in Greek at the top: “This picture, at the end of the year 1500, in the troubles of Italy, I Alessandro, in the half-time after the time, painted, according to the eleventh [chapter] of Saint John, in the second woe of the Apocalypse, during the release of the devil for three-and-a-half years; then he shall be bound in the twelfth [chapter] and we shall see [him buried] as in this picture.“ Botticelli’s picture has been called the Mystic Nativity because of its mysterious symbolism.
163. Piero di Cosimo, 1462–1521, High Renaissance, Florentine School, Italian, Immaculate Conception and Six Saints, c. 1505, Oil on panel, 206 × 173 cm, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence
164. Leonardo da Vinci, 1452–1519, High Renaissance, Florentine School, Italian, The Virgin of the Rocks (The Virgin with the Infant Saint John adoring the Infant Christ accompanied by an Angel), 1483–86, Oil on panel, 199 × 122 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris
The Virgin of the Rocks, also by Leonardo da Vinci, is probably the most well-known painting of the Virgin and Child within the Western world. Now located in the Louvre, this work is one of the best examples of the use of atmospheric perspective and the correct foreshortening of the human figure. The cavern and the group of figures are all seen as through a veil of shadowy mist. Leonardo believed that his destiny was to recreate the beauty of nature on his canvas. The figure of the Madonna occupies the apex of the pyramid-based composition of this painting – the most important location – due to her high ranking within contemporary Christian belief. She is accompanied by the infants Jesus and St John, and an angel. All four reflect the Renaissance ideal of the human form. Leonardo altogether eliminated the use of the halo effects to further humanise the group. The Virgin is depicted as the perfect woman, yet she also projects her tender Earth Mother qualities reminiscent of those seen in ancient renderings of the Great Goddess Isis.
165. Giovanni Bellini, c. 1426–1516, Early Renaissance, Venetian School, Italian, The Doge Leonardo Loredan, c. 1501–05, Oil on poplar, 61 × 45 cm, National Gallery, London
Bellini was an exquisite portrait painter. His Doge Leonardo Loredan, the elected ruler of Venice, is painted in a completely revolutionary way and had some beautiful effects. Rather than using gold-leaf to show the richness of the material of the Doge’s robe, he painted the surface in a rough way, thus catching the light and rendering a metallic look.
166. Albrecht Dürer, 1471–1528, Northern Renaissance, German, Self-portrait in a Fur-Collared Robe, 1500, Oil on limewood panel, 67.1 × 48.9 cm, Alte Pinakothek, Munich
This flattering, Christ-like portrait is also innovative as the artist represented himself frontally. The painting bears the inscription: “Thus I, Albrecht Dürer from Nuremberg, painted myself with indelible colours at the age of 28 years.”
Albrecht Dürer
(1471–1528 Nuremberg)
Dürer is the greatest of German artists and most representative of the German mind. He, like Leonardo, was a man of striking physical attractiveness, great charm of manner and conversation, and mental accomplishment, being well grounded in the sciences and mathematics of the day. His skill in draughtsmanship was extraordinary; Dürer is even more celebrated for his engravings on wood and copper than for his paintings. With both, the skill of his hand was at the service of the most minute observation and analytical research into the character and structure of form. Dürer, however, had not the feeling for abstract beauty and ideal grace that Leonardo possessed; but instead, a profound earnestness, a closer interest in humanity, and a more dramatic invention. Dürer was a great admirer of Luther; and in his own work is the equivalent of what was mighty in the Reformer. It is very serious and sincere; very human, and addressed the hearts and understanding of the masses. Nuremberg, his hometown, had become a great centre of printing and the chief distributor of books throughout Europe. Consequently, the art of engraving upon wood and copper, which may be called the pictorial branch of printing, was much encouraged. Of this opportunity Dürer took full advantage.
The Renaissance in Germany was more a moral and intellectual than an artistic movement, partly due to northern conditions. The feeling for ideal grace and beauty is fostered by the study of the human form, and this had been flourishing predominantly in southern Europe. But Albrecht Dürer had a genius too powerful to be conquered. He remained profoundly Germanic in his stormy penchant for drama, as was his contemporary Mathias Grünewald, a fantastic visionary and rebel against all Italian seductions. Dürer, in spite of all his tense energy, dominated conflicting passions by a sovereign and speculative intelligence comparable with that of Leonardo. He, too, was on the border of two worlds, that of the Gothic age and that of the modern age, and on the border of two arts, being an engraver and draughtsman rather than a painter.
167. Leonardo da Vinci, 1452–1519, Renaissance, Florentine School, Italian, Mona Lisa (La Gioconda), c. 1503–06, Oil on poplar panel, 77 × 53 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris
Everybody knows this portrait: oval face with broad, high forehead; dreamy eyes beneath drooping lids; a smile very sweet and a little sad, with a suggestion of conscious superiority. This small painting, one of only thirty extant works by Leonardo, ended up in the collection of the French King, Francis I, and was displayed in the castle of Fontainebleau until the reign of Louis XIV. It is the most famous portrait, one of the first easel paintings, the most often reproduced and satirised, and one of the most influential works of the Italian Renaissance, if not of all European art. The model was probably the wife of the Marquis Francesco del Giocondo, a Florentine merchant. The work is the perfection of Leonardo’s pioneering technique of “sfumato,“ creating atmospheric scenery, or the layering of glazes in a way that blends one colour seamlessly to another. The work also demonstrates his mastery of anatomy, perspective, landscape and portrait painting. The disposition of the sitter, in three-quarter view and the background landscape is characteristic of Florentine painting at the time. But this picture is no longer presented to us as an almost fortuitous aggregate of details and episodes. It is an organism in which all the elements, lines and colours, shadows and light compose a subtle tracery converging on a spiritual, sensuous centre. On this small panel, Leonardo depicted an epitome of the universe, creation and created: woman, the eternal enigma, the eternal ideal of man and the sign of the perfect beauty to which he aspires, evoked by a magician in all its mystery and power. Mona Lisa represents a vast revelation of the eternal feminine.
168. Giovanni Bellini, c. 1430–1516, Early Renaissance, Venetian School, Italian, Saint Zaccaria Altarpiece, 1505, Oil on wood, transferred to canvas, 402 × 273 cm, Church of San Zaccaria, Venice
This altarpiece is often considered as the most perfect painting of sacra conversazione. Bellini brings to life the traditional figure of the Virgin and saints. Here, the composition of the painting (an apse surrounding the Madonna and the saints) becomes the continuation of the altar.
Giovanni Bellini
(1430–1516 Venice)
Giovanni Bellini was the son of Jacopo Bellini, a Venetian painter who was settled in Padua at the time Giovanni and his elder brother, Gentile, were in their period of studentship. Here, they came under the influence of Mantegna, who was also bound to them by the ties of relationship, since he married their sister. To his brother-in-law, Bellini owed much of his knowledge of classical architecture and perspective, and his broad and sculptural treatment
