Art History Class 1: Renaissance, Mannerism, Counter-Reformation
Mannerism: Allegory with Venus and Cupid, mid- 1540s
Bronzino, who was the pupil of Pontormo and who became the most important Mannerist painter in Florence at this time. WHAT:An Allegory of Venus and Cupid aka Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time an allegorical painting by the Florentine artist Agnolo Bronzino. DATE: ~~1546, Bronzino was commissioned It displays the ambivalence, eroticism, and obscure imagery that are characteristic of the Mannerist period, and of Bronzino's master Pontormo. In this large, unusually cold composition, which is deliberately constructed on a counterpoint of opposing movements, the finest work is in the treatment of the faces. Bronzino, known above all as a portrait painter, painted several carefully drawn portraits of the Medici family.[3] Oil on wood
Saint Ignatius of Loyola
First conceived Il Gesú in 1551 was the founder of the Jesuits Society of Jesus -Saint Ignatius of Loyola was a Spanish priest and theologian, who founded the religious order called the Society of Jesus and became its first Superior General. Born: October 23, 1491, Azpeitia, Spain Died: July 31, 1556, Rome, Italy Full name: Ignacio López Buried: Church of the Gesù, Rome, Italy
Key terms: Council of Trent
Pope Paul III (1534-1549) is considered the first pope of the Counter-Reformation,[2] and he also initiated the Council of Trent (1545-1563), (a commission of cardinals tasked with institutional reform, addressing contentious issues such as corrupt bishops and priests, indulgences, and other financial abuses.* The Council upheld the basic structure of the Medieval Church, its sacramental system, religious orders, and doctrine. It rejected all compromise with the Protestants, restating basic tenets of the Roman Catholic faith. The Council upheld salvation appropriated by grace through faith and works of that faith (not just by faith, as the Protestants insisted) because "faith without works is dead", as the Epistle of St. James states (2:22-26).
High Renaissance: Raphael -- Sistine Madonna 1510
Raphel, Sistine Madonna, School of Athens • Idealized individual figures • Balanced composition What: The Sistine Madonna, also called the Madonna di San Sisto, is an oil painting by the Italian artist Raphael Sanzio. - altarpiece Date: Commissioned in 1512 by Pope Julius II for the church of San Sisto, Piacenza.
Scipione Pulzone -- Deposition 1590s
Scipione Pulzone, Deposition Scipione Pulzone (Il Gaetano) (Italian, Gaeta, active by 1569-died 1598 Rome) Date: 1593 Medium:Oil on canvas • Important phase to know that the church was saying this kind of thing is the route we want to go • Painting is more worship-oriented Scipione Pulzone, Deposition, 1591, for the Chapel of the Passion in Il Gesù
Titian, Assumption of the Virgin 1510's
WHAT: Assumption of the Virgin is a large oil painting by Italian Renaissance artist Titian, largest altarpiece in the city. Artist: Titian Dimensions: 22′ 8″ x 11′ 10″ Location: On the high altar in the Basilica dSanta Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, VENICE DATE: 1516-1518 Subject: Assumption of Mary • More dynamic • Venetian art is known for use of color main thing Venetian art = famous for • Mary shown in red • Flick of red in the figure of god as he welcomes her into heaven
High Renaissance: Michelangelo-- David 1500
WHAT: David is a masterpiece of Renaissance sculpture --> 5.17-metre marble statue of a standing male nude. The statue represents the Biblical hero David, a favoured subject in the art of Florence. WHO: Michelangelo Address: Via Ricasoli, 58, 50122 Firenze, Italy Location: Galleria dell'Accademia (since 1873) Province: Province of Florence Media: Carrara marble DATE: 1501-1504 • Contraposto (way of standing, casual)
Mannerism: Michelangelo-- The Last Judgment 1540
WHAT: Michelangelo's huge fresco The Last Judgment (1533-41; Sistine Chapel, Vatican) shows strong Mannerist tendencies in its agitated composition, formless and indeterminate space, and in the tortured poses and exaggerated musculature of its bunches of nude figures. Depiction of the Second Coming of Christ and the final and eternal judgment by God of all humanity. The souls of humans rise and descend to their fates, as judged by Christ surrounded by prominent saints including Saints Catherine of Alexandria, Peter, Lawrence, Bartholomew, Paul, Sebastian, John the Baptist, and others. DATE: 1536-1541 Type: Fresco Dimensions: 1370 cm × 1200 cm (539.3 in × 472.4 in) Locatin: Sistine Chapel, Vatican City Michelangelo began working on it twenty five years after having finished the Sistine Chapel ceiling.
