What is the creation of an ideal city? Architectural ensembles of Paris
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The early 15th century saw huge changes in life and culture in Italy. Since the 12th century, the townspeople, merchants and artisans of Italy have waged a heroic struggle against feudal dependence. By developing trade and production, the townspeople gradually became richer, overthrew the power of the feudal lords and organized free city-states. These free Italian cities became very powerful. Their citizens were proud of their conquests. The enormous wealth of independent Italian cities was the reason for their vibrant prosperity. The Italian bourgeoisie looked at the world with different eyes, they firmly believed in themselves, in their strength. They were alien to the desire for suffering, humility, and the renunciation of all earthly joys that had been preached to them until now. Respect for earthly man who enjoys the joys of life grew. People began to take an active approach to life, eagerly study the world, and admire its beauty. During this period, various sciences were born and art developed.
In Italy, many monuments of the art of Ancient Rome have been preserved, so the ancient era again began to be revered as a model, ancient art became an object of worship. Imitation of antiquity gave rise to calling this period in art - Renaissance, which means in French "Renaissance". Of course, this was not a blind, exact repetition of ancient art, it was already new art, but based on ancient examples. The Italian Renaissance is divided into 3 stages: VIII - XIV centuries - Pre-Renaissance (Proto-Renaissance or Trecento)-s it.); XV century - early Renaissance (Quattrocento); end of the 15th - beginning of the 16th century - High Renaissance.
Archaeological excavations were carried out throughout Italy, looking for ancient monuments. Newly discovered statues, coins, dishes, and weapons were carefully preserved and collected in museums specially created for this purpose. Artists learned from these examples of antiquity and painted them from life.
Trecento (Pre-Renaissance)
The true beginning of the Renaissance is associated with the name Giotto di Bondone (1266? - 1337). He is considered the founder of Renaissance painting. The Florentine Giotto has great services to the history of art. He was a renovator, the ancestor of all European painting after the Middle Ages. Giotto breathed life into the gospel scenes, created images of real people, spiritualized but earthly.
Giotto first creates volumes using chiaroscuro. He loves clean, light colors in cool shades: pink, pearl gray, pale purple and light lilac. The people in Giotto's frescoes are stocky and walk heavily. They have large facial features, wide cheekbones, narrow eyes. His person is kind, attentive, and serious.
Of Giotto's works, the frescoes in the temples of Padua are the best preserved. He presented the Gospel stories here as existing, earthly, real. In these works, he talks about problems that concern people at all times: about kindness and mutual understanding, deceit and betrayal, about depth, sorrow, meekness, humility and the eternal all-consuming maternal love.
Instead of disparate individual figures, as in medieval painting, Giotto was able to create a coherent story, a whole narrative about the complex inner life of the heroes. Instead of the conventional golden background of Byzantine mosaics, Giotto introduces a landscape background. And if in Byzantine painting the figures seemed to float and hang in space, then the heroes of Giotto’s frescoes found solid ground under their feet. Giotto's quest to convey space, the plasticity of figures, and the expressiveness of movement made his art a whole stage in the Renaissance.
One of the famous masters of the Pre-Renaissance -
Simone Martini (1284 - 1344).
His paintings retained the features of Northern Gothic: Martini's figures are elongated, and, as a rule, on a golden background. But Martini creates images using chiaroscuro, gives them natural movement, and tries to convey a certain psychological state.
Quattrocento (early Renaissance)
Antiquity played a huge role in the formation of the secular culture of the early Renaissance. The Platonic Academy opens in Florence, the Laurentian Library contains a rich collection of ancient manuscripts. The first art museums appeared, filled with statues, fragments of ancient architecture, marbles, coins, and ceramics. During the Renaissance, the main centers of artistic life in Italy emerged - Florence, Rome, Venice.
Florence was one of the largest centers, the birthplace of new, realistic art. In the 15th century, many famous Renaissance masters lived, studied and worked there.
Early Renaissance architecture
Residents of Florence had a high artistic culture, they actively participated in the creation of city monuments, and discussed options for the construction of beautiful buildings. Architects abandoned everything that resembled Gothic. Under the influence of antiquity, buildings topped with a dome began to be considered the most perfect. The model here was the Roman Pantheon.
Florence is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, a city-museum. It has preserved its architecture from antiquity almost intact, its most beautiful buildings being mainly built during the Renaissance. Rising above the red brick roofs of the ancient buildings of Florence is the huge building of the city cathedral. Santa Maria del Fiore, which is often called simply the Florence Cathedral. Its height reaches 107 meters. A magnificent dome, the slenderness of which is emphasized by white stone ribs, crowns the cathedral. The dome is amazing in size (its diameter is 43 m), it crowns the entire panorama of the city. The cathedral is visible from almost every street in Florence, clearly silhouetted against the sky. This magnificent building was built by an architect
Filippo Brunelleschi (1377 - 1446).
The most magnificent and famous domed building of the Renaissance was St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. It took more than 100 years to build. The creators of the original project were architects Bramante and Michelangelo.
Renaissance buildings are decorated with columns, pilasters, lion heads and "putti"(naked babies), plaster wreaths of flowers and fruits, leaves and many details, examples of which were found in the ruins of ancient Roman buildings. Came into fashion again semicircular arch. Wealthy people began to build more beautiful and more comfortable houses. Instead of houses closely pressed together, luxurious ones appeared palaces - palazzos.
Early Renaissance sculpture
In the 15th century, two famous sculptors worked in Florence - Donatello and Verrocchio.Donatello (1386? - 1466)- one of the first sculptors in Italy who used the experience of ancient art. He created one of the beautiful works of the early Renaissance - the statue of David.
