HUMANISM and the CLASSICAL TRADITION



HUMANISM and the CLASSICAL TRADITIONAP Art HistoryDonato D’Angelo Bramante. Tempietto (Rome), 15021. Donato Bramante’s (c. 1444-1514) “most original and influential building in Rome was the Tempietto. Located on the traditional site of St. Peter’s martyrdom, the Tempietto (literally, ‘little temple’) was a martyrium. Bramante thus combined the traditional circular plan of martyria with round temples he had seen at Tivoli, near Rome, and in Rome itself. He further conformed to the theoretical positions of Viturvius and Alberti, who believed that temples to such gods as Mars and Hercules should be round. This was also consistent with the fiery, heroic character of St. Peter” (Adams, Italian Renaissance 331). “The Tempietto itself is too small to hold more than a few pilgrims and was thus seen mainly from the outside. Its circular cella is surrounded by steps and a peristyle. The columns are in the Roman Doric (Tuscan) Order, used for the first time since antiquity; the shafts are granite; and the bases and capitals are of marble” (331).2. “Divided into triglyphs and metopes, the Doric frieze is decorated with instruments of the Christian liturgy that are inspired by pagan ritual objects known from the ancient Roman temple of Vespasian. The balustrade, dome, and lantern (a later addition, although one intended by Bramante) are characteristic features of Renaissance churches” (331). “The harmonious relationship of each part to the other and of each to the whole, as required by Classical and Renaissance art theory, is evident, for example, in the fact that the distance from the ground to the base of the drum equals its width” (331). “Especially notable is the sculptural effect of the building’s exterior, with its deep wall niches creating contrasts of light and shadow” (Stokstad, Art History 684). 3. “The Tempietto (little temple) was commissioned in 1502 by Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain to mark the spot where St. Peter had been crucified, but it was probably not built immediately. The building is not mentioned in Francesco Albertini’s 1510 guide to Rome, which describes the nearby but less important church, and the style of the Tempietto is incompatible with that of Bramante’s first works in Rome. Thus the dates of design and construction remain uncertain. Instead of the Corinthian and Ionic orders preferred by Quattrocento architects, Bramante here chooses the more severe Roman Doric. The circular shape, however, which he could study in ancient temples in Rome and Tivoli, allowed him to abandon the planimetric quality of Quattrocenvto architecture, which had already been challenged by Leonardo’s radial schemes. The Tempietto has no single elevation; it exists in space like a work of sculpture, and, as we move about it, its peristyle and steps revolve around the central cylinder” (Hartt and Wilkins 529).4. “The spatial effect Bramante intended can be realized today only if we re-create in our minds the surrounding circular courtyard. Each column of the outer peristyle would have related radially to a column of the Tempietto, tying the inner structure to its frame by a web of relationships across the surrounding space. The interrelationship of forms and spaces would have created a unity that is the product rather than the sum of its part, an analysis that makes the Tempietto the architectural equivalent of Leonardo’s lost cartoon for the Madonna and Child with St. Anne. Leonardo’s ideas, therefore, provided the foundation for both the Florentine and the Roman phases of the High Renaissance. The intellectual order and inherent majesty of the building, whose solids and spaces are beautifully harmonized, justify the choice of Bramante as papal architect by Julius II” (529).5. “Bramante chose as his model the classical temple of Hercules Victor, excavated in Rome during the reign of Sixtus IV. This was the only known round temple with a colonnade of sixteen Doric columns on a base, as here. Bramante’s choice was logical: a centrally planned church was a traditional memorial to a martyr; Vitruvius had written that the Doric order was especially appropriate for male deities; Hercules, the mortal who achieved immortality through his self-sacrificing labors, was often allegorized in the Renaissance as a Christ type. Bramante had at his disposal sixteen ancient Roman granite columns, and, following classical practice, used their diameter as the design module. For example, he spaced the columns four diameters apart and set them two diameters from the walls. These harmonic ratios joined with the circular and hemispherical forms to express the perfection and centrality of St. Peter” (Partridge 49).6. “The geometrical regularity of Bramante’s design would have bee greatly accentuated had his plan for a circular portico been executed. It would also have created a visual tension between expanding space and compacting form, resolved only in the hemispherical dome, symbol of heaven, capped by an over-scaled and solid ‘lantern’. The contraction to a rocklike core was an apt architectural expression of Petrus (Peter), the petra (rock) upon which the church was founded (Matt. 16: 18-19); the expansion outward, its proselytizing mission; the concentric design, its unity and universality. The 48 metopes (carved reliefs) of the Doric frieze with papal regalia and sacramental implements of the Eucharist signaled that Christ and his vicars were the agents of mediation between the terrestrial and celestial church” (49). “Walking around the concentric circles would have created the illusion of continuous expansion, drawing worshipers centrifugally forward in a perpetual pilgrimage. Simultaneously, the