Anika

Patel Independent Project

July 24, 2016 An Artists Passion

An Artists Passion

 What does it mean to be an artist? Does it mean you can draw a straight line?
Does it mean you have a wild imagination? One might argue that an artist is
someone who brings their personal, emotional past experiences to the canvas.
Nowadays, artists often depict what they are trying to understand in their
exploration of their struggles, their creation, hopefully, allows them to come to some
conclusion. I would argue that the definition of an artist was drastically different
back in the time of the Renaissance. Artists at that time simply did not have the
luxury of just letting their creativity and imagination run free. An artist rarely ever
worked for himself. There was always a patron partnered with an artist and the
commissioners had the power to curb the artists imagination. The artist lived to
please the commissioner. This beckons the question: what made artists passionate
to do art? Surely they must have been passionate about the discipline, otherwise
they would not have had the patience to spend months perfecting masterpieces that
followed strict guidelines given by patrons. I have come to understand that, back
then, an artists passion lied not in their personal experiences, but in being inspired
by past history. Throughout this discussion I hope to unveil what inspired the
artists passions through various explorations of the course of history, of how much
patrons influenced the outcome of their work, and of Leonardo da Vinci himself.
This difference in definitions of a modern versus Renaissance artist could be
an explanation for why artists are not as honored in our society today as much as
they once were. Today, because of the huge freedom of artists to be as imaginative
as they desire, there no longer exists a tight baseline, or topos, for all artists to
follow as they once did during the Renaissance. Topos is a traditional or
conventional literary, rhetorical theme, or more generally, a topic. Because topos
tends to be a convention that everyone follows, it creates a sense of cultural
belonging and unity amongst people, and thus made the art community a lot
stronger. This idea of a common ground became big in the Renaissance times as
the Renaissance era gave rise to more methodical means of going about studying.
Art was like a science; the Romans knew that there was mathematics in beauty. To
artists, the research process of creating the art piece was more important than the
final result itself; art was all about building off of what was already established. To
make their own ideas come alive, artists used common ground forms and
techniques already established1. The Renaissance helped kick-start the excitement
for discovery of new forms and techniques.
As already mentioned, an artists inspiration is what made them passionate
towards their work. So what inspired them? A couple things: the course of history
itself, and discoveries of new forms and techniques made in the art field by other
artists. To understand the inspiration behind these artists, we need to first

