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16th Century: The Evolution of Northern Art and Italian Art

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16th Century: The Evolution of Northern Art and Italian Art

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The High Renaissance was an age of social, intellectual, and religious changes altering European culture, Classical ideals and lifelike rendering of the natural world from the mid 1480s to 1520s. There was critical exploration of new ideas, of the natural world, and distant lands. Artists started to use flexible oil painting instead of tempera paint. Artists found they could receive private commissions and it would allow them to move away from acquiring patronage from the church, court and civic associations. The leading High Renaissance artists were Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael.

Da Vinci heavily influenced High Renaissance Classicism style with the psychological composition of the Mona Lisa, naturalistic and classicizing idealism, the pyramidal composition, such as the portraiture I chose of Monsignor della Casa. He painted the Virgin of the Rocks, was well known for creating strong chiaroscuro to model 3 dimensional forms and his style of sfumato of transitioning from light to dark shading. Da Vinci did The Last Supper and used a vanishing point for the one point linear perspective to balance out the painting in a geometrical way and effectively ensured the background receded back. Here he used pyramidal composition using Jesus and the 12 disciples. His influence spread far beyond where he worked in
Florence.

Raphael's contribution to Florence was how he painted figures facing the viewer similar to da Vinci but he includes and highlights the elaborate clothing and jewelry, such as in the Angelo Doni and Maddalena Strozzi painting.

Michelangelo was a sculptor who chose large pieces of marble to carve from because he envisioned his art as already existing from the one large marble block piece. One of his famous works was David, the antique ideal of the athletic male nude. What makes the sculpture unique is the powerful expression and concentrated gaze.

In 1524, Giulio Romano brings the first evidence of Mannerism to Palazzo Del Te in Mantua. He decorated the rooms playfully and it was a place for Federigo and his mistress to meet.

In Venice, they had a huge seaport in the Mediterranean, which created wealth and had a Byzantine culture of art with rich patterns emphasizing light and color. Venetians were the first to use oil paint on wood panel and canvas. It made it easier to correct painting errors and oil paints became the preferred medium. Giorgione was another artist known for the poesie style and enjoyed landscape paintings. Titian was known for his amazing use of light and color. He built up layers of colors on canvas after finely grinding his pigments and using them to paint over his drawings of charcoal.

Mannerism developed out of Florence and Rome in approximately the 1520s.  Buiildings were not uniform, art was distorted and manipulated. I have shared some Mannerist art where the figure is elongated, but other art could include "enigmatic gestures, dreamy expressions, and complicated, artificial poses" (Stokstad and Cothren).

Protestant Reformation in the 16th century began when church figures like Desiderius Erasmus, who reformed the church from within, and Martin Luther, who broke from the Roman Catholic Church, started to resist financial abuses and decadent, lavish lifestyles from within the church. With the pilgrimages, relics and wealth, luxurious cathedrals were built and divine political and religious authority was being established by luxurious means. Luther wrote 95 Theses and did away with the veneration of saints and relics, instead focusing on the Bible as the ultimate authority. The Roman Catholic Church condemned Luther and the Protestants break away from Rome (Stokstad and Cothren). At this time, the printing press was being used to create widespread literacy in an inexpensive and rapid pace.  The Protestant Church further spread. A Protestant revolt by John Calvin was in Switzerland and King Henry VIII broke from Rome in 1534. By 1555, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V was forced to accommodate the Protestant Reformation in Germany where local rulers could select Catholic or Protestant for their subjects.

Due to the belief of iconoclasm, any artwork considered idols of the church, was destroyed or damaged, forcing the evolution of how artists gained work or what they created. Religious art declined and "portraiture and other secular subjects, including moralizing depictions of human folly and weaknesses, still lifes, and landscapes" became popular.

