the fifteenth century in Europe
introduction
- Renaissance artists were aware of being different to previous artists (such as gothic/medieval) - self conscious movement
- Idea of rebirth or renaissance a ‘myth’ in late fourteenth/early fifteenth century by Italian classical scholars (humanists)
- “when darkness breaks, the generations to come may continue to find their way back to the clear splendor of the ancient past” – Petrarch, poet 1304 – 74
- Florentine contemporaries were not to be ranked below any who were ancient – Said by Battista Alberti, Architect 1404-72
- Artists had almost completely died out, reviving in the renaissance, artists and writers flourished.
- Medieval theologians studied Aristotle, Cisero and the Neoplatonists.
- Humanists found standards in which all human activity could be judged – through classical antiquity.
- Re-created ideals based on chivalry and nobility.
- Nurtured in Italian city states – History can be traced back to Ancient Roman times.
- Humanism spread, becoming more popular in fifteenth century. Connection to visual arts is usually complex.
- Visual arts remained mainly religious in Italy and Northern Europe.
brunelleschi
- One of the first architects of the Italian renaissance – no apprenticeship at a masters lodge.
- Designed Pazzi chapel – commissioned by Andrea Pazzi in 1429
- Brunelleschi praised in fifteenth century for reviving antique architectural forms – said to connect ways of building
- First architect/artist to visit Rome since ancient times to study the ancient monuments.
- Gothic style still associated with the North at the beginning of the 5th century.
- Death of Milanese Giangaleozzo? Visconti (ally of the Roman Emporer in Germany) enabled the Florentine republic to transform from city state to a region state
- Brunelleschi rejected Gothic style for the classic Roman style – holds symbolic significance as Gothic replaced Roman in medieval times.
- Brunelleschi invented linear perspective, a scientifically measurable way to render perspective – outdated all previous attempts.
- First to realise that if a picture is regarded as a window between the viewer and what he sees the object as, it can be made to obey the same laws.
- Lines called orthogonals.
- Apparently demonstrated his techniques on two of his paintings – since lost – described and elaborated in his friend Alberti’s treatise.
- Raised the art of painting to a science.
- Imposed a rational order to the visual world in a painting.
Masaccio
- Architectural style and system of perspective (Brunellesci) most notably used by Masaccio.
- Fresco of the holy trinity most notable painting using the device.
- Changed the general perspective of religious paintings (usually donors were smaller than sacred figure) now all figures painted to scale – more complex images.
- Chiaroscuro technique used to revive a style by Giotto.
- Masaccio’s fresco’s gave a new dignity and independence to figures.
- Giotto’s paintings were flat, neutral light from unspecified source.
- Masaccio’s strongly lit from a source outside of the painting, as if from a window.
Progress in sculpture
- Mastery of perspective set men of the fifteenth century apart from immediate predecessors.
- Idea of artistic progress found in Pliny’s account of the history of art – revived and changed during the renaissance, influencing artists and historians, encouraging painters and sculptors to rival each other.
- First public competition (1401) to create relief for the doors of Florentine baptistery.
- Winner Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378 – 1455) who created a gothic style scene (surpassing the doors created in the same style by Andrea Pisano in 1300-1330.
- Ghiberti was commissioned to create a second pair of doors – improved on his first set.
- Gave greater depth to narrative scene – more naturalistic and dramatic.
- Ghiberti set the same scale of proportions for each of the scenes – figures all same size.
- Used and exploited new testament subjects to display his skill as a craftsman and his skill of representing the human form as an artist (also showing use of linear perspective).
- “I strove to imitate nature as clearly as I could, and with all the perspective I could produce, to have excellent compositions with many figures” – Ghiberti, WHA pg 423
- Included a history of ancient art in his commentaries (1450 – 55) derived from Pliny and Vitruvius – had an account of the art in Tuscany from Giotto’s time to the mid fifteenth century.
- Ghiberti was also a collector of ancient Roman art, as well as a student.
- Friendly with Florentine humanists (studying classical texts).
