Category: Uncategorized (Page 39 of 48)

Neo-Platonism is a prevalent theme through all of the artists we discussed in class today. Botticelli, Leonardo, and Raphael all combine the resurgence of Plato’s ideas with the humanism popular at the time. Botticelli’s Birth of Venus sees a very interesting example of female nudity that is neither moral nor erotic–it embodies the ideal of nudity as an aesthetic form. That ideal is precisely what Plato was always harping on–he believed there was literally a perfect, ideal form of anything that existed in the material world in a separate, ephemeral realm. Botticelli doesn’t say all of that with his Venus, but Neo-Platonism leaves behind much of Plato’s peculiars while it adapts itself to Christian thought.

Leonardo da Vinci made a concoction out of Neo-Platonism and Humanism with his relentless focus on systems, patterns, and structures in nature. His problem solving focus reeks of idealism–what is most interesting about the world lies in the idea and structure of it. That said, so much of his work focuses on the humanity of the world, and human virtues.

In today’s lecture we delved deeper into the heart of 15th-century Italian Renaissance art, and explored famous pieces while focusing on the techniques of renowned artists.

We focused on Masaccio and his contributions. His collaboration with Tommaso in the Brancacci Chapel in Florence were very captivating. One of his pieces is “The Tribute Money,” a portrayal of a biblical scene which is not very commonly seen. Masaccio’s innovative use of continuous narrative, wherein figures are shown multiple times to convey sequential action was very immersive. I was intrigued by how he depicted multiple instances in time through just a singular portrait without any strikingly distinctive separations. This piece also says a lot about the socio-political climate of Renaissance Florence where Christ is the focal point amidst a backdrop of shifting power dynamics.

Another work we discussed in the lecture for today was Masaccio’s “Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise,” which is another depiction of a biblical narrative where there is a focus on expressing sorrow and shame. Masaccio’s ability to convey complex emotions through subtle gestures underscores the psychological aspect of his art. Another piece, Masaccio’s “The Holy Trinity with the Virgin, St John and Two Donors,” explored of faith and mortality.

As I reflect on today’s class, I am intrigued by several things. I liked how we discussed mediums and materials like for example, in fresco painting, we analyzed how they are created by painting on a plaster and how the artist has to be carful about the drying of the paint which impacts their planning. I also appreciated how we discussed the warmer and cooler colors creating the effect of distance and how color compositions are selected accordingly. It was also very informative to note the changes in volume depiction and the realism in drapery depictions. I feel that focusing on such features not only gives us important historical context but also guides our own thoughts when we engage in our creative processes.

Today we started by talking about Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus. I think it is a nice painting, displaying Botticelli’s humanistic education with its mythological content and use of antiquated motifs (the modest Venus) and his interactions with Neoplatonist thinkers. I like it when we talk about more abstract and technical artistic concepts like arrangement and framing, and how it brings meaning and significance to a painting.

We then moved on to a broad discussion of the many works of Leonardo da Vinci. He is a compelling figure, someone who must’ve really let his curiosity run wild. I liked his anatomical sketches, and how he accurately detailed the shape and functions of many muscles and ligaments. He was also in many ways a philosopher; writing dictums for the functions and purpose of painting. All in all a very interesting guy, somebody that I’d like to learn more about.

We finished off the day by starting our discussion of some of the big pieces of art commissioned in the Papal States. We looked at Bramante’s Tempietto and how it built on both Early Christian and Roman architectural traditions to make an equally innovative and antiquated structure. Then, we started our discussion of Raphael’s The School of Rome, but we ran out of time so we’ll probably pick up there on Wednesday.

We wrapped up our discussion of the Early Renaissance by looking at Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, which is a hallmark work of this period. Botticelli is moving away from the strive for realism that his counterparts were obsessed with. This is partly due to the mythological scene he is depicting – he is not worried about capturing real life because this scene is not real. This painting shows the moment after Venus was born out of the sea foam and is floating toward land on a shell. Botticelli uses some atmospheric perspective when creating the landscape background, but his focus with this work was creating a beautiful and harmonious scene. It is also important to note the significance of having a nude figure in this work. Nude figures are not completely unheard of in this period, but they were often depictions of Eve and come with obvious moral overtones. Here, Venus is nude to show off her perfection and to highlight her as the goddess of love and beauty. Venus is one of the only figures both in Antiquity and in the Renaissance that is almost always depicted nude.

