Solved by verified expert:Choose one of the topics below and answer it in 3-5 typed pages double-spaced. Demonstrate knowledge of citation practices by citing your textbook (978-1-337-14835-1 GARDNER’S ART THROUGH THE AGES 15th edition Volume 2) as a consulted work. You can pick any format to use (Chicago, MLA, etc.), as long as you are consistent. I do not expect you to do any additional research as the information in this course and from the textbook should be sufficient. Because these topics below are broad, I will expect you to narrow the one you choose appropriately. Make sure to have a thesis statement and use examples from the art we have studied in this unit (chapters 14-17) to prove your thesis. Make sure you include examples from the majority of chapters covered. (I uploaded some information about the chapters so you can use it).Here are the topics in Bold with thought provokers following:Describe the changes in the patronage system during the periods and cultures of these 4 chapters and how it is reflected in the artworks produced. Think about how changes in patronage and how that might relate to socio/religious changes as well as geopolitical ones. Are there distinctions in patronage that result in different aesthetics? Does this account for the distinct differences between the Northern and Italian Renaissance?Use examples from the art we have studied in these 4 chapters to defend the statement, “representation is a matter of function.” In Western culture the Renaissance art of this unit is perhaps the most celebrated in human achievement. Looking at the development of humanism and natural form, how can it be seen as evolving from specific ideological needs as opposed to simply an increase in “talent”.In what ways has architecture informed us of the cultures we have studied in these four chapters? Architecture at this time is coming close to a science. Specifically, treatises are being written and buildings are being documented for their artistic and spiritual qualities. What do we learn about a culture form their architecture? Is there a development of architectural form? How is it unique from other art forms? How does architecture reflect and promote ideas?PICK A Topic of Your Choice- Find something personally relevant, (a passion, a major, career, etc) and apply what you have learned to that. Select 3-5 works of art from these chapters and organize them around 1 aspect of your life, whether it is a career, a personal interest or an important idea. Here are some examples of successful papers in the past. One student had a passion for skateboarding and related 3 specific works of art from the chapters we studied to not only the aesthetics of certain logos and designs, but also the different styles of skating. Another student was a fashion major and related two lines which were recently released and how they were influenced by specific artworks and how those fashions related to the themes we covered. If you pick your own topic, it is best to run it by me in a quick email so that I can make sure you are on the right track.I uploaded some information about the chapters so you can use it.
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(Chapter 14)
Late Medieval or Proto-Renaissance?
Art historians debate whether the art of Italy between 1200 and 1400 is the last phase of
medieval art or the beginning of the rebirth, or Renaissance , of Greco-Romannaturalism . All
agree, however, that these two centuries mark a major turning point in the history of Western art
and that the pivotal figure of this age was the Florentine painter Giotto di Bondone (ca. 1266–
1337). Giotto’s masterwork is the fresco cycle of the Arena Chapel ( Fig. 14-1 ) in Padua, which
takes its name from an adjacent ancient Roman arena (amphitheater ). A banker, Enrico
Scrovegni, built the chapel on a site adjacent to his palace and consecrated it in 1305, in the hope
that the chapel would atone for the moneylender’s sin of usury.In 38 framed panels, Giotto
presented, in the top level, the lives of the Virgin and her parents, Joachim and Anna; in the
middle zone, the life and mission of Jesus; and, in the lowest level, the Savior’s passion and
resurrection. The climactic Last Judgment covers most of the west wall, where Scrovegni
appears among the saved, kneeling as he presents his chapel to the Virgin.The Entry into
Jerusalem, Betrayal of Jesus , and Lamentationpanels reveal the essentials of Giotto’s style. In
contrast to the common practice of his day, Giotto set his goal as emulating the appearance of the
natural world—the approach championed by the ancient Greeks and Romans but largely
abandoned in the Middle Ages in favor of representing spiritual rather than physical reality.
