视觉文化研究 / Research of Visual Culture周雯老师 / Professor Wen Zhou

作业1号 / Homework Nº I

丽芳 / Lai Guim2012年10月09日

University of Science and Technology Beijing

北 京 科 技 大 学

视觉文化研究 / Research of Visual Culture 作业1号 / Homework Nº 1 - Page 1

Homework Nº1

要求

Renassaince in Florence: Masterpieces and Protagonists请观展(三周内)并以图像学方法试分析1-2件作品(不限画作)以图文方式展示并打印上交

主题: 斯卡拉的圣马丁医院的天使报喜美术家: 桑德罗波提切利(亚历山德罗菲利佩皮)年: 1481尺寸: 243 x 555 cms.技术: 壁画

视觉文化研究 / Research of Visual Culture 作业1号 / Homework Nº 1 - Page 2

Homework Nº1

SUBJECT:

The Annunciation of the Virgin

The time represented in the mural is taken from the Holy Scriptures of the Christian faith. It narrates the moment where the Virgin Mary receives the news that has been chosen by God to be the mother of His Child on Earth. God sends the Archangel Gabriel to show up in the chambers of the Virgin and deliver the divine message. He explains to the Virgin she will be impregnated by the Holy Spirit, without having a husband. The Virgin, with great humility, accepts the will of God.

CONTEXT:

Italian Renaissance

After the dominant obscurantism characterizing the long Middle Ages in Europe, the Renaissance emerges in the fourteenth century as a period that values rationality and logical thinking above all things. Its ideals are perfectly embodied in the spirit of ancient Greek culture, due to its deep intellectual development through philosophy, literature and the arts.

Visually, a scientific study of natural forms is developed, especially of the human anatomy. Every form ofrepresentation focus great emphasis on achieving a proper proportion between the parts of a whole. From Greek aesthetics also it is rescued the “hieratic gaze” at facial expressions, symbolizing rational control over human emotions.

Among the major achievements of the Renaissance in the Visual Arts is the creation and development of the concept of perspective, method that allows artists of the time to represent reality in its spatial dimension with great precision.

HISTORICAL DETAILS:

Annunciation of San Martino della Scala

This fresco originally hung over the entrance of San Martino della Scala, a hospital for orphans and homeless people built in 1313. According with historical records, it was commanded to Sandro Boticelli between april and may of 1481 by the hospital authorities. It was probably erected in gratitude for the end of the bout of plague which had been raging in Florence since 1478. The work suffered considerable damage over time and it wasrestored in the 17th century. It was removed from the walls of the hospital entrance in 1920 and moved to the Uffizi Gallery, in Florence, Italy.

视觉文化研究 / Research of Visual Culture 作业1号 / Homework Nº 1 - Page 3

Homework Nº1

PERSONAL INTERPRETATION:

The scene shows us the exact moment when Archangel Gabriel delivers God’s message to Virgin Mary. The scene is divided in two spaces, that can be interpreted as two dimensions: divine and terrenal. The author uses golden lines to simbolize the message itself, in a direction that comes from a first arch behind the Archangel, representing that the message comes from somebody else, from God itself. Then, the lines pass though the Archangel and cross a second arch until reaches the Virgin. Every arch can be understood as “the act of passing the information”. As for the simbolism in color, golden color its been always associated with the concepts of the divine, the light, enlightment and knowdlege. When the golden lines reach Virgin Mary, it represents that she understood God’s message.

As for the forms in the scene, every shape and object reinforces the main idea of the painting. In the ground at the left of the scene, two circles are inscribed inside squares. Squares simbolism it is associated to the concept of the earth, of earthly matters, and the circle it is associated with celestial, the sky and its planets, the divine. Virgin Mary it is represented with the squares, and the message of her being the mother of the Child of God it is expressed in the form of a circle inside a square.

视觉文化研究 / Research of Visual Culture 作业1号 / Homework Nº 1 - Page 4

Homework Nº1

The Archangel Gabriel:

He floates in the space, powered with a couple ol wings of blue feathers. Blue it is the color of the sky, of the divine; it is the color of the masculine, the Father. The color in his wings reinforces the idea of being sended by God and that he comes from a divine dimension.

His clothes are white and gold. White repesents light, purity, spirituality, and golden represents the perfection of the divine.

He holds a corporal posture with his arms crossed in the chest. He is showing that he is unable to make any action, that he is just the messenger.

The Flowers

He carries a flower, not any flower, but a stick of lily. .

Lily represents Virgin Mary’s...purity, that she will have...God’s Child, untouched...by a man, it is a symbol..

of chastity.

The Archangel Gabriel:

He floates in the space, powered with a couple ol wings of blue feathers. Blue it is the color of the sky, of the divine; it is the color of the masculine, the Father. The color in his wings reinforces the idea of being sended by God and that he comes from a divine dimension.

His clothes are white and gold. White repesents light, purity, spirituality, and golden represents the perfection of the divine.

He holds a corporal posture with his arms crossed in the chest. He is showing that he is unable to make any action, that he is just the messenger.

The Flowers

The Virgin Mary:

She is kneeling over a squared carpet, the shape that rein-forces the idea of Her as part of the Earth. This carpet it is reddish, indicating her relationship with the worldly, with the fertile soil, ready to be fertilized.

Her corporal attitude is submission, her head is down indicat-ing the acceptance of God’s mission.

Her arms are like holding an invisible child, with tenderness and protective pose. She is ready to be a mother.

As for the simbolism in the colors she is wearing, green represents the earth again, fertile, willing to give birth, full of life. Blue represents her disposition to detachment what it is earthly and start a transition to the divine, represents that she has a pure soul.

视觉文化研究 / Research of Visual Culture 作业1号 / Homework Nº 1 - Page 5

Homework Nº1

The Bed:

The scene only shows the half of the bed, and this detail is not aleatory. Represents that Virgin Mary will conceive God’s Child fertilized with the divine fire of the Holy Spirit, without the act of love with another man. This detail expresses that with just “the half of a couple“ will be enough to give birth to the Son of God and no human man it is required.

The colors of the bed are again red, but this time covered with a white veil, that represents Mary’s virginity.

The curtains are also white and they are opened, expressing that there is nothing to hide in the Virgin’s chamber.