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175 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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there is little agreement on
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the definition of Mannerism
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the problem of the definition of Mannerism derives in part from
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the fact that most interpretations are not sufficiently historical
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each author must
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define his term (here, 'Mannerism') and justify the way he uses it, so that the reader may make up his own mind about where it goes right and where it goes wrong
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we must not
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be tempted to make tidy something that in reality is untidy
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we don't have the right to
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make Mannerism mean anything we would like it to mean, but must find a meaning that is specific, arguable, and historically legitimate
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Mannerism has been endowed with
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virtues particular to our own time- aggression, anxiety, instability, while it must be understood on its own terms, and according to its own virtues, not ours
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we are not bound to account for
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for all the multitude of tendencies in the sixteenth century
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the value of any term such as 'Mannerism'
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varies in inverse proportion to the number of diverse phenomena it is made to embrace
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having found out what, historically, the term mannerism should apply to
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we may begin to define tendencies in style that are in harmony to it
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The term 'Mannerism' is derived from
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the word 'maniera'
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In French courtly literature of the 13th to 15th centuries, and in 15th century Italian literature, 'maniera' was used to mean
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effortless accomplishment and sophistication; above all a courtly grace that was inimical to revealed passion, evident effort, rude naivete (innocence)
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*A 'Mannerist' work must therefor not exhibit...
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strain, brutality, violence, menace, despair, or overt passion
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*A Mannerist work must not be
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expressive, dynamic, realistic (that would be Baroque or proto-baroque in Shearman's scheme)
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*Rather, a Mannerist work must be...
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polished, idealized away from nature, a 'hothouse product' showing refined detachment
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sprezzatura
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"term coined by Castiglione for the courtly grace shown in the effortless resolution of all difficulties. The courtier must "Practice in all things a certain sprezzatura [nonchalance], so as to conceal all art and make whatever is done or said appear to be without effort and almost without any thought to it." ["e, per dir forse una nova parola, usar in ogni cosa una certa sprezzatura, che nasconda l'arte e dimostri ciò che si fa e dice venir fatto senza fatica e quasi senza pensarvi".]
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maniera, in small proportion
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is present in many periods, especially in the fifteenth century
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*We must be prepared for
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more or less maniera between one artist and another, between one work or another by the same artist, or even between individual parts in the same work
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Venice was a
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center of resistance to Mannerism
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the invasion of Italy and the sack of Rome were events
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remote from the process of artistic creation
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more reasonable are explanations of Mannerism...
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in sociological and aesthetic terms, in terms of the changing conditions of patronage, and the mindset and priorities of the patronage class
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Mannerism is
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style without content
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It is our
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nature to assume that our convictions alone are right, which they are unlikely to be
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rhythm
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the sequential repetition of the same appearances
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El Greco is perhaps best considered
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as an artist who used strongly Mannerist conventions with an increasingly expressive purpose and urgency that is far from characteristic of Mannerism
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Tintoretto is often described as a Mannerist but it is questionable
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whether his aims and ideals may be properly construed in this way; his work is sometimes elegant and sometimes abstracted but it is never polished and always fired with a disqualifying energy
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Leonardo's Battle of Anghiari
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raised history painting to an undreamed of level of energy and violence
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the work of Andrea del Sarto and Fra Bartolomeo
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further explored the animating, sensuous and realistic tendencies of the first decade of the 16th century. Andrea del Sarto's Madonna of the harpies shows the influence of Michelangelo in the poses and Leonardo in the modeling and sensuality
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Andrea del Sarto's pupils Rosso and Pontormo added a
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a tenseness and brutality, not accidentally involving themes from the Christ's passion
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Titian was working on a style more
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sensuous (Sacred and Profane Love) and dynamic [charged with energy] (Assumption of the Virgin)
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Correggio was closest of all to a
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proto-baroque style, with natural sensuous grace and highly-charged sentiment
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in the Doni Tondo
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the tortions and movements express nothing except the artist's virtuosity
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the Battle of Cascina (date)
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(1504-1505) demonstrates Michelangelo's absolute sovereignty over the human figure, showing that there were now no limitations in the complexity and variety of aspects in which the body might be recreated and seen
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in the Ignudi
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the qualities of grace, elegance and poise are so intense that the beauty of the work of art becomes more nearly its subject than ever before
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At this point, perhaps
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we should judge that the quality 'maniera' begins to characterize a style
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In the ten years before his death,
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Raphael did, of course, produce many works that are so expressive, dynamic, and realistic that they are irrelevant to our subject, but interspersed among them are others that are incipiently Mannerist
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the Mary Magdalene from Raphael's Santa Cecilia (date) is
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(c. 1515) tall of stature and impeccably composed in emotion and movement. She compels admiration, which is her function. Her clothing, brittle, metallic and unreal in color, is formed upon the study of Hellenistic sculpture rather than real life
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In Raphael's Saint Michael (date)
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(c. 1518) the tortions are extreme, yet accomplished without strain
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In art, as in human behavior, 'maniera'
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effects a sterilization of passion, as it does all other germs of imperfection
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Historical interpretations should not
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depend on opinions or preferences, but on the testimony of the historical texts and documents.
