Art History

Last week we talked about the beginnings of the movement away from the showiness of the ostentatious Baroque and decorative Rococo periods and the move away from exclusively religious art that began in the Lowlands of Europe, Belgium and the Netherlands. This trend began to spread across Europe and into the Americas from the mid-eighteenth and lasted until the early nineteenth centuries and is known as the Neoclassical period. One of the main reasons was the general public´s reaction to the opulence championed by Royalty on the Continent during the mass movements toward democratic societies. Another reason was the rediscovery of ruins at Herculaneum and Pompeii in the mid 1700´s and the publication of Thoughts on the Imitation of Greek Works of Art by art historian Johann Winckelmann. These factors led to a powerful revival of Classical Antiquity that lasted nearly two centuries.

The earlier, but previously unrecognized art of such men as Nicolas Poussin, who specialized in classical history paintings and Claude Lorrain´s famous landscapes, became the inspiration for a new wave in realism for artists long after these artists deaths. The movement actually began as an architectural movement because of the plethora of Classical Roman buildings in Rome. This fact placed the real beginnings of the movement back into the heart of Italy, the home of the original Renaissance. There is really no particular year or event that can be clearly seen as the defining beginning of the Romantic and Neoclassical periods.

The movement developed a much more serious and unemotional flavor than had ever been seen in the art world. Reflecting the heroic styles from the Greeks and Republican Romans, using plain and somber colors instead of bright pastel colors, with only a few highlights was the general theme of this artistic style. The art tried to promote the ethical “superiority” of antique art, which celebrated moral narratives like self-sacrifice and self-denial. Both sculpture and paintings dropped the theatrical and whimsical earlier styles and was a great deal more organized, emphasizing theme and linear design rather than the effects of light, which by this time were much better understood, color and atmosphere. Simply comparing the art of Masters like sculptor John Flaxman, Henry Fuseli and William Blake with the works of Homer, Aeschylus, Dante Alighieri and others will demonstrate the huge influence artists from the Classical Period had on this period.

The 16^th Century saw the opening of one of the longest continuous wars in human history, the Dutch 80 Year War, which was a revolt against Spanish Control over the Low Countries. It was toward the end of this interminable war that the Dutch Golden Age of Painting began and because of the influence of Dutch painters like Rembrandt and Vermeer the art world began its next important period. The Dutch Golden Age began during the Middle of the Baroque period. The reasons for the Dutch dominance in art during this period are many. The break with the traditional conservative and very Catholic Spanish control, especially since the Spanish Inquisition was still going on in some locations, led to a complete restructuring of Dutch society and Dutch art was one of the first areas to feel the changes. There are a number of easy scholarships that allow students to study the period in depth.

Dutch art of the period is considered Baroque but in reality many of the aspects of the Baroque style, such as the love of splendor and idealization, are missing, making this style part of the Baroque period but separate from it, being fascinated more with realism that with pomp and grandeur. This mini-period lasted from about 1628 until the French invaded the Low Lands in 1672 and it was during this period that the concept of “genres”.

The Calvinists took over the religious aspects of Dutch life during this period and, unlike the Vatican, banned religious painting inside the Churches. While religious paintings were permitted in homes the fact was the most people could not afford them and very few religious paintings were produced during this period, the artists preferring to concentrate on scenes from real life, landscapes, peasant life, animals, flowers, and maritime paintings. This was also the period when the “Hierarchy of Genres”, which held that some styles were better than others and this drove painters to want to produce work that would last through the ages. Keep in mind that the greats like Da Vinci, who only painted for money to finance is inventions, and Michelangelo, who painted out of piety, were not concerned as much about money and fame in art as they were about mechanics and religion.

With one notable exception, The Young Bull (Paulus Potter 1647), which was huge ( Nearly 10 foot wide) most paintings of the period were relatively small, and the only really large paintings were usually family group portraits. Wall painting had been common for literally thousands, of not tens of thousands of years, but during this period the practice essentially ended in Europe. Walls were decorated with hanging paintings, which were painted on either canvas or wooden panels and some artists even painted over many surviving Golden Age paintings with new subjects, a practice which began because new frames and canvases were expensive. There was also very little sculpture done during this period and was usually only commissioned for tomb monuments or for decoration of public buildings or areas.

Mannerism was followed in the late 16^th Century by the Baroque period. The word Baroque is a French word for “misshapen pearl” and was applied to the period because of the garish beauty of its art and architecture. The style began in Northern Italy during around 1580 and lasted until the early 1700´s, which makes it one of the longer periods. The period reflected the brewing battle between the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic establishment.

