ASSIGNMENT THREE

WHA NOTES
THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY IN EUROPE
INTRODUCTION

Renaissance artists were aware of being different to previous artists (such as gothic/medieval) - self conscious
movement

Idea of rebirth or renaissance a myth in late fourteenth/early fifteenth century by Italian classical scholars (humanists)

Florentine contemporaries were not to be ranked below any who were ancient Said by Battista Alberti, Architect 140472

Artists had almost completely died out, reviving in the renaissance, artists and writers flourished.

when darkness breaks, the generations to come may continue to find their way back to the clear splendour of the
ancient past Petrarch, poet 1304 74

Medieval theologians studied Aristotle, Cisero and the Neoplatonist's.

Humanists found standards in which all human activity could be judged through classical antiquity.
Re-created ideals based on chivalry and nobility.
Nurtured in Italian city states History can be traced back to Ancient Roman times.
Humanism spread, becoming more popular in fifteenth century. Connection to visual arts is usually complex.
Visual arts remained mainly religious in Italy and Northern Europe.

BRUNELLESCHI

One of the first architects of the Italian renaissance no apprenticeship at a masters lodge.

Brunelleschi rejected Gothic style for the classic Roman style holds symbolic significance as Gothic replaced Roman in
medieval times.

Brunelleschi invented linear perspective, a scientifically measurable way to render perspective outdated all previous
attempts.

First to realise that if a picture is regarded as a window between the viewer and what he sees the object as, it can be
made to obey the same laws.

Lines called orthogonals.

Raised the art of painting to a science.

Designed Pazzi chapel commissioned by Andrea Pazzi in 1429

Brunelleschi praised in fifteenth century for reviving antique architectural forms said to connect ways of building
First architect/artist to visit Rome since ancient times to study the ancient monuments.
Gothic style still associated with the North at the beginning of the 5th century.
Death of Milanese Giangaleozzo? Visconti (ally of the Roman Emporer in Germany) enabled the Florentine republic to
transform from city state to a region state

Apparently demonstrated his techniques on two of his paintings since lost described and elaborated in his friend
Albertis treatise.
Imposed a rational order to the visual world in a painting.

MASACCIO

Architectural style and system of perspective (Brunelleschi) most notably used by Masaccio.

Chiaroscuro technique used to revive a style by Giotto.

Fresco of the holy trinity most notable painting using the device.
Changed the general perspective of religious paintings (usually donors were smaller than sacred figure) now all figures
painted to scale more complex images.
Masaccios frescos gave a new dignity and independence to figures.
Giottos paintings were flat, neutral light from unspecified source.
Masaccios strongly lit from a source outside of the painting, as if from a window.

PROGRESS IN SCULPTURE

Mastery of perspective set men of the fifteenth century apart from immediate predecessors.

Idea of artistic progress found in Plinys account of the history of art revived and changed during the renaissance,
influencing artists and historians, encouraging painters and sculptors to rival each other.

First public competition (1401) to create relief for the doors of Florentine baptistery.

Ghiberti was commissioned to create a second pair of doors improved on his first set.

I strove to imitate nature as clearly as I could, and with all the perspective I could produce, to have excellent
compositions with many figures Ghiberti, WHA pg. 423

Included a history of ancient art in his commentaries (1450 55) derived from Pliny and Vitruvius had an account of
the art in Tuscany from Giottos time to the mid fifteenth century.

Ghiberti was also a collector of ancient Roman art, as well as a student.

Della Quercia focused mainly on the human figure, sometimes little else. (carved pilasters).

Winner Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378 1455) who created a gothic style scene (surpassing the doors created in the same
style by Andrea Pisano in 1300-1330.
Gave greater depth to narrative scene more naturalistic and dramatic.
Ghiberti set the same scale of proportions for each of the scenes figures all same size.
Used and exploited new testament subjects to display his skill as a craftsman and his skill of representing the human
form as an artist (also showing use of linear perspective).

Friendly with Florentine humanists (studying classical texts).

Sculptor Jacopo della Quercia (1374 1438) shows a version of Florentine renaissance no influence from humanists,
Brunelleschis theories or antique art. Della Quercia evolved a completely new style steady controlled
naturalism (new age).
Expulsion of paradise (three figures filling the entire panel) Eve derived from antique state of Venus. Adam more
powerful nobility resisting divine judgement (Della Quercia).

A NEW STYLE IN FLANDERS

Italy in Flanders (the most densely urbanised areas in Europe) two great centres of European art by mid fifteenth
century. Economic and cultural links between the two.

Florence republic

Flemish discovered linear perspective by trial and error (while Florentines were working on theories and systematic
rules for three dimensional space).

Flemish experimented with arial perspective (subtle tones suggesting distance in landscapes fundamental
distinction).

Previously few large scale paintings (has large stained glass windows).

As early as the tenth century oils were occasionally used to bind powdered pigment (in tempera, egg yolk was used).

Encouraged and permitted great precision and detail most immediate appealing feature of fifteenth century Flemish
painting.

Media often mixed oil colour over tempera.

Ghent, Bruges and Ypres tunnel leading Flemish cities at the time formed part of the duchy of Burgundy. Both areas
prosperous suffered from economic depression in fifteenth century Europe.

Flemish contributed the invention of easel and panel painting owed to the tradition of manuscript illumination (called
for a medium more luminous than tempera oil painting developed).
Artists began to exploit potential of oil mixed with pigment (usually linseed oil fifteenth century Flanders).
Translucent films of paint were applied over opaque colours to give depth under an enamel like surface.
Oils allowed a painting to be built up slowly, rather than with tempera which had to be worked with quickly as dried in
minutes.

VAN EYCK AND VAN DER WEYDEN

Invention of oil painting attributed to Van Eyck.

Artists were deemed worthy to appear in collections of lives of famous men (only in Italy).

Earliest account of Van Eyck 1455-6 at the court of the King of Naples (owned a triptych by Van Eyck)
Named the leading painter of our (then) time by Bartolommeo Fazio (for technical a complement, truth to nature and
rediscovery of pigments known to Pliny and other ancient authors).
Van Eycks paintings had a jewel like quality no reproductions could match.

ALBERTI

Said to have created the ideal of the complete man in his image (of the renaissance).
Alberti had many talents moralist, lawyer, poet, playwright, musician, mathematician, scientist, painter, sculptor,
architect and aesthetic theorist extraordinary range of expertise and profound knowledge.

Enhanced the status of visual arts more than Alberti also enhancing the status of artists.

Illegitimate son of noble family exiled from Florence (Alberti).

Self promotion of professional status.

Alberti designed a marble case for an old church based on a triumphal arch symbolising triumph over death had
arches niches to contain sarcophagi intended for poets and philosophers. No reminisces of Romanesque (like
Florentine buildings) all Roman, not derived from any specific ancient building. Never completed, ambition outran
his means, lacks intended dome and resembles a ruin. In fact the complete opposite and is a symbol of
aspirations towards a new ideal faith in the future as loving the past.

Early renaissance style came of age.

Basic idea of an all embracing renaissance style.

He developed a rational theory of beauty based on the practice of the ancients and what he called the laws of nature
(developed with his treatises on painting, architecture and sculpture, published between 1485 and 1568).
Given a classical education, developed an interest in architecture after joining papal service in Rome.
Evolved a style inspired by antiquity, more archeologically correct than Brunelleschis.
Arches were usually used for decoration, not structure, always had an architraves rather than arches.
One of his greatest and most influential achievements was to adapt the elements of the classical post and lintel temple,
walls were just filling to upright supports.
First to ask Alberti for designs was Sigismondo transformed the medieval church of S Francesco turning it into a
monument to his own glory and a burial place for himself then called tempiro malatestiano.

