too beautiful to be placed up high, and so it was decided to build a base for the sculpture and to place it right in front of the main government building of Florence (like putting it outside the capital building in Washington D.C.).

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Michelangelo chose to represent the young warrior before he fights Goliath. Tremendous amount of strength in his body. He admired Greco-Roman statues. This David is compositionally and emotionally connected to an unseen presence beyond the statue.

As early as 1501, Michelangelo invested his efforts in presenting towering, pent-up emotion rather than calm, ideal beauty.

Vasari’s description of David:

…nor has there ever been seen a pose so easy, or any grace to equal that in this work, or feet, hands and head so well in accord, one member with another, in harmony, design, and excellence of artistry. (Translated by Gaston du C. de Vere)

Michelangelo’s David stands over 14 feet tall!

Remember that the biblical figure of David was special to the citizens of Florence—he symbolized the liberty and freedom of their republican ideals, which were threatened at various points in the fifteenth century by the Medici family and others.

Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel Ceiling

SISTINE CHAPEL CEILING

Julius II suspended work on his tomb

  • pope gave Michelangelo the commission to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in 1508.

Michelangelo

  • said painting was not his profession
  • faced enormous difficulties in painting the Sistine ceiling.
  • ceiling is 5,800 square feet
  • height above the floor is almost 70 feet
  • complicated perspective problems the vault’s height and curve presented
  • inexperienced working with fresco. (The first section Michelangelo completed had to be redone)
  • finished in less than 4 years
  • depicts the creation, fall, and redemption of humanity.
  • More than 300 figures.

God’s Separation of Light and Darkness (above the altar) to Drunkenness of Noah (nearest the entrance to the chapel).

As viewers enter the chapel and walk toward the altar they see, in reverse order, the history of the fall of humankind. Hebrew prophets and pagan sibyls who foretold the coming of Christ appear seated in large thrones on both sides of the central row of scenes from Genesis, where the vault curves down.

In the four corner pendentives, Michelangelo placed four Old Testament scenes with David, Judith, Haman, and Moses and the Snake. The ancestors of Christ fill the triangular compartments above the windows. Nude youths are in the corners of the central panels

Small pairs of putti in grisaille (monochrome painting using shades of gray to imitate sculpture) support the painted cornice surrounding the entire central corridor.

Chronology of Christianity and ideas about Christian history.

  • Conflict between good and evil
  • Between the energy of youth and the wisdom of age.

The Sistine Chapel ceiling, painted by Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512, is a cornerstone work of High Renaissance art. The ceiling is that of the large Papal Chapel built within the Vatican between 1477 and 1480 by Pope Sixtus IV after whom it is named, and was painted at the commission of Pope Julius II. The chapel is the location for Papal Conclaves and many important services.

The ceiling’s various painted elements form part of a larger scheme of decoration within the Chapel, which includes the largefresco The Last Judgment on the sanctuary wall, also by Michelangelo, wall paintings by several leading painters of the late 15th century including Sandro Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio and Pietro Perugino, and a set of large tapestries by Raphael, the whole illustrating much of the doctrine of the Catholic Church.

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MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI, Creation of Adam detail of the ceiling (FIG. 22-1) of the Sistine Chapel, Vatican City, Rome, Italy, 1511–1512. Fresco, 9’ 2” x 18’ 8”.

CREATION OF ADAM

One of the ceiling’s central panels is Creation of Adam

  • humanistic interpretation.
  • reminiscent of Greek gods and heores

Beneath god’s left arm is a female figure.

  • Several interpretations, but most believe the woman to be the Virgin Mary (with the Christ Child at her knee).
  • Suggests that Michelangelo incorporated into his fresco one of the essential tenets of Christian faith
  • the belief that Adam’s Original Sin eventually led to the sacrifice of Christ, which in turn made possible the redemption of all humankind.

Central to the ceiling decoration are nine scenes from the Book of Genesis of which the Creation of Adam is the best known, having an iconic standing equalled only by Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, the hands of God and Adam being reproduced in countless imitations. The complex design includes several sets of individual figures, both clothed and nude, which allowed Michelangelo to fully demonstrate his skill in creating a huge variety of poses for the human figure, and have provided an enormously influential pattern book of models for other artists ever since.

