Perspective and Nature Quattrocento Italy II Giotto Ognissanti

Perspective and Nature: Quattrocento Italy II

Giotto, Ognissanti Madonna, ca. 1310 Jan van Eyck, Virgin, from the Ghent Altarpiece, shortly after 1432

Giorgio Vasari Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (first edition 1550; expanded edition 1568)

Simone Martini, Annunciation, 1333

There are some who make excessive use of gold, because they think it lends a certain majesty to painting. I would not praise them at all. Even if I wanted to paint Virgil’s Dido with her quiver of gold, her hair tied up in gold, her gown fastened with golden clasp, driving her chariot with golden reins, and everything else resplendent with gold I would try to represent with colors rather than with gold this wealth of rays of gold that almost blinds the eyes of the spectator from all angles. Besides the fact that there is greater admiration and praise for the artist in the use of colors, it is also true that, when done in gold on a flat panel, many surfaces that should have been presented as light and gleaming, appear dark to the viewer, while others that should be darker, probably look brighter. Leon Battista Alberti, On Painting (1435)

Leon Battista Alberti

Pietro Lorenzetti, Birth of the Virgin, from the altar of St Savinus, Siena Cathedral, 1342

Albrecht Dürer, woodcut from the Course in the Art of Measurements (1525)

LINEAR PERSPECTIVE VANISHING POINT ORTHOGONAL LINES HORIZON

Baldassare Peruzzi, Perspective drawing with monuments of Rome, ca. 1520

Masaccio, Holy Trinity, fresco, Santa Maria Novella, Florence, ca. 1424 -1427

I was once what you are and what I am you will also be.

Paolo Uccello, Battle of San Romano, tempera on wood, ca. 1438 -1440 (dimensions: 6’ x 10’ 5’’)

Paolo Uccello, Perspective study of a chalice, pen on paper, ca. 1430 -1440

Fra Angelico, Virgin and Child with Saints (San Marco Altarpiece), tempera on wood, 1438 -1443 (dimensions: 7’ 2⅝’’ x 7’ 5⅜’’)

Dominic Mark Francis John the Evangelist Peter the Martyr Lawrence Cosmas Damian

Rogier van der Weyden, Entombment, oil on wood, ca. 1450

Ghent Altarpiece (details)

Egg tempera Oil paint • dries quickly • does not lend itself to broad application • applied thinly and evenly in tightly placed, regular, parallel strokes • opaque: colors applied next to, rather than on top of one another • colors remain true to the mineral pigments • takes hours, even days to dry • allows for blending of colors and the creation of new tones • allows for gradual transitions • translucence: what is beneath shows through • consistency of the medium is adjustable • greater variety in the size of brushes and the ways in which colors is applied • unlike tempera’s smooth appearance, oil can give texture

Antonello da Messina, Annunciate Virgin, oil on wood, ca. 1476 (dimensions: 17¾’’ x 13⅝’’)