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"Arts
in the Renaissance" Cylinder for
Portable Planetariums
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More Important Topics of Cylinder |
Lower
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Sandro
Botticelli; Rafael Sanzio; Donatello; Fra Angelico; Vitruvio; Pieter
Brueghel "The Young"; Pieter Brueghel; Pietro Perugino; Andrea
del Sarto; Antonio Allegri da Correggio; Filippino Lippi; Hans Baldung.
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| Michelangelo Buonarroti | |
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Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (March 6, 1475 February 18, 1564), commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet and engineer. Despite making few forays beyond the arts, his versatility in the disciplines he took up was of such a high order that he is often considered a contender for the title of the archetypal Renaissance man, along with his rival and fellow Italian Leonardo da Vinci. Indeed
it was said that a true Renaissance man needed to have all these talents
and also to have been a diplomat and that Michelangelo was the only
person to have ever embodied these criteria. Michelangelo's output in every field during his long life was prodigious; when the sheer volume of correspondence, sketches and reminiscences that survive is also taken into |
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account, he is the best-documented artist of the 16th century. Two of his best-known works, the Pietà and the David, were sculpted before he turned thirty. Despite
his low opinion of painting, Michelangelo also created two of the most
influential works in fresco in the history of Western art: the scenes
from Genesis on the ceiling and The Last Judgement on the altar wall
of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Later in life he designed the dome of
St. Peter's Basilica in the same city and revolutionised classical architecture
with his invention of the giant order of pilasters. In a demonstration of Michelangelo's unique standing, two biographies were published of him during his lifetime. One of them, by Giorgio Vasari, proposed that he was the pinnacle of all artistic achievement since the beginning of the Renaissance, a viewpoint that continued to have currency in art history for centuries. In his
lifetime he was also often called Il Divino ("the divine one"),
an appropriate sobriquet given his intense spirituality. One of the
qualities most admired by his contemporaries was his terribilità,
a sense of awe-inspiring grandeur, and it was the attempts of subsequent
artists to imitate Michelangelo's impassioned and highly personal style
that resulted in the next major movement in Western art after the High
Renaissance, Mannerism. Early
life Michelangelo was born in Caprese near Arezzo, Tuscany, the second of five sons. His father, Lodovico di Leonardo di Buonarotti di Simoni, was the resident magistrate in Caprese and podestà of Chiusi. His mother was Francesca di Neri del Miniato di Siena. The Buonarroti claimed to descend from Countess Mathilde of Canossa; this claim was probably false, but Michelangelo himself believed it. However,
Michelangelo was raised in Florence and later, during the prolonged
illness and after the death of his mother, lived with a stonecutter
and his wife and family in the town of Settignano where his father owned
a marble quarry and a small farm. Michelangelo once said to the biographer
of artists Giorgio Vasari, "What little good I have within me came
from the pure air of your native Arezzo and the chisels and hammers." Against his father's wishes and after a period of grammatics studies with the humanist Francesco da Urbino, Michelangelo continued his apprenticeship in painting with Domenico Ghirlandaio and in sculpture with Bertoldo di Giovanni. Michelangelo's father was able to get Ghirlandaio to pay the young artist, which was unheard of at the time. In fact, most apprentices paid their masters for the education. Impressed, Domenico recommended him to the ruler of the city, Lorenzo de' Medici, and Michelangelo left his workshop in 1489. From
1490 to 1492, Michelangelo attended Lorenzo's school and was influenced
by many prominent people who modified and expanded his ideas on art,
following the dominant Platonic view of that age, and even his feelings
about sexuality. It was during this period that Michelangelo met literary
personalities like Pico della Mirandola, Angelo Poliziano and Marsilio
Ficino. In this period Michelangelo finished Madonna of the Steps (14901492) and Battle of the Centaurs (14911492). The latter was based on a theme suggested by Poliziano and was commissioned by Lorenzo de Medici. After the death of Lorenzo on April 8, 1492, for whom Michelangelo had become a kind of son, Michelangelo quit the Medici court. In the following months he produced a Wooden crucifix (1493), as a thanksgiving gift to the prior of the church of Santa Maria del Santo Spirito who had permitted him some studies of anatomy on the corpses of the church's Hospital. Between 1493 and 1494 he bought the marble for a larger than life statue of Hercules, which was sent to France and disappeared sometime in the 1700s. He could again enter the court on January 20, 1494, Piero de Medici commissioned a snow statue from him. But that year the Medici were expelled from Florence after the Savonarola rise, and Michelangelo also left the city before the end of the political upheaval, moving to Venice and then to Bologna. He did
stay in Florence for a while hiding in a small room underneath San Lorenzo
that can still be visited to this day. There are still some charcoal
sketches on the walls which Michelangelo drew from his memory. Here
he was commissioned to finish the carving of the last small figures
of the tomb and shrine of St. Dominic, in the church with the same name.
He returned to Florence at the end of 1494, but soon he fled again,
scared by the turmoils and by the menace of the French invasion. He was again in his city between the end of 1495 and the June of 1496: whereas Leonardo da Vinci considered the ruling Savonarola a fanatic and left the city, Michelangelo was touched by the friar's preaching, by the associated moral severity and by the hope of renovation of the Roman Church. In that year a marble Cupid by Michelangelo was treacherously sold to Cardinal Raffaele Riario as an ancient piece: the prelate found out that it was a fraud, but was so impressed by the quality of the sculpture that he invited the artist to Rome, where he arrived on June 26, 1496. On July
4 Michelangelo started to carve an over-life-size statue of the Roman
wine god, Bacchus, commissioned by Cardinal Raffaele Riario; the work
was rejected by the cardinal, and subsequently entered the collection
of the banker Jacopo Galli, for his garden. Subsequently,
in November of 1497, the French ambassador in the Holy See commissioned
one of his most famous works, the Pietà. The contemporary opinion
about this work "a revelation of all the potentialities
and force of the art of sculpture" was summarised by Vasari:
"It is certainly a miracle that a formless block of stone could
ever have been reduced to a perfection that nature is scarcely able
to create in the flesh." The contract was stipulated in the August of the following year. Though he devoted himself only to sculpture, during his first stay in Rome Michelangelo never stopped his daily practice of drawing. In Rome, Michelangelo lived near the church of Santa Maria di Loreto: here, according to the legends, he fell in love (probably a Platonic love) with Vittoria Colonna, marquise of Pescara and poet. His
house was demolished in 1874, and the remaining architectural elements
saved by new proprietors were destroyed in 1930. Today a modern reconstruction
of Michelangelo's house can be seen on the Gianicolo hill. Michelangelo's
David Michelangelo returned to Florence in 14991501. Things were changing in the city after the fall of Savonarola and the rise of the gonfaloniere Pier Soderini. He was asked by the consuls of the Guild of Wool to complete an unfinished project begun 40 years earlier by Agostino di Duccio: a colossal statue portraying David as a symbol of Florentine freedom, to be placed in the Piazza della Signoria, in front of the Palazzo Vecchio. Michelangelo
responded by completing his most famous work, David in 1504. This masterwork,
created out of marble from the quarries at Carrara, definitively established
his prominence as a sculptor of extraordinary technical skill and strength
of symbolic imagination. Also
during this period, Michelangelo painted the Holy Family and St John,
also known as the Doni Tondo or the Holy Family of the Tribune: it was
commissioned for the marriage of Angelo Doni and Maddalena Strozzi and
in the 17th Century hung in the room known as the Tribune in the Uffizi.
He also may have painted the Madonna and Child with John the Baptist,
known as the Manchester Madonna and now in the National Gallery, London. Under
Pope Julius II in Rome: the Sistine Chapel ceiling In 1505
Michelangelo was invited back to Rome by the newly elected Pope Julius
II. He was commissioned to build the Pope's tomb. Under the patronage
of the Pope, Michelangelo had to constantly stop work on the tomb in
order to accomplish numerous other tasks. Because of these interruptions,
Michelangelo worked on the tomb for 40 years. The tomb, of which the
central feature is Michelangelo's statue of Moses, was never finished
to Michelangelo's satisfaction. It is located in the Church of S. Pietro
in Vincoli in Rome. The major interruption on the tomb was the commission to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which took four years to complete (1508 1512). According
to Michelangelo's own account, reproduced in contemporary biographies,
Bramante and Raphael convinced the Pope to commission Michelangelo in
a medium not familiar to the artist, in order that he might be diverted
from his preference for sculpture into fresco painting, and thus suffer
from unfavorable comparisons with his rival Raphael. However, this story
is discounted by modern historians on the grounds of contemporary evidence,
and may be merely a reflection of the artist's own perspective. Michelangelo
was originally commissioned to paint the 12 Apostles, but protested
for a different and more complex scheme, representing Creation, the
Downfall of Man and the Promise of Salvation through the prophets and
Genealogy of Christ. The work is part of a larger scheme of decoration
within the chapel which represents much of the doctrine of the Catholic
Church The
composition eventually contained over 300 figures and had at its centre
nine episodes from the Book of Genesis, divided into three groups:-
God's Creation of the Earth, God's Creation of Humankind and their fall
from God's grace, and lastly, the state of Humanity as represented by
Noah and his family. On the pendentives supporting the ceiling are painted
twelve men and women who prophesied the coming of the Jesus. They are
seven prophets of Israel and five Sibyls, prophetic women of the Classical
world. Among
the most famous paintings on the ceiling are the Creation of Adam, Adam
and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the Great Flood, the Prophet Isaiah and
the Cumaean Sibyl. Around the windows are painted the ancestors of Christ. Under
Medici Popes in Florence In 1513 Pope Julius II died and his successor Pope Leo X, a Medici, commissioned Michelangelo to reconstruct the façade of the basilica of San Lorenzo in Florence and to adorn it with sculptures. Michelangelo agreed reluctantly. The three years he spent in creating drawings and models for the facade, as well as attempting to open a new marble quarry at Pietrasanta specifically for the project, were among the most frustrating in his career, as work was abruptly cancelled by his financially-strapped patrons before any real progress had been made. The
basilica lacks a facade to this day. Though
still incomplete, it is the best example we have of the integration
of the artist's sculptural and architectural vision, since Michelangelo
created both the major sculptures as well as the interior plan. Ironically
the most prominent tombs are those of two rather obscure Medici who
died young, a son and grandson of Lorenzo. Il Magnifico himself is buried
in an unfinished and comparatively unimpressive tomb on one of the side
walls of the chapel, not given a free-standing monument, as originally
intended. In 1527, the Florentine citizens, encouraged by the sack of Rome, threw out the Medici and restored the republic. A siege of the city ensued, and Michelangelo went to the aid of his beloved Florence by working on the city's fortifications from 1528 to 1529. The city fell in 1530 and the Medici were restored to power. Completely
out of sympathy with the repressive reign of the ducal Medici, Michelangelo
left Florence for good in the mid-1530s, leaving assistants to complete
the Medici chapel. Years later his body was brought back from Rome for
interment at the Basilica di Santa Croce, fulfilling the maestro's last
request to be buried in his beloved Tuscany. Last
works in Rome The fresco of The Last Judgment on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel was commissioned by Pope Clement VII, who died shortly after assigning the commission. Paul III was instrumental in seeing that Michelangelo began and completed the project. Michelangelo labored on the project from 1534 to October 1541. The
work is massive and spans the entire wall behind the altar of the Sistine
Chapel. The Last Judgment is a depiction of the second coming of Christ
and the apocalypse; where the souls of humanity rise and are assigned
to their various fates, as judged by Christ, surrounded by the Saints. Once completed, the depictions of nakedness in the papal chapel was considered obscene and sacrilegious, and Cardinal Carafa and Monsignor Sernini (Mantua's ambassador) campaigned to have the fresco removed or censored, but the Pope resisted. After Michelangelo's death, it was decided to obscure the genitals ("Pictura in Cappella Ap.ca coopriantur"). So Daniele da Volterra, an apprentice of Michelangelo, was commissioned to cover with perizomas (briefs) the genitals, leaving unaltered the complex of bodies (see details). When the work was restored in 1993, the conservators chose not to remove all the perizomas of Daniele, leaving some of them as a historical document, and because some of Michelangelos work was previously scraped away by the touch-up artist's application of decency to the masterpiece. A faithful
uncensored copy of the original, by Marcello Venusti, can be seen at
the Capodimonte Museum of Naples. Censorship always followed Michelangelo, once described as "inventor delle porcherie" ("inventor of obscenities", in the original Italian language referring to "pork things"). The infamous "fig-leaf campaign" of the Counter-Reformation, aiming to cover all representations of human genitals in paintings and sculptures, started with Michelangelo's works. To give
two examples, the marble statue of Cristo della Minerva (church of Santa
Maria sopra Minerva, Rome) was covered by a pan, as it remains today,
and the statue of the naked child Jesus in Madonna of Bruges (The Church
of Our Lady in Bruges, Belgium) remained covered for several decades. In 1546,
Michelangelo was appointed architect of St. Peter's Basilica in the
Vatican, and designed its dome. As St. Peter's was progressing there
was concern that Michelangelo would pass away before the dome was finished.
However, once building commenced on the lower part of the dome, the
supporting ring, the completion of the design was inevitable. Michelangelo
the architect Michelangelo
worked on many projects that had been conceived by other men, most notably
in his work at St Peter's Basilica, Rome. The Campidoglio, designed
by Michelangelo during the same period, rationalized the structures
and spaces of Rome's Capitoline Hill. Its shape, more a rhomboid than
a square, was intended to counteract the effects of perspective. The
major Florentine architectural projects by Micelangelo are the unexecuted
façade for the Basilica of San Lorenzo, Florence and the Medici
Chapel (Capella Medicea) and Laurentian Library there, and the fortifications
of Florence. Laurentian
Library Around
1530 Michelangelo designed the Laurentian Library in Florence, attached
to the church of San Lorenzo. He produced new styles such as pilasters
tapering thinner at the bottom, and a staircase with contrasting rectangular
and curving forms. Medici
Chapel Michelangelo
designed the Medici Chapel. The Medici Chapel has monuments in it dedicated
to certain members of the Medici family. Michelangelo never finished
it, so his pupils later completed it. Lorenzo the Magnificent was buried
at the entrance wall of the Medici Chapel. Sculptures of the "Madonna
and Child" and the Medici patron saints Cosmas and Damian were
set over his burial. The "madonna and child" was Michelangelo's
own work. Michelangelo
the man Michelangelo, who was often arrogant with others and constantly dissatisfied with himself, saw art as originating from inner inspiration and from culture. In contradiction to the ideas of his rival, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo saw nature as an enemy that had to be overcome. The
figures that he created are forceful and dynamic; each in its own space
apart from the outside world. For Michelangelo, the job of the sculptor
was to free the forms that were already inside the stone. He believed
that every stone had a sculpture within it, and that the work of sculpting
was simply a matter of chipping away all that was not a part of the
statue. Several anecdotes reveal that Michelangelo's skill, especially in sculpture, was greatly admired in his own time. It is said that when still a young apprentice, he had made a pastiche of a Roman statue (Il Putto Dormiente, the sleeping child or Cupid) of such beauty and perfection, that it was later sold in Rome as an ancient Roman original. In fact, he damaged the statue and buried it in order to fool the buyer, Cardinal Raffaele Riario. After
the truth was revealed, the Cardinal later took this as proof of his
skill and commissioned his Bacchus. Another better-known anecdote claims
that when finishing the Moses (San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome), Michelangelo
violently hit the knee of the statue with a hammer, shouting, "Why
don't you speak to me?" Condivi said he was indifferent to food and drink, eating "more out of necessity than of pleasure" and that he "often slept in his clothes and ... boots." These habits may have made him unpopular; his biographer Paolo Giovio says "His nature was so rough and uncouth that his domestic habits were incredibly squalid, and deprived posterity of any pupils who might have followed him." He
may not have minded, since he was by nature a solitary and melancholy
person; he had a reputation for being bizzarro e fantastico because
he "withdrew himself from the company of men." Relationships Fundamental to Michelangelo's art is his love of male beauty, which attracted him both aesthetically and emotionally. In part, this was an expression of the Renaissance idealization of masculinity. But
in Michelangelo's art there is clearly a sensual response to this aesthetic.
Such feelings caused him great anguish, and he expressed the struggle
between Platonic ideals and carnal desire in his sculpture, drawing
and his poetry, too, for among his other accomplishments Michelangelo
was also a great Italian lyric poet of the 16th century. The
sculptor's expressions of love have been characterized as both Neoplatonic
and openly homoerotic; recent scholarship seeks an interpretation which
respects both readings, yet is wary of drawing absolute conclusions.
One example of the conundrum is the story of the sixteen year old Cecchino
dei Bracci, whose death, only a year after their meeting in 1543, inspired
the writing of forty eight funeral epigrams, which by some accounts
allude to a relationship that was not only romantic but physical as
well: La carne
terra, e qui l'ossa mia, prive The
flesh now earth, and here my bones, According to others, they represent an emotionless and elegant re-imagining of Platonic dialogue, whereby erotic poetry was seen as an expression of refined sensibilities (Indeed, it must be remembered that professions of love in 16th century Italy were given a far wider application than now). Some youths were street wise and took advantage of the sculptor. Febbo di Poggio, in 1532, peddled his charms in answer to Michelangelo's love poem he asks for money. Earlier, Gherardo Perini, in 1522, had stolen from him shamelessly. Michelangelo defended his privacy above all. When
an employee of his friend Niccolò Quaratesi offered his son as
apprentice suggesting that he would be good even in bed, Michelangelo
refused indignantly, suggesting Quaratesi fire the man. Never
have I loved a man more than I love you, never have I wished for a friendship
more than I wish for yours. Cavalieri remained devoted to Michelangelo
till his death. However,
their homoerotic nature was recognized in his own time, so that a decorous
veil was drawn across them by his grand nephew, Michelangelo the Younger,
who published an edition of the poetry in 1623 with the gender of pronouns
changed. John Addington Symonds, the early British homosexual activist,
undid this change by translating the original sonnets into English and
writing a two-volume biography, published in 1893. The
sonnets are the first large sequence of poems in any modern tongue addressed
by one man to another, predating Shakespeare's sonnets to his young
friend by a good fifty years. I feel
as lit by fire a cold countenance Late
in life he nurtured a great love for the poet and noble widow Vittoria
Colonna, whom he met in Rome in 1536 or 1538 and who was in her late
forties at the time. They wrote sonnets for each other and were in regular
contact until she died, though many scholars note the intellectualized
or spiritual quality of this passion. It is impossible to know for certain whether Michelangelo had physical relationships (Condivi ascribed to him a "monk-like chastity"), but through his poetry and visual art we may at least glimpse the arc of his imagination. |
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| Michelangelo's La Pietà | |
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A pietà
(pl. same; Italian for compassion) is an artwork depicting the Virgin
Mary cradling the dead body of Christ. As such, it is a particular form
of the devotional theme of Our Lady of Sorrows. Examples |
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breast) possibly indicating his satisfaction with his work. Another account states the artist chiseled his name out of rage for a false attribution to one of his contemporaries. When it was unveiled in 1500, Michelangelo overheard a crowd admiring it. Going closer, he soon discovered that another artist was stealing his glory. The people could not believe that a previously unknown young artist had produced something of such staggering beauty. That night, out of a caustic combination of injured pride and jealousy he chiseled a message to all future viewers on the sash across Mary's chest: MICHAELA[N]GELUS BONAROTUS FLORENTIN[US] FACIEBAT (Michelangelo Buonarroti, Florentine, made this). However,
he later regretted this action. In 1972 the statue was vandalised by
Laszlo Toth wielding a hammer; he was later declared insane. Sculptor
Luis Jiménez, reversing the gender of the figures involved, used
the popular Mexican and Chicano image and myth of the Aztec warrior
holding his dead lover to create the monumental Southwest Pietà,
located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA. The
American Pietà was the name given to a famous Reuters photograph
of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, depicting a
policeman and four firemen carrying the body of fire department chaplain
Mychal F. Judge out of the World Trade Center rubble. The
term "pietà" (Latin: pietas) originated from a custom
of the Roman Empire around the time of 64 AD, referring to the act of
prostrating oneself, and putting forth an "Emotion...of great love
accompanied with revering fear....of the [Roman] Gods." Aesthetics Mary and Christ are formally and psychologically inter-related so that one hardly notices Christ's relatively small size compared with Mary's massive form. The zigzag of Christ's body blends harmoniously with Mary's legs and voluminous drapery folds. Mary's left hand repeats the movement of Christ's left leg. She inclines her head forward as Christ's tilts back, and the slow curve of her drapery on the left is repeated by Christ's limp right arm. His right hand falls so that his fingers enclose and continue the prominent drapery curve between Mary's legs. In addition to the formal rhythms uniting Mary and Christ, Michelangelo makes them appear to be about the same age. He thus creates a powerful emotional and formal bond between the two figures who, though separated by death, will eventually be reunited, in Christian tradition, as King and Queen of Heaven. According to one report, when Michelangelo was asked about the age of the Virgin, he replied that her youthfulness was the result of her chaste character. |
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| Michelangelo's David | |
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Michelangelo's David, sculpted from 1501 to 1504, is a masterpiece of Renaissance sculpture and one of Michelangelo's two greatest works of sculpture, along with the Pietà. It is the David alone that almost certainly holds the title of the most recognizable statue in the history of art. It has become regarded as a symbol both of strength and youthful human beauty. The 5.17 meter (17 ft) marble statue portrays the Biblical King David at the moment that he decides to do battle with Goliath. It came to symbolise the Florentine Republic, an independent city state threatened on all sides by more powerful rival states. This
interpretation was also encouraged by the original setting of the sculpture
outside the Palazzo della Signoria, the seat of civic government in
Florence. The completed sculpture was unveiled on 8 September 1504. History |
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The history of Michelangelo's David precedes his work on it from 1501-1504, as far back as 1464. At that time the Overseers of the Office of Works of the Duomo (Operai), comprised mostly of members of the influential woolen cloth guild, the Arte della Lana, had plans to commission a series of twelve large Old Testament sculptures for the buttresses of the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore. Until then only two had been created independently by Donatello and his assistant, Agostino di Duccio. Eager to continue their project, in 1464 they again contracted Agostino to create a sculpture of David. He
only got as far as beginning to shape the legs, feet and chest of the
figure, roughing out some drapery and probably gouging a hole between
the legs. His association with the project, for reasons unknown, ceased
with the death of his master Donatello in 1466, and Antonio Rossellino
was commissioned to take up where Agostino had left off. Rossellino's contract was terminated, soon thereafter, and the block of marble originally from a quarry in Carrara, a town in the Apuan Alps in northern Italy, remained neglected for twenty-five years, all the while exposed to the elements in the yard of the cathedral workshop. This was of great concern to the Operai authorities, as such a large piece of marble was both costly, and represented a large amount of labor and difficulty in its transportation to Florence. In 1500, an inventory of the cathedral workshops described the piece as, "a certain figure of marble called David, badly blocked out and supine." A year later, documents showed that the Operai were determined to find an artist who could take this large piece of marble and turn it into a finished work of art. They ordered the block of stone, which they called The Giant, "raised on its feet" so that a master experienced in this kind of work might examine it and express an opinion. Though
Leonardo da Vinci and others were consulted, it was young Michelangelo,
only twenty-six years old, who convinced the Operai that he deserved
the commission. On August 16, 1501, Michelangelo was given the official
contract to undertake this challenging new task. He began carving the
statue early in the morning on Monday, September 13, a month after he
was awarded the contract. He would work on the massive biblical hero
for a little more than three years. Since Michelangelo's David differs from previous representations of the subject in that David is not depicted with the slain Goliath (as he is in Donatello's and Verrocchio's versions, produced earlier), a common interpretation is that David is depicted before his battle with Goliath. Instead of being shown victorious over a foe much larger than he, David looks tense and ready for combat. His veins bulge out of his lowered right hand and the twist of his body effectively conveys to the viewer the feeling that he is in motion. The statue is meant to show David after he has made the decision to fight Goliath but before the battle has actually taken place. It is a representation of the moment between conscious choice and conscious action. However,
other experts (including Giuseppe Andreani, the current director of
Accademia Gallery) consider the depiction to represent the moment immediately
after battle, as David serenely contemplates his victory. The majority, led by Giuliano da Sangallo and supported by Leonardo and Piero di Cosimo, among others, believed that due to the imperfections in the marble the sculpture should be placed under the roof of the Loggia dei Lanzi on Piazza della Signoria. Only a rather minor view, supported by Botticelli, believed that the sculpture should be situated on or near the cathedral. Eventually
the David was placed in front of the entrance to the Palazzo Vecchio,
also on Piazza della Signoria, replacing Donatello's bronze sculpture
of Judith and Holofernes, which embodied a comparable theme of heroic
resistance. It took four days to move the statue from Michelangelo's
workshop onto the Piazza della Signoria. In 1504, the Florentines added
a gilded wreath to his head and a gilt-bronze belt to cover his nudity.
At that time the supporting tree stump was also gilded. To protect
it from damage, the sculpture was moved in 1873 to the Accademia Gallery
in Florence, where it attracts many visitors. A replica was placed in
the Piazza della Signoria in 1910. The
marble in question contains many microscopic holes that cause it to
deteriorate faster than other marbles. Because of the marble's degradation,
a controversy occurred in 2003, when the statue underwent its first
major cleaning since 1843. Some experts opposed the use of water to
clean the statue, fearing further deterioration. Style
and detail Michelangelo's David is based on the artistic discipline of of disegno, which is built on knowledge of the male human form. Under this discipline, sculpture is considered to be the finest form of art because it mimics divine creation. Because
Michelangelo adhered to the concepts of disegno, he worked under the
premise that the image of David was already in the block of stone he
was working on in much the same way as the human soul is found
within the physical body. It is also an example of the contrapposto
style of posing the human figure. The
proportions are not quite true to the human form; the head and upper
body are somewhat larger than the proportions of the lower body. While
some have suggested that this is of the mannerist style, the most commonly
accepted explanation is that the statue was originally intended to be
placed on a church façade or high pedestal, and that the proportions
would appear correct when the statue was viewed from some distance below. There
was controversy over the statue's supposed Biblical reference, since
the statue seemed to portray an uncircumcised male, whereas the historical
King David was undoubtedly circumcised. It was also suggested that this
was a conscious decision in Michelangelo's endeavor to emulate the ancient
Greek aesthetic ideals, which regarded the circumcised penis as mutilated. Replicas A replica
of the David was offered as a gift by the municipality of Florence to
the municipality of Jerusalem to mark the 3,000th anniversary of David's
conquest of the city. The proposed gift evoked a storm in Jerusalem,
where religious factions urged the gift be declined, because the naked
figure was considered pornographic. Finally, a compromise was reached
and another, fully-clad replica of a different statue was donated instead. There are many full-size replicas of the statue around the world, from a plaster cast copy at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, to the centerpiece of a shopping mall in Surfers Paradise, Queensland. There is another replica in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. One resident of Los Angeles, California, has decorated his house and grounds with twenty-three reduced scale replicas of the statue. There is a life-size replica at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park cemetery in Glendale, California. There is a copy gracing the "Appian Way Shops" at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada. A bronze casting from the original marble statue stands in Delaware Park in Buffalo, New York. Another bronze casting is the centerpiece in the courtyard of the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida. The
Philadelphia Museum of Art has a replica, albeit quite a rough one.
Another full-size replica can be found in the open air Middelheim Sculpture
Museum in Antwerp, Belgium. It
is erected next to a statue of a half naked woman, that seems to depict
Bathsheba, the mother of Solomon. That replica is part of the legacy
that the British left when India gained its independence. |
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| Michelangelo's The Doni Tondo | |
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The Doni Tondo or Doni Madonna is a painting by the Italian Renaissance master Michelangelo Buonarroti (c. 1503), the only known preserved panel picture by the Florentine artist. It is preserved in the Uffizi of Florence in its original frame, designed by Michelangelo himself. The painting was most likely commissioned by Angelo Doni, a wealthy weaver, to commemorate his marriage to Alex Cecala, the daughter of a famous banking family. The
painting is in the form of a tondo, or round frame, which is frequently
associated with marriage in the Renaissance. |
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Flemish
painters used the opposite oil painting technique of shading from highlights
down to darker tones of pigment. Michelangelos changing coloristic
effect is called cangianti and is typical of his painting style. The painting depicts the Christ child being presented to the viewer by his mother Mary and father Joseph. This composition of presentation may be referring to the patron of the pieces name Doni, in Italian "gifts", and helps to solidify its patronage. Behind the main figures, several nude male figures are painted in the background. The meaning of this addition of nude male figures is debated for it has no obvious relation or biblical precedents to the scene in the foreground. The
inclusion of these nude figures is by no means unusual in Michelangelos
work, however, as can be seen in his other works, including the famous
ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Although Michelangelo did not consider himself a painter (and often it appears he complained of the medium), the Doni Tondo is a beautifully rendered work. The drapery is sharply modeled with brilliant colors. The monumental figures appear to be sculpted with paint rather than marble, his preferred medium, and as such they appear to have true weight. |
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| Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam | |
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The Creation of Adam is a fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, painted by Michelangelo Buonarroti circa 1511. It illustrates the Biblical story from the Book of Genesis in which God the Father breathes life into Adam, the first man. Chronologically the fourth in the series of panels depicting episodes from Genesis on the Sistine ceiling, it was among the last to be completed. It is arguably one of the most |
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famous
and most appreciated images in the world. Composition God is depicted as an elderly bearded man laying on a kidney which he shares with some cherubim. The kidney was considered to be the organ that is essential for the body to stay alive in Michaelangelo's time, so it often represented life in art. His left arm is wrapped around a female figure, normally interpreted as Eve, who is not yet created and, figuratively, waits in heaven to be given an earthly form. God's
right arm is outstretched to impart the spark of life from his own finger
into that of Adam, whose left arm is extended in a pose mirroring God's.
