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several media grouped together to form a composite art work. Chapels were among the most notable Renaissance ensembles, sometimes combining panel painting, fresco, sculpture, and architecture. In classical architecture, the |
part of a building between the capitals of the columns and the roof. It consists of the architrave, the frieze, and the cornice. Pictures or tables with reliefs and inscriptions |
erected in honour of the deceased in churches or sepulchral chapels. the science of the end of the world and beginning of a new world, and of the last things,death |
and resurrection. the sacrament of Holy Communion, celebrated with bread and wine, the most sacred moment of the Christian liturgy. The term is used in an Italian context to designate |
spiritual currents manifest around 1540 which might be said to have occupied the confessional middle ground between Catholicism and Protestantism; hence it does not relate at all to the term |
'Evangelical' as used in German or English contexts. It has been applied particularly to the so-called spirituali of the Viterbo circle, notably Cardinal Pole, Vittoria Colonna, Marcantonio Flaminio, Carnesecchi and |
Ochino, and also to Giulia Gonzaga, Contarini, Giovanni Morone; Gregorio Cortese and Vermigli. Such persons combined a zeal for personal religious renewal with spiritual anxieties akin to those of Luther, |
to which they sought an answer in the study of St Paul and St Augustine; convinced of the inefficacy of human works, they stressed the role of faith and the |
all-efficacy of divine grace in justification. Few of them broke with the Catholic Church. Tin-glazed European earthenware, particularly ware made in France, Germany, Spain, and Scandinavia. It developed in France |
in the early 16th century, was influenced by the technique and the designs of Italian maiolica, and is named for Faenza, Italy, which was famous for maiolica. It is distinguished |
from tin-glazed earthenware made in Italy, which is called "maiolica," and that made in the Netherlands and England, which is called "delftware." It has no connection to the ancient objects |
or material also named faience, which was developed in the Near East ca. 4500 BCE. A title given to those leaders of the early Christian Church whose writings had made |
an important contribution to the development of doctrine. Saints Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, and Gregory the Great were often considered the four principal Fathers of the Church. Ancient Roman god of |
nature, protector of shepherds, farmers, fields and livestock. Equated with the Greek god Pan, he is frequently depicted with a goats legs and horns. Architectural ornaments consisting of fruit, leaves, |
and flowers suspended in a loop; a swag. In painting, representation of a rural feast or open-air entertainment. Although the term fête galante ("gallant feast") is sometimes used synonymously with |
fête champêtre, it is also used to refer to a specific kind of fête champêtre: a more graceful, usually aristocratic scene in which groups of idly amorous, relaxed, well-dressed figures |
are depicted in a pastoral setting. of a column or pillar, carved with closely spaced parallel grooves cut vertically. the Four Horsemen in the Revelation of St John (Rev 6, |
2 - 8), which contains the description of the end of the world and the Second Coming of Christ. The Horsemen personify the disasters about to happen to mankind, such |
as plague, war, famine and death. Their attributes are the bow, sword and set of balances. In some sculptures the first rider is identified as Christ by a halo. The |
colour of his horse is white, that of the others red, black and dun. A Roman Catholic order of mendicant friars founded by St. Francis of Assisi (given papal approval |
in 1223). Committed to charitable and missionary work, they stressed the veneration of the Holy Virgin, a fact that was highly significant in the development of images of the Madonna |
in Italian art. In time the absolute poverty of the early Franciscans gave way to a far more relaxed view of property and wealth, and the Franciscans became some of |
the most important patrons of art in the early Renaissance. Wall painting technique in which pigments are applied to wet (fresh) plaster (intonaco). The pigments bind with the drying plaster |
to form a very durable image. Only a small area can be painted in a day, and these areas, drying to a slightly different tint, can in time be seen. |
Small amounts of retouching and detail work could be carried out on the dry plaster, a technique known as a secco fresco. Save in Venice, where the atmosphere was too |
damp, fresco painting was the habitual way of decorating wall surfaces in Italy, both in churches and in private and public palaces. During the 16th century a liking for the |
more brilliant effect of large canvases painted in oils, and to a lesser extent for tapestries, diminished the use of frescoes save for covering upper walls, covings and ceilings. The |
technique of buon fresco, or true fresco, involved covering the area with a medium-fine plaster, the intonaco, just rough enough to provide a bond (sometimes enhanced by scoring) for the |
final layer of fine plaster. Either a freehand sketch of the whole composition (sinopia) was drawn on the wall, or a full-scale cartoon was prepared and its outlines transferred to |
the intonaco by pressing them through with a knife or by pouncing - blowing charcoal dust through prickholes in the paper. Then over the intonaco enough of the final thin |
layer was applied to contain a day's work. That portion of the design was repeated on it either by the same methods or freehand, and the artist set to work |
with water-based pigments while the plaster was still damp; this allowed them to sink in before becoming dry and fixed. (Thus 'pulls' or slices of frescoes could be taken by |
later art thieves without actually destroying the colour or drawing of the work.) It is usually possible to estimate the time taken to produce a fresco by examining the joins |
