CFIIFinal

Giovanni Arnolfini

Portrait of a financial officer and his wife; interpretation could be the two taking their marriage vows. The little dog symbolizes fidelity, she appears pregnant, the crowning ornament at right of marriage bed is a tiny statue of St Margaret (a patron saint of childbirth), whisk broom is symbolic of domestic care. Jan van Eyck portrayed himself in the mirror. Oil on wood.

Mannerism

"style"; first art historians to adopt the term argued that mannerism's style was characterized by style. It is unfortunate term for 2 reasons: 1. Mannerism had negative connotations 2. Mannerism is not a unified style It encompasses diverse contemporaneous personal styles, even if they all represent a break from High Renaissance norms.

Compare and contrast Leonardo's The Last Supper with Tintoretto's.

1. Leonardo: Jesus is the psychological focus of the fresco and the focal point of all the converging perspective lines Tintoretto: Jesus is the center of the drama and the perspective focus; Jesus is above and beyond the converging perspective lines 2. Tintoretto: the figures appear in a dark interior illuminated by a single light Leonardo: the lighting is neutral and not dark 3. Leonardo: it is balanced and symmetrical with neutral lighting Tintoretto: dynamic perspectives and dramatic chiaroscuro 4.Both paintings portray dramatic scene of Jesus saying that one of them will betray him (all the disciples are agitated) 5. in both paintings Jesus appears tranquil and at peace amidst the chaos occurring around him

Interpret the meaning of the figures in Masaccio's Trinity with the Virgin.

1. Mary and John appear on either side of the crucified Christ, God the father emerges from behind Christ, the dove of the Holy Spirit hovers between God's head and Christ's head, portraits of the donors kneel in front of the pilasters 2. The ascending pyramid of figures leads viewers from the despair of death to the hope of resurrection and eternal life through Christ's crucifixion; humanism and religion were not mutually exclusive 3. The vanishing point is at the foot of the cross. With this point at eye level, spectators look up at the trinity and down at the tomb. About 5 feet above the floor level, the vanishing point pulls both views together creating an illusion. 4. He represented fully modeled figures bathed in light

Why was the design of a dome for the Florence Cathedral a challenge for Brunelleschi?

1. it was a challenge because of the design design and construction of the dome over a huge 140 foot crossing of Florences cathedral; the space was much to wide for construction 2. He solved the problem by raising the center of the dome and designed it around a pointed arch section because it reduces the outward thrust of the domes base. He designed a relatively thin double shell, to minimize the structures weight, around a skeleton of 24 ribs. He anchored the structure the top with a heavy lantern. 3. The Foundling Hospital embodies classical influences: a loggia opening onto the street, his arcade consists of a series of round arches on slender corinthian columns, each bay is a domed compartment with pediment-capped window above 4. Both represent the Renaissance values of Florence through their balanced, harmonious, and proportioned design.

Compare and contrast Donatello's David with Michelangelo's David

1. they both embody the sensual beauty of the nude Greek gods (detail of the human anatomy is intense; we see humanism in this; both depict heroic physic) 2. Donatello's portrays David after he his victory of slaying Goliath with his head at his feet whereas Michelangelo portrayed David before he encountered his foe (he sternly watches his foe approach) 3. Symbolizes Florences ideals for freedom and independence 4. humanism is seen in the relaxed classical contrapposto stance and detailed depiction of human anatomy 5. different mediums (Dontello: bronze; Michelangelo: marble) 6. Donatello's is a self-contained composition whereas Michelangelo's isn't because his David turns his head towards an unseen presence (his gigantic adversary)

Seria

grand opera

Concerto

group of solo instruments alternated with a greater ensemble

Tintoretto

he adopted many Mannerist pictorial devices to produce oil paintings imbued with emotional power, depth of spiritual vision, glowing Venetian color schemes, and dramatic lighting. He aspired to combine Titian's color with Michelangelo's drawing, but many consider him to be the outstanding Venetian representative of Mannerism. His art became spiritual as solid forms melted away into swirling clouds of dark shot through with fitful light. Last Supper: imbalanced composition and visual complexity; Jesus is above and beyond the converging perspective lines

