The voyage of my life at last has reached,
Across a stormy sea, in a fragile boat,
The common port all must pass through, to give
An accounting for every evil and pious deed.
So now I recognize how laden with error
Was the affectionate fantasy
That made art an idol and sovereign to me,
Like all things men want in spite of their best
interests.
What will become of all my thoughts of love,
Once gay and foolish, now that I’m nearing two
deaths?
I’m certain of one, and the other looms over me.
Neither painting nor sculpture will be able any
longer
To calm my soul, now turned toward that divine
love
that opened his arms on the cross to take us in.
1554c
Rondanini Pieta’ (1550s-1564)
Deposition (1547-1553)
• High Renaissance (1500-1520/27)
– Humanist ideals, man as he appears
naturally, organized by single-point
perspective, harmony and balance,
idealized (nude) beauty, full recuperation
of classical and monumental forms.
– the representational challenges of the
early Renaissance have been solved
• Late Renaissance/Mannerism (1520s1600)
– Experiments w Renaissance discoveries
– Intellectual virtuosity, expressionism,
unconventionality: maniera (style),
concetto (conceit)
– Renaissance harmony and proportions
distorted, forms elongated and twisted,
tillusion of space can be unrealistic,
affected grace (grazia) and a studied
instability
Late Renaissance Mannerism
Parmigianino,
“Madonna with the Long Neck,” 1535
Baroque Art in Rome—1600-1750
Baroque/barocco:
--a negative 18th-century term for the bizarre and
exaggerated in art
Diderot: “the ridiculous taken to excess”
--Cathoolic art of popes: linked to counter-reformation
repression and Papal obscurantism
--Baroque artists emphasized recuperated classicism (rise
of Art Academies) and /or naturalism vs. mannerist
artificiality
--art becomes dynamic, in movement, v. Renaissance
static harmony or picture frame
--Art form of Counter-Reformation Church
Council of Trent: (1563) affirms (vs. Reformation) the
importance of imagery in worship: saints, their images and
relics to be venerated and piety to be incited; rejects
excessively sophisticated/inappropriate art
Jesuit Order (founded 1534): Ad majorem Dei gloriam:
missionary zeal and propagation of the faith
--spirituality conveyed via an overtly emotional and sensory
appeal to the faithful
--naturalistic treatment to render image more accessible to
faithful
--emotional range expanded: passions of the soul, ecstatic
visionary experiences, martyrdoms
--splendor of the Catholic faith, often through dramatic,
illusory effects
--theatricality: multi-sensorial staged representation
•Influences of the New Science:
--sensorial, empirical, naturalistic perception of the universe:
observation, measurement, experiment vs. received ideas
astronomy and physics: Copernicus, Galileo, Newton
--unfolding universe of matter in motion through space and
time
--perspectival illusionism of co-extensive space of art work and
viewer, broken cornice or picture frame, trompe l’oeil, image both
reaches out to us while depicting receding infinity
--light: expressive (and spiritual) effects chiaroscuro/tenebrism,
use of natural light, light as both physical and supernatural
Il Gesu’,
1568-84
(Giacomo della
Porta)
Santa Susanna
(Carlo Maderno,1597-1603)
Francesco Borromini,
San Carlo alle
Quattro fontane
1665-67
San Giovanni in Laterano, (1736, Alessandro Galilei)
Il Gesu’
Chapel of St. Ignatius
1696-1700,
Andrea Pozzo
Jesuit message: Faith triumphing over idolatry / Faith crushing heresy
Giovanni Battista Gaulli, The Triumph of the Name of
Jesus, 1672-79
Andrea Pozzo, Glorification of St. Ignatius, Church of St. Ignatius 1691-94
Andrea Pozzo, Glorification of St. Ignatius, Church of St. Ignatius 1691-94
Michelangelo Merisi da
Caravaggio,
(1571-1610)
David Holding Head of
Goliath (1609-1610)
--pittore selvaggio; a gritty
(but devotional) naturalism:
“imitare bene le cose
naturali”
--the naturalization of the
ideal vs. Ren idealization of
nature
--criticized for lack of
decorum
--chiaroscuro / tenebrismo:
dramatic opposition of light
and dark
Caravaggio,
Boy with a Basket of
Fruit, c 1593
Caravaggio,
Sick Bacchus,
c 1593
Judith Beheading Holofernes, 1599
Caravaggio,
Calling of St.
Matthew
1600-01
Contarini
Chapel,
San Luigi dei
Francesi
Conversion of St. Paul (1601)
SM del Popolo Crucifixion of St. Peter (1601)
Giorgio Vasari,
Incredulity of St.
Thomas,
1571
Caravaggio, Incredulity of St. Thomas, 1601-02
Caravaggio,
di Loreto,1604-05
Madonna
diMadonna
Loreto (1605-1606)
Madonna of the Serpent (1606)
Caravaggio
Death of the Virgin (1606)
Gianlorenzo Bernini
(1598-1680)
Anima dannata (Damned
Soul), 1619.
--Child prodigy;
Michelangelo of the
Roman Baroque
--sculptor, architect,
painter, set designer,
playwright
--Naturalism: sensory
texture to sculpture,
plasticity and movement;
--expansion of range of
emotions expressed,
passions of the soul;
--dramatic theatricality,
meraviglia of space and
light, fusion of the arts (bel
composto) in major
Church commissions
Scipione
Borghese
1632
Bernini, Aeneas, Anchises, Ascanius,1618-19 Bernini, Pluto and Persephone,
1621-22
Bernini,
Apollo and
Daphne,
1622-1624
Bernini, David (1623-24)
Michelangelo, David (1501-03
Cornaro Chapel,
Ecstasy of St. Theresa of Avila
Santa Maria della Vittoria,
1647-52 (bel composto)
Beside me appeared an angel
in bodily form…In his hands I
saw a great golden spear,
and at the iron tip there
appeared to be a point of fire.
This he plunged into my heart
several times so that it
penetrated to my entrails…So
real was the pain that I was
forced to moan aloud several
times, yet it was so
surprisingly sweet that I would
no wish to be delivered from
it. He left me all burning with
a great love for God.
St. Peter’s façade, Carlo Maderno, 1612
Tu es Petrus, et super hanc petram aedificabo Ecclesiam meam
et tibi dabo claves regni Caelorum.
Bernini,
Baldacchino,
1624-1633,
94 ft
Salomonic
columns
Urban VIII
Mafeo
Baberini
Quod non
fecerunt barbari,
fecerunt
Barberini
Bernini,
St. Longinus,
1631-38
Bernini, Cathedra Petri,1656-65
Colonnade of
St. Peter’s,
1657-78