Renaisance Painting

Masaccio’s Expulsion from Paradise Expulsion from Paradise (about 1427) is one of six frescoes painted by Masaccio for the Brancacci Chapel in Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence, Italy. The fresco was influential for its realism, especially the simplicity and three-dimensionality of the figures, and for the dramatic depiction of the plight of Adam and Eve.Brancacci Chapel, Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence/Bridgeman Art Library, London/New York

The term Renaissance, meaning “rebirth,” describes the cultural revolution of the 15th and 16th centuries; it originated in Italy with the revival of interest in classical culture and a strong belief in individualism See Renaissance Art and Architecture. The achievements of antiquity were revered, but at the same time a virtual rebirth of human potential occurred when new authority was accorded the individual's direct observations. For example, in the Brancacci Chapel of the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence, Masaccio—one of the great innovators of the period—executed a remarkable series of frescoes in about 1427 that reveal his keen observation of human behavior and at the same time demonstrate his knowledge of ancient art. In the The Expulsion from Paradise, Masaccio's Adam and Eve truly mourn; Eve's pose,... arms attempting to hide her body, is based on a pose characteristic of classical sculpture, the so-called Venus Pudica (modest Venus) type.

In only a few years, from his start as a painter in 1422 until his death in about 1428 at the age of 26, the Italian master Masaccio was known as a great innovator. Along with the sculptor Donatello and the architect Filippo Brunelleschi, he split away from the prevailing, formalized Gothic conventions of the time. His groundbreaking use of mathematical perspective, as well as his use of light, shadow, and foreshortening, helped to give his works a naturalness and an illusion of weight and volume that were completely new. The following account of Masaccio’s life and work was written by 16th-century Italian artist and writer Giorgio Vasari as part of his Lives of the Artists (1550; revised 1568).

Masaccio’s Trinity
The Trinity (1425?, Santa Maria Novella, Florence, Italy), by 15th-century Italian painter Masaccio, illustrates the early Renaissance fascination with classical architecture, geometrical composition, and the projection of space by means of perspective.Encarta EncyclopediaScala/Art Resource, NY

From Lives of the Artists: Masaccio
By Giorgio Vasari

The appearance of a man of outstanding creative talent is very often accompanied by that of another great artist at the same time and in the same part of the world so that the two can inspire and emulate each other. Besides bringing considerable advantages to the two rivals themselves, this phenomenon of nature provides tremendous inspiration for later artists who strive as hard as they can to win the fine reputation and renown which they hear every day attributed to their predecessors. How true this is we can see from the fact that in the same period Florence produced Filippo Brunelleschi, Donatello, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Paolo Uccello, and Masaccio, each of whom was an outstanding artist and through whose efforts the crude and clumsy style which had persevered up to that time was finally discarded. Moreover, their beautiful work so forcefully stimulated and inspired their successors that the techniques of art were brought to the greatness and perfection that we know today. So we are certainly deeply indebted to those innovators whose work showed us how to bring art to the summit of perfection. To Masaccio especially we are indebted for the good style of modern painting; for it was Masaccio who perceived that the best painters follow nature as closely as possible (since painting is simply the imitation of all the living things of nature, with their colours and design just as they are in life). Knowing this, and hungry for fame, Masaccio learnt so much from his endless studies that he can be numbered among the pioneers who almost entirely rid painting of its hardness, difficulties, and imperfections. He gave a beginning to beautiful attitudes, movements, liveliness, and vivacity, rendering relief in a way that was characteristic and natural and that no painter had ever before attempted.

Masaccio possessed extremely sound judgement, and so he realized that figures which were made to seem on tiptoe instead of being posed firmly with their feet in foreshortening on the level lacked all the basic elements of good style, and that those who painted like that had no understanding of foreshortening. Although Paolo Uccello had tackled this problem with a fair measure of success, Masaccio introduced many new techniques and made his foreshortenings, which he painted from every angle, far better than any done before. His paintings were remarkably soft and harmonious, and he matched the flesh-tints of his heads and nudes with the colours of his draperies, which he loved to depict with a few simple folds just as they appear in life. All this has been of great benefit to later artists, and indeed Masaccio can be given the credit for originating a new style of painting; certainly everything done before him can be described as artificial, whereas he produced work that is living, realistic, and natural.

Masaccio was born in the village of San Giovanni in the Valdarno, where, it is said, one can still see some figures that he made in early childhood. He was very absent-minded and erratic, and he devoted all his mind and thoughts to art and paid little attention to himself and still less to others. He refused to give any time to worldly cares and possessions, even to the way he dressed, let alone anything else; and he never bothered to recover anything owing to him unless his need was desperate. So instead of calling him by his proper name, which was Tommaso, everyone called him Masaccio [Silly Billy, or sloppy Tom]. Not that he was in any way vicious. On the contrary, he was goodness itself; and although he was extraordinarily neglectful, he was as kind as could be when it came to giving help or pleasure to others.

Masaccio began painting at the time when Masolino da Panicale was working in the Brancacci Chapel in the Carmelite Church at Florence. Although he was a painter, as far as possible he followed in the steps of Filippo and Donatello; and he always tried to express in his figures the liveliness and beautiful animation of nature itself. His outlines and his painting were so modern and original that his works can be favourably compared with modern work for their design and colouring. He was extremely painstaking in his paintings and in the studies he made of the problems of perspective, in which he achieved very competent and impressive results, as can be seen in one of the histories he did, which is today in the house of Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio. In this picture, as well as a representation of Christ liberating a man possessed by demons, there are some very fine buildings drawn in perspective; and one can see simultaneously both the interior and the outside, because he chose the point of view not of the front but over the angles, as being the more difficult. Masaccio also made more use than other artists of nude and foreshortened figures, which indeed had rarely been seen before. He worked with great facility and, as I said, his draperies were very simple.

There is a panel picture in tempera by Masaccio showing Our Lady on the lap of St Anne with her son in her arms; this picture is today in Sant'Ambrogio at Florence, in the chapel by the door leading to the nuns' parlour. And on the screen of the church of San Niccolò sopr' Arno there is another of his panel pictures, in which as well as showing the Annunciation, with the angel and Our Lady, he painted a building with many columns very finely depicted in perspective. Apart from his perfect rendering of the lines, he demonstrated his understanding of perspective by shading his colours in such a way that the building seems gradually to disappear from view. In the abbey at Florence, in the niche of a pillar opposite those supporting the arch of the high altar, he did a fresco painting of St Ives of Brittany, who is seen from below with his feet foreshortened. This had never been done so well before and it won him no little praise. Underneath St Ives, above another cornice, he painted the widows, orphans, and beggars being helped by the saint in their need.

Below the choir in Santa Maria Novella he painted a fresco showing the Trinity, which is over the altar of St Ignatius and which has Our Lady on one side and St John the Evangelist on the other, contemplating the crucified Christ. At the sides are two kneeling figures, which as far as one can tell are portraits of those who commissioned the work, although they can scarcely be made out as they have been covered over with gold ornamentation. But the most beautiful thing, apart from the figures, is the barrel-vaulted ceiling drawn in perspective and divided into square compartments containing rosettes foreshortened and made to recede so skilfully that the surface looks as if it is indented. In Santa Maria Maggiore, in a chapel near the side door which leads towards San Giovanni, Masaccio also painted a panel picture showing Our Lady, St Catherine, and St Julian, and on the predella he painted several little figures illustrating scenes from the life of St Catherine, and St Julian killing his father and mother; in the middle he depicted the Nativity of Jesus Christ with characteristic simplicity and liveliness.

In the Carmelite Church at Pisa, inside a chapel in the transept, there is a panel painting by Masaccio showing the Virgin and Child, with some little angels at her feet who are playing instruments and one of whom is sounding a lute and inclining his ear very attentively to listen to the music he is making. Surrounding Our Lady are St Peter, St John the Baptist, St Julian, and St Nicholas, all very vivacious and animated….

Later on, feeling rather discontented at Florence and prompted by his love and enthusiasm for painting, he determined to go to Rome in order to perfect his work and—as he succeeded in doing—make himself superior to all other painters. In Rome he became very famous, and he decorated a chapel for Cardinal San Clemente, in the church of San Clemente, painting in fresco the Passion of Our Lord, showing the crucified thieves and scenes of the martyrdom of St Catherine. He also painted a number of panel pictures in tempera, which were all either lost or destroyed during the troubles at Rome. He did another painting in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, in a little chapel near the sacristy: it shows four saints, so skilfully painted that they look as though they are in relief, with Our Lady of the Snow in the middle, and a portrait from life of Pope Martin, who is marking the foundations of the church with a hoe and near to whom stands the Emperor Sigismund II. One day after Michelangelo and I had been studying this work he praised it very highly and remarked that those men had been contemporaries of Masaccio.

Pisanello and Gentile da Fabriano shared with Masaccio some of the work they were doing on the walls of the church of San Giovanni for Pope Martin; but then he heard that Cosimo de' Medici (whose support and favour he enjoyed) had been recalled from exile, and so he returned to Florence where he was commissioned to decorate the Brancacci Chapel of the Carmine, because of the death of Masolino da Panicale. Before he began this work, to show the progress he had made as a painter Masaccio painted the St Paul which is near the bell-ropes. And he certainly excelled himself in this picture, where one can see in the head of the saint (which is a portrait from life of Bartolo di Angiolino Angiolini) so awe-inspiring an expression that the figure needs only speech to be alive. Anyone knowing nothing of St Paul has only to look at this painting to understand his greatness as a citizen of Rome and his saintly force of will, utterly dedicated to the propagation of the faith. In the same painting Masaccio showed his knowledge of the technique of foreshortening figures from below in a way that was truly marvellous, as may be seen today from his successful rendering of the feet of the Apostle, in contrast to the crude style of earlier times which, as I said a little while earlier, depicted every figure as if it were standing on tiptoe. This style persisted uncorrected until Masaccio's time, and before anyone else he alone brought painting to the excellence we know today.

While he was engaged on this work it happened that the church of the Carmine was consecrated, and to commemorate this event Masaccio painted a picture of the entire ceremony as it had taken place, in chiaroscuro and terra verde, inside the cloister over the door which leads to the convent. He showed countless citizens following the procession and in their cloaks and hoods, among them being Filippo Brunelleschi, wearing wooden shoes, Donatello, Masolino da Panicale, who had been his own master, Antonio Brancacci, who commissioned Masaccio's work for the chapel, Niccolò da Uzzano, Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici, and Bartolommeo Valori, all of whom are also portrayed by the same hand in a painting in the house of a Florentine gentleman, Simon Corsi. Masaccio also painted there a portrait of Lorenzo Ridolfi, who at that time was ambassador of the Florentine Republic in Venice. And he not only portrayed these noblemen from life but also painted the door of the convent just as it was, with the porter holding the keys in his hand.

There are many excellent qualities in this work, for Masaccio succeeded in showing these people, five or six in line together on the level of the piazza, receding from view with such proportion and judgement that his skill is indeed astonishing. Even more remarkable, one can see his perspicacity in painting these men as they really were, not as being all the same size but with a certain subtlety which distinguishes the short and fat from the tall and thin; and they are also posed with their feet firmly on one level, and so well foreshortened in line that they look the same as they would in real life.

After this, Masaccio started work again on the Brancacci Chapel, continuing the scenes from the life of St Peter which Masolino had begun and finishing some of them, namely, St Peter enthroned, the healing of the sick, the raising of the dead, and the restoring of the cripples as St Peter's shadow falls on them while he walks to the Temple with St John. The most notable among them, however, is the painting in which St Peter, in order to pay the tribute, at Christ's command is taking the money from the belly of the fish; for as well as being able to see in one of the Apostles, the last in the group, a self-portrait which Masaccio executed so skilfully with the help of a mirror that it seems to breathe, we are shown the bold way in which St Peter is questioning Our Lord and the attentiveness of the Apostles as they stand in various attitudes around Christ, waiting for his decision with such animated gestures that they look truly alive. St Peter is especially remarkable, as he flushes with the effort he is making in bending to take the money out from the belly of the fish; and even more when he pays the tribute, where we can see his emotion as he counts the money and the greed of the man who is receiving it and is looking at it in his hand with great satisfaction.

