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.