Renaissance Art Research Articles

“The delights of intellectual vagrancy, of the improvised chase after a fleeting allusion”: Edith Wharton’s A Son at the Front

Abstract A Son at the Front was an underrated novel at the time of publication and consigned to the margins of World War I literature for many years. A number of contemporary reviewers failed to appreciate the depth of the novel, particularly with regard to Wharton’s complex use of allusions, and faulted it for being out of touch with modern fiction and being published at the wrong time. The years covered by the narrative had been consigned to history and events that had overtaken the period of American neutrality for those who sought retreat into isolationism. Memorialization of those who had fought and died in the war was, however, very much an ongoing process, particularly in the public erection of monuments among participant countries, and they have remained to this day the sites for public ceremonies of commemoration. This article focuses on Wharton’s reference to a knight’s effigy, Luca Signorelli, and a painting of the Inquisition attributed to Juan de Borgoña, to the Christian iconography of medieval and early Renaissance art, as a way of understanding how her novel probed the contestation over how to memorialize the death of soldiers in World War I amid a polarized response to American involvement.

What Did the Ideal Beauty of the 15th Century Look Like? An Anthropometric Analysis of Botticelli Portraits.

The aim of this study was to conduct an anthropometric analysis of the 5 portraits painted by Botticelli that depict Simonetta Vespucci. Five images in the Simonetta series by Botticelli workshop were measured. The anthropometric measurements of the face included 22 parameters on the lateral view (in 4 portraits; 18 distances and 4 angles) and 17 distances on the frontal view (in one portrait), which were measured using Adobe Photoshop. The absolute distances were calculated relative to the vertical corneal diameter (10.6mm), which was calculated by multiplying the distance from the pupil's center to the lower margin of the iris. In the lateral faces, the nasofrontal angle (g-n-prn) was 157.6±2.4 degrees, and the nasal tip angle (n-prn-sn) was 99.7±3.4 degrees. The nasolabial angle (prn-sn-ls) was 125.7±4.9 degrees, and the labiomental angle (li-sl-pg) was 131.6±4.4 degrees. The ratio of the upper lip height to the lower lip height (sn-sto/sto-sl) was 85.4±9.0%. The ratio of the upper lip vermillion to the upper lip height (ls-sto/sn-sto) was 27.7±3.9%. The ratio of the lower lip vermillion to the lower lip height (sto-li/sto-sl) was 47.2±6.6%. Comparing the data with 21st-century Italian females, forehead II height (tr-n), physiognomical face height (tr-gn), and morphologic face height (n-gn) of the beauties of the 15th century were significantly greater than those of 21st-century Italian females. However, there were no significant differences in lower face height (sn-gn) and nose height (n-sn). Considering the ongoing cultural relevance of Renaissance art, the esthetic proportions from this study may have reflection to the present day plastic surgery.

Two early cinquecento Renaissance polyptychs by Antonio de Saliba on Sicily and Malta: an art-historical and scientific investigationtion

This study focuses on two Renaissance polyptychs that were produced by Antonio (1466/7–c. 1535) and Giovanni de Saliba (doc. 1461–1517?), referred to in this study as the Taormina Polyptych (1503–04) and the Rabat Polyptych (1510–15). Through art-historical research and scientific analyses, this study sheds light on their original visual completion and manufacturing techniques. The Taormina Polyptych, located at the Cathedral of St Nicholas of Bari in Taormina, Sicily, underwent thorough on-site examination, revealing details overlooked in prior studies. A two-dimensional digital reconstruction, the creation of which was aided by early 20th century photographs, provided insights into its original appearance. The Rabat Polyptych, once situated in the Franciscan Observant Church in Rabat, Malta, faced dismemberment in 1785, leading to challenges in reconstruction. By analysing historical documents and employing digital reconstruction techniques, the original framework was hypothesised. Scientific studies, including histological and stratigraphic analyses of wood and pigment samples respectively, carried out on two newly discovered predella panels from the Rabat Polyptych, provided insight on Antonio de Saliba's techniques. The digital reconstructions and insights into manufacturing techniques contribute to scholarship on Antonio’s works in the context of Sicilian Renaissance art.

