High Renaissance Art - Essay Example

February 7, High Renaissance Art: Unity in Pictorial Representation of Religious Themes High Renaissance departs from early Renaissance because of the former’s emphasis on unity in its pictorial composition. While Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael are some of the most prominent high Renaissance masters, other painters also captured the cohesive and balanced composition of high renaissance style. These paintings are Madonna and Child with Saints and Angels (ca 1510-1515) by Bernardino Fungai (See Appendix 2), Madonna and Child with St. Jerome (ca 1504) by Benedetto Diana (See Appendix 1), and The Flight into Egypt (ca 1520-1530) by Battista Dossi (See Appendix 3). These paintings all belong to high Renaissance style because they demonstrate unity in pictorial representation. These paintings represent religious characters and themes in naturalistic landscapes, vibrant colors, strong contour lines, contrapposto posing, realistic figures in stable composition with an implicit triangular format, and combined linear and aerial perspectives, although Madonna and Child with Saints and Angels and Madonna and Child with St. Jerome look flatter due to the use of tempera, Madonna and Child with Saints and Angels is less realistic with the addition of angels and halos, and The Flight into Egypt has a stronger three-dimensional form, with soft, glowing colors and shadows that create chiaroscuro effect. These paintings represent religious characters and themes, although Madonna and Child with Saints and Angels is less realistic with the addition of angels and halos. In Madonna and Child with St. Jerome, the three religious characters are Mary, the child Jesus, and St. Jerome. It appears that St. Jerome has visited the mother and child with some solemn or sad news because of the serious, somewhat sad, mood of the latter. In Madonna and Child with Saints and Angels, the religious characters are more numerous, which include Mary, child Jesus, Mary Magdalene, John the Baptist, Jerome, Francis, and Christopher, and two angels. The scene is naturalistic in how the main front characters are doing realistic actions, although the religious theme is apparent in how they all show adoration to the child Jesus, while Francis is experiencing stigmata at the back. The Flight into Egypt features Mary, Joseph, and the child Jesus. The biblical event is their travel to Egypt. These paintings employ religious characters and themes that were prominent subjects of the painters’ times. Apart from the portrayal of religious characters and themes, these paintings are all set in naturalistic landscapes. None of the characters are in heaven or somewhere unrealistic, for instance. Madonna and Child with St. Jerome shows Mary sitting on a large stone slab. The monochromatic brown surroundings with numerous houses and mountains look dry and the weather appears hot, thereby looking usual to any blistering environment. The Flight into Egypt is similar with Madonna and Child with St. Jerome because of its natural landscape. These paintings both have the city in the background. The city in The Flight into Egypt is monochromatic in white color with some people walking and many houses, which add to the naturalistic effect. Madonna and Child with Saints and Angels is less realistic though than the first two paintings mentioned because it has religious characters with halos. The addition of angels also reduces the naturalism of the painting, especially as they interact with the child Jesus. Still, Madonna and Child with Saints and Angels is realistic with a backdrop of pillars from ruins. Though the pillars look generally too smooth-looking, the cracks in the walls depict realism. The landscape behind the characters with the river and hill also look naturalistic. These paintings depict high Renaissance with use of religious characters in realistic settings. Aside from showing religious characters and themes, these paintings use vibrant colors and strong contour lines that are typical of high Renaissance art that are more pictorial in representation through natural colors and lines than early Renaissance works. In Madonna and Child with St. Jerome, the robes of Mary and St. Jerome have the same color and shade of vibrant blue, while Jesus is naked and has the same monochromatic color of the surroundings with colors of brown and light green. The material of their robes looks shiny and the shadows make them look realistic. Strong counter lines show the difference between entities and their shadows, such as the shadow on Mary’s face that differentiate her face from her hair and her face from the background. Madonna and Child with Saints and Angels have more vibrant use of colors than Madonna and Child with St. Jerome because of the warm colors of orange and yellow. The two angels and Mary have the same orange-colored clothing, while Mary Magdalene is in golden yellow clothing which matches her long blonde hair. John the Baptist and Jerome have orange-colored clothing too, but not as vibrant as Mary’s and the angel’s. The saints in the background are in monochrome colors of mixed green and brown. Strong contour lines differentiate them clearly from their surroundings. The Flight into Egypt also uses vibrant colors of blue, yellow, and red. Mary and Joseph have similarly blue clothing on them. Mary has pink attire which makes her look quite feminine. Jesus is covered in a dark brown robe that almost conceals him. It appears that Joseph is protecting Jesus. Strong contour lines define the subjects and their environment, such as the clarity of Mary’s body in contrast to the yellow clothing she sits on and the mule that she rides on. The strong contour lines emphasize the realism of all these paintings because they clarify the boundaries of people and other objects in the composition. Despite using vibrant colors, Madonna and Child with Saints and Angels and Madonna and Child with St. Jerome look flatter due to the use of tempera, while The Flight into Egypt looks the most realistic of the three with soft, glowing colors and shadows that create chiaroscuro effect. Madonna and Child with Saints and Angels and Madonna and Child with St. Jerome are both tempera-on-wood paintings, although Madonna and Child with St. Jerome mixes tempera and oil. As a result, Madonna and Child with St. Jerome looks softer in colors and shadows than Madonna and Child with Saints and Angels, but The Flight into Egypt has the softest use of colors with oil on wood medium. The Flight into Egypt