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History has its own
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scientific method"
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A historical interpretation derives
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its validity from its agreement with the primary sources, that is, the original texts, documents [and artifacts] of the past. (K, 4)
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One should formulate ones views
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on the basis of the primary sources, and be ready to change these views when they are confronted with primary sources that contradict them.
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The scholar may be led, as a result of
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popular pressure and weak training, to cultivate a kind of fake scholarship instead of the real thing,
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relying on
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translations rather than on the original texts, on secondary rather than primary sources
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on vague cliches
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instead of precise concepts, on abstract formulas instead of concrete nuances
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and concerning himself with
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fashionable theories rather than with historical facts and documents,
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and with artificial
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problems that are in vogue but unrelated to the historical events and hence uncapable of any satisfactory solution
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disingenuous
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lacking in frankness, candor, or sincerity; insincere
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tenuous
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lacking a sound basis, unsubstantiated
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verbiage
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overabundance or superfluity of words, wordiness, verbosity
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dynamic
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charged with energy
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expressive
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charged with sentiment
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elucidate
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to make lucid or clear, to explain
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composure
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the state or feeling of beeing calm and in control of oneself
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hermeneutics
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the theory and methodology of interpretations, especially of scriptural text
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full disclosure
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...
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all great art
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deals with human emotions, and takes us deep into somebody else's world
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so we can
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learn more about ourselves
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and wouldn't you agree
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that the great gift of the 20th century to the artists is that they weren't bund by the rules, that they were free
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We produce
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plausible theories to explain reality
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and if these theories yield
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successful practical results we go on making use of them as long as they work
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Nearly always though, they run us
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into difficulties sooner or later by proving inadequate in some respect
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and then we
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cast around for a better theory
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a more
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ample one that explains everything that the first one could explain without being subject to its limitations
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We do this not only in
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science, but in all other fields of activity, including everyday life
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It means that our approach to things is
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essentially a problem solving one
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and that we make progress
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not by adding new certainties to a body of existing ones
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but by
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perpetually replacing existing theories with better ones
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Although no existing theory can be
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proved, it can be disproved, and this means it can be tested
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we can test general statements by
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looking for contrary instances
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in their letter they claimed that Derrida's work
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does not meet accepted standards of CLARITY and RIGOR
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and that his work consists of
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little more than semi-intelligible attacks upon the values of reason, truth, and scholarship
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plausible
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having the appearance of truth or reason, seemingly worthy of approval or acceptance, credible
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normative
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pertainting to a norm regarded as the standard of correctness in behavior, speech, writing, ect.
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'tis better to be silent and
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thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt -Lincoln
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Any historical synthesis
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is bound to be something of a bed of Procrustes
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but without
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synthesis history disintegrates into its innumerable and individually meaningless atoms -Hampson
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a procrustian bed is
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an arbitrary standard to which exact conformity is forced
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The use of history
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as a source of justifications for political agendas in the present
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Moxey states that "according to
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Derrida, linguistic signs are arbitrary constructs"
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and that "signs are not
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motivated by the world and bear only an arbitrary relationship to it."
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Therefore, Moxey concludes, "in the light of
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Derrida, it becomes impossible to subscribe to the view that any historical interpretations are endowed with truth value"
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So, as all signs bear an arbitrary
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relationship to what they signify, and even to reality,
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and as all our arguing and
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thinking is done by means of signs interpreting other signs
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*the traditional belief that historical interpretation
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has something to do with the truth is hopelessly naive
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In light of this, ths immediate question is
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why anyone would care to practice history or art history at all under such circumstances
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For a true believer in
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the arbitrary, any attempt to get it right, to make a point, to defend a certain vision regarding a state of affairs in the past, to be curious about what actually happened, must all seem futile
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But in claiming that
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there is no access to the truth, Moxey does not intend to suggest that all histories are equally valid. All untruthes are not equal, in other words, some must be more untrue than others.
