Читать книгу 1000 Paintings of Genius - Victoria Charles - Страница 6

161. Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio), 1483–1520, High Renaissance, Florentine School, Italian, The Virgin and Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist (La Belle Jardinière), 1507–08, Oil on wood, 122 × 80 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris

La Belle Jardinière, or The Virgin and Child with the Infant St John the Baptist, completed in 1507, shows the trio surrounded by a pleasant rural environment. The similarity between the Madonna of the Goldfinch and this depiction of the Madonna is more than coincidental: it represents the ideal of female beauty according to Raphael. Perhaps the same model was used in both paintings.

The sixteenth century begins with the Reformation in 1517, when Martin Luther (1483–1546) issued his Ninety-Five Theses and John Calvin (1509–64) formally tried to reform the Catholic Church. These movements led to the establishment of Protestantism, which emphasised personal faith rather than doctrines of the church. The invention of moveable type by Gutenberg in the previous century helped to make access to the Bible and literacy an important feature of the Protestant Reformation. The Catholic Church, however, reacted with its own Catholic Counter-Reformation by convening the Council of Trent from 1545–63. The most prominent participants in the counter-Reformation were the Jesuits, a Catholic order founded by Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556). The Jesuits also participated in the Age of Exploration as missionaries, establishing themselves throughout Asia, Africa, and the Americas. The Catholic Church also responded at this time with an extreme measure of policing the faith through the Holy Office of the Inquisition. Finally, the English Reformation was supported by King Henry VIII (1491–1547) who wanted a divorce from his wife Catherine of Aragon (1485–1536) because she had not produced a male child. Henry VIII then founded the Church of England, the new church that was formed in the wake of the split with the Catholic Church.

Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) began his experiments by inventing the pendulum and the thermometer in the sixteenth century. Galileo was also interested in astronomy, but it was Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) who developed the heliocentric, or sun-centred, theory that the earth revolves around the sun.

The art of this century was mostly influenced by the apparition of Protestantism and the counter-Reformation as the need for clarity in the works of art meant the end of Mannerism.

The northern lands were embracing Protestantism and this changed the patronage system in art. Due to the wealth from increasing global trade, a new merchant class developed in northern Europe which commissioned more secular works of art for both church and private homes.

Still-life paintings were popular, as were landscapes. Also, the formation of guilds and civic militias created a new market for the group portrait. In Italy, the Catholic Church was the primary patron of art, while in the north, individuals were the principal patrons, thereby creating a market force that determined subject matter. Artists could no longer depend on large church commissions for religious paintings the way they had prior to the Reformation. Conversely, much of Spanish and Italian art was still created through religious patronage. King Francis I of France (1494–1547) was generally considered a monarch who embodied the Renaissance. His courtly style and love of humanist knowledge was far reaching. Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) eventually wound up in his court in France, where he found generous patronage for his science and experiments and lived out the rest of his life near Amboise with the support of Francis I.

162. Sandro Botticelli (Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi), 1445–1510, Early Renaissance, Florentine School, Italian, Mystic Nativity, c. 1500, Oil on canvas, 108.6 × 74.9 cm, National Gallery, London

Inscribed in Greek at the top: “This picture, at the end of the year 1500, in the troubles of Italy, I Alessandro, in the half-time after the time, painted, according to the eleventh [chapter] of Saint John, in the second woe of the Apocalypse, during the release of the devil for three-and-a-half years; then he shall be bound in the twelfth [chapter] and we shall see [him buried] as in this picture.“ Botticelli’s picture has been called the Mystic Nativity because of its mysterious symbolism.

163. Piero di Cosimo, 1462–1521, High Renaissance, Florentine School, Italian, Immaculate Conception and Six Saints, c. 1505, Oil on panel, 206 × 173 cm, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

164. Leonardo da Vinci, 1452–1519, High Renaissance, Florentine School, Italian, The Virgin of the Rocks (The Virgin with the Infant Saint John adoring the Infant Christ accompanied by an Angel), 1483–86, Oil on panel, 199 × 122 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris

The Virgin of the Rocks, also by Leonardo da Vinci, is probably the most well-known painting of the Virgin and Child within the Western world. Now located in the Louvre, this work is one of the best examples of the use of atmospheric perspective and the correct foreshortening of the human figure. The cavern and the group of figures are all seen as through a veil of shadowy mist. Leonardo believed that his destiny was to recreate the beauty of nature on his canvas. The figure of the Madonna occupies the apex of the pyramid-based composition of this painting – the most important location – due to her high ranking within contemporary Christian belief. She is accompanied by the infants Jesus and St John, and an angel. All four reflect the Renaissance ideal of the human form. Leonardo altogether eliminated the use of the halo effects to further humanise the group. The Virgin is depicted as the perfect woman, yet she also projects her tender Earth Mother qualities reminiscent of those seen in ancient renderings of the Great Goddess Isis.

