A type of illusionistic decoration in which architectural elements are painted on walls and/or ceilings in such a way that they appear to be an extension of the real architecture of a room into an imaginary space. It was common in Roman art, was revived by Mantegna in the 15th century, and reached its peaks of elaboration in Baroque Italy. The greatest of all exponents of quadratura was probably Pozzo, in whose celebrated ceiling in S. Ignazio, Rome, architecture and figures surge towards the heavens with breathtaking bravura. Unlike Pozzo, many artists relied on specialists called quadraturisti to paint the architectural settings for their figures (see Guercino and Tiepolo, for example).
The simulation of a wall painting for a ceiling design in which a painted scene is produced in a panel resembling a composition on the surface of a shallow, curved vault. The plural form is quadri riportati.
decorative motif in Gothic art consisting of four lobes or sections of circles of the same size.
The 15th century in Italian art. The term is often used of the new style of art that was characteristic of the Early Renaissance, in particular works by Masaccio, Brunelleschi, Donatello, Botticelli, Fra Angelico and others. It was preceded by the Trecento and followed by the Cinquecento.
chapels leading off from the ambulatory, and arranged in a semi-circular fashion.
style of Gothic architecture flourishing in France from the mid-13th century to the mid-14th century, characterized by greater use of stained-glass and by the "radiating" tracery of its rose windows (hence the name). The Sainte-Chapelle in Paris is the leading example of the style. It was the second major form of French Gothic, and was followed by Flamboyant.
Realism (with an upper case "R"), also known as the Realist school, denotes a mid-nineteenth century art movement and style in which artists discarded the formulas of Neoclassicism and the theatrical drama of Romanticism to paint familiar scenes and events as they actually looked. Typically it involved some sort of sociopolitical or moral message, in the depiction of ugly or commonplace subjects. One of the main representatives and spokesmen was the painter Gustave Courbet. In the dispute about ways to represent reality, Realism rebelled against the idealistic and classicist tendencies in painting.
the gradual reconquest by Christian forces of the Spanish and Portuguese kingdoms held by the Moors, who had conquered much of the Iberian peninsula in the early 8th century. The Reconquista finally came to an end in 1492, when the Moors lost Granada.
Monastic dining hall.
Churches that rejected the authority of the Pope from the 16th century. In 16th century Europe, the two main denominations were the Lutherans and the Calvinists, with the Anglican Church developing in England.
Transitional style in architecture and decoration originated in France during the regency (1715–23) of Philippe, duc d'Orléans. The most important practitioners of the régence were Gilles Marie Oppenord and Robert de Cotte. In this period, curved lines and many motifs such as shells, masques, and sinuous foliated scrolls were introduced. These innovations were subsequently developed in Rococo design. The legs of furniture took bulging outlines and the corners of panels were curved. The use of gilt bronze was extended, and walnut, rosewood, and other woods largely replaced ebony in veneers.
a part of the body of a saint, or some item connected with a saint, the object of particular veneration.
A sculptural work in which all or part projects from the flat surface. There are three basic forms: low relief (bas-relief, basso rilievo), in which figures project less than half their depth from the background; medium relief (mezzo-rilievo), in which figures are seen half round; and high relief (alto rilievo), in which figures are almost detached from their background.
An order is a body of men or women bound by solemn vows and following a rule of life, e.g. the great orders of monks, hermits, canons regular, friars and nuns, or the Jesuits. A congregation may be either a subsection of an order, or a body of persons bound by simple vows and generally having a looser structure than an order. Among the old orders there was both fusion and fission. Among the contemplative orders, originally autonomous houses tended to group themselves into congregations, presided over by chapters general. A major stimulus to such reform movements was concern for mutual defence against the abuse of commendams, i.e. the grant of abbacies 'in trust' to non-resident outsiders to the order. At the same time, there was dissidence and fractionalization in almost all of the old orders and congregations, the great issue of contention being the strict observance.
The Benedictines, who had no overall organization originally, were mostly grouped into congregations by the 16th century. The Silvestrines, Celestines and Olivetines were old congregations. That of S. Giustina, Padua, which was to become the main Italian one, developed from 1419 under the leadership of the Venetian Lodovico Barbo. He was particularly concerned to develop sacred studies and eventually there were certain designated houses of study for the entire congregation, the most notable being S. Benedetto, Mantua. In 1504, having absorbed St Benedict's original monastery, it became the Cassinese congregation. The Camaldolese were an offshoot of the Benedictines. Founded by St Romuald c. 1012, they followed a distinctive eremetical rule of life, rather on the model of Eastern monasticism, with hermitages linked to matrix monasteries. In the second decade of the 16th century Paolo Giustiniani led a movement for a revival of the strict eremetical ideal; hence the formation of the Monte Corona congregation.