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Moxey argues that
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historical arguments will be evaluated according to how well they coincide with our political convictions"
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Every interpretation is
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a hypothesis -Shearman, 60
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hypothesis
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a proposition set forth as an explanation for the occurance of some specified group of phenomena
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hypothesis (2)
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a tentative explanation for an observation that can be tested by further investigation
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blur (Italian)
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offuscare
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The book appears...
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to be a victim of a current malaise in writing on Renaissance art that is perhaps most pronounced in Cinquecento studies.
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Whatever its nature and causes, the malaise
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has been leading to studies that are quite out of touch with reality and common sense. -Hatfield on J. Cox-Rearick
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in that subjective state
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induced by spontaneous contact with a work of art, the viewer might have been reminded of just about anything,
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my point is simply that Raphael cannot
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plausibly be suposed to have intended all of this.
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it would not be wrong to
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read the whole opening of this book as a disguised inversion of dominant interests and interpretive strategies. -Wolfgang Kemp on Only Connect...
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virtually from the first,
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there is evidence that the 'Last Supper' received homage as an exemplary 'work of art' -Martin Kemp
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The changes
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[in the way the work of art is viewed and experienced] not only embrace the obviouse physical alterations of the work and its setting.
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but also involve
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the mental frameworks which control the viewer's perception of the work" -Martin Kemp
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I am not someone
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who believes that the artist's intentions are either imponderable or irrelevant to the historian who wishes to understand the work, and to any spectator who wishes to enrich the potential of their viewing.
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In Leonardo's case
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we are fortunate in possessing a large body of notes to help us identify his 'intentions'- in the most obvious sense of the term.
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We can assess
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the requirements he placed on a painter with respect to such matters as light, color, space, detailed naturalism, motion, gesture, physiognomy, expression, invention and narrative.
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We can also
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embrace the broader class of intentions left unstated by Leonardo, since they part and parcel of the business of making functional religious art in particular settings, under paticular conditions of patronage.
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Yet
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any artist's intentions, and most especially during the deeply pondered and protracted execution of a work like the 'Last Supper' will be a complex and shifting compound of conscious and unconscious aspirations, adjustments, redefinitions, acts of chance and evasions.
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It is unlikely that
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there was ever a stable set of transparently accessible intentions.
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The same kind of
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complex instabilities will come into play when we consider the original spectator.
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Reception Theory says that the reader (or viewer) interprets
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the meanings of the text based on their individual cultural background and life experiences
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In essence, the meaning of the text is not
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inherent within the text itself, but is created within the relationship between text and reader
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It is likely that the less shared
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heritage the reader has with the artist the less he will be able to recognize the artist's intended meaning
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epigram
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a witty or poignant saying or short poem. "I can resist everything except temptation" -Wilde
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iconic epigram
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an epigram concerning works of art
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hypothesis
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a tentative explanation for an observation that can be tested by further investigation
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theory
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a set of tested statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena and that can be used to make predictions
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I am concerned with
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the problem of proof in interpretation
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It goes without saying that
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we will not reconstruct the past entirely correctly
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but it is a sign of
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an unreflexive lack of realism to suppose that because we will not get it entirely right we had better give up and do something not subject to error.
