Venice is one of the most amazing cities in the world: a city on the water. The boundless sea, the boundless sky and small flat islands - this is the minimum natural bounty that fate has bestowed on Venice. And since the population was very large, and the land very small, every tree that was allowed to grow where something could be built became a luxury item.
Venice lived for many centuries as a fabulously rich city, and its inhabitants could not be surprised by the abundance of gold, silver, precious stones, fabrics and other treasures, but the garden at the palace was always perceived by them as the ultimate limit of wealth, because there was negligible greenery in the city: people I had to give it up in the struggle for living space. Perhaps that is why the Venetians became very receptive to beauty, and it was with them that every artistic style reached the maximum of its decorative possibilities. Love for beauty, embodied in art, has made Venice a true "Pearl of the Adriatic".
Venice played an active role in international politics: in 1167 it became part of the Lombard League, created by the northern Italian cities to fight against Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa; Pope Alexander III was also an enemy of the emperor, who opposed him with another pope - Paschal III.
While in Central and Southern Italy the short “golden age” of the High Renaissance was completed in the first three decades of the 16th century, and in subsequent years, along with its greatest peak - the work of Michelangelo - a decadent mannerist direction developed, in northern Italy, in Venice, gives its full fruits to the humanistic art of the High and late Renaissance.
The fall of Constantinople under the onslaught of the Turks greatly shook the trading positions of the “Queen of the Adriatic”. And yet, the huge sums of money accumulated by Venetian merchants allowed Venice to maintain its independence and Renaissance way of life for a significant part of the 16th century.
The High Renaissance in Venice is an interesting and peculiar moment of the Renaissance in Italy. Here it started a little later, and lasted longer. The role of ancient traditions in Venice was the smallest, and the connection with the subsequent development of European painting was the most direct.
Venice was not interested in excavations and the study of the culture that it was "reviving" - its Renaissance had other sources. The culture of Byzantium had a particularly vivid influence on the development of the culture of Venice, but the strictness inherent in Byzantium did not take root - Venice absorbed more of its colorfulness and golden brilliance. Venice reworked both Gothic and Eastern traditions in its bosom. This city developed its own style, drawing from everywhere, gravitating towards colorfulness, towards romantic picturesqueness. The taste for the fantastic, the flowery, however, was moderated and streamlined by the spirit of business-like sobriety, a real outlook on life, characteristic of Venetian merchants.
From everything that Venice absorbed, from the threads of the West and the East, she wove her own Renaissance, her purely secular, proto-bourgeois culture, which, in the final analysis, came close to the research of the Italian humanists. This happened not earlier than the second half of the 15th century - only then did the short-term Venetian "quattrocento" come, which soon gave way to the culture of the High Renaissance. Many who get acquainted with Venetian painting like the works of the early Venetian Renaissance even more than the famous paintings of Titian, Veronese and Tintoretto. The works of the Quattrocentists are more restrained and subtle, their naivety captivates, they have more musicality. The artist, transitional from the Early Renaissance to the High - Giovanni Bellini, over time attracts more and more attention, although for a long time he was overshadowed by his younger contemporaries with his magnificent sensual brilliance.
Giorgione - a student of Giovanni Bellini, the artist, considered the first master of the High Renaissance in Venice, belonged to a breed of dreamers. Giorgione's style has something in common with Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci: Giorgione is "classical", clear, balanced in his compositions, and his drawing is characterized by a rare smoothness of lines. But Giorgione is more lyrical, more intimate, he has a quality that has always been characteristic of the Venetian school and raised by him to a new level - colorism. The love of the Venetians for the sensual beauty of color led, step by step, to a new pictorial principle, when the materiality of the image is achieved not so much by chiaroscuro as by gradations of color. In part, Giorgione already has it.
The art of Giorgione opened the stage of the High Renaissance in Venice. Compared with the clear rationality of Leonardo's art, Giorgione's painting is permeated with deep lyricism and contemplation. The landscape, which occupies a prominent place in his work, contributes to the disclosure of the poetry and harmony of his perfect images. The harmonious relationship between man and nature is an important feature of Giorgione's work. Formed among humanists, musicians, poets, an outstanding musician himself, Giorgione finds the finest musicality of rhythms in his compositions. Color plays a huge role in them. Sound paints, laid in transparent layers, soften the outlines. The artist skillfully uses the properties of oil painting. The variety of shades and transitional tones helps him to achieve the unity of volume, light, color and space. Among his early works, Judith (circa 1502, St. Petersburg, Hermitage) attracts with tender dreaminess, subtle lyricism. The biblical heroine is depicted as a young beautiful woman against the backdrop of hushed nature. However, a strange disturbing note is introduced into this seemingly harmonious composition by the sword in the heroine's hand and the severed head of the enemy, trampled by her.
In the paintings "Thunderstorm" (circa 1505, Venice, Academy Gallery) and "Country Concert" (circa 1508-1510, Paris, Louvre), the plots of which remained unidentified, the mood is created not only by people, but also by nature: pre-stormy - in the first and calmly radiant, solemn - in the second. Against the backdrop of the landscape, people are depicted, immersed in thought, as if waiting for something or playing music, constituting an inseparable whole with the nature around them.
The combination of the ideal harmonious with the concrete-individual characterization of a person distinguishes the portraits painted by Giorgione. Attracts with depth of thought, nobility of character, dreaminess and spirituality of Antonio Brocardo (1508-1510, Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts). The image of perfect sublime beauty and poetry receives its ideal embodiment in the Sleeping Venus (circa 1508-1510, Dresden, Art Gallery). She is presented against the backdrop of a rural landscape, immersed in a peaceful sleep. The smooth rhythm of the linear outlines of her figure subtly harmonizes with the soft lines of gentle hills, with the thoughtful calmness of nature. All contours are softened, plasticity is ideally beautiful, softly modeled forms are proportionately proportionate. Subtle nuances of golden tones convey the warmth of a naked body. Giorgione died in the prime of his life from the plague, never having completed his most perfect painting. The landscape in the picture was completed by Titian, who completed other orders entrusted to Giorgione.
For many years, the art of its head, Titian (1485/1490-1576), determined the development of the Venetian school of painting. Along with the art of Leonardo, Raphael and Michelangelo, it appears to be the pinnacle of the High Renaissance. Titian's fidelity to humanistic principles, faith in the will, reason and human capabilities, powerful colorism give his works an enormous attractive force. In his work, the originality of the realism of the Venetian school of painting is finally revealed. The attitude of the artist is full-blooded, the knowledge of life is deep and multifaceted. The versatility of his talent manifested itself in the development of various genres and themes, lyrical and dramatic.
Unlike Giorgione, who died early, Titian lived a long happy life full of inspired creative work. He was born in the town of Cadore, lived all his life in Venice, studied there - first with Bellini, and then with Giorgione. Only for a short time, having already achieved fame, he traveled at the invitation of customers to Rome and Augsburg, preferring to work in the atmosphere of his spacious hospitable home, where his humanist friends and artists often gathered, among them the writer Aretino, the architect Sansovino.
The early works of Titian are marked by a poetic worldview. But unlike the dreamy-lyrical heroes of his predecessor, Titian creates images that are more full-blooded, active, cheerful. In the painting "Love on Earth and Heaven" (1510s, Rome, Galleria Borghese), two women are depicted against the backdrop of a beautiful idyllic landscape. One of them, magnificently dressed, thoughtfully laid-back, listens to the other, golden-haired, bright-eyed, the perfect beauty of whose naked body is set off by a scarlet cloak falling from her shoulder. The plot of this allegory, as well as a number of paintings by Giorgione, does not have a single interpretation. But it gives the artist the opportunity to depict two different characters, states, two ideal images, subtly in harmony with the lush nature illuminated by the warm light.
