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FROM BREAST TO BEARD (story of Renaissance)

by M Gale

Jan Provoost, Christian Allegory

Giovanni di Paolo, Creation and the Expulsion from the Paradise

Leonardo da Vinci, Virgin of the Rocks

Alonso Cano, Miraculous Lactation of St Bernard

Jean Fouquet, Virgin and Child Surrounded by Angels

Cornelis van Haarlem, Monk with a Nun

Jan Gossaert, Virgin and Child

Sandro Botticelli, Mystical Nativity

Michelangelo, Last Judgment

After Michelangelo, Leda and the Swan

Correggio, Leda with the Swan

Giulio Romano, Jupiter and Olympia

Master of the Fontainebleau School, Gabrielle d'Estrees and one of her Sisters

Agnolo Bronzino, Allegory of Lust

Albrecht Durer, Death of Orpheus

Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith beheading Holofernes

Robert Campin, Werl Altarpiece

Raphael, Lady with a Unicorn

Quentin Massys, Grotesque Old Woman

Albrecht Durer, Portrait of a Boy with a Long Beard

Jusepe de Ribera, Bearded Woman

Gerard David, Flaying of the Corrupt Judge Sisamnes

Jan Sanders van Hemessen, Surgeon

Pieter Huys, Temptation of St Anthony

Andrea Mantegna, Saint Sebastian

Anonymous, Round bowl

Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Cook

Matthaus Merian the Elder, Anthropomorphic Landscape

William Scrots, Portrait of Edward VI

Hans Holbein the Younger, Ambassadors

Francesco del Cossa, Saint Lucy

The Renaissance cabinet of curiosities consists of bizarre images and unexpected motifs from real and imaginary life that displays, by means of twisted reality, the real spirit, mind and body of the Renaissance man, who is split between medieval superstition and the birth of a new Subject.

Many of these motifs were much less unusual for the Renaissance man than they appear to us today. In those times, people perceived the world in quite a different way than we do; in fact this was a short period of freedom when mind and body were equal and curiosity overpowered fear.

Weird Christian’s Motifs

Unusual symbolic representations of Christian motifs such as Giovanni di Paolo’s Creation and Expulsion from Paradise express the beginning of the Renaissance understanding of basic premises and religious truths. Creation of heaven and earth is depicted through concentric circles with zodiac on a circumference – microcosm as a small stage representation of macrocosm. An expulsion from paradise is depicted differently from other representations of the same motif; there is no horrifying god pointing his finger at the sinners but he looks more like a guide showing Adam and Eve the path to the Earth, and they are not terrified as usually but seem exiting and curious.

The new world was coming by disclosure and comprehension of the old and very old one, especially through the books and manuscripts. After Turkish conquest of Constantinople in 1453 many eastern scholars (Argyropoulos and others) immigrated to Florence bringing with them manuscripts, which they translated for Cosimo de’ Medici. This was the time of the foundation of the Platonic Academy. Cosimo de’ Medici established a debating circle in 1456, which became the Academy in 1462. The leader became Marcilio Ficino and the first members were Cristoforo Landino, Angelo Poliziano and Pico della Mirandola (so called Plato Four). Giovanni Picco della Mirandola, a Christian philosopher tried to combine Magic with Kabbalah and Theology. In his view neither Kabbalah neither Magic was in opposition with Christianity. He was unique in intention to combine all philosophies and religions, from Aristotle, Platon, Plotin and Dionizius Areopagus, to Caldeian’s oracles, Zarathustra, Hermetical texts and above all the Jewish Kabbalah.

Erotica in Church

'Lactans' iconography probably derives from Egyptian statues of sitting Isis who is nursing her son Horus. Breastfeeding as an artistic motif was very popular again in the Central Europe during the 15th and 16th century. This motive, spread from Spain, usually represents lactating Maria, pressing her naked breast, sprinkling Saint Bernard with milk on his lips (receiving oracle), eyes (clairvoyance), or his forehead (wisdom).

A motif of Maria exposing her naked breasts to her infant son was frequently used until Tridentine Council (1645-1653 in Trident). It was pretty common that women of upper class heavily emphasized their breasts with clothing and jewelry. Realistic images of these women disguised as Mary with bare breasts are religious and erotic at the same time.

