Renaissance art in Italy (XIII-XVI centuries).
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Features of Renaissance art in Italy.
The art of the Renaissance arose on the basis of humanism (from the Latin humanus - “humane”) - a movement of social thought that originated in the 14th century. in Italy, and then during the second half of the 15th and 16th centuries. spread to others European countries Oh. Humanism proclaimed man and his good as the highest value. Followers of this movement believed that every person has the right to freely develop as an individual, realizing their abilities. The ideas of humanism were most fully and vividly embodied in art, the main theme of which was a beautiful, harmoniously developed person with unlimited spiritual and creative potential. Humanists were inspired by antiquity, which served for them as a source of knowledge and a model of artistic creativity. The great past of Italy, constantly reminding itself, was perceived at that time as the highest perfection, while the art of the Middle Ages seemed inept and barbaric. The term "renaissance", which arose in the 16th century, meant the birth of a new art that revived classical ancient culture. However, the art of the Renaissance owes much to the artistic tradition of the Middle Ages. The old and the new were in indissoluble connection and confrontation. With all the contradictory diversity of its origins, the art of the Renaissance is marked by deep and fundamental novelty. It laid the foundations of European culture of the New Age. All major types of art - painting and graphics, sculpture, architecture - have changed enormously.
In architecture, creatively reworked principles of ancient architecture were established. order system ,
new types of public buildings emerged. Painting was enriched by linear and aerial perspective, knowledge of the anatomy and proportions of the human body. Earthly content penetrated into the traditional religious themes of works of art. Increased interest in ancient mythology, history, everyday scenes, landscape, portrait. Along with the monumental wall paintings that decorated architectural structures, a painting appeared; Oil painting arose.
Art has not yet ceased to be a craft, but the creative individuality of the artist, whose activity at that time was very diverse, has already come to the fore. The universal talent of the Renaissance masters is amazing - they often worked simultaneously in the fields of architecture, sculpture and painting, combining their passion for literature, poetry and philosophy with the study of the exact sciences. The concept of a creatively rich, or “Renaissance” personality subsequently became a household word.
In the art of the Renaissance, the paths of scientific and artistic comprehension of the world and man were closely intertwined. Its cognitive meaning was inextricably linked with sublime poetic beauty; in its desire for naturalness, it did not stoop to petty everyday life. Art has become a universal spiritual need.
The formation of Renaissance culture in Italy took place in economically independent cities. In the rise and flowering of Renaissance art, a large role was played by the Church and the magnificent courts of the uncrowned sovereigns - the ruling wealthy families who were the largest patrons and customers of works of painting, sculpture and architecture. The main centers of Renaissance culture were first the cities of Florence, Siena, Pisa, then Padua, Ferrara, Genoa, Milan and, last of all, in the second half of the 15th century, wealthy merchant Venice. In the 16th century Rome became the capital of the Italian Renaissance. From this time on, all other cultural centers, except Venice, lost their former importance.
In the era of the Italian Renaissance, it is customary to distinguish several periods:
Proto-Renaissance (second half of the XIII-XIV centuries),
Early Renaissance(XV century),
High Renaissance (end of the 15th - first third of the 16th century)
Late Renaissance (last two thirds of the 16th century).
Proto-Renaissance
In Italian culture of the XIII-XIV centuries. Against the backdrop of the still strong Byzantine and Gothic traditions, features of a new art began to appear, which would later be called the art of the Renaissance. Therefore, this period of its history was called Proto-Renaissance(from the Greek “protos” - “first”, i.e. prepared the offensive of the Renaissance). There was no similar transition period in any of the European countries. In Italy itself, proto-Renaissance art arose and developed only in Tuscany and Rome.
Italian culture intertwined features of old and new. The last poet of the Middle Ages and the first poet of the new era, Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), created the Italian literary language. What Dante started was continued by other great Florentines of the 14th century - Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374), the founder of European lyric poetry, and Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375), the founder of the novella (short story) genre in world literature. The pride of the era are the architects and sculptors Niccolo and Giovanni Pisano, Arnolfo di Cambio and the painter Giotto di Bondone .
Architecture
Italian architecture for a long time followed medieval traditions, which was expressed mainly in the use of a large number of Gothic motifs. At the same time, Italian Gothic itself was very different from the Gothic architecture of northern Europe: it gravitated toward calm large forms, even light, horizontal divisions, and wide wall surfaces. In 1296, construction began in Florence Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore. Arnolfo di Cambio wanted to crown the altar part of the cathedral with a huge dome. However, after the death of the architect in 1310, construction was delayed; it was completed already during the Early Renaissance. In 1334, according to Giotto's design, construction began on the cathedral's bell tower, the so-called campanile - a slender rectangular tower with floor-by-floor horizontal divisions and graceful Gothic windows, the pointed arched shape of which remained in Italian architecture for a long time.
Among the most famous city palaces is the Palazzo Vecchio (Palazzo della Signoria) in Florence. It is believed to have been built by Arnolfo di Cambio. It is a heavy cube with a high tower, lined with rusticated hard stone. The three-story façade is decorated with paired windows set in semicircular arches, which gives the entire building an impression of restrained severity. The building defines the appearance of the old city center, encroaching on the square with its stern bulk.
Sculpture
Earlier than in architecture and painting, artistic quests emerged in sculpture, and above all in the Pisan school, the founder of which was Niccolò Pisano (around 1220 - between 1278 and 1284). Niccolò Pisano was born in Puglia, southern Italy. It is believed that he studied sculpting in the southern schools, where the spirit of revival of the classical traditions of antiquity flourished. Without a doubt, Niccolo studied the sculptural design of late Roman and early Christian sarcophagi. The earliest known work of the sculptor is a hexagonal marble pulpit, made by him for the baptistery in Pisa (1260), became an outstanding work of Renaissance sculpture and had a huge influence on its further development. The main achievement of the sculptor is that he was able to give volume and expressiveness to the forms, and each image has bodily power.
From the workshop of Niccolò Pisano came remarkable masters of Proto-Renaissance sculpture - his son Giovanni Pisano and Arnolfo di Cambio, also known as an architect. Arnolfo di Cambio (circa 1245 - after 1310) gravitated towards monumental sculpture, in which he used his life observations. One of the best works he completed together with father and son Pisano is fountain in Piazza Perugia(1278). Fonte Maggiore, decorated with numerous statues and reliefs, has become the pride of the city. It was forbidden to give water to animals from it, to take water into wine barrels or into unwashed dishes. The city museum preserves fragments of reclining figures made by Arnolfo di Cambio for the fountain. In these figures, the sculptor was able to convey all the richness of the movements of the human body.
Painting
In the art of the Italian Renaissance, wall painting occupied a dominant place. It was made using fresco technique. Using paints prepared in water, they painted either on wet plaster (fresco itself) or on dry plaster - this technique is called “a secco” (translated from Italian as “on dry”). The main binder of plaster is lime. Because It took a little time for the lime to dry; fresco painting had to be done quickly, often in parts, between which connecting seams remained. From the second half of the 15th century. the fresco technique began to be supplemented with a secco painting; the latter allowed for slower work and allowed for finishing of parts. Work on the paintings was preceded by the production of synopias - auxiliary drawings applied under the fresco on the first layer of plaster. These drawings were made with red ocher, which was extracted from clay near the city of Sinop, located on the Black Sea coast. Based on the name of the city, the paint was called Sinope, or sinopia, and later the drawings themselves began to be called the same. Sinopia was used in Italian painting from the 13th to the mid-15th century. However, not all painters resorted to synopia - for example, Giotto di Bondone, the most prominent representative of the Proto-Renaissance era, did without them. Gradually, synopia was abandoned. From the middle of the 15th century. Cardboards - preparatory drawings made on paper or fabric in the size of future works - have become widespread in painting. The contours of the design were transferred to wet plaster using coal dust. It was blown through holes pierced in the contour and pressed into the plaster with some sharp instrument. Sometimes synopias from a sketch turned into a finished monumental drawing, and cardboards acquired the significance of independent works of painting.
Cimabue (actually Cenni di Pepo, c. 1240 - c. 1302) is considered the founder of the new Italian style of painting. Cimabue was famous in Florence as a master of solemn altar paintings and icons. His images are characterized by abstraction and staticity. And although Cimabue followed Byzantine traditions in his work, in his works he tried to express earthly feelings and soften the rigidity of the Byzantine canon.
Piero Cavallini (between 1240 and 1250 - around 1330) lived and worked in Rome. He is the author of the mosaics of the church of Santa Maria in Trastevere (1291), as well as the frescoes of the church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere (circa 1293). In his works, Cavallini gave shapes volume and tangibility.
Cavallini’s achievements were adopted and continued Giotto di Bondone(1266 or 1267 - 1337), the greatest artist of the Proto-Renaissance. The name of Giotto is associated with a turn in the development of Italian painting, its break with medieval artistic canons and traditions of Italo-Byzantine art of the 13th century. Giotto's most famous works are the paintings of the Arena Chapel in Padua (1304-06). The frescoes are distinguished by their clarity, uncomplicated storytelling, and the presence of everyday details that add vitality and naturalness to the scenes depicted. Rejecting the church canon that dominated the art of that time, Giotto depicts his characters as similar to real people: with proportional, squat bodies, round (rather than elongated) faces, regular eye shape, etc. His saints do not hover above the ground, but stand firmly on it with both feet. They think more about earthly things than about heavenly things, experiencing completely human feelings and emotions. For the first time in the history of Italian painting, the state of mind of the heroes of a painting is conveyed by facial expressions, gestures, and posture. Instead of the traditional golden background, Giotto's frescoes depict a landscape, an interior, or sculptural groups on the facades of basilicas.
In the second half of the 14th century. The pictorial school of Siena comes first. The largest and most refined master of Siena painting of the 14th century. was Simone Martini (c. 1284-1344). The brush of Simone Martini belongs to the first image of a concrete image in the history of art historical event with a portrait of a contemporary. This image " Condotiera Guidoriccio da Fogliano"in the Hall of Mappamondo (Map of the World) in the Palazzo Publico (Siena), which became the prototype for numerous future equestrian portraits. The altarpiece “The Annunciation” by Simone Martini, now kept in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, enjoys well-deserved fame.
Features of the Renaissance. Proto-Renaissance
Features of the Renaissance
Early Renaissance
In the 15th century Italian art took a dominant position in the artistic life of Europe. The foundations of humanistic secular (i.e., non-ecclesiastical) culture were laid in Florence, which pushed Siena and Pisa into the background. Political power here belonged to merchants and artisans; several wealthy families, constantly competing with each other, had the strongest influence on city affairs. This struggle ended at the end of the 14th century. victory of the Medici banking house. Its head, Cosimo de' Medici, became the unofficial ruler of Florence. Writers, poets, scientists, architects, and artists flocked to the court of Cosimo de' Medici. The Renaissance culture of Florence reached its peak under Lorenzo de' Medici, nicknamed the Magnificent. Lorenzo was a great patron of the arts and sciences, the creator of Plato's Academy, where the outstanding minds of Italy, poets and philosophers gathered, where refined debates were held, elevating the spirit and mind.
