In today’s class, we examined the work of art Portrait of the Artist and His Wife by an unknown artist known as the Master of Frankfurt. This was a self portrait of a newly wed wife and husband, but it represents much more than what meets the eye. While the portrait appears to be a normal scene, it has minute details that relate to the humanist movement associated with the Renaissance. Artists were basically in competition with each other over how realistic they could make people and things and also, how they could play with dimension and perspective. In the Portrait of the Artist and His Wife, there is a highly realistic fly on the woman, and a piece of bread pointed in the direction of the viewer. Both these details leave the viewer wondering if they are in the painting or in real life. 

In this class discussion, we continued to talk about Leonardo’s exploration of art and elaborated on our conversation about perspective by examining perspective in The Last Supper and other paintings. Furthermore, we talked about his interest and use of numerology in The Last Supper. While I am familiar with the use of numbers in the Bible to connote specific meanings (namely the numbers 7, 666, 12 etc) the use of groups in paintings, and even some of the additional numbers we talked about (4 for the two different types of virtues) were new and unfamiliar concepts to me. It is an interesting intersection between math, on a basic level, and subliminal meaning that I found fascinating. Furthermore, in our explanation of perspective, we talked about how perspective helped to engage the reader. While I had already explored this lightly in my exhibition proposal, I found it very interesting to consider the fact that paintings “lock” the viewer’s perspective at a very specific point. Keeping this in mind, it is a helpful tool for analyzing art, as you can explore your perspective on the painting and determine why the artist chose to give you, as the viewer, this specific perspective.

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.

This class we discussed the Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci and its intricate details surrounding its composition. There are four groups of three apostles, where the numbers three and four are very symbolic. Three represents the Holy Trinity and the theological values (faith, hope and charity). Four represents the number of gospels and cardinal virtues and temperaments. When multiplied together, they equal 12, which represents the number of apostles and months in a year, hours of the day etc. When added together, they equal 7, which represents the seven sorrows and joys of the Virgin. Together, the work represents the passing of time in subtle ways.

We went more in depth of composition and rendering depth with the work of Alberti, On Painting, that talks about vanishing points, the horizon line and orthogonals. We saw depth in the work of The Holy Trinity and the Virgin where the tomb is seen projecting into our space that overall was a symbolic representation of the concept of the Trinity. It is important to note that mostly the Italians used these rules of rendering depth and northerners made the choice of tilting the perspective.

During class we discussed the Master of Frankfurt’s piece, Portrait of the Artist and his wife which was believed to be a self portrait. It was interesting how he chose to paint the fly on the women’s head as a way to show off his painting skills. It kind of looks like a fly landed on the image instead of being painted on. Then we talked about representation of art. We looked at different sculptures of the ideal body and how they change over time and how the Italians liked to improve their art over time, as seen by Giotto vs. Cimabue’s Enthroned Madonna. Giotto improved depth and made it more naturalistic.

We also started discussing Leonardo da Vinci and how he was a true renaissance man in the way that he was interested in many different subject matters such as nature, art, geometry and proportions. He made Vitruvios, the infamous image of the man inside the circle and square showing ideal proportions. He was also left handed, which caused him to have to write backwards as to not smudge the ink, which i found interesting.

This class we discussed St. Francis who left his family to spend time with beggars and preaches the importance of poverty in order to get closer with Christ. People soon follow and a brotherhood forms. Two years after he dies he is canonized as a saint. This led to the creation of the work the Life of Saint Francis. We also discussed the Lamentation over the Dead Christ, a lifesize sculpture of Christ’s death. It is highly emotional and the patron is seen in the scene praying. Finally we discussed the Garden of Earthy Delights, which was a very complicated work that had many tiny figures and mystical beings and structures that all represent a chemical process of distillation. I think it is interesting how the step of putrefaction (burning) is represented by Hell and the final step is depicted by the closed triptych.