Canons Regular of St Augustine follow a rule and are basically monks; they are to be distinguished from secular canons who serve cathedral and collegiate churches. Two major congregations arose from reform movements in the 15th century: that of S. Salvatore, Bologna (1419), and the Lateran one (1446) which grew from S. Maria di Fregonaia, Lucca. A body genuinely monastic and contemplative in spirit, although technically of secular canons, was the congregation of S. Giorgio in Alga, Venice (1404), whose foundation is especially associated with Gabriel Condulmer (later Eugenius IV) and S. Lorenzo Giustiniani, the great patriarch of Venice. The Hermits of St Augustine and the Carmelites were originally contemplative eremetical orders which turned to the active life of friars. The Hermits of St Jerome (Hieronymites or Gerolimini) appeared from the 15th century and included the Fiesole and Lombard congregations and that of Pietro Gambacorta of Pisa.
The Friars Minor (Franciscans) had been split after their founder's death by disputes between the Spirituals, with their ideology of an absolute apostolic poverty, and their more institutionalized brethren, the Conventuals. After the repression of the Spirituals, the great dispute in the order was primarily a legalistic one: the division was between the Conventuals, whose friaries were corporate property-owners; and the generally moderate Observants; whose friaries were technically non-property owning, their resources being in the hands of trustees. 'The Observance' did not necessarily designate a very straitened rule of life but in the 15th century a strict movement of the Observance developed whose leading figures were S. Bernardino of Siena, S. Giovanni da Capestrano and Giacomo della Marca. In 1517, the bull 'Ite vos' of Leo X instituted the Great Division between Friars Minor (Conventual) and Friars Minor of the Observance; various groups were fused in the latter body, which was given precedence over the Conventuals. The Conventuals, however, continued to hold the order's great basilicas. The same bull provided for special friaries within the Observance for those dedicated to a very strict interpretation of the Rule. Failure to implement this clause caused a splinter movement of zealot groups which finally coalesced into the Capuchins and the Reformed (canonically recognized in 1528 and 1532 respectively). The Order of Preachers (Dominicans) underwent similar if less serious crises over the issue of poverty and a body of the strict observance was established in the late 14th century; however, the Dominicans were substantially reunited under the generalate of the great Tommaso di Vio da Gaeta (1508-18). Other orders of Friars were the Minims, founded by S. Francesco da Paola in 1454 on the primitive Franciscan model, and the Servites following the Augustinian rule.
The 16th century produced the Jesuits (founded in 1541) and several rather small congregations of clerks regular, who had many of the marks of secular clergy but who lived a common life. Generally they were devoted to pastoral and welfare work. The first, the Theatines, founded by Giampietro Caraffa (later Paul IV) and the Vicentine aristocrat S. Gaetano da Thiene, emerged from the Roman Oratory of Divine Love in 1524. The Somaschi were founded at Somasca near Bergamo in 1532 by S. Gerolamo Aemiliani, a Venetian noble castellan turned evangelist; this congregation specialized in the upbringing of orphan boys. The Barnabites were founded at Milan by S. Antonio Maria Zaccaria in 1533, while the Congregation of the Oratory was founded in Rome in the 1560s by S. Filippo Neri. One of the few significant innovations among the female orders were the Ursulines, an offshoot of the Brescian Confraternity of Divine Love, founded in 1535 by S. Angela Merici. S. Angela's intention was that they should be a congregation of unenclosed women dedicated to the active life in charitable and educational work; however, the ecclesiastical authorities forced the Ursulines into the mould of an enclosed contemplative order. While the friars basically remained attached to scholastic philosophy and theology, certain sections of contemplative orders were distinguished for humanist studies and related forms of religious scholarship; most notably the Cassinese Benedictine congregation, the Lateran Canons (especially of the Badia Fiesolana) and the Camaldolese, who included Ambrogio Traversari in Florence and a group of scholars at S. Michele in Isola, Venice.
A temporary settlement of Germany's religious conflicts agreed in 1532 between Emperor Charles V and those German princes who supported the Reformed Churches. Though it merely postponed the final settlement of the issue until the next diet, the settlement was in effect a formal recognition of Lutheranism.
a container (often richly decorated) for sacred relics, usually parts of a saint's body.
A French label given to an Italian cultural movement and to its repercussions elsewhere; also, on the assumption that chronological slices of human mass experience can usefully be described in terms of a dominant intellectual and creative manner, a historical period. For Italy the period is popularly accepted as running from the second generation of the 14th century to the second or third generation of the 16th century. Though there is something inherently ridiculous about describing a period of 250 years as one of rebirth, there is some justification for seeing a unity within it, if only in terms of the chronological self-awareness of contemporaries.
