micelangelo - raphael
TRANSCRIPT
Madonna of the Stairs 1490-92
1. This is the earliest extant work of
Michelangelo.
2. The waxy, translucent slab, like
alabaster, is reminiscent of
Desiderio.
3. Carved in "rilievo schiacciato" it
represents Michelangelo's
exploration of quattrocento
techniques.
4. In both form and content we see the
influence of Greek "stelai".
5. The Madonna's face is in classical
profile and she sits on a square
block, Michelangelo's hallmark.
6. He chose not to show the Child's
face but placed him in an odd
position, either nursing or sleeping
and encased in drapery, suggesting
protection.
7. In the background, four youths
handle a long cloth, identified either
the one used to lower Christ from the
cross or a shroud.
8. Altogether the relief is much closer
to Donatello's Pazzi Madonna then
the intervening lyrical madonnas by
Rossellino and Desiderio.
The Battle is the second piece of Michelangelo. It was carved in white Carrara marble
for Lorenzo de' Medici and left unfinished
1492 - Lorenzo de' Medici dies.
1. Michelangelo then studied
anatomy with the help of the Prior
of the Hospital of Sto Spirito, for
whom he appears to have carved
a wooden crucifix for the high
altar.
2. A wooden crucifix found there
(now in the Casa Buonarroti) has
been attributed to him by some
scholars.
3. The next few years were marked
by the expulsion of the Medici
and the gloomy Theocracy set up
under Savonarola
4. Michelangelo avoided the worst
of the crisis by going to Bologna
and, in 1496, to Rome.
5. He settled for a time in Bologna,
where in 1494 and 1495 he
executed several marble
statuettes for the Arca (Shrine) di
San Domenico in the Church of
San Domenico. Angel with Candlestick - 1494-95
Bacchus – 1497 1. Age of 21 Michelangelo went to Rome for the first
time. We still possess two of the works he created in
this period (Bacchus and Pietà); others must have
been lost for he spent five years there.
2. The statue of Bacchus was commissioned by the
banker Jacopo Galli for his garden and he wanted it
fashioned after the models of the ancients.
3. The body of this drunken and staggering god gives
an impression of both youthfulness and of
femininity.
i. Vasari says that this strange blending of effects
is the characteristic of the Greek god Dionysus.
ii. But in Michelangelo's experience, sensuality of
such a divine nature has a drawback for man: in
his left hand the god holds with indifference a
lionskin, the symbol of death, and a bunch of
grapes, the symbol of life, from which a Faun is
feeding.
iii. Thus we are brought to realize, in a sudden way,
what significance this miracle of pure sensuality
has for man: living only for a short while he will
find himself in the position of the faun, caught
in the grasp of death, the lionskin.
4. The statue was transferred to Florence in 1572.
1499 - Pieta
• Michelangelo’s
first major work he
is 23
• It is the only work
he ever signed.
• The twenty-three
year-old artist
presents us with an
image of the
Madonna with
Christ's body never
attempted before.
• Her face is youthful,
yet beyond time; her
head leans only
slightly over the
lifeless body of her
son lying in her lap.
"The body of the
dead Christ exhibits
the very perfection of
research in every
muscle, vein, and
nerve - Vasari
1. 1501 - David – commissioned by the Arte della Lana
(Guild of Wool Merchant), who were responsible for
the upkeep and the decoration of the Cathedral in
Florence.
2. Was given a block of marble which Agostino di
Duccio had already attempted to fashion forty years
previously, perhaps with the same subject in mind.
3. Portrays the youth in the phase immediately
preceding the battle
4. The artist places him in the most perfect "
contraposto", as in the most beautiful Greek
representations of heroes.
5. The right-hand side of the statue is smooth and
composed while the left-side, from the outstretched
foot all the way up to the dishevelled hair is openly
active and dynamic. The muscles and the tendons
are developed only to the point where they can still
be interpreted as the perfect instrument for a strong
will, and not to the point of becoming individual self-
governing forms.
6. Once the statue was completed, a committee of the
highest ranking citizens and artists decided that it
must be placed in the main square of the town, in
front of the Palazzo Vecchio, the Town Hall.
7. It was the first time since antiquity that a large
statue of a nude was to be exhibited in a public
place.
