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?

Guilio Romano's Palazzo del Te

The Palazzo del Te was commissioned by Federigo Gonzaga in Mantua. The name came from the island it was built on. Romano worked on this palace from 1527 to 1534. It was built for horse breeding and entertainment.

This building was built very peculiarly. Each side of the building is different. The design of each side is contradictory. Pilasters are constructed throughout the outside facades but the rest of the design doesn't exactly mimic that same type of Greek and Roman style; they are more rustic. Some other examples are the falling triglyphs. These triglyphs used are uniform except with a few that have a space on top of them for some reason. Romano even played with the pediments. Some look as though the blocks holding them up are separating apart and lifting the pediment. He wanted to break the rules for those who were educated in architecture and could see the intentional contradictions to architecture of the time.

(http://arts.muohio.edu/faculty/benson/ROMANVILLA/paldelte.htm)

 

I like the quote in the book by Hartt that says, "On both exterior and interior of the Palazzo del Te the elements of architecture seem to be battling with each other." When looking at first, this building seems kind of boring to me. It's very melodramatic; one story, square building.  Now looking more closely to the details it is really intriguing and interesting, but intentionally done this way; very genius I think.

 

 

 

 

Leonardo D Vinci: Flights of the Mind

I chose pages 257-287. The first part of this section was about theatrics. Leonardo Da Vinci did set design and costumes for the theater. He excelled at this along with all his other talents. "Reading between the lines of this blurb it seems that Leonardo's visuals were the memorable thing about the show, rather than the perishable poetics" (258). He designed characters that were grotesque and dark; unlike his other works. He would go to places full of people to study their features and expressions. He later would draw them. "When Leonardo wished to depict some figure... he went to the places where he knew people of that kind gathered, and he observed their faces and manners, and their clothing, and the way they moved their bodies" (264). The "Five Heads" is an example of this. Some of the pictures in the book are creepy but intriguing at the same time. I've never seen Leonardo Da Vinci do something like that before. I bet it was even more intriguing when he first drew them, they didn't have the internet and TV like we do today.

The second part was on the book of shadow and light. It shows his studies of light but also of science and other things. He talks about shadow and light as if it is a concrete thing that you can touch. "In my first proposition concerning shadows I state that every opaque body is surrounded, and its surface clothed, in shadow and light; and on this I build the first book" (265). To be surrounded by a shadow or light in the way he puts it made me think outside of the box a little bit. I've heard light talked about as an abstract or I guess as a tool in like photography but not like a real thing that could possibly surround you. I found that very interesting.

The next part was called "Little Devil". This referenced to a boy who apprenticed under him. His name was Giovanni Giacomo. He was left with Da Vinci and lived with him. He was a tyrant; always getting into trouble which Leonardo had to deal with. He basically raised this boy and also taught him certain trades. He was talented but just a handful. " On the second day I had 2 shirts cut for him, a pair of stockings and a jerkin, and when I put aside the money to pay for these things he stole the money out of my purse, and I could never make him confess" (271). It talked about how in a fatherly way Leonardo loved Giacomo but it also talks about how they may have been lovers. I know Leonardo's sexuality has always been in question and after reading this I could see why. "

In the hunting bears section it talks about Leonardo's love for nature and describes in detail how connected he was with the outdoors. "One could counter this by saying he was a voyager of the mind; or, less rhetorically, by saying he was an intensive traveler of relatively short journeys, each of them for a man of his curiosity a lungissima via of impressions and experiences- raw empirical data to be noted and pondered" (276).

The next section was about the lost wax casting Sforza horse. Leonardo was supposed to make this gigantic horse sculpture made out of bronze using the lost wax casting methods. Everyone thought he was crazy and wouldn't finish it but at the same time people rave about it too. Leonardo had many different plans on how he was going to create this masterpiece but didn't end of finishing it; finding out everyone was right that it was too big and impossible to make. "In his life of the Florentine architect Giuliano da Sangallo, Vasari says that Sangallo discussed the casting of the Horse with Leonardo, 'disputing the impossibility' (282).

The Last section was about Leonardo's maybe mother Caterina. He had documentation on her funeral and occasions where he saw her. None of those documents really say she's his mother but evidence points more in that direction. " We don't know who she was, but it is hard to resist the possibility that she was his mother, who in 1493 would have been in her mid-sixties, and since about 1490 a widow" (285). The math seems to come together and why would he have anything of hers if she wasn't. He was smart I bet he figured it out.

Humanism

Lauro Martines' Humanism is about the importance of studying humanities. People started recognizing how important education was and which areas of information was needed to be successful. Rhetoric was key. Speaking and writing became an art form. How someone spoke reflected on their intelligence and in turn their success. History was still considered important as well as philosophy. The areas of philosophy and history most focused on were Greek and Roman philosophy and history. People mirrored their life after the Greeks but especially the Romans. Poetry became a large educational tool. Being able to read and write poetry and understand the historical references in it was something to strive for. People of this time thought all these educational areas led to a more moral and distinguished individual. Now in saying that, this lifestyle and frame of mind was only for the elite; those who could afford education and were allowed access to reading and writing. Lawyers and government officials were the ones gaining all this knowledge and living the lifestyle it came with. I agree that people of this stature should indefinitely be educated and strive for more "eloquent" behaviors, but what about everyone else? How much further along would those countries have gotten if they would have let their lower class be educated and taught with this mindset? How much more successful would this generation be? We still think today that having "eloquent" rhetoric is important. President Obama makes sure his speeches are written out with perfect grammar and knowledgeable statements. Schools are still teaching history and poetry. The importance of the Greeks and Romans is still taught today. How many more "greats" would we have if the "everyday joe" was given as much education as the higher classes? The innovation we missed out on because the ignorance of our past generations... Aside from that, this movement was still ground breaking and influential. The idea that education can free us from superstition and falsehood has continued throughout history and is why we still believe education is the foundation for life.