- Sculptor Jacopo della Quercia (1374 – 1438) shows a version of Florentine renaissance – no influence from humanists, Brunelleschi’s theories or antique art. Della Quercia evolved a completely new style – steady controlled naturalism (new age).
- Della Quercia focused mainly on the human figure, sometimes little else. (carved pilasters).
- Expulsion of paradise (three figures filling the entire panel) Eve – derived from antique state of Venus. Adam more powerful nobility resisting divine judgement (Della Quercia).
A new style in Flanders
- Italy in Flanders (the most densely urbanised areas in Europe) two great centres of European art – by mid fifteenth century. Economic and cultural links between the two.
- Florence – republic
- Ghent, Bruges and Ypres – tunnel leading Flemish cities at the time – formed part of the duchy of Burgundy. Both areas prosperous – suffered from economic depression in fifteenth century Europe.
- Flemish discovered linear perspective by trial and error (while Florentines were working on theories and systematic rules for three dimensional space).
- Flemish experimented with arial perspective (subtle tones suggesting distance in landscapes – fundamental distinction).
- Previously few large scale paintings (has large stained glass windows).
- Flemish contributed the invention of easel and panel painting – owed to the tradition of manuscript illumination (called for a medium more luminous than tempera – oil painting developed).
- As early as the tenth century oils were occasionally used to bind powdered pigment (in tempera, egg yolk was used).
- Artists began to exploit potential of oil mixed with pigment (usually linseed oil – fifteenth century Flanders).
- Translucent films of paint were applied over opaque colours to give depth under an enamel like surface.
- Oils allowed a painting to be built up slowly, rather than with tempera which had to be worked with quickly as dried in minutes.
- Encouraged and permitted great precision and detail – most immediate appealing feature of fifteenth century Flemish painting.
- Media often mixed – oil colour over tempera.
Van Eyck and Van der Weyden
- Invention of oil painting attributed to Van Eyck.
- Earliest account of Van Eyck 1455-6 at the court of the King of Naples (owned a triptych by Van Eyck)
- Named the leading painter of our (then) time by Bartolommeo Fazio (for technical a complement, truth to nature and rediscovery of pigments known to Pliny and other ancient authors).
- Artists were deemed worthy to appear in collections of lives of famous men (only in Italy).
- Van Eyck’s paintings had a jewel like quality no reproductions could match.
Alberti
- Said to have created the ideal of the complete man in his image (of the renaissance).
- Alberti had many talents – moralist, lawyer, poet, playwright, musician, mathematician, scientist, painter, sculptor, architect and aesthetic theorist – extraordinary range of expertise and profound knowledge.
- Enhanced the status of visual arts more than Alberti – also enhancing the status of artists.
- Basic idea of an all embracing renaissance style.
- He developed a rational theory of beauty based on the practice of the ancients and what he called the ‘laws of nature’ (developed with his treatises on painting, architecture and sculpture, published between 1485 and 1568).
- Illegitimate son of noble family exiled from Florence (Alberti).
- Given a classical education, developed an interest in architecture after joining papal service in Rome.
- Evolved a style inspired by antiquity, more archeologically correct than Brunelleschi’s.
- Arches were usually used for decoration, not structure, always had an architraves rather than arches.
- One of his greatest and most influential achievements was to adapt the elements of the classical post and lintel temple, walls were just filling to upright supports.
- Self promotion of professional status.
- First to ask Alberti for designs was Sigismondo – transformed the medieval church of S Francesco turning it into a monument to his own glory and a burial place for himself – then called tempiro malatestiano.
- Alberti designed a marble case for an old church based on a triumphal arch – symbolising triumph over death – had arches niches to contain sarcophagi intended for poets and philosophers. No reminisces of Romanesque (like Florentine buildings) all Roman, not derived from any specific ancient building. Never completed, ambition outran his means, lacks intended dome and resembles a ruin. In fact the complete opposite and is a symbol of aspirations towards a new ideal – faith in the future as loving the past.
- Early renaissance style came of age.
- Mastered the classical language of architecture.