1 Various types of topos include, for example, the famous Belvedere Torso sculpture

whose form was imitated by many artists in their works. Usage of space and
expression of emotion was prevalent in painting during the Renaissance. Art became
more innovative and continued to move into the Baroque period when characters
became more interactive with each other and with the viewer. Some common-ground
techniques include fresco painting, oil painting, and different ways of creating
preliminary drawings, such as spolvero.
understand Italys history leading up to the Renaissance and exactly how the art
market was born.
Going all the way back to around 1096, the Crusades, which occurred during
the Middle Ages, lasted until around 1291. Medieval Europe was neither the nicest
nor the most intellectual. The people were by no means dumb, but they were
certainly quite nave. They believed everything that priests of the Roman Catholic
Church told them people were told they were sinners and that life was meant to be
tough because they were paying for Adam and Eves original sin. Angering the
church was a serious crime back then. People constantly sought for forgiveness, and
some even went as far as to put their work towards earning forgiveness above work
towards earning food. People were genuinely concerned about going to hell in the
afterlife, and would do everything they could to please the church to avoid such a
horrendous fate. During this 200-year stretch, Pope Urban II took all the knights
and promised them heavenly forgiveness as well as land if they succeeded in
reuniting Europe and the church. Change occurred two-fold after the Crusades. The
people who returned from the Crusades brought with them foreign fashions, new
foods, spices, manners, cultural outlooks, and weapons. The people who stayed
behind also changed in that they became less trusting of the church and its motives.
This collection of fresh perspectives helped lead Europe into the age of the
Renaissance.
The Renaissance was indeed a rebirth. It encouraged intellectual thought,
thus spurring innovation. The Renaissance gave rise to the arts and advancements
of new styles and techniques in various fields. There was a new excitement for
learning, art, and classical literature. The Renaissance allowed for the reentrance
into the world of the antiquity in that the new culture was similar to that during the
antiquity a culture encompassed by a secular, inquiring, and self-reliant spirit.
People came to, once again, think and feel about life as men did in Ancient Greece
and Rome.
All in all, the Renaissance was long downgraded to a spiritual ghetto
between the Middle Ages and the Reformation. It ended the medieval age of faith
devotion as well. The Churchs failing became very apparent and Renaissance popes
themselves were losing their spiritual credibility rather rapidly as they became
more and more obsessed with secular politics. Oddly enough, criticism of the
Church created an increase in religious expectations, not declining faith. So
Renaissance Italians directed their huge amounts of artistic production towards
churches, religious objects, and even devotional texts. As a result, art moved away
from simple depictions of different saints, and moved towards a more
mathematically based means of portraying the divine so that the stories could be
visually more realistic. Renaissance art is considered a conversational art. This new
era gave rise to devotional pieces that engaged the viewer, forcing him to have a
conversation with the artwork.
Now that we understand how the art itself evolved, how was the art market
developed? During the Renaissance, the Italian peninsula got divided into different
city-states, resulting in smaller regions that were characterized by huge economic
and political power. From the 13th century and onwards, the influences of these
city-states became very prominent, and the political stability as well as the
development of different urban centers led to the foundation of different art schools.
These art schools initialized the birth of the art market by culturing new techniques,
ideas, views, and forms. Development of commerce, industry, and banking activities
made people wealthier. The increase in wealth soon became very important in the
birth of the art market as well. As trade between different countries to Italy was
established, main trade centers for commodities set up in Venice enabled the easy
availability on the market of new art supplies such as pigments like Lapis Lazuli, the
deep blue color often used for Virgin Marys robes. To contribute to the growing
wealth, families like the Medici, Chigi, and Fugge enriched borrowing money to
magnates and princes. Money changing soon became a profession, and further
contributed towards allowing the Italian peninsula to be the center of a trade
network and for people to become wealthier in general.
In 1494, Venice became the capital of printing in Europe, which aided the
rapid growth and spread of both scientific and artistic publications. Keep in mind
that art and science was thought of as being closely intertwined in those days, so
increasing availability of scientific information allowed the art industry to flourish.
Beauty was found in mathematics, and thus, art was studied via math. There were
methods established for art just as there were for science. The rational application
of math and geometric tools used in art allowed for the development of prospective
studies and gave rise to new styles. Furthermore, studies done on anatomy, such as
that done by Leonardo da Vinci, paved the way for making depictions of the human
body more realistic and natural looking in artistic masterpieces. Artists thorough
understanding of how human anatomy works soon led to their ability to make
idealizations on the human body that still made the form look realistic, yet more
divine and perfect.
As discussed before, prior to the Renaissance, art had a huge focus on
depicting religious stories and to create signs of worship for the people. After the
Medieval Ages, artists became not only more innovative, but art itself was less
focused on religion, and was used for a variety of reasons especially to portray the
wealth of the patrons who work the art. Art became a metaphor for wealth and
power, and was no longer seen as an object for worship. Contemporary rich families
and patrons often commissioned artists to portray themselves to bring their status
into the state of mystical art. To really show their wealth, the patron would be
depicted with his possessions, buildings of his property, jewelry, and rich clothing.
It increased the prestige of both the patron and the artist behind the work. The
Renaissance was a period of time characterized by the rise in materialism and
therefore a growth in the consumer goods market. A large amount of the money in
urban centers was invested in getting durable, artistic goods and in buildings such
as palaces, private villas, private churches, etc. As we can see, the strong desire for
personal adornment and celebration via art affected the demand and production of
art, and thus art became more readily available and affordable to a large number of
people. Arts purpose became less for worshiping and more of a commodity. Now
that we have background of what helped develop the art market, we can now better
analyze exactly how much of an impact the relationship between the artist and
patron played a role in the result of a commission. To what extent do patrons
influence the final outcome of the work? How free were the artists in using their
imagination?
During the Renaissance, there was a change in the status of the
painter/sculptor. Because of all the intelligent innovations made by artists, the
status of the painter/sculptor changed from an artisan to a talented artist, and there
was also an increase in the prestige of liberal arts compared to mechanical art.
Artes mechanicae is a medieval concept of ordered practices or skills whereas
artes liberals is more geared around inclusion of logic, rhetoric, and reflection. As
the status of liberal arts changed, so did the relationship between the patron and the
artist; the artist was treated more like a professional and had more contractual
power. The identity of the artist composing the piece also added an additional value
to the work based on his fame. In general, artists had more of an opportunity to
attain prestige, and as artists became more honored, they started to have more of a
say in their business transactions with patrons. Although artists had the power to
negotiate payment prices (this was usually settled before the work was started),
patrons still had the power to dictate exactly what they wanted and did not want in
the piece. Patrons could inspect the artwork upon its completion for touch-ups. The
patrons criticism was mainly about the visual aspects of an art piece such as light
and colors. Patrons and artists often had contracts in the form of drawings /
sketches. The sketch-contract drafts made by the artist not only allowed the patron
to make changes to the plan if he desired, but it also helped the artist convince the
patron and justify certain visual choices or to propose his own creative alternatives,
thus maximizing his input when working with the patron. In this way, these visual
contract draft sketches gave the artist more of a chance to be free with how they
executed the commission.
An excellent example of the power of the patron is seen in Michelangelos The
Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel. Pope Clement VII commissioned the piece, and
his successor, Pope Paul III, saw its completion. Pope Paul III was not happy with
the amount of nudity portrayed in this fresco, and ordered all the genitals to be
covered up with a cloth upon its completion. This can be seen in the circles on the
picture on the following page.


