Chiaroscuro Photogrammetry: Revolutionizing 3D Modeling in Low Light Conditions for Archaeological Sites

ABSTRACT Archaeologists working in low light conditions have had difficulty producing 3D models that are both scientific and aesthetic. We are presenting chiaroscuro photogrammetry, a technique inspired by Renaissance artists, to solve this problem. The method is portable, inexpensive, low impact, adaptable, fast, and requires no additional expertise beyond photogrammetry. While first trialed on a rock and a tree that produced promising outcomes, the true test was on a panel of finger flutings in a completely dark chamber of Koonalda Cave, South Australia. The result was a 3D model of the finger flutings with evenly balanced light and deep colors, and the geometry of the model was free from holes and visible artifacts. The 3D model produced using chiaroscuro photogrammetry was visually and geometrically accurate, even more so than flash photogrammetry. Chiaroscuro photogrammetry has the potential to revolutionize 3D modeling in low light conditions for a variety of archaeological contexts.

Socio-communicative aspects of the representation of disease symptoms in Renaissance art

Modern historical research devoted to the development of medical science and the art of healing increasingly involves the analysis of sociocultural and sociocommunicative aspects, which become part of historical analysis. The article examines the relationship between fine art and human anatomy as an element of sociocultural translation (communication) of knowledge in the history of medicine, in particular anatomy. The art of the Renaissance, primarily portraiture from life, copying the image of a specific person, can reflect signs of his health, symptoms of illness, and medical knowledge in historical retrospect is actually part of the culture of society. The artists often turned out to be medically observant, accurate in small details. In this study, the authors show several examples of the reflection of specific medical pathologies in paintings and come to the conclusion that works of art can transmit information about the state of health of the depicted person, the presence of clinical manifestations of diseases captured by the brush of an artist but probably not yet known and understood by the doctors of that epoque.

Ontological ekphrasis Elena Shvarts’ poem “Memory of the Fresco of Fra Beato Angelico ‘Baptism’ at the Sight of the Head of John the Baptist in Rome”

Scientific interest in the problem of ekphrasis and the peculiarities of ekphrastic description has increased over the past decades. The article analyzes the ekphrastic poetics of E. Shvarts’ poem “Memory of Fra Beato Angelico’s fresco ‘Baptism’ at the sight of the head of John the Baptist in Rome”. The aim of this article is to identify the intermedial correlation of the verbal level with the visual level, revealing the ontological ekphrasis in this poem. The author of the article examined how the three levels of the image in the poem correlate in their ratio: artistic text, frescoes’ visual images, and symbolism (cultural codes). Ontological ekphrasis helps the poet find new ways to reveal traditional Christian themes. Visual images of the early Renaissance fresco acquire an ontological status in the text (dove, “rose,” gray color, water, fog, coal [fire], flower, river, blood, wine, relics [the head of John the Baptist], Lapis Niger, dawn). Through symbols and cultural codes, these images reveal the metaphysics of Baptism from a historical, cultural, and modern perspective, leaving the reader with options for interpretation. In the spirit of the early Renaissance artist himself, Shvarts ontologically recodes the medieval symbolism of Baptism, immersing it into thereality, perceiving Christian history as a struggle of life and death, culminating in the eschatological hope of the Second Coming of Christ. Fra Angelico turned out to be in tune with Shvarts precisely as an artist of the early Renaissance, in the painter’s movement of medieval mysticism to Renaissance ontologism and humanism.