- Town scape painted in mid 15th century expresses the ideal to what Italian architects and patrons aspired to. Has a circular building in the center of a marble paved piazza – surrounded by buildings of varying size – all designed with logical geometry as well as classical detail of the early renaissance style. Lightness and spaciousness sets it apart from medieval cities – symbol of renaissance ideal and civic humanism. Painter unknown, but inspired/influenced by Piero della Francesa – may have been painted for Federigo da Montefeltro.
donatello
- Passion for antiquity inspired sculptors as well as architects.
- None inspired more than Donatello, who began as an assistant on Ghiberti's first bronze doors, he soon emerged as an independent artist.
- He revitalized almost ever form of sculpture from free standing monuments to the low relief.
- His first sculptures (like medieval sculptors) were intended for architectural settings, usually niches.
- Created a niche, for his St George. Niche was so shallow that sculpture protruded almost becoming a free standing sculpture.
- A sculpture was limited to the commissions he received due to the high cost of materials.
- Large, free standing sculptures were rare in early fifteenth century Italy.
- Donatello would have welcomed the commission which allowed him to rival the famous antique statue of Marcus Aurelius in Rome.
- Commissioned to create a bronze monument of the condottiere Erasmo da Narni - nicknamed Gattamelata. The subject died in 1443 after serving the Venetian republic of many years as a captain/general of its armies.
- Donatello seems to have taken inspiration from earlier antqique bronze horses when modelling his own (such as the one ridden in the Marcus Aurelius statue) Gave his charger a new sense of controlled vigour.
- Donatello's statue of Gattamelata wears a Roman breastplate, but is otherwise dressed in contemporary costume. Has a long sword, amour on his legs, his feet in stirrups (not known in ancient Rome).
- Stature not meant to be seen at eye level, like Marcus Aurelius, and os meant to be looked up at on a high plinth. Donatello made his features distorted, to be seen correctly and give maximum effect when viewed from the ground. Statue is an attempt to surpass antiquity.
- Reliefs modeled by Donatello for the church of S Antonia display his mastery of linear perspective (antique reliefs lack) and pictorial narrative - detailed in Alberti's treatise.
- His last reliefs, for church of S Lorezno in Florence, tentacle accomplishment was abandoned for the expression of intense religious convictions.
- Emotional violence is found in these moving scenes from the passion. Convey a spiritual message with brutal physical realism of the lamentation.
- Illustrates the moment immediately after the deposition of Christ from the cross - shows the distraught grief of Christ' s mother and followers, shown in the expressive features, gestures and the composition as a whole.
- Foreshortening devices and distortions enable the scene to be read from below.
New Departures
- Link between the two greatest renaissance sculptors - Donatellos assistant and pupil Bertoldo di Giovanni, later becomes the master of Michelangelo.
- Renaissance ideals can be found in the concentrated forms of coins, tracing directly back to the imperial coinage of ancient Rome. Coins, like the portrait bust, showed examples of rebirth.
- Medal originally signified a coin out of circulation.
- Pisanello was the first artist to make a speciality out of coins, creating a new art form. Each meal had a profile portrait on the front and usually an allegorical device on the back.
- Medals became increasingly popular in humanist circles as a way to share personal fame. Were intended to stimulate philosophical thought, just as religious messages inspired devotion.
- Bronze statuettes reflect the same secular tastes - intended purely as works of art - medieval statuettes had been devotional.
- Appearance in fifteenth century had partly been promoted by descriptions in latin literature.
- "what precision of touch, what daring imagination the cunning master had, to model a table ornament, yet to conceive such mighy forms' - remark made by the first century AD poet Statius on a statuette of hercules (a writer popular with humanists).
- Same words can be applied to statuettes by Antonio del Pollaiuolo antique form and antique aesthetic attitudes were born.
- Problems Alberti alluded to in his treatise on sculpture, were rectified by Pillaiuolo, in an engraving of a battle between nude men - may have had an allegorical significance for its original owner -
- Lorenzo di Midici would have been aware if the medieval conception of Hercules as a prototype of the Christian knight. Humanists restored him to pagan context, transforming him into a symbol of 'renaissance man', the mortal who achieves immortality by his own efforts.
