Comparative Analysis of Antonio Del Pollaiuolo Battle of the Nudes and Francisco Goyas Third of May - Essay Example

? Comparative Analysis of Antonio Del Pollaiyolo’s Battle of the Nudes and Francisco Goya’s Third of May Comparative Analysis of Antonio Del Pollaiyolo’s Battle of the Nudes and Francisco Goya’s Third of May The artworks of Antonio Del Pollaiyolo’s Battle of the Nudes and Francisco Goya’s Third of May both depicted conflict with men either fighting (Battle of the Nudes) each other or being killed (Third of May). While the two may have similarities in their theme and size (their scales are huge) there are however stark differences between the two artworks that include background, style, medium and circumstances. Antonio Del Pollaiyolo’s Battle of the Nudes or Battle of the Naked Men may have been engraved between 1465 to 1475 by the Florentine goldsmith and sculptor Antonio del Pollaiuolo. Experts are having difficulty in dating Antonio Del Pollaiyolo’s work on the basis of style because Pollaiyolo may have already used the style earlier and only changed a little during the course of his style1 . As an artist Pollaiyolo was considered ahead of his time and was said to be one of the first Italian artists to render the engraving of the human form2 in the same manner that Francisco Goya was also considered as one of the pioneers of modern painting3. The paintings of both Antonio Del Pollaiyolo’s Battle of the Nudes and Francisco Goya’s Third of May are also large at 42.4 x 60.9 centimeter and 268 ? 347 centimeter respectively. Pollaiyolo’s Battle of the Nudes “depicts five men wearing headbands and five men without, fighting in pairs with weapons in front of a dense background of vegetation4”. The characters in the engraving are posed in various athletic positions where they fiercely grimace and their muscle tones strongly emphasized. Rather than painted compared to Goya’s Third of May, Del Pollaiyolo’s Battle of the Nudes used return-stroke engraving that was employed in modeling the bodies to create a delicate and subtle effect5. Del Pollaiyolo’s Battle of the Nudes where ten sculpted men was fighting was inspired by Greek and Roman sculpture. Scholars opined that these engravings were not a depiction of a literary subject but rather was intended for artists to copy because Del Pollaiyolo’s was said to use model carvings himself before doing the engraved. Pollaiyolo’s work is artistically significant because it was credited to have been responsible of the seminal idea of Italian Renaissance’s modeling of the human form as an object of art. Del Pollaiyolo’s was also said to be one of the pioneers of Italian Renaissance engraving. Pollaiyolo’s engraving of the Battle of the Nude was even said to have been used as a model of German artists such as Albrecht Durer (1471-1528) and Jorg Breu (c. 1480-1573). The detailed engraving of the human form, its particularity of the anatomical structure and the explicitness of its expression has been credited to have been germinated by Pollaiyolo’s6. While Del Pollaiyolo’s work was rich in details, Goya’s The Third of May 1808 was intentionally painted with the face of the executioner to be anonymous to highlight the drama of innocent civilian that was about to be executed. In this particular work, the artistry was better rendered with the anonymity of the executioner7. What was highlighted instead was the atmosphere that contributes to the gore and brutality of the execution. The main subject which was a civilian with his arms spread like the Christ in crucifixion was set against the backdrop of the rising mountain and heavy blackness of the night to highlight the terror of the persecution8. He also emphasized fear in the painting by “trailing the line of unfortunate captives into the distance, suggesting that this action will by repeated throughout the night9”. Unlike in Pollaiyolo’s The Battle of the Nudes where the features of the characters were detailed, Goya’s The Third of May painting was rendered with “broad and rough strokes of the brush [similar] to the mature work of the Great Spanish Baroque painter Diego Velasquez whom Goya so much admired10”. Here, Pollaiyolo’s and Goya’s The Third of May had different inspiration whereby Goya’s work was influenced by Spain’s religious atmosphere and as such, it bears the secular mark of Christianity particularly the raising arms of his main character which resembled the crucifixion of Christ and Christ’s Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. In contrast, Pollaiyolo’s The Battle of the Nudes may be considered by Goya to be inspired by the pagans because it was inspired by the Greek mythology11. Pollaiyolo’s Battle of the Nudes was engraved