Italian Early Renaissance (15th cent.)

Architecture: Brunelleschi and the Rational Church The origins of photography: scientific perspective Painting: Masaccio and perspective (the vision here and now) Mantegna and foreshortening (in the eyes of the beholder) Piero della Francesca: the poetry of mathematics Sculpture: Donatello’s realisms Brunelleschi, Santo Spirito, Florence, Italy, begun 1436

3 main features of the 3. Mathematical Renaissance church: proportions, measurable space 1. Sober clarity (modular Robert de Luzarches, Thomas de scheme, not In Renaissance religiosity, Cormont, and Renaud de decorated) divinity is revealed by Cormont, Amien’s Cathedral, equilibrium and harmony, 2. Classical inspiration Maiens, France, begun 1220 rather than by the Gothic (columns, arches) emotional spirituality 2) The photograph acknowledges 2 main characteristics of the fact that each picture is a photography: fragment of an uninterrupted 1) the machine fixes universe automatically the complex world Scholars have identified around us in a quadrangular, two- Renaissance Scientific dimensional picture Perspective as the origins of the process that would bring to the invention of photography Scientific or One-point Linear Perspective

“Scientific” as SCIENTIFIC PERSPECTIVE (or opposed to One-point Linear Perspective) was Giotto’s invented by Brunelleschi in the intuitive early 1400s: perspective diagonal lines from the edges of the picture to the vanishing point, create a structural grid that organizes the pictorial space and determines mathematically the relative size of objects Scientific or One-point Linear Perspective

“Scientific” as 3 main features: opposed to -love for unity and order Roman and (Plato’s idea that measure Giotto’s is the basis of beauty) intuitive perspective -faith in rationality and knowledge based on observation (emergence of science) -Importance of the point of view (perspective = standpoint) Masaccio, The Holy Trinity, Santa Maria Novella, Florence, ca. 1428

The first painter to apply Brunelleschi’s theory was the young MASACCIO (1401- 1428) Subject matter:

Holy Trinity: Father, Crucified Christ, and Holy Spirit (dove)

Virgin and St. John

Donors

Talking skeleton Masaccio, The Holy Trinity, Santa Maria Novella, Florence, ca. 1428

Similarly to van Eyck:

pitiless realism (detail of the loincloth falling down)

Even halos are painted in perspective!

Portraiture / individuality Differently from van Eyck: unity prevails over the multiplicity of details (synthetic vs. analytic) Masaccio breaks the wall of the church Santa Maria Novella with a fake niche The vanishing point is placed at the height of an average viewer Standing in front of the fresco, the visitor has the illusion of a vision happening in an extension of his/her space Masaccio, The Holy Trinity, Santa Maria Novella, Florence, ca. 1428

The donors are visual mediators I was once between the actual space of the viewer and the fictional what you are, space of the vision, kneeling on a painted altar The ascending pyramid of figures leads viewers from the image of death to the hope of resurrection end eternal life and what I am you will become Andrea Mantegna, ceiling of the Camera degli Sposi, Palazzo Ducale, Mantua, Italy, 1474, Fresco A long tradition of illusionistic frescoes

Trompe l’oeil: French for ‘deceives the eye’ objects, still-lives, fake architectures painted so that they appear to be three-dimensional and touchable The viewer is not able to determine where the real world ends and where the fictional realm of painting starts Andrea Mantegna, ceiling of the Camera degli Sposi, Palazzo Ducale, Mantua, Italy, 1474, Fresco Mantegna breaks the ceiling of a bedroom as in a courtyard from which we can see the sky This was the room of the newlyweds Symbols: Putti (symbols of love),

the peacock (attribute of Juno, goddess of lawful marriages),

they look down to the room and to the intimate life of the couple: the viewer becomes the viewed: Things can be seen (and understood) differently from different perspectives

There is something even more radical here

What? The relativity of the point of view Piero Manzoni, Base of the World. Homage to Galileo, 1961

