Gopnik: Renaissance Man

In Adam Gopnik's article for the New Yorker Magazine, Leonardo, from Vinci, is seen as otherworldly yet a man of his time.  It is doubtless that Leonardo was an odd duck but, is this just a result of pure genius?  "Leonardo remains weird, matchlessly weird, and nothing to be done about it."  (Gopnik)  Leonardo had an insatiable curiosity for everything.  It seems ironic that he had a disdain for being called a "painter".  He put wings on pet lizards, scribbled a parachute which proved to work perfectly, designed buildings, and imagined things that were yet-to-be invented.

There are two new books about Leonardo that try and make this genius Renaissance man more tangible.  "Leonardo" by Martin Kemp and "Leonardo da Vinci: Flights of the Mind" by Charles Nicholl come at this biography in different ways.  Kemp's book is less of a biography and more of "a series of intense, learned meditations on Leonardesque themes."  (Gopnik)  The book states that, in his search for true proportion, Leonardo approached it visually and not mathematically.  He had the ability of seeing abstract form.

Nicholl's book is more of a true historical biography.  I personally read the chapter about Leonardo's studio and came away from it with a vivid image of what his life was like.  He quotes letters and documents.  He details the realities of Leonardo's birth and sexual orientation, and it's impact at the time.  Benvenuto Cellini, the Florentine sculptor, quotes the King of France as saying that Leonardo was "the most interesting man he had ever spoken to."  (Gopnik)

Everyone watched Leonardo.  A monk in Milan made notes as Leonardo painted the Last Supper.  It was noted that he would sometimes show up, stare at his painting, and they leave.  In the book, Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown alludes to Jesus having fathered children and being the secret "re-founder of the old religion of the Goddess through the veneration of Mary Magdalene".  Could St. John in the Last Supper actually be Mary Magdalene in disguise?

In dealing with Leonardo, we know that he was someone unique.  "His life's work was to turn his contemporaries' idea of the artist from artisan to genius, from working stiff to saint and shaman and magician and necromancer -- and, for that matter, rich man's ornament."  I, personally, am going to put Nicholl's book on my "must read" list.

Rowland: Cultural Introduction to Renaissance Rome

To visit Rome, is akin to looking at "striations in an ancient rock."  Rome had it's birth and it's rebirth with the underlying theme of  Roma Caput Mundi, "Rome, head of the world."  (Lucan)  The writer Petrarch wrote in 1367, "Although when I first...went to Rome, almost nothing was left of that old Rome but an outline or an image, and only the ruins bore witness to its bygone greatness..."  The papacy, humanist philosophy, and Renaissance Rome changed all of that.

What gave new Rome the inspiration to rise out of the ruins described by Petrarch were the humanists serving the Curia as its clerical staff.  The re-builders of Rome believed that their work answered a higher calling, that of God.  They felt the scattered ruins had their own mystical powers.  The humanists, theologians, and artists who worked to rebuild Rome as the caput mundi carefully investigated the "divine order in all its forms, a revelation of Gods plan.  With the papacy returning to Rome, inspiration was drawn, in all aspects, from the ancient Roman Empire, from which examples could be found throughout the city.  "As these stories of papal imperium and republican revolution prove repeatedly, the brooding presence of the ancient ruins gave Renaissance Rome's sense of its distant past an urgent physical immediacy."  (Rowland)  Romes ancient past met with a creative present.

By the end of the sixteenth century, construction had become Rome's chief industry, luring architects, painters, sculptors, and other craftsman to it borders.  The humanists turned language into a powerful, persuasive form of speech - rhetoric.  Its goal was to persuade and included techniques for presenting a viable case.  "Only the beauty and emotional charge of ancient rhetoric paid adequate tribute to the beauty of Christian theology."  (Cortesi)  It seems that a refined language and refined building would demonstrate to the world the Christian truth.

Nicholas V undertook the task of creating the Vatican Library.  This would have been supported by the humanists.  It stood as a memorial to ancient Roe and as a testament to Rome's rebirth.  It was organized in humanist fashion:  philosophy, law, poetry, and theology.    Sixtus IV completed the plans and commissioned the Ghirlandaio brothers from Florence to decorate it.  The library lived up to it's intent - an "apostolic institution, an explicit instrument of Christian mission"  (Rowland)

Patronage and Popes: Saints or Sinners?

The breakaway of the Protestants from the church during the Renaissance, and the confiscation of church lands and revenue sources by rising nation-states, led the papacy from become more regionalized and, therefore, more Italian.  Popes played the roles of "secular prince, autocratic warlord, and hated tax collector."  This loss of the claim to world dominance was further hindered by the brutal Sack of Rome in 1527 by Charles V.

