Chapter 22 Beauty, Science, and Spirit In Italian Art The High Renaissance and Mannerism

UPHEAVAL IN THE CHURCH

Dissatisfaction with the leadership and policies of the Roman Catholic Church led to the Protestant Reformation. In response, the Catholic Church initiated the Counter-Reformation. A facet of the Counter-Reformation was the activity of the Society of Jesus, a religious order known as the Jesuits, which promoted education and missionary work. To deal with heretics, the Catholic Church also established a Church court called the Holy Office of the Inquisition. The Catholic Counter-Reformation exploited the use of art to promote and reinforce religious and ideological claims.

Painters / Sculptors

• Leonardo DaVinci

• Michelangelo Buonarroti

• Raphael

• Giovanni Bellini

• Giorgione

• Titian

Leonardo Da Vinci

• Synthesizing the temporal and spiritual worlds of the 15th Century

• Scientist and Artist

• True Renaissance Man

• Idea’s and reality merge into a grand concept.

“Painting can give a more complete description of nature”- Leonardo Da Vinci

22-3 LEONARDO DA VINCI, Last Supper (top, uncleaned; bottom, cleaned), ca. 1495–1498. Fresco (oil and tempera on plaster), 29' 10" x 13' 9". Refectory, Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan.

21-39 ANDREA DEL CASTAGNO, Last Supper, the Refectory, Monastery of Sant'Apollonia, Florence, Italy, 1447. Fresco, approx. 15' x 32'.

22-1 LEONARDO DA VINCI, Virgin of the Rocks, ca. 1485. Oil on wood (transferred to canvas), approx. 6' 3" x 3' 7". Louvre, Paris.

Andrea Mateggna’s Madonna of the Victory

Filippo Lippi’s

Madonna and Child with angels and Saints

The Birth of Scientific Illustration: In one of Leonardo's notebooks containing his anatomical studies is a drawing of an Embryo in the Womb. It is an early example of scientific illustration. Leonardo also worked as both architect and sculptor.

22-5 LEONARDO DA VINCI, Embryo in the Womb, ca. 1510. Pen and ink on paper. Royal Library, Windsor Castle.

Michelangelo Buonarroti

• Master of the Male form

• Art Center shifts from Florence to Rome

• Medici’s and Pope Julius II his Sugar Daddy’s

22-9 MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI, David, 1501–1504. Marble, 14' 3" high. Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence.

Subduing a Giant: The monumental nude statue of David reveals Michelangelo's early fascination with the male body. The detailed play of muscles over the figure's torso and limbs serves to enhance the mood and posture of tense expectation as David watches for the approach of Goliath. The pent-up energy of David's psychic and muscular tension is contrasted with his apparently casual pose. David is also represented as the defiant hero of the Florentine republic.

Donatello Michelangelo Verrochio

So you think you can paint?

Ladies and Gentleman May I present the

Sistine Chapel

22-14 MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI, Creation of Adam (detail),ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Vatican City, Rome, 1511–1512. Fresco, approx. 18' 8" x 9' 2".

Raphael

• Patron Julius II

• Achieved the Pope’s hope for the church reconciliation.(Between the protestants and the Papacy) Through a coherent and rational image.

A Congregation of Classical Thinkers: In the suite of rooms forming Pope Julius II's papal apartments, Raphael painted a series of frescoes. On one of the four walls of the Stanza della Segnatura, he painted the so-called School of Athens, which shows a congregation of philosophers and scientists of the ancient world conversing and arguing in a vast vaulted hall decorated with colossal statues of Apollo and Athena. In the center, silhouetted against the sky, are Plato and Aristotle. Other recognizable figures gathered around them include Pythagoras, Socrates, Heraclitus, Diogenes, Euclid, Zoroaster, and Ptolemy; their dignified poses and eloquent gestures communicate moods that reflect their various beliefs. In the Stanza della Segnatura, Raphael reconciled and harmonized paganism and Christianity.

22-17 RAPHAEL, Philosophy (School of Athens)

22-17 RAPHAEL, Philosophy (School of Athens)

Giovanni Bellini

• From Venice

• Continues to synthesize the elements of 15th and 16th century

22-32 GIOVANNI BELLINI, Feast of the Gods, 1514. Oil on canvas, approx. 5' 7" x 6' 2". National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (Widener Collection).

Giorgione• Venitian Tradition Continues

• Use of Soft Light

22-33 GIORGIONE DA CASTELFRANCO (and/or TITIAN ?), Pastoral Symphony, ca. 1508. Oil on canvas, approx. 3'7" x 4'6". Louvre, Paris.

Titian

• Undisputed leader of Venetian painting

22-35 TITIAN, Assumption of the Virgin, Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, Venice, ca. 15167–1518. Oil on wood, 22' 6" x 11' 10".

22-36 TITIAN, Madonna of the Pesaro Family, Santa Maria dei Frari, Venice, 1519–1526. Oil on canvas, approx. 16' X 9'.

Mannerism• Mannerism took the devices developed by

Michelangelo and Titian and made them even more staged and contrived. Two works by Parmigianino and Bronzino illustrate this contrivance and sleek designs that were favored by the Mannerists.

Mannerist Cont.

• Mannerist art and architecture generally places an emphasis on staged and contrived imagery, on elegance and beauty, on imbalanced compositions, and on unusual visual and conceptual complexities. Space in Mannerist paintings may appear ambiguous, and traditional themes may be presented in unconventional or unexpected ways. Mannerist art may be restless, with figures shown distorted, exaggerated, and with affected but often sinuously graceful postures. Mannerism's requirement of "invention" led artists to produce self-conscious stylizations involving complexity, caprice, fantasy, elegance, perfectionism, and polish.

22-42 PARMIGIANINO, Madonna with the Long Neck, ca. 1535. Oil on wood, approx. 7' 1" x 4' 4". Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

22-43 BRONZINO, Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time (Exposure of Luxury), ca. 1546. Oil on wood, approx. 5'1" x 4'83/4". National Gallery, London.

22-45 SOFONISBA ANGUISSOLA, Portrait of the Artist's Sisters and Brother, ca. 1555. Methuen Collection, Corsham Court, Wilshire.

22-44 BRONZINO, Portrait of a Young Man, ca. 1530s. Oil on wood, approx. 3'11/2" x 2' 51/2". Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (H. O. Havemeyer Collection, bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929). Image courtesy of

Reviving "Beautiful Architecture": Bramante's design for the Tempietto in the cloister of the church of San Pietro in Montorio, Rome, was inspired by ancient Roman round temples Bramante would have known in Rome and in its environs. The rational design is balanced and harmonious in the relationship of the parts (dome, drum, and base) to one another and to the whole. The Tempietto was originally planned to stand inside a circular colonnade.

Bramante

22-8 DONATO D'ANGELO BRAMANTE, Tempietto, San Pietro in Montorio, Rome, 1502 (?).

Sculptor's Finishing Touch: During his supervision of the building of the new Saint Peter's, Michelangelo preserved Bramante's original centralized plan but reduced and unified the central component to a compact, domed Greek cross inscribed in a square and fronted with a double-columned portico. On the exterior, he employed the colossal order, the vertical extension of which extends up through the attic stories into the drum and the dome to unify the whole building. Michelangelo's final plan for a hemispheric dome was not adopted by Giacomo della Porta, who, long after Michelangelo's death, built a dome with an ogival section.

Michelangelo

The Architect

22-28 MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI, plan for Saint Peter's, Vatican City, Rome, 1546

22-29 MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI, Saint Peter's (view from the northwest), Vatican City, Rome, 1546–1564. Dome completed by GIACOMO DELLA PORTA , 1590.