between the plastered areas representing a day's work. Final details, or effects impossible to obtain in true fresco pigments, could be added at the end in 'dry' paints, or fresco |
secco, a technique in which pigment was laid on an unabsorbent plaster; the best known example of an entire composition in fresco secco is Leonardo's Last Supper. The highest order |
the English monarch can bestow. It was founded by Edward III in 1348. The blue Garter ribbon is worn under the left knee by men and on the upper left |
arm by women. The motto is Honi soit qui mal y pense (Evil to those who think evil). in classical Rome, a person's invisible tutelary god. In art from the |
classical period onwards, the low-ranking god was depicted as a winged, usually childish figure. In a broad sense, the term is used to mean a particular branch or category of |
art; landscape and portraiture, for example, are genres of painting, and the essay and the short story are genres of literature. The depiction of scenes from everyday life. Elements of |
everyday life had long had a role in religious works; pictures in which such elements were the subject of a painting developed in the 16th century with such artists as |
Pieter Bruegel. Then Carracci and Caravaggio developed genre painting in Italy, but it was in Holland in the 17th century that it became an independent form with its own major |
achievements, Vermeer being one of its finest exponents. A term applied to the 14th-century followers of Giotto. The best-known of the 'Giotteschi' are the Florentines Taddeo Gaddi, Maso di Banco, |
Bernardo Daddi, and to a lesser extent the Master of St Cecilia. Giotto's most loyal follower was Maso, who concentrated on the essential and maintained the master's high seriousness. French |
term used from the 15th century onwards for a lying or recumbent effigy on a funerary monument. The gisant typically represented a person in death (sometimes decomposition) and the gisant |
position was contrasted with the orant, which represented the person as if alive in a kneeling or praying position. In Renaissance monuments gisants often formed part of the lower register, |
where the deceased person was represented as a corpse, while on the upper part he was represented orant as if alive. paint applied so thinly that the base beneath it |
is visible through the layer. (1) The supernatural radiance surrounding a holy person. (2) To have the distinction of one's deeds recognized in life and to be revered for them |
posthumously: this was glory. The nature of true gloria was much discussed, whether it must be connected with the public good, whether the actions that led to it must conform |
with Christian ethics, how it differed from notoriety. The concept did not exclude religious figures (the title of the church of the Frari in Venice was S. Maria Gloriosa), but |
it was overwhelmingly seen in terms of secular success and subsequent recognition, as determining the lifestyles of the potent and the form of their commemoration in literature, in portraits and |
on tombs. As such, it has been taken as a denial of medieval religiosity ('sic transit gloria mundi'), and thus a hallmark of Renaissance individual ism; as a formidable influence |
on cultural patronage; and as spurring on men of action, as well as writers and artists, to surpass their rivals - including their counterparts in antiquity. French tapestry manufactory, named |
after a family of dyers and clothmakers who set up business on the outskirts of Paris in the 15th century. Their premises became a tapestry factory in the early 17th |
century, and in 1662 it was taken over by Louis XIV, who appointed Lebrun Director. Initially it made not only tapestries but also every kind of product (except carpets, which |
were woven at the Savonnerie factory) required for the furnishing of the royal palaces — its official title was Manufacture royale des meubles de la Couronne. The celebrated tapestry designed |
by Lebrun showing Louis XIV Visiting the Gobelins (Gobelins Museum, Paris, 1663-75) gives a good idea of the range of its activities. In 1694 the factory was closed because of |
the king's financial difficulties, and although it reopened in 1699, thereafter it made only tapestries. For much of the 18th century it retained its position as the foremost tapestry manufactory |
in Europe. 0udry and Boucher successively held the post of Director (1733-70). The Gobelins continues in production today and houses a tapestry museum. a noble chivalric order, still in existence |
today, founded by Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy in 1430 in honor of the Apostle Andrew, for the defence of the Christian faith and the Church. In allusion to |
the legend of Jason and the Argonauts, the symbol of the order is a golden ram's fleece drawn through a gold ring. In painting and architecture, a formula meant to |
provide the aesthetically most satisfying proportions for a picture or a feature of a building. The golden section is arrived at by dividing a line unevenly so that the shorter |
length is to the larger as the larger is to the whole. This ratio is approximately 8:13. The golden section (sometimes known as the golden mean), which was thought to |
express a perfect harmony of proportions, played an important role in Renaissance theories of art. Italian gonfaloniere ("standard bearer"), a title of high civic magistrates in the medieval Italian city-states. |
In Florence the gonfaloniers of the companies (gonfalonieri di compagnia) originated during the 1250s as commanders of the people's militia. In the 1280s a new office called the gonfalonier of |
justice (gonfaloniere di giustizia) was instituted to protect the interests of the people against the dominant magnate class. The holder of this office subsequently became the most prominent member of |
the Signoria (supreme executive council of Florence) and formal head of the civil administration. In other Italian cities, the role of the gonfaloniers was similar to that in Florence. Gonfaloniers |
headed the militia from the various city quarters, while the gonfalonier of justice often was the chief of the council of guild representatives. The kings of France traditionally bore the |