The holy and the profane, or the spiritual and the corporeal, begun to intermingle in Renaissance life and art. Towards the end of the Renaissance the erotic content became more and more evident. Mannerism produced images where a mythological or allegorical motif appears only as a disguise for erotic contents. Quasi sacred motifs such as Cornelisz's painting The Monk with a Nun were just cover ups for erotica if not almost pornography. This painting was meant for the Prinsenhof (the Princes' Court), which had been set up at the Friars Preachers' Monastery of the Dominicans.

Censorship

Along with some Christian preachers, such iconography was vigorously rejected by the Protestants (iconoclasm). In the middle of the 15th century, Antonin condemned artists that painted apocryphal, heretic or profane motives, while preacher Johann Geller von Kayserberg (at the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th century) wrote concerning the clothes of the portrayed that there is no more a distinction between a whore and a noble woman.

Florence was at the end of the 15th century terrorized by the famous Dominican reformer, Giralomo Savonarola (1452-1498). His fanatical sermons influenced many artists to change their style, and many destroyed their works for which they thought they were indecent. The closer the end of 15th century drew, the more he widespread in his sermons the fear of the imminent end of the world.

'Catholic renewal' (censorship), adopted by the Tridentine Council, was a way to deal with the problem of re-establishing the strength of the Catholic faith and defend it from the attacks of Protestant reformers. One of the most important issues was the correct praise of the saints and their images.

Under the influence of Catholic propaganda, which was advertising the human body as 'sinful' and strictly forbidding any nakedness in Christian iconography, many artists themselves painted over the sinful nudity in their paintings. The Church resisted the spirit of the Renaissance, which had just learned that spirit and body are two sides of the same coin. Its medieval mentality postulated the holiness of spirit and recognized the body just as a part of decaying nature.

One of the most famous paintings censored on the suspicious places is Michelangelo’s ceiling (1508-1512) and painting of the Last Judgment (1536-1541) on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel. Naked figures in the Last Judgment provoked resentment even during Michelangelo's work in the Sistine Chapel. Daniele da Volterra was ordered to dress these figures in 1564, a task that earned him the nickname 'Il Braghettone' (Breeches-Maker).

The seventeenth century was the century of moralistic popes. Innocence X (1644-1676) demanded from Pietro da Cortona to over paint Guercino’s image of 'too naked' figure of Christ. He also demanded from Carlo Maratto to cover Maria’s breasts on Guido Reni’s painting in Palazzo Quirinale.

Mythological Covers for Sexuality

Nudity gradually moved from Christian iconography to mythological scenes where sexual themes were inherently embedded in the stories. In mythological motifs like Leda with the Swan, or images of Venus, Danaia, or Cupid, sexuality and physical beauty remained expressed and uncensored. Pictures were painted mostly for wealthy and influential customers that never concealed their demands and inclinations.

Corregio’s Jupiter (Zeus) and Io, commissioned by the Duke of Mantua, directly alludes to the sexual intercourse. The painter soothed out the motive by evaporating Jupiter into a cloud.

Very common were also the representations of Leda with a swan. The iconography originates in Greek mythology, where Zeus, appearing in the form of a swan, seduced Leda and made love to her. All representations of Leda bear a strong erotic expression. Correggio’s Leda with a Swan (1531-32) was so decidedly sensual that it upset the zealous piety of Louis, son of the Regent in Paris. He attacked this painting with a knife and cut Leda's head.

Coypel’s representation of Leda was created more than hundred years later, and is much more direct in its expression than usually painted motifs of Leda; we can hardly find another example where copulation is so explicitly depicted. Early sources showing that this kind of erotic attitude are known from Greek vases.

Un-usual Erotic Scenes

'School of Fontainebleau' was a group of 16th-century artists, mostly Italian painters, that on invitation of French king Francis I decorated the Royal palace at Fontainebleau (1530-1560). In the intimacy of the Fontainebleau castle, the so called 'mannerism of Fontainebleau School' produced, in spite of the severe catholic censorship of the representations of the nude body, strange erotic scenes usually cloaked as allegories or mythological motives. Such is the painting called Gabrielle d'Estrees and one of her Sisters, which motif is still unknown. Some consider that the blonde woman is in fact Gabrielle d'Estrees, mistress of French king Henry IV, and that the painting is an allusion to the birth of their son Cesar. Besides Gabrielle the other woman portrayed should be her sister considering the likeness of both portraits. Another theory suggests that this is a 'twin portrait' of the same person.