Melanesian reimagining: a digital tok stori of Papua New Guinean identity on Instagram

Expanding social media research on the Pacific Digital Revolution, this article explores the significance of Papua New Guineans’ digital and visual articulations of Papua New Guinean identity through Instagram by analysing two public Papua New Guinean Instagram accounts, @archiveples and @taniabphoto. The research triangulates between Pacific, Indigenous, and Cultural studies, drawing on articulation theory and a multimodal thematic and visual cultural studies analysis. A Melanesian tok stori (storytelling) framework reveals how social media interactions fit within a culturally relevant Melanesian concept of storytelling and illustrates how social media has become a contemporary site for Pacific digital storytelling. This digital tok stori is a decolonsing digital wave of the Pacific artistic renaissance and reimagining emerging in 1970s post-independence art and literature. This research demonstrates how Papua New Guineans are subversively harnessing the tools and affordances of social media to counter reductive colonial narratives and mass media representations of Papua New Guineans.

Envisioning the Architectural-Urban Nexus in Renaissance Florence in the Case of Palazzo Rucellai

Florence counts as one of the cradles of European Renaissance art and architecture where linear perspective first emerged. These developments led to the pivotal role perception played in Florence’s architectural and urban design conceptions, as seen in the works of Brunelleschi (1377–1446), Michelozzo (1396–1472), and Alberti (1404–1472), among others. Alberti's De re aedificatoria presented an analogy of the city as a house and vice versa, negating hard distinctions between architectural and urban design, while Alberti’s oeuvre, particularly De pictura, underscores the primacy of the eye. This suggests the exploration of mathematical relationships between architectural façades and urban space configurations within the Florentine context. Through this approach, the paper explores the cases of Palazzo Pitti, Strozzi, and Rucellai, and advances ongoing debates regarding Palazzo Rucellai’s envisioned finished appearance by using a 3D Digital Twin (DT) of the palace and its immediate urban context to test alternative façade hypotheses. Ultimately, the results unveil the multidimensional character of Renaissance architectural façade design and their urban role as signifiers of the cultural, intellectual, economic, and political valour of their inhabitants.

Возрождение (середина XIII – середина XVI столетия). Грани гуманизма. Часть I

The essay is dedicated to exploring the art and culture of the Renaissance period, heralding Modern times, spanning from the mid-13th to the mid-16th century. This part of the work highlights the artistic achievements of the Middle East during the specified period, particularly in architecture, poetry (including the rise of humanism). Turning to European culture, the author specifically addresses the art of the Orthodox world (primarily focusing on church painting and, to a lesser extent, on the Ancient Russian Znamenny chant), noting its influence on the currents of the Renaissance. The author delves into the Gothic style, somewhat contrasting traditional notions of the Renaissance period (a kind of “counterculture”), across its various manifestations in visual arts, music and literature. Special attention is given to the central part of Renaissance art, tracing its evolution from the Early Renaissance (masterpieces of sculpture in Gothic cathedrals) to the Proto-Renaissance (paintings and frescoes by Italian masters, the emergence of psychologism in painting, the literary movement of Dolce stile nuovо marking the transition from the Middle Ages to Modern times, Ars Nova in musical art). The exploration of this theme will continue in the next part of the essay.

Exploring Perspective in Renaissance Art: Leonardo Da Vinci's Works as An Example

Leonardo da Vinci’s progress in perspective is crucial to the Renaissance art. This study, mainly focuses on the specific aspects of Leonardo’s experiment and theories on vision and perspective, his applications of research results in painting, and how these skills contribute to his art. This study used the documentary analysis method as the research method in order to analyze information from different sources, such as the explanation of his experiment and the outcomes, which helps the reader to get acquainted with Leonardo’s idea in a more comprehensive and multifaceted way. The research turns out that Leonardo’s method of perspective was appropriate and considerably accurate. There is an imperfection in Leonardo’s perspective, and there remain queries that haven’t been solved yet due to the limitations of the times, but still, his evolutionary way of perspective makes his paintings unprecedented and extraordinary. His achievement is thus influential and undisputed for later generations.