The battle began when the Catholic Church announced a “counter” Reformation in the late 1550´s and began to use art to influence people´s opinion of the Church. The commissioned many pieces that were biblically correct and visually stunning, reaching people on a nearly visceral level. The Church used Masters like Bernini and Rubens to create dramatic paintings using revolutionary techniques like casting certain figures, who are standing in deep shadow, in bright but soft illumination. While Renaissance art was highly stylized, Baroque was much earthier and realistic. For the first time artists painted about live on the streets instead of in the palaces and the masses flocked to this art. Artists like Rembrandt, Vermeer ruled the art world in northeastern Europe and Caravaggio ruled the south. New scientific discoveries, brought on by the Renaissance and the work of men like Da Vinci and Galileo were rapidly changing the way people looked at the world. Dozens of new trade routes, with both Asia and the newly discovered Americas, with thriving colonies, had produced an entirely new form of art.

Art was only purchased by the privileged monied classes for most of history. But now that the economy had begun to create a thriving middle class, more careers in education, eventually leading up to medical advances until we now have jobs like astronauts and careers in software engineering opened up as more people could pay for school and educational levels increased, artists began to produce on a much faster scale and Baroque went through many changes through the years.

The Baroque Style, which we will study for the next several articles, is an “absolutist” style. Baroque is all about exaggeration, colossal sculptures, movement and a great deal of emotion. Like the misshapen pearl it is both more and less than it should be. We can see the influence of this period in other periods, like Gothic, surrealism, Art Deco, and many others. But the period was torn by war and religious conflict, each event which had its own influence on the period and we will explore each of these events and discuss how they changed what might have been.

The last several articles have concentrated on the art of the High Renaissance, with emphasis on Da Vinci and Michelangelo. While we must move on to the next stage, Mannerism, we continue to welcome questions about any of our previous articles. The term “mannerism” has been used in many different contexts in the art world, the most common is when it is applied to the art that flowed out of Italy and much of Europe in the nearly 60 years following the High Renaissance. The style is said to have started around 1520, when many of the great Masters, like Michelangelo and Da Vinci were still alive, and lasted until about 1580, or the beginning of the Baroque Period. While the main branch of Mannerism, which originated in Florence and Rome, was over by 1580 the style continued well into the 17^th century in the rest of Europe, especially in Germany, where it finally fizzled out in favor of Gothic art in the early 1800´s. A teaching career in art history specializing in this period can be fascinating.

The term “mannerism” can be traced to the Italian word maniera and loosely means manner or style. The word however can be used as a noun or adjective, as in “he has style”. But the flexibility of the word causes some confusion when it is used to describe an entire period in art history. Some people use the term to describe the lifestyle of the artist and some use it to describe their work style. When we are talking about Mannerism however we are talking about the style of art, not a specific artist. There are a number of artists who contributed heavily to the Age of Mannerism whoever and we will address each in later articles.

The style of mannerism features, when compared to the Renaissance, many art concepts that were quite revolutionary. The style uses things like a collapsed perspective or precariously balanced poses to put the viewer off balance and elongated forms and irrational settings to keep them there. While classic styles evoked expressions of wonder, art done in a mannerist style evoked shock and adventure, a mystery that few could resist. A more recent example of this phenomenon can be seen with the development of rock music in the late 1950´s and 1960´s, replacing the use of the orchestra and adding electronics to create a sense of excitement overload.

Many of the early mannerist artists were students of students of the Masters, like Michelangelo and Raphael and Da Vinci. These students had the temerity to add style techniques from pre classical times and Hellenistic styles to the classical techniques developed by the Masters. Originally these artists were referred to as anti-classical. The contrasts continued of course. Classical art featured the natural and mannerist favored the artificial and extreme.

But the term “la maniera” was not meant to be a complement. Artists of the time were seen to be rebels and their art was seen by many writers of the time as offensive to the masterpieces of men like Da Vinci and Raphael. But while they were using the term to describe particular artists, the term has been used to describe the period for over a century.

The title of Renaissance Man is usually attributed to Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo most certainly shared that pedestal with him. In our last article we mentioned that Da Vinci, while being responsible for some of history´s greatest works of art, was not an artist of passion. Da Vinci created works of art so that he would have money to fund his real passions: Science and engineering. Michelangelo on the other hand, was a man of deep passions and was an artist to his soul. He was an engineer and innovator as well, but only in ways that related to his heart. His inspiring St. Peter´s Basilica for instance was merely a decorative housing for his artwork, as his work in the Sistine Chapel´s Alter Wall and ceiling demonstrates. His fresco work is was especially prized by the Church in Rome and the Vatican still holds a great amount of this one artists work.