On the opposition of the two characters, Titian builds the composition “Denarius of Caesar” (1515-1520, Dresden, Art Gallery): the nobility and sublime beauty of Christ are emphasized by the predatory facial expression and ugliness of the money-grubber-Pharisee. A number of altar images, portraits and mythological compositions belong to the period of Titian's creative maturity. Titian's fame spread far beyond the borders of Venice, and the number of orders constantly increased. In his works of 1518-1530, grandiose scope and pathos are combined with the dynamics of the construction of the composition, solemn grandeur, with the transfer of the fullness of being, the richness and beauty of rich color harmonies. Such is the “Ascension of Mary” (“Assunta”, 1518, Venice, Church of Santa Maria dei Frari), where the powerful breath of life is felt in the very atmosphere, in the running clouds, in the crowd of apostles, looking with admiration and surprise at the figure of Mary ascending into the sky , strictly majestic, pathetic. The chiaroscuro modeling of each figure is energetic, complex and wide movements are natural, filled with a passionate impulse. Deep red and blue tones are solemnly sonorous. In The Madonna of the Pesaro Family (1519-1526, Venice, Santa Maria dei Frari), abandoning the traditional centric construction of the altar image, Titian gives an asymmetrical but balanced composition shifted to the right, full of bright vitality. Sharp portrait characteristics endowed with Maria's upcoming customers - the Pesaro family.
In the years 1530-1540, the pathos and dynamics of Titian's early compositions are replaced by vitally direct images, clear balance, and slow narrative. In paintings on religious and mythological themes, the artist introduces a specific environment, folk types, accurately observed details of life. In the scene of "Entrance into the Temple" (1534-1538, Venice, Academy Gallery), little Mary is depicted climbing the wide stairs to the high priests. And right there, among the noisy crowd of townspeople who have gathered in front of the temple, the figure of an old merchant stands out, seated on the steps next to her goods - a basket of eggs. In the painting "Venus of Urbino" (circa 1538, Florence, Uffizi), the image of a sensual naked beauty is reduced from poetic heights by the introduction in the background of the figures of maids, taking something out of a chest. The color scheme, while maintaining sonority, becomes restrained and deep.
Throughout his life, Titian turned to the portrait genre, acting as an innovator in this area. He deepens the characteristics of the portrayed, noticing the originality of posture, movements, facial expressions, gestures, manners of wearing a suit. His portraits sometimes develop into paintings that reveal psychological conflicts and relationships between people. Already in the early portrait of the “Young Man with a Glove” (1515-1520, Paris, Louvre), the image acquires individual concreteness, and at the same time, it expresses the typical features of a Renaissance man, with his determination, energy, sense of independence, the young man seems to be asking a question and waiting for an answer. Compressed lips, sparkling eyes, the contrast of white and black in clothes sharpen the characterization. Great drama and complexity of the inner world, psychological and social generalizations are distinguished by portraits of later times, when the theme of a person's conflict with the outside world is born in Titian's work. The portrait of Ippolito Riminaldi (late 1540s, Florence, Pitti Gallery) is striking in revealing the refined spiritual world, whose pale face imperiously attracts with the complexity of the characterization, quivering spirituality. Inner life is concentrated in a glance, at the same time intense and scattered, in it the bitterness of doubts and disappointments.
A group portrait of Pope Paul III with his nephews, cardinals Alessandro and Ottavio Farnese (1545-1546, Naples, Capodimonte Museum), is perceived as a kind of document of the era, revealing selfishness and hypocrisy, cruelty and greed, authoritativeness and servility, decrepitude and tenacity -- everything that connects these people. The heroic equestrian portrait of Charles V (1548, Madrid, Prado) in knightly armor, against the backdrop of a landscape illuminated by the golden reflections of the setting sun, is vividly realistic. This portrait had a tremendous impact on the composition of the Baroque portrait of the 17th-18th centuries.
In the 1540s-1550s, the features of picturesqueness sharply increase in the work of Titian, he achieves complete unity of plastic light and shade and color solutions. Powerful strokes of light make the colors shine and shimmer. In life itself, he finds the ideal of full-blooded mature beauty embodied in mythological images - "Venus in front of a mirror" (circa 1555, Washington, National Gallery of Art), "Danae" (circa 1554, Madrid, Prado).
The strengthening of the feudal-Catholic reaction and the deep crisis experienced by the Venetian Republic cause an aggravation of the tragic beginning in the late works of the artist. They are dominated by plots of martyrdom and suffering, irreconcilable discord with life, stoic courage; "The Torment of St. Lawrence" (1550--1555, Venice, Jesuit Church), "Penitent Magdalene" (1560s, St. Petersburg, Hermitage), "Coronation with Thorns" (circa 1570, Munich, Pinakothek), "Saint Sebastian" (circa 1570, St. Petersburg, Hermitage), "Pieta" (1573--1576, Venice, Academy Gallery). The image of a person in them still has a powerful force, but loses the features of internal harmonic balance. The composition is simplified, based on a combination of one or more figures with an architectural or landscape background, immersed in twilight; evening or night scenes are illuminated by ominous lightning, the light of torches. The world is perceived in variability and movement. In these paintings, the late painting style of the artist was fully manifested, acquiring a freer and broader character and laying the foundations for tonal painting of the 17th century. Refusing bright, jubilant colors, he turns to cloudy, steely, olive complex shades, subordinating everything to a common golden tone. He achieves an amazing unity of the colorful surface of the canvas, using various textural techniques, varying the finest glazing and thick pasty open strokes of paint, sculpting form, dissolving a linear pattern in a light-air medium, giving the form the thrill of life. And in his later, even the most tragic-sounding works, Titian did not lose faith in the humanistic ideal. Man for him until the end remained the highest value of the existing. Full of consciousness of his own dignity, faith in the triumph of reason, wise life experience appears before us in the "Self-Portrait" (circa 1560, Madrid, Prado) an artist who carried the bright ideals of humanism through his whole life.
Having reached the heights of its development during the High Renaissance, Renaissance culture did not avoid crisis phenomena. They are evident in the emerging dramatic intensity of artistic images, which later reached tragedy, in the bitter desire to show the futility of even the heroic efforts of man in the fight against the fatal forces that oppose him. Signs of emerging crisis phenomena are also formed in the contrasts of social thought that were sharply manifested at that time: rationalism and a sober view of reality are combined with intense utopian searches for an ideal earthly city.
The Renaissance The Renaissance in Venice is a separate and peculiar part of the general Italian Renaissance. Here it began later, lasted longer, the role of ancient tendencies in Venice was the smallest, and the connection with the subsequent development of European painting was the most direct. The Venetian Renaissance can and should be discussed separately. The position of Venice among other Italian regions can be compared with the position of Novgorod in medieval Rus'. It was a rich, prosperous patrician-merchant republic that held the keys to sea trade routes. The winged lion of St. Mark - the emblem of Venice - reigned over the waters of the Mediterranean Sea, gold flowed from all over the earth into the Venetian lagoon. Veronese and Tiepolo depicted Venice as a magnificent blond beauty, dressed in red velvet and ermine fur, showered like Danae with golden rain. The sacred lion of the apostle humbly and devotedly, like a dog, lies at her feet.
Venice merry is especially easy to imagine from the canvases of Canaletto, an 18th-century artist: he depicted these traditional carnivals and celebrations with documentary accuracy. Square of St. The stamp is crowded with a crowd, black and gilded gondolas-birds scurry through the green waters of the lagoon, banners flutter, scarlet canopies and cloaks flash brightly, black half-masks flicker. Above everything rises and dominates the fabulous, lacy, disassembled and multi-colored architecture of the Cathedral of St. Mark and the Doge's Palace.
