In the Academies of art that grew up in Europe from the 16th century, there developed a hierarchy of different types of painting. Paintings of great events – whether historical, religious or mythological – were considered to be of the greatest importance. Portraits (especially of prestigious figures) were next on the scale.
This hierarchy was based on the idea that there was an intellectual and moral good in telling important stories or showing the images of important people. Attempting to bring out the idealism in a tale or capture the essence of a religious episode could be uplifting for both maker and viewer. Depicting the battle of good over evil, or the exploits of mythological heroes was to try and capture a form of universal moral truth. ‘Genre scenes’ – paintings of ordinary and everyday life – were definitely further down the scale of moral stature and paintings that showed still lives, animals or landscapes had very little prestige at all.
Painters in the 15th century would have found the idea of painting *still lives or landscapes* for their own sake very strange indeed. While many of the pieces we have looked at contain beautiful groupings of objects, lovely collections of textiles and flowers or exquisite views of town and countryside, these were very much the backgrounds to the stories, created to give a beautiful or realistic setting to the all-important narrative. Giovanni Bellini’s beautiful Madonna of the Meadow painted around 1500 – 1505, sits in front of farmland, with grazing cattle and farmhands, and a small walled and fortified town in the near distance. The landscape is clear and realistic – the town and its surroundings very like those you can still see to the north and west of Venice, which was Bellini’s home. While depicting this well-known landscape was obviously important to Bellini it exists only to provide a setting for the Madonna who is the subject of the painting. The landscape itself was not a fitting subject for a painting on its own, although this would change in the coming decades.
Looking into the backgrounds of paintings also tells us much about the about the world of their creators. *Streets, squares and interior* show us the places in which the paintings were made and the ways in which they were used. We still have examples of painted and carved furniture that would have been both useful and decorative in the home. Even the painted trays, loaded with tasty delicacies and given to mothers after a successful confinement, can still be found in some collections – and are just as they appear in paintings such as Domenico Ghirlandaio’s fresco of The Birth of St John the Baptist, in the church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence.
*still lives or landscapes* |
| 1. Frescoes from the House of Marcus Fabius Rufus (The House of the Golden Bracelet), Pompeii, Mid-1 st century AD. Museo Nazionale Archeologico, Naples |
2. Ni Zan, The Rongxi Studio, 1372. National Palace Museum, Taipei
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| 3. Wang Meng, Mount Taibai, 1368. Liaoning Provincial Museum, China (detail) |
4. Ambrogio Lorenzetti, The countryside outside Siena, from The Allegory of Good and Bad Government, 1337-40. Palazzo Pubblico, Siena
5. Anon, The Virgin and Child with Saints and Angels in a Garden, c. 1410. Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt
6. Benozzo Gozzoli, The Chapel of the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, Florence, 1459–63
The Miraculous Draft of Fishes is a fragment, taken from an exterior wing of Witz's original work, The Altarpiece of St. Peter, in the Cathedral of St. Peter in Geneva.
In what has often been described as the first topographical landscape inNorthern painting. Witz presents us with a stunning view of the Swiss countryside. The Sea of Galilee, in fact, is Lake Geneva seen in the environs of Mont Blanc with the Petit Salève across the lake and the dark mountain, the Môle, appearing directly over the head of Christ.
8. Piero della Francesca, The Baptism of Christ, after 1437. National Gallery, London
9. Giovanni Bellini, St Jerome Reading in a Landscape, 1480–85. National Gallery, London
← ←"Faint wounds are discernible on the palms of his hands and on his foot, but above all it is nature and the landscape that dominates the scene. A shepherd and his flock of sheep (background) are also included, as well as a grey heron and a donkey (middle-ground), and a rabbit (just below the saint's sleeve), in order to symbolize St Francis's love of animals. The painting is infused with a soft warm glow, which reinforces the idea of man and nature in harmony."
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| 11. Giovanni Bellini, Madonna of the Meadow, 1500–05. National Gallery, London. |
Giovanni Bellini was one of the first Italian painters to use natural settings to enhance the meaning of his pictures. Here, the still and silent Virgin contrasts with the landscape to create an image rich in meaning. The varying shapes of the clouds, from thin and wispy to fat and fluffy, and the shadows on them give the impression of changeable weather. The oxen in the smallholding behind are rubbing their heads together; the herder, with his arm behind his back, is pacing the land. To the Virgin’s left, a snake menaces a crane which raises its wings in fright. This detail has been traced to the famous pastoral odes written by the Roman poet, Virgil – a literary allusion incorporated for an educated clientele – and is perhaps a reference to good versus evil (symbolised by the snake). The delicate poplars clothed in miniature lime-green foliage seem to bend in the breeze. Bellini may have been inspired by altarpieces in Venice painted by northern European artists like Jan van Eyck and Dirk Bouts, who had made careful studies of the way light affects how objects – and the natural world – appear. The clarity of the light, which casts a pale glow on everything it touches, from the Virgin’s right sleeve to the walls of the castle in the distance, suggests it is springtime.