for sheer appreciation of the art and to push the boundary of visual expression that raised the bar of the artistic expression of the human form. It served as a precedence of the Renaissance arts particularity to details especially when the human form is tackled as a subject. It has no political agenda or any social commentary unlike Francisco Goya’s painting entitled Third of May whose political theme is very evident in the paint. The two artworks may have portrayed violence with Pollaiyolo’s Battle of the Nudes portraying men who are in conflict and fighting each other while Francisco Goya’s Third of May showed a man about to be executed with a body already scattered on the ground but they are essentially different from each other. First, the conflict that was depicted in Pollaiyolo’s Battle of the Nudes was to showcase the beauty of the human form while Goya’s Third of May was a blunt representation of the gore and brutality of war. Unlike Pollaiyolo’s Battle of the Nudes which was made for sheer aesthetic purpose, Goya Third of May was painted with a real political background. The paint was done not only for artistic expression but also a social commentary of the French’s occupation of Spain during the time it was painted12. Goya’s Third of May painting was borne out of the Spaniard’s social unrest when a French soldier was shot dead in Madrid on May 2, 1808 (A painting entitled Dos de Mayo Uprising preceded the Third of May painting where the citizens of Spain revolted) during the Napoleonic occupation. The blame was pointed to a Spanish sniper where the French soldiers retaliated with a swift, brutal and disproportionate response on the next day (hence the title Third of May). Napoleonic troops then retaliated by rounding up a large number of innocent civilians on the Third of May. The soldiers had the civilians marched beyond the city walls and then had them shot of which Goya putatively had witnessed13. According to Symmon’s, “It is evident that Goya owned property at La Quinta, where the massacres took place, and there is (though disputed by some historians) a story by one of Goya's gardeners, a man named Isidro, who told Antonio Trueba (recorded in his book Madrid por fuera) that Goya witnessed the shootings at Montana del Principe Pio via telescope (a telescope was inventoried as belonging to Goya after his death), and that Isidro accompanied Goya later that night to the place where the corpses were, at which time Goya made notes14”. This explains Goya’s blunt representation of the gore of the firing squad which was absent of subtleties where violence at its rawness was highlighted15. As an artist, Pollaiyolo was unanimously hailed by his contemporaries as somebody who pushed the boundaries of visual art and may have pioneered a technique which was not yet present during this time especially with his rendering of The Battle of the Nudes. He was even credited to influenced the detailed rendition of the human form of the Renaissance paintings. Goya on the other hand had mixed reception. He may have been an esteemed artist during his time and was even given the post of First Painter to the Spanish monarch, King Charles IV before the occupation of France but there were others who also had a negative critique of his work Third May saying that his work was technically flawed because the characters in his work were too closed. Also, Goya’s work took a while before it was shown to the public due to the seditious theme of the work which the restored Bourbon’s were hesitant to exhibit unlike Pollaiyolo whose work became readily acceptable. References Emison, Patricia. The World Made Naked in Pollaiulo’s Battle of the Nudes. Art History. Vol. 13 Issue 3, 1990. Harris, Beth and Zucker, Steven. Romanticism in Spain Goya's Third of May, 1808. http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/romanticism-in-spain.html [accessed May 13, 2012] Hughes, Robert,  Goya, Knopf Books, 2003 Landau, D. and Parshall, P. Antonio Pollaiuolo, The Battle of the Nudes, a copperplate engraving. British Museum online. http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/pd/a/antonio_pollaiuolo,_the_battle.aspx [accessed May 13, 2012] Plagens, Peter. Turning Tragedy Into Art. Newsweek (Atlantic Edition), 01637053, 10/8/2001, Vol. 138, Issue 15 Shelley, Langdale. Engravings, Impressions and States. http://www.clevelandart.org/exhibcef/battle/html/4286621.html [[accessed May 13, 2012] Singer, Matthew. Goya. USA Today Magazine, Vol. 127 Issue 2648, 1999 Symmon, Sarah, Goya, Phiadon Press, 1998. Page Vickers, Michael. A Greek Source for Antonio Pollaiuolo's Battle of the Nudes and Hercules and the Twelve Giants. Art Bulletin. Vol. 59 Issue 2, 1977. Read More