High Renaissance Research Articles

Seismic performance of a retrofitted heritage unreinforced masonry building during the 2010/2011 Canterbury earthquakes

The Heritage Hotel (formerly Old Government Buildings) is one of the architectural heritage icons of Christchurch, New Zealand. Seismic retrofitting was undertaken on the structure in 1995 to achieve the earthquake loading provisions of the 1992 standard for design loadings (NZS 4203:1992). This building is a distinguished 1909 unreinforced masonry Italian High Renaissance palazzo building. The retrofit work included the installation of new lateral load-resisting structural systems, refurbishment of individual building elements, and partial building demolition with a total cost of approximately NZ$3.75 million. Detailed observations following the 2010/2011 Canterbury earthquakes showed that the building was subject to only minor damage during the September 2010 earthquake, whereas the February 2011 event caused some damage to exterior stonework and flooding in the basement due to liquefaction. This damage was easily repaired, and the building was fully functional by September 2013. Reported herein are details showcasing the success of the seismic retrofit and post-earthquake performance observations.

SUSRET STVARALAČKIH IMAGINACIJA JERONIMA BOŠA I NOVICE TADIĆA

The famous Netherlandish painter Hieronymus Bosch (1450 – 1516) and the contemporary Serbian poet Novica Tadić (1949 – 2011) are related through the most significant characteristics of their works – the presence of the creative imagination which made similar apocalyptic scenes and diabolical characters both on canvas and on paper. Using transmedial theories, we can see the transmission of the painting techniques in shaping of Tadic’s descriptive narratives. This painter whose work belongs to the High Renaissance and Mannerism made, with his grotesquely shaped half-human, half-animal and half-demon beings, an arc from “the autumn of the Middle Ages” and the upcoming Renaissance to the Baroque. Five centuries later, his metaphors, inter- preted in many ways, receive an epitome in the poetic images of Tadić’s hellish bestiary, contin- uing an intriguing dialogue with religion. Guided by Guy Scarpetta’s theoretical assumption of “the return of the Baroque”, in this paper we will try to show that those two artists are more associated with the tendency to represent the reality as an illusion, and to create an impression of unreality of the real world, than with the similarity of their images.

ВПЛИВ АНТРОПОЦЕНТРИЗМУ НА ТВОРЧІСТЬ МИТЦІВ ВИСОКОГО ВІДРОДЖЕННЯ

The article describes a number of factors that influenced the work of artists of the High Renaissance, in particular the philosophical thought of this period and changes in the worldview of people of this era. The article focuses on the origins of anthropocentrism in the intellectual sphere. The author outlines how Italy became the center of new ideas and the center of their implementation. This article was conducted to explore the impact of the philosophy of anthropocentrism on the work of Italian artists (their goals, means and evolution of the concept of "artist"). In conclusion, we can observe how interest in human nature grows, and that corporeality is not only the outer shell of man, which limits it. Artists of this period tend to realism and do not abandon the image of man and discover a new aesthetic in it. At the beginning of the 15th century the artist saw his role and believed that he was serving nature, which would teach him everything he wanted, with enough effort, patience and resources. The artist proudly demonstrates his skills in depicting animals, plants, figures, beautiful robes and landscapes, he is no longer a modest executor of someone else's will.

От природата като „първоучител“ към „субективната идея“. Промени в естетическите критерии през втората половина на ХVI век и тяхното отражение върху учението за пропорциите

In the second quarter of the XVI th century, some changes occur, which reflected in the art from that period. As early as the second half of the century, some new trends began in the art of the High Renaissance. The crisis in the humanistic culture of the Renaissance led to changes in the mentality of the individual person. Feelings like anxiety and disharmony enterеd in the balanced soul of the Renaissance man. They formed new aesthetic criteria, which required a change in the proportions and shapes of the human body and image. Undoubtedly, this is a transitional time in search of new ideals and artistic means.

