Architecture:
Brunelleschi and the Rational
Church
The origins of photography: scientific
perspective
Painting:
Masaccio and perspective
(the vision here and now)
Mantegna and foreshortening
(in the eyes of the beholder)
Piero della Francesca: the
poetry of mathematics
Sculpture: Donatello’s realisms
Italian Early Renaissance (15th cent.)
Brunelleschi,
Santo Spirito,
Florence, Italy,
begun 1436
Robert de Luzarches, Thomas de
Cormont, and Renaud de
Cormont, Amien’s Cathedral,
Maiens, France, begun 1220
3 main features of the
Renaissance church:
1. Sober clarity (modular
scheme, not
decorated)
2. Classical inspiration
(columns, arches)
3. Mathematical
proportions, measurable
space
In Renaissance religiosity,
divinity is revealed by
equilibrium and harmony,
rather than by the Gothic
emotional spirituality
2 main characteristics of
photography:
1) the machine fixes
automatically the complex world
around us in a quadrangular, two-
dimensional picture
2) The photograph acknowledges
the fact that each picture is a
fragment of an uninterrupted
universe
Scholars have identified
Renaissance Scientific
Perspective as the origins of the
process that would bring to the
invention of photography
SCIENTIFIC PERSPECTIVE (or
One-point Linear Perspective) was
invented by Brunelleschi in the
early 1400s:
diagonal lines from the edges of
the picture to the vanishing point,
create a structural grid that
organizes the pictorial space and
determines mathematically the
relative size of objects
Scientific or One-point Linear Perspective
“Scientific” as
opposed to
Giotto’s
intuitive
perspective
Scientific or One-point Linear Perspective
3 main features:
-love for unity and order
(Plato’s idea that measure
is the basis of beauty)
-faith in rationality and
knowledge based on
observation (emergence
of science)
-Importance of the point
of view (perspective =
standpoint)
“Scientific” as
opposed to
Roman and
Giotto’s
intuitive
perspective
Masaccio, The Holy Trinity, Santa Maria
Novella, Florence, ca. 1428
Holy Trinity: Father, Crucified
Christ, and Holy Spirit (dove)
Virgin and St. John
Donors
Talking skeleton
The first painter to apply Brunelleschi’s
theory was the young MASACCIO (1401-
1428)
Subject matter:
Portraiture /
individuality
pitiless realism (detail
of the loincloth falling
down)
Even halos are painted
in perspective!
Similarly to van
Eyck:
Masaccio, The Holy Trinity, Santa Maria
Novella, Florence, ca. 1428
Differently from van
Eyck: unity prevails
over the multiplicity of
details (synthetic vs.
analytic)
Masaccio breaks the
wall of the church Santa
Maria Novella with a
fake niche
The vanishing point is
placed at the height of
an average viewer
Standing in front of the
fresco, the visitor has
the illusion of a vision
happening in an
extension of his/her
space
The donors are visual
mediators
between the actual space of
the viewer and the fictional
space of the vision, kneeling
on a painted altar
The ascending pyramid of
figures leads viewers from the
image of death
to the hope of resurrection
end eternal life
Masaccio, The Holy Trinity, Santa Maria
Novella, Florence, ca. 1428
I was once
what you are,
and what I am
you will become
Andrea Mantegna, ceiling of the
Camera degli Sposi, Palazzo
Ducale, Mantua, Italy, 1474, Fresco
Trompe l’oeil: French for
‘deceives the eye’ objects,
still-lives, fake
architectures painted so
that they appear to be
three-dimensional and
touchable
The viewer is not able to
determine where the real
world ends and where the
fictional realm of
painting starts
A long tradition of
illusionistic frescoes
Mantegna breaks the
ceiling of a bedroom
as in a courtyard from
which we can see the sky
This was the room of the
newlyweds
Symbols:
Putti (symbols of love),
the peacock (attribute
of Juno, goddess of
lawful marriages),
Andrea Mantegna, ceiling of the
Camera degli Sposi, Palazzo
Ducale, Mantua, Italy, 1474, Fresco
they look down to the
room and to the intimate
life of the couple:
the viewer becomes
the viewed:
There is
something
even more
radical here
What? The relativity
of the point of
view
Things can be seen
(and understood)
differently from
different
perspectives
In 1961 Piero Manzoni made a work
entitled “Base of the world”:
it is an upside down sculpture base
By subtitling his work an homage to
Galileo, Manzoni was making the absurd
proclamation
that the base held on its bearing surface
the entire world
And therefore that entire earth is a
sculpture (you included)
He was inspired by a painting by
Mantegna on display at Brera, Milan:
Piero Manzoni,
Base of the
World. Homage
to Galileo, 1961
Mantegna, Dead
Christ, ca. 1501,
Tempera on
canvas
A religious scene
that had been
represented for
centuries
The changing of
perspective makes
the viewer able to
see this same scene
with fresh eyes
While Giotto had brought the
sacred image as on a stage,
and his viewer was involved
as a spectator
Mantegna brings the viewer
on the stage: the viewer is at
Christ ‘s beside
He/she is directly involved in
the sacred scene not as a
spectator but as a character
most radical
application of
foreshortening:
The application of the
rules of perspective to
an object or figure that
extends back in space:
Not only are diagonal
lines converging
toward the vanishing
point,
But also, curved lines,
body proportions,
and shadowing are
altered in order to give
the illusion of tri-
dimensionality
A human being had
never been
represented like this!
