innovations in information technology: insights from italian renaissance art

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Innovations in Information Technology:Insights from Italian Renaissance ArtJonathan E. Schroeder & Janet L. BorgersonPublished online: 02 Dec 2010.

To cite this article: Jonathan E. Schroeder & Janet L. Borgerson (2002) Innovations in InformationTechnology: Insights from Italian Renaissance Art, Consumption Markets & Culture, 5:2, 153-169,DOI: 10.1080/1025386029001559

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Consumption, Markets and Culture, 2002 VOL. 5 (2), pp. 153-169

Innovations in Information Technology: Insights from Italian Renaissance Art

JONATHAN E. SCHROEDER* and JANET L. BORGERSON~

Information technologies help in defining historical eras. Innovations in information technology (IT) often lead to profound changes in social, cultural, and economic processes. Art historical approaches open up a realm of earlier forms of IT and provide productive fresh perspectives on technological innovations. Changes in image production during the Renaissance advanced possibilities for art to address or "hail" the viewer in more personal ways, implicating patrons and consumers alike within the artwork's system of meaning and value. Renaissance patrons successfully appropriated the form and symbols of religious art; contemporary corporations likewise appropriate cultural referent systems within marketing and image campaigns. By considering painting as an IT, we gain theoretical links between disparate yet interlinked cultural fields such as photography, art, marketing communications, and the Internet.

Information technologies exist within cultural, political, and economic arenas: they have a history (Dobers and Strannegird 2001). Information Technology (IT) or information and communication technology (ICT) usually refers to complex, sophisticated systems such as mass media, the Internet, telecommunications, or digital satellite transmission arrays. These constitute the basic building blocks of the information society-where information is a crucial corporate competitive advantage as well as a fundamental cultural force. Photography remains a key component of much information technologies-digital incorporation of scanned photographic images helped transform the Internet into what it is today. Photography, in turn, was heavily influenced by the older traditions of painting in its commercial and artistic production, reception, and recognition (e.g. Savendoff 2000). This paper focuses attention on painting as a form of IT.

Contemporary marketing relies on consumers' ability to make personal connections to themes, images, and messages found in marketing communications. We suggest that an important antecedent of this phenomenon can be traced to Renaissance painting. During the fourteenth century, Medieval art-the prevailing earlier style rooted in religious icons and rendered in flat, otherworldly space-slowly shifted to the more naturalistic renderings of the Early Renaissance. Human figures appeared increasingly life-like, enabling viewers to imagine themselves within the frame. Inclusion of secular subjects in Italian Renaissance art led to portrayals of patrons themselves. Indeed, the insertion of well-known individuals was taught to painters by Alberti, who suggested that this technique leads to greater empathy with the scene. The portrait, which came to prominence during the Renaissance, allowed quattrocentro Italians to visually represent themselves to their peers in a manner that served consumer oriented needs of celebration, image management, investment, and propaganda.

*Corresponding author. Address: Department of Industrial Economics and Management, Royal Institute of Technology, S-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden.

ISSN 1025-3866 print1ISSN 1477-223X online O 2002 Taylor & Francis Ltd DOI: lO.lO8O/lO25386O29OOl5594

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154 JONATHAN E. SCHROEDER AND JANET L. BORGERSON

Such developments are crucial in understanding how this period became such a forerunner of consumer society; and can be seen as an outgrowth of changes in religious art traditions.'

Patrons-or organizations-who command the IT of their era gain important tools for controlling or managing their image. During the Italian Renaissance of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, a patronage system in art developed in which patrons took advantage of a shift in artistic style to promote their image in particular ways. Elements in the resulting artwork can be seen as an expression of the patron's desire, demonstrating what wealth could obtain, articulating value, and signifying status. Changes in the style of art-a dominant IT of the day-made a particular kind of image management possible for the wealthy patrons of city-states, such as Florence. Aspects of art and the art market began to be incorporated by private citizens and groups for secular, self-enhancing ends in ways reminiscent of more recent scenarios. The changing demand for art-and how images were produced and consumed-in the Italian Renaissance reveals important antecedents of modern marketing.

This paper draws upon art history to make theoretical links between image making and image management grounded in cultural and historical perspectives. We apply a historical model of consumer demand during the Renaissance to frame painting as a consumer and market artifact. Our contribution rests in isolating technological innovations in painting that helped usher in image-based marketing communications.

First, the economic and social forces at work during the Renaissance will be addressed, with special concern for their influence on and reflection in the world of painting. Second, art history is employed to describe specific innovations within painting that paved the way for shifts in how people thought about, appreciated, and collected art. Changes in art production during the Renaissance opened up possibilities for art to address or "hail" the viewer in more personal ways, implicating patrons and consumers alike within the artwork's system of meaning. Renaissance patrons successfully appropriated the symbols and forms of Christian religious art. Contemporary corporations likewise appropriate cultural referent systems for strategic marketing campaigns. The paper concludes with a discussion of the legacy of the Italian Renaissance and its implications for contemporary consumer culture.

By considering painting as an IT, we gain theoretical links between disparate cultural fields such as photography, the Internet, and art. The history of art takes us into a realm of an earlier form of IT, and allows us to focus on technological innovations. Further, by pointing to changes in artistic production and consumption, art history provides a language to describe IT and technological innovations that played important roles in the rise of modern marketing.