For Petrarch the challenge to understand and celebrate the achievements of ancient Rome led him to scorn the intervening centuries which had neglected them; he saw them as an age of intellectual sleep, of 'darkness', and his own as potentially one of light, of an energetic revival of interest in, and competition with, too long forgotten glories. Thanks to his fame not only as a scholar but also as a poet and a voluminous correspondent, this sense of living in an age of new possibilities was rapidly shared by others who worked within the intellectual framework which came to be known as Humanism. Perhaps the sense of living in a new mental atmosphere can be compared to the exhilaration that followed the realization that Marxist analysis could be used to look afresh at the significance of intellectual and creative, as well as political, life. The humanistic enthusiasm lasted so long, however, because its core of energy, the historical reality of antiquity, was so vast and potent, because it was uncontroversial (save when an assassin borrowed the aura of Brutus, or a paganizing faddist mocked Christianity), and because the scholarly excitement about the need to imitate the achievements of the Roman (and, increasingly, Greek) past was sustained by evidence from contemporary art and literature that it could be done. Even when the Wars of Italy had inflicted grievous humiliations on Italian pride, Vasari could still see a process of restored vigour in the arts, which had begun early in the 14th century, as only coming near its close with the death of Michelangelo in 1564.
Vasari's Lives became a textbook of European repute. It was his contention that he was describing what followed from the rinascita or rebirth of the arts that launched the word on its increasingly inclusive career. For long, however, it was a 'renaissance' of this or that, of arts, of scholarship, of letters. Not until the publication in 1855 of the volume in Jules Michelet's Histoire de France entitled 'La Renaissance' was the label attached to a period and all that happened in it; not until the appearance of Jacob Burckhardt's still seminal Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy in 1860 was it ineluctably identified in particular with Italy and more generally with a phase of human development thought to be markedly different in kind from what went before and what came after.
Thereafter, 'Renaissance' became a mercurial term: not just a label for a period or a movement but a concept, a concept redolent (in spite of Burckhardt's precautions) of Individualism, All-Roundness, even Amoralism; man had escaped from the medieval thought-dungeon, and the world (and its expanding physical and mental horizons) was his oyster; culture was linked to personality and behaviour; the Renaissance became both the scene and the work of Renaissance Man. To a northern European world (whence the alertest scholars and popularizers came), morally confined by Protestantism and social decorum, 'Renaissance' became a symbol of ways of conduct and thought that were either to be castigated (John Ruskin, whose The stones of Venice of 1851-53 had anticipated the art-morality connection) or envied (John Addington Symonds's avidly nostalgic Renaissance in Italy, 1875-86).
A term that had become so liable to subjective interpretation was bound to attract criticism. During this century it has been challenged chiefly on the following points. (1) There is no such thing as a self-sufficient historical period. Much that was characteristic of the Middle Ages flowed into and through the Renaissance. Much that was characteristic of the Renaissance flowed on until the age of experimental science, of industrialization, mobilized nationalism, and mass media. (2) Renaissance art and literature did not develop so consistently that they can be seen in one broad Vasarian sweep. There was an early, a 'high' and a late stage (all variously dated) in terms of artistic and literary aims and style. (3) There is not a true, let alone a uniform, congruence between, 'culture' and 'history' during the period; 'Renaissance' culture came late to Venice, later still to Genoa, both thriving centres of political and commercial activity. (4) To define a period in terms of a cultural élite is to divert attention unacceptably from the fortunes of the population as a whole.
Though thus challenged, mocked (the 'so-called Renaissance'), aped (the 'Carolingian' or 'Ottonian' renaissance, etc.) and genially debased ('the renaissance of the mini-skirt'), the term retains most of its glamour and much of its usefulness. It is surely not by chance that 'rebirth' rather than the 18th century and early 19th century 'revival' (of arts, letters, etc.) was the term chosen, because it applies to a society the resonance of a personal, spiritual and perhaps psychological aspiration: the new start, the previous record - with all its shabbiness - erased. It is for this additional, subjective reason a term to be used with caution. The challenges are to be accepted, however, gratefully, as having led to an enormous extension of knowledge and sensitivity.
Repoussoir is means of achieving perspective or spatial contrasts by the use of illusionistic devices such as the placement of a large figure or object in the immediate foreground of a painting to increase the illusion of depth in the rest of the picture. Caravaggio had become famous for his paintings of ordinary people or even religious subjects in repoussoir compositions. Repoussoir figures appear frequently in Dutch figure painting where they function as a major force in establishing the spatial depth that is characteristic of painting of the seventeenth-century. Landscapists too learned to exploit the dramatic effect of repoussoir to enliven their renderings of the flat uneventful Dutch countryside.
Long narrow column or engaged column, mainly in Gothic architecture, which supports the arches and ribs of groin vaults or the profiles of arcade arches.
Ornamental panel behind an altar and, in the more limited sense, the shelf behind an altar on which are placed the crucifix, candlesticks, and other liturgical objects. The panel is usually made of wood or stone, though sometimes of metal, and is decorated with paintings, statues, or mosaics depicting the Crucifixion or a similar subject. Although frequently forming part of the architectural structure of the church, especially in the High Gothic period, retables can be detached and, sometimes, as in the case of the famous retable by Hubert and Jan van Eyck, "The Adoration of the Lamb" (1432, Cathedral of Saint-Bavon, Ghent), consist merely of a painting. Probably the most well-known retable is that in the Basilica of St Mark in Venice, which is one of the most remarkable examples in existence of the craft of the jeweler and goldsmith. Originally commissioned in 976, the St. Mark's retable was enlarged and enriched in the 13th century. With the development of freestanding altars, retables have become extinct.
late Gothic form of vault in which the ribs form a lattice.
in a large church, the area of choir that stands behind the high altar.
a structural moulding of a vault, not always visible because it is occasionally situated out of sight on the upper side of the vault.
a vault in which the thrust is carried entirely by a framework of diagonal ribs.