According to the biblical legend, a simple shepherd, the young man David defeated the giant Goliath, and thereby saved the inhabitants of Judea from enslavement and later became king. David was one of the favorite images of the Renaissance. He is depicted by the sculptor not as a humble saint from the Bible, but as a young hero, winner, defender of his hometown. In his sculpture, Donatello glorifies man as the ideal of a beautiful heroic personality that arose during the Renaissance. David is crowned with the laurel wreath of the winner. Donatello was not afraid to introduce such a detail as a shepherd's hat - a sign of his simple origin. In the Middle Ages, the church forbade depicting the naked body, considering it a vessel of evil. Donatello was the first master to bravely violate this prohibition. He asserts by this that the human body is beautiful. The statue of David is the first round sculpture of that era.
Another beautiful sculpture of Donatello is also known - the statue of a warrior , general of Gattamelata. It was the first equestrian monument of the Renaissance. Created 500 years ago, this monument still stands on a high pedestal, decorating a square in the city of Padua. For the first time, not a god, not a saint, not a noble and rich person was immortalized in sculpture, but a noble, brave and formidable warrior with a great soul, who earned fame through great deeds. Dressed in antique armor, Gattemelata (this is his nickname, meaning “spotted cat”) sits on a powerful horse in a calm, majestic pose. The warrior’s facial features emphasize a decisive, strong character.
Andrea Verrocchio (1436 -1488)
The most famous student of Donatello, who created the famous equestrian monument to the condottiere Colleoni, which was erected in Venice in the square near the Church of San Giovanni. The main thing that is striking about the monument is the joint energetic movement of horse and rider. The horse seems to rush beyond the marble pedestal on which the monument is installed. Colleoni, standing up in his stirrups, stretched out, holding his head high, peers into the distance. A grimace of anger and tension was frozen on his face. There is a sense of great will in his posture, his face resembles a bird of prey. The image is filled with indestructible strength, energy, and stern authority.
Early Renaissance painting
The Renaissance also renewed the art of painting. Painters have learned to accurately convey space, light and shadow, natural poses, and various human feelings. It was the early Renaissance that was the time of accumulation of this knowledge and skills. The paintings of that time are imbued with a bright and upbeat mood. The background is often painted in light colors, and buildings and natural motifs are outlined with sharp lines, pure colors predominate. All the details of the event are depicted with naive diligence; the characters are most often lined up and separated from the background by clear contours.
The painting of the early Renaissance only strived for perfection, however, thanks to its sincerity, it touches the soul of the viewer.
Tommaso di Giovanni di Simone Cassai Guidi, known as Masaccio (1401 - 1428)
He is considered a follower of Giotto and the first master of painting of the early Renaissance. Masaccio lived only 28 years, but during his short life he left a mark on art that is difficult to overestimate. He managed to complete the revolutionary transformations begun by Giotto in painting. His paintings are distinguished by dark and deep colors. The people in Masaccio's frescoes are much denser and more powerful than in the paintings of the Gothic era.
Masaccio was the first to correctly arrange objects in space, taking into account the perspective; He began to depict people according to the laws of anatomy.
He knew how to connect figures and landscape into a single action, dramatically and at the same time quite naturally conveying the life of nature and people - and this is the great merit of the painter.
This is one of the few easel works by Masaccio, commissioned from him in 1426 for the chapel in the church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Pisa.
The Madonna sits on a throne built strictly according to Giotto's laws of perspective. Her figure is painted with confident and clear strokes, which creates the impression of sculptural volume. Her face is calm and sad, her detached gaze is directed into nowhere. Wrapped in a dark blue cloak, the Virgin Mary holds in her arms the Child, whose golden figure stands out sharply against a dark background. The deep folds of the cloak allow the artist to play with chiaroscuro, which also creates a special visual effect. The baby eats black grapes - a symbol of communion. Flawlessly drawn angels (the artist knew human anatomy very well) surrounding the Madonna give the picture an additional emotional resonance.
The only panel painted by Masaccio for a double-sided triptych. After the early death of the painter, the rest of the work, commissioned by Pope Martin V for the Church of Santa Maria in Rome, was completed by the artist Masolino. Here are depicted two austere, monumentally executed figures of saints, dressed all in red. Jerome holds an open book and a model of the basilica, with a lion lying at his feet. John the Baptist is depicted in his usual form: he is barefoot and holds a cross in his hand. Both figures amaze with their anatomical precision and almost sculptural sense of volume.
Interest in man and admiration for his beauty were so great during the Renaissance that this led to the emergence of a new genre in painting - the portrait genre.
Pinturicchio (version of Pinturicchio) (1454 - 1513) (Bernardino di Betto di Biagio)
Native of Perugia in Italy. For some time he painted miniatures and helped Pietro Perugino decorate the Sistine Chapel in Rome with frescoes. Gained experience in the most complex form of decorative and monumental wall painting. Within a few years, Pinturicchio became an independent muralist. He worked on frescoes in the Borgia apartments in the Vatican. He did wall paintings in the library of the Cathedral in Siena.
The artist not only conveys portrait likeness, but strives to reveal the inner state of a person. Before us is a teenage boy, dressed in a formal pink city dweller’s dress, with a small blue cap on his head. Brown hair goes down to the shoulders, framing a gentle face, the attentive gaze of brown eyes is thoughtful, a little anxious. Behind the boy is an Umbrian landscape with thin trees, a silvery river, and a pinkish sky on the horizon. The spring tenderness of nature, as an echo of the character of the hero, is in harmony with the poetry and charm of the hero.
The image of the boy is given in the foreground, large and occupies almost the entire plane of the picture, and the landscape is painted in the background and very small. This creates the impression of the importance of man, his dominance over the surrounding nature, and affirms that man is the most beautiful creation on earth.
