What Major Developments Were Made In Art — страница 2

  • Просмотров 463
  • Скачиваний 5
  • Размер файла 23
    Кб

architect, Brunelleschi?s mathematical methods used for his engineering were transferred by his artist friends to painting and thus created what we today call ?perspective?.? Vitally, this mathematical model for the appearance of reality was far beyond the achievements of the ancient Greek artists.? Pioneered in Masaccio?s celebrated ?The Holy Trinity, the Virgin, St. John and Donors,? the painting?s background, instead of being a static scene, a gilded backdrop or an ultramarine wash, shows a realistic transept chapel in Brunelleschi?s new style using perspective.? The Florentine reaction to this painting, which appeared to have created a hole in the wall into a new burial chamber, was shocking due to its heavy, solemn figures and the lack of daintiness to which they had become

accustomed.? The innovation of perspective so dramatically introduced by Masaccio, a genius who was dead by the age of 28, was the most dramatic break with the past conceivable.? Introducing the ability to represent space into paintings is as big a break with the past as is imaginable. It took some rime for the Italianate trend to spread, where the Gothic architectural style continued to flourish.? In northern Europe, the fifteenth century opened clearly favouring the High Gothic decorative style, a taste clearly visible at the Palace of Justice at Rouen and Exeter Cathedral.? Just as the Italians began to revolt against the Gothic style, the century saw a reaction against complicated and heavy architecture.? King?s College Chapel, Cambridge (1446), is an excellent example of the

reactionary ?Perpendicular? gothic style. The Burgundian court at Dijon was also producing work in reaction to the old Gothic trend.? Not as radical as Masaccio, Jan van Eyck?s style in the 1430s was of the lineage of his local forebears, but when introduced to perspective, van Eyck broke new boundaries.? His celebrated portrait of ?The Betrothal of the Arnolfini? with its mirror reflecting not only Arnolfini and his bride but also van Eyck himself, shows the painter as witness and person.? In essence, van Eyck acknowledges that he is painting what he saw, to the extent of even leaving in his own impression.? The subject, a betrothal, is also great naturalism. Despite the efforts of the van Eyck brothers, the medieval spirit reigned throughout Northern Europe at this time.?

Perspective, realism and classical influence did not trouble the northern masters.? The preoccupation with the skill of the artist as an expense incurred by the patron, so evident from the sums paid to Italian masters, is not clear from the works in the north where ultramarine and gold were still the greatest expenses troubling northern patrons and impressed contemporaries.? Although Lochner uses perspective timidly in the Fra Angelico style, contemporary northern work at this time tended to compare more easily with such work as the Wilton Diptych. Depite the guilds? inadvertent prevention of dissemination of ideas, it did occur, as on Fouquet?s trip to Italy, where he painted the Pope and picked up Italian Renaissance ideas.? Whilst still painting on the same theme as the Wilton

Diptych, Fouquet?s image looks less like a collage but more like a real representation of the event.? Light and shade, perspective and distance ? all new elements to the north, and all imported there from Italy.? Yet the synthesis was not all Italian.? Whilst Piero was a great Master and had a great interest in light and shade, the van Eycks? influence is clear from the attention to detail of the textures ? probably a by-product of the gothic fascination with delicate detail. A contemporary of Masaccio, Donatello was another leader of the Renaissance.? His celebrated statue of St. George differs concertedly from the Gothic art that it was displayed alongside.?? Instead of heightening the building by accentuation of the height of the alcoves and using dainty lacework, Donatello

aims to restore the art of sculpture to a representative art form based on the Greek ideals.? Instead of telling the story of St. George by reference to dragon motifs under his feet, or other such devices that might have occurred earlier, Donatello?s statue is concerned with portraying the saint as a man gazing at his enemy and ready for battle.? As opposed to the serene and vague expressions of the gothic statues of the decorative style, Donatello?s George is determined, unyielding and brimming with vim, vigour and vitality.? Just as Brunelleschi set the tone for architecture for centuries to come, Donatello and Masaccio set the tone for the coming centuries with their use of a new and vigorous observation of nature.? Burckhardt claimed that this period?s natural interest was