Mantegna, Dead
Christ, ca. 1501,
Tempera on
canvas
Piero della Francesca,
Brera Altarpiece, ca.
1472-1474, oil on panel
Perspective corresponded to a new
mathematical approach to
knowledge and a new concept of
beauty
In this period Plato was the most
studied and influential philosopher of
the past
According to Plato, MEASURE was
the basis of beauty
Piero della Francesca: the poetry of
mathematics
Perspective was a way to make the
image of the world measurable
and therefore beautiful
This aspect was most effectively
developed by the work of Piero
della Francesca
Piero, a skilled geometrician, wrote
the first theoretical treatise on
perspective
Which coherently combined
aesthetics, geometry, and
philosophy in the realm of painting
Piero della Francesca,
Brera Altarpiece, ca.
1472-1474, oil on panel
In this altarpiece, painted for the
duke Federico da Montefeltro,
Piero organizes the composition
according to a geometrical and
symmetrical scheme
where each part is rationally
related to the others
The coffered barrel vault is an
acknowledgement of Masaccio’s
precedent
Piero della Francesca,
Brera Altarpiece, ca.
1472-1474, oil on panel
Differently from
Masaccio’s
dramatic realism,
here other qualities
prevail:
-Pure and total light
(rationality)
-Silent vision, out
of time
However, in this
perfectly
symmetrical
geometry
something is
missing
As in
Masaccio’s
work, the
kneeling
patron is
portrayed in
the foreground
The female
patron is the
absent
keystone of
the
composition’s
perfect
symmetry (the
Virgin’s gaze)
The duke commissioned the
altarpiece just a few months after his
wife’s, Battista, death
This painting is a tribute to her
demise:
The altarpiece is a modern, clear,
rational meditation over the
concept of death,
represented through a perfectly
mathematical composition
There is no drama, no screaming or
representation of despair:
only a missing part in an otherwise
perfect system
makes the rational realm
questioning itself
Donatello, Feast of Herod,
baptismal font of Siena Cathedral,
Siena, ca. 1425
Donatello was the very first
artist to apply Brunelleschi
theory of perspective in an
artwork:
He used linear perspective on
his relief works as an effective
setting, where he placed his
figures:
Donatello mixed in the same
work basso, mezzo and alto-
relief!
The effect is that of an
ambiguous spatial
representation, where it is
almost impossible
to determine what is actually
tri-dimensional (sculpted) and
what is illusion (“drawn”
perspective)
Donatello’s realisms
This bronze relief was realized for
the baptismal font of Siena
It illustrates a scene from the life of
St John the Baptist
when the princess Salome asked
King Herod for the head of St John
as a reward for her dancing, and
got it
The executioner knelt down
before the king carrying the head
of the saint
The king shrinks back and raises
his hands in horror
Kids run away crying
Salome’s mother, who instigated
the crime, tries to explain
Donatello chose to represent not
the violent moment of the murder,
but rather focused on the human
reactions to it:
Guests recoil creating the void in
the center,
one covers his
eyes
Salome seems just to have
stopped in her sensual
dance
Donatello’s realism manifests
itself on 3 different levels:
-Human approach to the
sacred text (how did different
people react to this dramatic
fact?)
-Historical accuracy (the
setting is Herod’s classical
palace; the executioner is
dressed as a Roman soldier)
-New conception of space: not
only illusion of space through
perspective,
but also the scene is
represented as a fragment of
reality
The image is cut by edges of
this relief giving the illusion of a
“snapshot” from a real situation,
Where space would continue
outside the pictured frame