{"id":21629,"date":"2024-07-31T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-07-31T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/areademo.beculture.it\/?p=21629"},"modified":"2024-07-14T19:30:29","modified_gmt":"2024-07-14T17:30:29","slug":"modern-art-styles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/areademo.beculture.it\/en\/modern-art-styles\/","title":{"rendered":"Navigating through styles, terms, and authors: a brief guide to modern art"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Navigating through movements, terms, and artists can be complicated, especially when dealing with periods far removed from our own. This is also the case with modern art. Adding to the complexity is the fact that, contrary to common belief, modern art does not coincide with the era commonly defined as modern and contemporary (starting from the late 19th<\/sup> century). Instead, it covers the period from the second half of the 15th<\/sup> century onward.
And it is this period that we address in our brief guide to modern art styles<\/strong>, focusing particularly on Italy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The precursors: gothic and late gothic style<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To understand what happens during the period we’ve outlined, it’s necessary to take a step back a few years. Before the Renaissance<\/strong> – but also during it, as history is always fluid – Western Europe was united by a style known as Gothic<\/a> (from the 12th<\/sup> century) and then Late Gothic or International Gothic<\/strong> (from the 1300s to the first half of the 15th <\/sup>century). The movement, born in France, spread to other countries, with various interpretations. Architectural works were the first demonstration of this new taste: churches and cathedrals in France soared upwards with majestic structures lightened by large colored windows. In Italy, however, some remnants of Romanesque style remained, with less lofty buildings<\/strong> decorated mainly with white, red, and green marbles<\/strong>. A remarkable example is Giotto<\/a>\u2019s Campanile (ca. 1267-1337) and the structure of the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, both in Piazza del Duomo in Florence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Annunciazione e i Santi Ansano e Massima<\/em>, Simone Martini<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Painters and sculptors focused mainly on religious themes<\/strong>, also influenced by the events of their time, such as the terrible Black Death of the mid-14th<\/sup> century. Gold-leaf panels with biblical subjects, like the Annunciazione<\/em> by Simone Martini<\/a> (1333) in the Uffizi, or adorned with increasingly detailed decorations, graceful and delicate figures, as in the Adorazione dei Magi<\/em> (1423) by Gentile da Fabriano also in the Uffizi, are among the main works of this long period. Gothic statues, aligned on either side of the portals, are often characterized by the S-curve of the body<\/strong>, serene expressions, and faces that almost seem mass-produced.
A new approach will come with Giotto, who introduces an evident expressive naturalism in painting and the search for a more realistic and concrete spatial arrangement. Lorenzo Ghiberti<\/strong>, a sculptor and architect active between the Gothic and Renaissance, will do the same. However, the absolute protagonist of this new era will be his fierce rival: Filippo Brunelleschi.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Adorazione dei Magi<\/em>, Gentile da Fabriano<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Renaissance: the age of renewal<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Renaissance<\/a> means rebirth, renewal, revolution: and that\u2019s what it was. A revolution that originated in Florence, a prosperous mercantile city animated by the liveliest intellects of the time, engaged in rediscovering and enhancing classical works and texts. Filippo Brunelleschi was among the first men of the Renaissance. Inspired by the ruins and palaces of ancient Rome, he developed a new way of constructing and decorating buildings, as still demonstrated today by the Istituto degli Innocenti in Piazza Santissima Annunziata (1419-1445) or the phenomenal cupola del Duomo<\/strong> in Florence (1420-1436).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He is also credited with inventing linear perspective<\/a>, first applied by Masaccio<\/strong><\/a> in the fresco of the Trinit\u00e0<\/em> in Santa Maria Novella. What struck viewers who saw it for the first time – used as they were to the elegant but static representations typical of the Gothic – was the optical illusion created by the space<\/strong> behind Christ. A background no longer flat but realistic, with a foreshortened barrel vault that seems to extend deeply behind the group. A pictorial revolution that had enormous success. Masaccio also adds a new physicality to the figures<\/strong>: no longer graceful and uniform, but full and massive, with the gesture of the Virgin indicating the Son confirming their verisimilitude.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Trinit\u00e0<\/em>, Masaccio<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In sculpture, Donatello<\/strong><\/a> broke with previous tradition first. His San Giorgio<\/em> (1415-1416 ca., initially destined for one of the external niches of the church of Orsanmichele<\/a> and now at the Museo del Bargello<\/a> in Florence) is proof of this. The Saint is represented as a resolute knight, firmly planted on the ground but tense as he scans the horizon: a novelty compared to the inexpressive refinement of the Middle Ages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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San Giorgio<\/em>, Donatello<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The high Renaissance and the 16th<\/sup> century<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The innovations of the Masters of the Early Renaissance were welcomed and carried forward by many artists across the peninsula and beyond. For instance, the exercise of the new perspective technique, sometimes exaggerated, can be seen in the works of Paolo Uccello, Piero della Francesca, and Andrea Mantegna<\/strong>. While the search for a balance between naturalism and beauty is evident in the works of Antonio Pollaiolo and, above all, Sandro Botticelli<\/strong><\/a>. His Primavera<\/em><\/a>, as well as Venere<\/em>, happily demonstrate the precise intention to reconcile Renaissance achievements with new compositional harmony and a dense symbolic and allegorical content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it is with Leonardo Da Vinci<\/a>, Michelangelo Buonarroti, and Raffaello Sanzio that the evolution begun at the end of the 14th<\/sup> century is completed, reaching incredible heights. “Nothing in nature did not arouse his curiosity and stimulate his ingenuity”: writes E.H. Gombrich of Leonardo, a brilliant artist, a skilled musician, and an engineer ahead of his time<\/strong>. Only a few of his works remain, mostly incomplete (such as the Adorazione dei Magi<\/em><\/a> in the Uffizi), but all confirm his great ability to make his subjects come alive, with penetrating looks, credible gestures, and real emotions. Sfumato<\/strong> is one of his great inventions, still used in painting, contributing to his imperishable fame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michelangelo Buonarroti<\/a>, twenty-three years younger but over forty more long-lived, marked the art of the 16th<\/sup> century just as significantly, excelling in all arts: architecture, painting, and sculpture. The human body and its poses, including the most daring, will be the main subject of his investigation with masterful and powerful results that still amaze today. Plasticity and power<\/strong> are the distinctive traits of a tireless production always brimming with new inventions and solutions: see, for example, the frescoes on the Cappella Sistina ceiling in Rome, the David<\/em><\/a> at the Galleria dell\u2019Accademia in Florence, and the Piet\u00e0 Rondanini<\/em> at the Castello Sforzesco in Milan.
Raffaello<\/a>\u2019s work, though more delicate, is no less powerful, being a perfect synthesis of formal beauty and natural vividness<\/strong>: a characteristic that earned him renowned commissions in Florence<\/a> and Rome. Not an easy task, given that the young Urbinate had to measure himself against excellent contemporaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the same period as Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raffaello, another painter emerged on the Italian and international scene with a style we now recognize as typically northern, indeed Venetian: Tiziano Vecellio<\/strong>. Heir to Giorgione’s teachings, Tiziano<\/a> overturned the primacy of drawing – typical of the Florentine school – to give space to color: it is with color<\/strong> that the painter from Cadore rendered light, atmosphere, and flesh. His portraits became famous and highly sought after.<\/p>\n\n\n