Week 3: Italian Renassaince

• • When the Renaissance came into full swing, the study of anatomy and the body was at the forefront of the interest in artists, scientists and scholars in general. For artists, the study of anatomy allowed them to put elaborate detail in their at work, and present the ideal and the perfection of the human body. In Pollaiuolo’s engraving, The Battle of The Nudes, every human presented in the piece is given precise detail and muscle structure
    The study of the human body was steamed after the love and study of the body the Greeks and their perfection in their sculptures. In the presentation of the bodies in Pallaiuolo's engraving is thought to have been presented as a model of the human body for other artists of the time as apposed to be a presentation of a story. The piece does, however is thought to tell a story about an episode from the life of Hercules. According to an ancient Greek Myth, the Greek Hero Jason sowed a field with dragon's teeth, and armed men sprang up and started fighting each other.
    The battle depicted shows ten nude men fighting for what it seems like their life. Their bodies are tense, and every thing down to the looks on their faces have tension, showing that what ever battle they are fighting is a very deep and tragic one.
    I feel this piece is important to the Renaissance and to our time now because it shows every muscle in the human body tense and full of emotion. The amount of detail and precision Pollaiuolo puts into the work makes the bodies emanate the idea of body perfection, and allows the viewer to really understand the concept of perfection and take that knowledge into their own work.
    There is a part of me that doesn't like this piece because of the amount of tension. I feel that even the corn behind the men is in tension and I feel like it is unnecessary. I feel that the idea of human perfection and the story of the Greek Hero Jason could have been presented without the amount of tension in the background.
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Week 1: The Renaissance

When the Renaissance Art period surfaced, the ideal of bodily perfection and picture perfect paintings began to surface as the type of art people loved and wanted the most. Art of the Renaissance also began to depict more and more religious art then ever before. The Church of Rome began to take over Europe and wanted to stress the importance of themselves and of religion across the board. They began to commission paintings of themselves shown in a great standard, with markings and attributes to tell who they were and what they did. The Renaissance was named the period of “rebirth” due to the high volumes of paintings, sculptures, books and even buildings that were erected to promote the ideas and teachings of the church; and how heavily influenced the art was by the religion of the region.

I feel as students of art history, it is important to study The Renaissance and how it affected art after it. I feel that the art of The Renaissance is some of the most important art of our culture. (note, not THE most important…) I feel this way due to the amount of studying also occurred during the time period, and I think that if that study of the human body, both inside and out hadn’t occurred, we wouldn’t know now about how the body works or how to depict the body properly. I think that Michelangelo and da Vinci began paving the road for perfection in art and are some of the founding fathers of great art for us to learn about and how to do today.

I feel that our society likes to focus on art of this period because it was so important to The Church, and that people still heave a strong connection to the church, cannot find any better way to depict their images of angles, saints, or the stories of the bible. I also feel that people in the church like to remember the “happy, shiny, puppies and rainbows” version of the stories. Even in the paintings that are about sad or horrific events, the artist still shows the events in a… “Good light” for example, The Expulsion of Adam and Eve From Paradise by Masccio on Page 611, shows the story of Adam and Eve being tossed out of the garden, but the colors are still bright, and the sun shines. The only “down” part of the painting is the look on the faces of Adam and Eve.

Extra Post: Rose Windows

 

As the meaning of religion evolved, so did the décor of the churches and cathedrals. One of the things that started to make an appearance in churches was the rose window. If you were to ask somebody what they thought of when you said, “rose window,” most people would tell you the church of Notre Dame. Three rose windows help decorate the walls of Notre Dame, and the one most widely known of the three is the one sitting in the south façade. It was constructed in 1250, is almost 43 feet in diameter, and is about 62 feet tall including it’s bay. The circular floral stained glass window has eighty-four panes divided into four concentric circles. The stories of the glass are dedicated to the New Testament, and the window is dedicated to symbolism of the four apostles by being split into four and along with the multiples of four as well. Throughout the floral circle are the twelve apostles, saints and martyrs, and the wise virgins, along with various angels and different scenes from the Old Testament. On the outside of the circle, two corner pieces represent the descent into Hell on one side, and the resurrection of Christ on the other. The center medallion may have once shown God in majesty, it now shows the Cardinal de Noailles coat of arms, after he spent £ 80,000 to restore the rose window. All in all, the colored glass in the window of the south façade  represents Christ’s triumphant, his reigning over Heaven, and he is surrounded by all his witnesses on Earth.

The rose window can be viewed from both the inside of the building and the outside of the building. It is still up for debate what side is best to view the window, but according to Abbot Sugar, the stained glass’s beauty is meant to be fully enjoyed from the inside of the building. After commissioning the building of the abbey church of Saint-Denis in 1144, he said that the light that came though the stained glass was the enlightenment of God’s love and His word to be absorbed by the people inside the church. Even though stained glass had been around for about 100 years before his use of the colored windows, the way he combined the technology of rib vaulting and stained glass to create bigger areas for windows. (note: Saint-Denis did not have a Rose window, neither was Notre Dame the first to have one. Saint-Denis was among the first to have larger scale stained glass windows, and among the first to incorporate the oculus and colored glass; and helped pave the way to large scale, colored windows. The first rose window is suspected to be in 1200)

Sources:

http://www.notredamedeparis.fr/spip.php?article448

http://dragon_azure.tripod.com/UoA/Med-Arch-Rose-Window.html