Survey of Art History II
Chapter 20
Sixteenth-Century Art in Italy
• The sixteenth century in Europe was a time of
unprecedented change. It was the beginning of
the modern era, and it saw a revolution in almost
every aspect of life. The century opened with the
discovery of a new continent. The renaissance in
Italy was peaking and spreading north, even
arriving in backwaters like England. Life was
largely prosperous for the average person, the
economy was growing. The mechanisms of
commerce, systems of international finance,
ocean-going trading fleets, an entrepreneurial
bourgeoisie, were all building a recognizably
capitalist, money-based economy.
• The first half of the century saw what
contemporaries viewed as the most earthshattering change in the century: the
Reformation. The cultural consensus of Europe
based on universal participation in the Body of
Christ was broken, never to be restored. Along
with the Reformation came challenges to secular
society. The nature and organization of power
and government came under reevaluation as
well. No one could imagine religious change
without it going hand-in-hand with social and
political change, as indeed it did.
The Late Renaissance:
Mannerism
• The High Renaissance in Italy coincided
with the lives and art of three great artists,
Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael.
Later artists studied and emulated the
idealized beauty of Leonardo and
Raphael, and the dynamism and grandeur
of Michelangelo. However, faced with the
perfection of the High Renaissance, a
younger generation of painters began to
explore different artistic possibilities.
• This late period of the Renaissance, which
lasted approximately from 1520 to 1600, is
called Mannerism from the Italian maniera
meaning "style" or "stylishness." To some
extent, Mannerism mirrors the religious anxiety
and political confusion resulting from the
Protestant Reformation and the weakened
authority of the Roman Catholic Church. Where
High Renaissance art had been concerned with
the harmonious balance of naturalism,
composition, and color, art now found delight in
exaggeration, artificiality, odd perspective, and
jarring color.
• Although Mannerism began in Florence
and Rome by Italian artists, painters from
Northern Europe (France, Flanders, and
Germany) frequently studied in Italy where
they adopted the fashionable Mannerist
style. Upon returning to their native
countries, they carried this style with them.
Prints (such as etchings and engravings)
were another important way that the
Mannerist style was spread throughout
Europe.
Leonardo da Vinci - 1452 -1519
• Florentine artist, one of the great masters of the
High Renaissance, celebrated as a painter,
sculptor, architect, engineer, and scientist.
• His innovations in the field of painting influenced
the course of Italian art for more than a century
after his death, and his scientific studies—
particularly in the fields of anatomy, optics, and
hydraulics—anticipated many of the
developments of modern science.
• Leonardo was born in the small town of Vinci, in
Tuscany (Toscana), near Florence. He was the
son of a wealthy Florentine notary and a
peasant woman. In the mid-1460s the family
settled in Florence, where Leonardo was given
the best education that Florence, a major
intellectual and artistic center of Italy, could offer.
He rapidly advanced socially and intellectually.
He was handsome, persuasive in conversation,
and a fine musician and improviser.
• In 1506 Leonardo again went to Milan, at
the summons of its French governor,
Charles d'Amboise. The following year he
was named court painter to King Louis XII
of France, who was then residing in Milan.
For the next six years Leonardo divided
his time between Milan and Florence,
where he often visited his half brothers
and half sisters and looked after his
inheritance.
Leonardo da Vinci - 1452 -1519 perfected chiaroscuro painting
• In Milan he continued his engineering projects and
worked on an equestrian figure for a monument to Gian
Giacomo Trivulzio, commander of the French forces in
the city; although the project was not completed,
drawings and studies have been preserved. From 1514
to 1516 Leonardo lived in Rome under the patronage of
Pope Leo X. He was housed in the Palazzo Belvedere in
the Vatican and seems to have been occupied principally
with scientific experimentation. In 1516 he traveled to
France to enter the service of King Francis I. He spent
his last years at the Château de Cloux, near Amboise,
where he died.
Leonardo da Vinci The Last Supper after cleaning 1498
Tempera on plaster (originally oil on plaster) 460 x 880 cm (15 x 29 ft.)
Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie (Refectory), Milan
• From 1495 to 1497 Leonardo labored on
his masterpiece, The Last Supper, a mural
in the refectory of the Monastery of Santa
Maria delle Grazie, Milan.
• Unfortunately, his experimental use of oil on dry plaster
(on what was the thin outer wall of a space designed for
serving food) was technically unsound, and by 1500 its
deterioration had begun. Since 1726 attempts have been
made, unsuccessfully, to restore it; a concerted
restoration and conservation program, making use of the
latest technology, was begun in 1977 and is reversing
some of the damage. Although much of the original
surface is gone, the majesty of the composition and the
penetrating characterization of the figures give a fleeting
vision of its vanished splendor.
The Refectory with the Last
Supper after restoration
1498 Convent of Santa Maria delle
Grazie, Milan
Madonna and Child
with St Anne and the
Young St John
1507-08
Charcoal with white
chalk heightening on
paper, 141,5 x 106 cm
National Gallery,
London
Mona Lisa (La
Gioconda)
c. 1503-5
Oil on panel, 77 x 53 cm
Musée du Louvre, Paris
• The Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci's portrait
of the unknown woman with the enigmatic
smile, is sparking a new kind of mystery:
what is causing the Renaissance
masterpiece to deteriorate so quickly?
• The thin poplar panel on which the Mona
Lisa was painted in oil has changed shape
since conservation experts last evaluated it,
the Louvre Museum said. Leonardo's
masterwork - now nearly 500 years old - is
inspected every year or two.
Back side showing repair to split in the panel
• The Mona Lisa, Leonardo's most famous
work, is as well known for its mastery of
technical innovations as for the
mysteriousness of its legendary smiling
subject. This work is a consummate
example of two techniques—sfumato and
chiaroscuro—of which Leonardo was one
of the first great masters.
• Sfumato is characterized by subtle, almost
infinitesimal transitions between color
areas, creating a delicately atmospheric
haze or smoky effect; it is especially
evident in the delicate gauzy robes worn
by the sitter and in her enigmatic smile.
• Chiaroscuro is the technique of modeling
and defining forms through contrasts of
light and shadow; the sensitive hands of
the sitter are portrayed with a luminous
modulation of light and shade, while color
contrast is used only sparingly.
Rafaello
Santi
(RAPHAEL)
Painter and
Architect
1483-1520
Rafaello Santi (RAPHAEL)
• Italian Renaissance painter, considered
one of the greatest and most popular
artists of all time. Raphael was born
Raffaello Santi or Raffaello Sanzio in
Urbino on April 6, 1483, and received his
early training in art from his father, the
painter Giovanni Santi.
Raphael- (14831520) Popular
painter with
society
Galatea
Fresco - 1513
Raphael (1483-1520)
The Small Cowper
Madonna, c.1505 oil
on panel. National
Gallery of Art,
Washington
School of Athens Fresco - 1510-11 can be found in the Vatican, Rome
• In 1510, upon hearing of the abilities of the
young Raphael, Julius II ordered him from
Florence. Once in Rome, Raphael was ordered
by the pope to destroy the paintings on the walls
of his council chambers in the Vatican Palace: to
plaster over the frescoes by Piero della
Francesca, Signorelli, Perugino, Raphael's
friend Sodoma and the rest, and to cover the
walls of the rooms now known as the Stanze of
Raphael with subjects of his own choice.
• This fresco, painted by Raphael for the Vatican
apartments of Pope Julius II, depicts Aristotle as
a symbol of the active life and Plato as a symbol
of the contemplative life. Aristotle, on the right,
carries his Ethics and gestures forward. Plato,
on the left, carries the Timaeus and points
upwards. Others shown in this fresco are
practical mathematicicans assembled beneath
Aristotle; beneath Plato are gathered the
abstract mathematicians.
• While Michelangelo was next door painting
on the Sistine Chapel ceiling his version of
the Christian world, Raphael was painting
on the walls of the Vatican Palace his
vision of the world of Humanist thought.
• Within the clear, uncluttered space of this
imaginary setting Raphael displays, like
classical statues or clear and distinct
ideas, idealized portraits of his
contemporaries to represent the major
figures of classical wisdom and science.
• Heraclitus looks a lot like
Michelangelo, who was at
this time slaving away next
door on the Sistine Chapel
ceiling. It is said that despite
Michelangelo's efforts to
keep his work in total
secrecy, Raphael managed
to sneak into the Chapel to
see what his anti-social
older rival was up to. And
sure enough, not only does
the Heraclitus figure look
like Michelangelo; in its
block-like sculptural solidity,
it looks like it was painted
by Michelangelo.
• As a painter, however,
Raphael owed most to
his teacher Leonardo
da Vinci. If the viewer
can recall Leonardo’s
red-chalk self-portrait,
he should be able to
recognize him here in
the School of Athens. It
is Leonardo who is
painted here as the
reincarnated Plato.
Pope Leo X with two
cardinals Guilio De’
Medici and Luigi De’
Rossi
1518 (150 Kb); Oil on
wood, 154 x 119 cm
(60 5/8 x 46 7/8 in);
Uffizi, Florence
• Perhaps those who connect his name only with
beautiful Madonnas and idealized figures from
the classical world may even be surprised to see
Raphael's portrait of his great patron Pope Leo
X of the Medici family, in the company of two
cardinals. There is nothing idealized in the
slightly puffed head of the near- sighted Pope,
who has just examined an old manuscript
(somewhat similar in style and period to the
Queen Mary's Psalter.
• Unlike his great rival Michelangelo, though, he
got on well with people and could keep a busy
workshop going. Thanks to his sociable qualities
the scholars and dignitaries of the papal court
made him their companion. There was even talk
of his being made a cardinal when he died on
his thirty-seventh birthday, almost as young as
Mozart, having crammed into his brief life an
astonishing diversity of artistic achievements.
Michelangelo
Buonarroti
1475 - 1564
Italian, Florentine
• Michelangelo produced at least two relief
sculptures by the time he was 16 years
old, the Battle of the Centaurs and the
Madonna of the Stairs
Early work 1489-92
(AGE 16)
Michelangelo
- 1475-1564
sculptor who
learned to
paint
Pieta
marble (1498-1500), still in its original place in Saint Peter's
Basilica.