has colors and light and shadow combination that create believable weight, mass, and volume. The impact is a more three-dimensional effect than the other two paintings. The soft translucent impact of oil paint in The Flight into Egypt gives the painting a glowing hazy effect. On the contrary, Madonna and Child with Saints and Angels and Madonna and Child with St. Jerome look more stylized compared to The Flight into Egypt although the two also uses light and shadow to create a three-dimensional effect too. For instance, Mary and Magdalene almost look the same because of the stylized facial features, while Mary in Madonna and Child with St. Jerome looks idealized too with less realistic facial musculature. Tempera decreases the realistic glow and shadows/light of Madonna and Child with Saints and Angels and Madonna and Child with St. Jerome. After discussing three-dimensional differences due to variations in medium used, the next point is posing, where they all use contrapposto posing. Madonna and Child with St. Jerome has contrapposto posing because of the stance of Mary that leans over to baby Jesus, while St. Jerome is standing. Mary embraces Jesus with both hands. She leans over to embrace him, as if protecting him. She seems to be embracing Jesus as a reaction to what St. Jerome told her. Perhaps St. Jerome told her a prophecy of his death, or any form of bad news. Jesus is also in contrapposto as he steps toward his mother. St. Joseph is standing but his sideway position shows contrapposto too. The impact then is contrapposto posing as a whole, where there is balance in the painting in how the subjects interact with one another. Madonna and Child with Saints and Angels also use contrapposto; though the pose includes Mary, baby Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and the angels. They are all leaning toward the child Jesus in adoration posture. The contrapposto pose does not include John the Baptist and Jerome. At the background, the contrapposto pose is present in the asymmetrical figures of the saints. The Flight into Egypt has contrapposto pose too. Although they are seated, they are leaning toward each other. Mary leans closer to Joseph as she points to the gate, while Joseph leans back to Mary. Baby Jesus is leaning with asymmetrical pose too because he lies on his father’s arm. These paintings manifest realism in that the asymmetry portrays real-life movements. The posing in these paintings contributes to the stable composition with an implicit triangular format, except The Flight into Egypt. Madonna and Child with St. Jerome that has a stable composition because though movement is apparent from the leaning of Mary over her infant and the upturned hands of St. Jerome, they are generally not moving actively. The impact of the contrapposto posing of Mary, St. Jerome, and Jesus is a triangular format. The same triangular composition is present in Madonna and Child with Saints and Angels, specifically considering the total composition of Mary, Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and the angels. Mary’s head serves as the tip of the triangular form. The painting has a stable composition too because of limited gestures and movements of the characters, mainly all of whom are adoring baby Jesus. The Flight into Egypt has a stable composition but no triangular form. It has a horizontal movement for its main characters. They are all in relaxed sitting position that does not create a triangular effect. These paintings are all stable in terms of lack of dynamic and sharp movements, expressions, and gestures. Finally, these paintings all have combined linear and aerial perspectives that increase their realism and unity. Madonna and Child with St. Jerome has a linear perspective, where the horizontal line connects the land to the buildings and sky in aerial perspective. It is also linear because Mary, Jesus, and Jerome appear larger because they are nearer. The vanishing point is at the face of Jesus, where the surroundings afterward look farther in terms of detail, size, and contrast. The background has fewer details; the objects are smaller in size and they look more monochromatic. For the aerial perspective, a tree and some buildings are nearer Mary and Jesus. They look darker and more detailed than those farther from them. The lightening of color tone and hue toward the farther buildings and mountains provides unity in perspectives and makes the painting look realistic. Madonna and Child with Saints and Angels also combines linear and aerial perspectives. For linear perspective, foreground characters look larger than those in the back, and the horizontal line runs near the faces of Mary and Mary Magdalene. Mary, child Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and the two angels look larger in size and are more detailed than John the Baptist and Jerome, while the latter are more detailed and bigger than Francis and Christopher. The vanishing point starts at the neck of Mary. The aerial perspective is shown too in the faraway mountain with the other saints. The impact of the relationships among these people and their environment is a realistic setting. The same realistic landscape is seen in The Flight into Egypt. Mary and Joseph are the largest figures, being the nearest, with horizontal line passing through their necks. The vanishing point starts from Joseph’s head and goes to aerial perspective showing Egypt. The farther buildings and mountains have fewer details and look more monochromatic. Thus, with combined linear and aerial perspectives, these paintings attain unity and realism in composition. These paintings have some differences in posing and color and shadowing style because of differences in materials used. They all belong to high Renaissance, nonetheless, because they portray people in naturalistic landscapes with realistic poses, gestures, and expressions through light and shadow effects and strong contour lines. They are also typical of high Renaissance in attaining a three-dimensional effect that veers away from idealistic stylism of subjects and environments. Hence, Fungai, Diana, and Dossi are described as high Renaissance artists who have effectively created realistic renditions of religious characters and themes with responsiveness to a unified stable composition. APPENDICES Appendix 1: Madonna and Child with St. Jerome (ca 1504) by Benedetto Diana Appendix 2: Madonna and Child with Saints and Angels (ca 1510-1515) by Bernardino Fungai Appendix 3: The Flight into Egypt (ca 1520-1530) by Battista Dossi Read More