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Week 5 Lecture: Painting and the Renaissance

“Whether by cave art in southwest France or graffiti art in New York City, humans have always pictured their world. Pictures are still the way that humans make their mark upon the world. They make us see the world we live in and help us find our place. Humans are the picture-making animal, and in pictures, we make magic.” (Bishop, Beginner’s Guide, 1) One thing that Bishop doesn’t actually say here, and which I think is critically important, is that pictures pre-date writing, and often make writing unnecessary. Even now, for people who cannot read (for whatever reason), a picture can still convey impressions and information from one human being to another. “Picture-making is not only about depiction; it’s also about truth. … pictures are assertions of human will and belief, alternate worlds and alter egos that we encounter in the painted image.” (ibid, 3) Long before humans were able to communicate in writing, they were able to communicate visually. In our modern times, pictures are actually taking over from words, as so many people find they can assimilate visual information more easily than writing.

 

As Bishop notes (above), this tradition is traceable back to the stone age and can be found in many different contexts: “The world’s pictorial traditions are as varied as the human impulse to depict our world and ourselves. To honor, to remember, to imagine, to revere, to control, to document - the motives for making pictures are as complex as the human mind itself.” (ibid, 3).

From the Paleolithic artist recording the world around him (Bishop, Adventures 25[26]), many ancient civilizations had a vast tradition of wall painting, like these Lascaux cave paintings.

Wall painting was very common in Egyptian tombs, depicting images from all walks of life, including athletics, engineering, fishing, and these rather nice wildlife scenes.

Roman Egypt was famous for its mummy portraits (scarily realistic) and mosaics had been a popular art form for many centuries, but during the period usually called “the dark ages” a lot of this sophistication was lost.

In painting, as in music, the re-emergence of the arts in the monotheistic and Gothic periods focused largely on religious themes, in part because sacred buildings were the only ones commonly funding large-scale decoration such as Giotto’s frescoes (ibid 183[187-8]) and also because those private individuals who could afford art were just much more religious. Painting could be used to honor, revere and control, all at the same time in such contexts.

With the Renaissance came a big change in focus, as these blinkered, religion-dominated eras were superseded by an era of discovery in all aspects of society, owing partly to the growth of intellectual stimulus consequent on the rediscovery of ancient texts in the late Middle Ages (ibid 171-72[177-79]) and later on to the Reformation in religious thought (ibid 220-22[224-26]). The Renaissance was fueled by an expanding European economy and the consequent wealth of Italian patrons, whose increasingly lucrative trade ventures allowed them to spend money on commissioning artists, and whose intellectual life led them to rule in a different, “humanist” way (ibid 186-91[192-96]).

Two direct influences arose in painting as a result: the introduction of classical subjects (see Beginner’s Guide 5), and the application of mathematical principles to the composition (Beginner’s Guide 7) So the Renaissance chapter opens (Adventures 185[190-91]) with an outstanding example of a painting with a classical subject, Botticelli’s famous Birth of Venus,

which provides an immediate contrast with the religious artworks on the previous pages (ibid 182-83[187-88]). A little later on, the importance of mathematical principles is highlighted by making “Perspective” a Key Concept (ibid 200-201[202-203]). These two features are later combined in Raphael’s School of Athens (ibid 210[213]).

The greatest personification of the Renaissance man was, of course, Leonardo da Vinci (ibid 205-09[208-11]), whose talents as an outstanding “humanist” range from his understanding of mathematical principles (ibid 187[193]) to his fame as a portrait artist (ibid 207[211]). He was also an engineer and inventor, whose designs long pre-date any of the equivalents we have today. The other great Renaissance figure, Michelangelo, combined skills as an architect with those of sculptor and painter, his greatest monuments being the Statue of David (ibid 202[206]), the Sistine Chapel and the dome of St. Peter’s in Rome (ibid 212-17[215-18]) .

In Italy, the emerging city-states had their antique heritage to call on: in Rome and many other cities Roman buildings and sculpture still stood and the “New Learning” of the late Middle Ages (ibid 171[177]) gave birth to Europe’s oldest university at Bologna (founded in 1088, it pre-dated the University at Paris by 8 years). In Northern Europe, Charlemagne had created the Holy Roman Empire (ibid 130[136]), which defeated the pagans and began spreading Christian culture, and it was in these northern areas (primarily Germany) that the Reformation occurred as a great challenge to Roman supremacy (ibid 220-23[224-26]). Great changes took place here too, as in Southern Europe, but with significant differences. Perhaps influenced by the climate and character of the north, not to mention economic prosperity gained from trade (ibid 224[226-8]), religion and art took a more direct, realistic line, and artists began to focus on the lives of real people as well as on purely religious or mythological themes. The works of van Eyck (above) (ibid 231[235]) and Massys (below) (ibid 223[227]) show wealthy merchants in their own homes, 

      

often including clever technical tricks (such as the reflections you can see in mirrors in both paintings). They also focus on aspects of the lifestyle that produced their prosperity, as in Holbein’s Ambassadors, (ibid 225[229]) which is full of symbols of exploration and revolution.

There is a perceptible difference in style from the southern artists, and also in the media they employed. “Rather than fresco, Northern painters preferred the lustrous medium of oil paint, which enabled them to render small detail and to over-paint. Rather than plastered walls, Northern churches were often decorated with elaborate wooden altarpieces - cabinets with hinged doors that opened to display religious scenes.” (ibid 229[234]). This again is perhaps attributable to the northern climate, when people spend more time indoors huddled in small spaces than they do in the warmer climates of the south. Consequently, instead of great sweeping perspectives, we find immensely rich and detailed 

panel paintings like the Ghent Altarpiece (ibid 230[234]) and the seething detail of Hieronymus Bosch (ibid 232[236-37]). NB: If you have the capacity on your computer, you can zoom in on this link to see many individual details of this picture and find out just how grotesque it is! Just run your cursor to the bit you want to look at and click on it…

Portraiture becomes more common again in this period, as material wealth begins to rival in importance with spiritual worth, and as well as the mercantile-influenced Flemish painters (above) we see also symbolic portraits of great rulers (e.g. Elizabeth I of England, ibid 238[243]). 

as well as intimate family groups like the Anguissola portrait (ibid 249[253]) and the snapshot style of the 16th century Hilliard miniature (ibid 241[245]).

Artistic styles continue to evolve after this great explosion of creativity, as we shall see in later chapters of the textbook, but it is in the Renaissance years that painting moves away from the sacred and into the secular and begins to explore themes in real life, showing them in ways that are no longer merely representational, but often carry deeper meanings. As Bishop says (Beginner’s Guide 3), paintings show us life in a way that gives us a different perspective: “What do paintings do? They bring reality before our eyes by falsifying it. By falsifying it, they show us some fact or truth that otherwise would remain unseen. Wherever you find yourself in the world, look at what’s painted and you will learn.” 

 

Bishop, Philip E. Beginner's Guide to the Humanities. 3rd Ed. Upper Saddle River. Prentice Hall, 2010. Print.

    ---                 Adventures in the Human Spirit. 6th[7th] Ed. Upper Saddle River. Prentice Hall [Pearson], 2011 [2014]. Print.

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