Michelangelos commission by Pope Clement VII to create The Last Judgment on the
wall of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. The circles point out the various places
where a cloth was added after Michelangelo completed his work because the patron
did not want to see as much nudity as was originally portrayed. The original subject
of the mural was the resurrection, but with the Pope Clements death, Pope Paul III
thought the Last Judgment would be a more fitting subject for 1530s Rome. Although
traditional medieval last judgments portrayed characters dressed according to their
social positions, Michelangelo depicted class differently: he showed the figures
equalized in class by making them nude, stripped bare of rank.
Going back to our initial discussion of passion being the key to the motivation
of artists, passion, back then, came from being inspired by the ideas and discoveries
of others. Artists were using each others publications and works to make their own
imaginations a reality. We can easily see how closely patrons and artists worked
together on commissions by the huge exchange of ideas between the two. It was the
artists job not to settle on the first idea, but to provide many ideas from which the
patron could choose to carry out the piece. Where did these ideas come from? To
give a good sense of just how much past events, previous discoveries, and new ideas
can really influence how a commission turns out, lets analyze Leonardo da Vinci.
Commissions were more than just a set of directions they were a challenge for the
artist, requiring them to think outside of the box, and to change their ideas based on
patrons decisions. Leonardos artistic style is derived from how his theoretical and
creative artistic aspects correspond. His theoretical side is heavily influenced by the
medieval style and history. For a man who was so renowned for his novel
innovations and for his clear break with the past, it is interesting that he did not let
go of prevalent medieval tenets in his theories. In fact, he is considered to be more
of a debtor to the old than a creditor to the new.
Medieval philosophy can be characterized by the most heavily debated topics
of the period: faith versus reason. Prior to the medieval ages, religion was a major
part of peoples lives, and a huge controlling factor in society. During the medieval
ages, many medieval philosophers tried to reconcile their belief in a god with the
logic and reason of classical Greek philosophy. In fact, this separation of faith and
reason that arose helped give rise to the transition from the middle ages to the
renaissance. During the Renaissance, although religion did not stop, it definitely
stopped dominating peoples lives. People started to try to use reason to fill in the
gaps in faith. Many philosophers had a great influence on medieval philosophy, in
particular, Averroes and Augustine. Averroes leaned more on the side of reason as
he wrote a book describing the methodologies and importance of science, whereas
Augustine leaned more on the side of faith. Augustines solution to the faith versus
reason problem is to first believe, and then seek to understand without ever letting
ones philosophical investigations go beyond the authority of God. Despite the many
attempts to integrate reason and faith, it was apparent that faith was in general very
contradictory with reason. It became clear that one could not combine faith with
reason any more than one can combine God with our world. This new mindset also
played a factor in helping lead people into the Renaissance.
There was indeed a rebirth; there was an awakened sense of power once
people began to recognize the beauty of nature as it is. The sense of power derived
from the realization that nature,
something created by God Himself,
could be manipulated by
experimentation and used by humans
to their own will. Humans could
master an understanding of natures
form, and from this understanding,
they could now manipulate it to
create the form that they desire, thus
paving the way for the wave of
innovation.
It is interesting to see just how
past history influenced the
inspirations and therefore passions of
various Renaissance artists. In
particular, Leonardo da Vinci was
especially influenced by tenets from
the Medieval Ages:
although many other artists, such as
Raphael himself, argued that a
poet/artist could only create
something aesthetically pleasing with
the use of a little fantasy or imagination, Leonardo unfalteringly begged to differ.
Whenever he spoke of imagination, he believed that imagination resorts to a
memory of the original exactly as it was. In other words, the painter is tied and
bound to things exactly as they existed, currently exist, or may exist in the future.
Leonardo continuously points to the preciseness of the science behind painting
which lies in observation of nature; it is not something that one can understand by
simply using their imagination. He believed that art is imitative rather than
expressive. The idea of imitation was very popular in the philosophical thinking in
the Medieval Ages; liberal arts were not considered a subjective construction of a
humans mind, but were more based on the objective structure of reality/nature,
and in the analysis on the spirit of God. The idea that art is a direct imitation of
nature extended into the idea that art is thus related to God. Leonardo believed that
art and the artist find themselves in relationship to God because of the artists ability
to imitate Gods creations, not because of the artists creative power; this concept is
prevalent in common medieval tenets. In attempt to bridge the gap between
mechanical and liberal arts, Leonardo argues in his book, Paragone, how although
painting is very mechanical, it deserves a place in artes liberales because whether
the art is imitative or not, it still requires logic and reflection to create. In Paragone,
he groups liberal arts with mathematics and physics.

