Dr John R GIBBINS
WESTERN CIVILISATION: From the Ancient Greeks to the Present. An intellectual and cultural history of the West Part IV Lecture 17
The Renaissance Canon – Lives of the Artists, Vasari, Understanding Art, Form and Meaning, Genres and the Renaissance artists. Retrospective
The Renaissance was a cultural and artistic movement between 1430 and 1600 aiming to civilize feudal medieval Europe, by self consciously and vigorously reviving the superior example, curriculum, literature, history, politics, ethics, philosophy, art, sculpture and cities of the Classical worlds of Greece and Rome Renaissance means Re-Birth of the Classical World and was coined by Georgio Vasari in 1560’s 4 Theories – 1) ‘Spirit of criticism and Genius’: A Gift of God (Vasari); Rise of City State politics and of Roman inspired Civic Humanism (Baron and Skinner: Florence); 3) Migrants fleeing from Byzantium bringing Oriental ideas and fashion (Jeremy Brotton: Venice); The re- awakening of the Dionysian current repressed by Christianity for a millennium (Burckhardt) Sources
Gomberich,E H, The Story of Art, Phaidon Burckhardt, Jacob, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, Harper Clark, Kenneth, Civilisation, BBC Vasari, Georgio, The Lives of the Artists, Penguin Blunt, Anthony, Artistic Theory in Italy 1450-1600, OUP Zoller, Frank, Botticelli, 2007 Castiglione, The Courtier, http://www.italian-renaissance-art.com Novels and Visual Sources
Dunant, Sarah, The Birth of Venus, Little Brown, 2005 In the Company of the Courtesan (On court life in Venice), Little Brown, 2006 Stone, Irving, The Agony and the Ecstacy: A Biographical Novel of Michelangelo, 2004 edition King, Ross, Brunelleschi’s Dome, New York, 2000 Hibbert, Christopher, The House of the Medici: Its Rise and Fall, 1999 The Borgias, 2011, TV Series coming soon, Jeremy Irons as Caesera, created by Tom Fontana The Borgias, BBC TV 1981, Pebble and Taylor with Oliver Cotton – good, 11 parts Shepherd, M. ed., Friends of Mankind: Marsilio Ficino, 1999 The Plan: Genres not Artists
A list of artists would be pointless Historical narrative is long and contentious We have too large a field to cover everything Genres or Types of paintings allow us to organize in an analytic framework This allows comparison and contrast We will learn more about core ideas, debates and disagreements A Genre is a kind, a species or type Genres of Renaissance Art
Core Genre Religious and Philosophical (Thinkers, Ideas, Ethical, Values) Classical and Pagan (Civic, Political, Military, Crisis) Courts, Patrons and Hero’s (Nobles, Celebrities, Women, Nepotism, Courtiers, Intrigue) Sub Genres Landscape, seascape, skies, heavens Nature, biology, botany, animals, physiology, sexuality, sensuality Science, bodies, anatomy, physics, medicine, astronomy Architecture, buildings, maps, plans, sarcophagus, monuments Art itself, line, perspective, the studio, self portrait Literature, Comedy, Tragedy, Romance Forms and materials
Italy preferred oil paintings, fresco (oil on plaster, marble and stone) Northern Renaissance preferred illuminated MSS, woodwork, tapestry and stone architecture (climate) The Northern Renaissance artists are Durer, Van Eyck, Holbein, Grunewald Florence preferred rich colours, thick texture brush work, stress on line, draughtsmanship and philosophy Venice preferred light, colour, smooth texture, painterly finish, romantic themes, exoticism – Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto, El Greco, Bellini family, Giorione, Vivarini Germany and Durer ( who studied in Padua and Venice) preferred nature, animals, anatomy, realism Britain and France preferred books, carving, architecture and stained glass – Henry 8th employed Holbein as Court painter Giorgio Vasari and his Narrative
1511-1574, born Arezzo, near Florence – his Museum Studied art under Andre del Sarto then Michelangelo, friendships with most of the great artists of his time and was their impresario Visited Rome and studied Raphael especially Enjoyed the Patronage of the Medici, for whom he advised on buildings, town planning and commissions – designed the Uffizi A few significant paintings, in Vatican collection, in Florence at in the Vasari Museum in Arezzo, the Doumo, the Gallery over the Ponte Vecchio Bridge over the Arno His Lives of the Artists 1550, then 1568 and many editions after in many languages Established the genres of art history and criticism
The Plot
Roman and Greek art had reached standards of perfection now lost In the Medieval period art became inferior – two dimensional, crude, repetitive, narrowly focused on religious themes, lacking genius and style Giotto the Tuscan rediscovered the lost art forms Brunelleschi perfected depth and perspective Tuscan painters developed it through three periods identified as the Three Parts of the Book Its perfection is reached in the work of Michelangelo who he feted and adored nd Venice ignored in 1st and then added to 2 edition The Authors intentions
To identify the historical narrative Invent and popularise the idea of the Renaissance Identify a critical form of analysis for evaluating and comparing artists and works of art Locate each artist within that story Apply the analytic framework Evaluate each artist and epoch To preach the superiority and supremacy of Florentine Art Downgrade Venice, Dutch art, Durer – non Florentine art Rewarded the patronage of Cosimo de Medici Maclehouse and Brown, Vasari on Technique, Dent, 1960 Rubin, Patricia Lee, Georgio Vasari: Art and History, 1995 Defects
Biased to Florence – and against Venice
Subjective – no references to primary sources
The concept of genius lacks credibility
Gods hand is a poor theoretical base and claim
His own work is simplistic, superficial, uncritical?
