This next lecture is about Michelangelo and Raphael, focusing on a few examples
of their artwork
to help determine what their style look like.
So, starting of, we're going to look at a work by Michelangelo called the Pietà.
It is a representation of a scene that was very common in Northern Europe,
very common in areas like France and modern-day
Germany, where we would see the Virgin Mary holding the body of Christ
following the Crucifixion.
This isn't a story that's told in the Gospels, but it became
popular in works of art because it draws out a lot of sympathy -- it draws out a lot
of emotion, as people would view it.
So in the northern [European] countries, we often see the bodies very
violently represented with a lot of blood and a lot emphasis
on the violence Christ's death. But we see what Michelangelo does when he
carves this sculpture at the age of
only 24, that he creates a very harmonious and perfect
looking sculpture. The face of the Virgin is very smooth and very youthful,
the body of Christ -- while you can see the wounds [of the Crucifixion] and you are
expected to consider them -- in the hand, in the side, in the
feet -- it's not dramatized
to the extent that we see in some of those northern
examples. The reason Michelangelo would have selected this subject or would have
worked in this subject was because it was a French Cardinal who commissioned him
to create it
for his tomb. So, it was a French cardinal that requested it,
so Michelangelo has taken this northern style work of art -- this
style or this subject matter that's very popular in the north,
and then used it and created it in more of an Italian style
that's reliant on classical tradition, so we have some heavy drapery
here, and we see some emphasis on classical-style bodies
that reveal anatomy and that are quite
ideal in their representation. So, just
at one more thing to notice, is that in the overall
form -- I if we think about it -- having the body
full-grown man on their lap of a woman would be a little awkward.
Often these sculptures look a bit strange because you have this huge body on top in a very
small woman,
and what Michelangelo did to create a harmonious effect
was to make the drapery
and the lower body of the Virgin very large and
voluminous, and this way you create a very nice
pyramidal overall composition,
which creates a harmonious, perfect look to it --
something that exemplifies some of the characteristics of the High Renaissance.
So, this was Michelangelo's very important work
in Rome. It was created right before the
Jubilee year of 1500, so this really got his name out in Rome.
However, Michelangelo was from Florence. So, he'd gone to Rome to
make his name. He'd had a number of experiences where he would have seen
antiquities -- where he tried to imitate antiquities.
But after creating this work, he actually does return to Florence, so let's have a
look at that.
And, he creates one of his most famous works: the David. So this work,
of course, was very important subject matter for Florence. We've talked about it
before --
where David, of course, is the underdog that defeats Goliath,
and, of course, Florence always thought of themselves as the underdog. So, David, of
course, was an important symbol for the city. The sculpture was actually originally
commissioned to be
up on the duomo -- up on the cathedral. There would have been
a large buttress that it would have been on top of, so we can even see that
Michelangelo has
modified some of the proportions: the hands are very large, the head with
the hair is deeply undercut. So, he's modified a few things so that you can
see it from down below,
so that it would stand out. However, when it was created, it was so admired --
even by people like Leonardo da Vinci, who was very competitive with Michelangelo,
(of course, he liked painting, and Michelangelo liked sculpture)
Even Leonardo da Vinci made little sketches of it, so this work was considered
very, very important right when it was created.
And so they called it the Giant, and they wanted it to be put
right in front of the City Hall of Florence, where it stayed for a very long
time,
but today it has been moved inside to the Academia,
so that it's more protected. However, still today,
in front of the city hall of Florence, you can see a replica of the David.
So, obviously Michelangelo focuses a lot on the male body this is something
that he emphasizes.
He thought of the male body is very perfect. We tend to see more emphasis on
a male body in Florence, more emphasis on the female body in Venice, which we'll
get to in a later lecture.
But also something to point out is that Michelangelo selected
a different time period or a different moment in the story.
This is not after he's killed Goliath -- this is before.
So, you see a little tension in the brow of David. You see his eyes narrowing.
You see a slingshot over his shoulder, and actually he's holding
the stone in his hand here. So although he is in a
contrapposto pose that looks a little bit casual, if you zoom on the scene, if you zoom in on
his face
you can see some of the tension that is starting to build,
so that adds to the story. Of course Michelangelo ends up
not staying in Florence for very long,
so even though his David was wonderfully received, and people were very
excited about it -- he was the one who is able to carve this huge sculpture.
