The High Renaissance
In Memory of a Warrior Pope
This is one of the structures as part of Julius II tomb.
Originally a much larger planned project, Michelangelo
reduced the project’s scale step-by-step until, in 1542, a final
contract specified a simple wall tomb with fewer than one-third
of the originally planned figures.
This particular figure sums up the spirt of the entire tomb.
Meant to be seen from below, and balanced with seven other
massive forms related in spirit to it, the Moses now, in its
comparatively paltry setting, does not have its originally
intended impact.
Michelagelo depicted the Old Testament prophet seated, with
tablets of the Law under one arm and his hands gathering his
voluminous beard. The horns that appear on Moses’s head
were a sculptural convention in Christian art and helped
Renaissance viewers identify Moses.
Michelangelo , Moses
Rome, Italy 1513-1515
The High Renaissance
In Memory of a Warrior Pope
Here, again, Michelangelo used the turned head, which
concentrates on the expression of awful wrath that stirs in the
mighty frame and eyes. The muscles bulge, the veins swell, and the
great legs seem to begin to slowly move.
If this titan ever rose to his feet, one writer said, the world would fly
apart. To find such pent-up energy-both emotional and physical
seated in a statue, historians must turn once again to Hellenistic
statuary.
Michelangelo , Moses
Rome, Italy 1513-1515
The High Renaissance
Struggling for Freedom of Expression
Originally, Michelangelo intended for some twenty sculptures of slaves,
in various attitudes of revolt and exhaustion, to appear on the tomb.
One such figure is this, Bound Slave.
Although conventional scholarship connected these statues with the
Julius tomb, some art historians now doubt this. Despite many
unanswered questions about these statues and their heritage the
“slaves”, like David and Moses, represent definitive statements.
Michelangelo made each body a different total expression of the idea of
opression, so these sculpted human figures do not so much represent a
concept, as in medieval allegory, but are concrete realizations of intense
feelings.
In Bound Slave, the defiant figure’s violent contrapposto is the image of
frantic but impotent struggle. As noted earlier, many Hellenistic artists
shared Michelangelo’s vision of the human form.
The influence of the Laocoon group discovered in Rome in 1506, is
especially clear in the struggling Bound Slave. Michelangelo based his
whole art on his conviction that whatever can be said greatly through
sculpture and painting must be said through the human figure.
Michelangelo , Bound Slave
Louvre, Paris 1513-1516
The High Renaissance
A Mighty Christ on Judgment Day
Michelangelo depicted Christ as the stern judge of the
world- a giant whose mighty right arm is lifted in a
gesture of damnation so broad and universal as to
suggest he will destroy creation, Heaven and earth
alike.
The choirs of Heaven surrounding him pulse with
anxiety and awe. Trumpeting angels, the ascending
figures of the just, and the downward-hurtling figures
of the damned crowd into spaces below. On the left,
the dead awake and assume flesh; on the right
demons, whose gargoyles masks and burning eyes
revive the demons of Romanesque tympana, torment
the Damned.
Martyrs who suffered especially agonizing deaths
crouch below the Judge. One of them, St.
Bartholomew, who was skinned alive, holds the
flaying knife and the skin,
its face grotesque self-portrait of Michelangelo.
Michelangelo Buonarroti, Last Judgement
Vatican City, Rome, Italy 1534-1541
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The High Renaissance
Stormy Weather
Giorgione Da Castlefranco, The Tempest
Galleria Dell’ Accademia, Venice. ca. 1510
Manifests the poetic qualities of natural landscape
humans inhabit
Lush landscape with stormy skies and lightning in
the background. There is a woman nursing a baby
and a man carrying a halberd (combination of a
spear and a battle-ax) in the foreground.
The painting’s subject is in debate. X-rays of the
canvas show that the original canvas had a nude
female standing where the man was placed. This
leads scholars to believe that no definitive narrative
exists, appropriate for a Venetian poetic rendering.
Some scholars have suggested mythological
narratives or historical events. Despite this
uncertainty, the painting’s enigmatic quality lends it
an intriguing air.
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Mannerism
Departing from Renaissance Ideals
This is the dome painting of the Parma Cathedral. The artist
showed his audience a view of the sky, with concentric rings
of clouds where hundreds of soaring figures perform a wildly
pirouetting dance in celebration of the Virgin’s Assumption.
Versions of these creatures became permanent tenants of
numerous Baroque churches in later centuries.
Correggio was an influential painter of religious panels but
his contemporaries expressed little appreciation for his art.
Later, during the seventeenth century, Baroque painters
recognized him as a kindred spirit.
Though there is no direct reference to Mary’s ascension into
the heavens in the bible, it has been consistently depicted in
Christian art throughout the centuries.
Antonio Allegri da Correggio
Assumption of the Virgin,
Parma, Italy 1530
Mannerism
Discarding The Rules of Proportion
This painting exhibits almost all of the stylistic features
characteristic of Mannerism’s early phase in painting. The
figures crown the composition, pushing into the front plane
and almost completely blotting out the setting. Pontormo
disposed the figural masses around the frame of the
picture, leaving a void in the center, where High
Renaissance artists had concentrated their masses. The
composition has no clearly defined focal point and the figures
seem randomly placed around the paintings edge.