РОЛЬ ІНСТРУМЕНТАЛЬНОЇ МУЗИКИ В СЕРЕДНЬОВІЧНІЙ СИСТЕМІ ДУХОВНИХ ЦІННОСТЕЙ

The purpose of the article is to identify the place of instrumental music in the medieval system of spiritual and cultural values of Western Europe people by researching the treatises on philosophy and music. The research methodology of the study includes the information search and gain on the secular music art by the review of the musical treatises, as well as the clerical and other historical sources applying idiographic, hypothetical-inductive, logical, and content analysis methods. The scientific novelty of the study is to change the existing concept of the noncritical and applied importance of medieval instrumental music that has developed in the history of music by revealing new features of its moral, ethical, and artistic value. The findings of the study show that instrumental music and folk traditions are tied strongly and time-honoured, despite numerous church interludes. Conclusions. We have identified the inadequate attitude of the clergy towards musicians of different activity and social status and who express conformism to a different extent with the doctrines and policies of the papal church. The analysis of some treatises of the time has given a reason to express the idea of the cosmic role of music in the system of the medieval worldview, as evidenced by efforts of the sophists to describe the correlation of parts of the universe (macrocosm) and parts of the human shape (microcosm). In this treatises, we have also found the seed of theory of effects that will finally set in the esthetic of High Renaissance. After the study of some medieval instrumental genres it has been hypothesized that some of them might be independent (not applied to dance, singing or everything else) even in the 13th century.

The Dynamics of Art and Craft Curriculum in Enhancing Child Growth and Development

As the government of Kenya is geared towards achieving sustainable development goals and Kenya Big 4 Agenda, the Ministry of Education rolled out the new education system 2-6-3-3-3 dubbed “Competence Base Curriculum” whose mission is to nurture every learner’s potential. It received overwhelming appraisal from different stakeholders;- locally and internationally eliciting debates in the local media, radio and television talk shows. Prior to this bold step in the curriculum, the government of Kenya set up various taskforces to review the 8.4.4 curricula in 1992, 1995, 2002, 2009 and 2011, reviewed by the late Professor Douglas Odhiambo which asserted the atrocities of children not developing to their full potential and its negative effect in threatening the realization of Kenya Vision 2030. The paper has established diverse ways in which the curriculum in art and craft is enhancing the growth and development of a child’s emotional, physical, cognitive, and creativity. It has hypothetical employ qualitative analysis to examine art and craft in terms of the art stages of growth and development of a child. Further, the paper has briefly observed that naturalistic child growth and development of Leonardo Da Vinci - (A high renaissance artist of 14th century)- and the researcher’s teaching experience, as the case study and scope. It has concluded that any curriculum design ought to consider art and craft because it has an inherent psychological and development power that develops a child into full potential.

The Chthonic Roots of Leonardo da Vinci’s Youthful Iconography

Background: Leonardo da Vinci painted some of the most iconic works of the High Renaissance, and yet some of their iconographic features remain largely unexamined, as do the relevant large-scale conventions of Christian iconography and the Etruscan roots of the Humanist tradition of the period.Problem statement: An unusual feature that is found in most of Leonardo da Vinci’s depictions of the Virgin Mary is a striking yellow or golden sash around her waist. Such a feature is not found in prior depictions of this central figure of Christian iconography, and in only a few of the works of his immediate pupils, and is thus largely unique to Leonardo. As such, it calls for an analytic appraisal of its derivation as a symbolic trope in his youthful works.Proposition: An association with the myth of Persephone is developed on the basis of several features of his ‘Virgin of the Rocks’ in particular, in which a yellow sash is a central motif. This mythic identification in turn helps to account for the substantial deviation of this work from the specification of its original commission into an extreme version of the mountainous setting that is common to most of Leonardo’s established works. The roots of this symbolism are then considered in relation to the Etruscan resonances of the Florentine milieu in which Leonardo matured.

Evolution of Neuroaesthetic Variables in Portrait Paintings throughout the Renaissance.