Architecture
Under Cosimo and Lorenzo de' Medici, a real revolution took place in the architecture of Florence: extensive construction took place here, significantly changing the appearance of the city. The founder of Renaissance architecture in Italy was Filippo Brunelleschi(1377-1446) - architect, sculptor and scientist, one of the creators of the scientific theory of perspective. Brunelleschi's greatest engineering achievement was the construction of the dome Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence. Thanks to his mathematical and technical genius, Brunelleschi managed to solve the most difficult problem for his time. The main difficulty that faced the master was caused by the gigantic size of the span of the middle cross (42 m), which required special efforts to facilitate the expansion. Brunelleschi solved the problem by using an ingenious design: a light hollow dome consisting of two shells, a frame system of eight load-bearing ribs connected by encircling rings, a skylight that closes and loads the vault. The dome of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore became the predecessor of numerous domed churches in Italy and other European countries.
Brunelleschi was one of the first in Italian architecture to creatively comprehend and originally interpret the ancient order system ( Ospedale degli Innocenti (foundling shelter), 1421-44), laid the foundation for the creation of domed churches based on the ancient order ( Church of San Lorenzo ). A true pearl of the Early Renaissance was created by Brunelleschi at the request of a wealthy Florentine family. Pazzi Chapel(started in 1429). The humanism and poetry of Brunelleschi's creativity, the harmonious proportionality, lightness and grace of his buildings, which retain connections with the Gothic traditions, the creative freedom and scientific validity of his plans determined Brunelleschi's great influence on the subsequent development of Renaissance architecture.
One of the main achievements Italian architecture XV century was the creation of a new type of city palaces-palazzos, which served as a model for public buildings of later times. Features of the 15th century palazzo are a clear division of the enclosed volume of the building into three floors, an open courtyard with summer floor-by-floor arcades, the use of rustication (stone with a roughly rounded or convex front surface) for facing the facade, as well as a strongly extended decorative cornice. A striking example of this style is the capital construction of Brunelleschi’s student Michelozzo di Bartolommeo (1396-1472), court architect of the Medici family, - Palazzo Medici - Riccardi (1444-60), which served as a model for the construction of many Florentine palaces. Close to Michelozzo's creation Palazzo Strozzi(founded in 1481), which is associated with the name of the architect and sculptor Benedetto da Maiano (1442-97).
A special place in the history of Italian architecture occupies Leon Battista Alberti(1404-72). A comprehensively gifted and widely educated man, he was one of the most brilliant humanists of his time. His range of interests was unusually diverse. He covered morality and law, mathematics, mechanics, economics, philosophy, poetry, music, painting, sculpture, and architecture. A brilliant stylist, Alberti left numerous works in Latin and Italian. In Italy and abroad, Alberti gained fame as an outstanding art theorist. The famous treatises “Ten Books on Architecture” (1449-52), “On Painting”, “On the Statue” (1435-36) belong to his pen. But Alberti's main vocation was architecture. In his architectural work, Alberti gravitated towards bold, experimental solutions, innovatively using the ancient artistic heritage. Alberti created a new type of city palace ( Palazzo Rucellai ). In religious architecture, striving for grandeur and simplicity, Alberti used motifs of Roman triumphal arches and arcades in the design of facades ( Church of Sant'Andrea in Mantua, 1472-94). The name Alberti is rightfully considered one of the first among the great cultural creators of the Italian Renaissance.
Sculpture
In the 15th century Italian sculpture, which acquired an independent meaning independent of architecture, is flourishing. The practice of artistic life begins to include orders for the decoration of public buildings; art competitions are held. One of these competitions - for the manufacture of bronze of the second northern doors of the Florentine Baptistery (1401) - is considered a significant event that opened a new page in the history of Italian Renaissance sculpture. The victory was won by Lorenzo Ghiberti (1381-1455).
One of the most educated people of his time, the first historian Italian art, a brilliant draftsman, Ghiberti devoted his life to one type of sculpture - relief. Ghiberti considered the main principle of his art to be balance and harmony of all elements of the image. The pinnacle of Ghiberti's creativity was eastern doors of the Florentine Baptistery (1425-52), immortalizing the name of the master. The decoration of the doors includes ten square compositions made of gilded bronze (“ Creation of Adam and Eve"), with their extraordinary expressiveness reminiscent of paintings. The artist managed to convey the depth of space, saturated with pictures of nature, human figures, and architectural structures. WITH light hand Michelangelo began to call the eastern doors of the Florentine Baptistery "The Gates of Heaven"
Ghiberti's workshop became a school for a whole generation of artists, in particular, the famous Donatello, the great reformer of Italian sculpture, worked there. The work of Donatello (c. 1386-1466), which absorbed the democratic traditions of the culture of Florence in the 14th century, represents one of the peaks of the development of the art of the Early Renaissance. It embodied the search for new, realistic means of depicting reality, characteristic of Renaissance art, close attention to man and his spiritual world. The influence of Donatello's work on the development of Italian Renaissance art was enormous.
The second generation of Florentine sculptors gravitated towards a more lyrical, peaceful, secular art. The leading role in it belonged to the della Robbia family of sculptors. The head of the family, Lucca della Robbia (1399/1400 - 1482), became famous for his use of glaze techniques in circular sculpture and relief. The technique of glaze (majolica), known since ancient times to the peoples of Western Asia, was brought to the Iberian Peninsula and the island of Majorca (where its name came from) in the Middle Ages, and then widely spread in Italy. Lucca della Robbia created medallions with reliefs on a deep blue background for buildings and altars, garlands of flowers and fruits, majolica busts of the Madonna, Christ and saints. The cheerful, elegant, kind art of this master received well-deserved recognition from his contemporaries. His nephew Andrea della Robbia (1435-1525) also achieved great perfection in the majolica technique ( reliefs on the façade of the Ospedale degli Innocenti).
Painting
The huge role that Brunelleschi played in Early Renaissance architecture, and Donatello in sculpture, belonged to Masaccio (1401-1428) in painting. Masaccio died young, not reaching the age of 27, and nevertheless managed to do a lot in painting. The famous art historian Whipper said: “Masaccio is one of the most independent and consistent geniuses in the history of European painting, the founder of new realism...” Continuing the search for Giotto, Masaccio boldly breaks with medieval artistic traditions. In fresco "Trinity"(1426-27), created for the church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, Masaccio used full perspective for the first time in wall painting. In the paintings of the Brancacci Chapel of the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence (1425-28) - the main creation of his short life - Masaccio gives the images unprecedented life-like persuasiveness, emphasizes the physicality and monumentality of his characters, masterfully conveys the emotional state and psychological depth of the images. In fresco "Expulsion from Paradise" the artist solves the most difficult task for his time of depicting a naked human figure. The stern and courageous art of Masaccio had a huge impact on the artistic culture of the Renaissance.
The development of Early Renaissance painting was ambiguous: artists followed their own, sometimes different, paths. The secular principle, the desire for a fascinating narrative, and a lyrical earthly feeling found vivid expression in the works of Fra Filippo Lippi (1406-69), a monk of the Carmelite Order. A charming master, the author of many altar compositions, among which the painting is considered the best « Adoration of the Child » , created for the chapel in Palazzo Medici - Riccardi, Filippo Lippi managed to convey in them human warmth and poetic love for nature.
In the middle of the 15th century. painting in Central Italy experienced a rapid flourishing, a striking example of which is creativity Piero della Francesca(1420-92), the greatest artist and art theorist of the Renaissance. The most wonderful creation of Piero della Francesca - cycle of frescoes in the Church of San Francesco in Arezzo, which are based on the legend of the Life-Giving Tree of the Cross. The frescoes, arranged in three tiers, trace the history of the life-giving cross from the very beginning, when the sacred tree grows from the seed of the tree of paradise of the knowledge of good and evil on the grave of Adam ("Death of Adam") and until the end, when the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius solemnly returns the Christian relic to Jerusalem (« Battle between Heraclius and Khosroes » ). The work of Piero della Francesca went beyond the local painting schools and determined the development of Italian art as a whole.
In the second half of the 15th century, many talented craftsmen worked in Northern Italy in the cities of Verona, Ferrara, and Venice. Among the painters of this time, the most famous is Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506), a master of easel and monumental painting, draftsman and engraver, sculptor and architect. The artist’s pictorial style is distinguished by the chasing of forms and designs, the rigor and truthfulness of generalized images. Thanks to the spatial depth and sculptural nature of the figures, Mantegna achieves the impression of a real scene frozen for a moment - his characters look so three-dimensional and natural. Mantegna lived most of his life in Mantua, where he created his most famous work - "Camera degli Sposi" painting in the country castle of the Marquis L. Gonzaga. Using only the means of painting, he created here a luxurious Renaissance interior, a place for ceremonial receptions and holidays. Mantegna's art, which was extremely famous, influenced all of Northern Italian painting.
A special place in the painting of the Early Renaissance belongs to Sandro Botticelli(actually Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi), who was born in 1445 in Florence in the family of a wealthy leather tanner. In 1459-64. the young man studies painting from the famous Florentine master Filippo Lippi. In 1470 he opened his own workshop in Florence, and in 1472 he became a member of the Guild of St. Luke.
Botticelli's first creation was the composition "Force", which he completed for the commercial court of Florence. The young artist quickly won the trust of customers and gained fame, which attracted the attention of Lorenzo the Magnificent, the new ruler of Florence, and became his court master and favorite. Botticelli completed most of his paintings for the houses of the Duke and other noble Florentine families, as well as for churches, monasteries and public buildings in Florence.
Second half of the 1470s and 1480s. became a period of creative flourishing for Botticelli. For the main façade of the Church of Santa Maria Novella he writes the composition “ Adoration of the Magi" - a kind of mythologized group portrait of the Medici family. A few years later, the artist creates his famous mythological allegory “Spring”.
In 1481, Pope Sixtus IV ordered a group of painters, among whom was Botticelli, to decorate his chapel with frescoes, which later received the name “Sistine.” Botticelli painted frescoes in the Sistine Chapel " Temptation of Christ », « Scenes from the Life of Moses », « Punishment of Korah, Dathan and Abiron" Over the next few years, Botticelli completed a series of 4 frescoes based on short stories from Boccaccio’s Decameron, and created his most famous mythological works (“Birth of Venus”, “ Pallas and Centaur"), as well as several altar compositions for Florentine churches (" Coronation of the Virgin Mary », « Altar of San Barnaba"). Many times he turned to the image of the Madonna (“ Madonna del Magnificat », « Madonna with pomegranate », « Madonna with a book"), also worked in the portrait genre (" Portrait of Giuliano Medici", "Portrait of a young woman", "Portrait of a young man").
In the 1490s, during the period of social movements and mystical sermons of the monk Savonarola that shook Florence, moralizing notes and drama appeared in Botticelli’s art (“Slander”, “ Lamentation of Christ », « Mystical Christmas"). Under the influence of Savonarola, in a fit of religious exaltation, the artist even destroyed some of his works. In the mid-1490s, with the death of Lorenzo the Magnificent and the expulsion of his son Pietro from Florence, Botticelli lost his fame as a great artist. Forgotten, he quietly lives out his life in the house of his brother Simon. In 1510 the artist died.