Michelangelo

he was an architect, poet, engineer, and sculptor. He believed that sculpting was superior to painting because it shares in the divine power to "make man." One of his observations is that the artist much proceed by finding the idea locked in the stone. By removing the excess stone the artist extricates the idea from the block. He mistrusted the application of mathematical methods as guarantees of beauty and proportion. He argued that the artist must not be bound, except by the demands made by realizing the idea.

Rembrandt's use of light and shade

his method involved refining light and shade into finer and finer nuances until they blended with one another. He found that by manipulating the direction, intensity, and distant of light and shadow, and by varying the surface texture with tactile brushstrokes, he could render subtle nuances of character and mood. He discovered that variations of light and shade can be read as emotional differences. Return of the Prodigal Son: light mingled with shadow directs the viewer's attention by illuminating the father and son while largely veiling the witnesses.

Painting

important form of art in the 17th century. Among the most notable Italian Baroque painters were Annibale Carracci and Caravaggio, whose styles were thoroughly in accord with the period.

Rembrandt

leading Dutch painter of his time; an artist of great versatility, a master of light and shadow, and a unique interpreter of the Protestant conception of holy scripture. He trained as a history painter but he immediately entered the market for portraiture and soon became renowned for that genre.

Self-portraits

light and dark are not in conflict in Rembrandt's portraits. In his self-portrait, Rembrandt's interest in revealing the soul is evident in the attention given to his expressive face. The controlled use of light and the nonspecific setting contribute to this focus.

lyric

more contained/ensemble casting usually dealing with a love story

Caravaggio

outspokenly disdained classical matters which drew bitter criticism from many painters calling him the "anti-Christ of painting." He received many commissions, both public and private, and numerous painters paid him the supreme compliment of borrowing from his innovations. His influence on later artists was immense.

Fugue

point counter point

Oratorio

religious counterpoint to opera

Completing Saint Peter's

Bellini received the commission to construct a monumental colonnade-framed piazza in front of Maderno's facade. It had to incorporate an obelisk and a fountain. He co-opt these two features to define the long axis of a vast oval embraced by two colonnades joined to Maderno's facade. The dramatic gesture of embrace that Bellini's colonnade makes as worshipers enter Saint Peter's piazza symbolizes the welcome the Catholic Church wished to extend during the Counter-Reformation.

Ecstasy of Saint Teresa

Bernini; marshaled the full capabilities of architecture, sculpture, and painting to create an intensely emotional experience for worshipers. Exemplifies his refusal to limit his statues to firmly defined spatial settings. He depicted the Saint in ecstasy, unmistakably a mingling or spiritual and physical passion, swooning back on a cloud while the smiling angel aims his arrow.

Leonardo

Born in a small town near Florence. He had many interests besides art: botany, geology, geography, cartography, zoology, military engineering, animal lore, anatomy, and aspects of physical science (i.e. hydraulics and mechanics) which he sketched and wrote about in his notebooks. His scientific discoveries made him a better painter. They helped him grasp a deeper understanding of perspective, light, and color. His ambition in painting was to discover the laws underlying the processes and flux of nature. Considered the eyes to be the most vital organ.

Brunelleschi: Ospedale Degli Innocenti

Brunelleschi was commissioned to design this home for orphans and foundlings. His arcade consists of a series of round arches on slender corinthian columns. Each bay is a domed compartment with a pediment window above. Each bay is a cubical unit 10 braccia wide, deep, and high. The color scheme is austere (a Brunelleschi hallmark): white stucco walls with grey pietra Serena "Serena stone" columns and moldings.

