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Giotto, Madonna and Child Enthroned, Proto Renaissance

•   Giotto was first famous Renaissance painter; madonna enthroned marks the end of medieval painting in italy and beginning of naturalistic approach
• introduction of humanism- mary is touching the baby jesus
• traditional gold background, gothic throne, stability of an ancient marble goddess (weighty, not fragile like cimabue’s virgin); virgin’s body is asserted (breasts press through clothing)
• italo-byzantine 
• Mary is in hieratic scale (she is largest because she is focal point and most important person)
• dark shading- volume/mass (illusion of depth) with overlap of angels
• physical embodiment of the church
• Giotto’s figures offer substance, dimensionality, and bulk; statuesque figures that give the illusion they could cast shadows

Giotto, Lamentation, Proto Renaissance

•  fresco painting; giornate (sections) are easy to distinguish
• illustrates the revolutionary nature of Giotto’s style
• boldly foreshortened angels, emotionalism of angels/mary magdalene,st. john
• the thick diagonal rock provides firm visual support for the figures; perspective; directs viewers attention to focal point in lower left corner
• single event provokes a host of individual responses in figures that are convincing presences both physically and psychologically; combination of naturalistic representation, compositional complexity, emotional resonance
• each group has its own definition contributing to the rhythmic order of the composition; figures are seen from the back = contradiction of byzantine frontality; emphasizes foreground and creates spatial depth
• use of light and shade: directional light & shadows gives bodies volume/mass; asserts one figure to the fore and the other to the rear; would lead to chiaroscuro

Duccio, Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints, proto renaissance

•  main panel in duccio’s Maestà; Virgin was the focus of religious life for the Sienese; placed in siena’s cathedral thus limited experimentation seen in Giotto’s work
• portrays virgin enthroned as queen of heaven amid choruses of angels and saints 
• duccio dervied the formality and symmetry of composition from Byzantine painting but relaxed the rigidity and frontality of the figures (turn to each other in conversation), softened the drapery, and individualized the faces of the four saints kneeling in foreground; softened hard body outlines and drapery -> female saints garments fall and curve loosely (familiar to french gothic works) with no gold patterning, in favor of creating 3D volume

Duccio, Betrayal of Jesus, proto renaissance

• reveals duccio’s powers as a narrative power; allowed for more experimentation
• represents several episodes of the event- betrayal of jesus by judas, disciples fleeing in terror, peter cutting off the ear of the priest’s servant
• background is  traditional but the figures have changed radically; they have mass, range of tonalities from light to dark, and arranged draperies convincingly
• through posture, gesture, and facial expression they display emotion; figures are actors in religious drama artist interpreted in terms of human actions/reactions
• humanization of religious subject matter

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Robert Campin, Merode Altarpiece, northern renaissance

• first known oil painting; contemporary setting; feeling of immediacy
• disguised symbolism; common household object is given religious significance
• private devotional image; integration of religious and secular concerns; donor portraits
• set Annunciation in a Flemish merchant’s home (15th century) in which the objects represented have symbolic significance;
• the closed garden is symbolic of Mary’s purity, and the flowers Campin included relate to Mary’s virtues, especially humility. Mary is considered the “protected garden”
• mary reclining on bench: looks like church pew, mary is the physical embodiment of the church; lions were the symbol of throne of solomon the wise, mary is wise and inheritor of knowledge of solomon (symbols circle back to old testament)
• cloth on book reflects humility, not able to hold a holy book without a cloth
• candle: (lit) in daylight: presence of God, candle is extinguished because this is the betrothal candle because mary’s marriage to god is consummated when the angel gabriel told her she would give birth to Jesus
• baby jesus with cross: holy spirit; part of god’s plan
• 2 shadows overlap: we know god is present, divine light
• joseph on right panel, takes more significant role; carpenter scene making mousetrap; joseph’s role creating the mousetrap for the devil, city of bruges outside window

Jan van eyck, Ghent altarpiece (closed), northern renaissance

• polyptych
• (closed): donors in bottom corners, statues of st john evangelist and st john baptist; annunciation scene as a homage to Campin, words are upside down and backwards because the words are not for humans but the divine, above them are old testament prophets, above them are sibyls quote from virgil on left and st augustine on the right

• God, Mary(right), john the baptist(left), adam and eve (far right and left) -> god is merciful and having them in full body portrayal on the same level of god represents the humanist tradition and concept of forgiveness
• garden below: eternal mass, lamb of jesus bleeding into chalice (eucharist), the fountain is labeled as the fountain of life (paradise)
• on side wings: all the people blessed in paradise celebrating for redemption of humankind, soldiers, martyrs, singing psalms