Pope Sixtus IV

Pope Julius II

The Renaissance church, although motivated by piety, humility, poverty, and self-sacrifice, was corrupt.  Popes were labeled with accolades such as nepotism, alienation, simony, pluralism, and absenteeism.  Many of the Protestant reformers saw the pope as the Antichrist and Rome as a Babylon.

Filippino Lippi's Parents

As we discussed in a previous blog, Filippino Lippi is the son of the famous Quattrocento painter, Fra Filippo Lippi, and Lucrezia Buti, a nun.  

Here are some self portraits by Fra Filippo Lippi that show the passion of these two lovers.  

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The use of linear perspective and vibrant colors make these paintings very dramatic.

Filippino Lippi - Background

Filippino Lippi was born in 1456 to Fra Filippo Lippi and Lucrezia Buti, a nun.  He is considered among the most gifted and accomplished Florentine painters of the late Quattrocento in Italy.  Filippino was first trained as an artist and draftsman by his father and then by Sandro Botticelli in 1472.  After his time with Botticelli, Filippino Lippi went out on his own, having mastered the techniques of these two maestros.

Filippino Lippi's early style included animated form and line with the use of warm color.  In 1475-1480, he painted Tobias and the Angel which now hangs in the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.

                                                 

The subject of Tobias was popular at this time among the merchants who had family members traveling to far-off places.  In 1496, Filippino Lippi painted the Adoration of the Magi which can be seen in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.  This panel was painted for the convent of San Donato agli Scopeli to substitute the unfinished one started by Leonardo da Vinci.  Lippi has developed a greater care to detail and a more energetic use of forms.

This painting is said to be inspired by the Botticelli work of the same name and, like that work, includes members of the Medici family.

Leonardo: Flights of the Mind/The Studio

After 10 years with Verrocchio as his pupil, in 1477 Leonardo da Vinci set up his own studio in Florence.  He had already completed Ginevra and demonstrated his ability to go beyond his master.  There was a lot of competition at the time and Leonardo, as maestro, begins taking on apprentices.  This is not without scandal as Paolo de Leonardo de Vinci da Firenze is put in prison for the "wicked life he had followed there."  (Bentivoglio letter of 1479)   It appears that we can add Paolo to Leonardo's list of boyfriends including Jacopo Saltarelli and Fioravanti di Domenio.  Paolo was a master in marquetry, the highly skilled and much demanded craft of inlaying wood.

Despite all of the gossip surrounding him, Leonardo received his first commission in 1478.  It was for an altarpiece for the chapel of the Palazzo Vecchio (the Capella di San Barnardo).  There are no sketches known for this piece.  Filippino Lippi completed an altarpiece which shows the Madonna and angels with very "Leonardesco" elements and it is thought that it comes from a lost Leonardo cartoon of c. 1478. Another painting, the Benois Madonna, appears to have more credibility as relating to the "2 vergini" he began in 1482.  It has "a sweetness and freshness and movement which immediately lift it beyond the posed, hieratic elegance of the Verrocchio Madonnas with their blond hair and lifted little fingers."  (Nicholl)  The sketches for this are some of Leonardo's most brilliant Florentine works.

In 1478, Leonardo was caught by a disturbance in the Florence cathedral.  There was an attempt on the life of Lorenzo de Medici whereby his brother, Guiliano, was stabbed.  There were many public executions. Bernardo di Bandino escaped but was returned to Florence.  Leonardo was at the hanging and prepared an in situ drawing.  "As the body dangles in its final indignity, with bound hands and unshod feet, Leonardo captures a strange sense of repose."  (Nicholl)

Leonardo had another apprentice named Tommaso, or Zoroastro.  He was an alchemist and was thought to help with Leonardo's early efforts as an engineer.  Leonardo studied Brunelleschi's ingenious hoists and cranes.  He demonstrated how to hoist the Baptistery in order to place steps under it.  There are writings that indicate Leonardo had a circle of acquaintances, four of whom were scientists and scholars.  Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli, or Paolo the physician, was an influence on aerial perspective, optical illusion, and astronomy. This shows Leonardo's insatiable interest in sciences.  Leonardo also delved in poetry and music.

Meet Filippino Lippi.  He is a Florentine High Renaissance painter and draftsman.  We are going to take a trip through his life and explore his works in the Carafa Chapel and Strozzi Chapel.  Stay tuned.