Renaissance Art Sought to Balance the Sacred and the Secular

"In the late fifteenth century, Florence had more woodcarvers than butchers, suggesting that art, even more than meat, was a necessity of life . . . . Near commissions were for religious works. Many banking families, for example, viewed the funding of altarpieces and chapels as a kind of penance for usury (moneylending at interest), which was condemned by the church but inherent to their profession. As the 1400s progressed, all the same, patrons became increasingly interested in personal fame and worldly prestige. Lavish, fifty-fifty ostentatious, public display became more mutual, fifty-fifty as the fortunes of the urban center declined. New subjects from mythology constitute eager audiences impressed by such evidence of learning. And, by the end of the century—for the offset time since antiquity—some fine art was existence fabricated simply "for art'due south sake."
Patrons and Artists in Belatedly 15th-Century Florence (NGA)

Michelozzo di Bartolommeo, interior court of the Palazzo Medici-Ricccardi, Florence, Italian republic, begun 1445

Michelozzo di Bartolommeo, Palazzo Medici-Ricccardi, Florence, Italy, begun 1445

Private Patronage
Prosperous Florentines built lavish palaces, such every bit this one designed by Michelozzo for the Medici family unit.  Based on classical Roman architecture, the building advertised the possessor'south great wealth, also as his Humanist learning (the classical sources of the compages would have publicized the owner's knowledge of and appreciation for Greek and Roman culture).  The interior courtyard was one of the beginning of its kind, and provided a first-class setting for the display of commissioned works of fine art.  This is where Donatello'due south statue of David one time stood, and the family'due south glaze of arms can be seen carved on the walls to a higher place the arches.

Secular Fine art
Wealthy Florentines too deputed works of art to decorate their homes, and the private setting enabled artists to explore secular (i.e. non-religious) themes:

"The manufacture of secular art objects, usually for the purpose of commemoration, personalized these lavish Italian Renaissance interiors. Because childbirth and matrimony were richly celebrated, a number of objects were made in honor of these rituals. The wooden birth tray, ordesco da parto, played a utilitarian as well as celebratory role in commemorating a kid's nascence . . . Adesco da parto was normally painted with mythological, classical, or literary themes, as well as scenes of domesticity. The reverse often displayed a family crest."
Domestic Art in Renaissance Italy

Giovanni di Ser Giovanni, Childbirth Tray with the Triumph of Fame, 1448-49
Metropolitan Museum

This childbirth tray was created to commemorate the nascence of Lorenzo de Medici, and depicts men on horseback pledging allegiance to an allegorical figure of Fame, who stands atop a globe holding a sword and statuette of Cupid.  The back of the tray is decorated with the Medici and Tornabuoni family coats of artillery.  This use of art to commemorate personal achievements, devoid of religious justification, would have been unthinkable in the Eye Ages.

Biagio d'Antonio, Scenes from the the Story of the Argonauts, c. 1465
Metropolitan Museum

Cassone 1461 – 1465
Metropolitan Museum

This panel once decorated a cassone (a wooden chest used for storage), or a spaliere (the decorative headboard of a bed). The scene depicts the story of Jason and the Argonauts, a Greek epic that would have been familiar to educated Humanists.  Stories from Greek and Roman mythology became popular alternatives to the biblical themes that had served every bit the only source of imagery in the Middle Ages.  In addition to providing visual and narrative delight, the stories would accept also advertised the patron'southward learning ("Hey, I can read, and I'm knowledgeable near Classical mythology!")

Sandro Botticelli, Birth of Venus, c. 1484-1486
Uffizi Gallery

The context of private patronage tin can help us understand i of the most extraordinary paintings of the Renaissance — Botticelli'south Nascency of Venus.The painting was deputed past Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de Medici, probably to gloat a matrimony. The subject field was based on a poem past the humanist scholar Angelo Poliziano, a member of the Neoplatonic Academy housed at the palace of Lorenzo de Medici in Florence.  This group of Humanist scholars sought to reconcile the Greek philosophy of Plato with Christian theology, and the circuitous iconography of Botticelli'southward picture may reverberate the influence of their ideas.

Statue of Aphrodite, 1st or 2d CE

One of the revolutionary features of Botticelli'due south painting is the fact that Venus is nude.  Botticelli based his figure on Greek statues of the nude Aphrodite (just as Donatello used Greek sculpture as the inspiration for hisDavid).  But Botticelli did not merely suit the Greek style to aChristiansubject; instead, he presented the pagan goddess herself, and the story of her birth as recounted in classical mythology.  Born from the sea, Venus is wafted to shore by personifications of the wind and the breeze, while a figure of Spring greets her with a mantle.