Value and its aesthetic elements in Renaissance art

تناول البحث الحالي (القيمة وعناصرها الجمالية في فن عصر النهضة) , وذلك بدراسة القيمة وعناصرها الجمالية في رسوم فناني عصر النهضة , فتناول الفصل الأول مشكلة البحث وأهميته والحاجة إليه , وهدف البحث الذي تمثل بالآتي :" القيمة وعناصرها الجمالية في فن عصر النهضة " ثم ختم الفصل المذكور بتحديد المصطلحات التي لها علاقة بعنوان البحث . أما الفصل الثاني فقد تضمن عرضاً للإطار النظري والدراسات السابقة , وتكون من مبحثين :المبحث الأول ماهية القيمة وعناصرها الجمالية . المبحث الثاني : القيم الجمالية في فكر عصر النهضة , وأختص الفصل الثالث بإجراءات البحث : مجتمع البحث , عينة البحث , منهج البحث , أداة البحث وتحليل العينة التي شملت (3) أعمال فنية. وأنتهى الفصل الرابع بنتائج البحث منها : تعد القيم الجمالية والفنية قيماً حاوية للعديد من قيم العناصر الجمالية . الاستنتاجات منها : إن رسوم عصر النهضة الأوربية تميل نحو التجسيد المرئي لكن بمضمون بمختلف. ثم التوصيات والمقترحات .

The Backgrounds of Renaissance Paintings in the Ancient Duchy of Urbino (Central Italy): Exploring New Forms of Valorization of Geoheritage through Their Inclusion in UNESCO Cultural Landscapes

The ancient Duchy of Urbino (Marche and Emilia-Romagna Regions, Italy) is known for its spectacular landscapes linked to a unique geological history. This area owns an unexpected cultural resource, which concerns using its landscapes in art. Some great Renaissance artists, including Piero della Francesca, Raphael, and Leonardo, were so impressed by the landscapes that they reproduced them in their most famous paintings. This paper summarizes research concerned with their identification, employing a multidisciplinary method that has enabled the recognition of many morphologies. This contribution provides the scientific community with information on the methodology and regional and national projects developed in this area to enhance its cultural landscapes. Starting from the geological description of the territory, the research focuses on famous works by three great Renaissance artists, providing evidence and morphological details related to the recognition of places: “Nativity” by Piero della Francesca, “Madonna Litta” by Leonardo da Vinci, and “Knight’s Dream” by Raphael. Finally, it is proposed to make these landscapes a timeless resource through their inclusion in UNESCO’s cultural heritage. This contribution is addressed to representatives of the administration, conservation, and enhancement of artistic and landscape heritage to stimulate new perspectives for research, education, and tourism within the cultural heritage of this area.

Baldassare D’Anna – nove slike s hrvatskih otoka

The Venetian painter Baldassare DʼAnna (Venice, 1572–1646) is represented by numerous paintings in Istria and Dalmatia. His oeuvre, relatively well researched, has been interpreted as comprising eclectic works that reveal direct and consistent influences of his contemporaries and predecessors along the lines of Titian and Jacopo Palma the Younger. This obvious influence resulted in conventional altarpieces and sacral paintings following Renaissance compositional patterns of symmetry and a clear layout, with firmly shaped figures repeating certain bodily features and physiognomy. To this corpus of the painter’s works in Croatia (and Bosnia and Herzegovina), the author has added some hitherto unattributed works on the islands of Brač, Šolta, Lošinj, and Krk. While these additions do not bring novelties in the artistic sense, they emphasize the role, significance, and popularity of D’Anna’s belated Renaissance art among Dalmatian commissioners. The still insufficiently researched role of D’Anna’s workshop collaborators has also been highlighted, given visible oscillations in the artistic value of his paintings.

Im/Materiality in Renaissance Arts

The inspiration for this Special Issue on Im/Materiality in Renaissance Arts arose from two convictions: (1) that sensual experiences and the physicality of creation must be a part of our accounts of the past, and (2) that crosstalk among scholars of music, literature, art, and architecture can reveal both the historiographical gaps endemic to specific disciplines and the critical tools each specialty brings to the project of incorporating living, breathing artists, builders, poets, singers, players, worshippers, scientists, and others into histories of the Renaissance arts [...]

