Apah High Ren, Venetian, Mannerism

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high renaissance historical context

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o Early 1500’s
• Rome is the center, will be the center for the next 200 years
• Main patronage comes from the church

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high renaissance characteristics

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 Due to the church’s influence, art is more about calm dignity and stability
• Artists such as Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo achieve this through:
1. Symmetrical balance
2. Following rules of proportion and perspective
3. Idealized, proportionate figures
i. Humans look like Gods
4. Central focal point
5. Figural Pyramid
6. Vertical and Horizontal Lines
7. Logical Treatment of Figures
8. Realistic Depth in idealized, calm landscape or architectural backgrounds
9. Color harmonies
10. Artists studied nature

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venetian art historical context

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- In contrast, Venetian art is very different from High Renaissance. This is due to the fact that Venice is distant from Rome and the church—they don’t have to worry about conservancy or representing the church. On top of that, Venice is a beautiful city/landscape, surrounded by water and reflections. It was a city of wealthy merchant families. This led to a mood of playfulness, dreaminess, reverie, and lightheartedness.
- Early 1500s in Venice

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characteristics of venetian art

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- Artists such as Titian, Bellini, Giorgione achieved this mood through:
1. Stability through asymmetrical balance with pendants for balance
2. Less concern for rules, but not blatantly breaking them
3. Idealized, more sensual, fuller-bodied figures—gods look like humans
4. Off-central focal point or non-existent
5. Tilting pyramid if any at all
6. DIAGONAL LINES
7. Logical treatment of figures in space
8. Realistic depth in more sensual, richly colored, late afternoon-lit Venetian pastoral landscapes
9. Richer, juicier oil colors (RED, GOLD, GREEN)
10. Artists studied nature

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Mannerism

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o This is the first artistic movement in Western art, in which artists are rebelling against using nature as a model for perfection and all other High Renaissance Perfection
o Movement grew out of Michelangelo’s rebellious style

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Reason for Mannerism

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o Calm Dignity of the High Renaissance Ends with Leonardo dying in 1519; Raphael in 1520, the Protestant Reformation creates chaos in the Vatican, causing followers to question the authority of the Church; Rome is SACKED in 1527 when the Papal States collapse in combat with Charles V, who rules the Holy Roman Empire and Spain; Pope Clement must pay a ransom for his life and avoids conflict with Charles V from this point on

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mannerism characteristics

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artists moving on towards a mood of restlessness, nervousness, confusion, anxiety
o Artists such as Tintoretto, El Greco, etc. achieve this through:
1. Instability, intentional lack of balance
2. Intentional breaking of rules of proportion, logical spatial arrangements, etc.
3. Intentionally distorted, disproportionate figures with too-small heads and elongated bodies; bodies twisting, looking weirdly distorted
4. No focal point
5. Centrifugal organization—things spread around outside; void in center
6. Intentionally illogical treatment of figures in space
7. Very little background; figures shoved to front of picture, in our faces
8. intentional clashing colors
9. artists studied art for what the both did and didn’t want to do

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Leonardo

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o Born near Florence
o Mother died when very young
o Father remarries, L never feels connected with new mother
o Becomes an apprentice in Florence to Verrocchio
o Model for Verrocchio’s David
o Was always considered to be very handsome
o Very polished in terms of manner and speech
o Got along very well with people in power
o Had a very strong sense of privacy and reserve that reflects itself in his art
o Scholars believed that Leonardo was gay, that he was a practicing gay man throughout his life
 As a young man in Florence, he was accused of sodomy
 Living in an atmosphere of fear, feels like he can’t allow people in, can’t let people get to know him, lots of mistrust
 Leads to paranoia—fed by the fact that he is anonymously accused of sodomy
 It was uncertainly true, yet the fact that he was accused led him to believe that he was betrayed by someone he trusted
 Big deal—execution offence
 Dropped because source would not come forward
 So effected by the betrayal, leaves Florence, goes to Milan
 Works for the political family there
o In Milan for about 20 years
o When France comes and conquers, he is out of job, his family is done
o Goes back to Florence, does Mona Lisa
o Other artists getting a lot more attention, not getting much work
o Goes to Rome, but it’s the same thing there
o He’s not doing much
o Finally in early 1500s, gets an invitation to go be a part of the court of Francis I, king of France
 Does so
 Dies in court
o Had gay partners throughout his life
 Last partner that he had moved with him to Paris, inherited his estate
 Ultimately sells lots of his art to Francis I
 Why almost all of his pieces are in the Louvre