Albrecht Durer encountered the new idea that artists are noble intellects and he claimed "artists are learned and creative geniuses-perhaps Godlike- not laboring craftspeople" who are reliant on commissions or finding the next patrician (Stokstad and Cothren). Durer learned High Renaissance techniques of harmony and balance by producing stable and triangular composition, depicting human bodies of standard proportion, and depicting nature and landscapes in lifelike images. He wrote about "Italian Renaissance problems, ideal human proportion and the techniques of painting" (Stokstad and Cothren), taking up Protestant Lutheranism.

Landscaping became popular in the 16th century, where the Northern artists used landscaping as a background to sacred subjects or to figural compositions. The art I selected will be primarily paintings including landscapes with greater detail as well as portraitures, some with landscapes.

In 1516, King Francis I had Leonardo da Vinci as his adviser and he appreciated the Italian inspired Renaissance within French artworks. Builders were later inspired by the Classical principals of building design, such as the Chateau of Chenonceau. Later, Paris would become the capital after Francis I defeated it 1525. The style of French Classicism would begin to  replace Gothic style, particularly at the Louvre. Henry IV proclaimed acceptance of Protestants in the Edict of Nantes in 1598 after much bloodshed.

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Study of the Good Thief, Albrecht Dürer, 1503-1505

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The Study of the Good Thief was a drawing by Albrecht Durer. He used pen and brown ink, first drawing out the body and possibly the cross last. The purpose was to get the body proportions and pose just right before creating a woodcut, engraving, or painting. Durer gave the figure a 3 dimensional appearance by using "thin, parallel lines, cross hatching. and short, rapid, repeated strokes" (Getty.edu). To better define the figure, he gave bold outlines on the figure's body, around the chest and abdomen with darker strokes. Durer's technique was to give his artwork lifelike representations of nature and depict the human figure in an ideal human proportion, which is evident of his engraving of Adam and Eve from 1504.

The drawing is about a good thief who hung from the cross beside Christ. As he hung dying, he repented all his crimes. The image is drawn to reveal the tension of the man on the cross, that leans forward from the weight. The good thief's body pulls forward from the protruding belly, and the taut arms reveal the strain on the muscles and neck. His legs are stretched straight with his feet nailed to the cross. The good thief's face reveals a sorrowful expression, possibly repenting his sins.

I chose this drawing because Durer was an important contributor to art and I like how his work reflected what Leonardo da Vinci started with realism and representing the human figure accurately.

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The Adoration of the Shepherds by Giorgione da Castelfranco, 1505-1510

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Giorgione may have been trained by Giovanni Bellini, was influenced by Leonardo da Vinci's lighting system and found inspiration from his landscapes and later worked with Titian and Sebastiano del Piombo. Giorgione introduced poesie and influenced with his "significant appreciation of nature in landscaping painting" (Stokstad and Cothren), which is a characteristic of Northern attention to detail. He became a critical contributor to Venetian painting who focused more on the popular theme of landscapes in the 16th century.

The Adoration of the Shepherds is similar to The Pastoral Concert in that they both have idyllic landscapes, hazy appearances in the background and the landscaping seems to be one of the main subjects of the painting. The left figures are shepherds in tattered clothing, kneeling to recognize baby Christ's divinity. Mary and Joseph, to the right, standout from the darkness of the cave in their shimmering robes, participating in the adoration. The cave recedes back with plants on the rock ceiling and cattle in the back. Baby Christ lies in the center of the four figures on the ground, on top of a white cloth. The second landscape focus is to the left where an angel appears peaking from the left corner. The luminous Venetian landscaping recedes far back into the distance with a winding river, houses, other buildings, grassy hills, and mountains beneath a clear blue sky.

This painting represents a new direction for art. I like how it shows multi focal points with the focus on Christ to the right, then to the immediate left with the angel and then to the far back. The religious purpose to paintings is starting to change and become more diverse.

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Madonna di Foligno by Raffaello Sanzio in 1511

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The Madonna di Foligno was commissioned by Julius II First Secretary, Sigismondo de’ Conti, for the Cathedral of Santa Maria in Aracoeli. It was placed on the high alters and later de' Conti was buried there in 1512. In 1565 it was moved to the St. Anne monastery in Foligno by de' Conti's granddaughter, Sister Ann Conti, were the Madonna di Foligno stayed for 200 years.