Here is the solemn departure of Cardinal Capranica for the Council of Basel, which lasted almost 18 years, from 1431 to 1449, first in Basel and then in Lausanne. The young Piccolomini was also in the cardinal's retinue. A group of horsemen accompanied by pages and servants is presented in an elegant frame of a semicircular arch. The event is not so real and reliable as it is chivalrously refined, almost fantastic. In the foreground, a handsome rider on a white horse, in a luxurious dress and hat, turns his head and looks at the viewer - this is Aeneas Silvio. The artist takes pleasure in painting rich clothes and beautiful horses in velvet blankets. The elongated proportions of the figures, slightly mannered movements, slight tilts of the head are close to the court ideal. The life of Pope Pius II was full of bright events, and Pinturicchio spoke about the meetings of the pope with the King of Scotland, with Emperor Frederick III.
Filippo Lippi (1406 - 1469)
Legends arose about Lippi's life. He himself was a monk, but left the monastery, became a wandering artist, kidnapped a nun from the monastery and died, poisoned by the relatives of a young woman with whom he fell in love in old age.
He painted images of the Madonna and Child, filled with living human feelings and experiences. In his paintings he depicted many details: everyday objects, surroundings, so his religious subjects were similar to secular paintings.
Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449 - 1494)
He painted not only religious subjects, but also scenes from the life of the Florentine nobility, their wealth and luxury, and portraits of noble people.
Before us is the wife of a rich Florentine, a friend of the artist. In this not very beautiful, luxuriously dressed young woman, the artist expressed calm, a moment of stillness and silence. The expression on the woman’s face is cold, indifferent to everything, it seems that she foresees her imminent death: soon after painting the portrait she will die. The woman is depicted in profile, which is typical for many portraits of that time.
Piero della Francesca (1415/1416 - 1492)
One of the most significant names in Italian painting of the 15th century. He completed numerous transformations in the methods of constructing the perspective of pictorial space.
The painting was painted on a poplar board with egg tempera - obviously, by this time the artist had not yet mastered the secrets of oil painting, the technique in which his later works would be painted.
The artist captured the appearance of the mystery of the Holy Trinity at the moment of the Baptism of Christ. The white dove spreading its wings over the head of Christ symbolizes the descent of the Holy Spirit onto the Savior. The figures of Christ, John the Baptist and the angels standing next to them are painted in restrained colors.
His frescoes are solemn, sublime and majestic. Francesca believed in the high destiny of man and in his works people always do wonderful things. He used subtle, gentle transitions of colors. Francesca was the first to paint en plein air (in the open air).
Introduction
The Renaissance as a new worldview and a new artistic style arose in Italy at the end of the 14th century. The first urban planning ideas presented the city as an architectural whole according to a pre-drawn plan. Under the influence of these ideas, instead of narrow and crooked medieval alleys, straight, wider streets lined with large buildings began to appear in Italian cities.
The layout and architecture of squares during the Renaissance took shape in the 15th–16th centuries. in Rome and other major cities in Italy.
During this period, several cities were reconstructed here using new principles of urban planning. In most cases, palaces in such cities were located on central squares, which sometimes represented the beginning of three-ray compositions.
Renaissance cities gradually acquired new features under the influence of social changes. However, due to private ownership of land and backward technology, it was impossible to quickly move from the old city to the new. During all periods of the Renaissance, the main efforts of city planners were directed to the development of the city center - the square and nearby neighborhoods. During the heyday of monarchical states in the 18th century. the ensembles of the central squares of cities were given exceptional importance as their main decorations. City squares had mostly geometrically regular outlines.
If the architecture of ancient Greek and Roman squares was characterized by columns and porticoes, then for the squares of the Renaissance, arcades became new elements, developing simultaneously with the development of entire systems of squares.
In most medieval cities there was no decorative greenery. Fruit orchards were grown in monastery gardens; the orchards or vineyards of the townspeople were located behind the city fortifications. In Paris in the 18th century. alleys, trimmed greenery, and flower gardens appear. However, the parks of palaces and castles were privately owned. Public gardens in most European cities appeared only at the end of the 18th century.
In the Middle Ages, water basins were essentially an obstacle to the development of the city, dividing its districts, and served for narrow practical purposes. Since the 18th century rivers began to be used as connecting elements of cities, and in favorable conditions - as compositional axes. A striking example is the wise urban planning use of the Neva and Nevka rivers in St. Petersburg. The construction of bridges and the construction of embankments consolidated this direction in urban planning.
During the medieval period, the city's skyline was largely defined by the pointed spiers on city halls, churches and public buildings. The silhouette of the city was determined by many small verticals and several dominant ones. In connection with the new artistic understanding of the city's silhouette, high medieval roofs were gradually eliminated, and Renaissance buildings were completed with roofs with attics and balustrades.
With an increase in the scale of buildings and new types of coatings, the silhouette of the city is softened by domes of smooth outlines, which have acquired a dominant role in city panoramas. Their change was greatly influenced by gardens and parks, whose trees largely hide the buildings.
The architects of the Renaissance used strict means of expression in urban planning: harmonious proportions, the scale of a person as a measure of the surrounding architectural environment.
The ideological struggle of the emerging bourgeoisie of Italy against medieval forms of religion, morality and law resulted in a broad progressive movement - humanism. Humanism was based on civic life-affirming principles: the desire to liberate the human personality from spiritual constraint, the thirst for knowledge of the world and man himself and, as a consequence of this, a craving for secular forms of social life, the desire for knowledge of the laws and beauty of nature, for the comprehensive harmonious improvement of man . These shifts in worldview led to a revolution in all spheres of spiritual life - art, literature, philosophy, science. In their activities, humanists relied heavily on ancient ideals, often reviving not only ideas, but also the very forms and expressive means of ancient works. In this regard, the cultural movement of Italy in the 15th–16th centuries. received the general name of the Renaissance, or Rebirth
The humanistic worldview stimulated the development of personality and increased its importance in public life. The individual style of the master played an increasingly important role in the development of art and architecture. The culture of humanism brought forward a whole galaxy of brilliant architects, sculptors, artists, such as Brunellesco, Leonardo da Vinci, Bramante, Raphael, Michelangelo, Palladio and others.
