chapter 19 italy 1200-1400 gothic pisa, florence, siena

Chapter 19

Italy 1200-1400

Gothic

Pisa, Florence, Siena

Key Ideas

• Late Gothic art in Italy forms a bridge between Medieval and Renaissance art

• The artist becomes an important historical personality whose life story can be traced and recorded

• Aspects of ancient sculpture are revitalized under the artistic leadership of the Pisani family

• The Sienese and Florentine schools of painting dominate trecentro art.

Historical background

• The art movement that we today call the Renaissance began in the city-states of Italy in the Late Gothic period at the very end of the Middle Ages. Art was only one component of an ever-evolving world in which the urge to explore, to investigate, and to discover motivated people as never before.

Background

• Economic changes throughout Europe, centering on banking and commercial interests in Italy, began to emerge as powerful forces in the shipment and circulation of goods throughout the region. The European taste for exploring new markets and reaching beyond the continent for the exotic eventually led ships to sail first around Africa, and then to the New World.

History

• The exploration of the globe was a facet of the universal urge to uncover and survey seemingly everything. Humanists began investigating the classical past as never before, restoring life to literary and artistic wonders of antiquity and adapting them to a modern audience.

History

• With Cimabue and Nicola Pisano, the first traceable and coherent artistic careers begin to emerge. Artists’ signatures indicate their rising status- a radical break from the general anonymity in which earlier medieval artists had roiled and a need to imprint their accomplishments on works they felt particularly proud of.

Italian Gothic Architecture

• Stress width as well as height• Horizontal emphasis is so strong that the height

seems restrained• Interiors feature one story of arches and a

second of windows.• Wide naves focus attention on Apses backlit by

tall windows• Rib vaults open up the clerestory to admit

volumes of light filtered by thin masses of pastel colored stained glass windows.

Arnolfo Cambio and others, Florence Cathedral (Santa Maria del Fiore), 1296 CE, Giotto designed the campanile.

•Wide, open expansive interior

•Broad heavy piers allow side aisle spaces to flow into nave: very widely spaced arches

•Dark interiors of French Gothic are replaced by a lighter interior

•Campanile: crisply divided horizontal sections stack floors one above the other; variously colored marbles inspired by Italian Romanesque buildings; patterns of rectangular blocks of marble cover the surface.

•Façade finished in 19th century

Florentine Painting

• The trend in Gothic sculpture is to liberate works from the wall, allowing them to occupy space independent of their architectural framework. Italian painting of the late Gothic period is characterized by large scale panels that stand on their own.

• Wall paintings (frescoes and mosaics) emphasized the flatness of the wall surface, encouraging artists to produce compositions that were frontal and linear. Late Gothic artists preferred fresco and tempera, which enabled them to shade figures convincingly and reach for a three dimensional reality.

Painting

• Cimabue accepted Byzantine formulas , maniera greca.

• Giotto and his followers substantiated masses and anchored figures to ground lines.

• Expressive faces and meaningful gestures, emotions become more dynamic

• Compositional arrangements move away from the center of the painting.

Cimabue, Madonna Enthroned, 1280-1290, tempera on panel, Uffizi, Florence

•Maniera greca: figures rise in a hieratic Byzantine manner

•Emphasis on flatness of forms: angels hover around throne

•Long thin elegant fingers; strong verticality•Flecks of gold define drapery folds

•Virgin as the Throne of Wisdom points the way to Christ as the way to salvation

•Mary with Byzantine shaped face and stylized features

•Not Byzantine in size; Byzantine icons are portable

Giotto, Madonna Enthroned, 1310, tempera on panel, Uffizi, Florence

•Weight, size, solidity, three-dimensionality, bulk

•Mary’s breast and knees revealed beneath drapery

•Angels stand more naturally around the Gothic throne

•Perspective indicated in the positioning of the arms of the throne and the shadowing of the steps

•Some faces turn away from the picture plane

•Mary as the mother of Christ, but also becomes more human

Giotto, Lamentation, from the Arena Chapel, 1305-1306, fresco, Padua, Italy

•Arena Chapel built by Enrico Scrovegni to expiate the sin of usury through which his father had amassed his fortune; some narrative scenes chosen for the chapel illustrate Biblical episodes of ill-gotten gains

•Shallow stage, figures occupy a space pushed forward toward the picture plane

•Diagonal cliff formation points to main action daringly placed in lower left-hand corner.

•Modeling indicates direction of light, light falls from above right

•Range of emotions: heavy sadness, quiet resignation, flaming outbursts, despair

•Figures seen from the back seem to isolate the main action

•Sadness of scene emphasized by grieving angels, barrenness of tree

pinnacles

Crowning panels

Main panels

Predella

The Sienese Altarpiece by Andrea Vanni

The forms parallel elements of A Gothic cathedral: the main panel acts as the nave, the side panels as side aisles, the pinacles as the roof and the predella as the crypt

Sienese Painting

• Sienese painters used a decorative style of painting, more like Northern European art.

• Figures are thinner, elegant and courtly

• Colors are decorative, drapery is less defined by mass than by thin fluttering of the drapery and zigzagging of complex linear patterns

Sienese Painting

• Drapery is more likely to curve artistically in flouncing series of ripples

• Use of imitation marble patterning on thrones or pavements.

• Hierarchy of scale remains, figures are in proportion to one another, figures dominate architectural settings.