Botticelli's exquisite art with elements of stylization (i.e. generalization of images using conventional techniques - simplification of color, shape and volume) is considered one of the pinnacles of the development of painting. Botticelli's art, unlike most of the Early Renaissance masters, was based on personal experience. Exceptionally sensitive and sincere, Botticelli went through a difficult and tragic path of creative quest - from a poetic perception of the world in his youth to mysticism and religious exaltation in adulthood.
EARLY RENAISSANCE
EARLY RENAISSANCE
High Renaissance
The High Renaissance, which gave humanity such great masters as Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, Giorgione, Titian, Bramante, covers a relatively short period of time - the end of the 15th and the first third of the 16th centuries. Only in Venice did the flowering of art continue until the middle of the century.
Fundamental changes associated with the decisive events of world history and the successes of advanced scientific thought have endlessly expanded people's ideas about the world - not only about the earth, but also about space. The perception of the world and the human personality seems to have become larger; in artistic creativity this was reflected not only in the majestic scale of architectural structures, monuments, solemn fresco cycles and paintings, but also in their content and expressiveness of images. The art of the High Renaissance is a living and complex artistic process with dazzlingly bright ups and subsequent crises.
Donato Bramante.
The center of High Renaissance architecture was Rome, where, on the basis of previous discoveries and successes, a single classical style emerged. The masters creatively used the ancient order system, creating structures whose majestic monumentality was in tune with the era. The largest representative of High Renaissance architecture was Donato Bramante (1444-1514). Bramante's buildings are distinguished by their monumentality and grandeur, harmonious perfection of proportions, integrity and clarity of compositional and spatial solutions, and free, creative use of classical forms. Bramante's highest creative achievement is the reconstruction of the Vatican (the architect actually created a new building, organically incorporating scattered old buildings into it). Bramante is also the author of the design of St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome. With his work, Bramante determined the development of architecture in the 16th century.
Leonardo da Vinci.
In the history of mankind it is not easy to find another person as brilliant as the founder of the art of the High Renaissance Leonardo da Vinci(1452-1519). The comprehensive nature of the activities of this great artist, sculptor, architect, scientist and engineer became clear only when the scattered manuscripts from his legacy were examined, numbering over seven thousand sheets containing scientific and architectural projects, inventions and sketches. It is difficult to name an area of knowledge that his genius would not touch. Leonardo's universalism is so incomprehensible that the famous biographer of Renaissance figures Giorgio Vasari could not explain this phenomenon except by heavenly intervention: “Whatever this man turned to, his every action bore the stamp of divinity.”
In his famous “Treatise on Painting” (1498) and other notes, Leonardo paid great attention to the study of the human body, information on anatomy, proportions, the relationship between movements, facial expressions and the emotional state of a person. Leonardo was also interested in the problems of chiaroscuro, volumetric modeling, linear and aerial perspective. Leonardo paid tribute not only to the theory of art. He created a number of magnificent altar images and portraits. Leonardo's brush belongs to one of the most famous works of world painting - “Mona Lisa” (“La Gioconda”). Leonardo created monumental sculptural images, designed and built architectural structures. Leonardo remains to this day one of the most charismatic personalities of the Renaissance. A huge number of books have been dedicated to him, his life has been studied in detail. And yet, much in his work remains a mystery and continues to excite people’s minds.
Rafael Santi.
The art of Raphael Santi (1483-1520) also belongs to the peaks of the Italian Renaissance. In the history of world art, the work of Raphael is associated with the idea of sublime beauty and harmony. It is generally accepted that in the constellation of brilliant masters of the High Renaissance, it was Raphael who was the main bearer of harmony. The tireless striving for a bright, perfect beginning permeates all of Raphael’s work and constitutes its inner meaning. His works are unusually attractive in their natural grace (“ Sistine Madonna"). Perhaps that is why the master gained such extraordinary popularity among the public and had many followers among artists at all times. Raphael was not only an amazing painter and portrait painter, but also a monumentalist who worked in fresco techniques, an architect, and a master of decor. All these talents manifested themselves with particular force in his paintings of the apartments of Pope Julius II in the Vatican (“School of Athens”). In art genius artist a new image of the Renaissance man was born - beautiful, harmonious, perfect physically and spiritually.
Michelangelo Buonarotti.
Contemporary Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael was their eternal rival - Michelangelo Buonarroti, the greatest master of the High Renaissance - sculptor, painter, architect and poet. Mine creative path this titan of the Renaissance began with sculpture. His colossal statues became a symbol of a new man - a hero and fighter (“David”). The master erected many architectural and sculptural structures, the most famous of which is the Medici Chapel in Florence. The splendor of these works is built on the colossal tension of the characters’ feelings ( Sarcophagus of Giuliano Medici). But Michelangelo’s paintings in the Vatican, in the Sistine Chapel, are especially famous, in which he proved himself to be a brilliant painter. Perhaps no one in world art, neither before nor after Michelangelo, has created characters so strong in body and spirit (“ Creation of Adam"). The huge, incredibly complex fresco on the ceiling was completed by the artist alone, without assistants; it remains to this day an unsurpassed monumental work of Italian painting. But in addition to painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, the master, already in old age, created the fiercely inspired “Last Judgment” - a symbol of the collapse of the ideals of his great era.
Michelangelo worked a lot and fruitfully in architecture, in particular, he supervised the construction of St. Peter's Cathedral and the ensemble Capitol Square in Rome. The work of the great Michelangelo constituted an entire era and was far ahead of its time; it played a colossal role in world art, in particular, it influenced the formation of the principles of the Baroque.
Giorgione and Titian.
Venice, where painting flourished, added a bright page to the history of High Renaissance art. Giorgione is considered the first master of the High Renaissance in Venice. His art is completely special. The spirit of clear harmony and some special intimate contemplation and dreaminess reigns in it. He often painted delightful beauties, real goddesses. Usually this is a poetic fiction - the embodiment of an unrealizable dream, admiration for a romantic feeling and a beautiful woman. His paintings contain a hint of sensual passion, sweet pleasure, unearthly happiness. With the art of Giorgione, Venetian painting acquired pan-Italian significance, establishing its artistic characteristics.
Titian in went down in the history of Italian art as a titan and the head Venetian school, as a symbol of its heyday. The breath of a new era - stormy, tragic, sensual - was manifested with particular force in the work of this artist. Titian's work is distinguished by its exceptionally wide and varied coverage of types and genres of painting. Titian was one of the founders of monumental altar painting, landscape as an independent genre, and various types of portraits, including ceremonial ones. In his work, ideal images coexist with bright characters, tragic conflicts with scenes of jubilant joy, religious compositions with mythological and historical paintings.
Titian developed a new painting technique that had an exceptional influence on the further development of world fine art until the 20th century. Titian belongs to the greatest colorists of world painting. His paintings shine with gold and a complex range of vibrating, luminous undertones of color. Titian, who lived for almost a century, experienced the collapse of Renaissance ideals; the master's work half belongs to the Late Renaissance. His hero, entering the fight against hostile forces, dies, but retains his greatness. The influence of Titian's great workshop affected all Venetian art.
HIGH RENAISSANCE
HIGH RENAISSANCE
Late Renaissance
In the second half of the 16th century. In Italy, the decline of the economy and trade was growing, Catholicism entered into a struggle with humanistic culture, art was experiencing a deep crisis. It strengthened anti-Renaissance tendencies, embodied in mannerism. However, Mannerism almost did not affect Venice, which in the second half of the 16th century became the main center of Late Renaissance art. In line with the high humanistic Renaissance tradition, in new historical conditions, the work of the great masters of the Late Renaissance, enriched with new forms, developed in Venice - Palladio, Veronese, Tintoretto.
Andrea Palladio
The work of the northern Italian architect Andrea Palladio (1508-80), based on a deep study of ancient and Renaissance architecture, represents one of the peaks in the art of the Late Renaissance. Palladio developed the principles of architecture, which were developed in the architecture of European classicism of the 17th-18th centuries. and received the name Palladianism. The architect outlined his ideas in the theoretical work “Four Books on Architecture” (1570). Palladio's buildings (mainly city palaces and villas) are full of graceful beauty and naturalness, harmonious completeness and strict orderliness, are distinguished by clarity and expediency of planning and organic connection with the environment ( Palazzo Chiericati). The ability to harmoniously connect architecture with the surrounding landscape was demonstrated with particular force in Palladio’s villas, imbued with an elegiacally enlightened sense of nature and marked by classical clarity and simplicity of form and composition ( Villa Capra (Rotunda)). Palladio created the first monumental theater building in Italy, the Teatro Olimpico. Palladio's influence on the development of architecture in subsequent centuries was enormous.
Veronese and Tintoretto...
The festive, life-affirming character of the Venetian Renaissance was most clearly manifested in the work of Paolo Veronese. A muralist, he created magnificent decorative ensembles of wall and ceiling paintings with many characters and interesting details. Veronese created his own style: his spectacular, spectacular paintings are full of emotion, passion and life, and the heroes, the Venetian nobility, are usually located in patrician palaces or against the backdrop of luxurious nature. They are carried away by grandiose feasts or enchanting celebrations (“Marriage at Cana”). Veronese was the master of merry Venice, its triumphs, the poet of its golden splendor. Veronese had an exceptional gift as a colorist. His colors are permeated with light, intense and not only give objects color, but themselves transform into an object, turning into clouds, fabric, a human body. Because of this, the real beauty of figures and objects is multiplied by the beauty of color and texture, which produces a strong emotional impact on the viewer.
The complete opposite of Veronese was his contemporary Tintoretto (1518-94), the last major master of the Italian Renaissance. The abundance of external artistic influences dissolved in the unique creative individuality of Tintoretto. In his work he was a gigantic figure, the creator of a volcanic temperament, violent passions and heroic intensity. His work was a great success among his contemporaries and subsequent generations. Tintoretto was distinguished by a truly inhuman capacity for work and tireless quest. He felt the tragedy of his time more acutely and deeply than most of his contemporaries. The master rebelled against established traditions in the fine arts - adherence to symmetry, strict balance, staticity; expanded the boundaries of space, filled it with dynamics, dramatic action, and began to express human feelings more clearly. 1590 g . The art of mannerism departs from the Renaissance ideals of a harmonious perception of the world. A person finds himself at the mercy of supernatural forces. The world appears unstable, shaky, in a state of decay. Mannerist images are full of anxiety, restlessness, and tension. The artist moves away from nature, strives to surpass it, following in his work a subjective “inner idea”, the basis of which is not the real world, but the creative imagination; the means of execution is “beautiful manner” as the sum of certain techniques. Among them are the arbitrary elongation of figures, a complex serpentine rhythm, the unreality of fantastic space and light, and sometimes cold, piercing colors.
