Smyth, Mannerism

The most abundant feeling I got from Smyth's excerpt was that Mannerism was criticize a lot. The author didn't seem too fond of it either. Very negative descriptions of the mannerist style. Mannerism is compared to Renaissance painting which I don't think is fair. They are completely different. Mannerism isn't as realistic as Renaissance work, but on purpose. Why criticize a work of subtle abstraction for not being as real as Michelangelo or Raphael. It's abstract in nature. I like Manneristic paintings because of that reason. Someone in our class wrote in their blog that art kind of peaked with Michelangelo and the Renaissance. In their style I agree, I don't think you can get any better than Leonardo Da Vinci in my opinion. But mannerism is not Renaissance or vice versa. Of course, you could take this even further and say it was an expression of how even in 1500 and 1600's people hated change. That's not really art related so I won't go any further with that.

This painting I think is great by Pontormo. Very mannerist with his body being so much smaller than his clothes, its abstract but expresses a point about this person.

Giulio Romano Palazzo del Te Hall of the Psyche

These frescoes were painted based on the mythological story of Cupid and Psyche. Venus was jealous of Psyche's beauty so she told her son Cupid to make her fall in love with an ugly mortal. He attempted this while she was sleeping but instead she woke up and startled him and he graced his own skin with the arrow intended for the spell on Psyche. He ends up falling in love with her. She ends up in a secluded castle where she only sees him at night and can't look at him directly. She sees her friends and they convince her to look at him. She looks at him one night with a lamp and the oil spills on him and burns him, he leaves. She becomes unhappy because he left and calls to the gods for help. the only god to answer is Venus and makes Psyche endures many obstacles. Since Psyche succeeds in these obstacles she is able to marry Cupid.

The painting represents all the adventures Psyche went through.


Federico Gonzaga wanted a "pleasure palace" to entertain his guests. This fit right into the theme he was going for.

I like how busy the painting is but at the same time as its own organization. I think it would have been more visually interesting if the table scene wasn't exactly in the middle. If everything was kind of offset, maybe with more depth, it would guide me through the adventures a little bit better. He was an apprentice of Raphael and Raphael's influence in his work.

Rona Goffen, Titian

According to Goffen, Titian was the first international artist. He started in Venice as a teenager under Giovanni Bellini doing commissioned work. He eventually moved up to international commissions and even had a "fan" who would buy his work just because he painted it. Most artists didn't have that luxury during this period. He was famous for painting intriguing female nudes. What I thought was interesting was all through this class we've learned about multiple artists but most focused on the male form and if they did paint women, they were more angelic and definitely not nude. He was totally different than what the people of that time had seen before. There was some artists by his time that were painting women but none with the intriguing personalities that Titian's paintings had. There was something behind the women's eyes. Looking at the paintings you want to know more. He placed them in intimate places like the bedroom and put them in positions that were more free and expressive for women. Goffen mentioned how women were portrayed as the fault for the fall of humanity and that's how they were shown in paintings. Titian made women more than that. They became interesting to paint and to think on. They were shown nude but not overly sexual; with some modesty but free. I really like that fact the he was so different he wasn't afraid to challenge the norm.

Sala dei Cavalli or the Room of Horses

The Room of Horses was made to pay respect to horses. The ruler of Mantua who commissioned the palazzo, Federigo Gonzaga, had six horses that he used for sport as well as conveying his excellence. Romano made sculptures of life size horses in a very realistic manner with his frescoes around it. Each of the ruler's horses was represented. There is one horse that is different than the rest. Instead of being lean and poised, he is larger than the rest and unnamed. This horse was used in battle so he had to be built to carry a man in full armor instead of a lean suite used for sporting.


Dixon, Andrew G. "Archives: ITP 77: The Room of the Horses at the Palazzo Te, by Giulio Romano." Archives: ITP 77: The Room of the Horses at the Palazzo Te, by Giulio Romano. Sunday Telegraph "In the Picture", 10 July 2001. Web. 07 Nov. 2013.

