Chapter Eight

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Chapter Eight
Gardner's Art through the Ages, Concise Edition
by Fred Kleiner

• Europe, 1400-1500

Prepared by Kelly Donahue-Wallace Randal
Wallace University of North Texas
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Northern Europe

• Dates and Places
• 1400 to 1500
• Burgundy, Flanders, France and the Holy Roman
  Empire
• People
• Nobles and merchants
• Pious and prosperous
• Interested in visible world

CLAUS SLUTER, Well of Moses, 13951406. Fig. 8-2.
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Northern Europe

• Themes
• Life of the Virgin Mary, Christ
• Secular images, portraits
• Disguised symbolism
• Forms
• Detailed renderings of surfaces and textures
• Naturalistic figures and spaces
• Oil paint for glowing color

ROGIER VAN DER WEYDEN, Saint Luke Drawing the
Virgin, ca. 14351440. Fig. 8-7.
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Flanders

• Example
• Secular portrait communicated religious values
• Merchant home
• Disguised symbolism
• Description of surfaces
• Reflections of light
• Artists signature and reflection in mirror

JAN VAN EYCK, Giovanni Arnol?ni and His Bride,
1434. Fig. 8-1.
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• Symbolic candle - The solitary flame burning can
  be interpreted as the bridal candle, or God's
  all-seeing eye, or simply as a devotional candle.
  
• Another symbol is St Margaret (the patron saint
  of women in childbirth), whose image is carved on
  the high chairback.
• The Marriage Bed
• The Mirror- Gods all seeing eye
• An elaborate signature As today, marriages in
  15th-century Flanders could take place privately
  rather than in church. Van Eyck's Latin
  signature, in the Gothic calligraphy used for
  legal documents, reads Jan van Eyck was
  present'', and has been interpreted by some as an
  indication that the artist himself served as a
  witness.

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Flanders

• Example
• Annunciation in common domestic interior
• Disguised symbolism
• Donor portraits
• For home use
• Triptych
• Oil paint, glazes

ROBERT CAMPIN (Master of Flémalle), Mérode
Altarpiece, ca. 14251428. Fig. 8-3.
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Flanders

• Example
• Polyptych for narrative sequence
• Monumental, free-standing altarpiece
• Donor portraits
• Descriptive naturalism
• Redemption (with Adam and Eve for Fall)

JAN VAN EYCK, Ghent Altarpiece, 1432. Fig. 8-5.
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Flanders

• Example
• Dynamic composition with action and drama
• Cohesive composition through movement
• Commission for guild
• Emotional expression
• Descriptive naturalism

ROGIER VAN DER WEYDEN, Deposition, ca. 1435. Fig.
8-6.
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France

• Example
• Book of Hours for private patron
• Illusionistic treatment of space
• Luxury item
• Genre- Scenes of daily life, identifiable
  settings
• Painting by secular artists, not monks
• Depicts nobility, peasantry and seasonal tasks

LIMBOURG BROTHERS, Les Très Riches Heures du Duc
de Berry, 14131416. Fig. 8-9.
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Holy Roman Empire

• Example
• Print, engraving incised copperplate, inked and
  wiped, copper rolled over to print onto paper.
• Cross-hatches for shading
• Surface description of textures
• Printing responds to rise in literacy and
  improved economy

MARTIN SCHONGAUER, Saint Anthony Tormented by
Demons, ca. 14801490. Fig. 8-12.
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Italy

• Dates and Places
• 1400-1500
• Independent courts on the Italian peninsula
• People
• Humanism
• Revival of classical learning
• Self-aggrandizing patrons

LORENZO GHIBERTI, Sacrifice of Isaac, 14011402.
Fig. 8-14.
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Italy

• Themes
• Life of Christ and the Virgin Mary
• Secular life
• Classical themes
• Forms
• Linear perspective
• Classical forms
• Optical naturalism
• Window onto the world

PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA, Flagellation of Christ,
ca. 14551465. Fig. 8-35.
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Italy

• Example
• Civic commission
• Bronze doors of baptistery
• Linear perspective
• Aerial perspective
• Classical models
• Story-telling narrative clarity

LORENZO GHIBERTI, Gates of Paradise, 14251452.
Fig. 8-15.
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Italy

• Example
• First nude sculpture since antiquity
• Bronze cast sculpture
• Civic symbol of Florence
• Private patron (Medici)
• Sensuous contrapposto for calm hero

DONATELLO, David, ca. 14401460. Fig. 8-19.
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Italy

• Example
• Public monument
• Bronze equestrian portrait
• Modeled after Marcus Aurelius
• Contemporary condottiere dressed as Roman general
• Image of strength and power

DONATELLO, Gattamelata, ca. 14451453. Fig.
8-20.
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Italy

• Example
• Fresco in church, donor portraits
• Applies linear perspective based on location of
  viewers eye
• Illusionistic extension of viewers space
• Classical architectural vocabulary

MASACCIO, Holy Trinity, ca. 14241427. Fig. 8-23.
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Italy

• Example
• Master of line
• Based on poem by humanist
• Created for Medici
• Mythology
• Venus inspired by classical sculpture
• Revival of female nude

SANDRO BOTTICELLI, Birth of Venus, ca. 14841486.
Fig. 8-27.
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Italy

• Example
• Powerful patron
• Rustication on lower level
• Dressed masonry above
• Heavy cornice at top
• Plan organized around interior court with
  round-arched colonnade
• Clarity and rationality of Renaissance forms

MICHELOZZO DI BARTOLOMMEO, Palazzo
Medici-Riccardi, 1445. Fig. 8-31.
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Italy

• Example
• Architectural theorist
• Treatise presents rules of Renaissance
  architecture
• Application of classical elements
• Temple frontal, scrolls
• Proportional relationships

LEON BATTISTA ALBERTI, Santa Maria Novella,
Florence, 14561470. Fig. 8-33.
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Italy

• Example
• For princely court
• Temple frontal and triumphal arch
• Proportional relationships mean façade too short
• Interior coffered barrel vault
• Colossal order pilasters

LEON BATTISTA ALBERTI, SantAndrea, Mantua,
1470. Fig. 8-36.
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Italy

• Example
• For princely patron
• Propaganda
• Images of court life
• Pictorial illusionism
• Trompe loeil oculus painted di sotto in su
• Unified perspectival space

ANDREA MANTEGNA, Camera Picta, 14651474. Fig.
8-38.