In painting, the impression that an object is three-dimensional, that it stands out from its background fully rounded.
Small stone and shell motifs in some eighteenth century ornamentation.
A style of design, painting, and architecture dominating the 18th century, often considered the last stage of the Baroque. Developing in the Paris townhouses of the French aristocracy at the turn of the 18th century, Rococo was elegant and ornately decorative, its mood lighthearted and witty. Louis XV furniture, richly decorated with organic forms, is a typical product. Leading exponents of the Rococo sryle included the French painters Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) and Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806), and the German architect Johann Balthasar Neumann (1687-1753). Rococo gave way to Neo-classicism.
Style of art and architecture prevailing throughout most of Europe in the 11th and 12th centuries, the first style to achieve such international currency. The dominant art of the Middle Ages was architecture, and 'Romanesque', like 'Gothic', is primarily an architectural term that has been extended to the other arts of the period. As the name suggests, it indicates a derivation from Roman art, and sometimes Romanesque is used to cover all the developments from Roman architecture in the period from the collapse of the Roman Empire until the flowering of the Gothic roughly AD 500-1200. More usually, however, it is applied to a distinctive style that emerged, almost simultaneously, in several countries - France, Germany, Italy, Spain - in the 11th century. It is characterized most obviously by a new massiveness of scale, reflecting the greater political and economic stability that followed a period when Christian civilization seemed in danger of extinction. Romanesque painting and sculpture are generally strongly stylized, with little of the naturalism and humanistic warmth of classical or later Gothic art. The forms of nature are freely translated into linear and sculptural designs which are sometimes majestically calm and severe and at others are agitated by a visionary excitement that can become almost delirious. Because of its expressionistic distortion of natural form, Romanesque art, as with other great non-naturalistic styles of the past, has had to wait for the revolution in sensibility brought about by the development of modern art in order to be widely appreciated.
Name used to describe Northern artists of the early 16th century whose style was influenced by Italian Renaissance painting, usually as a result of a visit to Italy. Mabuse, B. van Orley, M. van Heemskerk, Q. Massys and M. van Reymerswaele are important Romanists.
A term loosely applied to literary and artistic movements of the late 18th and 19th centuries. Resulting in part from the libertarian and egalitarian ideals of the French Revolution, the romantic movements had in common only a revolt against the prescribed rules of classicism. The basic aims of romanticism were various: a return to nature and to belief in the goodness of humanity; the rediscovery of the artist as a supremely individual creator; the development of nationalistic pride; and the exaltation of the senses and emotions over reason and intellect. In addition, romanticism was a philosophical revolt against rationalism.
School of Italian painting of importance from the mid-15th to the late 19th centuries. Both Michelangelo and Raphael worked in Rome, making it the centre of the High Renaissance; in the 17th century it was the centre of the Baroque movement represented by Bernini and Pietro da Cortona. From the 17th century the presence of classical remains drew artists from all over Europe including Poussin, Claude, Piranesi, Pannini and Mengs.
the screen dividing the choir from the nave.
a circular window, usually large, filled with tracery.
A small architectural ornament consisting of a disc on which there is a carved or molded a circular, stylized design representing an open rose.
Any of the artists and critics who championed the sovereignty of colour over design and drawing in the "quarrel" of colour versus drawing that broke out in the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Paris in 1671 (see also Poussinist). The dispute raged for many years before the Rubenists emerged victorious. The aim of painting, they maintained, is to deceive the eye by creating an imitation of life or of nature and by manipulating colour. The colourists pointed to the art of Peter Paul Rubens (whence their name) as one in which nature and not the imitation of Classical art predominated.
Any red-earth pigment, such as red ochre.
Term used to describe an architectural style that began and flourished in Germany in the second quarter of the 19th century, with parallels, mostly later, in other northern European countries and the USA, and which survived much longer as a utilitarian style. Based on the structural unit of the round arch, or Rundbogen, it has frequently been confused with Romanesque Revival architecture. The Rundbogenstil, however, was not a historical revival; instead, it was among the first architectural movements to insist that form be derived not from history but according to abstract notions of utility and objectivity. By placing issues of planning and construction above those of formal composition and ornament, the Rundbogenstil was an important forerunner to 20th-century architecture, bringing Germany for the first time to a position of international prominence in architectural theory.
rusticated ashlar, masonry with a rough surface finish;, the front section projects and the stone block's edges are given a narrow straight edge to make it easier to move into position.
