“The Renaissance Man”

Leonardo MichelangeloRaphael Titian

Europe, 1500-1600

ItalyDates and Places: • 1500 to 1600• High Ren. (1495-1520)

• Rome, Florence

Milan, and Venice

Events & People:• Humanism• Reformation/

Counter-Reformation• Powerful courts &

Catholic church• Artist-genius –

raised funds for elaborate art projectshighly competitive

ItalyThemes:• Life of Christ and the Virgin Mary,

saints• Portraiture• Classical mythology/antiquity• Allegory, poesia• Nature as muse

Forms:• Balance, harmony, ideal beauty

(Greco-Roman)• Disegno (drawing & design) • Venetian color (colorito), Mannerist

distortion• Fresco (buon and secco)

RAPHAEL, Madonna in the Meadow, 1505–1506. Fig. 9-6.

Italy

LEONARDO DA VINCI, Last Supper, ca. 1495–1498. Fig. 9-3., 13’x29’

Italy• Fresco secco (dried plaster)• Mathematical linear

perspective • Compositional

emphasis on Christ• Unity through pose

and movement• Studied emotion (fear/doubt)

and subtle action• Capturing the observable world

(halo behind Christ created by light)

• Numerical symbolism (4 & 3 = earthly & divine)

• Pictorial unity vs. iconography

LEONARDO DA VINCI, Last Supper, ca. 1495–church refectory, 1498. Fig. 9-3.

Where’s Judas?

Andrea del Castagno, Last Supper, 1447

Homage or Mockery?Appropriating Renaissance Art

Yo Mama’s Last Supper, Renee Cox, 1996

Andy Warhol’s Mona Lisa, 1963Serigraph

Marcel DuchampL.H.O.O.Q, 1917Assisted readymade

RAPHAEL, Philosophy (School of Athens), 1509–1511. Fig.9-7.

Italy• Pope Julius II, patron• Four branches of

knowledge - philosophy, theology, poetry, and law

• Philosophers of antiquity• Semi-circular

composition, illusionistic space (Roman vaults)

• Unity achieved through interlocking poses and gestures

• Michelangelo as Heraclitus, the loner in the foreground

RAPHAEL, Philosophy (School of Athens), 1509–1511. Fig.9-7.

Stanza della Segnatura, Library, Papal apartments

Apollo Athena

Plato Aristotle

heaven(metaphysical)

Earth(material)

Italy

MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI, David, 1501–1504. Fig. 9-9.

“…the hands work and the eye judges”

-Michelangelo

Italy• Visually pleasing

proportion (contrapposto), not mathematical rules (slight distortion)

• Classical figure; intense concentration

• Anticipation of battle with Goliath, not victory

• Symbol Florentine power over Medici (stood outside city hall)

• Carved out of single block of discarded marble ( “the giant”) MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI,

David, 1501–1504. Fig. 9-9.

17’

Donatello’s David, 1440-60

Italy

MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI, ceiling, Sistine Chapel, 1508–

1512. Fig. 9-10.

5,800 sq.ft!!

131’

43’

Italy• Pope Julius II, patron• Old Testament scenes on

ceiling, Judgment on wall• Creation, Fall, Redemption

narratives• Ignudi, ancestors, prophets,

sibyls (over 300 figures) • Curved, irregular leaky

ceiling w/ illusionistic paint.• Expressive and

hypermuscular male and female forms (“bags of walnuts”)

In Vatican (Pope’s chapel)

spandrel

lunette

Painted standing up. not lying down!

pendentive

MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI,

Detail of Sistine Chapel

(Cumaean Sibyl), 1508–

1512.

The Creation of Adam, MichelangeloSistine Chapel, fig. 9-11

Sculptural painting Nondescript, unformed landscape Spark of life given to Adam’s limp form Eve or Virgin Mary and Christ?

The Agony and the Ecstasy, 1965

http://www.reelz.com/trailer-clips/44748/the-agony-and-the-ecstasy-trailer/

Italy - Venice

Giorgione, The Tempest, 1510,

oil on canvas

Oil on canvas Colorito – love of color Nudes in landscape (nature as muse) Allegorical More secular

Italy - Venice

TITIAN, Venus of Urbino, 1538. Fig.9-20.

Italy - Venice• Painted for Duke of Urbino• Venetian painters love color

(colorito), atmosphere, texture

• Oil on canvas glows• Color organizes composition

(use of red)• Voluptuous body with smoky

shadow • Servants search for clothes in

background• In contemporary setting• Recognizable portrait

(courtesan?) or allegory? (Venus—Roman goddess of love, beauty)

Titian Venus of Urbino (1538) & Giorgione Sleeping Venus (1510)

Italy - Architecture

ANDREA PALLADIO, Villa Rotonda, ca. 1550–1570. Fig.9-16.

Italy• Private villa (for

entertaining)• Near Venice (Vicenza)• Central plan• Dome over crossing

(inspired by Roman pantheon)

• Four facades like Roman Ionic temple portals

• Wrote architectural treatise (like Alberti, studied Vitruvius)

ANDREA PALLADIO, Villa Rotonda, ca. 1550–1570. Fig.9-16.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byH_L1yo2Lw&feature=related

Italy - Mannerism

• Mannerist painting after 1520

• Courtly style • Self-conscious stylishness,

not window onto world • Complex, exaggerated,

difficult, ambiguous, intentionally distorted

• Unstable composition, unnatural color

• Often erotic in tone

Parmigianino, Madonna with the Long Neck, 1534-40, Fig. 9-22.