Palazzo del Te, Fall of the Giants

The Palazzo del Te done by Guilio Romano has a different theme for each room. One of them is the Fall of Giants. Done in frescoe, every inch of the walls are covered with mystical giants that are being crushed as the building collapses on them. This was an old Roman story where these giants tried to destroy Mount Olympus and Jupiter punishes them. This might have been a message Romano wanted to convey about the oppression in Italy at the time. It was mostly like a tribute to Charles V and his power.

Artistic Theory in Italy

Michelangelo was all about beauty. He was a sculpture and painted like a sculpture. He thought the male form was the ultimate definition of beauty. He didn't care about the science of things. He studied what people looked like but not like Leonardo Da Vinci as far as their anatomy or how things worked. He wrote out his thoughts about his art in poem form. He thought God was responsible for everything and defined what beauty is to us. Later on in his life he realized how much outside beauty is temporary and how its what inside that lasts. Like "The Last Judgment" no one looked beautiful. They are all waiting for their fate to heaven or hell. Where you spend eternity is what really matters and it is real. For Michelangelo he wasn't too sure which direction he was going to go; if he had done enough to make into heaven. Your outside looks weren't going to get you there, even though, Michelangelo based most of his career, including the Sistine Ceiling, on the idea of beauty.

Leonardo Da Vinci was very scientific. He painted with the idea of how the body worked, or how nature flowed. He painted hair like it moves. He painted grass like it was swaying in the wind. He did studies on the movements of hands and plants and water. This, in turn, I think makes his art better. His art is more precise and realistic. He thought that if science wasn't apart of art than there was no point in it. He focused on anatomy and muscle function. He drew from an engineering perspective. Leonardo wasn't big on feelings so he didn't write figuratively. All his journals were made up of experiments with hypotheses and conclusions.

I like Leonardo Da Vinci's work more than Michelangelo's. He captures beauty better than Michelangelo ironically, I think. By knowing how the body works he could capture it on paper better. Michelangelo paints like he would carve a sculpture. The bodies are too lumpy and the poses, all though inspiring, are unrealistic. But, for example, the Sistine Ceiling was supposed to be ethereal and out of this world. If he didn't think figuratively and with emotion that idea wouldn't have come across as successfully as it did. So I don't know if you can say one is better than the other, in general, they are just different. The way they think shaped their artistic styles.

Renaissance Rome

I understood Partridge's section way more than Rowland's. The papacy was getting too crooked and the people wanted a change. They were a symbol of divinity and yet they were acting of the world. "The Renaissance church was not only worldly, it was also corrupt. Popes generally appointed family members to high office regardless of merit (nepotism) and often carved dynastic family states out of church lands (alienation. Clerics were often poorly educated, lax in their vows, and undisciplined. offices were routinely bought and sold (simony), and a single church official could draw income from many offices and benefices (pluralism)without attending to the duties of any (absenteeism)" (Partridge, 13). The church was participating in the purchase of indulgence where anyone for a price could remit their sins. While this was all happening the papacy was working on reinventing Rome; turning it into the most successful city in Europe once again. With this success comes sin. The protestants hated all the greed and money and indulgences and revolted against the church. They were the biggest threat to the succession of the new Rome. "However, the Protestants in northern Europe posed by far the greatest challenge to papal primacy, eventually completely rejecting the church" (Partridge, 14). The papacy used humanistic ideas to gain the support of others, for example, Rome's antiquity.

The church did reform and brought stricter rules against the papacy. "The canons and decrees of the Council of Trent(1545-63) and subsequent papal commissions clarified doctrines, standardized liturgy and scriptures, and corrected the worst abuses of nepotism, alienation of church lands, simony, pluralism, absenteeism, and the sale of indulgences" (Partridge, 16). Priests got better education and honed in on their real goals for society. They focused on preparing for the second coming of Christ. The art was reflecting this fight between war and renewal. The of idea of the physical world versus the spiritual world was all over in renaissance art.

I must've missed the whole idea of this or something. If the church and the papacy were involved in all these "divine" benefits why would they want to reform and get rid of the things they were receiving and doing. I know the Protestants were making it difficult for them but what really made them reform? They had this grand city of Rome where they could continue all their awful things. Why didn't they?