Compare Byzantine (left) style and content with High Renaissance (right)
(left) Bonaventura Berlinghieri, Saint Francis Altarpiece, 1235 and (right)
Raphael, Baldassare Castiglione, ca 1514, fully achieved illusionism
Renaissance painting from the 14th-16th centuries is a mimetic tradition (realism
and naturalism). Renaissance master painters from Giotto to Raphael worked to
achieve the illusion of three dimensions on a two-dimensional surface
(left) Raphael, High Italian Renaissance, Baldassare Castiglione, ca 1514, oil
on canvas
(right) Claude Monet, French Impressionist, Portrait of Blanche Hoschedé, oil
on canvas, 1880
(left) Vincent Van Gogh, Dutch, Self Portrait, 1888, Post-Impressionism
(right) Pablo Picasso, Spanish, Portrait of Vollard, 1910, Cubism
http://www.moma.org/audio_file/audio_file/82/411e.mp3
Andy Warhol, (US Pop Art), Gold Marilyn, 1962
From Medieval to Renaissance:
Italy, 1200-1400
Map of the World 2011
Italy Around 1400
Roman Forum. Italian Renaissance humanists – artists, writers,
architects – were inspired by Greco-Roman literature and art, evident in
ruins of classical culture that were part of their landscape.
CIMABUE (“Bull’s Head”), Madonna
Enthroned with Angels and Prophets, ca.
1280–1290. Tempera on wood, 12’ 7” x 7’
4”. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence. One of the
first artists to break with the Italo-Byzantine
style. A summary of Byzantine style, but the
throne recedes somewhat into space.
Spatial illusionism is a hallmark of
Renaissance representation.
Empirical art: “[Giotto’s] true
teacher was nature.”
GIOTTO DI BONDONE, Madonna
Enthroned, ca. 1310. Tempera on
wood, 10’ 8” x 6’ 8”. Galleria degli
Uffizi, Florence. Called the "Father
of Western Painting” why?
Compare Cimabue and Giotto. Is
Giotto’s style more empirical?
Roman maternal goddess, panel from the east facade of the Ara Pacis Augustae,
Rome, Italy, 13–9 BCE. Marble, approx. 5’ 3” high. Compare Giotto (1310) for solidity
of the body – a body that has weight.
Giotto, Interior of the Arena
Chapel (Cappella Scrovegni) 69
ft long, Padua, Italy, 1305–
1306/1310. Fresco panels of
the life of the Virgin (top) and
the life and death of Christ and
resurrection (center and lower)
http://art.docuwat.ch/videos/europe
an-art-history/a-history-ofeuropean-art-06-giotto-and-thearena-chapelparti/?channel_id=0&skip=0
GIOTTO DI BONDONE, Lamentation, Arena Chapel, Padua, Italy, ca. 1305
Fresco, 6’ 6 3/4” x 6’ 3/4”
What is fresco (method and medium)? Illusionism of 3 dimensions and expression
Anonymous Byzantine artist, Lamentation
over the Dead Christ, wall painting, Saint
Pantaleimon, Nerezi, Macedonia, 1164.
Compare Byzantine Lamentation (above)
with Giotto’s early Renaissance Lamentation
on the right, ca 1305
Sculptor ARNOLFO DI CAMBIO and others, Florence Cathedral (Santa Maria del
Fiore, view from the south), Florence, Italy, begun 1296. Campanile (free-standing
bell tower) by Giotto. Dome by Filippo Brunelleschi was built in the early 15th
century.
Compare Florence
Cathedral (above) begun
1296 with the Cologne
cathedral (left) begun
1248.
Palazzo Pubblico, Siena,
Italy, 1288–1309
Palazzo Pubblico, Siena, Italy, 1288–
1309
Sala della Pace, Palazzo Pubblico, Siena, Italy, 1338–1339
Allegory of Good Government, Bad Government and the Effects of Bad Government
in the City, and Effects of Good Government in the City and in the Country
Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Peaceful City, detail from Effects of Good Government in
the City and in the Country, Sala della Pace, Palazzo Pubblico, Siena, Italy, 1338–
1339. Fresco.
Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Peaceful Country, detail from Effects of Good Government in
the City and in the Country, Sala della Pace, Palazzo Pubblico, Siena, Italy, 1338–
1339. Fresco. The first “real” (empirical) landscape painting since antiquity. Figure in
upper left is Security with a pledge of justice for citizens of Siena.
Siena was decimated by the Black Death in 1348. Approximately half the population
died in the plague. The republic's economy was destroyed and the city-state quickly
declined from its position of prominence in Italy.
Francesco Traini (or Buonamico Buffalmacco?), The Triumph of Death, 1325-50,
Fresco, 18’6” x 49’2”, Camposanto, Pisa
The Camposanto (sacred field), cemetery, Pisa, Italy
Francesco Traini (or Buonamico
Buffalmacco?), The Three Living,
detail from The Triumph of Death,
fresco, 1325-50, 18’6” x 49’2”
Camposanto, Pisa
Corpses, detail from The Triumph of Death fresco, Camposanto, Pisa
Detail from The Triumph of Death, c. 1325-50, Camposanto, Pisa
Detail of the Camposanto Triumph of Death showing Death as an old woman swooping
toward a group of privileged young people (not thinking of their souls) to cut them down
Detail from Triumph of Death, c. 1348, Santa Croce, Florence. The Catholic
Church intensified preaching of guilt and penance following the Black Death.