History & Symbolism of Renaissance Art ~ Ryan Grant

okay testings making sure that's right perfect okay sorry about the delay that I just had some technical difficulties to work with there we go so you may remember me I've been here a few times to speak my name is Ryan grant I'm the founder and managing editor of mediatrix Press where we produce a lot of translations of theological works such as those of Saint Robert Bellarmine st. Alphonsus Liguori and we reprint a lot of old books that are out of print as much as we can and so when we find them worthy books that really should be brought back to the life of Catholics so that's what a lot of our time is spent on in it and when you see press of course you think of a nice big office and a big printer actually it's really just a small rented office as myself in my computer and my wife kind of managing things in the background that's really how it all works so anyway so I did bring some books from the press in the back or Eric to the side there which you can look at after the talk so we have two talks this morning so one is on sacred art in the in the Renaissance principally and so how the science and symbols of the Renaissance are used to portray theological messages and we'll also see in a few instances - how they're also being repurposed for more classicizing Kagan izing trends which are not so good but we'll see we'll see how those kind of work then the second toggle have a brief intermission and then the second talk following will be on the painter Caravaggio it was a very famous very interesting painter actually was forgotten for a very long time after his death and it wasn't until really the early 20th century he was very influential for the first couple of decades after his death and people like Rubens and Rembrandt been really heavily influenced by him but it's not until the 20th century where he gets the focus and if people start seeing how exactly he impacted so much of art and even of course modern art which is a different animal right which one I mentioned now okay so modern art you see these kind of things in the Smithsonian and you see much weird formless kind of shapes and then it'll have some absurd price tag next to it a fifty thousand two hundred thousand you'll go to a modern art auction and they'll sell these things that for millions of dollars and you can't figure out what it is it's completely opaque it's completely to the subjective idea of the painter but for some reason modernity celebrates that and this is of course of a movement we call modernism there's modernism a theology we know about that from Saint Pius the tenth but there's also modernism in culture in art and in other places so modernism and art essentially says hey let's have you know this the painter just put himself into the image that let him express himself and there's no regard or focus on what kind of science he's using how the viewer is going to objectively be affected by it instead there is no rule it's kind of do it much like modern poetry you kind of just string a bunch of words together to make me feel good so when the Renaissance on the other hand it draws on a very long tradition going back to the ancient classical world as well of making signs and symbols that are perceivable to the eye that when you look at them and you see them you under you get the concept that there's there's an idea you're being kind of swept up it's contemplatively its philosophical now the tradition it that immediately draws from of course is medieval art which comes in the end of the Roman Empire there's the loss of so many different traditions such as perspective or how to get a perfect three-dimensional perspective in the art did the notions of space in particular drawings right sculpture as well and so it took a very long time and mostly the influence of the the Greek world cause wouldn't get much of that from the Arabs right so the Greek world principally wearing a lot of these things have been preserved they're being passed down and as the year there's greater trade and as the opportunities in the east tighten up under the Turks more and more Greeks are coming to the west and any more ideas are being found more brilliant people are coming up with stuff and some of its just purely the Western genius - without particularly influence of the Greek so anyway the art in the Agis was largely craftsmanship an artist wasn't considered like we think of today the cult of the artist right you think of it the Michelangelo Raphael even in their own times they had these great monikers that divine Michelangelo right Raphael the mortal God right these are as Giorgio Vasari the first art historian kind of lays down these various titles for these titans of art today we think of this - there's certain figures that you know certain names that might mean a step out - Picasso obviously although he's largely overrated in my opinion and then in a few others they they get this come in this kind of cult surrounded the whole cult of the artist but in those days the artist was just a humble craftsman he came in he did his thing so in the first image we have here is the monastery where the the monk is illuminating this manuscript and in this case this is a bravery what we now call bri-bri and it's for all souls day so he's used the motif of the D for the the domine a and he's giving us a little picturesque window into the mass of all souls day into the katha the singers chanting alright so it's a nice it's a little you know little image it just kind of hit advise us in it brings us in but it's still two-dimensional it's not there for the purposes of of realism right or brain it's they're actually for meditation the people are used to give you a conception of the ideas of praying for the debt right and that's the focus the teaching the theology that we pray for the souls departed and then we have over here a fresco of Saint Benedict giving the rule to Saint Mara's the rule of Saint Benedict okay so it's a similar it's similar hallmarks to Byzantine art we're an iconography of you see icons you don't often see a lot of emotion it's not because there's none at all it's because the people are used in iconography as kind of set pieces to teach the theology to teach whatever the religious doctrine is in in place and so here obviously the communication of the rule and handing it down it is the basis of monastic life is the idea that the artist is trying to get get across okay and this is kind of the the the hallmark of medieval art we're gonna teach our doctrines with the the figures that we're making use of whatever particularly has to be done and the artist who does this we don't know their names we don't know they don't have really much celebrity until the 12th century and then there's still just kind of cogs in a machine as it were so how do you get the paint's to make this happen so we kind of take it for granted because we think of pain we think of at the far right we think of tubes these wonderful things you can pull out and then screw back on the cap and you don't have to deal with it again and then you can start mixing your paints and working but in reality for the Middle Ages for the Renaissance it's the same process you actually have to grind up whatever your sources are certain types of rocks plants sometimes seashells other things into a with a mortar and just grind this up into a pigment and then once you have the pigment you have to keep it out of the air especially Mediterranean climates very moist very humidity after you've used leather sacks to try to keep these dried out then with that you keep your pigments safe and we you could mix it with your media so there's two different kinds of medium that work for paint one is tempera which is ink right just basically take eggs in your hand you grab a clump of the pigment mix it up with the eggs right and then you get it onto your palate where you're mixing and then you have different colors for whatever the job is that you're doing and you have to have assistants that do that as a fresco painter because fresco is a very complicated medium you have to lay up this plaster in a small section you can only do a bit of a time so you have to have the architecture kind of prefigured in your mind then you lay down this layer of plaster then while it's drying you do your painting right and that's how you would you would accomplish these things so sometimes even you're just you're just doing it right there your assistants doing it there and mixing and then you'll do some further color mixing to get what you're looking for so here's another example of how it it worked in those days you have a lot of different different colors different yellows and then from there they would find out what kind of mixes you could make to get the various color schemes in a skilled artist who's already going through training in the guild of st. Luke they actually a guild set up which would train apprentice painters and party your work as an apprentice is learning how to do this job and you would do this messy job for some other artists or even the Messier job of grave-robbing or digging up some bones from somewhere to burn them to get your black paint that's how you got them in those days until about the 17th century then they use coal dust so 18th century this blue one here is really interesting and involves some curious history this is this comes from thank you this comes from a rock we call la fille sur la piste lazuli the name if you look at the name for blue in Spanish or to tell you that's just weird it just doesn't look Italian he doesn't look Spanish like because it's not it's an Arabic word the word for blue because the rock which gave this beautiful colored blue comes from Afghanistan in a certain mountain so trade contacts through the Crusades had brought the Venetians in with the best merchants in the Arab world and they were able to procure of obtain this rock from Afghanistan so it has a lot of impurities in it mostly copper but when they would grind it down they would grind out the impurities and get this beautiful blue pigment so when you see art and you see paintings where the West Virgin Mary is this nice royal cloak that's the color that's giving it to you just the bluest blue that ever was in European art because previous in the ancient world they didn't have anything like this so you got whoa I'd leave which would produce this light sky-blue and that was kind of your blue color right you'd have to mix that with a lot of blacks a lot of purples to get it kind of dark and that's why an iconography you that's where you get your darker colors for the Blessed version but now with this you have this royal blue and he could use it to create effect so the first painter we want to talk about is gel talk gel to the month on me and so he is an interesting figure there's a lot of Legends about it nobody knows which one's really true so it's said on the one hand he was a disciple of Chihuahua who was famous painter he for example he did a lot of the paintings in the Basilica of Saint Francis Giotto is attributed to having done all the upper Church paint fresco paintings of Saint Francis in the Basilica there in Assisi but that's another thing it's not actually known there's a lot of questions about that Napoleon troops unfortunately when