Famously, Adam's finger and God's finger are separated by a slight distance. For
this same reason, Eve is visually depicted prior to her own creation.
The inclusion of Eve has led some people to believe the female figure
must be Adam's mythical first wife, Lilith, although Lilith was also
created after Adam. At the
same time God, who is airborne and appears against ovoid drapery, is
contrasted with earthbound Adam, lying on a stable triangle of barren
ground (Adam's name comes from a Hebrew word meaning "earth"). Adam's
index finger, the most famous in Western art alongside God's, is in
fact not wholly the work of Michelangelo. It was damaged by a crack
that appeared in the ceiling in the mid-16th century and was restored
by the papacy. Anatomical
theories Several hypotheses have been put forward about the meaning of The Creation of Adam's highly original composition, many of them taking Michelangelo's well-documented expertise in human anatomy as their starting point. In 1990 a physician named Frank Lynn Meshberger noted in the medical publication the Journal of the American Medical Association that the background figures and shapes portrayed behind the figure of God appeared to be an anatomically accurate picture of the human brain, including the frontal lobe, optic chiasm, brain stem, pituitary gland, and the major sulci of the cerebrum. Alternatively, it has been observed that the red cloth around God has the shape of a human uterus (one art historian has called it a "uterine mantle"[1]), and that the scarf hanging out, coloured green, could be a newly cut umbilical cord. |
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| Sistine Chapel ceiling: The Creation of the Sun, Moon and Earth | |
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The
Sistine Chapel ceiling, painted by Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512,
is one of the most renowned artworks of the High Renaissance. The ceiling
is that of the large Sistine Chapel built within the Vatican by Pope Sixtus
IV, begun in 1477 and finished by 1480. Its various painted elements comprise part of a larger |
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scheme
of decoration within the Sistine Chapel which includes the large fresco
of the Last Judgement on the sanctuary wall, also by Michelangelo, wall
paintings by several other artists and a set of large tapestries by
Raphael, the whole illustrating much of the doctrine of the Catholic
Church. Central
to the ceiling decoration are nine scenes from the Book of Genesis of
which the Creation of Adam is the best known, having an iconic standing
equalled only by Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, the hands of God and
Adam being reproduced in countless imitations. History Michelangelo was commissioned in 1508 by Pope Julius II to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Around the central area of the walls of the chapel there already existed a complex scheme of paintings illustrating the Life of Christ and the Life of Moses. It had been carried out by some of the most renowned Renaissance painters including Perugino, Botticelli and Ghirlandaio. Michelangelo,
who was not primarily a painter but a sculptor, was reluctant to take
on the work. Also, he was occupied with a very large sculptural commission
for the Pope's own tomb. The
Pope was adamant, leaving Michelangelo no choice but to accept. But
a war with the French broke out, diverting the attention of the Pope
who was a powerful military leader, and Michelangelo fled from Rome
to continue sculpting. The tomb sculptures, however, were never to be
finished because in 1508 the Pope returned to Rome victorious and summoned
Michelangelo to begin work on the ceiling. The
proposed scheme was for twelve large figures of the Apostles. But Michelangelo
changed the scheme for a much more complex design which eventually comprised
some three hundred figures and took four years, being completed in 1512. According
to Vasari, "The work was carried out in extremely uncomfortable
conditions, from his having to work with his head tilted upwards".
Michelangelo described his physical discomfort in a humorous sonnet
accompanied by a little sketch.
Here like a cat in a Lombardy sewer! Swelter and toil! Method In order
to reach the chapel's ceiling, Michelangelo designed his own scaffold,
a flat wooden platform on brackets built out from holes in the wall
near the top of the windows, rather than being built up from the floor
which would have involved a massive structure. The scaffolding did not
occupy the entire area of the ceiling. The painting was done in two
stages. The reports of Michelangelo's pupil and biographer Condivi, indicate that the brackets and frame which supported the steps and flooring were all put in place at the beginning and some sort of light-weight screen, possibly of cloth, was suspended beneath them to catch plaster drips, dust and splashes of paint, but only half the building was scaffolded at a time. The
painting technique employed was fresco, in which the paint is applied
to damp plaster. Michelangelo was experienced with this method of painting,
having been trained in the workshop of Ghirlandaio, one of the most
competent and prolific of Florentine fresco painters, who completed
several important fresco cycles in churches in Florence and whose work
was represented on the walls of the Sistine Chapel. At the
outset, the plaster began to grow mold because it was too wet. Michelangelo
had to remove it and start again. He then tried a new formula created
by one of his assistants, Jacopo l'Indaco. This resisted mold, and entering
the Italian building tradition as intonaco is still in use today. It was customary for fresco painters to use a full-sized detailed drawing, a cartoon, to transfer a design onto a plaster surface -- many frescoes show little holes made with a stiletto, outlining the figures. Here Michelangelo broke with convention; once confident in the application of fresco, he drew directly onto the ceiling. His energetic sweeping outlines can be seen scraped into some of the surfaces, while on others a grid is evident, indicating that he enlarged directly onto the ceiling from a small drawing. Because he was painting fresco, the plaster was laid in a new section every day, called a giornata. At the beginning of each session, the edges would be scraped away and a new area laid down. This
is more apparent in the Last Judgement than on the ceiling. The reason
that Michelangelo employed the fresco technique is that if the artist
worked onto completely dry plaster, then every brushstroke sank in immediately
and the pigment could not be manipulated without removal of the plaster.
The disadvantage of fresco painting is that the plaster becomes very
hot while it is setting and gives off fumes. Michelangelo painted onto the damp plaster using a wash technique to apply broad areas of colour, then as the surface became drier, he revisited these areas with a more linear approach, adding shade and detail with a variety of brushes. For some textured surfaces, such as facial hair and woodgrain, he used a broad brush with bristles as sparse as a comb. Altogether,
Michelangelo's techniques show the skill that one would expect of Ghirlandaio's
greatest pupil. He employed all the finest workshop methods and best
innovations, combining them with a diversity of brushwork and breadth
of skill of which the meticulous and accurate Ghirlandaio was not capable. The work commenced at the end of the building furthest from the altar and coinciding with the latest of the narrative scenes, rather than the earliest. The first three scenes, from the story of Noah, contain a much larger number of small figures than the later panels. This is partly because of the subject matter, which deals with the fate of Humanity, but also because all the figures at that end of the ceiling, including the prophets and ignudi, are smaller than in the central section. The scale further increased in the third section. As the
scale got larger, so did Michelangelo's style become broader, the final
narrative scene of God in the act of Creation was painted in a single
day. The
colours, which now appear so fresh and spring-like with pale pink, apple
green, vivid yellow and sky blue against a background of warm pearly
grey, were so discoloured by candlesmoke as to make the pictures seem
almost monochrome. The long restoration (1981 through 1994) has removed
the filter of grime to reveal the colours again. Vasari tells us that the ceiling is "unfinished", that its unveiling occurred before it could be reworked with gold leaf and vivid blue lapis lazuli as was customary with frescoes and in order to better link the ceiling with the walls below it which were highlighted with a great deal of gold. But
this never took place, in part because Michelangelo was reluctant to
set up the scaffolding again, and probably also because the gold and
particularly the intense blue would have distracted from his painterly
conception. It seems
very likely that the gilding of the shields was part of Michelangelo's
original scheme since they are painted to resemble a certain type of
processional shield a number of which still exist. Content The
subject matter of the ceiling is the doctrine of humanity's need for
Salvation as offered by God through Jesus. God
sent Prophets and Sybils to tell humanity that the Saviour or Christ,
Jesus, would bring them redemption. God prepared a lineage of people,
all the way from Adam, through various characters written of in the
Old Testament, such as King David, to the Virgin Mary through whom the
Saviour of humanity, Jesus, would come. The various components of the
ceiling are linked to this doctrine. But there was another factor. During the 15th century in Italy, and in Florence in particular, there was a strong interest in Classical literature and the philosophy of Humanism. Michelangelo, as a young man, had spent time at the Humanist academy established by the Medici family in Florence. He was familiar with early Humanist-inspired sculptural works such as Donatello's bronze David, and had himself responded by carving the enormous nude marble David which was placed in the piazza near the Palazzo Vecchio, the home of Florence's council. The Humanist vision of humanity was one in which people responded to other people, to social responsibility and to God in a direct way, not through intermediaries, such as the Church. This conflicted with the Church's emphasis. While the Church emphasised humanity as essentially sinful and flawed, Humanism emphasised humanity as potentially noble and beautiful. These
two views were not necessarily irreconcilable to the Church, but only
through a recognition that the unique way to achieve this "elevation
of spirit, mind and body" was through the Church as the agent of
God. To be outside the Church was to be beyond Salvation. In the
ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo has presented both Catholic
and Humanist elements in a way that does not appear visually conflicting,
but the inclusion of "non-Christian" figures can appear as
an ideological conflict to those more familiar with the intensely "religious"
works of the Counter Reformation and unfamiliar with the rationalising
of Humanist and Christian thought of the Renaissance. The main components of the design are nine scenes from the Book of Genesis, of which five smaller ones are each framed and supported by four naked youths or "ignudi". At either end, and beneath the scenes are the figures of twelve men and women who prophesied the birth of Jesus. On the cresent-shaped areas, or "lunettes", above each of the chapel's windows are the Ancestors of Christ, identified by name. In the triangular spandrels above them are a further eight groups of figures, the identity of which is not known and which is subject to speculation. The scheme is completed by four large corner pendentives each showing a dramatic Biblical story. The
iconography of the ceiling has had various interpretations in the past,
some elements of which have been contradicted by modern scholarship
and others of which continue to defy interpretation. Of interest to
some modern scholars is the question of how Michelangelo's own spiritual
and psychological state is reflected in the iconography and the artistic
expression of the ceiling. Architectural
scheme Real The
Sistine Chapel is 40.5 metres long and 14 metres wide. The ceiling rises
to 20 metres above the main floor of the chapel. The vault is of quite
a complex nature and it is unlikely that it was originally intended
to have such complex decoration. Pier Matteo d'Amelia provided a plan
for its decoration with the architectural elements picked out and the
ceiling painted blue and dotted with gold stars, similar to that of
the Arena Chapel decorated by Giotto at Padua. The chapel walls have three horizontal tiers with six windows in the upper tier down each side. There were also two windows at each end, but these have been closed up above the altar when Michelangelo's Last Judgement was painted. Between the windows are large pendentives which support the vault. Between
the pendentives are triangularly shaped arches or spandrels cut into
the vault above each window. Above the height of the pendentives, the
ceiling slopes gently without much deviation from the horizontal. This
is the real architecture. Michelangelo has elaborated it with illusionary
or fictive architecture. Illusionary The first element in the scheme of painted architecture is the defining of the real architectural elements by painted decorative courses that look like stone moldings. The decorative courses have two repeating motifs, a formula common to such decorations in Classical Roman buildings. In this case one motif is the acorn, the symbol of the Pope's family, the Rovere. The
other motif is the scallop shell, one of the symbols of the Blessed
Virgin Mary to whom the chapel is dedicated. The
ten painted cross-ribs divide the ceiling into alternately wide and
narrow pictorial spaces. Above the level of the spandrels, where the
ceiling flattens, is painted a strongly-projecting cornice that runs
right around the ceiling, enclosing the main pictorial areas. These
fictive architectural elements form a grid in which all the figures
have defined spaces. Integrated
with the painted architecture are a great number of small figures the
purpose of which appears to be purely decorative. These include two
seemingly-marble putti below the cornice on each rib, stone rams-heads
above the spandrels, figures like animated book-ends hiding in the shadows
of the ribs and little putti, both clothed and unclothed who strike
a variey of poses as they support the name-plates of the prophets and
sybils. Above
the cornice and to either side of the smaller scenes are an array of
round shields. They are in part supported by twenty more figures, not
part of the architecture, but sitting on inlaid plinths, their feet
planted convincingly on the fictive cornice. They are the so-called
ignudi. Pictorial
scheme Nine
scenes from the Book of Genesis Along
the central section of the ceiling, Michelangelo depicted nine scenes
from the Book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible. The pictures
fall into three groups of three. The
second group shows God creating the first man and woman, Adam and Eve,
and their disobedience of God and consequent expulsion from the Garden
of Eden where they have lived and where they walked with God. The third
group of three pictures shows the plight of Humanity, and in particular
the family of Noah. The
pictures are not in strictly chronological order. If they are perceived
as three groups, then the pictures in each of the three units inform
upon each other, in the same way as was usual in Medieval paintings
and stained glass. The
Separation of Light and Darkness Creation The three Creation pictures show scenes from the first chapter of Genesis, which relates that God created the Earth and all that is in it in six days, resting on the seventh day. In the first scene, the First Day of Creation, God creates light and separates light from darkness. Chronologically, the next scene takes place in the third panel, in which, on the Second Day, God divides the waters from the heavens. In
the central panel, the largest of the three, there are two representations
of God. On the Third Day, God creates the Earth and makes it sprout
plants. On the Fourth Day, God puts the Sun and the Moon in place to
govern the night and the day, the time and the seasons of the year.
On the Fifth Day, God created the birds of the air and fish and creatures
of the deep, but we are not shown this. Neither do we see God's creation
of the creatures of the earth on the Sixth Day. These
three scenes, completed in the third stage of painting, are the most
broadly conceived, the most broadly painted and the most dynamic of
all the pictures. Of the first scene Vasari says "...Michelangelo
depicted God dividing Light from Darkness, showing him in all his majesty
as he rests self-sustained with arms outstretched, in a revelation of
love and creative power." Adam
and Eve For the central section of the ceiling, Michelangelo has taken four episodes from the story of Adam and Eve as told in the first, second and third chapters of Genesis. In this sequence of three, two of the panels are large and one small. In the
first of the pictures, and one of the most widely recognised images
in the history of painting, Michelangelo shows God reaching out to touch
Adam, who, in the words of Vasari, is "a figure whose beauty, pose
and contours are such that it seems to have been fashioned that very
moment by the first and supreme creator rather than by the drawing and
brush of a mortal man." The
central scene, of God creating Eve from the side of the sleeping Adam
has been taken in its composition directly from another Creation sequence
familiar to Michelangelo from his youth, the relief panels by Jacopo
della Quercia that surround the door of the Basilica of San Petronio,
Bologna. In the
final panel of this sequence Michelangelo shows two contrasting scenes,
that of Adam and Eve taking fruit from the forbidden tree, Eve trustingly
taking it from the hand of the Serpent and Adam eagerly picking it for
himself; and their banishment from the Garden of Eden, where they have
lived in the company of God, to the world outside where they have to
fend for themselves and experience death. Story
of Noah As with the first sequence of pictures, the three panels concerning Noah, taken from the sixth to ninth chapters of Genesis are thematic rather than chronological. In the first scene is shown the sacrifice of a sheep. There are two significant sacrifices written of in Genesis, and Vasari, in writing about this scene mistakes it for the sacrifices by Cain and Abel, in which Abel's sacrifice was acceptable to God and Cain's was not. What this image almost certainly depicts is the sacrifice made by the family of Noah, after their safe deliverance from the Great Flood which destroyed the rest of Humankind. However,
blood sacrifice was instigated at the sacrifice of Abel. Christ was
called the "Lamb of God" with reference to his sacrificial
death. So this episode has far greater doctrinal significance than a
family thanksgiving. The
central, larger, scene shows the Great Flood. The Ark in which Noah's
family escaped floats at the rear of the picture while the rest of humanity
tries frantically to scramble to some point of safety. This picture,
which has a large number of figures, conforms the most closely to the
format of the paintings that had been done around the walls. The
final scene of Humankind's degredation is the story of Noah's drunkenness.
After the Flood, Noah tills the soil and grows vines. He is shown doing
so, in the background of the picture. He becomes drunk and inadvertently
exposes himself. His youngest son, Ham, brings his two brothers Shem
and Japheth to see the sight but they discreetly cover their father
with a cloak. Ham is later cursed by Noah and told that he will serve
his brothers forever. Taken
together, these three pictures of death, destruction and degredation
serve to show that Humankind, represented by Noah's family, had moved
a long way from God's perfect creation. Shields Adjacent to the smaller Biblical scenes and supported by the ignudi are ten circular pageant shields, painted to resemble bronze or leather and with their details picked out in gold leaf. Each is decorated with a picture drawn from the Old Testament or the Book of Maccabees. The
subject in almost every case is one of the more gruesome or shameful
of Biblical episodes, the only exception being that of Elijah being
swept up to Heaven in a Chariot of Fire, leaving Elisha in a state of
despair. In four of the five most highly finished medallions the space
is crowded with figures in violent action, similar to Michelangelo's
cartoon for the Battle of Cascina. The technique that Michelangelo has employed is unusual in fresco, and may be original in its employment on this scale, but is not unique. He has utilised the same technique that was employed for decorating shields used in pageants and is similar to that used when drawing in metal point and white chalk on a coloured ground. The ground colour (in this case red ochre streaked with black) makes the background and all the mid tones in the composition. The shadowed edges are then painted or rather, drawn with a brush and the shadows drawn in a highly linear manner that defines the contours of the forms. On coloured
paper, the highlights and brightly lit contours would usually be drawn
with white chalk or finely painted in white paint. But in this case,
gold leaf entirely replaces the white and has been applied exactly as
if it had been drawn on, using the same method of defining contour as
the black lines. This application of gold serves to link the ceiling frescoes to some extent with those around the walls. In the latter, gold leaf has been applied lavishly to many details and in some of the frescoes, notable those by Perugino, has been most expertly used not just to detail the robes but to highlight the folds by subtle graduation in the density of golden flecks. It is
this technique that Michelangelo has picked up on and carried a step
further, inspired also perhaps by the medallions that appear on a Roman
triumphal arch in Botticelli's episode from the Life of Moses, showing
the punishment of the Sons of Corah. The
medalions represent:- Abraham
about to sacrifice his son Isaac On the five pendentives along each side and the two at either, Michelangelo painted the largest figures on the ceiling: twelve people who prophesied or represented some aspect of the Coming of Christ. Of those twelve, seven were Prophets of Israel and were male. The remaining five were prophets of the Classical World, called Sibyls and were female. The
prophet Jonah is placed above the altar and Zechariah at the further
end. The other male and female figures alternate down each side, each
being identified by an inscription on a painted marble panel supported
by a putto. Jonah
(IONAS) - above the altar Prophets The
seven prophets of Israel chosen for depiction on the ceiling include
the four so-called Major Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel.
Of the remaining twelve possibilities among the Minor Prophets, the
three represented are Joel, Zechariah and Jonah. Although the prophets Joel and Zechariah are considered "minor" because of the comparatively small number of pages that their prophecy occupies in the Bible, each one produced prophesies of profound significance. They
are often quoted, Joel for his "Your sons and your daughters shall
prophesy, your elderly shall dream dreams and your youth shall see visions".
These words are significant for Michelangelo's decorative scheme, where
women take their place among men and the youthful Daniel sits across
from the brooding Jeremiah with his long white beard. Zechariah prophesied "Behold! Your King comes to you, humble and riding on a donkey". His place in the chapel is directly above the door through which the Pope is carried in procession on Palm Sunday, the day on which Jesus fulfilled the prophecy by riding into Jerusalem on a donkey and being proclaimed King. Jonah's main prophesy concerned the downfall of the city of Nineveh. This alone does not seem to warrant him a place above the High Altar. But there is another factor involved. It is the person of Jonah himself that is of symbolic and prophetic significance, a significance which was commonly understood and had been represented in countless works of art including manuscripts and stained glass windows. Jonah, through his reluctance to obey God, was swallowed by a "mighty fish". He spent three days in its belly and was eventually spewed up on dry land where he went about God's business. Because of this, Jonah was seen as a forerunner of Jesus, who having died by crucifixion, spent a time which spanned part of three days in a tomb, and was resurrected on the third day. So,
on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Jonah, with the "great fish"
beside him and his eyes turned towards God the Creator, represents a
"portent" of the Resurrection of Christ. In Vasari's
description of the prophets and sibyls he is particularly high in his
praise of the portrayal of Isaiah: "Anyone who studies this figure,
copied so faithfully from nature, the true mother of the art of painting,
will find a beautifully composed work capable of teaching in full measure
all the precepts to be followed by a good painter." Sibyls The
sibyls were prophetic women who were resident at shrines or temples
throughout the Classical World. The five depicted here are each said
to have prophesied the birth of Christ. The Cumaean Sibyl, for example,
is quoted by Virgil as declaring that "a new progeny of Heaven"
would bring about a return of the "Golden Age". This was interpreted
as referring to Jesus. In Christian doctrine, Christ came not just to the Jews but also to the Gentiles. It was understood that, prior to the Birth of Christ, God prepared the world for his coming. To this purpose, God used Jews and Gentiles alike. Jesus would not have been born in Bethlehem (where it had been prophesied that his birth would take place), except for the fact that the pagan Roman Emperor Augustus decreed that there should be a census. Likewise,
when Jesus was born, the announcement of his birth was made to rich
and to poor, to mighty and to humble, to Jew and to Gentile. The wise
men or so-called "Magi" who sought out the infant King with
precious gifts were pagan foreigners. It is
not known why Michelangelo selected the five particular sibyls that
were depicted, given that, as with the Minor Prophets, there were ten
or twelve possibilities. It is suggested by John O'Malley that the choice
was made for a wide geographic coverage, with the sibyls coming from
Africa, Asia, Greece and Ionia. Vasari
says of the Erythraean sibyl "Many aspects of this figure are of
exceptional loveliness: the expression of her face, her headdress and
the arrangement of her draperies: and her arms, which are bared, are
as beautiful as the rest." Pendentives In each
corner of the chapel is a triangular pendentive filling the space between
the walls and the arch of the vault and forming the spandrel above the
windows nearest the corners. On these curving shapes Michelangelo has
painted four scenes from Biblical stories that are associated with the
salvation of the Jewish people. The
Brazen Serpent The
first two stories were both seen in Medieval and Renaissance theology
as prefiguring the Crucifixion of Jesus. In the story of the Brazen
Serpent, the people of Israel become dissatisfied and grumble at God.
As punishment they receive a plague of poisonous snakes. God offers
the people relief by instructing Moses to make a snake of brass, set
up on a pole, the sight of which gives miraculous healing. In the book of Esther it is related that Haman, a public servant, plots to get Esther's husband, the King of Persia, to slay all the Jewish people in his land. The King, who is going over his books during a sleepless night, realises something is amiss. Esther, discovering the plot, denounces Haman and her husband orders his execution on a scaffold he has built. The
King's Eunuchs promptly carry this out. In
this image, the shepherd boy, David, has brought down the towering Goliath
with his sling, but the giant is alive and is trying to rise as David
forces his head down to chop it off. The depiction of Judith and Holofernes
has an equally gruesome detail. As Judith loads the enemy's head onto
a basket carried by her maid and covers it with a cloth, she is distracted
by the limbs of the decapitated body threshing around. There are obvious connections in the design of the Slaying of Holofernes and the Slaying of Haman at the opposite end of the chapel. Although in the Holofernes picture the figures are smaller and the space less filled, both have the triangular space divided into two zones by a vertical wall, allowing us to see what is happening on both sides of it. There
are actually three scenes in the Haman picture because as well as seeing
Haman punished, we see him at the table with Esther and the King and
get a view of the King on his bed. The servants who have done the ghastly
deed are on the steps, making a link between the scenes. While the Slaying of Goliath is a relatively simple composition with the two protagonists centrally placed, the only other figures being dimly-seen observers, the Brazen Serpent picture is crowded with figures and separate incidents as the various individuals who have been attacked by snakes struggle and die or turn towards the icon that will save them. This
is the most Mannerist of Michelangelo's earlier compositions at the
Sistine Chapel, picking up the theme of human distress begun in the
Great Flood scene and carrying it forward into the torment of lost souls
in the Last Judgement which was later to be painted below. Ancestors
of Christ Between the large pendentives that support the vault are windows, six on each side of the chapel. There were two more windows in each end of the chapel, now closed, and those above the High Altar covered by the Last Judgement. Above each window is an arched shaped, referred to as a lunette and above eight of the lunettes at the sides of the chapel are triangular spandrels filling the spaces between the side pendentives and the vault, the other eight lunettes each being below one of the corner pendentives. Michelangelo was commissioned to paint these areas, as part of the work on the ceiling. The
structures form visual bridges between the walls and the ceiling, and
the figures that are painted on them are midway in size (approximately
2 metres high) between the very large prophets and the much smaller
figures of Popes which had been painted to either side of each window
in the 15th century. The subject of the pictures is the Genealogy of
Christ. Centrally
placed above each window is a painted marble tablet with a decorative
frame. On each is painted the names of the male line by which Jesus,
through his Earthly father, Joseph, is descended from Abraham, according
to the Gospel of Matthew. Moreover,
the progression moves from one side of the building to the other, but
not consistently. On either side of each plaque and occupying the greater
part of each lunette, are figures. In each case they seem to comprise
some sort of a family, but it is extremely difficult to determine who
the painted characters represent, as they do not coincide closely with
the listed names. There are babies in most of the pictures suggesting
a parental relationship between the males and females depicted, but
not in every case. There
is also an indeterminate relationship between the figures in the spandrels,
which are predominantly women with babies, and the lunettes beneath
them. Because of the constraints of the triangular shape in each picture
the figures are seated on the ground. In six of the eight spandrels
the compositions resemble traditional depictions of the Flight into
Egypt. Of the
two remaining, one shows a woman with shears trimming the neck of a
garment she is making while her toddler looks on. The Biblical woman
who is recorded as making a new garmet for her child is Hannah, the
mother of Samuel, whose child went to live in the temple, and indeed,
the male figure behind is wearing a distinctive hat that might suggest
that of a priest. But the actual identity is unknown, and is possibly
associated with the family on the lunette. The other figure who differs from the rest is a young woman who sits staring out of the picture with prophetic intensity. It may be that she represents the Blessed Virgin Mary. Her position is directly above the tablet on which are engraved the name of Jesse of whom it was prophesied "There shall come forth a rod out of the stump of Jesse and a branch shall grow out of his roots". Jesse
is in fact the key to understanding the tradition behind these paintings.
While the depiction of the Ancestors of Christ in fresco are rare, the
subject was a common one in stained glass. It is often shown as a Jesse
Tree with Jesse lying prone and a tree growing from his side with the
ancestors on each branch. Treatment The figures in the lunettes appear to be families, but in every case they are families that are divided. The figures in them are physically divided by a name plate but they are also divided by a range of human emotions that turn them outward or in on themselves and sometimes towards their partner with jealousy, suspicion, rage. In them Michelangelo has portrayed the anger and unhappiness of the human condition. Michelangelo
uses these families to indicate to the viewer the problems that are
inherent to humanity's nature and shows clearly the reason why Humankind
was in need of the saviour, Christ Jesus. In their constraining niches,
the ancestors "sit and squat and wait". Of the fourteen remaining lunettes, the two that were probably painted first, the families of Eleazar and Mathan and of Jacob and Joseph are the most detailed. They become progressively broader towards the altar end, one of the last being painted in only two days. The Eleazar and Mathan picture has two figures with a wealth of costume detail that is not present in any other scene. The
female to the left has had as much care taken with her clothing as any
of the sibyls. Her skirt is turned back showing her linen petticoat
and the garter that holds up her mauve stockings and cuts into the flesh.