He also painted there the raising of the praetor's son by St Peter and St Paul; but he died before this work was finished, and it was subsequently completed by Filippino [Lippi, the son of Fra Filippo]. In the scene showing St Peter baptizing there is a figure of a naked man, who is trembling and shivering with cold as he stands with the others who are being baptized. This is very highly regarded, being executed in very fine relief and in a very charming style; it has always been praised and admired by artists.

Because of Masaccio's work, the Brancacci Chapel has been visited from that time to this by an endless stream of students and masters. There are still some heads to be seen there which are so beautiful and lifelike that one can say outright that no other painter of that time approached the modern style of painting as closely as did Masaccio. His work deserves unstinted praise, especially because of the way he formed in his painting the beautiful style of our own day. How true this is is shown by the fact that all the most renowned sculptors and painters who have lived from that time to this have become wonderfully proficient and famous by studying and working in that chapel: namely, Fra Giovanni da Fiesole, Fra Filippo [Lippi], Filippino (who finished the chapel), Alesso Baldovinetti, Andrea del Castagno, Andrea del Verrocchio, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Sandro Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Pietro Perugino, Fra Bartolommeo di San Marco, Mariotto Albertinelli, and the inspired Michelangelo Buonarroti. In addition, Raphael of Urbino found in the chapel the first inspiration for his lovely style. Masaccio has also influenced Granaccio, Lorenzo di Credi, Ridolfo Ghirlandaio, Andrea del Sarto, Rosso, Franciabigio, Baccio Bandinelli, Alonso the Spaniard, Jacopo Pontormo, Pierino del Vaga, and Toto del Nunziata. In short, all those who have endeavoured to learn the art of painting have always gone for that purpose to the Brancacci Chapel to grasp the precepts and rules demonstrated by Masaccio for the correct representation of figures. And if I have failed to mention many other foreigners and Florentines who have gone there to study, let me just say that where great artists flock so do the lesser.

Although Masaccio's works have always had a high reputation, there are those who believe, or rather there are many who insist, that he would have produced even more impressive results if his life had not ended prematurely when he was twenty-six. However, because of the envy of fortune, or because good things rarely last for long, he was cut off in the flower of his youth, his death being so sudden that there were some who even suspected that he had been poisoned.

It is said that when he heard the news Filippo Brunelleschi, who had been at great pains to teach Masaccio many of the finer points of perspective and architecture, was plunged into grief and cried: `We have suffered a terrible loss in the death of Masaccio.'

Masaccio was buried in the Carmelite Church itself, in the year 1443. During his lifetime he had made only a modest name for himself, and so no memorial was raised. But there were some to honour him when he died with the following epitaphs:

by annibal caro
I painted, and my picture was like life;
I gave my figures movement, passion, soul:
They breathed. Thus, all others
Buonarroti taught; he learnt from me.

by fabio segni
Invida cur, Lachesis, primo sub flore juventae
Pollice discindis stamina funereo?
Hoc uno occiso, innumeros occidis Apelles:
Picturae omnis obit, hoc obeunte, lepos.
Hoc Sole extincto, extinguuntur sydera cuncta.
Heu! decus omne perit, hoc pereunte, simul.*

*O jealous Fate, why doth thy finger fell
Asunder pluck the threads of youth's first bloom?
Countless Apelles this one slaying slays;
In this one death there dies all painting's charm.
With this sun's quenching, all the stars are quench'd;
Beside this fall, alas! all beauty falls.

Source: Vasari, Giorgio. Lives of the Artists. Translated by Bull, George. Penguin Books.

Masaccio
In only a few years, from his start as a painter in 1422 until his death in about 1428 at the age of 26, the Italian master Masaccio was known as a great innovator. Along with the sculptor Donatello and the architect Filippo Brunelleschi, he split away from the prevailing, formalized Gothic conventions of the time. His groundbreaking use of mathematical perspective, as well as his use of light, shadow, and foreshortening, helped to give his works a naturalness and an illusion of weight and volume that were completely new. The following account of Masaccio’s life and work was written by 16th-century Italian artist and writer Giorgio Vasari as part of his Lives of the Artists (1550; revised 1568).

An enormous body of Italian Renaissance painting can be seen in the churches and secular buildings of Italy and in museum collections throughout the world.

A Renaissance for Michelangelo
Although Michelangelo was reluctant to undertake the commission, his paintings on the ceiling and upper walls of the Sistine Chapel remain masterpieces that have captured the attention of art lovers ever since their completion in 1512. Modern-day restorers began work in the 1980s and faced a number of challenges in trying to bring the paintings back to their original state.


Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Giotto

Saint Francis Fresco Cycle In this fresco, one of a series of frescoes executed by 14th-century Italian artist Giotto in the Church of Santa Croce in Florence, Italy, Francis of Assisi receives papal confirmation for the rule of his Franciscan order. Giotto’s concern with the realistic depiction of human figures in sculptural, rounded forms marked a decisive break with medieval pictorial conventions. His altarpieces and church frescoes heralded some of the most important innovations of Florentine Renaissance painting.Scala/Art Resource, NY

By contrast, some 100 years earlier than the Limbourg brothers, the Italian painter Giotto had given a monumental scale and dignity to the human figure, making it the bearer of the drama. His work had thereby revolutionized Italian painting; eventually, his discoveries and those of other artists affected painting in the north. Giotto's superb frescoes of the lives of Christ and the Virgin, painted from 1305 to 1306, are in the Arena Chapel in Padua (Padova). In addition, Giotto painted large wood-panel altarpieces, as did several other late medieval painters.

Giotto di Bondone
Italian painter Giotto is held in high regard as the artist who moved away from the traditional medieval technique of portraying the human figure as a stiff, flat, two-dimensional character. An artist far ahead of his time, Giotto began to protray humans as rounded, proportioned, and naturalistic. His work influenced the development of Renaissance art more than a century after his death in Florence in 1337.

From Lives of the Artists: Giotto
By creating more natural, three-dimensional representations of space and the human form, the Italian painter Giotto (1267?-1337) made a dramatic break from the flat, stylized renderings typical of... Gothic and Byzantine art. In this passage from Italian writer and artist Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the Artists (1550, revised 1568), Vasari discussed Giotto’s early career. Vasari provided a description of some of Giotto’s works, including his frescoes in the Church of Santa Croce in Florence, and what were believed to be Giotto’s frescoes in the Upper Church of the Basilica of San Francesco at Assisi. The authorship of the frescoes in Assisi continues to be debated by art historians.
open sidebar
By creating more natural, three-dimensional representations of space and the human form, the Italian painter Giotto (1267?-1337) made a dramatic break from the flat, stylized renderings typical of Gothic and Byzantine art. In this passage from Italian writer and artist Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the Artists (1550, revised 1568), Vasari discussed Giotto’s early career. Vasari provided a description of some of Giotto’s works, including his frescoes in the Church of Santa Croce in Florence, and what were believed to be Giotto’s frescoes in the Upper Church of the Basilica of San Francesco at Assisi. The authorship of the frescoes in Assisi continues to be debated by art historians.

From Lives of the Artists: Giotto

By Giorgio Vasari

In my opinion painters owe to Giotto, the Florentine painter, exactly the same debt they owe to nature, which constantly serves them as a model and whose finest and most beautiful aspects they are always striving to imitate and reproduce. For after the many years during which the methods and out-lines of good painting had been buried under the ruins caused by war it was Giotto alone who, by God's favour, rescued and restored the art, even though he was born among incompetent artists. It was, indeed, a great miracle that in so gross and incompetent an age Giotto could be inspired to such good purpose that by his work he completely restored the art of design, of which his contemporaries knew little or nothing. And yet this great man, who started life in the year 1276 in the village of Vespignano, fourteen miles out in the country from the city of Florence, was the son of a poor peasant farmer called Bondone, who gave him the name Giotto and then brought him up just like any other boy of his class.

By the time he reached the age of ten Giotto showed in all his boyish ways such unusually quick intelligence and liveliness that he delighted not only his father but all who knew him, whether they lived in the village or beyond. Bondone used to let him look after some sheep; and while the animals grazed here and there about the farm, the boy, drawn instinctively to the art of design, was always sketching what he saw in nature, or imagined in his own mind, on stones or on the ground or the sand. One day [the Italian painter] Cimabue was on his way from Florence to Vespignano, where he had some business to attend to, when he came across Giotto who, while the sheep were grazing near by, was drawing one of them by scratching with a slightly pointed stone on a smooth clean piece of rock. And this was before he had received any instruction except for what he saw in nature itself. Cimabue stopped in astonishment to watch him, and then he asked the boy whether he would like to come and live with him. Giotto answered that if his father agreed he would love to do so. So Cimabue approached Bondone, who was delighted to grant his request and allowed him to take the boy to Florence. After he had gone to live there, helped by his natural talent and instructed by Cimabue, in a very short space of time Giotto not only captured his master's own style but also began to draw so ably from life that he made a decisive break with the crude traditional Byzantine style and brought to life the great art of painting as we know it today, introducing the technique of drawing accurately from life, which had been neglected for more than two hundred years. Although, as I said before, one or two people had tried to do this, no one succeeded as completely and as immediately as Giotto. Among the things that he did at this time was, as we can see today, a painting in the chapel of the palace of the Podestà at Florence, showing his dear friend Dante Alighieri, who was no less famous as a poet than he was as a painter. (We find Giotto being highly praised by Giovanni Boccaccio in the introduction to his story about Forese da Rabatta and Giotto himself.) In the same chapel are portraits by Giotto of Dante's master, Brunetto Latini, and of Corso Donati, an eminent Florentine citizen of those days.

Giotto's first paintings were done for the chapel of the high altar of the abbey of Florence where he executed many works which were highly praised. Among them, especially admired was a picture of the Annunciation in which he convincingly depicted the fear and trembling of the Virgin Mary before the Archangel Gabriel; Our Lady is so fearful that it appears as if she is longing to run away.

The panel painting over the high altar of the same chapel is also by Giotto, but this work has been kept there more from respect for anything by so great an artist than for any other reason. Four of the chapels in Santa Croce were also painted by Giotto, three of them between the sacristy and the main chapel and one on the opposite side of the church. In the first of the three, that of Ridolfo di Bardi where the bell-ropes are, is the life of St Francis. In this painting Giotto painted with great effect the tears of a number of friars lamenting the death of the saint. In the second, the Peruzzi Chapel, are two scenes from the life of St John the Baptist, to whom the chapel is dedicated: in these, Giotto has depicted in very lively fashion the dancing and leaping of Herodias and the prompt service given by some servants at table. In the same place are two marvellous scenes from the life of St John the Evangelist, showing him restoring Drusiana to life and then being carried up into heaven. In the third chapel, belonging to the Giugni family, and dedicated to the Apostles, Giotto has painted scenes showing the martyrdom of many of those holy men. In the fourth chapel on the other side of the church towards the north, belonging to the Tosinghi and the Spinelli families and dedicated to the Assumption of Our Lady, Giotto painted the Birth of Our Lady, her Betrothal, the Annunciation, the Adoration of the Magi, and the Presentation of the Christ-child to Simeon in the Temple. This is a beautiful work, for apart from the skill with which he has depicted the emotions of the old man as he takes Christ from His mother, the attitude of the child Himself, who is frightened of Simeon and all timidly stretches out his arms and turns towards his mother, could not be more moving or beautiful. Then in the painting showing Our Lady's death Giotto depicted the Apostles and a number of angels with torches in their hands, very beautifully executed.