they were in Italy destroyed a lot of the records at the the Basilica so they lost all the old documentation that pertained to who did the artwork in the upper chapel so it's one of those things it's tributed to Giotto and so there's there's a couple of things so one is it's still kind of as a look back to Byzantine iconography and the style and the setup of it but he's departed in one really key thing the background is not gold right and iconography the icons the background is always gold for the most part and or at least the preferred one right so he's using a few things in geometry to give us a sense of the space right the sense of the proportion so he was kind of leading you in of course it if you know the story of Saint Francis which everyone at that time would have right he goes to Pope Innocent the third saying I want to start a new order and then his Cardinals say oh he's trust like in Alba jensine you'd want these guys running around here we can't have that any new orders or bad news and so st. he ascends st. Francis away and then that night he has a dream where he sees the Lateran so this the latter in church and those contemporaries would notice that this is the way it looked in those days before its refit in the 16th century so the Saint Francis is there holding up the ladder in church which is falling down the ladder in not st. Peters but the ladder in is the Cathedral Church of Rome and the Lateran represents the universal church it's like a small microcosm of the macro right and just as our churches are supposed to be in general anyway so Saint Francis is holding us up in the Pope sees this it's like that's the man that's gonna save the church a great little Saints who communicates the story where you have only only a limited space to do it and so obviously the Pope's dreaming what's he dreaming about right so the thrust from right to left and he's seen Francis they're holding it up and putting the church back but again like I said it's dubious whether Giotto actually composed that fresco nobody knows for absolutely sure but we do know about this one which is in Florence and so you have Saint Francis at his deathbed and one of the things that he's done here is another major departure from the eastern which had a very powerful tradition in Italy is to focus on the emotion of the the figures so st. Francis was dying but his face is very sweet he's almost like in another world already and then you have Pietro quit Diwali right by his bedside right yes do you know him sadness and tears right there's there's just is this morning our Father who was like an image of Christ himself right it's why even though some of these guys are Saints he's the only one with halo because he's the very image of Christ in the picture and they're losing him in this world and so the sadness but also the joy there's a few other elements that he's bringing in here but the want to get to a different one so this is in this Villani chapel which was paying will get to who painted it and why and so there's another place where Giotto again makes these departures from what was the standard art of the time you see in people like Gucci Lynch amable is the you know keep holding back the emotion the figures are there to teach the theology but here their Theory also making an impression in us it's not only theological but there's the the the path us right the appeal to the emotive element of the viewer right so he invites the viewer how do you feel watching Judas betray Christ with the kiss okay and so you feel you know you see the Christ is looking he's not angry he's not happy he's very clearly in this moment he knows precisely the very thing it's about to happen and here's Judas about to give the kiss and everyone notice okay that's the man we have to grab all right and the Apostles back here but you get kind of drawn in you see this horrible betrayal is supposed to be a friend who's gonna train with a kiss and kisses in the Mediterranean in the ancient world are a little more expressive than we think about in our anglo-saxon culture post Victorian age where such things are public displays of affection or rather looked down upon by the ancient times even today in Italy today in Greece today other places even the Arab world there is a you know kissing on the cheek men or women as the social norms dictate right and it's peace it's your social contract for how we work with each other and calm and it's also the fellowship for example living with someone for three years all right who's teaching you all the things of life and now you go to give him a kiss and so Giotto kind of brings the impact through the rush of the figures and again lapiz lazuli in the background now there again that departures from the Eastern tradition which kind of set things in motion because when you make a great work of art people come to see it people really want to know something about it and they'll they'll come artists will say hey what is this other guy doing so you come and you watch it you'll look at it and start taking some ideas take down notes make some drawings so here's the same chapels as this Valencia Chapel which is in Florence there is a the high altarpiece the Last Judgement all right with Christ coming within so this reinforcing the majesty and the power right surrounded by the angels but it's actually fairly simple simple geometry right we have circle a couple of squares and a number of them they're connected by the fact of the circle in the middle and then down below so we have the cross it what's interesting is that cross is kind of like warding off the the field the vision of Hell right and all that the power and the you know that the devil seems to have just evaporates at the presence of the Cross and then what do we have down here we have this fellow and he's the one who's paid for the chapel right so you have this nice little image with another microcosm giving the church to the Blessed Virgin Mary but there's a little more than that goes into this his father was a user a moneylender and users according to Scripture and according to the traditional teaching of the church commit a mortal sin of usury that is money lending lending on non-productive stuff money for money which Saint Thomas teaches is sterile and so for the medieval church of course if you're a user err you can't go to confession right can you go to confession and as I say if I'm gonna commit the sin again absolution please doesn't really work that way so the user can't go to confession he's offended against the goodness of God because instead of working with his hands instead of producing something fruitful he didn't work at all for his money and that how it's perceived and that's of course what the the teaching is and the theologians and the subject too so you see Dante for example where users are in hell and they're right there with with sodomites and a few other not so savory figures and what they're doing is they're staying in there like this their hands are always moving forever because in life they didn't move they didn't do anything except count money right and so that's the the overall aspect so what you could do though to get last rites is make a very large donation to church in some way or pay for a chapel and I pay for something that's gonna glorify God and then you would be able to get absolution will return to that theme in a little bit so here he is you know please take this and payment for my father's sins you know and and please may his soul not suffer at hell since he was a filthy user right but some of the most inventive and changing elements in art was Van Eyck right now he's in the Netherlands far away far cry away from Italy so was going on in Italy and also in a number of other places France what not is the recovery of sculpture they are all the tactics and skills they used in the Roman world and gradually getting figures that are more and more lifelike and that's where all the investment is going by the wealthy they want to get you know good sculptures really lifelike sculptures and so gibberty being one of the famous examples in Florence with the great bronze doors of the baptistry if you ever get to Florence you got to see those are really really amazing the lifelike nature of it and each panel kind of giving you these sculpted bronze reliefs of figures but anyway if you are gonna put your money down around about 1,400 of what art form would be the dominant art form for the next six hundred years you'd put your money on sculpture any reasonable person would and you would lose the reason you would lose is yan van Eyck you know he lived in the Netherlands which today we call Belgium in Holland and those days just Flanders the Holland in Holland so Flanders right and when he does ver sorry said he invented oil painting it's not exactly true but he he'd used it away nobody had ever used it before so oils are a little bit different from / a mixin an olive-oil solution that into the paint some just dilute it sometimes you thicken it just for your color base so what van Eyck does is he's discovered a way through lots of training and practice to produce figures that look like they've come back from the dead people for the medieval imagination this atom is like he literally was pulled out of the grave by Christ right after the resurrection and almost is living again alright so in there there's a few other instuments uses here today to get the effect but even the anatomy right so what do we have here and I'll note this again later the upturned foot he's actually walking the dead have been brought to life okay and in the middle course in Christ it's raining and glory and so the graces of his now being enthroned in glory right through his passion of death we flow down here to the center panel everyone's seen the center panel before right you see it in cards you see it in books you see it but it will have a bigger image of it in a minute but anyway the they just the elect they're they're giving worship and adoration to the lamb okay and you have the different figures versions clergy monks bishops right he they're coming around the white robe men for the book of Revelation the book of the apocalypse that are their worships he has included all these elements but he's focusing you into some theological teaching so here's a close-up again Adam again you know - the upturned foot little elements that's a small tiny thing but for the viewer who's used to our two-dimensional medieval art he's gonna see this and say wow it's it is like he's moving right and it is something that you just never seen before even you look up here if you've ever watched anyone singing you ever watched a choir going they're not watching you but they're but you're watching them and you said they're not attentive to the fact that you're gonna be seeing their weird facial expressions but when people sing there's so many different things just in the science of your your your palate your you know how you get you turn this into a an instrument to produce music and so you swatch singers they'll always make you know faces like this again there's never seen before in western art at least not since Roman times and even there they never really used it in this way so you see all the the singers here are you know moving about their face to get the notes out