She has a reticule and her dress is laced up under the arms. On the
other side of the tablet sits the only male figure among those on the
lunettes who is intrinsically beautiful. This blonde young man, elegantly
dressed in white shirt and pale green hose, with no jerkin but a red
cloak, postures with an insipid and vain gesture, in contrast to the
ignudi which he closely resembles. Prior
to restoration, of all the paintings in the Sistine Chapel, the lunettes
and spandrels were the dirtiest. Added to this, there has always been
a problem of poor daytime visibility of the panels nearest the windows
because of halination. Consequently, they were the least well known
of all Michelangelo's publicly accessible works. The recent restoration
has made these masterly studies of human nature and inventive depiction
of the human form known once more. Ignudi The
Ignudi are the 20 athletic, nude males that Michelangelo painted as
supporting figures at the four corners of the five smaller narrative
scenes of central part of the ceiling. The figures hold or are draped
with or lean on a variety of things which include pink ribbons, green
bolsters and enormous garlands of acorns. The acorns are the symbol
of the family of Michelangelo's patron, Pope Julius, and can also be
seen as the finials on his chair in Raphael's portrait. The Ignudi, although all seated, are less physically constrained than the Ancestors of Christ. While the pairs of the monochrome male and female figures above the spandrels are mirrors of each other, these ignudi are all different. In the earliest paintings, they are paired, their poses being similar but with variation. These
variations become greater with each pair until the postures of final
four bear no relation to each other whatsoever. Their painting demonstrates,
more than any other figures on the ceiling, Michelangelo's mastery of
anatomy and foreshortening and his enormous powers of invention. The meaning of these figures has never been clear. They are certainly in keeping with the Humanist acceptance of the classical Greek view that the man is the measure of all things. Their presence and nudity angered a number of critics, including Pope Hadrian VI who described the ceiling as "a stew of naked bodies" and wanted it stripped. But Michelangelo knew the Bible well. He would have been well aware of the fact that although seraphim and cherubim are described as being winged creatures, angels are not. They are described as looking like men. When Michelangelo later painted the altar wall of the chapel, he included a great number of angels, particularly in the lunettes which are decorated with scenes of angels carrying the symbols of the Passion. Other
angels are employed sounding the trumpets which call forth the dead,
displaying books in which the names of the saved and the damned are
written and casting sinners down to Hell. In all, the Last Judgement
contains more than forty angels, all closely resembling the ignudi. It is reasonable to conclude that the ignudi represent angels, rather than "Human perfection", since the message of the ceiling is, overwhelmingly, one of human misery and degredation. It is about Humankind's need for a covenant with God. The old covenant of the Children of Israel through Moses and the new covenant through Christ Jesus had already been represented around the walls of the chapel. If the
ignudi are indeed angels, they are the ever-present attendants and messengers
of God, impassively watching and waiting on the fate of Humankind. Artistic
legacy The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel was to have a profound effect upon other artists, even before it was completed. Vasari, in his Life of Raphael, tells us that Bramante, who had the keys to the chapel, let Raphael in to examine the paintings in Michelangelo's absence. On seeing Michelangelo's prophets, Raphael went back to the picture of the Prophet Isaiah that he was painting on a column in the Church of Sant'Agostino and, according to Vasari, although it was finished, he scraped it off the wall and repainted it in a much more powerful manner, in imitation of Michelangelo. There
was hardly a design element on the ceiling that was not subsequently
imitated: the fictive architecture, the muscular anatomy, the foreshortening,
the dynamic motion, the luminous colouration, the haunting expressions
of the figures in the lunettes, the abundance of putti. Gabriele
Bartz and Eberhard König have said of the ignudi "There is
no image that has had a more lasting effect on following generations
than this. Henceforth similar figures disported themselves in innumerable
decorative works, be they painted, formed in stucco or even sculpted."
Within
Michelangelo's own work, the chapel ceiling led to the later and more
Mannerist painting of the Last Judgement in which the crowded compositions
gave full rein to his inventiveness in painting contorted and foreshortened
figures expressing despair or jubilation. Among the artists in whose
work can be seen the direct influence of Michelangelo are Pontormo,
Andrea del Sarto, Correggio, Tintoretto, Annibale Carracci, Paolo Veronese
and El Greco. In January
2007, it was claimed that as many as 10,000 visitors passed through
the Vatican Museums in a day and that the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
is the biggest attraction. The Vatican, anxious at the possibility that
the newly-restored frescoes will suffer damage, announced plans to reduce
visiting hours and raise the price in an attempt to discourage visitors. Five
hundred years earlier Vasari had said "The whole world came running
when the vault was revealed, and the sight of it was enough to reduce
them to stunned silence." Quotations:
Vasari The
work has proved a veritable beacon to our art, of inestimable benefit
to all painters, restoring light to a world that for centuries had been
plunged into darkness. Indeed, painters no longer need to seek for new
inventions, novel attitudes, clothed figures, fresh ways of expression,
different arrangements, or sublime subjects, for this work contains
every perfection possible under those headings. The
art critic and television producer Waldemar Januszczak wrote that when
the Sistine Chapel ceiling was recently cleaned, he "was able to
persuade the man at the Vatican who was in charge of Japanese TV access
to let me climb the scaffold while the cleaning was in progress. "I sneaked up there a few times. And under the bright, unforgiving lights of television, I was able to encounter the real Michelangelo. I was so close to him I could see the bristles from his brushes caught in the paint; and the mucky thumbprints hed left along his margins. The first thing that impressed me was his speed. Michelangelo worked at Schumacher pace. Adams
famous little penis was captured with a single brushstroke: a flick
of the wrist, and the first man had his manhood. I also enjoyed his
sense of humour, which, from close up, turned out to be refreshingly
puerile. If you look closely at the angels who attend the scary prophetess
on the Sistine ceiling known as the Cumaean Sibyl, you will see that
one of them has stuck his thumb between his fingers in that mysteriously
obscene gesture that visiting fans are still treated to today at Italian
football matches." "In
a world where all experience was based in the glorious lost past of
Antiquity, he made a new beginning. Michelangelo, more even than Raphael
or Leonardo, embodies a standard of artistic genius which reveals a
radically changed image of human beings and their potential..." It seems that Michelangelo, in his own way, allowed himself to be guided by the evocative words of the Book of Genesis which, as regards the creation of the human being, male and female, reveals: "The man and his wife were both naked, yet they felt no shame". The
Sistine Chapel is precisely - if one may say so - the sanctuary of the
theology of the human body. In witnessing to the beauty of man created
by God as male and female, it also expresses in a certain way, the hope
of a world transfigured, the world inaugurated by the Risen Christ
"Whatever
beauty here on earth is seen, |
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| Sandro Botticelli | |
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Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, better known as Sandro Botticelli ("little barrels"; March 1, 1444/45 May 17, 1510) was an Italian painter of the Florentine school during the Early Renaissance (Quattrocento). Less than a hundred years later, this movement, under the patronage of Lorenzo de' Medici, was characterized by Giorgio Vasari as a "golden age", a thought, suitably enough, he expressed at the head of his Vita of Botticelli. His
posthumous reputation suffered until the late 19th century; since then
his work has been seen to represent the linear grace of Early Renaissance
painting, and The Birth of Venus and Primavera rank now among the most
familiar masterpieces of Florentine art. Biography |
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Youth Details of Botticelli's life are sparse, but we know that he did not become an apprentice until he was about fourteen years old, which would indicate that he received a fuller education than did other Renaissance artists. Vasari reported that he was initially trained as a goldsmith by his brother Antonio. He then was apprenticed to Fra Filippo Lippi; many of his early works have been attributed to the elder master, and attributions continue to be uncertain. Influenced also by the monumentality of Masaccio's painting, it was from Lippi that Botticelli learned a more intimate and detailed manner. During
this time, Botticelli could have traveled to Hungary, participating
in the creation of the recently discovered fresco ordered in the workshop
of Fra Filippo Lippi by János Vitéz, a Hungarian bishop. Masterworks The masterworks Primavera (c. 1478) and The Birth of Venus (c. 1485) were both seen by Vasari at the villa of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici at Castello in the mid-16th century, and until recently it was assumed that both works were painted specifically for the villa. Recent scholarship suggests otherwise: the Primavera was painted for Lorenzo's townhouse in Florence, and The Birth of Venus was commissioned by someone else for a different site. By 1499
both had been installed at Castello. The
complex meanings of these paintings continue to receive scholarly attention,
mainly focusing on the poetry and philosophy of humanists who were the
artist's contemporaries. The works do not illustrate particular texts;
rather, each relies upon several texts for its significance. Of their
beauty, characterized by Vasari as exemplifying "grace", and
by John Ruskin as possessing linear rhythm, there can be no doubt. Maturity
and later life The
Adoration of the Magi for Santa Maria Novella (c. 1475-1476, now at
the Uffizi) contains the portraits of Cosimo de' Medici ("the finest
of all that are now extant for its life and vigour"), his grandson
Giuliano de' Medici, and Cosimo's son Giovanni. The quality of the scene
was hailed by Vasari as one of Botticelli's pinnacles. In 1481, Pope Sixtus IV summoned Botticelli and other prominent Florentine and Umbrian artists to fresco the walls of the Sistine Chapel. The iconological program was the supremacy of the Papacy. Sandro's contribution was moderately successful. He returned to Florence, and "being of a sophistical turn of mind, he there wrote a commentary on a portion of Dante and illustrated the Inferno which he printed, spending much time over it, and this abstension from work led to serious disorders in his living." Thus
Vasari characterized the first printed Dante (1481) with Botticelli's
decorations; he could not imagine that the new art of printing might
occupy an artist. In 1491
Botticelli served on a committee to decide upon a facade for the Florence
Duomo. In 1502 he was accused of sodomy, charges which were later dropped.
In 1504 he was a member of the committee appointed to decide where Michelangelo's
David would be placed. His later work, especially as seen in a series
on the life of St. Zenobius, witnessed a diminution of scale, expressively
distorted figures, and a non-naturalistic use of color reminiscent of
the work of Fra Angelico nearly a century earlier. Religion In later life, Botticelli was one of Savonarola's followers, and burnt his own paintings on pagan themes in the notorious "Bonfire of the Vanities". Botticelli biographer Ernst Steinman searched for the artist's psychological development through his Madonnas. In the deepening of insight and expression in the rendering of Mary's physiognomy, Steinman discerns proof of Savonarola's influence over Botticelli. This
means that the biographer needed to alter the dates of a number of Madonnas
to substantiate his theory; specifically, they are dated ten years later
than before. Steinman disagrees with Vasari's assertion that Botticelli
produced nothing after coming under the influence of Girolamo Savonarola.
Steinman believes the spiritual and emotional Virgins rendered by Sandro
follow directly from the teachings of the Dominican monk. Earlier, Botticelli had painted an Assumption of the Virgin for Matteo Palmieri in a chapel at San Pietro Maggiore in which, it was rumored, both the patron who dictated the iconic scheme and the painter who painted it, were guilty of unidentified heresy, a delicate requirement in such a subject. The
heretical notions seem to be gnostic in character: He executed
this work with the greatest mastery and diligence, introducing the portraits
of Matteo and his wife on their knees. But although the great beauty
of this work could find no other fault with it, said that Matteo and
Sandro were guilty of grave heresy. Whether this be true or not, I cannot
say. (Giorgio Vasari) This
is a common misconception based on a mistake by Vasari. The painting
referred to here, now in the National Gallery in London, is by the artist
Botticini. Vasari confused their similar sounding names. Recent
discovery Recently,
one of four female figures on a fresco in the ruins of the Archbishop's
workshop in the castle of Esztergom, Hungary, was recognized as possibly
the first independent creation by Botticelli. The figures representing
four cardinal virtues were ordered from the workshop of Fra Filippo
Lippi by Johannes Vaillant of Zredna, then Archbishop of Hungary. The
figure attributed to Botticelli - the temperance - has many traits of
his later works. Anthology
of works Madonna
and Child with an Angel (1465-1467) -Tempera on panel, 87 x 60 cm, Spedale
degli Innocenti, Florence Madonna
and Child with an Angel (1465-67) - Tempera on panel, 110 x 70 cm, Musée
Fesch, Ajaccio Madonna
della Loggia (c. 1467) - Tempera on panel, 72 x 50 cm, Uffizi, Florence
The
Virgin and Child with Two Angels and the Young St. John the Baptist
(1465-1470) - Tempera on panel, 85 x 62 cm, Galleria dell Accademia,
Florence The
Annunciation (c. 1479) - Tempera on panel, 19 x 30 cm. Hyde Collection,
Glens Falls The
Virgin and Child, St. John and an Angel (c. 1488) - Warsaw National
Museum, Poland Portrait
of a Young Man (c. 1469) - Tempera on panel, 51 x 33,7 cm, Palazzo Pitti,
Florence Madonna
in Glory with Seraphim (1469-1470) - Tempera on panel, 120 x 65 cm,
Uffizi, Florence Madonna
of the Rosegarden (Madonna del Roseto) (1469-1470) - Tempera on panel,
124 x 65 cm, Uffizi, Florence Madonna
and Child and Two Angels (c. 1468-1470) - Tempera on panel, 100 x 71
cm, Galleria Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples Portrait
of Esmeralda Brandini (1470-1475) - Tempera on panel, 65,7 x 41 cm,
Victoria and Albert Museum, London Fortitude
(c. 1470) - Tempera on panel, 167 x 87 cm, Uffizi, Florence Madonna
and Child with Six Saints (Sant'Ambrogio Altarpiece) (c. 1470) - Tempera
on panel, 170 x 194 cm, Uffizi, Florence Madonna
and Child with an Angel (c. 1470) - Tempera on wood, 84 x 65 cm, Isabella
Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston The
Return of Judith to Bethulia (1470- 1472) - Oil on panel, 31 x 24 cm,
Uffizi, Florence The
Discovery of the Murder of Holofernes (1470-1472) - Tempera on wood,
31 x 25 cm, Uffizi, Florence Adoration
of the Magi (1465-1467) -Tempera on panel, diameter 131,5 cm, National
Gallery, London Portrait
of a Young Woman (c. 1475) - Tempera on panel, 61 x 40 cm, Palazzo Pitti,
Florence Adoration
of the Magi (1465-1467) -Tempera on panel, 111 x 134 cm, Uffizi, Florence
St.
Sebastian (1474) - Tempera on panel, 195 x 175 cm, Gemäldegalerie,
Berlin Portrait
of a Man with a Medal of Cosimo the Elder (c. 1474-1475) - Tempera on
panel, 57,5 x 44 cm, Uffizi, Florence Portrait
of Giuliano de' Medici (c. 1475) - Tempera on panel, 54 x 36 cm, Accademia
Carrara, Bergamo Madonna
and Child (c. 1475) - Tempera on panel, Art Institute, Chicago Catherine
of Alexandria, portrait of Caterina Sforza (c. 1475) - Lindenau-Museum,
Altenburg Portrait
of Giuliano de' Medici (1476-1477) - Tempera on panel, 75,6 x 36 cm,
National Gallery of Art, Washington The
Birth of Christ, (1476-1477) - Fresco, 200 x 300 cm, Santa Maria Novella,
Florence Madonna
and Child with Eight Angels (c. 1478) - Tempera on panel, diameter 135
cm, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin St.
Augustine (1480) - Fresco, 152 x 112 cm, church of Ognissanti, Florence
Madonna
of the Magnificat (Madonna del Magnificat) (1480-1483) - Tempera on
panel, diameter 118 cm, Uffizi, Florence Madonna
of the Book (Madonna del Libro) (c. 1480-1483) - Tempera on panel, 58
x 39,5 cm, Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan Portrait
of a Young Woman (1480-85) - Tempera on wood, 82 x 54 cm, Stadelsches
Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt Portrait
of a Young Woman (after 1480) - Oil on panel, 47,5 x 35 cm, Gemäldegalerie,
Berlin Annunciation
(1481) - Fresco, 243 x 550 cm, Uffizi, Florence St.
Sixtus II (1481) - Fresco, 210 x 80 cm, Sistine Chapel, Vatican City
Adoration
of the Magi (1481-1482) - Tempera on panel, 70 x 103 cm, National Gallery
of Art, Washington Pallas
and the Centaur (1482-1483) - Tempera on canvas, 207 x 148 cm, Uffizi,
Florence Venus
and Mars (1483) - Tempera on panel, 69 x 173 cm, National Gallery, London
Portrait
of a Young Man (c. 1483) - Tempera on panel, 37,5 x 28,2 cm, National
Gallery, London Portrait
of a Young Man (c. 1482-1483) - Tempera on panel, 41 x 31 cm, National
Gallery of Art, Washington The
Story of Nastagio degli Onesti (c. 1483) - Tempera on panel, 83 x 138
cm, Museo del Prado, Madrid The
Virgin and Child Enthroned (Bardi Altarpiece) (1484) - Tempera on panel,
185 x 180 cm, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin The
Birth of Venus (1484-1486) - Tempera on canvas, 184,5 x 285,5 cm, Uffizi,
Florence Annunciation
(1485) - Tempera and gold on wood, 19,1 x 31,4 cm, Metropolitan Museum
of Art, New York Madonna
of the Pomegranate (Madonna della Melagrana) (c. 1487) - Tempera on
panel, diameter 143,5 cm, Uffizi, Florence The
Virgin and Child with Four Angels and Six Saints (Pala di San Barnaba)
(c. 1487-1488) - Tempera on panel, 268 x 280 cm, Uffizi, Florence Vision
of St. Augustine (c. 1488) - Tempera on panel, 20 x 38 cm, Uffizi, Florence
Christ
in the Sepulcre (c. 1488) - Tempera on panel, 21 x 41 cm, Uffizi, Florence
Salome
with the Head of St. John the Baptist (c. 1488) - Tempera on panel,
21 x 40,5 cm, Uffizi, Florence Extraction
of St. Ignatius' Heart (c. 1488) - Tempera on panel, 21 x 40,5 cm, Uffizi,
Florence Cestello
Annunciation (1489-1490) - Tempera on panel, 150 x 156 cm, Uffizi, Florence
The
Virgin Adoring the Child (c. 1490) - Tempera on panel, diameter 59,6
cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington Lamentation
over the Dead Christ (c. 1490) - Tempera on panel, 140 x 207 cm, Alte
Pinakothek, Munich Portrait
of a Man (c. 1490) - Tempera on canvas transferred from wood, 49 x 35
cm, Private collection San
Marco Altarpiece (1490-1492) - Tempera on panel, 378 x 258 cm (pala)
and 21 x 269 cm (entire predella) Uffizi, Florence St.
Augustine in His Cell (1490-1494) - Tempera on panel, 41 x 27 cm cm,
Uffizi, Florence Madonna
and Child and the Young St John the Baptist (1490-1495) - Tempera on
canvas, 134 x 92 cm, Galleria Palatina (Palazzo Pitti), Florence Portrait
of Lorenzo di Ser Piero Lorenzi (1490-1495) - Tempera on panel, 50 x
36,5 cm, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia The
Virgin and Child with the Infant St. John the Baptist (1490-1500) -
Tempera on wood, diameter 74 cm, São Paulo Art Museum, São
Paulo, Brazil Holy
Trinity (Pala delle Convertite) (1491-1493) - Tempera on panel, 215
x192 cm, Courtauld Institute Galleries, London The
Virgin and Child with Three Angels (Madonna del Padiglione) (c. 1493)
- Tempera on panel, diameter 65 cm, Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan Calumny
of Apelles (1494-1495) - Tempera on panel, 62 x 91 cm, Uffizi, Florence
Lamentation
over the Dead Christ with Saints (c. 1495) - Tempera on panel, 107 x
71 cm, Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan Last
Communion of St. Jerome (c. 1495) - Tempera on panel, 34,5 x 25,4 cm,
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Portrait
of Dante (c. 1495) - Tempera on canvas, 54,7 x 47,5 cm, Private collection
The
Story of Virginia (1496-1504) - Tempera on panel, 85 x 165 cm, Accademia
Carrara, Bergamo The
Story of Lucretia (1496-1504) - Tempera on panel, 83,5 x 180 cm, Isabella
Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston Crucifixion
(c. 1497) - Tempera on canvas, 73,5 x 50,8 cm, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard
University, Cambridge Christ
Crowned with Thorns (c. 1500) - Tempera on panel, 47,6 x 32,3 cm, Accademia
Carrara, Bergamo, Italy Transfiguration,
St Jerome, St Augustine (c. 1500) - Tempera on panel, 27,5 x 35,5 cm,
Galleria Pallavicini, Rome Judith
Leaving the Tent of Holofernes (1495-1500) - Tempera on panel, 36,5
x 20 cm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam Agony
in the Garden (c. 1500) - Tempera on panel, 53 x 35 cm]], Capilla Real,
Granada The
Mystical Nativity (c. 1500) - Tempera on canvas, 108,5 x 75 cm, National
Gallery, London Baptism
of St. Zenobius and His Appointment as Bishop (1500-1505) - Tempera
on panel, 66,5 x 149,5 cm, National Gallery, London Three
Miracles of St. Zenobius (1500-1505) - Tempera on panel, 65 x 139,5
cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Three
Miracles of St. Zenobius (1500-1505) - Tempera on panel, 67 x 150,5
cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Last Miracle and the Death of St. Zenobius (1500-1505) - Tempera on panel, 66 x 182 cm, Gemäldegalerie, Dresden |
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| The Birth of Venus ( Botticelli) | |
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The
Birth of Venus is a painting by Sandro Botticelli. It depicts the goddess
Venus, having emerged from the sea as a full grown woman, arriving at
the sea-shore (Venus Anadyomene motif). The painting is currently in
the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Origins |
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This large picture by Botticelli may have been, like the Primavera, painted for Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici's Villa di Castello, around 1483, or even before. Some scholars suggest that the Venus painted for Lorenzo and mentioned by Giorgio Vasari may have been a different work, now lost. Some experts believe it to be a celebration of the love of Giuliano di Piero de' Medici (who died in the Pazzi conspiracy in 1478) for Simonetta Cattaneo Vespucci, who lived in Portovenere, a town by the sea with a local tradition of being the birthplace of Venus. It must be noted that Botticelli himself also privately loved the beautiful Simonetta, who was de' Medici's mistress. Whatever
inspired the artist, there are clear similarities to Ovid's Metamorphoses
and Fasti, as well as to Poliziano's Verses. Simonetta is also believed
to have been the model for Venus in this painting, as well as for several
other women in other Botticelli works, such as Primavera. The
classical goddess Venus emerges from the water on a shell, blown towards
shore by the Zephyrs, symbols of spiritual passions. She is joined by
one of the Horae, goddesses of the seasons, who hands her a flowered
cloak. The
effect, nonetheless, is distinctly pagan, considering it was made at
a time and place when most artworks depicted Roman Catholic themes.
It is somewhat surprising that this canvas escaped the flames of Savonarola's
bonfires, where a number of Botticelli's other alleged pagan influenced
works perished. Botticelli was very close to Lorenzo de Medici. Because
of their friendship and Lorenzo's power, this work was spared from Savonarola's
fires and the disapproval of the church. The
anatomy of Venus and various subsidiary details do not display the strict
classical realism of Leonardo da Vinci or Raphael. Most obviously, Venus
has an improbably long neck, and her left shoulder slopes at an anatomically
unlikely angle. Such details only enhance the great beauty of the painting,
and some have suggested it prefigures mannerism. Classical
inspiration The painting was one of a series which Botticelli produced, taking as inspiration written descriptions by the 2nd century historian Lucian of masterpieces of Ancient Greece which had long since disappeared. The
ancient painting by Apelles was called Venus Anadyomene, "Anadyomene"
meaning "rising from the sea"; this title was also used for
Botticelli's painting, The Birth of Venus only becoming its better known
title in the 19th century. 'The Birth of Venus' is very similar to Praxiteles'
Aphrodite, a statue. A mural
from Pompeii was never seen by Botticelli, but may have been a Roman
copy of the then famous painting by Apelles which Lucian mentioned. |
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| Venus and Mars (Botticelli) | |
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Venus
and Mars is a painting by the Italian Renaissance master Alessandro Botticelli,
dating from c. 1483. The painting deals with an amorous victory. A grove of myrtle trees, the tree of Venus, forms the backdrop to the two gods who are lying opposite |
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each
other on a meadow. Venus is clothed and is attentively keeping watch
over Mars as he sleeps. The god of war has taken off his armor and is
lying naked on his red cloak; all he is wearing is a white loin cloth. The goddess of love, who is clothed in a costly gown, is watching over the sleeping naked Mars, while little satyrs are playing mischievously with the weapons and armor of the god of war. Botticelli's theme is that the power of love can defeat the warrior's strength. The boisterous little fauns that form part of the retinue of Bacchus, the god of wine, are depicted by Botticelli, in accordance with ancient tradition, with little goats' legs, horns and tails. The
Triton's shell with which one of the fauns is blowing into Mars' ear
was used in classical times as a hunting horn. As
paintings did not survive, they used relief sculptures and Ecphrasis,
detailed textual descriptions of lost paintings made by classical authors.
Relief sculptures tended towards dense figurative compositions in which
the characters were all placed in the foreground picture plane, as with
the composition of Venus and Mars. The mischievous little satyrs playing practical jokes nearby were probably suggested by an ecphrasis written by the Greek poet Lucian describing the famous classical painting Wedding of Alexander the Great to the Persian princess Roxane. In the passage, Lucian describes how "two are carrying his spear, as porters do a heavy beam ... another has got into the breast plate, which lies hollow part upwards; he is in ambush". Botticelli replaced the amoretti which Lucian describes playing with Alexander's weapons with little satyrs. His painting is one of the earliest examples in Renaissance painting to depict these boisterous and lusty hybrids in this form. They are playing with the war god's helmet, lance and cuirass. One of them is cheekily blowing into his ear through a sea shell. But he has as little chance of disturbing the sleeping god as the wasps nest to the right of his head. The
wasps may be a reference to the clients who commissioned the painting.
