Tablets That Kill You

(1) CHAPTER 6 THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY: THE PERSPECTIVE

CHAPTER 6 THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY: THE PERSPECTIVE

Jacques rouveyrol

I. CULTURAL DATA

A . Medieval culture is a symbolic thinking. Nature, the world is an expression of thought and the divine in physical form.

This material form cache (because thought is spiritual) and shows at once (because the material form has been shaped by the thought) the same thought. That is: a symbol .

In medieval culture, so there is God. The "nuts Saint Victor" is God in different appearances (see above).

Renaissance removes symbolic thinking and preparing scientific thought. God and the world (or Nature) divorce. We'll have to think about the world differently.

B . In the twelfth century, all knowledge is revealed. The means of knowledge is faith. Neither reason nor a fortiori senses have citizenship.

In XIII ° and XIV centuries, the foundation of knowledge is revealed and matters of faith. But the reason has been given to men by God, it must contribute to making knowledge more accessible to humans. Theology (St. Thomas Aquinas in particular) trying to reconcile the two ways of knowing: faith and raison.Les "science" have areas "reserved" and partly outside the control of the faith.

C . In the fifteenth century (especially in Italy), symbolic thought tends to disappear in favor of scientific thought that expands his empire (Copernicus, Polish, studies in Italy: the Earth is not the center of the world. Galileo soon: it turns on itself and around the sun. Giordano Bruno, finally: the universe is infinite) against religion.

Therefore to represent the world a new kind of "thought" and, for artists, a new system of representation. This will be: perspective.

II. THE SEARCH FOR THE DEPTH

1. Centralized view bifocal: Ghiberti

2. Lateralized bifocal perspective: Uccello

3. The prospect convex Fouquet

4. The prospect monofocal invented in Florence between 1420 and 1450

The political dimension: private space, public space. (The Strozzi to Cosimo de Medici). The public square as a place of historia .

When Cosimo de Medici returned from exile to Florence in 1434, he chased Palla Strozzi. It had been painted by Gentile da Fabriano's Adoration of the Magi , works belonging to prestigious international pure Gothic painting luxury but a complex narrative mess.

must in Como, to assert its difference with another art caractérisitques opposite: a sober and simple art. At least in public places (as for the private sector, such as his chapel at Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, he gives the same with Gothic International Benozzo Gozzoli). An art re-publican. This is precisely what makes the prospect. According to Albert, the prospect first constructs a public place (a place) which takes place a historia (which is history).
The rise of perspective is bound, although not exclusively but certainly, at this political upheaval in Florence.

(Masolino & Lippi Church of Carmine)

III. SENSE OF PERSPECTIVE AND CONDITIONS

1. The Construzioni legitima

The perspective is also named Construzioni legitima , legitimate construction. This means that it passes for an objective, realistic the world.
is the meaning of glass table Alberti. On the glass plate is reality itself which is inscribed to the eye at the top of the visual pyramid. Or sense, too, the TAVOLETTA Brunelleschi. The Baptistery of Florence is reflected "as is" in the mirror.

2. The world without God (Panofsky)

With the prospect is infinite which enters the world. He was previously reserved for God, transcendent. Here, entered the world, that he may without God.
Indeed, the vanishing lines that join to our vision on the horizon are actually parallel and, as such, do meet at infinity. Perspective, if it is not infinite is the suggestion.

3. A new world view centered on the topic (Francastel)

With the prospect is the subject of the vision that became the center of the world. The visible only becomes visible only from the point of view (visual top of the pyramid). The world becomes a stage on which man, as subject, that is to say as an actor (of vision) in the central square, Items not giving that compared to his perspective on them (which contradicts the belief in the objectivity of perception perspective).

4. A world view commensurate to man (Arasse)

With the perspective, the world becomes commensurable with the man. We return to the pretensions of the old Protagoras criticized by both Plato and Christian theology: "Man is the measure of all things." Thus the apparent size of objects decreases does, proportionally, depending on the distance to the human subject that perceives them.

5. Refutation belief in the objectivity of vision perspective.

- The first is a cyclopean vision. The perspective assumes an eye.

-

In addition, an objective view could be that of God (Van Eyck, The Madonna of Chancellor Rolin : clear vision, we have seen, from foreground to infinity discovering things like that 'they are; Bruegel, J them Children: panoptic vision which, while diving, a complete reference of all games).