Calling of Saint Matthew

Caravaggio, oil on canvas. The stark contrast of light and dark is a key feature of Caravaggio's style. Here, Christ, cloaked in a mysterious shadow, summons Levi the tax collector (Saint Matthew) to a higher calling. He injected naturalism into the representation of sacred subjects, reducing them to human dramas. The figures are still heroic with powerful bodies and clearly delineated contours in the Renaissance tradition.

Architecture

Filippo Brunelleschi turned to architecture our of disappointment over the loss of Lorenzo Ghiberti of the commission for the baptistery doors, he continued to work as a sculptor for several years. His interests turned increasingly towards architecture. He developed his revolutionary system of linear perspective.

Framing the Era: Michelangelo

Florentine artist, charismatic personality and expressive character of his works, "terribilita" stands for the sublime shadowed by the fearful and it was a word used to describe Michelangelo. He produced most of his paintings and sculptures under wealthy patrons who dictated the content of the artwork. His most famous work is the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. His patron was Julius II. He didn't want to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel but felt no choice but to accept the popes assignment. He relentlessly focused his expressive purpose on the human figure in his art.

The letters of Artemisia Gentileschi

Gentileschi left behind 28 letters, some of which reveal that she believed that patrons treated her differently because of her gender.

Artemisia Gentileschi

Gentileschi was a celebrated woman artist of the era. Narratives involving heroic women were a favorite theme for her. She was inspired by Caravaggio and helped spread his style. In Judith Slaying Holofernes, she adopted tenebrism and what might be called the "dark" subject matter Caravaggio favored. The dramatic lighting of the action in the foreground emulates Caravaggio's tenebrism. In this painting, Judith and her maidservant behead Holofernes.

Vermeer

He made is reputation as a painter of interior scenes. He derived much of his income as an innkeeper and art dealer. He completed no more than 35 paintings that can be definitively attributed to him. He began his career as a painter of biblical and historical themes, but soon abandoned those traditional subjects in favor of domestic scenes. He composed neat, quietly opulent interiors of Dutch middle-class dwellings featuring women especially but also men and occasionally children engaging in household tasks or at leisure. He was a master of pictorial light.

Titian

He was a supreme colorist and master of the oil medium. His painting "Pastoral Symphony" is oil on canvas; Titian evoked the pastoral mood that the inability to decipher the picture's meaning is not distressing. The mood and rich color are enough.

High and Late Renaissance

High Renaissance: the quarter century between 1495 and the deaths of Leonardo da Vinci in 1519 and Raphael in 1520. (three greatest masters of high renaissance: Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo). Late Renaissance: (16th century) interest in classical culture, perspective, proportion, and human anatomy. Mannerism challenged challenged Renaissance naturalism.

Raphael

In 1508 Julius II called Raphael to the papal court in Rome. He learned the rudiments of his art from his father. He developed an individual style that embodied the ideals of High Renaissance art. He died at an early age, but completed a large body of work. Several of his assistants became leaders of the next generation of Italian artists, extending his influence well into the century.

Ghent Altarpiece

Jan van Eyck. Monumental painted altarpieces were popular in Flemish churches. Artists decorated the interiors and the exteriors of these polyptychs which often included donor portraits. It is one of the largest in the 15th century, center piece of the chapel originally dedicated the St. John the Baptist, exterior panels reveal the donors, the sculptures represent Ghent's patron saints: John the Baptist and John the Evangelist, when open it reveals a painting of human redemption through Christ, oil paints were used

Mona Lisa

Leonardo's most famous portrait, oil on wood; chiaroscuro and atmospheric perspective depicts the sitter as an individual personality who engages the viewer psychologically. Renaissance etiquette dictated that women should not look directly at a man in the eyes, but she is looking straightforward which shows Leonardo's portrayal of this self-assured woman. The painting is darker than it was 500 years ago and the colors are less vivid. It is a prime example of the artist's famous smoky sfumato (misty haziness).

Last Supper

Leonardos most impressive and largest work; oil and tempura; fresco; Jesus is the focus of the fresco and the focal point of all converging perspective lines.