Moving into the High Renaissance, we began with arguably the most remarkable artist from this period, Leonard da Vinci. Leonard was much more than an artist though and was interested in engineering, mathematics, medicine, and much more. One of the first works of his that we looked at is his Vitruvian Man, where he drew inspiration from the writings of the Roman architect Vitruvius. His central idea with this work is that man could be perfectly inscribed in a circle and square, with their centers being at his naval.

His work from this class that most interested me was the Madonna of the Rocks. I was initially drawn to the idea behind it of envisioning how Jesus and John the Baptist met, and Leonardo’s vision of them meeting as small children in this quite peculiar landscape. I was intrigued to learn that this rocky setting comes from references to the Song of Songs from the Old Testament, but then also references to the New Testament with the manger scene and the cave where Jesus was buried and rose. Leonardo’s question he was trying to solve with this piece was how to create symmetrical, but also dynamic composition. His solution was the pyramidal pose with figures anchoring each point of the triangle. This creates a very balanced and stable composition but also makes it visually interesting.

Today’s class focus was on High Renaissance in Italy. We spent a large part of the class discussing Leonardo da Vinci and all that he accomplished throughout his career. I found his interest and dedication to the human anatomy and how he could best understand it to be very interesting. It is clear that his interest did not only come as artist, but as a scientist and a life long learner. I was particularly surprised that he became certified to perform autopsy, to even further his exploration of the anatomy. This quest for understanding led to some of his veyr famous sketches and discoveries. This in particularly makes you have a greater appreciation for the time, effort, and attention to detail that he puts into the Vitruvian man for example.

Another highlight of our class was the discussion the Last Supper mural. This painting is incredibly famous so I was excited to formally learn about it. I do not think I quite realized the poor condition that the painting was in, or exactly how it was protected during WW2. I always find how wars affect art to be very interesting so it was cool to see the foresight that people had to build up sandbags and protect the painting so that it was able to survive the war.

Last Wednesday, toward the beginning of class, we focused our attention toward Masaccio’s The Tribute Money. The story is striking as it is told from the Gospel of Matthew, yet it is unique to many biblical stories. The story is continuous, showing St. Peter portrayed three times throughout the work. The story is not intended to be read left to right, like we are used to, and the significance of this detail is that Christ becomes the focal point of this work. Perhaps Christ being the focal point draws on the importance of Christ’s intent to look over the people of Florentine. One way he does this is by enforcing that church shall pay their own taxes. The painting’s colors are necessary to note, as Masaccio utilizes dark versus light colors, vibrant reds, blues, teals, and oranges, thus allowing for the subjects to look closer than they actually are. As the textbook wrote, the posture and stances of the figures decreases the spacial setting area of the work. I particularly like this painting, because of the colors, the rich detail of the figures clothes and body figures, and ultimately the feeling that you get — it is as if you are experiencing the scene yourself.

Continuing on with Masaccio’s works, we centered on his, The Holy Trinity with the Virgin, St John and Two Donors. Masaccio’s work does something that many artists struggled or even denied doing: depicting the Trinity. The painting’s colors are majority blues and reds and the architecture is contemporary. Moving on, we focused on Michelozzo’s Palazzo Medici-Riccardi and the differences between architectural buildings for people living in Florence. Michelozzo’s architectural designs, along with other architects and their works, convey the power held by wealthier palace owners in Florence. Lastly, we looked at Donatello’s David, addressing the pinnacle of Florence, David, and his poised, calm, young figure. Finally, the last work we looked at include’s Paulo Uccello’s Battle of San Romano. This work is particularly interesting, given it is not to portray a violent battle, but is perhaps more of a set scene or background of everything that is going on in society at the time.