The Patrons of the Renaissance
• Pope (not so) Innocent VIII (1432 – July 25, 1492), born Giovanni Battista Cybo (or Cibo), was Pope from 1484 until his death.
• Succeeded Pope Sixtus • Died 1492 leaving behind several
illigitimate children
• 1487 married off his elder son Franceschetto Cybo to Maddalena de Medici,
• Lorenzo de Medici, in return obtained the Cardinals hat for his 13 year old son Giovanni the Later Pope Leo X
• His daughter Teodorina Cibl married Gerardo Llisodimare and had a daughter
• Savonarola chastised him for his worldly ambitions
• The unsympathetic Roman chronicler Stefano Infessura provides many lively details, among them the apparent attempt to revive Innocent VIII on his deathbed by blood transfusions from three young male children (who died as well in the process).
• Pope Innocent VIII dies on July 25, 1492
• The three likely candidates for the Papacy
were cardinals Borgia (who becomes Pope Alexander VI ), Ascanio Sforza and Giuliano della Rovere.
• While there was never substantive proof of simony, the rumour was that Borgia, by his great wealth, succeeded in buying the largest number of votes, including that of Sforza, whom, popular rumour had it, he bribed with four mule-loads of silver.
• Della Rovere, jealous and angry, accused Borgia of being elected over him by means of simony and a secret agreement with Ascanio Sforza.
• He at once determined to take refuge from Borgia's wrath at Ostia, and a few months afterwards went to Paris, where he incited Charles VIII of France to undertake a conquest of Naples.
• Accompanying the young King on his campaign, he entered Rome along with him, and endeavoured to instigate the convocation of a council to inquire into the conduct of the pontiff with a view to his deposition
• Pope Alexander, having gained a friend in Charles VIII's minister Briçonnet by offering him the position of cardinal, succeeded in defeating the machinations of his enemy.
• Pope Alexander died
in 1503, and his son, Cesare
fell ill at the same time. Della Rovere did not support the candidature of Cardinal Piccolomini of Siena, who was (on 8 October 1503) consecrated under the name of Pope Pius III, but who died twenty-six days afterwards.
• Della Rovere then succeeded by dexterous diplomacy in tricking the weakened Cesare Borgia into supporting him.
• He was elected as Pope Julius II to the papal dignity by the near-unanimous vote of the cardinals
• Julius II set himself with a courage and determination rarely equalled, to rid himself of the various powers under which his temporal authority was almost overwhelmed.
• Portrait of Julius by Raphael 1511
The pontificate of Julius II (1503–13)
• The "Warrior Pope" who donned armour to lead troops in defence of papal
lands, would forever change the Vatican.
• Dynamic but difficult, with an ego matched only by his vision, Julius was one
of the great patrons of Renaissance art and architecture. In 1505, he took up
the task left incomplete by Nicholas V (r. 1447–55), who had begun an
expansion of the apse of Saint Peter's. Rex Harrison as Pope Julius in ‘the agony and the Ecstasy
• The new apse, Julius decided, would house his tomb
• an enormous freestanding monument designed by Michelangelo.
• Julius soon decided to tear down the Constantinian basilica and rebuild Saint Peter's entirely, an idea met with opposition from parties who felt that the old church, which had existed almost from the dawn of Christianity, should be preserved.
• Michelangelo drawing for Pope Julius’s Tomb
• The reconstruction of St. Peter’s Basilica, beginning in 1506.
• When Julius took the papal office, the condition of the Church was extremely poor, and he took the opportunity to expand it, modernize it, and leave his impression forever on the Vatican.
• Julius hired Donato Bramante to design the Basilica, a prominent architect and artist of the day.
• Della Rovere wanted the splendour of the new Cathedral to inspire awe in the masses, produce support for Catholicism and prove to his enemies he was a pious and devoted man.
• ―Bramante wanted to build a Basilica that would ‘surpass in beauty, invention, art and design, as well as in grandeur, richness and adornment all the buildings that had been erected in that city’" (Scotti, 47).
• Famous book - famous movie
• Enter the Sculptor
• The tomb was originally
commissioned in 1505 yet was not completed until 1545 in a much reduced scale:
• 1505 - Commissioned by Julius; Michelangelo spends 6 months choosing marble at Carrara
• 1506 - Michelangelo returns to Rome due to a lack of funds available for the project, and is dismissed by an angry and bitter Julius.
