Romanesque and Gothic styles in the art of medieval Europe, the most important architectural monuments. renaissance sculpture niccolo and giovanni pisano italy sculptures by giovanni pisano

Niccolò Pisano (between 1220 and 1225 - after 1278) In the second half of the 13th century, an Italian sculptor appeared who, following the example of the French masters, turned to the study of ancient plastics and techniques of life-like representation. It was Niccolo Pisano, who worked in a large

Lorenzo Pisano

Lorenzo Pisano (1395-1470) writer, theologian and moralist In everything that rejoices in nature for its grace, abounds in fertility and shines with beauty, love manifests itself, the seal of its violation is borne by that which is exhausted from lethargy, pallor, weakness and proximity death. Better

Nino Pisano

Pisano

He became a much more famous sculptor than his father. The style of Giovanni Pisano is more free and dynamic, he shows figures in motion and uses various means of dramatization, his sculptures are characterized by sharp turns and angular outlines.

Encyclopedic YouTube

1 / 3

✪ Niccolò Pisano, Chair of the Pisa Baptistery. Giovanni Pisano, Massacre of the Innocents, pulpit

✪ Andrea Pisano. Reliefs of the Campanile in Florence

✪ Giotto, Chapel del Arena (Scrovegni), Padua, ca. 1305 (Part 1 of 4)