There are really no good videos that discuss the Sistine Chapel ceiling available online. The one linked below is a recreation of the ceiling because the Vatican does not allow photography or video in the Chapel itself. I have linked several websites that include some great additional resources.

Vatican website

360 Degree Tour (Need Flash but excellent site)

The Counter Reformation

Paul III was pope in 1534 at a time of widespread dissatisfaction with the leadership and policies of the Roman Catholic Church.Martin Luther and John Calvin

  • directly challenged papal authority, especially regarding secular issues.

Angry Catholics voiced concerns

  • about the sale of indulgences (pardons for sins, reducing the time a soul spent in Purgatory),
  • about nepotism (the appointment of relatives to important positions)
  • and about Church officials pursuing personal wealth.

Reformation movement resulted in the establishment of Protestantism, with sects such as Lutheranism and Calvinism.

  • belief in personal faith rather than adherence to Church practices and rules.
  • believed that the only true religious relationship was the personal relationship between an individual and God
  • eliminating the need for Church intercession, which is central to Catholicism.

The Catholic Church

  • mounted a full-fledged campaign to counteract losing members to Protestantism.
  • Led by Paul III, this response, the Counter-Reformation, consisted of numerous initiatives, one of these being using art to bring people back to the Church.

The Council of Trent

  • met from 1545 through 1563
  • Composed of cardinals, archbishops, bishops, abbots, and theologians
  • dealt with issues of Church doctrine, including many the Protestants contested.
  • Realized the power of art to bring people back to the church

Michelangelo's The Last Judgement

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MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI, Last Judgment, altar wall of the Sistine Chapel (FIG. 22-18), Vatican City, Rome, Italy, 1536–1541. Fresco, 48’ x 44’.

LAST JUDGMENT

Paul III’s first papal commissions was an enormous (48 feet tall) fresco for the Sistine Chapel.

Michelangelo agreed to paint the Last Judgment fresco on the chapel’s altar wall.

  • artist depicted Christ as the judge of the world
  • raises his right arm in a gesture of damnation.
  • space below are trumpeting angels
  • the just rise up to heaven
  • the damned are hurled into hell
  • On the left, the dead awake and assume flesh.
  • On the right, demons torment the damned.

About 25 years after painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and many years after the death of Pope Julius II, Michelangelo is asked to paint the wall behind the altar with a fresco of the Last Judgment by Pope Clement VII.

Michelangelo is not the same man he was when he painted the ceiling. His mood is more pessimistic, he is more devout and clearly concerned about the fate of his own soul. The times had changed as well. The Protestant Reformation was well under way, and the Church was beginning to turn its back on the Humanism of the High Renaissance. The Church responded to the attack by Luther by going on the offensive, bringing a powerful, energized Catholicism to the people. The subject of the Last Judgment, where we see the damned tortured in hell, needs to be seen against these historical developments.

The Last Judgment is a very old subject in art history represented by many artists. The subject is the Second Coming of Christ, where Christ returns to judge all of mankind.

Christ separates the blessed (those who will go to heaven), who he gathers on his right, from the damned (those who will go to hell), who he gathers on his left. In the 9th and 10th centuries, during the Middle Ages, this scene was often represented on the doorways of churches so that you had a frightening image of the Day of Judgment on your way in to church.

Here, Michelangelo shows us Christ in the center and below him to his (Christ’s) left are the damned who are being pulled down to hell and shipped to hell where they are tortured by demons.

Below Christ to his right (careful — not our right) are the blessed who rise from their graves and float up to heaven with the aid of angels.

On either side of Christ directly are important figures, like Eve, and also Saints, many of whom died particularly painful deaths. We can identify these different Saints by what they carry. Usually Saints carry the instruments of their martyrdom, or some other identifying attribute.

Saint Catherine carries a wheel because she was martyred on the spokes of a wheel (here she is from Michelangelo’s fresco). Saint Lawrence carries a grill, because he was burned to death, and Saint Sebastian carries arrows because his entire body was pierced by arrows.

Michelangelo said that these saints “sew the seeds of faith,” that is, by their example of faith — a faith so firm that they were willing to undergo physical torture and death — they provide an example for us.

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Michelangelo also included Saint Bartholomew, who was martyred by being skinned alive. He holds the knife in one hand, and in his other he holds his skin. When we look closely at the skin of St. Bartholomew we see that Michelangelo painted his self-portrait there which appears distorted in the sagging skin.