Art of painting in a Dutch home

Many dutch patrons collected small paintings depicting domestic scenes of family members engaged in the activities of daily life. Vermeer was the leading Dutch painter of interior scenes. His most complex and intriguing painting is Allegory of the Art of Painting. The artist is depicted in the painting, painting a portrait of a women wearing a laurel wreath and holding a trumpet and a book. The viewer is outside the space of action (very common in Vermeer's paintings).

Holy Trinity

Masaccio, fresco. The premier early 15th century example of the application of mathematics to the depiction of space according to Filippo Brunelleschi's system of perspective. He painted the composition on two levels of unequal height, the Virgin Mary and St. John appear on either side of the crucified Christ. He includes portraits of the donors of the painting. The vanishing point is at the foot of the cross, pulling both views: the trinity and the tomb together. It conveys the central tenets of the Christian faith, and it reveals that humanism and religion were not mutually exclusive.

Sistine Chapel Ceiling

Michelangelo labored almost 4 years for Pope Julius II on the frescos for the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. He painted more than 300 figures illustrating the creation and fall of humankind. The ceilings dimensions made it difficult to paint. The viewer focuses on figure after figure, each sharply outlined against the neutral tone of the architectural setting or the plain background of the panels.

Creation of Adam

Michelangelo, fresco; life leaps to Adam like a spark from the extended hand of God which recalls the communication between gods and heroes in the classical myths that Renaissance humanists greatly admired. God and Adam confront each other in a primordial uniformed landscape of which Adam is still a material part. As God reaches out of Adam the viewers eye follows the motion from right to left. The focal point of this right to left to left to right movement is dramatically off center.

Pieta

Michelangelo, marble. Represents Mary cradling Jesus' corpse and captures the sadness and beauty of the young virgin but it was controversial because the Madonna seems younger than her son. Her ageless beauty is an integral part of her purity and virginity. Christ's wounds are barely visible.

David

Michelangelo, marble; a colossal statue for the Florentine Signoria. David is represented in a heroic classical nudity, capturing the tension of Lysippos's athletes and the emotionalism of Hellenistic statuary. David is represented before his encounter with Goliath. He is emotionally connected to an unseen presence beyond the statue which is a feature of Hellenistic sculpture.

Madonna in the Meadow

Raphael emulated Leonardo's pyramidal composition and modeling of faces and figures in subtle chiaroscuro. He set his Madonna in a well-lit landscape and imbued her with grace, dignity, and beauty. As an artist he preferred clarity versus obscurity in terms of light. He achieved fame for his Madonna's which depict Mary as a young beautiful mother interacting with her son. She watchers her son, Jesus, play with John the Baptist's cross shaped staff.

Night Watch

Rembrandt, oil on canvas. His dramatic use of light contributes to the animation of this militia group portrait in which the artist showed the company members rushing to organize themselves for a parade. The paintings darkness is the result of the varnish the artist used.

Florence

The best known Italian Renaissance art patrons were the Medici, the leading bankers of the republic of Florence, yet the earliest important artistic commission in 15th century Florence was not the Medici project but rather a competition held by the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore and sponsored by the city's guild of wool merchants. Florences independence was in jeopardy, to be a citizen of the Florentine Republic was to be Roman, Florentine retained its independence.

The medici, Botticelli

The name of one family, synonymous with Italian Renaissance. The most famous Florentine masters that The Medici employed was Botticelli. His work reflects the intense interest that Quattrocento Humanists scholars and the Medici had in the art, literature, and mythology of the Greco-Roman world. He painted Birth of Venus for the Medici based on a poem by Angelo Poliziano. The artist used Tempura.

Venus of Urbino

Titian established oil-based pigment on canvas as the preferred painting medium in Western art. He also set the standard for representation of the reclining female nude, whether divine or mortal. The title elevates to the status of classical mythology what is probably a representation of a sensual Italian woman in her bedchamber. Color plays a prominent role. He used color not simply to record surface appearance, but also to organize his placement of forms.