The largest and most gifted master of mannerism, a painter of complex creative fate, was Jacopo Pontormo (1494-1556). In his famous painting « Descent from the Cross“The composition is unstable, the figures are pretentiously broken, the light colors are harsh. Francesco Mazzola, nicknamed Parmigianino (1503-40), loved to amaze the viewer: for example, he wrote his “ Self-portrait in a convex mirror" Deliberate deliberateness distinguishes him famous painting « Madonna with a long neck ».
The Medici court painter Agnolo Bronzino (1503-72) is famous for his ceremonial portraits. They echoed the era of bloody atrocities and moral decline that engulfed the highest circles of Italian society. Bronzino’s noble customers seem to be separated from the viewer by an invisible distance; the rigidity of their poses, the impassivity of their faces, the richness of their clothes, the gestures of their beautiful ceremonial hands - all this is like an outer shell hiding an inner flawed life. In the portrait of Eleanor of Toledo with her son (c. 1545), the inaccessibility of the cold, aloof image is enhanced by the fact that the viewer’s attention is completely absorbed by the flat large pattern of the duchess’s magnificent brocade clothing. The type of court portrait created by the Mannerists influenced the portrait art of the 16th-17th centuries. in many other European countries.
The art of mannerism was transitional: the Renaissance was passing away, and the time was coming for a new all-European artistic style - Baroque.
Art of the Northern Renaissance.
The countries of Northern Europe did not have their own ancient past, but the Renaissance period stands out in their history: from the turnXV – XVIthrough the second halfXVIIcentury. This time is distinguished by the penetration of Renaissance ideals into various spheres of culture and the gradual change in its style. As in the birthplace of the Renaissance, in the art of the Northern Renaissance, interest in the real world changed the forms of artistic creativity. However, the art of the northern countries was not characterized by the pathos of Italian painting, glorifying the power of the titanic man. The burghers (the so-called wealthy townspeople) more valued integrity, loyalty to duty and word, and the sanctity of the marital vow and home. In burgher circles, their own ideal of a person was formed - clear, sober, pious and businesslike. The art of the burghers poetizes the ordinary average person and his world - the world of everyday life and simple things.
Masters of the Renaissance in the Netherlands.
New features of Renaissance art appeared primarily in the Netherlands, which was one of the richest and most industrialized countries in Europe. Because of its extensive international connections, the Netherlands absorbed new discoveries much more quickly than other Nordic countries.
The Renaissance style in the Netherlands opened Jan Van Eyck(1390-1441). His most famous work is Ghent Altarpiece, on which the artist began to work together with his brother, and continued to work independently after his death for another 6 years. The Ghent altarpiece, created for the city cathedral, is a two-tier fold, on 12 boards of which there are pictures of everyday, everyday life (on the outer boards, which were visible when the fold was closed) and festive, jubilant, transformed life (on the inner doors, which appeared open during church holidays). This is a monument of art glorifying the beauty of earthly life. Van Eyck's emotional feeling - "the world is like paradise", every particle of which is beautiful - is expressed clearly and clearly. The artist relied on many observations from nature. All figures and objects have three-dimensional volume and weight. The Van Eyck brothers were among the first to discover the possibilities of oil painting; from this time on, it begins to gradually replace tempera.
In the second half of XVcentury, full of political and religious strife, complex, unique art stands out in the art of the Netherlands Hieronymus Bosch(1450?-1516). This is a very curious artist with an extraordinary imagination. He lived in his own and terrible world. In Bosch's paintings there is a condensation of medieval folklore ideas, grotesque montages of the living and the mechanical, the terrible and the comic. In his compositions, which had no center, there is no main character. The space in several layers is filled with numerous groups of figures and objects: monstrously exaggerated reptiles, toads, spiders, terrible creatures in which parts of different creatures and objects are combined. The purpose of Bosch's compositions is moral edification. Bosch does not find harmony and perfection in nature; his demonic images remind of the vitality and omnipresence of world evil, the cycle of life and death.
The man in Bosch's paintings is pitiful and weak. Thus, in the triptych " A cart of hay"The artist reveals the history of humanity. The left wing tells the story of the fall of Adam and Eve, the right one depicts Hell and all the horrors that await sinners here. The central part of the picture illustrates the popular proverb “The world is a haystack, everyone takes from it what he manages to grab.” Bosch shows how people fight over a piece of hay, die under the wheels of a cart, and try to climb onto it. On top of the cart, having renounced the world, lovers sing and kiss. There is an angel on one side of them, and a devil on the other: who will win? Creepy creatures are dragging the cart into the underworld. God looks at all the actions of people with bewilderment. The painting is imbued with an even more gloomy mood. Carrying the Cross": Christ carries his heavy cross surrounded by disgusting people with bulging eyes and gaping mouths. For their sake, the Lord sacrifices himself, but his death on the cross will leave them indifferent.
Bosch had already died when another famous Dutch artist was born - Pieter Bruegel the Elder(1525-1569), nicknamed Muzhitsky for his many paintings depicting the life of peasants. Bruegel took many of his subjects as a basis. folk proverbs, everyday worries of ordinary people. The completeness of the images of the paintings " Peasant wedding" And " Peasant dance"carries the power of the folk element. Even the paintings on biblical stories in Bruegel's works are inhabited by the Netherlands, and the events of distant Judea take place against the backdrop of snow-covered streets under the dim sky of his native country (“ Sermon of John the Baptist"). Showing the seemingly unimportant, secondary, the artist speaks about the main thing in people’s lives, recreates the spirit of his time.
Small canvas " Hunters in the snow"(January) from the series "Seasons" is considered one of the unsurpassed masterpieces of world painting. Tired hunters with dogs return home. Together with them, the viewer enters the hill, from which a panorama of a small town opens. Snow-covered banks of the river, thorny trees frozen in the clear frosty air, birds fly, sit on tree branches and roofs of houses, people are busy with their daily affairs. All these seemingly little things, together with the blue sky, black trees, and white snow, create in the picture a panorama of the world that the artist passionately loves.
The most tragic picture Bruegel " Parable of the Blind"Written by the artist shortly before his death. It illustrates the gospel story “if a blind man leads a blind man, they will both fall into a pit.” Perhaps this is an image of humanity, blinded by its desires, moving towards its destruction. However, Bruegel does not judge, but, by comprehending the laws of relationships between people with each other, with the environment, penetrating into the essence of human nature, he reveals to people themselves, their place in the world.
Painting of Germany during the Renaissance.
The features of the Renaissance in the art of Germany appear later than in the Netherlands. The flowering of German humanism, secular sciences and culture falls in the early yearsXVIV. This was a short period during which German culture gave the world the highest artistic values. These include, first of all, the work Albrecht Durer(1471-1528) - the most important artist of the German Renaissance.
Dürer is a typical representative of the Renaissance; he was a painter, an engraver, a mathematician, and an engineer, and wrote treatises on fortification and art theory. On self-portraits he appears intelligent, noble, focused, full of deep philosophical thoughts. In his paintings, Dürer is not content with formal beauty, but strives to give a symbolic expression of abstract thoughts.
A special place in Dürer’s creative heritage belongs to the “Apocalypse” series, which includes 15 large woodcuts. Dürer illustrates the predictions from the “Revelation of John the Evangelist”, for example, the leaf “ Four Horsemen“symbolizes terrible disasters - war, pestilence, famine, unjust judgment. The premonition of change, difficult trials and disasters expressed in the engravings turned out to be prophetic (the Reformation and the Peasant and Religious Wars that followed it soon began).
Another remarkable artist of that time was Lucas Cranach the Elder(1472-1553). His paintings are kept in the Hermitage " Madonna and Child under the Apple Tree" And " Portrait of a woman " In them we see a woman’s face, depicted in many of the master’s paintings (it is even called “Cranach’s”): a small chin, narrow eyes, golden hair. The artist carefully designs jewelry and clothing, his paintings are a feast for the eyes. The purity and naivety of the images once again make you look at these paintings. Cranach was a wonderful portrait painter; he created images of many famous contemporaries - Martin Luther (who was his friend), Duke Henry of Saxony and many others.
But the most famous portrait painter of the Northern Renaissance, without a doubt, can be recognized as another German painter Hans Holbein the Younger(1497-1543). For a long time he was the court artist of the English king HenryVIII. In his portrait, Holbein perfectly conveys the imperious nature of the king, who is unfamiliar with doubt. Small, intelligent eyes on a fleshy face reveal him as a tyrant. Portrait of Henry VIII was so reliable that it frightened people who knew the king. Holbein painted portraits of many famous people of that time, in particular the statesman and writer Thomas More, the philosopher Erasmus of Rotterdam and many others.
The development of Renaissance culture in Germany, the Netherlands, and some other European countries was interrupted by the Reformation and the religious wars that followed it. Following this, the time came for the formation of new principles in art, which entered the next stage of its development.
After the completion of the main construction work in Versailles, at the turn of the 17th-18th centuries, Andre Le Nôtre began active work on the redevelopment of Paris. He laid out the layout of the Tuileries Park, clearly fixing the central axis on the continuation of the longitudinal axis of the Louvre ensemble. After Le Nôtre, the Louvre was finally rebuilt and the Place de la Concorde was created. The major axis of Paris gave a completely different interpretation of the city, meeting the requirements of greatness, grandeur and pomp. The composition of open urban spaces and the system of architecturally designed streets and squares became the determining factor in the planning of Paris. The clarity of the geometric pattern of streets and squares linked into a single whole will for many years become a criterion for assessing the perfection of the city plan and the skill of the city planner. Many cities around the world will subsequently experience the influence of the classic Parisian model.
A new understanding of the city as an object of architectural influence on humans finds clear expression in the work on urban ensembles. In the process of their construction, the main and fundamental principles of classicism urban planning were outlined - free development in space and an organic connection with the environment. Overcoming the chaos of urban development, architects sought to create ensembles designed for free and unobstructed views.
Renaissance dreams of creating an “ideal city” were embodied in the formation of a new type of square, the boundaries of which were no longer the facades of certain buildings, but the space of adjacent streets and neighborhoods, parks or gardens, and the river embankment. Architecture strives to connect in a certain ensemble unity not only buildings directly adjacent to each other, but also very distant points of the city.
Second half of the 18th century. and the first third XIX V. in France they celebrate new stage development of classicism and its spread in European countries - neoclassicism. After the Great french revolution and the Patriotic War of 1812, new priorities appeared in urban planning, in tune with the spirit of their time. They found their most vivid expression in the Empire style. It was typical for him the following features: ceremonial pathos of imperial grandeur, monumentality, appeal to the art of imperial Rome and Ancient Egypt, the use of Roman attributes military history as the main decorative motifs.
The essence of the new artistic style was very accurately conveyed in the significant words of Napoleon Bonaparte:
“I love power, but as an artist... I love it to extract sounds, chords, harmony from it.”
Empire style became the personification of the political power and military glory of Napoleon, and served as a unique manifestation of his cult. The new ideology fully corresponded to political interests and artistic tastes new time. Large architectural ensembles of open squares, wide streets and avenues were created everywhere, bridges, monuments and public buildings were erected, demonstrating the imperial grandeur and power of power.