Decentering Neuronormativity: A Transactional Analysis Impasse Theory Perspective for Understanding ADHD Masking and Authentically Honoring the Da Vinci Archetype Within

Inspired by the Renaissance artist and polymath Leonardo da Vinci as an ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) archetype celebrated for his creativity, brilliance, endless curiosity, and experimentation, this article brings to awareness links between genetic traits and neurodivergence. It seeks to rethink the ADHD diagnosis and proposes a TA-neurodiversity affirming lens for navigating neuronormativity as well as healing from its oppressive structural and systemic processes. In particular, impasses are explored in the context of how neuronormativity impacts relational material and drives adaptive masking patterns, racketeering, and script formation. The authors present the masking-authenticity triangle framework, which provides an intersectional and standpoint epistemological inquiry into the clinical presentation and developmental trajectory of neurodivergent masking.

The Wisdom of Bacchus: Emblematic, Iconographic and Literary Allusions in the Hermitage Painting by P. P. Rubens

The painting “Bacchus” by Peter Paul Rubens (State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg) has frequently attracted the attention of both local and foreign researchers. In this article, we question the interpretation of the painting as a simple allegory of the autumn grape harvest and the celebration of production of young wine. Bacchanalian subjects since Antiquity have been loaded with additional meanings associated with regeneration and creative potentials. The latter aspect was picked up and developed by Renaissance artists. Rubens followed often that tradition. L. D. Davis saw in the Hermitage painting a metaphor of the creative method of the Flemish painter, who trusted intuitive impulses more than rigid rules. We share partially this point of view, but we propose to consider the named work in a broader sense than that scholar did. It seems to us that Rubens presented in “Bacchus” his allegorical self-portrait, emphasizing his love of life and his philosophical emancipation. Thus, the Flemish artist expressed his opposition to moralizing and short-sighted opinions in contemporary culture and his desire to return to the breadth of the Renaissance vision. As a consequence, the allusions contained in his painting to “The Andrians” by Titian, some emblems by Andrea Alciato, as well as the new Rubens interpretation of Comus, an ancient character, which John Milton used in his didactic mask a few years before the creation of Hermitage work, — don’t seem accidental. The portly Bacchus in the painting is presented as the lord of earthly diversity and boundless abundance, at the same time he is a wise mentor-judge, indicating how to properly handle all this wealth open to human race. The concept of the boon as the right disposal of freedom and desires, reflected in iconographic system of the Hermitage painting, fits with the ideas of Plato’s dialogue “Feast”.

Michelangelo's Left-Hand Man: Minding the Gap in Sebastiano del Piombo's Pietà

Abstract: This article considers the vitality of the left hand of Christ in a monumental Pieta panel painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Sebastiano del Piombo (bom Sebastiano Luciani, ca. 1485–1547) and a vital link between this hand and the left hand of Adam in the Creation scene on the Sistine Chapel ceiling by Michelangelo (1475–1564). Sebastiano's work was made in the central Italian city of Viterbo around 1512 to 1516, and shows a seated Virgin Mary grieving the death of Christ, her son, whose body lies on the ground in front of her. The article focuses on the representation of Christ's body, identifies a gap between the fingers of Christ's hand and his thigh underneath, and explores this gap's significance as a sign of life. It first reveals a close and as yet not remarked upon connection between the hands in the Pieta and the Sistine Chapel. Through consideration of a series of sketches and drawings that highlight the close working relationship between Sebastiano and Michelangelo during and around the years of the Pieta'' s production, the likelihood that the left hand of Christ in Viterbo was designed by Michelangelo is confirmed. The hand was probably sent to Sebastiano as a drawing from which he worked a cartoon. By examining the iconography of the painting and its associations to Adam's spirited hand in Michelangelo's Creation alongside biblical passages and a popular religious text, the Meditations , the article argues that the restless left hand of Christ in Sebastiano's Viterbo Pieta is a symbol of Christ's Resurrection.