In the Baroncelli Chapel of the same church there is a painting in tempera by Giotto, in which he has very carefully depicted the Coronation of Our Lady with a great number of small figures and a choir of angels and saints, finished with great care. On this work are Giotto's name and the date, in gold letters; and any artist who considers when it was that Giotto, without any enlightenment from the good style of our own time, gave the first impulse to the correct way of drawing and colouring, is bound to hold him in the greatest respect.

In the same church of Santa Croce there is also, above the marble tomb of Carlo Marsuppini of Arezzo, a Crucifixion, with the Virgin, St John, and the Magdalen at the foot of the cross. On the other side of the church, directly opposite this, above the tomb of Leonardo of Arezzo near the high altar, is an Annunciation; and this has been retouched by later painters, with results that show little judgement on the part of whoever was responsible. In the refectory [dining hall] there is a Tree of the Cross, with scenes from the life of St Louis and a Last Supper, all by the hand of Giotto; and on the presses of the sacristy there are a number of scenes, with small figures, from the lives of Christ and of St Francis.

The chapel of St John the Baptist in the Carmelite Church was also decorated by Giotto with four paintings tracing the life history of St Francis: and in the Guelph Palace at Florence there is by his hand a history of the Christian Faith, perfectly executed in fresco, containing the portrait of Pope Clement IV who established the Guelph magistracy and conferred on it his own coat-of-arms which it has held uninterruptedly ever since. When all this work was finished, Giotto left Florence for Assisi in order to finish the works which had been started there by Cimabue. On his way he decorated the chapel of St Francis, which is above the baptistry in the parish church of Arezzo, as well as painting from life portraits of St Francis and St Dominic, on a round column which is near a very fine, antique Corinthian capital, and also, in a little chapel of the Duomo outside Arezzo, executing the beautifully composed picture of the Stoning of St Stephen.

After this Giotto went on to Assisi in Umbria, having been summoned there by Fra Giovanni di Murro della Marca, who at that time was minister general of the Franciscans; and at Assisi in the Upper Church of San Francesco, on the two sides of the church under the gallery that crosses the windows, he painted thirty-two histories from the life and works of St Francis. There are sixteen frescoes on each wall, and they were so perfect that they brought Giotto tremendous fame. There is, indeed, wonderful variety not only in the gestures and attitudes of all the figures shown in the cycle but also in the composition of every single scene; moreover, it is marvellous to see the way Giotto painted the various costumes worn at that time and his observation and imitation of nature. One of the most beautiful scenes is of a man showing signs of great thirst kneeling down to drink eagerly at a fountain; the incident is conveyed so exactly and movingly that one might be looking at a real person. There are many other things in the cycle which demand our attention. For the sake of brevity I shall not dwell on them; it is enough to record that this work won tremendous fame for its author because of the excellence of the figures, and because of the liveliness, the ease, order, and proportion of Giotto's painting, qualities which were given him by nature but which he greatly improved by study and expressed clearly in all he did. As well as being naturally talented, Giotto was extremely studious; he was always going for new ideas to nature itself, and so he could rightly claim to have had nature, rather than any human master, as his teacher.

After the fresco cycle was finished, Giotto did some more work in the same place, but in the Lower Church, painting the upper part of the walls beside the high altar and all four angles of the vault, above where St Francis is buried, with scenes of great beauty, imagination, and inventiveness. In the first he depicted St Francis glorified in heaven, surrounded by the virtues necessary if one wants to be in a state of perfect grace before God. On one side there is Obedience, putting a yoke on the neck of a friar who kneels in front of her; the reins of the yoke are being drawn up towards heaven, and Obedience, a finger at her lips, is cautioning silence and turns her eyes towards the figure of Jesus Christ, whose side is flowing with blood. Standing among the various virtues are the figures of Prudence and Humility, intended to show that where there is true obedience there is always humility and always the prudence to make every action wise. Chastity is depicted on the second angle of the vault, standing secure in a strong castle and unmoved by the offers being made to her of kingdoms and crowns and palms of glory. At her feet is the figure of Purity, washing the naked and attended by Fortitude who is bringing people to be washed and purified. To the side of Chastity is the figure of Penitence, chasing away Cupid with the cord of discipline and putting Impurity to flight. On the third angle is Poverty, who goes in her bare feet trampling on thorns; there is a dog behind her, barking, and near at hand one naked boy throwing stones and another pressing thorns into her legs with a stick. We see this same figure of Poverty being wed by St Francis, with her hand held by Jesus Christ, in the mystical presence of Hope and Charity. In the fourth and last of the angles of the vault is St Francis, again in glory, clothed in the white tunic of a deacon; he stands triumphant in heaven in the middle of a great choir of angels, who bear a standard showing a cross and seven stars, and over above is the Holy Ghost. On each of these paintings are written some words in Latin, which explain their significance.

As well as the paintings on the vault, there are on the walls of the transepts some beautiful pictures which truly deserve to be held in great esteem, not only because they are perfect works of art but also because they were executed with such tremendous care that they are still as fresh today as when they were done. Among them is an excellent portrait of Giotto himself. And above the door of the sacristy there is another painting by Giotto, again in fresco, showing St Francis receiving the stigmata and displaying such devout emotion that it seems to me the finest Giotto did in that group, although all the paintings are really beautiful and praiseworthy.

When he had finally finished his work with the painting of St Francis, Giotto returned to Florence where, after his arrival, he did a panel picture to be sent to Pisa, showing St Francis standing on the fearful rock of La Vernia. He took extraordinary pains over this work, for as well as depicting a landscape full of trees and rocks, which was an innovation for that time, he showed in the attitude of St Francis, who is eagerly kneeling down to receive the stigmata, a burning desire to be granted it and a tremendous love for Jesus Christ, who is seen above surrounded by seraphim and who concedes it to him, showing such expressive tenderness that it is impossible to imagine anything better. On the predella of the same painting are three other scenes from the life of St Francis, all beautifully executed.

This painting, which can be seen today on a pillar at the side of the high altar in San Francesco at Pisa, where it is kept as a memorial of so great a man, was the reason why the Pisans, who had just finished the fabric of the Campo Santo according to the designs of Giovanni, the son of Nicolò Pisano … commissioned Giotto to paint some of the interior. They wanted the inside walls to be decorated with the most noble paintings, since the outside had been encrusted at very great expense with marbles and intaglios, the roof covered with lead, and the interior contained very many antique monuments and tombs from the times of the pagans which had been brought to Pisa from all parts of the world. So having gone to Pisa for this purpose, Giotto made a start on one of the walls of the Campo Santo with six great frescoes showing scenes from the life of the patient prophet Job. Now, very judiciously, Giotto took note of the fact that the marble in the part of the building where he had to work was turned towards the sea and therefore, being exposed to the sirocco, was always damp and tended to exude salt, just as do nearly all the walls in Pisa, with the result that colours and paintings are eaten into and fade away. So to preserve his work as long as possible, wherever he intended to paint in fresco he first laid on an undercoat, or what we would call an intonaco or plaster, made of chalk, gypsum, and powdered brick. This technique was so successful that the paintings he did have survived to the present day. They would be in even better condition, as a matter of fact, if they had not been considerably damaged by damp because of the neglect of those who were in charge of them. No precautions were taken (although it would have been a simple matter to have done so) and as a result the paintings which survived the damp were ruined in several places, the flesh tints having darkened and the plaster flaked off. In any case when gypsum is mixed with chalk it always deteriorates and decays, so although when it is used it appears to make an excellent and secure binding, the colours are invariably spoilt.

.Source: Vasari, Giorgio. Lives of the Artists. Translated by Bull, George. Penguin Books.

Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved

International Gothic Style

Saint George and the Princess of Trebizond Saint George and the Princess of Trebizond (about 1435, Pellegrini Chapel, Santa Anastasia, Verona, Italy) is a fresco by Italian painter Pisanello, who is considered a master of the International Gothic style. This style can be observed in the elegantly fluid lines of the work and its decorative tapestrylike quality. Despite this stylization, Pisanello studied the forms of animals and people from life so that his work never appears formulaic.Scala/Art Resource, NY

International Gothic Style, in the visual arts, a similarity of style in painting, manuscript illumination, sculpture, decorative arts manifested in different parts of Europe during the late 14th and into the 15th century. This style is noted for extreme linearity, giving the effect of elegance and refinement, and attention to decorative detail. Many of the works in the International Gothic style are devoted to secular themes. Because artists of the time often journeyed from one art center to another, it is difficult to date these works or to give their place of origin. For example, a French architect, Matthias of Arras, began building the Cathedral of Saint Vitus in Prague in 1344, and, upon his death in 1353, was succeeded by German architect Peter Parler. The renowned French manuscript, the Très riches heures du Duc de Berry (1413-1416, Musée Condé, Chantilly), was illuminated by the Limbourg brothers, natives of Flanders.

A merging of the artistic traditions of northern Europe and Italy took place at the beginning of the 15th century and is known as the International Gothic style. Among the many characteristics that define painting in this style is an attention to realistic detail that shows the artist's acute observation of human beings and of nature. In the early 1400s the Limbourg brothers moved from Flanders to France and created a magnificent Book of Hours, the famous Très riches heures du Duc de Berry (1413-1416, Musée Condé, Chantilly, France). One of the greatest works in the International Gothic style, this manuscript was done for their patron, Jean de France, Duc de Berry. Its remarkable calendar pages portray peasant life as well as that of the nobility, providing a brilliant record of the clothing, activities, and architecture of the times. Although these are full-page illustrations, they reflect an older medieval style, in that the figures are small and must vie for attention with other imagery.

Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry
This page from Les très riches heures du duc de Berry (The Book of Hours of the Duke of Berry) was produced by a family of Flemish illuminators, the Limbourg Brothers, around 1413. Each month of the year is represented in the book, showing activities associated with that season. The page shown here depicts the month of April, with members of the nobility enjoying themselves outdoors. It is in the Musée Condé, in Chantilly, France.Encarta EncyclopediaGiraudon/Art Resource, NY

Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia. All rights reserved.

Gothic Painting

Rose Window, Notre Dame The north rose window of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris (1240-1250) was built by Jean de Chelles. It is designed in the Rayonnant Gothic style, named for the radiating spokes in this type of window. The center circle depicts the Virgin and Child, surrounded by figures of prophets. The second circle shows 32 Old Testament kings, and the outer circle depicts 32 high priests and patriarchs.Bridgeman Art Library, London/New York

Christ Entering Jerusalem Pietro Lorenzetti and his brother, Ambrogio, were leading figures in the 14th-century Italian Sienese school of painting. This early 14th-century fresco from the lower Church of San Francesco in Assisi, Italy shows Christ entering the city of Jerusalem.Scala/Art Resource, NY


During the early Gothic period, as cathedral structure gave more emphasis to windows, stained glass occupied a more prominent role in the arts than did manuscript illumination. Lay artists now established workshops in Paris and other major centers,... producing elaborately illuminated manuscripts for royal patrons. Paintings of secular subjects also survive from this period, notably in Italy. Ambrogio Lorenzetti painted frescoes from 1338 to 1339 in the Palazzo Pubblico (Town Hall) in Siena, portraying 14th-century city and country life, and in the hall's Council Chamber, Simone Martini painted an equestrian portrait in 1328 of a local military hero, depicting his encampment against a landscape background. See Gothic Art.



Stained Glass, windows composed of small panels of dyed and painted glass, held in strips of cast lead and mounted in a metal framework. The art achieved its zenith in Gothic building, most notably in France from about 1130 to 1330.

MATERIALS AND TECHNIQUES

Two types of glass were used in Gothic stained glass—pot glass and flashed glass. Pot glass was of uniform color, which was achieved by adding oxides of iron (red), copper (green), or cobalt (blue) to the raw materials of glass, a transparent mixture of potash (later soda) and limestone. Flashed glass was made to prevent opaqueness by fusing a layer of deep color to a thicker layer of clear glass while both were still hot. In painting and mosaics, light is reflected off the surface, whereas light is transmitted through translucent stained glass; for this reason, the art of making stained glass is known as painting with light.

