SESSION 2. (Monday 1st October) Renaissance II

1. Jean Fouquet (IG) Virgin & Child (Melun Diptych) c1452 (93 X 85cm) Oil on panel, Royal Museum 2. Piero della Fransesca [ER] Baptism of Christ 1450s (167 x 116cm) National Gallery, London 3. Sandro Botticelli [ER] La Primavera 1478 Uffizi, Florence (203 x 315cm) Venus & Mars (detail) /Velazquez: Portrait of a Man (detail) 4. Albrecht Dürer [NR] Adam & Eve 1504 (engraving) 1507 (painting) Self Portrait (in fur collared robe) 1500 Alte Pinakothek, Munich (67x49cm) Watercolours: Alpine Landscape (Wehlsh pirg) c1495 Ashmolean Oxford (21X32cm); Young Hare 1502 Albertina, (19x21cm); A Small Piece of Turf 1502 Albertina, Vienna (12x15cm) 5. Andrea Mantegna [ER] St Sebastian c1460 Kunsthistoriches Museum, Vienna (68x30cm) 6. Gentile Bellini Portrait of Sultan Mehmet II 1480 Oil on canvas (70 x 52cm) National Gallery 7. Giovanni Bellini [ER]. The Madonna of the Meadow. 1505 oil panel (67 x 86cm) National Gallery 8. Hieronymus Bosch [IG] Garden of Earthly Delight 1515 oil on panels (218 x 91cm) Prado, Madrid 9. Matthias Grünwald [IG] Isenheim altarpiece 1510-15 (2.4 x 3m) Musee Unterlinden, Colmar

Personally, I believe that we can discern a divide in the art styles of Northern and Southern Europe from at least the 1400s. Italian artists had access to a wealth of classical ruins and sculptures unavailable in the north, which led them to value structure in their paintings. Wealthy patrons wanted to decorate their palaces and chapels with frescos, tempera panels and statues influenced by the idealised classical style (eg Botticelli, Mantegna, Bellini) and delighted in lusciousness of mythological subjects. Northern European artists relied more on personal beliefs and visions (eg Bosch, Grünwald ) and painted naturalistic (non-ideal) human figures. Early northern artists had access to oil-based glazes, which encouraged a focus on surface appearance and detail. I would argue those different traditions were still discernible until the 20th Century.

Last session, we started with a Madonna of about 1290 by Cimabue, a very symbolic & spiritual portrayal suitable for a devotional art work. By 1452 Fouquet’s portrayal of the king’s mistress, Agnes Sorrel, in the Virgin & Child has a very different courtly, even erotic, ambience. In the 15th Century many European artists had a fascination with geometric forms, and some of the painting was drawn with a compass.

Piero della Fransesca was one of those interested in understanding the divine order underlying visual appearances, at a time when mathematics had a religious and mystical significance (as it did for other artists such as Paulo Uccello). The Baptism of Christ is carefully geometrically arranged with three equidistant horizontal lines and four verticals. His interest in optics can be seen in the reflection in the stream, which adds to the sense of still calm. Northern Italian painters seem to have been influenced the developing styles from the north of Europe, and he has incorporated the familiar landscape of Tuscany into his .

The large size of Botticelli’s La Primavera (The Spring) – certainly intended for a private house – suggests it may have been intended as a substitute for an expensive tapestry. And it has the style of a tapestry with some Gothic qualities. Stylistically it is very much dependent on line (linear) as frescos and tapestries inevitably were, and it is useful to compare this to the developing style of using area (painterly) that became popular with the flexibility oil paints. But the subject is classical mythology, in keeping with Neo-Platonist ideas of the Medici court, so placing in firmly within the renaissance movement. Even in his lifetime his style was seen as archaic and he died in obscurity. There are doubts about how the painting should be interpreted (it may have references to a lost piece of literature) but we can recognise Venus, Cupid, the Graces (three aspects of Love – Charm,Beauty & Fullfilment), Zephyr chasing Chloris who is transformed in Flora, and Mercury. If the fruit are oranges, this would be a compliment to the Medicis for whom it was a symbol.

I’ve included the detail from Venus & Mars only to contrast the use of line (linear) style of tempera and frescos with the use of area (painterly) style possible with the use of oils (Velazquez, Portrait of a Man).