Subtly scaled to the chapel’s space, Giotto’s stately and slow-moving half-life-size figures act
out the religious dramas convincingly and with great restraint. The biblical actors are
sculpturesque, simple, and weighty, often foreshortened(seen from an angle) and modeled with
light and shading in the ancient manner. They convey individual emotions through their postures
and gestures. Giotto’s naturalism displaced the Byzantine style (see Chapter 9 ) in Italy,
inaugurating an age some scholars call “early scientific.” By stressing the preeminence of sight
for gaining knowledge of the world, Giotto and his successors contributed to the foundation of
empirical science. Praised in his own and later times for his fidelity to nature, Giotto was more
than a mere imitator of it. He showed his generation a new way of seeing. With Giotto, European
painters turned away from representing the spiritual world—the focus of medieval artists both in
the Latin West and Byzantium—and once again made recording the visible world a central, if not
the sole, aim of their art.
Giotto
Celebrated in his own day as the first Renaissance painter, Giotto di Bondone ( Fig. 14-1 ) is a
towering figure in the history of art. Scholars still debate the sources of the Florentine painter’s
style, but one formative influence must have been Cimabue, whom Vasari identified as Giotto’s
teacher, while noting that the pupil eclipsed his master by abandoning the “crude maniera greca”
(see “ Vasari’s Lives ,” ). The 13th-century murals of San Francesco at Assisi ( Figs. 145A and 14-5C ) and those of Pietro Cavallini in Rome ( Fig. 14-7 ) may also have influenced
Giotto—although some scholars believe that the young Giotto himself was one of the leading
painters of the Assisi church. French Gothic sculpture (which Giotto may have seen but which
was certainly familiar to him from the work of Giovanni Pisano, who had spent time in Paris)
and ancient Roman art probably also contributed to Giotto’s artistic education. Yet no mere
synthesis of these varied influences could have produced the significant shift in artistic approach
that has led some scholars to describe Giotto as the father of Western pictorial art.
MADONNAENTHRONED On nearly the same great scale as Cimabue’s enthroned Madonna ( Fig. 146 ) is Giotto’s panel ( Fig. 14-8 ) depicting the same subject, painted for the high altar of Florence’s Church
of the Ognissanti (All Saints). Although still portrayed against the traditional gold background, Giotto’s
Madonna sits on her Gothic throne with the unshakable stability of an ancient marble goddess (compare Fig.
7-30 ). Giotto replaced Cimabue’s slender Virgin, fragile beneath the thin ripplings of her drapery, with a
weighty, queenly mother. In Giotto’s painting, the Madonna’s body is not lost—indeed, it is asserted. Giotto
even showed Mary’s breasts pressing through the thin fabric of her white undergarment. Gold highlights
have disappeared from her heavy robe. Giotto aimed instead to construct a figure with substance,
dimensionality, and bulk—qualities suppressed in favor of a spiritual immateriality in Byzantine and ItaloByzantine art. The different approaches of teacher and pupil can also be seen in the angels flanking the
Madonna’s throne. Cimabue stacked his angels to fill the full height of the panel. Giotto’s angels stand on a
common level, leaving a large blank area above the heads of the background figures. Works painted in the
new style portray statuesque figures projecting into the light and creating the illusion that they could throw
shadows. Giotto’s Madonna Enthroned marks the end of medieval painting in Italy and the beginning of a
new naturalistic approach to art.
Fresco Painting
Fresco painting has a long history, particularly in the Mediterranean region, where the Minoans
( Figs. 4-7 , 4-8 ,4-9 and 4-10 ) used it as early as the 17th century bce .Fresco (Italian for
“fresh”) is a mural-painting technique involving the application of permanent limeproof
pigments, diluted in water, on freshly laid lime plaster. Because the surface of the wall absorbs
the pigments as the plaster dries, fresco is one of the most durable painting techniques. The
stable condition of the ancient Minoan frescoes, as well as those found at Pompeii and other
Roman sites ( Figs. 7-17 , 7-18 , 7-19 , 7-20 , 7-21 , 7-22 , 7-23 , 7-24 , 7-25 and 7-26 ), in San
Francesco ( Figs. 14-5A and 14-5C ) at Assisi, and in the Arena Chapel ( Figs. 14-1and 149 , 14-9A , and 14-9B ) at Padua, testify to the longevity of this painting method. The colors have
remained vivid (although dirt and soot have necessitated cleaning—most famously in the
Vatican’s Sistine Chapel;Fig. 17-18B ) because of the chemically inert pigments the artists
used.This buon fresco (“true” fresco) process is time-consuming and demanding and requires
several layers of plaster. Although buon fresco methods vary, generally the artist (or, more
precisely, an apprentice in the master’s workshop) prepares the wall with a rough layer of lime
plaster called the arriccio (brown coat). The artist then transfers the composition to the wall,
usually by drawing directly on the arriccio with a burnt-orange pigment calledsinopia (most
popular during the 14th century), or by transferring a cartoon (a full-size preparatory drawing).