The fruit of the wide sociability of Venice was the Cathedral of St. Marka is an unprecedented architectural monument, where the layers of about seven centuries, starting from the 10th century, are combined into an unexpectedly harmonious, enchantingly beautiful whole, where columns taken from Byzantium, Byzantine mosaics, ancient Roman sculpture, Gothic sculpture coexist peacefully. The Doge's Palace is a building no less whimsical: it is the so-called Venetian Gothic, combining the Gothic lancet arcade at the bottom with a massive smooth block at the top, covered with an Arabic pattern of white and red plates. Venice developed its own style, drawing from everywhere, gravitating towards colorfulness, towards romantic picturesqueness. As a result, this city on the islands, where palaces stretch along the Grand Canal, reflected in its waters, where, in fact, the only vast "land" is St. Mark, became like a box filled to capacity with all kinds of jewelry.
It should be noted that the Venetian Cinquecento artists were people of a different stock than the masters of other regions of Italy. Uninvolved in scientific humanism, they were not as versatile as the Florentines or Padua - they were narrower professionals in their art - painting. Great patriots of Venice, they usually did not move anywhere and did not wander, remaining faithful to the "Queen of the Adriatic", who rewarded them well. And therefore, the Venetian school, despite the difference in artistic personalities, had many common generic features characteristic of it, and only of it, transmitted from father to son, from brother to brother in large artistic families. In the work of the Venetians, the stability of the situation, life, landscape, character was affected. We recognize the atmosphere of Venice in all their paintings by the abundance of festive, feasting motifs, by the through balustrades of palaces, by the red-velvet mantles of doges, by the golden hair of women.
Paolo Veronese can be considered the most typical artist of festive Venice. He was a painter, and only a painter, but a painter to the marrow of his bones, a lion of painting, violently talented and ingenuous in his art with that magnificent innocence of generous talent, which always captivates and is able to atone for much that is missing. The whole scope of Veronese's cheerful talent is palpable in his crowded large compositions, which were called "Marriage in Cana of Galilee", "Feast in the House of Levi", "The Last Supper", but were nothing more than colorful spectacles of intoxicating and sumptuous dinners in Venetian palazzos, with musicians, jesters, dogs.
Creatively revised principles of the ancient order system were established in architecture, and new types of public buildings were formed. Painting was enriched with a linear and aerial perspective, knowledge of the anatomy and proportions of the human body. Earthly content penetrated the traditional religious themes of works of art. Increased interest in ancient mythology, history, everyday scenes, landscapes, portraits. Along with the monumental wall paintings that adorned architectural structures, a painting appeared; oil painting originated
The work of the masters who worked in Venice, one of the most important centers of the intellectual and artistic life of Italy in the 16th century, acquired a completely special coloring. Here, by this time, an exceptionally unique and high architectural culture had developed, inextricably linked with the history of the city, the specifics of its construction and the peculiarities of Venetian life.
Venice amazed many visitors and foreigners with the breadth of international connections, the huge number of ships anchored in the Laguna and at the moorings in the middle of the city, exotic goods on the promenade dei Schiavoni and further, in the shopping center of Venice (at the Rialto Bridge). I was struck by the splendor of church festivities and civil ceremonies, which turned into fantastic naval parades.
The free air of the Renaissance and humanism was not shackled in Venice by the regime of the Counter-Reformation. Throughout the 16th century freedom of religion was preserved here, science developed more or less freely, and book printing expanded.
After 1527, when many humanists and artists left Rome, Venice became their refuge. Aretino, Sansovino, Serlio came here. As in Rome, and before that in Florence, Urbino, Mantua, and others, philanthropy and a passion for collecting manuscripts, books, and works of art developed more and more here. The Venetian nobility competed in decorating the city with fine public buildings and private palaces, painted and adorned with sculpture. The general passion for science was expressed in the publication of scientific treatises, for example, the work on applied mathematics by Luca Pacioli "On the Divine Proportion", published back in 1509. A variety of genres flourished in literature - from epistolary to dramatic.
Remarkable heights reached in the XVI century. Venetian painting. It was here in the multi-figure compositions of Carpaccio (1480-1520), one of the first true landscape painters, in the grandiose festive canvases of Veronese (1528-1588), the art of color was born. An inexhaustible treasury of human images was created by the brilliant Titian (1477-1576); high drama was achieved by Tintoretto (1518-1594).
No less significant were the shifts that took place in Venetian architecture. During the period under review, the system of artistic and expressive means that had developed in Tuscany and Rome was adapted to local needs, and local traditions were combined with Roman monumentality. This is how a completely original version of the classical Renaissance style was formed in Venice. The nature of this style was determined, on the one hand, by the stability of Byzantine, Oriental and Gothic traditions, originally reworked and firmly assimilated by conservative Venice, and on the other hand, by the unique features of the Venetian landscape.
The exclusive location of Venice on the islands in the middle of the lagoon, the tightness of buildings, only interrupted in places by small squares, the disorder of the network of canals that cut through it and narrow, sometimes less than a meter wide, streets connected by numerous bridges, the primacy of waterways and gondolas, as the main mode of transport - these are the most characteristic features of this unique city, in which even a small area acquired the value of an open hall (Fig. 23).
Its appearance, which has survived to our time, finally took shape during the 16th century, when the Grand Canal - the main water artery - was decorated with a number of majestic palaces, and the development of the main public and shopping centers of the city was finally determined.
Sansovino, having correctly understood the urban significance of Piazza San Marco, opened it up into a canal and a lagoon, finding the necessary means to express in architecture the very essence of the city as the capital of a powerful maritime power. Palladio and Longhena, who worked after Sansovino, completed the formation of the city skyline, placing several churches at the decisive planning points of the city (the monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore, the churches of Il Redentore and Santa Maria della Salute. In the bulk of urban development, which is the background for many unique buildings, the most persistent features of a peculiar and very high architectural culture of Venice (Fig. 24, 25, 26).
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| Fig.24. Venice. House on the Ross Quay; on the right is one of the channels | |
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| Fig.25. Venice. Ony Santi Canal; right palacetto on Solda court | |
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| Fig.26. Venice. Residential buildings of the XVI century.: 1 - house on calle dei Furlani; 2 - house on Salidzada dei Greci; 3 - a house on the Ross embankment; 4 - houses on campo Santa Marina; 5 - house on the embankment of San Giuseppe; 6 - palacetto on the Solda court; 7 - palacetto on calle del Olio | |
In the ordinary housing construction of Venice of the XVI century. in the main, the types developed in the previous century or even earlier developed. For the poorest segments of the population, they continued to build complexes of multi-section buildings, located parallel to the sides of a narrow courtyard, containing separate premises and apartments for families of the lowest employees of the republic (house on Campo Santa Marina; see Fig. 26.4); they built two- and multi-section houses with apartments on one or two floors each, with independent entrances and stairs; houses of wealthier developers with two apartments located one above the other and isolated according to the same principle (house on calle dei Furlani, see Fig. 26.1); the dwellings of the merchants, already approaching the plan of the palaces of the Venetian nobility, but in terms of the nature and scale of the architecture, still entirely remained in the circle of ordinary buildings.
By the 16th century, apparently, the methods of planning, and constructive methods, and the composition of the facade of buildings had finally taken shape. They formed the architectural appearance of ordinary residential buildings in Venice, which has survived to this day.
The characteristic features of the houses of the XVI century. there were first of all an increase in the number of storeys from two or three to three or four floors and the expansion of buildings; so, the width of almshouses in the XII and XIII centuries. equaled, as a rule, the depth of one room; in the 15th century residential buildings usually already had two rows of rooms, but now this has become the rule, and in some cases even entire apartments are oriented to one side of the facade (complex on campo Santa Marina). These circumstances, as well as the desire for the indispensable isolation of each apartment, led to the development of an extremely sophisticated layout of the sections.
Unknown builders showed great ingenuity, arranging light courtyards, making entrances to the first and upper floors from different sides of the building, inscribing flights of stairs leading to different apartments one above the other (as can be seen in some drawings by Leonardo da Vinci), leaning separate flights of stairs on the double longitudinal walls of the hull. From the 16th century in residential construction, as in palaces, spiral staircases are sometimes found; the most famous example is the outer, arcaded spiral staircase in the Palazzo Contarini-Minelli (XV-XVI centuries).