The desire to create an “ideal image of a person”, combined with the search for methods of artistic exploration of the world, led to a kind of cognitive realism of the Renaissance, based on a close union of art with rapidly developing science. In architecture, the search for “ideal” forms of buildings based on a complete and complete composition has become one of its defining trends. Along with the development of new types of civil and religious buildings, architectural thought is developing, and there is an urgent need for theoretical generalizations of modern experience, especially historical and, above all, ancient experience.
Three periods of the Italian Renaissance
Renaissance architecture in Italy is divided into three main periods: early, high and late. Architectural Center Early Renaissance there was Tuscany with its main city - Florence. This period covers the second quarter and middle of the 15th century. The beginning of the Renaissance in architecture is considered to be 1420, when the construction of the dome over the Florence Cathedral began. Construction achievements that led to the creation of a huge centric form became a kind of symbol of the architecture of the New Age.
1. Early Renaissance period
The Early Renaissance in architecture is characterized primarily by the forms of buildings created by the famous architect engineer Filippo Brunellesco (first half of the 15th century). In particular, he used a light semi-circular arch instead of a pointed arch in the Orphanage in Florence. The rib vault, characteristic of Gothic architecture, began to give way to a new design - a modified box vault. However, pointed arch forms continued to be used until the middle of the 16th century.
One of Brunellesco's outstanding buildings was the huge dome of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, which had remained unfinished since the 14th century.
In the shape of the large dome created by the architect, an echo of the Gothic pointed arch is noticeable. The span of the dome of this cathedral is large - 42 m. The dome's vaults, made of brick, rest on an octagonal base made of logs covered with iron sheets. Thanks to the favorable location of the cathedral on a hill and its high height (115m), its upper part, especially the dome, adds solemnity and uniqueness to the architectural panorama of Florence.
Civil architecture occupied a significant place in the architecture of the Italian Renaissance. This includes, first of all, large city palaces (palazzos), intended in addition to housing for ceremonial receptions. Medieval palaces, gradually shedding their harsh Romanesque and Gothic clothing with the help of marble cladding and sculpture, acquired a cheerful appearance.
Features of the Renaissance facades are huge arched window openings separated by columns, rustication of the first floors with stones, upper slabs, large cornices and finely traced details. In contrast to the strict facades, the architecture of the well-lit interiors has a cheerful character.
Rusticism was often used to decorate the facades of early Renaissance palaces. Stones for rustication usually had an uncut (chipped) front surface with a cleanly hewn edge path. The relief of the rustics decreased with the increase in the number of floors. Later, rustic decoration was preserved only in the processing of plinths and on the corners of buildings.
In the 15th century Italian architects often used the Corinthian order. There were often cases of a combination of several orders in one building: for the lower floors - the Doric order, and for the upper floors - a composition of capitals close in proportions and design to the Ionic type.
One of the examples of palace architecture of the mid-15th century. in Florence can serve as the three-story Medici-Riccardi Palace, built according to the design of the architect Michelozzo di Bartolomeo in the period 1444–1452 by order of Cosimo de' Medici, the ruler of Florence. Hundreds of palaces were later built in other cities based on the design of the façade of the Palazzo Medici.
A further development of the composition of the palace is the palazzo Ruccilai in Florence, built 1446–1451 designed by Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472). Like the ancient Roman Colosseum, its facade is divided into floors by orders with a transition from the simplest Doric order in the lower tier to the more subtle and rich Corinthian order in the upper.
The impression of the building being lighter towards the top, created in the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi by means of the rustication of the walls, is expressed here in the form of a tiered system of orders being lighter towards the top. At the same time, the large crowning cornice is correlated not with the height of the upper tier, but with the height of the building as a whole, which is why the composition acquired the features of completeness and staticity. In the design of the façade, traditional motifs are still preserved: double arched windows derived from the medieval shape of the windows, rustication of the walls, the overall monumentality of the cloud, etc.
Pazzi Chapel (1430–1443) - a domed building placed in the courtyard of the monastery. The composition of the façade reflected the internal structure dissected by the order with the dominant volume of the hall with a dome on sails. The colonnade, cut along the axis by an arch and completed with a finely dissected attic, corresponds to cartelized pilasters on the inner wall of the loggia, and on the vaulted ceiling there are protruding segments of arches.
The correspondence of the orders and the repetition of small domes in the loggia and the altar contribute to the organic connection of the facade with the interior. The walls inside are divided by flat, but highlighted by color pilasters, which, continuing in the divisions of the vaults, give an idea of the logic of the construction of space, the tectonic structure. Developing three-dimensionally, the order emphasizes the unity and subordination of the main parts. The visual “framework” also characterizes the dismemberment of the dome from the inside, which is somewhat reminiscent of the structure of the Gothic nerve vaults. However, the harmony of order forms and the clarity of the tectonic structure, balance and commensurability with man speak of the triumph of new architectural ideals over the principles of the Middle Ages.
Along with Brunellesco and Michelozzo da Bartolomeo, other masters (Rosselino, Benedetto da Maiano, etc.), whose work was mainly associated with Tuscany and Northern Italy, also played a large role in the formation of new architecture. Alberti, who in addition to the Palazzo Ruccellai built a number of large structures (the facade of the church of Santa Maria Novella, the church of Sant'Andrea in Mantua, etc.), completes this period.
