Architectonic space and painting

an overview from Ancient Art to Rococò

Lesson #1
  Frontal representation
 Topological representation
Ancient art  Wall paintings of Minnakht’s stele in Tebe, 1479-25 B.C. The
figure shows a villa seen from above: the trees and the small
entrance door at the end of the stairs are represented frontally .
 Euclide, Optics, IV Century
BC
 1 - The rays emitted by the eye go straight ahead.
 2 - The figure understood by the visual rays is a
cone that has the vertex in the eye and the base at
the edge of the object.

 3 - You see those objects that the visual rays reach.

Those objects to which the visual rays do not reach
are not seen.

 4 - The objects seen under greater angles, are

judged to be greater.

 5 - The objects seen under higher rays appear

higher, those seen under lower rays lower. The
objects seen under the more to the right are seen
more right etc.
Greek and Roman art  Greek vascular painting, IV Century BC
 Frescos of Roman Age, Pompei, 79 BC
 Vitruvio, De architectura, I Century
BC:
“Scenography is a sketch of the
facade and the sides in
foreshortening with the
convergence of all the lines of the
center”

Roman wall paintings  Frescos of Roman Age, Pompei, 79 BC

 Bizantine art
Emperor Giustiniano and his Court, 546-48 AC, San Vitale’s Church, Ravenna
Medieval art  Oblique planes
 Pietro Cavallini, Annunciation, 1291, mosaic, Rome, Santa
Maria in Trastevere
 Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Presentation at the
Temple,1342, tempera painting on
wood, 257x168 cm, Galleria degli Uffizi,
Florence
 Oblique planes. The sketch shows the
schema known as «a lisca di pesce»
(fishbone): the obliques lines of
perspective focus to the central axis of
the painting
Giotto  Giotto, Presepio of Greccio,1290-95, detail of fresco, 270x230
cm, Basilica Superiore di San Francesco, Assisi
  Ambrogio Lorenzetti
The city landscape  City by the Sea, 1340
 Effects of the good Government in the City, 1337-39, fresco,
lenght 7 m (Siena, Palazzo Pubblico).
 • The renaissance of the interest to ancient theories and the
study of Classical Art
• Perspectiva artificialis: a new name to define the science of
representation

The birth of the

artist-scientist
Reinassance

• Leon Battista Alberti, De pictura, 1435, Figure from the

1804 edition showing the visual pyramid
The linear perspective
 Piero della Francesca, Flagellation of Christ, 1460,
tempera painting on wood, 58,4x81,5 cm (Urbino,
Galleria Nazionale delle Marche).
 The classical architecture painted by perspective
suggest a strong in-depht sensation
 The sketch highlights the vanishing point, the
perspective lines and the symmetry axes of the figures.
 Reconstruction of the scene of the Flagellation of
Christ seen from above. The environment painted with
the scientific system of perspective allows to
reconstruct the dimensions of the place where the scene
takes place and the exact position of the characters.
 The sketch highlights the golden ratio of the painting:
the base side of the painting (AB) is divided into two
unequal segments (AC and CB) that are each other in
golden proportion.
 The balance of the composition is therefore determined
by the subdivision of the surface into harmonic parts
 The golden section
 It is the ration of a line segment cut
into two pieces of different lengths
such that the ratio of the whole
segment to that of the longer segment
is equal to the ratio of the longer
segment to the shorter segment. 
 AB: AC = AC: CB

 Examples:
 Doryphoros by Polykleitos, 450 BC
 Riace Bronzes (5th century BC) and
Aphrodite Cnidia of Praxiteles (360
BC).
 L’aratura by Andrea Pisano, 1336.
 Donatello's sculpture (1435 Madonna
and Child).
 Leonardo da Vinci

 Last Supper
 Gioconda
 Vitruvian Man
 Illustration for Luca Pacioli’s «De divina proportione», 1509
 Examples of golden ratio in XIX -XX Century Art

 George Seurat
 Mondrian
 Le Corbusier
 Piero della Francesca, Madonna and
Child with Saints, Angels and Federico
da Montefeltro (San Bernardino
Altarpiece), 1472-74, Pinacoteca di
Brera

 «I intend to demonstrate how much this

science [perspective] is necessary for
painting», De perspectiva pingendi,
1470-90 ca
 Objective vs. subjective vision

The picture as a «window» (Durer)

“For us, perspective is quite precisely the capacity to

represent a number of objects together with a part of
the space around them in such a way that the
conception of the material picture support is
completely supplanted by the conception of a
transparent plane through which we believe we are
looking into an imaginary space”

Erwin Panofsky, Perspective as Symbolic Form, 1927

Different applications of linear  Albrecht Dürer, San Girolamo in the studio, 1514, engraving

perspective  Antonello da Messina, San Girolamo in the studio, 1474 circa, oil on wood,
46x36,5 cm (London, National Gallery)

Perspective as Symbolic Form

  Andrea Mantegna, veiling of Camera degli Sposi, 1465-74,

The perspective as fresco, diametro 2,70 m (Mantova, Palazzo Ducale). It is among

the most beautiful examples of the interplay between real space

trickery
and painted space.