The broader goal of this study is an enhanced understanding of how a visual approach- including visual literacy, art history, and art appreciation-can shed light on basic issues in marketing and consumption, such as brand images, communication, and management of innovations. We find that by considering older forms of expression as IT, we gain a richer appreciation for cultural processes of communication, technological development, and consumption. Apart from art sources, historical evidence is abundant for this project; the Italians left us a multitude of data-contracts, payment records, letters, legal documents, and often stirring personal writing (Hartt 1993). For it is not just the content of art that imparts meaning to surrounding culture-the cultural context of art is central to its expressive power (Mitchell 1994). In the words of one influential art historian, "social history and art history are continuous, each offering necessary insights into the other" (Baxandall 1972, p. 12).

ART AND CONSUMER RESEARCH

Art teaches us not only what to see but what to be.

(Bernard Berenson 1957 Italian Painters of the Renaissance, p. 178)

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INNOVATIONS IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 155

A defining characteristic of the 21st century is the influence of the image. Digital imaging underlies the technological potentials of the World Wide Web, advances in biomedical technology, and microcomputing, to name a few industrial applications. Furthermore, brands are developed based on images, products are advertised via images, and corporate image is critical for managerial success. If we understand that the market is based largely upon images-brand images, corporate images, national images, and images of identity-then we realize that visual issues are central to understanding the information society and gaining insight into images as a visual referent system.

Consumer researchers have turned to humanities based approaches to investigate historical antecedents of buyer behavior (e.g., Witkowski 1989), advertising strategy (Stem l988), brand image (Percy 1993), materialism (Belk l986), sacred and profane consumption (Belk et al. 1989) and visual rhetoric (Scott 1994) among other concerns (see Sherry 1991, for a summary). Other work has employed the tools of art criticism to analyze basic consumption issues such as branding (Schroeder 1997; 2000); materialism (Schroeder 1992); pictorial conventions (Schroeder 1999); propaganda (Hupfer 1997) gender imagery (Schroeder and Borgerson 1998), and decoding advertisements (Stem and Schroeder 1994).

However, consumer-oriented researchers have not recognized art history's potential. Art frequently provides rich cultural data. Art-like marketing-is an important cultural institution that reflects, reproduces and transmits values, meaning, and beliefs. Art history and criticism, traditionally outside the realm of consumer research, adds a necessary component to understanding innovations in IT, contemporary marketing practice, and image management (cf. Hudson and Ozanne 1988). Furthermore, art history offers methods for interpreting and analyzing the historical trends in representing, consuming, and promoting cultural goods. Art is a commodity, subject to market forces and consumer behavior processes (e.g., Watson 1992; Jensen 1994; Jardine 1996; Witkowski 1996). By scrutinizing subtle changes in art, their eventual ramifications, and the rise of art as a commodity, a unique insight is gained into the history of IT. Thus, it seems fruitful to analyze consumer processes through the lens of art history and criticism (cf. Brown and Patterson 2000). Historical methods in consumer research (e.g. Smith and Lux 1993) and marketing (Jones and Monieson 1990, for a review), combined with a visual arts approach are a promising way to gain a thick, descriptive understanding of the connections between the visual arts and marketing, as well as the role that the image plays in consumer society (see Schroeder 1998).

Insights from art history are instrumental to uncovering the significance of important changes in Renaissance art production and placing them within a market context. Most consumer research from an art centered approach focuses on advertising-an important, but limited, application of the rich tradition of art history. In contrast, many art historians have discussed broad issues of consumer behavior. For example, Simon Schama discusses many aspects central to consumer research-such as collecting, demand, luxury goods-in his monumental study of Dutch art, (Schama 1988). Other art historians take an economic approach to the art market, demonstrating that art is governed by market forces similar to manufactured goods (e.g. Watson 1992; Goldthwaite 1993; Jensen, 1994). Historical scholarship investigating societal trends often invokes art history in discussing consumption or marketing issues (e.g. Eco 1986; Jensen 1994; Schama 1988). While art historians are surveying the marketing of art, consumer researchers have been slow to turn to art to analyze market and consumer processes-a central feature of the culture that art depicts, packages, comments on, and is marketed within. A notable exception is Joy's work on the art market's influence in corporate strategy-she has labeled corporate sponsors of art "the Modern Medicis" (Joy 1993; 1998).

Art, of course, is only part of the cultural landscape. The works that now are considered Renaissance masterpieces-attracting throngs of tourists-were usually not produced as

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"art" at all, but as religious or civic artifacts. Moreover, the Renaissance must be seen as part of a gradual development in art, science and culture, not only as a distinct period in time. Other historical periods, such as the Dutch art of the 1700s, or the grand accumulation of art during the Ottoman Empire might provide equally rich insight into the relationships between art and consumption (see Schroeder 1999; 2002 and Witkowski 1999). However, the Italian Renaissance is a useful place to begin, since it is well documented, the patronage processes are distinct and recognizable, and it is characterized by a flowering of painting unparalleled in Western art. As Goldthwaite writes: "During the period now known as the Italian Renaissance, man attached himself in a dynamic and creative way to things, to material possessions; and with the discovery of things modern civilization was born, for man embarked on the adventure of creating the dynamic world of goods in which he has found his characteristic identity. In this enterprise his highest quest has been the elevation of things into a spiritual realm, and we celebrate his success-and the very essence of our civilization-in today's temples of art" (Goldthwaite 1993, p. 255). In particular, most art historians point to the Italian Renaissance as the origin of certain painting techniques that utterly transformed the world of art, and in turn, the world.

