Early Renaissance Florence part 2

Alright, this video will conclude our discussion of early Renaissance Florence, so Florence in the 15th century primarily, and we'll finish up some of our important topics, such as the development of the Renaissance style in Italy. So important things to notice as we're going through these works of art, so first off attention to the human form, including a return of classical nudity, which we've already seen in Ghiberti's work, and then also contrapposto, which we already saw in Donatello's Saint Mark. So the influence of classical Roman statues, so presuming that these artists were traveling, they were seeing antiquities, and they were being inspired by them. Next, linear perspective, so this desire to create the illusion of three-dimensional space, so this illusion of giving dimension to a two-dimensional work of art. Next, chiaroscuro, so chiaroscuro is this technique to model forms, so it's this play of light and dark, using shadow and then highlighting, the use of single lighting source and shadows for figures, giving them shadows, which gives a sense of greater realism or greater naturalism. Paintings tend to have very balanced, symmetrical compositions, we see this in architecture as well, and then also, of course, classical forms are incorporated into architecture in greater number, things like triumphal arches, domes, coffers, and then also a lot of harmonious geometric relationships. So, when you think back to the Ospedale dei Urgenti, the work by Brunelleschi, where we saw really clean, balanced type of architecture, with some classical inspiration. So an important theorist to consider, right at the start, is an individual named Leon Battista Alberti, who was from a higher status family, in terms of their social standing, he was very well educated, and he took some of Brunelleschi's experiments and perspective, and what was going on in the art world at this time, in the early 15th century, and he codifies it in a book called De Pictura, so a book in Latin on painting. He also writes a text, or he translates it into the vernacular, or into Tuscan, basically Italian at that time, a few years later, and that's called De La Pictura. And so these texts are really giving us a lot of information about how artists are working at that time, what's important in painting right around this time. So here I'm just showing you Alberti's recommended perspective scheme. You have a horizon line, your figures, their heads should always reach right around the horizon line. So, for example, if you had a figure right here, the figure's head would end about here. C would be the vanishing point, where all the orthogonals are coming together. These diagonals are what I'm referring to when I say orthogonals, and then these lines here are the transversals, and the transversals become closer and closer together as you move back towards that vanishing point. So remember we said that in Italian paintings, you feel like you can step into them, you feel like you can walk into them, and Alberti is one of these people who's devising this scheme. So, in addition to perspective, Alberti wanted a lot of other things. He wanted the accurate representation of nature, so just as we were saying, greater realism. He wanted light used to model figures, so they appear sculptural. So figures in, again, 2D should look 3D, and he wants them to cast shadows, and so that use of the chiaroscuro, the play of light and dark. He wants a variety of figure types and movements, so of course variety is interesting, so why not include it in your paintings? And then also he has this great line of the movements of the mind should be revealed in the movements of the body, and so the idea here is that the viewer should be able to know what different characters in a painting are feeling, very similar to perhaps theater today that you need to communicate things with body language or communicate emotions with body language. Alberti was not interested in gold in painting. He wanted gold to be used very sparingly. Gold had been used in such a plentiful way earlier in Byzantine paintings. We saw it also with Gothic works. We saw it with Simone Martini, with Cimabue, so we saw gold a lot in previous lectures. Well, here Alberti wants them to curtail it, and then also a reverence for antiquity, of course, just as we mentioned an interesting classical sculpture. So one of the most famous early Renaissance paintings is a fresco on the wall of a church called Santa Maria Novella, which is the main Franciscan church in Florence. So what we see here, excuse me, main Dominican church in Florence, what we see here is a symmetrical composition, so very balanced on each side, and you can see it's very pyramidal, and a triangular composition gives you a nice sense of stability, and then you also have very significant donors. The donors are here. Here's the husband, who had a significant Florentine governmental position, and then here's the wife over here, and it's as if they're praying at an altarpiece, really, that has come to life, an altarpiece that's framed with classical pilasters and perfectly circular roundels and a triumphal arch form. So the altarpiece, really, that's come to life represents the Trinity, the Father, the Son, so God the Father, Christ the Son, and then the Holy Spirit, which is this dove that looks kind of like a collar, but it's this white dove right at the neck of God the Father, and then you have the Virgin Mary on one side, and you have John the Evangelist on the other side, two figures that were said to have been at the crucifixion, and the Virgin Mary is helping along the viewer by gesturing towards Christ. This is something Alberti also liked. He liked people in the painting to tell you where you should look or where you should pay attention. So you have that classical architecture, which we referred to, and then also something a little bit more unusual is you have what's called a memento mori at the base, and this is a reminder of mortality or a reminder of death, and this basically says that I am, that you are eventually going to die and be just like me, so it's a reminder that eventually everyone reaches an end, which is a common Christian message. So let's look at these bodies. Very sculptural. They have a lot of presence. They're somewhat reminiscent of Giotto, but look, I would say even more sculptural, have a bit more of that play of chiaroscuro to them, so very, very substantial forms and a great sense of realism and naturalism incorporated, so an impressive new type of contribution. So a few things that make this painting especially significant in terms of humanist principles with the importance of humanism at this time, so it's very reason and rationality dominated, it's a very clear image, there's an interest in the precise observation in creating scientific or linear perspective, there's also the revival of antiquity, and then this interest in civic responsibility, so patrons commissioning things to improve the city, and if we follow the perspective scheme, the vanishing point goes right around here to the bottom of Christ's feet, so if you ever want to find the vanishing point, you just follow the orthogonals down to a single point. It's important to note that there was still a very strong religious fervor, of course, what we just saw for the Holy Trinity, we see paintings even incorporated