sculpture
pp9707
PaintingMedieval_to_Renaissance1.pptxPainting: Medieval to Renaissance
Medieval painting
Religious in subject matter
Influenced by Byzantine icon:
A saint or person of Trinity
Not much depth or perspective
Emphasis on face, eyes
Large golden halo (dinner plate)
Gold-> light of heaven
Elongated, floating figure
St. Francis by Berlinghieri
Made in 1235, after Francis’s death.
Shows miracles attributed to him.
Cimabue, Madonna Enthroned with Angels and Prophets. (“Maestá”: Mary enthroned)
Shows Icon influence
Gold background and large halo
“Stacking” of angels->flat
Mary & Jesus seem old
BUT Renaissance hints:
Clothes show draping, outline of her body.
Throne suggests depth.
Painted 1280-1290.
Giotto, Madonna Enthroned.
Still using gold background, large halos
Moving toward Renaissance
First use of shading
(chiaroscuro) to show depth.
Angels show depth, not stacked
Seems three-dimensional
Jesus has adult head, baby hands.
Mary holds His knee (motherly, human)
Also a Maestá.
Painted c. 1310
Duccio, Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints.
Shows perspective, depth (shading, throne)
Some saints individualized, not all identical
Similarities to Cimabue and to Giotto.
Maestá.
Painted 1308-1311
Arnolfini Wedding, by Jan van Eyck
Made 1434 (late medieval)
Flemish painting (miniaturistic)
Detailed & symbolic
Sacred event & wealthy man
Symbols: Dog, Shoes, Colors orange & green, Fruit, Window, Candle, Statue, Broom.
Wealth: Fabrics, furs, mirror, famous artist.
Artists paints himself & signs.
Renaissance Painting
Masaccio’s Holy Trinity, c. 1424 (Florence) was the first true example.
Masaccio shows mathematical perspective
(horizon, vanishing point).
Masaccio shows classical elements (columns, arches, vault).
Shows Father, Son, Holy Spirit (Dove).
Skeleton: underneath scene.
Three characteristics of Renaissance painting:
Triangular structure
Real-looking people
Open, uncrowded space
Madonna and Child with Angels, by Fra. Filippo Lippi, c. 1455
Compare this to Maestás from the 13th and 14th centuries.
Throne->only suggested
Angels->young, playful
Halos->nearly invisible
Madonna->youthful, pretty, unveiled
Baby Jesus->babyish, but still wise
“Sensuous beauty of this world” rather than only spiritual (Tansey and Kleiner 705).
His most famous student: Botticelli.
Botticelli’s Primavera, 1482. Large, mysterious painting.
Left, Mercury—The Three Graces—Cupid (above)—Venus (Also suggesting Mary)—Flora—Chloris abducted by Zephyr (Wind).
Wedding theme: Physical, earthly love joins spiritual, divine love in marriage. Notice bulging bellies on women (fertility).
Renaissance art commonly blends the pagan (Classical) with the Christian: Greek and Christian mythology together.
Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, 1484-1486
Artist decides to deviate from the representational. Venus’s body does not conform to human anatomy or to the laws of physics. Use of female frontal nudity recalls Classical age, as does pagan subject.
It’s “an allegory of the primal innocence and truth of the soul, before its birth into gross matter, its fall into a lesser being. [It is] blown upon by the winds of passion but is soon to be clothed in the robe of reason (Tansey and Kleiner 722).
Venus does not conform to the principles of anatomy. Her posture or stance is humanly impossible.
Her body is elongated (limbs, neck). But she is divine, not truly human. The scallop shell is also a Christian symbol.
Her hands covering her body recalls ancient statues of the “modest Venus.”
Leonardo
Last Supper, p 420. (Painted on dry plaster, 1495-98, Milan)
How does the artist direct our gaze?
What Renaissance elements do you see used here?
“One of you will betray me,” says the serene Jesus to his agitated friends.
Mona Lisa (La Gioconda), Leonardo
“Lady Lisa,” Mrs. Giocondo
Kept the painting for himself
What is her expression?
Blurry effect: sfumato (smoky)
Strange, fantasy landscape
Hands
P 421
Madonna of the Meadow
Raphael, 1508
Mary, Jesus, John the Baptist
Very delicate halos
Human interaction
Religious symbolism
P 423
Philosophy (The School of Athens)
Raphael
Fresco
1509-1511
19 x 27 feet
Vatican
Plato & Aristotle
P 424
Work Cited
Tansey, Richard G. and Fred S. Kleiner. Gardner’s Art Through the Ages. 10th ed., Harcourt, 1996.