CONSUMPTION OF ART IN THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE

The Renaissance has come to designate a historical period of shifting values and a "rebirth" of focus upon the concerns, intellectual investigations, and aesthetics of the classical era in ancient Greece and Rome. Departing from the contemplative abstract forms, decorated static surfaces, and infinite gold space of Byzantine art, Renaissance values helped to place the human form at the center of painting and sculpture. A new focus upon contrasts of light and shade, chiaroscuro, emphasized contours that suggested bodily movement and natural space. Human reality took center stage in the universe. Whereas Renaissance repercussions and innovations echoed throughout the Western World, its creative heart is often seen as resting in the Northern and Central regions of what is now known as Italy.

Art historians have tended to mark a clear break between Renaissance art-which encompassed early, high, and late periods-and Medieval art, yet these changes were a gradual process. Contemporary scholars conceptualize the Renaissance as building on, rather than breaking with, its medieval heritage (e.g. Cole 1994; Stokstad 1995). During the period immediately preceding the Renaissance, the "artist's starting point was an abstract model, supplied to him by tradition" (Venturi 1950, p. 10). These traditions began to give way to individual artistic expression, and the celebration of certain "genius" artists, as well as a drive to capture the natural appearance of things, forever changing the way we look at art. How these images changed is essential for understanding patrons' developing interests and tastes for Renaissance art.

Several levels of analysis reveal the market ramifications of Renaissance art. At one level, the function of art expanded from being wholly in the service of God to include secular purposes. Paintings and other artistic objects emerged from churches and houses of worship and began to appear as material, commodified objects in palaces and private homes. This transformation from public goods to private commodities affected public resources such as water, sites of worship, and religious artifacts. Individual families began to own their own wells, artwork, and for the very wealthy, chapels built into splendid palaces. A move toward private, personal adornment and celebration through consumption of art and patronage also affected art's production and consumption.

The art market, in particular, was shaped by innovation in materials, techniques, and painterly style. Views on what is appropriate for artistic subject matter also changed. Portraits

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of noble families and patrons were becoming fashionable-elevating living humans into the transcendent status of art. In addition, subtle changes occurred in the content and style of art. Holy figures, such as John the Baptist and the Virgin Mary, dominated thirteenth century church painting in Italy, whereas Renaissance art often relied on human images for subject matter (Gombrich 1972). Further, divine images began to change within Renaissance paintings. Angels and Jesus Christ slowly appeared more "human." For example, facial and body features became more pronounced and lifelike, halos were de-emphasized, and the size and position of the holy figures became more commensurate with mortals sharing the picture frame.

Stylistic Innovations in Italian Renaissance Art

Oil painting-an imported Flemish innovation-transformed image making. Goldthwaite writes that, "painting had the potential for rendering images with infinite variety; and once this capacity was exploited to enhance the efficacy of images in inviting the observer to respond, powerful new rhetorical possibilities opened up" (Goldthwaite 1993, p. 139). This was especially true when the rich textures of oils depicted the human form in fresh, naturalistic ways. The turn to naturalism-central to Renaissance philosophy and science and a critical step in the unfolding of Western art-gave painting a greater potential for human connection. Moreover, changes in art's content toward the secular created social, psychological, and consumer functions for art, outside the realm of the church.

During the Renaissance, the image of Christ changes to convey new religious doctrine about his life. Christ begins to appear less God-like and more like the people attending church; the abstract, stylized crucifixion image was transformed into a more realistic, more anatomically correct portrayal of the figure (Cole 1987). In this emerging style, Christ appears more like earthy beings in his suffering and pain. Worshipers were being invited to view the holy figures as humans, with a human's intrinsic qualities and limitations.

With more realistic depiction of human figures, viewers could empathize more directly with the picture and, perhaps, realize that people, such as themselves, might appear in a painted scene. Paintings incorporated moments, or "fragments" of the recognizable world: city squares, familiar architecture, and fellow citizens, stimulating the beholder in new ways (Kemp 1998, p. 188). Patrons could imagine themselves portrayed, which ultimately led to commission of portraiture, incorporation of the patron into holy scenes, and the use of art for image management purposes. Artists accomplished this through the use of masterly naturalism and a painstaking study of nature, reflecting an observing, scientific outlook (Gombrich 1972). Renaissance painters used space in a way that invited the viewer to participate with the scene (Shearman 1992). The resulting identification changes the relationship of art to viewer, worshiper to worshiped.

Innovations in perspective helped place human bodies and familiar forms into a space of recognizable reality. Early Italian art historian Venturi considered Florentine architect Filippo Brunelleschi to be "the inventor of architectural perspective" (Venturi 1926, p. 147). Painters looked to the structure of human vision and technological advances in architecture as a guide to pictorial perspective, specifically in the development of techniques to represent three dimensions on a two dimensional, flat, surface. Further, representing distance as it appears to the human eye required increasing or decreasing the proportions of certain elements in the painted and sculpted forms to create a whole that accurately portrayed an illusion of space. In these attempts to depict natural forms and light in the realm of natural laws, the inhabitants of formerly heavenly realms and godly visions entered realistic space in human form with human faces.

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Giotto, one of the most lauded artists of early Renaissance was said to be "a painter who, after generations of mere manufacture of symbols, illustration, and allegories, had the power to render the material significance of the objects he painted" (Berenson 1957, p. 72). Known especially for the Scrovegni Chapel fresco cycle in Padua, Giotto gave his figures bulk and solidity, though some of the bodies seem to float in mid-air, and the flat lapis blue and gold stars of the chapel ceiling harken back to the earlier styles. Venturi remarks, "The unity of the body is Giotto's greatest revelation; it is the announcement of the stil nuovo in painting7' (Venturi 1926, p. 127). In his painting of MADONNA AND CHILD ENTHRONED, Mary has strong physical presence, her body filling out her blue robe as the baby Jesus rests his weight upon her knee.