The artist began by sketching the window's design. This was enlarged to the actual size of the window on the cartoon, which was drawn with lead or tin point on a wooden board or table that was coated with chalk or white paint; late Gothic and Renaissance cartoons were made on parchment, cloth, paper, or cardboard. The lines representing the lead supports were drawn in black. Next, colored glass sheets were laid on a table and cut with an iron tool heated to incandescence. Lines of clothing, facial features, and small designs were drawn on the individual pieces with a black or dark brown enamel-like paint made of powdered glass, metallic salts such as iron and copper oxides, other minerals, and liquid. These lines were usually drawn on the inner side of the glass and were fused to the stained glass by firing it at a low temperature. The malleable double lead strips, shaped like an H in cross section in order to grasp the edges of the glass on both sides, were then cut and shaped. Units of lead and glass were fixed to the window's larger iron frame, or armature—an integral part of the design in early windows.

Gothic Art and Architecture, religious and secular buildings, sculpture, stained glass, and illuminated manuscripts and other decorative arts produced in Europe during the latter part of the Middle Ages (5th century to 15th century). Gothic art began to be produced in France about 1140, spreading to the rest of Europe during the following century. The Gothic Age ended with the advent of the Renaissance in Italy about the beginning of the 15th century, although Gothic art and architecture continued in the rest of Europe through most of the 15th century, and in some regions of northern Europe into the 16th century. Originally the word Gothic was used by Italian Renaissance writers as a derogatory term for all art and architecture of the Middle Ages, which they regarded as comparable to the works of barbarian Goths. Since then the term Gothic has been restricted to the last major medieval period, immediately following the Romanesque. The Gothic Age is now considered one of Europe’s outstanding artistic eras.


Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Medieval Painting

Lindisfarne Gospels Illuminated manuscripts were showcases for the most skillful painting of medieval times. The Lindisfarne Gospels (about 698-721) are illuminated books produced by monks in Northumberland, England. This page shows the first initial to the Gospel According to Saint Matthew. The interlacing patterns decorated with fantastic creatures were taken from Viking art and became Irish and Anglo-Saxon motifs.Bridgeman Art Library, London/New York

The art of the Middle Ages—that produced outside the Byzantine Empire and within what had been the northern boundaries of the Roman world—can be categorized according to its distinctive stylistic traits. Anglo-Irish art, which flourished from the 7th to the 9th century in monasteries in various parts of the British Isles, was largely an art of intricate calligraphic designs (see Celts: Art; Irish Art; Calligraphy). Highly decorative illuminated manuscripts were produced, such as the Lindisfarne Gospels (698?-721, British Museum, London), which display flat, elaborate linear patterns combining Celtic and Germanic elements. In the Romanesque period, during the 11th and 12th centuries, no single style appeared in the manuscripts of northern Europe; some illuminations were of classical inspiration, while others show a new, highly charged, energetic drawing style (see Romanesque Art and Architecture). In the Gothic period that followed, from the later part of the 12th century to the beginning of the Italian Renaissance, a larger repertoire of media was introduced, and painting ceased to be entirely the product of the monasteries
Calligraphy, the art of fine writing or script. The term calligraphy is derived from the Greek kalligraphia, meaning “beautiful writing,” and is applied to individual letters as well as to entire documents; it also refers to an aesthetic branch of paleography. In Islamic countries and in India, China, and Japan, calligraphy is done with a brush and has been a highly respected art form for many centuries. In the West, calligraphy eventually evolved from the earliest cave paintings, such as those (35,000-20,000 bc) at Lascaux, France, into the abstractions that became the familiar letterforms of the alphabet.

Japanese Calligraphy This hanging scroll is an example of Japanese calligraphy. Although calligraphy is generally considered a form of lettering, it is also... a drawing style. The lettering and figure of a sage are done in ink, using a brush. The rectangular forms are made with stamps, using red ink.

Objects of Celtic Life Celtic objects found in archaeological digs indicate the Celts inhabited what is now France and western Germany in the late Bronze Age, around 1200 bc. The bronze helmet (top center) probably belonged to a high-ranking Celtic warrior. Its hollow horns were made of riveted sheets of bronze, and the helmet was probably more for display than battle. The shiny sheath (third from left) also was made from sheets of bronze riveted together and had a birch-bark lining.Dorling Kindersley

Gundestrup Cauldron The Gundestrup Cauldron is a relic of the Celtic world. Dating from about 100 bc, the silver vessel shows scenes from Celtic myth and religion whose meanings today are unclear. It is in the National Museum in Copenhagen, Denmark.Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY

Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia. All rights reserved.

History of Sculpture

HISTORY

This article traces the history of Western sculpture from prehistoric times to the present day; for non-Western sculpture, see African Art; Chinese Art; Indian Art; Iranian Art; Islamic Art; Japanese Art; Korean Art; Oceanian Art; Pre-Columbian.

A. Prehistoric Sculpture

Venus of Willendorf This so-called Venus figurine from the area of Willendorf, Austria, is one of the earliest known examples of sculpture, dating from between 30,000 and 25,000 bc. The figure, which is carved out of limestone, is only 11.25 cm (4.5 in) high, and was probably designed to be held in the hand. It is believed the Venus may be a fertility symbol, which would explain the exaggerated female anatomy.

The earliest sculptured objects, cut from ivory, horn, bone, or stone, are 27,000 to 32,000 years old. A small ivory horse with graceful, curving lines is among the oldest of these objects; it was found in a cave in Germany. Also found on cave floors are little stone female figurines carved with emphasis on the reproductive organs, the breasts, and the buttocks. These figures are thought to represent fertility goddesses and therefore are given the name Venus. One such figure, the Venus figurine from the area of Willendorf, Austria (30,000?-25,000? bc, Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria), with bulbous proportions although a mere 11.5 cm (4.5 in) high, was painted red to resemble blood, thereby signifying life. In Jericho, human skulls covered with plaster were naturalistically rendered some 9000 years ago.

B. Egyptian Sculpture

Akhenaton and Nefertiti This painted limestone statuette depicts King Akhenaton and Queen Nefertiti, rulers of Egypt during the Amarna period. During this period, the Egyptians worshiped one god, Aton,... who embodied both the male and female principles of the universe. Artists therefore portrayed Akhenaton, who was the representative of Aton on earth, with characteristics they regarded as feminine, such as narrow shoulders, a high waist, and pronounced belly, buttocks, and thighs.Bridgeman Art Library, London/New York

Among the oldest Egyptian sculptures is a piece of slate carved in low relief, known as the Palette of King Narmer (3100? bc), Egyptian Museum, Cairo). It portrays the victory of Upper over Lower Egypt, depicting the kings, armies, servants, and various animals. The kings (pharaohs) were also commemorated in magnificent life-size statues, set in funerary temples and tombs (see Egyptian Art and Architecture). Not true portraits, these sculptures are idealized representations, immobile of features and always frontal in pose. Strong geometric emphasis was given to the body, with the shoulders and chest plane resembling an inverted triangle, as in a carved diorite sculpture (2500? bc, Egyptian Museum) of the pharaoh Khafre. During the reign of Akhenaton, greater naturalism of representation was attained, as seen in the exquisite painted limestone portrait bust (1350? bc, Staatliche Museen, Berlin) of his queen Nefertiti.

C. Mesopotamian Sculpture

Art of Sculpture Revitalized

Mesopotamian art includes several civilizations: Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, and Assyrian (see Mesopotamian Art and Architecture). About 2600 bc the Sumerians carved small marble deities noted for their wide, staring eyes. Other details—hair, facial expression, body, clothing—were schematically treated with little interest in achieving a likeness. These qualities remained characteristic of later Mesopotamian sculpture. The Mesopotamians were also fond of portraying animals and did so with great skill, as can be seen on palace gates and reliefs on walls during the Assyrian period (1000-612 bc, examples in British Museum, London, and Metropolitan Museum, New York City).

D. Aegean and Greek Sculpture

Nike of Samothrace Nike of Samothrace (also known as Winged Victory), created about 200 bc, is one of the most famous Greek sculptures from the Hellenistic period. The marble statue, which stands about 2.4 m (about 8 ft) high, was originally part of a much larger monument that featured a large sculpture of a warship with the goddess of victory on the prow. The monument also included a two-tiered fountain. Formerly located on the island of Samothráki (Samothrace), the sculpture is now part of the collection of the Louvre Museum, Paris, France.Giraudon/Bridgeman Art Library, London/New York

Aegean art includes Minoan sculpture, such as terra-cotta and ivory statuettes of goddesses, and Mycenaean works, consisting of small carved ivory deities. The Greeks, masters of stone carving and bronze casting, created some of the greatest sculpture known. Working on a monumental scale, they brought depiction of the human form to perfection between the 7th and 1st centuries bc. In the earliest period, the Archaic, figures appeared rigid and bodies were schematized along geometric lines, as in Egyptian art. By the Classical period, in the 5th and 4th centuries bc, however, naturalism was attained; figures were well proportioned and shown in movement, although faces remained immobile. Gods and athletes were favorite subjects during this period; the most famous sculptors were Phidias, Polyclitus, Praxiteles, and Lysippus. Highly esteemed is the architectural sculpture made for the Parthenon on the Acropolis in Athens, such as Three Goddesses (British Museum), whose rhythmically swirling drapery clings to their reclining bodies. During the Hellenistic period (4th-1st century bc), works became increasingly expressive, as reflected in the facial features and complicated body positions. The Nike of Samothráki, or Winged Victory (190? bc, Louvre, Paris), is a highly dramatic masterpiece from this time. See Aegean Civilization; Greek Art and Architecture.

E. Etruscan and Roman Sculpture

She-Wolf of the Capitol Although She-Wolf of the Capitol (circa 500 bc) is actually an Etruscan sculpture, it is associated with Roman art. The bronze statue, which stands 85 cm (33 in) high, is the symbol of the city of Rome. The mythological Romulus and Remus were supposed to have been kept alive by a wolf in order to fulfill their destiny as founders of the city. The figures of the infants were created during the Renaissance, but the wolf is Etruscan.Capitoline Museums, Rome/Canali PhotoBank, Milan/SuperStock

The Etruscans, who inhabited the area of Italy between Florence and Rome from the 8th to the 3rd century bc, made life-size terra-cotta sculptures portraying the gods; they also depicted themselves, in reclining positions, on the lids of terra-cotta sarcophagi (coffins). Superb bronze sculptures were also created, such as the She-Wolf (500? bc, Museo Capitolino, Rome), which became the symbol of Rome.

Greek Artists Represent the Human Figure

The Romans were avid collectors and imitators of Greek sculpture, and modern historians are indebted to their copies for knowledge of lost Greek originals. Their distinctive contribution to the art of sculpture was realistic portraiture, in which they recorded even the homeliest facial details. The Romans' sense of the importance of historic events is evident in many sculptured commemorative monuments in Rome, such as the Arch of Titus (ad 81?), Trajan's Column (106?-113 AD), and the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius (175?); the last- named became the prototype for most later equestrian sculptures.

Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia

Sculpture

Sculpture (Latin sculpere,”to carve”), three-dimensional art concerned with the organization of masses and volumes. The two principal types have traditionally been freestanding sculpture in the round and relief sculpture.

• MATERIALS AND TECHNIQUES

Sculpture Materials and Techniques Artists can create three-dimensional forms using a wide variety of materials and techniques. Some of the most commonly used materials are clay, wood, stone, plaster, and metal. Techniques include carving, chiseling, welding, and casting.

Stone Carving An artist begins a sculpture with a mass of material, which is systematically broken down using special tools. In order to break off corners and angles, a sculptor hammers the stone with a pitcher—a heavy, pointed chisel with rough edges. The form is then refined with more subtle tools, such as claw chisels and flat chisels, which are used for sharper details.Mike Yamashita/Woodfin Camp and Associates, Inc.