2. High Renaissance period
The period of the High Renaissance covers the end of the 15th - first half of the 16th century. By this time, due to the movement of the main trade routes from the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean, Italy was experiencing a certain economic decline and a decrease in industrial production. Often the bourgeoisie bought up land and turned into moneylenders and landowners. The process of feudalization of the bourgeoisie is accompanied by a general aristocratization of culture; the center of gravity is transferred to the court circle of the nobility: dukes, princes, popes. Rome becomes the center of culture - the residence of popes, who are often elected from representatives of the humanist-minded aristocracy. Huge construction work is taking place in Rome. In this undertaking, undertaken by the papal court to raise its own prestige, the humanistic community saw the experience of reviving the greatness of ancient Rome, and with it the greatness of all of Italy. At the court of those who ascended the throne in 1503. The most outstanding architects worked for the humanist Pope Julius II - among them Bramante, Raphael, Michelangelo, Antonio da Sangallo and others.
In the architecture of this period, the main features and trends of the Renaissance receive their complete expression. The most perfect centric compositions are created. The type of urban palazzo finally takes shape, which during this period acquires the features of not only a private but also a public building, and therefore, to a certain extent, becomes the prototype of many subsequent public buildings. The contrast characteristic of the early Renaissance period is overcome (between the architectural characteristics of the external appearance of the palazzo and its courtyard. Under the influence of a more systematic and archaeologically accurate acquaintance with ancient monuments, order compositions acquire greater rigor: along with the Ionic and Corinthian orders, simpler and more monumental orders are widely used - Roman-Doric and Tuscan, and a finely designed arcade on columns gives way to a more monumental order arcade. In general, the compositions of the High Renaissance acquire greater significance, severity and monumentality. The problem of creating a regular urban ensemble is put on a real basis. Country villas are built as integral architectural complexes .
The most important architect of this period was Donato d'Angelo Bramante (1444–1514). Cancelleria building attributed to Bramante (the main papal office) in Rome - one of the outstanding palace buildings - is a huge parallelepiped with a rectangular courtyard surrounded by arcades. The harmonious composition of the facades develops the principles laid down in the Ruccellai Palazzo, but the overall rhythmic structure creates a more complex and solemn image. The first floor, treated as a basement, enhanced the contrast with the lightweight top. Rhythmically located plastic accents created by large openings and the frames framing them acquired great importance in the composition. The rhythm of horizontal divisions became even clearer.
Among Bramante's religious buildings, a small chapel in the courtyard of the monastery of San Pietro in Montrio, called Tempietto, stands out (1502) - a building located inside a rather cramped courtyard, which was supposed to be surrounded by a circular arcade in plan.
The chapel features a domed rotunda surrounded by a Roman Doric colonnade. The building is distinguished by perfect proportions, the order is interpreted strictly and constructively. In comparison with the centric buildings of the early Renaissance, where the linear-planar development of the walls predominates (Pazzi Chapel), the volume of Tempietto is plastic: its order plasticity corresponds to the tectonic integrity of the composition. The contrast between the monolithic core of the rotunda and the colonnade, between the smooth surface of the wall and the plasticity of deep niches and pilasters emphasizes the expressiveness of the composition, full of harmony and completeness. Despite its small size, Tempietto gives the impression of monumentality. Already by Bramante's contemporaries this building was recognized as one of the masterpieces of architecture.
Being the chief architect at the court of Pope Julius II, Bramante from 1505. is working on the reconstruction of the Vatican. A grandiose complex of ceremonial buildings and ceremonial courtyards located at different levels, subordinate to a single axis closed by the majestic exedra of the Belvedere, was conceived. In this, essentially the first Renaissance ensemble of such grandiose design, the compositional techniques of ancient Roman forums were masterfully used. The papal residence was supposed to be connected with another grandiose building in Rome - Peter's Cathedral, for the construction of which Bramante's design was also adopted. The perfection of the centric composition and the grandiose scope of the design of the cathedral by Peter Bramante gives reason to consider this work as the pinnacle of the development of Renaissance architecture. However, the project was not destined to be realized in kind: during Bramante’s lifetime, construction of the cathedral had just begun, which in 1546, 32 years after the death of the architect, was transferred to Michelangelo.
The great artist and architect Raphael Santi, who built and painted the famous loggias of the Vatican, which received his name (“Raphael’s loggias”), as well as a number of remarkable buildings, took part in the competition for the design of Peter’s Cathedral, as well as in the construction and painting of Vatican buildings, together with Bramante. both in Rome itself and outside it (construction and painting of Villa Madama in Rome, Palazzo Pandolfini in Florence, etc.).
One of Bramante's best students, the architect Antonio da Sangallo Jr., designed the Palazzo Farnese in Rome. , to a certain extent, completing the evolution of the Renaissance palace.
The design of its façade lacks traditional rustication and vertical divisions. On the smooth, brick-plastered surface of the wall, wide horizontal belts running along the entire façade are clearly visible; as if leaning on them, windows with relief platbands in the shape of an antique “aedicule” are placed. The windows on the ground floor, unlike in Florentine palaces, are the same size as the windows on the upper floors. The building was freed from the fortress isolation still inherent in the palaces of the early Renaissance. In contrast to the palaces of the 15th century, where the courtyard was surrounded by light arched galleries on columns, a monumental order arcade with half-columns appears here. The gallery order becomes somewhat heavier, acquiring features of solemnity and representativeness. The narrow passage between the courtyard and the street is replaced by an open “lobby”, revealing a perspective onto the front courtyard.
3. Late Renaissance
The late Renaissance period is usually considered to be the mid to late 16th century. At this time, the economic recession in Italy continued. The role of the feudal nobility and church-Catholic organizations increased. To combat the reformation and all manifestations of the anti-religious spirit, the Inquisition was established. Under these conditions, humanists began to experience persecution. A significant part of them, persecuted by the Inquisition, moved to the northern cities of Italy, especially to Venice, which still retained the rights of an independent republic, where the influence of the religious counter-reformation was not so strong. In this regard, during the late Renaissance, two schools were the most prominent - Roman and Venetian. In Rome, where the ideological pressure of the Counter-Reformation greatly influenced the development of architecture, along with the development of the principles of the High Renaissance, there was a departure from the classics towards more complex compositions, greater decorativeness, a violation of the clarity of forms, scale and tectonics. In Venice, despite the partial penetration of new trends into architecture, the classical basis of architectural composition was more preserved.
