Friday, December 18, 2020

Renaissance / Mannerist Sculpture from Italy

attributed to Desiderio da Settignano
St Helena
ca. 1460-64
bronze relief
Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio

Gregorio di Lorenzo
(Master of the Marble Madonnas)
Ecce Homo
ca. 1480
marble relief
Bode Museum, Berlin

Gregorio di Lorenzo
(Master of the Marble Madonnas)
Mater Dolorosa
ca. 1480
marble relief
Bode Museum, Berlin

attributed to Giuliano da Maiano
Ciborium
ca. 1480
marble
Chiesa di Badia, Settimo

Tullio and Antonio Lombardo
St Matthew
ca. 1495-1510
marble relief
Chiesa di San Francesco della Vigna, Venice

Donato Benti
Virgin and Unicorn
(detail of Baptismal Font)
ca. 1510
marble relief
Chiesa dei Santi Lorenzo e Barbara, Seravezza

RENAISSANCE (French, rebirth) – The use of the term to denote a period in European history was introduced in 1855 by the French historian Jules Michelet.  Art-historical usage reflects Michelet's chronological definition.  . . .  More contentiously, however, the word also functions as a style label, following its use in 1860 by the German-speaking Swiss scholar Jakob Burckhardt to describe Italian civilization in the early modern period.  His usage popularized the notion of cultural rebirth.  . . .  The two main components of this idea are the 'return to Nature' and the 'revival of classical antiquity'.  Research has clearly demonstrated that in neither of these did Renaissance art break with its immediate past; that the northern European style known as Gothic had had both naturalistic and classicizing modes, and that the classical tradition had survived in Italy without a radical break.  Nonetheless, common parlance still defines Renaissance style as a new preoccupation with the representation of natural appearances and with the formulae of Graeco-Roman art and architecture.  This definition, however, not only postulates a disjuncture between medieval and early modern art, but also presupposes that Italy took the lead in the 'rebirth' of art while northern Europe followed – an interpretation which has been, and continues to be, challenged.

– excerpted from The Yale Dictionary of Art and Artists, by Erika Langmuir and Norbert Lynton (2000)

Niccolò Fiorentino (Niccolò di Forzore Spinelli)
Portrait of Agnolo Poliziano
ca. 1494
bronze medallion
Bode Museum, Berlin

Anonymous Italian Artist
Library
ca. 1490
bronze medallion
Museo Correr, Venice

Jacopo da Trezzo
Portrait of Ippolita Gonzaga
(daughter of Isabella d'Este)

1548
silver medallion
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Francesco Camilliani
Plaque with Mask
ca. 1563
marble relief
Fortezza Medicea, Siena

Giambologna
Equestrian Statue of Cosimo I de' Medici
1594
bronze
Piazza della Signoria, Florence

attributed to Giovanni Battista Caccini
Bust of Giovanni Capponi
ca. 1590-1600
marble
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Anonymous Italian Artist
Door-Pulls
16th century
bronze
Palazzo Contughi Gulinelli, Ferrara

Anonymous Italian Artist
Door-Pull
16th century
bronze
Palazzo Comunale, Fivizzano

Anonymous Italian Artist
Ornamental Panel with Mask
16th century
wood and bronze
Abbazia di San Bartolomeo, Ripoli