For example, the Austerlitz Bridge commemorated Napoleon's great battle and was built from Bastille stones. At Place Carrousel was built triumphal arch in honor of the victory at Austerlitz. Two squares (Concord and Stars), located at a considerable distance from each other, were connected by architectural perspectives.
Church of Saint Genevieve, erected by J. J. Soufflot, became the Pantheon - the resting place of the great people of France. One of the most spectacular monuments of that time is the column of the Grand Army on Place Vendôme. Likened to the ancient Roman Column of Trajan, it was supposed, according to the plans of the architects J. Gondoin and J. B. Leper, to express the spirit of the New Empire and Napoleon’s thirst for greatness.
In the bright interior decoration of palaces and public buildings, solemnity and stately pomp were especially highly valued; their decor was often overloaded with military paraphernalia. The dominant motifs were contrasting color combinations and elements of Roman and Egyptian ornaments: eagles, griffins, urns, wreaths, torches, grotesques. The Empire style manifested itself most clearly in the interiors of the imperial residences of the Louvre and Malmaison.
The era of Napoleon Bonaparte ended by 1815, and very soon they began to actively eradicate its ideology and tastes. From the “disappeared like a dream” Empire, all that remained were works of art in the Empire style, clearly demonstrating its former greatness.
Questions and tasks
1.Why can Versailles be considered an outstanding work?
How the urban planning ideas of 18th century classicism found their practical embodiment in the architectural ensembles of Paris, for example the Place de la Concorde? What distinguishes it from the Italian baroque squares of Rome in the 17th century, such as Piazza del Popolo (see p. 74)?
2. How was the connection between Baroque and Classicism architecture expressed? What ideas did classicism inherit from Baroque?
3. What are the historical background for the emergence of the Empire style? What new ideas of his time did he strive to express in works of art? What artistic principles does he rely on?
Creative workshop
1. Give your classmates a correspondence tour of Versailles. To prepare it, you can use video materials from the Internet. The parks of Versailles and Peterhof are often compared. What do you think are the grounds for such comparisons?
2. Try to compare the image of the “ideal city” of the Renaissance with the classic ensembles of Paris (St. Petersburg or its suburbs).
3. Compare the design interior decoration(interiors) of the gallery of Francis I at Fontainebleau and the Gallery of Mirrors at Versailles.
4. Get acquainted with the paintings of the Russian artist A. N. Benois (1870-1960) from the series “Versailles. The King's Walk" (see p. 74). How they convey the general atmosphere of the court life of the French king Louis XIV? Why can they be considered as unique paintings-symbols?
Topics of projects, abstracts or messages
“Formation of classicism in French architecture of the 17th-18th centuries”; “Versailles as a model of harmony and beauty of the world”; “A walk through Versailles: the connection between the composition of the palace and the layout of the park”; "Masterpieces of Architecture Western European classicism"; “Napoleonic Empire in the architecture of France”; "Versailles and Peterhof: experience comparative characteristics"; “Artistic discoveries in the architectural ensembles of Paris”; “The squares of Paris and the development of the principles of regular city planning”; “Clarity of composition and balance of volumes of the Cathedral of the Invalides in Paris”; “Place de la Concorde - a new stage in the development of urban planning ideas of classicism”; “The harsh expressiveness of the volumes and the sparse decor of the Church of Saint Genevieve (Pantheon) by J. Soufflot”; “Features of classicism in the architecture of Western European countries”; "Outstanding architects of Western European classicism."
Books for further reading
Arkin D. E. Images of architecture and images of sculpture. M., 1990. Kantor A.M. et al. Art of the 18th century. M., 1977. (Small history of art).
Classicism and Romanticism: Architecture. Sculpture. Painting. Drawing / ed. R. Toman. M., 2000.
Kozhina E. F. Art France XVIII century. L., 1971.
LenotreJ. Daily life of Versailles under the kings. M., 2003.
Miretskaya N.V., Miretskaya E.V., Shakirova I.P. Culture of the Enlightenment. M., 1996.
Watkin D. History of Western European architecture. M., 1999. Fedotova E.D. Napoleonic Empire style. M., 2008.
The early 15th century saw huge changes in life and culture in Italy. The townspeople, merchants and artisans of Italy have waged a heroic struggle against feudal dependence since the 12th century. By developing trade and production, the townspeople gradually became richer, overthrew the power of the feudal lords and organized free city-states. These free Italian cities became very powerful. Their citizens were proud of their conquests. The enormous wealth of independent Italian cities was the reason for their vibrant prosperity. The Italian bourgeoisie looked at the world with different eyes, they firmly believed in themselves, in their strength. They were alien to the desire for suffering, humility, and the renunciation of all earthly joys that had been preached to them until now. Respect for earthly man who enjoys the joys of life grew. People began to take an active approach to life, eagerly study the world, and admire its beauty. During this period, various sciences were born and art developed.
Italy has preserved many monuments of the art of Ancient Rome, so ancient times they again began to be revered as a model, ancient art became an object of worship. Imitation of antiquity gave rise to calling this period in art - Renaissance, which means in French "Renaissance". Of course, this was not a blind, exact repetition of ancient art, it was already new art, but based on ancient examples. The Italian Renaissance is divided into 3 stages: VIII - XIV centuries - Pre-Renaissance (Proto-Renaissance or Trecento)-s it.); XV century - early Renaissance (Quattrocento); end of the 15th - beginning of the 16th century - High Renaissance.
Throughout Italy there were archaeological excavations, looked for ancient monuments. Newly discovered statues, coins, dishes, and weapons were carefully preserved and collected in museums specially created for this purpose. Artists learned from these examples of antiquity and painted them from life.
Trecento (Pre-Renaissance)
The true beginning of the Renaissance is associated with the name Giotto di Bondone (1266? - 1337). He is considered the founder of Renaissance painting. The Florentine Giotto has great services to the history of art. He was a renovator, the founder of all European painting after the Middle Ages. Giotto breathed life into the gospel scenes, created images of real people, spiritualized but earthly.
Giotto first creates volumes using chiaroscuro. He loves clean, light colors in cool shades: pink, pearl gray, pale purple and light lilac. The people in Giotto's frescoes are stocky and walk heavily. They have large facial features, wide cheekbones, narrow eyes. His person is kind, attentive, and serious.
Of Giotto's works, the frescoes in the temples of Padua are the best preserved. He presented the Gospel stories here as existing, earthly, real. In these works, he talks about problems that concern people at all times: about kindness and mutual understanding, deceit and betrayal, about depth, sorrow, meekness, humility and the eternal all-consuming maternal love.
Instead of isolated individual figures, as in medieval painting, Giotto managed to create coherent story, a whole story about the complex inner lives of the characters. Instead of the conventional golden background of Byzantine mosaics, Giotto introduces a landscape background. And if in Byzantine painting the figures seemed to float and hang in space, then the heroes of Giotto’s frescoes found solid ground under their feet. Giotto's quest to convey space, the plasticity of figures, and the expressiveness of movement made his art a whole stage in the Renaissance.
One of the famous masters of the Pre-Renaissance -
Simone Martini (1284 - 1344).
His paintings retained the features of Northern Gothic: Martini's figures are elongated, and, as a rule, on a golden background. But Martini creates images using chiaroscuro, gives them natural movement, and tries to convey a certain psychological state.
Quattrocento (early Renaissance)
Antiquity played a huge role in the formation of the secular culture of the early Renaissance. The Platonic Academy opens in Florence, the Laurentian Library contains a rich collection of ancient manuscripts. The first art museums appeared, filled with statues, fragments of ancient architecture, marbles, coins, and ceramics. During the Renaissance, the main centers of artistic life in Italy emerged - Florence, Rome, Venice.
Florence was one of the largest centers, the birthplace of new, realistic art. In the 15th century, many famous Renaissance masters lived, studied and worked there.
Early Renaissance architecture
Residents of Florence had a high artistic culture, they actively participated in the creation of city monuments, and discussed options for the construction of beautiful buildings. Architects abandoned everything that resembled Gothic. Under the influence of antiquity, buildings topped with a dome began to be considered the most perfect. The model here was the Roman Pantheon.
Florence is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, a city-museum. It has preserved its architecture from antiquity almost intact, its most beautiful buildings being mainly built during the Renaissance. Rising above the red brick roofs of the ancient buildings of Florence is the huge building of the city cathedral. Santa Maria del Fiore, which is often called simply the Florence Cathedral. Its height reaches 107 meters. A magnificent dome, the harmony of which is emphasized by white stone ribs, crowns the cathedral. The dome is amazing in size (its diameter is 43 m), it crowns the entire panorama of the city. The cathedral is visible from almost every street in Florence, clearly silhouetted against the sky. This magnificent building was built by an architect
Filippo Brunelleschi (1377 - 1446).
The most magnificent and famous domed building of the Renaissance was St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. It took more than 100 years to build. The creators of the original project were architects Bramante and Michelangelo.
Renaissance buildings are decorated with columns, pilasters, lion heads and "putti"(naked babies), plaster wreaths of flowers and fruits, leaves and many details, examples of which were found in the ruins of ancient Roman buildings. Came into fashion again semicircular arch. Wealthy people began to build more beautiful and more comfortable houses. Instead of houses closely pressed together, luxurious ones appeared palaces - palazzos.
Early Renaissance sculpture
In the 15th century, two famous sculptors worked in Florence - Donatello and Verrocchio.Donatello (1386? - 1466)- one of the first sculptors in Italy who used the experience of ancient art. He created one of the beautiful works of the early Renaissance - the statue of David.
According to the biblical legend, a simple shepherd, the young man David defeated the giant Goliath, and thereby saved the inhabitants of Judea from enslavement and later became king. David was one of the favorite images of the Renaissance. He is depicted by the sculptor not as a humble saint from the Bible, but as young hero, winner, defender of his hometown. In his sculpture, Donatello glorifies man as the ideal of a beautiful heroic personality that arose during the Renaissance. David is crowned with the laurel wreath of the winner. Donatello was not afraid to introduce such a detail as a shepherd's hat - a sign of his simple origin. In the Middle Ages, the church forbade depicting the naked body, considering it a vessel of evil. Donatello was the first master to bravely violate this prohibition. He asserts by this that the human body is beautiful. The statue of David is the first round sculpture of that era.
Another beautiful sculpture of Donatello is also known - the statue of a warrior , general of Gattamelata. It was the first equestrian monument of the Renaissance. Created 500 years ago, this monument still stands on a high pedestal, decorating a square in the city of Padua. For the first time, not a god, not a saint, not a noble and rich person was immortalized in sculpture, but a noble, brave and formidable warrior with a great soul, who earned fame through great deeds. Dressed in antique armor, Gattemelata (this is his nickname, meaning “spotted cat”) sits on a powerful horse in a calm, majestic pose. The warrior’s facial features emphasize a decisive, firm character.