We know from Michelangelo’s poetry that at this point in his life (for the 16th century he was an old man) he was feeling more devout and concerned about the fate of his own soul. He placed his self-portrait hovering precariously over hell and midway, in a diagonal line, between Christ, and the famous image of the man who has just realized that he is being pulled down toward hell.

Michelangelo certainly presents a different image of humanity in the Last Judgment than he did on the ceiling. On the ceiling Michelangelo presented us with God’s plan to redeem a fallen mankind. As we saw, the figures on the ceiling are ideally beautiful, and heroic. The figures in the Last Judgment in contrast, are ill-proportioned (their heads are too small for their bodies), and they assume ugly, awkward poses. Christ appears here not as a redeemer but as an angry judge. And Michelangelo seems to be exploring the power of ugliness to portray the terror of the Last Judgment.

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The Last Judgment was an object of a heavy dispute between Cardinal Carafa and Michelangelo. Michelangelo was accused of immorality and obscenity, having depicted naked figures, with genitals in evidence, inside the most important church of Christianity. A censorship campaign (known as the “Fig-Leaf Campaign”) was organized by Carafa and Monsignor Sernini (Mantua’s ambassador) to remove the frescoes.

When the Pope’s own Master of Ceremonies, Biagio da Cesena, said “it was mostly disgraceful that in so sacred a place there should have been depicted all those nude figures, exposing themselves so shamefully, and that it was no work for a papal chapel but rather for the public baths and taverns,”

Michelangelo worked da Cesena’s semblance into the scene as Minos, judge of the underworld.

It is said that when he complained to the Pope, the pontiff responded that his jurisdiction did not extend to hell, so the portrait would have to remain.

The genitalia in the fresco were later covered by the artist Daniele da Volterra, whom history remembers by the derogatory nickname “Il Braghettone” (“the breeches-painter”).

Bellini's San Zaccaria Altarpiece

GIOVANNI BELLINI, San Zaccaria Altarpiece, 1505. Oil on wood transferred to canvas, 16’ 5” x 7’ 9”. San Zaccaria, Venice.

Trained in the International Style by his father Jacopo

  • Bellini worked in the family shop
  • Did not develop his own style until after his father’s death in 1470.

Late 1470s

  • Saw work of the painter Antonello da Messina.

Antonello

  • arrived in Venice in 1475
  • during his two-year stay introduced his Venetian colleagues to the possibilities the new oil technique offered.
  • received his early training in Naples
  • learned about Flemish painting
  • mastered using mixed oil.
  • more flexible medium
  • wider color range than fresco

As a direct result of meeting Antonello

  • Bellini abandoned Mantegna’s harsh linear style and developed a sensuous coloristic manner that was to characterize Venetian painting for a century.

SAN ZACCARIA ALTAR PIECE

  • Earned great recognition for his many Madonnas
  • painted both in half-length and in full-length
  • Sometimes with or without saints
  • small devotional panels on large, altarpieces of the sacra conversazione (holy conversation) type.

Sacra conversazione (sacred conversation between the Virgina, Child and Saints)

  • became popular as a theme for religious paintings from the middle of the 15th century on
  • saints from different time periods occupy the same space and seem to talk each other or with the audience.

The Virgin Mary sits on a throne, holding the Christ Child, with saints on both sides of her.

Bellini placed the group in a carefully painted shrine.

  • Saint Lucy holding a tray with her plucked-out eyes displayed on it – name derived from Lux, Lucis meaning “Light”, as she is the patron saint of those who are blind.
  • Saint Peter with his key and book
  • Saint Catherine with the palm of martyrdom and the broken wheel
  • Saint Jerome with a book (representing his translation of the Bible into Latin).

At the foot of the throne sits an angel playing a violin.

Painting seems calm.