- Philosophical meaning can be read into Antaeus, a giant who remained invincible as long as he remained in contact with the earth.
- Bronze statuettes were regarded as highly sophisticated and refined works of art, some had to ulterior meaning or purpose at all.
- The same antique skills were used on figures of christ and the saints.
- There was a partition rather than a conflict in Renaissance thought between Christianity and humanism - encouraged enhanced view of the dignity of man and the beauty of the physical world suggested in works of art.
- Evident in humanist tombs .
- Portrait busts were rare in comparison to other types of sculpture.
- Reliefs of the virgin and child were man trade of sculptors in the mid-late fifteenth century - demand was so great in paintings that a special class of painter called 'maddonnieri' was created to satisfy it.
- Many can still be seen in many buildings in Florence and scattered among art collections of the world.
- Usually rectangular, sometimes circular, show the virgin at half length, often life size - derive from paintings rather than sculptures - suggest a demand for images that were more life like than previous availability.
- Most surviving examples are in stucco, moulded from terracotta from marble originals, probably designed to be affordable for buyers who could not afford the marble or bronze.
- Reliefs were also made in a new medium for sculpture - terracotta coated with coloured enamel glazes (usually used for plates, jugs and other household utensils) - first developed by Luca della Robbia and exploited by his nephew Andrea, whose sons continued to use it until after the mid sixteenth century.
- Artists were praised by Alberti in 1435.
- Luca della Robbia was a highly accomplished sculptor who had worked with marble and bronze before turning to terracotta in about 1440. Seems to have been used as a cheap alternative to other mediums.
- Luca della Robbia didn't strike after illusionism.
- Tendency towards the illusionistic in fifteen century Italian sculpture outside of Florence.
- Guido Mazzoni of Modena was one of the first and most gifted of a number of sculptors who modelled life size and life like figures enacting scenes from gospels - usually from the nativity or lamentation.
- Intended to bring home the meaning of the bible to large and mainly illiterate audiences.
italian painting and the church
- Three reasons why religious images were introduced into churches: (Elaborated in a passage from a thirteenth century theological dictionary providing justification and a program for religious paintings)
- For the illiterate to learn from scriptures in imagery rather than written form.
- To feel emotion as if actually present in the pictures.
- To help people remember what they have seen, rather than forget what they have heard.
Fra angelico, uccello and piero della francesca
- Fifteenth century was a period of reform movements within the church - before the protestant reformation led mainly by ascetic monks and friars who tightened up the rules of their own orders.
- Culminated in the 1490's with Savonarola (dominican preacher who denounced the medici and their artists, poets and philosophers).
- Before Savonarola a new note of austerity had been struck in Italian religious art, counterbalancing and complimenting contemporary revival of antique forms.
- Fra Angelico (Guido di Pietro) answered the call for religious pantings, all of his were of a religious theme and were mainly painted for the dominican friary.
- He frescoed the walls of the friary of st marco in florence with the help of a number of assistance. He completed the walls of the cloister, chapter house, corridor on the upper floor and 41 cells.
- In each of the cells (small square rooms) was a large fresco (around 6 feet 1.8 meter high). frescoes were painting beside the window giving the appearance of two openings, one into the spiritual world and one into the physical world.
- The figures shown as if they were really there.
- Paolo Uccello seems to have been more interested in visual reality, rather than spiritual significance, he was obsessed with representing solids in space.
- "The flood, painted as a lunette below the vaulted ceiling of the cloister of S Maria Novella, Florence, vividly expresses the horror of the Biblical cataclysm with figures struggling for survival" WHA - Pg 439
- The flood shows some gruesome and disturbing images around Noah's ark. His painting shows elements of perspective.
- Uccello depicts mazzocchi (multi faceted rings of wood or wicker used as a foundation for a type of headdress - WHA pg 439), often used as a test in perspective exercises due to their difficulty to draw.
- Uccello experimented with pictorial perspective, having been unsatisfied with Brunelleschi and Alberti's schemes. He used it to expressive and imaginative effect rather than illusionistic.
