Several momentous events mark 1453 as an historical dividing line: the French finally expelled the English to end the Hundred Years War; Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks, extinguishing the last vestiges of the old Roman Empire and establishing Rome as the capital of Christendom; and in art, the Renaissance was in full bloom after synthesising the innovations of the previous two centuries, symbolically concluding the old order of things from Late Antiquity.

      As the name suggests, the Renaissance was a re-birth – in this case a re-birth of Classical ideals. Ideologically, Renaissance humanism attempted to reconcile ancient learning with Christian traditions, thus renewing interest in the writings of Ancient authors. The Islamic world had preserved much ancient knowledge, particularly of the Greeks, and these texts were now translated into Latin. Built on the ruins of Antiquity, Italy was the centre of Renaissance thought. Along with the renewed interest in the Antique came an evolution in attitudes towards the body, as Augustinian condemnation of the body yielded before the beauty of ancient nudes. The eroticism of classical myth also shaped this revival.

      Among the most famous of Renaissance artists was Botticelli who, under the patronage of Lorenzo de’ Medici of Florence, sometimes based his elegantly idealised nudes on specific antique statues and often painted humanistic subjects. His famous Birth of Venus, while ostensibly a high-minded humanist allegory, focused on a provocative representation of the nude goddess of love. High Renaissance artists of the next century went even further. Michelangelo developed an ideal of muscular masculine beauty that survives even today. The Dying Slave for the tomb of Pope Julius II seems not to be in bondage as was intended, but to be languorously revelling in sexual ecstasy. In Venice, Titian created a parallel ideal of feminine beauty with his reclining nudes, particularly the coy Venus of Urbino.

      The rest of Europe developed on a slightly different course. Late medieval stylistic traditions lingered, but artists still used erotic subjects. The Flemish artist Bosch painted visionary images based on religious themes, and managed to make sin look worth the punishment in The The Garden of Earthly Delights, where nude figures frolic and indulge themselves sexually and sensually in a fantastic, dream-like landscape. German artist Dürer brought Italian ideas to northern Europe. Often called the “Leonardo of the North,” Dürer’s scientific interests paralleled those of Italian humanists. His nudes often bore an unexpected mix of Italian idealism and northern realism. Dürer’s artistic revolution was simultaneous with the Reformation, which perhaps had a greater ultimate impact on art and society than Renaissance humanism.

      By the 1520s, High Renaissance idealism had evolved into Mannerism. The refined court culture of Europe provided an educated audience for an art appealing to complex and sophisticated tastes. Mannerist artists such as Bronzino employed exquisite artifice in works such as Allegory with Venus and Cupid – a subject so complex and mysterious that its intended meaning is still uncertain. What is clear is the obvious, the transgressive eroticism of a nude Venus in a sexual embrace with her own son. Mannerist artists commonly used eroticism as a means to increase the complexity of their work. With sexuality and erotic bodies on such open display, a reaction was probably inevitable. The Catholic Church responded militantly to the rise of Protestantism with the Counter-Reformation and re-asserted traditional Church doctrines – including strictures against nudity and sexual expression. The Renaissance adulation of the body seemed to have reached an end.

      130. Jean Fouquet, The Virgin and Child Surrounded by Angels (detail from the Melun Diptych), c. 1450–1460. Oil on canvas, 94 × 85 cm. Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen, Antwerp (Belgium).

      The particularity of this painting is due to its geometric composition, set in a convex pentagon often used by Fouquet. The volume given accentuates the sculptural aspect of this Virgin whose face was inspired by Agnes Sorel (the mistress of Charles VII). The diptych assembles the portrait of a Virgin with the one of the patrons in prayer in front of his protector saint.

      Jean FOUQUET

      (Tours, 1420–1481)

      A painter and illuminator, Jean Fouquet is regarded as the most important French painter of the fifteenth century. Little is known about his life but it is quite sure that he executed, in Italy, the portrait of Pope Eugenius IV. Upon his return to France, he introduced Italian Renaissance elements into French painting. He was the court painter to Louis XI. Whether he worked on miniatures rendering the finest detail, or on larger scale in panel paintings, Fouquet’s art had the same monumental character. His figures are modelled in broad planes defined by lines of magnificent purity.

      131. Dirk Bouts, Virgo Lactans, c. 1460. Illustration, 29 × 20 cm. Museo Correr, Venice (Italy).

      132. Hugo Van der Goes, Diptych: The Fall of Man and the Lamentation, c. 1470–1475. Tempera on wood, 32.3 × 21.9 cm. Kunsthistoriches Museum, Vienna (Austria). Contemporary of Piero della Francesca, Van der Goes is resolute to depict reality while using refined colours. His painting is more and more illusionist here and betrays the artist’s like for details and depiction of light.

      133. Antonello da Messina, St Sebastian, 1476. Panel transposed on canvas, 171 × 85 cm. Gemäldegalerie, Dresden (Germany).

      Antonello da MESSINA

      (Messina, 1430–1479)

      If little is known about his life, the name of Antonello da Messina corresponds to the arrival of a new technique in Italian painting; oils. He used them especially in his portraits where they were very popular in his day, such as Portrait of a Man (1475).

      Now, if this appears to be not exactly true, still his work influenced Venetian painters. His work was a combination of Flemish technique and realism with typically Italian modelling of forms and clarity of spatial arrangement. Also, his practice of building form with colour, rather than line and shade, greatly influenced the subsequent development of Venetian painting.

      134. Andrea Mantegna, St Sebastian, c. 1455–1460. Tempera on panel, 68 × 30 cm. Kunsthistoriches Museum, Vienna (Austria).

      Andrea MANTEGNA

      (Isola di Carturo, 1431 – Mantua, 1506)

      Mantegna; humanist, geometrist, archaeologist, of great scholastic and imaginative

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