Il Gesu -- the church 1550 Ignacio López, begun 1560s
WHAT: The Church of the Gesù is the mother church of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), a Catholic religious order. LOCATED: Piazza del Gesù in Rome. DATE: First conceived in 1551 by Saint Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits Society of Jesus - --> its facade is "the first truly baroque façade", introducing the baroque style into architecture.[4] The church served as model for innumerable Jesuit churches all over the world, especially in the Americas. First conceived in 1551 by Saint Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits Society of Jesus, and active during the Protestant Reformation and the subsequent Catholic Counter-Reformation -- the Gesù was also the home of the Superior General of the Society of Jesus until the suppression of the order in 1773.
High Renaissance: Raphael -- School of Athens 1510
WHAT: The School of Athens (Italian: Scuola di Atene) is one of the most famous *frescoes* by the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael. DATE: It was painted between 1509 and 1511 as a part of Raphael's commission to decorate WHERE: the rooms now known as the Stanze di Raffaello, in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican.
Mannerism (1520s-1550s and beyond)
WHEN: (1520s-1550s and beyond) WHO/WHAT: 1) Michelangelo-- Medici Chapel; Last Judgement 2) Bronzino-- Allegory Significance: --> European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, lasting until about 1580 in Italy, when the Baroque style began to replace it. Northern Mannerism continued into the early 17th century. --> Superseded High Renaissance after the sack of Rome in 1527, more artificial and dramatic style --> Mannerist style originated in Florence and Rome and spread to northern Italy and, ultimately, to much of central and northern Europe. --> Mannerism originated as a reaction to the harmonious classicism and the idealized naturalism of High Renaissance art. In the portrayal of the human nude, the standards of formal complexity had been set by Michelangelo, and the norm of idealized beauty by Raphael. But in the work of these artists' *Mannerist successors, an obsession with style and technique in figural composition often outweighed the importance and meaning of the subject matter. The highest value was instead placed upon the apparently effortless solution of intricate artistic problems, such as the portrayal of the nude in complex and artificial poses.* **Mannerist artists evolved a style that is characterized by artificiality and artiness, by a thoroughly self-conscious cultivation of elegance and technical facility, and by a sophisticated indulgence in the bizarre.* The figures in Mannerist works frequently have graceful but queerly elongated limbs, small heads, and stylized facial features, while their poses seem difficult or contrived. The deep, linear perspectival space of High Renaissance painting is flattened and obscured so that the figures appear as a decorative arrangement of forms in front of a flat background of indeterminate dimensions. Mannerists sought a continuous refinement of form and concept, pushing exaggeration and contrast to great limits --> The results included strange and constricting spatial relationships, jarring juxtapositions of intense and unnatural colours, an emphasis on abnormalities of scale, a sometimes totally irrational mix of classical motifs and other visual references to the antique, and inventive and grotesque pictorial fantasies. Mannerism retained a high level of international popularity until the paintings of Annibale Carracci and of Caravaggio around 1600 brought the problematic style to an end and ushered in the long ascendancy of the Baroque *Mannerism was for long afterward looked down upon as a decadent and anarchic style that simply marked a degeneration of High Renaissance artistic production. But in the 20th century the style came to be appreciated anew for its technical bravura, elegance, and polish. Mannerism's spiritual intensity, its complex and intellectual aestheticism, its experimentation in form, and the persistent psychological anxiety manifested in it made the style attractive and interesting to the modern temperament, which saw affinities between it and modern expressionist tendencies in art.*
High Renaissance (1500-1520)