- His obsession with geometrical problems was typical of fifteenth century artists.
- Piero della Francesca also shared the same obsession and dedicated much of his time to them. He composed treaties based on geometrical shapes (cube, sphere, cone, cylinder), perspective and wrote a handbook on the abacus for merchants.
- He covered the abstract, pictorial and practical application of geometry and mathematics.
- Numbers had a religious significance - "hence the preoccupation of his time with 'the golden section' supposed to provide the key to the harmony of the heavens - a line divded in such a way that the smaller part is to the greater as the greater is to the whole" sounds simple, but cannot be worked out as a numerical ratio.
- Francesca's interests in mathematics may have stemmed from his practice as a painter.
- In later paintings he recorded the architectural space and mass with scientific precision.
- The light in his art is evenly diffused, making shadows barely perceptible, no contrasts between the powdery colours he used.
- The colours used by Francesca makes other artists work look garish.
- His work is dependant on mystical theories of mathematicians.
- He may have been influenced by Flemish paintings, incorporating his home town in his painting 'baptism of christ' as Jan van Eyck incorporated a landscape into his 'Madonna of chancellor Rolin. van Eyck's landscape is seen though a window, whereas Piero's surrounds the figures becoming a bigger part of the painting.
- Landscapes with natural and true to life scenes became popular in the fifteenth century, showing figures as if actually there.
- Previously backgrounds were filled with gold, suddenly disappearing due to economic and aesthetic reasons.
- Appreciated in there own right by patrons and painters.
- Domenico Ghirlandio signed a contract for future frescoes, agreeing to include 'figures, rocks, buildings, castles, cities, mountains, hills, plains, costumes, animals, birds and beasts of every kind'.
- Pinturicchio painted landscapes and skies as backgrounds behind the figures in his paintings for a church in Perugia.
- There were no empty parts in the two's paintings, unlike the golden backgrounds that simply filled the voids behind the figures.
- Ghirlando used the 'strip cartoon' system used in frescoes.
- Strip cartoon style was outdated by large scenes taking up a full wall.
secular painting
- During the 15th century paintings were majority religious.
- Portraits were no longer restricted to members of ruling houses, but were still rare compared to images of the virgin and child.
- Mythological scenes were less rare but given a moral, possibly religious, significance.
- Records written in tuscany before 1550 name around 500 religious paintings and sculptures and less than 40 secular paintings.
- Increase in secular art in the late fifteenth century.
- Fifteenth century was a recovery period from the major depression in the fourteenth century.
- Merchants and bankers usually interested in trade and agriculture, started to invest in culture, which had acquired prestige value thanks to the humanists.
- Renaissance style buildings were less expensive than gothic style to make, in terms of materials and man hours.
- Attention shifted from the value of materials to the skill of the artists, a result from the shortage of gold and silver.
- Pallaiuolo abandoned his career as a goldsmith and turned to painting as a profession, due to the art in gold not being a lasting fame.
- Several other artists were also goldsmiths, such as Vercocchio, Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, also changing their profession to painting.
- Paintings preserved due to having low intrinsic value, gold would have been melted down resulting in them being forgotten artists.
- Shortage of price metals may have played a part in diverting peoples talents to painting.
- Household materials were used to produce small items, designed and decorated with great skill.
- Household furniture was generally plain, made from wood. On special occasions it would be covered with woven silks or carpets.
- The cassone was a large chest used for storing clothes and linen - often made to hold the brides trousseau, adorned with the coats of arms of her and her husbands families.
- Cassini were often elaborate, to reflect the importance of marriage, forgetting political and business alliances between leading families.
- Decorated with classical ornamentation, painted with brightly coloured, figuartive scenes from history or mythology. Some had religious themes, probably used by nuns when entering convents.
- The cassone remained popular until after the mid fifteenth century
- Some cassones, intended for the bride, had paintings of nudes inside the lid. These would only be seen by the bride and were probably intended as lucky charms.
botticelli
- Larger and finer mythological paintings were expected to be charming in the original, magical sense of the word.
