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overrunnings of the frame (from 1500 on): *
The artists of the Renaissance mastered linear perspective. Michelangelo began going beyond linear perspective with his Last Judgment (1536-41)
SEE BELOW
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Limits are abandoned. There are no compositional restraints (how the figures are grouped, or the horizon), there is no picture frame, just a massive end wall; his effective modelling of the human body gives actual volume to the limbs & torso. The wall on which the painter works is dissolved as well: we can walk thru the Last Judgment, literally thru Heaven & Hell & outside the chapel!
Bronzino’s Saint John the Baptist, 1553, moves the process onward. Pictorial space is defined by the arm & leg of the saint; the artists effectively using light and dark, as well as foreshortening the figure. His modelling the human body carries on from Michelangelo. Now we have a body, part which seems to exist in space in front of the picture plane.
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Caravaggio (1571-1610) takes all this one step further. In his St John ( ) we see space around his figures, the modelling of the figure provides volume AND the projective displacement of space is secured by brilliant right-angled foreshortening. Caravaggio extends space both to the figure and to the space around the subject; real space both inside the painted space within AND outside the painted space. In other words, the painter extends the painting beyond the picture frame & breaks thru the picture plane
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Viking (infinity-wistfulness): *
The period from the 790s AD to the Norman conquest of England (1066) was the Viking Age. Vikings used the Norwegian & Baltic Seas for routes south. Viking navigators opened the road to lands north, west & east, resulting in the foundation of settlements in the Shetland, Orkney, and Faroe Islands; Iceland, Greenland (980) & Newfoundland (1000 AD). The Viking Rurik dynasty took control of territories in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe & annexed Kiev (882). In 839, Swedish emissaries first visited Byzantium & Scandinavians served as mercenaries in the service of the Byzantine Empire (the Varangian Guard, established late 10th century). The Kiev court was also recruiting Scandiavains (980-1060) as well as in London (1018–1066.). Archaeological evidence suggests the Vikings reached Baghdad (centre of the Islamic Empire). They sailed up the Volga with their trade goods: furs, tusks, seal fat for boat sealant, and slaves. SEE MAP BELOW Voyages of the Vikings