In blocked houses, a floor structure of the vestibule (the so-called "aule") took root, serving two or three rooms or apartments - a feature that was widespread earlier in richer individual houses or in the palaces of the nobility. This planning feature became typical in the next century in housing for the poor, which had a compact plan with apartments and rooms grouped around a closed light court.
By the XV-XVI centuries. the forms and techniques of construction equipment were also established. With Venetian soils saturated with water, reducing the weight of the building was of great importance. Wooden piles have served as foundations for a long time, but if earlier short piles (about a meter long) were used, which served only to compact the soil, but: not to transfer the pressure of the building to the underlying denser layers, then from the 16th century. began to drive real long piles (9 pieces per 1 m2). On top of them, a grillage made of oak or larch was arranged, on which a stone foundation was laid out on cement mortar. Bearing walls were made 2-3 bricks thick.
The ceilings were wooden, since the vaults, which had a significant weight, required more massive masonry walls that could take the thrust. The beams were laid quite often (the distance between them was one and a half to two beam widths) and usually left unhemmed. But in richer houses, palaces and public buildings they were hemmed, painted and decorated with wood carvings and stucco. Floors of stone tiles or bricks laid on a plastic interlayer provided the structure with some flexibility and the ability to withstand uneven wall settlement. The spans of the premises were determined by the length of the imported wood (4.8-7.2 m), which was usually not cut. The roofs were pitched, with roof tiles on wooden rafters, sometimes with a stone drain along the edge.
Although the houses were generally not heated, a fireplace was installed in the kitchens and the main living room or hall. The houses had a sewage system, albeit a primitive one - latrines were made in the kitchen, in niches above risers with channels built into the wall. At high tides, water flooded the outlets, and at low tide, it carried sewage into the lagoon. A similar method was also found in other Italian cities (for example, in Milan).
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| Fig.27. Venice. Wells. In the courtyard of Volto Santo, XV century; in the courtyard of the Church of San Giovanni Crisostomo; plan and section of the yard with a well (drainage device scheme) | |
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Water supply in Venice has long (since the 12th century) occupied the city authorities, since even deep-lying aquifers provided salty water suitable only for household needs. Drinking wells, the main source of water supply, were filled with atmospheric precipitation, the collection of which from the roofs of buildings and from the surface of yards required very complex devices (Fig. 27). Rainwater was collected from the entire surface of the paved courtyard, which had slopes to four holes. Through them, it penetrated into peculiar galleries-caissons, immersed in a layer of sand, which served as a filter, and flowed to the bottom of a vast clay reservoir embedded in the ground (its shape and size depended on the shape and size of the yard). Wells were usually built by city authorities or eminent citizens. Water folding stone, marble or even bronze bowls of wells, covered with carvings and decorated with the coat of arms of the donor, were real works of art (a bronze well in the courtyard of the Doge's Palace).
The facades of ordinary residential buildings in Venice were clear evidence that high aesthetic and artistic qualities of a building can be achieved through the skillful use of elementary, functionally or structurally necessary forms, without the introduction of complex additional details and the use of expensive materials. The brick walls of houses were sometimes plastered and painted gray or red. Against this background, the white stone architraves of doors and windows stood out. Marble cladding was used only in the homes of wealthier people and in palaces.
The artistic expressiveness of the facades was determined by the masterful, sometimes virtuoso grouping of window openings and chimneys and balconies protruding from the facade plane (the latter appeared in the 15th century only in richer dwellings). Often there was a floor-by-floor alternation of windows and piers - their location was not along the same vertical (as, for example, the front facades of houses on Campo Santa Marina or the facade of a house on the San Giuseppe embankment, see Fig. 26). The main living rooms and common areas (aule) were distinguished on the facade by double and triple arched openings. The contrasting opposition of openings and walls is a technique traditional for Venetian architecture; he received magnificent development in richer houses and palaces.
For ordinary housing construction in the 16th, as well as in the 15th century, benches are characteristic, sometimes occupying all the rooms on the first floor in the house, overlooking the street. Each shop or craftsman's workshop had an independent entrance with a showcase covered with a wooden architrave on slender square pillars carved from a single piece of stone.
In contrast to the shops, galleries on the ground floor of ordinary houses were arranged only if there was no other way to make a passage along the house. But they were a distinctive feature of public buildings and ensembles - arched galleries are found in all buildings of the central Venetian ensemble: in the Doge's Palace, the Sansovino Library, Old and New Procurations; in the commercial premises of the Fabbrique Nuove near Rialto, in the Palazzo de Dieci Savi. In richer houses, wooden terraces raised above the roofs were common, called (as in Rome) altans, which almost did not survive, but are well known from paintings and drawings.
Residential complex on Campo Santa Marina(Fig. 26.4), consisting of two four-story, parallel buildings, connected at the end with a decorative arch, can serve as an example of construction for the poor. The center of each typical section here was a hall repeating over the floors, around which living quarters were grouped, intended on the third and fourth floors for room-by-room settlement. The premises of the second floor could be separated into an independent apartment due to the arrangement of separate entrances and stairs. The first floor was occupied by shops.
House on calle dei Furlani(Fig. 26.1) is an example of a somewhat richer dwelling. As in many other Venetian houses, located on a narrow, elongated site, the main premises of the second and third floors occupied the entire width of the building along the facade. Two isolated apartments were arranged on two floors each. The stairs to the second apartment began in a small courtyard of light.
House on the waterfront of San Giuseppe(Fig. 26.5) belonged entirely to one owner. Two shops were rented out. In the middle part of the house there was a vestibule with a staircase, on the sides of which the rest of the rooms were grouped.
Palacetto on the Solda court(Fig. 26.5; exactly dated 1560) belonged to the merchant Aleviz Solta, who lived here with a family of 20 people. This building, with a central hall highlighted on the façade by a group of arched windows, approaches the type of a palace, although all the rooms in it are small and intended for housing, and not for festivities and magnificent ceremonies. The facades of the building are correspondingly modest.
The features that have developed in the ordinary housing construction of Venice are also characteristic of the palaces of the nobility. The yard is not the center of the composition in them, but is moved to the depth of the site. Among the ceremonial premises on the second floor, the aul stands out. All means of architectural expressiveness are concentrated on the main facade, oriented towards the canal; the side and rear façades are left disordered and often unfinished.
It should be noted the constructive lightness of the palace architecture, the relatively large area of the openings and their location specific to Venice (a group of richly processed openings along the axis of the facade and two symmetrical windows - accents - along the edges of the facade plane).
A new trend that penetrated the architecture of Venice at the end of the 15th century, which received here a pronounced local coloring in the work of Pietro Lombardo and his sons and Antonio Rizzo, who performed various works in the Doge's Palace and on St. Mark's Square, in the first decades of the 16th century. continued to develop. Their contemporary worked in the same spirit Spavento and masters of the younger generation - Bartolomeo Bon the Younger , Scarpagnino and etc.
Bartolomeo Bon the Younger(died in 1525), who replaced Pietro Lombardo as chief architect of the Doge's Palace, at the same time continued the construction of the Old Procurations in Piazza San Marco, laid the scuola of San Rocco and began construction of the Palazzo dei Camerlengi near the Rialto Bridge. Both of these, like many of his other buildings, were later completed by Scarpagnino (he died in 1549).
Palazzo dei Camerlengi(Fig. 28) - the seat of the Venetian tax collectors - despite the outward resemblance to the palaces of the Venetian nobility, it differs in the layout and orientation of the main facade, which does not face the Grand Canal, but the Rialto Bridge. This arrangement of the palazzo ensured its connection with the surrounding commercial buildings. The premises are grouped symmetrically along the sides of the corridor, along the entire building. The façades, Gothic in their structure, completely cut through in the second and third floors by double and triple arched windows, however, acquired, however, thanks to order divisions, a purely Renaissance order (see Fig. 39).