-La Tavoletta then expresses clearly that the point of view about a particular place in the porch facing the Duomo Baptistery. Vision therefore strictly subjective.

-Moreover, contrary to what one might think the prospect is not there to make excat architecture since, in contrast, is the architecture that drifted from painting to the Renaissance.

-perspective is also not invented to make the depth. Other methods are used in parallel:

- segregation plans,

- The veduta.

Perspective is a method among others.
We'll see, moreover, it is not free of anomalies and, more importantly, these abnormalities far from clumsy demonstrations are intended by the artists (see Daniel ARRASS Annunciation Italian )

IV. "Anomalies" OUTLOOK

1. Trinity of Masaccio

The laws of perspective directs this composition. Only the cross and the body of Christ do not. What is the meaning of this anomaly? Is not that the being who is suspended from this cross is not of this world? It is not subject to the same laws?

2. The Italian annunciations

Daniel ARRASS note that many Italian annunciations presents similar anomalies. That of Domenico Veneziano, below, presents the curious feature of the show, its vanishing point, a doorknob disproportionate.

Domenico Veneziano

In this Annunciation by Fra Angelico, the vanishing point is ... forward: the middle column, preventing the eye to enjoy the depth normally generated by the flight lines

.................................... Fra Angelico

In this other Annunciation Lorenzetti, the perpespective does it seem that in the lower part tiled panel. Entire upper, gold, seems to ignore even the fact that an object can hide, even if only partially, another. Thus, before the written text: "non est impossibile " should spend a wing of the angel and the column. But the text stops at each "barrier" to restart later (see below). Without doubt this is one is, again, in a world that does not obey the laws of our own.

Ambrigio Lorenzetti

In the next Annunciation by Piero della Francesca, the angel and Mary are separated by a column. They can not see each other. The laws of perspective have allowed this paradoxical construction unequivocal. What does this mean?

.................... Piero della Francesca

Probably the latter. What is it represented in the Annunciation ? The very fact of the Incarnation . For, just when Mary agrees ("it is done according to his will"), it is permeated by the Spirit and the Savior is pregnant. But it was given to men to see Christ, God incarnate, he is given to anyone to see (or represent) the Incarnation. Anyway to give access to this event: the entry of the unrepresentable (God) in the world of things representable (the body), it was obvious to the impotence of perspectivecapable only to restore the things of our world.

The prospect is neither the means to objectively represent the world, nor the means to objectively represent our representation of the world. It can even be used symbolically to "appear" that is not our world. It is a device for expressing a new relationship in the world, a relationship in which man becomes the subject and hence the measure.

IV. SPACE AND TIME

Gradually, as the space has been unified, the time will get his unit. Successive scenes will not be displayed simultaneously on the same surface. In
Masaccio The Tribute the Carmine, there are still three times in a single space (Jesus to Peter intimating order to get money on the shore; Pierre running order; Pierre handing money). In The Banquet of Herod Philippo Lippo, Salome dance, center, receives the head of John the Baptist, left; she lays her head on the table, right.
is Leonardo da Vinci, who emphasize the incongruity there is to multiply the time dimension in the spatial unit, even Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper from repudiate the prospect

V. MISUNDERSTOOD THE "WINDOW" OF ALBERTI.

" My first act, when I want to paint an area, is to draw a rectangle the size that fits, as a window through which I can see the subject (historia) " De Pictura Alberti 1435 Book I, § 19 Contrary to what one might have thought, it was never intended for Alberti to open a window on the world.
It simply build the space of a table. This window is a frame. And a world table.

VI. FLORENTINE ARCHITECTURE

The picture is a world and a model for the world. Since this space Table derives the actual architectural space.
The medieval palace was a landing tower (eg Palazzo Vecchio in Florence). The Palace will be reborn antiquity. Thus marked by regularity, symmetry, proportion.
But above all by the visualization. Vision tools developed by Brunelleschi to visualize the project before its completion or even built. The architecture, with the prospect, was first designed and then implemented. It is the appearance of architectural projects.

Palazzo Medici-Riccardi (Michelozzo)

FlorenceEglise Saint-Andre (Alberti) Mantua