Unit III: Renaissance and Baroque
Art
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The Renaissance was the period from approximately 1400 to 1526 A.D.
(although some of its traits appear a century earlier in the art of
Giotto). It was one of the most creative eras of art history, the
time of Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. The term Renaissance
refers to the "rebirth" of Greco-Roman thought and art that occurred
during this epoch.
The Italian PROTO-RENAISSANCE was a time of great social and artistic
change. From 1250 to 1400, Italy saw the growth of cities, the
expansion of trade, a rise in the numbers and power of the middle
class, and increasing humanization of religion. The Franciscan order,
particularly, had a profound impact on artists of the time because of
its emphasis on the beauty of observable nature and the concept that
knowledge could be obtained through direct observation.
The giant of Proto-Renaissance painting was Giotto di Bondone, a
Florentine. Giotto was acclaimed by his contemporary, Boccaccio, as
the man who initiated the era of great painting in Italy.
Giotto created a uniquely corporeal, weighty, classical treatment of
the human body and drapery. Giotto's most typical and magnificent
work is the fresco cycle he painted for Enrico Scrovegni in the Arena
Chapel of Padua. Each composition is reduced to essentials so as to
heighten its dramatic impact and the viewpoint is low so that the
viewer becomes a participant in the action.
In the Lamentation scene, the body of Christ is enfolded within a
circle of pastel colors and tender gestures. Though the angels above
are hysterical, the Virgin and the Disciples are restrained in their
grief. They remind us of ancient Greek images of mourners, filled
with pathos, but never fully releasing themselves to their sense of
loss. The blue tones in Giotto's Arena Chapel frescoes are in poor
condition. This pigments used for blue during this era did not
chemically bind with the wet plaster of fresco, so they had to be
added after the plaster had dried. As the only colors not bonded with
the plaster, the blues were the first to disintegrate over time.
The EARLY RENAISSANCE style first emerged in the city of Florence
and, for a variety of reasons (economic prosperity, a thriving middle
class, astute and aesthetically aware rulers), Florentine artists
continued to dominate the art of the entire fifteenth century.
The man who led the avant-garde into the Renaissance style of
painting was Masaccio, the stylistic heir to Giotto. Giotto's simply
clad, heroic Proto-Renaissance figures are now endowed with greater
realism through careful modeling with light and shadow.
Masaccio's figures display a classical Greek idealization and some
even stand in the Greek contrapposto pose. Coupled with Greek
idealization and poses are new spatial explorations that go far
beyond Giotto. The architecture of the Tribute Money is constructed
according to the laws of scientific (linear) perspective. The
mathematical formula for this system was created by Masaccio's
friend, Brunelleschi.
The subject of the Tribute Money is a relatively unimportant story
from the Bible, but one which had political significance to the
Florence of Masaccio's time. Townsmen understood it as a plea to pay
local taxes levied for the city's protection.
In his efforts to create a more spatially believable scene than
Giotto's, Masaccio has blurred the background according to the laws
of atmospheric perspective and has foreshortened the halos to show
their recession in space. The latter feature is seen in this detail
of The Tribute Money.
In Florence's Santa Maria Novella, Masaccio created The Trinity . The
barrel-vaulted interior of the scene resembles Roman architecture and
it recedes according to the laws of scientific perspective. Both of
these features show Masaccio's indebtedness to Brunelleschi, an
architect who revived the use of Roman vaulting techniques and
discovered scientific perspective.
Beneath the Trinity and above an actual tomb, a painted image of a
skeleton and an inscription appear . The inscription says, "What you
are, I once was. What I am, you will be." This allusion to human
mortality reminds us that Christ's sacrifice on the cross is man's
hope for salvation after death.
HIGH RENAISSANCE
As we move into the period from 1495-1526, we see a shifting of
geographical emphasis. Rome, because of its beneficent and sometimes
irascible patrons, the Popes, becomes the key center for High
Renaissance work.
The High Renaissance was an evolution out of the best traditions of
the Early Renaissance. High Renaissance masters like Leonardo and
Michelangelo revered Giotto, Masaccio and Donatello for their ability
to fuse a deep understanding of the Greco-Roman past with direct
observations of nature.
The man who initiated the High Renaissance style was the incomparable
Leonardo da Vinci. Interested in the entirety of natural phenomena
(from botany to astronomy to anatomy, flight, and hydraulic power),
Leonardo was an inventor, painter, sculptor, musician and architect.