While the largest part of his work was inspired by Christian images there were a number of pieces, even some ordered by Church Cardinals, such as the statues Hercules and Bacchus. Even his most famous work in marble, David, was not produced to glorify the Church or Christianity but was instead meant to symbolize the freedom of Florence after the oppressive rule of Girolamo Savonarola, a monk sent by Rome to try to squash the Renaissance. But it was Michelangelo´s work on the Sistine Chapel that shines down on us from history and many people do not know that this entire job was created as a way to embarrass the great man.

Michelangelo had been invited to Rome by Pope Julius III in order to design the Popes Tomb. But the great artist Raphael had already been working in the city for some years and did most of his work for the Church. Michelangelo´s presence was seen as a threat by Raphael, who was seen as the master of fresco painting, and he wanted Michelangelo to fail in a spectacular way. Michelangelo was quite unfamiliar with fresco painting and Raphael lobbied to have him do the ceiling and alter wall in the chapel. But Michelangelo would not be humiliated. The original order was for a scene featuring the Apostles but the Master decided that this was not good enough, instead painting not only the creation scene, in three parts, but the genealogy of Christ, upon which the entire Christian Church was founded.

A pharmacy technician from Idaho or bank clerk from Miami, vacationing in Rome and visiting the Vatican, cannot possibly understand the vicious political in-fighting among the many artists and Michelangelo himself found many of his works being called being called “sacrilegious”, simply because he featured a great deal of nudity. There are a few “weird” scholarships that will allow students of history to study the politics of the time and allow them to get a better understanding of when these great works were created.

Many of the artists of the time were either homosexual or bi sexual and much of Michelangelo´s work reflects that this was very probably the case with him as well. The problem with identifying the Master´s sexual orientation is that his personal habits probably drove away any potential lovers, male or female. Completely obsessed with his art, Michelangelo´s personal habits were atrocious and he was seen my many in Rome and Florence as an obscene man. But the fact is that this artist, by working extensively for the Vatican, ensured that both his work and his writings would survive for study today.

While there are may online colleges that have classes studying the art of Da Vinci, anyone who wants to understand Leonardo Da Vinci the artist must first understand the times in which this most intelligent of men lived in. Born in 1452 in the tiny village of Da Vinci, Leonardo was handed the prospect of a future of servitude. While he was the son of a wealthy merchant, he was also illegitimate and in Catholic controlled Italy of the 15^th Century his father simply was forbade from claiming him. The times were always perilous because the Italian peninsula was in a state of constant warfare. The young Leonardo was possessed by an enormous curiosity and wandered the countryside as a child studying nature. One story tells of the boy buying small birds in the local marketplace to study and then releasing them because he felt bad about depriving them of their freedom.

Da Vinci may have released the birds but before he did he sketched them all and studied the drawings. Da Vinci, during his entire life, was much more fascinated by mechanics than he was by art. He practiced his art at first to have drawings of objects and actions for study and later in life to earn a living, not out of love for art. But mechanics at the time were not respected and certainly not the mechanical efforts of a young boy. His drawings and natural artistic talent were respected however and he soon found himself sponsored to enter the prestigious studio of Andrea Verochio and it was not long before the Master recognized the enormous talent of the 14 year old Da Vinci. His first major collaborations were on the Baptism of Christ and the Annunciation and it was during this period that observers noticed how well he could paint expressions. In all of his paintings you can see the feelings of the models and this was something that no other artist up to that period. There are a few grad school scholarships for history that will allow students of the Renaissance to study his early years in much more detail.

We must remember that this was a time well before artists like Rembrandt and Picasso, both of whom had the lessons of Da Vinci to build on. Da Vinci´s innovations in painting made the art we have today possible. His figures were soft and not abruptly drawn as all of the previous figures and when he had backgrounds he developed the technique of “Sfumattoo”, which allowed the artist to slightly blur the background as a contrast to the figure. His studies in human anatomy made the highly lifelike figures to take on a life of their own and still have a natural look, a problem that had plagued the ancient Greeks for centuries.

There has possibly never been a person who so intimately understood his own humanness than Leonardo Da Vinci. When most people think about Da Vinci however, the first thing that always comes to mind is his art work, especially his paintings. Images of the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper can be seen all over the world today and even many of his sculptures are fairly well known. What many people do not know about this man however is that Leonardo did not have a real passion for his art. Da Vinci was not an artist who created with his heart. He was a scientist who created with his brain, using mechanical principles.