  • no interaction happens between the figures
  • light and color is well balanced

Bellini’s last phase is heralded with San Zaccaria Altarpiece in Venice, dated 1505. According to Ridolfi (1648) the altarpiece, commissioned in memory of Pietro Cappello, was already in its own time “considered one of the most beautiful and refined works of the master”. Bellini was now an old man of about seventy-five. Yet his astounding ability to change, arising from a conscious understanding of the evolution of art, does not appear to have dimmed for a moment. Confronted by the first achievements of Giorgione, he assimilated and adapted them to his own artistic expressivity with total coherence. The compositional and architectural structure of the canvas is not fundamentally very different from the San Giobbe Altarpiece: a niche-like apse surrounding the group of the enthroned Madonna and the saints who are positioned at her sides. Here too, from a spatial point of view, the painting becomes a continuation of the altar on which it is placed. But at the same time the landscape appearing from the sides, according to an idea taken from Alvise Vivarini who had experimented it in the Battuti Altarpiece at Belluno (now destroyed), pour forth into the air a light that softens the forms. The tonal colour gains the upper hand, creating a new harmony of broad planes, softened forms, and a warm sense of the air. In his turn Giorgione must have contemplated this elaboration the old Bellini was making of his inventions, and kept it in mind in the frescoes of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi of some years later.

When one enters the little church of San Zaccaria in Venice and stands before the picture, immediately notices that his approach to colour was very different. Not that the picture is particularly bright or shining. It is rather the mellowness and richness of the colours that impress one before one even begins to look at what the picture represents. Even the photograph conveys something of the warm and gilded atmosphere which fills the niche in which the Virgin sits enthroned, with the infant Jesus lifting His little hands to bless the worshippers before the altar. An angel at the foot of the altar softly plays the violin, while the saints stand quietly at either side of the throne: St Peter with his key and book, St Catherine with the palm of martyrdom and the broken wheel, St Lucy and St Jerome, the scholar who translated the Bible into Latin, and whom Bellini therefore represented as reading a book.

Many Madonnas with saints have been painted before and after, in Italy and elsewhere, but few were ever conceived with such dignity and repose. In the Byzantine tradition, the picture of the Virgin used to be rigidly flanked by images of the saints, Bellini knew how to bring life into this simple symmetrical arrangement without upsetting its order. He also knew how to turn the traditional figures of the Virgin and saints into real and living beings without divesting them of their holy character and dignity. He did not even sacrifice the variety and individuality of real life – as Perugino had done to some extent. St Catherine with her dreamy smile, and St Jerome, the old scholar engrossed in his book, are real enough in their own ways, although they, too, no less than Perugino’s figures, seem to belong to another more serene and beautiful world, a world transfused with that warm and supernatural light that fills the picture.

Bellini's Feast of the Gods

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GIOVANNI BELLINI and TITIAN, Feast of the Gods, from the Camerino d’Alabastro, Palazzo Ducale, Ferrara, Italy, 1529. Oil on canvas, 5’ 7” x  6’ 2”. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (Widener Collection).

FEAST OF THE GODS

Bellini drew from the work of one of his students

Giorgione da Castelfranco

  • painted the landscape backgrounds.
  • New word to describe these landscapes – Arcadian (place of rural simplicity and peace)
  • dies at a young age

Bellini copied his students method for landscape painting and created a new, mythological style

Alfonso d’Este (a duke)

  • commissioned this work for a room in the Palazzo Ducale.

Some inspiration from Greco-Roman art

  • the nymph carrying a vase on her head and the sleeping nymph in the lower right corner
  • the Olympian gods appear as peasants enjoying a picnic in the woods
  • a banquet of the gods.

Satyrs – half horse, half man

  • attend the gods
  • nymphs bring jugs of wine
  • a child draws from a keg
  • couples engage in love play
  • sleeping nymph with exposed breast is being stared at.

Colorful fabrics, smooth flesh, and polished metal.

  • warm, lush tones of the figures
  • background of cool green tree-filled glades extends into the distance.
  • trees create shelter.

Venetian (Venice) art complements the artwork being made in Florence and Rome.

  • The Venetians’ loved color
  • Florentines and Romans loved form.
  • The contrast between these two approaches are defined as colorito (colored or painted) versus disegno (drawing and design).
  • most Italian artists emphasized careful planning and drawing
  • Venetian artists focused on color and the process of painting.

Venetian artists

  • pained for the senses
  • nature’s beauty
  • pleasures of humanity.

Florentine and Roman artists focused on more intellectual themes

  • epic of humanity
  • the masculine virtues
  • the ideal
  • concepts of religion.

poesia, or painting meant to evoke moods in a manner similar to poetry.