Ceiling of Sistine Chapel,
Fresco, 1508-12 Vatican Rome
Ceiling of Sistine Chapel, Fresco, 1508-12 Vatican - Rome
Creation of Adam 1508-1512
• In 1980, the Vatican announced it's plans to launch a
massive cleaning and restoration project on the Sistine
Chapel's ceiling frescoes. This intensive civic project
cost the Vatican millions of dollars and twelve years. The
results were phenomenal. The ceiling was revealed as a
vibrantly vivid and passionate work of art. There were
those, however, that felt the ceiling's restoration and
cleaning had ruined the frescoes. Those that felt that
way still protest today. The conservation project
launched by the Vatican remains a hot debate topic in
the art world to this day.
Before, During,
and After
Photographs
This picture shows
the different
restoration phases
that took place on
the frescoes. This
particular photo is
of the AzorSadoch lunette
(one of fourteen).
Fresco with
mistakes - lost
three months
work
Last Judgment
1534-1541 wall
in church,
artwork
Originally intended for the
tomb of Julius II in St.
Peter's Basilica, "Moses"
and the tomb were instead
placed in the minor church
of San Pietro in Vincoli on
the Esquiline in Rome after
the pope's death. This
church was patronised by
the della Rovere family from
which Julius came, and he
had been titular cardinal
there.
Moses, 1515 Marble
The statue depicts Moses with horns on
his head. This is believed to be because of
the mistranslation of Exodus 34:29-35 by
St Jerome. Moses is actually described as
having "rays of the skin of his face", which
Jerome in the Vulgate had translated as
"horns". The mistake in translation is
possible because the word "karan" in the
Hebrew language can mean either
"radiated (light)" or "grew horns".
Michelangelo's
Moses. Located
in a minor
church of San
Pietro in Vincoli
on the Esquiline
(near the ancient
Coliseum) in
Rome---Moses is
the figure bottom
center.
Increasingly
dramatic to win
converts and teach
illiterate
David - 1501-4
marble 13’-5”
The Medici Chapel 1519-34
The Medici Chapel
• Located within the New Sacristy of the Church of San
Lorenzo in Florence, Italy, the chapel was actually
designed as a funerary chapel for the Medici family. The
chapel was first commissioned in 1520 by Cardinal
Giulio de’Medici, later to become Pope Clement VII. The
first design of the chapel included having a freestanding
tomb where the remains of Lorenzo the Magnificent, his
brother Giuliano, Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino and Giuliano,
Duke of Nemours would have resided. The design went
through many reductions and alterations and resulted in
a much smaller product than initially devised.
• On March 4 th 1519, Cardinal Giulio de’Medici
announced his decision to spend around 50,000
ducats on a funerary chapel and library in the
San Lorenzo church. Both of the projects were
commissioned to Michelangelo. Lorenzo the
Magnificent and his brother Giuliano had been
buried in the “Old Sacristy” of the church of San
Lorenzo. Though the completion of the chapel
was urgent, there were political events that set
back the progress of the chantry. Leo X died on
December 1 st of 1521.
• Adrian of Utrecht, a Netherlander, was elected to
the papacy as Adrian VI. Work on the chapel
ceased, but less than two years after his
appointment, Adrian VI died and Cardinal Giulio
became Pope Clement VII on November 19,
1523. Work on the chapel continued after this.
The dome and the lantern of the Medici chapel
were finished in 1525 and Michelangelo chose
to place a ball with a faceted surface on top of
the structure. Once again in 1528, work on the
chapel came to a halt. Like many architects of
the Renaissance period, Michelangelo also
served as a military engineer. Even after serving
on the council of the Nine of the Militia,
Michelangelo along with his servant and
goldsmith Piloto, decided to flee to Venice.
• Perhaps more famous than the Medici statues,
are the allegorical figures that reside below
them. “Night” and “Day” are a part of the Tomb
of Giuliano de’Medici. Night is the female figure
that is wearing a diadem with a moon and a star,
and is surrounded by objects such as poppies,
an owl, and a mask. All of these objects signify
sleep. She also looks aged. To the right of Night
is Day. Day is youthful and full of strength.
Unlike that of Night and Dawn, both Day and
Dusk have no identifying attributes. “Dusk” and
“Dawn” are a part of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s tomb.
Dawn is youthful and beautiful.
The two tombs that were
actually built were for
Lorenzo and Giuliano de’
Medici. They are famous
primarily because the
marble statues that
represent the two men
were created without
their true portraits in
mind. According to
Michelangelo, he did not
believe that anyone
would know what the two
Medici looked like in a
thousand years anyway.
Traditionally, Florentine tombs gave more
of an accurate portrayal of the deceased.
Both figures are dressed in Roman
amour, while Giuliano holds a baton and
Lorenzo wears a helmet. It is thought
they are in such attire because they both
held positions of power in the forces under
Leo X.
The Madonna for the
double tomb is one
carving of
Michelangelo’s that is a
part of the chapel.
Started in 1521, the carving should have been finished by the winter
of 1521-2, but was interrupted when Michelangelo went to Rome to
finish painting the Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel. The carving
seems to grab the spiritual focus within the chapel. It has also been
thought that the carving was originally intended for the tomb of Julius
II but instead was moved to the Medici Chapel. The carving sits
between the Saints Cosmas and Damian.
• Michelangelo's famous dome, also the largest in
the world, is represented in the museum's lobby
by the 16-foot-five-inch-high, hand-crafted Study
Model (ca. 1558-61) (above). It was
commissioned by the artist for his work on the
new basilica. The monumental wooden model,
the only one of several left, illustrates the new
dome's interior and exterior in graphic detail.
Michelangelo's brick and stone dome is a
miracle of Renaissance engineering and a
testament to his artistic genius and vision.
Commissioned by
Michelangelo (14751564),
Study Model for the
Dome of New St.
Peter's, ca. 1558-61
Wood
Height: 16 ft. 5 in. ©
Fabbrica di San
Pietro in Vaticano,
Rome
Donato Bramante
• (1444 – March 11,
1514) was an Italian
architect, who
introduced the Early
Renaissance style to
Milan and the High
Renaissance style to
Rome, where his
most famous design
was St. Peter's
Basilica.
Donato Bramante
Tempietto, Church of
San Pietro in Montorio
Rome, 1502-1510
Giulio Romano, Courtyard Façade, Palazzo Del Te`, Mantua 1527- 1534
The Battle of the Gods and the Giants: Palazzo del Te, Mantua
Correggio, Assumption of the Virgin, fresco Interior
Parma Cathedral, Italy, c. 1526-1530
Properzia de Rossi(1490-1530)
• Properzia de Rossi was born in Bologna, Italy.
Very few women had the opportunity to become
sculptors. She was trained by Marcantonio
Raimondi the engraver of Raphael's paintings.
Properzia de Rossi was a sculptor whose first
major success came when she won a
competition to do the sculpture for the church of
San Petronio. She was also a miniaturist who
sculpted on peach stones and cherry pits.
Properzia de’
Rossi,
Joseph and
Potiphar's
wife, 1520
marble bas
relief.
Giorgione (c. 1477 — 1510)
• Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco, an Italian
painter, one of the seminal artists of the High
Renaissance in Venice. Giorgione is known for
the elusive poetic quality of his work, and for the
fact that only very few (around six) paintings are
known for certain to be his work. His career was
cut short by the plague. He introduced new
pastoral themes in paintings known as poesie or painted poems
Giorgione
The Tempest
c. 1506, Oil on
canvas
32 x 28 3/4 “
Titian
( c. 1488/90 - 1576)
• Titian or Tiziano Vecellio was
born in a small alpine village of
Pieve di Cadore, now not far
from the Austrian border, where
his family lived for many years.
In about 1498, at the age of
nine or ten, Titian and his elder
brother Francesco were sent to
Venice to start their training as
painters in the workshop of the
mosaicist Sebastiano Zuccato.
Though soon Titian left his
workshop and began studying
painting.
Titian. Concert Champetre. c.1510-1511. Oil on canvas.
The Louvre, Paris, France.
• Titian was one of the most versatile of Italian painters,
equally adept with portraits and landscapes (two genres
that first brought him fame), mythological and religious
subjects. Had he died at the age of forty, he would still
have to be regarded as one of the most influential artists
of his time. But he lived on for a further half century,
changing his manner so drastically that some critics
refuse to believe that his early and later pieces could
have been produced by the same man. What unites the
two parts of his career is his deep interest in colour. His
later works may not contain vivid, luminous tints as his
early pieces do, yet their loose brushwork and subtlety of
polychromatic modulations have no precedents in the
history of Western art.
Pesaro Altarpiece.
1519-1526. Oil on
canvas. Santa Maria
Gloriosa dei Frari,
Venice, Italy.
Venus of Urbino. 1538. Oil on canvas. Galleria degli
Uffizi, Florence, Italy
Titian (finished by
Palma Giovane)
Pieta`
c. 1570 -1576
Oil on canvas
11’ 6” x 12’ 9”
Isabella d'Este by Titian
(18 May 1474 - 13
February 1539, death at
64 years old) was
marchesa of Mantua and
one of the leading
women of the Italian
Renaissance and a major
cultural and political
figure.
MICHELANGELO. The
Rondanini Pieta. 15551564. Marble. Castello
Sforzesco, Milan.
His sculptural last work,
the Rondanini Pieta
shows his struggle to
deal with the same
theme as his first Pieta.
He said that the theme
was his most daunting
subject.
• Michelangelo was a small man, perhaps not more than
5' 2" in height and weighing not much more than a
muscular 100 pounds. In 1550 Blaise de Vigniere,
visiting from France, wrote, "I saw Michelangelo at work.
He had passed his 60th year and although he was not
very strong, yet in a quarter of an hour he caused more
splinters to fall from a very hard block of marble than
three young masons in three or four times as long. No
one can believe it who has not seen it with his own eyes.
With one blow he brought down fragments three or four
fingers in breadth, so exactly at the point that if a little
more marble had fallen, it would have risked spoiling the
whole piece."
Late Renaissance
or Mannerism in Art
• Mannerism in art appears following the
death of Raphael Sanzio in 1520, a
new style that emerged in Florence and
Rome. Focused on the human figure,
Mannerism in art depicted forms in
contorted poses with more emotional
content, a somewhat disturbing unrest, an
almost surreal feeling evident.
• Rejecting the stability and classical ease of the
High Renaissance, mannerism in art reflected
the general turmoil in Europe present at the time
with the sack of Rome in 1527, the Reformation,
and new outbreaks of plague. Mannerism in art,
gaining popularity in much of Europe and
northern Italy, featured the use of distorted
figures in complex, impossible poses, and
strange artificial colors. Bridging the gap
between the High Renaissance Art and the
Baroque Art style of the 17th century, the style of
Mannerism in art came to an end around 1600.