15-6  JAN VAN EYCK, Giovanni Arnolfini and His Bride, northern renaissance

• green dress: fertility, fur hemline: rich and titles,
• secular symbolism: dog-fidelity; oranges-fertility; single lit candle-betrothal candle; broomstick in the back-domestic sphere; reflected light in chandelier;
• mirror- jan van eyck is a witness to the marriage
• signature- jan van eyck was here: marriage license; they took their vows; legal document
• shoes off: they are on holy ground

JAN VAN EYCK, Man in a Red Turban, northern renaissance

• first known western painting in 1000yrs where man portrayed looks directly at the viewer; wherever viewer stands, man returns gaze (male gaze)
• jan van eyck made me- signed
• unidentified man, possible self-portrait
• sumptuary laws- red: were an artist, amount of material &fur- upperclass
• upper body portrait emphasis on detail (realism): beard stubble, veins in bloodshot eye, weathered old skin
• northern tradition focused on details on face and not space

• ROGIER VAN DER WEYDEN, Deposition, Northern Renaissance
• a deposition is the removal of jesus from the cross
• size
• gold in background eliminates space and makes you focus on the figures and not the background, shallow space, like they're in a shadow box (inspired by play)
• figures dressed in contemporary clothes (immediacy of the event)
• different facial types, studying of actual physiognomies 
• jesus’s body mirrors mary’s

ROGIER VAN DER WEYDEN, Portrait of a Lady, northern renaissance

• three-quarter portrait
• her gaze: there to be consumed as an object of beauty
• viel creates a structure that is reinforced with her neckline as a diamond that contains her

• David
  
• bronze, Florence; Medici family commissioned, Donatello becomes a humanist (anatomically accurate)
• story of david and goliath; david is the symbol of Florence as the underdog; david is depicted as a young boy (innocent and pure life)
• homoerotic quality- wing of helmet, wearing nothing but shoes and a hat which emphasizes the nudity 
• body proportions languid 
• the nudity emphasizes his heroism and his vulnerability
• first nude david and first free-standing, life-size nude sculpture since antiquity
• contrapposto, s-curve
• sword pointing down and face pointing down more inward (internal)

• based on the ancient roman monuments of equestrian
• first free standing equestrian monument since roman times
• documents every detail of the race as a roadmap to your life, experience age/wisdom

• Donatello, St. Mary Magdalene, Early Italian Renaissance
• made of wood, emphasizes mysticism, letting her beauty go and the money she made for her beauty, depicts her spiritual 
• elongated body emphasizes gothic extremism, lots of sharp angels to her face 
• does not depict her in her youth; contrasted with the Virgin -> chastity

• ages David, more muscles and confidence/aggressiveness
• is not nude, wearing roman armor
• contrapposto, holds his hip in more defiance, looks out rather than down (donatello)
• sword is outward and face is outward, (external) david that is aware of surroundings and emits an energy

Antonio Pollaiuolo, Hercules and Antaeus, Early Italian Renaissance

• bronze, 1’ 6”, full nudity
• from greco-roman mythology: hercules 12 labors to become a god- killing antaeus (son of mother earth), throws antaeus to the ground, antaeus comes back stronger so hercules has to keep him off the ground and crush him (violent theme, couldn't be done in large-scale for public view)
• hercules: wore lion’s pelt

Jean Fouquet’s Melun Diptych, Northern Renaissance

• On the French Court, 
• Diptych- left panel displays donor Étienne Chevalier and his patron Saint Stephen; right panel displays the Virgin Mary and Christ Child
• integration of sacred and secular themes (flemish paintings)
• the virgin and child have marble-like flesh against the red and blue cherubs (colors of france)
• the juxtaposition of these two images causes the viewer to be distinguish the secular from the divine

• The integration of sacred and secular

  (especially the political or personal), Virgin is modeled by king charles mistress  

• Fouquet’s meticulous representation of a pious kneeling donor with a standing patron saint recalls Flemish painting, as do the three-quarter stances and the realism of the portraits

  highly ornamental architectural setting 

  
  

 Antonio del Pollaiuolo, Battle of Ten Nudes, Early Italian Renaissance

• engraving, just over a foot in size

• reveals the artist’s interest in the realistic presentation of human figures in action, movement

  Pollaiuolo took delight in showing violent action. He conceived the body as a powerful machine and liked to display its mechanisms, such as knotted muscles and taut sinews that activate the skeleton as ropes pull levers. To show this to best effect, Pollaiuolo developed a figure so lean and muscular it appears écorché (as if without skin), with strongly accentuated delineations at the wrists, elbows, shoulders, and knees

  all muscles are at maximum tension

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