Andrea Verrocchio (1436 -1488)
The most famous student of Donatello, who created the famous equestrian monument to the condottiere Colleoni, which was erected in Venice in the square near the Church of San Giovanni. The main thing that is striking about the monument is the joint energetic movement of horse and rider. The horse seems to rush beyond the marble pedestal on which the monument is installed. Colleoni, standing up in his stirrups, stretched out, holding his head high, peers into the distance. A grimace of anger and tension was frozen on his face. There is a sense of great will in his posture, his face resembles a bird of prey. The image is filled with indestructible strength, energy, and stern authority.
Early Renaissance painting
The Renaissance also renewed the art of painting. Painters have learned to accurately convey space, light and shadow, natural poses, and various human feelings. It was the early Renaissance that was the time of accumulation of this knowledge and skills. The paintings of that time are imbued with a bright and upbeat mood. The background is often painted in light colors, and buildings and natural motifs are outlined with sharp lines, pure colors predominate. All the details of the event are depicted with naive diligence; the characters are most often lined up and separated from the background by clear contours.
The painting of the early Renaissance only strived for perfection, however, thanks to its sincerity, it touches the soul of the viewer.
Tommaso di Giovanni di Simone Cassai Guidi, known as Masaccio (1401 - 1428)
He is considered a follower of Giotto and the first master of painting of the early Renaissance. Masaccio lived only 28 years, but during such a short life he left a mark on art that is difficult to overestimate. He managed to complete the revolutionary transformations begun by Giotto in painting. His paintings are distinguished by dark and deep colors. The people in Masaccio's frescoes are much denser and more powerful than in the paintings of the Gothic era.
Masaccio was the first to correctly arrange objects in space, taking into account the perspective; He began to depict people according to the laws of anatomy.
He knew how to connect figures and landscape into a single action, dramatically and at the same time quite naturally conveying the life of nature and people - and this is the great merit of the painter.
This is one of the few easel works by Masaccio, commissioned from him in 1426 for the chapel in the church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Pisa.
The Madonna sits on a throne built strictly according to Giotto's laws of perspective. Her figure is painted with confident and clear strokes, which creates the impression of sculptural volume. Her face is calm and sad, her detached gaze is directed into nowhere. Wrapped in a dark blue cloak, the Virgin Mary holds in her arms the Child, whose golden figure stands out sharply against a dark background. The deep folds of the cloak allow the artist to play with chiaroscuro, which also creates a special visual effect. The baby eats black grapes - a symbol of communion. Flawlessly drawn angels (the artist knew human anatomy very well) surrounding the Madonna give the picture an additional emotional resonance.
The only panel painted by Masaccio for a double-sided triptych. After early death painter, the rest of the work, commissioned by Pope Martin V for the Church of Santa Maria in Rome, was completed by the artist Masolino. Here are depicted two austere, monumentally executed figures of saints, dressed all in red. Jerome holds an open book and a model of the basilica, with a lion lying at his feet. John the Baptist is depicted in his usual form: he is barefoot and holds a cross in his hand. Both figures amaze with their anatomical precision and almost sculptural sense of volume.
Interest in man and admiration for his beauty were so great during the Renaissance that this led to the emergence of a new genre in painting - the portrait genre.
Pinturicchio (version of Pinturicchio) (1454 - 1513) (Bernardino di Betto di Biagio)
Native of Perugia in Italy. For some time he painted miniatures and helped Pietro Perugino decorate the Sistine Chapel in Rome with frescoes. Gained experience in in the most complex form decorative and monumental wall painting. Within a few years, Pinturicchio became an independent muralist. He worked on frescoes in the Borgia apartments in the Vatican. He did wall paintings in the library of the Cathedral in Siena.
The artist not only conveys portrait likeness, but strives to reveal the inner state of a person. Before us is a teenage boy, dressed in a formal pink city dweller’s dress, with a small blue cap on his head. Brown hair goes down to the shoulders, framing a gentle face, the attentive gaze of brown eyes is thoughtful, a little anxious. Behind the boy is an Umbrian landscape with thin trees, a silvery river, and a pinkish sky on the horizon. The spring tenderness of nature, as an echo of the character of the hero, is in harmony with the poetry and charm of the hero.
The image of the boy is given in the foreground, large and occupies almost the entire plane of the picture, and the landscape is painted in the background and very small. This creates the impression of the importance of man, his dominance over the surrounding nature, and affirms that man is the most beautiful creation on earth.
Here is the solemn departure of Cardinal Capranica for the Council of Basel, which lasted almost 18 years, from 1431 to 1449, first in Basel and then in Lausanne. The young Piccolomini was also in the cardinal's retinue. A group of horsemen accompanied by pages and servants is presented in an elegant frame of a semicircular arch. The event is not so real and reliable as it is chivalrously refined, almost fantastic. In the foreground, a handsome rider on a white horse, wearing a luxurious dress and hat, turns his head and looks at the viewer - this is Aeneas Silvio. The artist takes pleasure in painting rich clothes and beautiful horses in velvet blankets. The elongated proportions of the figures, slightly mannered movements, slight tilts of the head are close to the court ideal. The life of Pope Pius II was full of bright events, and Pinturicchio spoke about the meetings of the pope with the King of Scotland, with Emperor Frederick III.
Filippo Lippi (1406 - 1469)
Legends arose about Lippi's life. He himself was a monk, but left the monastery, became a wandering artist, kidnapped a nun from the monastery and died, poisoned by the relatives of a young woman with whom he fell in love in old age.
He painted images of the Madonna and Child, filled with living human feelings and experiences. In his paintings he depicted many details: everyday objects, surroundings, so his religious subjects were similar to secular paintings.
Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449 - 1494)
He painted not only religious subjects, but also scenes from the life of the Florentine nobility, their wealth and luxury, and portraits of noble people.
Before us is the wife of a rich Florentine, a friend of the artist. In this not very beautiful, luxuriously dressed young woman, the artist expressed calm, a moment of stillness and silence. The expression on the woman’s face is cold, indifferent to everything, it seems that she foresees her imminent death: soon after painting the portrait she will die. The woman is depicted in profile, which is typical for many portraits of that time.
Piero della Francesca (1415/1416 - 1492)
One of the most significant names in Italian painting of the 15th century. He completed numerous transformations in the methods of constructing the perspective of pictorial space.
The painting was painted on a poplar board with egg tempera - obviously, by this time the artist had not yet mastered the secrets of oil painting, the technique in which his later works would be painted.
The artist captured the appearance of the mystery of the Holy Trinity at the moment of the Baptism of Christ. The white dove spreading its wings over the head of Christ symbolizes the descent of the Holy Spirit onto the Savior. The figures of Christ, John the Baptist and the angels standing next to them are painted in restrained colors.
His frescoes are solemn, sublime and majestic. Francesca believed in the high destiny of man and in his works people always do wonderful things. He used subtle, gentle transitions of colors. Francesca was the first to paint en plein air (in the open air).
Introduction
The Renaissance as a new worldview and a new artistic style arose in Italy at the end of the 14th century. The first urban planning ideas presented the city as an architectural whole according to a pre-drawn plan. Under the influence of these ideas, instead of narrow and crooked medieval alleys, straight, more straight ones began to appear in Italian cities. wide streets built up with large buildings.
The layout and architecture of squares during the Renaissance took shape in the 15th–16th centuries. in Rome and others major cities Italy.
During this period, several cities were reconstructed here using new principles of urban planning. In most cases, palaces in such cities were located in central squares, which sometimes represented the beginning of three-ray compositions.
Renaissance cities gradually acquired new features under the influence of social changes. However, due to private ownership of land and backward technology, it was impossible to quickly move from the old city to the new. During all periods of the Renaissance, the main efforts of city planners were directed to the development of the city center - the square and nearby neighborhoods. During the heyday of monarchical states in the 18th century. the ensembles of the central squares of cities were given exceptional importance as their main decorations. City squares had mostly geometrically regular outlines.
If the architecture of ancient Greek and Roman squares was characterized by columns and porticos, then for the squares of the Renaissance period, arcades became new elements, developing simultaneously with the development of entire systems of squares.
In most medieval cities there was no decorative greenery. Fruit orchards were grown in monastery gardens; the orchards or vineyards of the townspeople were located behind the city fortifications. In Paris in the 18th century. alleys, trimmed greenery, and flower gardens appear. However, the parks of palaces and castles were privately owned. Public gardens in most European cities appeared only at the end of the 18th century.
In the Middle Ages, water basins were essentially an obstacle to the development of the city, dividing its districts, and served for narrow practical purposes. Since the 18th century rivers began to be used as connecting elements of cities, and in favorable conditions - as compositional axes. A striking example is the wise urban planning use of the Neva and Nevka rivers in St. Petersburg. The construction of bridges and the construction of embankments consolidated this direction in urban planning.
During the medieval period, the city's skyline was largely defined by the pointed spiers on city halls, churches and public buildings. The silhouette of the city was determined by many small verticals and several dominant ones. In connection with the new artistic understanding of the city's silhouette, high medieval roofs were gradually eliminated, and Renaissance buildings were completed with roofs with attics and balustrades.
With an increase in the scale of buildings and new types of coatings, the silhouette of the city is softened by domes of smooth outlines, which have acquired a dominant role in city panoramas. Their change was greatly influenced by gardens and parks, whose trees largely hide the buildings.
The architects of the Renaissance used strict means of expression in urban planning: harmonious proportions, the scale of a person as a measure of the surrounding architectural environment.
The ideological struggle of the emerging bourgeoisie of Italy against medieval forms of religion, morality and law resulted in a broad progressive movement - humanism. Humanism was based on civic life-affirming principles: the desire to liberate the human personality from spiritual constraint, the thirst for knowledge of the world and man himself and, as a consequence of this, a craving for secular forms public life, the desire for knowledge of the laws and beauty of nature, for the comprehensive harmonious improvement of man. These shifts in worldview led to a revolution in all spheres of spiritual life - art, literature, philosophy, science. In their activities, humanists relied heavily on ancient ideals, often reviving not only ideas, but also the very forms and expressive means of ancient works. In this regard, the cultural movement of Italy in the 15th–16th centuries. received the general name of the Renaissance, or Rebirth
The humanistic worldview stimulated the development of personality and increased its importance in public life. The individual style of the master played an increasingly important role in the development of art and architecture. The culture of humanism brought forward a whole galaxy of brilliant architects, sculptors, artists, such as Brunellesco, Leonardo da Vinci, Bramante, Raphael, Michelangelo, Palladio and others.
The desire to create an “ideal image of a person”, combined with the search for methods of artistic exploration of the world, led to a kind of cognitive realism of the Renaissance, based on a close union of art with rapidly developing science. In architecture, the search for “ideal” forms of buildings based on a complete and complete composition has become one of its defining trends. Along with the development of new types of civil and religious buildings, architectural thought is developing, and there is an urgent need for theoretical generalizations of modern experience, especially historical and, above all, ancient experience.
Three periods of the Italian Renaissance
Renaissance architecture in Italy is divided into three main periods: early, high and late. Architectural Center Early Renaissance there was Tuscany with its main city - Florence. This period covers the second quarter and middle of the 15th century. The beginning of the Renaissance in architecture is considered to be 1420, when the construction of the dome over the Florence Cathedral began. Construction achievements that led to the creation of a huge centric form became a kind of symbol of the architecture of the New Age.