165. Giovanni Bellini, c. 1426–1516, Early Renaissance, Venetian School, Italian, The Doge Leonardo Loredan, c. 1501–05, Oil on poplar, 61 × 45 cm, National Gallery, London

Bellini was an exquisite portrait painter. His Doge Leonardo Loredan, the elected ruler of Venice, is painted in a completely revolutionary way and had some beautiful effects. Rather than using gold-leaf to show the richness of the material of the Doge’s robe, he painted the surface in a rough way, thus catching the light and rendering a metallic look.

166. Albrecht Dürer, 1471–1528, Northern Renaissance, German, Self-portrait in a Fur-Collared Robe, 1500, Oil on limewood panel, 67.1 × 48.9 cm, Alte Pinakothek, Munich

This flattering, Christ-like portrait is also innovative as the artist represented himself frontally. The painting bears the inscription: “Thus I, Albrecht Dürer from Nuremberg, painted myself with indelible colours at the age of 28 years.”

Albrecht Dürer

(1471–1528 Nuremberg)

Dürer is the greatest of German artists and most representative of the German mind. He, like Leonardo, was a man of striking physical attractiveness, great charm of manner and conversation, and mental accomplishment, being well grounded in the sciences and mathematics of the day. His skill in draughtsmanship was extraordinary; Dürer is even more celebrated for his engravings on wood and copper than for his paintings. With both, the skill of his hand was at the service of the most minute observation and analytical research into the character and structure of form. Dürer, however, had not the feeling for abstract beauty and ideal grace that Leonardo possessed; but instead, a profound earnestness, a closer interest in humanity, and a more dramatic invention. Dürer was a great admirer of Luther; and in his own work is the equivalent of what was mighty in the Reformer. It is very serious and sincere; very human, and addressed the hearts and understanding of the masses. Nuremberg, his hometown, had become a great centre of printing and the chief distributor of books throughout Europe. Consequently, the art of engraving upon wood and copper, which may be called the pictorial branch of printing, was much encouraged. Of this opportunity Dürer took full advantage.

The Renaissance in Germany was more a moral and intellectual than an artistic movement, partly due to northern conditions. The feeling for ideal grace and beauty is fostered by the study of the human form, and this had been flourishing predominantly in southern Europe. But Albrecht Dürer had a genius too powerful to be conquered. He remained profoundly Germanic in his stormy penchant for drama, as was his contemporary Mathias Grünewald, a fantastic visionary and rebel against all Italian seductions. Dürer, in spite of all his tense energy, dominated conflicting passions by a sovereign and speculative intelligence comparable with that of Leonardo. He, too, was on the border of two worlds, that of the Gothic age and that of the modern age, and on the border of two arts, being an engraver and draughtsman rather than a painter.

167. Leonardo da Vinci, 1452–1519, Renaissance, Florentine School, Italian, Mona Lisa (La Gioconda), c. 1503–06, Oil on poplar panel, 77 × 53 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris

Everybody knows this portrait: oval face with broad, high forehead; dreamy eyes beneath drooping lids; a smile very sweet and a little sad, with a suggestion of conscious superiority. This small painting, one of only thirty extant works by Leonardo, ended up in the collection of the French King, Francis I, and was displayed in the castle of Fontainebleau until the reign of Louis XIV. It is the most famous portrait, one of the first easel paintings, the most often reproduced and satirised, and one of the most influential works of the Italian Renaissance, if not of all European art. The model was probably the wife of the Marquis Francesco del Giocondo, a Florentine merchant. The work is the perfection of Leonardo’s pioneering technique of “sfumato,“ creating atmospheric scenery, or the layering of glazes in a way that blends one colour seamlessly to another. The work also demonstrates his mastery of anatomy, perspective, landscape and portrait painting. The disposition of the sitter, in three-quarter view and the background landscape is characteristic of Florentine painting at the time. But this picture is no longer presented to us as an almost fortuitous aggregate of details and episodes. It is an organism in which all the elements, lines and colours, shadows and light compose a subtle tracery converging on a spiritual, sensuous centre. On this small panel, Leonardo depicted an epitome of the universe, creation and created: woman, the eternal enigma, the eternal ideal of man and the sign of the perfect beauty to which he aspires, evoked by a magician in all its mystery and power. Mona Lisa represents a vast revelation of the eternal feminine.