His anatomical studies demonstrate a knowledge of the human body
hundreds of years before its time.
Leonardo's Mona Lisa is one of the most famous paintings of all time.
Art historians speculate that its Alpine landscape symbolizes that
Mona Lisa is "above the ordinary realm," that she is an embodiment of
womanhood, not merely an individual. The hazy quality, called sfumato
(smokiness), the delicate transitions of light and shadow
(chiaroscuro), and the reduced color scheme appear in most of
Leonardo's work.
Leonardo painted his pivotal work, The Last Supper, for Santa Maria
delle Grazie in Milan. Leonardo was in Milan working for its Duke,
Ludovico Sforza, when he received this commission. Although the
painting was to be done on a damp wall, Leonardo undertook the task,
creating in the process what most art historians consider the first
fully High Renaissance painting.
Because of the damp wall, Leonardo's Last Supper became severely
damaged over time. His Battle of Anghiari suffered an even worse fate
when Leonardo attempted to experiment with the ancient technique
called encaustic. Despite his reputation as a perfectionist, Leonardo
seems to have had major difficulties in successfully completing his
commissions!
The mastery of perspective in The Last Supper, the carefully arranged
grouping of the figures (which appears so casual, at first glance),
and the unity of architectural and figural elements set the standard
for the era.
One of the most innovative aspects of the work is the moment chosen
for representation: Christ has just said that one of his Disciples
will betray him. The genius of Leonardo was his ability to translate
this moment into a wave-like movement of denial that ripples outward
from Christ through the subsidiary figures.
Michelangelo, like Leonardo, was a man of many talents; he was writer
of sonnets, a philosopher, an engineer, painter, architect, and most
of all, a sculptor. For Michelangelo, an artist's talents were gifts
from God and the creation of works of art was analogous to divine
creation. His sculptures reveal his conception that the figure freed
from the block of stone mirrored the soul's struggle to free itself
from the physical body.
Michelangelo's concept of genius as divine inspiration resulted in
his insistence that artists must follow their own consciences. Such
"unfinished" works as this Awakening Slave may be one of the
sculptor's "caprices."
The Pieta in Rome, done when Michelangelo was a young man in his 20s,
is truly a work of divine inspiration. Technical mastery, coupled
with the intense and yet restrained emotional content of the piece,
make it one of the greatest, and most beloved, works of sculpture in
the world.
Shortly after finishing the Pieta, Michelangelo returned to Florence
to work on his colossal David (17 feet tall), a sculpture intended to
embody the heroic qualities of his native city. The first massive
nude figure since Greco-Roman times, the David was a smashing success
and was placed in the main piazza of Florence where all could admire
it.
During his tenure as Pope, Julius II had an incredibly important
impact on the art of his time. He not only commissioned Bramante to
rebuild St. Peter's and Raphael to paint the Stanza della Segnatura ,
but simultaneously had Michelangelo doing a fresco cycle over the
entire ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican! In an incredibly
short four years, the sculptor turned painter created a
masterpiece.
Along the edges of the Sistine Ceiling, Michelangelo depicted a
series of muscular pagan "prophetesses," the Sibyls. Several of these
show the artist's propensity for using masculine musculature on his
female figures (the male body was, after all, more energetic and
sculptural!). Joining the Sibyls were Hebrew Prophets, like Jeremiah
.
The main panels of the Sistine, were large rectangular scenes running
down the center of the Chapel's ceiling. This is a detail from the
Separation of Light from Darkness scene. The heroically proportioned
figure of God performs the action with great intensity and
energy!
This is the most famous of the main panels of the Sistine Ceiling,
the Creation of Adam . God, a typically Michelangelesque heroic
giant, reaches out to infuse Adam with the spark of life. Adam, in
return, awaits the electric charge laconically, reclining like an
ancient Greek river god.
Years after the completion of the Sistine Ceiling , Michelangelo was
recalled to the Vatican by another Pope, Pope Paul III. Paul desired
a Last Judgment scene on the end wall of the Sistine. Michelangelo
complied with a huge composition that was so filled with the wrathful
fire of Christ that Paul reportedly fell to his knees on seeing it
finished, and begged "Oh Lord, charge me not with my sins."
NORTHERN EUROPE
Fifteenth century Flanders saw the development of a distinctive
Northern European painting style based on a new medium, oil paint
(pigment mixed with linseed oil). The Northern painters sought
religious meaning in the ordinary, while the Italians were finding
the human in overtly religious subjects.