Climax of the papal-Imperial struggle and a turning point in the history of Italy, the Sack of Rome resulted from Clement VII's adhesion to the League of Cognac (1526). Imperial troops under the Duke of Bourbon left Milan and joined an army of mainly Lutheran landsknechts (January 1527). The Duke of Bourbon marched on Rome, hoping to force Clement to abandon the League and to provide money for the pay of the Imperial army. A truce made by the Pope and Lannoy failed to halt this advance, and Rome was attacked and taken on 6 May, the Duke of Bourbon being killed at the first assault. Clement escaped into Castel S. Angelo but for a week Rome itself was subjected to a sacking of a peculiarly brutal nature. Although the army was then brought back under some kind of control, it continued to occupy Rome until February 1528, when it finally left the city it had devastated, gutted, and impoverished.
A representation of the Virgin and Child attended by saints. There is seldom a literal conversation depicted, though as the theme developed the interaction between the participants - expressed through gesture, glance and movement - greatly increased. The saints depicted are usually the saint the church or altar is dedicated to, local saints, or those chosen by the patron who commissioned the work.
A dramatic form that flourished particularly in Quattrocento Tuscany, supported by lay confraternities. Written primarily in ottava rima, the sacra rappresentazione was staged in an open space with luoghi deputati, multiple sets used in succession. Subjects were nominally sacred, from the Old and New Testaments, pious legend and hagiography, but the injection of realistic vignette and detail from contemporary local life or of romantic elaboration was considerable. There were no limits on time; a single rappresentazione or festa could begin with the Creation and end with the Final Judgment, and available techniques of elaborate scenery made such subjects desirable. Many compositions were anonymous, but others were the work of well-known figures, among them Feo Belcari (1410-84), author of La rappresentazione di Abram ed Isac (1449), and Lorenzo de' Medici, whose Rappresentazione dei SS. Giovanni e Paolo (1491) was performed by the children of the Compagnia del Vangelista. The rappresentazioni were often printed in the Cinquecento and continued to be performed on municipal occasions, but eventually they became fare only for monasteries and convents.
the liturgical book used by the celebrant at Mass, containing his part of the service.
The interpretation and number of the sacraments vary among the Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Eastern independent, and Protestant churches. The Roman Church has fixed the number of sacraments at seven: baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist, penance, holy orders, matrimony, and anointing of the sick. In the early church the number of sacraments varied, sometimes including as many as 10 or 12. The theology of the Orthodox Church, under the influence of the Roman Catholic Church, fixed the number of sacraments at seven. The classical Protestant churches (i.e., Lutheran, Anglican, and Reformed) have accepted only two sacraments - i.e., baptism and the Eucharist, though Luther allowed that penance was a valid part of sacramental theology.
The New Testament mentions a series of "holy acts" that are not, strictly speaking, sacraments. Though the Roman Catholic Church recognizes a difference between such "holy acts," which are called sacramentals, and sacraments, the Orthodox Church does not, in principle, make such strict distinctions. Thus, though baptism and the Eucharist have been established as sacraments of the church, foot washing, which in the Gospel According to John, chapter 13, replaces the Lord's Supper, was not maintained as a sacrament. It is still practiced on special occasions, such as on Holy Thursday in the Roman Catholic Church and as a rite prior to the observance of the Lord's Supper, as in the Church of the Brethren. The "holy acts" of the Orthodox Church are symbolically connected to its most important mysteries. Hence, baptism consists of a triple immersion that is connected with a triple renunciation of Satan that the candidates say and act out symbolically prior to the immersions. Candidates first face west, which is the symbolic direction of the Antichrist, spit three times to symbolize their renunciation of Satan, and then face east, the symbolic direction of Christ, the sun of righteousness. Immediately following baptism, chrismation (anointing with consecrated oil) takes place, and the baptized believers receive the "seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit."
a side room of a church where a priest puts on his vestments and where the sacred vessels and vestments are kept.
Hall, large room.
In the French language of the 18th and 19th centuries it designated an actual exhibition space, as well as the academic art exhibitions staged in the Salon d'Apollon of the Louvre since 1667. From 1737, the exhibitions took place biennially and, after the French Revolution, annually in the Salon Carré of the Louvre in Paris. Towards the end of the 19th century the official Salon jury was dissolved in order to make way for a committee of state-approved artists, i.e. former Salon members, who created the highly influential Société des Artistes Français.
Exasperated by the overriding of their privileges by papal governors, and hit by the rise in price of provisions after two disastrous harvests, the Perugians seized on Pope Paul III's order of 1540, that the price of salt should be increased, as an excuse to revolt. They were still seeking aid, notably from Florence and in Germany, when a papal army forced the city to surrender and swear allegiance to the legate sent to govern it. The chief focus of discontent, the area containing the houses of the old ruling family, the Bentivoglio, was buried under a new fortress, the Rocca Paolina, designed by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger.
the part of a church or temple containing the shrine; in Christian churches the choir and high altar.