Mastered the classical language of architecture.

Town scape painted in mid 15th century expresses the ideal to what Italian architects and patrons aspired to. Has a
circular building in the centre of a marble paved piazza surrounded by buildings of varying size all designed
with logical geometry as well as classical detail of the early renaissance style. Lightness and spaciousness sets it
apart from medieval cities symbol of renaissance ideal and civic humanism. Painter unknown, but
inspired/influenced by Piero della Francesa may have been painted for Federigo da Montefeltro.

DONATELLO

Passion for antiquity inspired sculptors as well as architects.

He revitalised almost every form of sculpture from free standing monuments to the low relief.

A sculpture was limited to the commissions he received due to the high cost of materials.

Commissioned to create a bronze monument of the condottiere Erasmo da Narni - nicknamed Gattamelata. The subject
died in 1443 after serving the Venetian republic of many years as a captain/general of its armies.

Donatello seems to have taken inspiration from earlier antique bronze horses when modelling his own (such as the one
ridden in the Marcus Aurelius statue) Gave his charger a new sense of controlled vigour.

Donatello's statue of Gattamelata wears a Roman breastplate, but is otherwise dressed in contemporary costume. Has
a long sword, amour on his legs, his feet in stirrups (not known in ancient Rome).

Stature not meant to be seen at eye level, like Marcus Aurelius, and os meant to be looked up at on a high plinth.
Donatello made his features distorted, to be seen correctly and give maximum effect when viewed from
the ground. Statue is an attempt to surpass antiquity.

Reliefs modelled by Donatello for the church of S Antonia display his mastery of linear perspective (antique reliefs lack)
and pictorial narrative - detailed in Alberti's treatise.

His last reliefs, for church of S Lorezno in Florence, tentacle accomplishment was abandoned for the expression of
intense religious convictions.

Emotional violence is found in these moving scenes from the passion. Convey a spiritual message with brutal physical
realism of the lamentation.

Illustrates the moment immediately after the deposition of Christ from the cross - shows the distraught grief of Christ' s
mother and followers, shown in the expressive features, gestures and the composition as a whole.

Foreshortening devices and distortions enable the scene to be read from below.

None inspired more than Donatello, who began as an assistant on Ghiberti's first bronze doors, he soon emerged as
an independent artist.
His first sculptures (like medieval sculptors) were intended for architectural settings, usually niches.
Created a niche, for his St George. Niche was so shallow that sculpture protruded almost becoming a free standing
sculpture.
Large, free standing sculptures were rare in early fifteenth century Italy.
Donatello would have welcomed the commission which allowed him to rival the famous antique statue of Marcus
Aurelius in Rome.

NEW DEPARTURES

Link between the two greatest renaissance sculptors - Donatellos assistant and pupil Bertoldo di Giovanni, later

becomes the master of Michelangelo.

Renaissance ideals can be found in the concentrated forms of coins, tracing directly back to the imperial coinage of
ancient Rome. Coins, like the portrait bust, showed examples of rebirth.

Medal originally signified a coin out of circulation.

Medals became increasingly popular in humanist circles as a way to share personal fame. Were intended to stimulate
philosophical thought, just as religious messages inspired devotion.

Bronze statuettes reflect the same secular tastes - intended purely as works of art - medieval statuettes had been
devotional.

Appearance in fifteenth century had partly been promoted by descriptions in latin literature.

Same words can be applied to statuettes by Antonio del Pollaiuolo antique form and antique aesthetic attitudes were
born.

Problems Alberti alluded to in his treatise on sculpture, were rectified by Pillaiuolo, in an engraving of a battle between
nude men - may have had an allegorical significance for its original owner -

Lorenzo di Midici would have been aware if the medieval conception of Hercules as a prototype of the Christian knight.
Humanists restored him to pagan context, transforming him into a symbol of 'renaissance man', the mortal
who achieves immortality by his own efforts.

Philosophical meaning can be read into Antaeus, a giant who remained invincible as long as he remained in contact
with the earth.

Bronze statuettes were regarded as highly sophisticated and refined works of art, some had to ulterior meaning
or purpose at all.

The same antique skills were used on figures of christ and the saints.

Evident in humanist tombs .

Many can still be seen in many buildings in Florence and scattered among art collections of the world.

Most surviving examples are in stucco, moulded from terracotta from marble originals, probably designed to be
affordable for buyers who could not afford the marble or bronze.

Reliefs were also made in a new medium for sculpture - terracotta coated with coloured enamel glazes (usually used for
plates, jugs and other household utensils) - first developed by Luca della Robbia and exploited by his nephew
Andrea, whose sons continued to use it until after the mid sixteenth century.

Artists were praised by Alberti in 1435.

Luca della Robbia didn't strike after illusionism.

Intended to bring home the meaning of the bible to large and mainly illiterate audiences.

Pisanello was the first artist to make a speciality out of coins, creating a new art form. Each meal had a profile portrait
on the front and usually an allegorical device on the back.

"what precision of touch, what daring imagination the cunning master had, to model a table ornament, yet to conceive
such mighty forms' - remark made by the first century AD poet Statius on a statuette of hercules (a writer
popular with humanists).

There was a partition rather than a conflict in Renaissance thought between Christianity and humanism - encouraged
enhanced view of the dignity of man and the beauty of the physical world suggested in works of art.
Portrait busts were rare in comparison to other types of sculpture.
Reliefs of the virgin and child were man trade of sculptors in the mid-late fifteenth century - demand was so great in
paintings that a special class of painter called 'maddonnieri' was created to satisfy it.
Usually rectangular, sometimes circular, show the virgin at half length, often life size - derive from paintings rather
than sculptures - suggest a demand for images that were more life like than previous availability.

Luca della Robbia was a highly accomplished sculptor who had worked with marble and bronze before turning to
terracotta in about 1440. Seems to have been used as a cheap alternative to other mediums.
Tendency towards the illusionistic in fifteen century Italian sculpture outside of Florence.
Guido Mazzoni of Modena was one of the first and most gifted of a number of sculptors who modelled life size and life
like figures enacting scenes from gospels - usually from the nativity or lamentation.

ITALIAN PAINTING AND THE CHURCH

Three reasons why religious images were introduced into churches: (Elaborated in a passage from a thirteenth century
theological dictionary providing justification and a program for religious paintings)- For the illiterate to learn from
scriptures in imagery rather than written form. - To feel emotion as if actually present in the pictures.

- To help people remember what they have seen, rather than forget what they have heard.

FRA ANGELICO, UCCELLO AND PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA

Fifteenth century was a period of reform movements within the church - before the protestant reformation led mainly by
ascetic monks and friars who tightened up the rules of their own orders.

Culminated in the 1490's with Savonarola (dominican preacher who denounced the medici and their artists, poets and
philosophers).

Before Savonarola a new note of austerity had been struck in Italian religious art, counterbalancing and complimenting
contemporary revival of antique forms.

Fra Angelico (Guido di Pietro) answered the call for religious pantings, all of his were of a religious theme and were
mainly painted for the dominican friary.

He frescoed the walls of the friary of st marco in florence with the help of a number of assistance. He completed the
walls of the cloister, chapter house, corridor on the upper floor and 41 cells.

