Art History - Test 1

Cimabue, Madonna Enthroned with Angels and Prophets, c. 1280-90

What are the piece’s form, function, content, and context?

Form: made with tempera, purple and deep blue (expensive colors, royalty), moving towards realism (still see flat halos and gold background, lacks a ton of dimension, but there is a body beneath the clothes)

Function: an altarpiece, commissioned for religious purposes (a church using wealth to connect and show love to god)

Content: depicts the Virgin Mary holding baby Jesus with angels flanking her

Context: Cimabue was one of the first artists to move away from the Italo-Byzantine style towards realism, reflects on the use of art to show level of faith, all money going to decorating churches, shows the shift of favoring human depictions over divine in the 13th century

Duccio, Maesta Altarpiece, Siena Cathedral, c. 1308-11

What are the piece’s form, function, content, and context?

Form: very large, polyptych, tempera, still Italo-Byzantine with gold background and flat halos, realistic with the sense of depth (body beneath Mary’s clothes) and the way the angels and saints are winged out, background has some movement

Function: an altarpiece, commissioned for the Siena Cathedral to show appreciation for religion

Content: Virgin Mary on the throne holding baby Jesus, surrounded by angels and saints; the back shows Christ’s life, crucifixion, etc.

Context: reflects on the use of art to show level of faith, all money going to decorating churches, shows the shift of favoring human depictions over divine in the 13th century

Giotto, Madonna Enthroned from the Church of Ognissanti, 10'8 x 6', Florence, Italy, c. 1305-10

What are the piece’s form, function, content, and context?

Form: made with tempera and gold, shows great depth + highlights + shadows (fabric pooling on floor + folding), background characters more developed, throne more rendered than prior pieces

Function: altarpiece, commissioned to decorate a church

Content: shows the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus, flanked by angels

Context: Giotto credited as the first Renaissance artist, shows growth over just a few decades in shading and modeling to show the human figure, reflects on the use of art to show level of faith, all money going to decorating churches, shows the shift of favoring human depictions over divine in the 13th century

Giotto, interior frescoes of the Scrovegni (Arena) Chapel, Padua, Italy, c. 1305-6

What are the piece’s form, function, content, and context?

Form: paint and frescoes, the background is blue not gold (looks like the sky) + hints of landscape, figures facing away from the audience creating a sense that they are human, figures showing more emotion

Function: to earn heavenly credit and showcase how the money the Scrovegni’s earned sinning could be used for good

Content: shows Enrico Scrovegni offering the chapel to the angels, the life of Mary and her parents, the life of Christ, and passion

Context: Scrovegni were a family of bankers (banking was a sin) who built a private chapel and had it decorated (trying to earn heavenly credit, common back in this era)

Renaissance

revival/renewal of interest in something (in our case art, with the italian renaissance the changing of style to be more realistic)

Altarpiece

a panel that is painted/sculpted representing a religious subject, placed behind or above a church’s altar

Tempera

paint made from pigment mixed with egg yolk, glue, or casein

Fresco

(means fresh) mural painting technique involving the application of permanent lime-proof pigments, diluted in water, on freshly laid lime plaster

Maesta

the scene of the Virgin Mary seated on a throne holding infant Jesus in her lap, often flanked by angels, saints, or prophets

Filippo Brunelleschi, Sacrifice of Isaac, 1401-2

What are the piece’s form, function, content, and context?

Form: very rugged and emotional, made of multiple molds and pieces, made of bronze

Function: a religious relief made for a competition, shows the story of the sacrifice of isaac

Content: isaac is central, abraham is slightly central

Context: made for a competition to create baptistry doors, conflict over if Ghiberti won or it was a tie

Lorenzo Ghiberti, Sacrifice of Isaac, 1401-2

What are the piece’s form, function, content, and context?

Form: a classical piece showing roman influence, cast in one piece (technically very difficult and cheaper)

Function: a religious relief made for a competition, shows the story of the sacrifice of isaac

Content: no major central focal point, issac and abraham are to one side, horses and figures are on the other

Context: made for a competition to create baptistry doors, conflict over if Ghiberti won or it was a tie, led to Ghiberti making the Gates of Paradise

Brunelleschi, Dome for Florence Cathedral, 1420-35

What are the piece’s form, function, content, and context?

Form: made as light as possible so it doesn’t play out, ribs add support and horizontal rows between ribs create a cage (like a barrel) VERY innovative

Function: part of the Florence Cathedral’s construction, a massive project taking 140 years

Content: based on a gothic structure (a pointed arch) from the medieval period, but a renaissance work

Context: Brunelleschi a pioneer of renaissance architecture, Brunelleschi and Ghiberti again in competition to create the dome,

Donatello, David, mid-fifteenth century

What are the piece’s form, function, content, and context?

Form: sculpted in bronze (very expensive), posed in contrapposto (cocked hip, makes figures look more human therefore renaissance)

Function: medichi commisioned so the people associated them with protection

Content: shows david standing nude on goliath’s head, contrast between david’s youthfulness and goliath’s grizzlyness (shows how the grace of god assists)

Context: earliest free-standing nude sculpture since antiquity, david became the symbol of florence (standing up against tyrany

Masaccio, Tribute Money, c. 1427, Brancacci Chapel in the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence

What are the piece’s form, function, content, and context?

Form: fresco, uses linear perspective to show depth, tax collector is shown in contropposto to show naturalism

Function: religious, made for a place of worship

Content: jesus main subject, continuous narrative → tax collector asks for tax, peter catches fish and finds gold coin, this is used to ay tax

Context: art work for a church to show love for religious figures

Relief

sculpture that projects in varying degrees from a two-dimensional background

Contrapposto

describes a human figure standing with most of its waight on one foot, causing it to be slightly off balance (in motion, hip cocked, realism, renaissance effect)

Continuous narrative

illustrates multiple scenes of a narrative within a single frame

Linear perspective

creating the illusion of depth on a flat surface by making all parallel lines in a work converge at a single vanishing point on the horizon

Michelangelo, Pietà, marble, 1498-1500 (Saint Peter’s Basilica, Rome)

What are the piece’s form, function, content, and context?

Form: carved marble, christ looking peaceful (represents serenity), mary’s youth is emphasized, highly naturalistic

Function: Commissioned for the tomb of a cardinal

Content: Mary holding christ, michelangelo carved his own name into the sash (very prideful)

Context: Michelangelo is considered to be the most important high renaissance artist

Michelangelo, Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, 1508-12, fresco (Vatican, Rome)

What are the piece’s form, function, content, and context?

Form: fresco, illusionistic architecture, uses trope l’oiel (painted columns)

Function: the ceiling of a chapel, religious

Content: scenes from the old testement

Context: a commissioned religious work

Titian, Venus of Urbino, 1538, oil on canvas, 119.20 x 165.50 cm (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence)

What are the piece’s form, function, content, and context?

Form: uses inconography (dog = marraige, rose = love), composition draws eyes to the hand and the crotch

Function: functioned as a commission for a wedding

Content: the goddess of love

Context: nude goddess paintings becoming popular, based on the work Sleeping Venus, possibly created for comissioner’s marraige

Properzia de’ Rossi, Relief of Joseph and Potiphar's wife, c. 1525 (Museum of San Petronio, Bologna)

What are the piece’s form, function, content, and context?

Form: relief

Function: religious work

Content: potiphar’s wife tries to seduce joseph, accuses him of assult + sends him to prison

Context: religious work, rarer sculptor

Trompe l’oeil

visual illusion in art used to trick the eye into perceiving a painted detail as something three-dimensional

Iconography

images used to convey particular meanings