Red chalk with a rownish tinge, used for drawing.
During the Middle Ages, the Arabs or Muslims, particularly those who fought against the Christian Crusades.
A coffin or tomb, made of stone, wood or terracotta, and sometimes (especially among the Greeks and Romans) carved with inscriptions and reliefs.
In Greek mythology, human-like woodland deities with the ears, legs and horns of a goat. Often depicted as the attendant of the Bacchus, the god of wine.
A real or painted niche which has a semi-circular conch in the form of a shell.
This generic term covers several different anti-dogmatic tendencies in ancient and modern philosophy. The founder of the school is traditionally considered to be Pyrrho of Elis (c. 360 - c. 270 BC), whose writings, along with all the other original works of the formulators of the tradition, are lost. Information about the movement is contained in later writings such as Cicero's Academica (c. 45 BC), Diogenes Laertius' Life of Pyrrho (3rd century AD), and especially the works of Sextus Empiricus (c. 160 - c. 210 AD). The central thesis of the Sceptics is that certitude is impossible, owing to the many obstacles preventing valid empirical knowledge, in particular the absence of a criterion by which to distinguish truth from falsity. Rather than establishing a system of positive philosophy, the Sceptics emphasized the critical and negative nature of philosophy in questioning what was taken as legitimate knowledge by dogmatic schools such as Platonism and Stoicism.
Little known in the Middle Ages, the Sceptical position was revived in the Renaissance when the writings of Diogenes Laertius and Sextus Empiricus once again became available. Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola was the first Renaissance writer to utilize Sceptical arguments in a systematic way: his lead was followed by Francisco Sanches (1552-1623 ), Michel de Montaigne (1533-92), and many others. The publication of Latin (1562, 1569) and Greek (162I) editions of Sextus Empiricus was important for later diffusion.
A fraternal organization founded in 1623 by a group of Netherlandish artists living in Rome for social intercourse and mutual assistance. Its members called themselves Bentvueghels or 'birds of a flock' and they had individual Bentnames - for example Pieter van Laer, one of the early leaders, was called Bamboccio. In 1720 the Schildersbent was dissolved and prohibited by papal decree because of its rowdiness and drunkenness.
It began 20 September 1378 when a majority of the cardinals, having declared their election of the Neapolitan Bartolomeo Prignano (Urban VI) 5 months previously to be invalid because of the undue pressure exerted by the Roman mob, elected the Frenchman Robert of Geneva (Clement VII). Although the schism was caused by acute personal differences between Urban and the cardinals, most of whom, being Frenchmen, were deeply unhappy over the return of the Papacy from Avignon to Rome, Christendom divided along political lines once the double election had taken place, with France and her allies Aragon, Castile and Scotland supporting Clement, while England, the Emperor and most other princes remained loyal to Urban.
Most of the Italian states stood behind Urban but in Naples Queen Giovanna I of Anjou provoked a popular and baronial revolt by sheltering Clement, and for the next 20 years the kingdom was contested between, on one side, Charles III of Durazzo (d. 1386) and his son Ladislas, who recognized the Roman pope, and, on the other, Louis I (d. 1384) and Louis II of Anjou, who had the support of the Avignon pope. In northern Italy, the scene was dominated by the expansionist policies of Giangaleazzo Visconti of Milan until his death in 1402; from time to time both he and his opponents, the Florentines, flirted with the Avignon popes in the hope of obtaining French support, but with little effect.
Meanwhile the temporal power of the Roman popes survived despite Urban's gift for quarrelling with all his allies, and was considerably built up by his able successor Boniface IX (1389-1404). However, on his death the Roman papacy fell under the domination of King Ladislas of Naples, who drove north through Rome to threaten central Italy, causing the Florentines and most of the other Italian states to throw their weight behind a group of cardinals from both camps who met at Pisa and elected a third pope, Alexander V, in June 1409. It was the continued pressure of Ladislas that finally compelled Alexander's successor Baldassare Cossa (John XXIII) to summon the Council of Constance (1414-18}. This Council healed the Schism by deposing both John and the Avignon pope Benedict XIII and accepting the resignation of the Roman pope, thus leaving the way open for the election in 1417 of Martin V (1417-31), who set about the task of restoring the shattered power and prestige of the Holy See. The 39-year schism killed the supranational papacy of the Middle Ages, for; while devout Christians agonized, practical politicians (often the same people) seized the chance to extend their jurisdiction at the Church's expense. As a result, the Renaissance popes were much more dependent on their Italian resources, and therefore far more purely Italian princes, than their medieval predecessors.
The term is ambivalent. It describes the characteristic method of instruction and exposition used in medieval schools and universities: the posing of a case (quaestio), arguing (disputatio) and settling it (sententia). It also describes the subject matter that was particularly shaped by this method: philosophy, with its strong connection with Christian theology and its dependence on Aristotelian texts and commentaries, and theology, with its assumption that spiritual truths can be seized with the tools of formal logic. 'Scholasticism' has thus become almost synonymous with medieval thought. As such, it can appear the antithesis of Renaissance thought, especially as writers like Petrarch and Valla poured scorn on both the methods and the content of medieval scholarship.