168. Giovanni Bellini, c. 1430–1516, Early Renaissance, Venetian School, Italian, Saint Zaccaria Altarpiece, 1505, Oil on wood, transferred to canvas, 402 × 273 cm, Church of San Zaccaria, Venice

This altarpiece is often considered as the most perfect painting of sacra conversazione. Bellini brings to life the traditional figure of the Virgin and saints. Here, the composition of the painting (an apse surrounding the Madonna and the saints) becomes the continuation of the altar.

Giovanni Bellini

(1430–1516 Venice)

Giovanni Bellini was the son of Jacopo Bellini, a Venetian painter who was settled in Padua at the time Giovanni and his elder brother, Gentile, were in their period of studentship. Here, they came under the influence of Mantegna, who was also bound to them by the ties of relationship, since he married their sister. To his brother-in-law, Bellini owed much of his knowledge of classical architecture and perspective, and his broad and sculptural treatment of draperies. Sculpture and the love of the antique played a large part in Giovanni’s early impressions, and left their mark in the stately dignity of his later style. This developed slowly during his long life. Bellini died of old age, indeed in his eighty-eighth year, and was buried near his brother, Gentile, in the Church of Ss. Giovanni e Paulo. Outside, under the spacious vault of heaven, stands the Bartolommeo Colleoni, Verrocchio’s monumental statue, which had been among the elevating influences of Bellini’s life and art. After filling the whole of the north of Italy with his influence, he prepared the way for the giant colourists of the Venetian School, Giorgione, Titian, and Veronese.

169. Albrecht Dürer, 1471–1528, Northern Renaissance, German, Paumgartner Altar (Middle panel), 1502–04, Oil on lime panel, 155 × 126 cm, Alte Pinakothek, Munich

The central panel is conceived in the traditional Gothic style but Dürer uses perspective with extreme rigour. It depicts a Nativity, set in an architectural ruin of a palatial building.

170. Piero di Cosimo, 1462–1521, High Renaissance, Florentine School, Italian, Venus, Mars and Cupid, c. 1500, Oil on panel, 72 × 182 cm, Stiftung Staatliche Museen, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin

171. Hieronymus Bosch, c. 1450–1516, Northern Renaissance, Dutch, The Haywain (triptych), c. 1500, Oil on panel, 135 × 100 cm, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

The central painting, now supposed to be an illustration of the Flemish proverb, “The world is a haystack; everyone takes what he can grab thereof,” is dominated by a gigantic hay wagon which, according to Jacques Combe, “evok[es] at the same time the late Gothic motif of the procession of pageant, and the Renaissance Triumph… drawn by semi-human, semi-animal monsters and headed straight for hell, followed by a cavalcade of ecclesiastical and lay dignitaries. From all sides of the wagon men scrabble over one another to pull hay from the giant stack. The only heed they take of their fellows is to thrust them out of their way or to raise hands against them. One sticks a knife into the throat of the unfortunate competitor whom he has pinned to the ground.”

Many among the greedy mob wear ecclesiastical garb, indicating Bosch’s attitude that the holy as well as profane are involved in this scavenging. A fat monk sits in a large chair and lazily sips a drink while several nuns do service for him, packing bundles of hay into the bag at his feet. One of his nuns turns to the lure of sexual enticement, symbolised by the fool playing a bagpipe, to whom she offers a handful of hay in hopes of winning his favours.

172. Hans Baldung Grien, c. 1484–1545, Northern Renaissance, German, The Knight, the Young Girl and Death, c. 1505, Oil on panel, 355 × 296 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris

173. Bartolomeo Veneto, c. 1502–1555, High Renaissance, Venetian School, Italian, Portrait of a Woman, Oil on panel, 43.5 × 34.3 cm, Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt

174. Luca Signorelli, c. 1445–1523, High Renaissance, Tuscan School, Italian, Crucifixion, c. 1500, Oil on canvas, 247 × 117.5 cm. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

Luca Signorelli

(c. 1445–1523 Cortona)

Signorelli was a painter from Cortona but was active in various cities of central Italy like Florence, Orvieto and Rome. Probably a pupil of Piero della Francesca, he added solidity to his figures and a unique use of light, as well as having an interest in the representation of actions like contemporary artists, the Pollaiuolo brothers.

In 1483, he was called to complete the cycle of frescos in the Sistine Chapel in Rome, which means he must have had a solid reputation at that time. He painted a magnificent series of six frescos illustrating the end of the world and The Last Judgment for the Orvieto Cathedral. There can be seen a wide variety of nudes displayed in multiple poses, which were surpassed at that time only by Michelangelo, who knew of them. By the end of his career, he had a large workshop in Cortona where he produced conservative paintings, including numerous altarpieces.

