16th Century Italian Art Images

Question 1

Title: Mona Lisa
Location: Musée du Louvre, Paris
Time Period: c. 1503-1506
Medium: Oil on wood
Artist: Leonardo da Vinci

Answer 1

1. Use of sfumato or “smoky” is a hallmark of Leonardo’s style
   - A subtle transition between light and dark; a light/dark contrast
2. Known for being an acute observer of human behaviour, his art captures human emotion with compelling immediacy
3. A portrait of Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo, the wife of a prominent Florentine merchant
   - The portrait was a commission but Leonardo liked it so much he kept it and took it with him to France
4. Deviated from traditional portraiture:
   - Despite being commissioned by a wealthy patron, she is depicted without jewelry
   - Depicted her full half-length figure instead of only her upper torso

Question 2

Discuss the myth of Leonardo

Answer 2

1. Unlike his counterparts, besides painting, his passions lay in mathematics, engineering, and the natural world
2. His imagination outran his means to bring creations to life
   - He designed flying machines, a kind of automobile, a parachute, military equipment
3. His contemporaries complained that he never finished anything and that his inventions distracted him from painting
4. He contributed to the creation of some key monuments in renaissance painting:
   - A compositional formula that became standard of High Renaissance Classicism (i.e. a stable, balanced, pyramidal figural group)
   - An early example of sfumato (became a hallmark of his style)
5. Characteristics of Leonardo’s painting:
   - Sfumato (smokey rendering in the background)
   - Lighting (set in an outdoor landscape but appearing with studio lighting)

Question 3

Title: Vitruvian Man
Location: Venice
Time Period: c. 1490
Medium: Ink
Artist: Leonardo da Vinci

Answer 3

1. Leonardo’s attempt to understand what canonical proportions Vitruvius was describing
   - Vitruvius created a 10 book treatise on the principles of architecture, he discussed the scale of building (architecture must be made in scale of the human body because the building is to be used by humans)
   - The European male body was the standard to find measurements for architecture

Question 4

–Top–
Title: Cartoon for Tapestry Portraying Christ’s Charge to Peter
Location: London
Time Period: c. 1515-1516
Medium: Distemper on paper
Artist: Raphael and assistants

–Bottom–
Title: Christ’s Charge to Peter
Location: Sistine Chapel, Rome
Time Period: Woven 1517, Installed 1519
Medium: Wool and silk with silver-gilt wrapped threads
Artist: Shop of Pieter van Aelst

Answer 4

1. Process:
   - Cartoon is first drawn on paper and separate sheets were glued together
2. The most famous commissions and most costly were Flemish tapestries
   - Raphael developing the cartoon showed that he was gaining notoriety
3. The tapestries were woven backwards which is why the images are facing different ways

Question 5

**Likely a comparative question with other David’s
Title: David
Location: Florence
Time Period: 1501-1504
Medium: Marble
Artist: Michelangelo

Answer 5

1. His muscular form is viewed as reminiscent of antiquity but the move away from stoic expressions was considered new
2. This David has not yet killed Goliath, perhaps a moment of concern and finding bravery for the fight to come
3. Associated with strength, kind of like Herakles
   - Came to be a reminder of Florence’s republican status (briefly reinstated after the expulsion of the Medici oligarchy)
   - Stands for the supremacy of “right” over “might” (reflects the political and military pressures experienced by Florentines)
4. Original meant to be placed on top of the Dome of the Florence Cathedral
   - Upon completion it was so admired that the city council instead placed it in the principle city square

Question 6

Title: Self-Portrait
Location: Boston
Time Period: c. 1556
Medium: Varnished watercolor on parchment
Artist: Sofonisba Anguissola

Answer 6

1. She was not the daughter of an artist but her father provided all his children with a humanistic education and encouraged them to pursue careers in the arts (especially painting)
   -He even discussed Sofonisba’s talents with Michelangelo and asked that he provide her with feedback on a drawing of hers that replicated one of his
2. Skilled in portrait painting and now associated with miniatures
3. In 1560, she became court painter and a lady-in-waiting for the queen of Spain
   - Most of her Spanish works burned in a palace fire but she was described as being excellent and exceeding her colleagues

Question 7

Title: The Tempest
Location: Venice
Time Period: c. 1506
Medium: Oil on canvas
Artist: Giorgione

Answer 7

1. Considered more enigmatic than the Mona Lisa
2. Intended to be a poem put into visual narrative, however, there are many poetic claims Giorgione could be trying to make
   - ex. an x-ray shows that a female figure was painted underneath the male figure
   - Perhaps a poetic reference to the elements in taking the viewer into the country side (i.e. presence of rolling clouds, lightning, river)
3. Intended to make the viewer ponder its meaning