REPRESENTATION OF THE BODY

2. Roman- Rococo

Roman Empire27 BC-427AD

Ancient Roman artists often borrowed from, and copied Greek precedents (much of the Greek sculptures known today are in the form of Roman marble copies)

trade in art was brisk throughout the empire, and much of the Greek artistic heritage found its way into Roman art through books and teaching

Many Roman artists came from Greek colonies and provinces

By the 2nd century BC, "most of the sculptors working in Rome" were Greek, often enslaved in conquests and sculptors continued to be mostly Greeks, often slaves, whose names are very rarely recorded.

Vast numbers of Greek statues were imported to Rome, whether as booty or the result of extortion or commerce, and temples were often decorated with re-used Greek works

Three Graces from Pompeii

Ancient Roman50 AD

The majority of Roman frescoes were found in Campania, in the region around the Bay of Naples. It is here that Mount Vesuvius erupted on August 24, 79 A.D., burying much of the countryside, the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, and nearby private residences.

As so often happens in archaeology, a disaster served to freeze a moment in the past, allowing excavators to delve into the life of this region’s ancient inhabitants.

Fresco: technique of mural painting executed upon freshly-laid, or wet lime plaster.

Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius

Roman166-180

Italy The overall theme is one of power and divine grandeur — the emperor is over life-size and is holding out his hand in a gesture much like that in the Augustus' portraits

This type of statue was an important imperial portrait--a way of signifying heroism and authority.

Medieval Middle Ages

410-1400The medieval art of the Western world covers a vast scope of time and place, over 1000 years of art in Europe, and at times the Middle East and North Africa.

Medieval art in Europe grew out of the artistic heritage of the Roman Empire and the iconographic traditions of the early Christian church

• The Middle Ages saw a decrease in prosperity, stability and population in the first centuries of the period—to about 800 AD

• massive setback of the Black Death around 1350, which is estimated to have killed at least a third of the overall population in Europe

• Claimed about 75 million lives.

• When facing death, medieval society in 1348 looked to the Church, just as they did to medics, for rituals of comfort.

• Healing was an alluring promise of many saints venerated during the plague epidemics. As a result, saints became part of the iconography of the plague.

Artist unknown, Adam and Eve

from the Escorial Beatus, 950

In the Middle Ages, there was very little interest in the human body, which was seen as only a temporary vessel for the soul.

The body was seen as sinful, the cause of temptation.

In the Old Testament, Adam and Eve eat the apple from the tree of knowledge, realize their nakedness, and cover themselves.

Due to the nudity in this important story, Christians associated nudity with sin and the fall of humankind.

Medieval images of naked bodies do not reflect close observation from real life or an understanding of the inner workings of bodies.

Characteristics • Vivid use of color

• Lack of perspective/ space

• Lack of accurate scale and proportion

• Most works created for the church

• Thus most works are religious (mostly saints and the Holy Family)

• Human bodies are thus subjected to Catholic ideologies

• Medieval paintings were also called illuminations since there were no portrait paintings during this time. The term illumination was inspired by the gleaming effect of a gold leaf, which was often applied to the pages of the manuscript together with ink and paint***

Medieval Unlike paganism, Christianity required no images of naked divinities, and new attitudes cast doubt and opprobrium on nude athletics, public bathing, and the very value of the human body.

The early Christian emphasis on chastity and celibacy further discounted depictions of nakedness.

In this climate, there was little motive to study the nude, and unclothed figures are thus rare in medieval art.

Chartres CathedralChartres, France

1145-1212• Medieval Gothic cathedral

Chartres Cathedral • Figures are matching the columns

• Transcend earthy existence ascendance of Christianity

• Focus less on the body but more on spirituality

• Spirituality has no form

• Valuing spirit over flesh, medieval artists had worked in an abstract, two-dimensional linear style that deemphasized corporeality.

• Ways of abstracting the human form is to create a symbol of the spirit- (no form)

• Abstracting the human form= creating a symbol of the spirit.

