ITALY,1200-1400

GARDNER CHAPTER 19-2

PP. 502-509

THE 14TH

CENTURY 14th century Italy -> numerous independent city-states

Most city-states were republics -> constitutional oligarchies

Period of prosperity in Italy

Maritime trade, banking, manufacture of arms or textiles

The Black Death(bubonic plague) erupts in the late 1340’s -> came from China -> kills 25-50% of Europe’s pop in 5 years

The blossoming of vernacular(commonly spoken) literature in 14th century Italy

Dante’s – The Divine Comedy

Boccaccio’s - Decameron

RENAISSANCE HUMANISM

The rise of vernacular lit was a sign that the essentially religious view of the world that dominated medieval Europe was about to change -> the Renaissance

concern w/ the natural world, the individual, and humanity’s worldly existence

Renaissance = 14th-16th centuries

French word meaning “rebirth”

The rebirth of art and culture -> revived interest in classical cultures

HUMANISM

HUMANISM

A central component of Renaissance Italian art and culture

1. A code of civil conduct

2. A theory of education

3. A scholarly discipline

Humanists were concerned with human values and interests as distinct from religion’s otherworldly values

Enthusiasm for antiquity

The study of Latin literature

Emulation of Roman civic values

Revival of interest in and knowledge of Greek

Classical cultures as a model for living in this world -> a model of human focus derived from reason

GIOTTO Giotto di Bondone of Florence is

considered the first Renaissance painter -> pioneer of a naturalistic approach to representation based on observation

Some scholars describe Giotto as the father of Western pictorial art

His true teacher was nature -> the world of visible things

Giotto’s revolution in painting

1. Displace the Byzantine style

2. Established painting as a major art form

3. Restored the naturalistic approach the ancients developed

4. Method of pictorial expression based on observation -> foundations of empirical science

MADONNA ENTHRONED Giotto di Bondone, Madonna Enthroned,

from the Church of Ognissanti, Florence, Italy, ca. 1310, tempera and gold leaf on wood, 10’8”x6’8”

Seen against traditional gold background -> resting w/in her Gothic throne -> unshakable stability of a marble goddess -> a weighty queenly mother

The body is asserted -> her figure has substance, dimensionality, and bulk

Marks the end of medieval painting in Italy and the beginning of a new naturalistic approach to art

FRESCO PAINTING

FRESCO (Italian for “fresh”) = a mural painting technique that involves applying permanent limeproof pigments diluted in water onto freshly laid lime plaster

One of the most permanent painting techniques

Buon fresco -> time consuming and demanding

Arriccio – brown coat

Sinopia – orange pigment for underdrawing

Cartoon – full sized preparatory drawing

Intonaco – painting coat of plaster applied in sections for each session’s painting

Giotto, Arena Chapel, Padua, Italy, ca. 1305, fresco. Lower left - Lamentation

ARENA CHAPEL, PADUA

Finest examples of Giotto’s art are his murals in the Arena Chapel (Cappella Scrovegni)

Chapel was built for the wealthy Paduan banker Enrico Scrovegni -> for family’s private use and to expiate the sin of usury

Rectangular barrel vaulted hall w/six narrow windows and blank wall opposite -> Giotto presents one of the most impressive and complete Christian pictorial cycles ever rendered

38 framed pictures arranged on 3 levels -> images of the life of Christ

West wall -> the Last Judgment

Vaulted ceiling -> azure blue sky dotted w/stars and various medallions of Christ, Mary, and prophets -> the same blue is used in the backgrounds of the narrative panels on the walls

Arena ChapelFlashcard

employees.oneonta.edu/.../arenachapel.html Last Judgment

GIOTTO – LAMENTATION

Lamentation reveals the essentials of Giotto’s style

Boldly foreshortened angels darting about in hysterical grief

Congregation mourns over the dead body of the Savior -> Mary cradles her son’s body -> Mary Magdalene looks at the wounds in Christ’s feet -> Saint John the Evangelist throws back his arms dramatically

Figures are sculpturesque, simple, and weighty but show movement and emotion

FORMAL DESIGN OF THE LAMENTATION FRESCO

The way the figures are grouped with the constructed space

Strong diagonal of the rocky ledge w/the single dead tree of the knowledge of good and evil -> concentrates the viewers attention to the group around the head of Christ

Seated mourner on left arrests and contains all movement beyond this group

Figures seen from back represent a innovation away from the frontal formal Italo-Byzantine style

Figures in the foreground aid the visual placement of intermediated figures further back in space

New devices for depicting spatial depth and body mass

Management of light and shade

Giotto Di Bondone, Lamentation, Arena Chapel Flashcard

Joachim's Dream

teachers.sduhsd.k12.ca.us/ltrupe/ART%20Histor...http://www.threemonkeysonline.com/images/articles/nativity_giotto_fig5.jpghttp://www.wga.hu/art/g/giotto/padova/3christ/scenes_4/chris21.jpgwww.wga.hu/tours/giotto/padova/cycle/chris23.html

Ascension

Predecessor to chiaroscuroperspective

SIENNA

Among 14th century Italian city-states the most powerful were the Republics of Sienna and Florence

Both were urban centers of bankers and merchants

Money available for the commissioning of artworks

DUCCIO

Duccio di Buoninsegna, Virgin and child Enthroned with Saints, principal panel of the Maesta altarpiece, from Siena Cathedral, Italy, 1308-1311, tempera and gold leaf on wood, 7’x13’

Virgin enthroned as Queen of Heaven amid choruses of angels and saints

The artist relaxed the strict frontality and rigidity of the figures -> they turn to each other -> individualized the faces of the 4 saints in the foreground -> softening of body outlines and drapery

A miracle of color composition and texture manipulation

Flashcard

Duccio, Maesta altarpiece,

Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints

Predella

Duccio, Betrayal of Jesus, detail from the back of the Maesta altarpiece, from Sienna Cathedral

A religious drama in which the actors display a variety of human emotions

A decisive step toward the humanization of religious subject matter

www.oneonta.edu/.../arth/Arth213/Duccio.htmwww.abcgallery.com Gardner’s Art Through the Ages

Duccio,

Maesta altarpiece,

Betrayal of

Jesus

ARTISTS’ GUILDS, COMMISSIONS, AND CONTRACTS GUILDS = associations of master craftspeople,

apprentices, and tradespeople

Guilds protected members’ common econ interests and regulated their internal operations

Artists’ Guilds

Patrons -> a civic group, religious entity, private entity, guild

Guilds were patrons of numerous churches and hospitals

Patrons normally asked artists to submit drawings or models for approval and contracts insisted that the artists adhere to the approved designs

ORVIETO CATHEDRAL

Lorenzo Maitani, west façade of Orvieto Cathedral, Orvieto, Italy, begun 1310

Pointed gables, rose window, large pinnacles -> derived from French Gothic

The façade is merely a Gothic overlay masking a timber roofed Tuscan Romanesque basilica

Orvieto Cathedral

main portal

http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/italy/orvieto/cathedral/duomo.htmlinstructional1.calstatela.edu/.../

SIMONE MARTINI

Simone Martini and Lippo Memmi, Annunciation altarpiece from Sienna Cathedral, Italy, 1333, tempera and gold leaf on wood, 10’1” x 8’9”

Martini was the successor of Duccio in the Siennese school

Martini was instrumental in creating the so-called INTERNATIONAL STYLE which swept Europe in the late 14th and early 15th century

1. brilliant colors

2. Lavish costumes

3. Intricate ornamentation

4. Themes involving splendid processions