A picturesque plot in the stories of I.S. Turgenev: monograph

The monograph is devoted to the study of pictorial plots in the stories of I.S. Turgenev “Asya”, “First Love”, “Spring Waters”. The plot-compositional, figurative, symbolic and other features of the paintings of Renaissance artists - Raphael, Cristofano Allori, Correggio - are projected onto Turgenev’s stories, helping to identify the artistic and visual dominant in them. In combination with another component presented by the sculptor of the classical era, Danneker, the pictorial plot is interpreted as an integral part of the writer’s philosophical picture of the world. The monograph is addressed to philologists, teachers, students, as well as anyone interested in the problems of interaction between literature and other forms of art.

On the Issue of the Semantics of the Monumental Paintings of the Church of the Saviour at Berestove of 1643–1644

The purpose of the article is to analyse the literature and sources covering the issues of studying the ideological and artistic content of the monumental painting of the Church of the Saviour at Berestove of 1643–1644. The author's main focus is on revealing the semantics of the mural's subjects and interpreting the iconology of the monumental ensemble, which will allow us to determine the place of the monument in the context of the national spiritual and artistic culture of the first half of the seventeenth century. It is planned to characterise the ideological programme of the monumental painting of the Petro Mohyla era and to identify the main accents in the system of paintings. The research methodology is based on the application of a systematic approach, an analytical method, art history, historical-comparative, historical-genetic, historical-systemic, and descriptive methods for a comprehensive consideration of the given problem and formulate well-founded conclusions. The scientific novelty is characterised by the fact that for the first time, based on a critical analysis of literature and sources, the need for a reliable semantic analysis of the monumental painting of the Church of the Saviour at Berestove of 1643-1644 was identified. Based on a thorough study of the features of the church's painting system, the leading artistic and visual themes are identified and a variant of the interpretation of the iconology of the monumental ensemble of the time of Petro Mohyla is proposed. Conclusions. Summarising, we should note, that in the process of analysing the system of paintings of the Church of the Saviour at Berestove, its integrity and the conditionality of all elements were noted. The nature of the images made it possible to identify the key areas that carry the greatest semantic and dogmatic load. The author identifies the leading theological themes in the system of paintings – the Incarnation and the Eucharistic Sacrifice – and outlines a number of subjects that represent these themes. It is noted that the theme of the Incarnation in Byzantine art acquired special significance after the victory of icon worship. The monumental ensemble of the Church of the Saviour of 1643-1644 was presented as a reminiscence of Macedonian Renaissance art. It was noted that the programmatic archaism of the system of paintings and a specific set of subjects were related to the actual tasks of the spiritual life of the time of Petro Mohyla. Keywords: Church of the Saviour at Berestove, monumental painting, Macedonian Renaissance, post-Byzantine art, system of paintings, semantics, iconology, theological programme, ideological and artistic content, spiritual culture, archaism, Era of Petro Mohyla.

From Perugino to Picasso revisited: Electrophysiological responses to faces in paintings from different art styles

Behavioral research (Ventura, et al., 2023) suggested that pictorial representations of faces varying along a realism-distortion spectrum elicit holistic processing as natural faces. Whether holistic face neural responses are engaged similarly remains, however, underexplored. In the present study, we evaluated the neural correlates of naturalist and artistic face processing, by exploring electrophysiological responses to faces in photographs versus in four major painting styles. The N170 response to faces in photographs was indistinguishable from that elicited by faces in the renaissance art style (depicting the most realistic faces), whilst both categories elicited larger N170 than faces in other art styles (post-impressionism, expressionism, and cubism), with a gradation in brain activity. The present evidence suggest that visual processing may become finer grained the more the realistic nature of the face. Despite behavioral equivalence, the neural mechanisms for holistic processing of natural faces and faces in diverse art styles are not equivalent.