We can see a
clear example of
Leonardos imitative
techniques in his
Vitruvian Man drawing.
The Vitruvian Man was
completed around
1490 and depicts a
man in two
superimposed
positions with his arms
and legs spread apart
and fitted within a
square and a circle.
This drawing was not
commissioned, but was
for his personal
research purposes.
This drawing is
supposed to represent
the perfect proportions
of a man. Leonardo was
inspired to study the
human body
proportions by the
Roman architect

Vitruvian Man created by Leonardo da Vinci around 1490

Vitruvius who was an architect, and in book III of his treatise De Architectura,
Vitruvius described the human body as a principle source of proportion in
architecture. Vitruvius went on to describe what the ideal proportions of a human
body should look like. Leonardos drawing was produced by a combination of him
carefully analyzing Vitruviuss book, and using his own observations he made of
actual human bodies. Leonardo was inspired by Vitruviuss research to attempt to
visualize the perfect proportions. He used geometry and laws of mathematics to
determine the perfect proportions. This drawing also represents Leonardos
attempt to relate man to nature. He believed that understanding the workings of the
human body would provide a gateway towards understanding the workings of
nature and therefore God.
Let us also take a look at Leonardos painting, The Monalisa, which was
created using oil paint, a was a relatively new medium introduced to the art market
and the world of Italian painting. The advantages and disadvantages of oil over
tempera had been analyzed and published by previous artists, inspiring Leonardo to
try his hand at oil painting. It is actually an ongoing mystery why the commissioner,
Francesco del Giocondo, decided to get a portrait of his wife. The most popular
speculations claim that the commission of this piece was for the purpose of
displaying their place in the guild system; in the 14th century, there was basically a
separate guild, or trade association for every conceivable activity. By the 15th
century, guilds became broader. Some guilds had higher ranking than others as
well. So perhaps Giocondo wanted
to display their position of wealth,
and wanted to show how different
they are from everyone else.
Leonardo took this challenge and
created an edgy portrait that
succeeded in distinguishing
Giocondo and his wife from the
norm.
The subject of the portrait is
a content woman who seems to
exist in a world that is mysterious
and wild yet comfortable. She has
an unusual expression on her face,
making it hard to understand what
feeling Leonardo was trying to elicit
from the viewer. This is a painting
of a woman who might be wealthy,
but her riches are not the primary
focus of this portrait. Leonardo
tried many new ideas with this
piece. This portrait was very
different from how women were
portrayed normally in a painting.
Mona Lisa is looking directly at us,

The Monalisa, created by Leonardo da Vinci

around 15031504
and appears to be very confident. Usually, portraits only reveal the upper torso and
head, but this portrait shows much of her body below the waist. In these ways,
Leonardo pushed the boundaries of the topos of portraits at the time. I think what is
truly remarkable about this piece was the huge innovative jump Leonardo made
he made a true Renaissance piece in that the viewer really needs to take time to
ponder the mysteriousness of this painting. It is almost as if you can hear the Mona
Lisa saying through her slight smile, I know something that you dont.
Finally, let us analyze Leonardos The Last Supper. Leonardo actually had a
lot of freedom with this piece because his patron gave very loose guidelines,

In 1495, Leonardo Da Vinci began painting the Last Supper on the wall of the
refractory of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, Italy, and completed it in 1498.
At this time, Leonardo was becoming more and more prestigious, so patrons who
commissioned him were honored to have him be creative with his depictions. The
more famous an artist gets, the less strict the patron becomes with the exact
outcome of the piece.
In Leonardos The Last Supper, he mastered the use of perspective to create
an illusionistic effect in that the perspective of the painting is continuous with the
walls of the room itself. Leonardo also did not use the traditional medieval circular
or square table because a long table gave him more opportunity to better create the
dramatic element of this scene. We can also easily analyze his extremely imitative
techniques. Each face in the painting is a face of a random person Leonardo studied
as he walked around Milan. Leonardo went as far as to dedicate himself towards
studying prisoners faces just to find the perfect Judith. Jesus in the center is the
only face that is not imitative of a particular person. In this way, Leonardo followed
Augustines philosophy that one must not let investigations go beyond the authority
of God.
Our exploration of what led to the Renaissance, what built up the art market,
and the relationship between the patron and artist all gave rise to the passions of an
artist. This passion was derived from inspiration to add onto what was already
established. Artists, like Leonardo da Vinci, had the crusades and Medieval Ages on
their mind, a time during which people were held back from their full thinking
potential, and the birth of the Renaissance allowed for a new intelligence, and more
innovative ideas. In analyzing three of Leonardos works, he clearly uses forms and
techniques already established, and research already published to inspire his
passion for art. I can safely say that back then, an artists passion comes from his
love for the research process of art and from his love for being challenged by
working with patrons to create something beautiful.


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