Rhenish schools:* see EndNote<A> 

15th Century German artists of the Rhine region, characterized by a hyper-decorated, emotional style (labelled Late Gothic Baroque); their wood sculpture developed new images & subjects reflecting this highly charged devotion common to late medieval Catholicism (e.g. German mysticism); such images included the Pietà, Pensive Christ, Man of Sorrows, Arma Christi, Veil of Veronica, the severed head of John the Baptist & the Virgin of Sorrows; many spread across Europe & remained popular until the Baroque.  Upper Rhine artists included the Master of the Playing Cards and Master E. S.  The gold backgrounds still used by many of these artists well into the 15th century reflects German conservatism.  The culmination of this school is seen in Martin Schongauer (1450-91) active in Alsace, work shows a sophisticated & harmonious style.  His engravings found a national & international markets as far as Italy.

and see above page 272 (Early Rhenish masters)

 

Flemish schools:

a school of painting active early 15th to 17th century, distinct from the rest of the Low Countries (especially the modern Netherlands), characterised by its idealism & experimentation with perspective; initially thrived with artists like Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, Hans Memling & Dirk Bouts, who specialised in portrait painting with religious themes & complicated iconography.  Up to 1520 the work of this region is often labelled Early Netherlandish painting.  In the 16th century travel to Italy became easier resulting in many of the Flemish artists beginning to display techniques learnt from the Renaissance artists and architects. Key figures at this later period were Patenier, Elsheimer and Massys.

 

Memlinc:

see Chapter VII, page 236, and above page 272

 

Grunwald:

Chapter VII, page 240, 246

 

Tuscan:

relating to or characteristic of Tuscany, the Tuscans, or Tuscan

 

Leonardo (as thinker):

Leonardo is famous as an artist but Renaissance humanism recognised no mutually exclusive polarities between the sciences & arts.  Some consider his studies in science & engineering as impressive & original as his art.  Although contemporary scholars ignored his scientific work (he lacked formal education in Latin & mathematics) today he is seen as a thinker way ahead of his time  He produced 13,000 pages of notes and drawings, fusions of art and natural philosophy (a forerunner of science).  He added to them daily throughout his life.   His areas of interest included invention, drawing, painting, sculpting, architecture, science, music, mathematics, engineering, literature, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, writing, history & cartography; he is often called the father of palaeontology, ichnology & architecture.  His approach was observational: he tried to understand phenomenon by describing & depicting it in detail.  He did not emphasise experiments or theoretical explanation.  

 

Raphael (as thinker):

Like Michelangelo he befitted from an education at the small court of Urbino, a centre for literary culture (rather than artistic); his father, Giovanni Santi, was court painter for the Duke.  He was also a poet & wrote a rhymed chronicle of the life of Federico, the Duke.  His poetry reflects an awareness of the most advanced North Italian & Early Netherlandish artists.  This environment taught Raphael manners and social skills.   Baldassare Castiglione's depiction of it (The Book of the Courtier, 1528) made it a model for the virtues of the Italian humanist court.  Castiglione moved to Urbino in 1504.  He & Raphael met & became good friends.  Through the court Raphael also became close to Pietro Bibbiena and Pietro Bembo.  Both were well known writers & later both became cardinals.  However it is unclear how well Raphael knew Latin & it would seem he did NOT receive a full humanistic education.

 

Michelangelo (as thinker): * see EndNote<B>

his name immediately conjures up his monumental works, but he was not just an artist but also a thinker.  The intellectual backstory is easy to overlook but is nonetheless significant.  It is in his youth that we see the outline of his great thoughts, later made manifest in his art. 

 

Dante:

See Chapter I page 14, 20, Chapter II page 81, 85, Chapter III page 111, Chapter IV page 142, Chapter VI page 183, Chapter VII page 229, and above page 273

 

Venetians of 1600:

The Venetian school established a significant tradition: its primacy of colour over line in contrast to Florence. Beginning with the work of Giovanni Bellini (c. 1430–1516) and his brother Gentile Bellini (c. 1429–1507) & their workshops, the major artists of the Venetian school included Giorgione (1477–1510), Titian (c. 1489–1576), Tintoretto (1518–1594), Paolo Veronese (1528–1588) & Jacopo Bassano (1510–92) & his brothers.  The tradition of the Venetian school contrasted with the Mannerism prevalent in the rest of Italy; it exerted great influence upon later Western painting.

 

Dutch of 1600:

the 17th century was the “Dutch Golden Age”.  The new Dutch Republic was a leader in trade, science, & art, most prosperous nation in Europe,.  Traditionally the artistic centres of the southern cities (Flanders) eclipsed the northern Netherlandish provinces but the  impact of the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) for Dutch independence led to upheavals & large-scale transfers of population.  It caused a sharp break with the old monarchist & Catholic cultural traditions.  Dutch art had to reinvent itself. Religious subjects declined sharply as Dutch Calvinism was strongly iconoclastic.  New markets for secular subjects were born:  portraits, genre scenes, landscapes, seascapes & ships, or still life, or a particular sub-type within these categories.  Many of these subjects were new.  Some of the most successful painters of this era were: Johannes Vermeer (1632-75), Frans Hals the Elder (1582- 1666), Rembrandt (1606-69), Jan Havickszoon Steen (1626 –1679) & Gerard van Honthorst (1592 –1656).

