Test on the Renaissance
Scholasticism & Humanism
• Scholasticism: a church-based intellectual
system in which reason was applied to explain
all aspects of life, but most importantly, to why
Christianity was the only logical belief system
(1200s-1300s)
• Humanism: a more secular system seeking to
apply reason to all aspects of life, not just
religion; an attempt to apply ancient Roman
principles, filtred through Christianity and a
Christian World view, to contemporary life
(1390s-1600)
19-9 Giotto, Lamentation over the
Dead Christ
• Scene from Life of
Christ; immediately
after Crucifixion
• Not biblical
• Shallow
stage/landscape for
figures
• Emotionalism in
response of apostles,
angels
19-10 Giotto, Meeting of Joachim and Anna
• Fresco from life of
Mary’s parents:
Joachim & Anna
• Not Biblical
• Note different scale
for architecture &
figures
• Use of light & shade
to model figures
19-21 Ambrogio Lorezetti,
Allegory of Good Government
The 15th Century Outside of Italy
• 1348-1400: General instability due to
aftermath of plague, continuing outbreaks.
• 1337-1453: Hundred Years’ War between
England and France.
• Flanders, chief market for England’s wool,
became a major battle ground.
• French incursions into Flanders
aggravated
this prolonged conflict.
Cloth: More Precious than Gold
• Textiles: among the most valuable European
commodities up to the 19th century.
• Process: labour intensive hand work, elaborate
designs, rich materials.
• Value of cloth often surpassed that of jewelry,
books, artwork.
• Fully equipped bed: mattress, hangings,
sheets, blankets, pillows, etc. could equal half
the value of a cottage in England c. 1525.
Of Capitalism and Kings
• Kings consolidated power over large territories,
established common currencies, legal systems,
bureaucracies. New national monarchies (nation
states) emerge.
• Barter system replaced by cash economies.
• Money financed new industrial (e.g. textiles)
ventures as well as the art market.
• Emerging urban middle classes, with large
incomes, changed the market for art in northern
Europe.
20-1 Limbourg Brothers,
Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry
20-11 Robert Campin,
Mérode Altarpiece
• Oil on wood, 64 x 118 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
20-11 Robert Campin, Mérode Altarpiece
20-11 Robert Campin, Mérode Altarpiece
• The centre panel focuses on the
Virgin in prayer. As she has not yet
recognized the presence of the
archangel Gabriel, the event
depicted is the moment just before
the Annunciation. Some objects,
such as the lily and the laver,
symbolize the Virgin's purity
expressed through the divine birth of
Christ. The tiny figure of the Christ
Child bearing a cross and
descending on rays of light from the
round window indicates that the
primary subject is the Incarnation.
This understanding is borne out by
the flame of the candle, symbolic of
God's divinity, which has just been
extinguished, a further reference to
the Incarnation, the moment when
God became man. This significant
detail is placed in the exact centre of
the composition.
20-11 Mérode Altarpiece
• The presence on the right panel
of Joseph, who is not usually
attendant at the Annunciation,
can also be explained in the
context of the Incarnation.
Joseph has made two
mousetraps, whose meaning is
elucidated by the Augustinian
speculation that the Incarnation
was God's means of ensnaring
the devil, much as bait entraps a
mouse.
20-12 Jan Van Eyck,
Arnolfini “Wedding” Portrait
• National Gallery, London:
Oil on oak, 82.2 x 60 cm, 1434.
• This work is a portrait of Giovanni di
Nicolao Arnolfini and his wife,
Giovanna Cenami, but is likely not
intended as a record of their
wedding. Arnolfini was a member of
a merchant banking family from
Lucca living in Bruges.
• His wife is not pregnant, as is often
thought, but holds up her full-skirted
dress in the contemporary fashion.
• The couple are shown in a wellappointed interior, a scene rich in
symbols of marriage and family life.
Arnolfini “Wedding” Portrait (symbols)
•
•
•
•
Van Eyck surrounds the couple
with many symbols. To the left,
the oranges placed on the low table
and the window sill are a reminder
of original innocence, of an age
before sin. Unless, that is, they are
not in fact oranges but apples, in
which case they would represent
the temptation of knowledge and
the Fall.
