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.

Humanism - Martines

Martines analysis on humanism discussed, among other things, the new out look on social and political interests. Humanism valued the ancient greek and roman ideals and reinforced them in their own contemporary settings. Education was no longer marginal, it was not restricted to idea's popularized by the church but valued secular idea's, ones that may have reinforced religious notions but always promoted individual worth. "'(T)he careful study of the past enlarges our foresight in contemporary affairs and affords to citizens and to monarchs lessons of incitement or warning in the ordering of public policy. From history also we draw our store of examples of moral precepts'" (Martines,195/Burni) Understanding ones own history was vital for scholars like Burni. It is inefficient to continue repeating the same social/political mistakes, to ensure progression for ones self and for ones society, one must appreciate and understand what practices functioned efficiently (functions that resulted in production of art/architecture, advances in science, career/educational opportunities, ect)  compared to practices that were detrimental to society (functions that resulted in oppression, further separating social classes, war, prejudice, ect). Restricting ones own knowledge to carefully selected passages from the new and old testament was inefficient. The only way to progress ones self and society was understanding all aspects of history, beyond the restrictions of religion.