• The elongation of the figures on the Portail Royal (“Royal Portal”) enhances their otherworldliness and also integrates them with the columnar architecture.

Christ Pantocrato

Cefalù Cathedral, Sicily

1131The most common translation of Pantocrator is "Almighty" or "All-powerful".

depicts Christ fully frontal with a somewhat melancholy and stern aspect, with the right hand raised in blessing

Mosaic: a picture or pattern produced by arranging together small colored pieces of hard material, such as stone, tile, or glass

Basilica of San Vitale. Ravena, Italy. 527-548

Renaissance 1400-1600

Centered on an interest in the culture of the classical ancient world

This exploitation of creativity happened in Italy where Roman architectural remains were a constant reminder of past glories

Many believed the golden age could be restored

The revival of all things classical was heightened by the rediscovery of ancient texts in the 14th century

Artists sought to not only emulate the classical works but improve them using new techniques, including perspective and oil paint.

Anatomy and the nude

emulated the body-conscious quality of ancient Greek and Roman sculpture, drawing inspiration from the prevalent depiction of nudity and the use of drapery as a means of articulating the body

Secular subjects and portraits + classical mythology became important

The status of the artist had also risen dramatically (notion of genius)

Farnese Hercules. 4th century BC. Ancient Greek

the study of human anatomy was enormously important for Renaissance artists. They continued where the ancient Greeks and Romans had left off, with an interest in creating images of the human beings where bodies moved in natural ways—in correct proportion and feeling the pull of gravity

Sculptures from ancient Greece and Rome reveal that classical artists closely observed the human body. Ancient Greek and Roman artists focused their attention on youthful bodies in the prime of life.

The best way to learn human anatomy is not just to look at the outside of the body, but to study anatomy through dissection. Even though the Catholic Church prohibited dissection, artists and scientists performed dissection to better understand the body. Renaissance artists were anxious to gain specialized knowledge of the inner workings of the human body, which would allow them to paint and sculpt the body in many different positions

The Vitruvian ManLeonardo da Vinci

1487

The Renaissance artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) made this drawing in about 1487, showing an idealized male figure inscribed within a circle and a square.

In accompanying notes, he proposed perfect ratios for parts of the body relative to each other and to the whole.

Together with his pioneering anatomical studies, the drawing reflects Leonardo’s belief that the symmetry of the human body was a microcosm of the symmetry of the universe

DonatelloFeast of Herold

1427Siena Cathedral,

Italy• It is one of Donatello's earliest relief sculptures, and his first bronze relief.

• The sculpture is noted for Donatello's use of perspective.

• Astute observer of human life (humanism)

• Naturalistic Illusionism and Classical idealism

• The sculpture depicts the beheading of John the Baptist after Salome asks Herod Antipas for his head on a platter. The scene depicts an executioner presenting the severed head, and Herod reacting in shock

• Relief is a sculptural technique where the sculpted elements remain attached to a solid background of the same material. The term relief is from the Latin verb relevo, to raise

DonatelloDavid1440

Florence, ItalyNude figures based on antique models appear in Italy as early as the mid-thirteenth century, and by the mid-fifteenth century, nudes had become symbols of antiquity and its reincarnation.

careful depiction of bones and muscles

Donatello adapted the idealized proportions of Greek athletic figures for his celebrated statue of David (ca. 1440; Bargello, Florence) and thus presented a biblical hero in classical guise.

RaphaelRed chalk study for the Villa Farnesina Three Graces1518

Raphael. School of Athens. 1510-1512. Vatican, Italy.

School of Athens1510-1512

Glorification of classical, even pagan themes

Designed for one of the papal apartments in the Vatican

A tribute to the learning of the ancient world

At the heart of the composition are Plato and Aristotle, the two giants of Greek philosophy

Around them are scientists and mathematicians including Euclid, Pythagoras and Ptolemy

Raphael equates the great thinkers of the antiquity with major Renaissance artists

Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael are all present among great thinkers.

