ncc e. ren ptg flo
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E.Renaissance Painting in Florence
Massaccio (Big Tom) established a new direction in Florentine painting (Giotto) by integrating monumental and consistently scaled figures into rational architectural and natural settings using linear perspective.
MASSACCIO. TRINITY WITH THE VIRGIN, SAINT JOHN THE
EVANGELIST AND DONORS, fresco, 1425- 27/28
Sta. Maria Novella, Florence
• Renaissance interests:
• Realism based on observation
• Application of mathematics to pictorial organization of perspective
• Where is the vanishing point?
• Holy Trinity provides a vivid example of a pyramid or triangular composition. Rather than placing his figures along a horizontal line, Masaccio linked them in a series of interlocking pyramids.
• First used by Masaccio, the pyramid configuration became one of the hallmarks of Renaissance art.
Masaccio’s Trinity and van Eyck’s Ghent altarpiece are contemporary. Compare and contrast the two works.
INTERIOR OF THE BRANCACCI CHAPEL. Sta. Maria del Carmine, Florence
TRIBUTE MONEY, frescoMasaccio’s figures represent a revolutionary step in Western art—solid three-dimensional figures, all standing in balanced contrapposto. A constant light source creates a realistic blend of light and shade. This chiaroscuro give each figure the illusion of volume.
MASACCIO. THE EXPULSION FROM PARADISE, fresco
Masaccio based his Eve on this ancient statue of the Modest Venus
In the 1440's, a Dominican Friar, Fra Angelico painted the interior of the Monastery San Marco in Florence with frescoes. He decorated each of his fellow monks' cells with a holy image for their contemplation (the Dominicans were committed to work and prayer). At the top of the stairs leading to their quarters he painted this large-scale Annunciation.
The works of Fran Angelico reveal elements of both Gothic and Renaissance. Lacks symbolic objects…no bookFigures are painted shallowly, harking back to pre-RenaissanceThe whole scene is a masterpiece of quiet understatement.
ANDREA DEL CASTANGO. LAST SUPPER, fresco, 1447Trompe l’oeil effect is evident in the illusion of the room cut into the wall. Castango was influenced by Masaccio and Donatello.Castango was to influence later artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo.
Madonna and Child (1440-1445)Filippo Lippi, (1406 – 1469) National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
Carmelite friar
Fra Filippo Lippi , Portrait of a Woman with a Man at a Casement, c.1435
This is the earliest surviving double portrait in Italy, the first to show the sitters in a domestic setting, and the first with a view onto a landscape. The woman, dressed luxuriously, her sleeve embroidered with letters spelling "faithful”, is observed by a man—her betrothed?—appearing at a window, his hands on an identifying coat of arms. The two figures may be Lorenzo di Ranieri Scolari and Angiola di Bernardo Sapiti, who were married about 1439. Lippi’s task was complicated by the Italian preference for the profile view.
Paolo Uccello. Battle of San Romano. C.1455 tempera on wood
• 1452 Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise unveiled• 1453 Constantinople fall to Ottoman Turks• 1455 Donatello carves Penitent Magdalene• 1465 Botticelli apprenticed to Filippo Lippi• 1469 Lorenzo de’Medici takes rule • 1473 Medici bank beginning to lose money• 1475 Botticelli paints Adoration of the Magi• 1478 Pazzi consipiracy• 1482 Savonarola arrives in Florence• 1490 Savonarola preaches in Florence Cathedral• 1491 Savonarola made Prior of San Marco• 1494 Medici expelled, Savonarola seizes control• 1497 Bonfire of the Vanities• 1498 Republic of Florence revived; Savonarola executed
• During the second half of the 15th century, the republic of Florence flourished under the leadership of Lorenzo de’ Medici, grandson of Cosimo.
• Lorenzo established the Platonic Academy of Philosophy, consisting of scholars, poets, and artists. This intimate circle included Botticelli.
• Botticelli was apprentice under Pollaiuolo. He was known of his grace and rhythm.
SANDRO BOTTICELLIPAINTER 1445—1510
Born in Florence
Apprenticed at age 14 to a goldsmith
Apprenticed in 1462 to Fra Filippo Lippi
Medici Patronage
Botticelli lived at the time of the city’s greatest intellectual and artist
flowering, which coincides with the reign of Lorenzo the Magnificent.
Medici Family, a very powerful and political dynasty which not only ruled
Florence but also produced four popes
• Botticelli’s style evolved into one that was very distinct. His portraits seemed to have a melancholy or sad characteristic. He stressed line and detail…to bring his characters alive.