They are part of the coat of arms of the Vespucci family, whose name
derives from vespa, Italian for wasp. The dimensions of the painting
suggest that it formed part of a cassone, a chest with a painted panel
at the back, found in the main bedroom of married couples. In this way it should exemplify the theories of the philosopher Marsilio Ficino, according to whom the exhortations to virtues are more welcomed if expressed through pleasant images. Ficino was the tutor of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de'Medici, cousin of the more famous Lorenzo de' Medici: a major patron of Botticelli, and part of a humanist circle including the Vespucci family. As such, he may well have contributed to the composition and the choice of source material in Botticelli's mythological paintings, including this one. In particular, Ficino had an astrological perspective, within which the goddess Venus was associated with the influence of the planet Venus on an individual's character, standing for the qualities of love and humanitas in Renaissnce humanism. I his Commentary on the Symposium: De Amore of Plato, Ficino describes how "Mars stands foremost in strength for he makes men stronger. Yet
Venus masters him ... in conjunction with him, in opposition to him
... often restrains his malignance ... Wherefore she seems to tame and
placate Mars. But Mars never masters Venus." If this passage echoes
views of Ficino's that influenced the composition of Botticelli's Venus
and Mars, it would explain why the character of Venus is depicted as
alert and watchfull, whilst that of Mars is in deep slumber, a feature
not found in the sarcophagus relief sculpture that may have served as
a model for the composition. An alternative source for the image is the Stanze of Poliziano. Stanze 122 describes how the hero found Venus "seated on the edge of her couch, just then released from the embrace of Mars, who lay on his back in her lap, still feeding his eyes on her face". Poliziano was in one of the humanist scholars in the court of Lorenzo de' Medici, and his stanze are a famous poem alluding to the prowess of Lorenzo's younger brother Giuliano di Piero de' Medici in the jousting tournament Lorenzo had organized to celebrate a treatise with Venice. However, the description, with Mars in Venus' lap, gazing up at her, is a poor fit to the painting. |
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| Madonna and Child with an Angel (Botticelli) | |
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The
Madonna and Child with an Angel is a panting by the Italian Renaissance
painter Sandro Botticelli, c. 1465-1467. It is housed in Spedale degli
Innocenti of Florence. It is possible that this somewhat awkward painting of the Madonna was produced while Botticelli was still working in the workshop of his teacher, Filippo Lippi. The initial inspiration for the painting came from the latter's famous Madonna in the Uffizi. Botticelli
replaced the landscape with an arched architecture which frames the
heads of the mother and child and emphasizes the two main figures as
the centre of the devotional scene. |
| Raphael Sanzio | |
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Raphael
Sanzio or Raffaello (April 6, 1483 April 6, 1520) was an Italian
master painter and architect of the Florentine school in High Renaissance,
celebrated for the perfection and grace of his paintings. He was also
called Raffaello Sanzio, Raffaello Santi, Raffaello da Urbino or Rafael
Sanzio da Urbino. Early
life and work Raphael
was born in Urbino. The surname Sanzio derives from the latinization
of the Italian, Santi, into Santius (also, when signing solely using
his baptismal name, "Raphael"). His father, Giovanni Santi,
was also a painter in the court of Urbino. |
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Raphael was entrusted to his uncle Bartolomeo, a priest. He had already shown talent, according to Giorgio Vasari - he tells that since childhood Raphael had been "a great help to his father". His father's workshop continued and probably together with his stepmother, Raphael evidently played a part in managing it from a very early age. He is described as a "master" in 1501. In Urbino he came into contact with the works of Paolo Uccello and Luca Signorelli. According to Vasari, his father placed him in Umbrian master Pietro Perugino's workshop as an apprentice "despite the tears of his mother"; the subsequent influence of Perugino on Raphael's early work is most obvious. The evidence of an apprenticeship comes only from Vasari, and has been disputed. But
most modern historians agree that Raphael worked as an assistant to
Perugino around 1500. Florentine
period Moving to Florence when he was around 20, he was exposed to Leonardo da Vinci, "whom he never ceased to admire as a mentor and father figure", and to Michelangelo, just eight years his senior, "with whom he later had a stormy and competitive relationship." (Leonardo died in 1519, one year before Raphael, but Michelangelo lived until 1564.) Raphael learned from both men, but while he made use of their exploration of human anatomy, he added sentiment to his paintings. Raphael's
time in Florence was very productive and the influences of Leonardo
and Michelangelo (who were working on the Mona Lisa and David, respectively,
at the time) is unmistakeable. At the time, Raphael's paintings bore
"a strong Da Vinci influence with its pyramidal composition, contour,
balance and interplay of light and dark (chiaroscuro) and sfumato (extremely
fine, soft shading instead of line to delineate forms and features),"
while others reveal a Michelangelic inspiration. Roman
period He well exploited the situation, and remained almost exclusively in the service of Julius and his successor Leo X. At the time, he painted "a series of frescoes in the papal apartments" as well as those of the "Stanza della Segnatura, which include his vast School of Athens." Similar to Michelangelo, Raphael also included the likeness of his peers in his frescos. So much
so that Michelangelo (who was working on the Sistine Chapel at the time)
accused Raphael of perceived plagarism and years after Raphael's death,
complained in a letter that "everything he knew about art he got
from me." In 1514
(following Bramante's death), he was named architect of the new St Peter's
. Much of his work there was altered or demolished after his death,
but he designed other buildings, and for a short time was both the most
important architect and painter in Rome. In 1515 he was entrusted with
the preservation and recording of the Vatican collections of ancient
sculpture. After
his arrival in Rome, he devoted his efforts to the great Vatican projects,
although he still painted portraits of his two main patrons, the popes
Julius II and his successor Leo X, the latter portrait considered one
of his finest. One
of his most important papal commissions was the Raphael Cartoons (now
Victoria and Albert Museum), a series of 10 cartoons for tapestries
with scenes of the lives of Saint Paul and Saint Peter, intended as
wall decoration for the Sistine Chapel. The cartoons were sent to Bruxelles
to be sewn in the workshop of Pier van Aelst; the first three tapestries
were sent to Rome in 1519. It is possible that Raphael saw the finished
series before his death they were completed in 1520 for Leo X. Raphael,
who in Rome lived in Borgo, never married, but it appears that in 1514
he was engaged to Maria Bibbiena (cardinal Medici Bibbiena's niece);
she died in 1520. The other woman in his life was La Fornarina, a beauty
named Margherita, the daughter of a baker (fornaro) named Francesco
Luti from Siena who lived at via del Governo Vecchio. Art historians
and doctors debate whether the right hand on the left breast in La Fornarina
reveal a cancerous breast tumour detailed and disguised in a classic
pose of love. According to Vasari, his premature death on Good Friday (April 6, 1520, his 37th birthday) was caused by a night of excessive sex with her, after which he fell into a fever and, not telling his doctors that this was its cause, was given the wrong cure, which killed him. Whatever the cause, in his acute illness Raphael had the wit to receive the last rites, and put his affairs in order. He took
the care to dictate his will, in which he left sufficient funds for
her care, entrusted to his loyal servant Bavera. Vasari underlines that
Raphael was also born on a Good Friday, in 1483, on 27 or 28 March.
At his request, he was buried in the Pantheon. Printmaking Raphael made no prints himself, but entered into a collaboration with Marcantonio Raimondi to produce engravings to Raphael's designs, which created many of the most famous Italian prints of the century, and was important in the rise of the reproductive print. A total of about fifty prints were made; some were copies of Raphael's paintings, but other designs were apparently created only to be made into prints. Raphael
made preparatory drawings, many of which survive, for Raimondi to translate
into engraving. The two most famous original prints to result from the
collaboration were Lucretia and The Massacre of the Innocents. Outside
Italy, reproductive prints by Raimondi and others were the main way
that Raphael's art was experienced until the twentieth century. Legacy The
inscription in his marble sarcophagus, a distichon written by Pietro
Bembo, reads: "Ille hic est Raffael, timuit quo sospite vinci,
rerum magna parens et moriente mori." Meaning: "Here lies
that famous Raphael by whom Nature feared to be outdone while he lived,
and when he died, feared herself to die." Raphael
was highly admired by his contemporaries. When compared to Michelangelo
and Titian, he was sometimes considered inferior; at the same time,
it was maintained that none of them shared all the qualities possessed
by Raphael, "ease" in particular. Chronology
of main works Resurrection
of Christ (The Kinnaird Resurrection) (1499-1502) - Oil on wood, 52
x 44 cm, São Paulo Art Museum, São Paulo, Brazil Angel
(fragment of the Baronci Altarpiece) (1500-1501) - Oil on wood, 31 x
27 cm, Pinacoteca Civica Tosio Martinengo, Brescia, Italy Angel
(fragment of the Baronci Altarpiece) (1500-1501) - Oil on wood, 57 x
36 cm, Louvre, Paris Holy
Family with Madonna of the Veil (1500-1510) - Galleria Nazionale di
Capodimonte, Naples St.
Sebastian (1501-1502) - Oil on wood, 43 x 34 cm, Accademia Carrara,
Bergamo The
Annunciation (Oddi Altar, predella) (c. 1501-1503) - Oil on canvas,
27 x 50 cm, Pinacoteca Vaticana, Vatican, Rome The
Adoration of the Magi (Oddi Altar) (c. 1501-1503) - Oil on canvas, 27
x 150 cm, Pinacoteca Vaticana, Vatican, Rome The
Presentation in the Temple (Oddi Altar, predella) (c. 1501-1503) - Oil
on canvas, 27 x 50 cm, Pinacoteca Vaticana, Vatican, Rome Madonna
Solly (Madonna with the Child) (1500-1504) - Oil on tablet, 53 x 38
cm, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin Mond
Crucifixion (Città di Castello Altarpiece) (1501-1503) - Oil
on wood, 281 x 165 cm, National Gallery, London Three
Graces (c. 1501-1505) - Musée Condé, Chantilly, France
St.
Michael (c. 1501) - Louvre, Paris Portrait
of a Man (c. 1502) - Oil on wood, 45 x 31 cm, Galleria Borghese, Rome
Connestabile
Madonna (1502-1503) - Tempera on wood, 17,5 x 18 cm, The Hermitage,
St. Petersburg Madonna
and Child (1503) - Oil on wood, 55 x 40 cm, Norton Simon Museum of Art,
Pasadena The
Marriage of the Virgin (1504) - Oil on roundheaded panel, 174 x 121
cm, Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan Vision
of a Knight (1504) - Egg tempera on poplar, 17.1 x 17.1 cm, National
Gallery, London St.
George (1504) - Oil on tablet, 31 x 27 cm, Louvre, Paris Madonna
and Child Enthroned with Saints (Colonna Altarpiece), (1504-1505) -
Tempera and gold on wood, 172,4 x 172,4 cm (main panel), Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York Portrait
of Perugino (c. 1504) - Tempera on wood, 57 x 42 cm, Uffizi, Florence
Florentine
period Portrait
of Elisabetta Gonzaga (c. 1504) - Oil on wood, 52,9 x 37,4 cm, Uffizi,
Florence Portrait
of Pietro Bembo (c. 1504) - Oil on wood, 54 x 69 cm, Museum of Fine
Arts, Budapest Self-portrait
(1504-1506) - Madonna
of the Grand Duke (c. 1505) - Oil on wood, 84 x 55 cm, Palazzo Pitti,
Florence The
Ansidei Madonna (The Madonna between St. John Baptist and St. Nicholas
of Bari) (c. 1505-1506) - Oil on poplar, 274 x 152 cm, National Gallery,
London Young
Man with an Apple (1505) - Oil on wood, 47 x 35 cm, Uffizi, Florence
Christ
Blessing (1505) - Oil on wood, 30 x 25 cm, Pinacoteca Civica Tosio Martinengo,
Brescia, Italy Madonna
Terranova (1504-1505) - Oil on wood, 87 cm, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
The
Madonna of the Goldfinch (c. 1505) - Uffizi, Florence Madonna
del Prato (The Madonna of the Meadow) (c. 1505) Oil on wood,
113 x 88 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna St.
George and the Dragon (1505-1506) - Oil on wood, 28.5 x 21.5 cm, National
Gallery of Art, Washington La Donna
Gravida (1505-1506) - Oil on wood, 66 x 52 cm, Palazzo Pitti, Florence
Portrait
of Agnolo Doni (1505-1507) - Oil on wood, 63 x 45 cm, Palazzo Pitti,
Florence Portrait
of Maddalena Doni (1505-1507) - Oil on wood, 63 x 45 cm, Palazzo Pitti,
Florence Madonna
of the Pinks (1506) Young
Woman with Unicorn (1506, disputed) - Oil on canvas, 65 x 51 cm, Galleria
Borghese, Rome Madonna
with Beardless St. Joseph (1506) - Tempera on canvas transferred from
wood, 74 x 57 cm, The Hermitage, St. Petersburg Saint
Catherine of Alexandria (1507) - Oil on wood, 72 x 55 cm, National Gallery,
London Canigiani
Holy Family (1507) - Oil on wood, 132 x98 cm, Alte Pinakothek, Munich
La belle
jardinière (1507) - Louvre, Paris The
Deposition of Christ (The Entombment) (1507-1508) - Oil on wood, 184
x 176 cm, Galleria Borghese, Rome The
Three Theological Virtues (tryptic) (1507) - Oil on wood, 16 x 44 cm
(each), Pinacoteca Vaticana, Vatican, Rome Portrait
of a Young Woman (La Muta) (1507-1508) - Oil on wood, 64 x 48 cm, Galleria
Nazionale delle Marche, Urbino The
Tempi Madonna (Madonna with the Child) (1508) - Alte Pinakothek, Munich
La Madonna
de Bogota (Madonna with the Child) (1507) - NY Bank Volt, New York Portrait
of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese (1509-1511) - Galleria Nazionale di Capodimonte,
Naples La disputa
(1509-1510) - Fresco, width at base 770 cm, Vatican, Rome The
School of Athens (1509-1510) - Fresco, width at base 770 cm, Vatican,
Rome Madonna
of Loreto (Madonna del Velo) (1509-1510) - Oil on wood, 120 x 90 cm,
Musée Condé, Chantilly, France Aldobrandini
Madonna (1510) - Oil on wood, 38,7 x 32,7 cm, National Gallery, London
Madonna
with the Blue Diadem (1510-1511) - Oil on wood, 68 x 44 cm, Musée
du Louvre, Paris Portrait
of a Cardinal (1510-1511) - Oil on wood, 79 x 61 cm, Museo del Prado,
Madrid Alba
Madonna (1511) - Oil on canvas, diameter 98 cm, National Gallery of
Art, Washington The
Parnassus (1511) - Fresco, width at base 670 cm, Vatican, Rome The
Cardinal Virtues (1511) - Fresco, width at base 660 cm, Vatican, Rome
Portrait
of Pope Julius II (1511-1512) - Oil on wood, 108 x 80,7 cm, National
Gallery, London The
Prophet Isaiah (1511-1512) - Fresco, 250 x 155 cm, Sant'Agostino, Rome
The
Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple (1511-1512) - Fresco, width
at base 750 cm, Vatican, Rome Portrait
of Pope Julius II (1512) - Oil on wood, 108,5 x 80 cm, Uffizi, Florence
The
Madonna of Foligno (1511-1512) - Oil on wood, 320 x 194 cm, Pinacoteca
Vaticana, Vatican, Rome The
Triumph of Galatea (1511-1513) - Fresco, 295 x 224 cm, Villa Farnesina,
Rome Portrait
of Tommaso Inghirami (1512-1514) - Boston Sistine
Madonna (c. 1513-1516) - Oil on canvas, 265 x 196 cm, Gemäldegalerie
Alte Meister, Dresden Madonna
della seggiola (Madonna with the Child and Young St. John) (1513-1514)
- Oil on wood, diameter 71 cm, Galleria Palatina (Palazzo Pitti), Florence
Madonna
dell'Impannata (1513-1514) - Oil on wood, 158 x 125 cm, Galleria Palatina
(Palazzo Pitti), Florence Madonna
della tenda (1514) - Oil on wood, 65,8 x 51,2 cm, Alte Pinakothek, Munich
The
Fire in the Borgo (1514) - Fresco, width at base 670 cm, Vatican, Rome
The
Meeting of Leo the Great and Attila (1514) - Fresco, width at base 750
cm, Vatican, Rome Deliverance
of Saint Peter (1514) - Fresco, width at base 660 cm, Vatican, Rome
Portrait
of Bindo Altoviti (c. 1514) - Oil on tablet, 60 x 44 cm - National Gallery
of Art, Washington The
Sibyls (1514) - Fresco, width at base 615 cm,Santa Maria della Pace,
Rome The
Ecstasy of St. Cecilia (1514-1516) - Oil on wood, 220 x 136 cm, Pinacoteca
Nazionale, Bologna Portrait
of Balthasar Castiglione (c. 1515) - Oil on canvas, 82 x 67 cm, Louvre,
Paris Woman
with a Veil (La Donna Velata) (1515-1516) - Oil on canvas, 82 x 60,5
cm, Palazzo Pitti, Florence Portrait
of Tommaso Inghirami (1515-1516) - Oil on wood, 91 x 61 cm, Palazzo
Pitti, Florence Palazzo
Branconio dell'Aquila in Borgo (c. 1515-1517) - Destroyed Portrait
of Andrea Navagero and Agostino Beazzano (1516) - Portrait
of Cardinal Bibbiena (c. 1516) - Oil on canvas, 85 x 66,3 cm , Palazzo
Pitti, Florence Double
Portrait (c. 1516) - Oil on canvas, 77 x 111 cm , Galleria Doria Pamphilj,
Rome Church
of Sant'Eligio degli Orefici near Via Giulia (c. 1516) Creation
of the World (1516) - Mosaic in the Chigi Chapel, Santa Maria del Popolo
Transfiguration
(1517-c. 1520) - Oil on wood, 405 x 278 cm, Vatican Museum, Rome Portrait
of Pope Leo X with two Cardinals (1517-1518) - Oil on wood, 155 x 118
cm, Palazzo Pitti, Florence Christ
Falling on the Way to Calvary (1516-1517) - Oil on panel transferred
to canvas, 318 x 229 cm, Museo del Prado, Madrid The
Holy Family of Francis I (1518) - Louvre, Paris Ezechiels
Vision (1518) Oil on wood, 40 x 29 cm, Palazzo Pitti, Florence
St.
Michael Vanquishing Satan (1518) - Louvre, Paris Madonna
of the Rose (1518) - Oil on wood, Luke Brugnara Collection Self-portrait
with a Friend (1518-1519) - Oil on canvas, 99 x 83 cm, Louvre, Paris
Portrait
of a Young Woman (La fornarina) (1518-1519) - Oil on wood, 85 x 60 cm,
Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome Visitation - Museo del Prado, Madrid |
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| Three Graces (Raphael) | |
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The
Three Graces (c. 1501-1505) is a small picture by the Italian High Renaissance
painter Raphael. It is housed in the Musée Condé, Chantilly,
France. The
figurative powers which Raphael developed in Florence led to a more
synthetic conception of form, a refinement of intellectual expression,
which are visible in the paintings of Knight's Dream and the Three Graces. Critics believe that the two panels may have formed a single diptych presented to Scipione di Tommaso Borghese at his birth, in 1493. The theme of the paintings may by |
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drawn
from the Latin poem Punica by Silius Italicus, which was well known
in antiquity and which humanistic culture restored to fame. In the first
panel, Scipio, the sleeping knight, must choose between Venus (pleasure)
and Minerva (virtue); in the second, the Graces reward his choice of
virtue with the Golden Apples of the Hesperides. Classical themes were
treasured by contemporary Florentine patrons. The composition, which
is dominated by a sense of great harmony. Three
Graces are the personification of grace and beauty and the attendants
of several goddesses. In art they are often the handmaidens of Venus,
sharing several of her attributes such as the rose, myrtle, apple and
dice. Their names according to Hesiod (Theogony 905) were Aglaia, Euphrosyne
and Thalia. They are typically grouped so that the two outer figures
face the spectator, the one in the middle facing away. This was their
antique form, known and copied by the Renaissance. The group has been the subject of much allegorising in different ages. Seneca (De Beneficiis, l.3:2) described them as smiling maidens, nude or transparently clothed, who stood for the threefold aspect of generosity, the giving, receiving and returning of gifts, or benefits: ut una sit quae det beneficium, altera quae accipiat, tertia quae reddat. The
Florentine humanist philosophers of the 15th century saw them as three
phases of love: beauty, arousing desire, leading to fulfillment; alternatively
as the personification of Chastity, Beauty and Love, perhaps with the
inscription "Castitas, Pulchritudo, Amor." The Three Graces is Raphael's first study of the female nude in both front and back views. It was probably not based on living models, however, but either directly, or indirectly, on the classical sculpture group of the Three Graces in the Piccolomini Library of the Duomo of Siena. Also
see three other versions: |
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| St. George (Raphael) | |
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St.
George or St. George and the Dragon is a small painting by the Italian
Renaissance artist Raphael. It is housed in the Louvre in Paris. A later
version of the same subject is the St. George in the National Gallery
of Art in Washington, D.C. St.
George and the Dragon Is a
small cabinet painting by the Italian High Renaissance master Raphael,
1504-1506. |
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armed youth fighting a dragon - and by stylistic elements. All three are assigned to the Florentine period of Raphael and echo those stimuli which the Urbinate received from the great masters who worked in Florence or whose paintings were visible there. The influence of Leonardo - whose fighting warriors from the Battle of Anghiari (1505) in the Palazzo della Signoria provided an extraordinary example of martial art (the painting deteriorated very rapidly because of shortcomings in Leonardo's experimental technique and so is no longer visible) - predominates in these works. But
references to Flemish painting - particularly that of Hieronymus Bosch
(the glaring light and humanoid monsters which populate the St. Michael
are characteristic of Bosch) - suggest the environment of Urbino, where
Northern influences were still quite vivid. These
small panels are indicative of a moment in which the painter gathers
the stylistic fruits of what he has assimilated so far and, at the same
time, poses pictorial problems which will be developed in the future. The painting used to be a highlight of the Pierre Crozat collection which was acquired through Diderot's mediation by Catherine II of Russia in 1772. For a century and a half, the panel hang in the Imperial Hermitage Museum. It was one of the most popular paintings in the entire collection of the Tsars. In March 1931 the Bolsheviks sold the painting to Andrew Mellon, who ceded it to the Washington gallery. |
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| La belle jardinière (Raphael) | |
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La belle jardinière, also known as Madonna and Child with Saint John the Baptist, is a painting by the Italian High Renaissance artist Raphael. It was commissioned by the Sienese patrician Filippo Sergardi and shows Mary, Christ and the young John the Baptist. |
| La Velata (Raphael) | |
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La velata, or La donna velata ("The woman with the veil"), is one of the most famous portraits by the Italian renaissance painter Raphael. |
| Donatello | |
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Donatello
(Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi; c. 1386 December 13,
1466) was a famous early Renaissance Italian artist and sculptor from
Florence. He became well recognized for his creation of the shallow
relief style of sculpting, which made the sculpture seem much deeper
than it actually was. Early
years Donatello was the son of Niccolo di Betto Bardi, who was a member of the Florentine Wool Combers Guild, and was born in Florence, most likely in 1386. Donatello was educated in the house of the Martelli family. He received his first training (according to the custom of the period) in a goldsmith's workshop, and then he worked for a brief time in Lorenzo Ghiberti's studio. |
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While doing studies and excavations with Filippo Brunelleschi in Rome (1404-1407), which gained them the reputation of treasure seekers, the two men made a living by working at the goldsmiths' shops. This
Roman sojourn was decisive for the entire development of Italian art
in the 15th century, for it was during this period that Brunelleschi
undertook his measurements of the Pantheon dome and of other Roman buildings.
Brunelleschi's buildings and Donatello's monuments are considered the
supreme expressions of the spirit of this era in architecture and sculpture,
and exercised a potent influence upon the painters of the age. Work
in Florence In Florence, Donatello assisted Lorenzo Ghiberti with the statues of prophets for the north door of the Battistero di San Giovanni, for which he received payment in November 1406 and early 1408. In 1409-1411 he executed the colossal seated figure of Saint John the Evangelist, which until 1588 occupied a niche of the old cathedral facade, and is now placed in a dark chapel of the Duomo. This
work marks a decisive step forward from late-Gothic Mannerism in the
search for naturalism and the rendering of human feelings. The face,
the shoulders and the bust are still idealized, while the hands and
the pannings over the legs are more realistic. From
1423 is the St. Louis of Toulouse, now in the Museum of the Basilica
di Santa Croce. Donatello had also sculpted a tabernacle for the work,
but it was sold in 1460 to house the Incredulity of St. Thomas by Verrocchio. From 1415 and 1426 he executed five statues for the campanile of Florence's Duomo. These are the Beardless Prophet, Bearded Prophet (both from 1415), the Sacrifice of Isaac (1421), Habacuc (1423-1425) and Jeremy (1423-1426), which follow the classic model for orators, and are characterized by a strong portrait detail. From 1422 is the Madonna Pazi, now in Berlin. In 1425
he executed the notable Crucifix for Santa Croce, which portrays Christ
in the exact moment of the agony, eyes and mouth partially opened, the
body contracted in an ungraceful posture. In 1425-1427 Donatello collaborated with Michelozzo on the funerary monument of Antipope John XXIII for the Battistero. Surely by Donatello is the bronze figure of the lying dead, under a shell. In 1427, he finished in Pisa a marble panel for the funerary monument of cardinal Rainaldo Brancacci at the church of Sant'Angelo a Nilo in Naples. In the
same period he executed the relief of the Feast of Herod and the statues
of Faith and Hope for the Baptistry of Siena. The relief is mostly in
stiacciato, while the foreground figures are done in bas-relief. Major
commissions in Florence Around 1430 Cosimo de' Medici, the greatest art patron of his time, commissioned from him the bronze David (now in the Bargello) for the court of his Palazzo Medici, which is his most famous work. At the time of its creation, it was the first free-standing nude statue since ancient times. Conceived
fully in the round and independent of any architectural surroundings,
and largely an allegory of the civic virtues triumphing over brutality
and irrationality, it was the first major work of Renaissance sculpture.
Also from this period is the disquietingly small Love-Atys, housed in
the Bargello. When
Cosimo was exiled from Florence, Donatello went to Rome to drink for
the second time at the source of classical art, remaining until 1433.
The two works which still testify to his presence in this city, the
Tomb of Giovanni Crivelli at Santa Maria in Aracoeli, and the Ciborium
at St. Peter's Basilica, bear the stamp of classic influence. Donatello's return to Florence almost coincides with Cosimo's. In May 1434, he signed a contract for the marble pulpit on the facade of Prato cathedral, the last work executed in collaboration with Michelozzo, a veritable bacchanalian dance of half-nude putti, pagan in spirit, passionate in its wonderful rhythmic movement, the forerunner of the (cantoria) singing tribune for Florence cathedral, at which he worked intermittently from 1433 to 1440. This work was inspired to ancient sarcophagi and ivory Byzantine chests. In 1435 he executed the Annunciation for the Cavalcanti altar in Santa Croce, inspired to 14th century iconography. In 1437-1443 he worked to the Old Sacristy of San Lorenzo in Florence, with two doors and lunettes portraying saints, as well as eight stucco tondoes. From
1438 is the wooden statue of St. John the Evangelist for Santa Maria
Gloriosa dei Frari in Venice. Around 1440 he executed a bust of Young
with Cameo now in the Bargello, the first example of lay bust from Classic
times. In Padua In 1443
Donatello was called to Padua by the heirs of the famous condottiero
Erasmo da Narni, who had died that year. Completed in 1450 and placed
in the square facing the Basilica of St. Anthony, his statue of Erasmo
(better known as Gattamelata) is the first example of such an equestrian
monument since ancient times (other similar statues from the 14th century
were not in bronze and were placed over tombs); this work became the
prototype for equestrian monuments executed in Italy and Europe in the
following centuries. For the Basilica of St. Anthony Donatello realized the Choir precinct and a bronze Crucifix. From 1446 to 1450 he also executed seven statues for the high altar area, portraying the Madonna with Child and six saints, constituting a Holy Conversation which is no longer visible since the recomposition by Camillo Boito in 1895. The
Madonna with Child portrays the Child being displayed to the faithful,
on a throne flanked by two sphinxes, allegorical figures of knowledge.
On the throne's back is a relief of Adam and Eve. Donatello also executed
four reliefs with scenes from the life of St. Anthony. Last
years in Florence Donatello
returned to Florence in 1453. From
1455-1460 dates the group with Judith and Holofernes, begun for the
Duomo di Siena but later acquired by the Medici. For his last commission in Florence Donatello produced the bronze pulpits for San Lorenzo, with help from Bartolomeo Bellano and Bertoldo di Giovanni (Donatello provided the gobal design, and excuted personally the Martyrdom of St. Lawrence and the Deposition from the Cross, and the relief with Christ next to Pilatus and Christus next to Caifa, with Bellano). It
is characterized by a renovated religious spirit, which heightens the
dramatic appearance of the figures. Donatello used the non finito technique
to enhance this effect. |
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| Habacuc (Donatello) | |
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Habakkuk or Havakuk (Hebrew: ?????????, Standard ?avaqquq Tiberian ?a?aqqûq) was a prophet in the Hebrew Bible. The etymology of the name of Habakkuk is not clear. The name is possibly related to the Akkadian khabbaququ, the name of a fragrant plant, or the Hebrew root ???, meaning "embrace". He
was the eighth of the twelve minor prophets and likely the author of
the Book of Habakkuk, which bears his name. Since the Chaldean rise to power is dated c. 612 BC, it is assumed he was active about that time, making him an early contemporary of Jeremiah and Zephaniah. Jewish sources, however, do not group him with those two prophets, who are often placed together, so it is possible that he was slightly earlier than they. Because
the final chapter of his book is a song, it is sometimes assumed in
Jewish tradition that he was a member of the tribe of Levi, which served
as musicians in Solomon's Temple. Habakkuk is unique among the prophets in that he openly questions the wisdom of God. In the first part of the first chapter, the Prophet sees the injustice among his people and asks why God does not take action: "1:2 Yahweh, how long will I cry, and you will not hear? I cry out to you |
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'Violence!'
and will you not save?" - (World English Bible). It is protected by Iran's Cultural Heritage Organization. The Organization's guide to the Hamedan Province states that Habakkuk was believed to be a guardian to the Temple of Solomon, and that he was captured by the Babylonians and remained in their prison for some years. After
being freed by Cyrus the Great, he went to Ecbatana and remained there
until he died, and was buried somewhere nearby, in what is today Toyserkan. |
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| Madonna Pazzi (Donatello) | |
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The half-length relief shows that Donatello could express tenderness and intimacy. Its youthful style, seen in details like the baby's foreshortened foot, suggests a date in the 1420s or 1430s. Its melancholy and idealized types are indebted to ancient sculpture like Greek "stelai". The Madonna gazes penetratingly into her son's eyes, foreseeing his death. The seemingly casual yet powerful genre scene is carved with economy - the haloes have been eliminated, an innovation not generally adopted until the next century. The relief was meant to be seen from below, revealing Donatello's interest in the spectator's point of view. |
| Fra Angelico | |
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Fra
Angelico, (c. 1395 - February 18, 1455) was an Early Italian Renaissance
painter, referred to in Vasari's Lives of the Artists as having "a
rare and perfect talent". In Giorgio
Vasaris Lives of the Artists, written prior to 1555, he is already
known as Fra Giovanni Angelico (Brother Giovanni the Angelic One). Within his lifetime or shortly thereafter he was also called Il Beato (the Blessed), in reference to his skills in painting religious subjects. In 1982 Pope John Paul II conferred beatification, thereby making this title official. Fiesole is |
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sometimes misinterpreted as being part of his formal name, but it was merely the name of the town where he took his vows, used by contemporaries to separate him from other Fra Giovannis. He is
listed in the Roman Martyrology as "Beatus Ioannes Faesulanus,
cognomento Angelicus" - "Blessed Giovanni of Fiesole, nicknamed
Angelico". Biography:
Early life, 1395-1436 Fra Angelico was born Guido di Pietro, at Rupecanina, in the Tuscan area of Mugello, near Fiesole towards the end of the 14th century and died in Rome in 1455. Nothing is known of his parents. He was baptized Guido or Guidolino. The earliest recorded document concerning Fra Angelico dates from Oct. 17, 1417 when he joined a religious confraternity at the Carmine, still under the name of Guido di Pietro. This
record also reveals that he was already a painter, a fact that is subsequently
confirmed by two records of payment to Guido di Pietro in January and
February of 1418 for work done in the church of Santo Stefano del Ponte.