He gets call back to Rome to work on the Tomb of
Pope Julius II, but Pope Julius II
doesn't focus on that for too long, and actually asks Michelangelo
to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. So what we're going to focus on
here
is the area all along here and up.
So this actually had been painted by earlier fifteenth-century artists --
along the side here. Stories of Moses, stories of Christ,
and then Michelangelo's going to focus on stories from the book
Genesis -- stories of the creation up here. So, this will be Michelangelo's
contribution around this time
from 1508 and 1512, and later we'll talk about when he comes back to create the Last
Judgment scene,
which is right here behind the altar. Obviously,
or about 20 years ago
the Sistine Chapel was cleaned so because of all the smoke that had built
up here. Obviously, there were a lot of candles being burned in the Sistine Chapel.
This is the place where popes are elected; this is really the Papal chapel.
This is where Cardinals gather, so obviously this is a chapel that was used
a lot for long periods of time, so you can imagine all the build-up that
has happened on these frescoes.
You can see how dark it was, and when they began revealing how
colorful the frescoes were, you can imagine that it was quite controversial
and that people were worried that they were taking away some of the shadows,
some of the
modeling that Michelangelo had intended. However,
the more they have studied the frescoes, it seems that Michelangelo was really a
colorist -- that he used a lot of
very bright colors, but unfortunately this was lost
for many, many years when when the Sistine Chapel was so dark from all that buildup
of cleaning with inappropriate materials
and then the soot that built up on the frescoes.
So as you can imagine Michelangelo was not very excited about painting the
ceiling. He was a fan of sculpting, not painting.
He'd been lured to Rome with the idea that he would be sculpting,
but he ends up painting this 12,000 square foot ceiling,
which you can imagine would be a huge job. He starts off
with a lot of difficulty. He create this image of the Deluge, which you can
see is
the flood of Noah, and you can see that he had to take many, many days
to create it
because fresco is laid down in little bits at a time.
And you can see this is the Deluge here, and as he came down off of his
scaffolding, he realized that early on in the ceiling,
you couldn't really see the stories very well, so when he finished up the rest of
the chapel, he started making
the figures larger and larger but it's a very complex series.
So, we start to see the figures becoming larger -- obviously, you can see the forms
are very masculine in their overall appearance. The most famous of the scenes
of course is the Creation of
Adam, which is this moment where the body of Adan has yet to receive the spark of
life from God, so
you have this moment, where there's this small space between their hands,
and he's about to receive that moment of enlivenment.
Here's the creation of the sun and the moon, where you can see Michelangelo
really is getting this fresco technique down, and, finally, the separation of light
and dark,
which he was able to complete in a single day -- this one section here.
So, clearly he figured it out by the end. And we'll see Michelangelo a little bit more when we
get into
Mannerism. But, finishing off the lecture, I'd like to think a little about
Raphael, who is considered the third of the High Renaissance masters, if you think about
Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael.
Raphael we always think of as kind of the sponge -- he was absorbing everything
that was going on around him.
He was able to take what he saw and then improve on it.
So, what we see here is the story of the Marriage of the Virgin
the story here is that in the the stories of the Virgin's life
that developed later on -- the story developed that
you everyone wanted to marry the Virgin -- how did she come to marry Joseph?
And the story goes that everyone who wanted to marry her was given a lot,
or basically a stick,
and whosoever stick blossomed was going to be the one who go to marry the Virgin.
So I know it's hard to see, but if you look at this here there's a little tiny
blossom right at the end
of Joseph's stick. And you could see all the angry man who looked disappointed. This
guy is snapping his stick.
And you have this very nice Renaissance composition.
You have a nice use of perspective. You have a nice classical style
circular -- well, very High Renaissance in style since it is circular central
plan,
but using some classical inspiration with the columns and the
arches and things like that.
But nice High Renaissance balance and harmonious composition.
But he adding a little bit of life to it, and making it dynamic, with the man
breaking the stick. With the man overseeing the ceremony, tilting off
to the side.