- One of the earliest is La Primavera by Sandro Botticelli, created in a scale that would usually be reserved for religious images.
- Earlier secular works of this size would usually be intended for private houses (private apartments of palaces) and were usually tapestries on chivalric themes, woven in France or Flanders.
- Tapestries were the most costly large scale art, more expensive than paintings.
- La Primavera may have been a cheaper alternative, as there is a tapestry like feel to it's composition. It's flat composition and flowers on the ground are similar to the 'thousand flower' wall hangings, although the best of these is later in date than La Primavera.
- Boticelli's graceful, almost weightless figures differ completely from those of Masaccio, Piero della Francesca and Uccello.
- French and Flemish tapestries generally have medieval themes of chivalry and courtly love, whereas La Primavera is obviously from classical mythology.
- Mercury, messenger of the gods, became regarded as the patron of those who tried to access the mysteries of the ancient world. Hermetic philosophers were named after his greek title, Hermes. 'He calls the mind back to heavenly things through the power of reason' - Marsilio Ficino (WHA pg 446)
- La Primavera was probably influenced by the ideas of Mercury.
- Painting was probably created for Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici, while Ficino was taking an interest in his education. In 1478, when the painting was probably made, Ficino wrote to Lorenzo in the form of a horoscope.
- The mixture between classical mythology and astrology and Christian morality (as in the letter) was a typical Florentine Neoplatonic thought.
- The idea that a moral lesson could be hidden within a painting, for only the intended to understand, and the mystery would be lost as soon as it was revealed to anyone else, may have been shared by Botticelli.
- Botticelli seems to have known Alberti's treatise on painting, which says that a painting of pictorial narrative should have "abundance and rarity of object, several figures, some fully clothed, others wholly or partly nude in different poses, frontal or profile 'with hands up and fingers apart' or 'arms relaxed and feet together', each having its own action and bending of limb'. WHA pg 448.
- Interest in antiquity was complemented by the preoccupation with astrology. Courts at this time had an astrologer to cast horoscopes and moments to make important decisions.
- Astrology was condemned by early Christians, revived in Europe in by the twelfth century, so influential that it became tolerated by the Church.
- The planets and constellations carried the names of pagan deities, but were generally believed to reveal the will of God. Astrology, astronomy and Christianity were reconciled.
- The signs of the Zodiac are a recurring feature of renaissance art.
- Palazzo Schifanioa's walls of the great hall were divided into 12 vertical sections, each one devoted to a month of the Zodiac calendar.
- Astrology was considered as a way to predict the future and discover the rules of the cosmic order.
- A few humanists who believed man should be his own master, thought astrology to be fatal, eventually they all succumbed to the lure of the antique mysteries surrounding astrology.
- The art of printing with moveable type was first developed in Europe in the mid fifteenth century - invented in China 400 years before.
- Invented to issue religious texts, and remained the product of printing presses for centuries.
- An edition of the bible was printed by Johann Gutenberg (1455) and was the first major work. The earliest printed books were believed to be replacements for manuscripts, many printers left space for the large letters at the beginning of chapters,
- Some humanists disapproved the new invention. Humanists had little to do with each other until the last decade of the century. Aldus Manutius set up a printing press in Venice and printed the first accurate Greek and Latin texts. Printing then began to affect the intellectual life of Europe.
the venetian synthesis
mantegna and bellini
- Small painting of St Sebastian by Andrea Mantegna - emphasizes many characteristics of Italian art from the previous four decades.
- Spatial clarity through perspective, naturalistic landscape/background, antique architectural/decorative motifs, idealised human being.
- Signed in Greek as if to underline classicism.
- Mantegna trained in Padua, university main centres for humanist studies in Italy/all of Europe - local artsistic style still mainly gothic.
- At this date, venice had the most antique sculpture, had the closest contacts with Greece, much of which was Venetian possession from the early thirteenth century until 1460.
- These antiquities had an impression, his style began to show elements of greek and roman sculpture - more than any other artist at this time.