The first record of Angelico as a friar dates from 1423, when he is
first referred to as Fra Giovanni, following the custom of those in
Holy Orders of taking a new name. He was a member of the Observant Branch
of the Dominican Order at Fiesole. Fra Angelico initially received training as an illuminator, possibly working with his older brother Benedetto who was also a Dominican. His illumination tutor is unknown. San Marco in Florence holds several manuscripts that are thought to be entirely or partly by his hand. The
painter Lorenzo Monaco may have contributed to his art training, and
the influence of the Sienese school is discernible in his work. He had
several important charges in the convents he lived in, but this did
not limit his art, which very soon became famous. According to Vasari,
the first paintings of this artist were an altarpiece and a painted
screen for the Carthusian Monastery of Florence; none such exist there
now. From 1408 to 1418 Fra Angelico was at the Dominican Convent of Cortona where he painted frescoes, now destroyed, in the Dominican Church and may have been assistant to or follower of Gherardo Starnina. Between
1418 and 1436 he was at the convent of Fiesole where he also executed
a number of frescoes for the church, and the Altarpiece, deteriorated
but restored. A predella of the Altarpiece remains intact in the National
Gallery, London which is a superb example of Fra Angelico's ability.
It shows Christ in Glory, surrounded by more than 250 figures, including
beatified Dominicans. San
Marco, Florence, 1436-1445 In 1436 Fra Angelico was one of a number of the monks from Fiesole who moved to the newly-built monastery of San Marco in Florence. This was an important move which put him in the centre of artistic activity of the region and brought about the patronage of one of the wealthiest and most powerful members of the city's Signoria, Cosimo de' Medici, who had a large cell (later occupied by Savonarola) reserved for himself at the monastery in order that he might retreat from the world. It
was, according to Vasari, at Cosimo's urging that Fra Angelico set about
the task of decorating the monastery, including the magnificent Chapter
House fresco, the often-reproduced Annunciation at the top of the stairs
to the cells, the Maesta with Saints and the many smaller devotional
frescoes depicting aspects of the Life of Christ that adorn the walls
of each cell. In 1439 he completed one of his most famous works, the Altarpiece for St. Marco's, Florence. The result was unusual for its times. Images of the enthroned Madonna and Child surrounded by saints were common, but they usually depicted a setting that was clearly heavenlike, in which saints and angels hovered about as divine presences rather than people. But
in this instance, the saints stand squarely within the space, grouped
in a natural way as if they were able to converse about the shared experience
of witnessing the Virgin in glory. Paintings such as this, known as
Sacred Conversations, were to become the major commissions of Giovanni
Bellini, Perugino and Raphael. The
Vatican, 1445-1455 In 1445 Pope Eugenius IV summoned him to Rome to paint the frescoes of the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament at St Peter's, later demolished by Pope Paul III. Vasari claims that at this time Fra Angelico was offered by Pope Nicholas V the Archbishopric of Florence, and that he refused it, recommending another Friar for the position. While
the story seems possible and even likely, if Vasari's date is correct,
then the pope must have been Eugenius and not Nicholas. In 1447 Fra
Angelico was in Orvieto with his pupil, Benozzo Gozzoli, executing works
for the Cathedral. Among his other pupils were Zanobi Strozzi. From 1447 to 1449 he was back at the Vatican, designing the frescoes for the Niccoline Chapel for Nicholas V. The scenes from the lives of the two martyred Deacons of the Early Christian Church, St. Stephen and St. Lawrence may have been exectuted wholly or in part by assistants. The small chapel, with its brightly frescoed walls and gold leaf decorations gives the impression of a jewel box. From
1449 until 1452, Fra Angelico was back at his old convent of Fiesole,
where he was the Prior. In 1455 he was staying at a Dominican Convent
in Rome, perhaps in order to work on Pope Nicholas' Chapel. It was there
that he died, his body being buried in the church of Santa Maria sopra
Minerva. Fra
Angelico was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1982. The Pope said: W.M.Rossetti
writes: "From various accounts of Fra Angelico's life, it is possible to gain some sense of why he was deserving of canonization. He led the devout and ascetic life of a Dominican friar, and never rose above that rank; he followed the dictates of the order in caring for the poor; he was always good-humored. All
of his many paintings were of divine subjects, and it seems that he
never altered or retouched them, perhaps from a religious conviction
that, because his paintings were divinely inspired, they should retain
their original form. He was wont to say that he who illustrates the
acts of Christ should be with Christ. It is averred that he never handled
a brush without fervent prayer and he wept when he painted a Crucifixion.
The Last Judgment and the Annunciation were two of the subjects he most
frequently treated." Epitaph The
words engraved on Fra Angelico's tomb translate as When
singing my praise, don't liken my talents to those of Apelles. Liqueur Fra
Angelico's fame has been commemorated by the Italian hazelnut liqueur
Frangelico, which is named in his honour. It is shipped in a bottle
shaped like a monk's habit with a rope belt round the waist. Evaluation Fra
Angelico was working at a time when the style of painting was in a state
of change. This process of change had begun a hundred years previous
with the works of Giotto and several of his contemporaries, notably
Giusto de' Menabuoi, both of whom had created their major works in Padua,
although Giotto was trained in Florence by the great Gothic artist,
Cimabue, and painted a fresco cycle of St Francis in the Bardi Chapel
in Santa Croce. Giotto had many enthusiastic followers, who imitated
his style in fresco, some of them, notably the Lorenzetti, achieving
great success. Patronage The patrons of these artists were most often monastic establishments or wealthy families endowing a church. Because the paintings often had devotional purpose, the clients tended to be conservative. Frequently, it would seem, the wealthier the client, the more conservative the painting. There was a very good reason for this. The paintings that were commissioned made a statement about the patron. Thus
the more gold leaf it displayed, the more it spoke to the patrons
glory. The other valuable commodities in the paint-box were lapis lazuli
and vermilion. Paint made from these colours did not lend itself to
a tonal treatment. The azure blue made of powdered lapis lazuli went
on flat, the depth and brilliance of colour being, like the gold leaf,
a sign of the patrons ability to provide well. For these reasons,
altarpieces are often much more conservatively painted than frescoes,
which were often of almost life-sized figures and relied upon a stage-set
quality rather than lavish display in order to achieve effect. Contemporaries Fra Angelico was the contemporary of Gentile da Fabriano. Gentiles altarpiece of the Adoration of the Magi, 1423, in the Uffizi is regarded as one of the greatest works of the style known as International Gothic. At the time it was painted, another young artist, known as Masaccio, was working on the frescoes for the Brancacci Chapel at the church of the Carmine. Masaccio
had fully grasped the implications of the art of Giotto. Few painters
in Florence saw his sturdy, life-like and emotional figures and were
not affected by them. His work partner was an older painter, Masolino,
of the same generation as Fra Angelico. Sadly Masaccio died at 27, leaving
the work unfinished. Altarpieces The works of Fra Angelico reveal elements that are both conservatively Gothic and progressively Renaissance. In the altarpiece of the Coronation of the Virgin, painted for the Florentine church of Santa Maria Novella, we see all the elements that a very expensive altarpiece of the 14th century was expected to provide- a precisely tooled gold background, lots of azure, lots of vermilion and an obvious display of arsenic green. Frescoes The series of frescoes that Fra Angelico painted for the Dominican Brothers at San Marcos realise the advancements made by Masaccio and carry them further. Away from the constraints of wealthy clients and the limitations of panel painting, Fra Angelico was able to express his deep reverence for his God and his knowledge and love of humanity. The meditational frescoes in the cells of the convent have a quieting quality about them. They are humble works in simple colours. There is more mauvish-pink than there is red while the brilliant and expensive blue is almost totally lacking. In its place is dull green and the black and white of Dominican robes. There is nothing lavish, nothing to distract from the spiritual experiences of the humble people who are depicted within the frescoes. Each one has the effect of bringing an incident of the life of Christ into the presence of the viewer. They are like windows into a parallel world. These frescoes remain a powerful witness to the piety of the man who created them. It may
have been Cosimo de' Medici who inspired Fra Angelico to create these
remarkable works. If so, he did not let his wealthy patronage influence
the Friars artistic expression. Lives
of the Saints When Fra Angelico and his assistants went to the Vatican to decorate the chapel of Pope Nicholas, then the artist was again confronted with the need to please the very wealthiest of clients. In consequence, walking into the small chapel is like stepping into a jewel box. The walls are decked with the brilliance of colour and gold that one sees in the most lavish creations of the Gothic painter Simone Martini at the Lower Church of St Francis of Assisi, a hundred years earlier. Yet Fra Angelico has succeeded in creating designs which continue to reveal his own preoccupation with humanity, with humility and with piety. The figures, in their lavish gilded robes, have the sweetness and gentleness for which his works are famous. According
to Vasari: "In
their bearing and expression, the saints painted by Fra Angelico come
nearer to the truth than the figures done by any other artist." Artistic
legacy Through
Fra Angelico's pupil Benozzo Gozzolis careful portraiture and
technical expertise in the art of fresco we see a link to Ghirlandaio,
who in turn painted extensive schemes for the wealthy patrons of Florence,
and through Ghirlandaio to his pupil Michelangelo and the High Renaissance. Apart
from the lineal connection, superficially there may seem little to link
the humble priest with his sweetly pretty Madonnas and timeless Crucifixions
to the dynamic expressions of Michelangelos larger-than-life creations.
But both these artists received their most important commissions from
the wealthiest and most powerful of all patrons, the Vatican. When Michelangelo took up the Sistine Chapel commission, he was working within a space that had already been extensively decorated by other artists. Around the walls the Life of Christ and Life of Moses were depicted by a range of artists including his teacher Ghirlandaio, Raphaels teacher Perugino and Botticelli. They
were works of large scale and exactly the sort of lavish treatment to
be expected in a Vatican commission, vying with each other in complexity
of design, number of figures, elaboration of detail and skilful use
of gold leaf. Above these works stood a row of painted Popes in brilliant
brocades and gold tiaras. None of these splendours have any place in
the work which Michelangelo created. Within
the cells of SanMarco, Fra Angelico had demonstrated that painterly
skill and the artists personal interpretation of his subject can
create a truly great work of religious art, (or for that matter, any
art). In the use of the unadorned fresco technique, the clear bright
pastel colours, the careful arrangement of a few significant figures
and the skilful use of expression, motion and gesture, Michelangelo
shows himself to be the artistic descendant of Fra Angelico. Early
works, 1408-1436 Cortona Annunciation
Fiesole Altarpiece
- Coronation of the Virgin, with predellas of Miracles of St Dominic;
Louvre. Altarpiece
- Virgin and Child between Saints Peter, Thomas Aquinas, Dominic and
Peter Martyr; see detail, right. Predella
- Christ in Majesty, National Gallery, London. Florence,
Santa Trinita Deposition
of Christ, said by Vasari to have been painted by a saint or an
angel. Now in the National Museum of San Marco, Florence. Florence,
Santa Maria degli Angeli Last Judgement, Accademia. Florence, Santa Maria Novella Altarpiece
- Coronation of the Virgin, Uffizi. San
Marco, Florence, 1436-1445 Altarpiece
for chancel - Virgin with Saints Cosmas and Damian, attended by Saints
Dominic, Peter, Francis, Mark, John Evangelist and Stephen. Cosmas and
Damian were patrons of the Medici; the altarpiece was commissioned in
1438 by Cosimo de' Medici. It was removed and disassembled during the
renovation of the convent church in the seventeenth century. Two of
the nine predella panels remain at the convent; seven are in Washington,
Munich, Dublin and Paris. Unexpectedly, in 2006 the last two missing
panels, Dominican saints from the side panels, turned up in the estate
of a modest collector in Oxfordshire, who had bought them in California
in the 1960s. (San Marco Altarpiece) Altarpiece
? Madonna and Child with twelve Angels (life sized) ; Uffizi.
Altarpiece
- The Annunciation Two
versions of the Crucifixion with St Dominic; in the Cloister Very
large Crucifixion with Virgin and 20 saints; in the Chapter House The
Annunciation; at the top of the Dormitory stairs. This is probably the
most reproduced of all Fra Angelico's paintings. Virgin
enthroned with Four Saints; in the Dormitory passage The
Adoration of the Magi The
Transfiguration Noli
me Tangere The
three Marys at the tomb. The
Road to Emmaus, with two Dominicans as the disciples There
are many versions of the Crucifixion Late
works, 1445-1455 Orvieto
Cathedral Three
segments of the ceiling in the Cappella Nuova, with the assistance of
Benozzo Gozzoli. Christ
in Glory The
Virgin Mary The
Apostles Niccoline
Chapel The
Chapel of Pope Nicholas V, at the Vatican, was probably painted with
much assistance from Benozzo Gozzoli and Gentile da Fabriano. The entire
surface of wall and ceiling is sumptuously painted. There is much gold
leaf for borders and decoration, and a great use of brilliant blue made
from lapis lazuli. The
life of St Stephen The
life of St Lawrence The
Four Evangelists. Discovery
of lost works The Daily Mirror reported on 14 November 2006 that two missing masterpieces by Fra Angelico had turned up in the possession of an unsuspecting family, having hung in the spare room of an aunt, the late Jean Preston, in her "modest terrace house" in Oxford, England. She bought them for £200 20 years ago. They are two of eight side panels of a large altarpiece painted in 1439 for Fra Angelico's monastery, but split up by Napoleon's army 200 years ago. While the centre section is still at the monastery, the other six small panels are in German and US museums. These two panels were presumed lost forever. The Italian Government had hoped to purchase them but they were outbid at auction on 20 April 2007 by a private collector for £1.7M. |
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| Annunciation ( Fra Angelico) | |
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In Christianity, the Annunciation is the revelation to Mary, the mother of Jesus by the archangel Gabriel that she would conceive a child to be born the Son of God. The Christian churches celebrate this with the feast of Annunciation on March 25, which as the Incarnation is nine months before the feast of the Nativity of Jesus, or Christmas. The date of the Annunciation also marked the New Year in many places, including England (where it is called Lady |
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Day)
and the American colonies. The traditional location of the Annunciation
is in the town of Nazareth, Israel, where is currently located the Church
of the Annunciation. The
Annunciation in the Bible 26 In her sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent forth from God to a city of Gal´i·lee named Nazareth, 27 to a virgin promised in marriage to a man named Joseph of Davids house; and the name of the virgin was Mary. 28 And when he went in before her he said: Good day, highly favored one, God is with you. 29 But she was deeply disturbed at the saying and began to reason out what sort of greeting this might be. 30 So
the angel said to her: Have no fear, Mary, for you have found
favor with God; 31 and, look! you will conceive in your womb and give
birth to a son, and you are to call his name Jesus. 32 This one will
be great and will be called Son of the Most High; and God will give
him the throne of David his father, 33 and he will rule as king over
the house of Jacob forever, and there will be no end of his kingdom. 34 But
Mary said to the angel: How is this to be, since I am having no
intercourse with a man? 35 In answer the angel said to her: Holy
spirit will come upon you, and power of the Most High will overshadow
you. For that reason also what is born will be called holy, Gods
Son. 36 And, look! Elizabeth your relative has also herself conceived
a son, in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her, the so-called
barren woman; 37 because with God no declaration will be an impossibility.
38 Then Mary said: May it become of me according to your word.
At that the angel departed from her. The
only time a divine liturgy is ever celebrated on Great and Holy Friday
is if it is on March 25, although this only occurs in the Julian Calendar
(this calendar is used to calculate the date of Pascha so that all Orthodox
celebrate Pascha at the same time, though most dioceses use the Gregorian
Calendar for celebration of fixed feast days, such as Christmas and
Theophany). Due to this, the rubrics regarding the celebration of the
feast are the most complicated of all those in Orthodox liturgics. Related
dates In
years when March 25 falls during Holy Week or Easter Week the Annunciation
is moved to the Monday after Octave of Easter, which is the Sunday after
Easter. (If the Feast of St. Joseph, normally falling on March 19, must
also be moved to a later date as a consequence of Easter falling on
one of its earliest possible dates, the Annunciation remains on Low
Monday, with the feast of St. Joseph on the following Tuesday, as the
higher-ranking person is transferred first.) The first authentic allusions to it are in a canon, of the council of Toledo (656), and another of the council of Constantinople "in Trullo" (692), forbidding the celebration of all festivals in Lent, excepting the Lord's day and the Feast of the Annunciation. An earlier origin has been claimed for it on the ground that it is mentioned in sermons of Athanasius and of Gregory Thaumaturgus, but both of these documents are now admitted to be spurious. A synod
held at Worcester, England (1240), forbade all servile work on this
feast day. See further Lady Day. Annunciation
in the Quran |
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| Leonardo da Vinci | |
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Leonardo
di ser Piero da Vinci (pronounciation (help·info)), April 15,
1452 May 2, 1519) was an Italian polymath: scientist, mathematician,
engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, musician,
and writer. The
illegitimate son of a notary, Messer Piero, and a peasant girl, Caterina,
Leonardo had no surname in the modern sense, "da Vinci" simply
meaning "of Vinci": his full birth name was "Leonardo
di ser Piero da Vinci", meaning "Leonardo, son of (Mes)ser
Piero from Vinci." Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the "Renaissance man", a man whose seemingly infinite curiosity was equalled only by his powers of invention. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever |
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to have
lived. It is primarily as a painter that Leonardo was and is renowned. Two of his works, the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper occupy unique positions as the most famous, most reproduced and most imitated portrait and religious painting of all time, their fame approached only by Michelangelo's Creation of Adam. Leonardo's drawing of the Vitruvian Man is also iconic. Perhaps
fifteen paintings survive, the small number due to his constant, and
frequently disastrous, experimentation with new techniques, and his
chronic procrastination. Nevertheless these few works, together with
his notebooks, which contain drawings, scientific diagrams, and his
thoughts on the nature of painting, comprise an unmatched contribution
to later generations of artists. As an engineer, Leonardo conceived ideas vastly ahead of his own time, conceptualising a helicopter, a tank, concentrated solar power, a calculator, and the double hull, and outlining a rudimentary theory of plate tectonics. Relatively
few of his designs were constructed or even feasible during his lifetime,
but some of his smaller inventions such as an automated bobbin winder
and a machine for testing the tensile strength of wire entered the world
of manufacturing unheralded. As a scientist, he greatly advanced the
state of knowledge in the fields of anatomy, civil engineering, optics,
and hydrodynamics. Early
life, 14521466 Leonardo
was later to record only two incidents of his childhood. One, which
he regarded as an omen, was when a hawk dropped from the sky and hovered
over his cradle, its tail feathers brushing his face. The second incident
occurred while he was exploring in the mountains. He discovered a cave
and recorded his emotions at being, on one hand, terrified that some
great monster might lurk there and on the other, driven by curiosity
to find out what was inside. At the
age of five, he went to live in the household of his father, grandparents
and uncle, Francesco, in the small town of Vinci, where his father had
married a sixteen-year-old girl named Albiera, who loved Leonardo but
unfortunately died young. Leonardo
responded with a painting of snakes spitting fire which was so terrifying
that Ser Piero sold it to a Florentine art dealer, who sold it to the
Duke of Milan. Meanwhile, having made a profit, Ser Piero bought a plaque
decorated with a heart pierced by an arrow which he gave to the peasant. Verrocchio's
workshop, 14661476 In 1466
Leonardo was apprenticed to one of the most proficient artists of his
day, Andrea di Cione, known as Verrocchio. The workshop of this renowned
master was at the centre of the intellectual currents of Florence, assuring
the young Leonardo of an education in the humanities. Among the painters
apprenticed or associated with the workshop and also to become famous,
were Perugino, Botticelli, and Lorenzo di Credi. In a
Quattrocento workshop such as Verrocchio's, artists were regarded primarily
as craftsmen and only a master such as Verrocchio had social standing.
The products of a workshop included decorated tournament shields, painted
dowry chests, christening platters, votive plaques, small portraits,
and devotional pictures. Major commissions included altarpieces for
churches and commemorative statues. The largest commissions were fresco
cycles for chapels. As a fourteen-year-old apprentice Leonardo would
have been trained in all the countless skills that were employed in
a traditional workshop. Although
many craftsmen specialised in tasks such as frame-making, gilding and
bronze casting, Leonardo would have been exposed to a vast range of
technical skills and had the opportunity to learn drafting, chemistry,
metallurgy, metal working, plaster casting, leather working, mechanics
and carpentry as well as the obvious artistic skills of drawing, painting,
sculpting and modelling. The painting is the Baptism of Christ. According to Vasari, Leonardo painted the young angel holding Jesus robe. Verrocchio, overwhelmed by the sweetness of the angels expression, its moist eyes and lustrous curls, put down his brush and never painted again. This
is probably an exaggeration. The truth is that on close examination
the painting reveals much that has been painted or touched up over the
tempera using the new technique of oil paint. The landscape, the rocks
that can be seen through the brown mountain stream and much of the figure
of Jesus bears witness to the hand of Leonardo. The other creation of Verrocchios which is particularly pertinent to the young Leonardo is the bronze statue of David, now in the Bargello Museum. Apart from the exquisite quality of this work of art, it is significant in holding the claim to be a portrait of the apprentice, Leonardo. If this is the case, then in the figure of David we see Leonardo as a thin muscular boy, quite different to the rounded androgynous figure made by Verrocchios teacher, Donatello. It is
also suggested that the Archangel Michael in Verrocchio's Tobias and
the Angels is a portrait of Leonardo. Professional
life, 14761519 The
earliest known dated work of Leonardo's is a drawing done in pen and
ink of the Arno valley, drawn on 5 August 1473. In 1482 Leonardo, whom Vasari tells us was a most talented musician, created a silver lyre in the shape of a horse's head. Lorenzo de Medici was so impressed with this that he decided to send both the lyre and its maker to Milan, in order to secure peace with Ludovico il Moro, Duke of Milan. At this
time Leonardo wrote an often-quoted letter to Ludovico, describing the
many marvellous and diverse things that he could achieve in the field
of engineering and informing the Lord that he could also paint. It was
here that he was commissioned to paint two of his most famous works,
the Virgin of the Rocks for the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception,
and The Last Supper for the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie. While
living in Milan between 1493 and 1495 Leonardo listed a woman called
Caterina as among his dependants in his taxation documents. When she
died in 1495, the detailed list of expenditure on her funeral suggests
that she was his mother rather than a servant girl. For Ludovico, he worked on many different projects which included the preparation of floats and pageants for special occasions, designs for a dome for Milan Cathedral and a model for a huge equestrian monument to Francesco Sforza, Ludovicos predecessor. Leonardo modelled a huge horse in clay, which became known as the "Gran Cavallo". It surpassed in size the only two large equestrian statues of the Renaissance, Donatellos statue of Gattemelata in Padova and Verrocchios Bartolomeo Colleoni in Venice. Seventy tons of bronze were set aside for casting it. The
monument remained unfinished for several years, which was not in the
least unusual for Leonardo. Michelangelo rudely implied that he was
unable to cast it. In 1495 the bronze was used for cannons to defend
the city from invasion under Charles VIII. With
Ludovico Sforza overthrown, Leonardo, with his assistant Salaino and
friend, the mathematician Luca Pacioli, fled Milan for Venice. In Venice
he was employed as a military architect and engineer, devising methods
to defend the city from naval attack. At
Cesenatico he designed the port. In 1506 he returned to Milan, which
was in the hands of Maximilian Sforza after Swiss mercenaries had driven
out the French. Many of Leonardos most prominent pupils or followers
in painting either knew or worked with him in Milan, including Bernardino
Luini, Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio and Marco D'Oggione. Old
age From
1513 to 1516, Leonardo lived in Rome, where Raphael and Michelangelo
were both active at the time. In Florence, he was part of a committee
formed to relocate, against the artists will, Michelangelos
statue of David. The
King granted Leonardo and his entourage generous pensions: the surviving
document lists 1,000 écus for the artist, 400 for Count Francesco
Melzi, (his pupil, named as "apprentice"), and 100 for Salaino
("servant"). In 1518 Salaino left Leonardo and returned to
Milan, where he eventually perished in a duel. Vasari
also tells us that in his last days, Leonardo sent for a priest to make
his confession and to receive the Holy Sacrament. According to his wish,
sixty beggars followed his casket. He was buried in the Chapel of Saint-Hubert
in the castle of Amboise. Although Melzi was his principal heir and
executor, Salaino was not forgotten, receiving half of Leonardo's vineyards
and the Mona Lisa. Some
twenty years after Leonardo's death, François was reported by
the goldsmith and sculptor Benevenuto Cellini as saying: Relationships
and influences Florence
Leonardo's artistic and social background Leonardo commenced his apprenticeship with Verrocchio in 1466, the year that Verrocchios master, the great scuptor Donatello, died. The painter Uccello whose early experiments with perspective were to influence the development of landscape painting, was a very old man. The painters Piero della Francesca and Fra Filippo Lippi, sculptor Luca della Robbia, and architect and writer Alberti were in their sixties. The
successful artists of the next generation were Leonardo's teacher Verrocchio,
Antonio Pollaiuolo and the portrait sculptor, Mino da Fiesole whose
lifelike busts give the most reliable likenesses of Lorenzo Medici's
father Piero and uncle Giovanni. Piero
della Francesca had made a detailed study of perspective, and was the
first painter to make a scientific study of light. These studies and
Alberti's Treatise were to have a profound effect on younger artists
and in particular on Leonardo's own observations and artworks. Massaccio's depiction of the naked and distraught Adam and Eve leaving the Garden of Eden created of powerfully expressive image of the human form, cast into three dimensions by the use of light and shade which was to re-emerge in the works of Leonardo in a way that was to change the course of painting. The Humanist influence of Donatello's David can be seen in Leonardo's late paintings, particularly John the Baptist. A prevalent tradition in Florence was the small altarpiece of the Virgin and Child. Many of these were created in tempera or glazed terracottta by the workshops of Lippi, Verrocchio and the prolific Robbia family. Leonardo's
early Madonnas such as the The Madonna with a carnation and The Benois
Madonna followed this tradition while showing indiosyncratic departures,
particularly in the case of the Benois Madonna in which the Virgin is
set at an oblique angle to the picture space with the Christ Child at
the opposite angle. This compositional theme was to emerge in Leonardo's
later paintings such as The Virgin and Child with St. Anne He would
have met them at the workshop of Verrocchio, with whom they had associations,
and at the Academy of the Medici. Botticelli was a particular favourite
of the family and thus his success as a painter was assured. Ghirlandaio
and Perugino were both prolific and ran efficient workshops. They competently
delivered commissions to well-satisfied patrons who appreciated Ghirlandaio's
ability to portray the wealthy citizens of Florence within large religious
frescoes, and Perugino's ability to deliver a multitude of saints and
angels of unfailing sweetness and innocence. These
three were among those commissioned to paint the walls of the Sistine
Chapel, the work commencing with Perugino's employment in 1479. Leonardo
was not part of this prestigious commission. His first significant commission,
The Adoration of the Magi for the Monks of Scopeto, was never completed. In 1476,
during the time of Leonardos association with Verrocchios
workshop, Hugo van der Goes arrived in Florence, bringing the Portinari
Altarpiece and the new painterly techniques from Northern Europe which
were to profoundly effect Leonardo, Ghirlandaio, Perugino and others.
