Западноевропейское искусство от Джотто до Рембрандта - страница 8

5. It is noted for the novelty of its background perspective.

6. It demonstrates Mantegna's high level of perfection.

a. Dead Christ

b. Burial of St. Christopher

c. Assumption

d. Martyrdom of St. James

e. Saint James Led to Execution

f. The Gonzaga frescoes

V. Translate the text into English.

Андреа Мантенья, крупнейший художник-монументалист падуанской школы. В своих работах он любил изображать античные памятники и развалины. В капелле Оверати Мантенья изобразил историю Св. Иакова, как реальное событие. По заказу мантуанских правителей Мантенья расписал одну из комнат дворца. Художник представил семейный портрет Гонзаго и сцены из придворной жизни Мантуи. Фреска плафона, изображающая в самом центре свода круглую галерею с людьми, смотрящими сквозь перила, является первой иллюзионистической декорацией в западноевропейском искусстве. Именно с нее начинается многовековая традиция потолочной росписи в Европе.

VI. Summarize the text.

VII. Topics for discussion.

1. Mantegna's style and characters.

2. Mantegna's artistic innovations.

Among the painters of the poetic current in the late fifteenth century, Sandro Botticelli stands alone in depth of feeling and delicacy of style. His concentration on line is so deep and his research into the unreal is so enchanting, that it is difficult to believe that he studied with Filippo Lippi, a follower of Masaccio. Although aloof from scientific current and criticized by the young Leonardo da Vinci Botticelli remained the leading painter resident in Florence in the 1480s and 1490s. Before him the old masters had drawn the inspiration for their works from the Bible. Botticelli delighted in myths, fables, and poetry, his nature was imaginative. The artist was the first to make his painting a means for the delight of the secular as well as the religious world.

Botticelli was closely associated with the Medici and his fortune paralleled theirs. After the death of Lorenzo, that ended the world in which Botticelli had found honours and fame, the painter was greatly impressed by the preaching of Savonarola. Soon he became an ardent disciple of this great prophet. When Savonarola demanded that bonfires should be made of the «profane pictures», he contributed many of his works of art to the bonfire pile. In his later life Botticelli turned to a religious style, and after 1500 gave up painting altogether.

Botticelli's most celebrated pictures, the Primavera (The Allegory of Spring) and the Birth of Venus were painted at a slight distance from each other in time, the first on panel, the second on canvas. Later the two paintings were considered companion pieces. Both have been interpreted in different ways. The Primavera with its ambiguous but clear meaning, is far from being the simple pagan mythology that it appears to be at first sight. No explanation of the Primavera is wholly successful. Probably the Primavera symbolizes Lorenzo Medici's real wedding in 1482.

A Christianized Venus, modestly dressed and resembling Botticelli's Madonnas, reigns in the midst of a dark grove of trees bearing golden fruit. At the right Zephyrus, the wind-god, pursues the nymph Chloris; flowers issue from her mouth. She is transformed into the goddess Flora, clothed in a flower-covered gown, from its folds she strews blossoms upon the lawn. At the left Mercury is dispelling tiny clouds from the golden apple, the symbol of the Medici family. Between Mercury and Venus the Three Graces dance in a ring. These lovely creatures are shown in transparent garments. This painting is a complex allegory. As in all Botticelli's mature works his figures are extremely attenuated, with long necks, torsos, arms and sloping shoulders. Their beautiful faces and graceful bodies and limbs seem almost bloodless and weightless, their white feet touch the ground so lightly that not a flower or a leaf is bent. The individual forms are perfectly modelled. Botticelli's representation of figures in motion is far beyond anything that preceded him and has never been excelled. The composition is based on an interweaving of linear patterns, drapery folds, streaming or braided hair, trunks, and leaves. Such a picture, both in content and style, represents a withdrawal from naturalism of the Early Florentine Renaissance.