and another little distinctive element to give you the sense of realism to draw the viewer in to this little world here so at the top as I mentioned so we have Christ and throne the Blessed Virgin Mary to the right and st. John the Baptist to the left so he's incorporated will elements to st. John the Baptist still with the the camel skin tunic but you know he's covered in guineas losing glory he's got this nice jeweled cloak and the Blessed Virgin Again lapiz for the blue right reading a book that meditation is a classical symbol of the Blessed version as seed of wisdom and as yourself the very spouse of God right and lightened by heavenly wisdom and then Christ in the middle so are these jewels they look so real you can actually almost touch them and it's a really powerful effect because what you're acting you're materially your eyes are looking at a piece of canvas or wood and they're seeing paint that's all they're seeing you're seeing paint you're not seeing a real existing thing but formerly the brain is seeing something else what's represented there gives these associations that we have to certain images certain ideas and so we see that paint and we see jewels we see this glorious red cloak all right now there's a couple things about the jewels little details that make sense to the viewer but not so much to us will remove you got these pearls here amidst all the jewels up and on the clasp there what's what's what's the point of the pearls well if we look back at the in the Gospel of Matthew Jesus talks about the head kingdom of heaven is like a pearl of great price and according to st. Augustine into the the church fathers as Cornelius lopunny relates the pearl represents the gospel right and as we have four of them the Gospels of Matthew Mark Luke and John one gospel for accounts pearl of great price is the gospel and that would have made sense to people at this time looking at at least to the educated but even the less educated they still knew these things from signs and pictures and preaching right and so all jewels here they're just the little touches that in themselves are just okay well there's a jewel but it's inviting you again in to the realism of the painting right it looks like you could pick up this crown and put it on and that gives you as your eye moves around the center panel your eye at the bottom which is moving closer to our space but not quite because we're still this is the kingdom of the Blessed this is in eternity so in a top we have the image of Christ we were just looking at seated flanked by Our Lady and st. John the Baptist and now the lamb right the men whose robes been made white in the blood of the Lamb and yet the instruments of the passion cross the pillar and where the screen the flagellation takes place crown of thorns all the instruments of the passion to remind you there the passion death and resurrection because it's connected to us by our common baptism so from the grace you have Christ enthroned up here the Holy Ghost the lamb right the resurrected Christ who's had Gonder gone his passion and death and you come to this fountain right nice little you know and this is something of course gives it an element of realism for a person of that time and then a lot of medieval fountains like this with this kind of style but what's happening you got this little trench right here this small tiny little element at the very bottom of the painting is actually the key that holds everything about the Ghent Altarpiece together because what's happening is what is baptism what do we learn about baptism as Saint Paul tell us you're put to death in Christ and raised anew with him and thus we become a new creature of credit in Christ in baptism right so that baptism where does it close rum we're participating in his death and resurrection so that power is flowing through the water right and see the font its shaped its octagonal right which is a clue media clue baptism right because we look white why is the font hoggle yeah I don't know give up on here okay excellent right and so one of those little details you may or may not have noticed you look at Baptists trees a lot of them are octagonal Wyatt agonal the church fathers taught talking about the eighth day which is a euphemism they mean the first day but it's also the eighth because the Jewish Sabbath the last day of the week that's the seventh day so the first day sunday is that the day of this new creation it's the eighth day right because it's it's followed that last one and it's the you know it's a so it's an image right which they talk about so that octagon is kind of a sheep one of those little subtle hints back to this particular teaching to focus on baptism and it's one of many things so again a viewer at that time would have seen that an automatically known this isn't just some mere fountain this is a baptismal font and the water you see pulls down here and it's flowing down from that trench out of their space into our space into the viewers space right and so again it's like so many other details in the painting there's a lot more to talk about and I don't we won't have enough time to get to other stuff unfortunately but you know you have a lot of foliage a lot of familiar things you check cathedral right which was looking very well known to be an IKE right in the background here and you've got poppies up it you know mixed in here yeah right why poppies because the poppies are a symbol of Christ's passion and we'll see that in a little bit over here you have the maize the virgin martyrs with their palms and the lily to denote their purity right roses other other little elements and we'll see how the foliage works for a lot of expressive signs and symbols but just a closer view up to the baptismal font right the water so the grace which flows at the top of the painting from Christ through the Holy Ghost comes down through the victory of the land through that the power of this death and resurrection is bringing us baptism right so it's flowing down to us and then if you look closely in the water to there's jewels and there's a symbol of grace okay grace this is what is party to us that in the baptismal grace is that sanctifying grace it's a very presence of Christ which is more precious more precious than the precious stones up here right it's the most valuable thing in the world now here's another portrait now this one's in the London gallery so there's there's a saying if you want to find stolen art don't go into the houses of thieves you've got to go to the Art Museum and this painting actually was first stolen out of the Netherlands by Spanish soldiers who brought it there to save it from the Dutch Calvinists iconoclast along with a number of other paintings so like Hieronymus Bosch she's called El bas school because all of his stuff practically is in the Prado in Spain and so they because they had to take it largely to save it but anyways this one too then during the Napoleonic Wars during the Peninsular war a Scottish soldier ended up with it and wound his way back to England sold it to someone some collector for a song and a dance and it ended up winding its way into the London gallery although if I was the Spanish royal family I'd be calling them up to take it back myself anyway so it's one of those really interesting pays are a lot of different theories about it and but if you look the worst one of all though if you open up the London gallery book which I've never been there I've do have the book though in the book says that moisés is a merchant celebrating his marriage and you know just you know some incidental little details around to flaunt as wealth like oranges right and a ton for it now whoever wrote that little description and it must been an intern or something really because people who understand this period they understand a oranges were plentiful in England and in the Netherlands up until about the 1800s there's a climate shift that caused oranges no longer to grow there but used to get more engines and orange trees in in London I use the medieval references to them they're in pictures and likewise in Flanders you have this one here so this is a common fruit but it's doing a different job it's not showing the merchants wealth as we'll see so yon van Eyck is signed to this painting in the back and it says literally on Van Dyck was here in laughs and you know he painted in so the the prevailing theory for a very long time was that he was witnessing their merits right a couple of things don't work one she's pregnant and it's not merely just there that goes we saw the eve on the the Ghent Altarpiece where she's got kind of a larger belly which was supposed to be flattering in those times whereas modern people wouldn't take that as being very flattering but in those days it was because that meant that admit you were well-fed I meant sure well provided for you had some status right and so that was and that's why men tended to prefer women that were shapelier than today where you have I want to go there with Hollywood people you're gonna blow through the window you know with the slightest wind but anyways who was meant to be flattering but here she's actually there's this stature of her Beck she's actually pregnant so again how is it that you're at a wedding you know and you're already pregnant you don't celebrate that with a painting you're trying to hide something like that away something else is going to so look at some of the incidental details we have a candle here and then over there there's the remnants of a candle it's snuffed out it's not there anymore he's got his clogs his walking shoes and one of those well they're made of wood and so you think of it you know a lot of you go to some people's houses and you take your shoes off because that's what your parents learned to their parents learned for for a number of years but what they actually used to do it in the Middle Ages you take your shoes off and put on some house walking slippers and then you'd have a you know shoes on that went into these guys because you did not have indoor plumbing and he didn't have good sewage and so as the the famous saying goes in a lot of a lot of cities or what's what sewage they did have wasn't sufficient to manage what was going into the street so if you were walking you have to wear those to keep the less salubrious elements on the street off of your shoes okay so that's why you would do these types of things he has his hair but hers kind of put away they're not you know they're not present by the door anymore you know she has an image a it's like a porcelain doll she's very idealized she's not does it look like a real person whereas Senor Eleanor Feeny who was a Tahlia merchant we he's got a more lifelike face somewhat somber somewhat but but also very real alright and so let's get in closer what we have here is we have the fruit and the fruit represents the fall okay that we will all die and that's the the presence of oranges and apples right there is there is no it doesn't say in Scripture what fruit it was and so artists represented differently and so but it represents the fall of our first appearance the fact that we are all mortal and we will die at some point okay and so actually if I go back but outside here you have a cherry tree cherries are actually a symbol of heaven