Cartoons increased in usage in the 15th and 16th centuries, largely replacing sinopia underdrawings. Finally, the painter lays the intonaco (painting coat) smoothly over the drawing in
sections (called giornate —Italian for “days”) only as large as the artist expects to complete in
that session. (It is easy to distinguish the various giornate in Giotto’s Lamentation [ Fig. 14-9 ].)
The buon fresco painter must apply the colors quickly, because once the plaster is dry, it will no
longer absorb the pigment. Any unpainted areas of the intonaco after a session must be cut away
so that fresh plaster can be applied for the next giornata.In addition to the buon fresco technique,
artists usedfresco secco (dry fresco). Fresco secco involves painting on dried lime plaster, the
method the ancient Egyptians employed ( Figs. 3-28 and 3-29 ). Although the finished product
visually approximates buon fresco, the plaster wall does not absorb the pigments, which simply
adhere to the surface, so fresco secco is not as permanent as buon fresco.In areas of high
humidity, such as Venice, fresco was less appropriate because moisture is an obstacle to the
drying process. Over the centuries, fresco became less popular, although it did experience a
revival in the 1930s with the Mexican muralists ( Figs. 24-74 and 24-75 ).
(chapter 15)
Roger van der Weyden and Saint Luke
In the 15th-century, Flanders—a region corresponding to what is today Belgium, the
Netherlands, Luxembourg, and part of northern France ( Map 15-1 )—enjoyed widespread
prosperity. Successful merchants and craft guilds joined the clergy and royalty in commissioning
artists to produce works for both public and private venues. Especially popular were paintings
prepared using the recently perfected medium of oil-based pigments, which soon became the
favored painting medium throughout Europe (see “ Tempera and Oil Painting ” ).One of the
early masters of oil painting was Rogier van der Weyden (ca. 1400–1464) of Tournai in presentday Belgium. Rogier made Brussels his home in 1435 and soon thereafter painted Saint Luke
Drawing the Virgin ( Fig. 15-1 ), probably for the city’s artists’ guild , the Guild of Saint Luke.
Luke was the patron saint of artists because legend said that he had painted a portrait of the
Virgin Mary (see “ Early Christian Saints ,” ). Rogier’s subject was therefore perfectly suited for
the headquarters of a painters’ guild. It shows Luke (his identifying attribute, the ox, is at the
right; see “ The Four Evangelists ,” ) at work in the kind of private residence that wealthy
Flemish merchants of this era owned. Mary has miraculously appeared before Luke and invited
him to paint her portrait as she nurses her son. The saint begins the process by making a
preliminary drawing using a silverpoint (a sharp stylus that creates a fine line), the same
instrument Rogier himself would have used when he began this commission. The painting thus
not only honors Luke but also pays tribute to the profession of painting in Flanders (see “ The
Artist’s Profession in Flanders ” ) by documenting the preparatory work required before artists
can begin painting the figures and setting.The subject also draws attention to the venerable
history of portrait painting. A rare genre during the Middle Ages, portraiture became a major
source of income for Flemish artists, and Rogier was one of the best portrait painters (Fig. 158A ) in Flanders. In fact, many scholars believe that Rogier’s Saint Luke is a self-portrait,
identifying the painter with the first Christian artist and underscoring the holy nature of
painting. Saint Luke Drawing the Virgin is also emblematic of 15th-century Flemish painting in
aiming to record every detail of a scene with loving fidelity to optical appearance, seen here in
the rich fabrics, the patterned floor, and the landscape visible through the window. Also
characteristic of Flemish art is the imbuing of many of the painting’s details with symbolic
significance. For example, the carved armrest of the Virgin’s bench depicts Adam, Eve, and the
serpent, reminding the viewer that Mary is the new Eve and Christ the new Adam who will
redeem humanity from Adam and Eve’s original sin.