WHEN: 1500-1520 WHO/WHAT: 1) Raphael -- Sistine Madonna; School of Athens 2) Michelangelo -- David 3) Titian -- Assumption Significance: Period spans the four decades from 1490 to the sack of Rome in 1527. Aesthetic: Techniques involving linear perspective and vanishing points, foreshortening, illusionistic devices, chiaroscuro and sfumato shading - all these methods were mastered during the High Renaissance. During the cinquecento, the near universal adoption of oil painting eliminated the matt colours of the 15th century, and made it possible for distance to be conveyed solely through the gradation of tones - a process known as aerial or atmospheric perspective. -->*Despite the growing realism being achieved in their art, High Renaissance artists aspired to beauty, and harmony more than realism.* Their paintings may have been based on nature but they had no interest in mere replication. Instead they looked for ultimate truth in a study of the classical world of Greek and Roman culture. --> *It was this that provided artists with an ideal of perfection: their aesthetics. Thus, Greek philosophy provided the secret of the perfect human type with its proportions, muscular structure, oval face, triangular forehead, straight nose, and balance - with the weight on one hip - all of which can be seen in the paintings of Raphael, and the immensely expressive sculpture of Michelangelo. The latter in particular was never afraid to bend the realistic rules of anatomy and proportion, in order to increase his power of expression.* It was through Classical Greek philosophy that Renaissance theorists and artists developed their idea of 'Humanism'. Humanism was a way of thinking which attached more importance to Man and less importance to God. It imbued Renaissance art with its unique flavour, as exemplified in works like Leonardo's Mona Lisa (a non-religious painting), Michelangelo's David - a more human than religious statue - and Raphael's cool secular fresco School of Athens. Even when High Renaissance artists painted religious paintings, or sculpted a religious scene, very often they were not glorifying God but Man. They were exalting the ideals of classical aesthetics. - While the preceding Early Renaissance had been centred on Florence and largely paid for by the Medici family, the *High Renaissance was centred on Rome and paid for by the Popes. Indeed, it very nearly bankrupted the city.* - The High Renaissance unfolded against a back-drop of mounting religious and political tension, which affected painters and sculptors, as well as patrons of the arts throughout Italy. After the sack of Rome in 1527, it was superceded by the more artificial and dramatic style of Mannerism. - Rome: The Centre of the High Renaissance Driven by Popes who wished to use art to reinforce the glory of Rome, the High Renaissance marked the zenith of the return to classical humanist values based on ancient Greek art and culture. As the Church was the major patron, Christian art remained the major genre. Meanwhile in Venice... Giovanni Bellini (1430-1516) was busy developing a separate school of Venetian painting, based on the primacy of colorito over disegno. His pupils included the short-lived enigmatic Giorgione (1477-1510), Sebastiano del Piombo (1485-1547) and Titian (c.1477-1576), arguably the leading colourist of the Italian Renaissance, Elsewhere in Italy, High Renaissance values also influenced provincial centres like the Parma School of painting and the later Bolognese School (1580s on).
Counter Reformation (1565 and beyond)
WHEN: 1565 and Beyond WHO/WHAT: 1) Scipione Pulzone -- deposition 2) Il Gesú Significance: The Counter-Reformation (Latin: Contrareformatio), also called the Catholic Reformation (Latin: Reformatio Catholica) or the Catholic Revival,[1] was the period of Catholic resurgence initiated in response to the Protestant Reformation, beginning with the Council of Trent (1545-1563) and ending at the close of the Thirty Years' War (1648). The Counter-Reformation was a comprehensive effort composed of four major elements: 1) Ecclesiastical or structural reconfiguration 2) Religious orders 3) Spiritual movements 4) Political dimensions --> the reform of religious life by returning orders to their spiritual foundations, and new spiritual movements focusing on the devotional life and a personal relationship with Christ --> The Counter-Reformation Catholic Church promoted art with "sacred" or religious content. In other words, art was to be strictly religious, created for the purpose of glorifying God and Catholic traditions. --> departure from Mannerism, as well as works from the High Renaissance, concerned many Catholic leaders in the wake of the Reformation, as they were seen as lacking pious appeal. Furthermore, a great divergence had arisen between the Catholic Church and Protestant reformers of Northern Europe regarding the content and style of art work. Church pressure to restrain religious imagery affected art from the 1530s and influenced several decrees from the final session of the Council of Trent in 1563. These decrees included short passages concerning religious images that had significant impact on the development of Catholic art during the Counter-Reformation. The Church felt that religious art in Catholic countries (especially Italy) had lost its focus on religious subject matter. It focused on decorative qualities instead, with heavy influences from classical, pagan art, leading to a church decree that "art was to be direct and compelling in its narrative presentation, that it was to provide an accurate presentation of the biblical narrative or saint's life, rather than adding incidental and imaginary moments, and that it was to encourage piety" (Paoletti and Radke, Art in Renaissance Italy). The reforms that resulted from this council are what set the basis for Counter-Reformation art.
