Renaissance

HISTORY OF ART

Leon Battista Alberti

Alberti is an anomaly: he is a puzzling figure in the Renaissance period, because he left very few works behind. We have no paintings, only one sculpture by him and otherwise only architecture work has been left: but we know he was active in all forms of art. He was born in1404 and died in 1472 living through the creative period of the Renaissance. He arrives in Florence in 1434: the most important and creative time of the Renaissance. He was a thinker and a theoretician.

In 1435 his book:" On Painting" is published. It's the most important book on painting ever written because it's about what the Renaissance artist were doing at that time. He was a Florentine but his family had lived in exile in Genoa until 1434. He had a very good education in Padua and Bologna. In 1430 the Alberti family was allowed back to Florence.

He had never been in Florence before his 30's: here he sees the Cathedral Dome by Brunelleschi, the most "talked about" work of art in Europe, nearly completed. We know this from his book prologue.

Florence, Santa Maria del Fiore,

Filippo Brunelleschi, Dome

Alberti sensed that a lot of the "ancient works" had been lost: he had studied and read a lot, so he knew the references to the old works. Meanwhile there had been very few good artists for nearly 1000 years. Was nature tired of producing "geniuses"? Alberti recognized that there was a group of excellent artists and he named them. In this prologue there are two great ideas,

(1) The rebirth of tradition in the Renaissance, it's the best thought of modern times.

(2) The improvement over tradition: the beginning of the western artistic mind.

His book "On Painting" is divided into 3 "books".

The first book is about perspective. Alberti dedicated his book to Brunelleschi. Later he wrote a second book on architecture where he codified and told the "history of architecture".

He wrote also another book on a "Family Renaissance" which is fascinating because it refers to the Medici Family, the most important family in Florence. The Medici came back to Florence in 1434 at the same time the Albertis did. In this book Alberti investigated the reasons behind the power of a powerful family. Alberti is "unique" because he is an artist and a writer. The Albertis are one of the great and most ancient families in Florence. When they went back to Florence in 1434 they became as important as they had been before their exile, and they became friends of the Medici. Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio are the artists which helped the Tuscan "dialect" to become the "Italian" language.

"Perspective" is the subject of the First Book of "On Painting" and it is called "Mathematics" by Alberti (see the history of the Theory of Perspective in the chronology sheet handouts). It is 1435 and it's the first time ever someone creates a "theory" on which any artist can draw to paint. In 1425 Brunelleschi invented the "system and art" of perspective painting probably with the help of his friend the Mathematician Toscanelli. Alberti wrote it all down for the first time in 1435. This is the beginning of a technique that artists will use to paint until Picasso.

"Perspective" means that the figure is relative, everything is in relation to the human being. The human being is the center of Art as expressed by the theory of "Humanism".

Leon Battista Alberti, "On Painting": Perspective

In order to implement the perspective as explained by Alberti: divide the person into three sections (see the "schematic" page in the handouts); the third, the perfect number, is the subdivision of the baseline. The point "G" is at the intersection of the lines and can move depending on the angle from where the spectator will watch the art-work. It presumes that the universe has an order, a great universal order that can be reproduced through math, and that it can be ordered mathematically through geometry. In 1400 the intellectual presumption is that the Universe is all ordered and reproducible using math and geometry. A point of view must be assumed: the artists thinks about the spectator's point of observation. Artists want to be specific and scientific about the "rules" of painting. After Alberti's book publication all artists tried to use the perspective rules. Leon Battista Alberti wrote the book and in the meantime the Cathedral Dome by Brunelleschi changed every perspective in Florence. Brunelleschi invented the marble spanners: when you stand beneath the Dome you are swept up into the greater order of the universe. A precise beam of sunlight from the top arrives into the Cathedral. Toscanelli measured the altar and the dome as the union of the universe and man while Brunelleschi built a scientific order. In these art works there is a "consciousness", and "awareness".

Ghiberti used the perspective theory and system in the panels of his second set of doors, except on the first 4 panels. We can see the "empirical perspective" or "quasi-perspective" in "The creation" panel, dated 1435, one of Ghiberti's panel completed before the book came out. Then we can see the application of Alberti's teaching in the subsequent "Isaac and Jacob's" panel. We can here distinguish the perspective, the vision of depth, which is now automatic and granted for us. Also we see here the adoption of a single scale for both humans and architecture.

Alberti used the architecture of the above panel, mainly the arches, in the "Loggia dei Ruccellai", a Ruccellai's family building. Ghiberti was using the system and putting it into work.

Alberti, Loggia dei Ruccellai

Masaccio also used this technique in the "Holy Trinity" in the Santa Maria Novella church. A tomb is painted at the bottom of the scene and expresses a recession in space. It's the very first painting using this system, and it's an excellent try.

Masaccio, Holy Trinity

The spectators' point of view is from the bottom of the scene to the top. Ghiberti's panel, Brunelleschi's dome, Masaccio's paintings and a new architectural style implied a powerful sociological revolution in Florence. Alberti was interested in how the community