Renaissance Painting Research Articles

The hidden and the seen: Art as an intersubjective medium

ABSTRACT This paper explores the intersection of art and psychoanalysis, specifically the various ways in which the introduction of works of art into treatment can open pathways of intersubjective exploration and understanding of the patient’s unconscious processes that may have been otherwise hidden. Similar to the function of dreams and free association in psychoanalysis, a patient’s connection and identification with specific works of art may illuminate aspects of their unconscious organizing activity, or simply reiterate and re-confirm already-discovered dynamics of their internal world. Art in this context acts as an intersubjective medium through which associations from both the analyst and the analysand reflect one another and reveal deeper interpretations. This topic is explored by way of a clinical vignette in which the patient’s love for a particular painting opens up associations for both the patient and the analyst, areas of exploration that lead into deeper realms of the patient’s internalized relational world and his exhibitionism. Although the patient in this vignette has had significant experience with psychoanalysis, elusive areas of unconsciousness remain. His associations to his favorite painting by the Renaissance painter Giorgione and the analyst’s own associations to the painting help to illuminate hidden sectors of the patient’s unconscious processes, including how his developmental longing for admiration is in direct contradiction to his felt need to remain hidden, and how this conflict expresses itself in his exhibitionism.

Knowing Holbein’s Objects: An Object-Oriented-Ontology Analysis of The Ambassadors

Abstract This article investigates the tenet of Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO) that art, like philosophy, is a form of cognition different from literal knowledge by applying key OOO concepts to the analysis of the Renaissance painting The Ambassadors (1533), a double portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/98–1543). The Ambassadors is found to exemplify the key principles of OOO in its treatment of objects and their relationships. Through an OOO lens, the painting becomes not merely a literal representation of the subjects and their possessions, but a dynamic interplay of real and sensual qualities that exceeds any straightforward paraphrase. The figures and objects in the work are not simply passive symbols, but active agents that withdraw from direct access, preserving their autonomy and inviting the viewer’s participatory engagement. Holbein’s masterpiece comes alive precisely by troubling its own representational coherence, drawing the viewer into an uncanny encounter with the withdrawn depths of objects. By reading The Ambassadors through an object-oriented framework, the painting exemplifies art’s capacity to operate as a non-literal form of cognition, irreducible to mere symbolic codes or propositional knowledge.

Impact Of “Rise of Burgher Class” On Art: Italian Renaissance Painting

Impact Of “Rise of Burgher Class” On Art: Italian Renaissance Painting

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.

Implicit and Explicit Preferences for Golden Ratio

The golden ratio, also known as Phi (ϕ ≈ 1.618034), attracted the interest of mathematicians, artists, and intellectuals for many centuries, probably from when it was discovered in human anthropometry. Even in recent times, researchers found the presence of the golden ratio in Renaissance paintings and aesthetic preferences. The reasons behind the fascination with the golden ratio remain unclear, but it has been suggested that stimuli containing this proportion are often perceived as beautiful. However, evidence is conflicting, and the literature struggles to establish the existence of individual preferences for the golden ratio. To gain new insights into the nature of these preferences, one hundred participants completed an implicit association task, with either golden ratio or random stimuli presented with positive or negative words. Participants initially categorized the stimuli based on their assigned categories. Then, we assessed their explicit preferences by asking them to rate the stimuli in terms of pleasantness and by completing a line bisection task and the Ultimatum Game. The results revealed the typical effects observed in implicit association tasks, with improved response times and accuracy when golden ratio stimuli were associated with positive word categories. In contrast, explicit ratings yielded mixed results. We discuss our findings in relation to previous studies that have explored this issue, highlighting the ongoing debate surrounding preferences for the golden ratio.

Grundmuster: Ausdrucksfunktionen des monochromen Hintergrundes im Renaissanceporträt

Abstract Monochrome backgrounds represent a consistent “pattern” in Renaissance painting. Until now, these backgrounds have mostly been understood as neutral, secondary, or arbitrary. This paper proposes different classification approaches to capture the diverse pictorial potentials and artistic expressive functions. The two-dimensional background forms a visual counterpart to the portrayed person by shaping the immediate surrounding space. It offers a field of appearance in which and with which the individual simultaneously figures and interferes. As a media-reflexive iconic pictorial device, the shapeless ground is based on multi-layered pictorial traditions, conventions, and connotations.