To compose art, artists rely on a set of sensory evaluations performed fluently by the brain. The outcome of these evaluations, which we call neuroaesthetic variables, helps to compose art with high aesthetic value. In this study, we probed whether these variables varied across art periods despite relatively unvaried neural function. We measured several neuroaesthetic variables in portrait paintings from the Early and High Renaissance, and from Mannerism. The variables included symmetry, balance, and contrast (chiaroscuro), as well as intensity and spatial complexities measured by two forms of normalized entropy. The results showed that the degree of symmetry remained relatively constant during the Renaissance. However, the balance of portraits decayed abruptly at the end of the Early Renaissance, that is, at the closing of the 15th century. Intensity and spatial complexities, and thus entropies, of portraits also fell in such manner around the same time. Our data also showed that the decline of complexity and entropy could be attributed to the rise of chiaroscuro. With few exceptions, the values of aesthetic variables from the top of artists of the Renaissance resembled those of their peers. We conclude that neuroaesthetic variables have flexibility to change in brains of artists (and observers).

MATHEMATICAL KNOWLEDGE OF THE RENAISSANCE ERA AND ESTABLISHMENT OF DRAWING AS AN INDEPENDENT FORM OF ART

This research makes it possible to better understand the reasons why the artistic mindset for world perception and reproduction has drastically changed during a relatively short transition from the Medieval times to the Renaissance, as well as the factors that accelerated the birth of drawing as an independent form of art and prompted the artists of those times to search for ways to picture the tridimensionality of space.Drawing originated as a tool to research the relations between an object and space, as it’s the definition of space that became perceived and imagined on a basis completely different from that of the Medieval times, thanks to scientific discoveries. The crucial change in the art of the Renaissance era: reproduction of the illusion of 3D space and depth was performed through using new mathematical knowledge. Thanks to the research of M. Kuzansky, M. Kopernik, as well as L. B. Alberti, F. Brunelleschi and other scientists, the philosophic thought of the XV century has redeemed the definition of movement, bringing it to the level of eternity: while earlier, in the Medieval tradition, movement was imagined as a sign of earthly imperfection, transience and impermanence. A person’s own view of the world gained its value. It’s exactly this energy of potential movement of the Universe that we can see all the way through drawings by artists of the High Renaissance. The Renaissance space, that has now gained tridimensionality, is imagined as cosmic and immense, with the objects in it being clusters of an energy field. This Renaissance mindset has kickstarted the birth of art academies in Western Europe, where academic drawing was essential in art education. But today requires an update to the principles of teaching. Recognition of the immediate connection between scientific discoveries and direction of development for the art of drawing (both as an independent art form and an academic subject) will make it possible to define ways for its further progression, and avoid stagnation and obsolescence of educational models. Today, drawing is still a tool of world awareness that also allows exploration of its new properties discovered by A. Einstein at the beginning of the XX century. It is also a modern science with more complex, n-dimensional capabilities.

“Madonna of Demidovs” and “Madonna of Stroganovs”: to the Question of the Sociocultural Space Forming

This work demonstrates results of study of museum and exhibition activity, which forming modern sociоcultural space at the examples of Renaissance and Mannerism art works from the Stroganovs and the Demidovs collections. The members of these families of Ural and Siberian industrialists, patrons of arts and philanthropists possessed the richest collections of world-class art works. Authors pay attention on such work as “Madonna del Popolo”, also known as “The Holy Family”. Now this masterpiece is stored in the Nizhny Tagil Municipal Museum of Fine Arts. Academician Igor Grabar, who saved it from destroy, considered that this artwork belongs to the authorship of Raphael Santi. The second masterpiece “The Holy Family with Infant Saint John the Baptist” by Agnolo Bronzino now is in the Pushkin State Art Museum (Moscow). Each painter in its own way have revealed the images of the Holy Family, especially Madonna and Infant Christ. Raphael did it in the traditions of the High Renaissance and Bronzino followed the best achievements of Mannerism. These paintings are especially important and valuable because Italian painter, architect and writer Giorgio Vasari, known as the founder of art history as branch of science, have paid his attention on them. The researchers give characteristics to members of the Stroganovs and the Demidovs families on the context of the stated problem. The President of the Academy of Arts and the Director of the Imperial Public Library, the Count A. S. Stroganov bought for his collection the “Holy Family with Infant Saint John the Baptist” by Agnolo Bronzino. The owner of Nizhny Tagil factories N. N. Demidov, who also was a Russian envoy to the Duchy Tuscany (Florence), is connected with inclusion of “Madonna” by Raphael in his art collection. In the study the materials of Grabar’s monograph are analyzed, the results of author’s own scientific research and the detailed section on the Demidovs’ Madonna attribution are given. There are used cultural research and art criticism methods of analysis, for instance, with attraction of “Madonna Doni” by Michelangelo. The acquisition and transfer to Russia of this unique incarnations of the “Holy family” enriched the historical and cultural space not only of the owners and people close to the families, but also of the wider social circles, because these paintings were becoming an integral part of museum and exhibition activities. As a modern example authors analyze the exhibition “Madonna by Raphael from Nizhny Tagil”, where the samples from the collection of the Demidovs, Ural and Sibirian magnates, in the Hall of Arts of the South Ural State University were presented. It is established that, using them, the university academic exhibition has fulfilled the important task of the complex formation of cultural identity of students in the interaction of its regional, national and supranational (universal) aspects