The ambiguous representation of space typifies the Mannerist
style. The space seems too shallow to contain the action
within it. The figures cast curious anxious glances in all
directions. Athletic bending and twisting characterize many of
the figures, with distortions of the head and body. Clashing
colors add to the seeming dissonnce of the image.
The painting represented a departure from the balanced,
harmonious structured compositions of the earlier
Renaissance.
Jacopo da Pontormo, Descent from the
Cross,
Santa Felicità, Florence, Italy 1525
Mannerism
An Allegorical Love Scene
This painting manifests all the points made thus far about
Manneristic composition. Bronzino demonstrated the
Mannerist’s fondness for extremely learned and intricate
allegories that often had lascivious (exciting sexual
desires) undertones.
Cupid is depicted fondling his mother, Venus, while Folly
prepares to shower them with rose petals. Time, who
appears in the upper right-hand corner, draws back the
curtain to reveal the playful incest in progress. Other
figures in the painting represent Envy and Inconstancy
(unfaithfulness by virtue of being unreliable or
treacherous).
The masks symbolize deceipt. The picture seems to
suggest that love, accompanied by envy and plagued by
inconstancy is foolish and that lovers will discover its folly
in time.
But as in many Mannerist paintings the meaning here is
ambiguous and interpretations of this painting may vary.
The contours are structural and the surfaces smooth. Of
special interest are the extremities, (hands, feet, etc.) for
the Mannerists considered them carriers of grace and the
clever depiction of them evidence artistic skill.
Bronzino, Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time
(The Exposure of Luxury)
National Gallery, London 1546
Mannerism
Elegance and Grace
This painting is Parmigianino’s best-known work. He acheived the
elegance that was the principal aim of Mannerism. He smoothly
combined the influences of Correggio and Raphael in a picture of
exquisite grace and precious sweetness.
The Madonna’s small oval head, her long slender neck, the
unbelievable attenuation and delicacy of her hand, and the sinuous,
swaying elongation of her frame are all marks of the aristocratic,
gorgeously artifical taste of a later phase of Mannerism.
On the left stands a bevy of angelic creatures, melting with emotions
as soft and smooth as their limbs. On the right the artist included a
line of columns without capitals- a setting for a figure with a scroll,
whose distance from the foreground is immeasureable and
ambiguous.
Parmigianino, Madonna with the Long
Neck, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy
1535
Mannerism
A Mannered Portrait
Most Mannerist painters achieved sophisticated elegance
by portraiture.
The subject is a proud youth -- a man of books and
intellectual society rather then a lowly laborer or a
merchant. His cool demeanor seems carefully affected, a
calculated attitude of nonchalance toward the observing
world.
It asserts the rank and station but not the personality of the
subject. The haughty poise, the graceful long fingered
hands, the book, the furniture’s carved faces, and the
severe architecture all suggest the traits and environment of
the highbred patrician.
Bronzino created a muted background for the subject’s
sharply defined, asymmetrical Mannerist silhouette that
contradicts his impassive pose.
Bronzino, Portrait of a Young Man
Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY
1530’s
Mannerism
Portraying Familial Intimacy
Sofonisba Anguissola,
Portrait of the Artist’s sisters and Brother
1555
Sofonisba Anguissola created much more
relaxed portraiture than Bronzino. Anguissola
used the strong contours, muted tonality, and
smooth finishes. She introduced an informal
intimacy of her own.
This is a portrait of her family members.
Against a neutral ground, she placed her two
sisters and brother in an affectionate pose
meant not for official display, but for private
showing. The sisters, wearing matching
striped gowns, flank their brother, who
caresses a lap dog. The older sister (left)
summons the dignity required for the
occasion, while the boy looks quizzically at
the portraitist with an expression of naive
curiosity and the other girls diverts her
attention toward something or someone to
the painter’s left.
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Anguissola’s use of natural poses and expressions; her sympathetic,
personal presentation; and her graceful treatment of the forms did not
escape the attention of her famous contemporaries. She captured
ordinary life and put them into portraits.
Mannerism
A Problematic Painting of Christ
Toward the end of Tintoretto’s life,
his art became spiritual, even
visionary, as solid forms melted
away into swirling clouds of dark
shot through with fitful light.
In the Last Supper, the actors take
part in a ghostly drama. They are
insubstantial as the shadows cast
by the faint glow of their halos and
the flame of a single lamp that
seems to breed ghostly spirits.
Only the incandescent glow around
the head of Jesus identifies him as
he administers the Sacrement to
his disciples.
Tintoretto, Last Supper,
San Giorgio Maggiore,
Venice, Italy 1594
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The contrast with Leonardo’s Last Supper is both extreme and instructive.
Their contrasts represents the direction Renaissance painting took in the 16
century, as it moved away from clarity of space and neutral lighting toward
dynamic perspective.
Later 16th Century Venetian Architecture
An Architect Inspired by the Ancients
The Villa Rotonda is not
the typical of Palladio’s
villa style. He did not
construct it for an aspiring
gentleman farmer, but for
a retired monsignor who
wanted a villa for social
events.
Palladio planned and
designed Villa Rotonda,
located on a hill top, as a
kind of belvedere, without
the usual wings of
secondary buildings.
It’s central plan with four
identical facades and
projecting porchesis both
sensible and functional.
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Andrea Palladio, Villa Rotonda
near Vicenza, Italy 1568-1570