  • Both classical and Renaissance poetry inspired Venetian artists
  • their paintings focused on the lyrical and sensual.

The Mythological Subject

The ribald theme comes from The Feasts (Fasti), a long classical poem by Ovid that recounts the origins of many ancient Roman rites and festivals. Ovid (43 B.C.–A.D. 17), describing a banquet given by the god of wine, mentioned an incident that embarrassed Priapus, god of virility.

The beautiful nymph Lotis, shown reclining at the far right, was lulled to sleep by wine. Priapus, overcome by lust, seized the opportunity to take advantage of her and is portrayed bending forward to lift her skirt. His attempt was foiled when an ass, seen at the left, “with raucous braying, gave out an ill-timed roar. Awakened, the startled nymph pushed Priapus away, and the god was laughed at by all.” Priapus, his pride wounded, took revenge by demanding the annual sacrifice of a donkey.

The ass stands next to Silenus, a woodland deity who used the beast to carry firewood. Silenus wears a keg on his belt because he was a follower of Bacchus, god of wine. Bacchus himself, seen as an infant, kneels before them while decanting wine into a crystal pitcher.

Reading from left to right, the principal figures are:

Silenus –  a woodland god attended by his donkey
Bacchus –  the infant god of wine crowned with grape leaves
Silvanus – an old forest god wearing a wreath of pine needles
Mercury – the messenger of the gods carrying his caduceus or herald’s staff
Jupiter – the king of the gods accompanied by an eagle
Persephone – holding a quince, a fruit associated in the ancient world with marriage
Pan – a satyr with a grape wreath who blows on his shepherd’s pipes
Neptune – the god of the sea sitting beside his trident harpoon
Ceres – the goddess of cereal grains with a wreath of wheat
Apollo – god of the sun and the arts, crowned by laurel and holding a Renaissance stringed musical instrument, the lira da braccio, in lieu of a classical lyre
Priapus – the god of virility and of vineyards with a scythe, used to prune orchards, hanging from the tree above him
Lotis – one of the naiads, a nymph of fresh waters who represents chastity.

These deities are waited upon by three naiads, nymphs of streams and brooks, and two satyrs, goat-footed inhabitants of the wilderness. On the distant mountain, which Titian added to Bellini’s picture, two more satyrs cavort drunkenly and a hunting hound chases a stag.

Giorgione

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GIORGIONE DA CASTELFRANCO (and/or TITIAN?), Pastoral Symphony, ca. 1508–1510. Oil on canvas, 3’ 7 1/4” x 4’ 6 1/4”. Louvre, Paris.

GIORGIONE

  • Giorgione da Castelfranco
  • developed a poetic manner of painting

Pastoral Symphony

  • exemplifies poesia
  • inspired the Arcadian scenes by his teacher Bellini,.
  • dark shadows
  • soft forms of figures and landscape.

Two nude women

  • two clothed young men
  • shepherd passing in the background landscape
  • in the back, a house on a hill.

The shepherd symbolizes the poet.

  • The pipes and lute symbolize his poetry.
  • The two women with the young men may be thought of as their invisible inspiration, their muses.
  • One turns to lift water from the sacred well of poetic inspiration.

Voluptuous women became the standard in Venetian art.

Giorgione praised the beauty of nature, music, women, and pleasure.

  • played the lute and was a singer.

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GIORGIONE DA CASTELFRANCO, The Tempest, ca. 1510. Oil on canvas, 2’ 8 1/4” x 2’ 4 3/4”. Galleria dell’Accademia, Venice.

The Tempest

  • interest in the poetic qualities of the natural landscape.
  • lush landscape.
  • Stormy skies and lightning in the middle background threaten peaceful landscape.

Pushed off to both sides are the human figures

  • a young woman nursing a baby in the right foreground
  • a man carrying a halberd (a combination spear and battle-ax) on the left.

Titian's Assumption of the Virgin

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TITIAN, Assumption of the Virgin, 1516–1518. Oil on wood, 22’ 7 1/2” x 11’ 10”. Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, Venice.

TITIAN

Tiziano Vecelli, called Titian in English.

  • loved color
  • the most extraordinary and prolific of the great Venetian painters.

