Medievel to Renaissance PART 1

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Medieval to RenaissancePart 1

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Medievel to Renaissance

• Renaissance• “re-birth”

A RE-BIRTH OF WHAT ??

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Ancient Rome “CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY”

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Interior of the Pantheon, Rome, Italy, 118–125 CE.

Pantheon, Rome, Italy, 118 – 125 CE.7

By 467 AD Rome had fallen, and within a few hundred years only ruins remained…

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The Savage State9

The Arcadian or Pastoral State 10

The Consumation of Empire 11

Destruction 12

Desolation 13

The Dark Ages…..were really this dark?

….and why were they called “The Dark Ages”

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those who work, those who fight, those who pray15

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Farming is not that fun

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Feudal serfs of the middle ages had almost no say in the direction of their own lives.

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Christian CosmologyThe Ptolemaic World“The World Dome”

Understanding of the word was limited, and your place in it was static and unquestioned.

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The Great Chain of Being

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The world of “now” was seen as less real or important the the world after death…the kingdom of heaven

Your suffering and pain…soon to be redeemed

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“Antiquity vs. Middle Ages

Where Greek and Romans painted everyday subjects like portraits and cityscapes, Art of the “Middle Ages” focused on spiritual rather than physical realities.

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In the Middle Ages, the position of the viewer changed..

Instead of individuals observing the world as the artists of classical antiquity did….

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…..the “individual” is dissolved and is looked down upon by larger, intimidating spiritual forces

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Additionally, space becomes flat,Forms become abstract, simplistic

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Subject matter is exclusively religious. There is little variety, originality, or idea of art serving a purpose of pleasure or leisure.

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It seemed like everything would just stay the same forever……

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Italy Around 1400…the once great “Roman Empire”

Numerous independent city states

Republics: Venice, Florence, Siena (self-governance)

Source of wealth varies from city to city-port cities involved in trade, other cities depend on banking, arms, or textiles

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yersinia pestis

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Widespread death caused odd and varied reactions in people…from celebratory nihilism, to extreme piety. All belief in social institutions were weakened.

Jews were often persecuted because their hygienic practices meant they did not die in as great numbers.

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1348 --The Black Death Estimated to have killed 30% – 60% of Europe's population, reducing the world’s population from an estimated 450 million to between 350 and 375 million in 1400. This has been seen as creating a series of religious, social and economic upheavals which had profound effects on the course of European History. It took 150 years for Europe's population to recover.

Because the plague killed so many of the poor population, wealthy land owners were forced to pay the remaining workers what they asked, in terms of wages.

Because there was now a surplus in consumer goods, luxury crops could now be grown. This meant that for the first time in history, many, formerly of the peasant population, now had a chance to live a better life. Most historians now feel that this was the start of the middle class in Europe and England.

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…meanwhileThe Fall of Constantinople (formerly the Byzantine Empire) in1453 to the Ottoman Empire meant that many scholars soon arrived in Italy with knowledge of Greek thinkers like Plato that had been lost or forgotten in the Middle Ages.

A new interest in “antiquity” is sparked

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Humanism changes Culture

Italian scholars recovered a large part of Greek and Roman Literature (Cicero)

Humanism emulates Roman Civic Virtues:Self-sacrifice to the state, stoic indifference to personal misfortune, participation in government.

Humans can solve their own problems through reason and don’t have to turn to a higher authority.

Reward for good deeds is “fame” not “sainthood”.

This thought began in Florence, Italy then spread all throughout Europe.

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A focus on human beings…

Humanism

• A cultural and intellectual movement during the Renaissance, following the rediscovery of the art and literature of ancient Greece and Rome.

• A philosophy or attitude concerned with the interests, achievements, and capabilities of human beings rather than with the abstract concepts and problems of theology and science.

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Marsilio FicinoTranslated Plato into Latin (from Greek)

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Niccolò Machiavelli“The Prince”

A practical manual for young rulers that did not appeal to Christian Morality.

“Machiavellian” today refers to someone who is scheming and sometimes unethical.

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Giordano Bruno“infinity”

Proposed that stars were distant suns with their own planets.

Burned at the stake for his heresies.

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The Decameron

Renaissance Humanists

• Petrarch• Giovanni Boccaccio

– Established a “vernacular” literature

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But lets back up a little bit

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Mendicant Orders and Confraternities

During the “Great Schism” (Pope moved to France), Monastic (mendicant) orders like the Augustinians, Franciscans, and the Dominicans became important social forces.

Confraternities, organizations of laypersons dedicated to strict religious observance also grew in popularity.

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BONAVENTURA BERLINGHIERI, panel from the Saint Francis Altarpiece, San Francesco, Pescia, Italy, 1235. Tempera on wood, 5’ x 3’ x 6”.

“Maniera Greca” or Italo-Byzantine Style

Painted 9 years after Francis’s death

Displays “stigmata” (2nd Christ?)

Gold leaf, flatness, other-worldy spiritual nature

4 of 6 narrative scenes depict miraculous healings

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CIMABUE, Madonna Enthroned with Angels and Prophets, from Santa Trinità, Florence, Italy, ca. 1280–1290. Tempera and gold leaf on wood, 12’ 7” x 7’ 4”. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

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A movement slightly forward…Gold=light of heavenSpatial contradictionsDiagonals draw you slightly in

Cult of Mary important to the Medieval mind-less intimidating, speaks to god on your behalf

Christ is small, but does not have proportions of an infant

Shows influence of Byzantine tradition

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Giotto di Bondone“Father of Western Art”

Student of Cimabue

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GIOTTO DI BONDONE, Madonna Enthroned, from the Church of Ognissanti, Florence, Italy, ca. 1310. Tempera and gold leaf on wood, 10’ 8” x 6’ 8”. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

Mary has solidity, stability, substance-not spiritual immateriality

Angels stand on a more common level

Light and shadow “chiaroscuro”, not flatness

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More Giotto…Enrico Scovegni’s Arena Chapel

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Next to ancient Roman ARENA

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Giotto di Bondone, Arena Chapel (Cappella Scrovegni; interior looking west), Padua, Italy, 1305–1306.

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Lapis lazuli

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Enrico Scrovegini

Sin of “usury”(charging interest)

In Dante’s “Inferno” the elderScrovegni is singled out for residing in a circle of hell

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Attempt at“atonement”

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Giotto has created and architectural space for Mary and the AngelEarthly settings-not gold panel paintings

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Joachims vision

Figures have mass and solidity

First “Real” human beings in ART since Ancient Greece and Rome

Introduction of “chiaroscuro”85

Scenes fromChrist’s childhood

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Scenes fromChrist’s childhood

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Ministry of Christ

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Lapis lazuli

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Duccio’s version

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GIOTTO DI BONDONE, Lamentation, Arena Chapel, (Cappella Scrovegni), Padua, Italy, ca. 1305. Fresco, 6’ 6 3/4” x 6’ 3/4”.

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