Brenda Harness, Art Historian
Entombment
Jacopo Pontormo
c. 1528, oil on wood.
Named Jacopo Carucci but
called Pontormo after his
native Tuscan town, he was
the son of a painter and
exposed early on to High
Renaissance art. He later
developed a Mannerist and
ornamental style. In addition,
Pontormo was inspired by
northern European artists such
as Albrecht Durer. In the last
decade of his life, he became
a recluse and shunned even
his closest of friends.
Mannerism: (1520 - 1600)
• Mannerism was an art style that focused on the
human form, depicted in intricate poses and in
exaggerated, not always realistic settings. The
term Mannerism was derived from the Italian
word maniera, translated as “style.” It developed
in Florence and Rome between 1520 and 1600,
as a style that rejected the balance of the
Renaissance period in favor of a more emotional
and distorted point of view. This art style
reflected the tension in Europe at the time of its
popularity. The movement eventually gained
favor in northern Italy and most of central and
northern Europe.
• Paintings contained artificial color and unrealistic
spatial proportions. Figures were often
elongated and exaggerated, positioned in
imaginative and complex poses. Works of the
movement are often unsettling and strange,
probably a result of the time period’s upheaval
from the Reformation, the plague, and the sack
of Rome. In 1600, Mannerists were accused of
disrupting the unity of Renaissance classicism.
However, in retrospect, the Mannerist movement
supplied the link between Renaissance
perfection and the emotional Baroque art that
later developed in the 17th century.
Agnolo Bronzino (1503 - 1572)
• Born Agnolo di Cosimo di Mariano, Il Bronzino
studied under Raffaellino del Garbo and Jacopo
da Pontormo. He lived and worked in Florence
most of his life and was the court painter for the
Duke of Tuscany, Cosmo I. He excelled in
portraiture and religious works, and was also a
well-known poet and member of the Florentine
Academy. His work incorporated an interest in
light and bright colors.
Portrait of a
Young Man,
1530s
Bronzino (Agnolo
di Cosimo di
Mariano) (Italian,
Florentine, 1503–
1572)
An Allegory with
Venus and Cupid
probably 1540-50
BRONZINO
Oil on Panel
57 ½ x 46”
• The picture is likely to be that mentioned in Vasari's 'Life
of Bronzino' of 1568: He made a picture of singular
beauty, which was sent to King Francis in France; in
which was a nude Venus with Cupid kissing her, and on
one side Pleasure and Play with other Loves; and on the
other, Fraud, Jealousy, and other passions of love.
• Venus and Cupid are identifiable by their attributes, as is
the old man with wings and an hourglass who must be
Time (not mentioned by Vasari). The identity of the other
figures, and the meaning of the picture remain uncertain.
• The howling figure on the left has been variously
interpreted as Jealousy, Despair and the effects of
syphilis; the boy scattering roses and stepping on a thorn
as Jest, Folly and Pleasure; the hybrid creature with the
face of a girl, as Pleasure and Fraud; and the figure in
the top left corner as Fraud and Oblivion.
• The esteemed Croatian illuminator Giulio
Clovio (1498-1578) took a reported nine
years to produce the Farnese Hours, a
book of devotional prayers for Cardinal
Alessandro Farnese (1520-1589). In this
manuscript, the artist ingeniously
juxtaposed works from the New and Old
Testaments. As seen in his Adoration of
the Shepherds and Fall of Man (1546),
each successive page reveals the artist's
Mannerist style.
Giulio Clovio (Italian, 1498-1578)
Adoration of the Shepherds and Fall of Man (1546)
Farnese Hours (in Latin)
Sofonisba Anguissola
Self-Portrait
about 1556, Italian
(Cremonese), about
1532–1625
6.4 x 8.3 cm (2 1/2 x
3 1/4 in.)
Oil on parchment
Sofonisba Anguissola
• Praised by her contemporaries as the foremost
woman painter of her day, Anguissola executed
more self-portraits than any other artist in the
period between Dürer and Rembrandt. This
miniature displays the artist's meticulous
technique and a Renaissance taste for puzzles:
the interwoven letters at the center of the
medallion form a monogram or phrase that has
been satisfactorily explained. Around the rim, the
medallion is inscribed in Latin: "The maiden
Sofonisba Anguissola, depicted by her own
hand, from a mirror, at Cremona."
The Salieri (Saltcellar) of King Francis I by Benvenuto Cellini
1540-43, gold and enamel with ebony base, 26 x 33,5 cm
• Florentine Mannerist artist Benvenuto Cellini (15001572) wrote one of the most engaging memoirs ever
written, claiming descent back 1500 years to a captain
under the command of Julius Caesar in the 1st c B.C.
Cellini is described by others as boisterous, licentious,
sensual, a murdering braggart.
• The two figures are seated leaning back with their legs
interlaced. Typical of Mannerist art, the center of the
composition is completely empty, and the figures are
posed in strained, unbalanced postures. Neptune places
his hand on a ship which held salt for the table, while
Ceres rests her hand on a temple which held pepper.
The rest of this Mannerist composition is luxuriantly
decorated with various flora, fauna, and sea life.
• Important guests at the king's table would have been
seated closest to the Saltcellar.
Giovanni da Bologna
Venus Urania, Bronze
Gilt, c. 1573, height 15 1/4 “
Giovanni da Bologna
• The Flemish-born Giovanni da Bologna , better
known by his abbreviated name Giambologna,
worked in the late 16th Century and created
desirable objects found in courtly art collections
in Europe. The Medici used the works as
diplomatic gifts. Among his famous female
figures include the Venus Urania. From all sides,
the diverse moving figure, whose composition is
calculated to the last detail, is shown to be
intriguing from different views. The original
Venus Urania is now in the Art History Museum
in Vienna.
Lavinia Fontana
• Born in Bologna in 1552, Lavinia Fontana was the
daughter of cosmopolitan fresco artist and teacher
Prospero Fontana, who established his reputation in
Rome and joined Giorgio Vasari in adorning Florence's
Palazzo Vecchio. Unlike most female artists of the
period, Lavinia received encouragement at home, where
her father taught her to paint. She came under the
influence of one of her father's pupils, Ludovico Carracci,
founder of Bologna's academy. Beyond other women
seeking careers in art, she flourished in an open-minded
city that claimed painter Caterina dei Vigri as patron
saint and which had welcomed women to its university
since its opening in 1158.
Lavinia Fontana,
Minerva Dressing,
1613, Oil on canvas
Noli Me Tangere,
1581, Oil on
canvas,
47 3/8 x 36 5/8”
Portrait of a Girl
Covered in Hair
• In 1573 Veronese was commissioned to paint a
Last Supper for the convent of San Giovanni e
Paolo. On July 18, 1573, he was called before
the Holy Tribunal of the Inquisition because
certain details in the work were considered
irreverent in its treatment of a religious theme;
Veronese included dogs, a cat, midgets, Huns,
and drunken revelers in the mammoth canvas.
The Inquisitors pointed out that in
Michelangelo's Last Judgment there were no
such 'drunkards nor dogs nor similar
buffooneries' as Veronese had painted. He
answered: 'Mine is no art of thought; my art is
joyous and praises God in light and color.’
Veronese, Feast in the House of Levi
1573, Oil on canvas, 18’ 3” x 42’,Galleria della Academia,
Venice
Jacopo Robusti Tintoretto
(1518-1594)
• His nickname derives from his father's
profession of dyer (tintore). Although he
was prolific and with Veronese the most
successful Venetian painter in the
generation after Titian's death, little is
known of his life. He is said to have trained
very briefly with Titian, but the style of his
immature works suggests that he may also
have studied with Schiavone, Paris
Bordone, or Bonifazio.
Jacopo Tintoretto. Last Supper. 1592-1594. Venice.
Oil on canvas, 12 feet x 18 feet, 8 inches.
• His Last Supper is a masterpiece of late
mannerist style, and a striking contrast to
Leonardo da Vinci’s version. Whereas
Leonardo placed Christ as the geometric focal
point of his painting, Tintoretto’s Christ is
distinguished mainly by his mysterious
halo. Directional forces such as the diagonally
placed table, glances, and gestures all lead the
viewer’s eye in a complete circle around the
room’s figures. The lantern’s smoke is
transmuted into angels, while in the foreground
servants and everyday objects glow in a mystical
light. The picture communicates the profound
mystery of the Last Supper, suggesting the
transformation of matter into spirit.
THE VISUAL ELEMENTS
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Line (defines contours; most basic visual element).
Color [qualities of hue (red, blue, yellow, etc.), intensity (brightness or
saturation), and value (lightness or darkness) observed in colored pigment
or light].
Light (used literally by sculptors, photographers and architects; sometimes
used for dramatic effect with dark shadows).
Texture (real or implied? rough or smooth?).
Space (is there a suggestion of depth on the flat surface?).
Perspective (scientific method for creating a three-dimensional illusion on a
two-dimensional surface).
Form (usually refers to the shape or structure of an object).
Proportion (refers to the relationship of the parts to the whole).
Composition (the arrangement or organization of the visual elements;
compositions can be symmetrical, pyramidal, heraldic, etc.).
Sixteenth-Century Art in Northern
Europe and the Iberian Peninsula
Survey of Art II
Chapter 21
Tilman
Riemenschneider
1499 - 1505
Veit Stoss
• (b Horb am Neckar, c. 1445-50; d Nuremberg, c.
20 Sept 1533). German sculptor, engraver and
painter. He is one of the best-documented and
most significant German limewood sculptors of
his time. Stoss developed a uniquely expressive
and personal style in this material, while also
achieving considerable success working in other
woods and stone. It is likely that he came from
an artistic family as he had at least one brother,
Matthias Stoss (b Horb, 1482; d Kraków, 1540),
who was a goldsmith, and six of his sons also
worked as artists.
High above this altar in St.
Lorenz, suspended in
midair, is Stoss's famous
Great Rosary, or Salve
Regina (1517-1518). A
wooden chaplet of carved
roses and medallions
representing the Seven
Joys of Mary surround the
life-size figures of Gabriel
and the Annunciate Virgin.
The style is crisp and
somewhat nervous in this
very dramatic conception,
which honors the Cult of
the Rosary, promulgated in
the late 15th century by the
Dominicans.
VEIT STOSS: The
Annunciation.1528,
St. Lorenz,
Nurnberg.