A prominent representative of the Roman school was the great Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564). His architectural works lay the foundations of a new understanding of form characteristic of this period, characterized by great expression, dynamics and plastic expressiveness. His work, which took place in Rome and Florence, reflected with particular force the search for images capable of expressing the general crisis of humanism and the internal anxiety that progressive circles of society then experienced before the approaching forces of reaction. As a brilliant sculptor and painter, Michelangelo knew how to find bright plastic means to express in art the inner strength of his heroes, the unresolved conflict of their spiritual world, and titanic efforts in struggle. In architectural creativity, this was consistent with an emphasized identification of the plasticity of forms and their intense dynamics. Michelangelo's order often lost its tectonic meaning, turning into a means of decorating walls, creating enlarged masses that amaze a person with their scale and plasticity. Boldly violating the architectural principles customary for the Renaissance, Michelangelo to a certain extent was the founder of a creative manner that was later picked up in Italian Baroque architecture. Michelangelo's largest architectural works include the completion of Peter's Cathedral in Rome after Bramante's death. Michelangelo, taking as a basis a centric scheme close to Bramante’s plan, introduced new features into its interpretation: he simplified the plan and generalized the internal space, made the supports and walls more massive, and added a portico with a solemn colonnade on the western façade. In the volumetric-spatial composition, the calm balance and subordination of the spaces of Bramante’s project are translated into an emphasized dominance of the main dome and the under-dome space. In the composition of the facades, clarity and simplicity were replaced by more complex and large plastic forms; the walls are dissected by ledges and pilasters of a large Corinthian order with a powerful entablature and a high attic; between the pilasters there are window openings, niches and various decorative elements (cornices, belts, sandriks, statues, etc.) that seem to be squeezed into the piers, giving the walls an almost sculptural plasticity.
In the composition of the Medici Chapel Church of San Lorenzo in Florence (1520) by Michelangelo, the interior and sculptures merged into a single whole. Sculptural and architectural forms are full of internal tension and drama. Their acute emotional expressiveness prevails over the tectonic basis; the order is interpreted as an element of the artist’s fundamentally common sculptural plan.
One of the outstanding Roman architects of the late Renaissance is also Vignola, the author of the treatise “The Rule of the Five Orders of Architecture”. His most significant works are the Caprarola Castle and the Villa of Pope Julius II. . During the Renaissance, the type of villa undergoes significant development associated with a change in its functional content. Back at the beginning of the 15th century. it was a country estate, often surrounded by walls, and sometimes even had defensive towers. By the end of the 15th century. the villa became a country retreat for wealthy citizens (Villa Medici near Florence), and from the 16th century. it often becomes the residence of large feudal lords and high clergy. The villa loses its intimacy and acquires the character of a ceremonial front-axial structure, open to the surrounding nature.
The Villa of Pope Julius II is an example of this type. Its strictly axial and rectangular composition in external outlines descends along the mountainside in ledges, creating a complex game of open, semi-open and closed spaces located at various levels. The composition shows the influence of ancient Roman forums and Vatican courtyards.
Outstanding masters of the Venetian school of the late Renaissance were Sansovino, who built the building of the Library of San Marco in Venice (begun in 1536) - an important component of the remarkable ensemble of the Venetian center, and the most prominent representative of the classical school of the Renaissance - the architect Palladio.
The activities of Andrea Palladio (1508 - 1580) took place mainly in Vicenza, near Venice, where he built palaces and villas, as well as in Venice, where he built mainly church buildings. His work in a number of buildings was a reaction to the anti-classical tendencies of the late Renaissance. In an effort to preserve the purity of classical principles, Palladio relies on the rich experience he acquired in the process of studying the ancient heritage. He tries to revive not only order forms, but entire elements and even types of buildings of the ancient period. Structurally true order portico becomes the main theme of many of his works.
In the Villa Rotunda , built near Vicenza (started in 1551), the master achieved exceptional integrity and harmony of the composition. Situated on a hill and clearly visible from a distance, the four facades of the villa with porticoes on all sides, together with the dome, form a clear centric composition.
In the center there is a round domed hall, from which exits lead to porticoes. Wide portico staircases connect the building with the surrounding nature. The centric composition reflected the general aspirations of Renaissance architects for the absolute completeness of the composition, clarity and geometricity of forms, the harmonious connection of individual parts with the whole and the organic merging of the building with nature.
But this “ideal” composition scheme remained isolated. In the actual construction of numerous villas, Palladio paid more attention to the so-called three-part scheme, consisting of a main volume and one-story order galleries extending from it to the sides, serving to communicate with the services of the estate and organizing the front courtyard in front of the facade of the villa. It was this scheme of a country house that later had numerous followers in the construction of manor palaces.
In contrast to the free development of the volumes of country villas, Palladian city palaces usually have a strict and laconic composition with a large-scale and monumental main facade. The architect widely uses the large order, interpreting it as a kind of “column-wall” system. A striking example is the palazzo Capitanio (1576), the walls of which are decorated with columns of a large composite order with a powerful, loose entablature. The upper floor, expanded in the form of a superstructure (attic floor), gave the building completeness and monumentality,
Palladio also widely used in his city palaces two-tiered division of facades with orders, as well as an order placed on a high rusticated ground floor - a technique first used by Bramante and subsequently widespread in the architecture of classicism.
Conclusion
Modern architecture, when searching for forms of its own stylistic manifestation, does not hide the fact that it uses historical heritage. Most often, she turns to those theoretical concepts and principles of shaping that in the past achieved the greatest stylistic purity. Sometimes it even seems that everything that previously lived in the 20th century returned in a new form and was quickly repeated again.