This class we discussed the work Original Sin by the Limbourg Brothers and the way it makes use of a continuous narrative which shows the movement of time in one still picture. The image also has no border and the outside is white, representing our world on Earth. The white bareness represents the blandness of the world compared to the lush garden of Eden. We also discussed the functions of religious images which are to teach you something, to serve an emotional function, and mnemonic function. Finally we talked about Giotto and specifically his works in the Scrovegni Chapel that illustrate Christ’s life. He frames the work to draw the eye to the center of each piece. Some examples are the Adoration of the Magi, the Flight into Egypt, and Raising of the Lazarus. Each depicting Christ’s divinity or humbleness.

In this class, we were first introduced to the idea of “perspective”, the eye view on something. For example, in Leonardo’s The Last Supper, the point of view is slightly above the dining table. This painting applies the “one point perspective” (one vanishing point in the scene), so it places objects in space clearly and thus creates a sense of depth and locks audiences with the same position in the frame. What else stood out to me is the concept of “numerology”, i.e. how numbers convey a certain idea symbolically, and how it is applied in this artwork. For example, number three, which is a symbol of Trinity and Theological Virtues (faith, hope, and charity), is conveyed by the three windows in the background and that the apostles are grouped by three. The sense of animation revealed by the various vivid facial expressions of apostles, as well as the abandon of the halo of Jesus to mimic reality, is also interesting.

As a math major student, I must talk a little about Leon Battista Alberti’s On Painting, which is a great join of art and mathematics. I like how Alberti summarizes geometric rules so that artists can apply them to draw more natural space. A horizontal line, the line of the audiences’ eye view, being a collection of all possible vanishing points reminds me of the definition of line learned in math class–an infinite collection of points.

Then we moved to Masaccio’s The Holy Trinity with the Virgin, St. John, and Two Donors. In this artwork, attribute to the depiction of depth, we see that two donors are standing preceding, then is Virgin Mary and Saint John, then is Jesus, and finally is God Father. We thus realized that the artist introducing a sense of depth is not only for capturing reality but also for conveying certain meaning and information: the more preceding figures in the painting, the more human-natured they are!

Next, we encountered the idea of “rising perspective”, which means the scene and space in the painting are tilted up, which gives more visible space and allows artists to include more details. We then make a comparison between the Northerners, who prefer such kind of “beyond one point perspective” and are free/flexible about rules, and the Italians, who follow strict mathematics and geometric rules and pursue a coherent one point of view.

During today’s class, we discussed Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper. It started with a discussion of how Leonardo experimented with the way he did this fresco because he used tempera to paint it which is why it cannot really be called a fresco. Along with this, it focuses on the moment when Christ announces that someone in that room will betray him which is what creates the reactions and expressions of the people around him. However, something that we focused on today was perspective and how it was used in different paintings. In The Last Supper, Leonardo is able to create depth which allows the plane of space the painting represents to be shown properly. On top this, the panels on the side of the walls converge at Christ’s eye which shows that it is the vanishing point, placing him at a sort of focus.

Perspective was also shown as one point perspective in The Holy Trinity. This artwork takes advantage of what perspective suggests in order to get across its message. Aside from perspective, this artwork is also a symbolic representation of the trinity despite it showing a crucifixion because it does not actually depict the scene of the crucifixion. Like stated, this artwork instead explores a Throne of Mercy trinity.

Going back to the idea of perspective, we also discussed how Italian art used perspective more rigorously with set constructions and rules. Northerners were looser with these constructs and would often use a rising perspective that cause the scene to be tilted up and give more room to fill up with stuff.

In our class today, we focused our discussion on the topic of the depiction of depth in renaissance art. We used the Last Supper painting as an example of a painting with a fantastic use of depth. I thought it was really interesting how Leonardo connected the patterns of numbers (3 and 4) with christian dogma (virtues, apostles, etc). Furthermore, I thought it was interesting how the biggest opening in the back is behind Christ and how this serves as a form of a halo. I knew that as time progressed artists abandoned the halo, but I thought it was interesting how though this artistic tradition was abandoned, artists still replicated the purpose in a different way (the focus on Christ and his holiness). I also thought it was interesting how we began to talk about the strict rules of suggesting depth in artwork, specifically with vanishing points. Our discussion about how this is done differently depending on where the artist is located / trained was interesting, as I’ve never thought about how the location could mean so much on how artists suggest illusionistic depth in their artwork.