Today in class, we discussed The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci. One concept thatI felt was particularly compelling was numerology. This is the study pf numbers and the meanings ascribed to them, in art specifically in this case. In this painting, we can see two numbers that appear as recurring themes. The first is three, which alludes to the Holy Trinity, as well as the three theological virtues. The number three is manifested in the painting as we see the apostles in groups of three. Additionally, there are three windows behind the group, the largest of which is placed behind Christ, acting as his halo. The number four is also a recurring theme in the painting. This number is meant to evoke the four gospels and the cardinal virtues. We see the number in the panels on the walls, of which there are four. There are four groups of apostles as well.

I think the comparison between Leonardo da Vinci and Albrecht Dürer was very interesting. Both we master painters, however, they painted for different purposes. It appeared that Leonardo painted to understand. He used art as a very effective tool to portray ideas, much like how in modern times we use photographs and diagrams. Leonardo was using his art in place of photographs. Dürer, on the other hand. appeared to be similarly detailed-oriented, but without the intention of discovery or learning. While his painting were also intensely realistic, they were that way only for the sake of being intensely realistic

What interested me the most in this class was the discussion on St. Francis. He led an interesting life considering he left a wealthy family to become a monk and live a life of servitude. He became canonized 2 years after his death, which is incredible considering the process that one has to go to to become a saint

In this class we looked at the Limbourg Brothers’ Original Sin. This painting depicted the Garden of Eden. What was interesting about this was the depiction was a continuous narrative, where there was a passing of time shown. We see the serpent tempting Eve, and then Eve tempting Adam. It is interesting to see how Adam was depicted, in a weak and vulnerable position. In the conclusion, we see Adam and Eve getting expelled from the garden of Eden, fully aware that they are naked.

We explored the shift towards more realistic depictions in this class. The Master of Frankfurt’s Portrait of the Artist and His Wife attempts to represent real life closely, possibly through a mirror as a self-portrait. The artist’s use of flies to show off his skills represents an interesting emphasis on tricking the eye into believing what is painted is actually real. This example of mimesis led to our discussion of classical Greek art, particularly sculpture. The influence of the chiastic pose exemplified by many of the figures is clearly seen in many Renaissance works through the use of contrapposto. The change in focus between ancient realism and the more religious-focused Middle Ages art shows how “progress” is defined entirely from a certain point of view. People such as Vasari living in the Renaissance saw the art of their time as the pinnacle of a long development and a return to “better” art lost in the Middle Ages. However, for people in that period, their less-realistic, more idea-oriented art likely seemed to be the height of progress. The works of Dürer and Leonardo we examined show a split even in the way in which artists approached the shift back towards realistic representations. While Dürer sought to replicate the big picture in minute detail, Leonardo wanted to understand how all the small parts worked.

In yesterday’s class we discussed the issue of mimesis in Renaissance art. It was a very interesting conversation and two influential figures were Leonardo and Albrecht Dürer. At this point in the Renaissance, we see the exploration of nature and accurate renderings of the objects that were being captured. The interesting point that was mentioned with Albrecht and Leonardo was that Albrecht, like many Northern artists, were interested in a correct rendering of the image, a realistic representation and that being it. However, with Leonardo, we see a more ‘scholarly’ way of examining nature. This is confirmed by the various different areas he did study in. He studied the human body, biology, botany and many other things that he showcased in his drawings.

Mimesis was a new topic for me and it was a very different shift from much of the work we had seen earlier in the class and semester. As well as that, the different understanding of progress, progress being the ability to be more mimetic in the works. That was very interesting as it was a shift in what progress looks like and it seemed a bit less biased because we all have the understanding of what these things are like in real life.

