Download final paper on Alberti - Where in the World is Casey Key?

Casey Key
Dr. Ferri
Italian Humanism and the Renaissance
24 April, 2014
Natura Naturata
“All steps of learning should be sought from nature.”
When I read this sentence by Leon Battista Alberti, I instantly knew what I
wanted to discuss in my final paper. In my opinion nature and art are synonymous
because nature is the purest form of art, created by God. Art is essential in
understanding other disciplines, such as history, religion, philosophy and mathematics.
In this paper, I will discuss the connections between nature and art as I interpret
them from theories of Leon Battista Alberti and the work of Sandro Botticelli. When I am
referring to nature, I am referring to nature in its broadest sense, which is the natural,
physical, material world. When I am referring to art, I am referring to paintings, poetry
and literature, specifically from Italy during the Renaissance era.
The word nature is derived from the Latin word natura, or "essential qualities",
and in ancient times, literally meant "birth" and Renaissance literally means “rebirth.” I
think nature and art are one in the same because nature is art that God created. When
it all comes down to it, nature is the only thing that we are provided with on this planet
and natural beauty of our planet was the first art that existed. From the very beginning,
humans have had to seek knowledge from nature.
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The Renaissance Concept of Nature
The Renaissance was a cultural movement, beginning in the fourteenth century,
where Italy, along with the rest of Europe was transformed. The Renaissance period
was conceived in Italy and is known for the revival of classic antiquities, the intense
study of poetry and literature, and the enthusiasm for all of the arts. Many Renaissance
intellectuals focused on trying to define and understand the laws of nature and the
physical world (History).
In this class, we have had the opportunity to study the best and brightest Italian
Renaissance authors, poets, painters, sculptors, architects, and thinkers. One thing they
all have in common is that they are men. I think this plays a major role in interpreting
Renaissance art, and as it is the underlying theme of our course: the representations of
women in the Italian humanism and Renaissance.
Renaissance male artists usually imagined nature as mother, bride, or mistress,
positioning themselves as sons, husbands, or masters. Nature is placed in the role of a
woman who is praised, admired, celebrated, and an inspiration to men of the time. She
is personified in poems of both Petrarch and Michelangelo.
Leon Battista Alberti stressed the power of the face drawn from nature, which
"will draw to itself first of all the eyes of one who looks," and continues, "For this reason
always take from nature that which you wish to paint, and always they will turn out more
beautifully." When nature is personified as a woman, it can reach its full potential of
beauty.
In Neo-Platonism, the idea developed: "If somebody does not esteem the arts
because they imitate nature, it should be said first that nature herself imitates. Then it
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should be born in mind that the arts do not simply copy the visible things but draw from
the principles that constitute the source of nature." This active meaning of the concept
of nature in relation to art may be found as early as Heraclitus, who compared the
method of composing harmony of opposed elements visible in the activity of nature to
the working method of the arts, which "operate in a similar way, imitating nature"
(Witcombe). This suggests the ultimate aim of an artist is to imitate nature in order to
create something truly beautiful.
In the 15th century, the simple, natural appearance of real things in the world that
surround the artist - "il naturale" - is one aspect of nature. The other one is formed by
the concept of a mighty power, of natura naturans, which I will later explain. Alberti
employs this second concept when he calls nature a "marvellous artificer of things" and
says that "nature herself seems to delight in painting."
Nature in Art and Literature
Today, we use nature to refer to geology and wildlife. The geology, or scenery, is
passive nature and wildlife, or plants and animals, are active pieces of nature. Both
passive and active natures have been depicted in visual art since prehistoric times.
The theme of nature has been reoccurring throughout paintings we saw during
our time in Italy. Some examples are Brunelleschi’s Florentine dome, Botticelli’s
Primavera, Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, Da Vinci’s Annunciation and Rafaello’s
Disputation over the Sacrament. From the competitive perspective of art vs. nature,
these and other renowned pieces of Renaissance art can yield new meanings.
Nature does not always have to refer to flora and fauna, but it can also refer to a
naturalistic representation of emotions, gestures and movements of man. Man is God’s
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favored creature because in his being, he expresses the highest beauty and with this
beauty he participates in nature. I am not just referring to the physical body of a man,
but the life of mankind. This creates a cycle where life is nature and nature is art and art
is life.
Bottecelli’s Primavera
The Renaissance era opened minds to new ideas and religion no longer had to
be the focal point of an artists work. This is apparent in Sandro Botticelli’s La Primavea,
known as the Allegory of Spring. Botticelli broke new ground with his work. He was the
first to create a large scale mythology scene based on historical accounts of mythology
(History Source).
The work of art was commissioned for Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici, a
cousin of Lorenzo the Magnificent. It was a wedding present that was to hang in the
bedroom of Lorenzo’s wife, Semirande.
La Primavera, which is Italian for the season of spring, is set in a meadow
complete with trees and flowers. This work has humanistic nature and is believed to
reflect contemporary cultural influences. There are two possible interpretations that I
uncovered from this painting.
When I first saw La Primavera in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, the first thing I
thought of was rebirth and renewal of life. Since I am hypothesizing the relationship
between nature and art, my first interpretation is most relevant. Keep in mind the cycle
of nature, art and life.