• Michelangelo moves to Florence until Julius threatens to wage war on the state unless he returns, which he does.
The Quarries of Carrara
• 1508 - It is rumoured that Bramante and Raphael, apparently jealous of Michelangelo's
commission, convince the Pope that it is bad luck to have his tomb built in his lifetime,
and that Michelangelo's time would be better spent on the Sistine Chapel ceiling in the
Vatican Palace
• (assuming that Michelangelo, primarily a sculptor, would have great difficulty in
completing a painting of such scale).
Sistine chapel
• The chapel takes its name from Pope Sixtus IV, who restored the old Cappella Magna
between 1477 and 1480.
• During this period a team of painters that included Pietro Perugino, Sandro Botticelli and
Domenico Ghirlandaio created a series of frescoed panels depicting the life of Moses and
the life of Christ, offset by papal portraits above and trompe l’oeil drapery below.
• These paintings were completed in 1482, and on August 15, 1483,Sixtus IV consecrated
the first mass in honor of Our Lady of the Assumption.
1. To be able to reach the ceiling, Michelangelo needed a support; the first idea was by
Julius' favoured architect Donato Bramante, who wanted to build for him a scaffold to be
suspended in the air with ropes.
2. However, Bramante did not successfully complete the task, and the structure he built
was flawed. He had perforated the vault in order to lower strings to secure the scaffold.
Michelangelo laughed when he saw the structure, and believed it would leave holes in
the ceiling once the work was ended. He asked Bramante what was to happen when the
painter reached the perforations, but the architect had no answer.
3. The matter was taken before the Pope, who ordered Michelangelo to build a scaffold of
his own. Michelangelo created a flat wooden platform on brackets built out from holes in
the wall, high up near the top of the windows. He lay on this scaffolding while he painted
1512 - Michelangelo
completes the Sistine Chapel ceiling project and returns to the tomb.
1513 - Between 1512 and 1513, Michelangelo completes three sculptures for the project: the 'Dying Slave' and the 'Rebellious Slave' (now in the Louvre, Paris) and
'Moses' which is now a part of the final design. After these sculptures are completed, Julius dies and the new Pope Leo X abandons the project.
1516 - A new contract is agreed between Michelangelo and Julius' heirs who demand the completion of the project.
• 1520s -"The Genius of Victory"
• 4 unfinished slaves, which now sit in the Academia in Florence with the David
• 1532 - A second new contract is signed by Michelangelo which involves a wall-tomb.
• 1542 - The wall-tomb is begun by Michelangelo after final details are negotiated with Julius' grandson.
• 1545 - The final tomb is completed, and installed in San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome; it includes the original 'Moses' sculpture along with 'Leah' and 'Rachel' (probably completed by Mich's assistants) on the lower level, and several other sculptures (definitively not by Michelangelo) on the upper level.
The slaves
(four in Florence and two in Paris) were intended to be at the lower level of the tomb of
Pope Julius II, while the Moses for the middle level.
From the realized version of the tomb, erected in the church San Pietro in Vincoli in
Rome after several redesign and reduction of the original plan, the slaves were left out.
Clement VII
Original name Giulio de' Medici
(b.1478, Florence, d. 1534,
Rome), pope from 1523 to 1534.
Succeeded his cousin Pope leo
(Giovanni di Lorenzo de Medici)
The Sistine Chapel's frescoes
restoration began on
November 7, 1984. The
restoration complete, the
chapel was re-opened to the
public on April 8, 1994
Daniel – Before and after.
• 1527 - the Medici were again expelled from Florence, and Michelangelo, who was politically a Republican in spite of his close ties with the Medici, took an active part in the 1527-29 war against the Medici up to the capitulation in 1530 (although in a moment of panic he had fled in 1529) and supervised Florentine fortifications
• During the months of confusion and disorder in Florence, when he was proscribed for his participation in the struggle, it would appear that he was hidden by the Prior of S. Lorenzo.
• A number of drawings on the walls of a concealed crypt under the Medici Chapel have been attributed to him, and ascribed to this period.
• After the reinstatement of the Medici he was pardoned, and set to work once more on the Chapel which was to glorify them until, in
• 1534 - left Florence and settled in Rome for the thirty years remaining to him.