He is a Courtier to the Medici and Papacy and suffers the deficiencies implied by that role
But he invented the concept; the historical narrative and the new historiography within art history How to understand Art?
Art is artefact – a human invention
It works because the artist can trick you (your brain) into seeing something not there – a city, God, a woman – when all that is there are signs or signals or re-presentations of the object in a sign language. The viewer has to create the illusion
Signs are signifiers (lines etc) that induce signification or meanings to the viewer
This can only happen if you share a communal visual language – a system of sign (invented and deployed widely)
Those who invent the sign system, and/or deploy it are the powerful – they manipulate our understandings and via inference or induction, and the actions they then induce Nature or Nurture
Ernst Gombrich like A.N. Chomskey, considers the sign system, like language capacity, to be embedded in the brain – we are hard wired to decrypt signs. The ‘Beholder bequest’ Saussure, Wittgenstein and most Cultural and Media theorists, consider that all the many language systems to be invented social constructs, each autonomous, self referential, and generating its own signs and significances Modern Structuralists take a moderate view arguing that a sign system becomes so embedded that it appears and acts as if its natural and determined (Levi-Strauss, Althusser, Barthes, Foucault) Post-structuralists argue that even this fact is the product of significant efforts by elites to dominate language, signs and hence thoughts, words and deeds (Derrida, Baudrillard, Lyotard) Form and Meaning
In all languages form shapes meaning – no meaning without it
Whichever view is taken it is accepted that for a sign system/language to work, requires the following:
A Public group of users (no private languages)
A shared grammar or sign system
With negotiated shared rules and techniques of usage Meaning is established by contemporary usage (not history) negotiated between users Words and signs mean what they are intended to mean within a particular language by the speaker/artist and are understood to mean by both Audiences and Umpires (critics, listeners and experts) (3 Parties) Understanding painting – a formal analysis (1)
Materials – horses for courses (e.g. stone, marble, oils) – artists and we need to know why chosen Colour – Goethe’s colour system (e.g. dark and deep are conservative, regal/religious depressing while light and bright are radical, popular and happy) Line – straight, geometric are conservative, stable, powerful while curved and natural are challenging about change and dynamism Depth or Perspective – 2 dimensions imposes the message and stability, dimensions gives change and new openings (could use Laws of Perspective, drafted by Brunellesco, Donatello, Jan Van Eyck, or a grid box) More formal means (2)
Size – big gives public access and impact, while small encourages personal response and intimacy
Technique – fine brushwork gives polish and opulence (Bernini) while broad brushwork gives a natural and everyday impact (Van Gogh)
Genre – do you chose a romantic, comic, tragic, religious, erotic, landscape, portrait form to communicate your meaning?