Woman holding a balance

Vermeer, oil on canvas. Vermeer's woman holding empty scales in perfect balance, ignoring pearls and gold on the table, is probably an allegory of the temperate life. On the wall behind her is a depiction of the Last Judgement. The perspective orthogonals direct the viewer's attention neither to the woman's head nor to her treasure but to the hand in which she holds a balance for weighing gold.

Italy

With the Catholic Church as the leading art patron in 17th century Italy, the aim of much of Italian Baroque art was to restore Roman Catholicism's predominance and centrality. Baroque art and architecture in Italy, especially in Rome, embodied the renewed energy of the counter reformation and the papacy's zeal to communicate the Catholic message to the populace.

Donatello, David

first male sculptor to portray the nude male figure in statuary. David posses the relaxed contrapposto and the sensuous beauty of Greek gods. The revival of classical statuary appealed to the Medici. The invoking of classical poses and formats appealed to the Medici as humanists.

Donatello

carved statues for Or San Micheles niche Saint Mark; incorporated Greco-Roman sculptural principles, executed for the guild of linen makers and tailors. He depicted motion in the human figure by recognizing the principle of weight and shift (contrapposto) , he reintroduced this concept of contrapposto in to Renaissance statuary. His Saint Mark is the first Renaissance statue whose robe accentuates the movement of his figure.

Comique

comedy opera

Renaissance humanism

emphasis on education and expanding knowledge, the exploration of individual potential and a desire to excel, and a commitment to civic responsibility and moral duty. Italian Humanists: quest for knowledge began with legacy of Greeks and Romans (i.e. Plato, Aristotle), printing press invented, printing and wide distribution of books, Dante Inferno. Humanists acquired knowledge in botany, geology, geography, optics, medicine, and engineering. It fostered a belief in individual potential and achievement. More secular stance: individual improvement and rewarded excellence with fame and honor. Had its greatest impact among the elite and powerful.

Linear Perspective

enabled artists to make the illusion of distant certain and consistent. Renaissance artists conceived the picture plane as a transparent window through which the observer looks to see the constructed pictorial world; "rationalization of sight", made picture measurable and exact, made possible scale drawings, maps, charts, graphs, and diagrams. 1.identify a horizontal line 2.select a vanishing point 3.draw diagonal lines from the edges of the picture to the vanishing point to create a structural grid that organizes the image and determines the size of objects within the images illusionistic space.

Baroque Art and Architecture

encompasses a broad range of styles and genres; the term Baroque describes the distinctive new style that emerged during the early 1600's- a style of complexity and drama. Baroque artists embraced dynamism, theatricality, and elaborate ornamentation all used to spectacular effect, often on a grandiose scale, as seen in Bernini's Four River's Fountain.

Jan van Eyck

first Netherlandish painter to achieve international fame, became the court painter of Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy

Tempera and oil painting

tempura=egg mixed with pigments; artists mixed tempura with oil pigments because the discovery of better drying components in the early 15th century enhanced the setting capabilities of oils; flecked brushstrokes, deep tones through repeated glazing, dries more uniformly and slowly, can be applied to various surfaces, particularly good in Venice because it can withstand the humidity

Masaccio

the artist who personified the innovative spirit of early 15th century Florentine painting, he introduced a whole new repertoire of representational devices that generations of Renaissance painters later studied and developed.

Leonardo and Michelangelo

they both worked in a variety of artistic media. Leonardo: preferred painting to sculpting Michelangelo: saw himself more as a sculptor versus a painter

Framing the era: Baroque art

unification of art and spectacle. Bernini (one of the most important and imaginative artists of the Baroque era in Italy): Fountain of the Four Rivers. The pope didn't want Bernini to make it, the pope shunned Bernini. the pope saw Bernini's model of the fountain and said the only way anyone could avoid employing Bernini was to not look at his work. The fountain epitomizes the Baroque eras love for uniting art and spectacle.