In the Center Ages, a painting of Venus would take been considered blasphemous, but we must recall that this work was made for a private home, not a church building!  The subject area matter is ofttimes interpreted as an expression of the Neoplatonic theory of "divine love."  The Neoplatonics theorized that there were two kinds of love:  terrestrial love (which might be equated with "sex"), and ideal love, which was a higher form of beloved inspired by God (even today, nosotros refer to relationships as "platonic," which often means that there is no sexual activity involved).  From this, the Neoplatonics concluded that dazzler can exist understood every bit a reflection of divine beauty, and can therefore bring us closer to God by stimulating a higher form of "love."  In this view, Botticelli's Venus can be interpreted as an allegory of "divine dazzler," whose purity inspires not the base of operations form of terrestrial love (this was non supposed to be pornography), just a higher form of platonic love.  Through her beauty we glimpse the divine dazzler and perfection of God!

Botticelli's Fashion
Botticelli's style was influenced by the linear grace of his instructor, Fra Filippo Lippi, and reflects little of the scientific naturalism that was pioneered by Masaccio.  His figures are weightless and ethereal, set against a background that lacks any sense of depth, due to the absence of atmospheric perspective.  The motion picture evokes a fantasy world, rather than the earthly reality of Masaccio, and appealed to the rarefied tastes of the Medici and their Humanist circle of friends.

Botticelli, The Birth of Venus, 1483-85, tempera on panel, 68 ten 109 five/viii″ (172.5 x 278.5 cm), Uffizi, Florence Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris & Dr. Steven Zucker
http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/Botticelli.html

Botticelli, Venus and Mars, c. 1485
National Gallery London

This work by Botticelli depicts the Goddess of Dearest with Mars, the God of State of war, in a scene suggestive of post-coital bliss.  Mischievous Satyrs play with the God's discarded armor, to convey the bulletin that beloved conquers war.  The shape of the motion picture suggests it was made to decorate the backboard of a chest or bed, and was probably given as a present to celebrate a marriage.  The erotic tone of the scene indicates how far we take come up from Medieval attitudes towards "sins of the flesh"!

Renaissance Portraiture

Poster for The Renaissance Portrait,  at the Metropolitan Museum

"Information technology is hard to imagine a globe without images of living people, but in western Europe portraiture had essentially disappeared with the plummet of Roman civilization. But such figures as saints, the Virgin and child, and angels—or devils and the anonymous damned—were depicted in paint (although rulers, in simulated of Roman and Byzantine emperors, might put a generic profile on coins). It has been suggested that concrete advent was not a peculiarly important element of self-prototype or fifty-fifty a main means of identification in the Middle Ages. Station in life, family and local affiliations, occupation—these were how people knew themselves and others. Simply by the time these paintings were made betwixt about 1450 and 1500, a 1000 years after the fall of ancient Rome, notions virtually identity and the individual had changed."
Portrait Painting in Florence in the After 1400s (NGA)

Painted portraits, independent from religious altarpieces, too became increasingly popular in Renaissance Italia, equally wealthy patrons endeavored to annunciate their wealth and status through painted likenesses:

"The earliest portraits had appeared in altarpieces, where tiny donors knelt in prayer to a central image of the Virgin or other holy personage. Contained portraits, however, would have to look the man-centered worldview of the Renaissance. Men and women now sought "speaking likenesses" for a range of purposes for the first time since antiquity. Portraits became part of the dynastic business organisation of kingdoms and were deployed as statements of wealth and condition. Portraits of prospective brides were reviewed by rulers contemplating matrimony. Many aristocratic couples were "introduced" through images. Likenesses were also commissioned, as they are near often today, as a way to immortalize loved ones."
Portrait Painting in Florence in the Later 1400s (NGA)

The simply "portraits" that had existed in the by were the profile portraits of Roman Emperors that appeared on coins — so Early on Renaissance portraits were derived from this format.  The portraits were meant to convey social status, rather than personality, and emphasized external signs of wealth, such every bit wearable, coats of arms, or palatial settings.  Portraits of women, in particular, emphasized virtue and guiltlessness, and were usually placed in an enclosed setting to signify woman's place in the abode.