Young Leonardo was born without much chance of creating a real future but while he was physically beautiful he was also blessed by an almost unnatural inquisitiveness and intelligence. Leonardo the child spent much of his time studying everything from birds in flight to the muscle movements of humans and animals. His original drawings were his efforts to record what he saw for later study. While he was born into a Christian culture and even lived inside the Vatican, during the period that both Michelangelo and Raphael were working there on commissions, his writings and work suggested that he had deep questions about the apparent contradictions between biblical teachings and his observations of nature. To his young mind there was a lot more God in Nature than Nature in God.

Da Vinci was an engineer and scientist at heart. All of this later works, with the possible exception of the Mona Lisa, he completed simply to afford him the financial opportunity to design his true loves: Machines of war.

Da Vinci spent his entire independent career seeking clients who would pay him for innovative designs. The first tanks, built in World War I, we built around a Da Vinci design made in the 15^th Century. But he would design anything for money and worked directly for some of the most powerful people in Europe. We must keep in mind that the very idea of a “bastard” son of a merchant who would live in the Vatican as an honored guest and die in the arms of the King of France is simply astounding and a testament to the monumental power of the man.

But Da Vinci had a sense of humor as well and we can see signs of it in art more than anywhere else. In Dan Brown´s book “Da Vinci Code” he puts Leonardo into the middle centuries long conspiracy. While there is a tremendous about of symbolism, even some Pagan symbolism, in his art, it is more likely that he put it there out of a sense of irony or his vast sense of humor. In his painting “John the Baptist” he used Satai, one of his pupils and lifetime friend, as the model. The ironic, and humorous, part of this was Da Vinci´s name for Satai was “Little Devil”.

This period is one of the most important in the history of art. The men who worked during this period were arguably among the finest thinkers in human history. For that reason we will cover some of the Greatest Masters who lived during this period in great depth. The next few articles will concentrate exclusively on the life and works of Leonardo Da Vinci. If you are in an online masters program it might be a good idea to save these links because we will be presenting some hard to find material.

One of the greatest illustrations of the world of arts fight against the iron control of the Christian church can be seen in the works of Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni and their sponsorship by the wealthy mercantile family, the De Medici family of Tuscany. While there were many artists who contributed during this period the above two are responsible for more advances than all of the others combined. This was not as much because of the volume of work that each of these men produced, which was substantial, but because of the innovations that they were able to develop which are still not only used by all artists today but make them the most well known artists in history.

There is much speculation that Da Vinci and Michelangelo atheists but the facts are that there is simply no real evidence to support this. There are two much more likely possibilities however. The first is that these two masters were actually Christians who, like Martin Luther a century later, were rebelling against Vatican control and corruption. The other possibility however seems to be much more likely.

There is a great deal of speculation, which is mirrored in Dan Brown´s controversial book “The Da Vinci Code” that both Da Vinci and Michelangelo were actually practicing Pagans who used their art to hide Pagan ideals and teachings in much the same way that African Slaves used Catholic symbolism to hide Voodun ritual from the Church and Christian slaver owners. The are many classes on these connections for people who are studying art and design careers in college today.

The most famous painting in history, and still mysterious, was undoubtedly the Mona Lisa. Recent findings in this painting reveal hidden animal images in the background. Da Vinci used the landscape to, in a sense, merge the natural world in a sublime way that defied discovery for 500 years. Many of the same techniques, blending a naturalistic view with a religious one, were also used by Michelangelo and this concept was, at the time, completely new to the world of art. Much of Da Vinci´s success can be attributed to the fact that he not only wondered how a bird could fly, he actually spent considerable time studying and experimenting on flight itself. The Master not only enjoyed the spectacle of flight, he wanted to thoroughly understand it and this understanding segued naturally into his art. The same is true of Michelangelo. Raised by a merchant father, who refused to allow him to work with his hand, Michelangelo would study a block of marble for weeks or months, mentally visually each cut that needed to be made and completing the sculpture in his mind before ever picking up a chisel.

The battle between the late Roman Empire and the Early Christian Church raged almost unabated for nearly 300 years and did not end until Constantine the Great legalized the practice of the religion in 311 AD. Some scholars argue that the burning of Rome was actually initiated by Christians and others argue that Constantine decision was actually a political one simply because he foresaw Rome´s decline and needed a new political device to retain control. While the actual reasons for the shift in power will probably remain for eternity in shadows, the fact is that once the Church did gain political control over the far flung Roman Empire they used this control to dominate every single aspect of life and this is extremely evident in its control of the art world.