Homoeroticism was also very present during the Renaissance, as much in poetry (Michelangelo, Bronzino) as in fine arts. Many artists were prosecuted on charges of sodomy with apprentices or their posing models (Leonardo in 1476, Botticelli in 1502, and Cellini in 1523 and 1557). Bronzino’s Venus, Cupide and Time is full of homoerotic allusions. This painting was commissioned by Cosimo I de’ Medici as a gift for King Francis I of France. Cosimo was depicted as naked Orpheus in one of his portraits painted by Bronzino (Portrait of Grand Duke Cosimo de’ Medici as Orpheus, about 1538-1540). Death of Orpheus drawn by Albrecht Durer surprisingly bears the inscription saying, that Orpheus was the first homosexual.

Italian woman painter Arthemisia Gentileschi is interesting in our context mostly because of the story that is associated with her two paintings of Judith beheading Holofenes. They were made as a response to her being allegedly raped by her art teacher, Agostino Tassi. Some others interpret this picture in a completely different way. They say that they were lovers who were involuntary divided by Artemisia’s father Orazio and that the trial was a farce. Anyway, with her self portrait as a Judith Arthemisia definitely wants to tell us her story, whatever it was – an interpretation depends on a beholder as Durer said.

Artist’s Signature

A Renaissance artist was in a way already a modern painter in a sense of expressing his individuality. He wanted to be recognized by his work. His particularity was usually his only signature as for the paintings were rarely signed. Sometimes he developed quite unusual ways for a signature. Jan van Eyck, for example, painted himself in a framed mirror on the back wall in the Betrothal of Arnolfini (1434). This was allegedly first known self portrait depicted as a painting within a painting. The same signature of an artist was used by Robert Campin on the left wing of his Werl Altarpiece (1438) and Hans Memling on the Diptych of Maarten Nieuwenhove (1487).

Many times artists depicted themselves in a group of observers (Adoration of the magi, Miracle of a saint, Crucifixion etc.). Some of the artists were more innovative and put themselves in various roles such as Michelangelo Buonaroti who portrayed himself without a body, as an empty skin in the hands of Saint Bartholomew (Last Judgment in Sistine chapel). Early baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi depicted herself as Judith Beheading Holofernes and Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio as decapitated Goliath’s head in David and Goliath.

The most intriguing ‘theory about a self portrait’ is the one ascribing Mona Lisa Leonardo's features. It is interesting that Mona Lisa and Leonardo's self portrait as an old painter are very similar if we ignore the age difference. Maybe already Raphael wanted to tell us the same story with his Lady with a Unicorn (1502)? The composition of the picture is almost identical with the famous Leonardo’s painting, and the sitter looks like Raphael’s self portrait (Portrait of the Artist with a Friend, about 1518)?!

What if Leonardo and Raphael or some other artists wanted to tease the viewer and show that what we see is not what it really is but that the phantasm lies in-between?

Real particularities

Unusual but realistic images of people with animal physiognomy, which were already known from medieval illuminated manuscripts (bestiaries and drolleries), are present in the Renaissance as well. With translations of Greek texts which devote whole chapters to animal physiognomy, describing human properties in terms of relations of parts of a human body to those of the animal (translation of pseudo-Aristotle, published in 1497 by Aldus in Venice), and together with some new theoretical books of the Renaissance, physiognomy as a science was completely revived. Like in Middle Ages is 'new' physiognomy often upgraded with astrology.

In 1503 Bartolommeo della Rocca and Alessandro Achellini published Anastasis of Bolognese doctors and hermetical philosophers, where they state that:

Soul acts according to the shape of the body ... Plato, the wisest, writes, that likeness of human and animal features results in similar nature. Who has an eagle-nose is noble, cruel, and predator likes an eagle. People having their heads like a Spanish dog are quick-tempered and talkative ...

Leonardo is not very enthusiastic about these ideas, and writes in his Tractate on painting, that these theories are very deceptive.

Real people

Even more shocking are the portraits of real people, like the portrait of Felix and Magdalene Ventura with a child (Ribera, Bearded Woman), or portraits of Petrus Gonsalvus (Hirsute Man) and his hirsuite children. They were ‘normal people’ with an unusual bodily particularity, which made them the objects of a medical research. Now we know that their odd appearance was the results of a sickness, known as hipertricose.

In case of portraits of unusual people, the interest of those who commissioned such paintings and the interest of various collectors was not in the painting as a work of art but rather in the person portrayed, their particular destiny and their deeds.

