THE RENAISSANCE (2)
CHAPTER 7: THE CLASSICAL RENAISSANCE, 14th–15th Centuries
CHAPTER 7: THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY – THE CLASSICAL RENAISSANCE, 14th–15th Centuries
Jacques Rouveyrol
I. THE PRECURSORS: THE TRECENTO
Even if the subject of representation remains religious, the action must be brought back down to earth and back to man. This, at the end of the 12th century and the beginning of the 13th, is precisely the message of Saint Francis of Assisi – and not only when he preaches to the birds.
1. Duccio (The Sienese School)
Duccio is the most important painter of the Sienese school. For him, it is a matter of bringing episodes from the legendary lives of saints down to the level of everyday life scenes (street scenes, interior scenes, scenes on the road). The consequence is a desacralization of space, which makes possible a form of representation that moves away from flatness. Space gains depth.
Do you want me to also make a simplified English version for easier reading, like we did for L’Art Roman? That could make it smoother to follow.
The Byzantine influence characterizes this Sienese school, in contrast to the Florentine school led by Giotto.
2. Giotto (The Florentine School)
His aim: to conquer the third dimension. But instead of applying it to space itself, he creates it within objects. Thus, for example, by placing a building at an angle, one creates depth.
Do you want me to keep going with the rest of your Renaissance text in this same formal, faithful style?
Medieval space was a surface — a substantial surface, meaning impenetrable, solid, impossible to alter or hollow out. Giotto’s “revolution” consists precisely in hollowing out that surface — not yet in denying it. Thus, in any given scene, the sky will indeed be “behind,” but it will remain an impenetrable and perfectly flat surface.
The painting is a “window” that hollows out the wall — this, of course, is what is new — but it also closes off the space it has just opened (and this is what remains of the medieval “mentality”), for behind this “window,” just beyond, the world stops and goes no further.
The image is no longer an icon. Granted, it is not realistic — but it is no longer (only) symbolic. Space is no longer the sacred space of divine thought; it is the secular space of human action. This was the condition for abandoning the Romanesque (and still Gothic) flatness of a sacred space divided into compartments, in favor of a secular space that is continuous and homogeneous.
II. PERSPECTIVE AND ANTIQUITY
Perspective is particularly well suited to the representation of classical (ancient) architectures, characterized by their geometry: straight lines, cubes, arcs of circles, and so on. It is therefore above all the setting that first takes on a classical form.
1. In harmony with the figures, in sculpture: Donatello.
And even before him, in the work of Nanni di Banco, or at the same time in that of Jacopo della Quercia or Ghiberti. Donatello’s figures are inspired by ancient Rome (David, Gattamelata, etc.).
2. In disagreement with the figures, in painting until 1450–1460
In Piero della Francesca, Francesco del Cossa, and others, within a setting inspired by antiquity, the figures are dressed in modern clothing that is out of keeping with the background against which they stand out.
3. In harmony with the figures, in painting from 1450–1460 onward.
Thus, in Mantegna’s Life and Martyrdom of Saint James. Although this is not always the case (for example, in his Martyrdom of Saint Christopher). This harmony between setting and antique figures developed gradually, aided by the use of a repertoire drawn from non-Christian mythology. For example, in Piero di Cosimo:
It is therefore the setting, because it is suited to perspective, that invites the figures to change in order to integrate into it.
4. The development of Neoplatonism (Marsilio Ficino) would renew the themes of painting, and a mythology reinterpreted through Neoplatonism would rival Christian mythology. Example: the two Venuses (coelestis and vulgaris) of Botticelli. The reference is to Plato’s Symposium. There, Socrates distinguishes two forms of love: earthly love, which is the love (desire) for beautiful bodies, and heavenly love, which is the love of Beauty itself. There are thus two Venuses: an earthly Venus (Venus vulgaris), born of the union of Jupiter and Juno, and a heavenly Venus (Venus coelestis), born from the sea at the moment when Uranus’s genitals fell into it after his castration. Surrounded by Zephyr and Flora (to the left) and by Spring (to the right), Botticelli’s Heavenly Venus emerges from the sea. In the painting on the right, the earthly Venus, crowned by Eros, stands between the Three Graces and Mercury on one side, and Spring, Flora, and Zephyr on the other.
Let us place the two works together, as below: on the left, the Heavenly Venus, disembodied love (that which is called “platonic,” which by no means signifies “chaste love of beautiful bodies,” as is too often believed, but rather love of beauty in itself, independently of the bodies in which it resides or to which it gives form). In the center (that is, on the left side of the second painting), Mercury represents Reason, turning his back on the tempting sensuality of the Three Graces. On the right, finally, the earthly Venus — carnal desire. Thus, an entire journey is traced here, to be read from right to left: starting from earthly love, one must, through Reason, rise to heavenly love (which is somewhat the meaning of the ladder in the Symposium). The two works by Botticelli therefore correspond to each other, complement each other, and must be read together.
5. Raphael: The synthesis of knowledge and worlds — the achieved unification.
It is Raphael’s task to realize the higher unity of the various elements. He represents the apex of the classical Renaissance. His School of Athens (1509), in the Stanza della Segnatura at the Vatican, presents the synthesis of ancient thought — but does so in a synthetic way. Not only are all the philosophers and scholars of antiquity gathered there, but they are not merely juxtaposed in this space perfectly structured by perspective.
For example, the opposition between Plato (who upholds an intelligible heaven where the pure “Forms” reside, giving matter in this world understandable shapes) and Aristotle (for whom the “Forms” are already present, potentially, in Matter) is noted by placing the two figures side by side, and by the fact that Plato’s hand points upward to the Sky while Aristotle’s hand is turned toward the Earth.
Likewise, the message of Greek antiquity concerning citizenship is clearly expressed by the path of the young man climbing the steps. He turns away from Diogenes, the asocial figure sitting on the stairs, and, on the gesture of an elder who points him toward Aristotle — the theorist of the social (author of Politics and Nicomachean Ethics, the one who defines man as a “political animal,” that is, a social animal) — he moves toward the philosopher.
And in the Disputation of the Holy Sacrament, Raphael (in 1510–1511, in the same Stanza della Segnatura) accomplishes the synthesis of Christian thought.
In total, this is the synthesis of all forms of thought.
La Renaissance classique réussit donc une unification totale : de l’espace, du temps, de la figure et du décor, de l’histoire antique, chrétienne et contemporaine. Elle a créé UN MONDE.
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