As usual, I hope the reader will be aware that these observations, like others made in these articles, are to be taken as general and that they do not pretend to definitively describe or define the objects and movements referred to. In attempting to 'read' the artworks of the past, particularly those of subtle styles such as the multi-levelled, multi-facetted Renaissance, interpretations are difficult and specifically definitive statements are best avoided. In the case of the present writer, an initial, one might say 'devotion' to the Renaissance has gradually broadened into a much more complex understanding of what the term 'Renaissance' might actually mean; once this occurred, appreciation was opened into the extraordinary off-shoot that is Mannerism which then led into the Baroque, a period I had not grasped at all. The remarks that follow are based on a much greater exposure, both in Rome and Naples, and in Sicily, to the work of that period, the Baroque, but the comparison suggested here may be simply the result of an unrefined eye finally seeing the obvious; I hope though it's a bit more than that. Incidentally, dates regarding the beginning and 'end' of periods in art history are moot.
The title of this article sums up some observations which occurred to me while considering the differences between Renaissance painting and sculpture and those of the Baroque period. Although, as previously discussed, the triangle is a common structural form governing the composition of much Renaissance work, so too is verticality: that is, an arrangement of vertical elements (usually figures but also architecture) sometimes frieze-like, reading across the image, at others supporting the perspective depth (the recession) as understood from the implied central position of the viewer. In 15th century Florence, the epicentre of the most influential cultural changes then taking place on the Italian peninsula, clear, candid and straightforward presentation of observable fact (nature) and the confident 'statement' of concept and idea (religious, political, pragmatic) reflected the enthusiasm for and influence of the 're-born' culture of an almost-lost past: the 're-birth' of or openness to various branches of knowledge either abandoned or deliberately suppressed during the medieval period: the study of antique Greek and Roman art, classical literature (ad fontes), the development of humanism, perspective illusion, and so on.
The Holy Trinity, 1425-27? by Masaccio (1401-28) in the church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence
In this very large fresco (above) we can see, combined, the surface triangle element and the vertical element; the first is formed by the two figures of the donors on either side at the base and, following lines from them through the Madonna and Saint John on ether side of the Cross, we arrive at the apex which is Jesus' head and finally God the Father; each figure is however also vertical as are the Cross itself and the pilasters and columns of the 'triumphal arch' framing the divine figures. Horizontal elements are the architrave above the arch, the arms of the Cross (and Jesus), the ledge on which the donors are kneeling and the sarcophagus beneath containing a horizontal skeleton 1. This painting is typical of much Renaissance work in which many of the problems associated with representing the human body are gradually overcome, together with the difficulties of the convincing suggestion of three-dimensional space; and note also the arch and barrel vault in this image which are heavily influenced by ancient Roman architecture.
Verticality was not though an invention of the Renaissance as this compositional device may be observed in much medieval art, for example in the strongly vertical (and elongated) decorative figures of saints and biblical personages on Gothic buildings, and in much pictorial art produced over that long (and varied) historical period. In a sense then, the common vertical disposition of the actors in Renaissance paintings and sculpture was merely a continuation of an already established mode. What the Renaissance did however, was to look back to a much earlier period, the classical one, that of ancient Greco-Roman culture; Gothic art, on the other hand, at the risk of over-simplification, may be seen as a kind of development of the Byzantine rejection of 'pagan' styles.
Baroque Rome was beset by serious disturbance, both religious and, as ever, political, given the now challenged power of the Catholic Church: prior to but including Luther's protests (1517) and, in any case, a widespread awareness of the corruption within the Church, it was forced to make substantial changes, generally known as the [Counter] Reformation (a debated term), of variable duration and efficacy, not least in the field of art. The narratives in painting and sculpture, so as to refine the message of the (Catholic) Church, were to be clear, relatively straightforward in their content, and were to have an easy emotional appeal to the 'average' member of the congregation; and to be much less 'seasoned' with the abstruse references which certainly only appealed to an intellectual elite (this last not applying however to private secular work which was often loaded with such erudite material!). Is it possible that the fairly obvious frequency of painted images dependent upon a diagonal, as opposed to or combined with verticals, might be seen as reflecting a change in the general climate, in Rome at least?
What I would like to do now is look at some examples of how the painting produced during these two periods (Renaissance and Baroque) commonly made some use of two 'structural' elements: in the first case verticality, in the second, the diagonal line - with or without the structural triangle. To do this we are going to look at the work of two major painters, that is, Piero della Francesca (c1412-1492) - Florentine Renaissance, and Michelangelo Merisi - known to the world as Caravaggio (1571-1610) - proto-Baroque.
The Baptism, 1442 (?) by Piero della Francesca, tempera on panel. National Gallery, London
The image above is of a painting by Piero della Francesca, his Baptism, which is in the National Gallery in London. The image below is also a painting by that same sublime master, the Flagellation, which is kept in Urbino, in Italy; the one below that is a detail of this latter, an enlargement of the left side which is where the Flagellation is actually taking place. What I would like us to notice is the 'verticality' which is common to both paintings.