- Vasari wrote that Mantegna 'always maintained that the good antique statues were more perfect and beautiful than anything in nature'. He believed that the masters of antiquity had combined in one figure the perfections which are rarely found together in one individual and had thus produced single figures of surpassing beauty' - WHA p.g. 450
- In many 15th century religious pictures, the pagan world is symbolically shown to be in ruins.
- Christianity is personified by St.Sebastian.
- St Sebastian was a patron of the sick, he help evoked especially in times of plague.
- Outbreaks of plague (possibly bubonic) happened every 15 years, which is why he appears so frequently in Venetian art.
international humanism
- In the last decades of the fifteenth century, Italy began to influence Europe.
- King of Hungary acquired renaissance art, hired an Italian architect to to rebuild his palaces in the Tuscan style, with Italian sculptors to decorate them with carved marble fountains and frescoes (only fragments survive)
- Italianate tastes were unusual before the sixteenth century.
- New style carried across the continent by illuminated manuscripts of classical texts and mythological engravings, along a network of personal contacts between humanists.
- Naked putti were used in the woodcut capital letters - figures were used in learning long before the renaissance paintings reached Northern Europe.
Durer
- Albrecht durer created a Northern version of the renaissance, in the context of international humanism.
- Completed his apprenticeship under a Nuremberg painter - also a maker of woodcuts.
- Went to Venice - 1494, which was starting to emerge as the most important centre for humanist book printing - primarily to study art and complete his artistic education.
- Durer began as a goldsmith (like many other Florentine artists) he encountered mythological scenes by Pollaiuolo and Mantegna.
- Not classical subjects that he's famous for - all but one painting religious.
- Practice of making metal plate prints came from Germany and Italy in fifteenth century - result of combining two older techniques - carving woodblocks and ornamental silver engraving.
- Durer brought the process to maturity.
- Sharp eye/cunning hand - shown by his landscape in his painting St Eustace - delighted in drawing such things.
- Kunst - meaning knowledge and art.
- "is embedded in nature; he who can extract it has it. No man can ever make a beautiful image out of his private imagination unless he have replenished his mind by much painting of life. That can no longer be called private but has become Kunst acquired and gained by study, which germinates, grows and becomes fruitful of it's kind." - Durer WHA p.g 455
- More drawings survive that are attributed to him than any other artist - except Leonardo Divinci.
- Insatiable urge to draw whatever he observed.
- Painted three half lengths (two life size) and made several drawings of himself. Self portrait marked with his initials, few painters signed there work at this time. (1st)
- Suggests that he was highly conscious of himself, preoccupied with his status.
- Ranked among craftsmen along with all other painters, carpenters, tailors etc.
- Painters higher regarded in Italy.
- Depicted himself as a well dressed - seems to be first self initiated self portrait. (2nd)
- Took up hierarchic frontal pose reserved for kings and Christ, whose features he incorporated as his own - partly a literal interpretation of doctrine 'imitation of Christ' Durer believed artistic talent was a creative gift from God. (3rd)
- In 1512 he wrote "this great art of painting has been held in high esteem by the might kings many hundred years ago. They made the outstanding artists rich and treated them with distinction because they felt that the great masters had an equality with God, as it is written. For, a good painter is full of figures, and if it were possibly for him to live on forever he would always have to pour forth something new from the inner ideas of shich Plato writes" - Durer - WHA p.g. 456
- Reference to Plato recalls Florentine humanism - Durers attitude was different.
- More interested in the god given gift to create than Plato's theories.
- 'Only the powerful artists will be able to understand this strange speech, that I speak the truth: one man may sketch something with his on on half a sheet of paper in one day, or may cut into a tiny piece of wood with his little iron, and it turns out to be better and more artistic than anothers big work at which its author labors with the utmost diligence for a whole year. And this gift is miraculous. For Gd often gives the ability to learn and the insight to make something good to one man the life of whom nobody is found in his own days, and nobody has lived before him for a long time, and nobody comes after him very soon" Durer - WHA p.g 456
- Remarkable statement of faith in the value of the individual - initiated by the Italian renaissance - by the end of the fifteenth century had achieved more than a revival of antique forms.