Assumption of the Virgin

  • painted in oils for the main altar of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in Venice.
  • Commissioned by the prior (religious leader) of this Franciscan basilica
  • monumental altarpiece (close to 23 feet high)
  • depicts the ascent of the Virgin’s body to Heaven
  • white cloud is carried by putti (naked child)
  • golden clouds surround her
  • God the Father appears above, awaiting Mary with open arms.
  • Below, apostles witness the event.

Filled with drama.

Titian's Venus of Urbino

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TITIAN, Venus of Urbino, 1538. Oil on canvas, 3’ 11” x 5’ 5”. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

 

This work, completed in 1538 for the Duke of Urbino Guidobaldo II Della Rovere, is very interesting and charming for its many hidden meanings.The painting represents the allegory of marriage and had to serve as a “teaching” model to Giulia Varano, the young wife of the Duke: the evident eroticism of the painting, in fact, had to remind the woman of the marital obligations she would fulfill to his husband.

The erotic allegory was even more evident in the representation of Venus, goddess of love, depicted as a sensual and delectable woman staring at the viewer who cannot ignore her beauty.

The light and warm color of the body of Venus is in contrast to the dark background and brings out her eroticism even more. The dog at the feet of the woman is the symbol of the marital fidelity while the house maid behind looking at the girl while she rummages in a chest of drawers symbolizes motherhood.

The strong sensuality of this painting was therefore consistent with its private, domestic purpose.

The pose of the nude is certainly a tribute to his friend-master Giorgione, who in 1510 had painted a very similar subject, the Sleeping Venus.

Thanks to the wise use of color and its contrasts, as well as the subtle meanings and allusions, Titian achieves the goal of representing the perfect Renaissance woman who, just like Venus, becomes the symbol of love, beauty and fertility.

In his 1880, Mark Twain called the Venus of Urbino “the foulest, the vilest, the obscenest picture the world possesses”. He proposed that “it was painted for a bagnio (brothel) and it was probably refused because it was a trifle too strong’, adding humorously that “in truth, it is a trifle too strong for any place but a public art gallery”.

Google Art Project – Titian’s Venus

Mannerism

The High Renaissance in Italy was astonishing. It represented a peak, a height, a veritable zenith (if you will) of artistic genius that surely must have owed something to a favorable zodiac. In fact, the only downside to the whole business was, with the Big Three Names diminished to one (Michelangelo) after 1520, where was Art to go?It almost seems as if Art asked itself this very question, at the time, and that the prevailing answer was: “Oh, what the hey. We couldnever top the High Renaissance, so why bother?” Hence, Mannerism popped up, first in Florence and Rome, then the rest of Italy and, eventually, all over Europe.

Mannerism, a phrase coined in the 20th-century, is what happened artistically during the “Late” Renaissance (otherwise known as the years between Raphael’s death (1520) and the beginning of the Baroque phase in 1600). Mannerism also represents Renaissance art going out, as they say, not with a bang but, rather, a (relative) whimper.

It’s not fair, though, to completely blame Art for its loss of momentum after the High Renaissance. There were, as there always are, mitigating factors. For example, Rome was sacked in 1527, taken over by the armies of Charles V. Charles (who had previously just been Charles I, King of Spain) had himself crowned as Holy Roman Emperor and got to control things in most of Europe and the New World. By all accounts, he was not particularly interested in sponsoring art or artists – especially not Italian artists. Neither was he enamored with the idea of the independent city-states of Italy, and most of them lost their independent status.

Additionally, a troublemaker named Martin Luther had been stirring things up in Germany, and the spread of his radical preaching was causing many to question the authority of the Church. The Church, of course, found this absolutely intolerable. Its response to the Reformation was to launch the Counter Reformation, a joyless, restrictive authoritative movement which had a Zero Tolerance policy toward Renaissance innovations (among many, many other things).

So here was Art, deprived of most of its genius, patrons and freedom.  It was honestly about the best that could be expected under the circumstances.

What are the key characteristics of Mannerism?

On the plus side, artists had gained lots of technical knowledge during the Renaissance (such as the use of oil paints and perspective) which would never again be lost to a “dark” age.

Another new development at this time was rudimentary archaeology. The Mannerist artists now had actual works, from antiquity, to study. No longer did they need to use their respective imagination when it came to Classical stylization.

