In our last class of the semester, we talked a lot about how the Renaissance gave birth to the phenomenon that still exists in art today of upholding famous/accomplished artists as tortured geniuses. Professor Plesch noted that the Renaissance was the first time that it became more important to have a work by a specific artist than to have a work representing a specific scene or person. This is still so present in modern-day art, and when Professor Plesch reminded the class that the plaques on the wall of museums describing the works they are next to always begin with the name of the artist, I was reminded of one of the first activities we did for homework in this course where we went to the museum and wrote down our observations about how art is presented in a museum. It has been fascinating to fully come to understand the origins of this style of presentation of art in museums, and I am glad that I have been able to see the evolution of the appreciation of the artists over the Renaissance over the course of this class.
Author: Caroline Beecher (Page 1 of 3)
In Tuesday’s class we discussed urban planning in the context of Colby’s campus and the city of Florence. Within Florence, we talked about the city hall and the Duomo. I learned that the city hall was built before the Duomo and that it was built on the spot where the homes of the Uberti family used to stand. This was done as a show of dominance by the Guelphs over the losing Ghibellines. The building borrows details from defensive architecture, including the use of pietra forte, crenellations, and battlements. What is interesting is that this building did not need this kind of protection at the time it was built, as indicated by the trefoiled arched windows. All of these defensive details were added for the symbolism, not for protective purposes. The Duomo is a landmark of Florence and is not far from the city hall. The Cathedral is a massive architectural achievement and was designed by Brunelleschi. The dome of the cathedral is the largest built since the pantheon, and this one has a unique octagonal shape that was inherited from the original floor plan. I was also interested to learn that the building had both religious and civic meaning—a child being baptized in the Duomo represented them entering the church and Florentine society.
In Thursday’s class we discussed the shift in the art world at around the start of the 17th century to the open market. This change allowed artists to have more freedom in what they painted and how, since they were no longer making art under the specific terms and conditions of a contract. The birth of the open market in art also led to the idolization of specific artists, and forced artists to “make a name for themselves” in order to sell their work. To do this, many artists carved out their own specific niches in the market and started to specialize in order to survive the market competition. Artists also began to emphasize virtuosity in their work to make them stand out. This means that if multiple artists were doing the same technique or communicating similar ideas, each of them worked to be the best at that technique. We also talked about how this open market led to a large number of copies of art appearing in the marketplace. Professor Plesch noted that the copies were not stigmatized in the way they are today (considered fake) because often the copies would be the artist (or sometimes even their children) recreating his or her own work if it was received well.
In Tuesday’s class we discussed Botticelli’s Primavera, a magnificent work painted for Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’Medici. The work was commissioned for Lorenzo’s wedding, and has lots of references to all the aspects of a strong marriage. Its rich floral design is almost reminiscent of a tapestry and really envelops the viewer into the garden of Venus, which is eternally in spring. The Zephyr at the far right of the painting represents a gentle wind, which blows the beautiful scents of the orange trees and flowers around and creates really perfect weather. In this painting, Venus is representing love in the context of marriage (as opposed to lust), and therefore her clothes are adorned with pearls (representing purity) and flames (representing the flames of love and St. Lawrence, a play on Lorenzo, the name of the man who commissioned the work). We also see the Cupid, her son with Mercury, the god of messengers, thieves, merchants, and eloquence flying above the garden. This reminds viewers that in the Renaissance, marriages was done to produce a child and to merge powerful families.
In Tuesday’s recorded lecture, we continued discussing the women of the Renaissance. I was most fascinated by Jean Pucelle’s work because it was so different from previous books of hours, and it became an extremely influential work for other artists. It is incredible that this was done using mostly all grisaille—especially because each page is so impactful even without color (for the most part). The structure of the book is designed to make the reader compare and contrast the early moments of Christ’s life with the later ones, which I thought was a really interesting and inspired idea on the part of Pucelle. That style of reflection is not one that is traditionally encouraged in the Catholic Church, but finding new ways to engage with the gospel is important for remaining engaged in prayer, and this reflects Pucelle’s genius in putting the manuscript together the way that he did. The addition of the social commentary in the bas-de-page was also fascinating and provides a small window into the way the stories from the Bible were being received by the public at the time that this manuscript was published.
In Thursday’s class, we began discussing portraits of women from the Renaissance. One of the most interesting portraits we discussed is Titian’s Venus of Urbino. It is important to note that the title was not give by Titian himself, and this has led to a great deal of debate in the art history world about who the woman in the portrait really is. Is she a representation of Venus? Almost certainly not. It is more likely that the woman is the Duke of Urbino’s mistress or wife. One of the more interesting symbols in the portrait is the sleeping dog. Dogs are often used as symbols of fidelity, and the fact that the dog is asleep in the painting may indicate that the virtue of fidelity is not an active value at work (which could lead one to the conclusion that this is the Duke’s mistress). In thinking about this painting, I began thinking a lot more about portraiture and the ways that the patron and the artist can influence the depiction of the person. Thinking about that artistic manipulation as Renaissance-era photoshop has really helped me to understand the ways the works have been constructed and reminds me to think about what the artist wants me to see (wealth, personal characteristics) in each portrait they do.