the cherry itself represents Christ's passion his death in his resurrection so the cherry is often used in media voice so you'll see some last suppers like your londa actually comes to mind I don't think I put it in here but where all the apostles are seated at this last supper and they have cherries on the table why don't the cherries on the table because in heaven it's gonna be cherries all around right literally but also because it's Christ's passion in in blood and death and he think about the Eucharist especially the bread on the and the the table at the Last Supper in the upper room and then you have the cherries the very living embodiment of Christ's body and blood present for them right so the cherries represent paradise outside but right here we're where we are is death I've got the mirror and when we get back to at the mirror so mirrors also are symbols of death their eyes are used to reflect death no part of the genius here that Van Dyke is used is he's got a reflection of the Quartus emergent Arnolfini and is his wife there and there's van Eyck you know painting it right and then we see clearly - there's the fruit of the window again you're right and over here rosary such as they wear those times and you have the mysteries of Christ around the mirror okay what do we notice around the merchant Arnolfini aside right we have these living mysteries of Christ lacy is doing in this world preaching taking up his cross giving to the poor over here we got his death crucifixion being taken off the cross okay all these things are there you saw on her side are these mysteries for you know the death of Christ over here living ones and then again the candle we note at her side you see the wax there the remnants of the wax from the candles all it's done and her candles burnt out but his is still going so the net effect of the whole picture is this man is not celebrating his marriage he's commemorating the death of his wife made probably in childbirth yeah and that's probably what's going on and so the fruit reminds us that we're mortal that we're gonna die but we have something to look forward to in faith heaven paradise on the outside so he's his walking shoes are there cuz he will be going out but she's not going anywhere anymore okay and so and that's kind of in where's the sadder somber note and Van Dyck did a number of paintings a number of altar pieces and he was hugely influential was people again are to see what you do they try to copy and learn where they might have apprenticed right under him he was very well-connected Van Dyke's kind of the first artist that becomes artist by name even where so then like Giotto her famous names in Italy he's the kind of the name one he's the artist that you're trying to beat if you're an up-and-coming artist you want to do better than this and which is extremely high bar to set but also if you were you know an up-and-coming artist Van Eyck is a household name he's connected to Philip the good or the rulers of Flanders and is paid very well by the royal treasury so he can take on other clients he does portraits he does altar pieces a lot of really interesting stuff so it's the beginnings of in many ways the cult of the artist all there's still very much in his beginnings so then as we get back to Italy so these ideas filter down Italy right through you know through rumor through report through paintings being bought and brought down there sometimes Flemish merchants and painters are getting down to Italy and a lot of times in the north they're gonna go down to see classical culture Roman sculpture all these things because they're discovering in Italy as they're they're trying to build new things time's your excavating and digging and as the humanist movement begins you're looking for all these tangible signs of that very ancient culture that is under the rubble that we walk on Greece and Rome and that's where for example you get the word grotesque right it's a French word today it's taken to mean something something horrid something really ugly and terrifying but in those days it actually meant something very different and the grotesque was actually because you would pull out a grotto out of the ground he'd be digging and you find a grotto there an old Roman grotto and you'd see these very for a medieval Christian very alarming images of other weird mythical creatures that you didn't really understand very well least hadn't seen depicted and so the term dropped Wescoe came in and grotesque in French as the French word it comes into English so that's where that would come about but they're always seeing these ancient signs and symbols in so various Italian painter's we're starting to incorporate them incorporate you know art that's more and more like doing the same things at Van Dyke's doing but also the Roman so we'll get to the the Roman element a minute so this is Botticelli's but so-called Madonna of the book all right and so obviously pretty simple image straightforward blessed version with baby Jesus and you know the Bible open but there's a couple more interesting elements that he's been able to work in here right so well close so we have crown of thorns the nails more obvious ones these have actually been added later because you need to see they're kind of awkward in the original picture it's because he thought this wasn't it wasn't enough to clue the viewer in so he decided to add a little bit alright but what's actually going on is what's behind him is more expressive to you know to a lot of people in general you know the the images he's trying to get is do you have the fruits the various fruits here the cherries we've already spoken up the passion and death there's a pomegranate what's pomegranate for it right well pomegranate you have a broken one open you just have tons of this is flowing and fruit flowing especially very large ones as they have in in the Mediterranean and it's actually a symbol also for Christ passion death and resurrection because of the red and it's so abundant like the bunda graces that flow out of the resurrections that's why you have a pomegranate in FIGS also figs are a sign of the resurrections all of these things come together but he's got to undergo the pain of it first the passion and so this has made him nervous in a case it wasn't clear about it Chile's added these little elements in so he's looking up to our lady for comfort okay and we have this again over here another book the Magnificat ladies being crowned on high from heaven yeah yeah this is called a ton d yeah which airs around round images or portraits they'd hang at a nobleman's house that hey an aristocrat would in this case the Medici we'll get to in a little bit so this is being lowered on her head but it's somewhat mystical somewhat ethereal right you have the the silk in the Angels hints they're trying to give the setna sense of that you know this isn't happening so much in our space as theirs through faith and of course Christ is looking up at the crown coming down and what's he holding pomegranates pomegranate again passion and death little symbols you hide in but you also have a few things back here okay the background shows the sense of the depth and the end the perception the idea of using nature to try to invite us into the artists into the space of what we're viewing okay and this becomes this hallmark and in the the Renaissance of trying to get you as not just a mere viewer but a participant right and so the river coming back here the river being a sign of baptism okay and it ends going behind Our Lady and you can imagine the natural course would be flowing right about where Christ is so again all these little symbols that have been drawn in to get the viewer now into the image as it were and to benefit from it so but it Shelley very quickly finds himself being patronage by the biggest wealthiest guys in Florence the Medici so now for instance Siena were rivals for who would be kind of the leader of art in Siena was mostly destroyed in a flood in the 1360s and as a result Florence was the the pin to take the lead as the the new upcoming center of new progressive what was for them Modern Art so this is a portrait of cosmonaut Vecchio we'll talk more about that where he's appearing there in that portrait so he inherited the money lending business mera moneylenders we saw the earlier portrait from his father Giovanni Knight and so the de Medici were extremely successful because they had a couple of rules one the most important don't lend to royalty they never pay you back now the way money-lending worked in their money lending could work on certain certain rules and they would often go above and beyond those rules and they cross over into user but in like in the central areas actually about here be honest in Florence the moneylenders would get together right and so they would sit there in the market was very out we think of like you go to a loan officer you're going to private office everything's kind of sealed off all your stuff is supposed to be practically the level of like your psychiatrist right and all the records and stuff and nobody's supposed to be able to just pop in and see those well back then you're right out in the open talk about all your terms you know you've so that murdered moneylenders would sit at their bank goal which meant table and you would offer that you know I've got 34 ends I got 40 florins I've got 100 the foreigners to land you know in it so on somebody to be paid back by st. John's day pay this one back by Pentecost pay this one back by Christmas whatever time that you're gonna put for the loan no and so these would all be contracted you'd sign wicked a witness and then done you know now you owe X amount of money to be paid back at this time now a lot of times you didn't get paid back it's a really high-risk business and so the person might go bust leave to another city you never find him again so when the moneylender was out of money he would ceremoniously stand up and break his table right and so he would have a Bunco with or or our word bankrupt that's where it comes from the moneylenders being out of money where they break their table so you're bankrupt so but Cosimo de Vecchio on the other hand he was a very clever moneylender so he takes the business over his for his dad and he becomes extremely wealthy so but he's also got further interest he's really interested in the Renaissance he's really interested in the recovery of classical culture and so he sees his way to prominence right here in the Cathedral of Florence in that Duomo and what happens here is they had built this massive dome over the sanctuary and then the engineers couldn't figure out how to put a deal on it they had no idea it really it various people had tried it a collapse they'd failed so the Medici bid for from the from the city where their forints by the way is a republic not in out of monarchy it's not doesn't have a Duke it's got a Governing Council that the citizens vote for and then they make decisions at all usually it's somewhat more oligarchical because usually the wealthier more aristocratic guys are the ones making all the decisions something I wanted to Cosimo that you know to get this dome fixed up and where he gets the architect Brunelleschi Brunelleschi was one of those first-rate geniuses there's