Sienese Painting

• Sienese painters explore three dimensionality, carved deeply into picture plane to create interiors

• Motif: opening of a door frame or room wall, revealing what lies beyond, as a theatrical stage

• Simon Martini, International Gothic style he spread to Europe

Duccio, Maesta’, main panel: 1308-11

•For the main altar of Siena Cathedal, the centerpeice of a cluster of Marian works

•Only signed and documented work of Dudcco to have survived

•Richest and most complex altarpiece of its time

• Hieratic arrangement of figures in three horizontal registers, Mary and Jesus in the center, saints kneeling below and standing on either side, and angels looming between saints’ halos in top row

•Fluttering, light drapery lines fall in zigzag patterns

•Decoratively patterned throne folds outward to reveal Mary and Jesus enthroned

Simon Martini, Annunciation, 1333, tempera on panel, Uffizi Florence

•Grain of marble floor retreats in perspective

•Elegant figures, drapery, ornament

•Use of gold dominant

•Angel: white brocade is beautifully and subtly modeled

•Mary: shrinks back in modesty, picture of courtly medieval woman

•Vase of white lilies symbolizes Mary’s purity

•Traditional gold wall background in effect becomes the rear wall

•Gestures are courtly and aristocratic

•International Gothic style

Pietro Lorenzetti, Birth of the Virgin, 1342, tempera on panel

•Part of the Marian cycle of paintings in Siena Cathedral

•Pioneering attempt a building an interior space, with three parts of the triptych suggesting a single common viewpoint

•St. Anne gives birth inside a Sienese home; everyday items depicted

•St. Joachim, Mary’s father, is in an antechamber hearing the news of the birth of his daughter

Windows open up to reveal further arches and walled spaces beyond, expressing depth: innovative use of pier that establishes picture plane and does not separate the space of the center and right-hand panels

Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Effects of Good Government in the City, 1338-1340, Public Palace, Siena

•Located in the Public Palace in Siena where judges met to adjudicate issues of Sienese law

•Highly literate society for its time; inscriptions were in Latin and Italian; Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s signature is prominently displayed

City: cityscape scene from high viewpoint, prosperous town run by efficient laws; dancing in the streets symbolizes the success of good government, crafts and trades flourish; schools are open; new buildings under construction; emphasis placed on food being brought into the city

Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Effects of Good Government in the Country, 1338-40, Public Palace, Siena, Italy

•Country: peaceful villas set in landscape again viewed from above, filled with vineyards, orchard, and bountiful harvests; distant port for the shipment of goods; figure of Security holding a gallows insures fair justice for all; aristocrats leave town to go falconing; farmers bring livestock and grain to market.

•Broadly lit painting to signify daytime, with a blue-black sky to offset the colors

Italian Gothic Sculpture

• Italian Gothic sculpture was influenced by classical models. Although classic never passed from the Italian art, Nicola Pisano built figures of solid mass and firm, realistically arranged drapery. There was a tendency to create compositions that were crowded with various episodes of horror vacui(fear of empty spaces), stacked on top of one another. The main scene dominates because of its size, but subsidiary scenes compete for attention in available blank space

Nicola Pisano, The Pisa Pulpit, 1259-1260, Pisa Baptistery, Pisa, Italy

Pulpit: five panels circle around the elevated pulpit; Gothic Corinthian capitals closer in design to ancient capitals than contemporary French; round arches cusp in French Gothic style; antique lions at the base; nude heroic figure of Hercules symbolizing Christian bravery and strength

Annunciation and Nativity: very crowded composition of figures on top of one another; drapery forms logically around bodies that are stocky and solidly conceived; as in Italian painting, facial expressions and gestures enliven figures that communicate with each other.

Giovanni Pisano, Pisa Pulpit, 1302-1310, marble, Pisa Cathedral

•Figures are widely spaced and scenes separated

•Dynamic movement of figures, they are not a static as Nicola Pisano’s

•Deeply cut sculpture creating shadows

•Inspired by French Gothic models more than classical Roman ones.

Vocabulary Words

• Allegory

• Altarpiece

• International Gothic Style

• Maesta’

• Maniera greca

• Predella

• Tempera

• Trecentro

Multiple Choice

1. Which of the following painters is closest to the spirit of maniera greca?

A. Cimabue

B. Giotto

C. Duccio

D. Simone Martini

2. This painting an example of International Gothic because

A.It has a predella

B.It is a religious scene

C.It is dedicated to Mary

D.The costumes are lavish

3. This painting is from the Sienese Gothic School because

A.There is no exploration of depth

B.The altarpiece has large gables

C.The drapery falls in elegant, complex patterns

D.There are saints in the side panels.

4. The artist of this work is

A.Giotto

B.Simone Martini

C.Duccio

D.Pietro Lorenzetti

5. Unlike earlier medieval works this large painting

A.Is done in mosaic

B.Stands independently

C.Contains symbolism

D.Is an allegory

6. Paintings, even major altarpieces, are grouped around a theme. The ones executed for Siena Cathedral were centered on

A.The life of Jesus

B.The Annunciation and Nativity

C.The life of Mary

D.A peaceful city

7. Paintings are often done for a particular location. This work is a fresco painted for

A.Siena CathedralB.The Public Palace in SienaC.Florence CathedralD.Pisa Cathedral Baptistery

8. The significance of the location of this work lies in its message that

A.Faithful people go to heavenB.Happy people live lives of charity and loveC.Good government leads to a happy citizenryD.The morally correct will prosper no matter what the city government does

9. The artist who signed this work is

A.DuccioB.Simone MartiniC.Ambrogio LorenzettiD.Nicola Pisano

10. When artists left their apprenticeships, their careers were directed by

A.Patrons

B.The church

C.Guilds

D.Master artists

Essay, 10 minutes

This work was done in Late Gothic Italy in either the Florentine or the Sienese tradition. In which tradition would you place this painting and why?