Northern Europe in the 15th Century
As the 15th century opened, Rome and Avignon were still the official seats of two competing
popes (see “ The Great Schism ” ), and the Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453) between France
and England still raged. The general European movement toward centralized royal governments,
begun in the 12th century, continued apace, but the corresponding waning offeudalism brought
social turmoil. Nonetheless, despite widespread conflict and unrest, a new economic system
emerged—the early stage of European capitalism. In response to the financial requirements of
trade, new credit and exchange systems created an economic network of enterprising European
cities. Trade in money accompanied trade in commodities, and the former financed industry.
Both were in the hands of international banking companies, such as those of Jacques Coeur in
Bourges (see House of Jacques Coeur ) and the Medici in Florence . In 1460, Flemish
entrepreneurs established the first international commercial stock exchange in Antwerp. In fact,
the French word for stock market (bourse ) comes from the name of the van der Beurse family of
Bruges, the wealthiest city in 15th-century Flanders.Art also thrived in northern Europe during
this time, under royal, ducal, church, and private patronage. Two developments in particular
were of special significance: the adoption by Rogier van der Weyden ( Fig. 15-1 ) and his
contemporaries of oil-based pigment as the preferred medium for painting, and the blossoming of
printmaking as a major art form, which followed the invention of moveable type. These new
media had a dramatic influence on artistic production both north and south of the Alps.
Tempera and Oil Painting
The generic words paint and pigment encompass a wide range of substances that artists have
used through the ages. Fresco aside (see “ Fresco Painting ” ), during the 14th century,
egg tempera was the material of choice for most painters, both in Italy and northern Europe.
Tempera consists of egg combined with a wet paste of ground pigment. In his influential 1437
guidebook Il libro dell’arte(The Handbook of Art ; see Artistic Training in Renaissance Italy ),
Cennino Cennini (ca. 1370–ca. 1440) noted that artists mixed only the egg yolk with the ground
pigment, but analyses of paintings from this period have revealed that some artists chose to use
the entire egg. Images painted with tempera have a velvety sheen. Artists usually applied
tempera to the painting surface with a light touch because thick application of the pigment
mixture would result in premature cracking and flaking.Some artists used oil paints (powdered
pigments mixed with linseed oil) as far back as the eighth century, but not until the early 1400s
did oil painting become widespread. Melchior Broederlam ( Fig. 15-3 ) and other Flemish artists
were among the first to employ oils extensively (often mixing them with tempera, as Broederlam
did), and Italian painters quickly followed suit. The discovery of better drying components in the
early 15th century enhanced the setting capabilities of oils. Rather than apply these oils in the
light, flecked brushstrokes that the tempera technique encouraged, artists laid down the oils in
transparent layers, or glazes , over opaque or semiopaque underlayers. In this manner, painters
could build up deep tones through repeated glazing . Unlike works in tempera, whose surface
dries quickly due to water evaporation, oils dry more uniformly and slowly, giving the artist time
to rework areas. This flexibility must have been particularly appealing to artists who worked
very deliberately, such as Rogier van der Weyden ( Figs. 15-1 , 15-9 , and 15-9A ), Robert
Campin ( Fig. 15-4 ), Jan van Eyck ( Figs. 15-5 , 15-6 , 15-7 , 15-8 ), and the other Flemish
masters discussed in this chapter, as well as the Italian Leonardo da Vinci ( Figs. 17-2 and 17-5 ).