Scuola di San Rocco(1517-1549) is a characteristic example of a building with a clear classical order structure of the facade, combined with rich marble inlays traditional for Venice. In its appearance, however, thanks to the unraveling of the entablature and the introduction of pediments that unite arched openings in pairs, there are features characteristic of the architecture of the next era, which also includes the interiors of two large halls painted by Tintoretto (Fig. 29).
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Scarpagnino, together with Spavento (d. 1509), reconstructed a large storage building of the German merchants Fondaccodei Tedeschi (1505-1508) - a multi-storey carré with a spacious courtyard and a loggia-pier overlooking a large canal (Giorgione and Titian decorated the walls of the building from the outside with frescoes , but they were not preserved). The same two masters built the so-called Fabbrique Vecchie - buildings for trading offices, equipped with shops and arcades on the ground floors (see Fig. 39, 41).
In the religious architecture of the early XVI century. should be marked Church of San Salvatore, founded by Giorgio Spavento, which completes an important line in the development of the basilica type of the temple. In all its three naves (of which the middle one is twice as wide as the lateral ones), there is a successive alternation of square, covered with hemispherical domes, and narrow, covered with semicircular vaults, cells of the plan, which achieves greater clarity of spatial construction, in which, however, the center is less pronounced (see Fig. Fig. 58).
A new stage in the development of Renaissance architecture in Venice began with the arrival of Roman masters. They were primarily Sebastiano Serlio , architect and theorist.
Serlio(born in 1475 in Bologna, died in 1555 in Fontainebleau in France) lived in Rome until 1527, where he worked with Peruzzi. From there he moved to Venice. Here he advised on the design of the church of San Francesco della Vigna (1533), made drawings for the ceiling of the church of the library of San Marco (1538) and drawings of the stage for the theater in the house of Colleoni Porto in Vicenza (1539), as well as a model for the reconstruction of the basilica .
Entering the service of the French king Francis I, Serlio in 1541 was appointed chief architect of the palace in Fontainebleau. His most important building in France was the Château d'Ancy le Franc.
Serlio is known mainly for his theoretical work. His treatise on architecture began to appear in 1537 in separate books.
Serlio's activity largely contributed to the revival of the interest of the Venetian society in the theory of architecture, in particular in the problems of harmony and proportions, as evidenced by the discussion and a kind of competition held in 1533 in connection with the design of the church of San Francesco della Vigna, begun according to the plans of Sansovino (see. Fig. 58). The facade of the church, in which the large order of the central part was combined with a small order corresponding to the side naves, was completed only in 1568-1572. designed by Palladio.
Serlio is credited in Venice only with the completion of the Caen palaces, but the many plans and facades of buildings depicted in his treatise, for which he used the heritage of Peruzzi, had a great influence not only on his contemporaries, but also on many subsequent generations of architects in Italy and in other countries. .
The largest master who determined the development of Venetian architecture in the 16th century was Jacopo Sansovino , a student of Bramante, who settled in Venice after the sack of Rome.
Jacopo Tatti(1486-1570), who adopted the nickname Sansovino, was born in Florence and died in Venice. The first half of his life was spent in Rome (1503-1510 and 1518-1527) and Florence (1510-1517), where he worked mainly as a sculptor.
In 1520 he participated in the competition for the design of the church of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini. In 1527, Sansovino moved to Venice, where in 1529 he became the head of the Procurators of San Marco, i.e., the head of all the construction work of the Venetian Republic.
His most important architectural work in Venice includes: the restoration of the domes of the Cathedral of San Marco; the construction of the Scuola della Misericordia (1532-1545); building up the public center of the city - Piazza San Marco and Piazzetta, where he completed the Old Procurations and erected the Library (1537-1554, completed by Scamozzi) and Loggetta (since 1537); construction of a mint - Dzekka (since 1537); decoration of the Golden Staircase in the Doge's Palace (1554); Palazzo Corner della Ca Grande (since 1532); projects of the Grimani and Dolphin Manin palaces; completion of the commercial center of the city with the construction of the Fabbrique Nuove and the Rialto market (1552-1555); construction of the churches of San Fantino (1549-1564), San Maurizio and others.
It was Sansovino who took decisive steps towards applying the “classical” style that had developed in Rome to the architectural traditions of Venice.
Palazzo Corner della Ca Grande(Fig. 30) - an example of the processing of the compositional type of Florentine and Roman palaces in accordance with Venetian requirements and tastes.
Unlike most Venetian palaces built on small plots, it was possible to arrange a large courtyard in the Palazzo Corner. However, if in the Florentine palaces of the XV century. and Roman XVI century. living quarters were statically located around the courtyard, which was the center of the closed life of a wealthy citizen and the core of the whole composition, here Sansovino arranges all the premises in accordance with one of the most important functions of the aristocratic Venetian life: magnificent festivities and receptions. Therefore, a group of rooms solemnly unfolds along the line of movement of guests from the entrance loggia (pier) through a spacious lobby and stairs to the reception halls on the main (second, and in fact - third) floor with windows on the facade, on the water expanse of the canal.
The first and intermediate (service) floors raised to the basement are united by a strong rusticated masonry, forming the lower tier of the main and courtyard facades. The next floors (reception halls in them correspond to two floors of residential premises) are expressed on the main facade by two tiers of three-quarter columns of the Ionic and composite orders. The rich plasticity, the accentuated rhythm of the columns arranged in pairs, and the wide arched windows with balconies give the building exceptional magnificence.
The allocation of the central entrance loggia, the pyramidal staircase hospitably descending to the water, the ratio of narrowed walls and widened openings - all this is specific to the Venetian palace architecture of the 16th century.
Sansovino was by no means limited to palaces. And although his lifetime fame was associated to a greater extent with sculpture (in which his role was compared with the role of Titian in painting), Sansovino's main merit is the completion of the central ensemble of the city (Fig. 31-33).
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The reconstruction of the territory adjacent to the Doge's Palace, between St. Mark's Square and the pier, began in 1537 with the construction of three buildings at once - Zecchi, the new Library (on the site of grain barns) and Logetta (on the site of a building destroyed by lightning at the foot of the campanile). Sansovino, rightly assessing the possibilities of expanding and completing Piazza San Marco, began to demolish the chaotic buildings that separated it from the lagoon, then creating a charming Piazzetta.
Thus, he opened up magnificent opportunities for organizing the festivities beloved by the Venetians and solemn state ceremonies, which affirmed the power of the Venetian Republic and played out on the water, in front of the Doge's Palace and at the cathedral. The northern façade of the Library predetermined the third side and the general form of Piazza San Marco, which was then completed by the construction of the New Procurations and the building on the western side (1810). Flagpoles installed in 1505 by A. Leopardi and marble paving constitute an essential element of this grandiose open hall (length 175 m, width 56-82 m), which has become the center of social life in Venice and faces the fantastically rich five-arch facade of the cathedral.
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| Fig.36. Venice. Library of San Marco. Drawings and end facade, library and Loggetta. I. Sansovino | |
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Library of San Marco(Fig. 35, 36), intended for a collection of books and manuscripts, donated in 1468 to the Venetian Republic by Cardinal Vissarion, is a long (about 80 m) building, entirely made of white marble. It lacks its own compositional center. Its facade is a two-tier order arcade (with three-quarter columns of the Tuscan order at the bottom and the Ionic order at the top), unusually rich in plasticity and chiaroscuro. The lower arcade forms a deep, half-body-wide loggia. Behind it is a series of commercial premises and the entrance to the library, marked by caryatids. A solemn staircase in the middle of the building leads to the second floor, to the vestibule (furnished later by Scamozzi) and through it to the main hall of the library.
Sansovino tried to use a new design of a false vaulted ceiling in the hall, making it out of brick, but the vault and part of the wall collapsed (1545). The existing elliptical vault, decorated with paintings by Titian and Veronese, is made of stucco.