Much of what a person values in architecture appeals not so much to a scrupulous analysis of individual parts of an object, but to its synthetic, holistic image, to the sphere of emotional perception. This means that architecture is art or, in any case, contains elements of art.
Sometimes architecture is called the mother of the arts, meaning that painting and sculpture developed for a long time in an inextricable organic connection with architecture. The architect and the artist always had a lot in common in their work, and sometimes got along well in one person. The ancient Greek sculptor Phidias is rightfully considered one of the creators of the Parthenon. The elegant bell tower of the main cathedral of Florence, Santa Maria del Fiore, was built “according to a drawing” by the great painter Giotto. Michelangelo, who was equally great as an architect, sculptor and painter. Raphael also worked successfully in the architectural field. Their contemporary, the painter Giorgio Vasari, built the Uffizi Street in Florence. Such a synthesis of the talents of an artist and an architect was found not only among the titans of the Renaissance, but also marked modern times. Applied artists, the Englishman William Morris and the Belgian Van de Velde, made a great contribution to the development of modern architecture. Corbusier was a talented painter, and Alexander Vesnin a brilliant theater artist. Soviet artists K. Malevich and L. Lisitsky interestingly experimented with architectural form, and their colleague and contemporary Vladimir Tatlin became the author of the legendary project of the Tower 111 of the International. The author of the famous project of the Palace of Soviets, architect B. Iofan, is rightfully considered the co-author of the sculpture “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” together with the wonderful Soviet artist Vera Mukhina.
Graphic representation and three-dimensional layout are the main means by which the architect seeks and defends his solutions. The discovery of linear perspective during the Renaissance actively influenced the spatial concept of architecture of this time. Ultimately, the understanding of linear perspective led to the linking of the square, staircase, and building into a single spatial composition, and subsequently to the emergence of gigantic architectural ensembles of Baroque and high classicism. Many years later, the experiments of cubist artists had a great influence on the development of architectural form-making. They tried to depict an object from different points of view, achieve its three-dimensional perception by superimposing several images, and expand the possibilities of spatial perception by introducing the fourth dimension - time. This volumetricity of perception served as the starting point for the formal search for modern architecture, which contrasted the flat screen of the facade with an intricate play of volumes and planes freely located in space.
Sculpture and painting did not immediately gain independence from architecture. At first they were just elements of an architectural structure. It took more than one century for painting to separate from the wall or iconostasis. At the end of the Renaissance, in Piazza della Signoria in Florence, sculptures still timidly crowd around the buildings, as if afraid to completely break with the facades. Michelangelo is the first to place an equestrian statue in the center of the Capitoline Square in Rome. The year is 1546. Since then, a monument, a monumental sculpture, has acquired the rights of an independent element of composition that organizes urban space. True, the sculptural form continues to live on the walls of the architectural structure for some time, but gradually these last traces of “former luxury” disappear from them.
Corbusier affirms this composition of modern architecture with his characteristic certainty: “I recognize neither sculpture nor painting as decoration. I admit that both can evoke deep emotions in the viewer in the same way that music and theater affect you - it all depends on the quality of the work, but I am definitely against decoration. On the other hand, considering an architectural work and mainly the site on which it is erected, you see that some places in the building itself and around it are certain intensive mathematical places that turn out to be, as it were, a key to the proportions of the work and its surroundings. These are the places of the highest intensity, and it is in these places that the architect's specific goal can be realized - either in the form of a pool, or a block of stone, or a statue. We can say that in this place all the conditions are connected for a speech to be made, an artist’s speech, a plastic speech.”
The Renaissance is one of the most important periods in the cultural development of mankind, because it was at this time that the foundations of a fundamentally new culture emerged, a wealth of ideas, thoughts, and symbols emerged that would be actively used by subsequent generations. In the 15th century In Italy, a new image of the city is being born, which is being developed more as a project, a future model, than a real architectural embodiment. Of course, in Renaissance Italy they did a lot of improvement of cities: they straightened streets, leveled facades, spent a lot of money on creating pavements, etc. Architects also built new houses, fitting them into empty spaces, or, in rare cases, erected them instead of demolished old ones buildings In general, the Italian city in reality remained medieval in its architectural landscape. This was not a period of active urban development, but it was at this time that urban issues began to be recognized as one of the most important areas of cultural construction. Many interesting treatises have appeared on what a city is, not only as a political, but also as a sociocultural phenomenon. How does a new city, different from the medieval one, appear in the eyes of Renaissance humanists?
In all their urban planning models, projects and utopias, the city was first of all freed from its sacred prototype - the heavenly Jerusalem, the ark, symbolizing the space of human salvation. During the Renaissance, the idea of an ideal city arose, which was created not according to a divine prototype, but as a result of the individual creative activity of the architect. The famous L. B. Alberti, author of the classic “Ten Books on Architecture,” argued that original architectural ideas often come to him at night, when his attention is distracted and he has dreams in which things appear that do not reveal themselves during wakefulness. This secularized description of the creative process is quite different from classical Christian acts of vision.
The new city appeared in the works of Italian humanists as corresponding not to heavenly, but to earthly regulations in its social, political, cultural and everyday purposes. It was built not on the principle of sacred-spatial contraction, but on the basis of a functional, completely secular spatial distinction, and was divided into spaces of squares and streets, which were grouped around important residential or public buildings. Such reconstruction, although actually carried out to a certain extent, for example in Florence, was realized to a greater extent in the fine arts, in the construction of Renaissance paintings and in architectural projects. The Renaissance city symbolized the victory of man over nature, the optimistic belief that the “separation” of human civilization from nature into its new man-made world had reasonable, harmonious and beautiful grounds.