The detail permitted by the oil medium was suited to the artist's
desire for copious veiled religious symbolism.
Jan Van Eyck's Arnolfini Wedding is said to have served as a kind of
marriage certificate. The couple is somewhat stiffly posed in an
apparently ordinary interior. On closer inspection, however, the
ordinary becomes pregnant with meaning. The dog alludes to marital
fidelity and the mirror symbolizes the omniscient presence of God.
This painting wonderfully exemplifies the concept of veiled religious
symbolism.
Jan Van Eyck was the giant of Flemish painting. His facility with oil
paint was remarkable. He built up delicate glazed areas on his panels
and painted details as though looking through a microscope.
GERMANY
The big name of 16th century German painting was Albrecht Dürer.
Dürer's tie with the Italians' Renaissance style was very close
. In fact, he is often termed the "Leonardo of the North" because of
the shared interest in nature, anatomy, ideal proportions, and
perspective. Like Leonardo, Dürer subscribed to the "divinely
inspired genius" theory of artistic creativity. He even depicted
himself as a Christ-like disciple of the Renaissance style in a
self-portrait!
Dürer's Piece of Turf is a tour de force of watercolor
technique. The artist's capabilities with brush or engraver's burin
were extraordinary.
One of Dürer's more "Italianate" works was a print of Adam and
Eve . This Study for the Figure of Adam displays Dürer's
fascination with geometry and with Greco-Roman idealized nudes in
contrapposto stances. Dürer was the only Northern European who
captured the classical flavor of Italian Renaissance nudes.
BAROQUE
The Baroque period stretches from the 1600s
until the middle of the 18th century in Europe.
It is a time of tremendous energy, expansion,
and scientific investigation. Although stylistically
diverse, the period's art does show a consistent fascination with
illumination and emotion.
The Europe of the Baroque period was a time of expansiveness and
exploration. New worlds were being discovered geographically,
optically, and artistically. The microscope, telescope, and
navigational advances were scientifically expanding the vision of
Baroque Man, while Shakespeare, composers like Mozart and Haydn, and
artists like Rembrandt and Bernini were investigating new realms in
the arts.
In the visual arts, different substyles coexisted.
Catholic countries (like Italy and Flanders) were in the throes of
the Counter- Reformation. They tended to prefer a flamboyant Catholic
Baroque style epitomized by dynamic action, irregular forms, and
interplay between artifice and reality. The Catholic Church
proclaimed its revitalization through massive and spectacular
commissions. Protestant countries like the Netherlands, on the other
hand, preferred the more sedate Baroque Realist style.
Despite these generalizations, there were exceptions: Caravaggio and
Velazquez, two of the finest Realists, painted in Catholic Italy and
Spain.
ITALY
In painting, 17th century Italy sees the birth of Baroque Realism.
Its inventor was a temperamental, hot-headed artist known as
Caravaggio. Although Caravaggio did much of his work for the Catholic
church, he infused his work with such a sense of everyday realism
that it is often mistaken as genre painting.
Caravaggio uses lighting not only as a reference to divine
illumination, but as a dramatic device. He particularly enjoys
theatrical contrasts of deep shadow with bright highlights. The
illumination has almost a spotlight quality to it. The Conversion of
St. Paul has these stylistic features, plus the artist's
characteristic emphasis on strong diagonal lines.
Gianlorenzo Bernini was the acknowledged giant of the Italian Baroque
period. A superior architect and sculptor, Bernini also indulged in
painting, theatrical productions, and feats of engineering. The
Piazza of St. Peter's in Rome demonstrates Bernini's ability to
choreograph huge spaces into dynamic, symbolic forms. His Ecstasy of
SantaTheresa (this photograph) displays his facility with marble.
Bernini's greatest gift was doubtlessly his facility as a sculptor of
marble. His favorite work was The Ecstasy of Santa Theresa , an
illusionistic tour de force, placed in the remarkably crafted Cornaro
Chapel, also designed by the artist. Bernini exaggerates gesture and
expression and, wherever possible, he places hidden windows so that
magical illumination can play over his gleaming surfaces.
Bernini's personal style involves highly polished marble forms in
dynamic action. He sharply undercuts the stone in some places to
create dark, flickering shadows; he places his key figures on
diagonal lines. The Ecstasy of Santa Theresa also includes
dramatically fluttering, miraculously thin drapery!