The arched openings on the second floor, taken together as a continuous gallery, rest on double Ionic columns that develop the plasticity of the façade in depth. Due to this, the entire thickness of the wall is involved in shaping the external appearance of the structure. A high triglyph frieze between the floors and an even more developed, relief-covered frieze of the upper entablature, hiding behind the third floor of the building with utility rooms and topped with a rich cornice with a balustrade and sculptures, unite both tiers of the library into an integral composition, unsurpassed in festive splendor and solemnity.
At the foot of the Campanile of San Marco, the master erected a richly decorated sculpture Loggett, linking the medieval tower with the later buildings of the ensemble (Logetta was destroyed during the fall of the campanile in 1902; in 1911 both buildings were restored). During public ceremonies and festivities, the terrace of the Loghetta, slightly raised above the level of the square, served as a platform for the Venetian nobles. Located at the junction of Piazza San Marco and Piazzetta, this small building with a white marble facade with a high attic, covered with reliefs and crowned with a balustrade, is an important element of the brilliant ensemble of the Venetian center.
Located behind the library next to its end facade, the Zecca (mint) is distinguished by a more closed, almost severe appearance. The core of the building is the courtyard, which serves on the ground floor as the only means of communication between the surrounding premises, which occupy the entire depth of the buildings (Fig. 37). The building is made of gray marble. The plasticity of the walls is complicated by rust and window architraves, the crownings of which are heavy and argue with the light horizontal of the thin architrave lying above. The strongly protruding cornice of the second floor, apparently, was supposed to crown the whole building (the third floor was added later, but during the life of Sansovino); now he deprives the integrity of the composition of the facade, overloaded with details.
Remarkable is the freedom with which the floors of Zecca, which are lower than the floors of the library, adjoin the latter, emphasizing the difference in the purpose and appearance of the buildings (see Fig. 36).
In the second half of the XVI century. architects Rusconi, Antonio da Ponte, Scamozzi and Palladio worked in Venice.
Rusconi(c. 1520-1587) began in 1563 the construction of a prison, set on the embankment dei Schiavoni and separated from the Doge's Palace only by a narrow canal (Fig. 33, 38). The core of the building was made up of rows of solitary cells, real stone bags, separated from the outer walls by a corridor that left the prisoners no contact with the outside world. The severe facade of gray marble was made by A. da Ponte after the death of Rusconi.
Antonio da Ponte (1512-1597) belongs to the completion of the shopping center of Venice, where he built the stone Rialto Bridge (1588-1592), whose single-span arch is framed by two rows of shops (Fig. 40).
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| Fig.38. Venice. Prison, from 1563 Rusconi, from 1589 A. da Ponte. Plan, western facade and a fragment of the southern one; Bridge of Sighs | |
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Rice. 43. Sabbioneta. Theater and Town Hall, 1588 Scamozzi |
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Vincenzo Scamozzi , the author of theoretical treatises, was at the same time the last major architect of the Cinquecento in Venice.
Vincenzo Scamozzi(1552-1616) - the son of the architect Giovanni Scamozzi. In Vicenza, he built numerous palaces, including Porta (1592) and Trissino (1592); he completed the construction of the Olimpico, Palladio (1585), etc. In Venice, Scamozzi built the New Procurations (begun in 1584), the palaces of the City Council (1558), Contarini (1606), etc., completed interiors in Doge's Palace (1586), designs for the Rialto Bridge (1587). He completed the construction and decoration of the premises of the Sansovino Library (1597), participated in the completion of the facade of the church of San Giorgio Maggiore (1601), etc. He built the villas of Verlato near Vicenza (1574), Pisani near Lonigo (1576), Trevisan on the Piave (1609) and others. His activities also extended to other Italian cities: Padua - the Church of San Gaetano (1586); Bergamo - Palazzo Publico (1611); Genoa - Ravaschieri Palace (1611); Sabbioneta - ducal palace, town hall and theater (1588; fig. 43).
Scamozzi also visited Hungary, Moravia, Silesia, Austria and other states, designed palaces for the Duke of Sbaras in Poland (1604), in Bohemia the cathedral in Salzburg (1611), in France the fortifications of Nancy, etc.
Scamozzi took part in a number of fortification and engineering works (the laying of the fortress of Palma, 1593; the project of a bridge over the Piave).
The result of the study and sketches of ancient monuments (travel to Rome and Naples in 1577-1581) was published by Scamozzi in 1581 in the book "Conversations on Roman Antiquities".
The conclusion of his work was the theoretical treatise "General Concepts of Architecture", published in Venice (1615).
The early buildings of Scamozzi are characterized by a certain dryness of forms and a desire for a planar interpretation of the facade (Villa Verlato near Vicenza). But the most important Venetian work of Scamozzi - New Procurations(1584), where he built 17 arches (the rest were completed by his student Longena), built in the spirit of Sansovino (Fig. 42). Scamozzi based this composition on a strong rhythm and rich plasticity of the arched porticoes of the Library. Including the third floor in the composition, he unconstrainedly and convincingly solved the problem of adjoining the three-story Procurations to the Library, lightening the crowning cornice and subtly taking into account that the junction of buildings is partly hidden by the campanile. In this way, he managed to connect both buildings well with the ensemble of Piazza San Marco.
Although in time Scamozzi is the last major architect of the Renaissance, but its true consummator was Palladio- the most profound and original master of northern Italian architecture of the middle of the 16th century.
Chapter “Architecture of Northern Italy”, subsection “Architecture of Italy 1520-1580”, section “Renaissance Architecture in Italy”, encyclopedia “General History of Architecture. Volume V. Architecture of Western Europe XV-XVI centuries. Renaissance". Managing editor: V.F. Marcuson. Authors: V.F. Marcuson (Introduction, G. Romano, Sanmicheli, Venice, Palladio), A.I. Opochinskaya (Dwelling houses in Venice), A.G. Tsires (Palladio Theatre, Alessi). Moscow, Stroyizdat, 1967
The Renaissance in Venice is a separate and peculiar part of the Italian Renaissance. Here it began later, lasted longer, and the role of ancient tendencies in Venice was the least. The position of Venice among other Italian regions can be compared with the position of Novgorod in medieval Rus'. It was a rich, prosperous patrician-merchant republic that held the keys to sea trade routes. All power in Venice belonged to the "Council of Nine", elected by the ruling caste. The actual power of the oligarchy was exercised behind the scenes and cruelly, through espionage and covert assassinations. The outer side of Venetian life looked as festive as possible.
In Venice, there was little interest in excavations of ancient antiquities; its Renaissance had other sources. Venice has long maintained close trade ties with Byzantium, with the Arab East, traded with India. The culture of Byzantium took deep roots, but it was not Byzantine austerity that took root here, but its brilliance, its golden brilliance. Venice reworked both Gothic and Eastern traditions (the stone lace of Venetian architecture, reminiscent of the Moorish Alhambra, speaks of them).
St. Mark's Cathedral is an unprecedented architectural monument, the construction of which began in the 10th century. The uniqueness of the cathedral is that it harmoniously combines columns taken from Byzantium, Byzantine mosaics, ancient Roman sculpture, Gothic sculpture. Having absorbed the traditions of different cultures, Venice has developed its own style, secular, bright and colorful. The short-term period of the early Renaissance came here not earlier than the second half of the 15th century. It was then that paintings by Vittore Carpaccio and Giovanni Bellini appeared, captivatingly depicting the life of Venice in the context of religious stories. V. Carpaccio in the cycle "The Life of Saint Ursula" in detail and poetically depicts his native city, its landscape, and its inhabitants.
Giorgione is considered the first master of the High Renaissance in Venice. His "Sleeping Venus" is a work of amazing spiritual purity, one of the most poetic images of a naked body in world art. Giorgione's compositions are balanced and clear, and his drawing is characterized by a rare smoothness of lines. Giorgione has a quality inherent in the entire Venetian school - colorism. The Venetians did not consider color as a secondary element of painting as the Florentines did. Love for the beauty of color leads Venetian artists to a new pictorial principle, when the materiality of the image is achieved not so much by chiaroscuro as by gradations of color. The work of Venetian artists is deeply emotional, immediacy plays a greater role here than that of the painters of Florence.