The breviary of Ercole I d’Este and the classical tradition in Ferrara illumination of the end 15th – the beginning 16th century

The article presents one of the masterpieces of Renaissance Ferrara illumination – the Breviary of Ercole I d’Este (1502–1505). This manuscript was created during the active development of printing, and this fact underlines its special status and importance for the customer, and also demonstrates the stability of artistic traditions at the Ferrara court. At the same period – the first years of the 16th century – the artistic language of the Early Renaissance was changed for completely different traditions of the High Renaissance art. First of all, it was expressed in the leading role of classical motifs. The Breviary of Ercole I demonstrates the development of the classical tradition in Ferrara illumination. The article presents the manuscript in the context of the court culture of Renaissance Ferrara, providing the stylistic and iconographic analysis of the manuscript decor. The creation of the Breviary of Ercole I reflected the identity of his customer, Duke Ercole I d’Este, who contributed to the development of the humanistic culture in Ferrara. At the same time, Ercole I was a very religious man, and his personal religiosity became an important virtue of a ruler. Matteo da Milano, a representative of the Lombard school of book illumination, characterized by the classical ornamental decoration, created the most impressive elements of the manuscript decor. Besides him, there were other artists to decorate the Breviary, but their miniatures are more connected with the 15th century local tradition. In the art of Ferrara, the classical tradition took part of the «politics of magnificence». The abundance of classical motifs in this manuscript, thus, could be the goal of the customer who wished to glorify himself in this special way.

Flora, Laura, and Others: The Allegorized Pictures of Beautiful Women in Early Cinquecento Venetian Art

«Вестник Санкт-Петербургского университета. Искусствоведение» — научно-теоретический рецензируемый журнал, обобщающий результаты исследований ученых всего мира в различных областях искусства, включая музыковедение, культурологию и художественное образование.

Проблема imitatio в графическом наследии Якопо Понтормо

The concept of imitatio in the context of the aesthetic Renaissance thought and later in the artistic practice itself acquired the value of compositional and stylistic imitation of the famous artworks by other artists and also entailed the ability to interpret the original sample in accordance with the individual artistic manner. Such method reaches its heyday in the works of draftsmen of the High Renaissance. A very illustrative example in the context of theoretical argumentation of the method of imitation and its practical implementation can be found in the oeuvre of Jacopo Pontormo. In his “Lives”, Vasari gives the best characteristics of Pontormo’s picturesque manner. However, the artist’s creative activity experiences strong changes (and not in the better way, according to Vasari), due to his familiarity with the engravings of Durer.This process also affected Pontormo and had an undeniable impact on the further development of his painting style. Analyzing the corpus of Pontormo’s drawings relating to the frescoes of the Certosa del Galluzzo, we can see how the study of the prints of Durer influenced the stylistic features of the artist’s graphic manner of the 1520s (“The Procession to Calvary”, “Agony in the Garden”, “The Supper at Emmaus”). The example of Pontormo’s graphic heritage allows us to assess the importance of the problem of imitation as an artistic technique for the study of the artist’s creative method, of his artistic interests and preferences, as well as of the influence that the style of Durer’s engravings had on his works.

