Lucy Zhao
Melody Sue
Wyl.p5.t2
Funded by private patrons such as Medici and no longer dependent on Church funds to survive, Renaissance artists were able to explore secular themes in their work.
“Renaissance man” Leonardo Da Vinci and his oil paintings gained fame not only for their accurate religious depictions but also for their novel approaches to the human aesthetic.
For instance, one of Da Vinci’s most famous and beloved paintings is his Last Supper, which was painted in a religious monastery and depicted the most well-known religious scene: the last supper of Jesus Christ. Highly approved by the Church and artist alike, the subject of the painting was not the only religious aspect of this aesthetic masterpiece; Last Supper soon became the epitome of religious narrative painting for decades to come. Da Vinci also achieved a balance of godly and worldly visuals, in such paintings as Virgin of the Rocks, depicting John the Baptist worshipping Jesus Christ with scientifically accurate and meticulously measured anatomical correctness, within the context of nature and the human world.
Yet throughout his life and throughout his paintings, Da Vinci was an observant scientist whose meticulous studies of tangible objects and the mortal human form (studied through sacrilegious dissections of cadavers) often seemed the farthest things from religion. The subtle yet powerful atmospheres in his sfumato paintings such as the Mona Lisa emphasize human emotion and human figures gained exposure despite a heavily spiritual, godly and non-human emphasis of Church-controlled society.
This shifting focus to individual, as opposed to religious figures, reflected the Humanism that emerged during the Renaissance. This movement involved, in the arts, glorifying but also Realistically portraying the human body, nature or other worldly, secular themes. In this way, art took away some of the Church’s previously exclusive right to define man’s relationship with humanity, with the universe and with God. Likewise, asceticism (emphasizing self-denial and austerity) was developed; secular asceticism in paintings and religious asceticism elsewhere gave people options in how to pursue new philosophies outside of religious devotion.
Michelangelo also took the liberty to exercise his secular artistic license in The Creation of Adam and other fresco paintings on the Sistine Chapel ceiling; rather than depict God’s holiness and his plan for humanity’s salvation, as was originally planned, Michelangelo focused on humanity’s disgrace and subsequent necessity for faith and for God. Though the main narrative of the painting still deals with God, and still portrays the greatness of religious figures, the ceiling is very Humanist in that the human figures are so beautiful and largely proportioned as to seem to glorify humanity over God.
With these artists and others pioneering the way, art soon departed from purely religious purpose to allow new practices and techniques to emerge. Through the study of nature, anatomy, light and perspective, artists paved the way for a new artistic revolution.
Wyl.p1.t4 Edward Tyler, Danny Shapiro, Claire West, Ivy Arbolado
ReplyDeleteIn revealing the work of Leonardo and Michelangelo as a synthesis of aestheticism and the asceticism demanded by the Church during the Renaissance, you showed the Humanistic exploratory spirit infused into religious commissions. Painting as you say “within the context of nature and the human world” they could allude to beliefs metaphorically. The conflict of intellect and purity of this era glimmers through Leonardo’s sfumato you discussed in its application for artistic expression. Leonardo studied the science of light, inventing chiaroscuro, an alchemy that “artificially expands the range of luminance, creating a greater sense of depth.” Thus he illuminated a new vision of soul, as in the Mona Lisa, drawing you in to her divine state of contemplation, a new concept of Human Dignity, man as divine, shimmers. He did so much to advance perspective, which places man in context in this time where much is not as it appears to be. Michelangelo in his dramatic portraits returns to the Classical statement of man in a dynamic individualism. Both artists also told tales of surreptitiously rebellions against priests or overseers of their projects and the revenge they could wreak, as Michelangelo is said to have done, immortalizing a tyrant’s portrait in Last Judgment with a snake forever biting his genitals.
To differ with you on one point: the dominant patronage was not from the wealthy Medicis; the Catholic Church maintained supreme rule as the main source for commissions. However, in the religious/socio/ /political climate, at times risking such self-expression proved dangerous. Both artists did works that were censored, painted over by someone else. They also were endangered by charges of heresy. Accusations were an ongoing threat, with Spain’s Inquisition first, but in Italy it came in 1542, to halt the Reformation. Leonardo and Michelangelo had died, but Galileo would be put under house arrest- to recant his discoveries- while many others were killed.