In each of the cells (small square rooms) was a large fresco (around 6 feet 1.8 meter high). frescoes were painting
beside the window giving the appearance of two openings, one into the spiritual world and one into the physical
world.

The figures shown as if they were really there.

"The flood, painted as a lunette below the vaulted ceiling of the cloister of S Maria Novella, Florence, vividly expresses
the horror of the Biblical cataclysm with figures struggling for survival" WHA - Pg 439

The flood shows some gruesome and disturbing images around Noah's ark. His painting shows elements of perspective.

Uccello experimented with pictorial perspective, having been unsatisfied with Brunelleschi and Alberti's schemes. He
used it to expressive and imaginative effect rather than illusionistic.

His obsession with geometrical problems was typical of fifteenth century artists.

He covered the abstract, pictorial and practical application of geometry and mathematics.

Francesca's interests in mathematics may have stemmed from his practice as a painter.

The colours used by Francesca makes other artists work look garish.

Landscapes with natural and true to life scenes became popular in the fifteenth century, showing figures as if actually
there.

Previously backgrounds were filled with gold, suddenly disappearing due to economic and aesthetic reasons.

Pinturicchio painted landscapes and skies as backgrounds behind the figures in his paintings for a church in Perugia.

Ghirlando used the 'strip cartoon' system used in frescoes.

Paolo Uccello seems to have been more interested in visual reality, rather than spiritual significance, he was obsessed
with representing solids in space.

Uccello depicts mazzocchi (multi faceted rings of wood or wicker used as a foundation for a type of headdress - WHA
pg. 439), often used as a test in perspective exercises due to their difficulty to draw.

Piero della Francesca also shared the same obsession and dedicated much of his time to them. He composed treaties
based on geometrical shapes (cube, sphere, cone, cylinder), perspective and wrote a handbook on the abacus for
merchants.
Numbers had a religious significance - "hence the preoccupation of his time with 'the golden section' supposed to
provide the key to the harmony of the heavens - a line divided in such a way that the smaller part is to the
greater as the greater is to the whole" sounds simple, but cannot be worked out as a numerical ratio.
In later paintings he recorded the architectural space and mass with scientific precision.
The light in his art is evenly diffused, making shadows barely perceptible, no contrasts between the powdery colours he
used.
His work is dependant on mystical theories of mathematicians.
He may have been influenced by Flemish paintings, incorporating his home town in his painting 'baptism of christ' as
Jan van Eyck incorporated a landscape into his 'Madonna of chancellor Rolin. van Eyck's landscape is seen though
a window, whereas Piero's surrounds the figures becoming a bigger part of the painting.

Appreciated in there own right by patrons and painters.

Domenico Ghirlandio signed a contract for future frescoes, agreeing to include 'figures, rocks, buildings, castles, cities,
mountains, hills, plains, costumes, animals, birds and beasts of every kind'.
There were no empty parts in the two's paintings, unlike the golden backgrounds that simply filled the voids behind the
figures.
Strip cartoon style was outdated by large scenes taking up a full wall.

SECULAR PAINTING

During the 15th century paintings were majority religious.

Mythological scenes were less rare but given a moral, possibly religious, significance.

Increase in secular art in the late fifteenth century.

Portraits were no longer restricted to members of ruling houses, but were still rare compared to images of the virgin
and child.
Records written in tuscany before 1550 name around 500 religious paintings and sculptures and less than 40 secular
paintings.
Fifteenth century was a recovery period from the major depression in the fourteenth century.
Merchants and bankers usually interested in trade and agriculture, started to invest in culture, which had acquired
prestige value thanks to the humanists.

Renaissance style buildings were less expensive than gothic style to make, in terms of materials and man hours.

Several other artists were also goldsmiths, such as Vercocchio, Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, also changing their profession to
painting.

Paintings preserved due to having low intrinsic value, gold would have been melted down resulting in them being
forgotten artists.

Shortage of price metals may have played a part in diverting peoples talents to painting.

The cassone was a large chest used for storing clothes and linen - often made to hold the brides trousseau, adorned
with the coats of arms of her and her husbands families.

Cassini were often elaborate, to reflect the importance of marriage, forgetting political and business alliances between
leading families.

Decorated with classical ornamentation, painted with brightly coloured, figurative scenes from history or mythology.
Some had religious themes, probably used by nuns when entering convents.

The cassone remained popular until after the mid fifteenth century

Attention shifted from the value of materials to the skill of the artists, a result from the shortage of gold and silver.
Pallaiuolo abandoned his career as a goldsmith and turned to painting as a profession, due to the art in gold not being a
lasting fame.

Household materials were used to produce small items, designed and decorated with great skill.
Household furniture was generally plain, made from wood. On special occasions it would be covered with woven silks or
carpets.

Some cassones, intended for the bride, had paintings of nudes inside the lid. These would only be seen by the bride
and were probably intended as lucky charms.

BOTTICELLI

Larger and finer mythological paintings were expected to be charming in the original, magical sense of the word.

Earlier secular works of this size would usually be intended for private houses (private apartments of palaces) and were
usually tapestries on chivalric themes, woven in France or Flanders.

Tapestries were the most costly large scale art, more expensive than paintings.

Boticelli's graceful, almost weightless figures differ completely from those of Masaccio, Piero della Francesca and
Uccello.

French and Flemish tapestries generally have medieval themes of chivalry and courtly love, whereas La Primavera
is obviously from classical mythology.

Mercury, messenger of the gods, became regarded as the patron of those who tried to access the mysteries of the
ancient world. Hermetic philosophers were named after his greek title, Hermes. 'He calls the mind back to
heavenly things through the power of reason' - Marsilio Ficino (WHA pg 446)

La Primavera was probably influenced by the ideas of Mercury.

The mixture between classical mythology and astrology and Christian morality (as in the letter) was a typical Florentine
Neoplatonic thought.

The idea that a moral lesson could be hidden within a painting, for only the intended to understand, and the mystery
would be lost as soon as it was revealed to anyone else, may have been shared by Botticelli.

Botticelli seems to have known Alberti's treatise on painting, which says that a painting of pictorial narrative should
have "abundance and rarity of object, several figures, some fully clothed, others wholly or partly nude in different
poses, frontal or profile 'with hands up and fingers apart' or 'arms relaxed and feet together', each having its own
action and bending of limb'. WHA pg 448.

Interest in antiquity was complemented by the preoccupation with astrology. Courts at this time had an astrologer to
cast horoscopes and moments to make important decisions.

Astrology was condemned by early Christians, revived in Europe in by the twelfth century, so influential that it became
tolerated by the Church.

The planets and constellations carried the names of pagan deities, but were generally believed to reveal the will of God.
Astrology, astronomy and Christianity were reconciled.

The signs of the Zodiac are a recurring feature of renaissance art.

Astrology was considered as a way to predict the future and discover the rules of the cosmic order.

One of the earliest is La Primavera by Sandro Botticelli, created in a scale that would usually be reserved for religious
images.

La Primavera may have been a cheaper alternative, as there is a tapestry like feel to it's composition. It's flat
composition and flowers on the ground are similar to the 'thousand flower' wall hangings, although the best
of these is later in date than La Primavera.

Painting was probably created for Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici, while Ficino was taking an interest in his
education. In 1478, when the painting was probably made, Ficino wrote to Lorenzo in the form of a horoscope.

Palazzo Schifanioa's walls of the great hall were divided into 12 vertical sections, each one devoted to a month of the
Zodiac calendar.

