Chapter 16: The Late Renaissance and Mannerism in 16th Century Italy

Events:

• Reorientation of trade routes from the east (Italy in prime location) to the west (discovery of America)

• Ever increasing threat of Turkish invasion

• Machiavelli publishes The Prince 1532: advocates that each situation determines whether one should be good or bad-moral and economic relativity

• Classical calm, harmonious images no longer in fashion

• Artistic license practiced more freely and openly (for a little while at least)

Map of 16th Italy

Protestant Reformation

Events:• Martin Luther 95 Theses,

1517– Founder of Lutheranism– 95 arguments against the

Catholic church• Indulgences• Role of artworks, abuse of

power/idolatry • Access to the Bible

Lucas Cranach, Portrait of Martin Luther, 1533. Oil on 14 ½” x 18.” Galleria degli

Uffizi, Florence.

Rome

Example: • Adjusts Bramante’s

central plan • Greek cross inscribed in

square• Dome over crossing• Colossal order

Michelangelo, plan for new Saint Peter’s,1546.

Italy

Michelangelo, plan for new Saint Peter’s, 1546.

Donato d’Anegelo Bramante, Original plan for St. Peter’s, Rome, 1502-1511. Fig. 15.5

ItalyDates and Places: • 1500 to 1600• Rome, Florence, Milan,

and Venice

People:• Humanism• Reformation/Counter-

Reformation• Powerful courts• Artist-genius

Interior, Sistine Chapel showing Interior of the Sistine Chapel with frescoes by

Michelangelo, Perugino, Ghirlandaio, Botticelli, and others, 1473-1541. Fig.15.9

RomeExample:• Commissioned by Pope

Paul III (Farnese)• Subject reflects time

based on Matthew• New take on traditional

topic with possible pagan references

• Compression of space• Dynamic design• Dramatic compositionMichelangelo, Last Judgment, with detail of St. Bartholomew from the Sistine Chapel, fresco,

1534–1541, 48’x44.’ Sistine Chapel, Vatican City. Fig. 16.5

Rome

Michelangelo, detail scenes from Last Judgment, with detail of Christ and the Virgin Mary. Fresco, 1534–1541, 48’x44.’ Sistine Chapel, Vatican City.

Rome

Michelangelo, Last Judgment, with detail of St. Bartholomew from the Sistine Chapel, fresco, 1534–1541, 48’x44.’ Sistine Chapel, Vatican City. Fig. 14.28

Self-portrait of Michelangelo

Rome

Rome

Michelangelo, detail scenes from Last Judgment, with detail of Minos (left) and Charon (right). Fresco, 1534–1541, 48’x44.’ Sistine Chapel, Vatican City.

Italian MannerismGeneral characteristics:• c. 1520-1580• Elegant and refined, sophisticated • Artificial (versus naturalism of High

Renaissance style)• Courtly style • Overelaborate distortion• Compositional tension, not clarity• Psychological tension• Impresses one with a feeling of awkwardness• Self-conscious stylishness, not window onto

world • Complex, exaggerated, difficult• Unstable composition, unnatural color

Rosso Fiorentino, Descent from the Cross, 1521. Oil on panel, 11’ x 6’5 ½.” Pinacoteca Comunale, Volterra,

Italy. Fig. 16.2

Florence

Example: • Medici court• Mannerist complicated

allegory or pun • Folly of love revealed by

time• Lascivious, sensuous• Strong contours,

undulating and exaggerated limbs, complex pose shows artist’s skill

Agnolo Bronzino , Allegory of Venus: Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time, ca. 1546. Oil on

panel, 5’1” x4’8 ¾.” National Gallery, London. Fig. 16.3

Agnolo Bronzino (1503-1572) Example: • Elegant conception • Agitated composition, full of incidents

but, little sense of dramatic unity • Figures elongated and have energetic,

angular postures • Arranged to create a decorative pattern • No strong emotions, superficial • Shallow space • Forms tend to adhere to the vertical

plane • Removes the event from the realm of

flesh and blood • Mannerist refinement and artifice

prevail over nature and feeling

Agnolo Bronzino , Allegory of Venus: Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time, ca. 1546. Oil on

panel, 5’1” x4’8 ¾.” National Gallery, London. Fig. 16.3

Parmigianino (1503-1540)