Urban(e) visualization and Early Modern drama: Ben Jonson’s ‘Spectral Cities’

This paper explores urbanization, and the impact of new technologies on early modern dramatic visualization. It demonstrates how the frontispiece to Ben Jonson’s 1616 Folio summons up spectres of antiquity, high renaissance culture, and the renovatio urbis: reconfiguring them as models for new negotiations of the urban and urbane. It reveals how the Folio’s opening play, Every Man in his Humour, powerfully maps Florentine urban geography and practice onto its revised London setting. And, equally, how its closing masque, The Golden Age Restor’d, formally complements the programme of Jonson’s collaborator, Inigo Jones, for the new Whitehall Banqueting House (1622).

Neoplatonic Symbolism by Michelangelo in Sistine Chapel's Separation of Light from Darkness.

Upon discovery of Michelangelo's concealed neuroanatomical images in "Separation of Light from Darkness," by Suk and Tamargo in 2010, there remained a compelling need to investigate in greater detail the reasoning behind Michelangelo's depiction of imagery of the brain, brainstem, spinal cord, eyeballs and optic nerves in the Sistine Chapel. At cursory glance, "Separation of Light from Darkness" depicts God's first act of Genesis 1:3-5 (King James Bible), in which he creates light and separates it from the darkness, enveloping the world he has just created. It is a seemingly simple, conspicuous act, but careful analysis reveals that Michelangelo used his artistic, academic, and poetic genius to embed layers of symbolic meanings. The authors believe that the great artist infused a visual metaphor of a scene from Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" in Book VII of The Republik (~380BC) to represent his key ideologies in Neoplatonism and pious convictions Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel during the flourishing period of High Renaissance (~1475-1527). High Renaissance art followed and reflected the period of 'rebirth' in which philosophy, literature, art, and sciences drew on ancient knowledge from Classical Antiquity, principally the ancient Greeks. The Renaissance was a period of rapid growth where people applied new found knowledge to the Classical Greek studies of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle (from about the 4th to 3rd century BC). One of the most influential ancient philosophers was Plato (~428-348 BC) whose teachings propagated throughout Athens for about two centuries around his lifetime, through his established school, the Academy. His philosophy of Neoplatonism was resurrected by an Italian baron, Cosimo I de Medici who employed Marsilio Ficino (1433-99) to lead the Florentine Platonic Academy (of which Michelangelo was a student) and translate all of Plato's writings into Latin Through analysis of Michelangelo's paintings, his preliminary sketches, poems, written letters, and the political and religious context of his time, the authors attempt to provide key evidence to reveal the meaning and symbolism behind Michelangelo's concealed anatomic representations.

Cornetti e tromboni in the high Renaissance and Baroque

This review focuses on cornett and trombone ensembles or soloists because they are prominent in each of the CDs considered. The word ‘sackbut’, which is used ubiquitously in modern times to denote any pre-Romantic trombone, is potentially misleading. Words of the ‘sackbut’ type were used in England, France and Hispanic countries before the late 18th century, but the instrument (which had most of its modern features by the late 15th century) was always called trombone in Italy and Posaune in German-speaking countries. The bore of the tubing was narrower, the terminal flare less pronounced and mouthpieces were appropriately sized, but otherwise it had much in common with some 19th- and early 20th-century instruments. The important point here is that while reproductions of early trombones are of obvious importance, the way they should be played is clearly understood only because we now understand the sound and idiom of the cornett: the instrument with which it was most frequently paired. The rediscovery of the idiom of the cornett has been one of the great achievements of the period performance movement.