In the Baptism, verticality runs across almost the entire foreground of the picture: reading from the left, the three attendant angels, the large white-trunked tree, the column-like figure of Christ himself, and then the equally up-standing figure of his cousin, John (the Baptist) are all vertical elements; even the acolyte further back is half vertical, taking the viewer to the other side of the picture plane (and into the middle distance). The verticality is 'contradicted' as it were, by the opening of the Jordan River at the bottom of the painting, at first only a dry river-bed occupying more than half the immediate foreground; its meandering banks take us then, with their articulate watery-blue reflection, into the middle ground; after, their serpentine course leads our eye further and further into the painting's illusionistic depth. The distant background hills provide with their (horizontal) wavy undulations another counterfoil to the 'still' verticality of the actors in the foreground 'frieze'.
The Flagellation, 1452 by Piero della Francesca, tempera on panel. Palazzo Ducale, Urbino.
The Flagellation, detail of the left side.
This verticality appears again throughout Piero's Flagellation even if, in this extraordinary painting, the putative subject (the Flagellation of Jesus) is set back from the foreground into what could be understood as a secondary or minor place. Be that as it may, the verticality here, again, begins at the left edge of the image: the great column of the portico and within that the four standing figures - apart from Pilate who is however sitting upright; here, two more columns, including the one Christ is tied to, and the door-frames; then, in the foreground, the other front column of the portico, the foremost of several, which also divides the narrative in two; and, very obviously, the three standing (and mysterious) men on the right side - supported by the various verticals of the background architecture of the street. Again, in this composition, there are elements which 'contradict' the vertical parts, most obviously the orthogonal lines running from the lower and upper edges on the left of the image - the floor and the ceiling (with their respective horizontal shapes) - and the roofs on the right. With this architecture on the left of the picture, Piero has contrived a series of box-like shapes which recede in a geometrically diminishing series beyond Christ to the rear wall; a geometry of straight lines, horizontal and vertical, which contains and complements the vertical but human forms.
Thus, in this particular painting, Piero has managed an extremely unusual manipulation of the principal spatial elements of the architecture into which or across which he has placed his human actors; which elements however allow or rather, encourage movement, the eye being drawn immediately back into the (dimly-lit) fictive space of the portico before 'emerging' into the (brightly-lit) open foreground on the right: that said, the dependence on or dominance of the vertical elements is clear. As well, in comparison with the image below, Piero's pictures are filled with natural light, a representation of physical reality - as well as of theological significance.
The Flagellation, 1607 by Caravaggio, oil on canvas. Museo di Capodimonte, Naples.
At first glance, the painting in the photo above may also seem to be basically vertical in structure; but, if we recall that column-like verticality of the figure of Christ in Piero's Baptism and then look at Caravaggio's Christ, we can't help but be struck by the pathetic crumpled figure He has become as the (once) centre of this picture 2. In fact, the difference is stark: the bent knees of Christ and that of the torturer on the right, together with the folded limbs of the one crouching in the lower left, all contribute (soft) angles to the misleading initial impression of verticality. Christ's body indeed, from the hanging head, through the strongly angled shoulders and down along his torso, creates a long curve, his left leg moving in the opposite direction; movement and counter-movement: no longer the steady equilibrium of, for instance, a Piero della Francesca.
What has happened, at least in art, in painting, to cause it to move from the stability of such compositions as Piero's Baptism to the convulsed emotion of a Caravaggio? In purely formal terms, one answer might be found in another Michelangelo: Michelangelo Buonarroti, a Florentine, who with his tormented 'Slaves' and contrapposto-filled Last Judgement, introduced into modern Italian art the troubled 'question mark' of the passionate intellectual - the 'anima sconsolata' to use Petrarch's phrase (the 'disconsolate soul'). Struggling with relentless pressure, constant self-abnegation to conform with an all-powerful hierarchy, self-doubt struggling with a clear awareness of his own genius, a never-ending battle between his religious beliefs and his personal inclinations, all these, due to his almost universal influence, at least in Italy, found contemporary expression first in the appearance of Mannerism, and later, in the 'rationalised' Baroque 'simplicity' of painters like Caravaggio: he, Caravaggio, actually a kind of bridge linking the three-island chain of Renaissance-Mannerism-Baroque.
Whereas Piero della Francesca's upright Baptism Christ of 165 years earlier is clear, candid and set into an easily comprehensible space, the open space of the Italian countryside doing sunny duty for 1st century Palestine, Caravaggio's question here - not an answer - has little or no time for anything but the deep unknowable space of dark human emotion, a space without a setting, as determined by the Florentine Michelangelo: almost no landscape, almost no architecture; and what there might be, for instance in Caravaggio's Calling of Saint Matthew in Rome, is little more than a kind of necessary minimal theatrical backdrop.