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Through the mediation of
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the present reality of the frame, which is also part of the work of art, there is established a continuum between the painted and real worlds
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Renaissance poetry indicates that
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the overriding perceived function of portraits was to preserve the memory of the dead, and to confer in that sense immortality
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Realism
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the representation of things according to their appearance in visable nature
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Avoid
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being drawn into futile speculation
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Evaluate
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the strengths of the argument
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one wonders to what
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extent such connections have been actively "repressed" as the authors assume, or simply under-emphasized- a subtle but important distinction
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Other than some generalist
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assumptions about Western European imperialist superiority, the authors offer little hard evidence that the state of affairs they seek to redress actually exists
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While the methodology of
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analyzing visual arts in terms of power relations throws up useful insights
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it cannot supplant
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more aesthetic readings without reducing works to dry political fact-sheets
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sign
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anything can be a sign as long as someone interprets it as 'signifying' something- referring to or standing for something other than itself
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we interpret things as signs largely
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unconsciously by relating them to familiar systems of conventions
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signifier
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the form which the sign takes
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the signified
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the concept which the form (signifier) represents
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that which we
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call a rose by any other name, would smell so sweet. -Shakespeare
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the relationship between the signifier and the signified is
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conventional- dependent of social and cultural conventions
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a word means
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what it does to us only because we collectively agree to let it do so
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Christ Pantokrator
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epithet meaning "all powerful". Christ as Ruler of the Universe, often referred to as "Christ in Majesty"
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epithet
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a word or phrase applied to a person or thing to describe an actual or attributed quality: “Richard the Lion-Hearted”
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their sources were
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limited, their texts corrupt, and their interpretations often fanciful
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The head of Donatello's David as
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a tribute to the great male beauty of the ancient world, Hadrian's Antinuous
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connoisseurship asks
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when the work was made, where, and by whom
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there are no
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wrong reasons for liking a work of art
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Most people like to see in pictures
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what they would also like to see in reality
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the bias for the pretty and engaging work of art
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is likely to become a stumbling block if it leads us to reject works which represent a less appealing subject matter
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In the more 'primitive' periods,
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when artists were not as skilled at representing human faces and human gestures as they are now, it is often all the more moving to see how they tried nevertheless to bring out the feeling they wished to convey
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now you're talking
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about what real people do -Hatfield in S. Trinita
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The representation of the chapel in Giotto's Last Judgment scene is
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a pioneering expression of the idea that things should be shown the way they are.
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Whatever you do,
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stick to the sources.
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Demand
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proof for the interpretations that scholars make. It might just be that there isn't any.
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Costume studies are a mess, and gesture studies
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can get you into the same problem- things may not be the same in art as they were in real life. The trick is to figure out how to prove it.
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Let's
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test the possibility." -Rab
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We don't care about
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terminology but we do care about real knowledge
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In the Sassetti Chapel: "Look for
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where you see a portrait instead of somebody who actually belongs in the scene."
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In painting and music,
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the 15th-century Flemish artists are skyrocketing into a different dimension."
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Just as light can
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go through a window without breaking the glass, the Christ Child could go into Mary's body without breaking her virginity
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Two things that the Italians are into that the northerners are not into:
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1. Human anatomy 2. Classical mythology
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The Portinari altarpiece, "probably the most
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complex religious symbolism of any 15th century painting"
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Leonardo's biggest single contribution was
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chiaroscuro, "where you figure out the whole composition by arranging your light and dark areas so as to make the painting beautiful."
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Before Leonardo, fifteenth-century technique
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produced paintings with bright, flat areas of color. The colors tended to jump around
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Leonardo introduced
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low saturation"
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In his Annunciation, Leonardo fills
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the angel's red garment with darks and browns to cool down the color, and does the same to Mary's yellow sash and red shirt.
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Tempera is
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brittle and needs a hard background,
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while oil is
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flexible and can be painted on canvas
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iconography deals with
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the study of the subject matter or content of works of art,
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identifying
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subjects, characters, or symbols used by artists to communicate their ideas
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(though sometimes artists
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may have copied subjects, characters and symbols without knowing their meanings)
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iconology seeks to understand
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the relationship between works of art and their historical moment: how certain themes carry meaning at particular times, why certain subjects appear in art and then disappear.
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museum
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a place where the muses dwell"
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muses
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in Greek mythology, the nine goddesses who preside over various arts and sciences
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Admittedly, no human action and no human creation is
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likely to serve only one end; we often find a whole hierarchy of ends and means
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But we can also discern a
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dominant purpose without which the event would not have happened at all
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According to Plato's Love Dialogues,
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love is "desire aroused by the sight of beauty"
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INRI
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According to John, "Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. An the writing was, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews"
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IHS, IHC
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The first three letters of the name of Jesus in Greek
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XP
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The Greek letters Chi and Rho, first two letters of the Greek word for Christ
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The trapezoidal shape of the piazza
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was not planned but is the natural outgrowth of the medieval street pattern. It simply evolved piece by piece.
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syncretism
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the attempt to reconcile disparate or contrary beliefs
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