Masaccio (1401 - 1428) used the contrasting light and dark of chiaroscuro to delineate the human form, movement, and emotion so eloquently achieved in his Santa Maria del Carmine fresco Expulsion from Paradise in Florence. His innovations exerted a profound influence on painting: "[flrom Masaccio onwards, the painter obviously starts from an observation of nature in terms of structure and perspective (from concrete reality in other words)" (Venturi 1926, p. 11). Paolo Uccello (1396-1476) sketched out mathematical formulas for understanding the internal structure of objects, including, for example, the elaborate hat found on a central figure in his Battle of Sun Romano. Piero della Francesca (ca. 1416- 1490) continued the tradition of articulating human space in relation to architectural forms, setting Mary and the baby Jesus within a monumental throne under cupolas and arches.

The Art Market

Renaissance Italy combined many conditions essential for the rise of material culture- political stability, urbanization, international trade, high levels of disposable wealth, and a broad base of affluent consumers. The growing merchant class generated a new layer of prosperity. These successful businessmen, while worried about the sacred ramifications of capital accumulation, were eager to celebrate and spend their newfound wealth (cf. McCracken 1987). Religion supplied an outlet to justify emerging stratification, assuage guilt, and glorify abundance. Image management found a fruitful forum in luxurious objects for consumption, and display often manifested taste more efficiently than wealth did (cf. Miller 1987; McCracken 1988). The new value of consumption was aptly characterized by a wealthy Florentine, Giovanni Ruccelli: "I think I have done myself more honor by having spent money well than by having earned it. Spending gave me a deeper satisfaction, especially the money I spent on my house in Florence" (in Gage 1968, p. 55).

Art, as the dominant IT of the time, played a vital role in shaping, refining, and transmitting culture. Three conditions spurred demand for art in Renaissance Italy: (1) economic and social background of demand for art, (2) demand for religious art and (3) secular demand for art (Goldthwaite 1993). These, taken together, represented a departure from earlier consumer behavior of medieval Europe, leading to a formidable increase in the world of goods. Moreover, many types of goods, such as altarpieces, sculpture, and furniture were lifted into the status of art. This economic demand model can account for changes in market structure, consumption habits, and overall consumption levels in Renaissance Italy, and provides a basis for considering art as a consumer and market good.

Economic and Social Influences

The demand for new, elaborate, and varied goods occupied consumers, leading to the strong materials ties reflective of a consumer society (cf. Richins 1994). The enormous economic growth of Italy during the Renaissance occurred in three phases (Burckhardt 186011958).

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First, expansion of an international commercial sector oriented toward the luxury market and dependent on foreign sources for materials gave rise to a vast international trading network. Second, Italy began producing luxury clothes for export to the rest of Europe and the far East. Third, production of durables increased, reflecting innovation and fashion, which led to a greater and more sophisticated market within Italy itself. Italy began to accumulate wealth in the form of gold bullion acquired through trade, wars, and an extensive network of lending, leading, in part, to an increased market for luxury goods.

Another factor in creating a fertile market for luxury goods, including art, was a relatively well distributed wealth among many consumers, concentrated in urban centers. Upward mobility was possible, and the rich were becoming richer through consolidation of wealth and investment. Though not all prospered in Renaissance Italy, such social circumstances explain why Italy, in particular, possessed a potent combination of factors that led to the eventual development of a vigorous luxury economy (Goldthwaite 1993).

Attitudes toward wealth expressed through the art market reflected societal values solidifying throughout Western Europe. This shift in attitude toward wealth brought with it "a lessening disdain for those whose business was to increase it" (Gage 1968, p. 56). Businessmen began to assert capitalist values, urban elites were able to establish their power through the use of wealth, and goods provided a ready outlet for spending cash. Once nobles and merchants settled in cities, shedding a more nomadic existence of the Middle Ages, accumulating goods and establishing permanent furnishings became possible. Household furnishings became worthy of attention and investment, further emphasizing the importance of paintings as objects of attention, providing a vehicle for expressing secular, materialistic aspects of home life.

Religious Art

Religious practice produced a considerable demand for art-thus one can study art as one component of the overall material culture of religion. Two forces were at work to create a growing demand for religious art during the Renaissance. First, changes in the Catholic church's "liturgical apparatus" created the need for new religious objects. Second, external forces arising out of the changing social and economic conditions in the Renaissance resulted in a society transformed by material success (Goldthwaite 1993). Moreover, the church began to justify the use of wealth: "Upward mobility through new wealth was so much a fact of life in Italy that by the sixteenth century, churchmen who wrote about economics took cognizance of it, and their explicit justification of wealth has been called the most important new idea to be found in their otherwise traditionally scholastic thought" (Goldthwaite 1993, p. 52).

The liturgical apparatus describes all the material items necessary for religious worship within the Catholic church. The Mass and other services required altarpieces, utensils, candlesticks, lecterns, and so forth, which produced a basic level of demand for goods. The Church grew tremendously from the eleventh century onwards, generating demand for new buildings that required a full complement of religious goods, paintings, and objects. Thus, much of the most well known art of the Renaissance originally served as sacred artifacts. Modifications in thirteenth century religious ritual "gave rise to the demand for a new kind of image-of immense importance for the development of art, especially painting-the altarpiece" (Hartt 1993, p. 565).