Saint Anthony Enthroned
Between Saints Augustine
And Jerome
Nikolaus Hagenauer
Shrine of the Isenheim
Altarpiece, c. 1500
Mathis Grunewald - German 1475-1528
Isenheim Altarpiece 1512-1516
Closed
Isenheim Altarpiece 1512-1516
Open
ALBRECHT DURER
German, 1471-1528
Melencolia I, 1514
Engraving. 9 1/2 x 7
3/8 in. (24.1 x 18.8
cm)
ALBRECHT DURER
German, 1471-1528
• Perhaps Dürer's most enigmatic composition,
Melencolia I is grouped with his two other
"master" engravings of 1513 and 1514, Knight,
Death and the Devil, and St. Jerome in His
Study, which represent the pinnacle of his
engraved art. These prints are noted in technical
terms for their achievement of greys and planes
of shadow, the result of innumerable fine marks
of the burin, an effect that in this case
contributes greatly to the somber mood of the
subject.
• Dürer presents the personification of Melancholy
surrounded by a collection of tools for creative
and intellectual pursuits such as goldsmithing
(the crucible and scales), geometry (the
polyhedron and sphere), and woodworking (the
plane, ruler, and saw). Most important are the
dividers she holds, placed at the very center of
the composition; this instrument, used by
geometricians and architects, symbolizes the
ultimate creative act--God's shaping of the
world.
Albrecht Dürer
St. Michael Fighting
the Dragon
c. 1496/98
Woodcut
Self Portrait
Self Portrait - 1497
Woodcut print
Albrecht Dürer - German 1471-1528
Four Horseman of the Apocalypse
Albrecht Duerer's
Knight Death and
the Devil, late 15th
and early 16th
centuries
Adam and Eve, 1504 ~
Albrecht Dürer
Engraving
9 7/8” x 7 5/8”
The Four Apostles (1525), oil
on panel Alte Pinakotek.
John, the New Church is
sanguine, Peter behind him
with keys is phlegmatic. Paul,
in white, is melancholic and
behind him Mark (Venice) is
choleric. Dürer's painting,
which he gave as a gift to the
city of Nuremberg, shows the
Italian cities (and the Old
Roman Christianity) being
supplanted by the cities in the
North and the Reformed
Christianity of Luther.
Lucas Cranach the Elder, The Nymph of the Spring. After
1537. Oil on wood.
Albrecht Altdorfer
1480 - 1538
• Altdorfer became a citizen of Regensburg in 1505, and
later the Surveyor of the city's buildings. The steeply
wooded stretch of the Danube below the city, with the
castle of Worth, appears in several Altdorfer paintings.
• Albrecht Altdorfer, like his fellow German Lucas Cranach
the Elder, was a stay-at-home. He may well have some
of the topographical watercolors that Dürer brought
home with him after his roamings across the Alps. After
Altdorfer's own trips along the river Danube, landscape
was to become his passion. Altdorfer's landscapes are of
peculiarly Germanic character, bristling with wild forests
and lonely, wolf-infested glades. They are fearsome,
though magnificent, and they even contain the hint of
irrationality overcoming sobriety. Altdorfer does maintain
control, but we feel the threat.
Albrecht Altdorfer
1480 - 1538
The Danube Valley, c. 1525.
Oil on Vellum on wood panel,
12 x 8 1/2”
This is one of the first
examples of a painting that is
content to have no human
beings in it at all. It stands or
falls by the sheer quality of
the sky, the trees, the distant
river, the blue mountains. We
are offered a romantic
substitute for mankind, one
purer and more open to the
ethereal heavens. Altdorfer
believes in the sacramental
value of what he paints, and
it is his conviction that
convinces.
Jean Clouet
(c.1475-1540)
• Jean Clouet, on moving to France, rose to the position of
a court painter to King Francis I. The works attributed to
him show an undeniably Netherlandish influence,
particularly in the rendering of detail.
While not a single signed or reliably authenticated
work exists, a great number of drawings survived,
probably from the period of 1515–1540, which gives an
insight into his artistic temperament and stylistic
development. These drawings formed the basis of the
attribution of paintings.
It is a fact that Clouet was an accomplished,
sought-after portraitist. His works appeal on account of
their elegance and quality of portrayal. Perhaps the most
famous of his works is Portrait of Francis I. Clouet’s
authorship of the portrait is relatively certain, particularly
in view of the close links which he enjoyed with the
French court. He probably painted several other portraits
of the French royal family
Jean Clouet
Francis I, 1525 – 30
Oil and Tempera on
wood panel
37 ¾ x 29”
In 1515 Thomas
Bohier, revenue
collector for King
Francis I, began the
construction of the
Chateau de
Chenonceaux.
Unfinished at the time
of his death,
construction of the
chateau was
completed by Bohier's
wife and son.
In 1535, however, Francis I took the estate in payment of debts. King
Henry II, son of Francis I, gave the chateaux to Diane de Poitiers,
duchesse de Valentinois, who extended the structure by a bridge across
the River Cher. Catherine de Medicis, widow of Henry II, forced Diane de
Poitiers to deed the chateaux to her.
Rustic dish with molded plants and animals in a water habitat
Attributed to Bernard Palissy (1510-1590)
French, Paris, 16th century
Ceramic: glazed earthenware 8" x 15"
Bernard Palissy (1510-90)
• A prominent Huguenot who embodied the spirit of the Renaissance
in several ways. As a potter, he experimented with the chemistry of
glazes to find a variety of colors that would not run. As a modeler, he
used a clay that enabled him to make fine casts from life, so that the
creatures here are life-sized and convincing, the plants detailed
even to the surfaces of leaves. It was customary in prosperous
households to display extravagant vessels like this showpiece as
works of art not necessarily used at table. This dish, in the spirit of
the ceramic grotto Palissy installed in the royal gardens at the
Tuileries, would have suggested a natural coolness in the
summertime. Palissy was probably inspired by German
bronzeworkers' castings of small reptiles and amphibians and by the
fashion in earlier manuscript painting for filling the border with
naturalistic plants and animals. The meaning of the little griffin at the
upper right--the patron's emblem?--is a mystery waiting to be
solved.
Diogo de Arruda
West Window, Church in the
Convent of Christ. Tomar,
Portugal. C. 1510.
The Convent of the Order of Christ,
in Tomar, Portugal, was originally a
Templar stronghold built in the 12th
century. After the Order of the
Knights Templar was dissolved in
the 14th century, the Portuguese
branch of the order was turned into
the Knights of the Order of Christ,
which supported Portugal's
maritime discoveries of the 15th
century.
Renaissance Art in
Spain and Portugal
• The stylistic hybrid produced through the crosspollination of different strains of European art
runs through the whole of painting in Spain;
traditionally, this was taken as a sign of
dependence on centers of innovation in
Flanders or Italy. However, the mix of sources,
influences, and aims in Spain--and the resulting
paintings--was always different from place to
place and always changing in ways that cannot
be accounted for simply by developments in
other parts of Europe.
• Spaniards who worked in Italy and returned to
Spain; Italians and northerners, as well as
Spaniards, who painted for Philip II or were
collected by him .
• Foreign painters who stayed on in Madrid,
"Naturalism in Castile and Valencia" and those,
like Federico Zuccaro in the late sixteenth
century and Rubens in the seventeenth,"The
Presence of Rubens and Titian"
Francisco Zurbaran (1598-1664)
Zurbaran was chiefly a portrait
painter and his religious
subjects, depicting meditating
saints, found favor in southern
Spain's many monastic and
church institutions.
St. Francis 80” x 41” small by comparison
to that of the contemporary art
El Greco
• Widely regarded as having the greatest impact in bringing the
Italian Renaissance to Spain, El Greco, as his name implies,
was not Spanish at all, but was born Domenikos
Theotokopoulos in Crete. He studied the great Italian masters
of his time - Titian, Tintoretto, and Michaelangelo - when he
lived in Italy from 1568 to 1577. According to legend, after
asserting that he would paint a mural as good as one of
Michaelangelo's if they demolished one of the Italian artist's,
El Greco quickly fell out of favor in Italy, and soon found a
new home in the city of Toledo in southern Spain. He was
influential in creating a style based on impressions and
emotion, with elongated fingers and vibrant color and
brushwork. His paintings of the city of Toledo became models
for a new European tradition in landscapes, influencing the
work of the later Dutch masters.
El Greco
View of Toledo
42.9 x 47.6 inches
Oil On Canvas
Spanish Mannerism
1597
El Greco - The
Burial of the
Count of Orgaz
(1586-88, Oil
on canvas, 480
x 360 cm)
Hieronymus Bosch
• His birth name was Jeroen van Aken c. 1450 –
August 9, 1516 was an Early Netherlandish
painter of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Many of his works depict sin and human moral
failings. Bosch used images of demons, halfhuman animals and machines to evoke fear and
confusion to portray the evil of man. The works
contain complex, highly original, imaginative,
and dense use of symbolic figures and
iconography, some of which was obscure even
in his own time.
Northern Europe
Hieronymus Bosch Flemish painter from Netherlands 1488-1516
Garden of Earthly Delights
Triptych - oil on wood panel 7’ x 8’
Left - Creation of Adam and Eve Center - Sin on Earth Right - Hell
Closed - The Third Day of Creation
The Garden of Earthly Delights
• Bosch produced several triptychs, works of three
paintings on wooden panels that are attached to each
other. Among his most famous is The Garden of Earthly
Delights. This triptych depicts paradise with Adam and
Eve and many wondrous animals on the left panel, the
earthly delights with numerous nude figures and
tremendous fruit and birds on the middle panel, and hell
with depictions of fantastic punishments of the various
types of sinners on the right panel. When the exterior
panels are closed the viewer can see, painted in
grisaille, God creating the Earth. These paintings have a
rough surface from the application of paint; this contrasts
with the traditional Flemish style of paintings, where the
smooth surface attempts to hide the fact that the painting
is man-made.
• Bosch never dated his paintings and may have
signed only some of them (other signatures are
certainly not his). Fewer than 25 paintings
remain today that can be attributed to him. Philip
II of Spain acquired many of Bosch's paintings
after the painter's death; as a result, the Prado
Museum in Madrid now owns several of his
works, including The Garden of Earthly Delights.
• Pieter Brueghel the Elder was influenced by
Bosch's work and produced several paintings in
a similar style, including the 1562 work The
Triumph of Death.
Lan Gossaert, Saint
Luke painting the Virgin.