• He included Neo-Platonism in his work. This meant that he would bring together in one painting ideas that belong to both Christianity and pagan ideas which may have included mythology.
• He was invited to Rome to take part in the painting of the Sistine Chapel
SANDRO BOTTICELLI. PRIMAVERA, 1482, temperaNeo-platonism was a court style, reflecting the advanced ideas of a small group of well-educated and sophisticated people. The audience was elite. Based on the teachings of Plato, they believed that the pagan gods could be reconciled with Christian values. The gods and goddesses were given spiritual qualities that made them representatives of Christian virtues like—innocence, love, spiritual and intellectual as well as physical beauty.
Patron: cousin of Lorenzo Medici, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco. Painted as a celebration of his marriage in 1482.Celebrates the arrival of spring—filled with mythological symbolism.Venus (love) in orange grove; Left—Flora (flowers/spring); Chloris (pursued by Zephyrus (wind). Based on a poem by Ovid.Right—Three Grace (companions of love); Mercury (messenger) inspects and protects grove from intruders.Overhead—Amor (Eros/Cupid)
Note the emotion on the face of Chloris as she begins her transformation into Flora, Goddess of Flowers
In this allegory of life, beauty and knowledge united by love, Botticelli catches the freshness of an early spring morning, with pale light shining through the tall, straight trees, already laden with their golden fruit; oranges or the mythical golden apples of the Hesperides (nymphs of the evening)?
SANDRO BOTTICELLI. THE BIRTH OF VENUS, 1484- 86, temperaFor the first time in a 1000 years, we see a painted a life-size female nude. She is Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and beauty, whom the Romans called Venus. Arisen from the waves and born by the wind Zephyrus, she glides to shore on a shell. The shell is a symbol of baptism and rebirth.
• On Venus' right is Zephyrus, God of Winds, he carries with him the gentle breeze Aura and together they blow the Goddess of Love ashore. The Horae, Goddess of the Seasons, waits to receive Venus and spreads out a flower covered robe in readiness for the Love Goddess' arrival.
Botticelli, Simonetta Vespucci
Model for Venus is though to be Simone Cattaneo de Vespucci, a favorite of the Medici Court
Aura and Venus based on Simonetta who died young and Botticello asked to be buried at her feet.
Like Masaccio Venus is based on this antique statue.But unlike Masaccio, Botticelli kept the pagan subject.However, this is a complex allegory. Venus is symbolic of the Neo-Platonic way of looking at beauty. Beauty as an idea—conceived in the mind. Beauty as divine beauty. Just as we cannot have direct experience with the divine connection to God. We cannot have direct experience with divine beauty.In Neo-Platonic thought, the Biblical character Eve was identified with Venus.
Botticelli divieates from Renaissance characteristics.Masaccio (like Giotto) natural weighted bodies, atmospheric perspectiveBotticelli—stylized, elongated and weightless, no atmospheric perspective
Painting's capacity to catch a passing moment is acute in this portrait of an unknown wealthy man and a child. It seems valedictory, as we see the old man as if through the eyes of the little boy looking up at the noble ruin of a venerable face. That face is dominated by the old man's nose, a massive tumult of bulbous growths - perhaps a product of the skin condition rosacea. The little boy, his own face a perfect, harmonious and childishly chubby example of ideal Renaissance beauty, complete with golden, curling locks, appears to be examining the disfigured face of age with clear-eyed curiosity. At the same time, the boy's hand is warm and loving, as is the downward, benevolent gaze of the old man out of heavily lidded, wrinkled, almost tortoise-like eyes.
Domenico Ghirlandaio. An Old Man and His Grandson c. 1490
Youth and age, beauty and the ravages of time contemplate each other; the boy is looking at his future, the proud old man at one who will preserve his memory, as this painting does. The man's fur-lined red robe and the boy's elegant dress and hair indicate that they bear a noble family name, though it is lost to us. Out of the window we see a landscape that combines ruggedness and delicacy, like the portrait's juxtapositions. The gentle, hilly countryside leads to a hard rocky peak, as forbidding as the old man's nose. Like a traveller approaching a natural wonder, the boy looks up in awe at the old man, beloved monster.Domenico Ghirlandaio. An Old
Man and His Grandson c. 1490
Fra Bartolomneo:Fra Girolamo Savonarola
about 1497
• Savonarola becomes Prior of the Dominican monastery of San Marco in Florence.
• He sparks a renaissance of religious fervor and preaches against the corruption of the Papacy and enunciates a personal responsibility for the care of ones soul.
• This runs counter to Church policy of having to buy forgiveness from sin from the Vatican.
• He sees Revelations being acted out in the political events leading up to the end of the millennium.