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Chiaroscuro”—

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building forms through areas of light and shadow

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“sfumato”

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 Layers a smoky, brownish kind of haze

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L's Last Supper

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o “The Last Supper”
 Theme of betrayal very near and dear to his life experience, see it in lots of pieces
 done in a monastery
• wall of a monastery=refectory
 had the opportunity as an apprentice for Verocchio to go around and study all of the Last Suppers all over Florence
• Worked very, very slowly in oil paint
• Has seen lots of other last suppers, but they were all kind of generic snapshots of the event-- chooses a specific part of the story


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- Raphael

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o If Leonardo is this very private, aloof kind of person who WAS able to be charming when he had to be, but it probably took a toll on him—Raphael COMPLETE OPPOSITE
o Very social, famous for being able to get along with EVERYONE
o Leonardo’s work characterized by mystery and obscurity; Raphael is absolute clarity
o Apprentice to Perugino
o Series of Madonna’s made him very famous
 Bold, rich primary colors, some secondary
• Color harmonies

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Raphael Rules

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o Remember that R was an intelligent artist who was able to recognize the genius in both Leonardo and Michelangelo and therefore borrowed from both
 Comes up with very little amount of original ideas—borrows from these artists yet still is very much able to retain his own style
o Comes to attention of Pope Julius
 Asks him to decorate the interior of the new Vatican apartments
 Both L and M had reputations for accepting commissions that they didn’t finish
 R DID NOT have that reputation—unlike the other two, who worked alone, he developed a very large workshop, good at dividing work

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• Platonic Idealism

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Plato, who argued that there are two separate realms, and where there is actual truth, it’s a separate realm from the early realm, its ideas are unchanging and truth is found, but in the early world, should not trust anything to lead us to truth; we only have shadows of the perfect, unchanging things in the other realm
Raphael

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- Michelangelo

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o Breaks all the rules, does not fit into “calm dignity box”
 Difficult childhood—mother dies when young; lived with a nurse; away from family
 Claimed that his wet-nurse’s husband was a stone-cutter and that he absorbed the love of stone and sculpture from his wet-nurse
 Father re-married, when 3 years-old moved back with family—scary, taken out of who had become his family and being put into this family who he does not know, his stepmother won’t be interested in him; grows up feeling like an outsider
• Troubled relationship with father yet always financially supports them
 Apprentice to Ghirlandaio
 When he is in his early 20s, receives first big commission from a bishop in France
• Image of the mother of Mary after the Crucifixion holding Jesus—called a “pieta”
• The one piece in Michelangelo’s entire career that fits the mood of calm dignity
• While Michelangelo was still an apprentice, was discovered by Medici family
o Spent a lot of time copying the sculptures in their gardens
o Came under neo-Platonism, yet also a devout Christian
 He knows that he has this artistic gift; genuinely sees it as a gift given to
 Thinks it is his responsibility to follow his own artistic instincts that God gave him—trumps all other rules
• Even as a young sculptor, he changes natural proportions relative to each other
• Jesus would be a lot bigger in real life
• Was commissioned to go in a chapel in the new St. Peter’s
• Michelangelo was unknown at this point—when unveiled, a lot of people did not believe that it was him; too young, unheard of, etc.
o Goes back and inscribes his name in Mary’s sash
o Later ashamed because he is taking away from God’s credit

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o “David”