The painting of Gregor Bacci (16th century) by an unknown German painter came from the collection of Archduke Ferdinand II, who was primarily interested in ‘real particularities’ like portraits of real people or unusual events. Gregor Bacci was identified as the Hungarian nobleman, wounded at a knight's tournament. He was depicted in the moment when a lance pierced his eye. What made him interesting for the painter and the collector was his ability or his luck to survive this - usually deadly - injury.

The rediscovery of the human body during the Renaissance stimulated interest in scientific exploration of the human anatomy. On the other hand medicine remained uniquely in the domain of ‘quacks’ and charlatans, far into The Age of Reason. It was universally believed that the epilepsy was caused by a stone in the head, and curable only if surgically removed. This operation was usually performed on the street, in the market place, at fairs and such a happening provided entertainment for the crowds.

Extraction of the Stone of Madness or Cure of Folly represents one of the satirical images popular in most countries in Northern Europe. Netherlandish painter Hieronymus Bosh made a joke from the motif and instead of a stone painted a tulip, a Dutch metaphor for foolishness.

Fantasies

In the works of Northern masters, realistic landscapes of Italian painters are transformed into fantasy-scapes in which anthropomorphic forms mix with imaginary ones. These often accompany the usual Christian motifs, like the Temptation of Saint Anthony, representing a bizarre mixture of a legend and pure imagination. Such paintings were also intended to scare the believers.

The fantasy creatures like in Bosch's painting Garden of Earthly Delights are composed of different parts of real animals, which shows great interest in animal anatomy.

Illusions

The curious eye and the 'twisted' mind of the Renaissance loved all kinds of optical illusions and riddles about the meanings of paintings. These could be expressed through imaginary images (Andrea Mantegna, Saint Sebastian), a hint of meaning (Albrecht Durer, Melencholia), a distorted perspective, anthropomorphic illusion, a double image (Giuseppe Archimboldo, The Cook), or from our present perspective, a twisted reality.

An image within an image is always surprising, because it is not obvious at first glance. The 'double image' is an image that represents two different things at the same time, like the pictures of anthropomorphic landscapes painted by a family of painters in Switzerland, the Merians. Some of them are jokes like the head of a man with a beard that is a landscape at the same time.

Similar anthropomorphic illusion is Durer's watercolor View of Arco. We observe an image of a landscape, but a more careful inspection reveals a head concealed in the rocks. Rocky landscape is representing realistic reflection of a town, and a fantasy image of a human face at the same time. This is an optical illusion.

Guiseppe Arcimboldo was also a master of fantasy and surprise. His paintings were called bizarre inventions and were a great success at the Hapsburg court in Vienna. He actually invented the 'composite heads' and 'double images'. These paintings have several meanings and can be interpreted on several different levels.

Phantoms

Various illusions of perspective also appeared in the Renaissance. They were showing that the reality of perspective is artificially produced. These anamorphoses twist the geometrical rules of perspective: instead of reducing forms to their visible shapes, the inverted process projects objects 'out of themselves' and makes them discernible only from a specific point of view.

Anamorphoses are still images produced by the apparatus of perspective: in spite of their enigmatical appearance, their distortion is ruled by the laws of exaggerated perspective.

Holbein combined two principles in his Ambassadors: trompe l'oeil and anamorphosis. Next to two complete male figures of ambassadors and various attributes of art and science, we can see an anamorphically painted dead man’s skull. If we observe the painting from the usual central viewpoint, the image of the skull is not recognized, it seems like a large stain on the painting. The picture becomes clear and makes sense only from a certain angle.

Holbein's Ambassadors can be described as an image within an image, where the first image explains the second and vice versa. It can be regarded as a portrait and equally as a motif of Vanitas:

… When the observer is almost in the neighboring room, he takes one last look back, and only than it becomes clear: the whole picture disappeared in the optical reduction and a secret element appears: a skull between a human shine. Both persons and all their scientific attributes disappear, and they are replaced by...

...The End. The game is over.

Such paintings clearly show that the Renaissance artists were aware that the ‘image in itself’ is inherently linked with ‘the way of looking at’ the image. They understood that the newly discovered perspective was just a mathematical model, which enables them to transfer the real world onto a canvas. Interpretation depends on the observer, or in Durer's words:

First is the sight, that is the eye; second is the form of the thing seen; third is the distance between the eye and the thing seen; fourth are the lines which depart from the extremities of the thing and come to the eye; fifth is the intersection (termine) which is between the eye and the thing seen, and on which is intended to locate the things.

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FROM BREAST TO BEARD (story of Renaissance)