1. Early Renaissance period
The Early Renaissance in architecture is characterized primarily by the forms of buildings created by the famous architect engineer Filippo Brunellesco (first half of the 15th century). In particular, he used a light semi-circular arch instead of a pointed arch in the Orphanage in Florence. The rib vault, characteristic of Gothic architecture, began to give way to a new design - a modified box vault. However, pointed arch forms continued to be used until the middle of the 16th century.
One of Brunellesco's outstanding buildings was the huge dome of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, which had remained unfinished since the 14th century.
In the shape of the large dome created by the architect, an echo of the Gothic pointed arch is noticeable. The span of the dome of this cathedral has large sizes- 42m. The dome's vaults, made of brick, rest on an octagonal base made of logs covered with iron sheets. Due to the favorable location of the cathedral on a hill and its high height (115m), its upper part, especially the dome, adds solemnity and uniqueness to the architectural panorama of Florence.
Civil architecture occupied a significant place in the architecture of the Italian Renaissance. This includes, first of all, large city palaces (palazzos), intended in addition to housing for ceremonial receptions. Medieval palaces, gradually shedding their harsh Romanesque and Gothic clothing with the help of marble cladding and sculpture, acquired a cheerful appearance.
Features of the Renaissance facades are huge arched window openings separated by columns, rustication of the first floors with stones, upper slabs, large cornices and finely traced details. In contrast to the strict facades, the architecture of well-lit interiors has a cheerful character.
Rusticism was often used to decorate the facades of early Renaissance palaces. Stones for rustication usually had an uncut (chipped) front surface with a cleanly hewn edge path. The relief of the rustics decreased with the increase in the number of floors. Later, rustic decoration was preserved only in the processing of plinths and on the corners of buildings.
In the 15th century Italian architects often used the Corinthian order. There were often cases of a combination of several orders in one building: for the lower floors - the Doric order, and for the upper floors - a composition of capitals close in proportions and design to the Ionic type.
One of the examples of palace architecture of the mid-15th century. in Florence can serve as the three-story Medici-Riccardi Palace, built according to the design of the architect Michelozzo di Bartolomeo in the period 1444–1452 by order of Cosimo de' Medici, the ruler of Florence. Hundreds of palaces were later built in other cities based on the design of the façade of the Palazzo Medici.
A further development of the palace composition is the palazzo Ruccellai in Florence, built 1446–1451 designed by Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472). Like the ancient Roman Colosseum, its facade is divided by floors by orders with a transition from the simplest Doric order in the lower tier to the more subtle and rich Corinthian order in the upper.
The impression of the building being lighter towards the top, created in the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi by means of the rustication of the walls, is expressed here in the form of a tiered system of orders being lighter towards the top. At the same time, the large crowning cornice is correlated not with the height of the upper tier, but with the height of the building as a whole, which is why the composition acquired the features of completeness and staticity. In the design of the façade, traditional motifs are still preserved: double arched windows derived from the medieval shape of the windows, rustication of the walls, the overall monumentality of the cloud, etc.
Pazzi Chapel (1430–1443) - a domed building placed in the courtyard of the monastery. The composition of the façade reflected the internal structure dissected by the order with the dominant volume of the hall with a dome on sails. The colonnade, cut along the axis by an arch and completed with a finely dissected attic, corresponds to cartelized pilasters on the inner wall of the loggia, and on the vaulted ceiling there are protruding segments of arches.
The correspondence of the orders and the repetition of small domes in the loggia and the altar contribute to the organic connection of the façade with the interior. The walls inside are divided by flat, but highlighted by color pilasters, which, continuing in the divisions of the vaults, give an idea of the logic of the construction of space, the tectonic structure. Developing three-dimensionally, the order emphasizes the unity and subordination of the main parts. The visual “framework” also characterizes the dismemberment of the dome from the inside, which is somewhat reminiscent of the structure of the Gothic nerve vaults. However, the harmony of order forms and the clarity of the tectonic structure, balance and commensurability with man speak of the triumph of new architectural ideals over the principles of the Middle Ages.
Along with Brunellesco and Michelozzo da Bartolomeo in the making new architecture great place belonged to other masters (Rosselino, Benedetto da Maiano, etc.), whose work was mainly associated with Tuscany and Northern Italy. Alberti, who in addition to the Palazzo Ruccellai built a number of large structures (the facade of the church of Santa Maria Novella, the church of Sant Andrea in Mantua, etc.), completes this period.
2. High Renaissance period
The period of the High Renaissance covers the end of the 15th - first half of the 16th century. By this time, due to the movement of the main trade routes from the Mediterranean Sea to Atlantic Ocean Italy is experiencing a well-known economic recession and a decline in industrial production. Often the bourgeoisie bought up land and turned into moneylenders and landowners. The process of feudalization of the bourgeoisie is accompanied by a general aristocratization of culture; the center of gravity is transferred to the court circle of the nobility: dukes, princes, popes. Rome becomes the center of culture - the residence of popes, who are often elected from representatives of the humanist-minded aristocracy. Huge construction work is taking place in Rome. In this undertaking, undertaken by the papal court to raise its own prestige, the humanistic community saw the experience of reviving the greatness of ancient Rome, and with it the greatness of all of Italy. At the court of those who ascended the throne in 1503. humanist Pope Julius II worked most outstanding architects– among them Bramante, Raphael, Michelangelo, Antonio da Sangallo and others.
In the architecture of this period, the main features and trends of the Renaissance receive their complete expression. The most perfect centric compositions are created. The type of urban palazzo finally takes shape, which during this period acquires the features of not only a private but also a public building, and therefore, to a certain extent, becomes the prototype of many subsequent public buildings. The characteristic of early period Renaissance contrast (between the architectural characteristics of the external appearance of the palazzo and its courtyard. Under the influence of a more systematic and archaeologically accurate acquaintance with ancient monuments, order compositions acquire greater rigor: along with the Ionic and Corinthian orders, simpler and more monumental orders are widely used - Roman Doric and Tuscan, and the finely designed arcade on the columns gives way to a more monumental order arcade. In general, the compositions of the High Renaissance acquire greater significance, severity and monumentality. The problem of creating a regular urban ensemble is being built. Country villas are being built as integral architectural complexes.
The most important architect of this period was Donato d'Angelo Bramante (1444–1514). Cancelleria building attributed to Bramante (the main papal office) in Rome - one of the outstanding palace buildings - is a huge parallelepiped with a rectangular courtyard surrounded by arcades. The harmonious composition of the facades develops the principles laid down in the Ruccellai Palazzo, but the overall rhythmic structure creates a more complex and solemn image. The first floor, treated as a basement, enhanced the contrast with the lightweight top. Rhythmically located plastic accents created by large openings and the frames framing them acquired great importance in the composition. The rhythm of horizontal divisions became even clearer.
Among Bramante's religious buildings, a small chapel in the courtyard of the monastery of San Pietro in Montrio, called Tempietto, stands out (1502) - a building located inside a rather cramped courtyard, which was supposed to be surrounded by a circular arcade in plan.
The chapel features a domed rotunda surrounded by a Roman Doric colonnade. The building is distinguished by perfect proportions, the order is interpreted strictly and constructively. In comparison with the centric buildings of the early Renaissance, where linear planar development of walls predominates (Pazzi Chapel), the volume of Tempietto is plastic: its order plasticity corresponds to the tectonic integrity of the composition. The contrast between the monolithic core of the rotunda and the colonnade, between the smooth surface of the wall and the plasticity of deep niches and pilasters emphasizes the expressiveness of the composition, full of harmony and completeness. Despite its small size, Tempietto gives the impression of monumentality. Already by Bramante's contemporaries this building was recognized as one of the masterpieces of architecture.
Being the chief architect at the court of Pope Julius II, Bramante from 1505. is working on the reconstruction of the Vatican. A grandiose complex of ceremonial buildings and located in different levels ceremonial courtyards, subordinate to a single axis, closed by the majestic exedra of the Belvedere. In this, essentially the first Renaissance ensemble of such grandiose design, the compositional techniques of ancient Roman forums were masterfully used. The papal residence was supposed to connect with another grandiose building in Rome - Peter's Cathedral, for the construction of which Bramante's design was also adopted. The perfection of the centric composition and the grandiose scope of the design of the cathedral by Peter Bramante gives reason to consider this work as the pinnacle of the development of Renaissance architecture. However, the project was not destined to be realized in kind: during Bramante’s lifetime, construction of the cathedral had just begun, which in 1546, 32 years after the death of the architect, was transferred to Michelangelo.
The great artist and architect Raphael Santi, who built and painted the famous loggias of the Vatican, which received his name (“Raphael’s loggias”), as well as a number of remarkable buildings, took part in the competition for the design of Peter’s Cathedral, as well as in the construction and painting of Vatican buildings, together with Bramante. both in Rome itself and outside it (construction and painting of Villa Madama in Rome, Palazzo Pandolfini in Florence, etc.).
One of Bramante's best students, the architect Antonio da Sangallo Jr., designed the Palazzo Farnese in Rome. , to a certain extent, completing the evolution of the Renaissance palace.
The design of its façade lacks traditional rustication and vertical divisions. On the smooth, brick-plastered surface of the wall, wide horizontal belts running along the entire façade are clearly visible; as if leaning on them, windows with relief platbands in the shape of an antique “aedicule” are placed. The windows on the first floor, unlike in Florentine palaces, are the same size as the windows on the upper floors. The building was freed from the fortress isolation still inherent in the palaces of the early Renaissance. In contrast to the palaces of the 15th century, where the courtyard was surrounded by light arched galleries on columns, a monumental order arcade with half-columns appears here. The gallery order becomes somewhat heavier, acquiring features of solemnity and representativeness. The narrow passage between the courtyard and the street is replaced by an open “lobby”, revealing a perspective onto the front courtyard.
3. Late Renaissance
The late Renaissance period is usually considered to be the mid to late 16th century. At this time, the economic recession in Italy continued. The role of the feudal nobility and church-Catholic organizations increased. To combat the reformation and all manifestations of the anti-religious spirit, the Inquisition was established. Under these conditions, humanists began to experience persecution. A significant part of them, persecuted by the Inquisition, moved to the northern cities of Italy, especially to Venice, which still retained the rights of an independent republic, where the influence of the religious counter-reformation was not so strong. In this regard, during the late Renaissance, two schools were the most prominent - Roman and Venetian. In Rome, where the ideological pressure of the Counter-Reformation greatly influenced the development of architecture, along with the development of the principles of the High Renaissance, there was a departure from the classics towards more complex compositions, greater decorativeness, a violation of the clarity of forms, scale and tectonics. In Venice, despite the partial penetration of new trends into architecture, the classical basis of architectural composition was more preserved.