Mood and dynamics – the feelings induced by the the intermixture or blending of all the elements Even more formal elements (3)
Location – where will it be displayed – in a Medici or Sattchi gallery, a Cathedral, a public square, your private home, in everyday urban sites (Banksy and Graffiti) – horses for courses again Patronage – who is paying, what are their values, needs and expectations Audience – who did the artist identify as the consumers of his image – elite or masses? Intended message and meaning – what did the artist intend that the audience inferred or concluded? Subject matter – the narrative. why is that subject matter chosen? Landscape, emotion, comedy Conclusion on forms (4)
Sign system, Movement or School of art - when all of the above are taken into consideration the artist or artists can choose the sign system or language they intend to deploy (Cubism, Impressionism, Naturalism, Realism, Post- impressionism, Venetian, Arab, African, Tahitian, Aboriginal, Fantasy) Iconography – which signs will I deploy to communicate – e.g religious, revolutionary, romantic Traditions – when researching the artist does select within the traditions that have shaped her, teachers, other artists, and audiences, patrons and gallery owners (Remember traditions change over time) Books
Bober, P.P. & Rubenstein, R., Renaissance Artists and Antique Sculpture: A Handbook, Harvey Miller, OUP, 1986 – the authors evidence direct borrowings from Ancient or Antique statues and drawings by Renaissance artists. Above all they learned how to ‘regulate visual experience’ and adapt the principles of ‘rhetoric’ (Aristotle, Cicero, Horace) for art p 40. In brief they recreated a, ‘repertory of artistic language of form, each a consolidated mode of expression fitted to a given theme’ Zuffi, Stephen., Understanding Renaissance Paintings, Thames and Hudson, London, 2010 £20 Formal and critical analysis – (1) Religious and Philosophical)
Religious art intends to induce awe, the holy, transcendence, a feeling of the sacred (R. Otto) By the special means of religious Iconography or signs – crosses, lost sheep and shepherds) and Narrative – Annunciations, Crucifixions – David the Tyrant Slayer was commissioned by the Republic to celebrate its liberty Religious art usually deploys dark rich colours, two dimensions to bring forward, large size unless for private devotion, expensive material to suggest heaven, a clerical location and a sad devotional mood (M is Dionysian and D is Apollonian image) Its patrons are church elites seeking to destroy challenging iconography and messages (Taliban) The Renaissance redeployed forms more than meanings A new focus on inner psychology, ethics and physiology, Annunciations 1) Fra Angelico, 2) Botticelli, 3) Leonardo, 4) F. Lippi, Annunciation illustrating the Golden Section, 5) Giotto, Casting out the Money Lenders,
Mary’s status rises in C15th
The Crowning of Mary in which Christ with God’s help crowns her for her achievements Raphael - Florence El Greco - Venice Durer – Germany Women begin to be represented better, with more status and role. Women artists begin to emerge eg Lavina Fontana 1552-1614: Madonna with child and a patron; Hairy Girl 1594; Plautilla Nelli 1524-1588; Sofonisba Anguissola 1535-1626
Philosophy blends into Religion
After Aquinas, Jouvenal, Petrach and Dante the curriculum of Ancient Rome (Cicero and Ovid) is adopted in Renaissance Italy and the philosophers and historians are baptized as predecessors Plato is adopted via Ficino in intellectual circles Raphael, The School of Athens, Apostolic Training Palace, Vatican, Rome 1509-18 The Academy: The Logia, Unknown, Michelangelo The Last Judgement, vaste scale, But what if God has gone for good, or gone until the Day of Judgement, or has left us to finish his work (as posited by Leon Battista Alberti, 1404-1472). We have to give mankind its chance to be the Creator
1) Zeno, 2) Epicurius, 5) Averroes, 6) Pythagoras, 7) Alexander, 8P Xonophan, 11) Parmedides, 12 Socrates, 13) Heraclitus, 14) Plato reading Timaeus, 15) Aristotle reading Nicomachian Ethics, 16) Diogenes, 17) Plotinus, 18: Euclid, 20) Ptolomy 2) Building is set as a Greek Cross to symbolise unity of Christianity and Philosophy 3) Statue of Apollo on left and Athena as Minerva on the right side Philosophy in its place
In this painting, The Logia the philosophical Pantheon on Earth is located below the Christian one located near Heaven– reflecting the Hierocratic Doctrine of the Papacy since Aquinas
In addition Popes and Bishops are intermingled with the philosophers
Philosophers are in a flat line while the Disciples inhabit a curved section of the whole world
Philosophers apparently needed an Alter to give them a focus
Marsilio Ficino
Marsilo Ficino was the thinker who revived Platonic thinking, ethics and politics into Florence. He translated the Timaeus and other texts, taught and advised key figures and inspired artists and writers especially Raphael, Michelangelo and Botticelli While I cannot locate the image The Academy, which pictures a meeting of his School in Athens we have the image of Zachariah in the Temple, by Domenico Ghirlandio, Florence 1486-94 which shows Neo-Platonist philosophers in discussion He is responsible for bringing the idea of the immortality of the soul from Plato’s Myth of Err into the Catholic Church, plus Brotherly Love