A few humanists who believed man should be his own master, thought astrology to be fatal, eventually they
all succumbed to the lure of the antique mysteries surrounding astrology.

The art of printing with moveable type was first developed in Europe in the mid fifteenth century - invented in China
400 years before.

Invented to issue religious texts, and remained the product of printing presses for centuries.

Some humanists disapproved the new invention. Humanists had little to do with each other until the last decade of the
century. Aldus Manutius set up a printing press in Venice and printed the first accurate Greek and Latin texts.
Printing then began to affect the intellectual life of Europe.

An edition of the bible was printed by Johann Gutenberg (1455) and was the first major work. The earliest printed books
were believed to be replacements for manuscripts, many printers left space for the large letters at the beginning
of chapters,

MANTEGNA AND BELLINI

Small painting of St Sebastian by Andrea Mantegna - emphasizes many characteristics of Italian art from the previous
four decades.

Spatial clarity through perspective, naturalistic landscape/background, antique architectural/decorative

motifs, idealised human being.

Signed in Greek as if to underline classicism.

At this date, venice had the most antique sculpture, had the closest contacts with Greece, much of which was Venetian
possession from the early thirteenth century until 1460.

These antiquities had an impression, his style began to show elements of greek and roman sculpture - more than any
other artist at this time.

Vasari wrote that Mantegna 'always maintained that the good antique statues were more perfect and beautiful than
anything in nature'. He believed that the masters of antiquity had combined in one figure the perfections which
are rarely found together in one individual and had thus produced single figures of surpassing beauty' - WHA p.g.
450

In many 15th century religious pictures, the pagan world is symbolically shown to be in ruins.

Mantegna trained in Padua, university main centres for humanist studies in Italy/all of Europe - local artistic style still
mainly gothic.

Christianity is personified by St.Sebastian.

St Sebastian was a patron of the sick, he help evoked especially in times of plague.
Outbreaks of plague (possibly bubonic) happened every 15 years, which is why he appears so frequently in Venetian
art.

INTERNATIONAL HUMANISM

In the last decades of the fifteenth century, Italy began to influence Europe.

Italianate tastes were unusual before the sixteenth century.

Naked putti were used in the woodcut capital letters - figures were used in learning long before the renaissance
paintings reached Northern Europe.

King of Hungary acquired renaissance art, hired an Italian architect to to rebuild his palaces in the Tuscan style,
with Italian sculptors to decorate them with carved marble fountains and frescoes (only fragments survive)
New style carried across the continent by illuminated manuscripts of classical texts and mythological engravings, along
a network of personal contacts between humanists.

DURER

Albrecht Durer created a Northern version of the renaissance, in the context of international humanism.

Durer began as a goldsmith (like many other Florentine artists) he encountered mythological scenes by Pollaiuolo and
Mantegna.

Not classical subjects that he's famous for - all but one painting religious.

Durer brought the process to maturity.

Completed his apprenticeship under a Nuremberg painter - also a maker of woodcuts.

Went to Venice - 1494, which was starting to emerge as the most important centre for humanist book printing primarily to study art and complete his artistic education.

Practice of making metal plate prints came from Germany and Italy in fifteenth century - result of combining two older
techniques - carving woodblocks and ornamental silver engraving.
Sharp eye/cunning hand - shown by his landscape in his painting St Eustace - delighted in drawing such things.
Kunst - meaning knowledge and art.
"is embedded in nature; he who can extract it has it. No man can ever make a beautiful image out of his private
imagination unless he have replenished his mind by much painting of life. That can no longer be called private

but has become Kunst acquired and gained by study, which germinates, grows and becomes fruitful of it's kind." Durer WHA p.g 455

More drawings survive that are attributed to him than any other artist - except Leonardo Divinci.

Suggests that he was highly conscious of himself, preoccupied with his status.

In 1512 he wrote "this great art of painting has been held in high esteem by the might kings many hundred years ago.
They made the outstanding artists rich and treated them with distinction because they felt that the great masters
had an equality with God, as it is written. For, a good painter is full of figures, and if it were possibly for him to
live on forever he would always have to pour forth something new from the inner ideas of shich Plato writes" Durer - WHA p.g. 456

Reference to Plato recalls Florentine humanism - Durers attitude was different.

Remarkable statement of faith in the value of the individual - initiated by the Italian renaissance - by the end of the
fifteenth century had achieved more than a revival of antique forms.

Insatiable urge to draw whatever he observed.

Painted three half lengths (two life size) and made several drawings of himself. Self portrait marked with his initials, few
painters signed there work at this time. (1st)
Ranked among craftsmen along with all other painters, carpenters, tailors etc.
Painters higher regarded in Italy.
Depicted himself as a well dressed - seems to be first self initiated self portrait. (2nd)
Took up hierarchic frontal pose reserved for kings and Christ, whose features he incorporated as his own - partly a literal
interpretation of doctrine 'imitation of Christ' Durer believed artistic talent was a creative gift from God. (3rd)

More interested in the god given gift to create than Plato's theories.
'Only the powerful artists will be able to understand this strange speech, that I speak the truth: one man may sketch
something with his on on half a sheet of paper in one day, or may cut into a tiny piece of wood with his little iron,
and it turns out to be better and more artistic than anothers big work at which its author labors with the utmost
diligence for a whole year. And this gift is miraculous. For Gd often gives the ability to learn and the insight to
make something good to one man the life of whom nobody is found in his own days, and nobody has lived before
him for a long time, and nobody comes after him very soon" Durer - WHA p.g 456

THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY IN EUROPE

INTRODUCTION

Artists took their place among the great minds of the age (for the first time) - outstanding feature of the sixteenth
century.

Dominated by a few artists, all Italians apart from Durer - exceptional in other ways - fame and influence international,
spread by printed account of their careers - reproductive engravings.

Idea that architecture, paintings and sculpture were liberal arts due mainly to Alberti - primarily a writer.

Main event in sixteenth century great movement for religious reform.

Recent new ideas of printing - enabled the writings of reformers to spread widely and quickly.

Western Christendom split into two main denominations.

Luther admired the imitation of christ - yearned for a more a more direct and personal religion, evolved a new
distinctive theory of justification of faith - main point on which protestants separated from the catholics - theology
that placed burden of right and wrong on the individual conscience.

As far as the visual arts are concerned, humanism, the devotio modern and the counter reformation had a more
positive influence than protestantism.

Luther first protested that the poor did not pay for the rebuilding of st peters and it should come from the pope.

Knowledge an practice of visual arts were among the accomplishments of a 'universal man'.
Leonardo da Vinci was a scientist/experimental thinker, Michelangelo - poet - known as supreme artists together with
Raphael and Titian (no other claims to fame) - overshadowed western art until 19th century.
Protestant reformation called in the teachings, practices of the catholic church and traditions from European culture including visual arts.
What may have remained a minor dispute, became an international issue on which every Christian was obliged to take
sides (Martin Luther launched his first protest in 1517 in Wittenberg).
Protestant reformation beliefs originated much earlier - humanists praised the importance of the individual.
Sceptical about Aristotelianism of medieval theology.
Humanist Desiderius Erasmus from Rotterdam said to have 'laid the egg which Luther hatched" - WHA p.g - 458
The imitation of Christ (probably Thomas A Kempis) work on anti worldly and anti intellectual piety first printed in 1472
- repeatedly printed in Latin, French, German and English versions probably had as much influence as the Bible testified to a movement to reform within the Roman church, gathered strength in the 16th century, became self
transforming force of the counter reformation.