Pope Paul III succeeded Clement VII (r. 1534–49)
• Original name Alessandro Farnese (b. 1468,
Canino, d. 1549, Rome), Italian noble who was the
last of the Renaissance popes (reigned 1534-49)
and the first pope of the Counter-Reformation.
• The worldly Paul III was a notable patron of the
arts and at the same time encouraged the
beginning of the reform movement that was to
affect deeply the Roman Catholic Church in the
later 16th century.
• He called the Council of Trent in 1545.
• would take over a commission ordered by
Clement VII in the last year of his rule to have the
artists fresco the altar wall of the chapel with the
Last Judgment (1536–41).
• Michelangelo's apocalyptic vision depicts
hundreds of human souls rising from the earth
and ascending to heaven or being pulled into hell
under the thunderous hand of Christ the Judge,
rendered against a blue sky that suggests a
dematerialization of the chapel wall.
• Pope Paul III – Titian
1543
Farnese Family
1. Italian family that ruled
the duchy of Parma and
Piacenza from 1545 to
1731.
2. The family became noted
for its statesmen and
soldiers, especially in the
14th – 15th century, as
well as by contracting
politically useful
marriages.
3. In 1545 Pope Paul III, a
Farnese, detached Parma
and Piacenza from the
papal dominions and
made them into duchies.
The last judgement
Where
West wall of the Sistine chapel
God
God’s majesty rather than his
fatherhood is seen here.
The world
Irredeemably corrupt, this was the
orthodox viewpoint at that time.
Christ
Christ the Judge is represented as a
great avenging Apollo
The power of the painting comes
from the artists tragic despairs.
Self portrait.
He paints himself in as a
flayed skin.
An empty envelope of dead
surface, drained of his
personhood through artistic
pressure.
Saint Bartholomew
He was martyred by being
flayed alive.
Through his sacrifice he is
saved and this is M’s promise
of salvation.
The Last Judgement • He began work on it in 1536
at the age of 61.
• In the interval there had been the Sack of Rome and the Reformation, and the confident humanism and Christian Neoplatonism of the Ceiling had curdled into the personal pessimism and despondency of the Judgement.
• It was unveiled in 1541 and caused a sensation equalled only by his own work of thirty years earlier, and was the only work by him to be as much reviled as praised, and only narrowly to escape destruction, though it did not escape the mutilation of having many of the nude figures 'clothed' after his death.
• Paul III, who had commissioned the Judgement, immediately commissioned two more frescoes for his own chapel, the Cappella Paolina; these were begun in 1542 and completed in 1550. They represent the Conversion of St Paul and the Crucifixion of St Peter.
• The angels in the
middle blow their
horns to raise the
dead. One of them
holds the Book in
which all has been
written down and
upon which Jesus
will base his
judgment.
• To the left, the
chosen are escorted
to Heaven by angels.
• On the far left of the ring made
by the blessed stand the
women - saints, virgins and
martyrs, along with the sibyls
and heroines of the Old
Testament.
• The gigantic figure, who seems
to be protecting a young girl
who kneels beside her, is
usually identified as Eve.
• At the bottom of the painting the
boatman Charon can be seen ferrying the
damned into hell.
• Charon is the mythical boatman of
Roman and Greek mythology who ferried
the damned to hell. He is featured in
Dante's Devine Comedy, and also in
Virgil's Eneid,
The detail shows a group of elect standing to the right of
Christ.
• The figure holding the cross has been variously identified as the Cyrenean who came to Christ,s aid on the way to Calvary.
• Below to the right, the St Sebastian
• He clasps in his hand the arrows which are the symbol of his martyrdom.
• To the left, Catherine of Alexandria turns towards St Blasius.
• In the original picture both of them were entirely naked
• Scandalising contemporaries
St Catharine of Alexander
• To the right, the damned are going to Hell.
Michelangelo was inspired by Dante’s Inferno.
Charon (with oar) and his devils are leading
the damned to judge Minos (with snake).
The damned
• being sucked down into hell.
They are reminiscent of the descriptions in Dante's Inferno, which Michelangelo knew by heart.
• The judgment passed on them is represented by the figure in the centre who seems to be suffering an inner torment
• Similar to that of the artist himself: despair, remorse, and the fear of physical and spiritual annihilation.