NETHERLANDS
THE place for Baroque Realism was the Netherlands. Newly freed from
the shackles of Catholic Spain, the Dutch proclaimed their indepen-
dence by becoming officially Protestant and by adopting the Baroque
Realist style of art. The major Dutch painters were specialists (in
portraiture, genre, landscape, still life, etc.) who catered to the
needs of a thriving middle class patronage.
The two top Dutch painters of the era were Vermeer and Rembrandt.
Vermeer became known for beautifully serene interiors containing one
or, at most, two figures. Clear daylight typically flows into the
scene through a window on the left, illuminating (as it passes over)
a series of surfaces and textures rendered with great skill and
verisimilitude. This painting is entitled The Artist in his
Studio.
A map on the back wall often serves to remind us that Vermeer, like
map-makers of his time, was a "world describer." The maps may also
allude to Dutch maritime interests in the world; the Dutch fleet was
the largest in Europe during much of this period.
The Kitchen Maid shares many of the features noted in the previous
work. One of the greatest gifts of Vermeer is his understanding of
natural illumination and shadow. Reflected light and color
reflections in shadow often appear in his paintings. They co-exist
with marvelously painted, almost geometric, compositional
arrangements.
Vermeer's talents extended to superbly sensitive portraits, such as
the Woman in a Red Hat. Note the artist's attention to the highlights
on the pearls and lips of the woman and the warm glow that is created
on her face from the red of the hat.
The last of the Dutch painters, Rembrandt van Rijn, was the greatest
genius of all. Dubbed by many art historians "the finest portrait
painter of all time," Rembrandt excelled not merely in individual and
group portraits, but in landscape, genre, mythological, and even
religious themes.
Rembrandt was just about the only Dutch painter to produce works in
more than one medium (painting and print-making were his specialties)
and works that range in scale from a couple of inches high to nearly
15' wide. The rule of thumb for Rembrandt was that he broke all the
rules.
The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp is a relatively early work of the
painter showing meticulous detail and careful, invisible brushwork.
These techniques are used to describe a series of doctors intently
listening to the renowned Dr. Tulp as his dissects the body of a
recently executed criminal.
Ever-inventive, Rembrandt has taken what might have been a formal,
uninteresting exercise in group portraiture and turned it in to a
dramatic production. He was the first to bring life into this type of
painting.
The Night Watch was painted by Rembrandt in 1642, a year often
described as a turning point of his career. This commission was a
colossal one (12 x 15 feet). It depicts a group of civil militia men
just after they have been called up for an emergency. The event was a
pure fabrication, but one designed by the artist to create drama in
the group portrait.
Rumor has it that Rembrandt's efforts on this painting were not
entirely well received by the commissioners and, although Rembrandt
was paid by most of the men, that his ability to attract large
projects like this one began to decline after The Night Watch. To add
to his difficulties, Rembrandt had just lost his first wife,
Saskia.
There are some indications that Rembrandt suffered from depression
after the death of Saskia and there is definite proof that his
production severely declined. At the same time, Rembrandt was
developing a new, more expressive and less highly polished style that
may have been less attractive to buyers.
In 1656 Rembrandt's financial difficulties forced him to declare
bankruptcy. He was suffering from declining popularity among patrons
and critics and a growing addiction to alcohol. Rembrandt's common
law wife, Hendrikje, stood by him, giving him great moral support.
She served as bastion of strength and love for the painter during his
most difficult years.
This Self-Portrait, in its rich impasto (thickly textured
brushstrokes), nearly monochromatic color scheme, glowing golden
flesh tones, and introspective, even melancholy mood, epitomizes the
artist's last and greatest works. It is the soul of man that now
becomes Rembrandt's subject . . . the soul and human mortality.
SPAIN
Velázquez is a fully Baroque artist. Beginning his career in
Seville as a genre painter, Velázquez created some incredibly
dispassionate, observant works, like the Water Carrier of Seville ,
in the Baroque Realist vein.
Velázquez moved on to become the court painter to King Philip
IV when he was still a young man in his 20s. He remained a valued
friend and employee of the King until his death.
Perhaps his greatest painting is Las Meninas (The Maids of Honor ), a
court portrait centering on the Princess Margarita but filled with
other fascinating features. As a study of illumination, space, and
interplay of illusion and reality, Las Meninas establishes itself as
one of the most characteristic paintings of the entire Baroque
epoch.