None the less, in spite of Valla's insistence (in his Encomion S. Thomae of 1457) that theologians should eschew dialectic and listen anew to the sources of spiritual understanding, the gospels and the early Greek and Roman Fathers, scholastic method maintained its vitality in the areas where continuity with medieval practice was strongest, theology itself and 'Aristotelian' philosophy. Medieval scholars, moreover, notably Aquinas, were quoted with admiration even by neo-Platonic philosophers. It was because the central concerns of humanism - moral philosophy, textual scholarship, history and rhetoric - were different from those of medieval, university-based study, and were less suited to a dialectical form of exposition, that scholasticism was left, as it were, on one side. But to ignore its presence is to exaggerate the difference between the new learning and the old.
the room in a medieval monastery where manuscripts were copied; also applied to particular schools of writing or painting that can be identified by stylistic characteristics.
Term applied to a technique of mural painting in which the colours are applied to dry plaster, rather than wet plaster as in fresco. The colours were either tempera or pigments ground in lime-water; if lime-water was used, the plaster had to be damped before painting, a method described by Theophilus and popular in northern Europe and in Spain. In Italian Renaissance art the finishing touches to a true fresco would often be painted a secco, as it is easier to add details in this way; because the secco technique is much less permanent, such passages have frequently flaked off with time. Thus in Giotto's Betrayal in the Arena Chapel, Padua, the details of many of the soldiers' weapons are now missing. (See also: fresco.)
In Jewish, Christian, and Islamic literature, celestial being variously described as having two or three pairs of wings and serving as a throne guardian of God. Often called the burning ones, seraphim in the Old Testament appear in the Temple vision of the prophet Isaiah as six-winged creatures praising God. In Christian angelology the seraphim are the highest-ranking celestial beings in the hierarchy of angels. In art the four-winged cherubim are painted blue (symbolizing the sky) and the six-winged seraphim red (symbolizing fire).
Abbreviation of La Serenissima Repubblica Venezia, "the most serene republic of Venice"), term, in use since the Middle Ages, which describes the splendour and dignity of Venice and is, at the same time, an expression of Venetian self-confidence.
Tripartite window, door, or blind architectural feature consisting of a central opening with a semicircular arch over it springing from two entablatures each supported by two columns or pilasters flanking narrower flat-topped openings on either side. Called a Palladian or Venetian window, it was a common motif in the works of Palladio. It got its name as it was published in Serlio's L'Architettura (1537–75), but probably originated with Bramante.
Member of a mendicant order founded in 1233.
A technique, largely developed by Leonardo da Vinci, in which the transitions from light to dark are so gradual they are almost imperceptible; sfumato softens lines and creates a soft-focus effect.
In antiquity, women who could prophesy. The many Sibylline prophecies were kept in Rome and consulted by the Senate. In Christian legend, Sibyls foretold the Birth, Passion and Resurrection of Christ, just as the male prophets of the Bible did. Originally, in the period of classical antiquity, there was only one Sibyl; the number gradually rose to ten. In early Christianity it was further raised to 12, in analogy to the 12 prophets of the Old Testament.
from the late Middle Ages, the governing body of some of the Italian city states, usually presided over by individual families.
metal pencil made of copper, brass, or bronze with a silver tip fused to it. Silverpoint drawing must be done on a specially prepared surface. Silverpoint was already in use as a drawing instrument in the 14th century, and the delicate, light-gray lines produced by the silver tip, which were all identical in thickness, made it a particularly popular artistic tool throughout the course of the 15th century.
French word for "Monkey Trick". It is a genre depicting monkeys apeing human behaviour, often fashionably attired, intended as a diverting sight, always with a gentle cast of mild satire. Singeries were popular among French artists in the early 18th century, though the term is most usually reserved for a type of decorative painting associated with French Rococo. It originated with the French decorator and designer Jean Berain, who included dressed figures of monkeys in many of his arabesque wall decorations. The emergence of singerie as a distinct genre, however, is usually attributed to the decorator Claude III Audran, who in 1709 painted a large picture of monkeys seated at table for the Château de Marly. In France the most famous such rococo decor are Christophe Huet's Grande Singerie and Petite Singerie decors at the Château de Chantilly.
the earliest works in linear book printing which were produced between 1400 and 1550 as single sheets with black lines in high relief. They first appear in alpine monasteries, were at first used to spread information of all sorts and were later used as leaflets and visual polemics.
The preparatory drawing for a fresco drawn on the wall where the painting is to appear; the red chalk used to make such a drawing.
The Skagen Painters were a group of Scandinavian artists who gathered in the area of Skagen, the northernmost part of Denmark, from the late 1870s until the turn of the century. Skagen was a summer destination whose scenery and quality of light attracted northern artists to paint en plein air following the French Impressionists — though members of the Skagen collective were also influenced by realist movements such as the Barbizon school. They broke away from the rather rigid traditions of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts, espousing the latest trends they had learnt in Paris.