Domenico Ghirlandaio, Portrait of Giovanna Tornabuoni, 1488. Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

This portrait depicts Giovanna Tornabuoni, daughter of ane of the wealthiest men in Florence.  She is dressed in a rich brocade dress and wears an expensive necklace effectually her neck; another piece of jewelry is placed strategically on the ledge, and testifies to the wealth of her family and the large dowry that a marriage would bring.  Crimson coral rosary beads hang from a shelf behind her, and a well-used prayer book rests upon the ledge — emblems of her piety and chastity.  An inscription tacked to the wall extolls her beauty and virtue.

Seen from the side, we get lilliputian sense of who Giovanna is, or what she might be thinking. Prim and proper in demeanor, the painting emphasizes the young adult female's social status, rather than her personality.  The portrait was probably used to negotiate a marriage, and poor Giovanna would probably have had little say in the matter!

Fra Filippo Lippi, Portrait of a Man and Woman at a Casement Window, c. 1440. Metropolitan Museum

This portrait shows a richly dressed woman in an interior, with a male person effigy gazing through the window.  Scholars believe the movie was made to commemorate a marriage.  Wedding portraits were often used in bundled marriages, where a painted portrait was given to the prospective spouse for consideration.  Artists were therefore encouraged to make their sitters look glamorous to ensure a successful transaction.

Fra Fillippo Lippi, Portrait of a Man and Woman at a Casement, tempera on forest, c. 1440 (Metropolitan Museum of Fine art) Speakers: Dr. David Drogin, Dr. Beth Harris For more: http://smarthistory.org/lippis-portrait-of-a-human being-and-woman-at-a-casement.html
http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/lippis-portrait-of-a-man-and-adult female-at-a-casement.html

Jean Hey (Master of Moulins), Portrait of Margaret of Austria, 1490

Alesso Baldovinetti, Portrait of a Lady, c. 1465

Comparison of Flemish and Italian Portraits
Portraiture was pop in both Flanders and Italian republic, just the style of the two regions was very different.  Flemish portraits typically portray the sitter in a ¾ pose (turned merely slightly, so the pose is neither frontal or profile), and include the hands, while Italian portraits were usually in profile, and were cut off at the bust.  Flemish portraits are mostly less flattering than their Italian counterparts, and emphasize the sitter's piety rather than their beauty.  Italian artists idealized their subjects (i.eastward. made them appear "glamorous"), and emphasized their worldly accomplishments and possessions.  Finally, Flemish portraits are characterized past scrupulous attention to detail (fabricated possible by the oil medium), while Italian portraits — usually painted in tempera, rather than oil — focus on broad areas of sculptural form, rather than details, due to the limitations of the tempera medium.

Domenico Ghirlandaio, Nascency of the Virgin, Capella Maggiore, Santa Maria Novella, c. 1485-1490

Before leaving Florence, I desire to look at i more painting by Domenico Ghirlandaio, because it illustrates so well the dramatic changes that took place during the Renaissance. The painting was role of a large cycle of frescoes deputed by the Tornabuoni family to decorate their private chapel in Santa Maria Novella (the same church that Masaccio painted theTrinity Altarpiecefor).  Each of the scenes depicts an episode from the life of the Virgin or Saint John the Baptist, and members of the Tornabuoni family play a prominent role in each.

Giovanni del Biondo Mystic Union of Saint Catherine Alexandria, 1379

In this scene, nosotros see the Birth of the Virgin taking place in a sumptuous interior, with the kind of classicizing decor that became fashionable in Florence at the fourth dimension (wealthy patron all had their palaces decorated to expect similar Ancient Roman villas). Anne reclines on a bed, while well-dressed servants attend to the newborn Virgin Mary (but the wealthiest could afford such luxury!).  In the middle of the motion picture, Ludovica Tornabuoni (daughter of the patron, and sister of Giovanna, whose portrait nosotros looked at before) enters the room, with a train of "ladies in waiting" behind her. Dressed in the latest Florentine fashion, she practically steals the show!

It is worth remembering that before the Renaissance, "individuals" were not considered worthy of representation in art — at all!  When they did begin to appear in art, they were "donor portraits," and their lesser importance was indicated by smaller scale, equally in Giovanni del Bondo'due south painting ofThe Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine, where the donor is half the size of the Saints.  Ghirlandaio's moving-picture show demonstrates how the worldly interests of patrons were taking precedence over the religious concerns of the past.  Soon, religious subjects will disappear entirely, as artists turned their attention more and more to earthly and homo subjects.

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Web Resources

Domestic Art in Renaissance Italy
http://world wide web.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/dome/hd_dome.htm

The Renaissance Portrait from Donatello to Bellini, Metropolitan Museum
http://world wide web.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2011/the-renaissance-portrait-from-donatello-to-bellini

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