italian early renaissance (15th cent.) · 17/03/2010 · italian early renaissance (15th cent.)...

Architecture:

Brunelleschi and the Rational

Church

The origins of photography: scientific

perspective

Painting:

Masaccio and perspective

(the vision here and now)

Mantegna and foreshortening

(in the eyes of the beholder)

Piero della Francesca: the

poetry of mathematics

Sculpture: Donatello’s realisms

Italian Early Renaissance (15th cent.)

Brunelleschi,

Santo Spirito,

Florence, Italy,

begun 1436

Robert de Luzarches, Thomas de

Cormont, and Renaud de

Cormont, Amien’s Cathedral,

Maiens, France, begun 1220

3 main features of the

Renaissance church:

1. Sober clarity (modular

scheme, not

decorated)

2. Classical inspiration

(columns, arches)

3. Mathematical

proportions, measurable

space

In Renaissance religiosity,

divinity is revealed by

equilibrium and harmony,

rather than by the Gothic

emotional spirituality

2 main characteristics of

photography:

1) the machine fixes

automatically the complex world

around us in a quadrangular, two-

dimensional picture

2) The photograph acknowledges

the fact that each picture is a

fragment of an uninterrupted

universe

Scholars have identified

Renaissance Scientific

Perspective as the origins of the

process that would bring to the

invention of photography

SCIENTIFIC PERSPECTIVE (or

One-point Linear Perspective) was

invented by Brunelleschi in the

early 1400s:

diagonal lines from the edges of

the picture to the vanishing point,

create a structural grid that

organizes the pictorial space and

determines mathematically the

relative size of objects

Scientific or One-point Linear Perspective

“Scientific” as

opposed to

Giotto’s

intuitive

perspective

Scientific or One-point Linear Perspective

3 main features:

-love for unity and order

(Plato’s idea that measure

is the basis of beauty)

-faith in rationality and

knowledge based on

observation (emergence

of science)

-Importance of the point

of view (perspective =

standpoint)

“Scientific” as

opposed to

Roman and

Giotto’s

intuitive

perspective

Masaccio, The Holy Trinity, Santa Maria

Novella, Florence, ca. 1428

Holy Trinity: Father, Crucified

Christ, and Holy Spirit (dove)

Virgin and St. John

Donors

Talking skeleton

The first painter to apply Brunelleschi’s

theory was the young MASACCIO (1401-

1428)

Subject matter:

Portraiture /

individuality

pitiless realism (detail

of the loincloth falling

down)

Even halos are painted

in perspective!

Similarly to van

Eyck:



Differently from van

Eyck: unity prevails

over the multiplicity of

details (synthetic vs.

analytic)

Masaccio breaks the

wall of the church Santa

Maria Novella with a

fake niche

The vanishing point is

placed at the height of

an average viewer

Standing in front of the

fresco, the visitor has

the illusion of a vision

happening in an

extension of his/her

space

The donors are visual

mediators

between the actual space of

the viewer and the fictional

space of the vision, kneeling

on a painted altar

The ascending pyramid of

figures leads viewers from the

image of death

to the hope of resurrection

end eternal life



I was once

what you are,

and what I am

you will become

Andrea Mantegna, ceiling of the

Camera degli Sposi, Palazzo

Ducale, Mantua, Italy, 1474, Fresco

Trompe l’oeil: French for

‘deceives the eye’ objects,

still-lives, fake

architectures painted so

that they appear to be

three-dimensional and

touchable

The viewer is not able to

determine where the real

world ends and where the

fictional realm of

painting starts

A long tradition of

illusionistic frescoes

Mantegna breaks the

ceiling of a bedroom

as in a courtyard from

which we can see the sky

This was the room of the

newlyweds

Symbols:

Putti (symbols of love),

the peacock (attribute

of Juno, goddess of

lawful marriages),

Andrea Mantegna, ceiling of the

Camera degli Sposi, Palazzo

Ducale, Mantua, Italy, 1474, Fresco

they look down to the

room and to the intimate

life of the couple:

the viewer becomes

the viewed:

There is

something

even more

radical here

What? The relativity

of the point of

view

Things can be seen

(and understood)

differently from

different

perspectives

In 1961 Piero Manzoni made a work

entitled “Base of the world”:

it is an upside down sculpture base

By subtitling his work an homage to

Galileo, Manzoni was making the absurd

proclamation

that the base held on its bearing surface

the entire world

And therefore that entire earth is a

sculpture (you included)