The church created demand for its services as well as a general demand for religious art. Initiatives developed during the Renaissance included the practice of "indulgences"-an early form of corporate sponsorship of art. Indulgences were the instruments of communication conceived to benefit both one's self and others after death through gifts to the church commemorating dead relatives (Bossy 1985). This led to a growing privatization

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of the church through sponsorship, ownership, and, eventually, construction of chapels within private homes. Sponsors could donate money to secure the altar, or space for a tomb, and eventually the chapel itself. It did not take long for patrons to exert influence on the content of this art, using it to serve profane, consumption-related ends.

Appropriation of church interiors led to the expansion of church buildings, contributing to the overall demand for art in several ways (Goldthwaite 1993). Private citizens, after having "purchased" an altar or small chapel within an existing church, would often renovate or fund their own religious objects. Through construction of small chapels on private land, the rich created a new level of sacred space within the rural landscape. Finally, by building chapels within their own homes, another branch of the religious hierarchy was carved out within the cities. What was once a church chapel thus metamorphosed into a living room for display of great art.

These modifications had a tremendous impact on the structure of the market, the use of goods, and consumption during the Renaissance. Patronage of churches was not confined to the wealthy-more modest citizens often patronized smaller chapels, and other less significant (and costly) spaces within churches. In addition, altarpieces began to be appreciated for their beauty as secular objects apart from their religious function. Religious icons were transformed into personal statements. An art market began to emerge-producing goods that met and generated demand through innovation, fashion, style, and change.

To study this art as an economic good, subject to market forces, is not to denigrate its status as either holy objects or exalted art. Moreover, by treating great masterpieces of Western civilization as goods produced for particular religious purposes, we come closer to their historical meaning as an essential component of worship services (Goldthwaite 1993).

The Secular Art Market

In the fifteenth century, a consequential change in portraiture occurred. The subject's face began to appear in positions other than profile. By painting their sitters face on, artists allowed viewers to look directly "at" the subject (Wollheim 1980). This stylistic shift implies an exceptional change in the uses of portraiture-through this pose, the viewer is afforded more insight into the traits and identity of the subject (Cole 1987). Moreover, sitting for a portrait by a famous artist-customary for nobles and rulers-became de rigeur for the merchant class. Painting prominent figures of the day allowed self-promotion to reach a pinnacle: "The Renaissance artist was an image maker in every sense: he both expressed and created the consciousness of society in his work. Nowhere can this be seen more clearly than in the art of portraiture" (Cole 1987, p. 217).

Painting celebrated the emerging affluence of merchants and bankers, eager to celebrate the power of money (Berger 1972). To possess a painting of oneself served as an advertisement for the patron's taste, prestige, and wealth (Hollingsworth 1994). Portraits generally included the patron and his or her possessions-land, clothes, gems, works of art, furniture. The wealthy commissioned portraits to glorify themselves; "it is important to recognize the accommodation that art made to the version of reality that patrons wished to project. Painting, sculpture, and architecture put into tangible forms the outlook of a particular class" (Horowitz 1992, p. 163).

Once private patrons began to commission art for their own chapels and homes, art became a vehicle for investment, collecting, possession, and self-aggrandizement. In other words, art became a marketable commodity. For the first time, Italians could "consume" art by commissioning altarpieces and portraits, displaying their art in the home, selling and willing art, and collecting works that struck their fancy or celebrated some relative. The pictorial arts stretched into the domains of everyday objects, to be used, enjoyed, and admired by average Italians. Art was separated from the spiritual realm-no longer were beautiful and powerful

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images the province of the church and the nobles. Ironically, it is through art that we know as much as we do about the wealthy classes, for it is they, and their possessions, who form the major subject matter for the art that survives and is housed in museums (Lucie-Smith and Dars 1976; Beard 1992).

As painting gained status, successful artists enjoyed a concomitant rise in social class, becoming a part of the aristocratic society supplanting feudal kingdoms. Art historian Cole remarks: "As the stature of artists rose and as their works entered private collections, the demand for their portraits and self-portraits grew. These men were now considered important, and the pictures that portrayed them were considered worthy of admiration and collection" (Cole 1987, p. 252). The highly skilled artist, honored by peers and patrons, began to stand out from the guilds that had traditionally produced craftsmen. Women were barred from art academies, studios, and craft guilds, thus prevented from producing works of art likely to gain the attention of the male elite (e.g. Nochlin 1988).

Renaissance art proved instrumental in unleashing the force of consumption that flourishes today. Organized religion included the divine outlay of money in pious practice through donations, patronage, and collaboration through the system of private chapels. The explosion of demand for religious gods can be addressed within a marketing context, to which consumer behavior variables can be applied. Materialism rose hand in hand with the expanding realm of consumer goods. Market forces such as imitation, competition, fashion and conspicuous consumption intertwined to influence the Italian elite, churches, and the general population. Magnificence, splendor, and beauty became qualities available for purchase by a wider range of social classes. A passion for collecting things arose throughout the middle and upper classes, reflecting the consumer values shaped by the times. Subtle innovations in painting opened up expressive functions of art and private patronage. In the next section, we discuss several individual Renaissance artists and their work to provide specific examples of these processes.

PATRON'S USE OF TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS: THE CASE OF PAINTING

Masaccio's Trinity with the Virgin and Saint John (1425) signaled a profound reorganization of the role of the art patron and his use of artistic control for spiritual and self-promotional ends. The Trinity shows how this transformation led to a critical step in the development of art as a consumer product, the introduction of art patrons into religious paintings: "now the donor is longer painted humbly kneeling outside the holy event as in Masaccio's Trinity. The patron has himself placed firmly in the center of the picture" (Letts 1981, p. 44). This painting shows a traditional image of the crucified Christ with the novel inclusion of the "donors7'-Florentine aristocrats who commissioned the work. Thus, the donor from the fifteenth century appears present at the crucifixion, sharing in the grief and pain of Jesus Christ on the cross.