also a little nutty right and so they got kicked out of a lot of places lost a lot of commissions and just because of his mannerisms the way he wasn't good at dealing with people and with the certain polish the minute she didn't care about that they cared about hiki he was the guy who could do this for them so Brunelleschi works on and he starts observing Roman buildings he goes to Rome he looks to literally closely the pantheon so if it's under grazing he sees how the Romans would kind of crisscross and lay the brick in different directions and he realized this is what would take the stress and the weight and that's how the Pantheon was the largest unsupported dome in Europe for you know well over a thousand years so now he's we're gonna apply that to foreign so it's the same thing and he looked at the brickwork at Chris crosses in that exact fashion is what the Romans did and it holds the way so that became the largest dome in Europe up until Michelangelo's dome over Saint Peters this is the Medici cresting if you go to Rome and you go to various museums you'll see this in a lot of places right because of Ivan Medici Cardinals Medici Pope's Leo the tenth for instance climate the seventh they'll have any see this crest of so there's a lot of jokes and talk about what the old balls represent but there's the Pele the balls they actually represent the coins the coins with which they made their dynasty how they came out of money so one of the after the the great success in rebuilding the cathedral in Florence and having you know you see they've got this prestige right for being kind of the top guys in the city now causing the Vecchio's on all the Commission's and he's also careful to guard his in it he makes himself look like a man of the people he rides a donkey he doesn't want his wealth overly writes it to it to arouse envy and hatred which he's seen other people do and lose in the game for who's going to be the best so one of his problems though and if remember we said about a users they can't go to heaven right because they're locked out because they did not work with their hands they just got money by amassing money they were being clever but not through hard work that's why the user sits in inhale moving his hands for eternity cuz they didn't work with him in life right so Caza has got to find some way to get out of this and he's pretty is not necessarily a particularly sinful or evil guy in fact his life shows a lot of austerity and at least publicly anyway and so what he does is he goes to the Pope and he said Pope Eugene the fourth and he says you know if I other people give you chapels what if I gave you a whole church or a brand-new you know not just Church a monastery well build it all up from the ground or a buy one and renovate one of the Pope's sitting there it's like alright let's see you do it so he goes he gets so son Marco was these ruins that were falling apart so Cosmo Vecchio bought it up and started revamping it renovating it and turning this beautiful Renaissance you know monastery also bringing in fra angelico I mentioned in a minute to paint a lot of frescoes on it so Pope Eugene the fort sees that is this all right you know you you aren't worried you know your salt here so he gives him a special indle Cosimo Vecchio and his family may go to confession even though they will continue money lending on the proviso that he will continue to do stuff like this is really the first break in the dam and 40 skirted around it this is the real break in the dam of the church is teaching on usery where it still stays the same all the way through the 19th century anyway it stays pretty much the same but people is kind of screwed around it in practice or the practice isn't lining up with the doctrine and we could see the disastrous results in modern society so anyways one of the most brilliant painters of that time was then drawn in to paint frescoes in San Marco and this is fra angelico otherwise giovanni de trois orally yes as he was known as a monk all these i think is his birth name is guido but made so he was a dominican and really brilliant painter one of the things that Fra Angelico brings other artists don't really utilize so much is a really deep living faith so here if you ever go to something that is super minerva in rome it's a really famous dominican church it still has a lot of gothic the interior and the vaults and the ceilings and everything and so they have its st. Catherine of Siena's body not her head but her body is in the high altar is there was another story behind that and just before the high altar to the left right here is fra angelico okay excuse me so he's buried in there so you can see that crated for inspiration so one of the things that the way this was set up is that they had cells for the Dominicans right and so they would all inhabit one cell with the bare walls except for one image that pran Jellico would paint very austere very reserved okay very reserved but Ito so this one Christ flagellation would look at one or two of these so Christ flagellation right being scourge dat the pillar you don't see the scourgings on Christ there's actually an abstraction because so he wants you the viewer in this case his monks to be looking at Christ through the eyes of Saint Dominic so here's st. Dominic who is flagellating himself with the whip is giving himself some penance as he's focusing and meditating on Christ being encouraged at the pillar right so you see the pillar in the background this is actually my picture from the number of years ago and it's why it's kind of off-kilter I couldn't find the one I wanted on the internet so I use mine but anyway it is actually straight would you look at it but so he's flagellating himself were drawn into seeing Christ through Dominic as the Dominican rule says the reverence that that the friar is supposed to have for his father st. Dominic is so great that we should see Christ through his eyes in prime Jellico's putting that for us literally so there's some other fresco so this one this is in another cell actually this is really brilliant abstractions these these breeding this this particular element in so not the literal physical hands of all those who are striking or Lord in beating him and you know so many other things that we see in the Gospel accounts instead right here so obviously st. Dominic reading the gospel and we're being drawn in his meditation is what's happening for them for the monk so don't just show everybody coming up all these guys it would be a really crowded picture to have all of these people in there striking your alerts instead every hand that smacks our Lord right the this fellow here and the wind is actually supposed to be showing him you mocking Christ you know prophecy okay but he's blindfolded he can't see and then he had the hand here and strikes him with with the reed yet he's still got you into the ball signifying his command of the world the whole universe yet this is happening to him because as he says in the gospel I do no one takes my life from me I lay it down he's willingly undergoing all of these torments humiliations and sufferings right and for the monk again who's meditating on this and itself for me and then here's another one starting on the Left st. Thomas st. Benedict Saint Dominic st. Francis Peter Bartok it always told peter martyr because he's always got a skull cracked open and and then lastly st. paul all viewing the blessed version receiving her crown right so another gonna so again through through dominic and you know the various Saints are of course in different directions on Christ and on Our Lady and so this is the unity of the Our Lady as Queen of Heaven through Christ with the Saints and again another image that those in their cell can be focusing on and lastly then there's the altar in the altar image it's interesting it makes use of just very simple geometry much as with you know Giotto but now it's got a big a deeper sense of the depth then Giotto is able to give it so you have your circles okay you have your squares very simple very classical in that sense of it using the geometry to proportion the painting but yet it's set back okay it's set you know a little bit further back in here and that's again with the Saints company and you're looking up Christ and thrown on the lap of the version of course and this is the the high altar image in that in the monastery so to crown the work and costly a vecchio the way we know that's the next one I'm sorry there I said before we get to Cosmo then the Annunciation so this stand so when you come up the stairs to start doing the monks cells this stands at the top and of course they've got this obnoxious lighting on it now and it wasn't meant to be viewed that way it was actually meant to be viewed a little bit darker and because in the way he's made the light the lights coming kind of from the outside but remains around the Blessed version and when you have darker images because you want people to contemplate it more deeply rather than something you want to show up and you wanted more in the light so I said that the lighting they have on it currently in the monastery just did just to detract from the effect that Frangelica was trying to get so our Blessed version is is here seated but yet in throne right so keeping the elements of the principles in for example in Greek iconography our ladies the queen of the angels so you don't see like in later Renaissance stuff where she's kneeling before Gabriel which is completely wrong theologically and rather she's the queen so she's receiving him and his great message into see he's bowing but there's there's other elements that that he brings in the wings this rainbow color in the waves proportion as it is we can get the been coming on the other ends of the viewer again it's kind of looking in the perspective he's almost invited to walk in to this space where the sacred scene is happening and so in as you're walking into the monastery where divine things are occurring the word is made flesh in the womb of the version just as it's made flesh on the altar it truly lives in the monks who dwell here so that's why you're greeted with this when you come up the stairs into the monasteries and then down all the way down the hall Cosimo de Vecchio gets his own cell he built the place he's paid for it he's done all these things so therefore he should get his own place in in the whole business so he has his thing as the adoration of the Magi that Cosimo looks in the Bible we're rich people who are glorified well the Magi the Magi are these rich men that that were are glorified as Saints if they could be Saints so can we now the painter of this one was Bernardo Gazzola was a disciple of Fra Angelico and he employs some of the better elements of some of the best elements of Fra Angelico and slowly includes him here the austerity the simplicity where he's depicted Cosimo with this gift but very simple very austere much as Cosmo wanted to be presented before the people right and so the Medici that would insert them themselves into a the local venerations of the Magi in Florence right so they're part of a guild that were that venerated the Magi and they would lead a procession on epiphany where they would walk in you know throughout the town where bearing their