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Warm-Up 12/06

• Compare and Contrast the use of proportion and realism, as well as Contrapposto

15 c. Florence: The New Athens

• 1400 Florence's independence was threatened by Gian Galeazzo Visconti (1351-1402) Duke of Milan. – Visconti dies, son is assassinated

– Medici Family takes control

• Florence sets itself up as “the New Athens”– Milan = Unchecked tyranny

• Ambitious renovations and completion of artistic contracts begun in the time of Giotto.

Florence baptistry

• Sta. Maria del Fiore Completed in 1401– The dome costs the

equivalent of the rebuilding of the Acropolis in Athens

– New Freedom with huge investment in Art

• Main Fact: Important innovation in Dome construction– Two domes separated by

buttressing and masonry

– Metal bands around drum base

The Competition, Who Won?Brunelleschi – Sacrifice of Isaac – 1400Drapery, flying Issac’s throat, knife

Ghiberti – Sacrifice of Isaac -1400S Curve, posed, Roman?, nude male

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Ghiberti – the doors are lighter, more illusionFlorence Cathedral – Dome – Brunelleschi -

1420

• Brunelleschi turned to arch after loosing the baptistery commission. His was heavily influenced by Roman architecture.

• Solve engineering problems, Used new building methods, made new machinery, made the dome a pointed arch

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Medici as Patrons

• Medici’s had a fortune

• Cosimo intended to build his palace

• He had political power as well

• Wealthy families struggled for power, Medici’s got kicked out of Florence

• Hired Bartolommeo to work on his palace( Bart- worked with Donatello)

Santo Spirito – Basilica ChurchBrunelleschi 1436

Rhythmic harmony , clarity no room for murals

Cruciform shape

Private Chapels - Brunelleschi

Pazzi family gift to the church of Santo spirito, medallions serve on the corners as pendentives.

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Medici Palace 1445 - Bartolommeo

• Building looks higher as you look up

• Roman Rusticated masonry

• Independence from the antique

• Early Renaissance style

Di Banco – Four Crowned Saints - 1408

• More space to work with

• Drapery

• Roman faces of dignity (with hit of anxiety)

• Saints who refuse to sculpt pagan statues

Donatello – Feast of Herod 1425

• Each character has a different face

• King Herod receives the head of John the Baptist.

• Horror

• Children move back

• Perspective- Ancient Roman illusionism returned

Donatello – St. Mark 1413

• Movement

• Drapery

• Doryphoros

• Shifting weight

• Outside niche?

St. George Tabernacle, 1415-1417

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Zuccone, 1423-25

• He was commissioned to execute a statue for one of the niches of the Campanile, and chose for his model an old and singularly ugly man. His figure was ungainly, his head absolutely bald, and the features forbidding. All this was scrupulously re produced in the statue; Donato made an unflinching and uncompromising study of his model. At last it stood completed, a living likeness; such as the model was, so had Donato made his copy, and with the same impetuousness with which he had in his boyhood hailed Brunellesco to come and see his crucifix, he now was heard to apostrophise his work, which seemed to him but to lack breath : " Speak, speak ! " he cried. " Plague take thee, why dost thou not speak?" The statue was indeed a marvel of realism, and obtained the name, by which it is still known, of " II Zuccone," the big pumpkin reference thus being made to its bald ness. Donato seemed to consider it in its own line one of his most satisfactory achievements, and was wont even to swear by its excellence. "By the faith which I have in my c Zuccone ' I " became his accustomed expression. The fifteen years during which Donato was for the most part employed by the Opera of the Duomo and the authorities of Or San Michele gave him his oppor tunity for practice and discipline in that special line

Habbakuk – Seer aka Pumpkin Head by Donatello

Donatello – David Late 1420s

• Classically inspired

• Commissioned by the Medici’s

• First free standing sculpture since ancient times

• Classical nude

• Biblical David slaying Goliath

Verrocchio - David

• Important sculptor during the late 15th

century

• Very realistic, quiet, classic

• Hunter stance

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Warm-Up 12/08 Describe what makes this work unique? How does it show Renaissance Ideals?

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Warm-Up 12/09

• Describe how this work uses a composition that is similar to Christian Art. Where are its departures? Describe What Botticelli is trying to celebrate.

Birth of Venus, 1484

• Retelling of the Greek myth, Zephyrus blows Venus towards Cyprus with Pomona ready to clothe.

• The lightness and non-physicality of the winds propel all the figures without effort.

• Draperies move as if in free fall

• Pyramidal composition creates emphasis and stability.