Private chapels and the artwork they contained are a microcosm of the market forces arising in Renaissance Italy. For example, the Medici-Ricardi palace was built by one of the most prominent and renowned families in Florence. The Medicis, whose vast fortunes came from banking and shipping, patronized many of the prominent artists of the day (Hibbert 1975). The Medici family palace demonstrates the patron's influence and values-art works invariably reflect the ideology and values of those who pay for them (Kempers 1987; Starn and Partridge 1992).

The Medici palace demonstrates basic elements of consumption behavior underlying demand. Medicis exemplify Florentine wealth. Moreover, some art historians believe that the

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Medicis provided a catalyst for the rebirth of the arts in Italy: "Under the patronage of the famous Medici family (1434- 1494) the easy exchange of ideas between politicians, artists and scholars continued, and Florence entered a period of unrivaled cultural vitality" (Cole 1994, p. 12). The palace built for the family stands today as a monument to their power and taste. Michaelangelo's elegantly designed windows, for example, were widely imitated throughout Florence (Wurman 1993). The house itself was much admired, serving as host palace for visiting nobles from other regions (Chambers 1971). The specification of the design demonstrates how "Renaissance art was made to order. There were no art galleries" (Cole 1987, p. xx).

Within the palace chapel, filling the interior space, is the commissioned fresco The Procession of the Magi by fifteenth century artist Benozzo Gozzoli. This fresco cycle depicts the famous biblical narrative giving Medici family members prominent position within the elaborate procession, their carefully captured portraits among the entourage. The young Lorenzo, angelically drawn with jeweled crown and golden curls, astride a white horse, appears to be a prince on his way to welcome the newborn Christ child. His costume, rich with gold brocade, displays fashion available only to those of the greatest wealth. Famous patrons are now "represented not only as present at biblical dramas, but, as here, stealing the show from the saints" (Gardner 1959, p. 587). Clearly denoting the closeness of what money can buy to God, "dressing in extra magnificence expressly for display was thus sanctified in the Renaissance by the example of those of the highest rank" (Hollander 1978, p. 258). It is important to note that the Medicis are wearing clothing of their own time-no attempt is made to portray them as contemporaneous with Christ. This painting, in which the motivation of the patron interrupts and displaces its devotional aspects, can be compared with similar works that contain evidence of the secularization of sacred themes burgeoning within art by this time. For example, in his Birth of the Virgin, Ghirlandaio (1449-1494) represents familiar Florentine interior spaces, covering the expectant mother's bed with a yellow plaid blanket, and dressing her attendants in flowing, fashionable gowns.

Botticelli's Adoration of the Magi is another prime example of art serving marketing ends. This painting of Christ's birth was commissioned by Guasparre del Lama, a small time money-changer, with a record of fraud. He lives on as the patron of this famous work in which Botticelli included portraits of himself, del Lama, and several members of the Medici family. del Lama, of humble origins, chose to link himself to both the holy family and the local ruling family in his bid for social stature: "it would appear that the parvenu wished to express in this manner his attachment to the powerful Medici. . .upon whose goodwill he was dependent for the successful outcome of his business" (Deimling 1994, p. 22). The Renaissance figures in Botticelli's masterpiece are equal in size to Mary and Jesus, and Cosimo Medici is portrayed touching the Christ child's foot-"because this was a private painting in a domestic setting, the patron could personalize it in a way impossible within the more public, tightly controlled precincts of a church" (Cole 1987, p. 42).

Intertwining pressures of devotion, image management, and artistic creativity had led to a new form of art. In addition, personal marks and insignia were worked into buildings, furniture, dishes, and silverware. Trademarks were evolving. Art was emerging as a collectable, a possession, an heirloom to be passed down. Furthermore, art took on some characteristics of a brand (see Schroeder 1997). Technological innovations in artistic technique-an insight from art history-contributed to new forms of representational and communicative power, readily assumed by Italian elites.

To understand the trend toward personal ownership of art in the Italian Renaissance, one must first look at stylistic shifts within the art itself. The content and composition of the art itself reflects changing attitudes toward spirituality, wealth, and religious figures. As Italian Art became secularized, material-rather than spiritual-impulses began to appear in and

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become reified through art. Focus shifted from a public religious realm to the private world of noble families and art patrons. Self-adornment, conspicuous consumption, and social status all are evident in art of the times, and supply and demand is paramount within the art market that emerged. The Renaissance, with its abundance of art celebrating wealth, is thought of as the highest artistic epoch in the history of Western art-reflecting the importance attached to material things and accomplishments (e.g. Wolfflin 1963).

Art historical analysis is not meant to construct Renaissance art as merely durable goods. As Renaissance scholar Goldthwaite has written: "To show how wealth and material culture affect the demand for art is not to denigrate one of the greatest achievements of our own civilization but, on the contrary, to enhance the fascination of art by putting it in its most essential context, one that in fact only further excites our wonderment at the power of art to go beyond the very terms of its existence as a physical object" (Goldthwaite 1993, p. 2). Transitions that reflected a larger secularization taking place throughout Europe that crystallized during the Italian Renaissance-toward materialism, toward private goods, and toward celebration of wealthy patrons-are with us today, and strongly influence marketing and consumption worldwide.