In this class discussion, we talked about portraiture and mimetic representation. The specific representation of this that we talked about was the Portrait of the Artist and his Wife. The painting is different from other artwork that we have seen in that it contains artistic boasts from the artist about his skill. While one fly in the painting rests on a plate in a portrait, another, on the headdress of his wife, is positioned, as if it were on the painting. Another interesting aspect of the piece was how the artist was presumably drawing a self-portrait – which was indicated by the direction of his gaze, and the lack of a left arm (or right arm in the mirror) portrayed. Additionally, we talked about how while Vasari saw the progression of art as the progression towards naturalism, this wasn’t the route that occurred in every culture, and instead, changes in art stylistically were more likely to be in reaction to the art styles that came before them. Another instance where this did happen, however, was in Ancient Greek sculpture, which we are also currently talking about in AR111.

In this class, we first took a look at Master of Frankfurt’s Portrait of the Artist and his Wife. We discussed two points that show it is a self-portrait: one is that his left hand (how is right using hand shown in a mirror) is hind in the painting, another is that his glance goes out from the painting, which implies he is looking at a mirror while painting. The fly over his wife’s head is impressive as it’s an intentional design of Frankfurt to present his high skills of mimicking nature and fool/trick the audiences’ eyes. This brings us to the concept of representation, which means presenting again what is observed in reality into the artworks.

Then we moved to some Greek and Roman sculptures. The balance applied in the pose of the sculptures stood out to me. Artists like to have weight shifted to one leg to show a potential to act, so the direction of the hip tilted a little bit, and the direction of the shoulders is opposite to that of the hip. Such a design in sculpture is called “contrapposto”.

Later we talked about Albrecht Dürer’s Adam and Eve. The four animals in the scene that represent four body liquids and correspond to four temperaments are interesting. I am impressed by how the balance of such four liquids is related to the harmony between yin-yang, cold-warm, in traditional Chinese medicine, where I finally encounter something I am familiar with! The high hill in the background as a pun of balance is also interesting.

Finally, we compared works from Albrecht Dürer and Leonardo da Vinci. Though both of them draw and represent nature vividly with great details, which shows their close and careful observation of nature, Dürer tends to draw down everything he observes and reproduce any details, while Leonardo isolates objects from their environment and tries to understand the system and big picture. This is a difference between northern and Italian artists and their emphasis.

In Tuesday’s class we began to discuss some works of sculpture. Professor Plesch introduced us to some examples of early Greek sculpture that represented the idea of a human more than a naturalistic person. We focused on the chiastic, static pose of the early Greek works, and contrasted that with the more dynamic pose of the contrapposto that came about within the Italian Peninsula later in history. This pose is characterized by all the weight being shifted onto one leg, which causes the hips to shift and the shoulders to shift in the opposite direction of the hips. This pose really is a balance between repose and the potential for activity. As time progressed, the sculptures became more naturalistic, but during the Middle Ages, this style of mimetic art was not important, since there were so many depictions of worlds that have only been imagined by people.

During today’s class we talked about the Portrait of the Artist and his Wife by the Master of Frankfurt. This painting depicted him and his wife but it was a self portrait. We discussed the different clues that help us realize this. The first is that his right hand is hidden but it looks like his left which shows that he was looking at a mirror while painting it. His eyes that also look directly at the viewer shows that he was looking at the mirror while painting, hence the direction of his eyes. What was most interesting though, were the flies that he included. These flies looked to be huge in comparison to everything else in the painting. However, when considering the size of the entire painting itself, it turns out that the flies are life size, creating an illusion and tricking the eye.

After this, we came upon the topic of Italy’s progression and how it was more of trying to be better or more natural, than the one before. Speaking of natural, we also discussed the value of observing nature and being able to draw it. For example, both Albrecht Durer and Leonardo da Vinci drew nature. However, the way they approached this topic was different. Durer tried to capture the way things are, drawing plants in their natural environment. Leonardo da Vinci, on the other hand, isolated the plants from their environments because he was trying to understand their systems like he did with much else. This showed the difference between Northern and Italian art to some respects because the North focused much more on detail while Italy tried more to understand the general idea, or system, and get a bigger picture idea of their subject.