175. Bernardino Pinturicchio, 1454–1513, Early Renaissance, Italian, Annunciation, 1501, Fresco, Santa Maria Maggiore, Spello

176. Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1472–1553, Northern Renaissance, German, The Crucifixion, 1503, Oil on pine panel, 138 × 99 cm, Alte Pinakothek, Munich

The Crucifixion is a subject derived from an incident described only by St John. When Christ was hanging on the Cross, he saw John and Mary standing near, “He said to his mother, ‘Woman, behold your son!’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Behold, your mother!’” (John 19: 26f). The compositional scheme of the crucifixion, which was established some 500 years before Cranach, was symmetrical: Christ on the Cross in the centre, Mary to the right of him and John to the left, both turned to face the viewer. This arrangement began to strike Cranach’s contemporaries as too stylised. Cranach moved the Cross from the centre, presented it side-on, and has the two looking up to Christ in such a way that the faces of all the figures are visible. The first hesitant attempt of this kind was made by Albrecht Dürer in a Crucifixion painted in Nuremberg in 1496 for the chapel of the Wittenberg castle. It is believed that Cranach adopted the device from that work.

177. Hieronymus Bosch, c. 1450–1516, Northern Renaissance, Dutch, The Garden of Earthly Delights (central panel of the triptych), c. 1504, Oil on panel, 220 × 195 cm, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

178. Albrecht Dürer, 1471–1528, Northern Renaissance, German, Adoration of the Magi, 1504, Oil on panel, 98 × 112 cm, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

179. Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1472–1553, Northern Renaissance, German, Rest on the Flight into Egypt, 1504. Tempera on panel, 69 × 51 cm, Stiftung Staatliche Museen, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin

The charming little scene is inscribed in a circle, at the centre of which is the offering of the strawberry. But this cosy little circle is not at all the centre of the painting. Above, on the left and below, it is surrounded by wild nature, and nature in its own way is involved in the concerns of the Holy Family. The clear sky greets them with the smile of the new day. The rising sun imparts a silvery hue to the clumps of grey moss on the branches of a mighty fir-tree which extends protectively towards a melancholy birch that waves its springy branches. The hills, repeating one another, draw the gaze in to the sunny distance, telling Joseph, “Egypt lies there.” The earth is glad to offer Mary a soft carpet of grass sprinkled with flowers. The clear stream bending around the meadow becomes a boundary to protect the fugitives from their pursuers. Nobody before Cranach had painted nature so straightforwardly, as if directly from life. Nobody before him had been able to form such an intimate link between nature and scriptural figures. Nobody managed to animate every little detail so that all of them together breathe in unison. It was not pantheistic rationalisation that expressed itself here, but the primitive instinct aroused in Lucas’s spirit through contact with his native land.

180. Michelangelo Buonarroti, 1475–1564, High Renaissance, Florence, Italian, The Holy Family with the Young St. John the Baptist (The Tondo Doni), c. 1506, Oil on panel, dia. 120 cm, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

The Holy Family with the Young St. John the Baptist, also called the Tondo Doni, was painted by Michelangelo, a commission to celebrate the marriage of Agnolo Doni and Maddalena Strozzi. The fact that this work was not created for a church might explain Michelangelo’s apparent freedom to place several young male nudes in the background, behind the little figure of St. John. The young, strong and elegantly poised figure of Mary, holding her infant up on her shoulder, is contrasted with the figure of Joseph, who is depicted – as was also customary during medieval times in order to de-emphasise his importance as a father – subject to the ravages of old age. The child, like the mother, is active and full of life. This is another work in which Mary and Jesus appear to be fully human.

181. Master of the Saint Bartholomew Altar, active c. 1475–1510, Northern Renaissance, German, St. Bartholomew Altarpiece, 1505, Oil on panel, 129 × 161 cm (central panel), 129 × 74 cm (side panels), Alte Pinakothek, Munich

182. Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio), 1483–1520, High Renaissance, Florentine School, Italian, The Madonna of the Goldfinch, 1506, Oil on panel, 107 × 77.2 cm, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

The patron who commissioned the Madonna of the Goldfinch – a man called Lorenzo Nasi – was a wealthy merchant, and the painting commemorated his wedding to Sandra Canigiani. Raphael painted the figure of the Madonna in the centre, using the standard pyramidal design for the composition. In her left hand Mary holds a book, while her right arm encloses the child Jesus, whose small hands enfold the goldfinch. The infant St John endeavours to caress the bird. The figures are idealised, and both Mary and Jesus have barely visible haloes over their heads, rendered in perspective, in order not to disturb the realism of the style employed. A panoramic landscape opens up the background to a considerable depth.