Indifferent to sculpture, opposed the destruction of religious images.

"I approached the task of destroying images by first tearing them out of my heart, for when they are no longer in the
heart they can do no harm when seen by the eyes" Luther, 1525, WHA p.g. 458

Crucifixes were to be praiseworthy and respected only as images of memorial or witness - more extreme protestants
thought them sinful (John Calvin who dominated protestant world after the mid century, but more than one piece
of art was inspired by protestantism in his life time).

REFORM AND EARLY SIXTEENTH CENTURY ART IN THE NORTH

Forms, motifs and techniques of Italian were only gradually accepted in the north.

Tomb was obviously Italian, Italian imagery and controlled naturalism. Had gothic statues of saints (could be mistaken
for gothic later on).

Italian renaissance style associated with humanist learning.

Conspicuos monument needed to commemorate former tudor dynasty (Henry VII) (had reestablished royal power in
England after 30 years of civil war) his son looked to italy for a sculptor. Commissioned to Pietro Torrigiano
(student with Michelangelo).

HIERONYMOUS BOSCH

Most interesting painter of the time.

outer panels, when closed, represent the world under flood, the garden of eden on the left panel, hell on the right illustrating the origin, indulgence and consequence of sin.

Completely different to the general renaissance themes.

Bosch's view of hell was not the same as medieval artists, rather than symbols a hallucinatory image with the
new techniques of pictorial representation - image depicted with great precision, giving a strange sense of reality.

"He endeavoured to find for his fantastic pictures the most out-of-the-way things, but they were always true to nature"
- Spaniard on Bosch, mid sixteenth century WHA p.g. 461

Work greatly admired and collected by Philip II of Spain, a patron on Titian.

Apparently worked in isolation but conversant with a range of religious, astrological, astronomical and travel literature.
Created disturbing, original imagery.
The garden of earthly delights (large triptych) is probably his finest work - subject matter and original function
still unknown. Named lust, or strawberry painting in the late sixteenth century.

Bosch stresses the bad sides of humankind rather than the beauty.
Italian artists celebrated human flesh, celestial harmony, whereas Bosch condemned the pleasures and depicted agents
of the devil.

Copied in expensive tapestry.

GRUNEWALD

German painter Mathis Gothardt Neithardt, known as Grunewald since the seventeenth century.

Most violent depiction of the crucifixion, boy torn/bruised with a blood stained cloth around his loins. Heavily hangs on
the cross, lengthened arms suggest the weight of Jesus' body.

Seems to have been inspired by mystical writings of St Bridget of Sweden, first printed at the end of the fifteenth
century.

Particular purpose and meaning, permanently visible where patients would spiritually prepare themselves for medical
treatment. mainly for the diseases of blood and skin (including syphilis which struck Europe in the late 1490s)

Name was long forgotten.

Major work a large polyptych painted for the high altar of the hospital chapel in the monastery of St Anthony of
Isenheim.

PROTESTANT ART

German artists suffered due to lack of patronage.

Shows both new and old testament rather than just the old as a predecessor to the new.

Basel - one of the great countries of printing and book production, humanism and protestantism.
Demand for portraits of reformers in Protestant countries.
Most common art, apart from satirical prints.
Attempts were made to depict Lutherian ideas and reformed religious art by Lucas Cranach the Younger, Holbein and
Durer.
Incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection of christ were the essentials of Christianity (to Luther).
Durer created obvious protestant art - meant for city halls not churches.
Duper became a fan of Luther after a personal crisis.

Durers figures (St John, St Peter, St Paul, St Mark) intended to exemplify the four humours or temperaments - sanguine,
phlegmatic, choleric and melancholic - elements forming the basis of all creation.

His painting may have been a plea for balance and sanity.
"now in my old age I have come to see...that simplicity is the ultimate goal of art" - Durer - WHA p.g 465
Completely abandoned secular works in his last years as an artist.

THE HIGH RENAISSANCE IN ITALY

First quarter of 16th century one of political stress/almost constant warfare in Italy.
Florence still an important artistic centre.
Northern Italy twice invaded by the French.
Rome sacked by German and Spanish mercenaries.
High renaissance art was serene and elevated conception, had great controlled energy and classical balance.
Creation of a small group of artists - Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael.
Individualists - never formed a group although similar.

LEONARDO DA VINCI

Florentine painter, architect and biographer.

Said that great minds often produce more by working less, searching for perfect ideas which they express with their
hands.

Took little interest in Humanist ideas.

His carful study of plants and organic growth led him to create his paintings according to a similar system - in a way
which his compositions were smooth showing no beginning or end.

Chiaroscuro, sfumato, and aerial perspective, invented and perfected by Leonardo - eventually used by many european
artists.

Chiaroscuro - Light and dark modulated to create effects of relief or modelling. - WHA p.g 468

Piero's backgrounds painted as if in the foreground in same colours, Leonardos are muted, greyish.

Vasari said he lead the modern style - notable for being bold with a subtle likeness to nature with correct proportions.
Only created a small amount of works.
Some of his paintings (including his fist) remain unfinished.
Designed buildings as an architect - none of which ever built.
His pages of illustrations never prepared to be shared - nor his notes of artistic theory, human anatomy, natural history,
flight of birds, properties of water and mechanical drawings.

Didn't learn latin until he was 40.

Independent of classical and medieval thought - possibly first thinker to be so.
Trained as a painter and sculptor, probably in the studio of Andrea del Vercocchio.
His interests expanded to include all of the arts and natural phenomena.
Appetite for knowledge - Aristotle called 'entelechy' - condition where potentiality becomes actuality.
Passion of the human form and direction, lead him to be the first to produce anatomically correct drawings.
Thought that scientists were incorrect about the anatomy.
Tried to create a medium that would let him work slower than fresco allowed, unfortunately not durable and showed
signed of decay even during his lifetime.

Sfumato - misty, soft blending of colours. - WHA p.g 468

Aerial perspective - indicates distance through grading of tone and muted colour contrasts.
Comparing his work with 15th century (Piero della Francesa) shows the difference between two ways of seeing and
painting.
Rendered the most expressive facial features - give haunting portraits such as his Mona Lisa.

HARMONY, UNITY AND RAPHAEL

Leonardo opened the eyes of artists to great new possibilities.

Contrapposto - where one part of the body is twisted in the opposite direction to another.

Fra Bartolommeo, even though originally opposed to him learned new things - had the problem of rendering three
dimensional naturalism with symmetry and poise.
Raphael (and other renaissance artists) shared this problem.
He reached the solution convincingly in more than one painting.

Idea of grouping Virgin and Child with infant St John was Leonard's - Raphael derived his organic system of composition
and chiaroscuro from him.

Leonardo's idea of harmonious unity inspired architects as well as artists.

Rome became the centre of European art since antiquity.

He created paintings that alluded to the four branches of humanist learning - theology, philosophy, poetry and
jurisprudence. Walls devoted to each one.

Final wall maintains a perfect balance between different stands in humanist culture.

Donato Bramante first to use ideas in architecture - more radical than predecessors - initiated a new phase in
architecture.
Bramante may be the reason why Raphael was given the chance to decorate the popes private apartments in the
vatican.

Reference to Leonardos paintings found in his fresco.

Thought that Heraclitus referred to Michelangelo and plato to Leonardo (in Raphael's fresco).

MICHELANGELO

While Raphael was painting the Stanza della Signature, Michelangelo was working on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Michelangelo was unsociable, mistrustful, moody, untidy, obsessed with his work - archetype of 'man of genius' - was a
poet as well as sculptor, painter and architect. Come from a Florentine family with claims to nobility, although
became poor.