‘Is that not Titian?’ Echoes of Venice in George Frederic Watts’s Self-Portraits, between Self-Fashioning and Artistic Practice

The reception of Venetian Renaissance painters had a profound effect on the creation of a British tradition of painting and played an important role in the development of the portrait as a typically British genre. This is precisely what this article aims to explore, through the emblematic case of the self-portraits of Victorian artist George Frederic Watts. Many of the artist’s self-portraits, in fact, explicitly engage with the tradition of Venetian art, and do so in multiple ways. On the one hand, the artist models himself on the figure of Titian, playing with the pose, the gesture, and the physical resemblance with the old master. On the other hand, Watts also aims at mastering the secrets of Titian’s painting method, which he discovered through the reading of ancient painting treatises. Thus, the relationship with the Renaissance plays a double role here, as it shapes the public and private image of the artist, but it also affects his artistic practice, and the very materiality of his paintings. This paper will also contextualize Watts’s ‘venetianism’ with that of Frederic Leighton, mid-Victorian photography, and the decadent painter Charles Ricketts, drawing a broader picture of the fascination with Venetian art in late 19th-century England.

“De Piloso Fonte Sum”: On Dishonorable Backgrounds, Lawsuits, Guilds, and Artisans in Early Renaissance Cluj

“De Piloso Fonte Sum”: On Dishonorable Backgrounds, Lawsuits, Guilds, and Artisans in Early Renaissance Cluj. This study, based on an exceptional source (a judicial record of 1549, published here for the first time) aims at the restitution of the biography and the distinctive character and personality of an early Renaissance painter from Transylvania, Gregorius Pictor, while making recurrent references to the artistic milieu of the sixteenth century Cluj – the town where he was mainly active. The study reveals, undoubtedly, one of the most comprehensive painters’ biographies of Transylvania in early modern times. Keywords: painter; painters’ guild; biography of artists; Renaissance; Cluj; Transylvania.

Framing the Golgotha in Renaissance Painting

Framing the Golgotha in Renaissance Painting

Were camptodactyly and boutonniere deformity considered pathological in late fifteenth century Italy? Evidence from the sculptures of Francesco di Simone Ferrucci (1437–1493)

Representations of disease in Renaissance paintings have been discussed in medical literature, in the context of historical epidemiology, as potential sources of information about the incidence and appearance of particular conditions in earlier times. The present study seeks to show how Renaissance art can also contribute to historical nosology by casting light on the question of whether particular conditions recognized as abnormal today were understood as pathological in the past. The hands of two Renaissance Madonna figures are examined in sculptures produced by Francesco di Simone Ferrucci (1437–1493). Because the Virgin Mary was considered physically perfect by believers, and because Francesco was a successful producer of devotional sculptures for a wide audience, it is highly probable that any abnormal conditions found in the hands of Madonnas sculpted by him would not have been regarded as pathological at the time. The sculptures examined appear to depict camptodactyly and boutonniere deformity in the hands of Madonna figures. These uncommon conditions are also found in Renaissance artworks that show other individuals of high social status, but their presence in the hands of the Madonna gives the strongest indication that they were not considered pathological, due to religious belief in the Virgin’s physical perfection. Examination of Madonna figures in late fifteenth century Renaissance art can contribute to historical nosology by identifying abnormal conditions that were not regarded as pathological at the time. The examples of such conditions identified in the present study are camptodactyly and boutonniere deformity.

Carving out the absence within

This article explores the technique of rilievo (Italian for “relief”) employed in Renaissance painting to form a three-dimensional object, usually a figure, which stands out from the background. Transferred to philosophical and literary writing, rilievo is used to shape the two-dimensional medium of the text and carve out a concept that stands in a negative relation with the empirical world. Writing, like the work of art, includes what it appropriates from the empirical world, presents it in a new form, and affirms the existence of what is not visible in the material alone. Relying on Theodor W. Adorno’s dialectical understanding of the artwork’s self-negation and Maurice Blanchot’s writing of desubjectivation, I argue that, unlike the additive process of shaping a figure or a concept, negative rilievo is the process of recovering constitutive absence.

Le sfumature dell’Assoluto

The research aims to investigate the existing relationship between the representation of the Absolute and the colouristic effects rendered by the use of gold in painting. The possibility to show the Absolute essence through figurative language, in its secular as well as in its religious meaning, has always been a privileged objective of artists. If contemporary aesthetics, characterised by radical processes of secularisation, addresses the theme through the analysis of specific chromatic tones, this study intends to emphasise the use of gold and how it modifies the perception of the colours juxtaposed with it, by giving unexpected luminist solutions. To this end, the research will focus on the context of medieval and early Renaissance painting. Subsequently, an attempt to reflect on the adoption of similar expedients in contemporary artistic expressions will be developed.

