In this online lecture, we continued our discussion on the women in Renaissance. What stood out to me is Jean Pucelle’s The Betrayal of Christ and Annunciation, where the scene without a border creates a sense of floating, breaking the convention of manuscript illumination. It is also interesting to notice that the Virgin in this manuscript and that in the sculpture of Virgin of Jeanne d’Évreux have the same S-shape pose. In both artworks, Mary shifts her waist and inclines her head towards the opposite direction, a way of depicting balance. The dulls of nuns are also impressive. By adoring dolls and playing with them, nuns show their devotion. They also become the mother of the child Jesus because they will not have their own children.

I thought it was interesting the practice in manuscripts of leaving well – lit areas blank. Though these works lacked a background, I thought this feature added a new layer of analysis as the lack of background made the artwork “float” in space and float in light. I also liked how in the manuscript made for Anne of Brittany that there was varying degrees of naturalism that served specific purposes. While the sacred depictions were idealized, I thought it was interesting how the still life / life depictions of nature and insects were naturalistic to appeal to Anne as she was interested in gardening. I’ve never thought about how there could be a combination of different levels of naturalism in 1 artwork to serve different purposes and convey different ideas.

We studied the Trump Times Magazine self-portrait. It was interesting to study everything from the chair to his shadow and whether or not the “devil horns” were accidental or on purpose. Then we studied the movement of women in renaissance art if they had a movement. The only way for women to have “power” as if they were a widow or a nun. In Lorenzo Lotto’s painting, Portrait of a Woman inspired by Lucretia, we saw how she modeled herself as Lucretia and it was probably painted to commemorate something in her life. In Titian’s Venus of Urbino, we saw how he captured his a) mistress or b) prostitute. The sleeping dog is interesting because it symbolizes putting fidelity in sleep mode. I wonder if women could be painters at that time?

In this class, we talked about the perspective. I thought that this class was so cool because the painting Hans Holbein the Younger, Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve (The Ambassadors) blew my mind. The Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vince is an interesting painting because of the smile and it shows a little more than 3/4 of the face. She blends in with the background. We see more of a “photoshop” in this picture because the sitter and artist are able to manipulate the painting and what they portray to the viewer. We see that in Elizabeth the First’s painting, where she stands on top of the world and in between the night and day, displaying her rule. There must be a mutual agreement between the artist and the sitter of the final product of the painting. For example, some of the sitters looked younger than they did or buffer or prettier. Some of the sitters wanted to portray themselves as something bigger than they look or narcissistic or puff their ego, like Durer’s self-portrait. I also have to say that if that is how he looked, or at least close to it, he was very handsome. The Hans Holbein, The Ambassador was a very cool painting because if you turn it sideways, you can see the skull. I wonder if this was something advanced for the time, or did someone do this before? There is so much symbolism and this painting told so much about the current times.

In this class, we talked about portraits. We get different backgrounds and mostly 3/4 of the face showing in these paintings. The aim of these paintings was individuality or uniqueness. In some of the paintings, we see that the artist separates the sitter from the background. In other, the painters paint the background all black. The Northerners looked for real work while the southerners looked for ideology.

In this class, we continued talking about perspective. We studied Petrus Christus, Exeter Madonna because of its aerial perspective. This type of perspective is unique to Italians because it allowed them to show more of the scenery and objects. In the painting, we can see the blues of the sky and the houses bunched up, the loss of details. We moved on to study the Merode Triptych, which I really enjoyed learning about because of all the symbolism in the painting and the addition of Joseph. Joseph is usually omitted when it comes to Mary and the Child, but here we get to see Joseph. The painting is in a rising perspective allowing us to see more of the things happening in the back of Mary and the Angel. I thought it was funny that the annunciation came in the form of Jesus carrying the cross because that is his purpose of being born. We see the book sitting on top of the scroll, showing the movement of the old to the new testament. We see the candle representing Jesus in Human nature (wax), his soul (the wick), and his divinity (flame). There is no halo which is interesting, but again the artist was trying to move on to a more naturalistic scene rather than “imaginary” scenes. Joseph is in the other room, as he is building traps, traps that catch a mouse, or the devil. It also shows his sexual frustration because he married Mary and shows his contribution to helping Mary and Jesus. This was an independent portrait and an independent genre.

In this class, we talked about perspective. Giotto painted the Virgin Mary enthroned and you can see the shading and depth that is present there that wasn’t present before. In Leonardo’s Last Supper, we studied the mathematics behind the painting and its geometry. It is fascinating how he was able to use the numbers 3 and 4 and each number reveals so much about the world. Something interesting about the number 3 that I don’t think we mention is its relations to triangles and triangles are the strongest shape. I thought it was an interesting connection. We learned about the rules of perspective and how that can help us understand and play around with the setting. The northerners were interesting in raising perspective because of what it allowed them to show. Italians on the other hand were interested in perfecting the mathematics rules to construct content perspective.

In this class, we started talking about self-portraits. We studied the portrait of the Master of Frankfurt and his wife. He tried to play with illusion, as you can see from the flies and the shading. Everything we see in the portrait is a choice of the artist, from the clothing to the items found on the desk in front of them. In this portrait, we start learning about how the artist was able to play with space, our space, and the fictive space of the portrait. The artist is trying to fool the viewer because of the flies found in the woman’s head on the table. We talked a little about Leondardo and Durer and how they differ. Durer was interested in the scenery while Leonardo was interested in understanding the system of the scenery/object. The north and south were competing to surpass the ancient classics and paying attention to the human and animal boy and make it as naturalistic as possible.

During the lecture, we finished the section on women in the Renaissance. Because of this, we discussed many paintings and portraits that featured and highlighted women, but what stood out to me the most in this lecture were the little dolls of Christ that were mentioned near the end. This was because these dolls were meant for nuns that lived almost separately from the male dominated society. These little dolls of Jesus Christ were usually given to nuns when they took their vows. This was because nuns are unable to have children due to the value they place on chastity but it is because of this that they take on the role of being like a mother of baby Jesus. These dolls served as a way to do this and they were actually encouraged to play with the baby Jesus dolls to further portray and take on this role. They would dress their dolls up and some even chose to place them in cribs as ways of showing their devotion to Christ.

In today’s recorded lecture, Professor Plesch discussed women in Renaissance art, both as patrons and artists. We began the lecture by looking at some illuminated manuscripts. One that stood out to me was Jean Pucelle’s book of hours, commissioned for Jeanne D’Evrereux. What was so interesting about this particular manuscript was the way in which it was referred to. This was one of the first Books of Hours referred to by the authors name, as it was called the “Hours of Pucelle.” This is notable because it was one of the first times during the Renaissance where the artist was credited in the title of their work.

Another point I found to be interesting was the role that Lavinia Fontana’s self portraits played. They were done to establish herself as a cultured woman, but they also served to help find her a husband. By painting an easel in the back, she can reassure the family of her future husband that she will both be a cultured and dutiful wife, but will also help to contribute to the family’s income through her art.