On the surface all people in the Medieval world believed that the Christian God and a literal Heaven and Hell actually existed and that the only way to achieve one and avoid the other was through the Catholic (which literally means “Universal”) Church. Any variation by spoken word or act from these teachings could and very often did lead to exile, excommunication and even torture and execution. The Church´s control over art however varied from time to time and region to region. Most early Churches forbade any images, whether graven or painted, to be placed in churches simply because they believed that these images would lead church goers to adore the art more than they would the teachings. Priests, especially from the Dominican sect (who later led the Inquisitions) literally swept the land of any form of art that could be seen to contain “Pagan” images or symbolism.

But pagan images and symbolism can be found throughout much of early Medieval art and many art researchers are using the services of the pale-forensic scientists to uncover not only these images but how they avoided the religious laws of the time. One of the largest differences between the Christianity and Pagan religions their contrasting opinions on sexuality and this early art demonstrates that “Christian” artists disagreed with the Christianity on this issue. The early use of the fish in Christianity is a great example and many of the greatest art pieces owned by the Vatican have many examples of sexual symbolism which were much more Pagan than Christian. The reason for this is fairly simple to understand when you consider that throughout history artists have been radical thinkers and seldom allow themselves to be cornered into dogmatic thinking. The fact is that while most people during this period were outwardly Christian, Pagan traditions were still a large part of life in most communities, especially outside the larger urban areas.

Historical records tell us that while much early art was religious based it was in essence pantheistic and not overly affected or influenced by the religions. Art was in fact, in most cases, an artists voluntary reflection of Man´s relationship to the God´s. Interestingly enough this facet of art was completely eliminated by the coming to power of the Christian Church at the beginning of the Dark Ages, or early Medieval Period beginning in 410 B.C. The Roman Empire was in turmoil, besieged on all sides by “barbarians” when the Emperor Constantine legalized the practice of Christianity and allowed the formation of the Christian Church. Many historians speculate that pressures from the Church were at least partially instrumental in splitting the Empire into its Western and Eastern (Byzantium) parts. For those readers who are ardent students of Art history there are a number of great easy scholarships that can be obtained for this study and understanding this period is essential to understanding the development of art itself.

The Medieval Period can be divided into two parts. The first, commonly known as the Dark Ages, lasted from approximately 410 AD to 1066 AD, or about 650 years. The next period, or Early Renaissance, lasted from 1066 to the last part of the 15^th century, or another 400 years. While most scholars see a lessening in the Church´s influenced upon art during the latter period if we study the histories of the De Medici family in the late 15^th century, especially the case of the genius Michelangelo, who was threatened with both excommunication and death if he did not work directly for the Church in Rome, we can see that this was far from true.

During the first part of the Medieval Period all artists were completely controlled by the Church and kept in Monasteries and other religious houses. All art reflected only Christian subjects, there were no real landscapes, naturalistic art, or sculptures, which the Church considered idolatry. This interpretation of Exodus seems to be a bit confusing however simply because “images” can come in many forms and a statue of God can hardly be seen to be more of an image than a painting of God. This period however only allowed art like paintings, frescoes, illuminated manuscripts, and mosaics to be produced and these were all done in very muted colors and were exclusively Church related. Violation of these strictures could lead to excommunication (essentially a death sentence), or even execution in some extreme cases.

In 1066 however, with the invasion of William the Conqueror of England, the art of the period began to slowly change. While the Church´s power spanned the entire Western world, England was several months very dangerous travel from Rome and the Vatican´s influence was not as strong as it was on the European Continent. While many credit the Italians for finally opening up the art world the initial work was actually done by the English, with the creation of Gothic Art, who finally split with Rome at about the same time as the Renaissance officially began in Italy, during the reign of Henry of Tudor, or Henry VIII. During this period brighter colors began to appear, the art of sculpting in various media from marble to bronze, and realism began to appear. Art also began to become much more developed as well. Techniques in perspective, proportion, depicting light and shadow and an actual sense of pictorial space were all in various stages of development.

The next few articles in this series will cover each of these time periods in much greater detail, beginning with the Church´s initial control of all forms of art and following the progress of substance and style until the beginning of the Italian Renaissance. During these discussions we will be covering both the artistic techniques used and the religious and political influences that shaped the art of the day.