In Tuesday’s recorded lecture we really got to dive into the fascinating details of portraiture. Much of the lecture involved unpacking the meanings of the Netherlandish disguised symbolism that was employed throughout the works, and especially in the paintings of Jan van Eyck. Van Eyck’s Giovanni Arnolfini and His Wife is a heavily detailed painting that has been thought to represent the actual moment of marriage between the couple (up until very recently—now this seems to be in dispute, and scholars are considering this as a memorial portrait, among other possibilities). Beginning at the ground of the portrait, viewers immediately notice that the couple have removed their shoes, suggesting that they are standing on sacred ground as they join hands in their bedroom with two men standing in front of them (as we examine the mirror we realize that the viewer is standing where the two men are and are perhaps bearing witness to this wedding). There are so many other symbols embedded in the painting that have been interpreted as being good omens for marriage, and therefore make sense in the work. In addition to looking at the details of the portraits, Professor Plesch reminded us of all the visual manipulation that can take place in portraiture to play up certain physical or personal characteristics. This is important to keep in mind as we build ideas about who the people in the portraits were (and how much of that is what they wanted you to see and think).
In Thursday’s class we analyzed everyone’s selfies, which was a great introduction to our larger discussion of portraiture. Professor Plesch described the spectrum that portraits can fall on—at one end is a very naturalistic, human portrait, and at the other end is caricature. This was an interesting concept for me, and makes me wonder how much the real people depicted in the portraits we will look at actually look like the version of them we will see. It is likely that the most true-to-life portraits will come from Northern artists, since they were known for including all the warts and weirdness of a person in their portrait, while Italians tended to do a bit of ‘airbrushing’ in their works. We also discussed how Petrus Christus was the first artist to place the sitter in a background with context—he put the sitter in front of a visible corner in a room. This opened up the possibilities for portraiture, because now the background could say more about the sitter than an amorphous background could. But that did not mean that artists stopped using amorphous backgrounds. Rogier van der Weyden was famous for his fantastic character details of his sitters (observing the face as if it were a landscape) with amorphous backgrounds.
In Tuesday’s class, we discussed the details of Robert Campin’s Mérode Triptych at great length. The painting is filled with tiny details that carry significant meaning for the depiction of the annunciation, the timing of the annunciation in relation to the story told by the Bible, and the architecture and fashions of the time in which it was painted. The jug on the table in the middle of the central panel carries lots of meaning—it looks just like the ones used by priests to wash their hands before saying the mass; it bears letters that look like Hebrew; and it holds three white lilies (which are a popular symbol for representing the purity of the Virgin), two of which have bloomed, and one of which is still a bud (the bloomed flowers representing the Father and the Holy Spirit and the bud representing Christ, who has yet to be born in his human form). The candle next to the jug on the table could also carry many different meanings, and our discussion of these possibilities was really thought-provoking for me. We talked about how the extinguished candle could be a metaphor for Christ (the wax as his human nature, the wick as his soul, and the flame as his divinity with the flame being temporarily extinguished because he is temporarily giving up his divinity to become man), it could represent the ending of one religious order and the beginning of a new one, it could represent the brightness of baby Jesus outshining all other light in the world, and it could represent the marital tradition of leaving a candle burning until the marriage has been consummated. I really enjoyed today’s class and look forward to exploring the intricate details of many more paintings like this one.
In Thursday’s class, we began by discussing Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper fresco in the Santa Maria delle Grazie church in Milan. In this work, Leonardo has depicted the moment that Jesus tells his disciples that someone at that table will betray Him and Leonardo really creates a sense of animation with each of the disciples reacting in a different way. Professor Plesch told us that Leonardo was very interested in math and he plays with 3s and 4s in this fresco. There are 4 panels on each side and 3 openings behind the table, with the central opening being larger and acting as a halo. The number 3 corresponds with the Trinity and the 3 Theological virtues (faith, hope, and love). The number 4 corresponds with the 4 gospels, the 4 cardinal virtues (prudence, justice, temperance, and courage), the 4 rivers of Paradise, 4 seasons of the year, and 4 times of day. She also extended this to include 7 (4 + 3), which represents the 7 sorrows and joys of the Virgin, vices, and virtues. Additionally, 12 (4 x 3) represents the 12 apostles, 12 months of the year, and the 12 hours of the day and night. I found this to be fascinating and it was such a great way to introduce the mathematical concept of perspective in art.