Created larger plan life-size statue of David - seen as symbolising the new republic by some Florentines.

Images intended to be seen my the pope sat on his throne - chancel. Read in reverse and upside down to anyone else
visiting.

Between thrones of prophets and Sybil's - nude adolescents. Designed to hide the joins between upper zones of the
fresco.

Interpreted as wingless angels with athletic limbs - flexing muscles as if proud of gods work.

Inspired by whole ceiling when designing a set of tapestries to hang beneath - paid more than Michelangelo was to
complete whole ceiling.

Michelangelo evolved new conception of architecture - an ornament in itself.

Works of this order have never been creating at the same time before.
Two artists nothing alike in background - Raphael son of a painter, with traditional medieval craftsmanship, ended him
brief life as a wealthy man, owning a palace in Rome, with a staff of assistance and servants.

First sculpture of this size carved since antiquity.

Originally intended for cathedral exterior.
Hands and feet oversized, swollen veins and muscles.
Conceived the sistine chapel ceiling as an imaginary structure rising above the chapel.
Almost single handedly created the fresco.
Structure provided three distinct zones for figurative paintings - ancestors of christ, figures of prophets, first three
periods into which the the history of the world was divided into at the time - God creating the sun and moon, land
and water, God and Adam with outstretched arms - giving Adam spirit that lets man move, thing and feel, Scene
with the creation of eve and expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden. Final scenes devoted to Noah, man chosen by
god to continue the human race.

Raphael first to respond to the impact of the ceiling - just have seen some before completing his 'school of athens' and
his figure of Heraclitus.

THE VENETIAN HIGH RENAISSANCE

Venice remained one of the richest cities in Europe throughout the century.
Flourishing industrial centre for textiles and glass.
Only important Italian city to resist political and economic domination by France, Spain or papacy.
One of few that remained republican.
Venetian art followed the same independent path - due to particular pattern of patronage.

GIORGIONE

Giovanni Bellini still the best painter in venice in 1506 - as written by Durer.
Giorgione and Titian becoming well known.
Giorgione only has one surviving documented work - highly damaged fresco.
No more than 6 easel paintings can be attributed to him - abundance evidence of his fame.

Introduced a new type of technique, new style and new type of picture.

Made no proprietary drawings.

First to exploit new technique of working of canvas rather than panel.Used pigments mixed with oil and flexible resins
(rather than hard resins used in low countries) Great freedom of brushwork with thick and richly opaque colours.
Began compositions by roughly mapping out on the canvas.
Evoked atmosphere and mood eloquently.
Can be compared to Raphaels 'school of Athens'.
Painting of two nude women and two clothed men, unknown if Giorgione or Titian.

TITIAN

Dependant on public commissions for fame and fortune - even though had numerous private commissions.

Had knowledge of recent developments in Tuscan art.

Became the founder of painting - made oil paint on canvas main medium of later western art - exploiting all possibilities
for the first time.

Developed a painterly technique, using colour to emphasise.

Created 'love poetry'.

Only used mythological figures/stories to create new and original compositions.

Given his first chance to reveal his brilliance when ask to paint the assumption of the virgin for the high altar of S Maria
dei Frari - largest ever painted in Venice - designed to catch the eye of anyone entering the nave.
Didn't stick to venetian conventions.
Used contrapposto technique. Possibly greatest Renaissance painter of all.
Had none of da Vinci's scientific interests Michelangelo's religious and poetic interests. Not like Raphael who was an
architect as well as a painter.

Rendered forms and textures with amazing skill.

Made himself the most sought after painter in Europe - with help from his writer friend Pietro Aretino.
Enabled him to work for whoever he wanted, at his own pace with his own choice of subject - no other earlier artist had
this freedom.
Attitudes to his subjects of paintings becomes clearer in his 'poesies' - erotic mythological scenes he created for Philip II
of Spain.
Would use his fingers as a tool - not a new technique but outcome of a new attitude towards painting.
Titians paintings were equivalents not imitations of the real world.

TINTORETTO AND VERONESE

In 1550'a Titian worked mainly for Philip II of Spain - allowing his assistants to create works (usually copies of earlier
ones) for less important patrons.

By far the most famous Venetian artist - painted little for his city.
Public commissions went to younger artists - Tintoretto and Veronese.
Tintoretto began in Titians studio where he learned his technique.
Apparently aimed to combine the colouring of Titian with the drawing of Michelangelo.
He was the reverse of Titian in character - volatile, unworldly.
Grew up during the counter reformation.
Veronese added irrelevant details to his images - including dogs, dwarfs, german soldiers and parrot.
Devout catholic.
Paintings aren't merely decorative - creates imaginary worlds with elegance and grandeur - of marble, gold, expensive
fabric.

MANNERISM AND MANNERISMS

Sometimes used to describe Palladio and Tintoretto.

Has a range of meanings.
Used in 16th century writings to describe social behaviour.
Highly prized quality of stylishness which implied ease of manner, virtuosity, fluency and refinement.
Found in antique statues admired by Leonardo, Raphael and Michelangelo.
Used as a derogatory term to describe mid to late 16th century artists and their paintings with bright colours, distorted
perspective and over refined detail.

May be the reaction against or continuation of high renaissance - maybe an expression of the spiritual crisis at the time
or sophisticated art created for arts sake - stylish style exemplifying aesthetic theories of the 16th century.

PIETER BRUEGEL THE ELDER

Many Flemish artists visited Rome and returned to the north where they practiced Italianate styles - favoured by the
church and state.

Bruegel began painting moralising subjects of a strange nature referencing the style of Bosch.
Few of his works could be contemplated with a straight face.
Worked for private collectors of educated taste.

EL GRECO

Italian mannerisms disregarded by Bruegel transformed into deeply emotional religious art by El Greco.

Aim of El Greco's art was to arouse religious fervour and elevate the spirit above the everyday world of sensory
perceptions.

Translated physical into incandescent spirituality.

THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY IN EUROPE

Began painting icons in Byzantine style for Greek community.

Succumbed to the influence of Titian, Tintoretto and Michelangelo.
Visited Rome during counter reformation.
El Greco offered to paint something more 'decent and virtuous' when Michelangelo's 'last judgement' was attackedpossibly a myth, but indicates his ambition.

Used foreshortening of the body to a non illusionistic effect.

Left behind traditional iconography.
Was a visionary - described as a great philosopher by a contemporary.

INTRODUCTION

Rise of Dutch republic most momentous event in the history of the seventeenth century.

Netherlands rebelled against Spanish rule, eventually becoming one of the richest European states.

NEW BEGINNINGS IN ROME

Coincided with the decline of Spain and thirty years war which devastated Germany and destroyed the authority of the
Holy Roman Empire.
Revolt against long established authority throughout Europe.
Advances made in science, astronomy and mathematics.
Descartes wrote and published his works on the Dutch republic.
Speculate thinking didn't have an immediate effect on the arts.

New life breathed into old forms by two artists - Annibale Carracci and Caravaggio.

Theory would provide basis of all academic teaching for over two centuries.

Later seen as the founders of idealism and naturalism.