• Harmony of forms

• No Christian motifs, but an elevation of truth and beauty (neo-platonism)

SANDRO BOTTICELLI, Birth of Venus, ca.

1484–1486. Tempera on canvas, 5 9 9 2.

Galleria degli Uffi zi, Florence.

Gattamelata and Colleoni

• Portraiture enjoyed a revival. Purely secular commissions

• Donatello leaves Florence to Venice to create this equestrian– First to rival mounted portraits in size.

– Full liberation of architecture

• What does the sphere symbolize?

• Verrocchio (the other David)

• Provides a comparison within a few decades. – Higher pedestal, Aggressive, prancing,

exaggerated tautness of form.

Imitation and Emulation

• Imitation is the starting point for an apprentice painter.

– You learn by copying

• The next step is to model work after another.

– You improve through innovation

Primary source: Il Libro dell’Arte

(The Artist’s Handbook)

Early Renaissance Painting

• Still strong vestiges of the international style, with innovations in chiaroscuro and portraiture.

• Often depends on the tastes of the patron (in this case, lavish and gaudily Gothic)

• Still, strikingly naturalistic details. Gentile da Fabriano, Adoration of the Magi, altarpiece from Strozzi

Chapel, Santa Trinità, Florence, Italy,

1423. Tempera on wood, 9 11 9 3. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

Da Favriano- Adoration of the Magi - 1423

• Gentile, Gothic

• Frame over elaborate

• Experimental trends

• Naturalistic meets inventive

• International style

• Elaborate costumed styles

• Forshortened forms

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Nave of Santa Maria Novella, Florence, Italy, ca. 1246–1470.

The Holy Trinity, with the Virgin and Saint John and donors, Masaccio, 1425

Masaccio – Holy Trinity - 1428

• Massacio breaks sharply from teacher. Immediately picks up on Bruneleschi’sperspective theory

• Two levels of unequal height

– A coffered barrel-vaulted chapel reminscent of what?

– Tomb containing a skeleton reading “I was once what you are, and what I am you will become.” Vanitas/Macabre

• VP at foot of cross

• important innovation in illusionistic painting that other artists of the Renaissance and the later Baroque period would develop further

• The ascending pyramid of figures leads viewers from the despair of death to the hope of resurrection and eternal life through Christ’s crucifixion.

“Trinity” of Early Renaissance

• 1. Neo-Platonic view of truth and the divine world of beauty (which humans endeavor within)

• 2.Emphasis on observation as it relates mathematics

• 3. Pyramidal and circular compositions as it relates to harmony of form

Brancacci Chapel, Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence, Italy, ca. 1424–1427

Masaccio – Tribute Money - 1427

• Obscure reference to Christ paying taxes using as caught fish.– Perhaps a commentary on paying taxes on Florentine income

• Divided into three episodes (Starts center, goes left, then right)

• Strong use of outside light that is strong and crisp (with fading background)

• Use of circular depth around Jesus

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Masaccio –Expulsion from Eden - 1425

• Hazy background

• Deep relief with light

• Rediscovery of atmospheric perspective

• Adam’s feet on the ground represent the decent into the Earth

• They are stumbling in blindly

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Annunciation, Fra Angelico

• Painted for Dominican monks (reformationalmonastic order during Great Schism)

• Strong devotional image.

• Simplicity and serenity.– As you venerate, while passing before

it, this figure of the intact Virgin, beware lest you omit to say Hail Mary

• Reflecting the humble and simple nature of the painter’s devotion to the church. Unconcerned with humanism

Fra Angelico, Annunciation,

San Marco, Florence, Italy, ca. 1438–1447.

Fresco, 7 1 10 6.

Pollaiuolo – Battle of the Ten Nudes - 1465

• Twisted bodies

• Viewpoints

• Nude figure

• Slashing no mercy

• muscles

Lorenzo d’ Medici

• 1449-1492

• Known as Lorenzo the Magnificent

• Major patron to the Arts, held together fragile Florentine city states under golden age

• Pazzi Conspiracy on Easter, 1478– Pope wants more

land/philosophical control

Birth of Venus, 1486 Primavera, 1482

• Orange trees amongst classical pagan depictions of the seasons.

• How is Venus related to depictions of saints/mary?

• “Artists and poets at this time did not directly imitate classical antiquity but used the myths, with delicate perception of their charm, in a way still tinged with medieval romance.”

Sandro Botticelli, Primavera, ca. 1482.

Tempera on wood, 6 8 10 4. Galleria degli

Uffizi, Florence.

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