Review: Giuliano da Sangallo: Disegni degli Uffizi

Giuliano da Sangallo: Disegni degli Uffizi Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe, Uffizi, Florence 16 May–20 August 2017 The five hundredth anniversary of Giuliano da Sangallo's death in 1516 has provided the impetus for a flood of new works on the otherwise understudied Florentine architect. Sabine Frommel's 2014 monograph on Giuliano's built work was joined in 2016 by a study day devoted to Giuliano at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence, and 2017 saw the publication of the proceedings from a conference on Giuliano held in June 2012 at the Centro Internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio in Vicenza.1 Also in 2017, the Uffizi presented the exhibition Giuliano da Sangallo: Disegni degli Uffizi . New research related to these venues explored aspects of Giuliano's oeuvre in need of further investigation, in particular his work as a sculptor and military architect, and studies by emerging and established scholars have already done much to overturn the outdated notion of Giuliano as a misfit architect caught between the Florentine fifteenth century and the Roman High Renaissance. The Uffizi exhibition, curated by Dario Donetti, Marzia Faietti, and Sabine Frommel, was conceived as part of the reframing of Giuliano. The curators presented a near-monographic study in drawings, …

Frederic Shields’s Chapel of the Ascension

Abstract In 1889 the Pre-Raphaelite artist Frederic Shields (1833–1911) received a commission to paint the walls of a chapel in London. The patron, Emelia Gurney (1823–1896), was a devout Christian who envisaged a non-denominational place of worship and reflection, a place of refuge from the accelerated pace of the industrial age. The building, located just off Hyde Park in the Bayswater section of London, was designed by the architect Herbert Horne (1864–1916) and was based on Italian quattrocento ecclesiastical design. The interior walls were covered in a rich iconographical program conceived jointly by patron and artist. The pictorial narrative, painted in high Renaissance style, emphasized the theme of salvation and can be understood as a direct response to the fragmentation of religious practice and belief taking place in Britain at the time. This article is an investigation of the Chapel’s painted pedagogy. Completed in 1910, the building was bombed during the Blitz and is no longer standing.

Exhibition: Raphael: The Drawings: Drawing Master.

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford , 1 June–3 September 2017 A week after the opening of this highly-acclaimed exhibition at the Ashmolean, Professor Stephen Farthing RA gave a lecture entitled ‘Raphael and the nine secrets of drawing’ based, rather teasingly, on an unfinished book that he began 25 years ago when he was Ruskin Master of Drawing at Oxford. John Ruskin had personally endowed this position when he established the Ruskin School of Art within the Ashmolean in 1871. Ruskin was a great supporter of the Pre-Rapaelites. It is a nice irony that Raphael, who produced some of the supreme achievements of the High Renaissance, and who was the …

Review: Architectural Master Drawings from the Albertina

Architectural Master Drawings from the Albertina Tchoban Foundation Museum for Architectural Drawing, Berlin 12 March–10 July 2016 It began, quite rightly, in Rome. Consisting of thirty-eight meticulously selected works from the architectural drawings collection of the Albertina in Vienna, the exhibition filled both of the Tchoban Foundation's exhibition rooms. The bringing together of exquisite, and in some cases paradigmatic, individual works amounted to an exhibition that was itself an artistic achievement. It began with a delicate study of a Gothic tower on parchment from Pisanello's workshop. Although this work originated in Rome as part of a sketchbook, as an ideal study and as the product of an international court culture, it was not bound to any particular place. Next was a drawing by Maarten van Heemskerck completed about a hundred years later, immediately after the Sack of Rome, the greatest crisis of the Roman High Renaissance. With his view of Saint Peter's Square, Heemskerck, using a sharp perspective, plunges down into the very soil of the Eternal City, offering a thoroughly down-to-earth angle on two epoch-making—and unfinished—architectural projects: Pius II's Benediction Loggia and the loggias commissioned by Julius II (Figure 1). Figure 1 Maarten van Heemskerck, view of Old St. Peter's and the Vatican Palace in Rome, 1532–34, pen and brown ink, 27.5 × 62.1 cm (© ALBERTINA, Wien, GSA 31.681). The opposite wall displayed an anonymous plan of the Pantheon stemming from Sangallo's circle and an impressionistic perspective view of the south side of the Colosseum by Gianmaria Pomedello. This pairing showed not only the buildings that had the greatest impact on early modern Europe but also the broad formal possibilities of architectural drawing in …