Both equally admired in their own time.
Caravaggio renders texture with illusionistic skill.
Within a decade Caravaggism spread through Italy to Spain.
Influx of pictures with dark backgrounds and un idealized illuminated characters.
Pietro Bellori claimed that Caracci saves painting from mannerism.
Both artists differed in their working methods.
Caracci made preliminary drawings where Caravaggio didnt.
He was a draftsman and would draw everything.
Wasn't a theorist, but his work came to be a rationalized version of 16th century aesthetic theory, substituting
neoplatonic metaphysical 'idea' - derived from art itself.
He organised gatherings of artists called the Academia deli Incamminati (academy of the initiated).
Enabled artists to discuss problems in a calm environment.
Academy generally applied to literary associations at the time.

First academy of artists established in Florence, 1563 - supplemented training gained in a workshop.

Growth of art collecting seemed to coincide with the rise of academies - comtemporary and old masters - led to art
dealing.

Attention diverted from large scale paintings to easel works - now occupying Europe with prime importance. - unique
and unparalleled in other cultures.

Acadamies sprung up elsewhere in Italy and northern Europe - most notably Paris - art education more organised than
anywhere else.

BAROQUE ART AND ARCHITECTURE

Baroque first used as a term of critical abuse.

No longer used as a criticism but still used to describe a period in 17th century art.

Creation of strong minded individualists.

Derived from two words current in the sixteenth century.

Baroco - Italian - referred to tortuous medieval pedantry.
Barocco - Portuguese - referred to a deformed pearl.
Both signified deviation from the norm (mid 18th century theorists used them to describe works of art which seemed to
them impure or irrational)
Predominately religious emotionalism, dynamic energy, exuberant decorative richness.
Born in Rome and spread to Europe - including European colonies in America and India.
Not easy to define Baroque from other seventeenth century styles (such as Naturalist and Classicism styles)
Art of 17th century best described as a whole due to superficial differences and deeper similarities (various stylistic
impulses).
Some great European artists, apart from Rubens, born within a few years of each other.
Rubens: 1577 - 1640
Nicolas Poussin: 1594 - 1665
Gianlorenzo Bernini: 1598 - 1664
Anthony van Dyck: 1599 - 1641
Diego de Valazquez: 1599 - 1660
Claude Lorraine: 1600 - 1682
Rembrandt van Rijn: 1606 - 1669

RUBENS AND VAN DYCK

Rubens stands our due to his age and social background.

Lived and traveled in Italy while pursuing his artistic career.

Many of his religious paintings were for the Jesuits churches.

I have never lacked courage to undertake any design, however vast or diversified in subject Rubens in a letter in
1621 WHA p.g. 575

Above quotes confirmed by his 3.7 meter high canvas illustrating the life of Marie de Medici - now in the Louvre, Paris.

Active high ranking diplomat as well as a painter.

Son of a prominent lawyer, given a classical education lived in a noble household for a period to be given aristocratic
manners, trained as an artist after this.
Appointed court painter in 1609 (Antwerp, Hasburg regent of the Netherlands).
Most highly esteemed artist in Europe - same position as Titian in previous century.
Closely studied works of the Italian masters, copied in drawings and sketches.
Learnt from the copies he made - explored pictorial representation.
Had a strong individual character - seen in all works from sketches to paintings.
Inspired by Titian, Veronese and Bruegel.
Gave a new, personal idea of female beauty (full-breasted, broad-waisted, womanly, dimpling of flesh)
In his rape of the daughters of leucippus the two women are almost a mirror image of each other (common in 16th
century paintings). Rubens used them to enhance dynamic movement.
Rubens made studies from life for characters, building up final paintings through colour and light, not line.
I am by natural instinct better fitted to execute very large works than little curiosities Rubens in a letter in 1621 WHA
p.g. 573

Much of his work was started by his team of assistants, he would only add the final touches to a painting (adjusted his

prices according to the extent of his participation).

The rate of painting from his studio has been likened to a factory - misleading as it was a studio directed by a genius,
who never let it slip from his control.

He bought a country estate in 1635, surrounding country inspired a series of paintings, revealing a new aspect of his
art.

Paintings were clearly for himself, with a personal meaning - maybe linked to his land ownership/new wife/family.
Possibly a celebration.

Rubens most notable assistant - Anthony van Eyck.

THE EASEL PAINTING IN ITALY

Painted both mythological and religious subjects.

Excelled in portraits.
Appointed court painter to Charles I in England.
He portrayed Charles I as the perfect renaissance gentleman.

Despite the fame of Rubens and van Dyck, the art most sought after was by Italian artists.

BERNINI

Bernini was primarily a sculptor - also a gifted architect, painter and poet.

Fast worker, efficient organiser of large team of assistants.

BORROMINI

Artemisia Gentieschi - first prominent Italian artist since Sofonisba Anguissolo and Lavinia Fontana.
Follower of Caravaggio.
Painting showed her distrust of men.
Giovanni Francesco Barbieri - another artist from Bologna.
Had a more painterly style, lighter palette and less dramatic lighting.
Wanted to satisfy a wider audience with his work.
His work was almost as extensive and Rembrandt's.

Extrovert, sociable, witty in conversation, aristocratic in manner and a good family man, religious - had little interest in
philosophical speculation.
Dominated the artistic scene in Rome for half a century.
First made his name with mythological groups and portrait busts.
Received his first papal commission when 26 years old.
His designs were traditional but in a new way and offended some contemporaries.
Sculptures were realistic.
Stone carver by training.
Employed as a decorative sculptor and draftsman in Rome.

Later worked under Bernini.

POUSSIN AND CLAUDE

He was morose, quarrelsome, frustrated and neurotic, eventually committed suicide.

Bernini said he was sent to destroy architecture.
He actually had a greater knowledge of ancient Roman architecture than Bernini.
More concerned with structural problems, work has stronger intellectual than emotional appeal.
Inspired geometrician - based sculptures on Galilean conceptions of planetary orbits.

Most distinguished painters working in Rome were French (in mis seventeenth century) - Nicholas Poussin and Claude
Lorraine.

Poussin - well educated, could speak Latin, slow as an artist.

Concentrated on relatively small pictures for collectors - shared intellectual interests.

Worked in the studio of Domenchino, mastered their style, commissioned for large alter piece in St Peters - work did not
please so never created work for a Church or other Roman public building.
Took inspiration from Venetians such as Titian.

Attention had to be paid to his work as it needed to be understood rather than just viewed.
Claude Lorraine and Poussin probably knew each other - got grouped together.
Were completely different in art as in character.
Claude - no classical education, trained as a pastry cook.
He learned to paint as an assistant to a decorative artist in Rome.
'Classical landscape' virtually his creation - seen as one of the highest forms of art work thanks to him.
Had not been recognised as an independent genre until mid seventeenth century (except in the Netherlands).
His landscapes were bought by kings and aristocracy.
By 1635 his works were being forged, due to his success.
Have acquired a timeless appearance.
Represent the pastoral world of a classical golden age.
Spent a lot of time with sketchbook, observing undulating pastures and natural light.
Principal innovation was his treatment of light - unifying his whole composition.
His use of light connects him with his contemporaries (who were diverse in every other way) Caravaggio, Bernini,
Rembrandt, Vermeer and Velazquez.

VELAZQUEZ

Among the many artists who visited Rome in the mid seventeenth century.

Brought out his painterly style and indifference to Raphael's linear.

Las Maninas - his highest achievement - highly self conscious, calculated demonstration of what easel painting could
achieve - seventeenth century Italian called it 'the theology of painting' as it was a painting about a painting.

Shows himself as an artist while creating a group portrait - used reflections in mirrors (like van Eyck's Arnolfini portrait)
has several layers of meaning.