Renaissance man is a prototype of the civilization of conquering space, who with his own hands completed what was left unfinished by the creator. That is why, when planning cities, architects were keen on creating beautiful projects, based on the aesthetic significance of various combinations of geometric shapes, in which it was necessary to place all the buildings necessary for the life of the urban community. Utilitarian considerations faded into the background, and the free aesthetic play of architectural fantasies subjugated the consciousness of the city planners of that time. The idea of free creativity as the basis for the existence of an individual is one of the most important cultural imperatives of the Renaissance. Architectural creativity in this case also embodied this idea, which was expressed in the creation of construction projects that were more like some kind of intricate ornamental fantasies. In practice, these ideas were realized primarily in the creation of various types of stone pavements, which were covered with slabs of the correct shape. These were the main innovations that the townspeople were proud of, calling them “diamond.”
The city was initially conceived as an artificial work, opposed to the naturalness of the natural world, because, unlike the medieval one, it subjugated and mastered the living space, and did not simply fit into the terrain. Therefore, the ideal cities of the Renaissance had a strict geometric shape in the form of a square, cross or octagon. As I. E. Danilova aptly put it, the architectural projects of that time were, as it were, superimposed on the terrain from above as a stamp of the dominance of the human mind, to which everything is subject. In the modern era, man sought to make the world predictable, reasonable, and get rid of the incomprehensible game of chance or fortune. Thus, L. B. Alberti, in his work “On the Family,” argued that reason plays a much greater role in civil affairs and in human life than fortune. The famous theorist of architecture and urban planning spoke about the need to test and conquer the world, extending the rules of applied mathematics and geometry to it. From this point of view, the Renaissance city represented the highest form of conquest of the world and space, for urban planning projects involved the reorganization of the natural landscape as a result of the imposition of a geometric grid of delineated spaces on it. It, unlike the Middle Ages, was an open model, the center of which was not the cathedral, but the free space of the square, which opened on all sides with streets, with views into the distance, beyond the city walls.
Modern experts in the field of culture are paying more and more attention to the problems of spatial organization of Renaissance cities, in particular, the topic of the city square, its genesis and semantics are actively discussed at various kinds of international symposia. R. Barth wrote: “The city is a fabric consisting not of equivalent elements in which their functions can be listed, but of elements, significant and insignificant... Moreover, I must note that more and more importance is beginning to be attached to significant emptiness instead emptiness of the significant. In other words, elements become increasingly significant not in themselves, but depending on their location.”
The medieval city, its buildings, the church embodied the phenomenon of closedness, the need to overcome some physical or spiritual barrier, be it a cathedral or a palace similar to a small fortress, this is a special space separated from the outside world. Penetration there has always symbolized familiarization with some hidden secret. The square was a symbol of a completely different era: it embodied the idea of openness not only upwards, but also to the sides, through streets, alleys, windows, etc. People always entered the square from a closed space. Any area created, by contrast, the feeling of an instantly open and open space. City squares seemed to symbolize the very process of liberation from mystical secrets and embodied an openly desacralized space. L. B. Alberti wrote that the most important decoration of cities was given by position, direction, correspondence, and placement of streets and squares.
These ideas were supported by the real practice of the struggle for the liberation of urban spaces from the control of individual family clans, which took place in Florence in the 14th and 15th centuries. During this period, F. Brunelleschi designed three new squares in the city. Tombstones of various noble persons are removed from the squares, and markets are rebuilt accordingly. The idea of openness of space is embodied by L. B. Alberti in relation to walls. He advises using colonnades as often as possible in order to emphasize the conventionality of walls as something that is an obstacle. That is why Alberti’s arch is perceived as the opposite of a locked city gate. The arch is always open; it serves as a frame for the opening views and thereby connects the urban space.
Renaissance urbanization does not imply the closedness and isolation of urban space, but, on the contrary, its spread outside the city. The aggressive offensive pathos of the “conqueror of nature” is demonstrated by the projects of Francesco di Giorgio Martini. Yu. M. Lotman wrote about this spatial impulse, characteristic of his treatises. Martini fortresses in most cases have the shape of a star, which is flared in all directions by the corners of walls with bastions that are strongly extended outwards. This architectural solution was largely due to the invention of the cannonball. The guns, which were installed on bastions extended far into space, made it possible to actively counteract enemies, hit them at a great distance and prevent them from reaching the main walls.
Leonardo Bruni, in his laudatory works dedicated to Florence, appears before us rather than a real city, but an embodied sociocultural doctrine, for he is trying to “correct” the urban layout and describe the location of buildings in a new way. As a result, in the center of the city there appears the Palazzo Signoria, from which, as a symbol of city power, wider rings of walls, fortifications, etc. diverge than in reality. In this description, Bruni moves away from the closed model of the medieval city and tries to embody a new idea the idea of urban expansion, which is a kind of symbol of the new era. Florence seizes nearby lands and subjugates vast territories.
Thus, the ideal city in the 15th century. is conceived not in a vertical sacralized projection, but in a horizontal sociocultural space, which is understood not as a sphere of salvation, but as a comfortable living environment. That is why the ideal city is depicted by artists of the 15th century. not as some distant goal, but from within, as a beautiful and harmonious sphere of human life.
However, it is necessary to note certain contradictions that were initially present in the image of the Renaissance city. Despite the fact that during this period, magnificent and comfortable dwellings of a new type appeared, created primarily “for the sake of the people,” the city itself was already beginning to be perceived as a stone cage that did not allow the development of a free, creative human personality. An urban landscape can be perceived as something that contradicts nature, and, as is known, it is nature (both human and non-human) that is the subject of aesthetic admiration by artists, poets and thinkers of that time.
The beginning of urbanization of the sociocultural space, even in its primary, rudimentary and enthusiastically perceived forms, was already awakening a feeling of ontological loneliness, abandonment in the new, “horizontal” world. In the future, this duality will develop, turning into an acute contradiction in the cultural consciousness of modern times and leading to the emergence of utopian anti-urban scenarios.
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