1520, Oil on Panel,
43 x 32”
Jan Mabuse (c. 1478 –
October 1, 1532), the
name adopted (from his
birthplace, Maubeuge) by
the Flemish painter Jenni
Gosart, or Jennyn van
Hennegouwe (Hainaut),
as he called himself when
he matriculated in the
guild of St Luke, at
Antwerp, in 1503.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Netherlandish Renaissance painter and
printmaker known for his landscapes and
peasant scenes (Genre Painting). He is
nicknamed 'Peasant Bruegel' to distinguish him
from other members of the Brueghel dynasty,
but is also the one generally meant when the
context does not make clear which "Bruegel" is
being referred to. From 1559 he dropped the 'h'
from his name and started signing his paintings
as Bruegel.
Pieter Bruegel
(c. 1525 – September 9, 1569)
• Usually known as Pieter Bruegel the Elder
to distinguish him from his elder son, was
the first in a family of Flemish painters. He
spelled his name Brueghel until 1559, and
his sons retained the "h" in the spelling of
their names.
Pieter Bruegel Netherlands 1525-1569
Return of the Hunters 1565
Winter Landscape with a Bird Trap
1565; Oil, 38 x 56 cm; Wiltshire, Wilton House
The Harvesters
1565; Oil on wood, 118.1 x 160.7 cm (46 1/2 x 63 1/4 in)
The Fall of Icarus c. 1558 (180 Kb); Oil on canvas, mounted on wood, 73.5
x 112 cm; Musees royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels
Marinus van Reymerswaele
• Marinus Claeszoon van Reymerswaele (Reimerswaal,
The Netherlands, c. 1490 – c. 1546) was a Dutch
painter. He worked in Zeeland from 1533-1545. Hence
he is also named Marinus de Seeu (from Zeeland). He
studied at the University of Leuven (1504) and was
trained as a painter in Antwerp (1509).
• His name is known from a small number of signed
panels. Another number of paintings is attributed to
Marinus on stylistic grounds. His body of work consists
of a relatively small number of themes only, mostly
adapted from Quentin Massys and Albrecht Dürer: with
the secular imagery as despised money lenders and tax
collectors.
The Moneychanger And His Wife (1539),
Museo Del Prado, Madrid
Catherina van Hemessen
(1528-1587)
• Catherine was born in Antwerp, Flanders. She learned to
paint from her father, and even helped him with some of
his works. Most of her paintings are of wealthy men and
women of her time period. She was a very successful
painter, and Queen Mary of Hungary, was her main
supporter. When the queen resigned her regency in
1556, she invited Mary and her husband to join her in
Spain. They remained there until 1558, until the Queen
died, and then they returned to Antwerp. The Queen
showed her appreciation by leaving Catherina and her
family enough money to live the rest of their lives in
comfort.
SelfPortrait, 1548 Oil
on wood panel12 x 9
Van Hemessen's
paintings have a quiet
dignity to them, the
sitters eyes never
meet the viewer's. Her
pictures also tend to
be small with plain
dark backgrounds that
give no sense of
location or extended
space.
• As with many Renaissance female painters, she
was the daughter of a painter, Jan Sanders van
Hemessen (c. 1500-after 1563), who was likely
her teacher. She went on to create portraits of
wealthy men and women often posed against a
dark background.
• Included in her body of work is a self-portrait
done in Basel. She has inscribed the painting
with the year, 1548, and her age, 20 years. Her
success is marked by her good standing in the
Guild of St. Luke and her eventual position as
teacher to three male students.
Artists in the Tudor Court
• Hans Holbein
• Levinia Bening Teerlinc
• Nicholas Hilliard
Hans Holbein the Younger
• BORN: 1497
DIED: 1543
• Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/98-1543)
is remembered as a brilliant portrait
painter, especially in the court of Henry
VIII, and as the designer of a series of
remarkable woodcuts, The Dance of
Death. The Spencer Museum's Death and
the Knight from this series is a proof
impression, printed before the publication
in Lyons of the entire set of forty-one
woodcuts in 1538.
Death and the Knight,
1538, Woodcut
Portrait of Henry
VIII (1491-1547)
Aged 49, 1540
Sir Thomas More,
dated 1527 Oil on
oak panel, 29 ½ x
23 ¾ inches
Levinia Bening Teerlinc
•
•
•
•
(1497-1543)
The highest paid painter in Henry VIII's court
Court appointed "King's Paintrix“
In 1545, she moved with her husband, George
Teerlinc of Blankenberge, to England. She then
served as the royal painter to Henry VIII, whose
royal painter, Hans Holbein the Younger, had
recently died. Her annuity for this position was
£40 - rather more than Holbein had been
paid.Later she served as a gentlewoman in the
royal households of both Mary I and Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I when
Princess, c. 1559
Attributed to Levina
Bening Teerling
Oil on oak panel, 42 x 32
Nicholas Hilliard
• Nicholas Hilliard, the son of a goldsmith, was
born in Exeter in about 1547. He trained as a
jeweller but later became an artist. Influenced by
the work of Hans Holbein, Hilliard worked for
Elizabeth I and James I and established the
English school of miniature painting. Hilliard also
painted the portraits of Mary, Queen of Scots,
Francis Drake, Philip Sidney, and Walter
Raleigh.
• Despite his success Hilliard had financial
problems and in 1617 was imprisoned for debt.
Nicholas Hilliard died in 1619.
Sir Francis Drake
by Nicholas
Hilliard (1581)
Bess of Hardwick married well
and inherited even better. She
became the second most
powerful and wealthy woman in
Elizabethan England, rivaling the
Queen herself. Her home,
Hardwick Hall, in Derbyshire,
expresses that wealth and power,
using so much glass -- unusual in
Tudor times -- that the house is
said to resemble a huge glass
lantern.
Designed by Robert Smythson.
Baroque Art
Survey of Art History II
Chapter 22
• Baroque - Northern Europe
• 1600-1750 (17th to mid 18th Century)
Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598-1680)
• Italian sculptor, architect and painter
• Bernini dominated the Roman art world of the
seventeenth century, flourishing under the
patronage of its cardinals and popes while
also challenging contemporary artistic
traditions. His sculptural and architectural
projects reveal an innovative interpretation of
subjects, use of forms, and combination of
media. Forging a path for future artists, he
played an instrumental role in establishing
the dramatic and eloquent vocabulary of the
Baroque style
Cornaro Chapel, Santa
Maria della Vittoria,
Rome
Gian Lorenzo Bernini
(Italian, 1598–1680)
The Ecstasy of Saint
Teresa, 1647–52,
polychromed marble, gilt,
bronze, yellow glass,
fresco, and stucco
Ecstasy of St. Theresa
• This sculpture presents a mystical figure who is
physically overwhelmed by a miraculous vision.
Functioning as a sort of tableau vivant with busts
of members of the Cornaro family seeming to
serve as witnesses, the composition reflects
Bernini's experience as a stage designer. The
fusion of architecture, painting, and sculpture is
further intensified by the combination of colored
marbles.
Ecstasy of St. Theresa
1647-52
Marble
height c. 11' 6" (3.5m)
Santa Maria della
Vittoria, Rome
David
1623
White marble
5’ 7”
Galleria
Borghese, Rome
Modello of St. Louis XIV
St. Peter's Baldacchino is
a large sculpted bronze
artwork designed by Gian
Lorenzo Bernini and
located over the high altar
of the Basilica of St. Peter
in Rome. The large canopy
was intended to mark in a
monumental way the place
of Saint Peter's tomb. It
was commissioned by
Pope Urban VIII. Works
began in July 1623 and
ended in 1633.
• The Baldacchino was the first of Bernini's
works mixing sculpture and architecture.
The result was a Baroque construction
which replaces the usual ciborium by
showing a scenographic allegory of a
funerary catafalque. The work was
executed in collaboration with numerous
collaborators of the artist, including
Francesco Borromini for the architectonic
part, and Stefano Maderno, François
Duquesnoy, Andrea Bolgi, Giuliano Finelli
and Luigi Bernini for the sculptural one.
Francesco Borromini
September 25, 1599 – August 3, 1667
• Was a prominent
and influential
Baroque architect,
and active in Rome
and contemporary
with the prolific
papal architect and
often rival, Gian
Lorenzo Bernini.
Facade of San Carlo alle
quattro fontane.
San Carlo alle Quattro
Fontane is a church
(1638-41) in Rome,
designed by Francesco
Borromini (1599-1677),
one of the most notable
example of Baroque
architecture.
S. Carlo alle Quattro Fontane - Ceiling by Francesco
Borromini - 1640
S. Carlo alle Quattro
Fontane floor plan
San Carlo alle quattro
fontane interior
• Baroque architecture, starting in the early 17th century in
Italy, took the humanist Roman vocabulary of
Renaissance architecture and used it in a new rhetorical,
theatrical, sculptural fashion, expressing the triumph of
absolutist church and state. New architectural concerns
for color, light and shade, sculptural values and intensity
characterize the Baroque. But whereas the Renaissance
drew on the wealth and power of the Italian courts, and
was a blend of secular and religious forces, the Baroque
was, initially at least, directly linked to the CounterReformation a movement within the Catholic Church to
reform itself in response to the Protestant Reformation.
Important features of baroque
architecture include:
• long, narrow naves are replaced by broader,
occasionally circular forms
• dramatic use of light, either strong light-andshade contrasts, chiaroscuro effects or uniform
lighting by means of several windows
• opulent use of ornaments (puttos made of wood
(often gilded), plaster or stucco, marble or faux
finishing)
• large-scale ceiling frescoes
The Four Rivers Fountain (1648-1651), along with such works as the
Piazza of St. Peter and the Ecstasy of St. Teresa, are some of Bernini's
most amazing sculptural and architectural achievements. The theatrical
fountain comes to life with Bernini's magical touch as a sculptural
designer. Bernini's vision is now one of Rome's prized possessions.
However, Bernini's appointment to the now famous fountain almost never
happened.
• After Pope Urban VIII died, the papacy became
restricted in their power. The Barberini family, who
supported Bernini, soon fell out of power following the
election of the new pope, Innocent X. Bernini had been
Urban's favorite sculptor, but was replaced by Algardi.
To make matters worse Bernini lost his job as the
architect of St. Peters, after he failed at building the bell
towers. While it had not been Bernini's fault, the south
tower had cracked because of the bad foundation, and
had to be dismantled. Rival artist took the opportunity to
take Bernini's power and respect that he had worked so
hard to gain. Borromini and other sculptors claimed
Bernini was incompetent after the bell tower fiasco.
The island rock was made of
travertine, which is a Roman
building stone that is often used
and easier to work with then
marble. The four statues, which
are made of marble, were
sculpted by Bernini's
assistants: Antonio Raggi did
Danube, Jacopo Fancelli did
the Nile, Francesco Baretta did
the Rio della Plata, and Claude
Poussin did Ganges.