Subtitles

We are looking at the Baptistery in Pisa, a building founded in the middle of the 12th century. It is located in one of the famous places that you may have seen. Here is the leaning Leaning Tower of Pisa. Yes exactly. The famous Leaning Tower of Pisa is actually the bell tower of the cathedral. This building, the baptistery, stands in front of the cathedral. This is how buildings were usually located in the Italian cities of the Late Middle Ages. The cathedral with the baptistery in front of it signifies a certain religious and civil center of the city. For example, we see the same thing in Florence. Yes. And here we see the same layout. Baptisteries were especially important buildings. This is where the children were baptized. This was of great importance in these cities, where life was determined by the Christian faith and rituals. And here, in this place, each person through the rite of baptism was introduced into the Christian community of the city. Therefore, it is understandable why the city government actively decorated this particular place. Usually these places were very richly decorated, looked after, treated with great attention. It was important for such cities. Great, let's go. From an architectural point of view, this is the Middle Ages, right? Going inside, we see ... Inside we see something that anticipates radical changes, in some ways even revolutionary ones. This can be seen when looking at the structure inside the baptistery. This is the pulpit by Niccolò Pisano in the Baptistery of Pisa, completed around 1260. It was on the pulpit that the priest stood during the sermon. Yes. It was necessary to climb the pulpit, and these reliefs are, in fact, a low wall. Here the eagle supports a small shelf where you can put a book or other text for the priest to read a sermon. So everyone could see and hear him. We see multicolored columns with capitals. Virtues are depicted above the capitals. And above here we see other reliefs, narrative reliefs showing episodes from the life of Christ. They are separated by small columns. I want to draw your attention to a very interesting figure of Fortitude. This is one of the virtues. One of the virtues on the capitals, under the reliefs. It's resilience, strength. We see an allegorical figure representing this virtue - fortitude. This figure is very interesting, it reflects changes, opens a new trend. In fact, it no longer looks like a medieval sculpture. Exactly. Not too Romanesque. It's definitely not gothic. But what is it? Very strong influence of the ancient classics, in terms of appearance and meaning. Of course, a muscular athletic figure is a logical representation of stamina and strength. Further, one can guess who this figure represents: a lion skin is wound around his left arm, and he holds a lion cub on his right shoulder. This allows us to recognize in this naked, athletic, muscular figure of Hercules, or Hercules, a Greek and Roman mythological figure, a demigod known for his strength. At the same time, this is an antique character depicted in an antique style, and a symbol of Christian virtue. Right. This is the Christian virtue of strength and fortitude, embodied in the ancient hero Hercules. Accordingly, its meaning is ancient. Like you said, it looks antique. Marvelous. Perhaps the easiest way to see this is in comparison with real antique sculpture. Here we see a depiction of Fortitude by Niccolò Pisano in comparison with the "Diadumen" - an ancient sculpture, probably created by Polykleitos, its marble version. One can see in what Niccolo Pisano clearly imitated ancient sculpture that existed centuries before him. What elements did he copy, how did it influence his work? The resemblance is striking. They both stand in contraposta. Yes. They look very relaxed and natural in their poses. A lot of attention is paid to human anatomy, the muscles of the body, a kind of naturalism of the body. Yes. The body is somewhat twisted, looking in different directions. The hips are turned. Shoulders are turned. There is naturalism in this attention to the muscles, to the position of the body. And note: the sculpture of Niccolo Pisano, although connected to the pulpit, in fact it exists separately. The feeling that he can step off the pulpit. Exactly. We see here an ancient-looking figure, and the theme is also characteristic of antiquity, because Hercules is really depicted here. This is very important, because throughout the Middle Ages, up to this very moment, one can sometimes find figures in which the influence of antiquity is sometimes guessed. But usually they are very different in meaning from any ancient meaning. This is one of the first examples in this period of some kind of reunification of ancient form with ancient meaning, although it is ultimately a depiction of Christian virtue on a very Christian object inside an extremely Christian building. Here we see a growing interest, a kind of influence and the rediscovery of ancient classics in different forms. Right. In confirmation, let's compare some Gothic sculpture with antique. Here are examples of sculptural Gothic. From the western entrance to Chartres Cathedral, which was founded in the middle of the 12th century, about the same time that the baptistery in Pisa was being built, when these sculptures were created; a little before the creation of the pulpit by Niccolò Pisano. And far from here, in Paris. Yes, far away. We will show different schools of sculpture that existed at about the same time. You may know that Gothic is characterized by very static, elongated, stylized figures, deliberately far from any naturalism, with repeated folds of fabrics, with faces without personality, with the same gestures. These are figures that do not exist separately from the background. Their proportions and their appearance are dictated by the gothic construction they adorn. Look at their feet. They just can't stand. It's not like they're standing on anything, that they're interacting with the world around them with any degree of authenticity. Not a counterpost. Not a counterpost. Compared to the figure of Niccolo Pisano, this is a different era. It can be seen how decisively he departs from a similar Gothic tradition and from other traditions of the medieval Romanesque style. Let's look at the top of the pulpit, we can see our friend. Resilience right here. These reliefs, as we said, represent scenes or moments of the life and death of Christ. For example, in this scene, above and to the right of Fortitude, the Gifts of the Magi are shown, three kings who came to bow to the newborn Christ and the Virgin Mary, here she is sitting in an armchair. Here we see an ancient aesthetic, a departure from the Romanesque and Gothic styles, which are also visible in these reliefs. Undoubtedly. Monumental, heavy figures... Large folds of fabrics. Very heavy, somewhat naturalistic folds of fabrics that create ... Differ from the lines of draperies in Gothic. There are some repetitions. There is also some styling. But you can see that this is definitely a departure from these styles under the strong influence of the ancient classics. This is not surprising for the Pisans who used this object, saw it when it was first created. Why? Because this city has a very rich ancient heritage. Pisa was founded by the ancient Romans. The medieval Pisans knew this. The legacy of this ancient classic surrounded them everywhere you looked. They were surrounded by many examples of ancient sculpture. One example is the sarcophagus, a carved coffin that was then and still is in Pisa. There were a lot of such fragments and objects, some of them were even included in the medieval walls and buildings of the city, and the feeling that the ancient classics create the texture and character of Pisa was very clear. But it was almost not noticed for a long time, and now it is being rediscovered. Now they felt that they could reconnect with this ancient heritage and history. This particular sarcophagus, especially in connection with the reliefs we have just looked at, is important because the figures here are quite large. They occupy the walls of the sarcophagus to the full height, just like the later reliefs of Niccolò Pisano. This nude standing athlete is very, very similar to the Fortitude figure, so this figure may have influenced the creation of that one. We see a seated woman who, although seated, occupies the entire height of the relief, just like the Virgin Mary in the Gift of the Magi we have just looked at. Maybe it was this example that Niccolo Pisano was guided by. It is very close - in the Camposanto cemetery, just a few meters from the Baptistery. Here we see the real influence of antiquity. The surname Niccolo Pisano means "Pisan", but he is not actually from Pisa. He is probably from the south of Italy, perhaps associated with the court of the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II, who was interested in antiquity and patronized its revival. Perhaps the artist, under the influence of this fact of his biography, comes to Pisa, sees a city with a rich ancient heritage, people open to such connections of times, and new forms flourish on this soil. Logically. Niccolo had a son, his name was Giovanni. They worked together on a number of projects. Around 1300, Giovanni Pisano opens his own workshop and works on his projects. Here is one of them. This is a pulpit from the church of Sant'Andrea in Pistoia, created in 1301. Its author is Giovanni Pisano. Essentially the structure is the same. There are colored marble columns with capitals, allegorical figures on the capitals under the reliefs that form the low walls of the pulpit. One difference immediately catches the eye: in the corners between the reliefs, instead of small columns, there are figures. This creates a sense of greater unity and connection between the individual reliefs, here they are not separated so clearly by these frames, as we saw in the work of his father, forty years earlier. There we saw columns in these places. I want to draw attention to one detail of this pulpit: the relief that we see at the top - "Massacre of the Innocents". Here is an episode from the New Testament, when Herod ordered to kill all the newborn boys in Bethlehem, after he learned about the birth of Christ. That this is a new person who will bring great changes that Herod does not need and he orders to commit this murder. And here we see this very emotionally heavy scene where the Roman soldiers kill the children. And mothers. Their mothers, as we see here, try to protect them or mourn their dead bodies. Or avert their eyes. They avert their eyes and run away. Soldiers with knives in their hands, cutting babies. Women covering their faces. Here Herod gives the order. In some respects, Giovanni Pisano's sculptures continue the work of his father. There is this naturalism, the origin of which we saw earlier. There is classicism, especially in some other elements of the pulpit. But what more clearly distinguishes the sculptures of Giovanni Pisano from the beginning of the 14th century is, of course, the growing interest in the transmission of emotions. This is a lively, somewhat expressionistic depiction of the feelings that this terrible scene that we are looking at evokes. She captivates the viewer. Through their gestures, their facial expressions. Exactly. This is the main tool for him and other artists of the period: the use of gestures and facial expressions to tell a story in the most expressive way. Of course, this is another sign of a departure from the Middle Ages, from those expressionless gothic faces. Especially in terms of combining such expressions, such emotions with naturalism. Because in Gothic art you can sometimes find something very scary and furious, but at the same time very stylized. Here we see a kind of naturalistic image, that is, naturalistic from the standpoint of physical form, from the point of view of psychological expressiveness. Interestingly, this happens in the early years of the 14th century, at the same time that Giotto does exactly the same thing in his paintings. Subtitles by the Amara.org community