The oil painting on canvas is of the Virgin Mary in the clouds at the top, holding baby Christ in the center of a cloud of angels like a halo encircling them inside of an orange disk. St Jerome at the bottom right presents Sigismondo de' Conti with his left hand on de Conti's head and his right hand out to reaffirm de' Conti's worthiness to the holy presence of Mother and Child. Next to St. Jerome is his lion. On the opposite side is St. Francis of Assisi in grey, kneeling and pointing to the viewer to include them (the world) in the blessings from St. John the Baptist, who stands beside St. Francis. St. John, dressed in fur holding a cross, points to the Mother and Child, facing the viewer to include them. In the center of the four figures below, stands a volumetric, full putti holding a blank plaque, intended to carry the dedicatory inscription. There is a strong characterization of the figures, with bold colors of blue, red and highlighted ivory skin. The towers of Foligno in the distant background are symbolic for being spared during a disaster and de' Conti is giving thanks. His house was struck by lightning and is visible on the left but was spared damage. The refined chiaroscuro distinguish the panel and give the figures and background spatial depth. The Virgin appears to standout from the clouds she sits on, actually sitting above the figures below, captivating the world as St. John reminds the viewer to pay attention to.

I really like this painting because I find it fascinating how the church and royals used art to establish their authority over the people prior to the Protestant Reformation.

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Joseph and Potiphar's Wife by Properzia de’ Rossi at the Cathedral of San Petronio in 1525-1526.

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Properzia de' Rossi was one of a few women in a small group of artists. She was a sculptor and engraver from Bologna, a haven for female artistic production, and had few works of artwork that survived. De' Rossi was known for using unusual materials to work on, such as peach and cherry pits. It is possible, being a woman would have given her a disadvantage to having access to the appropriate materials and tools in the 16th century of Italy.

De' Rossi was trained by the engraver, Marcantonio Raimondi, and little is known of her, however, The biographer, Giorgio Vasari, wrote a chapter on her in The Lives of the Artists. He devoted a chapter to her in the 1550 text about one of her works, Joseph and Potiphar's Wife and stated she was unfairly paid.

One major commission de' Rossi received with her autograph, was the Joseph and Potiphar's Wife marble relief at the Cathedral of San Petronio. It was carved on the left side of the portal and is an image from the Old Testament story. It is believed to relate to an unhappy extramarital affair or to de' Rossi's own love for a man. The figure, Joseph, is fleeing, running to the left as the partially exposed seductress grips his clothing from behind while sitting on a bed, to the right. The image is an example of artistic developments of that time, expressing the human form in a naturalistic style, successfully demonstrating movement so the viewer could almost feel Joesph fleeing past them.

I chose this artist because I felt it was important to represent a woman who was successful and talented. She made it even with fewer access to resources than men had, being short changed in payments, and her artwork survives even though not much exists today.

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A Young Woman and Her Little Boy by Bronzino in 1540.

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This portrait was painted by Angola di Cosimodi di Mariano, also known as Bronzino. The aristocrat woman and child are unknown, however, they may come from his time as the principal portraiture of the court of Cosimo I de' Medici, Duke of Florence in the mid 16th century. The oil painting is on wood panel and is in close likeness to his other work, Portrait of Eleonora of Toledo and Her Son Giovanni de’ Medici. The aristocratic woman wears costly attire, later enlarging her headdress and making her puffed sleeves broader, holding gloves with her left hand rested over the shoulder of the young boy.

Her crimson red dress, gold jewelry, gold embroidered turban, puffed shoulders, and decorative slashed sleeves are costly for this time. The woman holds herself rigid and controlled which is similar to other portraits from Cosimo's court. Some of the added features were the ivory skinned, young boy in black clothes, a white ruffled shirt peaking over the collar, blonde hued, curly hair, and dark eyes. Bronzino updated her clothing to be more elaborate and "evident from the darker silhouette of the contours painted over the green background" (National Gallery of Art). The painting is filled primarily with a variety of red, green and gold hues, a chiaroscuro light source playing across the ivory skin tones of the woman and child, drawing attention to their eyes, straight noses, full lips, smooth cheeks and her long neck. Sfumato shading makes the green background appear to almost encircle the figures.