Danube, representative of Europe, holds Pope Innocent's coat
of arms. He wears a crown of flowers on his head and has a
horse rushing out of the rock to the left of him.
Ganges, symbolizing the continent of Asia, holds
an oar and looks solemnly over the piazza. The
Nile statue personifies Africa. The sculpture's
face is covered with a robe to characterize the
mystery that surrounds the continent. A palm
tree rises from the base and lions come from the
crevasse in the rock for a drink. Finally, the Rio
della Plata symbolizes the Americas and shrinks
against the rock with his arms raised. As he
leans back, he guards a treasure of coins. The
Plata is portrayed as a black man and has some
Moorish features to him, such as the jeweled
leg-band. Even the fountains drain was given a
creative twist and turned into a fish with its
mouth open, as if drinking the water.
The Danube
The four rivers of
the then-known
continents are
represented by
personifications.
The Ganges River, representing Asia
The Nile River with
covered head--because
the source of the Nile was
then unknown (at least by
Europeans)
The Rio della Plata--a Negro with coins on the ledge representing
the riches of the Americas
The papal insignia
Not only did Pope Innocent
X (a Pamphilj) commission
the fountain but the
Pamphilj family palace was
built on this oval piazza.
The fountain may have a
Counter-Reformation
purpose: it proclaims the
church's influence on four
continents and asserts the
triumph of church, papacy,
and the reigning papal
family.
Ceiling frescoes,
Palazzo Farnese,
Annibale Carracci.
1597 - 1601
Annibale Carracci
1560-1609
• Annibale Carracci was born in Bologna, and in all
likelihood first apprenticed within his family. In 1582,
Annibale, his brother Agostino, and his cousin Ludovico
Carracci opened a painter's studio, called by some
initially as the Academy of Desiderosi (Desirous of fame
and learning) or subsequently of the (progressives;
literally "of those opening a new way"). While the
Carraccis laid emphasis on the typically Florentine linear
draftsmanship, as exemplified by Raphael and Andrea
del Sarto, their style also derived from Venetian painters
an attention to the glimmering colors and mistier edge of
objects. This eclecticism would define artists of the
Baroque Emilian or Bolognese School.
Landscape with the flight into Egypt. 1603 – 04 Oil on canvas
Caravaggio (1571-1610)
• He was born Michelangelo Merisi
on Sept. 28, 1571, in Caravaggio,
in the Lombardy region of Italy. As
an adult he would become known
by the name of his birthplace.
Orphaned at age 11, he was
apprenticed to the painter Simone
Peterzano of Milan for four years.
At some time between 1588 and
1592, Caravaggio went to Rome
and worked as an assistant to
painters of lesser skill. About 1595
he began to sell his paintings
through a dealer. The dealer
brought Caravaggio to the attention
of Cardinal Francesco del Monte.
• Caravaggio like many of the painters from
Lombardy favored the realistic art with an
interest in still-life. When he began to paint
on his own he continued to paint still-life
but also painted half-length figures as in
his Bacchus portrait. An agent offered to
market his paintings and painted for a
small circle of sophisticated patrons in
Rome.
Bacchus was the Greek
Olympian god of wine
and mystic ecstasy.
According to classical
mythology the god’s
favorite island was
Andros where rivers ran
with wine instead of
water.
• Through the cardinal, Caravaggio was
commissioned, at age 24, to paint for the
church of San Luigi dei Francesi. In its
Contarelli Chapel Caravaggio's realistic
naturalism first fully appeared in three
scenes he created of the life of St.
Matthew. The works caused public outcry,
however, because of their realistic and
dramatic nature.
• His works are characteristic dark
backgrounds and bright highlights called
tenebroso
• Also uses many diagonals which makes a
composition more active
The Conversion of
St. Paul
Italian Baroque
oil on canvas
1600-1601
by Caravaggio
The Calling of Saint Matthew Caravaggio, 1599-1600
Oil on canvas, 10' 7 1/2" X 11' 2“, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome
The Entombment of
Christ
Caravaggio, 1602–1603
Oil on canvas, Pinacoteca
Vaticana, Vatican City
• Caravaggio was always in trouble. In 1592,
when he was not yet twenty, he fled Milan after
'certain quarrels' and the wounding of a police
officer. He went to Rome and was there, for the
most part, until 1606, when he again had to flee.
His life in Rome was of growing financial and
professional success, but it was also punctuated
with crime. In the years 1600-1606 alone, he
was brought to trial no less than eleven times.
The charges covered a variety of offences, most
involved violence.
• Then in May 1606 he was charged with murder.
He had killed a man in a brawl after a disputed
game of royal tennis, and had to flee to escape
execution. He went first to Naples, then to Malta,
where he was feted and made a Knight of St
John. Then, after 'an ill considered quarrel' with
a senior knight, he was on the run once more, all
around Sicily, then on to Naples again. But this
time there was no hiding place. The knights,
known for their relentlessness, pursued him, and
Caravaggio, now thirty nine, in an attempt to
seek forgiveness and refuge in Rome, tried to
get there, but died at Porto Ercole, apparently of
a fever.
Artemisia Gentileschi
• The necessity of both natural-born talent and societal
influences in shaping an artist rings true in the life of
Artemisia Gentileschi. In the early 17th century, women
were not allowed to attend all-male art academies and
could only become artists if they learned fundamental
skills privately, usually from a relative or through lessons.
• At age 18, Artemisia Gentileschi, a promising young
painter, was initially denied entry into all-male
professional art academies. As a result, her father hired
the Tuscan painter Agostino Tassi to privately tutor her,
but after Tassi raped her, Artemisia endured a painfully
humiliating public trial—including being tortured to test if
she was lying—that resulted in Tassi's one-year prison
sentence.
Self-Portrait as
the Allegory of
Painting, 1630
• In an era when women painters were not
easily accepted by the artistic community,
she was the first female painter to become
a member of the Accademia di Arte del
Disegno in Florence.
• She was also one of the first female artists
to paint historical and religious paintings,
at a time when such heroic themes were
considered beyond a woman's reach.
Judith Slaying
Holofernes,
c1620
Artemisia Gentileschi,
Judith and Her
Maidservant with the
head of Holofernes,
ca. 1625 oil on canvas,
6’ ½ “ x 4’ 7”
Pietro da Cortona Glorification of the Reign of Urban VIII 16331639 ceiling Fresco in the Gran Salone Palazzo Barberini, Rome
Gianlorenzo
Bernini
Piazza of St.
Peter's, Rome
1656-57
Giovanni Battiesta
Gaulli's Adoration
of the Name of
Jesus in the Gesù
(detail): Ceiling
Juan Sánchez Cotán, "Quince, Cabbage, Melon and
Cucumber" (Spain 1602)
Jusepe de Ribera, The Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew, 1634,
Oil on canvas,
Jusepe de Ribera
(b. 1591, Játiva, d. 1652, Napoli)
• his early work is markedly tenebrist, it is
much more individual than that of most
Caravaggesque artists, particularly in his
vigorous and scratchy handling of paint.
Similarly, his penchant for the typically
Caravaggesque theme of bloody
martyrdom has been overplayed.
Francisco de Zurbaran
• Francisco de Zurbarán (November 7,
1598 – August 27, 1664) was a Spanish
painter. He is known primarily for his
religious paintings depicting monks, nuns,
and martyrs, and for his still-lifes. Zurbarán
gained the nickname Spanish Caravaggio,
owing to the forcible, realistic use of
chiaroscuro in which he excelled.
Francisco de Zurbarán.
Saint Serapion. 1628.
Oil on canvas, 471/2 x 40
• Francisco de Zurbarán, though not of quite the
same stature as Velázquez and El Greco, was a
fine painter specializing in a severe variant of
the Baroque Realist style. His religious
paintings, like St. Serapion, show a
secularization of religious subject matter and
bold use of light and shadow reminiscent of
Caravaggio. In fact, the Italian was the major
influence on the Spaniard's work, but Zurbarán
somehow makes the style his own by adding a
new simplicity and sobriety to Realism.
Diego Velázquez
1599-1660
• Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (June 6, 1599 –
August 6, 1660), commonly referred to as Diego
Velázquez, was a Spanish painter who was the leading
artist in the court of King Philip IV. He was an
individualistic artist of the contemporary baroque period,
important as a portrait artist. He lived in Italy for a year
and a half from 1629 to 1631 with the purpose of
traveling and studying works of art. In 1649 he traveled
to Italy again. In addition to numerous renditions of
scenes of historical and cultural significance, he created
scores of portraits of the Spanish royal family, other
notable European figures, and commoners, culminating
in the production of his masterpiece, Las Meninas
(1656).
Diego Velazquez
The Water-Carrier Of
Seville
Oil on Canvas
Completed in 1619
(31.9in x 42.0in)
Diego Velázquez
The Surrender of Breda, Oil on Canvas, 1635
(145.9in x 121.1in)
Diego Velazquez
Las Meninas
("The Maids in
Waiting")
Prado, Madrid
1656
Bartolome Murillo, (1617-82)
• An artist whose many religious paintings
emphasized the peaceful, joyous aspects of
spiritual life, Bartolome Murillo was the first
Spanish painter to achieve renown throughout
Europe. In addition to the enormous popularity
of his works in his native Seville, Murillo was
much admired in other countries, particularly
England. Here his influence can be seen in the
paintings of Sir Joshua Reynolds and John
Constable, who painted during the 18th and 19th
centuries.
The Immaculate
Conception
c. 1645 – 1650, Oil on
canvas, 7’ 8” x 6’ 5”
• Briefly trained by Juan de Castillo, Bartolome
Esteban Murillo made his early living by selling
poorly executed religious painting at public fairs.
In 1648, he moved to Madrid and met
Velazquez, who introduced his work to the
Spanish royal court. He began painting
Franciscan saints for the monastery in Seville,
and later produced genre paintings of the poor
and homeless. In 1660 he co-founded the
Seville Academy and was its first president.
Murillo died from a fall while painting an
altarpiece in 1682.
Spanish and Austrian
Baroque Architecture
• Baroque architecture, starting in the
early 17th century in Italy, took the
humanist Roman vocabulary of
Renaissance architecture and used it in a
new rhetorical, theatrical, sculptural
fashion, expressing the triumph of
absolutist church and state. New
architectural concerns for color, light and
shade, sculptural values and intensity
characterize the Baroque.
