Download HUMAN FIGURES IN SCULPTURES Changes of the human figure

HUMAN FIGURES IN SCULPTURES
Changes of the human figure portrayed in sculptures throughout the Renaissance Period
The period of the Renaissance was a time of extraordinary change and development in all areas
of society, belief and culture in Europe. Up to the 14th and 15th centuries society was mostly
governed by Catholicism and a feudal system, but the emergence of humanism and
developments in science and learning caused an explosion of new ideas and ways of living.
These changes had an influence on most areas of the arts: literature, music, theatre, but most
particularly in the visual arts. This discussion will look closely at the way changes in religion,
ideas and behaviour had an effect on some of the well-known artists and sculptors of the
period.
The development of humanism, expressed by such philosophers as Erasmus and Machiavelli,
brought a secularising force to the ideologies of Europe. Humanists were very interested in
classical, pre-Christian philosophies and attempted to apply these ideals to contemporary
culture. For Erasmus, the emphasis was on man’s individual relationship to God, and
‘Erasmians…stressed the love of God for men rather than God’s stern judgment upon men’s
actions’. These influences are echoed in the Protestant and Catholic reformations that swept
across Europe.
Up until the 14th and 15th centuries, the importance and authority of religion and the church
can be seen in all forms of culture. Secular art was virtually non-existent. Sculpture was used for
the depiction of religious figures and often used for worship. Furthermore, most art had a
lifeless, static quality. The new classical ideas, focusing on man as an individual, brought a new
chapter to the history of art, beginning with the sculpture-like frescoes of Giotto (1266?1337). Giotto depicted biblical scenes realistically, in stark contrast to the flat, inexpressive,
story-telling wall paintings of Byzantine and Gothic tradition. His use of perspective and space
was revolutionary. In his ‘The Mourning of Christ’, ‘we seem to witness the real event as if it
were enacted on a stage.’
This new style created the beginnings of the Renaissance in Italy and many artists such as
Donatello (1386?-1466) and Botticelli (1446-1510) continued to develop the new ideas of the
depiction of the human figure. Classical mythology became a subject matter as Italian thinkers
revived the ideas of Greek and Roman culture. This can be seen, for example, in Botticelli’s ‘The
Birth of Venus’, commissioned by a member of the powerful Medici family, who was wellversed in classical literature. Furthermore, the human face began to express emotion and
feeling, whereas before the face had appeared without expression. For example, the face of
Donatello’s ‘St George’ shows a sensitivity and vulnerability not seen before in traditional art.
Developments in science and mathematics enabled artists to develop the ability to use
perspective in paintings so that art could be seen in the way that man sees nature. Artists
learned about anatomy, they studied plants and animals, and dissected the human body.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was a great example of Renaissance man. His scientific and
learned approach can be evidenced in all of his works, not least, the famous ‘Mona Lisa’ where,
‘what strikes us first is the amazing degree to which Lisa looks alive.’ Leonardo’s ability to depict
such a life-like and realistic figure is a reflection of the humanistic ideals of the time.
Unfortunately, no complete sculptures of Leonardo’s have survived, but the drawings and
sketches that he made show how preoccupied he was with the way bodies, plants and animals
are structured. In technical detail, he explored muscle, movement and facial expressions:
‘”Would that it might please our Creator,” he wrote, “that I were able to reveal the nature of
man and his customs even as I describe his figure.”’
Another iconic symbol of Renaissance art and culture is Michelangelo’s statue, ‘David’.
Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) studied Giotto and Donatello, and also the sculptors of
ancient Greece and Rome, and, like Leonardo, learned anatomy through the study of dissected
bodies. The statue of ‘David’ has been described (as have many of Michelangelo’s works) as
‘heroic’ in style and size. This quality is an important one in humanistic thinking:
Insofar as it magnifies the individual in his conflict with the blind forces of destiny it is the
highest expression of a humanist ideal, and was recognized as such in antiquity. But the heroic
stands on the borders of humanism, and looks beyond it. For to struggle with Fate man must
become more than man; he must aspire to be a god.