He was inspired by a painting by

Mantegna on display at Brera, Milan:

Piero Manzoni,

Base of the

World. Homage

to Galileo, 1961

Mantegna, Dead

Christ, ca. 1501,

Tempera on

canvas

A religious scene

that had been

represented for

centuries

The changing of

perspective makes

the viewer able to

see this same scene

with fresh eyes

While Giotto had brought the

sacred image as on a stage,

and his viewer was involved

as a spectator

Mantegna brings the viewer

on the stage: the viewer is at

Christ ‘s beside

He/she is directly involved in

the sacred scene not as a

spectator but as a character

most radical

application of

foreshortening:

The application of the

rules of perspective to

an object or figure that

extends back in space:

Not only are diagonal

lines converging

toward the vanishing

point,

But also, curved lines,

body proportions,

and shadowing are

altered in order to give

the illusion of tri-

dimensionality

A human being had

never been

represented like this!

Mantegna, Dead

Christ, ca. 1501,

Tempera on

canvas

Piero della Francesca,

Brera Altarpiece, ca.

1472-1474, oil on panel

Perspective corresponded to a new

mathematical approach to

knowledge and a new concept of

beauty

In this period Plato was the most

studied and influential philosopher of

the past

According to Plato, MEASURE was

the basis of beauty

Piero della Francesca: the poetry of

mathematics

Perspective was a way to make the

image of the world measurable

and therefore beautiful

This aspect was most effectively

developed by the work of Piero

della Francesca

Piero, a skilled geometrician, wrote

the first theoretical treatise on

perspective

Which coherently combined

aesthetics, geometry, and

philosophy in the realm of painting




In this altarpiece, painted for the

duke Federico da Montefeltro,

Piero organizes the composition

according to a geometrical and

symmetrical scheme

where each part is rationally

related to the others

The coffered barrel vault is an

acknowledgement of Masaccio’s

precedent




Differently from

Masaccio’s

dramatic realism,

here other qualities

prevail:

-Pure and total light

(rationality)

-Silent vision, out

of time

However, in this

perfectly

symmetrical

geometry

something is

missing

As in

Masaccio’s

work, the

kneeling

patron is

portrayed in

the foreground

The female

patron is the

absent

keystone of

the

composition’s

perfect

symmetry (the

Virgin’s gaze)

The duke commissioned the

altarpiece just a few months after his

wife’s, Battista, death

This painting is a tribute to her

demise:

The altarpiece is a modern, clear,

rational meditation over the

concept of death,

represented through a perfectly

mathematical composition

There is no drama, no screaming or

representation of despair:

only a missing part in an otherwise

perfect system

makes the rational realm

questioning itself

Donatello, Feast of Herod,

baptismal font of Siena Cathedral,

Siena, ca. 1425

Donatello was the very first

artist to apply Brunelleschi

theory of perspective in an

artwork:

He used linear perspective on

his relief works as an effective

setting, where he placed his

figures:

Donatello mixed in the same

work basso, mezzo and alto-

relief!

The effect is that of an

ambiguous spatial

representation, where it is

almost impossible

to determine what is actually

tri-dimensional (sculpted) and

what is illusion (“drawn”

perspective)

Donatello’s realisms

This bronze relief was realized for

the baptismal font of Siena

It illustrates a scene from the life of

St John the Baptist

when the princess Salome asked

King Herod for the head of St John

as a reward for her dancing, and

got it

The executioner knelt down

before the king carrying the head

of the saint

The king shrinks back and raises

his hands in horror

Kids run away crying

Salome’s mother, who instigated

the crime, tries to explain

Donatello chose to represent not

the violent moment of the murder,

but rather focused on the human

reactions to it:

Guests recoil creating the void in

the center,

one covers his

eyes

Salome seems just to have

stopped in her sensual

dance

Donatello’s realism manifests

itself on 3 different levels:

-Human approach to the

sacred text (how did different

people react to this dramatic

fact?)

-Historical accuracy (the

setting is Herod’s classical

palace; the executioner is

dressed as a Roman soldier)

-New conception of space: not

only illusion of space through

perspective,

but also the scene is

represented as a fragment of

reality

The image is cut by edges of

this relief giving the illusion of a

“snapshot” from a real situation,

Where space would continue

outside the pictured frame

italian early renaissance (15th cent.) · 17/03/2010 · italian early renaissance (15th cent.)...

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