Albrecht Dürer is probably best known for his engravings but after a trip to as a young man his paintings combined the northern eye for detail with the idealisation of the classical tradition and mathematical perspective of the south. With Adam & Eve we can see how he handled the subject in both paint and engraving. In the engraving, a parrot (symbolic of the Madonna) holds a small sign declaring it as Dürer’s work – literally a sign of the changing status of artists. The contrapposto figures are drawn with the anatomical accuracy, using the perfect human proportions inspired by Vetruvius. As always, his observation and rendering of plants are wonderful (oddly Eve plucks the forbidden fruit from a fig tree) and giving us a combination of northern naturalism and southern renaissance classicism. Four of the animals represent the medieval idea of the four humours in perfect balance before the Fall: the cat is choleric, the rabbit sanguine, the ox phlegmatic, and the elk melancholic. The full-size nudes in the painting are the first in German art.

Dürer’s Self Portrait seems to add a whole new level to the importance of the artist. Gothic profile portraits had fallen out of fashion, and three-quarter profiles had become common. But Dürer’s front on image and symmetry I’m sure was intended to be reminiscent of the iconography of Christ. I think we must assume he is saying something about the role of artist as a creator.

Like other northern artists, Dürer was an excellent observer and painter of nature. The three watercolours show, I think, how landscapes were to play an important role in the development of northern art, and the wonderful rendering of plants and animals that artists could achieve.

Andrea Mantegna trained in Padua but married into the Bellini family so is often regarded as a member of the School of Venice. Much of Greece was in essence a colony of Venice until 1460 so the city had easy access to ancient Greek sculpture and architectural features. St Sebastian himself has a sculptural quality and he is surrounded by the ruins of the pagan world. It has been argued that the arrows are an allegorical reference to the transference of the plague. The poor saint is reputed to have survived the arrows but was then beaten to death, with clubs, on the orders of Emperor Diocletian.

The Venetian, Giovanni Bellini in The Madonna in the Meadow produced a poetic devotional painting; we have a realistic mother and baby seated on the ground – not a throne. The background landscape bathed in winter sunshine promises the rebirth of Spring, combined with the peaceful pride of the Virgin. In the background a battle between a snake and a crane probably symbolises the struggle between good and evil, and the black crow is a harbinger of death. Venice was a centre for the importation of pigments and the damp climate encouraged the adoption of oil paints after a visit to the Netherlands of the Sicilian artist Antonello da Messina, who later took up residency in Venice. Good quality canvas was used in the sailcloth of a maritime city. And it has been argued that Venetian artists were encouraged to exploit the effects of light by living in a city where light was often reflected off water. Bellini, using the oil paints, produced glowing colours with a soft style to give an atmospheric haze. In contrast to Florence, in Venice the focus in painting tended towards the senses rather than the intellect. Both Titian and Giorgione studied under Bellini.

I’ve put in the Gentile Bellini portrait of Sultan Mehmet for reasons of historic interest. He had been “sent” to the Sultan’s court as part of a peace settlement with Venice.

The paintings of Hieronymus Bosch seem very remote from the spirit of the . They have a pessimistic and disturbing visionary quality that probably wasn’t seen again until 20th century surrealism. It has been suggested that Bosch was affected by the hallucinogenic effects of the fungus ergot in rye bread; less controversially he would have seen the widespread deformations and loss of limbs caused by the infected bread. The original function and symbolic interpretation of the large triptych, The Garden of Earthly Delights, is unclear, but it was clearly informed by his strict religious and pessimistic beliefs. There are many references to alchemy but other symbols are now unclear. Bosch skilfully used impasto – thickly applied pigment well suited to his purposes. The painting depicts the Garden of Eden, an orgy in the World before the Flood, and Hell. Bosch’s paintings were popular enough to be frequently forged in his own lifetime.

Little of the life is recorded of Matthias Grünwald, known mainly for the Isenheim Altarpiece in the hospital chapel of the monastery of St Anthony (Alsace). The structure of the triptych allowed different images to be portrayed for different religious contexts. The crucifixion is surely one of the most disturbing images of the tortured Christ, a figure drawn much larger than the figures of St John the Divine supporting the Virgin. Christ’s arms have been lengthened to emphasise how heavily he hangs on the cross. Grünwald was probably influenced by the writings of mystics such a St Bridget of Sweden, and the altarpiece would have been central to the spiritual purification of patients about to undergo treatment for syphilis and other skin or blood diseases. Other panels depict the nightmarish visions of demons of St Anthony in the desert and a depiction of the Resurrection reminiscent, to me, of William Blake’s work.

© Patrick Imrie 2018