What are the two principle demands for artefact in Italy between 1300 and 1600 - Essay Example

Running Head What are the two principle demands for artefact in Italy between 1300 and 1600 What are the two principle demands for artefact in Italy between 1300 and 1600 Between 1300-1600 years, Italy was influenced by economic and social changes which had a great impact on social values and traditions, tastes and preferences. The demand for art was caused by different factors including wealth accumulation and the role of religion in everyday life. The principle demands for artifacts in Italy were increasing role of religion and church in life of citizens and new consumption patterns caused by accumulation of wealth and financial prosperity (religious and secular demands). The demand for a religious art was caused by increasing role of church and religion in life of the state. The supreme task of church art was to serve the liturgy. Hence church art was determined by a particular purpose. The building and furnishing of the House of God were subordinate to that purpose. This subordination was the very reverse of a restriction or hampering of creative power. It was not so much a matter of subordination as of integration into the great reality of God's dealings with man. Images in church were meant to be at the service of the preaching of the faith. This immensely high task required the artist to submit his creative action to the judgment of the word of God. His uncontrolled subjectivity and creative fantasy had to be disciplined by faith (Holmes, 1997). Since he was being called to be a witness to the truth through his work, he did not regard it as a restriction of his freedom when the Church exercised her pastoral office and refused to have images inside the church which contradicted truths of faith. This ordinance was not concerned with aesthetic questions of style and form. In these, so long as no offense was offered to the dignity and holiness of the faith, the artist was free. The Church's preaching, whose task was to declare and explain it, had to conform to this same order. Hence it had to be the measure of the making of images. No indifference could attach to the question of what was displayed in a church, nor to that of where the emphasis was placed in the choice of themes (Nanert, 2006). In Italy, literary texts were essential for understanding the devotional trends, and the art of the era was likewise a rich source of information. This was particularly true of panel painting, in which the artist was free to incorporate a wide variety of primary and secondary motifs. The painting of the fifteenth century, for example, was well known for its elaborate symbolism: not only conventional details such as saints' attributes but also specific vestments worn by angels could hold symbolic value (Nanert, 2006). The painter of an annunciation scene, for example, could draw upon several kinds of symbolic and expressive vocabulary: nuances of emotion might be conveyed in the Virgin's facial expression and posture; the painter might suggest linkage between the Old and New Testaments by showing Mary with a Bible open to a prophetic text; an anachronistic portrait of Jesus might hang on the wall behind his mother-to-be; Trinitarian theology could be expressed by showing the Father hovering above the scene, while the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove winged its way from the Father to the Virgin along a beam of celestial light; and the artist might use flowers, candles, and other objects for their established symbolic value. "Liturgical utensils, accessories, and furnishings constituted a distinct category of these goods that satisfied a steady demand generated by religious needs, and Italian products enjoyed great success in markets abroad" (Goldthwaite 1995,p. 9). Panel painting was increasingly used to represent narrative scenes as well as static portraits (or icons): scenes from the life of Christ, the legend of the Virgin, and legends of the saints were favorite narrative motifs. The accumulation of symbolic, iconic, and narrative elements reached its fullest development as individual panels were assembled in large or small diptychs, triptychs, and polyptychs. Unfortunately, many of the panels originally intended for polyptychs have now been dispersed, but the original contexts can often be reconstructed hypothetically or by comparison with extant panels in various museums (Holmes, 1997). The role of art within Italian society cannot be understood without knowing about the institution of patronage. A literary composition too might be commissioned by a patron, but this was not often done, and even a letter addressed to a specific person might quickly reach a much broader audience. A painting or a book of hours, however, was typically done for a particular person or a specific place. "For institutional proliferation was the essential dynamic behind much patronage of religious art" (Goldthwaite 1995, p. 75). The artist was commissioned by an individual or a group (often a confraternity or a guild) to produce a single work of art, which would remain in the possession of the patron or would be donated to a church or chapel. Frequently the patron would be represented in the artwork itself, with hands folded in prayer; he or she would be portrayed smaller than the sacred figures who dominated the work-until about the fifteenth century, when patrons typically appeared as full-sized sharers in the sacred space, just as laypeople at this time came increasingly to claim a role in the religious life around them. "The same dynamic of social fluidity also assured the rapid renewal of demand for luxury goods that is a major explanation for the mounting extravagance of patronage in the Holy City" (Goldthwaite 1995, p.40). The demand for artifacts can