LEGACY: IMPLICATIONS OF ITALIAN RENAISSANCE ART FOR THE STUDY OF CONSUMPTION, MARKETS AND CULTURE

Information Technology: From Painting to Pixel

The Renaissance client usually made several stipulations when commissioning art: "Fifteenth-century patrons were not passive connoisseurs: they were active consumers" (Hollingsworth 1994, p. 1). First, the form of the work was specified-altarpiece, portrait, fresco, and so forth. Second, the subject matter-Baptism of Christ, Trinity, or secular scenes-was agreed on. Third, contracts were drawn that usually stated how much of the work was to be done by the hand of a particular artist, or if assistants could be used to complete the background, or paint secondary figures (Baxandall 1985). Although, the art market works differently today, the use of IT is shaped by many of these same stipulations. Advertisements, for example, are created in a similar way. Form relates to media channel selection. Subject matter, and what it conveys, is central to advertising strategy. Ads are commissioned by ad agencies, certain ad directors, and more recently, artists or photographers.

Painting-and other forms of image creation-then, can be effectively considered information technologies that both directly and indirectly influence contemporary forms of communication. Table I summarizes a recent model designed to clarify social dimensions of ICT's providing a framework for placing painting within an IT perspective (Haddon and

TABLE I Information and communication technology features of Renaissance art

Information and communication technology themes Renaissance example

Both objects and media

Material and symbolic objects

Active and passive involvement

Shifting boundaries between public and private

Paintings are media of information, pleasure, and communication

Art as aesthetic object, status symbol, religious icon

Active: patronage and religious use Passive: gazing, worship, display Art emerged as private good;

public space became privatized

ICT categories from Haddon and Silverstone 2000.

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Silverstone 2000). Several themes in the model serve to highlight the historical, sociologic.al, economic, and cultural characteristics of IT. For instance, Information and Communication Technologies are both objects and media, "doubly articulated into everyday life as machines and as media of information, pleasure, and communication" (Haddon and Silverstone 2000, p. 233). Renaissance paintings, although not machines, were acknowledged as sophisticated technological accomplishments, incorporating advances in science, geometry, and philosophy into objects of information, pleasure, and communication. ICTs can be seen as both material and symbolic objects, "used not just for what they can do but also for what they stand for, aesthetically, in claiming social status or in claiming membership in a group or subculture" (Haddon and Silverstone 2000, p. 233). Clearly, Renaissance painting exemplifies this quality. ICTs, too, shift boundaries between public and private by transforming space and time. As we have discussed, one of the most profound developments of Renaissance art reflects this capacity to affect the public and the private realms.

Patronage Processes

Just as Renaissance patrons benefited from painting's informational and communicative functions, today's corporations have gained power via IT. Three themes strike us as conceptual connections between Renaissance and contemporary patronage. First, patronage associates patrons (or corporations) with specific forms of IT. During the Renaissance, the Medicis became associated with high cultural production-painting, sculpture, and architecture. Today, companies like Philip Morris are able to link their name and image to culture through marketing communications, such as, patronage, sponsorship of art exhibits, museums, and cultural events. Second, patrons appear in media forms. As discussed here, Renaissance patrons began to appear in artworks. Philip Morris's products have appeared in all the major IT forms of the past two hundred years: newspapers, magazines, film, television, and now on the Internet. More subtly, the Medicis appropriated the bee as a family symbol-thus bees appearing in Medici inspired and commissioned art symbolically reinforce their presence by linking a natural object with the Medici name. In a similar way, Philip Morris' Marlboro cigarettes have become associated with the American west via their repeated use of Monument Valley and other Western landscapes in their ad campaigns. Third, patrons influence the form of IT, shaping it for their wants and needs. Today, the Internet and World Wide Web-originally a defense network-has quickly transformed into a global marketplace, dominated by e-business, commercial portals, and corporate websites. Moreover, websites have taken on image management and marketing roles (see Singh and Dalal 1999). Thus the web serves as yet another instance of innovations in IT appropriated for marketing purposes, and illustrates the transfer of state sponsorship to private ownership.

Contemporary corporations can be called "The Modern Medicis" for the myriad ways in which firms use and benefit from their connections with art (Joy 1993). Like the Medicis and other prominent patrons during the Renaissance, corporations continue the tradition of using art for its many social, cultural, and economic purposes. Corporate art patronage allows firms "to try to demonstrate to their publics their commitment to non-business functions, their 'taste,"' and art is used "as a visual statement of the essence of the organization" (Joy 1993, p. 50). Corporations use art as a tool for manipulating and controlling how the corporation is perceived-a vehicle for brand and corporate image management. Assembling an art collection, sponsoring art exhibitions, or underwriting cultural events can serve to enhance a corporation's reputation, their standing in the community, and assist in spreading word of the corporation and its brands through the art world's influential networks (Joy 1993).

Corporations have tapped into a powerful and venerable cultural machine to produce and control meaning as part of image enhancement strategy. Indeed, Disney's CEO Michael

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Eisner has been called "The Medici behind Disney's art" (Applebome 1998, p. 1). The Disney Corporation carefully manages its image by strictly controlling its animated icons inside and outside its well-known theme parks. Philip Morris is actively engaged in linking their name to high culture through patronage of the arts. Table I1 presents an extended comparison between the most famous Renaissance patrons and a prominent contemporary supporter of the arts. The Medicis drew their power from commerce and the church, whereas the Philip Morris corporation is closely linked to governmental support-the recent tobacco settlements notwithstanding-and patronage of what is called "high culture" (Himmelstein 1997). Philip Morris exemplifies strategic corporate patronage in much the same way that the Medicis represent Renaissance patronage.