Biography

Giovanni Pisano was born in Pisa around 1245. In 1265-78. Giovanni worked with his father, and with his participation, a pulpit was created for the city cathedral in Siena, as well as a fountain Fonte Maggiore in Perugia. The first independent work of Pisano is a sculptural decoration of the facade of the Pisa Baptistery (1278-84). For the first time in Tuscany, monumental sculpture was organically incorporated into architectural design. The extraordinary liveliness of the Pisan sculptures is the opposite of the calm serenity of his father's sculptures. Around 1270-1276 Pisano visited France. In most of his works, the influence of French Gothic is noticeable.

In 1285 Giovanni came to Siena, where from 1287 to 1296. served as chief architect of the cathedral. Full of dynamics and drama, the figures of the sculptural composition of the facade of the cathedral testify to the significant influence of French Gothic plastics on Pisano. Of all the Gothic Italian facades, the Siena Cathedral has the most luxurious sculptural decoration. Later, he served as a model for the decoration of the Gothic cathedrals of Central Italy. In 1299, Giovanni returned to Pisa, where he worked as an architect and sculptor in the construction of church buildings.

One of the greatest achievements of Giovanni Pisano is the pulpit for the church of Sant'Andrea in Pistoia (1297-1301). The theme of the reliefs decorating the pulpit is also similar to that of Pisa. However, the faces of the characters are more expressive, their postures and gestures are more dramatic. The scenes "Crucifixion" and "Massacre of the Innocents" are especially expressive. Giovanni Pisano is the author of numerous statues of Madonnas, prophets and saints. The most famous sculpture of the Madonna is in the altar of the Scrovegni Chapel (chapel del Arena) in Padua (c. 1305).

From 1302 to 1320 Giovanni Pisano worked on a pulpit destined for the Pisa Cathedral. After a fire in 1599, the pulpit was dismantled (during repairs) and restored only in 1926. The remaining “extra” fragments are kept in several museums around the world. In 1313, Giovanni began work on the gravestone of Empress Margaret of Luxembourg in Genoa (not finished). The last mention of Giovanni Pisano dates back to 1314, it is believed that he died shortly thereafter.