Considering the painting was for a new bride, I interpret the theme of Primavera
to be one of love and marriage in hopes of bringing sensuality and fertility to the
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newlyweds. On the right is Flora, the goddess of flowers and blossoms. She represents
the rebirth and renewal of spring or life. Zephyrus, above her, seems to create Flora
(her life) with his breath. Flora turns into spring, scattering flowers over the world. In the
middle, Venus is the goddess who protects and cares for the institution of marriage. The
myrtle plant surrounding her is traditionally thought of as the plant that represents
sexual desire, marriage and child bearing. On the left, the three Graces portray the
female virtues: chastity, beauty and love. Also symbolic of love and fertility are the “fruit”
growing in the trees above them. The quantity of oranges represents hope that
Semirande will bear many, many offspring (Zollner).
The Medici were a very important Florentine banking family who offered the
Renaissance period their wealth. They spent massive amounts of money on their city to
make it the most powerful state in Italy. Florence became the cultural center of Europe
and the Renaissance. The Medici supported art by feeding artists, educating them, and
providing them with necessities. Some of those artists were Donatello, Michelangelo,
Raphael and of course, Boticelli.
The second interpretation has political meaning in reference to the relationship
between the Medici family and the pope. For the sake of time, I will not go into detail on
the controversy, but the painting could symbolize a new life for the Medici family as
Zephyrus (on the right) could be blowing away conflict with the papal state.
The Guide to the Uffizi Gallery Museum declares that “the naturalistic details of
the meadow (there are hundreds of types of flowers), the use of the color, the elegance
of the figures and the poetry of the whole, have made this important and fascinating
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work celebrated all over the world.” It is truly a masterpiece that encompasses the
renewal of life, nature and art.
Leon Battista Alberti
Leon Battista Alberti was known for much more than his philosophy on nature in
art. He was somewhat of a jack of all trades. Alberti was an Italian architect, artist,
author, cryptographer, linguist, philosopher, poet, priest, and general Renaissance
humanist polymath (Paoli). He is still known today as the ideal “Renaissance man.” His
theories and philosophies were revolutionary for his time and are still studied thoroughly
today.
Alberti was born in Genoa in 1404 to a wealthy Florentine father. He attended
boarding school in Padua and law school in Bologna. He was clearly a very welleducated man who was gifted in many fields. By the age of twenty, he had written a
play which was successfully passed off as a piece of Classical literature. He spent some
time living in Florence and then travelled to Rome in 1431 where he took holy orders
and entered the service of the papal court (Encyclopedia).
Architecture preoccupied him during the 1450’s and 60’s, and he traveled a great
deal to various cities, but Rome and Florence remained his homes. He is known for his
two most important works in Florence: the seat of the Alinari Museum, whose facade is
a geometric structure divided by pilaster and the Temple of Santo Sepolcro (1467) in
the Rucellai Chapel near San Pancrazio, built with the same proportions as the Holy
Sepulchre in Jerusalem. He also completed the facade of Santa Maria Novella (1470)
by lining the upper part and the main entrance with marble and placing a triangular
tympanum on top with two inlaid volute at the sides to hide the sloping roofs above the
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lateral aisles (Kelly-Gdol). Even though he was somewhat of an architectural genius, I
am choosing to focus on his theoretical literature.
In 1435, he began his first major written work, De pictura, or Della Pittora in
Italian, which was inspired by the expansion of pictorial art in Florence in the early 15th
century. He analyzed the features of painting and explored the elements of perspective,
composition and color.
Alberti regarded mathematics as the common ground between art and the
sciences. "To make clear my exposition in writing this brief commentary on painting,"
Alberti began his treatise, Della Pittura (On Painting), "I will take first take from
mathematicians those things with which my subject is concerned." Della Pittura relied its
scientific content on classical optics in determining perspective as a geometric
instrument of artistic and architectural representation.
De pictura was first published in Italian in 1436. It is the first in a trilogy of treatise
on the "Major arts" which had a widespread circulation during the Renaissance, the
others being De re aedificatoria ("On Architecture", 1454) and De statua ("On
Sculpture", 1462). Since I am focusing my discussion on nature in painting and poetry, I
will not go into detail on the other two treatises, although they are also important
influencers of the Italian Renaissance.
Alberti’s treatise, Della Pittura
In Della Pittura, Alberti shows how painting can be liberal art if the artist is able to
combine the right use of perspective and the source of truth in God’s creation: nature.
This combination can bring piety to the painter and earn him virtue and fortune and
therefore render him a liberal artist. Alberti sought to prove that painting in itself is a
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liberal art, but only the best artist can be a liberal artist. The best artist paints the most
beautiful art, which in this case would be considered natural art.
One of the main themes outlined in Della pittura is the idea of virtù (virtue), which
represents moral strength. Virtue is considered an opposition to fortuna (fortune), which
represents the fate that governs the worldly affairs of the individual. To Alberti, virtue is
the capacity for achieving potential. Although fortune is in charge of external forces,
virtue understands the difference between fortune and virtue and develops techniques
to use the external forces to aid virtue. He wrote the treatise to show that through the
study of the natural order, which according to Alberti was created by God, virtue can
work together with fortune.