Painting likened to a snapshot - due to un prepared poses of the characters.

Included copies of two works by Rubens on far wall of his painting.

DUTCH PAINTING

Drawn into the city by ancient ruins of antiquity not contemporary art.
Indirectly influenced by Caravaggio - sculpture like realism.
Philip IV took a liking to him and bought his work throughout his career - his collection allowed Valequez to see the
splendour of Venetian art - Titians poesies.
He eventually went beyond titians handling (subtle, broken and fluid strokes) thinly applying paint so the canvas could
show through.

Rendered with great naturalism - light and depiction of characters.

Up close his figures appear as smears and blobs of paint.
Figures seem to have come together accidentally.
Spectator standing in the position where the king and queen would be in the painting - feel involved almost in the
scene.
Carries the secondary theme of painting as a liberal art.

Dutch republic important in the intellectual life of the seventeenth century - country had freedom of speculation.

Aristocracy went out with the split from Spain.

Easel painting was exclusively being bought - brought it to the height of painting due to development of all genres
(landscapes, seascapes, portraits, low life scenes, still life etc).

Claimed that european art found its most distinctive form in Dutch seventeenth century.

Dominated by protestants, protestant denominations were tolerated, gave refuge to jews and Catholics were banned.
Unique in other respects - more democratic than there republics, defensive rather than aggressive in foreign policy,
economy based on commerce rather than agriculture.
Bankers, merchants, shippers and manufacturers constituted the upper class, secular painting flourished under their
patronage.

Little or no demand for altarpieces/large scale devotional images/grandiose architecture or sculpture.

HALS

Generally regarded as founder of the dutch school of painting.

Specialized in portraits - usually fellow haarlem citizens, groups and single and portrait like pictures with figures of

contemporary life.

Unrestricted by his sitters, free to work in his own individual manner of painting - used as studies of expression and
character.

His work fell out of favour in 1640's, smoother styles from van Eyck's influence were introduced.

REMBRANDT

He was often in debt due to lack of work.

Rembrandt suffered the same, although differed in every other respect.

Began painting small, smooth biblical scenes.

'The night watch' regarded as his biggest achievement.

Seems to have thought of himself as a religious painter - not devotional images but sacred items.

LANDSCAPE

Compositions learned from Rubens, chiaroscuro from Caravaggio.

He was unusually responsive of the work of other artists, mainly Italian Renaissance artists.
Used all influence in his own work - reflected as development throughout his artistic life.
Recognised as leading artist for portraits.
Created more dramatic group portraits.
Created thrilling atmospheres with rich contrasts of light and shade, brilliant and drab colour, variety of poses, gestures
and facial expressions.
Reputation declined due to lack of portraits being less in demand.
Created over a hundred self portraits (paintings and etchings) during his lifetime - unique pictorial autobiography unlikely his intention - probably studies of character and expression.

Flemish responsible for development in depicting the undramatic, flat, watery and almost featureless local scene mastered arial perspective.

Had no narrative content.

Regarded partly as decorations for the home but had some patriotic significance.

Meindert Hobbema studied under Ruisdeal - creating more contemporary and timeless symbolism.

His canvasses radiate an atmosphere of well being.

Large number of dutch landscape paintings survive.

Not usually commissioned, but painting first for wider audiences then sold on open market - sold largely to merchants,
rather than aristocracy.
Reminders of the protestant origin.
Symbolic as they form part of an iconography of nationhood, ideas, memories and feeling that bind nation together.
Jan van Goyen most gifted and most prolific artist specializing in landscape painting (first half of century).
Jacob van Ruisdael adopted a less restrictive pallet and used dramatic manner.
Fascinated by windmills - feature characteristic of dutch country side - been given symbolic meaning by dutch writers.
Sails associated with christ's cross, grain ground - with the eucharist. Also illustrated as emblems of fortune, folly
and virtue. Unsure how far Ruisdael wanted to convey these meanings if at all.
Aelbert Cuyp developed a completely different style of painting - adopted a light tonality, colourful palette and smooth
technique like dutch artists who visited Italy.

STILL LIFE AND GENRE

Nearly all artists had a speciality at the time.

Traditional of depicting house hold objects went back to the fifteenth century.

Realism was not the only feature - usually carried moral messages.

A painter of still life would often restrict himself to a single class of objects.
Willem Kalf one of the most gifted still-life artists.
Rachel Ruysch- first woman to be recognised internationally as a major artist.
Still life incorporated symbols - such as mortality (skull) burnt out candle (memento more - reminder of death, reminder
to enjoy pleasures of life).
Genre pictures - small in size, sharply detailed represented a familiar world, perfectly adapted for living rooms of middle
class houses and mirrored the outlooks of their owners.
Many allude to sexual transgression - which could be chose to be seen or not by the owner.

Major artists of this scene Judith Leyster, Pieter de Hooch, Gerard ter Borch.

VERMEER

Specialized in moralising genre pictures.

His luminosity achieved by a virtually new technique - based partly on optical experiments, mainly on observation of
interpenetrating reflected colours.

Captured light in minute pearl like dots.

Dutch artists, along with Spanish, were seeking recognition for their status, trying to disassociate themselves with craft
guilds.

French influence became dominant throughout the Netherlands and Vermeer's game was omitted from academically
inspired histories of dutch art - work almost completely forgotten until rediscovered in the mid nineteenth
century.

No more than 35 paintings attributed to him.

Supported his family as an inn keeper, art dealer as well as an artist.
Stands out from contemporaries due to extreme, sensitive rendering of light and predominately blue and yellow colour
schemes.

Often mistaken for straight forward renderings of daily life.

One of his paintings thought to be himself, until his widow entitled it the art of painting, which said otherwise.
Dutch maps of the Netherlands were hung in many houses at that time - appear in a lot of his paintings.
Presumably allegorical meaning of 'the art of painting' is unknown - perhaps making a claim for painting as a liberal art
like Velazquez.

ENGLAND AND FRANCE

Close cultural links between the Dutch republic and England - differing political alliances which led to war twice.

Wren was a mathematician and astronomer by training - experimental and practical mind.

Visual arts enrolled, ordered and paraded in the service of autocracy in France.

First task confronting him was the building of the Louvre, Royal palace in Paris.

English books were translated into Dutch, but Dutch had influence on England in the arts.
Dutch influence dominated decorative arts and domestic architecture.
Italianate style introduced early in century for royal buildings - by Inigo Jones.
Inspired Christopher Wren when designing St Paul's Cathedral and 51 parish churches to replace ones destroyed in
great fire of 1666.
His cathedral was first to be built for the church of England.
Approached fellow scientists such as Isaac Newton to help work out the design, conducting experiments as it was built.
Foundations laid in 1675, chancel completed in 1697, but dome and west towers not decided on until 1700.
Studied engraving for St Peters - Rome and recent Italian and French buildings.
His designs were more practical.
Churches were products of exceptional circumstances as arts owed little to church or state patronage - as with the
Dutch republic - in late seventeenth century.
No artistic style more directly expressive of the political ambitions and achievements of a monarch than that named
after Louis XIV - began his long personal rule in 1661.
Bernini was summoned to advise in 1665 but designs rejected.
King selected one of two alternative designs - committee had Lebrun, Louis Le Vau and Claude Perrault.
East front more strictly classical than any other building in France.
Versailles caught the attention of all Europe - was his intention - became the ideal for every royal household.
The taste of middle class Dutch and Flemish genre paintings played a part in determining the course of French art.