H08 The Crimson Chronicles of acne rosacea: a fascinating tale of medicine and culture

Abstract Acne rosacea is a common skin condition that affects people with Fitzpatrick skin types I–III and is characterized by flushing, erythema, telangiectasia, pustules, papules and phyma (Jansen T. Clinical presentations and classification of rosacea. Ann Dermatol Venereol 2011; 138:3). This condition has been around for centuries and is referred to in literature and art throughout history. The earliest reference to acne rosacea can be traced back to the third century Bc, where it was mentioned in the writings of Greek poet Theocritus. It has also been referred to in various forms of literature, including the character of Summoner in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and Bardolf in Shakespeare’s Henry VI (Cribier B. Histoires de visages rouges. Ann Dermatol Venereol 2011; 138:2). In art, the condition is famously depicted in Italian Renaissance painter Domenico Ghirlandaio’s ‘The Old Man and His Grandson’, now housed in the Louvre. The colour red, a prominent characteristic of acne rosacea, has had a significant role in literature, symbolizing everything from love and passion to anger and violence. French novelists Balzac and Proust used it as a motif in ‘The Red Face’ or ‘Le Visage Rouge’ to denote violence and as a marker of the working classes. In the 14th century, French surgeon Guy de Chauliac was the first to document clinically the condition, referring to it as goutterose or ‘pink droplet’. It was in the 18th and 19th centuries that significant strides were made in understanding the nature of acne rosacea. Dr Jean Astruc, known as the father of venereal diseases, characterized the condition as ‘erythematous, varicose and scaly’. In 1812, the official term ‘acne rosacea’ first appeared in a medical text by English dermatologist Dr Thomas Bateman. Further references to the condition can be found in the 1817 publication On Cutaneous Diseases by dermatology pioneer Dr Robert Willan. In 1834, physician Robert Macnish explicitly linked acne rosacea to alcohol consumption in his book Anatomy of Drunkenness. The differentiation between acne vulgaris and acne rosacea was firmly established following the work of Austrian dermatologist Hebra and French dermatologist Darier. In the past, treatments for acne rosacea included salves containing mercury, sulfur, bull’s blood, blood-letting and leeches. Today, topical and oral antibiotics are the standard treatments, a far cry from the remedies of yesteryear. In conclusion, the history of acne rosacea, which is so much more than just le visage rouge, is a captivating journey that spans centuries, from its earliest references in literature and art to the contemporary understanding and treatment of the condition.

Research on the Influence of Western Renaissance Thought on Modern Painting Art

The comparison between poetry and painting in the Renaissance has ancient origins, which was directly inspired by some ancient scholars' comments on the relationship between poetry and painting. People admire outstanding works of art, but they think that artistic creation is contemptible physical labor. Therefore, even the best artists are just excellent craftsmen. In the Italian Renaissance, a large number of outstanding painters emerged, and they made great achievements in art, leaving behind a painting aesthetic theory that benefited the whole western painting field. In this paper, the author analyzes the influence of western Renaissance thought on modern painting art, taking Italian Renaissance paintings as representatives. The Renaissance not only had a far-reaching impact on European society and politics, but also affected modern painting art to another extent. Advocating individual freedom, with the help of rationality and scientific knowledge, vivid images and real scenes are reproduced, which creates realism.

Two Illustrated Horoscopes of the Italian Renaissance

Abstract Among astral representations in Renaissance paintings and frescoes, a particular and very complex class stands out: that of Illustrated Horoscopes, that is, complete charts disguised under the cover of innocent pastoral landscapes or conventional mythological scenes. Two examples pertaining to this elusive class are proposed and analyzed in this article. The first is a Giorgionesque painting in the Royal Gallery in Dresden, the so-called Horoscope, that probably portrays the casting of a birth-chart for Ercole II d’Este, the son of Lucrezia Borgia, and at the same time a scene from the epic of Orlando and the Paladins. The second is Zucchi’s Assembly of the Gods, a copper panel painted for Ferdinando de Medici’s studiolo in the Roman Villa Medici, which arranges the planetary divinities in correlation to the zodiacal constellations, building the extraordinary nativity of the owner. Both astrological charts, albeit veiled and ambiguous by nature, are substantiated by internal signals, verified on the basis of contemporary horoscopes, and justified by the overall painting narrative.

Armand Point’s The Princess and the Unicorn

Abstract This article discusses the literary and visual symbolism in Armand Point’s The Princess and the Unicorn. Point composed several versions of this mysterious legend in pastel, enamel, and bas-relief. Under the artistic influences of the medieval tapestry of the Lady and the Unicorn, the French painter Gustave Moreau, and the Italian Renaissance painter Alessandro Botticelli, Point unveils a spiritual creation that in its form, content, and medium seeks to evoke the ‘soul’ in a work of art.