Standing sixteen feet high, ‘David’ is a technical achievement as much as it is a work of great
art, reflecting the vigour and idealism of the period. Man is shown as an individual in charge of
his own destiny, which was the current philosophy: ‘”Men are themselves the source of their
own fortune and misfortune.”’ Another great work of Michelangelo is ‘Pieta’, the dead Christ
lying on the Virgin’s lap. The body of Christ has Greek physical beauty, whereas the Virgin Mary
shows a purity and spiritual beauty that expresses the emotion of grief in a way unseen before.
Here, Michelangelo expresses the doctrines of Neoplatonism, ‘that physical perfection is the
mirror and emblem of a pure and noble spirit.’ In Plato’s philosophy, the mind and soul of man
was able to rise from its physical nature up to the world of ideas and ultimately to God. The
soul, therefore, was thought to have a natural love of beauty and truth, and these ideas can be
clearly seen in Renaissance art.
Combined with the Renaissance Art’s focus on beauty and realism, Italian artists of this period
found themselves favoured by patrons and elevated to a high status in society: ‘Never before,
and rarely since, had the creative role of the artist been valued so highly.’
The neo-classical and humanistic ideals of the Renaissance period are epitomised in Raphael’s
fresco, ‘School of Athens’. Raphael Santi (1483-1520) arrived in Florence at a time when
Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo were ‘setting up new standards in art of which nobody had
ever dreamed.’ Determined to study and work hard to achieve such standards, Raphael became
one of the most renowned painters of the High Renaissance.
In ‘The School of Athens’, ancient philosophers and scientists, including Plato and Aristotle,
discuss their ideas. Commissioned by Pope Julius II, this fresco, and others commissioned at the
same time, brings together ancient philosophy with Christianity.
However, Raphael is mainly remembered for the beauty of his human figures, expressed to
near-perfection in paintings such as ‘The Madonna del Granduca’ and ‘The Nymph Galatea’.
Unlike his predecessors, Raphael painted to an ideal of beauty, rather than a realistic copying of
models. In the latter painting he achieved a feeling of freedom of movement in the human
figures that artists before him had been unable to achieve.
Throughout the period of the Renaissance, sculpted art, with its emphasis on the human body,
was of great significance, particularly in Florence. Sculptors and painters alike needed to be
students of science in order to execute the human form in its muscular or sensual realism. Thus,
Pollaiuolo’s ‘Hercules’ is a study in muscle and sinew, and Donatello’s ‘David’, set in bronze,
shows a new confidence of style with its very human pose and languid quality. Michelangelo
captured the final moments of human life in ‘The Dying Slave’, a sculpture that epitomises the
sculptor’s ability to express human emotion in stone:
It is difficult to think of this work as being a statue of cold and lifeless stone, as we stand before
it in the Louvre in Paris. It seems to move before our eyes, and yet to remain at rest.
By looking at the history of sculpture and art in this period, as the human figure develops from
two-dimensional representations to the beginnings of realism with Giotto, the studied
anatomies of Leonardo and Michelangelo, and the beauty of Raphael, we can see reflected the
changing attitudes towards man in religion and philosophy. In turn, art itself helped to create
further changes, opening up ideas and ways of thinking and changing the way that people think.
The idea of man being in charge of his own destiny ‘spread into society, modifying customs,
penetrating politics and changing them.’ A new freedom began to be felt and this is not only
expressed in art but also in literature, theatre and music. Thus, we can clearly see through the
examples above, how culture is constructed out of the social ideas and beliefs of its time.
Bibliography
Englander, D., Norman, D., O’Day, R. & Owens, W. R., (eds) (1990), Culture and Belief in Europe
1450-1600, Blackwell, Oxford
Gombrich, E. H., (1990), The Story of Art, Phaidon, Oxford
Koenigsberger, H. G., Mosse, G. L. & Bowler, G. Q., (1989), Europe in the Sixteenth Century,
Longman,
Plumb, Dr. J. H., (1961), The Horizon Book of the Renaissance, American Heritage Publishing,
New York
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