The J. Paul Getty museum in Los Angeles appropriates a Medici portrait for the cover of their guidebook, drawing apt parallels between a great twentieth century capitalist and art collector and the archetypal patron of the arts, Cosimo Medici. The choice of this portrait, now owned by the richly endowed Getty museum, to promote its own collection is an interesting footnote in the chronicle of the Medici's influence. The Medici portrait by Pontormo shows an 18-year-old Cosimo I, who went on to become one of the most influential patrons of the sixteenth century. Cosimo appears imposing for one so young, with the trappings of his growing power, a sword and staff. He is directly facing the viewer, and appeared amazingly lifelike and animated. His pose, hand on hip, confident, and well dressed glorifies him and his expected role in the affairs of Renaissance Florence. Many parallels can be drawn between art's function in the Renaissance and corporate use of IT today. Patronage is related to image control. IT changes, but its use remains similar. Patrons who recognize the power of the dominant IT of their time can harness it to manage their image.

CONCLUSIONS

Italian Renaissance art holds many of the keys to understanding the development of the modern day consumer oriented society (see Jardine 1996). Collecting, image management, patronage, and the emergence of art as a commodity can all be traced to changes in Western art arising in a few city-states during the Renaissance era. We do not man to imply that subtle shifts in painterly form caused these profound economic changes; only that it is useful and

TABLE I1 Patronage then and now: comparisons between the Medicis and Philip Morris

The Medici family Philip Morris, Inc.

Source of Wealth

Source of Power

Source of Fame

Principal Sponsors

International Banking

Political/Economic Influence

Patronage, Political Influence

Michaelangelo, Bennozzo Gozzoli, Botticelli, Pontormo,

Representatives Cosimo Medici, Lorenzo Medici

Famed Monuments Uffizi Gallery, Medici-Riccardi Palazzo, Florence

Links to Higher Cause The Papacy, (two popes from family), Culture, God

Cigarettes, Consumer Goods

PoliticaVEconomic Influence

Advertising, Patronage, Controversy

Whitney Museum, Metropolitan Museum National Archive

Low Profic CEOs, Senator Jesse Helms

The Marlboro Man, Smoker's Rights

The US Bill of Rights, Freedom of choice, Freedom

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illuminating to look at the relationship between art and culture to gain a more complete picture of the consumption spectacle. Moreover, we are not suggesting that because one can draw a link from great art to consuming products there is necessarily an inevitability of market oriented principles.

When studying consumption-an area replete with visual communication, images, and advertising-turning to the centuries old scholarship of the visual arts is crucial. Humanities based approaches, such as literary criticism and semiotics, are becoming an established method within the field of consumer research. The time is ripe to borrow powerful and long- standing tools of art history and art criticism. From the Medici family in Renaissance Italy to Philip Morris's "sponsorship" of the U.S. Bill of Rights, art is an important marketing tool. Research on museum management, the rise of the art market, and ownership of art is useful to further our understanding of how art functions within the marketing system (e.g. Guillet de Monthoux 2000). Viewing art as a market offers an auxiliary industry model within which to investigate consumer behavior issues. By applying such art historian's tools of comparison and contrast, attention to form, and knowledge of stylistic differences between painters and periods, we gain insight into art historical trends that led to art market changes. Furthermore, art history grounds our understanding of information and communications technologies and their interaction with culture and consumption. For much like contemporary marketing communications, connecting individuals to images is an important turn in visual representation. The "appeal to personality is why advertising art works so well. Art in all cultures ultimately creates its meaning and vitality by connecting the individual with persons of forces greater than himself or herself' (Pelfrey and Hall-Pelfrey 1993, p. 309-3 10).

Interdisciplinary work that borrows approaches, tools, and terms to describe market mechanisms is essential for understanding the complex interactions of technology, consumption, and management. Through art, a student of contemporary society can view market forces, class issues, demand characteristics, value, buyer behavior, and image management concerns. Renaissance art is a crucible for the many of the features-productive and debilitating-of contemporary consumer society. The role of art within society offers a fascinating and largely untapped source for insight into the culture of consumption.

During the period in history known as the Italian Renaissance, the consumption of art began to resemble affluent society's basic consumer habits, and painting emerged as a dominant ICT. Market conditions arose to generate a dazzling array of consumer goods- including art, architecture, clothing, and furniture. An art historical approach identifies a major shift in consumer desire-signaling the privatization and personalization of art. Works of art that reflected the values, influence, and wealth of Renaissance capitalists are now kept in elaborate buildings, honored historically as great and valuable cultural artifacts, and form the basis of a thriving tourist industry. We now worship Renaissance art in museums, constructed specifically to house, preserve, and display "art." Thus, the spectacle that Debord warned us about has occurred: what was formerly used to elevate humans into a spiritual plane have become elevated; religious objects created to assist in worship are now worshipped themselves. Art remains close to the spiritual plane-art museums serve today as houses of worship-yet the art market remains as an important economic institution. Art preserves-often in a most pleasing way-historical and technological developments essential to the emergence of consumer society as we know it today.

Acknowledgements

We thank Larry Fagin, Remo Trivelli, Wendy Roworth, Judith Tolnick, Pierre Guillet de Monthoux, John Wish, Dominque Bouchet, Craig Thompson, Russell Belk, and Laurie Meamber for support and encouragement of this project. We also thank the anonymous

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reviewers for their instructive comments. A previous version of this paper was presented at the 22nd Macromarketing Seminar in Bergen, Norway.

NOTES

' ~ e ~ a r t m e n t of Management, Stockholm University, S-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden.

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innovations in information technology: insights from italian renaissance art

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