portico would have centripetally concentrated the worshipers’ attention on the compact forms of the Tempietto” (49).7. “Bramante revived the cella and peristyle, adding a flight of steps, a Renaissance drum and a dome of perfect proportions. He used plain materials and the undecorated Doric order appropriate to St. Peter, who was a poor fisherman. The frieze includes carvings of his liturgical items. As a monument, the exterior design was considered more important than the interior, and Bramante had intended to set his temple in a square courtyard into a circle by sixteen columns echoing those of the peristyle. The Tempietto has great dignity despite its tiny size, and since Palladio included it in his Quattro Libri it has been one of the most influential designs in the history of Western civilization” (Carr-Gomm 96). “The upper story is set back behind the balustrade, with windows between alternating semicircular and rectangular niches. These light the interior, as does the light that enters through an opening in the dome” (Hintzen-Bohlen 431).Works Cited:Adams, Laurie Schneider. Italian Renaissance Art. Boulder: Westview Press, 2001.Carr-Gomm, Sarah. Art in Focus: Rome. Boston: Bulfinch Press, 1995.Hartt, Frederick and David G. Wilkins. History of Italian Art. 5th ed. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2003.Hintzen-Bohlen, Brigitte. Rome and the Vatican City. New York: Barnes & Nobles Books, 2000.Partridge, Loren. The Art of Renaissance Rome. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1996.Stokstad, Marilyn. Art History. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1999.“To the left a table is prepared for the deaf, dumb, and blind, since they should join in the fun too. There are gathered about the oaken table with their beer jugs before them as they grope for one another and make noises. In contrast, a husky bagpiper sits on the near side of the table blaring out, with puffed cheeks, the whining, squealing music for the dancers; a friend offers him a huge earthen pot of beer. Beside them two children are dancing, a detail that may well be meant to illustrate the proverb, ‘the more the piper pipes, the more the young dance,’ providing a leitmotif for the rest of the painting” (497).3. “That the peasants are to be the objects of scorn, providing a lesson for the upper classes in how not to behave seems, to many people today, to be the intention of this picture as well as of much, if not all, of Bruegel’s peasant imagery. One man, in the very center of the composition (but far in the background), is seen as the embodiment of such an attitude. He is dressed in a somber black robe, with a close-fitting black hat on his head and a disagreeable scowl on his face; he seems no only unhappy but out of place, a city-dweller who has wandered into the country and does not like what he sees” (Harbison 150). “Perhaps the artist, or his patron, saw this process as not only inevitable but even comic, a relief from the plodding humdrum existence of daily urban life. Perhaps they saw the peasant as an embodiment of native culture, something to preserve in opposition to the increasingly oppressive foreign Spanish rule. Beside the man dressed in black at the back of Bruegel’s image stands a figure with upraised hand and open mouth dressed in the red-and-yellow costume of a fool (jester). These two men seem the embodiment of the traditional theatrical masks, comedy and tragedy. Certainly some of Bruegel’s contemporaries saw peasants as examples of ignorance and folly; others lauded the good peasant, plo“To the left a table is prepared for the deaf, dumb, and blind, since they should join in the fun too. There are gathered about the oaken table with their beer jugs before them as they grope for one another and make noises. In contrast, a husky bagpiper sits on the near side of the table blaring out, with puffed cheeks, the whining, squealing music for the dancers; a friend offers him a huge earthen pot of beer. Beside them two children are dancing, a detail that may well be meant to illustrate the proverb, ‘the more the piper pipes, the more the young dance,’ providing a leitmotif for the rest of the painting” (497).3. “That the peasants are to be the objects of scorn, providing a lesson for the upper classes in how not to behave seems, to many people today, to be the intention of this picture as well as of much, if not all, of Bruegel’s peasant imagery. One man, in the very center of the composition (but far in the background), is seen as the embodiment of such an attitude. He is dressed in a somber black robe, with a close-fitting black hat on his head and a disagreeable scowl on his face; he seems no only unhappy but out of place, a city-dweller who has wandered into the country and does not like what he sees” (Harbison 150). “Perhaps the artist, or his patron, saw this process as not only inevitable but even comic, a relief from the plodding humdrum existence of daily urban life. Perhaps they saw the peasant as an embodiment of native culture, something to preserve in opposition to the increasingly oppressive foreign Spanish rule. Beside the man dressed in black at the back of Bruegel’s image stands a figure with upraised hand and open mouth dressed in the red-and-yellow costume of a fool (jester). These two men seem the embodiment of the traditional theatrical masks, comedy and tragedy. Certainly some of Bruegel’s contemporaries saw peasants as examples of ignorance and folly; others lauded the good peasant, plo“To the left a table is prepared for the deaf, dumb, and blind, since they should join in the fun too. There are gathered about the oaken table with their beer jugs before them as they grope