Melk Abbey, in Austria near the Wachau valley
(architect Jakob Prandtauer)
Interior Benedictine Monastery Church, Melk, Completed 1738
Holland & Flanders in the
17th century
Art flourished in Flanders and the Low
Countries in what is called the “Baroque”
period in the arts, whenever violent conflict
did not disrupt the region. The Netherlands
were divided: the northern Protestant
Dutch provinces fought for independence;
whilst the southern Catholic part remained
under Spanish rule.
Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640)
• -wealthy trader, diplomat, and artist from
Flanders
-influential in art because he bucked
trends and worked in a painterly fashion
(the brush strokes were active and easily
recognized in the painting.
• Nudes
• Reflects tastes of the rich
• Love flashy colors
Rubens first major
commission:
The Raising of the
Cross, 1610–11.
Central panel.
Cathedral of Our
Lady, Antwerp.
The Daughters of
Leucippus
c. 1618
Oil on canvas
88 x 82 7/8 in (224 x
210.5 cm)
Alte Pinakothek,
Munich
• Rubens, the master of depicting supple
flesh and dynamic scenes, personifies the
Baroque artist in Flanders. He is legendary
for paintings such as his delightful
depiction of The Garden of Love and the
robust rendering of The Rape of the
Daughters of Leucippus.
Rubens,
Henri IV Receiving the
Portrait of Marie de Medici
Oil on canvas,
12’11” x 9’ 8”
1621 - 1625
The Garden of Love, c. 1630-32, Oil on canvas,
6’6” x 9’ 3”
• To satisfy an ever growing demand Rubens
opened the largest art workshop Europe has
ever seen: he would paint a small initial oil
sketch which when approved and contracted for
would be given over to one or more of his
students to paint the full length canvas, finally
Rubens would add the finishing touches and
sign it. Thus he became both a teacher and a
hugely successful businessman.
Anthony Van Dyck
• Sir Anthony van Dyck ( 22 March 1599 – 9
December 1641) was a Flemish artist who
became the leading court painter in England. He
is most famous for his portraits of Charles I of
England and his family and court, painted with a
relaxed elegance that was to be the dominant
influence on English portrait-painting for the next
150 years. He also painted biblical and
mythological subjects, displayed outstanding
facility as a draftsman, and was an important
innovator in watercolor and etching.
Portrait of Charles I
Hunting, oil painting
by Sir Anthony Van
Dyck, 1635; in the
Louvre, Paris. 8’ 11” x
6’ 11”
Clara Peeters (1594 - c. 1657)
• was assumed to be a Flemish painter noted for still-life
paintings, particularly of breakfast scenes and florals.
We assume she was born in Antwerp for no record was
ever found of a painter by that name.
• She lived in Amsterdam and The Hague. Her first known
work was dated 1608, when she was 14. Her last
painting was dated 1657, and is now lost. The
circumstances of her death are unknown.
• Meticulous in detail, Peeters included miniature self
portraits within the reflections she painted. She was also
very skilled at distinguishing textures.
• Clara Peeters is one of several women who pioneered
the development of still life painting in the early
seventeenth century.
Most of her works can be categorized as flower, banquet
or breakfast pieces depicting sumptuous displays of food
and drink. This particular painting is typical in subject
matter, composition, and style of her later work.
She often combined perch, shrimp, and oysters in
groupings that contrasted their colors, shapes, and
textured surfaces. And in several of her works, she used
a slanting object to depict depth beyond the picture
plane.
Still-life Oil on panel, 1611
Vanitas Self Portait, 1610.
Jan Brueghel the Elder and Peter Paul Rubens.
Allegory of Sight. c. 1618. Oil on wood. Museo del
Prado, Madrid, Spain
• Rubens and Brueghel collaborated on a series
of paintings, known collectively as Allegory of
the Senses or The Five Senses (1617) which
are set in an imaginary 'cabinet of wonder', as
the collections were sometimes known; one of
them even depicts another of their joint works
prominently in the foreground. This series (today
in the Prado in Madrid), is perhaps the most
significant of their many collaborations, and
comprises five allegorical paintings, one devoted
to each of the senses.
Allegory of Hearing. 1618. Oil on wood. Museo del
Prado, Madrid, Spain.
Allegory of Taste. 1618. Oil on wood. Museo del Prado,
Madrid, Spain
Allegory of Smell (Bouquet of Flowers). c. 1609-15.
Oil on oak. Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, Germany
An Allegory Of The Five Senses
Hendrick ter Brugghen
c. 1588 - 1629
• Ter Brugghen was one of the leading
representatives of Caravaggesque painting in
the Netherlands. His sensitive and poetic style
combines chiaroscuro lighting and simple,
monumental forms with subtle painterly effects.
Though clearly influenced by Italian painting, his
work also carries echoes of Northern
Renaissance traditions. Ter Brugghen painted
mostly religious subjects and genre scenes
(musicians and drinkers), as well as a few
mythological and literary subjects.
Hendrick ter Brugghen
Saint Sebastian Tended
by Irene, 1625
Oil on canvas
58 11/16 x 47 in.
Frans Hals
(c. 1580-1666)
• In the 1620s-30s, Hals fulfilled many portraits of Dutch
society in large single or double portraits. Flemish
elements and the influence of Rubens become evident,
with the background showing views and scenic staffage.
• After 1626 he became much interested in genre pictures,
these still remained portraits, which took most of his
time.
• The artist died in 1666 in Haarlem. Hals’ pupils included
the Ostade brothers, and the imitator of his style, Judith
Leyster; he also greatly influenced Steen and Terborch.
The Infant Catharina
Hooft (1618-1691) with
her Nurse. c. 1619-20.
Oil on canvas. 86 x 65
cm. Gemäldegalerie,
Berlin, Germany.
Frans Hals. Banquet of the Officers of the Haarlem Militia
Company of Saint Adrian. c. 1627-33. Oil on canvas. 183 x
277 cm. Frans-Hals-Museum, Haarlem, Netherlands.
Judith Leyster
(1609-1660)
• She was one of the very few women to be accepted as a
member to the Haarlem Lukas Guild of Painters.
Although she was highly esteemed by her
contemporaries, she remained unknown for a long time
and her works were either believed lost, or were
attributed to Frans Hals. Judith is believed to be Hals’
pupil, she worked in his studio in Haarlem in about 1630;
at that period she tried to follow his style. She was
definitely a friend of Hals’ family, because in 1631 she
became godmother to Hals’ daughter Maria. In 1636,
Judith married the genre painter Jan Miense Molenaer.
• In her early works, the young Leyster, like Hals, followed
the style of the Utrecht Caravagisti. However, her later
portraits and genre scenes were strongly influenced by
the painting of Terbrugghen and Honthorst.
Judith Leyster.
Self-Portrait.
c. 1635. Oil on
canvas, 72 x 65 cm.
The National
Gallery of Art,
Washington, DC,
USA.
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn
(1606-1669)
• Rembrandt never visited Italy but by the time he left his native
Leyden to settle in Amsterdam in 1631, he had already been
exposed to the latest developments in Baroque painting.
• Of all the Baroque masters, it was Rembrandt who evolved the most
revolutionary technique and who seemed to grow into the Italians'
spiritual heir. By the middle of the 1630s he had long since
abandoned conventional Dutch smoothness and his surfaces were
already caked with more paint than was strictly necessary to present
an illusion.
• He worked in complex layers, building up a picture from the back to
the front with delicate glazes that allowed light actually to permeate
his backgrounds and reflect off the white underpainting, and
generously applied bodycolors which mimicked the effect of solid
bodies in space. Never before had a painter taken such a purely
sensuous interest and delight in the physical qualities of his
medium, nor granted it a greater measure of independence from the
image.
• Rembrandt married Saskia van Uylenburgh in 1634. She
belonged to a patrician family and brought with her a
substantial fortune.
• He and Saskia purchased a large house in a good
neighborhood in 1639. In 1641 Saskia gave birth to their
son Titus. (He was their only child to survive; three
others had died in infancy.) A year later Saskia died.
• At some point in the years following Saskia's death,
Rembrandt became sexually involved with Titus' nurse,
Geertje Dirckx. In 1648 (when Rembrandt was 42), 22year-old Hendrickje Stoffels joined the family as a
housekeeper. By the following year she had supplanted
Geertje in her master's affection and Geertje left.
Apparently Geertje continued to cause problems; in 1650
Rembrandt, Hendrickje, and Geertje's brother had her
committed to an insane asylum. She was freed after five
years as the result of a petition by some friends.
Doctor Nicolaes Tulp's Demonstration of the Anatomy of the
Arm. 1632. Oil on canvas.
The Night Watch (The Militia Company of Captain Frans
Banning Cocq and of Lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburgh).
1642. Oil on canvas.
Etchings
• Rembrandt produced etchings for most of his
career, from 1626 to 1660, when he was forced
to sell his printing-press and virtually abandoned
etching. Only the troubled year of 1649
produced no dated work. He took easily to
etching and, though he also learned to use a
burin and partly engraved many plates, the
freedom of etching technique was fundamental
to his work. He was very closely involved in the
whole process of printmaking, and must have
printed at least early examples of his etchings
himself.
• At first he used a style based on drawing, but soon
moved to one based on painting, using a mass of lines
and numerous bitings with the acid to achieve different
strengths of line. Towards the end of the 1630s, he
reacted against this manner and moved to a simpler
style, with fewer bitings. He worked on the so-called
Hundred Guilder Print in stages throughout the 1640s,
and it was the "critical work in the middle of his career",
from which his final etching style began to emerge.
Although the print only survives in two states, the first
very rare, evidence of much reworking can be seen
underneath the final print and many drawings survive for
elements of it.
The Three Crosses, etching by
Rembrandt, 1660, State III of IV
The Three Crosses, 1660
State IV of IV
Self Portrait, 1658
• Rembrandt married Saskia van Uylenburgh in 1634. She
belonged to a patrician family and brought with her a
substantial fortune.
• He and Saskia purchased a large house in a good
neighborhood in 1639. In 1641 Saskia gave birth to their
son Titus. (He was their only child to survive; three
others had died in infancy.) A year later Saskia died.
• At some point in the years following Saskia's death,
Rembrandt became sexually involved with Titus' nurse,
Geertje Dirckx. In 1648 (when Rembrandt was 42), 22year-old Hendrickje Stoffels joined the family as a
housekeeper. By the following year she had supplanted
Geertje in her master's affection and Geertje left.