Italy

.

BRONZINO, Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time, ca. 1546.

Fig. 9-23.

Italy• Mannerist complicated

allegory • Symbolism (masks =

deceit; old woman = jealousy (or syphilis?)

• Folly of love revealed by time (see hourglass)

• Lascivious, sensuous (erotic interaction between Cupid and Venus)

• Strong contours, undulating and graceful treatment of extremities

BRONZINO, Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time, ca. 1546.

Fig. 9-23.

Holy Roman EmpireDates and Places: • 1500-1600• Germany

People:• Martin Luther• Protestant Reformation

(1517) - salvation by faith and grace, not works and ecclesiastical intercession

• Iconoclasm & change in politics, religion, art

ALBRECHT DÜRER, Four Apostles, 1526. Fig. 9-30.

Holy Roman EmpireThemes:• Life of Christ, Virgin Mary,

Saints • Temptation and suffering• PortraitsForms:• Renaissance illusionism

(anamorphic perspective)• Surface description• Naturalism• Printmaking

HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER, The French Ambassadors, 1533.

Fig. 9-31.

Holy Roman Empire

MATTHIAS GRÜNEWALD, Isenheim Altarpiece, ca. 1510-1515. Fig. 9-28.

Holy Roman Empire• Altarpiece for monastery

church with hospital (plague, syphilis, leprosy, etc)

• Gruesome description of wounds (Christ mirrors patients’ suffering – hands in rigor mortis)

• Emphasis on suffering and transformation (St. Anthony)

• Catholic inclusion of Lamb, Christ’s blood, plague saints MATTHIAS GRÜNEWALD, Isenheim Altarpiece,

ca. 1510-1515. Fig. 9-28.

11’

13’

1st State(closed)

MATTHIAS GRÜNEWALD, Isenheim Altarpiece, second state (open), ca. 1510-1515

2nd State (detail of center panel) 3rd State (detail of right panel)

Holy Roman Empire

ALBRECHT DÜRER, Melencolia I, 1514.

Holy Roman Empire• German artist & theorist

(treatise on perspective & human proportions)

• Widely-traveled (studied Italian art)

• Renowned printmaker (engraving)

• Self-Portrait of “artist’s psyche” and trade? (tools surround him – compass, hammer, sphere, polyhedron)

• Medieval medicine (four humours)

• Represents imbalance (excess of bile) thought to inspire and afflict artists

ALBRECHT DÜRER, Fall of Man (Adam and Eve), 1504. Fig. 9-29.

The Artist’s Temperament – Genius and Melancholy

Edvard Munch, Melancholy, 1894

Detail from Raphael’s School of Athens (possible portrait of Michelangelo

The NetherlandsDates and Places: • 1500 to 1600 • Holland, Belgium,

Luxembourg

People:• Protestants• Merchant class and

peasants• Seek independence

from Spain

CATERINA VAN HEMESSEN, Self-Portrait, 1548.

Caterina van Hemessen painted me /

1548 / her age 20

The NetherlandsThemes:• Scenes of everyday

life with subtle religious and moralistic content

• Peasant life• Fewer altarpiecesForms:• Naturalism • Surface description• Illusionistic space Quinten Massys, Money-Changer and

His Wife, 1514

The Netherlands

HIERONYMUS BOSCH, Garden of Earthly Delights, 1505–1510. Fig. 9-33.

The Netherlands• Unusual triptych• Triptych with Adam and

Eve, Hell, and “Garden of Earthly Delights”

• “Earthly delights” become instruments of torture in Hell (music, gambling, etc)

• Fertility symbols (strawberries, birds, etc)

• Maybe wedding gift• Secular commission for

private use• Alchemy? Judgment?

HIERONYMUS BOSCH, Garden of Earthly Delights, 1505–1510. Fig.

9-33.

7’

9’

Garden of Earthly Delights (details

of left panel)

Garden of Earthly Delights (details of center

panel)

Garden of Earthly Delights (details of right panel)

The Netherlands

PIETER BRUEGEL THE ELDER, Netherlandish Proverbs, 1559. Fig. 9-37.

The Netherlands – “The Topsy Turvy World”

• Human nature and man’s

folly • Detailed and clever

imagery• Nobility, peasants, clerics• Depiction of popular

proverbs (“the blind

leading the blind,” “they

both shit through one hole

(inseparable friends)” PIETER BRUEGEL THE ELDER, Netherlandish Proverbs, 1559.

Fig. 9-37.

“ambitious idiot”

Diagram of

NetherlandishProverbs

SpainDates and Places: • 1500 to 1600 • Iberian Peninsula and the Americas People:• Pious, Catholic • Conservative monarchs• Expanding empireThemes:• Life of Christ, Virgin Mary and

Saints • Portraits

JUAN DE HERRERA and JUAN BAUTISTA DE TOLEDO, El

Escorial, 1563–1584. Fig. 9-39.

Spain• Secular and religious

image

• Greek artist travels to Spain via Italy

• Expressive exaggeration, unnatural color = Mannerist style

• Spiritual and emotional, not physical, properties

EL GRECO, Burial of Count Orgaz, 1586. Fig. 9-40.