In 1479, the Sicilian painter Antonello da Messina, who worked exclusively
in oils, travelled north on his way to Venice, where an older painter,
Giovanni Bellini adopted the media of oil painting, quickly making it
the preferred method in Venice. Leonardo was also later to visit Venice. Leonardo was also the contemporary of the two architects, Bramante and Sangallo. Like these artists, he experimented with designs for centrally-planned churches, a number of them appearing in his journals, as both plans and views, but none was ever realised. Leonardos political contemporaries were Lorenzo Medici (il Magnifico), who was three years older, and his popular younger brother Giuliano who was slain in the Pazzi Conspiracy in 1478. Ludovico
il Moro who ruled Milan between 14791499 and to whom Leonardo
was sent as ambassador from the Medici court, was also of Leonardos
age. Also
associated with the Academy of the Medici was Leonardo's contemporary,
the brilliant young poet and philosopher Pico della Mirandola. Leonardo
later wrote in the margin of a journal "The Medici made me and
the Medici destroyed me." While it was through the action of Lorenzo
that Leonardo was to receive his important Milanese commissions, it
is not known exactly what Leonardo meant by this cryptic comment. Leonardo,
Michelangelo and Raphael were not of the same generation. Leonardo was
23 when Michelangelo was born and 31 when Raphael was born. The short-lived
Raphael died in 1520, the year after Leonardo, but Michelangelo went
on creating for another 45 years. Assistants
and pupils A year
later Leonardo made a list of the boys misdemeanours, calling
him "a thief, a liar, stubborn, and a glutton." The "Little
Devil" had made off with money and valuables on at least five occasions,
and spent a fortune on apparel, among which were twenty-four pairs of
shoes. Nevertheless, Leonardos notebooks during their early years
contain many pictures of the handsome, curly-haired adolescent. Il Salaino
remained his companion, servant, and assistant for the next thirty years. As a
painter, Salainos work is generally considered to be of less artistic
merit than others among Leonardo's pupils such as Marco d'Oggione and
Boltraffio. In 1515 he painted, under the name of Andrea Salai, a nude
portrait of "Lisa del Giocondo", based upon the Mona Lisa
and known as Monna Vanna. The Mona Lisa was bequeathed to Salaino by
Leonardo, and in Salaino's own will it was assessed at the high value
of £200,000. In 1506,
Leonardo took as a pupil Count Francesco Melzi, the fifteen-year-old
son of a Lombard aristocrat. Salaino, at first jealous of Melzi, eventually
accepted his continued presence and the three undertook journeys throughout
Italy. Melzi became Leonardo's life companion, and is considered to
have been his favourite student. He travelled to France with Leonardo
and was with him until his death. Personal
life Leonardo had many friends who are figures now renowned in their fields, or for their influence on history. These included the mathematician Luca Pacioli with whom he collaborated on a book in the 1490s and Cesare Borgia, in whose service he spent the years 1502 and 1503. During that time he also met Niccolò Machiavelli, with whom later he was to develop a close friendship. Also
among his friends are counted Franchinus Gaffurius and Isabella d'Este.
Isabella was probably his closest female friend. He drew a portrait
of her while on a journey which took him through Mantua which appears
to have been used to create a painted portrait, now lost. Beyond
friendship, Leonardo kept his private life secret. He commented "the
act of procreation and anything that has any relation to it is so disgusting
that human beings would soon die out if there were no pretty faces and
sensuous dispositions". His
most intimate relationships were with his pupils Salai and Melzi, Melzi
writing that Leonardo's feelings for him were both loving and passionate.
It has been claimed since the 16th century that these relationships
were of an erotic nature. Since that date much has written about his
presumed homosexuality and its role in his art, particularly in the
androgyny and eroticism manifested in John the Baptist and Bacchus and
more explicitly in a number of drawings. Leonardos
painting Despite
the recent awareness and admiration of Leonardo as a scientist and inventor,
for the better part of four hundred years his enormous fame rested on
his achievements as a painter and on a handful of works, either authenticated
or attributed to him that have been regarded as among the supreme masterpieces
ever created. Among
the qualities that make Leonardos work unique are the innovative
techniques that he used in laying on the paint, his detailed knowledge
of anatomy, light, botany and geology, his interest in physiognomy and
the way in which humans register emotion in expression and gesture,
his innovative use of the human form in figurative composition and his
use of the subtle gradation of tone. All these qualities come together
in his most famous works, the Mona Lisa, the Last Supper and the Virgin
of the Rocks. Early
works Leonardos early works begin with the Baptism of Christ painted in conjunction with Verrocchio. Two other paintings appear to date from his time at the workshop, both of which are Annunciations. One is small, 59 cms long and only 14 cms high. It is a predella to go at the base of a larger composition, in this case a painting by Lorenzo di Credi from which it has become separated. The other is a much larger work, 217 cm long. In both
these Annunciations, Leonardo has used the very formal arrangement of
Fra Angelicos two well known pictures of the same subject, the
Virgin Mary sitting or kneeling to the right of the picture, approached
from the left by an angel in profile, with rich flowing garment, raised
wings and bearing a lily. In the
smaller picture Mary averts her eyes and folds her hands in a gesture
that symbolised submission to Gods will. In the larger picture,
however, Mary is not in the least submissive. The beautiful girl, interrupted
in her reading by this unexpected messenger, puts a finger in her bible
to mark the place and raises her hand in greeting. This calm young woman
accepts her role as the Mother of God not with resignation but with
confidence. In this painting the young Leonardo presents the Humanist
face of the Virgin Mary, a woman who recognises humanitys role
in Gods incarnation. Paintings
of the 1480s In the 1480s Leonardo received two very important commissions, and commenced another work which was also of ground-breaking importance in terms of composition. Unfortunately two of the three were never finished and the third took so long that it was subject to lengthy negotiations over completion and payment. One of these paintings is that of St Jerome in the wilderness. Although the painting is barely begun the entire composition can be seen and it is very unusual. Jerome, as a penitent, occupies the middle of the picture, set on a slight diagonal and viewed somewhat from above. His kneeling form takes on a trapezoid shape, with one arm stretched to the outer edge of the painting and his gaze looking in the opposite direction. Across
the foreground sprawls his symbol, a great lion whose body and tail
make a double spiral across the base of the picture space. The other
remarkable feature is the sketchy landscape of craggy rocks against
which the figure is silhouetted. It is
a very complex composition about 250 cm square. For it Leonardo did
numerous drawings and preparatory studies, including a detailed one
in linear perspective of the ruined Classical architecture which makes
part of the backdrop to the scene. But in 1482 Leonardo went off to
Milan at the behest of Lorenzo de Medici in order to win favour
with Ludovico il Moro and the painting was abandoned. The
third important work of this period is the Virgin of the Rocks which
was commissioned in Milan for the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception.
The painting, to be done with the assistance of the de Predis brothers,
was to fill a large complex altarpiece, already constructed. Leonardo
chose to paint an apocryphal moment of the infancy of Christ when the
Infant John the Baptist, in protection of an angel, met the Holy Family
on the road to Egypt. In this scene, as painted by Leonardo, John recognizes
and worships Jesus as the Christ. The painting demonstrates an eerie
beauty as the graceful figures kneel in adoration around the infant
Christ in a wild and rocky landscape of tumbling rock and whirling water. While
the painting is quite large, about 200 x 120 cms, it is nowhere as complex
as the painting ordered by the monks of St Donato, having only four
figures rather than about 50 and a rocky landscape rather than architectural
details. The painting was eventually finished; in fact, two versions
of the painting were finished, one which remained at the chapel of the
Confraternity and the other which Leonardo carried away to France. But
the Brothers did not get their painting, or the de Predis their payment,
until the next century. Paintings
of the 1490s The
most famous painting the 1490s is Last Supper, also painted in Milan.
The painting represents the last meal shared by Jesus with his desciples
before his capture and death. It shows, specifically the moment when
Jesus has said one of you will betray me. See painting reproduced
further down this page. Vasari
describes in detail how he worked on it, how some days he would paint
like fury, how other days he would spend hours just looking at it, and
how he walked the streets of the city looking for the face of Judas,
the traitor. Leonardo,
instead of using the reliable technique of fresco had experimented with
different paint-binding agents, which were subject to mold and to flaking.
Despite this, the painting has remained one of the most reproduced works
of art, countless copies being made in every medium from carpets to
cameos. Paintings
of the 1500s Among the works created by Leonardo in the 1500s is the small portrait known as the Mona Lisa or la Gioconda, the laughing one. The painting is famous, in particular, for the elusive smile on the womans face, its mysterious quality brought about perhaps by the fact that the artist has subtly shadowed the corners of the mouth and eyes so that the exact nature of the smile cannot be determined. The
shadowy quality for which the work is renowned came to be called sfumato
or Leonardos smoke. Other characteristics found in this work are
the unadorned dress, in which the eyes and beautiful hands have no competition
from other details, the dramatic landscape background in which the world
seems to be in a state of flux, the subdued colouring and the extremely
smooth nature of the painterly technique, employing oils, but laid on
much like tempera and blended on the surface so that the brushstrokes
are indistinguishable. In the
Virgin and Child with St. Anne the composition again picks up the theme
of figures in a landscape. It harks back to the St Jerome picture with
the figure set at an oblique angle. What makes this painting unusual
is that there are two obliquely-set figures, superimposed. Mary is seated
on the knee of her mother, St Anne. She leans forward to support the
Christ Child as he plays (rather roughly) with a lamb, the sign of his
own impending sacrifice. In the composition of this painting, Leonardo
is showing trends which would be adopted in particular by the Venetian
painters, Titian and Tintoretto as well as by Andrea del Sarto, Pontormo
and Correggio. Leonardo's
drawings Leonardo
was not a prolific painter, but he was a most prolific draftsman, keeping
journals full of small sketches and detailed drawings recording all
manner of things that took his attention. As well as the journals there
exist many studies for paintings, some of which can be identified as
preparatory to particular works such as The Adoration of the Magi, The
Virgin of the Rocks and The Last Supper. His earliest dated drawing
is a Landscape of the Arno Valley, 1473, which shows the river, the
mountains, Montelupo Castle and the farmlands beyond it in great detail. Among his famous drawings are the Vitruvian Man, a study of the proportions of the human body, the Head of an Angel, for The Virgin of the Rocks in the Louvre, a botanical study of Star of Bethlehem and a large drawing (160×100 cm) in black chalk on coloured paper of the The Virgin and Child with St. Anne and St. John the Baptist in the National Gallery, London. This drawing employs the subtle sfumato technique of shading, in the manner of the Mona Lisa. It is
thought that Leonardo never made a painting from it, the closest similarity
being to The Virgin and Child with St. Anne in the Louvre. There are numerous studies of the beautiful young man, Salaino, with his rare and much admired facial feature, the so-called "Grecian profile". He is often depicted in fancy-dress costume. Leonardo is known to have designed sets for pageants with which these may be associated. Other,
often meticulous, drawings show studies of drapery. A marked development
in Leornardo's ability to draw drapery occurred in his early works.
Another often-reproduced drawing is a macabre sketch that was done by
Leonardo in Florence in 1479 showing the body of Bernado Baroncelli,
hanged in connection with the murder of Giuliano, brother of Lorenzo
de'Medici, in the Pazzi Conspiracy. With dispassionate integrity Leonardo
has registered in neat mirror writing the colours of the robes that
Baroncelli was wearing when he died. Anatomy Leonardo's
formal training in the anatomy of the human body began with his apprenticeship
to Andrea del Verrocchio, his teacher insisting that all his pupils
learn anatomy. As an artist, he quickly became master of topographic
anatomy, drawing many studies of muscles, tendons and other visible
anatomical features. From
1510 to 1511 he collaborated in his studies with the doctor Marcantonio
della Torre and together they prepared a theoretical work on anatomy
for which Leonardo made more than 200 drawings. It was published only
in 1680 (161 years after his death) under the heading Treatise on painting. Leonardo
drew many studies of the human skeleton and its parts, as well as muscles
and sinews, the heart and vascular system, the sex organs, and other
internal organs. He made one of the first scientific drawings of a fetus
in utero. He also
made a number of studies of horses. Leonardo,
the "Legend" Within
Leonardo's own lifetime his fame was such that the King of France carried
him away like a trophy, and was claimed to have supported him in his
old age and held him in his arms as he died. Vasari, in his "Lives
of the Artists" written about thirty years after Leonardo's death,
described him as having talents that "transcended nature". The
crowds still queue to see his most famous artworks, T-shirts bear his
most famous drawing and writers, like Vasari, continue to marvel at
his genius and speculate about his private life and, particularly, about
what one so intelligent actually believed in.
In the normal course of events many men and women are born with remarkable
talents; but occasionally, in a way that transcends nature, a single
person is marvellously endowed by Heaven with beauty, grace and talent
in such abundance that he leaves other men far behind, all his actions
seem inspired and indeed everything he does clearly comes from God rather
than from human skill. Everyone acknowledged that this was true of Leonardo
da Vinci, an artist of outstanding physical beauty, who displayed infinite
grace in everything that he did and who cultivated his genius so brilliantly
that all problems he studied he solved with ease. On Leonardo's
genius The
continued admiration that Leonardo commanded from painters, critics
and historians can be appreciated from the following quotations. Boltraffio
c.1520
The man Leonardo Castiglione,
1528 "
Another
of the greatest painters in this world looks down on this art in which
he is unequalled
" H. Fuseli,
1801 A. E.
Rio, 1861 H. Taine,
1866 Berenson,
1896 Liana
Bortolon, 1967 List
of Leonardo's paintings None
of Leonardo's paintings are signed. Certain works still in existence
are cited by Vasari or are referred to in contracts. Entirely
by Leonardo The
Last Supper (1498) Convent of Sta. Maria delle Grazie, Milan,
Italy Mona
Lisa or La Gioconda (15031505/1507) Louvre, Paris, France
Adoration
of the Magi unfinished painting (1481) Uffizi, Florence, Italy
The
Virgin and Child with St. Anne (c. 1510) Louvre, Paris, France
Virgin
of the Rocks, Louvre, Paris, considered by most historians to be the
earlier of two versions and to therefore date from 14831486. The
Virgin and Child with St. Anne and St. John the Baptist large drawing
(c. 14991500) National Gallery, London, UK. Leonardo
with other hands The Baptism of Christ (14721475) Uffizi, Florence, Italy. Cited by Vasari as by Verrocchio, with the angel on the left-hand side by Leonardo. It is generally considered that Leonardo also painted the background landscape and the torso of Christ. One of Leornardo's
earliest extant works. Virgin
of the Rocks, National Gallery, London, genarally accepted as postdating
the version in the Louvre, possibly 15051508, with collaboration
of de Predis and perhaps others. Accepted
attributions Annunciation
(14751480) Uffizi, Florence, Italy. Generally thought to
be the earliest extant work entirely by Leonardo. The
Benois Madonna (14781480) Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg,
Russia The
Madonna of the Carnation, (14781480) Alte Pinakothek, Munich St.
John the Baptist (c. 1514) Louvre, Paris, France Attribution
dependent upon each other These
two paintings are almost certainly by the same artist, generally accepted
to be Leonardo, but not without critics. Ginevra
de' Benci (c. 1475) National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.,
United States Lady
with an Ermine (14881490) Czartoryski Museum, Kraków,
Poland Disputed Portrait
of a Musician (c. 1490) Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan, Italy Madonna
Litta (149091) Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia,
thought perhaps to be by Marco d'Oggiono La belle
Ferronière (14951498) Louvre, Paris, France The
Dreyfus Madonna, previously attributed to Verrocchio or Lorenzo di Credi.
(The anatomy of the Christ Child is so poor as to discourage firm attribution).
Recent
attribution The
Holy Infants Embracing c. 14861490 private collection. After
recent cleaning, the gallery sought attribution as a work of Leonardo's
youth, based on the presence of a fingerprint similar to one that appears
in The Lady with the Ermine. Result of investigation not available.
Mary
Magdalene, recently attributed as a Leonardo by Carlo Pedretti. Previously
regarded as the work of Giampietrino who painted a number of similar
Magdalenes. Known
only as a copy |
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| Leonardo as observer, scientist and inventor | |
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Journals Renaissance humanism saw no mutually exclusive polarities between the sciences and the arts, and Leonardo's studies in science and engineering are as impressive and innovative as his artistic work, recorded in notebooks comprising some 13,000 pages of notes and drawings, which fuse art and natural philosophy (the forerunner of modern science). These notes were made and maintained daily throughout Leonardo's life and travels, as he made continual observations of the world around him. |
|
The
journals are mostly written in mirror-image cursive. The reason may
have been more a practical expediency than for reasons of secrecy as
is often suggested. Since Leonardo wrote with his left hand, it is probable
that it was easier for him to write from right to left. His
notes and drawings display an enormous range of interests and preoccupations,
some as mundane as lists of groceries and people who owed him money
and some as intriguing as designs for wings and shoes for walking on
water. There are compositions for paintings, studies of details and
drapery, studies of faces and emotions, of animals, babies, dissections,
plant studies, rock formations, whirl pools, war machines, helicopters
and architecture. These notebooksoriginally loose papers of different types and sizes, distributed by friends after his deathhave found their way into major collections such as the Louvre, the Biblioteca Nacional de España, the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, and the Victoria and Albert Museum and British Library in London. The British Library has put a selection from its notebook (BL Arundel MS 263) on the web in the Turning the Pages section. The
Codex Leicester is the only major scientific work of Leonardo's in private
hands. It is owned by Bill Gates, and is displayed once a year in different
cities around the world. Technological
historian Lewis Mumford suggests that Leonardo kept notebooks as a private
journal, intentionally censoring his work from those who might irresponsibly
use it (the tank, for instance). They remained obscure until the 19th
century, and were not directly of value to the development of science
and technology. In January 2005, researchers discovered what some believe to be a hidden laboratory used by Leonardo da Vinci for studies of flight and other pioneering scientific work in previously sealed rooms at a monastery next to the Basilica of the Santissima Annunziata, in the heart of Florence |
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| Anatomy | |
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Human
anatomy
...to obtain a true and perfect knowledge [of the vascular system]...
I have dissected more than ten human bodies, destroying all the other
members, and removing the very minutest particles of the flesh by which
these veins are surrounded, ... and as one single body would not last
so long, since it was necessary to proceed with several bodies by degrees,
until I came to an end and had a complete knowledge; this I repeated
twice, to learn the differences... Topographic
anatomy |
|
del
Verrocchio. As a student he would have been taught to draw the human
body from life, to memorise the muscles, tendons and visible subcutaneous
structure and to familiarise himself with the mechanics of the various
parts of the skeletal and muscular structure. It was common workshop
practice to have plaster casts of parts of the human anatomy available
for students to study and draw. If,
as is thought to be the case, Leonardo painted the torso and arms of
Christ in The Baptism of Christ on which he famously collaborated with
his master Verrocchio, then his understanding of topographical anatomy
had surpassed that of his master at an early age as can be seen by a
comparison of the arms of Christ with those of John the Baptist in the
same painting. In the
1490s he wrote about demonstrating muscles and sinews to students: His
continued investigations in this field are demonstrated by many fine
drawings in his journals. In conjunction with studies of aspects of
the body are drawings of faces displaying different emotions and many
drawings of people suffering facial deformity, either congenital or
through illness. Some of these drawings, generally referred to as "caricatures",
on analysis of the skeletal proportions, appear to be based on anatomical
studies. Dissection
I have removed the skin from a man who was so shrunk by illness that
the muscles were worn down and remained in a state like thin membrane,
in such a way that the sinews instead of merging in muscles ended in
wide membrane; and where the bones were covered by the skin they had
very little over their natural size. Among
the detailed images that Leonardo drew are many studies of the human
skeleton. He was the first to describe the double S form of the backbone.
He also studied the inclination of pelvis and sacrum and stressed that
sacrum was not uniform, but composed of five fused vertebrae. He dissected
and drew the human skull and cross-sections of the brain, transversal,
sagittal, and frontal. Not
only interested in structure but also in function, Leonardo was a physiologist
in addition to being an anatomist. He studied internal organs, being
the first to draw the human appendix and also drawing detailed images
of the lungs, mesentery, urinary tract, sex organs, the muscles of the
cervix and a detailed cross-section of coitus. He correctly
worked out how heart valves ebb the flow of blood yet he did not fully
understand circulation as he believed that blood was pumped to the muscles
where it was consumed. Leonardo's drawing inspired a British heart surgeon
to pioneer a new way to repair damaged hearts in 2005. His
study of human anatomy led also to the design of the first known robot
in recorded history. The design, which has come to be called Leonardo's
robot, was probably made around the year 1495 but was rediscovered only
in the 1950s. It is not known if an attempt was made to build the device. Comparative
anatomy
I have found that in the composition of the human body as compared with
the bodies of animals, the organs of sense are duller and coarser...
I have seen in the Lion tribe that the sense of smell is connected with
part of the substance of the brain which comes down the nostrils, which
form a spacious receptacle for the sense of smell, which enters by a
great number of cartilaginous vesicles with several passages leading
up to where the brain, as before said, comes down. In the
early 1490s Leonardo was commissioned to create a monument in honour
of Francesco Sforza. In his notebooks are a series of plans for an equestrian
monument. There are also a large number of related anatomical studies
of horses. They include several diagrams of a standing horse with the
angles and proportions anotated, anatomical studies of horses' heads,
a dozen detailed drawings of hooves and numerous studies and sketches
of horses rearing. He studied
the topographical anatomy of a bear in detail, making many drawings
of its paws. There is also a drawing of the muscles and tendons of the
bear's hind feet. Other drawings of particular interest include the
uterus of a pregnant cow, the hindquarters of a decrepit mule and studies
of the musculature of a little dog. Botany One
such study shows a page with several species of flower of which ten
drawings are of wild violets. Along with a drawing of the growing plant
and a detail of a leaf, Leonardo has repeatedly drawn single flowers
from different angles, with their heads set different on the stem. His
notebooks also direct the artist to observe how light reflects from
foliage at different distances and under different atmospheric conditions. In both
the Annunciation pictures the grass is dotted with blossoming plants. Geology Leonardo's
earliest dated drawing is a study of the Arno Valley, strongly emphasizing
its geological features. His note books contain landscapes with a wealth
of geological observation from the regions of both Florence and Milan,
often including atmospheric effects such as a heavy rainstorm pouring
down on a town at the foot of a mountain range. It had
been observed for many years that strata in mountains often contained
bands of sea shells. Conservative science said that these could be explained
by the Great Flood described in the Bible. Leonardo's observations convinced
him that this could not possibly be the case.
And a little beyond the sandstone conglomerate, a tufa has been formed,
where it turned towards Castel Florentino; farther on, the mud was deposited
in which the shells lived, and which rose in layers according to the
levels at which the turbid Arno flowed into that sea. And from time
to time the bottom of the sea was raised, depositing these shells in
layers, as may be seen in the cutting at Colle Gonzoli, laid open by
the Arno which is wearing away the base of it; in which cutting the
said layers of shells are very plainly to be seen in clay of a bluish
colour, and various marine objects are found there. This
quotation makes clear the breadth of Leonardo's understanding of Geology,
including the action of water in creating sedimentary rock, the tectonic
action of the earth in raising the sea bed and the action of erosion
in the creation of geographical features. In Leonardo's earliest paintings we see the remarkable attention given to the small landscapes of the background, with lakes and water, swathed in a misty light. In the larger of the Annunciation paintings is a town on the edge of a lake. Although distant, the mountains can be seen to be scored by vertical strata. This characteristic can be observed in other paintings by Leonardo, and closely resembles the mountains around Lago di Garda and Lago d'Iseo in Northern Italy. It is a particular feature of both the paintings of The Virgin of the Rocks, which also include caverns of fractured, tumbled and water eroded limestone. |
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| The Vitruvian Man | |
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The Vitruvian Man is a world renowned drawing with accompanying notes created by Leonardo da Vinci around the year 1492 as recorded in one of his journals. It depicts
a nude male figure in two superimposed positions with his arms and legs
apart and simultaneously inscribed in a circle and square. The drawing
and text are sometimes called the Canon of Proportions or, less often,
Proportions of Man. It is stored in the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice,
Italy, but is only displayed on special occasions. Description |
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the Renaissance and provides the perfect example of Leonardo's keen interest in proportion. In addition, this picture represents a cornerstone of Leonardo's attempts to relate man to nature. Encyclopaedia Britannica online states, "Leonardo envisaged the great picture chart of the human body he had produced through his anatomical drawings and Vitruvian Man as a cosmografia del minor mondo (cosmography of the microcosm). He believed the workings of the human body to be an analogy for the workings of the universe." It is also believed by some that Leonardo symbolised the material existence by the square and spiritual existence by the circle. Thus he attempted to depict the correlation between these two aspects of human existence. According
to Leonardo's notes in the accompanying text, written in mirror writing,
it was made as a study of the proportions of the (male) human body as
described in a treatise by the Ancient Roman architect Vitruvius, who
wrote that in the human body: a palm
is the width of four fingers a foot
is the width of four palms a cubit
is the width of six palms a man's
height is four cubits (and thus 24 palms) a pace
is four cubits the
length of a man's outspread arms is equal to his height the
distance from the hairline to the bottom of the chin is one-tenth of
a man's height the
distance from the top of the head to the bottom of the chin is one-eighth
of a man's height the
maximum width of the shoulders is a quarter of a man's height the
distance from the elbow to the tip of the hand is one-fifth of a man's
height the
distance from the elbow to the armpit is one-eighth of a man's height
the
length of the hand is one-tenth of a man's height the distance from the bottom of the chin to the nose is one-third of the length of the head
It is
not alone by a circle, that the human body is thus circumscribed, as
may be seen by placing it within a square. For measuring from the feet
to the crown of the head, and then across the arms fully extended, we
find the latter measure equal to the former; so that lines at right
angles to each other, enclosing the figure, will form a square. The multiple viewpoint that set in with Romanticism has convinced us that there is no such thing as a universal set of proportions for the human body. The field of anthropometry was created in order to describe these individual variations. Vitruvius' statements may be interpreted as statements about average proportions. Vitruvius
goes through some trouble to give a precise mathematical definition
of what he means by saying that the navel is the center of the body,
but other definitions lead to different results; for example, the center
of mass of the human body depends on the position of the limbs, and
in a standing posture is typically about 10 cm lower than the navel,
near the top of the hip bones. Note
that Leonardo's drawing combines a careful reading of the ancient text,
combined with his own observation of actual human bodies. In drawing
the circle and square he correctly observes that the square cannot have
the same center as the circle, the navel, but is somewhat lower in the
anatomy. This adjustment is the innovative part of Leonardo's drawing
and what distinguishes it from earlier illustrations. He also departs
from Vitruvius by drawing the arms raised to a position in which the
fingertips are level with the top of the head, rather than Vitruvius's
much higher angle, in which the arms form lines passing through the
navel. The
drawing itself is often used as an implied symbol of the essential symmetry
of the human body, and by extension, to the universe as a whole. The
drawing was in the collection of Giuseppe Bossi, who illustrated it
in his monograph on Leonardo's The Last Supper, Del Cenacolo di Leonardo
Da Vinci libri quattro (Milan 1810). The following year he excerpted
the section of his monograph concerned with Leonardo's "Vitruvian
Man" and published it as Delle opinioni di Leonardo da Vinci intorno
alla simmetria de'Corpi Umani (Milan: Stamperia Reale, 1811), with a
dedication to his friend Antonio Canova. Dedicated
by the author to his friend, the neoclassical sculptor Antonio Canova,
this discussion of Leonardo's theory of human proportions is extracted
from Bossi monograph on the Last Supper, pp. 202-26 (No. 318). The
proportions for the human body, as proposed by Vitruvius, have inspired
many other artists in drawing their version of the Vitruvian Man: Cesare Ceasariano (1521) who edited the important 1521 edition of De Archtectura of Vitruvius
(Leonardo da Vinci is supposed to have provided the illustrations for
this edition). Albrecht
Dürer (1528) in his book Vier Bücher von menschlicher Proportion
(Four books on human proportions) Pietro
di Giacomo Cataneo (1554) Heinrich
Lautensack (1618) William
Blake (1795) Glad Day (now known as "Albion rose").
This representation is without the circle and square. Rob ten Berge Vitruvian Man (2), Vitruvian Female, Vitruvian Brain etc. Cosmology. |
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| Scientific studies: Geometry | |
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Leonardo's approach to science was an observational one: he tried to understand a phenomenon by describing and depicting it in utmost detail, and did not emphasize experiments or theoretical explanation. Since
he lacked formal education in Latin and mathematics, contemporary scholars
mostly ignored Leonardo the scientist, although he did teach himself
Latin. In the 1490s he studied mathematics under Luca Pacioli and prepared
a series of drawings of regular solids in a skeletal form to be engraved
as plates for Pacioli's book Divina Proportione, published in 1509. It has also been said that he was planning a series of treatises to be published on a variety of subjects though none survives; it appears he did complete a coherent treatise on anatomy, which was observed during a visit by Cardinal Louis D'Aragon's secretary in 1517. |
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Geometry While
in Milan in 1496 Leonardo met a traveling monk and academic, Luca Pacioli.