Not in his Flagellation however! A vague hint at a straight-line vertical column, barely visible in the nothing-space of this horrific event, but scattered round with bent and angular forms, the struggling-to-stay-upright, stoic victim warmly and lovingly lit, the monstrous executioners unable to hide their grim work in spite of the darkness which is always trying to swallow them back in! Here, although the crown of thorns is in its place, there is no blood, there are no signs of a beating; as often occurs in Baroque pictures, the very 'normal' male body (neither especially muscular nor especially ascetic, elderly desert-dwelling saints excepted) is, it might be argued, the 'real' subject of the painting: from a painter's point of view, a chance to make a study of the male nude. Not as it happens, a new chance, as such use of both religious and mythological themes dates to not only the Renaissance itself but actually much further back, again to ancient Greece and Rome. Baroque painters such Jusepe de Ribera (1591-1652) and Luca Giordano (1634-1705, later Baroque-Rococo) both painted the scene of Saint Sebastian tended by Saint Irena which, apart from the required presence of this female saint and her assistant removing the arrows from Sebastian's body, is as well an 'excuse' or opportunity to paint the male (almost) nude body - and incidentally, the part of the composition in the strongest light.
A Renaissance
fresco of the
Annunciation, 1428-31 by Masolino da Panicale (1383-1440). The Cappella di Santa Caterina in the Basilica di San Clemente, Rome
Detail of a Baroque
Saint Sebastian tended by Saint Irena, c1653 by Luca Giordano
The National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.
As is clear from the two images immediately above, the principal observation of this article concerning the (gradual, occasional) introduction of the non-vertical as a structural device in Baroque painting is demonstrable; the earlier example by Masolino (perhaps assisted by Masaccio) is strongly vertical 3 (both the figures and the columns), while the later Giordano is (typically) structurally diagonal - at least, not vertical. It is important to keep in mind that circumstances had changed, both for the Church and for painters: for the Church politically and theologically; for artists because, apart from a 'natural' progression (not to be understood as improvement) in art theory and formal interests, their patrons, particularly the Church, required them to express new religious attitudes in a new way. Moving out of the somewhat confused and confusing modes of Mannerism and into the relative 'clarity' of Baroque imagery, painters were asked to make pictures which were clearly and immediately comprehensible as well as emotionally stimulating.
1 I have here referred to the triangle as a 'surface triangle' meaning that, if we were to draw a triangle onto the image following the lines suggested, it would trace a triangular shape on the surface of the picture; however, it should be understood that that same triangle actually takes us simultaneously 'into' the depth of the illusion, moving from the kneeling donors into the space of Mary and John and then deeper to where Jesus is and then His Father. Another large inverted triangle begins in the depth of the painting, around the base of the Cross, and follows, 'upwards' the external diagonals of the vault as well as its main lines.
2 This canvas has apparently been widened on the right side, possibly due to one or both of two events. Scientific analysis has shown that beneath the figure on the right there was initially a kneeling figure, possibly a donor (a person who commissioned the work); but, since we know that Caravaggio visited Naples twice, once fleeing a death sentence in Rome and once fleeing a serious problem in Malta - and probably ultimately heading for Rome - it is possible that, on his return, he reworked the original design, perhaps necessitating that addition of a strip of extra canvas on the right side (thereby shifting the figure of Christ from the centre of the canvas slightly to the left). Certain historians (e.g. Longhi) have suggested that he may have begun the painting in 1607 but left it unfinished when he went to Sicily and then Malta; according to this thesis, he then completed the picture on his return to Naples between 1609 and 1610, the year of his death.
3 As a final and somewhat tangential comment, while Masolino has in this Annunciation shown himself to have fully grasped the then new 'science' of perspective illusion with the 'correctly' receding ceiling and colonnades, the three actors (including God the Father) are however shown as though seen from directly in front, that is, not from a point of view looking up; this painting is on the high arch above the entrance to this chapel and therefore the view of the buildings in the image, as if seen from below, is coherent with our real point of view. But the two figures of the angel and the Virgin Mary (less so God, in the tondo between them) are not represented as if seen from below. Masolino is by no means unique in this, let's say, confusion of points of view; even during the Baroque period, when such views looking up from below (from the floor of a church for instance) into an imagined heavenly realm were perfected, this confusion occasionally persisted perhaps due, in the case of the Baroque, to the extreme foreshortening required by the logic of the viewpoint which would in fact render some figures - usually the principal ones - quite illegible! Whether or not Masolino inadvertently confused the two viewpoints we do not know but it is possible that he made a pragmatic decision concerning the three figures: given that his viewpoint for the architecture is extreme, and thus so would the view of the actors have had to be - making them appear distorted - he instead painted them from a different viewpoint. As far as the influence of this fresco's architecture is concerned, a compositional similarity is discernible in another Piero della Francesca painting, his Annunciation at the top of the Sant'Antonio polyptych altarpiece (before 1468) in Perugia! Although handled very differently by Piero, the general layout of the architectural spaces is not unlike Masolino's in San Clemente.
All photos taken by the author who reserves copyright.