On Platonic Justice and Truth, Botticelli, Calumny of Appelles, 1494/5, Uffizi, Florence – Justice is deserted by an ignoble Judge; Platonic naked truth is ignored by powerful opinion aided by the vices of Calumny, Envy, Slander and Deceit from an essay by Lucian. Classical Roman iconography
Humanism and Naturalism
Renaissance thinking allowed a more honest appraisal of both human nature and nature itself Humanism asked us to appreciate the deficiencies and even the evils of human nature as well as virtues and goodness Naturalism asked us to be honest about our bodies and nature – being honest about muscles, sinews, sweat, blood, shape, weight, sexuality and sensuality Bodies of humans and animals are now understood as they are not as temples of the Lord Annibale Carracci, The Butchers Shop, 1587 (on death?) Correggio, Danae, 1531 –Zeus (gold) disguised as Jupitor seduces Danae who is locked in a tower. She enjoys the event Titian’s Urbino Venus, Uffizi, 1536-8, painted for the Duke of Urbinois Venus is stripped of all classical illusions, sexual, inviting with eyes, offering sex not ideals, body not soul. This is The Courtesan (Copied by William Etty of York )
Classical and Pagan (2)
With the revival of the whole Classical vocabulary, language, curriculum and their legitimation by Aquinas, the whole world of Greek Gods, Hero’s, thinkers, Generals, Politicians, poets, writers and artists is re-deployed on a mass scale that even rivalled Christian art in quantity and quality Cicero, Ovid, Virgil and r Apollo and Daphne Raphael, Galatea, 1513, Villa Farnesina, Rome, - in love Fransesco del Crossa, Allegory of Triumph of Venus, 1470 – Mars kneels at Venus feet, swans pull the Graces on left flirt, chivalry rules in a wonderful pastoral landscape - + Original River Gods, Campidoglio, original and several copied by Michelangelo from C2nd one, to tame the Tigris, Danube, Nile Simone de Martin, Frontispiece to Petrach’s Virgil Frontispiece to De Officia, Cicero, Florence, 1430 Frontispiece to Natural History, Pliny the Elder, Venice, 1476
Civic, Military and Crisis
Civic art is mostly public in place, large and to inspire patriotism and loyalty by reference to an heroic past Sienna Palazzio Publica 1297 copied in Birmingham Town Hall for Joseph Chamberlain 1905; Good and Bad Government, frescos, 1390’s in the Palace by Ambrogio Lorenzetti Military art does the same, but more narrowly, Leonardo War Machines, 1470; but as John Hale shows in Artists and War in the Renaissance, 1990 it is often sad and poignant Durer, Knight, Death and the Devil, 1513; Rhino in armour, 1515 Being prepared for the worst is useful – The Deluge, Leonardo The Last Judgement, Michelangelo 1536-41 – Refers to the Charon Ferry man who takes souls to Hades in Mythology - even the Virgin Mary quakes and fears non entry. Every one is damned even Michelangelo, the Popes, Nobility, the Fathers and Saints
Courts, Patrons and Hero’s (3)
Nobles, Celebrities, Women, Nepotism, Courtiers, Intrigue Private Patronage is the only alternative to Publicly and Civically funded art – the rich get their portraits painted; decide who else gets celebrated; become mandarins of style, content, and exposure Not always, but often negative in skewing style, subject matter and exposure (Satcchi Brothers and Tracy Emin). In Florence the Medici did a good job, as did the Doges and Merchants of Venice We will never know of those who refused Illustrations of Nobility and Courts
Leonardo, Lady with an Ermin, 1485-90. Cecillia Gallarami, always to be a mistress not wife – of Duke of Milan, but very strong, intelligent, aware, shares the animals gaze – a non critical gaze. Rich darkness, nunnish head drapery The effect here is dependent upon line and polished brushwork. Foreheads were shaved to improve the line from back of the neck over the head to the nose. The symetry of nose, lips and chin are exquisite. Portrait of a Woman, Antonio del Pollaioulo, 1431 – waiting, parading, seeking a husband On fashion in Court, Bronzino, Eleanora of Toledo, 1545 – wealth and status are revealed by shape, finish, deep colour, textures, detail, tapestry, jewels - married Andrea Mantega, Court of the Gonzagas, 1465-74 - A curtain is pulled to allow us access to luxury via colour, finish vigilant upright wife, Courtiers dogs and nanny, contemporary architecture and drapes More
Courts are dangerous – John losses his head to Salome at Herod’s Court, Dance of Salome, F. Lippi, 1438, Prato – uses narrative dynamic movement left to right - dance to death
Titian, Pope Pius III and his Nephews, 1543-5, Venice, which reveals the role of nepotism in high circles shown in dark background, stopping postures, averted eyes
Next week The Vita Active and Politics
Behind the façade of Chivalry, Court and Nobility lay the world of real politque – of power, sin and corruption e.g Medici, Borgias Machiavelli on the Public sphere and Castiglione on the Private expose these Behind is a cultural new awareness of human nature as it is seen without Christian lenses applied; the benefits of the vita activa or active life, and the vital roles of fortuna, practical skills or virtu, ethics and reason