Apparently Geertje continued to cause problems; in 1650
Rembrandt, Hendrickje, and Geertje's brother had her
committed to an insane asylum. She was freed after five
years as the result of a petition by some friends.
• Hendrickje lived with Rembrandt for another 15 years
(until her death). In 1654 when she was pregnant with
their daughter Cornelia, she was summoned before the
Church Council (of the Low German Reformed
Congregation): Hendrickie Jaghers, residing on
Breestraet, having acted like a harlot [in her conduct]
with Rembrant, the painter, will be summoned to appear
within eight days" [Rembrandt Documents, p. 318]
Rembrandt himself had also been summoned, but they
dropped the matter when they realized that he was no
longer a member of the Church. Rembrandt would
almost certainly have married Hendrickje if it hadn't been
for the stipulation in Saskia's will that he would lose the
money/valuables inherited from her if he remarried.
Jan Vermeer (1632-1675)
• The esthetic tastes of nowadays rank Jan
Vermeer as one of the most original
painters of 17th century Holland, despite
the fact that he created no more than forty
or so paintings. He remained relatively
ignored during his own brief lifetime, and
only in the 19th century his work was
highly appreciated.
• Besides painting Vermeer also worked as an art dealer.
He presumably took over the running of his father’s inn,
the “Mechelen”, once his father died.
• Vermeer’s later years were overshadowed by a dramatic
deterioration of his personal financial position. He got
into debt.
• In 1672 war between France and the Netherlands
started. The only way the Netherlands could defend
them was to open dikes and flood the land, but this
ruined the agriculture.
• Vermeer’s family was among those who suffered
financially, because could not get rent for their estate
any longer. His wife later commented, “Because of this
and because of the large sums of money we had to
spend on the children, sums he was no longer able to
pay, he fell into such a depression and lethargy that he
lost his health in the space of one and a half days and
died.” Vermeer was buried on 15 December 1675 in the
family grave at the Oude Kerk, Delft.
Jan Vermeer. View of Delft. c.1660-1661. Oil on canvas.
Mauritshuis, the Hague, Netherlands.
Jan Vermeer (16321675) Woman
Holding a Balance
c. 1664; Oil on
canvas, 40.3 x 35.6
cm
Jan Vermeer. Girl
with a Pearl Earring.
c.1665. Oil on canvas.
Mauritshuis, the
Hague, Netherlands.
• No drawings have been securely attributed
to Vermeer, and his paintings offer few
clues to preparatory methods. historians
have speculated that Vermeer used a
camera obscura to achieve precise
positioning in his compositions, and this
view seems to be supported by certain
light and perspective effects which would
result from the use of such lenses and not
the naked eye alone; however, the extent
of Vermeer's dependence upon the
camera obscura is disputed by historians.
Camera obscura
• The principle of the camera obscura can be
demonstrated with a rudimentary type, just a box (which
may be room-size) with a hole in one side. Light from
only one part of a scene will pass through the hole and
strike a specific part of the back wall. The projection is
made on paper on which an artist can then copy the
image. The advantage of this technique is that the
perspective is accurate, thus greatly increasing the
realism of the image (correct perspective in drawing can
also be achieved by looking through a wire mesh and
copying the view onto a canvas with a corresponding
grid on it).
Gerard
Terborch.
The Suitor's
Visit. c. 1658.
Oil on canvas,
80 x 75 cm.
The National
Gallery of Art,
Washington,
DC, USA
Emanuel de Witte
• (1617 – 1691) was a Dutch perspective painter. De Witte
was especially concerned with atmosphere.
• De Witte initially painted portraits as well as mythological
and religious scenes. After his move from Delft to
Amsterdam in 1651 de Witte specialized more and more
in representing church interiors, and he painted the old
church in Amsterdam from almost every corner. He
sometimes combined aspects of different churches to
depict interiors of ideal churches, populating them with
churchgoers, sometimes accompanied by a dog. De
Witte's unexcelled composition and use of light in his
compositions created atmospheres that show them to be
the real theme of each painting.
Emanuel De
Witte's (16171692) painting of
the interior of the
Portuguese
(Sephardic)
Synagogue,
Amsterdam
"Interior of a Church",
by Emmanuel de Witte
c. 1660
• Following the arrest of his wife and child
for thievery, De Witte was forced to
indenture himself to the Amsterdam notary
and art dealer Joris de Wijs, surrendering
all of his work in exchange for room,
board, and 800 guilders annuallly. De
Witte broke the contract, was sued by the
dealer, and forced to indenture himself
further as a result.
• Records tell of his gambling habit and a
fight with Gerard de Lairesse. According to
history, after an argument about the rent,
Emanuel De Witte hanged himself from a
bridge on a very cold evening in 1692. The
rope broke and De Witte drowned.
Because the canal froze that night, his
corpse was not found until eleven weeks
later, in Spring 1692
Jacob Izaaksoon van Ruisdael
• (c. 1628 - March 14, 1682), the most celebrated
of the Dutch landscapists, was born in Haarlem.
• Characteristic of his early period, from about
1646 to 1655, is the choice of very simple motifs
and the careful and laborious study of the details
of nature. The time between his departure from
Haarlem and his settling in Amsterdam may
have been spent in travelling and helped him to
gain a broader view of nature and to widen the
horizon of his art.
Jacob van Ruisdael. The Jewish Cemetery. 1655 - 60. Oil on
canvas, 4'6" x 6'2 1/2" (1.42 x 1.89 m).
Pieter Claesz
• Pieter Claesz (c. 1597-1660) was a Dutch still life
painter, born in , Westphalia (now Germany) and active
in Haarlem, where he settled in 1621. He and Willem
Claeszoon Heda, who also worked in Haarlem, were the
most important exponents of the breakfast piece. They
painted with subdued, virtually monochromatic palettes,
the subtle handling of light and texture being the prime
means of expression. Claesz generally chose objects of
a more homely kind than Heda, although his later work
became more colourful and decorative. The two men
founded a distinguished tradition of still life painting in
Haarlem; but Claesz.'s son, Nicolaes Berchem, became
famous as a landscape painter.
• Claesz's still lifes often suggest allegorical purpose, with
skulls serving as reminders of human mortality.
Pieter Claesz Vanitas Still Life c. 1630
Pieter Claesz, Still Life with Oysters
Pieter Claesz, Still Life (between 1625-30)
The ellipse at the top is very thin - painted in
perspective, as it would appear to the eye
Rachel Ruysch
• (June 3, 1664 — Amsterdam, August 12, 1750)
• Dutch painter. She specialized in still-lifes of flowers and
fruits and still-lifes in outdoor settings, the large majority
signed, with dated examples from 1681 to 1747
providing a sound chronology.
• She is widely regarded as the most gifted woman in the
history of the subject and among the greatest exponents
of either sex.
• Ruysch came from a distinguished and wealthy
background. Her father, Frederik Ruysch (1638-1731),
was an eminent professor of anatomy and botany, who
published his fine collection of natural curiosities.
Rachel Ruysch
"Flower Still Life"
after 1700 - oil on
canvas
French Baroque
• French Baroque in the form of Baroque architecture
that evolved in France during the reigns of Louis XIII
(1610-43), Louis XIV (1643-1714) and Louis XV (171474). French Baroque profoundly influenced 18th-century
secular architecture throughout Europe.
• Although the open three wing layout of the palace was
established in France as the canonical solution as early
as the 16th century, it was the Palais du Luxembourg
(1615-20) by Salomon de Brosse that determined the
sober and classicizing direction that French Baroque
architecture was to take.
Palace of Versailles, hall of Mirrors
Palace of Versailles, France, built chiefly by Louis Le Vau and Jules
Hardouin-Mansart during the last half of the 17th century.
The Palace of Versailles located just outside of Paris, France.
François Girardon. Apollo Attended by the Nymphs of Thetis from the Grotto of
Thetis, Palais de Versailles, Versailles, France. c. 1666 - 72. Marble, lifesize.
Grotto by Hubert Robert in 1776; sculpture reinstalled in a different
configuration in 1778.
Georges de la Tour Adoration of the Shepherds
Louvre, Paris 1645-1650
Georges de la Tour
Mary Magdalene
with the Smoking
Flame
c. 1640 Oil on
canvas,
46” x 36”
Georges de la Tour
1593 – 1652
• His early work shows influences from Caravaggio,
probably via his Dutch followers, and the genre scenes
of cheats and fighting beggars clearly derive from the
Dutch Caravaggisti, and probably also his fellowLorrainer, Jacques Bellange. These are believed to date
from relatively early in his career.
• He is best known for the nocturnal light effects which the
Dutch Caravaggisti took from Caravaggio, and which La
Tour developed much further, and transferred from
mostly genre subjects in their paintings to religious
painting in his. He painted these in a second phase of
his style, perhaps beginning in the 1640s, using
chiaroscuro, careful geometrical compositions, and very
simplified painting of forms.
Antoine Le Nain
(c.1599-1648)
• The three Le Nain brothers were painters in 17thcentury France: Antoine Le Nain (c.1599-1648), Louis
Le Nain (c.1593-1648), and Mathieu Le Nain (16071677). The three were born in Laon (Mathieu in 1607;
Antoine and Louis were originally believed to have been
born in 1588 and 1593, respectively, but those dates
have since been disputed: they may have instead been
born just before and just after 1600), and by 1630, all
three lived in Paris.
• Because of the remarkable similarity of their styles of
painting and the difficulty of distinguishing works by each
brother (they signed their paintings only with their
surname, and many may have been collaborations), they
are commonly referred to as a single entity, Le Nain.
Antoine Le Nain, The Village Piper, 1642. Oil on Copper 8 ¾ x 11 ½ “
Nicolas Poussin
(1594-1665)
• Nicolas Poussin, the
greatest French artist
of the 17th century, is
considered one of the
founders of European
classicism, a
movement in art,
based on antique and
Renaissance heritage.
Nicolas Poussin. Landscape with St. James in
Patmos. 1640. Oil on canvas.
Claude Lorrain
(b. 1600, Chamagne, d. 1682, Roma)
• French artist best known for, and one of
the greatest masters of, ideal-landscape
painting, an art form that seeks to present
a view of nature more beautiful and
harmonious than nature itself. The quality
of that beauty is governed by classical
concepts, and the landscape often
contains classical ruins and pastoral
figures in classical dress.
Claude Lorrain, Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba,
Oil on canvas, 1648. 4’ 10” x 6’ 4”
Claude Lorrain. Landscape with Merchants. 1630. Oil on
canvas, 38 1/4 x 56 1/2”.
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.