Narrative Strategies in Orhan Pamuk's Novel My Name is Red

The novel My Name is Red combines a whodunit thriller, a love story with a discussion of art, comparing 16th century oriental miniatures and Renaissance painting. With a non-linear approach to history, Pamuk presents the narrative against the background of such a paradigmatic theological context, which is forgotten and incomprehensible for the modern era. In this multi-layered and multi-centric narrative, we find narratives within narratives, labyrinths of signs and symbols. The narrative moves between two ideology of paintings, merging history and artistic creativity. The implicit discourse of the novel is medieval paintings, allegories, signs, visual codes, concepts, that the Turkish novelist applies to show the canonical discourses of oriental painting. In the polyphonic narration of the novel main thematic lines of the work are expressed: the murder, the identification of the killer and the love triangle, which reminds the story of Nizami Ganjevi "Khosrow and Shirin" at the metatextual level. My Name Is Red has 20 explicit narrators. Various creatures and artifacts come to life from the miniatures: a dog, a horse, a red, a tree, ink, death, Satan, etc. They are decorative and digressive in terms of deviations from the main theme.  A large number of storytellers serves to expand the murder in different planes. In the absence of an omniscient autochthonous narrator who sees the truth, all narrators are unreliable. Pamuk makes his narrators serve one pressing plot. Pamuk's narrators are speaking, like the storyteller `Meddah`   in old Istanbul coffee-house. To hold the narratives together Pamuk needs the reader, the person to whom his protagonists confess. Characters keep turning to reader for confirmation. Each fragment of narrative is in the first-person. The novel's characters tell a part of their own stories. The novel's first chapter is spoken by a dead man. He is a miniaturist, as he tells us, has been murdered and thrown down a well. Later the murderer kills another man, the master of the miniaturists, we hear first-hand from the victim about being killed. The novel will be concerned with finding the culprit and the motive for the murder. Pamuk builds the structure of the novel in such a way that the narration of all the narrators takes place within the framework of one main narrative flow. Multiperspectivety of focalization is a fundamental aspect of storytelling in the novel. This narrative model requires different choices and projections at different levels, and each choice potentially activates alternative viewpoints. The narrators speak to the reader as if they are aware of their existence in the novel, passing on the narrative baton creates the specific structure of the novel. Many actors create a metafictional picture of the book. “My Name Is Red” is a 59-chapter metafictional postmodern narrative with multiple unreliable narrators. The dichotomy of East and West, which is produced on the basis of the competing painting styles, fills the story with a theological discourse, Ekphrasis brings a contemplative-meditative tone to the expressive technique of writing. Considering all these factors and the complex structure of the text and modes of narration, we must say, that the narrative technique of the novel is splendid

Perspective in Renaissance Paintings

The Renaissance was a very important period in the history of art. During this period, humanism exploded, scientific research progressed, and many works were born in the process of combining art and science. With the help of mathematical sciences, perspective was formally established during the Renaissance. The perspective method makes the work more realistic and improves the visual effect. The article will explain how people in that era shaped space from three famous Renaissance painters: Leonardo da Vinci, Masaccio, and Yang Van Eyck. Leonardo da Vinci created aerial perspective to paint the natural scenery. Masaccio used the vanishing point for the first time in his paintings. Jan van Eyck used mirrors to create another space in the painting. The way these three masters shaped space had a profound impact on future generations. Reviewing the creative methods of predecessors again will help future generations to broaden their creative ideas and improve their composition skills.

Perspective in Renaissance Artwork-Based on the Works of Leonardo da Vinci and Albrecht Durer

The application of perspective has become ubiquitous in the field of art in todays society, yet the role that the knowledge of perspective played while in the field of painting during the Renaissance is rarely talked about. Therefore, the subject of this paper is to analyze the images of famous paintings as a way to demonstrate the application of perspective in Renaissance painting. The methodology of this paper is as follows: the authors chose two famous Renaissance artists, Leonardo da Vinci and Albrecht Drer, and selected two representative works from each of them to study, which are The Last Supper, Mona Liza, Saint Jerome in His Study and Feast of the Rosary. In the study, the authors observe the space, structure and focus of the paintings in order to analyze the relationship between painting techniques and knowledge of perspective. This study attempts to show the reader the application of perspective knowledge in the paintings.

The Girl as Mistress in Renaissance Italy: Gender and Power in Leonardo da Vinci's Portrait of Cecilia Gallerani

AbstractThis article centres on Cecilia Gallerani, the so‐called Lady with an Ermine (which is referred to as The Girl with an Ermine), and re‐examines the very young age at which Leonardo da Vinci painted this mistress of Ludovico Sforza, lord of Milan. It examines Gallerani's navigation of regional networks of power well beyond her time at court. Exploring inter‐related constructions of femininity and masculinity, moreover, the article critically examines visual representation and relations between sex, power and dominance. Crucially, ‘The Girl as Mistress in Renaissance Italy’ both reveals and interrogates the sexual violence and coercion on plain display (though long ignored by scholars) in this most familiar and canonical of Italian Renaissance paintings.