Fra Angelico (1450) Annuciation I (tempera on panel)

Raphael, Central Italian, 1483 - 1520 The Alba Madonna, ( 1510) oil on panel transferred to canvas

Duccio di Buoninsegna Sienese, c. 1255 - 1318The Calling of the Apostles Peter and Andrew, 1308/1311 tempera on panel

Jacopo Bassano c. 1510 - 1592 ( Venetian, 1545) The Miraculous Draught of Fishes, oil on canvas

Botticelli, Sandro (c. 1485 ) The Birth of Venus Tempera on canvas

TitianBacchus and Ariadne1523-24

Antonio Allegri, known as Correggio

1489?-1534Venus, Satyr and Cupid

c. 1525Canvas

Andrea del Sarto

Florentine, 1486 - 1530Charity, before 1530

oil on panel

Titian

Venetian, c. 1490 - 1576Venus with a Mirror, c. 1555

oil on canvas

Titian-Venetian, c. 1490 - 1576 Venus and Adonis (c. 1560) oil on canvas

Titian Venus of Urbino (1538) oil on canvas

Renaissance Painting: what’s different?

Secular topics, not solely religious

New Colors

New methods

New Colors

1. Especially in Venice, important port of trade, bringing colorants from all over the world

- The Venetian Titian had larger palette

2. Symbolic value of certain expensive pigments disappears

- ultramarine gets used in mixtures- vermilion is used as under-painting- gold leaf much less used

TitianBacchus and Ariadne1523-24

Oil on canvas

Number ofHues(pigments)

Greek topic

New Colors

1. Smalt- From cobalt ores in Saxony; most important to

Flemish and German painters- linnaeite Co3S4, - cobaltite, CoAsS, - smaltite, CoAs2 - Though Cobalt as an element not identified until

much later (1737)- Cobalt from ‘kobold’ or ‘kobelt’ = evil sprits

from what mining did to miners (it)"eats away at their feet … and hands.."

New Colors1. Copper Resinate

-most generally copper salts (examples?) + plant resins (trees) also results form reaction of verdigris + resinous varnish but eventually darkens to brown: make a guess how/why?

2. Blue vs green verditerssynthetic azurite/malachite, but colors difficult to control.Compare formulae: " basic- copper - carbonates"

Azurite: Cu3(CO3) 2(OH)2

 Malachite: Cu2(CO3) (OH)2,

 Azurite naturally changes to malachite; accelerated by water:

  2 Cu3(CO3) 2(OH)2 + H2O 3 Cu2(CO3) (OH)2 + CO2

New Colors

3. Red lakes: more valuable now than synthetic vermilioncoccineal (to make carmine) and brazilwood dyes sources,both from New World

4. YellowsGamboge – a tree sap (Vietnamese);

toxic and poor lightfastness; especially in watercolor Indian Yellow – cow cruelty in India

Both are no longer available

New Methods Oil media -over tempera as glaze or alone, on wood and on canvas

Canvas - Venice leads canvas use as offshoot to sails made for ship-buildinganother example: Art evolution tied to larger culture

BIG CHANGES because:1. Hues obtained differently because pigments behaved

differently.-So Ultramarine is very dark in oil and must be lightened with white

 2. Oil coats pigments prevents reactions that used to prohibit mixing two pigments; pigments can be mixed of glazed

 Examples of lakes glazed over grounds to produce desired hue:

Yellow + Black greens Red + black purple-blues

 3. Moratorium on mixing pigments dropped

Cima da ConeglianoIncredulity of Thomas(cleaned and restored)1504

Photomicrograph of blue mantle on Christ

Photomicrograph of mauve -blue drapes

Photomicrograph of opaque red robe

Renaissance:

The Age of Reason

Renaissance: The Age of Reason

‘Class Wars’: painters ≠ artistssimilar to: alchemists ≠ scientists

Why?The manual arts were of lower rank than

academic, intellectual fields

The “Good” Liberals Arts: poetry, music, rhetoric, geometry were worthy of

study at universities UNLIKE painting whose craft was passed along in ateliers, shops, as apprentices

Leonardo da Vinci: worked to change low status of painting

His motivation was to heighten painting to the other liberal arts

His study of mathematics had the aim of understanding the mathematics of nature: Nature’s forms. And this was so to be able to better paint "true to Nature".

Leonardo da Vinci

Mastering mathematics is good ….

In general, reason, geometry and math were quite alive among those whose hearts were in art because artists realized the path to climb the social ladder was to: - embrace abstract thought and reason and - discard and distain efforts put the material aspects and

skills of painting.

Thus in the Italian school, they had ideas of a fundamental division of art into line and color, disegno and colore. And disegno was esteemed way above color.

In the Age of Reason, the elite attempted to be grounded in reason and leave symbolism.

 THIS is when alchemy veers away from the spiritual towards reason

Is this the origin of science and spirit split ??As a result: -high art painting leaves color for line

-art becomes aligned with mathematics so perspective becomes important.- art move away from religious subjects to nature and problems of reproducing it in 2-d, as well as finding appropriate colors.

Ball: " By end of the 15th century, they had largely won their battle, but at the cost of simply reinforcing the bigotry that they inherited from classical times. Nowhere does Leonardo challenge the underlying hierarchy that values the intellectual over the manual.” He also ignored the chemical / material aspects of his art. Art fragmented into the "pure" and the "applied". 

Or, Art and Technology

Quentin Metsys1465/6-1530The Banker and his Wife1514

Mirror“reflects”interest in optics

“The definitive polymath, he had almost too many gifts, including superlative male beauty, a splendid singing voice, magnificent physique, mathematical excellence, scientific daring ... the list is endless. This overabundance of talents caused him to treat his artistry lightly, seldom finishing a picture, and sometimes making rash technical experiments. The Last Supper, in the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, for example, has almost vanished, so inadequate were his innovations in fresco preparation."

So what’s the result when you reject and discard the manual skills, and the art and knowledge of materials?

Ah, Leonardo …

Leonardo da Vinci The Last Supper (after cleaning, 1498) tempera on plaster

… if you neglect to “know your materials…”

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, known as Leonardo da Vinci

1452-1519The Virgin and Child with St. Anne

c. 1510Wood