THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Look at the image. What do you think the lesson is about?

The Renaissance & linear perspective

• What is the Renaissance?• Brunelleschi’s experiment (ca. 1420);• How linear perspective tied in with Renaissance humanism • Masaccio’s Holy Trinity, 1427;• Perugino, Christ Delivering the Keys of the Kingdom to Saint Peter,

1481-83;• Piero della Francesca, The Baptism of Christ, 1450s;• Artists who chose not to use perspective & why• Rogier van der Weyden, Deposition, 1435.

Sources:SmartHistory by Khan Academy http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/Brunelleschi.html Gardner’s ‘Art through the Ages’

“The Renaissance artist…was the interpreter of a changed attitude of mind. To him man was not so much the humble observer of God’s greatness as the proud expression of God himself, his natural heir on earth. Nature was not there to be gazed at and copied, but to be examined and understood; not to be feared, but to be mastered. The artist was still an observer of nature, but the work of art had become a study of nature in which the artist arranged all the parts logically into one organised comprehensible whole. Tracing this change in attitude will lead us into the heart of the movement that we call the Renaissance…[Renaissance artists] were the heralds of a new relation between man and reality. The emergence of their interest in things as they are, their struggle to express the new found truths, is the story of the Renaissance.” Source: Cambridge Introduction to the History of Art: the Renaissance, by R. M. Letts, Cambridge University Press, p 5 & p6

An introduction to Filippo Brunelleschi's experiment regarding linear perspective, c. 1420, in front of the Baptistery in Florence

Activity: take notes while you listen, so that you are able to verbally summarise the experiment.

Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, SmartHistory by Khan Academy

http://youtu.be/bkNMM8uiMww

Brunelleschi, the Rediscovery of Linear Perspective & Renaissance HumanismBefore looking at painting in the Early Renaissance, we need to learn about the discovery or rediscovery of linear perspective sometime close to 1420 by Filippo Brunelleschi (rediscovery, because the ancient Greeks and Romans may have understood linear perspective too, but if so, knowledge of it was lost during the Middle Ages). Linear perspective is a way of creating a convincing, perfect illusion of space on a flat or two-dimensional surface. Nearly every Renaissance artist wanted linear perspective—a way of creating an accurate illusion of space that could match the new naturalism then being applied to human figure.When Brunelleschi (re)discovered linear perspective in 1420, Florentine painters and sculptors became obsessed with it, especially after detailed instructions were published in a painting manual written by a fellow Florentine, Leon Battista Alberti, in 1435. Art historians explain that perspective is suitable for Renaissance Humanism because "it structured all images of reality to address a single spectator who, unlike God, could only be in one place at a time.” In other words, linear perspective eliminates the multiple viewpoints that we see in medieval art, and creates an illusion of space from a single, fixed viewpoint. This suggests a renewed focus on the individual viewer, and we know that individualism is an important part of the Humanism of the Renaissance.

Applying linear perspective: Masaccio, Holy Trinity, c. 1427, Fresco, Santa Maria Novella, Florence http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/holy-trinity-santa-maria-novella-florence.html Overview

http://youtu.be/Kl4Dcj9o570

http://www.artbabble.org/video/ngadc/empire-eye-magic-illusion-introduction-part-1

http://www.artbabble.org/video/ngadc/empire-eye-magic-illusion-trinity-masaccio-part-2

Masaccio’s Holy Trinity is one of the best early-15th-century examples of the application of mathematics to art, specifically Brunelleschi’s new science of perspective. The illusion of space is incredibly realistic. The memento mori inscription below reads: “What you are, I once was; what I am, you will be.”Mary, left & St. John the Evangelist

The patrons of the work, now thought to possibily be the Berti family of Florence.

Perugino, ‘Christ Delivering the Keys of the Kingdom to Saint Peter’, Sistine Chapel, Vatican, Rome, Italy, 1481–1483, Fresco. Pope Sixtus IV (r. 1414–1484) summoned a group of artists, including Botticelli and Ghirlandaio, to Rome to decorate the walls of the newly completed Sistine Chapel. This fresco shows the event on which the papacy bases its authority. The converging lines of the pavement connect the action in the foreground with the background.

http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/piero-della-francescas-the-baptism-of-christ.html 3.47orhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qv2K1yk0LCE

Piero della Francesca, The Baptism of Christ, 1450s, tempera on wood, National Gallery, London.

He planned his compositions almost entirely by mathematics. He believed that the highest beauty exists in forms that have the clarity and purity of geometric figures.

Question: Give examples of mathematical precision in the composition.

Artists who chose not to use linear perspective after 1420 and why

Geographical area: Flanders (today known as the Netherlands)Artist: Rogier van der WeydenTitle: ‘Deposition’, the centre panel of a triptych from Notre-Dame hors-les-murs, Louvain, Belgium, ca. 1435. Oil on wood, Museo del Prado, Madrid.Question: Listen and say why you think the artist chose NOT to use linear perspective.

http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/weyden-deposition.html 7.09 orhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SLf_oAkngP4#!

‘Deposition’ looks like a theatrical stage on which the biblical figures act out a drama of passionate sorrow. The emotional impact of the painting is unforgettable.

EXTRA: The New ‘New World’Renaissance Portraits Remixed: Artist Mark Abouzeid Poses Modern Immigrants As Masterpiece Stars #interculturalstudies

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/04/renaissance-portraits-reimagined-artist-mark-abouzeid_n_3016572.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003

SOURCES:Gardner’s Art through th AgesSmartHistory by Khan Academy http://www.chiesasantamarianovella.it/en/artworks/masaccio’s-holy-trinity