Modeling in Clay This artist is creating a sculpture out of clay. She is using a wooden tool specifically designed for clay sculpting. Working in clay can be done using tools or the artist’s hands. It is one of the oldest methods of sculpting.Bridgeman Art Library, London/New York


Welded Metal This artist is creating a sculpture out of metal. He is welding pieces together to create the form, using a technique known as “direct metal.” Although metal sculpture is almost the oldest form of sculpture in the world (after stone), welding is a 20th-century technique.Bridgeman Art Library, London/New York



Sculpture can be made from almost any organic or inorganic substance. The processes specific to making sculpture date from antiquity and,... up to the 20th century, underwent only minor variations. These processes can be classified according to materials—stone, metal, clay, and wood; the methods used are carving, modeling, and casting. In the 20th century the field of sculpture has been enormously broadened and enriched by new techniques, such as welding and assemblage, and by new materials resulting from technology, such as neon tubing.


Celebrating Lady Liberty
Designed by sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi and presented to the United States by the citizens of France, the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor was dedicated on October 28, 1886. Since then she has served as a national monument and a powerful symbol of freedom for millions of immigrants seeking new opportunities on American shores. In this Collier’s Year Book article, editor and author Geoffrey M. Horn reflected on the statue’s history and its enduring appeal on the occasion of its 100th anniversary.

• Carving

Michelangelo's David One of Michelangelo’s best known creations is the sculpture David (1501-1504). The 5.17-m (17-ft) tall marble statue shows an alert David waiting for his enemy Goliath. It originally stood in front of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, Italy, but was later moved to the Galleria dell’Accademia.Bridgeman Art Library, London/New York

A procedure dating from prehistoric times, carving is a time-consuming and painstaking process in which the artist subtracts, or cuts away, superfluous material until the desired form is reached. The material is usually hard and frequently weighty; generally, the design is compact and is governed by the nature of the material. For example, the narrow dimensions of the marble block used by Michelangelo to carve his David (1501-1504, Accademia, Florence, Italy) strongly affected the pose and restricted the figure's outward movement into space.

Various tools are used, depending on the material to be carved and the state to which the work has progressed. In the case of stone, the rough first cutting to achieve the general shape may be performed by an artisan assistant using sharp tools; then the sculptor continues the work of cutting and chiseling. As work progresses, less penetrating tools are used, such as a bow drill and a rasp; finishing touches are carried out with fine rasps; then by rubbing with pumice or sand, and—if a great degree of smoothness is desired—by adding a transparent patina, made with an oil or wax base.

• Modeling

Modeling consists of addition to, or building up of, form. The materials used are soft and yielding and can be easily shaped, enabling rapid execution. Thus, a sculptor can capture and record fleeting impressions much the way a painter does in a quick sketch. Clay or claylike substances, baked to achieve increased durability, have been used for modeling since ancient times.

• Casting

Molds and Casts The four seals, top row, were used as negative molds to cast the positive reproductions, bottom row. Similarly, in sculpture, artists shape a model from clay or some other malleable substance, form a negative mold of this model, and pour a liquefied casting substance such as bronze into the hollow mold. Once the casting substance has hardened, the final work is ready.Scala/Art Resource, NY

The only means of obtaining permanence for a modeled work is to cast it in bronze or some other durable substance. Two methods of casting are used: the cire perdue, or lost-wax process, and sand-casting. Both methods have been used since antiquity, although the lost-wax process is more widely employed. Casting is accomplished in two stages: First, an impression or negative mold is formed from the original—a clay model, for instance—and second, a positive cast or reproduction is made of the original work from the negative impression. The term negative refers to the hollow form or mold into which the liquefied casting material is poured. The term positive means the copy or reproduction resulting from filling the negative mold with the substances selected for the specific cast, which are then allowed to harden. Plaster is frequently used for the negative mold, and bronze for the positive or final work.

• Construction and Assemblage

Early Egyptian Metal Statue

Although traditional techniques are still employed, much 20th-century sculpture is created by construction and assemblage (see Constructivist Sculpture below). These methods have their origin in collage, a painting technique devised by Pablo Picasso and the French artist Georges Braque in 1912, in which paper and foreign materials are pasted to a picture surface. Picasso also made three-dimensional objects such as musical instruments out of paper and scraps of diverse materials, which were termed constructions. Examples of modern constructivist sculpture range from the surrealistic boxes of Joseph Cornell to the junk-car and machine-part works of John Chamberlain, both Americans. The term assemblage, which is now sometimes used interchangeably with construction, was coined by the French painter Jean Dubuffet to refer to his own work, which grew out of collage.

Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia

Art

I INTRODUCTION

Art, a disciplined activity that may be limited to skill or expanded to include a distinctive way of looking at the world. The word art is derived from the Latin ars, meaning “skill.” Art is skill at performing a set of specialized actions, as, for example, the art of gardening or of playing chess.

Art in its broader meaning, however, involves both skill and creative imagination in a musical, literary, visual, or performance context. Art provides the person or people who produce it and the community that observes it with an experience that might be aesthetic, emotional, intellectual, or a combination of these qualities.

II FINE ARTS AND DECORATIVE ARTS

Traditionally, in most societies, art has combined practical and aesthetic functions. In the 18th century in the West, however,... a more sophisticated public began to distinguish between art that was purely aesthetic and art that was also practical. The fine arts (French beaux arts)—including literature, music, dance, painting, sculpture, and architecture—are concerned primarily with aesthetics. The decorative or applied arts, such as pottery, metalwork, furniture, tapestry, and enamel, are often useful arts and for a time were demoted to the rank of crafts. Because the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris taught only the major visual arts, the term art was sometimes narrowed to mean only drawing, painting, architecture, and sculpture. Since the mid-20th century, however, greater appreciation of non-Western and folk traditions and of individual work in a mechanized society has tended to blur the old distinction. Both categories are becoming valued as art.

III ART AND SCIENCE
Both art and science require technical skill. Both artist and scientist try to create order out of the seemingly random and diverse experiences of the world. Both try to understand and appreciate the world and to convey their experience to others. However, an essential difference exists: The scientist studies quantitative sense perceptions in order to discover laws or concepts that are universally true. The artist selects qualitative perceptions and arranges them to express personal and cultural understanding. Whereas further investigation may cause a scientific law to be invalidated, a work of art—despite changes in the artist's view or the public taste—has permanent validity as an aesthetic statement at a particular time and place.

IV THE ARTIST IN THE WORLD

Although artists may be unique geniuses impelled by their own creative energies, they are also very much products of their societies. A society must provide sufficient wealth and leisure to enable the public or an institution to pay a professional artist, as did Sumerian priests and Renaissance princes. An amateur artist must have free time, as, for example, a farmer who carves or embroiders in winter, or an office worker who paints on Sunday. Even the choice to be an artist may be culturally influenced. In many traditional societies, artists, like other people, customarily followed their father's profession, as did certain Japanese families of actors and painters and the musical dynasties of 18th-century Europe.

The physical resources of a society affect the medium in which an artist works. In stoneless Mesopotamia, Sumerian architects built in brick. Nomadic Asian herders wove wool from their flocks into rugs. Medieval European painters worked on wood panels, plaster walls, stained-glass windows, and parchment books in an era before paper was known in the West. Mass production and world trade have given 20th-century artists an enormous range of materials.

An artist's medium affects the style of the work. Thus, a sculptor must treat stone differently from wood; a musician achieves different effects with drums than with violins; a writer must meet certain demands of poetry that might be irrelevant to the novel. Local tradition also affects art styles. Pottery design in one area and period may be geometric and in another, naturalistic. Indian tradition prescribed closely curled hair in depictions of the Buddha, just as Western tradition decreed blond hair for depictions of Jesus Christ. Eastern artists paid no heed to scientific perspective, which has been a major concern of Western painters since the European Renaissance.

In addition, the subject of art is largely dictated by the society that supports it. Ancient Egyptian art and architecture, dominated by state and religion, glorified the pharaoh and life after death. In pious medieval Europe, most visual arts and theater had Christian themes. In 20th-century totalitarian countries, officially accepted art must serve the state. Since the 19th century, in most Western countries, artists have had greater freedom to choose the subjects they please. Sometimes, as in conceptual art and absolute music, the form of the work becomes its subject.

The status of artists in the West has changed over the centuries. In classical and medieval times, poets and other writers who used mental skills were usually ranked above actors, dancers, musicians, painters, and sculptors who used physical skills. From the Renaissance on, as all aspects of the human personality came to be valued, those skilled in the visual and performing arts gradually gained greater recognition and social prestige. Today art in all its categories is considered an essential part of human achievement, and some of its many, varied creators are ranked among the most celebrated citizens of the world.

For art theory see Aesthetics; Criticism, Literary. For art technique and history see Architecture; Clothing; Dance; Drama and Dramatic Arts; Music; Music, Western; Novel; Painting; Poetry; Pottery; Sculpture. See also articles on individual artists, dancers, musicians, and writers.

Microsoft ® Encarta ® Encyclopedia

Early Christian and Byzantine Painting

Galla Placidia Interior The richly decorated interior of the 5th-century Galla Placidia mausoleum in Ravenna, Italy, contrasts with the plain brick exterior. This contrast is typical of Early Christian architecture. The mosaic from the entrance wall features Jesus Christ as the good shepherd.Scala/Art Resource, NY

Surviving Early Christian painting dates from the 3rd and 4th centuries and consists...
of fresco paintings in the Roman catacombs and mosaics on the walls of churches. Certain stylizations and artistic conventions are characteristic of these representations of New Testament events. For example, Christ was shown as the Good Shepherd, a figural type adopted from representations of the Greek god Hermes; the resurrection was symbolized by depictions of the Old Testament story of Jonah, who was delivered from the fish. Among the most extraordinary works of this Early Christian period are the mosaics found in the 6th-century churches in Ravenna, Italy. San Vitale, in particular, is noted for its beautiful mosaics depicting both spiritual and secular subjects. On the church's walls, stylized elongated figures, mostly shown frontally, stare wide-eyed at the viewer and seem to float weightlessly, outside of time.

This otherworldly presentation became characteristic of Byzantine art, and the style came to be associated with the imperial Christian court of Constantinople (present-day Istanbul), which survived from ad330 until 1453. The Byzantine style is also seen on icons, conventionalized paintings on wooden panels of Christ, the Virgin, or the saints, made for veneration. Illuminated manuscripts both of non-Christian texts—for example, the Vatican Virgil (4th or early 5th century, Biblioteca Vaticana, Rome)—and Christian writings such as the Paris Psalter (10th century, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris) show remnants of Greco-Roman art style

Iconography, in art history, the study of subject matter in art. The meaning of works of art is often conveyed by the specific objects or figures that the artist chooses to portray; the purpose of iconography is to identify, classify, and explain these objects. Iconography is particularly important in the study of religious and allegorical painting, where many of the objects that are pictured—crosses, skulls, books, or candles, for example—have special significance, which is often obscure or symbolic.

The use of iconographic symbols in art began as early as 3000 bc, when the Neolithic civilizations of the Middle East used nonhuman or animal figures to represent their gods. Thus, the Egyptian mother goddess Hathor was associated with the cow and usually appeared in relief sculpture and wall paintings as a cow-headed woman. The sun god Ra had a hawk's head, and the creator Ptah appeared as a bull.

In ancient Greece and Rome, each of the gods was associated with specific objects. Zeus (Jupiter), the father of the gods, was often accompanied by an eagle or a thunderbolt; Apollo, the god of art, by a lyre; Artemis (Diana), the hunter, by a bow and quiver. In addition, the Romans perfected the use of secular allegorical symbols. For example, a woman surrounded by bunches of grapes and sheaves of wheat would be readily understood as a representation of the bounties of the earth.

Early Christian art during the period of Roman persecution was highly circumspect, and innocuous objects—the fish and the dove—were used to symbolize Christ and the Holy Spirit. Later Christian art, however, became replete with iconographic symbols. In particular, many of the saints became associated with specific objects—Saint Peter with two keys, for instance, or Saint Catherine with a broken wheel.