The Figure of Christ a mighty
avenging Apollo
Jesus is seated in the middle
with his mother Mary at his
side.
The two large figures are Paul
(left) and Peter (right, with keys
in hand).
The figure underneath and to
the right of Jesus is St.
Bartholomew - a self-portrait by
Michelangelo. In his hand, his
mortal skin.
St Bartholomew with Michelangelo's
self portrait
St Peter – with his keys
Coversion of St Paul – 1542
Crucifixion of St Peter – 1546- 50
• The last sculpture of the artist, it remained unfinished when he died.
• fashioned up to six days before his death: the Pietà Rondanini
• This also marks the development undergone by the whole European culture: from the Renaissance, from the revival of Antiquity and the rediscovery of nature, to the splitting up of the Christian Church, the return of faith after the Counter Reformation and the Manneristic art of an El Greco.
• According to Vasari, he had already begun to work on it in 1555,
• He destroyed the first version of this.
• This version, still unfinished at the artist's death, was probably begun not much later then 1555.
• The unity between Mother and Son is even more intimate. It is almost impossible to tell whether it is the Mother supporting the Son, or the Son supporting the Mother, overcome by despair.
• Both are in need of help, and both hold themselves up in the act of invocation and lament before the world and God.
Early Raphael 1.Raphael’s teacher
Pietro Perugino (1478-1523)
2.particular talent Had precocious talent from the beginning and an absorber of influences.
Whatever he saw he took possession of always growing from what was taught him.
3.Perugino’s ‘Crucifixion with the Virgin etc... .’ was given to the church of San Gimigniano in 1497 when Raphael was only 14.
Raphael in Florence
1504-08.
Who were working there?
Leonardo and
Michelangelo both
were working there.
Who influenced him the
most?
Particularly by
Leonardo
Paintings take on a
more serious graphic
energy.
Give an example of this
influence
Cowper Madonna
Softness of contour
and perfection of
balance.
The faces have the
inwardness of
Leonardo, made firm
and unproblematic.
Michelangelo Holy
Family
Raphael’s Alba
Madonna.
1508 Raphael is summoned to Rome by Pope Julius II 1. He was to remain in the city serving successive popes until his death.
2. His first commission was the decoration of the Stanza della Segnatura, a room
located on the upper floor of the Vatican palace and almost certainly used by
the Pope as a library.
3. This room and the other rooms of the papal apartments already contained
works by Piero della Francesca, Perugino and Luca Signorelli, but the Pope
decided that these works would have to be sacrificed to accommodate the
young artist's frescoes.
The four Stanze di Raffaello
1. ("Raphael's rooms") in
the Palace of the Vatican
form a suite of reception
rooms, the public part of
the papal apartments.
2. Julius commissioned
frescoes for the interior
of the Vatican palace.
3. He asked Raphael to
paint four stanze, or
rooms, for use as papal
offices and reception
spaces.
4. One of these, the Stanza
della Segnatura, contains
Raphael's famous fresco
The School of Athens.
Executed in 1510–11,
This view of the Stanza della Segnatura shows the Parnassus (Poetry) in the left lunette, and
School of Athens (Philosophy) in the right. The popular but somewhat misleading name the
School of Athens dates back only to the eighteenth century.
1. Below the tondo on the
vault representing
Philosophy, ancient
philosophers have
assembled in the School
of Athens.
2. In the centre Plato and
Aristotle carry books
they have written:
Timaeus and Ethics,
respectively.
3. Their gestures are rich
in meanings: Plato
points upward, into the
sphere of higher
thoughts.
4. With his outstretched
hand Aristotle is
presumably alluding to
his mastery of natural
phenomena.
5. On the steps in front of
Aristotle rests the Cynic
philosopher Diogenes,
with the cup that he
tossed away.
Plato 1. Is the idealist he points upward
towards divine inspiration. Human
reason is rooted to the earth
divine reason floats in the sky
above the heads of the
philosopher’s theologians and
church fathers who try to interpret
it.
2. Beyond him to the left are the
philosophers who appealed to the
intuition and to the emotions,
3. They are nearer to the figure of
Apollo and they lead to the wall of
Parnassus.
Aristotle 1. To the right is Aristotle the man of
good sense holding out a
moderating hand.