Bronzino started as Pontormo's pupil and assistant, opened his workshop in 1530, and by 1540 became the court painter to the Medici. He is primarily known for his elegant portraiture paintings but created altarpieces, fresco decorations and tapestry designs throughout his career.

I like this portraiture because of the colors and how chiaroscuro is being used from da Vinci's style. It highlights the importance of who the woman was and how she carries herself. The painting is a good example of how easy the use of oil painting made it for artists to make changes to their work.

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Monsignor della Casa by Jacopo Carucci da Pontormo in 1541-1544. Florence, Italy.

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The portrait of Monsignor della Casa by Pontormo was done with oil painting on wood panel in the mannerist style he is known for. The monsignor presses forward toward the viewer, the size of his head distorted in size, small on his huge bulk and large hands. His left hand presses to his chest, emerging from a white sleeve holding a book open with his finger and thumb. The sleeve is painted with swirling brushstrokes, his blue and gray hued cape cover his chest and sloping shoulders, the body angled to the left, not quite looking at the viewer straight on. The monsignor appears elongated from the head, nose, torso, and hands.

The monsignor was a poet, humanist, political theorist and rose through the church. During the portrait, he was acting in Florence as Apostolic Commissioner of taxes and he wrote the book on manners.

Jacopo Carucci da Pontormo painted the Deposition for the Capponi Chapel. Although more elaborately placed in artificial poses, dreamy expressions and enigmatic gestures, the Monsignor della Casa has some of the mannerist style with the disproportioned head and torso leaning toward the viewer.

I chose this portraiture because the Mannerist style is creative, even if the Monsignor is still looking pretty serious and rigid. The enlarged torso works for the monsignor and I feel I still take his image and gaze seriously as the viewer.

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Venus with a Mirror by Titian Vecellio c.1555

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Venus with a Mirror is an oil painting on canvas by Titian, a Venetian painter. It is a partially nude woman with a creamy skin tone, blushing cheeks, a straight nose and rosy, full lips. She is wrapped in a crimson red robe lined in an exquisite detailed fur hanging from her right shoulder and wrapped around her full hips. Her golden blonde hair is up decorated in gold and string of pearls. The woman has on gold bracelets on both wrists, a ring on each hand and earrings. To her left are two children, one golden, curly haired child reaching to place a ring of laurel leaves on her head. The other nude child wears a yellow sash, with cartoonish grey and black wings oddly placed on its back, holding a mirror to the woman's face. The viewer sees her partial reflection but she appears amused with a slight smile, looking to her left over the child's head with the wings, past the mirror. The background has an shimmering emerald curtains in the left, top corner and a beige wall covered mostly in shadow behind the figures. The children stand on a golden and brown stripped cushion.

The woman is symbolic for Venus, the goddess of love and beauty. The details and textures of her robe, jewelry and skin make the painting come alive and feel almost soft and real, maybe even warm to the touch. "Titian was famous for his mastery of light and color" (Stokstad and Cothren). The direction of her gaze appears to be in the direction of someone the viewer cannot see, seeming to capture her attention. The painting is done on a reused canvas and the fur robe was once the jacket of a male figure. Scientific studies show Titian finely ground pigments, more so than the average painter, and drew out the beginning process on top of a prime coat of lead white with charcoal. The lead white sealed the pores of the canvas and smoothed it out.

I can appreciate how art seemed to evolve and include the female body. I chose this piece because I like how Venus isn't portrayed as sexual. It is in a more natural and realistic way. Too bad she was symbolic for fertility and still a means to an end.