gifts as they are to the infant Jesus then they'd go you know is all said and done they'd go back into their Palazzo and Cosimo could take note of God's oles painting of the magi 2.0 all the reservation is gone all right this would have been enormous ly expensive by the way not just because of the painter charging the money all of these deep colors especially the lobbies and of course cosmos put himself in lapiz lapiz odds loudly the blue that deep royal blue which normally only Kings get right of course he's being it he's portraying a king and the Magi strain of course that's why he gets it and it's just a festival of color he's acknowledged all the deep reds the deep blues the Hunts obviously the Magi you know coming from Herod looking looking for for Christ but we're gonna start dosing start because he didn't want it we're following our own lives our own lead our own money that's leading us to the goal right so this way he could enjoy this and it's also a status thing it is no his own palace people would see that made no wow this guy is really means business so consummated Becky Oh anyway he you know he lives very seemingly very pious life on the outside anyway and but he's also careful is very reserved with his money he's very he spends it in the right places he gets the right projects but he doesn't you know flaunt it in front of the people not so much his sons and his grandsons so his son I was also called Philip the GAO see right he'd say he had they would have these rich banquets full of me and so many tons and tons and tons of meat so you never nobody eat a lot of food and get meat headache or you just feel like oh there's so much I can't you know well you just you look at what they ate you just imagine getting it and of course and this also helps gout onset into your into your Lintz and everything sued Philip the gout see would be reduced he died very young died like 35 36 so he would sit there just at dinner just like the plenty users in hell right so he's simply like this could barely just do this in Wagga stung it's very sad so he died and so Cosimo's Cosmo Vecchio's grandson lorenzo takes over Lorenza unethical so he had been classically trained with the best of humanist teachers of the day like pico de melon Dola in a handful of vinci know who's at renaissance neoplatonism comes in so the works of the philosopher plato come back into the west through fin sheena that makes a translation from the greek into latin at a time where a lot of scholars still didn't have a handle on greek so that is a way of getting plato's thought into the west so Lorenzo's really fascinated by classical culture pagan culture so much so that you really i mean he goes to church but he really that's is that his passion religious art is not his passion and banking is also not really his passion right so where's Cosimo kept the books exactly Lorenzo is just you know I'm gonna use the night well for my prestige to fund painters and no bent he wants is is paganism so this is at the the putt pazzo archaeology which is the Medici retreats right so it's to revive the idea the the ancient Roman idea of the retreat from the city and it's somewhat of an aristocratic it'll or you know it's supposed to be giving us an it'll of Tumnus the fun you have this this this pagan sense of the nudity and there's there's certain sexual allusions as well between the fruit fertility all these things that are being suggested and this is and there's all the other very inventive in this in this villa there's also very inventive models and classical Roman art no Christian symbolism in almost the entire villa it's all focusing in the world of greeting rooms Greece and Rome so the well-fed rich are coming for their retreat to the country and may they prosper right with the Medici Zook gods right so they almost saying in art we have our own gods we don't need God we have our own money we have our our lights and we'll make it it will be successful with a good luck and fortune which produces its own reaction as we'll see Botticelli we saw earlier is very heavily patronized by the Medici so he gets in just elves into the the classical the classical paganism so this this is an interesting little scene so it's it's meant to be read right to left and it's full of little Medici symbolisms in it too so over here you have zephyrus there at the wynn and he's kidnapping this nymph Clarisse and taking her off to Wed her and this is the transformation she becomes a God by goddess flora also the patron of Florence which the Medici Medici now de facto rule Ryan so she was and she becomes the goddess of spring and that's why the painting Primavera and you have over here Venus you see I don't have any here today no I don't have it in here good so the Birth of Venus everyone's seen that when her Venus is standing naked born out of the sea and the sea shell right well he's kind of giving a it's this one's not as famous as that particular painting is why I left it out but you see the trees are making kind of a grotto you know around her much as you see for images of the Blessed version right but it's Venus it's as pagan celebration of spring with Venus goddess of beauty flora you can seize the spring if all men you have here the Three Graces who are representing in turn you know fertility chastity and the last ones escaping me at the moment so I'm sorry and then over here you have mercury looking up now there is another painting that's thought to have been paired with it that shows a particular virtue that mercury is supposed to be looking up at right and so chastity is turned her back on this scene over here and is more interested in mercury you know looking up at this other painting which is supposed to represent chastity but it's also very pagans all the sense of there's not really a whole ton of Christian symbol as a lot of Renaissance art will pick up the pagan mythology and use it to tell Christian morality but not Botticelli not at this stage of his life anyway he's just not not there you have up the the oranges up there they're like than the Medici Palais right and down here to all these various flowers and foliage there's lots of really beautiful really interesting foliage and when you look at the Medici ratite retreat we're just tell you that pleasure there Academy if they feel that looked just like that same flower so it's actually riddled with Medici symbolism de Medici Pele kind of forming their arc around Venus the goddess spring Florence the city is in full flower because of the Medici so here's another interesting one with Venus by Botticelli Raveena sin Mars and so the mythological story of Venus and Mars as Venus is married to Vulcan the Smith of the gods in the Vulcan of course is ugly he's lame so he's not particularly mobile it's very very ill matched pair for the goddess of beauty and grace and everything that's supposed to be you know positive flowing so then there's Mars who is the strong warrior the God of War reign is which see just in case you couldn't get it he's got all the war equipment such as it was in that day and to give you an indication that's his right so it's somewhat amusing actually so you have Venus and there's a couple interesting things he's doing with Venus so you see her hair so wrapping around you can't really tell the difference between her hair in her jewelry right and so it's a she's embroidered in such a way with his dress that no one could really wear and nobody could particularly take off if you had it on which is interesting but he's also you know employed a lot of different circles around the with the connections of the gold bands but then where is he he's taking a nap he's more or less out of it and you have over here your putti right you're terribly funds that are running around with his equipment he's so out of it that he's got the shell or I just gonna make it real loud noise like way next to somebody sleeping with the foghorn right and he's not waking up and the same thing here the little guy here is wearing his armor and he's completely oblivious to it all right and so she's more or less ambivalent toward him so there's a lot of it is most certainly for a private patron and so there's like a lot of humor a lot of nudge nudge but also kind of an an appeal for women stick it out he'll be alright bear with it so the minute she kind of continue then you get to Michelangelo Michelangelo was a young boy sent to Florence study and he got bored with his studies really quick he was supposed to be Larry glad Greek and he wanted to do what they think so he starts drawing starts going around the city drawing things and so Lorenzo money if they go he notices this he noticed this is boy there's something about him it just speaks genius and he can't figure out what it is so he brings him he sees his pictures and he writes to his father he let me take him in I'll train him up as an artist you know here's the greatest you know got figure in Florida it's ready to Michael Angelo's dead it's like well alright hey why not so he becomes the you know and later the embodiment of what the Renaissance is supposed to be so his genius you know moves in a number of directions Michelangelo is usually called the true renaissance man because he was brilliant in sculpture he was brilliant in fresco he was brilliant in oil painting and he was brilliant in architecture all the major avenues of artistic display he was brilliant at each and every one of them so the let's see in the first stage though he's moved and this is one of his earliest known works which actually the only one who surpasses Michelangelo is the artist john lorenzo bernini who take inspiration from michelangelo he was definitely better right but beside the point a lot of people love Michelangelo and they won't admit that so so here is the the fight of the centaurs from classical mythology and he's given us all these readings struggling bodies throughout which is a real feat of sculpture to be able to produce this there's some elements of it that are unpolished that are unfinished but it has the look of a Roman Baths relief and it's a kind of again of not in the direction that Lorenzo Magnifico wants to go this focus in love paganism and focus away from the more Christian message that art has had up to this point and so Michael Adel gets swept up right along it in these early years but then again this this this pagan court right and there's this lust for all the the classics of Greece and Rome brings about a reaction and like I said Lorenzo mind if we go flaunts as well he's tied to how it you know he's trying to show off how great how wonderful he is and so then some people take notice that this is not such a good thing one a friar and son mark goes just sell us down just a little bit from where Cosimo vecchio soul was generally almost Savonarola now sovereign role is a really interesting figure for a lot of ways we don't have time to talk about him at all we'd have to lay there's a good series of talks by michael Davies that I would recommend on YouTube about Savonarola they're just type of 1 & 2 so I'm gonna roll Michel baby should get it it's fantastic but Savonarola begins preaching right principally to recover virtue away from the pagan elements of Lorenzo's court I know Lorenzo remember he's not the king of Florence but he acts like