MichelangeloDavid

1501-4Florence, Italy

In the next generation, Michelangelo made his own colossal statue of David, again conceived as an antique nude and elsewhere he devoted unique artistic energy to the male nude.

MichelangeloDoni Tondo

1506?

The work was most likely created after the excavation of the Laocoön about 1506

The Doni Tondo features the Christian Holy family (the child Jesus, Mary, and Saint Joseph) along with John the Baptist in the foreground and contains five ambiguous nude male figures in the background.

Monumentality of figures

Baroque & Counter Reformation 1600-1700

Throughout the middle ages the Catholic Church sunk deeper into a pit of scandal and corruption. By the 1520s, Martin Luther's ideas crystallized opposition to the Church, and Christian Europe was torn apart. In response, the Catholic Church set in motion the counter-reformation.

New churches were ordered, with space for thousands of worshippers, and acoustics designed, for the first time, for vernacular sermons. The Catholic Church used the weapon of reform to entice back its disillusioned congregations.

Baroque1600-1700

Images are direct, obvious, and dramatic.

Tries to draw the viewer in to participate in the scene.

Depictions feel physically and psychologically real. Emotionally intense.

Extravagant settings and ornamentation.

Dramatic use of color.

Dramatic contrasts between light and dark, light and shadow.

Baroque art has continuous overlapping of figures and elements.

Common themes: grandiose visions, ecstasies and conversions, martyrdom and death, intense light, intense psychological moments. Francisco de Zurbarán. Saint Francis in Meditation.

(1639)

Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini

The Ecstasy of St. Teresa 1652A common theme for Baroque artists was

the miraculous moment where the divine met the earthly, the sacred intruded upon the profane.

St. Teresa was a mystic nun who recorded an experience in which an angel came down and pierced her innards with the flaming arrow of divine love. The pain was great yet sweet and brought her into ecstasy with God

St. Teresa’s habit wildly contorts- a metaphor for the intensity of God’s love felt within her

CaravaggioThe Conversion on the

Way to Damascus. 1601

Depicted is the moment where Saul (soon to be Paul) has a conversion experience on the road to Damascus.

Again we see the Baroque theme of the divine suddenly intruding into the earthly sphere.

The human body is thus the receptor for the divine.

Caravaggio was a master at using shadow and light to heighten the drama and meaning of his paintings.

Here God’s light has knocked Saul off his horse, and his arms are stretched out in a funnel shape to accept the light. Meanwhile the man and the horse, who symbolize the ordinary earthly world and are not privy to the full experience, are deep in shadow.

CaravaggioThe Crucifixion of

Saint Peter, by Caravaggio, 1601

In contrast to the idealized, noble, classical human forms favored by Renaissance artists, Caravaggio preferred to paint scenes and people as the eye would see them, natural flaws included. He did not feel that a painting had to be sentimentalized to be powerful, believing instead that the intrinsic nature of the scene, the eloquence captured in the figures’ real poses, was educationally effective.

His paintings were so realistic that patrons sometimes rejected them as too “vulgar.” In this painting, St. Peter is being crucified. He asked to be hung from his cross upside-down as not to imitate his Lord. The divine light shines on Peter while the faces of the Romans are obscured by shadows.

Peter seems to be much heavier than one would expect-three men are struggling to lift him, symbolizing the great weight of their crime.

Descent from the Cross, by Rembrandt, 1634

In his Descent from the Cross, we once again see the Baroque signature of an emotional scene heightened by the dramatic use of light and shadow. The light shines on Christ’s body, the faithful women who stood by him, and the shroud in which he will return to life.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini. 1624

Neo-Classical/ Rococo

1750-1850 Reaction to the opulence of the Baroque periods

Coincides with the 18th century’s Age of Enlightenment

Continues with the obsession of ancient Greek/Roman depiction of the human form.

Highly unrealistic

Canova. Hebe. 1800-1805