 Baccio Pontelli, wooden marquetry, studio of Duke Federico da

Montefeltro, 1476 (Urbino, Palazzo Ducale). Objects, shelfs and
shutters are reproduced throghts an lllusionistic way
 Donato Bramante

 Choir of Santa Maria in San Satiro, 1482-86

(Milano). Behind the altar, the artist
realized one fake choir using painted
stucco. He used perspective to create a
perfect illusion of reality. Whoever enters
into the Church realizes the deception only
by approaching the altar sideways.
 First engraving from a Bramante’s design
(Engraving realized by Bernardo Previdari,
1481, Milan)
 The aerial perspective

 Leonardo da Vinci, Annunciation, detail,

1472-75, oil on canvas, 98x217 cm (Firenze,
Galleria degli Uffizi). Leonardo's landscapes
were real philosophical-scientific reflections
on the cycle of waters and the transformation
of the elements: they were intellectual
constructions.
 Mannerism

 Tintoretto, Discovery of the body of Saint

Mark, 1562 (Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan)
 Mannerism

 Giulio Romano, Fall of the

Giants, fresco in the Sala
dei Giganti, Palazzo del Te,
Mantua, 1530-1532
 The research of an infinitive
space in Baroque

 Andrea Pozzo, Apotheosis of Saint

Ignazio, 1691-94, fresco (Roma,
Church of Sant’Ignazio). On the floor
of the church, a disc indicates the exact
point where the optical illusion created
by the perspective is perfect.
  Details. The figure reproduces the base of the vault, where the

Imaginary space and real architecture ends and the painted one begins

 The diagram shows the spiral according to which the figures

representation of glory have been arranged in the scene and identifies the vanishing
point of the perspective, which symbolically coincides with the
figure of Christ.
 The specialization of work:
the «quadraturists»

 Andrea Pozzo, fake dome, XVII century, oil

on canvas (Roma, Sant’Ignazio). The canvas,
which hides the vault of the dome, creates a
perfect illusion. In the last years of the
seventeenth century Pozzo summarized his
theories on perspective in a treatise that was
widely disseminated.
 Perspective
representation and
theatre scene
 Francesco Galli Bibiena, 1694,
Palazzo Fantuzzi, Bologna
 Perfectly in the illusionistic
architecture, painted by the
artist to create artificial effects
in order to amaze the visitors.

 Ferdinando Galli Bibbiena,

experimentation with the
“angled perspective”, the
“inscribed architectures” or the
so-called “single diagonal
perspective” – fist half of 1700
 Rococò
 Versailles, Gallery of
the mirrors, 1678 -
1684
 Filippo Juvarra,
Palace of Stupinigi,
Turin, 1729-31
 The walls of the
rooms are enriched
with painted panels,
mirrors, precious
sculptures and
paintings that are
pleasant stories
 The life of the ancien
regime
 Antoine Watteau, Les Fêtes vénitiennes, 1719
 In the painting there are represented the parks
and gardens equipped with pavilions and
fountains, typical of ancient régime buildings
 Gianbattista Tiepolo
 Gianbattista Tiepolo, L'investitura del vescovo
Aroldo, 1752 | 1753, Residenza di Würzburg,
Germania
 Architecture, painting, and sculpture were
integrated into decorative ensembles. They are
inseparable from the structure.
 The curved line is glorified; Tiepolo introduced
in his painting also his ancient culture references,
prefiguring Neoclassical taste
 «Painters must succeed in great works, in those
that may please the noble and wealthy gentlemen
because they make the fortune of the professors
and not of the other people, who cannot buy very
valuable paintings » (G.B. Tiepolo)
SUMMARY

• Topological space
Spaces are opened like boxes

• Frontal space
All the elements are arranged on a horizontal
line, one next to the other.

• Perspective space
Intuitive perspective in ancient Greek and
Roman art / Renaissance scientific perspective

• Texts
• Euclide, Optics
• Leon Battista Alberti, De pictura
• Piero della Francesca, De perspectiva
pingendi

• Historical and cultural phenomenon

• Fall of Roman Emperor
• Connection between spiritual and secular
power
• Establishment of Comune
• The artist-scientist
• Golden ratio
• Aerial perspective
• Illusionistic space

• Texts
• Luca Pacioli, De divina proportione, 1509
• Erwin Panofsky, Perspective as Symbolic Form, 1927

• Historical and cultural phenomenon

• Difference between use of perspective by Flemish and Italians
• Illusionistic space
• Dynamism

• Texts
• Andrea Pozzo, Perspectiva pictorum et
architectorum, 1693

• Historical and cultural phenomenon

• Celebration of ancien régime’s power
• Spread of scenography painted using perspective