Going back into Fifteenth-Century Italian art we went through the bunch of church paintings. This was done for someone who was named after St. Peter leading to many of the works depicting his life. The first was a depiction of a tax collector collecting money form Jesus and his followers. This continuous narrative shows three scenes. One of Jesus telling St. Peter to go to the river, St. Peter retrieving the money from the fish’s mouth, and giving the money to the collector. The gesture form Christ helps guide the viewer through the scenes. This work uses perspective through the buildings and trees following one point perspective. Also, the warmer colors are shown closer in the garments worn. Lastly, atmospheric perspective is used as shown by the blue mountains.

Another work in this church is the expulsion of Adam and Eve from paradise. Both Adam and Eve are shown feeling different specific emotions which can be related to by the viewer. Eve is based off of a Greek sculpture which shows eve noticing and attempting to hide her nudity.

The last work in this church we talked about was a depiction of the trinity. It is distinctly different than depictions of the Crucifixion as it is not showing that event. It shows the holy trinity overtop a grave with a warning. Point perspective brings you to the point a viewer would stand if they were there.

In this class, we spent a large amount of time discussing Masaccio’s frescos in the Brancacci Chapel in Florence. The frescos depicted different scenes from the life of St. Peter. We looked at The Tribute Money fresco, which blends three different scenes from the story in the Bible into one painting, using continuous narrative. Masaccio places Christ in the center of the painting, even though the narrative does not follow that order, so that Christ would still be the focal point. Despite this, Masaccio employed methods, such as pointing, to make sure the viewer understood how to view the painting. Masaccio also employed both linear and atmospheric perspective, which added to the sense of realism. This painting also demonstrated the reflection of political culture in art. At the time of this set of fresco’s commissioning, the pope had just ordered for churches to pay taxes. The pope is considered to be the descendent of St. Peter, so in these paintings he is reflected as such.

In class on 2/21 we continued learning about Italian art in the 15th century. We began with learning some background information on Masaccio and his path toward being a master artist. We spent a large chunk of time discussing Masaccio’s frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel, specifically the Tribute Money frame. I really appreciate how in-depth we go when discussing particular works, spending 15 minutes on a particular work of art, and dissecting all the important elements. In the case of Tribute Money, we talked about how the particular subject matter reflected knowledge of the bible and how Masaccio applies a continuous narrative. Continuous narrative is when the same figure is presented multiple times (and at different times) in a scene. In the case of Tribute Money, Peter is depicted three times, which allows Masaccio to tell the progression of the story of the tax collector in one frame. I enjoyed learning about how Masaccio presented the holy trinity in the scene with the tomb. The spacing and placement of the characters were particularly interesting, as they signaled the hierarchy that the characters fall into. We ended class by starting to talk about furnishings, which we will continue to learn about this afternoon.

Through looking at Masaccio’s The Tribute Money, we had managed to examine some influence of earlier artists such as Donatello and Brunelleschi on the usage of continuous narrative and different perspective-building techniques such as linear perspective as well as atmospheric rendering of fading colors the further the sceneries are from the focus of the work, thus proving that by learning from their predecessors, the younger generation of Italian artists was able to create works that both live up to their time’s standards and even go further than that, creating an identity and style for themselves. Not only was this narrative told in a completely unexpected and surprisingly effective sequence (not by a then-standardized left-to-right order, this was done using gestures of the most prominent characters (Christ and St. Peter) to guide the viewers as the story unfolds. 

This is made even more poignant as we go through his other works in the Brancacci Chapel, including Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, wherein the artist showcases his exceptional ability of depicting different vivid, different and visceral emotions, as well as using these emotions as a gateway to tell the deeper story within the frame. Despite borrowing the figure’s composition from an ancient Roman original, Masaccio managed to bring in his own artistry, through the way in which he rendered the human body as well as what surrounds it. 

The same could be said about Donatello’s David, which obviously use elements of the ancient Greek masters including the contrapposto composition as well as the nudity of the figure, which was used as a tool to express something beyond its own exterior image, an idea of Florentine’s civic virtues that aligns with the original intention of the commissioners themselves – the then in-charge Medici family.