12. Albrecht Durer, Courtyard of the former Castle of Innsbruck, 1494. Grafisches Sammlung Albertina, Vienna
14. Albrecht Durer, House by a Pond, 1496. British Museum, London
15. Joachim Patenir, The Rest of the Flight into Egypt, c.1520. Museo del Prado, Madrid
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16. Albrecht Altdorfer, Landscape with a Footbridge, 1518–20. National Gallery, London 17. Caspar David Friedrich, Chasseur in the Forest, 1814. Private Collection 18. Caspar David Friedrich, Rocky Ravine, 1822-23. Kunsthistoriches Museum, Vienna |
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19. Gu Hongzhong, The Night Revels of Han Xizai, 12th -century copy of an original from c.1070. Palace Museum, Beijing (detail) |
Gu Hongzhong’s The Night Revels of Han Xizai offers an intriguing portrayal of a court minister testing the bounds of Confucian propriety during the Five Dynasties. The court minister Han’s nighttime revelry captured the attention and curiosity of the emperor, who, upon deputizing his court artist to document the situation, left us with a rare picture of the fashions and foibles of this tumultuous period of Chinese art—one that continues to inspire artists today.
20. Gentile Bellini, The Miracle of the True Cross at Ponte San Lorenzo, c.1500. Galleria dell’ Accademia, Venice
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21. Vittore Carpaccio, The Miracle of the True Cross – Healing the Madman, c.1496. Galleria dell’ Accademia, Venice → →
22. Vittore Carpaccio, Hunting on the Lagoon, 1490–95. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
23. Vittore Carpaccio, Two Venetian Ladies, 1490–95. Museo Correr, Venice
24. View of the Palazzo Vendramin Calergi, Venice, designed by Mauro Codussi, 1481– 1509
Vittore Carpaccio’s Saint Ursula Cycle in the Gallerie dell’Accademia
25. Vittore Carpaccio, The Dream of St Ursula, 1495. Galleria dell’ Accademia, Venice
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| 26 en 27. The Palazzo Davanzati, Florence |
In the Early Renaissance this was not the only purpose paintings served. The walls of palaces were decorated in fresco, and their rooms were filled with painted furniture. Comparatively few of these secular frescoes have been preserved. Taste in the fifteenth century changed rapidly (almost as rapidly as it does today), and when the decoration of a room appeared old-fashioned, it was commonly superseded by a decorative scheme that looked more up-to-date. In Florence and in its neighborhood Gothic secular frescoes can never have proliferated as they did at the courts of Northern Italy, but a few examples survive to show the type of decoration that was employed. In the Palazzo Davanzati in Florence, for example, one of the large reception rooms is decorated with fictive wall hangings painted as though suspended from hooks in the molding above them, and at the top is a frieze divided by little colonnettes with vases of flowers between which runs a landscape with carefully rendered shrubs and trees.
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| 28. Fra Angelico, Saints Cosmas and Damian Heal Justinian, 1438–40. Museo di San Marco, Florence |
30. Jan van Eyck, The Arnolfini Portrait, 1435. National Gallery, London
31. Peter de Hooch, A Woman Drinking with Two Men, c.1685. National Gallery, London
32. Johannes Vermeer, Lady Standing at the Virginals, 1662–65. The Royal Collection, London
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| 33. Domenico Ghirlandaio, Birth of the Virgin Mary, 1486–90. Touranbuoni Chapel, Church of Santa Maria Novella, Florence |
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| 34. Domenico Ghirlandaio, Birth of St John the Baptist, 1486–90. Touranbuoni Chapel, Church of Santa Maria Novella, Florence |
Desco da Parto:
The Garden of Youth, ca. 1430
In fifteenth-century Italian households, childbirth was a highly anticipated but potentially perilous event often associated with special objects designed to assist expectant mothers. A desco da parto, or “birthing tray,” was used to carry gifts and food to new mothers recovering in the confinement chamber. A lavishly decorated desco like this one was found only in the wealthiest family collections, but household inventories show that more modest examples were common in lower social classes. The scene depicted here conforms to the festive tone characteristic of deschi da parto. It alludes to paradisiacal themes and allegorical representations of love that were popular in vernacular literature, such as the poetry of Boccaccio and Petrarch.
35. Giovanni di Ser Giovanni Guidi (‘Lo Scheggia), Desco di Parto with a game of
Civettino, c.1450. Palazzo Davanzati, Florence
36. Zanobi Strozzi, The Abduction of Helen, 1450–55. National Gallery, London
37. Master of the Judgement of Paris, The Abduction of Helen, 1440–50. National
Gallery, London
Cassoni (also called forzieri in Florence) were expensive, lavishly decorated chests which accompanied a bride to her new marital home. These chests were given to the bride by her parents as their contribution to the wedding. Carrying precious textiles and goods such as expensive clothing, jewelry and accessories, the chests contained many of the items the bride would need and use in her new home. The cassone was carried alongside the bride accompanied by her father and family through the streets of Florence, an important part of the ritual of marriage. It served to demonstrate the wealth of the family to the city’s citizens, displaying their power and influence.
38. Giovanni di Ser Giovanni Guidi (‘Lo Scheggia), The Cassone Adimari – The Triumph of Love, c.1450. Accademia Gallery, Florence
39. Anon, Cassone with a Tournament Scene, 1455–65. National Gallery, London
41. Biagio di Antonio and others, The Nerli Spalliera and Cassone, 1472. Courtauld Institute Gallery, London
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| 40. Apollonio di Giovanni di Tomaso, Cassone with panel showing the Conquest of Trebizond, c.1461. Metropolitan Museum, New York |
42. Fra Lippo Lippi, The Annunciation with two kneeling donors, c.1440. Galleria Nazionale Palazzo Barberini, Rome
43. Carlo Crivelli, The Annunciation with Saint Emidius, 1486. National Gallery, London
detail → → →
44. Antonello da Messina, St Jerome in his Study, c.1475. National Gallery, London
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| 45. Vittore Carpaccio, The Vision of St Augustine, 1502. The Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni, Venice |
46. The Studiolo of Federico da Montefeltro, Palazzo Ducale, Urbino