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Satyr after a model by Benvenuto Cellini. 1500-1571

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The bronze Satyr was cast from a wax study for Benvenuto Cellini's project. It was intended for the entrance of the Fontainebleau French royal palace. The Porte Doree (Golden Door), was planned to have a pair of satyrs to hold up the cornice or to be vertical supports. Above the doorway a semicircular relief of nude female nymphs and the emblem of Francois I, which was imagery of animals in the forest. The reason the bronze was cast from wax is because the project was incomplete and the Satyr wax model was possibly left behind in Cellini's French studio when he returned to Florence.

The Satyr is a fully human like creature with small horns on the hairline and a goatish head. "With a furrowed brow, gnarled lips, and open-mouthed scowl," the creature appears aggressive and beast like, looking sharply to the left, standing in exaggerated contrapposto (Masterpieces of the J. Paul Getty Museum: European Sculpture).

According to Ancient Greek mythology, satyrs originated from the woods and mountains, goat-like with hairy legs, hooves, tails, bearded faces and horns. They were symbolic for lust and primal passions in the Renaissance.

I chose this sculpture because the contra-posts technique we see here and with the David sculpture makes the pieces more dramatic. It seems like the sculpture has been caught in the action of standing there, caught off guard and looking over its shoulder.

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The Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine by Sofonisba Anguissola in 1588. Genoa, Italy.

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The Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine

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The Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine

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The painting was done on canvas by Sofonisba Anguissola. It is one of few religious artworks by her and shows she may have been interested in the iconography depicting a young Christ in a humanistic style figure, resembling his mother, the Virgin. Christ plays an important role, all the figures are grouped in pyramidal composition with Christ at the center. The use of sfumato and chiaroscuro give the figures 3 dimension and highlight the limbs and clothing in such a way that Christ standouts and only the faces of the 2 women.

During the time of the painting, Anguissola was living in Genoa where she devoted herself fully to painting. During her noble childhood in Cremona, her father, not an artist, taught his children humanistic education, and encouraged her career. He had her trained by Michelangelo in 1557 and she built a reputation as the best portrait painter according to her time working for the queen of Spain as lady-in-waiting and court painter.

I chose this piece because Anguissola was successful in making Christ feel real and relatable. It feels like I am gazing within a family spending time together.

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Portrait of Lucia Bonasoni Garzoni by Lavinia Fontana. c.1590

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This is an oil painting of a female musician, Lucia Bonasoni Garzoni from the 16th century. The Bolognese woman who painted it was Lavinia Fontana, one the most successful female artists of the late 16th century. The importance of the portrait is a story of two accomplished women that were able to succeed in a patriarchal society both in music and painting. This is one of Fontana's best preserved and accomplished works.

Lucia Fontana was a trailblazer for female artists who supported her family from her paintings. Her husband, Gian Paolo Zappi, supported the family at home and was like a business manager. He was a retired artist himself. In childhood, her father, Prospero Fontana, "trained her in the late mannerist style" (National Gallery of Art). Fontana's first artworks was around 1575 of a portrait and she did other types of work such as, secular and religious painting subjects, church altarpieces, portraits of scholars and mythological nudes. Later Fontana became an official Roman painter for the papal court in 1603 and was commissioned by the Habsburg patrons.

I chose this picture because it highlights the success of 2 women in the 16th century. They both found a sweet spot for themselves. The portrait exhibits a strong and successful woman in her expensive clothing, rings and necklace.

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1) https://www.thehistoryofart.org/raphael/madonna-of-foligno/

2)https://www.wga.hu/html_m/r/raphael/5roma/1/07folig.html

3) https://www.italianartsociety.org/2018/10/properzia-de-rossi-about-1490-1530-among-the-small-but-significant-group-of-women-known-to-us-today-who-succeeded-as-artists-in-renaissance-italy-properzia-de-rossi-was/
4) https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.432.html

5) https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.41.html

6) https://www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.1932.html

7) https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.46182.html

8) https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.1143.html

9) https://www.getty.edu/publications/virtuallibrary/0892365137.html

10) https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/103QWD#full-artwork-details

11) Art History by Marilyn Stokstad; Michael W. Cothren