title gonfalonier of St. Denis. The honorary title of gonfalonier of the church (vexillifer ecclesiae) was conferred by the popes, from the 13th until the 17th century, on sovereigns and |
other distinguished persons. Gothic, which may well have originated with Alberti as a derogatory term and which certainly corresponds to Vasari's 'maniera tedesca' ('German style'), is properly the descriptive term |
for an artistic style which achieved its first full flowering in the Ile de France and the surrounding areas in the period between c. 1200 and c. 1270, and which |
then spread throughout northern Europe. It is characterized by the hitherto unprecedented integration of the arts of sculpture, painting, stained glass and architecture which is epitomized in the great cathedrals |
of Chartres, Amiens, and Reims or in the Sainte Chapelle in Paris. In all the arts the predominantly planar forms of the Romanesque are replaced by an emphasis on line. |
There is a transcendental quality, whether in the soaring forms of the pointed arches or in the new stress on the humanity of Christ, which similarly distinguishes it from the |
preceding Romanesque style. In thinking of Nicola (d. c. 1284) or Giovanni Pisano (d. after 1314) there is same danger of forgetting what had happened in French sculpture half a |
century or more earlier, and likewise it is hard to remember that the spectacular achievements of early Renaissance art are a singularly localized eddy in the continuing stream of late |
gothic European art. By northern European standards few Italian works of art can be called gothic without qualification, and the story of 13th and 14th century Italian architecture is as |
much one of resistance to the new style as of its reception, whether directly from France or through German or central European intermediaries. In sculpture and in painting, the Italian |
reluctance to distort the human figure, conditioned by a never wholly submerged awareness of the omnipresent antique heritage, gives a special quality to the work of even those artists such |
as Giovanni Pisano or Simone Martini who most closely approached a pure gothic style. Nevertheless, the vitalizing role of Northern gothic art throughout the early Renaissance and the period leading |
up to it should never be underestimated. The artistic, like the cultural and commercial, interaction was continuous and much of the Italian achievement is incomprehensible if seen in isolation. It |
is not merely at the level of direct exchanges between one artist and another, or the influence of one building; painting, manuscript or piece of sculpture upon another, that the |
effects are to be felt. The streaming quality of line which is so characteristic of Brunelleschi's early Renaissance architecture surely reflects a sensitivity to the gothic contribution which is entirely |
independent of, and lies much deeper than, the superficial particularities of form. The counterflow of influence and inspiration from South to North must likewise not be underrated. In particular, the |
contribution of Italian painters from Duccio and Simone Martini onwards is central to the evolution of the so-called International Gothic style developing in Burgundy, Bohemia and north Italy in the |
late 14th and early 15th centuries. Gouache is opaque watercolour, known also as poster paint and designer's colour. It is thinned with water for applying, with sable- and hog-hair brushes, |
to white or tinted paper and card and, occasionally, to silk. Honey, starch, or acrylic is sometimes added to retard its quick-drying property. Liquid glue is preferred as a thinner |
by painters wishing to retain the tonality of colours (which otherwise dry slightly lighter in key) and to prevent thick paint from flaking. Gouache paints have the advantages that they |
dry out almost immediately to a mat finish and, if required, without visible brush marks. These qualities, with the capacities to be washed thinly or applied in thick impasto and |
a wide colour range that now includes fluorescent and metallic pigments, make the medium particularly suited to preparatory studies for oil and acrylic paintings. It is the medium that produces |
the suede finish and crisp lines characteristic of many Indian and Islamic miniatures, and it has been used in Western screen and fan decoration and by modern artists such as |
Rouault, Klee, Dubuffet, and Morris Graves. Term applied to the lofty and rhetorical manner of history painting that in academic theory was considered appropriate to the most serious and elevated |
subjects. The classic exposition of its doctrines is found in Reynolds's Third and Fourth Discourses (1770 and 1771), where he asserts that 'the gusto grande of the Italians, the beau |
idéal of the French, and the great style, genius, and taste among the English, are but different appellations of the same thing'. The idea of the Grand Manner took shape |
in 17th-century Italy, notably in the writings of Bellori. His friend Poussin and the great Bolognese painters of the 17th century were regarded as outstanding exponents of the Grand Manner, |
but the greatest of all was held to be Raphael. An extensive journey to the Continent, chiefly to France, the Netherlands, and above all Italy, sometimes in the company of |
a tutor, that became a conventional feature in the education of the English gentleman in the 18th century. Such tours often took a year or more. It had a noticeable |
effect in bringing a more cosmopolitan spirit to the taste of connoisseurs and laid the basis for many collections among the landed gentry. It also helped the spread of the |
fashion for Neoclassicism and an enthusiasm for Italian painting. Among the native artists who catered for this demand were Batoni, Canaletto, Pannini, and Piranesi, and British artists (such as Nollekens) |
were sometimes able to support themselves while in Italy by working for the dealers and restorers who supplied the tourist clientele. There was also a flourishing market in guide books. |
A cross with four arms of equal length. Term current with several different meanings in the literature of the visual arts. In the context of the fine arts, it most |
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