for one another and make noises. In contrast, a husky bagpiper sits on the near side of the table blaring out, with puffed cheeks, the whining, squealing music for the dancers; a friend offers him a huge earthen pot of beer. Beside them two children are dancing, a detail that may well be meant to illustrate the proverb, ‘the more the piper pipes, the more the young dance,’ providing a leitmotif for the rest of the painting” (497).3. “That the peasants are to be the objects of scorn, providing a lesson for the upper classes in how not to behave seems, to many people today, to be the intention of this picture as well as of much, if not all, of Bruegel’s peasant imagery. One man, in the very center of the composition (but far in the background), is seen as the embodiment of such an attitude. He is dressed in a somber black robe, with a close-fitting black hat on his head and a disagreeable scowl on his face; he seems no only unhappy but out of place, a city-dweller who has wandered into the country and does not like what he sees” (Harbison 150). “Perhaps the artist, or his patron, saw this process as not only inevitable but even comic, a relief from the plodding humdrum existence of daily urban life. Perhaps they saw the peasant as an embodiment of native culture, something to preserve in opposition to the increasingly oppressive foreign Spanish rule. Beside the man dressed in black at the back of Bruegel’s image stands a figure with upraised hand and open mouth dressed in the red-and-yellow costume of a fool (jester). These two men seem the embodiment of the traditional theatrical masks, comedy and tragedy. Certainly some of Bruegel’s contemporaries saw peasants as examples of ignorance and folly; others lauded the good peasant, plo“To the left a table is prepared for the deaf, dumb, and blind, since they should join in the fun too. There are gathered about the oaken table with their beer jugs before them as they grope for one another and make noises. In contrast, a husky bagpiper sits on the near side of the table blaring out, with puffed cheeks, the whining, squealing music for the dancers; a friend offers him a huge earthen pot of beer. Beside them two children are dancing, a detail that may well be meant to illustrate the proverb, ‘the more the piper pipes, the more the young dance,’ providing a leitmotif for the rest of the painting” (497).3. “That the peasants are to be the objects of scorn, providing a lesson for the upper classes in how not to behave seems, to many people today, to be the intention of this picture as well as of much, if not all, of Bruegel’s peasant imagery. One man, in the very center of the composition (but far in the background), is seen as the embodiment of such an attitude. He is dressed in a somber black robe, with a close-fitting black hat on his head and a disagreeable scowl on his face; he seems no only unhappy but out of place, a city-dweller who has wandered into the country and does not like what he sees” (Harbison 150). “Perhaps the artist, or his patron, saw this process as not only inevitable but even comic, a relief from the plodding humdrum existence of daily urban life. Perhaps they saw the peasant as an embodiment of native culture, something to preserve in opposition to the increasingly oppressive foreign Spanish rule. Beside the man dressed in black at the back of Bruegel’s image stands a figure with upraised hand and open mouth dressed in the red-and-yellow costume of a fool (jester). These two men seem the embodiment of the traditional theatrical masks, comedy and tragedy. Certainly some of Bruegel’s contemporaries saw peasants as examples of ignorance and folly; others lauded the good peasant, plo“To the left a table is prepared for the deaf, dumb, and blind, since they should join in the fun too. There are gathered about the oaken table with their beer jugs before them as they grope for one another and make noises. In contrast, a husky bagpiper sits on the near side of the table blaring out, with puffed cheeks, the whining, squealing music for the dancers; a friend offers him a huge earthen pot of beer. Beside them two children are dancing, a detail that may well be meant to illustrate the proverb, ‘the more the piper pipes, the more the young dance,’ providing a leitmotif for the rest of the painting” (497).3. “That the peasants are to be the objects of scorn, providing a lesson for the upper classes in how not to behave seems, to many people today, to be the intention of this picture as well as of much, if not all, of Bruegel’s peasant imagery. One man, in the very center of the composition (but far in the background), is seen as the embodiment of such an attitude. He is dressed in a somber black robe, with a close-fitting black hat on his head and a disagreeable scowl on his face; he seems no only unhappy but out of place, a city-dweller who has wandered into the country and does not like what he sees” (Harbison 150). “Perhaps the artist, or his patron, saw this process as not only inevitable but even comic, a relief from the plodding humdrum existence of daily urban life. Perhaps they saw the peasant as an embodiment of native culture, something to preserve in opposition to the increasingly oppressive foreign Spanish rule. Beside the man dressed in black at the back of Bruegel’s image stands a figure with upraised hand and open mouth dressed in the red-and-yellow costume of a fool (jester). These two men seem the embodiment of the traditional theatrical masks, comedy and tragedy. Certainly some of Bruegel’s contemporaries saw peasants as examples of ignorance and folly; others lauded the good peasant, plo ................
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