2. Beyond him are representatives of
men engaging in rational activities
logic grammar and geometry.
3. Raphael curiously places himself
in this group next to an alleged
portrait of Leonardo da Vinci
1. the painting offers a hint of
what Bramante's church
interior might have looked like,
while not based on an actual
building, all suggest Raphael's
familiarity with Bramante's
designs.
2. The painting depicts an
imaginary gathering of Greek
philosophers, many rendered
as portraits of Raphael's
contemporaries.
3. Plato and Aristotle preside over
the group, the former probably
painted in the likeness of
Leonardo da Vinci.
1. Below them Euclid 1. Is a portrait of Bramante, the
building representing Bramante‘s
idea for a new St Peter’s.
2. Heraclitus is the figure in the
foreground.
1. Michelangelo’s Sistine chapel
ceiling.
2. Michelangelo would not have let
anyone into the building whilst he
was working, but Bramante had the
key.
3. It is possible he let the young
Raphael in.
4. The detail represents Heraclitus
with the features of Michelangelo.
3. In the groups the seekers after revealed
truth are arranged with the same regard
for their relations with each other.
1. with the philosophic scheme of the
whole room consists in grasping
imaginatively all the is best in the
thought of the time and these walls
represent the summit of human
achievement.
1: Zeno of Citium 2: Epicurus — 3: Unknown — (Frederik II of Mantua?) 4: Anicius
Manlius Severinus Boethius 5: Averroes 6: Pythagoras 7: Alcibiades or Alexander
the Great 8: Antisthenes or Xenophon 9: Hypatia — (Francesco Maria della Rovere
or Raphael's mistress Margherita.) 10: Aeschines or Xenophon? 11: Parmenides
12: Socrates 13: Heraclitus (Michelangelo). 14: Plato holding the Timaeus (
Leonardo da Vinci). 15: Aristotle holding the Ethics 16: Diogenes of Sinope 17:
Plotinus 18: Euclid or Archimedes with students( Bramante) 19: Strabo or
Zoroaster (Baldassare Castiglione or Pietro Bembo). 20: Ptolemy R: Apelles
(Raphael). 21: Protogenes — (Il Sodoma or Perugino)
1. On the right side of the
scene, Euclid who is
explaining to his pupils a
geometric diagram he has
drawn on a slate.
2. It is thought that Raphael
was here portraying the
architect Bramante.
3. Behind stands the
geographer Ptolemy,
recognizable thanks to his
crown and world sphere,
and the astronomer
Zoroaster, who is
presenting the sphere of
the stars.
• Raphael appears as himself, listening to a lecture by the astronomer Ptolemy.
• Raphael's decoration of the stanze continued under Julius's successor, Leo X ( 1513–21).
• The rooms vary widely in subject matter, but invariably stress the pope's status as Christ's vicar on earth, the long history of the papacy, and its continuing protection by God.
This view of the Stanza della Segnatura shows the Cardinal Virtues in the left lunette; left of
window: Justinian Presenting the Pandects to Trebonianus; right of window: Gregory IX
Approving the Decretals; on the right wall: Disputation of the Holy Sacrament (Theology).
1. The fresco can be seen as a portrayal of the Church Militant below, and the Church Triumphant above.
2. A change in content between a study and the final fresco shows that the Disputa and The School of
Athens can be seen as having a common theme: the revealed truth of the origin of all things, in other
words the Trinity. This cannot be apprehended by intellect alone (philosophy), but is made manifest in
the Eucharist.
3. The painting is built around the monstrance containing the consecrated Host, located on the altar.
4. Figures representing the Triumphant Church and the Militant Church are arranged in two semicircles,
one above the other, venerate the Host.
5. God the Father, bathed in celestial glory, blesses the crowd of biblical and ecclesiastical figures from
the top of the composition.
6. Immediately below, the resurrected Christ sits on a throne of clouds between the Virgin (bowed in
adoration) and St John the Baptist (who, according to iconographic tradition, points to Christ).
7. Prophets and saints of the Old and New Testament are seated around this central group on a semi-
circular bank of clouds similar to that which constitutes the throne of Christ. They form a composed
and silent crowd and, although they are painted with large fields of colour, the figures are highly
individuated.
1. At the bottom of the picture space, inserted in a vast landscape dominated by the altar
and the eucharistic sacrifice, are saints, popes, bishops, priests and the mass of the
faithful.