And if we compared it to the work by his teacher -- this is by Perugino --
who we believe Raphael worked with for a short time, you can see how Raphael
would take what he saw from his instructor -- these sweet,
oval faces with very small mouths and
small eyes, and he definitely absorbing that, and then he's trying to bring it into the High
Renaissance style.
We also see Raphael doing this with his portraiture --
once he gets into Florence. He was very strongly influenced by Leonardo da Vinci,
so hopefully you can see at this is clearly derived from the Mona Lisa,
but he's taken what Leonardo did with the Mona Lisa, and he's trying to improve on it,
so if we compare this, you can eat that
the Mona Lisa was controversial for the reasons mentioned in the previous
lecture:
the hands on display, so much of the chest showing, the hair being down on the
shoulders
really hanging loosely, the eyes
gazing directly out at us, so there's a number of things that happen here
where Raphael is improving on the scenes. So first off, the woman's holding on to a little
unicorn,
which is a symbol of her virginity or her her chastity,
her hands are tilted downward -- hiding them away.
Remember hands were considered very attractive and alluring in
the Renaissance. Her clothing is more beautiful, more elaborate,
speaking to her wealth. Also, she's wearing jewelry that also speaks to her wealth,
whereas the Mona Lisa doesn't have that kind of jewelry and wealth
on display. Her hair is pulled back, and her hair is also blond, which was the
preferred
hair color. So Raphael took the inspiration
of the Mona Lisa, and then tries to improve on it in a way that will be more
acceptable to the patron
because we do believe that the Mona Lisa was rejected by the patron.
However, the Raphael was probably accepted by the patron.
Even her eyes slightly gaze off to the side, so they're not
staring at us in the same way, and she doesn't have that same smile that could
have been read
as inappropriate on the Mona Lisa. And, finally, we'll see
Raphael's Stanza della Segnatura, focusing on "The School of Athens."
The Stanza della Segnatura was the area where the pope would sign his
documents, and also where kept his library. So they're actually four walls
in this room,
and one wall was for philosophy -- that was the School of Athens. We see it here.
One wall was for poetry -- that's the Mount Parnassus wall.
One wall was for theology or religious texts, and that is
opposing or on the opposite side of the School of Athens,
and then finally we have our books on law, and that is
opposite the Parnassus wall. Unfortunately we can't see that here
Let's zoom in on the School of Athens. So, as we see,
we we can visualize that they're in
a grand temple-like form, which actually looks very similar to the New St.
Peter's [Basilica] being constructed at this very moment [that Raphael was painting the Stanze].
However, Raphael has made it very classical in inspiration.
We have Apollo. We have Minerva, and these were the two -- this is the god and
goddess from the ancient
world that was most admired for poetry, for wisdom --
These characteristics that were associated with this god and goddess.
We also see some of the most important philosophers
of the ancient world. So, we have Aristotle here, who is gesturing down to
the earth, referring to his philosophies dealing with ethics in this
world.
And then also we have Plato, who is gesturing up towards the sky.
And then also we have Socrates whose pointing out different points on his
fingers.
There are a number other classical figures
that often include portraits of contemporary
Renaissance artist, so it's interesting how he's trying to
include the contemporary geniuses and
referring back to geniuses of ancient history.
So, again, the architecture is definitely derived from what's going on in terms
the building project of the New St. Peter's. He's trying to make it as
classical as possible,
and he's trying to illustrate some of the philosophical greats
of that time, while bring in some of the portraits
of the contemporary greats and contemporary geniuses.
What's interesting is there has been an argument of the idea that these
figures look like they're moving forward,
and it seems like the kinda moving forward into the room towards the wall
that represent
theology. So, the wall that represents theology
would be the principal wall
for the papacy -- obviously. So very important scene.
Very important group of images. And if we zoom in, you can
see a little bit of the construction going on for Saint Peter's.
And then also some of those portraits that are included, so Raphael included
himself
off to the right side. Also, [the architect] Bramante
is represented as Euclid. Here he is here. Bramante was an important
architect at that time. Then, of course,
Michelangelo is included with his sculptors boots. So, he was added very
late
in the image -- right in the front -- he looks very muscular and a very Michelangelesque
type of representation