Under him, Leonardo studied mathematics. Pacioli, who devised the double
entry system of bookkeeping, had already published a major treatise
on Mathematical knowledge, collaborated with Leonardo in the production
of a book called "De divina proportione" about mathematical
and artistic proportion. Leonardo prepared a series of drawings of regular
solids in a skeletal form to be engraved as plates. "De divina
proportione" was published in 1509. All the problems of perspective are made clear by the five terms of mathematicians, which are:the point, the line, the angle, the superficies and the solid. The point is unique of its kind. And the point has neither height, breadth, length, nor depth, whence it is to be regarded as indivisible and as having no dimensions in space. |
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| A design for flying machine | |
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Engineering
and inventions Fascinated by the phenomenon of flight, Leonardo produced detailed studies of the flight of birds, and plans for several flying machines, including a helicopter powered by four men (which would not have worked since the body of the craft would have rotated) and a light hang glider |
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which
could have flown. On January 3, 1496 he unsuccessfully tested a flying
machine he had constructed. During
his lifetime Leonardo was valued as an engineer. In a letter to Ludovico
il Moro he claimed to be able to create all sorts of machines both for
the protection of a city and for siege. When he fled to Venice in 1499
he found employment as an engineer and devised a system of moveable
barricades to protect the city from attack. He also had a scheme for
diverting the flow of the Arno River in order to flood Pisa. In 1502, Leonardo produced a drawing of a single span 720-foot (240 m) bridge as part of a civil engineering project for Ottoman Sultan Beyazid II of Istanbul. The bridge was intended to span an inlet at the mouth of the Bosporus known as the Golden Horn. Beyazid did not pursue the project, because he believed that such a construction was impossible. Leonardo's vision was resurrected in 2001 when a smaller bridge based on his design was constructed in Norway. On 17 May 2006, the Turkish government decided to construct Leonardo's bridge to span the Golden Horn. |
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| Scientist and inventor | |
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Hydrodynamics Among
Leonardo's drawings are many that are studies of the motion of water,
in particular the forms taken by fast-flowing water on striking different
surfaces. |
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water.
The spiral form had been studied in the art of the Classical era and
strict mathematical proportion had been applied to its use in art and
architecture. An awareness of these rules of proportion had been revived
in the early Renaissance. In Leonardo's drawings can be seen the investigation
of the spiral as it occurs in water. There
are several elaborate drawings of water curling over an object placed
at a diagonal to its course. There are several drawings of water dropping
from a height and curling upwards in spiral forms. One such drawing,
as well as curling waves, shows splashes and details of spray and bubbles. Leonardo's
interest manifested itself in the drawing of streams and rivers, the
action of water in eroding rocks, and the cataclismic action of water
in floods and tidal waves. The knowledge that he gained from his studies
was employed in devising a range of projects, particularly in relation
to the Arno River. None of the major works was brought to completion.
The earth is not in the centre of the Suns orbit nor at the centre
of the universe, but in the centre of its companion elements, and united
with them. And any one standing on the moon, when it and the sun are
both beneath us, would see this our earth and the element of water upon
it just as we see the moon, and the earth would light it as it lights
us. Alchemy Claims
have sometimes been made that Leonardo da Vinci was an alchemist. However,
his scientific process was based mainly upon observation. His practical
experiments are also founded in observation rather than belief. Leonardo,
who questioned the order of the solar system and the deposit of fossils
by the Great Flood, had little time for the notion that a lead could
be turned into gold or that a potion could be created that gave eternal
life. Leonardo
said about alchemists:-
The false interpreters of nature declare that quicksilver is the common
seed of every metal, not remembering that nature varies the seed according
to the variety of the things she desires to produce in the world.
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| Engineering and invention | |
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Vasari
in "Lives of the Artists" says of Leonardo:
He made designs for mills, fulling machines and engines that could be
driven by water-power... In addition he used to make models and plans
showing how to excavate and tunnel through mountains without difficulty,
so as to pass from one level to another; and he demonstrated how to
lift and draw great weights by means of levers, hoists and winches,
and ways of cleansing harbours and using pumps to suck up water from
great depths. Practical
inventions and projects Leonardo
was master of mechanical principles. He utilised leverage and cantilevering,
pulleys, cranks, gears, including angle gears and rack and pinion gears;
parallel linkage, momentum, centripetal force and the aerofoil. Because Leonardo's inventions date from an era before the issue of patents, it is impossible to say with any certainty how many or even which of his inventions passed into general and practical use, and thereby had impact over the lives of many people. Among those inventions that are |
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credited
with passing into general practical use are the strut bridge, the automated
bobbin winder, the machine for testing the tensile strength of wire
and the lens-grinding machine pictured at right. In the
lens-grinding machine, the hand rotation of the grinding wheel operates
an angle-gear, which rotates a shaft, turning a geared dish in which
sits the glass or crystal to be ground. A single action rotates both
surfaces at a fixed speed ratio determined by the gear. As an
inventor, Leonardo was not prepared to tell all that he knew:
How by means of a certain machine many people may stay some time under
water. How and why I do not describe my method of remaining under water,
or how long I can stay without eating; and I do not publish nor divulge
these by reason of the evil nature of men who would use them as means
of destruction at the bottom of the sea, by sending ships to the bottom,
and sinking them together with the men in them. And although I will
impart others, there is no danger in them; because the mouth of the
tube, by which you breathe, is above the water supported on bags of
corks. Bridges
and hydraulics Leonardo's
study of the motion of water led him to design machinery that utilised
its force. Much of his work on hydraulics was for Ludovico il Moro.
Leonardo wrote to Ludovico describing his skills and what he could build:
...very light and strong bridges that can easily be carried, with which
to pursue, and sometimes flee from, the enemy; and others safe and indestructible
by fire or assault, easy and convenient to transport and place into
position. In 1502,
Leonardo produced a drawing of a single span 240 m (720-foot) bridge
as part of a civil engineering project for Ottoman Sultan Beyazid II
of Istanbul. The bridge was intended to span an inlet at the mouth of
the Bosphorus known as the Golden Horn. Beyazid did not pursue the project,
because he believed that such a construction was impossible. Leonardo's
vision was resurrected in 2001 when a smaller bridge based on his design
was constructed in Norway. On 17 May 2006, the Turkish government decided
to construct Leonardo's bridge to span the Golden Horn. War
machines Leonardo's
letter to Ludovico il Moro assured him: In Leonardo's notebooks there is an array of war machines which includes a tank to be propelled by two men powering crank shafts. Although the drawing itself looks quite finished, the mechanics were apparently not fully developed because, if built as drawn, the tank, with a lot of effort, might be made to rotate on the spot, but would never progress in a forward direction. In a
BBC documentary, a military team built the machine and found it not
working, until they changed only one of the gears. It is believed that
Da Vinci deliberately left this error in the design, in order to prevent
it from being put to practice by unauthorized people. Another
machine, propelled by horses with a pillion rider, carries in front
of it four scythes mounted on a revolving gear, turned by a shaft driven
by the wheels of a cart behind the horses. He also
designed an enormous crossbow. Following his detailed drawing, one was
constructed by the British Army, but could not be made to fire successfully. Flight In Leonardo's
infancy a hawk had once hovered over his cradle. Recalling this incident,
Leonardo saw it as prophetic.
An object offers as much resistance to the air as the air does to the
object. You may see that the beating of its wings against the air supports
a heavy eagle in the highest and rarest atmosphere, close to the sphere
of elemental fire. Again you may see the air in motion over the sea,
fill the swelling sails and drive heavily laden ships. From these instances,
and the reasons given, a man with wings large enough and duly connected
might learn to overcome the resistance of the air, and by conquering
it, succeed in subjugating it and rising above it". The
desire to fly is expressed in the many studies and drawings. His later
journals contain a detailed study of the flight of birds and several
different designs for wings based in structure upon those of bats which
he described as being less heavy because of the impenetrable nature
of the membrane. On January 3, 1496 he unsuccessfully tested a flying
machine he had constructed. One
design that he produced shows a helicopter to be lifted by a rotor powered
by four men. It would not have worked since the body of the craft itself
would have rotated in the opposite direction to the rotor. Leonardo's
inventions made reality In the
late 20th century, interest in Leonardo's inventions has escalated.
There have been many projects which have sought to turn diagrams on
paper into working models. One of the factors is the awareness that,
although in the 15th and 16th centuries Leonardo had available a limited
range of materials, modern technological advancements have made available
a number of robust materials of light-weight which might turn Leonardo's
dreams into reality. This is particularly the case with his designs
for flying machines. A difficulty encountered in the creation of models is that often Leonardo had not entirely thought through the mechanics of a machine before he drew it, or else he used a sort of graphic shorthand, simply not bothering to draw a gear or a lever at a point where one is absolutely essential in order to make a machine function. Matters like this were probably so obvious to a person of Leonardo's skills that he didn't need to record them, but to a technical college student, creating a model for a display, this lack of refinement of mechanical details can cause considerable confusion. Thus many models that are created, such as some of those on display at Clos Luce, Leonardo's home in France, do not work, but would work, with a little mechanical tweaking. |
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| Projectiles drawing | |
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This is a rendition of Leonardo Da Vinci's theory on projectiles drawing. |
| Perspective | |
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The art of perspective is of such a nature as to make what is flat appear
in relief and what is in relief flat. Piero
della Francesca carried his work forward and by the 1470s a number of
artists were able to produce works of art that demonstrated a full understanding
of the principles of linear perspective. One of these is Perugino's
Marriage of the Blessed Virgin which is one of the frescoes depicting
the Life of Christ on the walls of the Sistine Chapel. |
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Annunciations
is daring, as he uses various features such as the corner of a building,
a walled garden and a path to contrast enclosure and spaciousness. The
unfinished Adoration of the Magi was intended to be a masterpiece revealing
much of Leonardo's knowledge of figure drawing and perspective. There
exists a number of studies that he made, including a detailed study
of the perspective, showing the complex background of ruined Classical
buildings that he planned for the left of the picture. Leonardo wrote: Those who are in love with practice without knowledge are like the sailor who gets into a ship without rudder or compass and who never can be certain whether he is going. Practice must always be founded on sound theory, and to this Perspective is the guide and the gateway; and without this nothing can be done well in the matter of drawing. |
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| The Virgin of the Rocks (Da Vinci) | |
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The
Virgin of the Rocks (sometimes the Madonna of the Rocks) is the usual
title used for both of two different paintings with almost identical
compositions, which are at least largely by Leonardo da Vinci. They
are in the Louvre, Paris, and the National Gallery, London. The
paintings In the
National Gallery, London This is a painting ascribed to Leonardo da Vinci, probably before 1508. Assistants, perhaps the de Predis brothers, probably painted some parts of the work. It was painted for the chapel of the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception, in the church of San Francesco Grande in Milan. It was sold by the church, very likely in 1781, and certainly by 1785, when it was bought by Gavin Hamilton, who took it to England. After passing through various collections, it |
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was
bought by the National Gallery in 1880. In the
Louvre An almost
identical painting is in the Louvre, painted around 1483-1486, or earlier.
Most authorities agree that the work is very largely by Leonardo, and
is the earlier of the two works. The fine brush work and use of chiaroscuro,
or contrast between light and dark, are considered characteristic of
many of Leonardo's works. It is about 8cm taller than the London version.
The first record of this picture is in 1625, when it was in the French
royal collection. The Louvre version is featured in The Da Vinci Code
although art historians are dismissive of the "hidden meaning"
there ascribed to it. History
of the paintings Commission
and execution In 1483 (April 25th) Leonardo and the brothers Ambrogio and Evangelista de Predis were commissioned by the Milanese Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception to paint a work celebrating the Immaculate conception for their new chapel. The contract survives, as does much of the documentation from the later disputes over it. There had already been a previous contract in 1480 with Giacomo del Maino, which had evidently not been completed; among the work stipulated in the second contract was the completion and gilding of various carvings for the wooden framework of the altarpiece (none known to survive). Three
paintings were stipulated, a central Virgin and Child with "the
angels", and two side panels with angels, described only in the
earlier contract with del Maino. These panels are also in the National
Gallery, with different provenances from the main panel. They were painted
entirely by the brothers de Predis, according to both modern art historians
and a contemporary statement by the brothers in the legal dispute. All the work was to be completed by the Feast of the Conception (December 8th) 1483, but this did not happen. At some later date the legal dispute began; the main issue being that the main painting was unfinished, and Leonardo had left Milan. Meanwhile the de Predis brothers had completed their portion of the work, and wanted payment. The dispute was settled on April 27th, 1506, with the requirement that should Leonardo return to Milan within two years he should complete the painting, and receive further specified sums beyond those in the original contact. This appears to have happened, as a sum was paid to him in 1507. The surviving documentation casts no light on the existence of two versions, nor does it give any support to claims that the clients were unhappy with the subject or treatment of the paintings. At what point the first version was diverted, or if it was at all, remains unclear, and the subject of many theories. On stylistic
grounds some writers, including Martin Davies, feel that 1483 is too
late a date for the Louvre version; for the commission Leonardo may
have simply repeated a composition he had already produced. Alternatively,
the Louvre version may have been painted for the confraternity soon
after the commission, and then sold to another buyer. Subject
and style The paintings seem to draw on a legend of the meeting between the baby Jesus and John the Baptist on the flight into Egypt. According to the standard interpretation of the paintings, they depict the Madonna in the centre ushering John towards Jesus, who is seated with the angel Uriel. Jesus is blessing John, who holds out his hands in a gesture of prayer. In the Louvre version, Uriel points towards John while looking out at the viewer. This
gesture is missing in the London version. The London version also contains
attributes missing from the Louvre version, notably haloes and John's
traditional cruciform stick. These clarify the identification of the
babies Jesus and John. Davies says it is "not certain" if
these are contemporary; they may have been added by a later artist. It is
generally believed that the Louvre version is the earlier work, because
it is stylistically close to Leonardo's other work of the 1480s. The
London painting suggests Leonardo's maturer style, but it is thought
likely to have been painted with the assistance of other artists, perhaps
the de Predises. Both
versions were painted on wood. While the Louvre version was transferred
to canvas from the original wooden panel, the London painting is still
on panel. Several drawings can be related to the paintings, although
Leonardo's authorship of many is doubtful. None amount to a full study
for either version. |
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| Pieter Brueghel the Younger | |
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Pieter
Brueghel the Younger (1564/65-1636) was a Flemish painter, known for
numerous copies after his father Pieter Brueghel the Elder's paintings
and nicknamed "Hell Brueghel" for his fantastic treatments
of fire and grotesque imagery. Although
his precise date of birth is unknown, he was 36 years old on May 22,
1601 and died on October 10, 1636 at the age of 72. Therefore, he was
born in late 1564 or early 1565. Life Pieter Brueghel the Younger was the oldest son of the famous sixteenth-century Netherlandish painter Pieter Brueghel the Elder (known as "Peasant Brueghel") and Mayken Coecke van Aelst. His father died in 1569, when Pieter the younger was only five years old. Then, following |
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the death of his mother in 1578, Pieter, along with his brother Jan Brueghel the Elder ("Velvet Brueghel") and sister Marie, went to live with their grandmother Mayken Verhulst (widow of Pieter Coecke van Aelst). She was an artist in her own right, and according to Carel van Mander, possibly the first teacher of the two sons. The
family moved to Antwerp sometime after 1578 and Pieter possibly entered
the studio of the landscape painter Gillis van Coninxloo (1544-1607).
In the 1584/1585 registers of Guild of Saint Luke, "Peeter Brugel"
is listed as an independent master. On November 5, 1588 he married Elisabeth
Goddelet, and the couple had seven children. Apart
from these paintings of his own invention, Pieter Brueghel the Younger
also copied the works his father had created by using a technique called
pouncing. His genre paintings of peasants lack Pieter the Elder's subtlety
and humanism, and emphasize the picturesque. Works
include: Village
Fair The
Crucifixion Winter,
Hunter in the Snow "Construction of the Tower of Babel" |
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| Pieter Bruegel the Elder | |
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Pieter Bruegel the Elder or Brueghel (c.1525 September 9, 1569) was a Netherlandish Renaissance painter and printmaker known for his landscapes and peasant scenes (Genre Painting). He is
nicknamed 'Peasant Brueghel' 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 "Brueghel" is being referred to.
From 1559 he dropped the 'h' from his name and started signing his paintings
as Bruegel. Life There are records that he was born in Breda, Netherlands, but it is uncertain whether the Dutch town of Breda or the Belgian town of Bree, called Breda in Latin, is meant. He was the son of a peasant residing in the village of Breughel. |
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He was
an apprentice of Pieter Coecke van Aelst, whose daughter Mayken he later
married. He spent some time in France and Italy, and then went to Antwerp,
where in 1551 he was accepted as a master in the painters' guild. He
traveled to Italy soon after, and then returned to Antwerp before settling
in Brussels permanently 10 years later. He died there on 9 September
1569. He was
the father of Pieter Brueghel the Younger and Jan Brueghel the Elder.
Both became painters, but as they were very young children when their
father died, neither received any training from him. According to Carel
van Mander, it is likely that they were instructed by their grandmother. Style In Bruegel's later years he painted in a simpler style than the Italianate art that prevailed in his time. The most obvious influence on his art is the older Dutch master Hieronymus Bosch, particularly in Bruegel's early "demonological" paintings such as The Triumph of Death and Dulle Griet (Mad Meg). It was
in nature, however, that he found his greatest inspirations as he is
identified as being a master of landscapes. It was in these landscapes
that Bruegel created a story, with almost several scenes seemingly combined
in one painting. Such works can be seen in The Fall of the Rebel Angels
and the previously mentioned The Triumph of Death. Themes Bruegel
specialized in landscapes populated by peasants. He is often credited
as being the first Western painter to paint landscapes for their own
sake, rather than as a backdrop to a religious allegory. Attention to the life and manners of peasants was rare in the arts in Brueghel's time. His earthy, unsentimental but vivid depiction of the rituals of village lifeincluding agriculture, hunts, meals, festivals, dances, and gamesare unique windows on a vanished folk culture and a prime source of iconographic evidence about both physical and social aspects of 16th century life. For
example, the painting Netherlandish Proverbs illustrates dozens of then-contemporary
aphorisms, and Children's Games shows the variety of amusements enjoyed
by young people. His winter landscapes of 1565 are taken as corroborative
evidence of the severity of winters during the Little Ice Age. Using
abundant spirit and comic power, he created some of the early images
of acute social protest in art history. Examples include paintings such
as The Fight Between Carnival and Lent (a satire of the conflicts of
the Reformation) and engravings like The Ass in the School and Strongboxes
Battling Piggybanks. On his deathbed he reportedly ordered his wife
to burn the most subversive of his drawings to protect his family from
political persecution. Works There
are 45 authenticated surviving paintings, one-third of which are in
the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. A number of others are known
to have been lost. A large number of drawings, engravings and etchings
also exist. Landscape
with Christ and the Apostles at the Sea of Tiberias, 1553, probably
with Maarten de Vos, private collection Large
Fish Eat Small Fish, 1556, Albertina, Vienna Ass
at School, 1556, Kupferstichkabinett Staatliche Museen, Berlin Parable
of the Sower, 1557, Timken Museum of Art, San Diego Landscape
with the Fall of Icarus, c.1554-55, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium,
Brussels Netherlandish
Proverbs, 1559, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin - Gemäldegalerie, Berlin
The
Fight Between Carnival and Lent, 1559, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
Naval
Battle in the Gulf of Naples, 1560, Galleria Doria-Pamphili, Rome Portrait
of an Old Woman, 1560, Children's
Games, 1560, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna Temperance,
1560 Saul
(Battle Against The Philistines On The Gilboa), 1562, Kunsthistorisches
Museum, Vienna Two
Small Monkeys, 1562, Staaliche Museen, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin The
Triumph of Death, c. 1562, Museo del Prado, Madrid The
Fall of the Rebel Angels, 1562, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium,
Brussels Dulle
Griet (Mad Meg), c. 1562, Museum Mayer van den Bergh, Antwerp The
Tower of Babel, 1563, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna Flight
To Egypt, 1563, Courtauld Institute Galleries, London The
"Little" Tower of Babel, c. 1563, Museum Boymans-van Beuningen,
Rotterdam The
Death of the Virgin, 1564, Upton House, Banbury, Oxfordshire, UK The
Procession to Calvary, 1564, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna The
Adoration of the Kings, 1564, The National Gallery, London The
Months. A cycle of 6 or 12 paintings of the months or seasons from the
Book of Hours of which five remain: The
Hunters in the Snow (Dec.-Jan.), 1565, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
The
Gloomy Day (Feb.-Ma.), 1565, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna The
Hay Harvest (June-July), 1565, Nelahozeves château, Czech Republic
The
Harvesters (Aug.-Sept.), 1565, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
The
Return of the Herd (Oct.-Nov.), 1565, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
Winter Landscape with a Bird Trap, 1565, Bruxelles, Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten
van Belgie, inv. 8724 The
Calumny of Apelles, 1565, British Museum, London Massacre
of the Innocents, c. 1565, Hampton Court, UK/Kunsthistorisches Museum,
Vienna The
Painter and the Connoisseur, c. 1565, Albertina, Vienna Preaching
Of John The Baptist, 1566, Beaux Arts Museum, Budapest Census
at Bethlehem, 1566, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels
The
Wedding Dance, c. 1566, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit Conversion
Of Paulus, 1567, Kunsthistorishes Museum, Vienna The
Land of Cockaigne/Land Of Milk And Honey, 1567, Alte Pinakothek, Munich
The
Magpie on the Gallows, 1568, Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt The
Misanthrope, 1568, Museo di Capodimonte, Naples The
Blind Leading the Blind, 1568, Museo Nazionale, Naples The
Peasant Wedding, 1568, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna The
Peasant Dance, 1568, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna The
Beggars, 1568, Louvre, Paris The
Peasant and the Nest Robber, 1568, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
The
Three Soldiers, 1568, Frick Collection, New York City The Storm at Sea, an unfinished work, probably Bruegel's last painting. |
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| Pietro Perugino | |
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Pietro
Perugino (14461524) is a well-known painter of the Umbrian school,
who developed some of the qualities that found classic expression in
the High Renaissance. Biography Early
years He was
born Pietro Vannucci in Città della Pieve, Umbria, the son of
Cristoforo Vannucci; his nickname characterizes him as from Perugia,
the chief city of Umbria. |
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painter
at Perugia. Benedetto Bonfigli is generally surmised to be the man;
if he is rejected as not being above mediocrity, either Fiorenzo di
Lorenzo or Niccolò da Foligno may possibly have been the man. Pietro
painted at Arezzo, thence moved to Florence. The date of this first
Florentine sojourn is by no means settled; some make it as early as
1470, others push the date to 1479. According to Vasari, he apprenticed
in the atelier of Andrea del Verrocchio alongside Leonardo de Vinci.
He may have learned perspective from Piero della Francesca. In 1472
he must have completed his apprenticeship, for he was enrolled as a
painter in the confraternity of St Luke. Perugino
was one of the earliest Italian practitioners of oil painting. Some
of his early works were extensive frescoes for the convent of the Ingesati
fathers, destroyed during the siege of Florence, 1537; he produced for
them also many cartoons, which they executed with brilliant effect in
stained glass. A good specimen of his early style in tempera is the
tondo (circular picture) in the Louvre of the Virgin and Child Enthroned
between Saints. In Rome Perugino returned from Florence to Perugia, where his Florentine training showed in the Adoration of the Magi for the church of Santa Maria dei Servi (ca 1476). In about 1480, he was called to Rome to fresco panels for the Sistine Chapel walls by Sixtus IV including Moses and Zipporah (often attributed to Luca Signorelli), the Baptism of Christ, and The Delivery of the Keys (illustration, right). Pinturicchio
accompanied Perugino to Rome, and was made his partner, receiving a
third of the profits. He may have done some of the Zipporah subject.
The Sistine frescoes were the major high renaissance Patronage in Rome.
The altar wall was also painted with the Assumption, the Nativity, and
Moses in the Bulrushes. These works were later ruthlessly destroyed
to make a space for Michelangelo Last Judgement, Here
he figures by no means advantageously in a criminal court. In July 1487
he and another Perugian painter named Aulista di Angelo were convicted,
on their own confession, of having in December waylaid with staves someone
(the name does not appear) in the streets near Pietro Maggiore. Perugino
merely intended assault and battery, but Aulista meant to commit murder.
The more illustrious culprit, guilty of the lesser offence, was fined
ten gold florins, and the other was exiled for life. Between
1486 and 1499 Perugino worked chiefly in Florence, making one journey
to Rome and several to Perugia, where he may have maintained a second
studio. He had an established studio in Florence, and received a great
number of commissions. His Pietà (1495) in the Palazzo Pitti
is an uncharacteristically stark work that avoids Perugino's sometimes
too easy sentimental piety. In 1499 the guild of the cambio (money-changers or bankers) of Perugia asked him to decorate their audience-hall. This extensive scheme, which may have been finished by 1500, comprised the painting of the vault with the seven planets and the signs of the zodiac (Perugino being responsible for the designs and his pupils most probably for the execution) and the representation on the walls of two sacred subjects: the Nativity and Transfiguration; in addition, the Eternal Father, the cardinal virtues of Justice, Prudence, Temperance and Fortitude, Cato as the emblem of wisdom, and numerous life-sized figures of classic worthies, prophets and sibyls figured in the program. On the
mid-pilaster of the hall Perugino placed his own portrait in bust-form.
It is probable that Raphael, who in boyhood, towards 1496, had been
placed by his uncles under the tuition of Perugino, bore a hand in the
work of the vaulting. Put on his mettle by this mortifying transaction, he produced the masterpiece of the Madonna and Saints for the Certosa of Pavia, now disassembled and scattered among museums: the only portion in the Certosa is God the Father with cherubim. An Annunciation has disappeared; three panels, the Virgin adoring the infant Christ, St. Michael and St. Raphael with Tobias are among the treasures of the National Gallery, London. This
was succeeded in 1505 by an Assumption, in the Cappella dei Rabatta,
in the church of the Servi in Florence. The painting may have been executed
chiefly by a pupil, and was at any rate a failure: it was much decried;
Perugino lost his students; and towards 1506 he once more and finally
abandoned Florence, going to Perugia, and thence in a year or two to
Rome. Pope
Julius II had summoned Perugino to paint the Stanza of the Incendio
del Borgo in the Vatican City; but he soon preferred a younger competitor,
Raphael, who had been trained by Perugino; and Vannucci, after painting
the ceiling with figures of God the Father in different glories, in
five medallion-subjects, retired from Rome to Perugia from 1512. Among
his latest works, many of which decline into repetitious studio routine,
one of the best is the extensive altarpiece (painted between 1512 and
1517) of the church of San Agostino in Perugia, also now dispersed. Perugino's
last frescoes were painted for the church of the Madonna delle Lacrime
in Trevi (1521, signed and dated), the monastery of Sant'Agnese in Perugia,
and in 1522 for the church of Castello di Fortignano. Both series have
disappeared from their places, the second being now in the Victoria
and Albert Museum. He was still at Fontignano in 1524 when he died of
the the plague. Like other plague victims, he was hastily buried in
an unconsecrated field, the precise spot now unknown. Vasari is our chief, but not sole, authority for saying Perugino had very little religion, and openly doubted the soul's immortality. It is difficult to reconcile this discrepancy, and certainly not a little difficult also to suppose that Vasari was totally mistaken in his assertion; he was born twenty years before Perugino's death, and must have talked with scores of people to whom the Umbrian painter had been well known. We have to remark that Perugino in 1494 painted his own portrait (illustration, upper right), now in the Uffizi Gallery, and into this he introduced a scroll lettered Timete Deum. That an open disbeliever should inscribe himself with Timete Deum seems odd. The
portrait in question shows a plump face, with small dark eyes, a short
but well-cut nose, and sensuous lips; the neck is thick, the hair bushy
and frizzled, and the general air imposing. The later portrait in the
Cambio of Perugia shows the same face with traces of added years. Perugino
died possessed of considerable property, leaving three sons. In 1495 he signed and dated a Deposition for the Florentine convent of Santa Chiara (Palazzo Pitti). Towards 1496 he frescoed a Crucifixion, commissioned in 1493 for Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi, Florence (the Pazzi Crucifixion). The
attribution to him of the picture of the marriage of Joseph and the
Virgin Mary (the Sposalizio) now in the museum of Caen, which indisputably
served as the original, to a great extent, of the still more famous
Sposalizio painted by Raphael in 1504 (Accademia di Brera, Milan), is
now questioned, and it is assigned to Lo Spagna. A vastly finer work
of Perugino's was the polyptych of the Ascension of Christ painted ca
149698 for the church of S. Pietro of Perugia, (Municipal Museum,
Lyon); the other portions of the same altarpiece are dispersed in other
galleries. In the chapel of the Disciplinati of Città della Pieve is an Adoration of the Magi, a square of 6.5 m containing about thirty life-sized figures; this was executed, with scarcely credible celerity, from the 1st to 25th of March (or thereabouts) in 1505, and must no doubt be in great part the work of Vannucci's pupils. In 1507, when the master's work had for years been in a course of decline and his performances were generally weak, he produced. nevertheless, one of his best; pictures the Virgin between Saint Jerome and Saint Francis, how in the Palazzo Penna. In the
church of S. Onofrio in Florence is a much lauded and much debated fresco
of the Last Supper, a careful and blandly correct but uninspired work;
it has been ascribed to Perugino by some connoisseurs, by others to
Raphael; it may more probably be by some different pupil of the Umbrian
master. Among
his pupils was Giovanni di Pietro (lo Spagna). Major
works St.