In 1961 Piero Manzoni made a work entitled “Base of the world”: it is an upside down sculpture base By subtitling his work an homage to Galileo, Manzoni was making the absurd proclamation that the base held on its bearing surface the entire world And therefore that entire earth is a sculpture (you included) He was inspired by a painting by Mantegna on display at Brera, Milan: Mantegna, Dead Christ, ca. 1501, Tempera on canvas

A religious scene that had been represented for centuries The changing of perspective makes the viewer able to see this same scene with fresh eyes While Giotto had brought the Mantegna brings the viewer sacred image as on a stage, on the stage: the viewer is at and his viewer was involved Christ ‘s beside as a spectator He/she is directly involved in the sacred scene not as a spectator but as a character Mantegna, Dead Christ, ca. 1501, most radical Tempera on application of canvas foreshortening: The application of the rules of perspective to an object or figure that extends back in space: Not only are diagonal lines converging toward the vanishing point, But also, curved lines, body proportions, and shadowing are altered in order to give the illusion of tri- dimensionality A human being had never been represented like this! Piero della Francesca, Brera Altarpiece, ca. 1472-1474, oil on panel

Piero della Francesca: the poetry of mathematics

Perspective corresponded to a new mathematical approach to knowledge and a new concept of beauty In this period Plato was the most studied and influential philosopher of the past According to Plato, MEASURE was the basis of beauty Piero della Francesca, Brera Altarpiece, ca. 1472-1474, oil on panel

Perspective was a way to make the image of the world measurable and therefore beautiful This aspect was most effectively developed by the work of Piero della Francesca Piero, a skilled geometrician, wrote the first theoretical treatise on perspective Which coherently combined aesthetics, geometry, and philosophy in the realm of painting Piero della Francesca, Brera Altarpiece, ca. 1472-1474, oil on panel

In this altarpiece, painted for the duke Federico da Montefeltro, Piero organizes the composition according to a geometrical and symmetrical scheme

where each part is rationally related to the others The coffered barrel vault is an acknowledgement of Masaccio’s precedent Differently from Masaccio’s dramatic realism, here other qualities prevail: -Pure and total light (rationality) -Silent vision, out of time However, in this perfectly symmetrical geometry something is missing As in Masaccio’s work, the kneeling patron is portrayed in the foreground

The female patron is the absent keystone of the composition’s perfect symmetry (the Virgin’s gaze) The duke commissioned the altarpiece just a few months after his wife’s, Battista, death This painting is a tribute to her demise: The altarpiece is a modern, clear, rational meditation over the concept of death, represented through a perfectly mathematical composition There is no drama, no screaming or representation of despair: only a missing part in an otherwise perfect system makes the rational realm questioning itself Donatello, Feast of Herod, baptismal font of Siena Cathedral, Siena, ca. 1425

Donatello’s realisms Donatello was the very first artist to apply Brunelleschi theory of perspective in an artwork: He used linear perspective on his relief works as an effective setting, where he placed his figures: Donatello mixed in the same work basso, mezzo and alto- relief! The effect is that of an ambiguous spatial representation, where it is almost impossible to determine what is actually tri-dimensional (sculpted) and what is illusion (“drawn” perspective) This bronze relief was realized for the baptismal font of Siena It illustrates a scene from the life of St John the Baptist when the princess Salome asked King Herod for the head of St John as a reward for her dancing, and got it Donatello chose to represent not the violent moment of the murder, but rather focused on the human reactions to it:

The executioner knelt down before the king carrying the head of the saint

The king shrinks back and raises his hands in horror

Kids run away crying

Salome’s mother, who instigated the crime, tries to explain

Guests recoil creating the void in the center,

one covers his Salome seems just to have eyes stopped in her sensual dance Donatello’s realism manifests itself on 3 different levels: -Human approach to the sacred text (how did different people react to this dramatic fact?) -Historical accuracy (the setting is Herod’s classical palace; the executioner is dressed as a Roman soldier) -New conception of space: not only illusion of space through perspective, but also the scene is represented as a fragment of reality

The image is cut by edges of this relief giving the illusion of a “snapshot” from a real situation, Where space would continue outside the pictured frame