Mannerism

As the Renaissance moved slowly towards the ideas of neoclassicism, artist began to experiment. Mannerism became a stylistic vessel an artist could preform and try different things in. This small movement in Renaissance art obviously lead to more popular styles that could be classified as baroque.

Intentness attention to detail that did not necessarily have root in natural form aloud an artist to experiment with creating drama and tension in different ways. Figures acted less like religious symbols but were objects of perfect and over-dramatic detail.

obbviously still consisting of religions iconography, artists like Giorgio Vasari focused more on the detail of the figures, draping, hair, body position.

However with attention to specific detail, spacial relationships tended to lack. Figures are not always arranged harmoniously and often time are composed very similar in relationship to one another. Maneria was used often derogatively to describe paintings with lack of movement, repetition of facial or body characteristics. Beautifully boring and redundant art. 

Mich's Last Judgement

Growing up in the Archdiocese of Boston during a pretty awful time for the catholic church it made it pretty easy to see corruption within in the structured religion and with television and free speech, everyone is aloud to be a critic. What about during the renaissance? Luckily for Michelangelo, he has Martin Luther/ Lutherism and the Protestants to critique his art for him.

Beyond, his artistic achievements like adapting his space to movement instead of a solid landscape, The Last Judgement was popular or infamous for other reasons. The break in the church allowed for different opinions on how one should represent their god, and with the Protestants moving away from the indulgent, grandiose and over dramatic ideals of Catholics, The Last Judgement was an awesome example of how one shouldnt practice their religion.

Michelangelo essentially insulted Christ by painting him without a beard while saints are represented in nude forms. For the Catholics however, the massive fresco was an excellent representation of the power the lord has. "For showing the delicacy of the body, the beauty and the muscles we have such objects as Nativity, the Circumcision, the Adoration of the Magi. It is just as great a challenge to the painter to display "the force of art" by making the vivid sufferings or Christ and the martyrs." Very Catholic, at least in my mind, that one should instill fear to reinforce faith. But because of the Catholic approach to serving ones god however, Michelangelo as aloud the artistic freedom to indulge in what came close to pornography for some.

In Catholic school as vicious as Roman rule,
I got my knuckles bruised by a lady in black,
And I held my tongue as she told me,
"Son, fear is the heart of love."
So I never went back. 

- Ben Gibbard

  

Titian, the babe magnet

I took Harvey's artists on film class in 2012 and beyond learning a small amount about individual artists before exploring a filmmakers fiction interpretation of the artist life. An awesome class being both interested in film and fine art (not that film isnt a fine art), it was pretty obvious most influential artist in art history, have had lovers from where they draw inspiration from and directly influenced their art. It wasnt until the last class where Harvey brought to our attention that Titian may have been reusing the same modal or at least her figure to reproduce many of his images. It wasn't really until Titian where I was made aware of an artists relationship with their subject.

It may be a little immature but i think, the relationship between art and sexuality is important to recognized. So beyond acknowledging that some of Michelangelo's success could be attributed to taking out homosexual frustration on blocks of marble, i think we may have to credit a lover of Titians that allowed him to appreciated human form.

However in the conservative, male dominated era of the renaissance where giving into sexual urges or being victimized by the sinful female, it was probably pretty hard to keep your pimp hand strong with the ladies with the eye of god and everyone else in Venice watching. "By condemning the female object of desire, the male observer can both have his cheesecake and eat it it to." (Goffen) As an artist, whose job is to preform the private commissions of such condemned females may have made it a bit easier to both enjoy the sinful pleasures of a women, and conform the the social mores of the renaissance.  

Discussion 4: Blunt; Leonardo & Michelangelo

According to Blunts assessment of Leonardo and Michelangelo, they are similar in their devotion to humanist theories when approaching ones subject, highlighting popular christian and pagan iconography, but when rendering their actual image a distinctly different style was apparent.

Michelangelo's approach to the physical beauty of the human form was obsessive, which explains his lack of interest in landscape. "'to paint beauty I need to see many beauties...'" It is simple, but is a basic idea when coming to understand his painting and sculpture. Imitating physical beauty and perfection was his niche, he wanted to capture or detain the perfection in human form, unlike Leonardo who seemed to want move along side nature. Studying natural processes and then expanding on them within his art instead of trying to imitate he created a different relationship with his subjects.

Leo and Mich's approach to fine art.

The relationship of art and science during the renaissance has become an obvious motif in our discussions about Leonardo. However the relationship of art and science became obviously crucial in the life of a renaissance when reading about Michelangelo.

Understanding human anatomy, natural observation and physical experimentation is required of any artist, past and present, but the approach of the renaissance artist was just as much about understanding the subject physical properties and processes as it was creatively interpreting the image.

However their approach in their artwork shifted when it came to actually rendering the piece of art. Leonardo was more interested in physical representation rather then discovering internal beauty. "...the theory of Decorum. The gestures in which a figure makes must not only show his feelings but be appropriete with his age rank and feelings." (35Blunt) Lists, and categorization were all highly important when observing a subject, one could compare Leonardo to a modern sociologist or an anthropologist.  On the flip side Michelangelo was interested in interpreting a subjects beauty and an almost abstract approach, especially in sculpture, resulted.  rondanini pieta 

the "unfinished" work expressed what Michelangelo experienced, not the physical representation but the reflection of emotion. In this way, the piece of art is complete when embracing the unfinished surface.

Discussion 3 - The corrupt business of catholic rome

Renaissance Rome was a catholic run business headed by the pope and what one could call "cabinet" of clergy. As much as the church appeared to be run on merit, it was very obviously a patriarchal lineage. Family members of high ranking officials were given other high ranking positions while other clerics where given smaller roles in the church and purposely less educated. "Popes mostly viewed the church as monarchical, the papal power - both spiritual and temporal - as supreme, universal and absolute. They believed to be the new Christ figures on earth..." (- Partridge) With that mentality one can understand easily corruption could be abused. One could never do wrong if one is acting with the power of christ compelling them.

it makes me think about our own government, and the continuation of corruption in our contemporary society. What are the similarities? Why does corruption reoccur? 

Leo & Theater 257-290 ish (creation of the last supper)

Currently writing and hopefully directing my first piece of live theater this semester and obviously Leo's interest in theatrics sparked my interest. His visual contribution to Il Paradiso seem to resonate with the audience more than Bellincioni's words. Understanding the effective message of costume, lighting and set design is extremely impressive as most theater used the masquerade as the most effective tool in creating meaning in theater. "It was the multimedia extravaganza of it's day - physically constructed out of wood and cloth, transformed and animated into something ethereal by a combination of colour, lighting, music, ballet and poetry." (259) Theater gave Leo the opportunity to express physical action and emotion that a painting could not. His studies of hideous figures never truly appear outside of his sketch books unless personified on stage or live production. However his style and approach to rendering such images does transcend from theater, to his sketch books and to his paintings.

One can observe this when analyzing Leo's The Last Supper. An obvious moment in time, one could compare this image to a present day screen shot. Action and movement is present and one could not capture such attributes without first understanding why movement and theatrics is effective.