 

Raphael (line):

Raphael produced large & complex compositions (i.e. The School of Athens, The Parnassus, The Disputa from the Stanza della Segnatura, Sistine chapel).  He was the finest draftsmen in Western art & used drawings extensively to plan his compositions.  When starting on a new project he begin by laying out a large number of his stock drawings on the floor, and begin to draw "rapidly", borrowing figures from here and there.   Most of his drawings are highly precise—even initial sketches with naked outline figures are carefully drawn; his later working drawings often have a high degree of finish, with shading and sometimes highlights in white.  When a final composition was achieved, he produced full-size cartoons.  To produce the outline for the final work he pricked the cartoons with a pin and "pounced" with a bag of soot leaving dotted lines on the surface as a guide.  He also sometimes scratched lines, leaving only an indentation, but no visible mark (see The School of Athens).  He used metalpoint, a fine line drawing technique extensively, as well as the freer medium of red or black chalk.

​

Leonardo (surface):

Leonardo employed a number of techniques on the surface of the painting.  He first created a detailed under painting in a neutral grey or brown.  Colours were then applied in layer after layer of transparent glazes on top—using a limited range of tones.  Some of the under painting would show through the layers helping to create form.  Creating colours by applying glazes created depth impossible to achieve by applying colours mixed on a palette.  It allowed him to produce luminous tones.  The light would pass through the layers and reflect back from the primer coat, thus it would appear the light was emanating from the figures and objects themselves.  This technique along with his mastery of chiaroscuro & sfumato, and his understanding of aerial perspective, produced the monumental artwork which characterized the High Renaissance.

 

Michelangelo (the body):

the artist studied the human body, studied anatomy, but his work does not JUST represent the physical body but reflects as well a connection between the human form and the soul; the inner is just as important as the externals.

 

Phidias:

See Chapter I page 23

 

Palestrina:

see Chapter III, page 97, Chapter VII pages 220, 230

 

Raphael (thawed the Florentine fresco):

The 4 Raphael Rooms form a suite of reception rooms in the Vatican palace, famous for the frescoes by Raphael, considered to mark the High Renaissance in Rome.  This work was the central & largest  of his career.  He employed both linear depth & aerial depth, with incredibly complex compositions.  The best known work is The School of Athens.  The genius of Raphael is his orchestration of space, a space continuous with that of viewers.  In this space a wide variety of human figures, each reflecting mental states through physical actions, interact, a polyphony in the on-going dialogue of Philosophy.  It is unique piece of artwork and neither the use of space nor the figure composition relates to anything Classical.

 

Michelangelo (thawed the statue):

The masterpiece Pieta (1499) reflects the life and emotion infused into the stone, clear in the face of the grieving mother holding up her dead son.  David, his 2nd masterpiece carved a few years later (1501-04) also reflects the internal, mental state, not solely the physical.  David is tense, ready for combat, depicted just after he has made the decision to fight Goliath but before the battle has actually taken place, the moment between conscious choice and action - fight and flight.  His brow is drawn, his neck tense, the veins bulge out of his lowered right hand.  He transmits exceptional self-confidence & concentration, both values of the “thinking man”, considered perfection during the Renaissance.  Michelangelo may have intentionally over-proportioned the head to underline the concentration and the right hand to symbolize the pondered action.  This distortion goes totally against Classical rules of physical proportion.

 

Leonardo (dreamed of Rembrandt & Bach): * see EndNote<C>

Spengler is suggesting that firstly Leonardo was a pioneer in a technique (chiaroscuro) which Rembrandt would perfect 150 years later.  Secondly he is also equating Leonardo’s use of tone & sfumato as the pictorial equivalent to music (harmony, tones), which was also developed further by Bach & the Baroque musicians some 200 years later.

 

Giotto (as Gothic):

1267-1337, was active during the late Gothic/Proto-Renaissance period.  During this period there was a great resurgence in Marian devotion, in which the visual arts played a major part.  Iconography form Byzantine East gave Western Europe images of the Virgin Mary.  These icons were flat, employed gold background exclusively & were hieratic in nature.  Giotto abandoned much of the formulaic style & adds a degree of realism & natural humanity.  While he points to the Renaissance his subject matter is Gothic.

 

Titian (as Baroque)

1487-1576; one of the major painters of the Venetian school; still active after the Council of Tent (1563).  In his mature period (1530–1550), he developed a highly dramatic style as reflected in his Death of St. Peter Martyr (1530), painted for the Dominican Church of San Zanipolo (destroyed in 1867).  Surviving copies show this clearly to be a proto-Baroque picture, combining extreme violence with a landscape, dominated by a great tree.  This feature is pressed into the scene & accentuates the drama which clearly points to the Baroque.  His work was sought by powerful, rich individuals, to include Emperor Charles V and Philip II of Spain.