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 Instantly famous with the Pieta, with this fame, summoned back home to Florence to work with an abandoned, huge piece of marble that apparently had a flaw and didn’t allow carving
 David originally supposed to go on niche in Florence duomo
• So beautiful that was put outside of town hall
 MICHELANGELO= THINK OF SENSE OF INNER TENSION, ENERGY IN RESERVE THAT CANNOT BE RELEASED; PENT-UP ENERGY AND TENSION
 Think about early David’s—Donatello and Verrocchio
• Chose the after moment—already in victory
• Milan trying to take over, important that David in victory
• Michelangelo chooses the moment of building tension, before
o Muscles, veins, furrowed brow
• Believes that the pinnacle of beauty is the nude male form—same notion as the Classical Greeks
o Contropposto, almost same arms, stance, musculature is similar
o Idealized, young male form
o DIFFERENT: David has tensed face, muscles more idealized
 Face looks more like Hellenistic period
 At same time of this, Laocoon
• Process of restoring style changes Michelangelo’s whole style—goes to a much more musculature figure
• Argument is that Laocoon is A FORGED PIECE
o Bottom line is that there is a definite before and after
o This is BEFORE
 Disproportionate
• Hands and Head—suggest that he was both a person of ACTION AND THOUGHT
 No evidence that Michelangelo was not a virgin
 However, historians believe that if he had inclinations of being either direction, he was most likely gay, or at least bisexual
• Majority of his poems written to men
• Some to a female friend
• No evidence that he actually slept with anyone
• Think about Leonardo’s Gayness—if Michelangelo has these feelings yet is a devout believer, explains why in his works throughout his entire life, there is this sense of inner tension
 Also always comes back to nude male forms
o Does not care for painting, yet accepts commission from Doni Banker Family to celebrate the birth of the son of Doni—called “Doni Tondo” or “The Holy Family”
 No evidence that Michelangelo ever saw a female body—all his women look like drag
 Twisting form
 Didn’t care for plain landscape, just have a bunch of naked men chillin’
 Has been explained that background was intended on being old Pagan world and the image is the coming to the new coveant
 Pentagon-star shape—see in frame, head in each point

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protestant reformation

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o 1517- Protestant Reformation
 Strikes terror in church, Rome, ripples across the population of Rome
 During same time, partly as a result, the king of France is vying for power vs. Charles V
• Results of this war has horrible effects on Rome itself because the Holy Roman emperor, Charles, did not get paid on time, say that they should just go down to Rome and take payment
• These troops are renegade, not done with Charles V’s approval
• When they get to Rome, kill their commander, go crazy, break into treasuries, convents, monasteries, rape nuns, ransack, destruct, leave in terror
• Michelangelo there, see this
• Pope there, hiding, had to pay ransom to save his life
• Michelangelo thinks the whole world is going mad

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- Counter Reformation

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1545
 Catholic Reform—so conservative, so not wanting any nudity—prudish
 Pope approves painters to go in and paint sort of veil-like underwear on the Last Judgment
• “Los Pantalones”
• Signorelli
o Last early Renaissance piece
o Greatly influenced Michelangelo
o See twisting, muscular figures

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• Nicodemus, a sculptor, or Joseph of Aramthea
o His own face is the face of the figure—helping to get Jesus down, looking at that poignant moment where that head of Christ leans back against the cheek of Mary, her arm under his as she supports him

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His own face is the face of the figure—helping to get Jesus down, looking at that poignant moment where that head of Christ leans back against the cheek of Mary, her arm under his as she supports him

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o Correggio

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 Well-known for series of paintings based on the love of Jupiter

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 Da Messina

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= HUGE INFLUENCE ON HIM, big on oil-paints