That said, they (the Mannerist artists) almost seemed determined to use their powers for evil. Where High Renaissance art was natural, graceful, balanced and harmonious, the art of Mannerism was quite different. While technically masterful, Mannerist compositions were full of clashing colors, disquieting figures with abnormally elongated limbs, (often torturous-looking) emotionand bizarre themes that combined Classicism, Christianity and mythology.

The nude, which had been rediscovered during the Early Renaissance, was still present during the Late but, heavens – the poses in which it found itself! Leaving compositional instability out of the picture (pun intended), no human could have maintained positions such as those depicted – clothed or otherwise.

Landscapes suffered a similar fate. If the sky in any given scene wasn’t a menacing color, it was filled with flying animals, malevolent putti, Grecian columns or some other unnecessary busy-ness. Or all of the above.

Whatever happened to Michelangelo?

Michelangelo, as things turned out, segued nicely into Mannerism. He was flexible, making transitions with his art that dovetailed with the transitions in all of those successive Popes who commissioned his work. Michelangelo had always had a tendency toward the dramatic and emotive in his art, as well as a sort of carelessness toward the human element in his human figures. It probably shouldn’t have been surprising, then, to find that restorations of his works in the Sistine Chapel (the ceiling and Last Judgement frescoes) uncovered his use of a rather loud palette of colors.

How long did the Late Renaissance last?

Depending on who’s doing the figuring, Mannerism was en vogue around eighty years (give or take a decade or two). Though it lasted at least twice as long as the High Renaissance, the Late Renaissance got shoved aside, by the Baroque period, fairly quickly (as history goes). Which was a good thing, indeed, for those who are not great lovers of Mannerism – even though it was so distinct from High Renaissance art that it deserves its own name.

Pontormo's Entombment

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JACOPO DA PONTORMO, Entombment of Christ, Capponi Chapel, Santa Felicità, Florence, Italy, 1525–1528. Oil on wood, 10’ 3” x 6’ 4”.

PONTORMO

Entombment of Christ by Jacopo da Pontormo exhibits almost all of the features of Mannerism.  Images of Christ being taken from the cross and placed in the tomb were pretty common themes in 16th-century paintings. 

  • Pontormo left out both the cross and Christ’s tomb.
  • Action is vertical rather than horizontal
  • the Virgin Mary falls back (away from the viewer) as she releases her dead son’s hand.
  • Pontormo left a void in the center of the painting
  • The hands fill that hole, calling attention to the void—symbolic of loss and grief.

The figures look anxious

  • Glance in all directions.
  • The bearded young man at the upper right who looks out at the viewer is probably a self-portrait of Pontormo.

Some of the bodies are out of proportion

  • All the heads are small ovals
  • The contrasting colors, light blues and pinks, make the painting more dynamic

Parmigianino's Madonna with the Long Neck

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PARMIGIANINO, Madonna with the Long Neck, from the Baiardi Chapel, Santa Maria dei Servi, Parma,Italy, 1534–1540. Oil on wood, 7’ 1” x 4’ 4”. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

PARMIGIANINO

Parmigianino, achieved in his best-known work, Madonna with the Long Neck.

Mary appears sweet, full of grace as she looks at Christ, her son

  • small oval head
  • her long and slender neck
  • long fingers of her hand
  • elongated body

On the left

  • group of angelic people, full of emotion

On the right

  • included a line of columns without capitals
  • figure with a scroll
  • distance doesnt make sense.
  • opposite of Renaissance perspective.

Medieval hymns compared the Virgin’s neck to a great ivory tower or column.  Notice the column to the right of Mary.

Bronzino's Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time

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BRONZINO, Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time, ca. 1546. Oil on wood, 5’ 1” x 4’ 8 1/4”. National Gallery, London.

Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time by Agnolo di Cosimo, better known as Bronzino

  • A student of Pontormo
  • was a Florentine
  • painter to the first grand duke of Tuscany, Cosimo I de’ Medici (r. 1537–1574).

Displays all the chief features of Mannerist painting.

Bronzino

  • depicted Cupid fondling his mother Venus
  • Folly prepares to shower them with rose petals.
  • Time, who appears in the upper right corner, draws back the curtain to reveal the incest.
  • Other figures in the painting represent other human qualities and emotions, including Envy.
  • The masks, a favorite device of the Mannerists, symbolize deceit.