2. They represent the Church which has acted, and which continues to act, in the world,
and which contemplates the glory of the Trinity with the eyes of the mind.
3. Following a fifteenth century tradition, Raphael has placed portraits of famous
personalities, both living and dead, among the people in the crowd.
4. Bramante leans on the balustrade at left; the young man standing near him has been
identified as Francesco Maria Della Rovere; Pope Julius II, who personifies Gregory the
Great, is seated near the altar Dante is visible on the right, distinguished by a crown of
laurel.
5. The presence of Savonarola seems strange, but may be explained by the fact that Julius
II revoked Pope Alexander VI's condemnation of Savonarola (Julius was an adversary of
Alexander, who was a Borgia).
Baldassare Castiglione
1. Humanist and a writer, was
one of the most important
men of the Italian
Renaissance.
2. His popular book "Il
cortegiano" (The Courtier)
summed up the tastes and
culture of the Renaissance, it
gives insights into the
thinking and culture at the
court of Urbino at the turn of
the 16th century, and is
written in a style that is
delightfully clear and
precise.
3. Rubens admired Raphael's
portrait of Castiglione so
much that he copied it.
Giorgione Tempest 1505
1. Though many interpretations
of the subject of this small
painting have been
suggested, none of them is
totally convincing.
2. Thus the mystery remains of
what exactly the significance
is of the fascinating
landscape caught at this
particular atmospheric
moment, the breaking of a
storm.
3. Who are these figures? There
is no recognisable genre to
this theme.
4. A naked women nursing her
young? And a shepherd
observing absorbed in private
reveries, and every other
detail, from the little town
half-hidden and the course of
the stream to the ancient
ruins, the houses, the towers
and the buildings in the
distance .
Giorgione - The Three Philosophers - 1509
The Three Philosophers 1. A work of the last couple of
years of Giorgione's life,
seems it was finished by
Sebastiano del Piombo.
2. The subject matter has long
been a source of
disagreement.
3. In addition to interpret the
painting as three
philosophers (or three
mathematicians) it is also
assumed that the painting
represents the three Magi
4. Whatever the precise theme,
one can find three ages of
man, three distinct
temperaments, and three
different nations
1. The painting probably began as a
depiction of the the Magi, who are
recorded in the Gospel as visitors who
followed a star sign to Bethlehem
2. The three magi were apparently
astrologers, a prominent form of
divination even in Renaissance Italy.
3. The ages of man is seen from the seated
youth on the left embarking on a study
1. He is dressed in Springtime
simplicity, solitary dreaming and
hopeful looking to the future
4. Held mentally and debated by the middle
aged man.
1. Two elders seem to converse but
also debate with themselves
experience has made them more
weighty and earnest
2. The central man has the appearance
of a man of substance hands free for
work
5. Stored in material form by the sage
1. Grasps a sky chart the astrologers
guide to star divination
1. The three figures occupy the right hand
side of the picture
2. The rest is the trees and rocky cave and
beyond that, a sunny landscape with a
village.
3. It suggests some metaphors
4. To venture into the unknown darkenss of
the cave
5. To enter into the sunny meadow of
familiarity beyond
6. Search within the spirit or enjoy the
world with its rewards
7. Each man debates the same questions
each with the attitude that time brings
8. Another suggestion is
i. The Old man represents the
timeless philosophy of Aristotle
ii. The Middle man represents Islamic
culture and learning
iii. The young man represents
modernistic natural philosophy we
now call science. 9. The modern approach of Giorgione is the
use of a personal motive that is not in line
with pictorial conventions of the time.
10. This gives his work an element of mystery
and is not easy to ‘read’.
The Adoration of the shepherds
(Allendale nativity)
Giorgione melts into Titian
The focus of the painting is the evening
light and this emphasis on light and
landscape had a major influence on the
work of Titian
The Venetian emphasis on light is the
overriding concern and it unifies all
aspects of the painting and the mood is
an overrall silence and stillness
The world seems to have come to a
standstill
Parents child and Shepherds are lost in
an eternal reverie a prolonged sunset
that will never end
Giorgione uses the element of light to
portray a sense of spirituality to the
world.
He is able to portray the world as it is
but transports us beyond its confines