Titian lived a legendaryly long life - supposedly ninety-nine years, and his latest period is the most significant. Having become close to Giorgione, he was largely influenced by him. This is especially noticeable in the paintings "Earthly and Heavenly Love", "Flora" - works that are serene in mood, deep in colors. Compared to Giorgione, Titian is not so lyrical and refined, his female images are more "mundane", but they are no less charming. Calm, golden-haired, women of Titian, naked or in rich outfits, are, as it were, imperturbable nature itself, “shining with eternal beauty” and absolutely chaste in its frank sensuality. The promise of happiness, the hope for happiness and the complete enjoyment of life are one of the foundations of Titian's work.
Titian is intellectual, according to a contemporary, he was "a magnificent, intelligent interlocutor who knew how to judge everything in the world." Throughout his long life, Titian remained true to the high ideals of humanism.
Titian painted many portraits, and each of them is unique, because it conveys the individual originality inherent in each person. In the 1540s, the artist paints a portrait of Pope Paul III, the main patron of the Inquisition, with his grandsons Alessandro and Ottavio Farnese. In terms of the depth of character analysis, this portrait is a unique work. The predatory and frail old man in the papal robe resembles a cornered rat, which is ready to rush somewhere to the side. The two young men act obsequiously, but this subservience is false: we feel the atmosphere of brewing betrayal, deceit, intrigue. Terrible in its adamant realism portrait.
In the second half of the 16th century, the shadow of Catholic reaction falls on Venice; although it remained formally an independent state, the Inquisition penetrates here too - and yet Venice has always been famous for its religious tolerance and the secular, free spirit of art. The country also suffers another disaster: it is devastated by an epidemic of the plague (Titian also died of the plague). In this regard, Titian's attitude is also changing, there is not a trace of his former serenity.
In his later works, one feels deep spiritual grief. Among them, the "Penitent Mary Magdalene" and "Saint Sebastian" stand out. The painting technique of the master in "Saint Sebastian" is brought to perfection. Up close, it seems as if the whole picture is a chaos of strokes. The painting of late Titian should be viewed from a distance. Then the chaos disappears, and in the midst of the darkness we see a young man dying under arrows, against the backdrop of a blazing fire. Large sweeping strokes completely absorb the line and generalize the details. The Venetians, and most of all Titian, took a new huge step, putting dynamic picturesqueness in place of statuary, replacing the dominance of the line with the dominance of the color spot.
Majestic and strict Titian in his last self-portrait. Wisdom, full sophistication and consciousness of one's creative power breathe in this proud face with an aquiline nose, a high forehead and a look that is spiritual and penetrating.
The last great artist of the Venetian High Renaissance is Tintoretto. He writes a lot and quickly - monumental compositions, plafonds, large paintings, overflowing with figures in dizzying angles and with the most spectacular perspective constructions, unceremoniously destroying the structure of the plane, forcing closed interiors to move apart and breathe space. The cycle of his paintings dedicated to the miracles of St. Mark (St. Mark frees a slave). His drawings and paintings are a whirlwind, pressure, fire energy. Tintoretto does not tolerate calm, frontal figures, so St. Mark literally falls from the sky on the heads of the pagans. His favorite landscape is stormy, with stormy clouds and flashes of lightning.
Tintoretto's interpretation of the plot of the Last Supper is interesting. In his picture, the action takes place, most likely, in a dimly lit tavern, with a low ceiling. The table is set diagonally and leads the eye into the depths of the room. At the words of Christ, whole hosts of transparent angels appear under the ceiling. There is a bizarre triple lighting: the ghostly glow of angels, the wavering light of a lamp, the light of halos around the heads of the apostles and Christ. This is a real magical phantasmagoria: bright flashes in the twilight, swirling and diverging rays of light, the play of shadows create an atmosphere of confusion.
Renaissance in Italy.
It is customary to designate periods in the history of Italian culture by the names of centuries: ducento (XIII century) - Proto-Renaissance(late century), trecento (XIV century) - continuation of the Proto-Renaissance, Quattrocento (XV century) - Early Renaissance, cinquicento (XVI century) - high renaissance(the first 30 years of the century). Until the end of the XVI century. it continues only in Venice; This period is often referred to as "Late Renaissance".
The art of Venice represents a special version of the development of the very principles of the artistic culture of the Renaissance and in relation to all other centers of Renaissance art in Italy.
Chronologically, the art of the Renaissance took shape in Venice somewhat later than in most other major centers of Italy of that era. It took shape, in particular, later than in Florence and in general in Tuscany. The formation of the principles of the artistic culture of the Renaissance in the fine arts of Venice began only in the 15th century. This was determined by no means by the economic backwardness of Venice. On the contrary, Venice, along with Florence, Pisa, Genoa, Milan, was one of the most economically developed centers of Italy at that time. It is precisely the early transformation of Venice into a great commercial and, moreover, predominantly commercial, rather than a productive power, which began from the 12th century and was especially accelerated during the crusades, is to blame for this delay.
Venetian painting reached a special flowering, distinguished by its richness and richness of color. Pagan admiration for physical beauty was combined here with an interest in the spiritual life of man. The sensory perception of the world was more direct than that of the Florentines, and caused the development of the landscape.
A characteristic example of the temporary delay of Venetian culture in its transition to the Renaissance in comparison with other areas of Italy is the architecture of the Doge's Palace (14th century). In painting, the extremely characteristic vitality of medieval traditions is clearly reflected in the late Gothic work of masters of the late 14th century, such as Lorenzo and Stefano Veneziano. They make themselves felt even in the work of such artists of the 15th century, whose art already bore a completely Renaissance character. Such are the "Madonnas" of Bartolomeo, Alvise Vivarini, such is the work of Carlo Crivelli, the subtle and elegant master of the Early Renaissance. In his art, medieval reminiscences are felt much stronger than those of his contemporary artists of Tuscany and Umbria. It is characteristic that the proto-Renaissance tendencies proper, similar to the art of Cavalini and Giotto, who also worked in the Venetian Republic (one of his best cycles was created for Padua), made themselves felt weakly and sporadically.
Only approximately from the middle of the 15th century can we say that the inevitable and natural process of the transition of Venetian art to secular positions, characteristic of the entire artistic culture of the Renaissance, finally begins to be fully implemented. The peculiarity of the Venetian quattrocento was mainly reflected in the desire for increased festivity of color, for a peculiar combination of subtle realism with decorativeness in the composition, in a greater interest in the landscape background, in the landscape environment surrounding a person; moreover, it is characteristic that interest in the urban landscape, perhaps, was even more developed than interest in the natural landscape. It was in the second half of the 15th century that the formation of the Renaissance school in Venice took place as a significant and original phenomenon that occupied an important place in the art of the Italian Renaissance. It was at this time that, along with the art of the archaizing Crivelli, the work of Antonello da Messina took shape, striving for a more holistic, generalized perception of the world, a poetic-decorative and monumental perception. Not much later, a more narrative line in the development of the art of Gentile Bellini and Carpaccio appears.
It should be noted that the characteristic features of the Venetian school were precisely the predominant development of oil painting and the much weaker development of fresco painting. During the transition from the medieval system to the Renaissance realistic system of monumental painting, the Venetians, naturally, like most peoples who passed from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance stage in the development of artistic culture, almost completely abandoned mosaics. Its highly brilliant and decorative chromaticity could no longer fully meet the new artistic challenges. Of course, the mosaic technique continued to be used, but its role is becoming less and less noticeable. Using the mosaic technique, it was still possible to achieve results in the Renaissance that relatively satisfy the aesthetic needs of the time. But just the specific properties of mosaic smalt, its unique sonorous radiance, surreal shimmer and, at the same time, increased decorativeness of the overall effect could not be fully applied under the conditions of the new artistic ideal. True, the increased light radiance of the iridescent shimmering mosaic painting, although transformed, indirectly, but influenced the Renaissance painting of Venice, which always gravitated towards sonorous clarity and radiant richness of color. But the very stylistic system with which the mosaic was associated, and consequently its technique, had, with a few exceptions, to leave the sphere of large monumental painting. The mosaic technique itself, now more often used for more private and narrow purposes, more of a decorative and applied nature, was not completely forgotten by the Venetians. Moreover, the Venetian mosaic workshops were one of those centers that brought the traditions of mosaic technology, in particular smalt, to our time.