Seems to suggest that love surrounded by envy and lots of change is foolish and that lovers will discover its folly in time.  But the meaning is ambiguous and there are many interpretations of the painting.

Tintoretto

TINTORETTO, Last Supper, 1594. Oil on canvas, 12’ x 18’ 8”. San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice.

The church of San Giorgio Maggiore was built on the San Giorgio Island between 1566 and 1600 using the design of Palladio. After 1590 the workshop of Tintoretto was commissioned to paint big canvases for decorating it. Due the large number of commissions, Tintoretto in his late years increasingly relied on his coworkers. However, three surviving paintings placed in a chapel consacrated in 1592 – The Jews in the Desert, The Last Supper and The Entombment – were certainly painted by Tintoretto himself.

Tintoretto painted the Last Supper several times in his life. This version can be described as the fest of the poors, in which the figure of Christ mingles with the crowds of apostles. However, a supernatural scene with winged figures comes into sight by the light around his head. This endows the painting with a visional character clearly differentiating it from paintings of the same subject made by earlier painters like Leonardo.

The curious diagonal position of the table for the Last Supper is explained by the installation of the painting on the right wall of the presbytery of San Giorgio Maggiore. The table was to be perceived by visitors to the church as an extension in perspective of the high altar, or conversely the high altar was to be seen as a prolongation of the table for the Last Supper. The priestly bearing of Christ and the liturgical utensils on the small side table play on the same connection. The winged apparitions characterize the Eucharist as the “bread of angels” (St Thomas Aquinas) and in their non-material, other-worldly nature indicate the mystery of transubstantiation (the transformation of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ). While the composition of The Last Supper as a whole follows a wall hanging by Giulio Romano depicting the Passover, the detail of the eerily flickering candlestick was suggested by a Crowning with Thorns by Titian (Alte Pinakothek, Munich), which Tintoretto had acquired from the master’s estate when he died.

Different from usual depictions of the Last Supper, the work does not portray the apostles in the centre of the scene which is instead occupied by secondary characters, such as a woman carrying a dish or the servants taking the dishes from the table. Tintoretto’s “Last Supper incorporates many Mannerist devices, including an imbalanced composition and visual complexity. The ability of this dramatic scene to engage viewers was well in keeping with Counter-Reformation ideals and the Catholic Church’s belief in the didactic nature of religious art.”

The setting is also similar to a Venetian inn. Also personal is the use of light, which appears to come into obscurity from both the light on the ceiling and from Jesus’ aureola.

Sources

“Leonardo Da Vinci.” Leonardo. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Dec. 2012. <http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/leonardo-notebooks.html>.

“Leonardo’s Last Supper.” Last Supper. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Dec. 2012. <http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/leonardo-last-supper.html>.

“Leonardo’s “Mona Lisa”” Mona Lisa. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Dec. 2012. <http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/leonardo-mona-lisa.html>.

“Raphael’s School of Athens.” School of Athens. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Dec. 2012. <http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/school-of-athens.html>.

“Raphael’€™s Madonna in the Meadow.” ItalianRenaissance.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Dec. 2012. <http://www.italianrenaissance.org/raphaels-madonna-in-the-meadow/>

“Michelangelo.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 24 Dec. 2012. Web. 27 Dec. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelangelo>.

“Michelangelo:Sculptor, Painter, Architect and Poet.” Michelangelo. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Dec. 2012. <http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/michelangelo.html>.

“Michelangelo’s Pieta .” The Pieta . N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Dec. 2012. <http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/michelangelo-pieta.html>.

“Michelangelo’s David.” David. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Dec. 2012. <http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/Michelangelo-David.html>.

“San Zaccaria Altarpiece by BELLINI, Giovanni.” San Zaccaria Altarpiece by BELLINI, Giovanni. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Dec. 2012. <http://www.wga.hu/html_m/b/bellini/giovanni/1500-09/zaccaria/183madon.html>.

“Uffizi Tickets: Online Reservation.” The Uffizi Gallery Venus of Urbino by Titian Comments. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Dec. 2012. <http://www.uffizi.org/artworks/venus-of-urbino-by-titian/>.

“The Italian Late Renaissance and Mannerism – Art History 101 Basics.” About.com Art History. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Dec. 2012. <http://arthistory.about.com/cs/arthistory10one/a/late_ren.htm>.