it he because it's technically still a republic that because of his wealth and his patronage his prestige he's on every committee kind of running things so sabha Niroula begins to thunder from the dwama the very duomo that the medici built up from the pulpits leading people back to a christian life and so one of the things that he ends up inspiring are these the bonfire of the vanities right so Lorenzo magnifico will die about 1492 and after that the Medici have to flee the city right now long after that Piero becomes the next head of the family and the banking interest is kind of going south because Lorraine spent all the money for art and now as the Medici fleed a papal protection where they've been gradually building up their power in the church and so they have a few Cardinals over there and Alexander the six is not of a kindred spirit for the most part with the Medici so he's not averse to taking them in and so meanwhile Savonarola and his lead burned bagged books with all this this pagan mythology in it that you don't need it's gonna destroy your soul aren't nude pagan goddesses let's throw them in the fire let's get rid of him right Botticelli has been paying attention Botticelli gets into it and he brings eleven starts going to Christian art a a lot of really beautiful stuff like some of the stuff we saw the beginning he does this great adoration of the Magi of his own that's full and redolent of christian symbolisms he's turned the other way when this is all done so but then Salvador Ella has his fall from grace the Franciscan challenges him to a contest of God to determine whether sovereign really was really sent by God to to lead the city and so first Savonarola refuses to go but then one of his disciples took on the challenge and he's like oh I better do it not you and so he goes out to meet the Franciscan then it rains then it cancels it and then they don't they don't do it again because the trial by trial of God you had to walk over a fire if you didn't get burned and that God defended your cause right so nervous to actually undergo so Savonarola didn't go at people kind of turned against him now oh yeah you know you whatever you say you're you're you're full of you've got these prophecies but we don't really believe it so the city authorities arrest Saab in a role I hand him over where Alexander and 600 excommunicated him and thus seized he ends up being hung and burned at the hanged I'm sorry and burned at the stake as as the Dominicans say as a martyr but in actually ideas condemned as a heretic so the so Michelangelo gets swept up in this new Republican fervor which is going to defend all the virtues of the Republic without de Medici and so he produces David so what's the point and I'm sure if you've been to Florence you've probably seen the Dean but they have a replica outside the the Town Hall where it used to stand and then there's the one inside the museum here in the effete sheet so what's the point why well the the sculpture itself comes from this one block of marble was too small to use very efficiently but Michelangelo took on the challenge even though other more seasoned sculptors had done so he sculpts the diamond out of this one block of Carrara marble without it just a feat of pure genius one of the things he had been doing when he was trained by the Medici was he was examining and dissecting corpse something it was actually illegal at the time a one because the fear of plague too because there's thought to desecrate the dead so that was actually forbidden so da Vinci does the same thing Michelangelo Raphael later will do the same thing they look at real close at the way the muscles are all articulated and the arms chest and the legs and so that when you're sculpting you have a sense of what these things should look like and that's one of the things that sets Michelangelo apart from those who have come before him is that detailed knowledge of anatomy so the the David itself he's at this pensive moment right he's ripping you know his slaying he's thinking as as he's ready so it's not that after he's defeated Goliath it's before it's while he's thinking about it this pensive moment to approach and launch into the attack right so it's a symbol of Republican Florence which is prepared which is thoughtful like the the mythology about Republic's that were more meditative that we're more you know philosophical and reasoned than stuffy old monarchies and we're ready to defend against all comers and so this statue was positioned facing the south facing the papacy right we're ready - now nobody talked about the papacy we made in politics not in religion because in religion of course they still acknowledge the Pope's authority but in politics he's the Pope is a king as well I have central Italy for the most part that patrimony of st. Peter so that's and that's where the Medici have taken refuge and of course that's what does happen a few years later and about 1512 the Medici returned with a papal army and unseat the Republic there it all goes so michelangelo had worked against the Medici so he exit stage right to Rome where he it's picked up by julius ii he'd actually been around a few times in the mean side but now he decided somewhere extended-stay is at him since the menace to you he kind of stabbed in the back are now running for it so so he sculpts the Pieta and you probably did everyone seen this at one time or another if you go in the in the st. peters you look to the right it's it's present over there so one of the interesting innovations he does we don't really talk about sculpture that much because we're mostly focused on paint but the he draws a young blessed version not older and worn out like in many of the the various depictions of our lady receiving Christ from the cross and so she's very youthful very beautiful and his tenderness comes in to give the overall effect of the emotion right so again approaching the pathos but I'm running grossly over time so I'm going to skip everyone is about Sistine Chapel right and everyone's seen this before but it's worth pointing out the last surgery if you look at the figure of atom right so here's the face of atom from the creation panel in the center of the Sistine ceiling and here's the Last Judgement which in 1534 Michelangelo was hired back to finish because they hadn't found a painter who could do it and so he gives the Last Judgement alright and so it's interesting to Christ you see here is looks just like the atom the new atom when the church fathers talk about Christ he's that new atom right who's now the firstborn of the new creation and then of course he's added on a few details all the figures are naked because according to the church fathers as well as st. Thomas Aquinas that in the next life we won't have any clothes and so this prompted a complaint from the deacon who was in charge of the the Sistine Chapel about the nudity of the images because at this point you've had the sack of Rome and now there's like a turning away from the Renaissance and this is all view to a suspicion so Michelangelo sends back a letter I've given them quote this is quote I've given them the greatest piece of art in the history of Western civilization and all this deacon can complain about is what we will or won't be wearing in the next leg but it was a big cross for him and Paul the third wasn't really I was into the same mood of julius ii julius ii was a big bull of a man but what Michelangelo yell at him he kind of backed down Paul a third not so much he was less impressed by Michelangelo's so he shows himself here worn out by all his labors that's that's a self-portrait of Michelangelo's just his skin rest of it it's worn out by all the labors so the other great figure of the Renaissance of this time is Raphael in Raphael came from her being though a Raphael son steal from her Corbino he was a young boy his father died and he was put in the school of PIAT repented Zano is a famous painter at the time not nearly as famous now we don't know him so much but he painted a lot of interesting things and he imparted all of his best tricks and studied to Raphael so Raphael goes to forints he kind of out Pietro at repentance ah no he learns all his tricks he does better so then you know one of the things he does is paint a lot of Madonna's so this is it's actually one of my favorite ones is different from the tone of all his other Madonna's but this is called the Madonna of the meadow and so what happens with the Madonna of the meadow is again he's employing a lot of the older symbolism but he gives us this nice little Pleasant meadow scene it's our contextual see it's not like the church scenes of laden's other Madonna's and very pleasant image infant Christ playing with the infant John the Baptist and one of the things that very deep colors alright and so he's he's played off the darker greens here next to the red gives it a sense of vibrance vibrating you know over here yellows next to the blue right to get that make the blue vibrate so he's used the natural properties he's also got a few other things circles he got the Our Lady's halo as well as Blessed John the Baptist and our Lord but he's also done circles so like at the top of her tunic I'm here under paulien another circle it's going around another one going around here right they've got this perfect embrace the geometry and the painting and all of its kind of leading you back around back around to the meadow set which makes this which is mostly there to make everything else stand out the poppies again the Passion of Christ II think of the poppies it's in the background and what's he grabbing is the cross right he's looking to the future and so the the kind of strawberries down here strawberries that's a new world plant by the way that's something it's only just coming around into Europe because it's actually from America so the the strawberries become a symbol of God's grace that you know that that's flowing and it's all present around us just like the blue the blue is present sky the background it's even present in the greens daddy you so it's everywhere just as God is everywhere right but yet and you step back and there's a triangle whoops next time you gotta animate some images on here but so the triangle which is the just like the Holy Trinity Father Son and Holy Ghost and like was here this triangle the Blessed Virgin Christ in st. John the Baptist okay so I'm gonna skip these unfortunately to him at a time just about School of Athens another one everyone knows a Raphael goes to Rome and his one of his old colleagues Bramante he was the architect rebuilding st. Peter's he's very good friends of Pope Julius ii he says hey I know this guy you got to bring him in here so julius ii bring him in he's a kid what could he do and so he says all right all right just because Bramante I'm gonna do it so here what can he give me here and he astounds with the school of athens julius ii was so blown away by it that he gives raphael control all the others whether now the sends a tear out the alley and julius ii department stuff made by far more famous and seasoned artists and he's allowed to destroy it interestingly he tries to get control of the Sistine Chapel as well for Michelangelo and he's not able to do that but he does and the original drawing doesn't