Sebastian (c. 14901500) Panel, 176 × 116 cm, Louvre,
Paris St.
Sebastian (after 1490) Oil on wood, 110 × 62 cm, Galleria
Borghese, Rome St.
Sebastian (14931494) Oil and tempera on panel, 53.8 ×
39.5 cm, The Hermitage, St.
Petersburg Marriage
of the Virgin (15001504) Oil on wood, 234 × 185,
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Caen St.
Sebastian Bound to a Column (c. 15001510) Oil on canvas,
181 × 115 cm, São Paulo Art Museum, São Paulo, Brazil
The
Delivery of the Keys (14811482) Fresco, 335 × 600
cm, Sistine Chapel, Vatican City Crucifixion
(the Galitzin triptych, 1480s) painted for San Domenico at San
Gimignano, National Gallery, Washington The Nativity: the Virgin, St Joseph and the Shepherds adoring the Infant Christ (ca. 1522) Fresco transferred to canvas from S. Maria Assunta, at Fontignano, 254 x 594 cm, Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
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| Andrea del Sarto | |
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Andrea del Sarto, true name Andrea d'Agnolo di Francesco di Luca di Paolo del Migliore, (July 16, 1486 - January 21, 1531), was an Italian painter from Florence, whose career flourished during the High Renaissance and Mannerism. Though
regarded by his contemporaries as an artist "senza errori"
(i.e., faultless), he was frequently overshadowed in fame by equally
talented but more ambitious contemporaries like Raphael. Early
life and training Andrea was born in Gualfonda, close to Florence, in either |
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1486
or 1487: he was one of four children to Agnolo, a tailor (sarto). Since
1677 some have attributed the surname Vannucchi with little documentation.
By 1494 Andrea was apprenticed to a goldsmith, and then to a skillful
woodcarver and inferior painter named Gian Barile, with whom he remained
until 1498. According to Vasari, he then apprenticed to Piero di Cosimo,
and later with Raffaellino del Garbo (Carli). Andrea
and an elder friend Franciabigio decided to open a joint studio at a
lodging together in the Piazza del Grano. Their first partnership may
have been the Baptism of Christ for the Florentine Compagnia dello Scalzo,
the beginning of a monochrome fresco series. By the time the partnership
was dissolved, Sarto's style bore the stamp of individuality. It "is
marked throughout his career by an interest, exceptional among Florentines,
in effects of colour and atmosphere and by sophisticated informality
and natural expression of emotion". Frescoes
at SS Annunziata in Florence From 1509 to 1514 the brotherhood of the Servites employed Sarto, Franciabigio, and Andrea Feltrini in a programme of frescoes at Basilica della Santissima Annunziata di Firenze. Sarto completed three frescoes in the portico of the Servite convent illustrating the Life of Filippo Benizzi, a Servite saint who died in 1285. He executed them rapidly, depicting the saint sharing his cloak with a leper, cursing some gamblers, and restoring a girl possessed with a devil. These paintings met with respect, the correctness of the contours being particularly admired, and earned for Sarto the nickname of "Andrea senza errori" (Andrea the perfect). After these, the painter depicted in two frescoes the death of S. Filippo and then children cured by touching his garment; all five works were completed before the close of 1510. The
Servites engaged him to do two more frescoes in the forecourt of the
Annunziata: a Procession of the Magi (or Adoration, containing a self
portrait) finished in 1511. Towards 1512 he painted an Annunciation
in the monastery of S. Gallo and a Marriage of Saint Catherine (Dresden). By 1514
Andrea had finished his last two frescoes, including his masterpiece,
the Birth of the Virgin, which fuses the influence of Leonardo, Ghirlandaio
and Fra Bartolomeo.[1] By November 1515 he had finished at the Scalzo
the Allegory of Justice and the Baptist preaching in the desert, followed
in 1517 by John Baptizing, and other subjects. Visit
to France Before
the end of 1516 a Pietà of his composition, and afterwards a
Madonna, were sent to the French court. They led to invitation of Sarto
to come to the court of François I in 1518. He journeyed to Paris
towards June of that year, along with his pupil Andrea Squarzzella,
leaving his wife in Florence. Lucrezia,
however, wrote urging his return to Italy. The king assented, but only
on the understanding that his absence from France was to be short; and
he entrusted Andrea with a sum of money to be expended in purchasing
works of art for his royal patron. Instead, the temptation of having
a goodly sum encouraged its expenditure in the building of a house for
himself in Florence. This necessarily brought him in conflict with François,
who refused to be reingratiated with Andrea. No serious punishment,
however, apparently befell the artist. Later
works in Florence In 1520
he resumed work in Florence, and executed the Faith and Charity in the
cloister of the Scalzo. These were succeeded by the Dance of the Daughter
of Herodias, the Beheading of the Baptist, the Presentation of his head
to Herod, an allegory of Hope, the "Apparition of the Angel to
Zacharias" (1523), and the monochrome Visitation. In
1525 he returned to paint in the Annunziata cloister the Madonna del
Sacco, a lunette named after a sack against which Joseph is represented
propped[5]. In this painting the generous virgin's gown and her gaze
indicate his influence on the early style of pupil Pontormo. His
final work at the Scalzo was the Birth of the Baptist (1526). In the
following year he completed at S. Salvi, near Florence, a celebrated
Last Supper in which all the personages seem to be portraits. It is
the last monumental work of importance which Andrea del Sarto lived
to execute. He died in 1531 in Florence. Madonna
of the Harpies Perhaps the best known painting by Andrea del Sarto is the Madonna of the Harpies, a depiction of the Virgin and child on a pedestal, flanked by angels and two saints (Bonaventure or Francis; and John the Evangelist). Originally completed in 1517 for the convent of San Francesco dei Macci, the altarpiece is displayed in a privileged location in the Uffizi. In
an Italy swamped with a tsunami of Madonnas, it would be easy to overlook
this work; however, this commonly copied scheme also lends itself to
comparison of his style with painters of his century. The figures have
a Da Vinci-like aura, and the stable pyramid of their composition provides
a unified structure. In some ways, his rigid adherence is more classical
than Da Vinci's but less so than Fra Bartolomeo's representations of
the Holy Family, but there is an elegance that is lacking in the more
sculptural paintings of other contemporaries. Details
of personal life Andrea fell in love with Lucrezia (del Fede), wife of a hatter named Carlo, of Recanati; the hatter dying opportunely, Andrea married her on 26 December 1512. She has come down to us in many a picture of her lover-husband, who constantly painted her as a Madonna and otherwise; even in painting other women he made them resemble Lucrezia. She
was less gently handled by Giorgio Vasari, a pupil of Andrea, who describes
her as faithless, jealous, and vixenish with the apprentices; her offstage
character permeates Robert Browning's poem-monologue "Andrea del
Sarto called the 'faultless painter'" (1855) . He dwelt
in Florence throughout the memorable siege of 1529, which was soon followed
by an infectious pestilence. He caught the malady, struggled against
it with little or no tending from his wife, who held aloof, and he died,
no one knowing much about it at the moment, on 22 January 1531, at the
comparatively early age of forty-three. He was buried unceremoniously
in the church of the Servites. His wife survived her husband forty years. A number
of paintings are considered to be self-portraits. One is in the National
Gallery, London, an admirable half-figure, purchased in 1862. Another
is at Alnwick Castle, a young man about twenty years, with his elbow
on a table. Another youthful portrait is in the Uffizi Gallery, and
the Pitti Palace contains more than one. Very noticeable incident in the life of Andrea del Sarto relates to the copy, which he produced in 1523, of the portrait group of Pope Leo X by Raphael; now in the Naples Museum: the original remains at the Pitti. This painting was requested by Federico II Gonzaga, duke of Mantua from Ottaviano de' Medici. Unwilling to part with it, Ottaviano had Andrea to make the copy, and passed it to the duke as the original. So
deceptive was the imitation that even Giulio Romano, who had himself
manipulated the original to some extent, was completely fooled; and,
on showing the supposed Raphael years afterwards to Vasari, who knew
the facts, he could only be undeceived when a private mark on the canvas
was named to him by Vasari and brought under his eye. Critical
assessment and legacy It was Michelangelo who had introduced Vasari in 1524 to Andrea's studio. He is said to have thought very highly of Andrea's powers. Of those who initially followed his style in Florence, the most prominent would have been Jacopo Pontormo, but also Francesco Salviati and Jacopino del Conte. Other
lesser known assistants and pupils include Bernardo del Buda, Lamberto
Lombardi, Nannuccio Fiorentino, and Andrea Squazzella Partial
anthology of works Holy
Family with St Peter Martyr (1507-8, Pinacoteca Bari) Madonna
and Child with St. John (c.1513, Whitfield Fine Art) Madonna
of the Harpies (Virgin and Child, with St Francis, St John the Evangelist,
and two angels), (painted S. Francesco, now in Uffizi, Florence) Fathers
disputing on the doctrine of the Trinity (Saints Augustine, Dominic,
Francis, Lawrence, Sebastian and Mary Magdalene)(1517, altarpiece for
the monastery of S. Gallo, now in Ufizzi, Florence) Charity
(Louvre) Pieta
(Belvedere, Vienna) Julius
Caesar receives tribute (fresco at Poggio a Caiano, 1521) completed
by Alessandro Allori. Virgin
surrounded by Saints (Pitti Palace, Florence) Pieta
(Pitti Palace) Virgin,
Child, Joseph, Elizabeth, John the Baptist, and an Archangel (Prado)
Holy
Family with John the Baptist (Louvre) In Berlin
a portrait of his wife. At Panshanger,
Berkshire, a fine portrait named "Laura." Annunciation (Pitti Palace) |
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| Antonio Allegri da Correggio | |
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Antonio
Allegri da Correggio (August 1489 March 5, 1534) was the foremost
painter of the Parma school of the Italian Renaissance, who was responsible
for some of the most vigorous and sensuous works of the 16th century.
In his use of dynamic composition, illusionistic perspective and dramatic
foreshortening, Correggio prefigured the Rococo art of the 18th century. Biography Antonio Allegri was born in Correggio, a small Lombard town near Reggio Emilia. His date of birth is uncertain (around 1489). His father was a merchant. Otherwise, little |
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is known about Correggio's life or training. In the years 1503-1505 he apprenticed to Francesco Bianchi Ferrara of Modena. Here he probably knew the classicism of artists like Lorenzo Costa and Francesco Francia, evidence of which can be found in his first works. After a trip to Mantua in 1506, he returned to Correggio, where he stayed until 1510. To this
period is assigned the Adoration of the Child with St. Elizabeth and
John, which shows clear influences from Costa and Mantegna. In 1514
he probably finished three tondos for the entrance of the church of
Sant'Andrea in Mantua, and then returned to Correggio: here, as an independent
and increasingly renowned artist, he signed a contract for the Madonna
altarpiece in the local monastery of St. Francis (now in the Dresden
Gemäldegalerie). Works
in Parma By 1516,
Correggio was in Parma, where he generally remained for the rest of
his career. Here, he befriended Michelangelo Anselmi, a prominent Mannerist
painter. In 1519 he married Girolama Francesca di Braghetis, also of
Correggio, who died in 1529. One of his sons, Pomponio Allegri, became
an undistinguished painter. From this period are the Madonna and Child
with the Young Saint John, Christ Leaving His Mother and the lost Madonna
of Albinea. Correggio's first major commission (February-September of 1519) was the decoration ceiling of the private dining salon of the mother-superior (abbess Giovanna Piacenza) of the Convent of St Paul, called the Camera di San Paolo (Parma). Here he painted a delightful arbor pierced by oculi opening to glimpses of playful cherubs. Below the oculi are lunnetes with monochromic marble images. The
fireplace is frescoed with an image of Diana. The iconography of the
unit is complex, joining images of classical marbles to whimsical colorful
bambini. While it recalls the secular frescoes of the pleasure palace
of the Villa Farnesina in Rome, but is also a strikingly novel form
of interior decoration. He next painted the illusionistic Vision of St. John on Patmos (1520-21) for the dome of the church of San Giovanni Evangelista. Three years later he decorated the dome of the Cathedral of Parma with a startling Assumption of the Virgin, crowded with layers of receding figures in Melozzo's perspective (from down to up). These two works would represent a highly novel treatment of dome decoration, using an illusionistic sotto in su perspective, and would exert a profound influence upon future fresco artists, from Carlo Cignani in his fresco Assumption of the Virgin, in the cathedral church of Forlì, to Gaudenzio Ferrari in his frescoes for the cupola of Santa Maria dei Miracoli in Saronno, to Pordenone in his now-lost fresco from Treviso, and to the baroque elaborations of Lanfranco and Baciccio in Roman churches. The
massing of spectators in a vortex, creating both narrative and decoration,
the illusionistic obliteration of the architectural roof-plane, and
thrusting perspective towards divine infinity, was a device without
precedent, and which depended on the extrapolation of the mechanics
of perspective. The recession and movement implied by the figures all
presage the dynamism that would characterize baroque painting. The
Lamentation is haunted by a lambence rarely seen in Italian painting
prior to this time. The Martyrdom is also remarkable for resembling
later Baroque compositions such as Bernini's (Truth) and Ercole Ferrata's
(Death of Saint Agnes), showing a gleeful saint entering martyrdom. Mythological
series based on Ovid's Metamorphoses Aside
from his religious output, Correggio conceived a now-famous set of paintings
depicting the Loves of Jupiter as described in Ovid's Metamorphoses.
The voluptuous series was commissioned by Federico II Gonzaga of Mantua,
probably to decorate his private Ovid Room in the Palazzo Te. However,
they were given to the visiting Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and thus
left Italy within years of their completion. Leda and the Swan, now in Staatliche Museen of Berlin, is a tumult of incidents: in the centre Leda straddles a swan, and on the right, a shy but satisfied maiden. Danaë, now in Rome's Borghese Gallery, depicts the maiden as she is impregnated by a curtain of gilded divine rain. Her
lower torso semi-obscured by sheets, Danae appears more demure and gleeful
than Titian's 1545 version of the same topic, where the rain is more
accurately numismatic. The picture once called Antiope and the Satyr
is now correctly identified as Venus and Cupid with a Satyr. Ganymede
Abducted by the Eagle depicts the young man aloft in literal amorous
flight. Some have interpreted the conjunction of man and eagle as a
metaphor for the evangelist John; however, given the erotic context
of this and other paintings, this seems unlikely. This painting and
its partner, the masterpiece of Jupiter and Io (reproduced above), are
in Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna. Evaluation Correggio
was remembered by his contemporaries as a shadowy, melancholic and introverted
character, traits possibly conditioned by his birth into a large and
poor family. A century after his death Correggio's work was well known to Vasari, who felt that he had not had enough "Roman" exposure to make him a better painter. In the 18th and 19th centuries, his works were often remembered in the diaries of foreign visitors to Italy, which led to a reevaluation of his art during the period of Romanticism. The
flight of the Madonna in the vault of the cupola of the Cathedral of
Parma inspired numerous scenographical decorations in lay and religious
palaces during the 20th centuries. Corregio's illusionistic experiments, in which imaginary spaces replace the natural reality, seem to prefigure many elements of Mannerist and Baroque stylistic approaches. In other words, he appears to have fostered artistic grandchildren, despite having no direct disciples outside of Parma, where he was influential on the work of Giovanni Maria Francesco Rondani, Parmigianino, Bernardo Gatti, and Giorgio Gandini del Grano. His
son, Pomponio Allegri became a painter. Selected
works Madonna
(1512-14) - Oil canvas, Castello Sforzesco, Milan The
Adoration of the Magi (1516-18)- Oil canvas, 84 x 108 cm, Brera, Milan
Ecce
Homo - Oil canvas, National Gallery, London The
Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine (1510-15) - National Gallery of Art,
Washington Madonna
with St. Francis (1514) - Oil on wood, 299 x 245 cm, Gemäldegalerie,
Dresden Madonna
of Albinea (1514, lost) Virgin
and Child with an Angel (Madonna del Latte) - Oil on wood, 68 x 56 cm,
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest Madonna
and Child with the Young Saint John (1516) - Oil canvas, 48 x 37 cm,
Museo del Prado, Madrid The
Rest on the Flight to Egypt with Saint Francis (1517) - Oil on canvas,
123,5 x 106,5 cm, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence Portrait
of a Gentlewoman (1517-19) - Oil on canvas, 103 x 87,5 cm, Hermitage,
St. Petersburg Adoration
of the Child (1518-20) - Oil on canvas, 81 x 67 cm, Galleria degli Uffizi,
Florence Camera
di San Paolo (1519) - Frescoes, Nunnery of St Paul, Parma Correggio's
famous frescoes in Parma seem to melt the ceiling of the cathedral and
draw the viewer into a gyre of spiritual ecstasy. Mystic
Marriage of St. Catherine (c. 1520) - Wood, 105 x 102 cm, Musée
du Louvre, Paris Passing
Away of St. John (1520-24) - Fresco, S. Giovanni Evangelista, Parma
Madonna
with St. Jerome (c. 1522) - Oil on canvas, 205,7 x 141 cm, Galleria
Nazionale, Parma Deposition
from the Cross (1525)- Oil canvas, 158,5 x 184,3 cm, Galleria Nazionale,
Parma Noli
me Tangere (c. 1525) - Oil canvas, 130 x 103 cm, Museo del Prado, Madrid
Madonna
della Scodella (1525-30) - Oil canvas, 216 x 137 cm, Galleria Nazionale,
Parma Assumption
of the Virgin (15261530) Fresco, 1093 x 1195 cm, Cathedral
of Parma The
Education of Cupid (c. 1528) - Oil canvas, 155 x 91 cm, National Gallery,
London Venus
and Cupid with a Satyr (c. 1528) - Oil on canvas, 188 x 125 cm, Musée
du Louvre, Paris Madonna
with St. George (1530-32) - Oil on canvas, 285 x 190 cm, Gemäldegalerie,
Dresden Ganymede
abducted by the Eagle (1531-32) - Oil on canvas, 163,5 x 70,5 cm, Kunsthistorisches
Museum, Vienna Jupiter
and Io (1531-32) - Oil canvas, 164 x 71 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum
Leda
with the Swan (1531-32) - Oil canvas, 152 x 191 cm, Staatliche Museen,
Berlin Danaë
(c. 1531) - Tempera panel, 161 x 193 cm, Galleria Borghese, Rome Allegory of Virtue (c. 1532-1534) - Oil canvas, 149 x 88 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris |
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| Filippino Lippi | |
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Filippino
Lippi (c. 1457 April 1504) was a well-known painter working during
the High Renaissance in Florence, Italy. Biography Born Filippo Lippi in Prato (Tuscany), the illegitimate son of the painter Fra Filippo Lippi and nun Lucrezia Buti, Filippino first trained under his father. They moved to Spoleto, where Filippino served as shop adjuvant in the construction of the Cathedral there. When his father died in 1469, he completed the frescoes with Storie della Vergine (Histories of the Virgin) in the cathedral. Filippino Lippi completed his apprenticeship in |
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the
workshop of Botticelli, who had been a pupil of Filippino's father.
In 1472, Botticelli also took him as his companion in the Compagnia
di San Luca. The
very first ones (dating from 1475 onwards) were initially attributed
to an anonymous "Amico di Sandro" ("Friend of Botticelli").
Eventually Lippi's style evolved into a more personal and effective
one in the years 1480-1485. Works of the early period include: the Madonnas
of Berlin, London and Washington, the Journeys of Tobia of the Galleria
Sabauda in Turin, Italy, the Madonna of the Sea of Galleria dell'Accademia
and the Histories of Ester. Together with Perugino, Ghirlandaio and Botticelli, Lippi worked on the frescoed decoration of Lorenzo de Medici's villa at Spedaletto. On December 31, 1482 he was commissioned to work on a wall of Sala dell'Udienza of Palazzo Vecchio in Florence (a work never begun). Soon
after (probably in 1483-1484) he was called to complete Masaccio's decoration
of Brancacci Chapel in the church of the Carmine, left unfinished by
the artist's death in 1428 . Here he realized the Stories of Saint Peter
on the following frescoes: Quarrel with Simon Magus in face of Nero,
Resurrection of Teophilus' Son, Saint Peter Jailed, Liberation and Saint
Peter's Crucifixion. The
work on the Sala degli Otto di Pratica, in the Palazzo Vecchio, started
on February 20, 1486. It is now in the Uffizi Gallery. In the same years
Piero di Francesco del Pugliese asked him to paint the altarpiece with
Apparition of the Virgin to St. Bernard, now in the Badia Fiorentina,
Florence. This is Lippi's most popular picture: a composition of unreal
items, with its very particular elongated figures, backed by a phantasmagorical
scenario of rocks and almost anthropomorphic trunks. The work can be
dated to the 1480-1486 years. Eventually
he worked for Tanai de' Nerli in the Saint Spirit's Church. These
paintings can be seen as a mirror of the political and religious crisis
in Florence at the time: the theme of the fresco, the clash between
Christianity and Paganism, was hotly debated in the Florence of Girolamo
Savonarola. Filippino showed his characters in a landscape which recreated the ancient world in its finest details, showing the influence of the Grottesco style he had seen in his journey to Rome. He created in this way an "animated", mysterious, fantastic but also disquieting style, showing the unreality of something as a nightmare. In this
way, Filippino portrayed ruthless executioners deformed by grim faces,
who raged against the Saints. In the scene with St. Philip expelling
a monster from the temple, the statue of the pagan god is a living figure
which seems to dare the Christian saint. On 1488
Lippi moved to Rome, where Lorenzo de' Medici had advised Cardinal Oliviero
Carafa to entrust him the decoration of the family chapel in Santa Maria
sopra Minerva. These frescoes show a new kind of inspiration, quite
different from the earlier works, but confirm his continued research
on the themes of the Ancient era. Lippi finished the cycle by 1493. Lippi's return to Florence is variously assigned to the years going from 1491 to 1494 . Works of this period include: Apparition of Christ to Madonna (1493, now in Munich), Adoration of the Magi (1496, for the church of San Donato in Scopeto, now in the Uffizi), Sacrifice of Lacoön (end of the century, for the villa of Lorenzo de' Medici at Poggio a Caiano), St. John Baptist and Maddalena (Valori Chapel in San Procolo, Florence, inspired in some way to Luca Signorelli's art). He also
worked outside of his mother-country, namely on the Certosa of Pavia
and in Prato, where in 1503 he completed the Tabernacle of the Christmas
Song, now in the City Museum; in 1501 Lippi realized the Mystic Wedding
of St. Catherine for the Basilica of San Domenico in Bologna. Major
works The
Coronation of the Virgin (c. 1480) - Tempera on panel, 90,2 x 223 cm
- National Gallery of Art, Washington Madonna
with Child, St Anthony of Padua and a Friar (before 1480) - Tempera
on wood, 57 x 41,5 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest Tobias
and the Angel (c. 1480) - Tempera on panel, 33 x 23 cm, National Gallery
of Art, Washington, DC Portrait
of an Old Man (1485) -Detached fresco, 47 x 38 cm, Uffizi, Florence
Three
Angels with Young Tobias (1485) - Oil on panel, 100 x 127 cm, Galleria
Sabauda, Turin Self-Portrait
- Detached fresco on flat tile, 50 x 31 cm, Uffizi, Florence Portrait
of a Youth (c. 1485) - Wood, 51 x 35,5 cm, National Gallery of Art,
Washington Signoria
Altarpiece (Pala degli Otto) (1486)) - Tempera on wood, 355 x 255 cm,
Uffizi, Florence Annunciation
with St. Thomas and Cardinal Carafa (1488-1493) - Fresco, Santa Maria
sopra Minerva, Rome Apparition
of the Virgin to St. Bernard (1486) - Oil on panel, 210 x 195 cm, Church
of Badia, Florence Madonna
with Child and Saints (c. 1488) - Oil on wood, Santo Spirito, Florence
St.
Jerome, (1490s) - Oil on wood, 136 x 71 cm, Uffizi, Florence Adoration
of the Magi (1496) - Oil on wood, Uffizi, Florence Allegory
(c. 1498) - Oil on wood, 29 x 22 cm, Uffizi, Florence Allegory
of Music (Erato) (c. 1500) - Tempera on panel, 61 x 51 cm, Staatliche
Museen, Berlin Mystic
Marriage of St Catherine (c. 1501-1503 -Panel, Basilica di San Domenico,
Bologna Deposition (1504, finished by Perugino in 1507) - Oil on panel, 333 x 218 cm, Gallerie dell'Accademia, Florence |
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| Hans Baldung | |
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Hans
Baldung known as Hans Baldung Grien/Grün (c. 1480 - 1545). German
Renaissance artist as painter and printmaker in woodcut. He was considered
the most gifted student of Albrecht Dürer. Life He was born Hans Baldung at Schwäbisch Gmünd in Swabia, Germany, the son of a lawyer, who moved to Strassburg in 1492. He was the only male member of his family not to attend university; this background was unusual for an artist at the time. His uncle became a doctor to the Emperor. He spent the greater part of his life at |
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Strassburg and Freiburg im Breisgau. He joined Dürer's Nuremberg workshop in 1503, probably after some initial training in Strassburg, and stayed until 1507. He seems to have been left in charge of the workshop during Dürer's second trip to Italy. It is
presumed that he acquired his nickname of "Grien" (meaning
"green") in Nuremberg; the workshop seems to have had three
Hanses in it at one point. He later included it in his monogram; it
has also been suggested that it came from "grienhals", a German
word for witch. In his later trip to the Netherlands in 1521 Dürer's
diary shows that he took with him and sold prints by Baldung. On Dürer's
death Baldung was sent a lock of his hair, which suggests a close friendship. In 1509
Baldung purchased a citizenship of the city of Strassburg (then a German
city, now in France), and lived there there till 1513. He then moved
to Freiburg im Breisgau after being contacted to paint a large altarpiece
for Freiburg Cathedral, which he finished in 1516 (still in situ). He
returned to Strassburg in 1517, and died as a member of the town council
in 1545. He had married Margarethe Herlin, from a prominent family in
the city, and owned a number of properties. Baldung died before the
year of 1700. Work The
earliest pictures assigned to him by some are altar-pieces with the
monogram H. B. interlaced, and the date of 1496, in the monastery chapel
of Lichtenthal near Baden-Baden. Another early work is a portrait of
the emperor Maximilian, drawn in 1501 on a leaf of a sketch-book now
in the print-room at Karlsruhe. "The Martyrdom of St Sebastian
and the Epiphany" (Berlin Museum), fruits of his labour in 1507,
were painted for the market-church of Halle in Saxony. Baldung's prints, though Düreresque, are very individual in style, and often in subject. They show little direct Italian influence. His paintings are less important than his prints. He worked mainly in woodcut, although he made six engravings, one very fine. He joined in the fashion for chiaroscuro woodcuts, adding a tone block to a woodcut of 1510. Most
of his hundreds of woodcuts were commissioned for books, as was usual
at the time; his "single-leaf" woodcuts (ie prints not for
book illustration) are fewer than 100, though no two catalogues agree
as to the exact number. Without absolute correctness as a draughtsman, his conception of human form is often very unpleasant, whilst a questionable taste is shown in ornament equally profuse and baroque. Nothing is more remarkable in his pictures than the pug-like shape of the faces, unless we except the coarseness of the extremities. No trace is apparent of any feeling for atmosphere or light and shade. Though
Grün has been commonly called the Correggio of the north, his compositions
are a curious medley of glaring and heterogeneous colours, in which
pure black is contrasted with pale yellow, dirty grey, impure red and
glowing green. Flesh is a mere glaze under which the features are indicated
by lines. (1911) His works are mainly interesting because of the wild and fantastic strength which some of them display. We may pass lightly over the "Epiphany" of 1507, the "Crucifixion" of 1512, or the "Stoning of Stephen" of 1522, in the Berlin Museum. There is some force in the "Dance of Death" of 1517, in the museum of Basel, or the Madonna of 1530, in the Liechtenstein Gallery at Vienna. Grün's
best effort is the altarpiece of Freiburg, where the Coronation of the
Virgin, and the Twelve Apostles, the Annunciation, Visitation, Nativity
and Flight into Egypt, and the Crucifixion, with portraits of donors,
are executed with some of that fanciful power which Martin Schongauer
bequeathed to the Swabian school. As a portrait painter he is well known. He drew the likeness of Charles V, as well as that of Maximilian; and his bust of Margrave Philip in the Munich Gallery tells us that he was connected with the reigning family of Baden, as early as 1514. At a later period he had sittings from Margrave Christopher of Baden, Ottilia his wife, and all their children, and the picture containing these portraits is still in the grand-ducal gallery at Karlsruhe. Like Dürer and Cranach, Grün became a hearty supporter of the Reformation. He was present at the diet of Augsburg in 1518, and one of his woodcuts represents Luther under the protection of the Holy Ghost, which hovers over him in the shape of a dove. |
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