Stained glass painting also retained some importance due to its “luminosity”, although it must be admitted that it never had the same significance either in Venice or in Italy as a whole as in the Gothic culture of France and Germany. An idea of the Renaissance plastic rethinking of the visionary radiance of medieval stained glass painting is given by "St. George" (16th century) by Mochetto in the church of San Giovanni e Paolo.
In general, in the art of the Renaissance, the development of monumental painting proceeded either in the forms of fresco painting, or on the basis of the partial development of tempera, and mainly on the monumental and decorative use of oil painting (wall panels).
Fresco is a technique with which such masterpieces as the Masaccio cycle, Raphael's stanzas and the paintings of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel were created in the Early and High Renaissance. But in the Venetian climate, it very early discovered its instability and was not widespread in the 16th century. Thus, the frescoes of the German Compound "Fondaco dei Tedeschi" (1508), executed by Giorgione with the participation of the young Titian, were almost completely destroyed. Only a few half-faded fragments, spoiled by dampness, have survived, among them the figure of a naked woman, full of almost Praxitele charm, made by Giorgione. Therefore, the place of wall painting, in the proper sense of the word, was taken by a wall panel on canvas, designed for a specific room and performed using the technique of oil painting.
Oil painting received a particularly wide and rich development in Venice, however, not only because it seemed the most convenient way to replace the fresco with another painting technique adapted to the humid climate, but also because the desire to convey the image of a person in close connection with the natural environment around him environment, interest in the realistic embodiment of the tonal and coloristic richness of the visible world could be revealed with particular completeness and flexibility precisely in the technique of oil painting. In this regard, tempera painting on boards in easel compositions, pleasing with its large color strength and clearly shining sonority, but more decorative in nature, should naturally give way to oil, and this process of displacing tempera with oil painting was especially consistently carried out in Venice. It should not be forgotten that for Venetian painters, a particularly valuable property of oil painting was its ability to be more flexible than tempera, and even fresco, to convey light-color and spatial shades of the human environment, the ability to gently and sonorously sculpt the shape of the human body.
Creativity Giorgione.
Giorgione - Italian artist, representative of the Venetian school of painting; one of the greatest masters of the High Renaissance.
Giorgione was born in the small town of Castelfranco, Veneto, near Venice.
The real name of the artist is Giorgio, but he was usually called by the nickname Giorgione.
Unfortunately, neither the artist's manuscripts nor his notes on art, painting and music have survived, not even his letters have survived. As a very young Giorgione arrived in Venice. It is known that at the age of sixteen, the Italian painter was already trained and worked in the studio of the famous Venetian artist Giovanni Bellini. Actually, it was in the painting of Venice that new humanistic ideas were most clearly manifested. Venetian painting of the early 16th century was openly secular.
Already at the end of the 15th century, small easel paintings appeared in Venice instead of icons, satisfying the individual tastes of customers. Artists are now interested not only in people, but also in their surroundings, in the landscape. Giorgione was the first of all Italian painters to give an important place in religious, mythological and historical paintings to the poetically invented, beautiful, and not alien to natural landscape. Along with compositions on religious themes (“The Adoration of the Shepherds”), the Italian painter created paintings on secular, mythological subjects, which gained predominant importance in his work. In the works of Giorgione (“Judith”, “Three Philosophers”, “Thunderstorm”, “Sleeping Venus”), the artist’s poetic ideas about the wealth of life forces lurking in the world and man are revealed not in action, but in a state of universal silent spirituality.
"Madonna of Castelfranco" is the largest in size (200 x 152 cm) and the only work of Giorgione, written by him for the church.
In the later works of Giorgione ("Sleeping Venus"; "Country Concert"), the main theme of the artist's work was fully defined - the harmonious unity of man and nature. It is embodied in the discoveries of Giorgione in the field of artistic language, which played an important role in the development of European oil painting. While maintaining the clarity of volume, purity and melodic expressiveness of the contours, Giorgione, with the help of soft transparent chiaroscuro, achieved an organic fusion of the human figure with the landscape and achieved an unprecedented pictorial integrity of the picture. He gave a full-blooded warmth and freshness to the sound of the main color spots, combining them with many colorful nuances, interconnected with gradations of lighting and gravitating towards tonal unity. The creative concept of Giorgione in a peculiar way refracted his contemporary natural-philosophical ideas, which influenced the formation of Venetian humanism, and reflected the Renaissance's love for the beauty of man and earthly existence.
The famous painting by Giorgione “Thunderstorm” adorned the gallery of patron Gabriele Vendramin, “Three Philosophers” was in the collection of Taddeo Contarini, the painting “Sleeping Venus” at one time was in the collection of musician Girolamo Marcello. Giorgione, being a friend of these art lovers, had the opportunity to study the collections of humanists (it is known that his customer Gabriel Vendramin “had many extremely valuable paintings by excellent masters and many hand-drawn maps, antique things, many books, heads, busts, vases, antique medals"), which, undoubtedly, was reflected in his work, in the special sophistication and spirituality of the images, in the predilection for literary, secular themes. The general direction of the painter's work determined the intimate and lyrical coloring of his portraits ("Portrait of a Young Man"; the so-called "Laura").
The creative concept of the Italian painter in a peculiar way refracted the natural-philosophical concepts of the time, had a transformative effect on the painting of the Venetian school, and was further developed by his student Titian. Despite the transience of Giorgione's life, he had many students, later famous and famous artists, for example. Sebastiano del Piombo, Giovanni da Udine, Francisco Torbido (Il Moro) and, of course, Tiziano Veccellio. A significant number of masters of painting imitated the creative concept and style of Giorgione, including Lorenzo Lotto, Palma the Elder, Giovanni Cariani, Paris Bordone, Colleone, Zanchi, Pordenone, Girol Pennachi, Rocco Marcone and others, whose paintings were sometimes attributed as the work of a great master . The Venetian painter of the High Renaissance, Giorgio Barbarelli from Castelfranco, in his painting revealed the refined harmony of a spiritually rich and physically perfect person. Just like Leonardo da Vinci, Giorgione's work is distinguished by deep intellectualism and, it would seem, crystalline rationality. But, unlike the works of da Vinci, whose deep lyricism of art is very hidden and, as it were, subordinate to the pathos of rational intellectualism, the lyrical principle, in its clear agreement with the rational principle, in Giorgione's paintings makes itself felt with extraordinary force. The Italian painter died early, Giorgione died in Venice during the plague in the autumn of 1510.
The Holy Family, 1500, National Gallery of Art, Washington
"Trial by fire of Moses", 1500-1501, Uffizi, Florence
"Judgment of Solomon", 1500-1501, Uffizi, Florence
"Judith", 1504, State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
"Madonna of Castelfranco". 1504, Cathedral of St. Liberal, Castelfranco
"Reading Madonna". 1505, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Adoration of the Magi, 1506-1507, National Gallery, London
"Adoration of the Shepherds", 1505-1510, National Gallery of Art, Washington
"Laura", 1506, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
"Young Man with an Arrow", 1506, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
"The Old Woman", 1508, Academy Gallery (Venice)
Storm, ca. 1508, Accademia Gallery, Venice.
Sleeping Venus, ca. 1508, Old Masters Gallery, Dresden.
"Three Philosophers", 1509, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
"Portrait of a young man", 1508-1510, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest.