Wooden ceiling decoration.
A name given to the style found principally in Germany (where it is called Weiche Stil), at the end of the 14th and beginning of the 15th centuries. It is very closely related to International Gothic, and, as the name implies, is characterized by soft and gentle rhythms, especially in the flow of drapery, and by a sweet and playful sentiment. The principal subject is the Madonna playing with the Christ Child and these are sometimes called Schöne Madonnen - 'Beautiful Madonnas'. Sculpture and the earliest woodcuts show the style even more clearly than painting.
Perspective in which people and objects are seen from below and shown with extreme foreshortening.
(1) The triangular space between two arches in an arcade. (2) The curved surface between two ribs meeting at an angle in a vault.
a tall conical or pyramidal roof on a church tower or turret.
the point from which an arch or vault rib springs from its support.
A straight or arched structure across an interior angle of a square tower to carry a superstructure such as a dome.
This word, pronounced as French, is used in both English and German to describe the figures and animals which animate a picture intended essentially as a landscape or veduta; in other words, figures which are not really essential and could be added by another painter. In the highly specialized world of the Dutch painters of the 17th century this was very often the case, so that a landscape painter like Wynants rarely did his own staffage; whereas Canaletto or Guardi always did.
The suite of rooms in the Vatican decorated by Raphael.
late Gothic vault shape in which the ribs form a star shape.
a hall church in which the aisles are not quite as high as the nave.
The five Crucifixion wounds of Christ (pierced feet, hands and side) which appear miraculously on the body of a saint. One of the most familiar examples in Renaissance art is the stigmatization of St. Francis of Assisi.
Printmaking process that achieves tonal areas by directly engraving short flicks or dots, usually in conjunction with engraved or etched lines.
A type of light, malleable plaster made from dehydrated lime (calcium carbonate) mixed with powdered marble and glue and sometimes reinforced with hair. It is used for sculpture and architectural decoration, both external and internal. In a looser sense, the term is applied to a plaster coating applied to the exterior of buildings, but stucco is a different substance from plaster (which is calcium sulphate). Stucco in the more restricted sense has been known to virtually every civilization. In Europe it was exploited most fully from the 16th century to the 18th century, notable exponents being the artists of the School of Fontainebleau and Giacomo Serpotta. By adding large quantities of glue and colour to the stucco mixture stuccatori were able to produce a material that could take a high polish and assume the appearance of marble. Indeed, sometimes it is difficult to distinguish from real marble without touching it (stucco feels warmer).
A room in a Renaissance palace in which the rich or powerful could retire to study their rare books and contemplate their works of art. The studiolo became a symbol of a person's humanist learning and artistic refinement. Among the best known are those of Duke Federico da Montefeltro in Urbino, and Isabella D'Este in Mantua.
Term that came into general use in the 18th century to denote a new aesthetic concept that was held to be distinct from the beautiful and the Picturesque and was associated with ideas of awe and vastness. The outstanding work on the concept of the Sublime in English was Edmund Burke's A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757). This book was one of the first to realize (in contrast with the emphasis on clarity and precision during the Age of Enlightenment) the power of suggestiveness to stimulate imagination. The cult of the Sublime had varied expressions in the visual arts, notably the taste for the 'savage' landscapes of Salvator Rosa and the popularity among painters of subjects from Homer, John Milton, and Ossian (the legendary Gaelic warrior and bard, whose verses - actually fabrications - were published in the 1760s to great acclaim). The vogue for the Sublime, with that for the Picturesque, helped shape the attitudes that led to Romanticism.
Historically, the supremacy of the English king over the English Church, i.e. the king not the Pope is acknowledged as the supreme head of the Church of England. Established legally by the Act of Supremacy in 1534.
An artistic movement that arose in France toward the end of the nineteenth century, primarily in literature, in opposition to the reigning schools of Realism and Impressionism. Symbolism rejected objectivity in favour of the subjective, and turned away from the direct representation of reality in favour of a synthesis of many different aspects of it, aiming to suggest ideas by means of ambiguous yet powerful symbols. Among the artists associated with the movement were Odilon Redon, Gustave Moreau and Puvis de Chavannes in France, Fernand Khnopff in Belgium, Jan Toorop in Holland, Ferdinand Hodler in Switzerland, Gustave Klimt in Austria, and Giovanni Segantini in Italy.
A term that attained significance in the School of Pont-Aven, used primarily by Paul Gauguin to describe his method of picture development. In this method, the pictorial theme is stored in the mind of the artist in a process of thought synthesis and then applied to the canvas from memory. The result is not necessarily natural colours, but imaginary forms and decorative surface arrangements on the painting. A subject existing in reality thus becomes superfluous. In 1889 the Groupe Synthétists held an exhibition in which Paul Gauguin, Emile Bernard, Charles Laval, and Louis Anquetin took part.