have this figure down here right Heraclitus which Michelangelo is supposed to be they because that's Michelangelo's portrait sitting right there up here the plate of Socrates I'm sorry is da Vinci right he throws in a few other things the Euclid over here that's Donatello brumonti right the the figure of Euclid and there's some other things that we just don't have time you chose a little cheek as well this is actually the interior of st. Peter's it's doesn't even have a roof on it that is repurposed for this kind of place for ancient philosophy and so anyways so this wasn't here so he actually had to come around remember we talked about fresco right oil paints you can paint over it if you come back in two weeks you don't like it you just change it just paint right over it and there's no problem with fresco you actually have to smash it so he actually had to get it get a section smash it out and reapply the fresco and paint and do it seamlessly so it didn't interrupt everything else it just really real brilliance so some people think he puts Michelangelo there is it as an invitation to work together it's actually the other way around he's doing it to show I'm better than you I put you in my own painting and there's this one I don't have the time to get into the Reformation so they're the freedoms that's actually I had to put the comical picture here because there's all this mythology about the Reformation Luther did not nail the 95 theses to the doors at Vinton burg in fact actually was a clerk from the University who came with some paste and he pasted up an outline of the various theses that would be discussed at length in E so he did it and left it up there for a couple of days there was no fanfare once they don't look disputation oh nice but then some of Luther's you know followers the disciples started you know got copies of it spread it around and that's kind of what God the wider interest in it so the rest of it you know the nailing of the 95 theses he triumphantly declares his opposition to Poland's nonsense never happened and on top of that when you get into it too Luther had already taught justification by faith alone is early as 1513 and it's in his commentary on Romans which which he was teaching at the time I see he's already on that page and so he takes the abuses of the church as his excuse to attack half the doctrine that he already denies so it's a whole you know myth the Reformation you know but what happens is a change in the mood of Europe and so it especially toward art can we allow artists this free reign to do like they've been doing you know I don't think that we should do that anymore so artists are now getting much more under the watchful eye of the church you have in 1527 the sacking of realm by charles v soldiering what happened there was Charles Charles Smith was at war with the French King Francois the 1st and Pope Clement the 7th decided maybe I should back to French this time and her a bad idea cos Charles the fifth and defeats the French and he sends his army close within distance sight of Rome to give the Pope a little warning that was bad idea but he neglects to pay his army their payment goes into arrears in the 10,000 Lutheran troops at the head of the army say let's go attack and so they go and they sack the city and this dissipation of the Eucharist which faces the School of Athens we go to the Vatican Museums and thus ends in there a fatality it's on the other side and right over here on the wall will let you blow the fresco one of the troops carved Luther's name then right under the fresco so not a very good thing horrible destruction brought to the city and which will kind of launch off from to talk about the very last thing iconoclasm as its own iconography so if you're not familiar with that sure to be heard that term iconoclasm refers to a movement in the late the Eastern Roman Empire where they the Emperor Leo the asourian in the 8th century he decides why is it the Arabs are beating us everywhere oh you know what maybe they got something right they don't have images you know the Bible it says that don't make a graven image and so he takes that to mean we should get rid of all the images in the Empire so Constantinople ends up being a they describe it as a bathhouse of sorts because it looks ridiculous with no icons everything ripped out of it and destroyed so they were called the iconic class the icon destroyers in contradiction to the icon of doulas the icon teachers and they end up winning out so if you go to a Byzantine church at Eastern Rite Church on the first Sunday of Lent they call that the sunday of Orthodox and they celebrate the triumph where the Empress irin a which I read it means peace right she takes over and restores all the icons to the empire to veneration to the worship so it's called the Sunday of Orthodoxy right so anyways when you get to the Protestant Reformation you have a similar idea right and all the Luther is more ambivalent about it and here's his ideas you could have icons images and stuff to teach but you shouldn't pray to them or pray in front of them that would be idolatrous of course Calvinists don't quite see it that way among with a number of others they see it as their idols filthy idols we need to wipe them all out so here are there's this way in which they do with them they don't just destroy it in a face it so it's no longer there they do for some things they actually turned the old image into a Protestant iconography right so you have here this is from England these are this one's from England as well the priest offering mass host has been chiseled out the head has been cut off and likewise of the altar server right so an altar server you see what's what's waiting for you if the Protestants take room right you know the anyway the but they but the rest of it remains why does the rest of it remain like waves over here with Christ his face has been taken off of it same thing we're say for the Saint here I'm not sure actually we'd say he was supposed to be he's had his face taken off but they leave the rest of it it's a sign it's its own icon Our Fathers were idolaters they worshiped images but not us we are pure we don't do that same thing in the Netherlands so the Calvinists so this is food trick Cathedral where the Dutch Calvinists are removing all the statues all the elements of piety they're ripping down basically gonna turn it into a blank building you know just whitewashed formless but they leave a handful of things likewise chisel that all the faces of the Saints down here but they left one thing the bishop preaching why do they leave him they cut everyone else up the bishop preaches the word we preach the word but we know worship images like our fathers did and we could give an example an example of this and for the Protestants but the ones who really take it to the next level is during the French Revolution which again we don't have time really to talk about too too much so we just have a few examples so after of course they killed the King and they look to remove all the images of monarchy we're going to get rid of all that the word King is forbidden and then the next target is the church so this is the reliefs over the doorways it's also police in Paris and so if you ever go there make sure to take a moment look up so this previously hitherto was faith and there would have been a chalice there it's that the typical image you would have for a chalice so what's his name these Knoll right who's the one who's paid by the directory to come and do all this he comes he's a sculptors so and he charges on big bucks cuz he did some life-threatening we're doing all this so you get rid of the chalice which represents faith and replace it with the torch the quintessential enlightenment symbol likely Prometheus coming down with the flame and mythology we're now enlightened men we don't have stupid things like faith were men of science we know better you know over here this would have been a cross and it's replaced with the Fox the Foskett Atlantis keys it's a bundle of rods that goes around and acts and it's simple from Roman authority right whoever had that had supreme authority in the Roman States would be the console or in an extraordinary Magisters tree the dictator yeah that's the supreme authority in the states is a symbol of the state enlightenment and enlightenment revolutionary government they did another one on the other door so if you're now going in as these temples are about being rechristened as temples of reason and this is what you get an idea of what you can expect going into this new temple and you have it again on the far left side again as Saul soo please the cross over here has been replaced by the sword and then right here okay formerly was actually wait a minute forgot my notes on that forget what she used to be holding whether it was a chalice but whatever the religious symbol was she's holding here it's been replaced by the scales a quality man liberty fraternity equality we all stand equal with the sword of the state right of the very nature of a republic especially the french republic extremely belligerent we're gonna make war on monarchy all over europe so superstition is replaced with brotherhood that's the new simulacra right so we replace the old image with the new see iconic lism is not mere vandalism it's making its own sign and art and likewise he had to get up to ridiculous high Steve Jean did in order to get the all these Sybil scraped off see there used to be something here everyone knows we used to be something here either in aristocratic symbols and we'll use Christmas version rates God now it's reason science has taken over and one last thing kind of humorous so this is louis xvi the last louie the sixteenth of france lee he realizes he and his family are in grave danger so they flee to austrian protection and they get caught they don't quite make it over to the austrian border so they're brought back in shame and humiliation to paris and so now as louis xvi coaches being brought in people are turning their back on the royal carriage we know what that symbol is right basically absolute disrespect you're not our king we're not you know you ran away from your people you abandon the revolution and they've done a really clever thing up here and the painters recorded it some massive children got up and they blindfolded the statue we want Louis the 15th they hated Louie the 15th so they little bit of vandalism but if they've made it into their own symbol even Louie the 15th won't is ashamed to look at you he won't look at you hit and that's what they're trying to express with these little little things that become like I said their own protest art so so that concludes that that that first talk so just on the signs and symbols I went over time so gonna have to reduce the next one just a little bit so take maybe like 5 or 10 minutes

Channel: Sensus Fidelium

Views: 5,552

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Catholic, Christianity, God, Jesus Christ, holiness, salvation, Robert Bellarmine, Jesuit, history, bible, gospel, tradition, Gonzaga, latin, Galileo, science, theologian, ewtn, Church, Rome, cardinal, priest, saint, apologetics

Id: f7az_SGtFaA

Length: 89min 54sec (5394 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 03 2018