A prominent representative of the Roman school was the great Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564). His architectural works lay the foundations of a new understanding of form characteristic of this period, characterized by great expression, dynamics and plastic expressiveness. His work, which took place in Rome and Florence, reflected with particular force the search for images capable of expressing the general crisis of humanism and the internal anxiety that progressive circles of society then experienced before the approaching forces of reaction. As a brilliant sculptor and painter, Michelangelo knew how to find bright plastic means to express in art the inner strength of his heroes, the unresolved conflict of their spiritual world, and titanic efforts in struggle. In architectural creativity, this was consistent with an emphasized identification of the plasticity of forms and their intense dynamics. Michelangelo's order often lost its tectonic meaning, turning into a means of decorating walls, creating enlarged masses that amaze a person with their scale and plasticity. Having boldly violated the architectural principles customary for the Renaissance, Michelangelo, to a certain extent, was the founder creative manner, subsequently picked up in Italian Baroque architecture. Michelangelo’s largest architectural works include the completion of St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome after Bramante’s death. Michelangelo, taking as a basis a centric scheme close to Bramante’s plan, introduced new features into its interpretation: he simplified the plan and generalized the internal space, made the supports and walls more massive, and added a portico with a solemn colonnade on the western façade. In the volumetric-spatial composition, the calm balance and subordination of the spaces of Bramante’s project are translated into an emphasized dominance of the main dome and the under-dome space. In the composition of the facades, clarity and simplicity were replaced by more complex and large plastic forms; the walls are dissected by ledges and pilasters of a large Corinthian order with a powerful entablature and a high attic; between the pilasters there are window openings, niches and various decorative elements (cornices, belts, sandriks, statues, etc.) that seem to be squeezed into the piers, giving the walls an almost sculptural plasticity.
In the composition of the Medici Chapel Church of San Lorenzo in Florence (1520) by Michelangelo, the interior and sculptures merged into a single whole. Sculptural and architectural forms are full of internal tension and drama. Their acute emotional expressiveness prevails over the tectonic basis; the order is interpreted as an element of the artist’s fundamentally common sculptural plan.
One of the outstanding Roman architects of the late Renaissance is also Vignola, the author of the treatise “The Rule of the Five Orders of Architecture”. His most significant works are the Caprarola Castle and the Villa of Pope Julius II. . During the Renaissance, the type of villa undergoes significant development associated with a change in its functional content. Back at the beginning of the 15th century. it was a country estate, often surrounded by walls, and sometimes even had defensive towers. By the end of the 15th century. the villa became a country retreat for wealthy citizens (Villa Medici near Florence), and from the 16th century. it often becomes the residence of large feudal lords and high clergy. The villa loses its intimacy and acquires the character of a ceremonial front-axial structure, open to the surrounding nature.
The Villa of Pope Julius II is an example of this type. Its strictly axial and rectangular composition in external outlines descends along the mountainside in ledges, creating a complex game of open, semi-open and closed spaces located at different levels. The composition shows the influence of ancient Roman forums and Vatican courtyards.
Outstanding masters of the Venetian school of the late Renaissance were Sansovino, who built the building of the Library of San Marco in Venice (begun in 1536) - an important component of the remarkable ensemble of the Venetian center, and the most prominent representative of the classical school of the Renaissance - the architect Palladio.
The activities of Andrea Palladio (1508 - 1580) took place mainly in Vicenza, near Venice, where he built palace buildings and villas, as well as in Venice, where he built mainly church buildings. His work in a number of buildings was a reaction to the anti-classical tendencies of the late Renaissance. In an effort to preserve the purity of classical principles, Palladio relies on the rich experience he acquired in the process of studying the ancient heritage. He is trying to revive not only order forms, but entire elements and even types of buildings ancient period. Structurally true order portico becomes the main theme of many of his works.
In the Villa Rotunda , built near Vicenza (started in 1551), the master achieved exceptional integrity and harmony of the composition. Situated on a hill and clearly visible from a distance, the four facades of the villa with porticoes on all sides, together with the dome, form a clear centric composition.
In the center there is a round domed hall, from which exits lead to porticoes. Wide portico staircases connect the building with the surrounding nature. The centric composition reflected the general aspirations of Renaissance architects for the absolute completeness of the composition, clarity and geometricity of forms, the harmonious connection of individual parts with the whole and the organic merging of the building with nature.
But this “ideal” composition scheme remained isolated. In the actual construction of numerous villas, Palladio paid more attention to the so-called three-part scheme, consisting of a main volume and one-story order galleries extending from it to the sides, serving to communicate with the services of the estate and organizing the front courtyard in front of the facade of the villa. It was this scheme of a country house that later had numerous followers in the construction of manor palaces.
In contrast to the free development of the volumes of country villas, Palladian city palaces usually have a strict and laconic composition with a large-scale and monumental main facade. The architect widely uses the large order, interpreting it as a kind of “column-wall” system. A striking example is the palazzo Capitanio (1576), the walls of which are decorated with columns of a large composite order with a powerful, loose entablature. The upper floor, expanded in the form of a superstructure (attic floor), gave the building completeness and monumentality,
Palladio also widely used in his city palaces two-tiered division of facades with orders, as well as an order placed on a high rusticated ground floor - a technique first used by Bramante and subsequently widespread in the architecture of classicism.
Conclusion
Modern architecture, when searching for forms of its own stylistic manifestation, does not hide the fact that it uses historical heritage. Most often, she turns to those theoretical concepts and principles of shaping that in the past achieved the greatest stylistic purity. Sometimes it even seems that everything that previously lived in the 20th century returned in a new form and was quickly repeated again.
Much of what a person values in architecture appeals not so much to a scrupulous analysis of individual parts of an object, but to its synthetic, holistic image, to the sphere of emotional perception. This means that architecture is art or, in any case, contains elements of art.
Sometimes architecture is called the mother of the arts, meaning that painting and sculpture developed for a long time in an inextricable organic connection with architecture. The architect and the artist always had a lot in common in their work, and sometimes got along well in one person. The ancient Greek sculptor Phidias is rightfully considered one of the creators of the Parthenon. The elegant bell tower of the main cathedral of Florence, Santa Maria del Fiore, was built “according to a drawing” by the great painter Giotto. Michelangelo, who was equally great as an architect, sculptor and painter. Raphael also worked successfully in the architectural field. Their contemporary, the painter Giorgio Vasari, built the Uffizi Street in Florence. Such a synthesis of the talents of an artist and an architect was found not only among the titans of the Renaissance, but also marked modern times. Applied artists Englishman William Morris and Belgian Van de Velde made a great contribution to the development modern architecture. Corbusier was a talented painter, and Alexander Vesnin a brilliant theater artist. Soviet artists K. Malevich and L. Lissitzky interestingly experimented with architectural form, and their colleague and contemporary Vladimir Tatlin became the author of the legendary project of the Tower 111 of the International. The author of the famous project of the Palace of Soviets, architect B. Iofan, is rightfully considered the co-author of the sculpture “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” together with the wonderful Soviet artist Vera Mukhina.
Graphic representation and three-dimensional layout are the main means by which the architect seeks and defends his solutions. The discovery of linear perspective during the Renaissance actively influenced the spatial concept of architecture of this time. Ultimately, the understanding of linear perspective led to the linking of the square, staircase, and building into a single spatial composition, and subsequently to the emergence of gigantic architectural ensembles of Baroque and high classicism. Many years later, the experiments of cubist artists had a great influence on the development of architectural form-making. They tried to depict an object from different points of view, achieve its three-dimensional perception by superimposing several images, and expand the possibilities of spatial perception by introducing the fourth dimension - time. This volumetricity of perception served as the starting point for the formal search for modern architecture, which contrasted the flat screen of the facade with an intricate play of volumes and planes freely located in space.
Sculpture and painting did not immediately gain independence from architecture. At first they were just elements architectural structure. It took more than one century for painting to separate from the wall or iconostasis. At the end of the Renaissance, in Piazza della Signoria in Florence, sculptures still timidly crowd around the buildings, as if afraid to completely break with the facades. Michelangelo is the first to place an equestrian statue in the center of the Capitoline Square in Rome. The year is 1546. Since then, a monument, a monumental sculpture, has acquired the rights of an independent element of composition that organizes urban space. True, the sculptural form continues to live on the walls of the architectural structure for some time, but gradually these last traces of “former luxury” disappear from them.
Corbusier affirms this composition of modern architecture with his characteristic certainty: “I recognize neither sculpture nor painting as decoration. I admit that both can evoke deep emotions in the viewer in the same way that music and theater affect you - it all depends on the quality of the work, but I am definitely against decoration. On the other hand, considering an architectural work and mainly the site on which it is erected, you see that some places in the building itself and around it are certain intensive mathematical places that turn out to be, as it were, a key to the proportions of the work and its surroundings. These are the places of the highest intensity, and it is in these places that the architect's specific goal can be realized - either in the form of a pool, or a block of stone, or a statue. We can say that in this place all the conditions are connected for a speech to be made, an artist’s speech, a plastic speech.”
During the Renaissance, an attitude was gradually formed among architects towards a structure as part of a whole, which must be able to relate to the surrounding space, and be able to find a contrasting, mutually beneficial combination of different structures. The culture of urban planning of the Renaissance took shape gradually and in various ensembles - in San Marco Square in Venice, in the ensemble of the Educational House of the Silkworm Workshop of the architect. Brunelleschi and others. The use of arcades and colonnades along the streets was of great importance, which gave urban development noticeable community features (Uffizi Street in Florence by the architect Vasari).
A significant contribution to the formation of examples of an architectural ensemble isCapitol Square in Rome,designed by Michelangelo. Opening the square to the city while simultaneously subordinating the space of the square to the main building is new feature, introduced by Michelangelo into the architecture of urban ensembles.
Gradually, in the understanding of architects, the idea of the city as a single whole, in which all parts are interconnected, matured. New firearms rendered medieval stone fortifications defenseless. This predetermined the appearance of earthen walls along the perimeter of cities.bastionsand determined the star shape of the line of city fortifications. Cities of this type appeared in the 2/3 of the 16th century. A revivalist idea of"ideal city" -the city most convenient for living.
In organizing the urban area, Renaissance architects followed 3 basic principles:
1. class settlement (for nobles - the central and best parts of the city);
2. professional-group settlement of the rest of the population (artisans of related professions are nearby);
3. division of the city territory into residential, industrial, commercial and public complexes.
The layout of “ideal cities” must necessarily be regular or radial-circular, but the choice of layout must be determined natural conditions: relief, reservoir, river, winds, etc.
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| Palma Nuova, 1593 |
Usually in the center of the city there was a main public square with a castle or with a town hall and a church in the middle. Trade or religious areas of regional significance in radial cities were located at the intersection of radial streets with one of the city's ring highways.
These projects also involved significant improvement - landscaping streets, creating channels for rainwater drainage and sewerage. Houses had to have certain ratios of height and distance between them for the best insolation and ventilation.
Despite their utopianism, the theoretical developments of the “ideal cities” of the Renaissance had some influence on the practice of urban planning, especially when constructing small fortifications in a short time(Valetta, Palma Nuova, Granmichele- 16th -17th centuries).