be explained by the fact that some devotions could take place anywhere, the most important were commonly linked with special locations. Liturgical religion was marked primarily by a sense of special times, and contemplative religion by an effort to transcend both place and time, but devotional religion attended mainly to the veneration of sacred places or to the objects that made these places holy. Relics, images, and consecrated Hosts were the mainstay of devotional practice. Even meditational reading was typically an aid to the exercise of meditation, in which attention was fixed on an image, perhaps an ivory diptych or a privately owned panel painting (Nanert, 2006). The image most often cited in saints' lives as the center for meditation was the crucifix. Sacred objects might be found within one's own home, at times in a special room (an oratory) or a particular corner. The crucifix or other object would define that special part of the otherwise profane space as especially appropriate for devotion. Outside the home there were shrines everywhere: roadside shrines, distant chapels in secluded spots, and so forth. The greatest concentration of devotional spaces, however, would usually be in a church, whether an established parish church, a monastic church, or the church of a mendicant order (Holmes, 1997). In Italy, a church would often be subdivided into several more or less enclosed spaces; the sanctuary would be separated from the nave by a screen, and side chapels would serve various devotional purposes quite separate from the liturgy. Indulgences could be secured for those who visited certain churches, chapels, or shrines (Jardine, 1998). At times these shrines would be erected in imitation of sites in the Holy Land, such as the sepulcher of Christ (the most important of the holy places in Jerusalem, according to fifteenth century sources). For those who were truly devout, domestic oratories and local churches usually did not suffice: for such persons, the very act of traveling to a place of pilgrimage, whether a few miles outside of town or on the other side of the Alps or across the sea, was a process that helped to define one's destination as a special and sacred location (Holmes, 1997). These passion-centered devotions exemplify some of the ways literature, art, and performance could be linked. "In the course of the fifteenth century an elaborate decorative ensemble of furnishings included some of the first secular art forms in a domestic setting" (Goldthwaite 1995, p. 219). Artwork such as statues or relief plaques representing the stations served as centers for devotional practice. Literature guided the devout Christian in meditation on these stations, and written accounts gave information about deeds actually performed. The cross or crucifix was of central importance for both liturgy and devotion. As already mentioned, crucifixes were common foci of private devotion, and roadside shrines commonly featured a crucifix. Furthermore, the crucifixion was one of the most frequent subjects in art throughout the Renaissance. During the last medieval centuries there were four major developments in art of the passion. First, especially in the fifteenth century, there was increasing interest in the entire sequence of events, including those before the crucifixion and those after it (the deposition from the cross, the lamentation, and the burial). Second, even in representation of the crucifixion itself the depiction became more complex. A full cast of characters appeared: not only Christ himself, Mary, and John, but also Mary, the Virgin's companions (supporting her as she swoons), and a band of soldiers and officials. Artists commonly included the thieves, anonymous throngs, and even an entourage of postbiblical saints. Angels might be depicted worshiping Christ or gathering his blood in chalices, an obvious eucharistic symbol. Other symbolic or allegorical motifs included the skull of Adam at the foot of the cross, the pelican feeding its young with its own blood, the sun and moon, and other devices (Nanert, 2006). Following Goldthwaite (1995) "the arts and crafts directed to satisfying the demand for consumer goods, both domestic and religious, constituted the most dynamic and imaginative sector of the economy" (p. 55). Miniaturists, working on an illuminated manuscript, were bound by constraints of a different sort: they had limited space (often they had to produce thumbnail sketches, and their choice of subject matter was largely dictated by the text. Stained glass and woodcuts, although clearly different from each other in many respects, shared the limitation of requiring work in bold outline, whether for clear visibility or for ease of recognition. Thus, although none of these media can be neglected in the history of devotions, work done in them seldom attained the richness and sophistication of panel painting (Jardine, 1998). The papal revolution of the years 1303 to 1305 left Italy without a papal court. The Guelf communes of Tuscany survived the upheaval with scars but with undiminished wealth, and with increased intellectual and artistic isolation and independence. Florence and Siena were now cities coping on their own with the Ghibelline threat around them. The cultural axes linking Rome with those cities were gone. The new political situation involved a rather different world of artistic patronage. It is true that the rebuilding and painting of the lower basilica at Assisi continued partly with the help of cardinals' finance. These two works incorporate the development of a new system of pictorial narrative which is the fruition of the beginnings at Rome, Pisa, Siena, and Assisi (Jardine, 1998). The introduction of classical inspiration into sculpture and painting lost the aegis of papal patronage and now took place almost entirely