into monk cells. This was a Dominican monastery called the Monastery of San Marco, and this is also in Florence, and this was something that received a lot of money from the Medici family. This was probably commissioned by Cosimo de' Medici. So a friar, so a man who had taken orders, who had the name Fra Angelico, so he has this very angelic style, you can see that he and his workshop included or painted images within the monastic cells of different monks, they're very simple, very plain, some of his other paintings are much more rich in adornment, but you can see very simple, holy images that are useful in assisting the monks in their prayer, and this monastery will actually become very famous because a very famous friar named Fra Savonarola will live there, and he will become extremely powerful in Florence. This is not his cell. This is just one of many cells in the monastery, but just showing you the type of imagery that was included, and here you have Saint Peter Martyr, who is a very famous Dominican monk who was killed, so you see him incorporated into the scene, and a lot of these scenes show other monks in prayer, in scenes of flagellation, things of that nature. So just a reminder of the Medici, they've remained an important family throughout the 15th century, we saw their palace previously, well inside that palace was this very famous sculpture by Donatello, entering their collection sometime in the mid-15th century, so a couple key things. You have your first freestanding nude statue since antiquity, a strong contrapposto there with a shifting of weight, you have the nudity used for a heroic purpose rather than a sinful purpose, and it has this inscription, the victor is whoever defends the fatherland, God crushes the wrath of an enormous foe, behold, a boy overcame a great tyrant, conquer oh citizens, and so here you see David in quite a confident posture with his grand sword having decapitated Goliath, holding on to the stone he used in his slingshot. He's wearing a cap here, and he has his boots on, but otherwise he's nude in this heroic nudity, emulating classical sculpture, and then you have Goliath's head down below with the helmet, the nose, and the eyes. And so a lot of people have raised the question, why put this image of someone who's killing a tyrant in the image, or in the home of people who might have been interpreted as tyrants? So remember the Medici were somewhat of a controversial family because they had so much power in Florence, well most likely they used images like this, and also Donatello's Judith and Holly Farney's, to demonstrate that they were actually bringing liberty to Florence. Whether they actually were, who knows, but most likely they're trying to demonstrate that they are the bringers of liberty, and the supporters of freedom in Florence, and using this type of imagery as propaganda. There are also lots of interpretations of this very famous sculpture that add more of a sexual element to it, possibly even a homosocial interpretation. You have this feather that runs up the leg of David here, that adds a titillating element to it. So the Medici, as I said, were not universally popular. There was this Pazzi conspiracy where the Medici family was attacked in the cathedral or the Duomo of Florence on April 26th, and the Pazzi family were one of many families that supported this conspiracy, and so they intended to murder Lorenzo, and he had essentially made himself the ruler of Florence. He would continue to be the ruler because they don't succeed in killing him. He is slightly hurt, but he's able to hide away. Lorenzo's brother Giuliano, however, is killed, and following this, really all the families that were associated with this conspiracy are in quite a bit of trouble, and the Medici are really able to consolidate their rule. We continue to see, for about another 10 years or so, a lot of art being produced on behalf of the Medici. However, by 1494, the Medici family will be expelled from the city, but this is after Lorenzo the Magnificent, or Il Magnifico, has died. He dies in 1492. So some pieces that they collect that indicate an interest in mythology, which is new at this point, which we haven't seen as many examples. This work by Antonio del Pollaiuolo, which is Hercules and Antaeus, shows the story of the hero Hercules, who was also an important symbol for Florence, Hercules, and David. So Hercules, obviously, a mythological figure, who's a figure of great strength, and obviously Florentines probably thought that was impressive. So here we see Hercules defeating Antaeus, who Hercules can't let his feet touch the ground, because when his feet touch the ground, he's able to get kind of a charge of energy from his mother, who's a mother goddess. So Hercules realizes if he needs to defeat this figure, he's going to have to squeeze him to death and crush him. So here we see Hercules squeezing this figure. We have some nice musculature on the bodies, casting in bronze in more of a classical style, just like we saw with the David, and we see Antaeus, his body writhing, and him screaming out kind of a final cry of pain, so something to think about. We also have some beautiful mythology or mythological stories by Botticelli, works that were probably commissioned on the occasion of marriage. This one may have decorated a day bed. It's a relatively complex scene, probably reflecting the humanists that were in the Medici court. So this scene is Primavera, or spring, commissioned in the early 1480s. It's tempera on panel, and we have a number of figures here, again mythological figures, so Mercury, who's kind of dispelling all the clouds, we have the three graces, we have Cupid and Venus, so figures that are associated with love, and then we have a scene here that's probably equated with the ideas of marriage and abduction. So we have Zephyrus, who's abducting Chlorus, and there's an implied abduction and rape here, and then she will become Flora following their marriage. So this figure here is the result of this scene, Chlorus will become Flora. So it's a complicated scene, the oranges probably associated with fertility, or possibly with the Medici symbol of the balls. Another scene is, of course, the birth of Venus, a very famous painting from this time done on canvas, possibly even processed in a marriage procession. You see here Zephyrus and Chlorus blowing Venus ashore after her birth from the ocean waves, and an attendant coming to drape her. Probably based on a poem done by a poet in the Medici court. Also her body type is based on the modest Venus pose, which is based on classical sculpture, and the Medici had a sculpture of this kind. So finally, by the end of Botticelli's life, he becomes really very, very religious, and this is possibly because of a man named Fra Sabanarola. He was said to have burned luxurious objects. He was said to have really made the laws a lot stricter, new laws being passed at this time, and this is where Florence is really starting to lose some of its power. It's becoming less powerful at this time. The Medici family is eventually expelled, but Fra Sabanarola's power is quite short-lived. He's eventually excommunicated and then executed in 1498. This is really where we tend to see the creativity of Florence starting to dwindle, and new centers starting to rise, such as Rome and Venice, becoming important sites of the High Renaissance.