Leonardo also preferred oil paint because its gradual drying process and consistency enabled him
to blend the pigments, thereby creating the impressive sfumato(smoky) effect that contributed to
his fame. Moreover, while drying, oil paints smooth out, erasing any trace of the brush that
applied the paint. Oil paints also reflect natural light, giving the surface a glow and creating a
rich visual effect unlike the duller sheen of the more light-absorbent tempera medium.Both
tempera and oils can be applied to various surfaces. Through the early 16th century, wood panels
served as the foundation for most paintings. Italians painted on poplar. Northern European artists
used oak, lime, beech, chestnut, cherry, pine, and silver fir. Local availability of these timbers
determined the choice of wood. Linen canvas became increasingly popular in the late 16th
century. Although evidence suggests that artists did not intend permanency for their early images
on canvas, the material proved particularly useful in areas such as Venice where high humidity
warped wood panels and made fresco unfeasible. Furthermore, until artists began to use wood
bars to stretch the canvas to form a taut surface, canvas paintings could be rolled and were lighter
and more compact and therefore more easily portable than wood panels.
(chapter 16)
The Medici, Botticelli, and Classical Antiquity
The name of one family—the Medici of Florence—has become synonymous with the
extraordinary cultural phenomenon called the Italian Renaissance. By early in the 15th century
(the 1400s, or Quattrocento in Italian), the banker Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici (ca. 1360–1429)
had established the family fortune. His son Cosimo (1389–1464) became a great patron of art
and of learning in the broadest sense. Cosimo’s grandson Lorenzo (1449–1492), called Il
Magnifico (the Magnificent), gathered about him a galaxy of artists and gifted men in all fields
as a member of the Platonic Academy of Philosophy. Lorenzo spent lavishly on buildings,
paintings, and sculptures. Indeed, scarcely a single great Quattrocento architect, painter, sculptor,
philosopher, or humanist scholar failed to enjoy Medici patronage.Of all the Florentine masters
the Medici employed, perhaps the most famous today is Sandro Botticelli (1444–1510). His
work is a testament to the intense interest that Quattrocento humanist scholars and the Medici
had in the art, literature, and mythology of the Greco-Roman world—often interpreted in terms
of Christianity according to the philosophical tenets of Neo-Platonism .Botticelli painted Birth of
Venus ( Fig. 16-1 ) for the Medici based on a poem by Angelo Poliziano (1454–1494), a leading
humanist of the day. In Botticelli’s representation of Poliziano’s version of the Greek myth,
Venus (the Roman equivalent of the Greek goddess Aphrodite), born of the sea foam (aphros ),
stands on a floating cockleshell at the center of the painting. Zephyrus, the west wind, carrying
the nymph Chloris, blows Venus to her sacred island, Cyprus. There, the nymph Pomona runs to
meet her with a brocaded mantle. Zephyrus’s breath moves all the figures without effort.
Draperies undulate easily in the gentle gusts, perfumed by rose petals that fall on the
whitecaps.The most remarkable aspect of Birth of Venus is that Botticelli used as a model for his
Venus an ancient statue similar to the Aphrodite of Knidos ( Fig. 5-62 ) by the famed Greek
sculptor Praxiteles. The nude, especially the female nude, was exceedingly rare during the
Middle Ages. The artist’s depiction of Venus unclothed (especially on such a large scale—
roughly life-size) could have drawn harsh criticism. But in the more accommodating
Renaissance culture and under the protection of the powerful Medici, Botticelli’s nude Venus
went unchallenged, in part because his painting was susceptible to a Neo-Platonic reading.
Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499), for example, made the case in his treatise On Love (1469) that
those who embrace the contemplative life of reason—including, of course, the humanists in the
Medici circle—will immediately contemplate spiritual and divine beauty whenever they behold
physical beauty. In this manner, Italian Renaissance patrons made classical learning and
Christian faith compatible.
Sculpture
In 1401, at a time when Florence was threatened from without, the cathedral’s art directors held a
competition to make bronze doors for the east portal of the Baptistery of San Giovanni (Saint
John the Baptist; Fig. 12-30 ). In the late 1390s, Giangaleazzo Visconti, the first duke of Milan
(r. 1378–1395), had begun a military campaign to take over the Italian peninsula. By 1401, when
the cathedral’s art directors initiated the baptistery doors competition, Visconti’s troops had
surrounded Florence, and its independence was in s …
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