Wednesday January 13 1999
 
Announcements:

• The books that are listed on the syllabus as "browsing" will be available in the reserve reading room within 2-3 weeks (maybe earlier).
• We will receive a handout soon with information (title artist date location) of the pieces of artwork with which we will be concerned.

NOTE:  SLIDES OF ARTWORK ARE DESCRIBED IN GREEN TEXT

EARLY ITALIAN RENAISSANCE (1200-1400):  Introductory Lecture

• Map of Renaissance Europe [slide]
• Social Changes of Medieval and Gothic Era
• the appearance of great urban centers
• the rise of the Middle Class
• significant because of their patronage of the arts
• significant because of their collective economic power
• the culmination of these factors (and others) is the Gothic Cathedral [slide: Choir Vault Amiens Cathedral Amiens France Begun 1220] and [Ste. Chappelle Paris 1243-48]
• the stained glass windows serve as a skin depending on the weight bearing masonry ribs for support--technical advancement of the Gothic Period
• these factors provided the basis for the Renaissance Period
• Renaissance Period
• gateway to the modern world
• naturalism
• style expressing the natural world around us
• revival of the ancient world  (Greek and Roman)
• art
• philosophy
• mathematics
• naturalism and the revival of the ancient world resulted in the humanistic attitude during the Renaissance
• the following were political and cultural centers in Italy during the Renaissance
• Florence:  most important in Renaissance Italy
• heavily populated
• economic political importance
• war famine flooding disease
• socially stratified
• guilds
• association of merchants craftspeople (weavers goldsmiths)
• aggressively protected its members (like trade unions)
• powerful because guilds determined tariffs prices wages quality of production and the apprenticeship process
• guilds had reigned supreme in Medieval times (especially in cathedral building); artists were not recognized as individuals merely laborers
• during the Renaissance painters worked their way out of the guild system; the individual identity of the artist became known; it was recognized that genius was seated within an individual
 
Andrea Pisano
   "Sculpture" from the Florence Campanile 1330
• bridge between Gothic and Early Renaissance
• craftsman is overlooking a miniature human figure
• tools at feet
No artist given
    "Da Sphaera" manuscript folio 11 c. 1450-60
• means "of the planets"
• depicts trades influenced by the planet Mercury
• gives idea of guild members' tasks (scribe sculptor tailor baker)
Alberti
    "Self-Portrait" 1450's
• cast bronze (revival of casting from ancient art)
• Alberti also argued passionately for the independence of the artist because he felt art was not just a vocation but encompassed all of the liberal arts.  He believed they used their minds--not just manual craftsmen.
Andrea Pisano
    "Doors of the Pisa Baptistery" (south entrance) 1318-1340
• elaborate ambitious
• classical elements at play
• John the Baptist is being taken to jail
• human figures have idealistic form (muscular)
• medium: cast metal (an ancient tradition)
• the figures appear to have gravity pulling on them (naturalism)
Masaccio (born Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Mone) 1401-1428?
    Fresco from Branacci Chapel Sta. Maria del Carmine Florence
• frescos have a human quality
• Masaccio used one point perspective
• personality human experience are communicated (figures have an emotional existence)
• he did not invent these techniques; he was influenced by Giotto (late 13th early 14th century painter)
Giotto
    "Death of Saint Francis"
• fresco*
• eye travels in wave-like motion over the figures
• the reaction of the followers tells us more about St. Francis than the figure of the saint itself
• the figures show a broad spectrum of expressions of grief
• it is used to suggest something about human experience

* fresco: the method of painting on wet plaster so that the pigment bonds with and dries with the plaster; the result is very permanent; one must work quickly to finish before the plaster dries (see From Abacus to Zeus text).

Giotto
    "Betrayal of Christ" in the Arena Chapel in Padua

• chaotic
• Judas' robe wraps around Christ (during kiss)
• conflict between good and evil in the center of the fresco
 
• Three great figures of Early Italian Renaissance
• Massacio
• Brunelleschi
• Donatello
• Beginnings of the Renaissance in Italy in 13th Century is known as the "Protorenaissance"