with the help of commercial finance. "The church had encouraged consumption in connection with its services" (Goldthwaite 1995, p. 104). The continuance of the classical revolution with the introduction of a fully developed realistic pictorial narrative, which was in general to provide a new standard of art not to be surpassed for another century. Siena in the early fourteenth centuries, under the government of the Nine, was, by Tuscan standards, a relatively stable centre of mercantile power and wealth, a republic in which the problems of factional upheaval were brought under reasonable control for long periods. In contrast to Florence, where artistic patronage, including the control of building and decoration at the cathedral and the baptistery, were decentralized into the hands of guilds as well as families and religious orders, the Sienese commune maintained a remarkably unified control over the structure and appearance of the city. "The great basilica dedicated to Saint Francis at Assisi is only the most notable example of such a propaganda campaign. Many cults were carefully directed by interested parties. The fresco cycles in the great church of Saint Francis at Assisi were obvious models for other churches in the order" (Goldthwaite 1995, p. 104, 126). Women were not only followers, manipulated and circumscribed in their religious ideals by powerful clerics; they were leaders and reformers as well. The rapid growth of women's houses put strains on the resources of the new orders, which had to provide clergy for the women's spiritual direction and sacramental needs. Indeed, the same impulses that issued in the various heretical movements produced new religious roles for women within the church (Jardine, 1998). The secular demand for art was caused by new role of women in society. Two explanations for the emergence of new types of female religious life have recently been popular. One suggests demographic causes: these were the daughters for whom no husbands could be found. The other argues that the women who became beguines, tertiaries, or heretics were simply a religious surplus, left on the fringes to attempt some kind of quasi-religious life after Premonstratensian and Cistercian doors closed and the friars showed reluctance to expand their pastorate to large numbers of nuns. Both explanations are plausible. "The consequence of this infrastructural accommodation of both men and women was yet another set of institutions-the so-called second order for women and the third orders for the laity (Ternaries)" (Goldthwaite 1995, p. 79). There were in fact demographic factors behind all late medieval religious movements. The structure of the medieval family and of inheritance necessitated alternative roles to marriage and procreation for a large portion of the population. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the value of dowries went sharply up, making the marriage of daughters (or even the endowing of a place for them in one of the traditional monasteries) sometimes prohibitively expensive. Moreover, there is much late medieval evidence of male resistance to the care of nuns and male suspicion of female mysticism. "Italian saints were predominantly merchants, friars, and women, in contrast to the north European model comprising martyrs, bishops, and princes" (Goldthwaite 1995, p. 101). Not only did the period from 1300 to 1600 see the creation of new types of religious life for women. The number of women saints (both those canonized and those who simply acquired some reputation for sanctity) also increased, a clear indication of the growing prominence of women both in reflecting and in creating piety. There was always resistance on the part of church authorities to the canonization of women. Although the number of canonization inquiries for women rose, it was consistently the case that a smaller percentage of those women considered for canonization actually achieved it than was true for men (Jardine, 1998). Following Goldthwaite (1995): "another notable device many owners used to make their palaces into a public statement about themselves, but this remarkably popular art form, to which many notable painters dedicated their mayor efforts, was not destined to survive the ravages of time" (p. 206). In sum, the general sense of lay social obligation central to spirituality was given particular urgency and converted into a movement of active reform by the sense, widespread among Italians, that their own time was one of special moral and religious crisis. Spirituality was in no way limited to cult and prayer in Italy. Preaching, liturgy, sacraments, public and private prayer-all formed the necessary core of Christian existence. The principle demands for artifacts in Italy, religious and secular demands, were caused by social changes and accumulation of wealth, increasing role of religion and church in life of citizens. Christian existence required something more than personal appropriation of the message of salvation: it extended into everyday life. The church was always very real, precisely as a universal worldwide community of believers. As the body of Christ, the church was incarnated in individual church communities and thus as a universal church of all peoples. Christian faith created new demands, and had directly and indirectly a worldwide effect on the society and its culture. References 1. Goldthwaite, R.A. (1995). Wealth and Demand for Art in Italy: 1300-1600. The Johns Hopkins University Press. 2. Holmes, G. (1997). Renaissance. St Martins Pr; 1st U.S. ed edition. 3. Jardine, L. (1998). Worldly Goods: A New History of the Renaissance. W. W. Norton & Company. 4. Nanert, Ch. G. (2006). Humanism and the Culture of Renaissance Europe (New Approaches to European History). Cambridge University Press; Updated edition edition. Read More