During the Renaissance and through the 18th century, allegorical paintings were especially popular, as artists constructed elaborate symbolic schemes to illustrate such themes as the vanity of human existence. Objects such as jewels, coins, and musical instruments personified the vain pleasures of life, while skulls, hourglasses, and extinguished candles were memento mori, or reminders of death.

In the modern period, much art has become so highly individualistic that the use of widely understood iconographic objects has disappeared. Some exceptions are Cubism, Dada, and pop art, the images of which are everyday objects—newspapers, soup cans, photographs, comic-book figures—that have become genuine iconographic symbols reflecting modern culture.

Byzantine Art

The art of the Byzantine, or Eastern Roman, Empire. It originated chiefly in Constantinople (present-day Istanbul), the ancient Greek town of Byzantium, which the Roman emperor Constantine the Great chose in ad330 as his new capital and named for himself. The Byzantine Empire continued for almost 1000 years after the collapse of the Western Empire in 476. Byzantine art eventually spread throughout most of the Mediterranean world and eastward to Armenia. Although the conquering Ottomans in the 15th century destroyed much in Constantinople itself, sufficient material survives elsewhere to permit an appreciative understanding of Byzantine art.


Byzantium the Glorious
The New York Metropolitan Museum of Art hosted an exhibition in 1997 that spanned four centuries of Byzantine art and culture. Curators gathered a wide variety of items for the exhibition, including ceramics, paintings, textiles, and sacred objects such as religious scrolls, icons, and frescoes, from more than 20 countries. The exhibit focused not simply on artifacts from the ancient city of Byzantium, but on the entire eastern portion of the Roman Empire. This article from Collier’s 1998 Year Book chronicles the rise and fall of the Byzantine period and describes the “painstaking craftsmanship and lavish materials of its art.”
open sidebar

Byzantine art arose in part as a response to the needs of the Eastern, or Orthodox, church. Unlike the Western church, in which the popular veneration of the relics of the saints continued unabated from early Christian times throughout the later Middle Ages, the Eastern church preferred a more contemplative form of popular worship focused on the veneration of icons (see Icon). These were portraits of sacred personages, often rendered in a strictly frontal view and in a highly conceptual and stylized manner. Although any type of pictorial representation—a wall painting or a mosaic, for instance—could serve as an icon, it generally took the form of a small painted panel.


Something of the abstract quality of the icons entered into much of Byzantine art. The artistic antecedents of the iconic mode can be traced back to Mesopotamia and the hinterlands of Syria and Egypt, where, since the 3rd century ad, the rigid and hieratic (strictly ritualized) art of the ancient Orient was revived in the Jewish and pagan murals of the remote Roman outpost of Dura Europos on the Euphrates and in the Christian frescoes of the early monasteries in Upper Egypt. In the two major cities of these regions, Antioch and Alexandria, however, the more naturalistic (Hellenistic) phase of Greek art also survived right through the reign of Constantine. In Italy, Roman painting, as practiced at Pompeii and in Rome itself, was also imbued with the Hellenistic spirit.

Byzantine Empire

The Hellenistic heritage was never entirely lost to Byzantine art but continued to be a source of inspiration and renewal. In this process, however, the classical idiom was drastically modified in order to express the transcendental character of the Orthodox faith. Early Christian art of the 3rd and 4th centuries had simply taken over the style and forms of classical paganism. The most typical form of classical art was the freestanding statue, which emphasized a tangible physical presence. With the triumph of Christianity, artists sought to evoke the spiritual character of sacred figures rather than their bodily substance. Painters and mosaicists often avoided any modeling of the figures whatsoever in order to eliminate any suggestion of a tangible human form, and the production of statuary was almost completely abandoned after the 5th century. Sculpture was largely confined to ivory plaques (called diptychs) in low relief, which minimized sculpturesque effects.

Mosaics were the favored medium for the interior adornment of Byzantine churches. The small cubes, or tesserae, that composed mosaics were made of colored glass or enamels or were overlaid with gold leaf. The luminous effects of the mosaics, spread over the walls and vaults of the interior, were well adapted to express the mystic character of Orthodox Christianity. At the same time their rich, jewel-like surfaces were also in keeping with the magnificence of the imperial court, presided over by the emperor, the de facto head of the Orthodox church.

EARLY PERIOD

Although the 5th-century art of the empire is sometimes referred to as early Byzantine, it should be more aptly called late Antique. It is a transitional phase between the classical antiquity of Early Christian art and the emergence of a truly Byzantine style shortly after 500, when the portraits of the Byzantine consuls on their ivory diptychs assume the hieratic, depersonalized character of the icons. The golden age of early Byzantine art and architecture falls within the reign (527-65) of the emperor Justinian, a prolific builder and a patron of the arts.

Mosaics

Theodora and Attendants Completed around 547, the lavishly detailed mosaics covering the interior of the Church of San Vitale in Ravenna, Italy, are some of the most famous in Byzantine (Eastern Christian) art. Here, in a scene from the south wall of the apse, the Empress Theodora stands with her attendants while holding a golden cup for the Eucharist.Scala/Art Resource, NY

The still formative stage of Byzantine art in the age of Justinian is reflected in the variety of mosaic styles. They range from the austere grandeur of the Transfiguration of Christ (circa 540) in the apse of the monastery church of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai to the mid-6th-century processions of the martyrs in Sant' Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, Italy, which recall the endless rhythmic sequences of marching figures in the art of the ancient Near East.


Byzantine and Islamic Empires Produce Mosaics

The most extensive series of mosaics of the Justinian age, and the finest, are those (finished in 547) in the Church of San Vitale, Ravenna. Rather than a mere expression of stylistic diversity, the different pictorial modes of these mosaics were each adapted to its subject matter. The Old Testament scenes in the choir exemplify the narrative mode, in which the action takes place in picturesque settings of rocks and flowers against a background of rose-tinted clouds, all reminiscent of the illusionistic landscapes of Pompeian painting.

Beyond, on the curving wall of the apse, the emperor Justinian, surrounded by members of his court, confronts the empress Theodora in the midst of her attendant ladies; both rulers are sumptuously arrayed in diadems and imperial purple mantles. The emperor, venerated as Christ's representative on earth, and the revered empress are depicted, along with their retinues, in the uncompromising frontality and with the fixed gaze of the dematerialized figures of icons.

The classical heritage is visible in the beardless Christ, who, like a youthful Apollo, sits on the globe of the universe in the gold semidome of the apse—a Western type of the seated Christ derived from Early Christian sarcophagi. All three modes—the narrative, the iconic, and the classically inspired—are encountered again and again in all major periods of Byzantine art

Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia

Roman Painting

The Grand Hunt This detail of antelope being attacked is part of The Grand Hunt (early 4th century), a large floor mosaic found in the villa at Piazza Armerina, Sicily. The villa had 651 sq m (7000 sq ft) of floor mosaics depicting various scenes from life in the late Roman Empire. The mosaic work may have been done by North African artisans.Scala/Art Resource, NY

The Romans decorated their villas with mosaic floors and exquisite wall frescoes portraying rituals, myths, landscapes, still-life, and scenes of daily activities. Using the technique known as aerial perspective,


in which colors and outlines of more distant objects are softened and blurred to achieve spatial effects, Roman artists created the illusion of reality. In the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in ad79 and excavated in modern times, a corpus of Roman painting, both secular and religious, has been preserved.

The Dead Do Tell Tales at Vesuvius

By Rick Gore

Out of a timeless, musty dark, an ancient Roman victim of Mount Vesuvius stares into the 20th century, her teeth clenched in agony. Nearby lie charred and tangled remains of scores of others buried in the wet volcanic earth. The scene is Herculaneum, lesser known sister city of Pompeii. Both cities were destroyed by the A.D. 79 eruption of Vesuvius. The wall painting from Pompeii depicts the wine god, Bacchus, and the mountain's profile that Romans knew before the disaster. Macabre new relics of that eruption were discovered two years ago, as Italian workmen began to excavate a series of seawall chambers that lined ancient Herculaneum's beachfront. Since then many other fragments of lost lives have emerged along the beach: a noble lady with her jewels; a Roman soldier carrying sword and tools; lanterns, coins, and even an intact Roman boat. These discoveries do more than reveal the moving last moments of a terrified population. They bring to the light of science a wealth of new details that already are telling us much more about how people lived, as well as died, in the lost cities of Vesuvius.

The stage has been dark for nearly 2,000 years. Yet enough light shines down through an old well shaft to show me that this buried Roman theater had been grand. Surely it once blazed with spectacles. I close my eyes and see the elegantly marbled proscenium, the acrobats, the preening athletes on exhibit, the bawdy mimes. I hear the lyres, flutes, and cymbals, and the jingling bracelets of dancers. I see a famous actor from Rome, mask in hand and regally clad, waiting to make his entrance.

I open my eyes, and the steady drip of ground water onto the stage reminds me that I am 30 meters (100 feet) underground. This theater, once the opulent pride of the ancient seaside town of Herculaneum, lies beneath a succession of pyroclastic flows and surges. These glowing avalanches began roaring down the slopes of Mount Vesuvius about midnight of August 25 in A.D. 79, scorching and smothering the countryside, including the neighboring city of Pompeii.

My escort, assistant supervisor Vittorio De Girolamo, takes me down a corridor leading to the costume depository. He points his flashlight upward at the hardened volcanic flow overhead. A haunting face stares back down. It is only an imprint, made by the head of a statue that the glowing avalanche picked up as it invaded the theater. Yet this impassive visage testifies that the last performance on this stage was indeed a tragedy.

One can argue that this stage was also where modern archaeology was born. All traces of Pompeii and Herculaneum had been lost until 1709, when a well digger accidentally struck the stage. Tunnels were dug, and soon the ruling nobility of Naples began to loot the theater. They stripped away its multicolored marble facings for their villas and carted off the bronze and marble statues. These royal treasure hunters used hundreds of laborers, including some prisoners, to dig numerous additional tunnels out from the theater to plunder the rest of buried Herculaneum.

I walk along one of these narrow old corridors and feel as if I am caving back through time. I see the name of an earlier visitor—"Pihan, 1793"—etched into the volcanic wall.

Abruptly the tunnel is blocked by rubble. If I could continue my walk, however, this labyrinth would bring me into the heart of Herculaneum, much of which has been once again exposed to air by archaeologists over the past half century. I could walk past the Trellis House with its graceful balcony. I could continue to the House of the Mosaic Atrium and stand in the elegant triclinium, where a wealthy family took their summer meals overlooking the Bay of Naples.

The bay today is nearly half a kilometer away. The same volcanic flows that buried Herculaneum covered the ancient beach to a depth of 20 meters.

In the past few years a strip of that beach has been excavated, and I could descend the steep stairs to the old coast. There in the seawall of the town are ten recently uncovered chambers, probably once used to store fishing boats. In those chambers today, however, lie some of Herculaneum's most important discoveries since that 18th-century well digger found himself on center stage.

Archaeologists have long held that almost all Herculaneum's population had time to escape Vesuvius's wrath. Only a dozen or so skeletons were found in the town versus the hundreds that were excavated at Pompeii, on the other side of Vesuvius.

Classical scholars had assumed that after Herculaneum's population fled, the town had been embalmed by airtight mud slides. At Pompeii, they concluded, the people were felled over a period of hours by a smothering snow of ash and pumice. These scholars knew nothing about glowing avalanches and their pyroclastic flows. Not until early in this century did scientists actually observe these phenomena, also called nuées ardentes, which are made up of superhot gas and debris and which rush down mountainsides at hurricane speeds. Moreover, the cooled flows at Herculaneum do resemble hardened mud.

In the early 1900s two American volcanologists suggested that glowing avalanches had occurred at Vesuvius. But archaeologists and volcanologists alike continued to gloss over the question of exactly what killed the people on the slopes of Vesuvius. Then, in 1981, Michael Sheridan of Arizona State University, working with Franco Barberi and a team of Italian volcanologists, corroborated the concept of glowing avalanches.