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 A student of Bellini

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 A really accomplished flutist, musician, and painter
 Dies of 32 of the plague
 Bellini adapts Giorgione’s style a little bit (weird flip of master and student)
• He does some bacchanals that copy Giorgione’s style
 He’s the first one to paint with oil on canvas
• Uses oil paint with flexible resin in it to make it easier to transport
• He can create the interesting softer spaces and start layering paint
• Build color up
• Atmospheric subtlety
 Creates a dream-like quality
 Fits well with creating a mood
 First one we study who doesn’t have prepatory drawings
 Sculpts shapes rather than outline
• Defining forms and gradations of tone

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Titan

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• 1518
• Pagan
• No religion
• Completely based on joy, pleasure, hedonism not just in what they’re doing but in the painting itself
• This painting makes you feel comfortable happy and joyful and can do anything you want
• Men are sexual in their musculature and women are sexualized in plumpness
o Based on movement more than the still, calm dignity
o Even the trees are playful
• Weights and counterweights
o Venetian style painters are absolute masters who just play with norms while still making their works aesthetically pleasing
• Venetian style doesn’t follow the High Renaissance; they go on at the same time

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titian Inspired by Giorgione and Bellini and can build off both of them

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o Giorgione was the first to use oil on canvas, but Titian sets the standard for using oil on canvas all the time
o He becomes the face of the venetian style
o He takes flexible resin oil canvas he can leave paintings for a long time and come back and build on it
o He can send paintings anywhere
o Utilizes what Giorgione uses
o The most sought-after painter in Europe
o He painted at his own pace
o He does what he wants because he knows he is good
o Vibrant luminous aesthetic
o Highly in demand for portraits

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Giovanni da Bologna – Giambologna

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- Constructs sculpture using twisting figure of mannerist style
- One of the very first artists that takes advantage of the idea of sculpture in the round

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El Greco and Tintoretto

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o Venice
 Borrows diagonals, dynamic mood, asymmetry, venetian colors (esp. red)
o From Mannerists
 Borrows spiraling figure
 Disproportionate figure size
 Religious fervor and belief

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phases of mannerism

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INTENSE EMOTIONALISM
AFFECTATION AND EXAGGERATED ELEGANCE

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Jacopo da Pontormo,

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1494-1556. Painfully shy, worked holed up for weeks at a time. "Pontormo was certifiably mad. A hypochondriac obsessed by fear of death, he lived alone in an especially tall house he had built to isolate himself. His garret room was accessible only by a ladder that he pulled up after himself. His paintings showed this bizarre sensibility. The perspective was irrational and his colors--lavender, coral, puce, poisonous green--unsettling. His figures often looked about wildly, as if sharing their creator's paranoid anxiety."
Phase 1

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Rosso Fiorentino:

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1494-1540, wierdly eccentric character. "Rosso, who lived with a baboon, was said to have dug up corpses, fascinated with the process of decomposition. His canvases often had a sinister quality, as when he painted St. Anne like a haggard witch. On seeing one of his macabre works, a priest ran from the room shrieking the painter was possessed by the devil.

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Parmigianino:

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1503-1540. Near the end of his life, P was a bearded, wooly wild man. "His ideal of feminine beauty seems to have derived ...from literary conceits such as that which compared a woman's shoulders, neck, and head with a perfectly formed vase (hence that carried by the long-legged angel on the left [in Madonna with the Long Neck.])
phase 2

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Bronzino: "

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1503-1572. Pupil and adopted son of Pontormo. Had a "cool, glossy hyper-elegant style" and was "at his best in portraiture.
phase 2

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Sofonisba Anguissola:

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1535-1625. WOMAN. First female artist widely recognized in her own lifetime. Best known for portraits. Uses "the strong contours, muted tonality, and smooth finish" (G, 671) of Mannerist portraits "but adds informal intimacy." ==>"S. A. can be considered to have introduced the intimate, anecdotal, and realistic touches of genre painting into formal portraiture." (G, 671) This informality makes her work unique during the Mannerist period. Discuss her as a Mannerist PERIOD artist whose work doesn’t display many Mannerist features

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Benvenuto Cellini:

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1500-1571 Florentine sculptor and goldsmith whose fame is largely due to his very colorful, R-rated autobiography. Admired Michelangelo, but his works show the refined elegance of Parmigianino, with smooth body volumes, elongated limbs, elegant poses, and artificial hand gestures.
phase 2

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Giovanni da Bologna, \

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aka Giambologna: 1529-1608. Born in Flanders, where his name was Jean de Boulogne. Develops the contrapposto stance to exaggeration, resulting in a continuous spiral of the human figure,the next step from Michelangelo's heads twisting in the opposite direction from his torsos. Much more Mannerist than S. Anguissola: distorted figure; exaggerated, artificial hand gestures; show of virtuousity. "The most important Italian sculptor after Michelangelo" (G, 672), his work is the stylistic link between Michelangelo and the 17th c. Baroque artist Bernini.
phase 2

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Tintoretto:

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1518-1594. His dad was a dyer (tintore) by trade, so the son's nickname became "little dyer." A Venetian, often called the outstanding Venetian representative of Mannerism. Doesn't altogether work. Claimed to be a student of Titian and worked "to combine the color of Titian with the drawing of Michelangelo." (G, 688) His paintings, always extremely dramatic, show both Venetian and Mannerist traits, and in some ways, anticipate the Baroque period.

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T borrows

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Venetian: bold brushwork--quick, short brushstrokes, glowing Venetian colors, esp. reds, dynamism accomplished through diagonals and asymmetry
Mannerist: crowded figures, twisting figures, small heads, emph on hand gestures, spiraling figures, chaotic mood
-->Baroque: depth of spiritual vision (from the Counter Ref.), dynamic perspectives, strong chiaroscuro, "skillful theatricality" (G, 689)

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El Greco:

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1541-1614. Born in Crete, under Venetian rule, so earliest training was in the Byzantine tradition. At 19, arrived in Venice and probably studied with Titian, traveled to Florence and Rome, where he adopted aspects of Mannerism, then went at age 35 to Toledo, Spain, where he spent the last 38 years of his life. Toledo was the center of the Catholic reform movement in Spain (Counter Reformation.) El Greco was a devout Catholic whose work reflects both 1) the practical, realistic side of the movement (stemming from St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits) and 2) the fervent faith and mysticism on the other hand (St. Theresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross.) Like Tintoretto, El Greco shows Mannerist (intense emotion ~Pontormo & Rosso, elongated figures, elegant hands), Venetian (emphasis on color, de-emphasis on linear form), and proto Baroque (sense of movement, use of light) characteristics.

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Veronese:

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(1528-88) "the last of the great Venetian masters....Where Tintoretto had gloried in monumental drama and deep perspectives, Veronese specialized in splendid pageantry painted in superb color and set within a majestic, classical architecture." (G, 5th ed, 504) Like Tintoretto, he painted huge canvases (some as large as 20' x 30'!) and did commissions for wealthy monasteries, where he painted refectory (dining hall) walls with splendid scenes of large groups of people at feasts. Veronese is more of a realist than Tintoretto, and avoids any reference to the supernatural, including even in his religious paintings realistically rendered portraits of dwarfs, drunks, etc.

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Corregio:

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1489-1534. According to Janson, he was "a phenomenally gifted North Italian painter." (516) Though he was extremely skilled at doing di sotto in su paintings, making ceilings disappear in swirling clouds and throngs of angels (SEE THE ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN, JANSON, 516), he is even better known for his elegant oil paintings of mythological figures in erotic, sensual poses. In spite of the sensuality, however, his paintings are somehow tender and innocent, not gross or lewd, giving them a stylish elegance which is not yet exaggerated as the Phase Two Mannerists will do. "His idealized images of youthful beauty never pass beyond natural limits, [as the Phase Two Mannerists like Parmigianino do]...[and] his mastery in rendering flesh--no artist has ever painted the blush of a perfect youthful complexion with greater sensitivity--was fully developed only in his oil paintings.