Above the couple's heads, the
candle left burning in broad
daylight on one of the branches of
an ornate copper chandelier can be
interpreted as the nuptial flame, or
as the eye of God.
The small dog in the foreground is
an emblem of fidelity and love.
The marriage bed with its bright
red curtains evokes the physical
act of love which, according to
Christian doctrine, is an essential
part of the perfect union of man
and wife.
Arnolfini “Wedding” Portrait (mirror)
•
•
The mirror is the focal point of the
whole composition. It has often
been noted that two tiny figures
can be seen reflected in it, their
image captured as they cross the
threshold of the room. They are
the painter himself and a young
man (van Eyck’s brother
Hubert?), perhaps arriving to act
as witnesses to the marriage. The
essential point, however, is the
fact that the convex mirror is able
to absorb and reflect in a single
image both the floor and the
ceiling of the room, as well as the
sky and the garden outside, both
of which are otherwise barely
visible through the side window.
The mirror thus acts as a sort of hole
in the texture of space. It sucks the
entire visual world into itself,
transforming it into a representation.
20-15 Jan Van Eyck,
Man in a Red Turban
• Secular Portrait; possibly a
self-portrait (artists would
sometimes wrap their hair to
keep paint off)
• Direct gaze of sitter - new since
antiquity
• May reflect the increasing
patronage of portraiture by the
growing middle class.
• Avoid psychological reading!
His “gaze” may merely be into
mirror!
20-17 “The Garden of Earthly Delights”
• The “Millennium”
altarpiece, closed, by
Hieronymous Bosch,
c. 1500 (in the Prado).
• Exterior of Bosch’s
altarpiece containing
the “ Garden of Earthly
Delights”
• The front depicts the
separation of the earth
from the waters during
Creation.
The Garden of Earthly Delights
•
Hieronymous Bosch produced some of the most inventive fantasy paintings
that have ever existed. His obsessive and nightmarish vision has its
antecedents in the Gothic twilight world of the late Middle Ages and,
although the allegorical medieval world view is now lost, there have been
many recent attempts to 'read' his pictures, not least by those who have
attempted to interpret Bosch by dream analysis. The Garden of Earthly
Delights demonstrates Bosch's dazzling ability to build up a hugely detailed
landscape through a series of bizarre exaggerations and distortions. The
complete work consists of four paintings on a series of folding panels; the
outer panel reveals the Third Day of Creation when closed. Inside, The
Garden of Earthly Delights is flanked on the left by the Garden of Eden and
on the right by Hell. A wild sexual orgy features in the central panel, where
lust is shown to be the cause of man's downfall. There are over a thousand
figures in this work altogether. Standing alone in its lifetime, Bosch's work
has a timeless and modern quality that greatly endeared him to Surrealists
in the twentieth century.”The A-Z of Art: The World's Greatest and Most
Popular Artists and Their Works,Nicola Hodge and Libby Anson
21: 17 The Garden of Earthly Delights
Martin Schongauer, St.
Anthony Tormented by Demons
• Engraving, 1480-1490
• Produced using a metal
printing “plate” etched by
metal stylus
• Note the very fine lines, softer
detail, more curved lines than
in the woodblock.
• St. Anthony’s vision of a soul
tormented by demonic
creatures.
Bottacelli: Birth of Venus
Leonardo da Vinci Last Supper
Leonardo da Vinci, Embryo
Leonardo da Vinci, Virgin of the Rocks
Bramante: Tempietto
Bramante: Plan for St. Peter’s
Michelangelo: Creation
Michelangelo: David
Donatello: David
Michelangelo: Last Judgement
Raphael: The School of Athens
Michelangelo: St. Peter’s
Giorgione: The Tempest
Titian: Venus of Urbino
Titian: The Assumption of the Virgin
Parmigianino: Madonna of the Long Neck
Veronese: Feast in the House of Levi
The Isenheim Altarpiece
Albrecht Durer: Knight, Death & the Devil
Hans Holbein, The French
Ambassadors
Breugel, Hunters in the Snow