In early 1982 striking human evidence for these volcanic storms emerged. Under the direction of Giuseppe Maggi, workmen began excavating Herculaneum's seafront chambers. The chambers, they found, were filled with the skeletons of people who obviously had met sudden death.

Two years earlier Dr. Maggi's crew had unearthed three skeletons on the beach in front of the chambers. This had led Maggi to speculate that Herculaneum might not have been as thoroughly abandoned as thought. Suddenly, faced with so many new skeletons, he had to ask whether anyone in Herculaneum could have had time to escape.

In the summer of 1982 Maggi had led me into the first chamber. As my eyes adapted to the dark, a pitiful cluster of skeletons emerged from the wet volcanic ash at my feet. They seemed to have been huddled together. Maggi is convinced they were a household in flight: seven adults, four children, and a baby lying cradled beneath one of the adults. The most striking skeleton lay with head buried, as if sobbing into a pillow.

"In this chamber nature has composed a masterpiece of pathos," Dr. Maggi told me. "One is deeply moved by the postures. You can imagine each person trying to find courage next to another." If that chamber was one of pathos, the next was a chamber of horrors. A host of tangled, charred skeletons, including that of a horse, lay chaotically strewn. "I think these people descended the stairs terrified," said Maggi. "In panic they tried to take refuge in this chamber."

As I entered, I could almost sense a collective groan across the ages. I could almost hear the screaming as the fiery avalanche struck. It must have been like being trapped in a furnace.

Now it is a year later, and I have returned for the third time to Herculaneum. Now another chamber has been opened. Its many victims lie inexplicably aligned, as though in orderly streams. "They look like they are floating down the River Styx," says a colleague.…

Sara Bisel, a physical anthropologist who specializes in the analysis of ancient bones, has been on site since my first visit. She was sent by the National Geographic Society at Dr. Maggi's urgent request to preserve the newfound skeletons.…

Meanwhile, University of Rhode Island volcanologist Haraldur Sigurdsson is in a tunnel, sampling the volcanic deposits that cover Herculaneum. Sigurdsson, whose research is also being sponsored by the National Geographic Society, had just coauthored a new interpretation of the timing and nature of the A.D. 79 eruption when the skeletons were revealed. To him these human remains offer a unique opportunity. The way they lie in the ancient strata will help him work out a moment-by-moment scenario of how Vesuvius took those lives.

Then, inside a corrugated metal shed that now protects the Roman boat, I find a third Geographic-sponsored scientist, Richard Steffy of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology at Texas A & M. The boat's blackened hull was severely charred by the glowing avalanches. It will be exquisitely difficult to excavate. Nevertheless, Steffy remains enthusiastic.…

The Bay of Naples is a crucible where the African Continent is crunching into Europe, creating a legacy of earthquakes and volcanoes. Vesuvius itself has been quiet since 1944. But the area remains shell-shocked from a severe earthquake that struck in 1980, paralyzing and demoralizing Naples.

Moreover, in the past year tremors have wracked the nearby town of Pozzuoli. Half its residents have fled, and scientists cannot discount that the eruption of a new volcano, possibly even more violent than Vesuvius, may be brewing beneath the town.

Nor do the residents of modern Herculaneum, known now as Ercolano, trust the slumbering Vesuvius. As Ercolano native Matteo Paparo tells me: "Where we live, there is a fire under our houses."

Two thousand years ago the people living on the slopes of Vesuvius had no such realization. Most probably did not even suspect that their mountain, peaceful for at least 300 years, was a volcano.

Even the great Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder, who lived across the bay in Misenum, regarded the large cloud that burst out of Vesuvius on that dreadful August 24 more as a novelty than a danger. As commander of the Roman fleet, Pliny ordered a ship to take him to the site to investigate the phenomenon and evacuate anxious friends.

The elder Pliny met his death in the disaster. But his nephew, Pliny the Younger, watching from his uncle's house, detailed the eruption in elegant, chilling prose. The history of Vesuvius really begins with that description. Only one other account of the cataclysm at Vesuvius has survived the Dark Ages. Indeed, if Pliny's letters had perished, no one in the 18th century would have known that they were unearthing Herculaneum and later Pompeii.…

Pompeii was probably founded by the aboriginal Oscan people many centuries before the A.D. 79 eruption. Over time the city was conquered by the Greeks, the Etruscans, and by a belligerent Italic race called the Samnites, who greatly expanded it. About 80 B.C. the Romans made Pompeii a colony. They infused it with their culture and turned it into a major agricultural center, specializing in the export of fish sauce and wine.

Like modern Naples, Pompeii's economy was characterized by small manufacturing businesses, often family run and operating out of the home. A painting outside a former felt-making factory on the heavily commercial Via dell'Abbondanza testifies to Pompeii's mercantile spirit: A winged Mercury alights bearing a bag of money.

When Vesuvius erupted, Pompeii was still recuperating from a devastating earthquake that had struck the region in A.D. 62. The roof of Pompeii's great basilica had collapsed, as had structures throughout the town. Seventeen years later the Pompeians must have noted with dread the minor earthquakes that probably preceded the imminent eruption. Little did they know that the danger this time would come from the same mountain whose fertility had blessed them with prosperity.

How did the eruption begin? I ask Sigurdsson as we walk through the town.

"Probably the earthquakes became a continuous vibration, or a harmonic tremor," he explains. "Then, I imagine there was a series of small but spectacular steam explosions that opened a crater at the summit.

"In the early afternoon on August 24 the city would have been rocked by a tremendous 'Plinian blast.'" It is called that because the blast created the great umbrella-shaped cloud that Pliny saw from Misenum.

"This eruption column, laden with pumice and ash, must have risen 20 kilometers or more. About 30 minutes after the blast the falling pumice began to cover the city. There was no lava in this eruption. The magma was too explosive, too filled with steam and other hot volatiles. Steam turns magma to a froth we call pumice….

"The pumice accumulated at 15 centimeters [six inches] an hour. After about four hours, or by late afternoon, roofs would have started collapsing from the weight. The eruption created close to total darkness…."

As the volcano's energy abated, it could no longer sustain the 20-kilometer-high eruption column, which began fluctuating like a giant fountain. At the fountain's ebb, enormous quantities of fine ash and pumice collapsed onto the volcano's flanks, becoming those lethal glowing avalanches.

Several of those avalanches, Sigurdsson has recently determined, stopped before reaching Pompeii. One came right up to the walls of the town. These avalanches and the vegetation and buildings they ignited probably created the bonfires Pliny the Elder attributed to peasants. No doubt they triggered panic atop the pumice-covered streets of Pompeii….

Wandering back through Pompeii, I can see evidence of those surges everywhere I look. Just above head height, where the protective pumice blanket ended, many walls appear clipped off, as if by some huge scythe.

Then there are the many famous plaster casts of humans and even a chained dog at their anguished moments of death. In the 1860s chief excavator Giuseppe Fiorelli developed a technique of injecting plaster into hollows that his diggers came across in the volcanic earth. These hollows were, in effect, molds created as the bodies of victims decayed. Thus the plaster preserved the forms and postures of people as they fell….

Pompeii had at least three public baths. Yet perhaps the most sumptuous so far unearthed on the Bay of Naples lies on the other side of Vesuvius at Herculaneum.

I well recall my first visit to the Suburban Baths. A skylight in its delightful, atrium-like entry room illuminated a fountain featuring a delicate bust of Apollo. Remnants of wall-to-wall paintings still adorned the frigidarium, or cool bath.…

I was visiting the bath that day with Sara Bisel. Just below us was Herculaneum's ancient beach and the chambers with all those bones that had brought her to Herculaneum. Later that day I crouched with her on the beach as she dug out her first skeleton, a female we nicknamed Portia.

Alas, poor Portia. Her skull was smashed, her pelvis crushed, and now Sara Bisel was playing what seemed like a grisly game of pick-up-sticks with her bones. Yet I felt oddly elated to see sunlight striking Portia's battered bones and to watch flies buzz about her for the first time in nearly 2,000 years.

"Portia had a great fall. I'd bet she was flung from up in the town," said Bisel as she worked. "She clearly landed on her face from some distance. There are roof tiles beneath her. Her thigh bone was thrust up to her clavicle. I don't know if I can put her together again, but I'll learn a lot about her.

"I'll determine her height by measuring one of her long bones. The state of her pelvis will tell her age and how many babies, if any, she had. I might even tell you whether she was pretty, but her face is shattered. Her bones should reveal whether she was well nourished, whether she had any of a number of diseases, and whether she had to work hard for a living. And she's just one person. There's a whole town here!"

On this and subsequent visits I wandered the streets of that town, which differs dramatically from Pompeii.

For one thing, the wet burden of earth, moistened by the copious groundwater that flows down Vesuvius, has sealed and preserved Herculaneum far better than the pumice blanket could protect Pompeii. Kept continuously wet and protected from air and climatic changes, many perishable items of everyday life remained intact, albeit often charred. Whole pieces of furniture—beds, cupboards, tables, and chairs—along with fishnets and such foodstuffs as cereals, bread loaves, eggs, vegetables, and even chicken bones, were unearthed much as they were when abruptly abandoned. Herculaneum thus gives us a more intimate look at Roman life.

The wet earth was also what kept Herculaneum's skeletons in such good condition. For as the victims decayed, the conserving mud compressed about the bones, rather than leaving mere hollows as at higher and drier and ash-covered Pompeii.

Herculaneum still greets the visitor with the same unhurried air that one breathes now off-season at nearby Capri or Positano. Like the latter resort, it once descended steeply to the sea, making heavy commercial traffic impossible. Its vistas must have enchanted the wealthy Romans who came here on retreat.

Idyllic as Herculaneum was, it was more than a resort. Much fishing equipment was unearthed. Therefore, many of its 4,000 to 5,000 inhabitants lived off the sea. Herculaneum lacks the numerous small factories that characterized Pompeii, it seems more a town of craftsmen and artisans. Yet the many refined houses, and indeed the elaborate theater and baths, tell us that a corps of affluent, cultured people also made their home in Herculaneum.

One of these homes, the Villa of the Papyri, yielded to 18th-century treasure hunters numerous bronze busts and statues, including copies of earlier Greek masterpieces that are now lost. This villa's owner, obviously a wealthy and influential Roman, also kept a great library of papyrus scrolls. Many of these charred, but still legible, manuscripts were recovered. Others, however, may still remain buried in this grand villa. Toxic gases forced the early excavators to abandon the site and seal the tunnels leading to it. The villa's reopening and complete excavation, says Attilio Stazio, director of Naples' Institute of Archaeology, is perhaps Italian archaeologists' highest priority. But the project will take many years.

More immediate discoveries continue on the beach at Herculaneum. Three months after Sara Bisel's arrival I return to the site to find her well into her analysis of the skeletons—the skulls, tibias, fibulas, and other osteal remnants of twenty men, eight women, and nine children—each in its own yellow box and lined up against a wall in her laboratory. The first 12 are the so-called household in flight.

"In that chamber there were three adult males and four females," Dr. Bisel tells me. "I estimate the men were 35, 31, and 25, and the women 42, 38, 16, and 14. There were five children, but I can't tell people's sex before they reach puberty. The three-year-old was wearing gold-and-pearl earrings. The five-year-old had cavities and an abscess. There were also a nine- and a ten-year-old; the latter had an iron house key near him, along with a seven-month-old baby.

"The baby was probably upper class," she continues. "It wore jewelry and was being cradled by the 14-year-old, who I suspect was a slave. I say that because there are scars on the upper shafts of her humeri, where the pectoralis major joins the bone. That means she used those muscles for heavier work than she should have."

Dr. Bisel picks up the girl's skull. "See these grooves on her teeth? They indicate that she didn't get enough to eat when she was about 11 months old. She almost died either from illness or starvation. She was a very good-looking girl. That probably complicated her life if she was a slave."

