VII.

The Brancaccio Chapel

A. Masaccio was the first great Italian painter of the early renaissance.
1. Building on the legacy of Giotto and embracing the innovations of his
Florentine contemporaries.
2. Donatello’s expressive sculpture and Brunelleschi’s perspective system
he developed a sober, monumental style of profound naturalism.
B. Christened Tommaso, he was nicknamed Masaccio ( “ clumsy Tom” )
because of his lack of worldliness and his slovenly appearance.
1. His art, too, is plain and unadorned, showing little interest in the
intricate detail of the international gothic style and concentrating
instead on the physical and spiritual bulk of his figures.
2. Masaccio’s most famous work is in Florence: an unforgettable fresco
cycle in the Brancaccio Chapel, Santa Maria del Carmine.

VIII. Flemish Naturalism

A. In the north, the spirit of Flemish art was transformed by the dramatic
naturalism and monumental style of sculpture from Burgundy.
1. The tournai master Robert Campin was the first to flesh out his holy
figures and place them in “real”, everyday interiors, filled with sacred
symbols.
2. The famous Bruges artist Jan van Eyck rendered the minute detail of
such settings with breathtaking realism.
B. Revolutionary oil techniques allowing him to create subtle effects of
lights, space, and texture.
1. The spiritual essence of a scene was displayed with similar technical
virtuosity by Rogier van der Weyden.
2. His international renown was exceeded only by that of Hugo van der
Goes, who united van Eyck’s naturalism with penetrating studies of
humanity.

IX. Harmony and Beauty

 A. An ancient ideal of beauty, based on mathematical and musical notions of
harmony and proportion, was revived in Italian renaissance circles.
1. The theorist and architect Alberti explained in De RE Aedificatoria.
2. 1485 treatise on architecture, that “everything that nature produces is
regulated by the law of harmony.
B. Without harmony this could hardly be achieved, for the critical sympathy of
the parts would be lost.
1. This perfect harmony, its balance destroyed if anything is added or
subtracted, can be created by the artist or architect through a careful
arrangement of component parts.
2. The flawless logic of mathematics will ensure that the parts of a painting
or building are proportionally related to the whole – thus forming the
beauty of ideal proportion.

X. Botticelli and Mythology

A. The celebrated Primavera by Sandro Botticelli a large imaginary scene

depicting figures from ancient mythology represented a new type of picture.

1. Prized in culture Renaissance circles, it is the painted equivalent of a lyric

poem, invoking the spirit of Venus, goddess of love and springtime, and inviting
the viewer to inter her realm of perpetual beauty and abundance.

2. The work was probably commissioned sometime after 1478 for the
Medici residence known as the case vecchie in Florence.

B. Lorenzo de’ Medici’s young wards it was originally fitted by Lorenzo above a
daybed in one of the ground-floor rooms.

1. Vasari mentions that such room decorations were executed with

wondrous skill and “poetic invention”, and showed jousts, tournaments, festivals,
and other spectacles of the time.

2. There is no doubt that this painting is linked to the sumptuous Medici

pageants for which Botticelli painted fabrics and banners.