In all of his treatises, he formulated the Renaissance theory of beauty and art:
“Beauty is harmony of all the mutually adapted parts…beauty is a concordance and
mutual attunement of parts.”
Artistic Production of the Visual Arts
According to St. Thomas Aquinas, the visual arts imitate the visual aspects of
created nature as well as nature's way of operating, directed to a definite purpose: "all
nature is aiming at her end, since she aims through definite means to certain ends, and
just this is imitated by art in its actions.”
Art has roots in nature according to Alberti. Harmony and prosperity are
represented by the visual properties: mathematics, contrast, and order. Regarding
mathematics, Alberti explains the basic geometrical definitions: points, lines, angles,
surfaces. He wants to establish the fundamentals of geometry to explain how the
painter captures them in his art. Contrast (the reception of light) measures the spatial
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relationship between aspects of a painting. When it comes to order, everything in art
must be ordered inside the whole image to create harmony which leads to prosperity.
Beauty for Alberti is at the center of nature and art is part of a philosophical,
ethical and social world which is continuously threatened by fortuna. Therefore, beauty,
nature and art cannot be for certain since man cannot control fate.
According to Dr. Casciani’s summary of Della Pittura, there are personal
requirements an individual must possess in order to become a good painter. These
qualities are both moral and artistic. For Alberti, the artist first of all must be a good man
and then he also has to be inclined to visual art. Alberti advises every person who wants
to become a good painter: every painter has a particular field where he is more
successful, but to become a good painter he has to change and try to improve his art
even in the subjects where he may lack an innate quality. Since Alberti takes from
mathematics, he considers mathematics and art to be strictly connected.
What I understand from that is that a painter considers the lines, forms and
shapes of objects surrounding him. Therefore a good artist will take mathematics into
consideration and a good painting will be geometrically correct.
The understanding of art is all based on perception. In painting the most
important sense is sight, which is capable of interpreting the artistic reality. The task of
the painter is to represent everything in nature that can be seen. The surface of a
painting, which is a geometrical form in itself, is important because even when the
surface does not change it can be perceived in another way based on a different
position and different lighting in relation to the point of view of the observer.
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In regards to lines and angles, the more acute the angle, the less is able to be
observed. That is why from a greater distance, a more can be perceived. On the
contrary, if we are too near to a surface we will perceive less. Figuatively, if an observer
is looking too closely, they will generate few ideas, whereas if they back up and take
more into consideration, the observer will find that there are multiple layers or
meanings. Perception can be measured by the observer according to the distance
between him and what he is observing.
Natura Naturans vs. Natura Naturata
Natura naturans is Latin for “Nature naturing”, or more loosely, “nature doing
what nature does.” This refers to nature in the active sense. Natura naturata is the past
participle, meaning “Nature natured,” or “Nature already created.” The term refers to
nature as a passive product of an infinite causal chain. I chose Natura naturans as the
title for this paper because I believe that it encompasses my entire thought process; that
nature is constantly doing what it does. It provides inspiration to art and therefore the
rest of the disciplines. It is the purest form of beauty that exists in our world. It is
constantly changing, just as life and art are changing.
Nature is God’s work of art. And just like La Primavera and Della Pittura, there
are multiple layers. Nature, art, and life are not always what they seem and it depends
on the perception of the observer to interpret them.
Conclusion
Alberti at the beginning of the second book, Della pittura emphasizes how
painting is considered a bridge between the past and the present; when we admire a
picture from a previous century, we can create a connection between the art and
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observer. Painting and art keep the past alive. It is important to keep the past alive
because in the words of George Santayana, “those who do not understand history are
condemned to repeat it.”
Relating to current day; we need nature to learn and grow. “All steps of learning
should be sought from nature.” In the cycle of art, nature and life, you can’t have one
without the other. Without nature and art, we are unable to sustain life. It is the
responsibility of our generation to protect nature and the environment God has provided
us with. We need to be better to our planet since it’s the only one we’ve got.
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Works Cited
"Alberti, Leone Battista." Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. 2008.
Encyclopedia.com. 22 Apr. 2014 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.
Bialostocki, Jan. “The Renaissance and Mannerism.” Vol. 2. 1963. Princeton.
22 Apr. 2014 <http://arthistoryresources.net/>.
Gebhart, Emilie. Botticelli. Parkstone Inter, 2010
History.com Staff. “Italian Renaissance.” A+E Networks. 22 Apr. 2014
< http://www.history.com /topics/italian-renaissance>
Kelly-Gadol, Joan.
“Primavera (Allegory for Spring).” History Source. 24 Apr. 2014 <http://historylink101
.com/art/ Sandro_Botticelli/pages/09_Primavera_jpg.htm>.
Paoli, Michael. “About”. Leon Battista Alberti Biography. 2013. Wordpress.com. 22 Apr.
2014< http://alberti.wordpress.com/presentazione/about/>
Spencer, John. Translation of On Painting. Revised edition 1966.
Zollner, Frank. Botticelli. Prestel, 2009