Renaissance Florence 13 th century

Renaissance

Florence , 13 th century

City-states

Economic conditions § Specialization: Venice (glass), Florence (textile) § Trade with the East § Black Death

Bubonic plague (1347 -1350) § Death toll § 75– 200 million people § 45 -50% of Europe’s population § Florence: 120, 000>50, 000

Impact on living standards § Prices drop § Value of working class increases § § Property becomes more available § Social mobility rises § Labour-saving innovation: shift from grain-farming to animal husbandry

§ People become acutely aware of death> § More value on life here and now § Preparing for the afterlife

Arts patronage Lorenzo de’Medici: Leonardo da Vinci Sandro Botticelli Michelangelo Buonarroti Philippino Lippi

Vatikan § Sistine chapel: § Sandro Botticelli, Pietro Perugino, Pinturiccio, Domenico, Ghirlandaio, Cosimo Roselli § Michelangelo works on the ceiling 1508 -1512

Dukes of Burgundy § Jan van Eyck § Rogier van der Weyden § Hugo van der Goes § Burgundian school of composers and singers.

Upper-middle class donors

Jodocus Vijd & Elizabeth Borluut

Lieven Van Pottelsberghe and Livina Steelant

Breakthroughs: § Learning based on Classical (incl. Greek) sources (shift to literary works rather than scientific) § Flourishing of Latin and vernacular literatures § Fall of Constantinople (1453): a wave of emigration from Greece (Greek scholars bring ancient manuscripts and the Greek language) § Political philosophy (Nicollo Machiavelli): not ideal, as it really was

Humanism § Opposition to medieval scholasticism § Education of citizenry: § Studia humanitas – § grammar, rhetoric, history, poetry and moral philosophy. § Polymaths (Leonardo): Renaissance man

Dante Alighieri (1265– 1321) Francesco Petrarca (1304– 1374)

First humanists § Petrarch § Coluccio § Poggio Bracciolini § Collecting and studying antique manuscripts § Roman and Greek (!)

The Complutensian Polyglot Bible (1436 -1517): § Hebrew § Aramaic § Greek § Latin Vulgate The project paved way to Reformation

Invention of the printing press – era of mass communication § Germany 1450 Johannes Gutenberg § 3, 600 pages per workday (compare: 7 pages per day written by a scribe) § Availability of paper Quick dissemination of ideas

In visual arts: § Development of linear perspective

Linear and reverse perspective

Painting as an “open window” (fenestra aperta) § Giotto § Philippo Bruneleschi § Leon Batista Alberti, De pictura (1435/1436)

Giotto di Bondone (1266/7 – 1337)

Hockney-Falco thesis: opticalcal aids: camera obscura, camera lucida and curved mirrors § Ibn al-Haytham (965 – 1040) “Book on Optics § 13 TH c. Roger Bacon: use of camera obscura in observing solar eclipses § Leonardo descibes camera obscura (1478– 1519)

Albrecht Dürer The Painter's Manual 1525

Lorenzo Ghiberti The Door of Paradize(1401) Filippo Brunelleschi Dome, Santa Maria del Fiore (1461)

Perspective in van Eyck

Jan Van Eyck, Ghent altarpiece, 1432

Synthesis: divine and human perspective Emergence of landscape

Space represented conventionally § Queen Mary Psalter, England, in Latin, British Library, Royal MS 2 B VII, f. 73 v. , 14 th c.

Functional landscape: vedute (panoramic map)

Jan van Eyck, Madonna of the Chancellor Rolin, 1435 fragment Window views

§ Dordrecht in S. Elizabeth’s Day Flood 1421, 1500 Early examples Dordrecht in S. Elizabeth’s Day Flood 1421, 1500

Joachim Patinir (c. 1480 – 1524) “maister Joachim, der gut landschafft Maler” Albrecht Dürer, journal of the trip to the Netherlands of 1520 -21

“world landscape”

Identification with Classic Roman sentimentality Erasmus Cicero

Pieter Brueghel the Elder

Trip to Italy - The Big Landscapes

Twelve Months for Nicklaes Jongelinck

5 paintings – 12 months?

§ http: //buck. ugent. be/fulltxt/RUG 01/001/457/590/RUG 01001457590_2011_0001_AC. pdf Drawing on the tradition

december

December/January - Hunters in the snow February/March – The Gloomy day April/May - the missing picture June/July – The Haymaking August/September – The Wheat harvest October/November – The Return of the herd

Intentional combination of two months? Why?