Example: • Odd spatial juxtapositions and non-

Classical proportions• Mismatched bodies• Mary’s clothing strays from convention• Tiny man?• Column? Mary as architectural

structure of church, column of childbirth, flagellation

• Vessel-Mary as vessel that gave birth to Christ, body echoes shape

• Christ as sleeping baby foreshadows death

• Modern Pietà? Parmigianino, Madonna with the Long Neck, c. 1535. Oil on panel, approx. 7’1” x 4’4.” Galleria

degli Uffizi, Florence. Fig. 16.9

Tiziano Vecellio (Titian 1488/90-1576)

Example: • Commissioned by Guidobaldo

II della Rovere, Duke of Urbino• Venetian painters love color

(colorito), atmosphere, texture

• Oil on canvas glows• Voluptuous body with smoky

shadow, framed by curtain • Portrait or mythology?• New genre of female nude• Color organizes composition

Titian, Venus of Urbino, 1538. Oil on canvas, 3’ 11” x 5’ 5.” Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

Fig. 16.11

Giorgione, Sleeping Venus, c. 1509. Oil on canvas, 3’6 ¾” x 5’ 9.”

Titian, Venus of Urbino, 1538. Oil on canvas, 3’ 11” x 5’ 5.” Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence. Fig. 16.11

Manet, Olympia, 1865. Oil on canvas, 4’ 3” x 6’ 3.” Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Venice

Paolo Veronese, Christ in the House of Levi, Italy, 1573. Oil on canvas, 18’ 2” x 42.’ Galleria dell’ Accademia, Venice. Fig.16.12

Paolo Cagliari “Veronese” (1528-1588)Example: • Late Venetian painting• Naturalism of Titian• Pageantry of event• Classical setting• Invented characters• Renaissance balanced

composition• Interest in detail• Symmetry of Leonardo and

Raphael• Inquisition challenges subject so

changes title– “Paint pictures as I see fit”

Paolo Veronese,Feast in the House of Levi, Italy, 1573. Oil on

canvas, 18’ 2” x 42.’ Galleria dell’ Accademia, Venice. Fig.16.12

Venice

Tintoretto, Last Supper, 1592-1594. Oil on canvas, 12’x18’8.“ San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice. Fig 16.13

Jacopo Robusti “Tintoretto” (1518-1594)Example: • Nickname “Little Dyer”• “Paint like Titian, design

like Michelangelo” • Counter-Reformation

painting• Moment depicted:

demonstration of body and blood

• Strong diagonals, site specific

• Strong use of light and dark• Mysterious light source• Natural and supernatural

worlds• Exaggeration of poses• Judas again in the dark

Tintoretto, Last Supper, 1592-1594. Oil on canvas, 12’x18’8.“ San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice. Fig

16.13

Leonardo da Vinci, Last Supper, c. 1495–1498. Fresco (oil and tempera on plaster), 15’ 1 1/8” x 28’ 10 ½.” Refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan. Fig. 15.2

Tintoretto, Last Supper, 1592-1594. Oil on canvas, 12’x18’8.“ San Giorgio Maggiore,

Venice. Fig 16.13

Vicenza

Andrea Palladio, Villa Rotonda, ca. 1567–1570.Vicenza, Italy. Fig.16.14.

Andrea Palladio (1508-1580)

Example: • Greatest architect of late 16th

century• Vitruvius main influence• Synthesizes elements of

Mannerism with High Renaissance ideals

• Near Venice• Central plan• Dome over crossing• Four facades like temple

portals• Pantheon likely model• Wrote architectural treatise,

Four Books of Architecture (1570)

Andrea Palladio, Villa Rotonda, ca. 1567–1570.Vicenza, Italy. Fig.16.14.

Andrea Palladio, Villa Rotonda, ca. 1567–1570. Vicenza, Italy. Fig.16.14.

Reconstruction of an Etruscan temple after Vitruvius

Pantheon, 118-125 CE, Rome.

Andrea Palladio (1506-1580)Example: • Design aesthetic based on

humanist education• Private residence, built for

Venetian cleric• Classic temple portico (porch)

with Ionic columns support entablature crowned by pediment

• Symmetry in design=dignity and grandeur

• Strict symmetry is both Classical and Renaissance element

Andrea Palladio, floor plan Villa Rotonda, ca. 1567–1570.Vicenza, Italy. Fig.16.14.