Another seven months pass, and Dr. Bisel has now analyzed the bones of 45 adults and 10 children. "Except for the slaves, these people are very healthy," she says. "There are few signs of anemia. They had enough to eat. Many of the presumed slaves, however, appear to have been dreadfully overworked."

She rummages through the bones in yellow box number 27. "This man we call the Helmsman, because he was found next to the boat. He was about 46 and probably a slave. He did not have good treatment, good food, good anything. I don't think anyone who had any choice would look like this. A free man would stop when his body hurt as much as this man's must have.…"

"It seems safe to say this guy did not have la dolce vita," she says, while digging out a piece of the Helmsman's spine. "Six of his middle thoracic vertebrae are fused. You can see the strain put on his arms and back.…"

Next Dr. Bisel goes to a skull most dentists would like to exhibit. It belongs to the celebrated, bejeweled Ring Lady.

"The Ring Lady was special," site director Maggi had told me earlier. "The quality of her objects shows that she came from a class or family that had taste. She is really something!"

"The Ring Lady was a relatively tall, well-nourished woman of about 45," Dr. Bisel explains, skull in hand. "Her teeth had no cavities or abscesses. These people didn't use sugar. But she did have periodontal disease. Look!"

She points to numerous little pits on the bone along the Ring Lady's gum line. "This is why you floss every day."

I ask about Portia, the first skeleton Bisel had unearthed. "Portia was about 48, certainly not good-looking," she replies. "She had extreme buck teeth. Also, certain of her pelvic bones show rather unusual and unexpected changes. I do not like to make accusations across 2,000 years, but Portia's pelvic bones resemble those I once saw from a modern prostitute."

A less speculative finding is an extremely high, probably pathological, level of lead in Portia's bones.

Scholars have long debated, often furiously, whether lead poisoning could have been widespread among the Romans. Lead can cause brain damage. It has been suggested that the mad emperors Nero and Caligula suffered from lead poisoning. Now Dr. Bisel's chemical analysis of 45 skeletons shows that Portia and one other person had lead levels high enough to have certainly caused them some problems. Six more people had significantly elevated levels.

The most plausible way these people would have ingested lead is via wine. Grape juice was often boiled down in lead vessels to make the thick syrup used to sweeten some wines. Stirring the boiling syrup would have scraped lead from the pots. Thus, heavy drinkers risked heavy lead intake.

"This is the first hard evidence that the Romans may indeed have had trouble with excess lead," says Dr. Bisel. "In no way does it indicate that lead poisoning brought about the fall of the Roman Empire, but it does raise many questions that cannot yet be answered."

Unanswered questions are everywhere. They also still surround that overturned Roman boat, and during the summer of 1983 Dick Steffy's problems seem to mount with each passing day.

Most important, the boat has proved to be fragile charcoal. If excavators try simply to lift it, Steffy estimates the boat will crumble into thousands of pieces. "I've never confronted a charcoal boat before," says Steffy on the beach. "Obviously, we're going to have to invent something."

For the time being, so much of the boat remains buried that Steffy cannot tell the bow from the stern for certain. Moreover, until the craft can be lifted, its interior remains invisible. And the interior, explains Steffy, holds most of the boat's secrets.

"It won't take me five seconds to tell you what this boat was all about once I see its insides," says Steffy. "I can tell you how it was built, how it was steered, how repairs were made, where the mast was, whether the sail was square, and probably what it was used for. Right now I'd guess we have a harbor tug or a local wine carrier."

From its exterior alone, however, the Herculaneum boat is proving important.

"It's longer than I thought at first," says Steffy. "I'm calling it a 30-footer. It has a beautiful, sweeping hull, with much painstaking carving. The workmanship is on a par with the Greeks', and their shipbuilders were as meticulous as cabinetmakers. I didn't expect to find that in the Romans.…"

Both Steffy and Haraldur Sigurdsson note that the beach is littered with finished timbers. These could be part of a pier that led out from the stair that descends from the town. Sigurdsson has determined that the ancient shoreline came right up to the city walls. Herculaneum thus had the narrowest of beaches. Waves must have lapped beneath the windows of the Suburban Baths.

The vast number of timbers, however, leads Steffy to wonder whether Herculaneum could have been a shipbuilding center. If so, the money it generated could explain the town's obvious but mysterious wealth.

Many of these timbers are aligned, as if driven by a great wave that roared around the corner of the bathhouse. Sigurdsson believes that not only the timbers but perhaps the boat as well were swept down from an unexcavated site not far away, possibly a shipyard.

Herculaneum, Sigurdsson notes, was built on a promontory, a tongue of land formed by a prehistoric eruption of Vesuvius. Small rivers flowed to the bay on both sides of the town. These river mouths could have served as small harbors.…

Could the boat have been trying to evacuate fearful residents? Sigurdsson's work now makes that doubtful. The boat and its so-called Helmsman lie in different layers of the glowing avalanches that swept the town. So the Helmsman clearly was not in the boat when he died. The boat was deposited—perhaps from an adjacent shipyard—anywhere from moments to minutes after the Helmsman died from the first lethal surge.

We can thus only speculate now who this insignificant, overworked man we call the Helmsman really was. We can, however, do much more than guess about how he and his fellow townspeople died. By the time Haraldur Sigurdsson leaves Italy, his weeks of stratigraphic sampling on the slopes of Vesuvius will have created a detailed geologic post mortem.

In Herculaneum, Sigurdsson has found only a dusting of the early ash and pumice that barraged Pompeii. Being upwind from the mountain, Herculaneum was spared that first assault, even though it was in fact much closer to Vesuvius's summit. Nevertheless, earthquakes and fireworks from this volcano, whose crater lay a mere seven kilometers (four miles) away, must have alarmed Herculaneum's population. No vessels have been found in the boat chambers where the people took refuge, suggesting that at least some residents had fled by sea.

Examining exposed strata at quarries above Pompeii, Sigurdsson has found evidence that three major glowing avalanches roared down Vesuvius's slopes before one finally reached into Pompeii. Herculaneum was within their range, and thus it died seven hours before Pompeii.

Pompeii was hit, Sigurdsson says, in early morning on August 25. So Herculaneum was buried in the middle of the previous night. That explains why a lamp was found with the household in flight.

As a glowing avalanche descends a mountain, gravity segregates it into two phases that Sigurdsson terms "surges" and "flows." Both phases, which scientists have described well only in the past decade, leave distinctive stratigraphic fingerprints.

The surge strikes first. This turbulent, ash-charged torrent forms a high, billowing cloud as it steams down the slope at speeds of 100 to 300 kilometers an hour and temperatures of 100° Celsius (212°F) or higher. Composed of air along with ash and the finer debris, the surge is made almost frothy by convection.

The denser, ground-hugging flow follows the surge, bearing the larger rock fragments and pumice both made fluid by temperatures as high as 400°C. Like a glowing river, the flow follows topographical features, such as streambeds, at slower speeds of 20 to 50 kilometers an hour.

Sigurdsson suspects that during the night the residents of Herculaneum may have been alarmed, like those at Pompeii, by several small glowing avalanches that did not quite reach the town.

"Seeing fiery tongues cascading down the mountainside would have gotten the people running to the edge of town," he says. "But I don't think they were in the streets long. One skeleton the early excavators found in the town was a baby in a crib. Another appeared to be a sickly, bedbound child. If the parents had had much time, these children would not have been abandoned."

The first surge to roll over Herculaneum would have killed everyone. As autopsies of surge victims at Mount St. Helens indicate, this dense ash cloud was the most lethal agent. It would have blasted down like a blinding sand storm, flattening people and forcing them to hold their breath to keep ash-saturated air from their lungs. The heat of the surge may not have been high enough to kill, but once the people had to gasp for air, ash would have formed plugs in their windpipes, suffocating them. Other victims could have died as they were thrown down to the beach or struck by flying debris.

No more than minutes after the first surge struck, the dense superhot flow hit the town. This first flow apparently was diverted around many upper parts of the city, but swept onto the beach just below the Suburban Baths. It was what washed the boat into its resting-place beside the Helmsman. Its intense heat charred whatever limbs stuck above the surge layer and turned the boat to charcoal.

Other surges and flows over the next few hours finished the burial of Herculaneum. In all, Sigurdsson finds that Vesuvius produced at least six glowing avalanches. The last one, he suspects, was the volcano's grand finale. It became the mammoth, sun-extinguishing black cloud that raced across the bay, leading Pliny the Younger, his mother, and other terrified residents of Misenum, 32 kilometers away, to suspect the world was ending.

Vesuvius has since erupted often, but seldom with such devastating glowing avalanches. Typically, it throws out spectacular but rarely lethal lava flows. Glowing avalanches, however, did accompany an almost unknown eruption in 472. They struck again in 1631, killing at least 4,000 people. Scientists feel confident that another Plinian eruption will occur in the coming centuries.

"Vesuvius certainly ended a cycle with its last eruption in 1944," says geologist Pio Di Girolamo of the Institute of Mineralogy in Naples. "Now it is in its longest interval of repose in modern history. It's impossible to forecast the next eruption. We do not think it will be soon."

It is late September 1983 and my last day in Naples. Excavation at Herculaneum has slowed. For months site director Maggi has worried that the pathetic scenes uncovered in the chambers will be forever lost if the skeletons are even temporarily removed for cleaning and preservation. Although the chamber with the household in flight has been cleared and many beach skeletons exhumed for Bisel, Maggi has resisted full excavation of the remaining chambers while he tests a chemical spray that he hopes will fix the bones in situ. It has failed. Skeletons in the unopened chambers, however, still lie safe from the destructive atmosphere.

Also, the government of Italy has just changed, and new political forces are being exerted at Herculaneum. A new archaeologist is in charge of the boat, and its excavation has been delayed into 1984. Although the archaeological program and its funding at Herculaneum is proceeding, it awaits a more certain future.

On this last day I have walked through bumptious Neapolitan streets to the National Archaeological Museum, which houses most of the art treasures recovered from the buried cities of Vesuvius. It offers unequaled glimpses into Roman times.

The museum's voluptuous statues of Venus, Apollo, and Hercules, which must have towered over the citizenry in public places, in many ways speak more of ancient Romans than do those skeletons. Herculaneum and Pompeii lived with these gods and goddesses, and their images personify Roman concepts of physical beauty, strength, wisdom, libido, and pleasure.

I especially admire the equestrian statues of proconsul Marcus Nonius Balbus that must have dominated Herculaneum's basilica. The head of one has been lost and replaced with a likeness of his father. These aristocrats were the city's foremost citizens.

The younger Balbus, with his strong and youthful build and Apollonian face and bearing, is the idealized Roman youth. His father's face across the hall shows the same regally handsome features, except lines of age and the beginnings of jowls speak of the passage of generations, the connections between family, and the ultimate erosion of time. It is through these statues and the surrounding art that I can reach these people and identify with them as inhabitants of the same planet.

Upstairs hang the wall paintings and mosaics that reveal many of the moments that created the texture of life on the flanks of Vesuvius. A teacher disciplines a student with a beating, a rough-cut man and his wife sit for a portrait, two men and a boy receive a dole of bread, a couple drinking wine recline erotically on a couch, a tragic actor sits exhausted after a performance.

The actor takes my thoughts back to Herculaneum's buried theater, and for a moment I sense the thrill that must have greeted those early excavators. Imagine such vivid images emerging as you are scraping in the dark deep underground!

Did the excavators, I wonder, notice the eyes in these paintings, busts, and statues? So many stare vacantly ahead. They remind me of that impassive face imprinted in the pyroclastic flow in the theater. These faces do not express much joy. Often they seem to be asking whatever gods are listening why there must be such sorrow in the world. From those eyes flows a sadness that sums up the fate of this "loveliest region of the earth," that makes me want to say, "Alas poor Portia, alas Pompeii, alas Herculaneum."

Source: Gore, Rick. “The Dead Do Tell Tales at Vesuvius.” National Geographic, May 1984.

Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia