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the architrave below. A triglyph is located above the centre of each capital, and above the centre of each lintel. However, at the corners of the building, the triglyphs do not fall over the centre the column. The ancient architects took a pragmatic approach to the apparent "rules", simply extending the width of the last two metopes at each end of the building.

The cornice is a narrow jutting band of complex moulding which overhangs and protects the ornamented frieze, like the edge of an overhanging wooden-framed roof. It is decorated on the underside with projecting blocks, mutules, further suggesting the wooden nature of the prototype. At either end of the building the pediment rises from the cornice, framed by moulding of similar form.

The pediment is decorated with figures that are in relief in the earlier examples, but almost freestanding by the time of the Parthenon. Early architectural sculptors found difficulty in creating satisfactory sculptural compositions in the tapering triangular space. By the Early Classical period, with the decoration of the temple of Zeus at Olympia, (486-460 BC) the sculptors had solved the problem by having a standing central figure framed by rearing centaurs and fighting men who are falling, kneeling and lying in attitudes that fit the size and angle of each part of the space. The renowned sculptor Phidias fills the space at the Parthenon (448-432 BC) with a complex array of draped and undraped figures of deities who appear in attitudes of sublime relaxation and elegance.

The Ionic Order is recognized by its voluted capital, in which a curved echinus of similar shape to that of the Doric Order, but decorated with stylized ornament, is surmounted by a horizontal band that scrolls under to either side, forming spirals or volutes similar to those of the nautilus shell or ram's horn. In plan, the capital is rectangular. It's designed to be viewed frontally but the capitals at the corners of buildings are modified with an additional scroll so as to appear regular on two adjoining faces. In the Hellenistic period, four-fronted Ionic capitals became common.

Like the Doric Order, the Ionic Order retains signs of having its origins in wooden architecture. The horizontal spread of a flat timber plate across the top of a column is a common device in wooden construction, giving a thin upright a wider area on which to bear the lintel, while at the same time reinforcing the load-bearing strength of the lintel itself. Likewise, the columns always have bases, a necessity in wooden architecture to spread the load and protect the base of a comparatively thin upright.

The columns are fluted with narrow, shallow flutes that do not meet at a sharp edge but have a flat band or fillet between them. The usual number of flutes is twentyfour but there may be as many as forty-four. The base has two convex mouldings called torus, and from the late Hellenic period stood on a square plinth similar to the abacus.

The architrave of the Ionic Order is sometimes undecorated, but more often rises in three outwardly-stepped bands like overlapping timber planks. The frieze, which runs in a continuous band, is separated from the other members by rows of small

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projecting blocks. They are referred to as dentils, meaning "teeth", but their origin is clearly in narrow wooden slats which supported the roof of a timber structure. The Ionic Order is altogether lighter in appearance than the Doric, with the columns, including base and capital, having a 9:1 ratio with the diameter, while the whole entablature was also much narrower and less heavy than the Doric entablature. There was some variation in the distribution of decoration.

Formalized bands of motifs such as alternating forms known as "egg and dart" were a feature of the Ionic entablatures, along with the bands of dentils. The external frieze often contained a continuous band of figurative sculpture or ornament, but this was not always the case. Sometimes a decorative frieze occurred around the upper part of the naos rather than on the exterior of the building. These Ionic-style friezes around the naos are sometimes found on Doric buildings, notably the Parthenon. Some temples, like the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, had friezes of figures around the lower drum of each column, separated from the fluted section by a bold moulding.

Caryatids, draped female figures used as supporting members to carry the entablature, were a feature of the Ionic order, occurring at several buildings including the Siphnian Treasury at Delphi in 525 BC and at the Erechtheion, about 410 BC.

The Corinthian Order does not have its origin in wooden architecture. It grew directly out of the Ionic in the mid 5th century BC, and was initially of much the same style and proportion, but distinguished by its more ornate capitals. The capital was very much deeper than either the Doric or the Ionic capital, being shaped like a large krater, a bell-shaped mixing bowl, and being ornamented with a double row of acanthus leaves above which rose voluted tendrils, supporting the corners of the abacus, which, no longer perfectly square, splayed above them.

According to Vitruvius, the capital was invented by a bronze founder, Callimarchus of Corinth, who took his inspiration from a basket of offerings that had been placed on a grave, with a flat tile on top to protect the goods. The basket had been placed on the root of an acanthus plant which had grown up around it. The ratio of the column height to diameter is generally 10:1, with the capital taking up more than 1/10 of the height. The ratio of capital height to diameter is generally about 1.16:1.

The Corinthian Order was initially used internally, as at the Temple of Apollo Epicurius at Basae (c.450-425 BC). In 334 BC it appeared as an external feature on the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates in Athens, and then on a huge scale at the Temple of Zeus Olympia in Athens, (174 BC - AD 132). It was popularized by the Romans, who added a number of refinements and decorative details. During the Hellenistic period, Corinthian columns were sometimes built without fluting.

Decoration

Architectural Ornament

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Early wooden structures, particularly temples, were ornamented and in part protected by fired and painted clay revetments in the form of rectangular panels, and ornamental discs. Many fragments of these have outlived the buildings that they decorated and demonstrate a wealth of formal border designs of geometric scrolls, overlapping patterns and foliate motifs. With the introduction of stone-built temples, the revetments no longer served a protective purpose and sculptured decoration became more common.

The clay ornaments were limited to the roof of buildings, decorating the cornice, the corners and surmounting the pediment. At the corners of pediments they were called acroteria and along the sides of the building, antefixes. Early decorative elements were generally semi-circular, but later of roughly triangular shape with moulded ornament, often palmate. Ionic cornices were often set with a row of lion's masks, with open mouths that ejected rainwater. From the Late Classical period, acroteria were sometimes sculptured figures.

In the three orders of Ancient Greek architecture, the sculptural decoration, be it a simple half round astragal, a frieze of stylized foliage or the ornate sculpture of the pediment, is all essential to the architecture of which it is a part. In the Doric order, there is no variation in its placement. Reliefs never decorate walls in an arbitrary way. The sculpture is always located in several predetermined areas, the metopes and the pediment.

In later Ionic architecture, there is greater diversity in the types and numbers of mouldings and decorations, particularly around doorways, where voluted brackets sometimes occur supporting an ornamental cornice over a door, such as that at the Erechtheum.A much applied narrow moulding is called "bead and reel" and is symmetrical, stemming from turned wooden prototypes. Wider mouldings include one with tongue-like or pointed leaf shapes, which are grooved and sometimes turned upward at the tip, and "egg and dart" moulding which alternates ovoid shapes with narrow pointy ones.

Architectural Sculpture

Architectural sculpture showed a development from early Archaic examples through Severe Classical, High Classical, Late Classical and Hellenistic. Remnants of the Archaic architectural sculpture (700 - 500 BC) exist from the early 6th century BC with the earliest surviving pedimental sculpture being remnants of a Gorgon flanked by heraldic panthers from the centre of the pediment of the Artemis Temple of Corfu.

A metope from a temple known as "Temple C" at Selinus, Sicily, shows, in a better preserved state, Perseus slaying the Gorgon Medusa. Both images parallel the stylized depiction of the Gorgons on the black figure name vase decorated by the Nessos painter (c. 600 BC), with the face and shoulders turned frontally, and the legs in a running or kneeling position. At this date images of terrifying monsters have predominance over the emphasis on the human figure that developed with Humanist philosophy.

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The Severe Classical style (500 - 450 BC) is represented by the pedimental sculptures of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, (470 - 456 BC). The eastern pediment shows a moment of stillness and "impending drama" before the beginning of a chariot race, the figures of Zeus and the competitors being severe and idealized representations of the human form. The western pediment has Apollo as the central figure, "majestic" and "remote", presiding over a battle of Lapiths and Centaurs, in strong contrast to that of the eastern pediment for its depiction of violent action, and described by D. E. Strong as the "most powerful piece of illustration" for a hundred years.

The shallow reliefs and three-dimensional sculpture which adorned the frieze and pediments, respectively, of the Parthenon, are the lifelike products of the High Classical style (450 -400 BC) and were created under the direction of the sculptor Phidias. The pedimental sculpture represents the Gods of Olympus, while the frieze shows the Panathenaic procession and ceremonial events that took place every four years to honor the titular Goddess of Athens.

The frieze and remaining figures of the eastern pediment show a profound understanding of the human body, and how it varies depending upon its position and the stresses that action and emotion place upon it. Benjamin Robert Haydon described the reclining figure of Dionysus as " ... the most heroic style of art, combined with all the essential detail of actual life".

The names of many famous sculptors are known from the Late Classical period (400 - 323 BC), including Timotheos, Praxiteles, Leochares and Skopas, but their works are known mainly from Roman copies. Little architectural sculpture of the period remains intact. The Temple of Asclepius at Epidauros had sculpture by Timotheos working with the architect Theodotos. Fragments of the eastern pediment survive, showing the Sack of Troy.

The scene appears to have filled the space with figures carefully arranged to fit the slope and shape available, as with earlier east pediment of the Temple of Zeus at Olympus. But the figures are more violent in action, the central space taken up, not with a commanding God, but with the dynamic figure of Neoptolemos as he seizes the aged king Priam and stabs him. The remaining fragments give the impression of a whole range of human emotions, fear, horror, cruelty and lust for conquest. The acroteria were sculptured by Timotheus, except for that at the centre of the east pediment which is the work of the architect. The palmate acroteria have been replaced here with small figures, the eastern pediment being surmounted by a winged Nike, poised against the wind.

Hellenistic architectural sculpture (323 - 31 BC) was to become more flamboyant, both in the rendering of expression and motion, which is often emphasised by flowing draperies, the Nike Samothrace which decorated a monument in the shape of a ship being a well known example. The Pergamon Altar (c. 180-160 BC) has a frieze (120 metres long by 2.3 metres high) of figures in very high relief. The frieze represents the battle for supremacy of Gods and Titans, and employs many dramatic devices: frenzy, pathos and triumph, to convey the sense of conflict.

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throughout the period, while in the West it appears intermittently, combining and sometimes competing with new expressionist possibilities developed in Western Europe and the Northern legacy of energetic decorative elements. The period ended with the self-perceived Renaissance recovery of the skills and values of classical art, and the artistic legacy of the Middle Ages was then disparaged for some centuries. Since a revival of interest and understanding in the 19th century it has been seen as a period of enormous achievement that underlies the development of later Western art.

Culture of Kiev Rus

The culture of ancient Rus can be divided into different historical periods of the Middle Ages. During the Kievan period (989-), the principalities of Kievan Rus’ came under the sphere of influence of the Byzantine Empire, one of the most advanced cultures of the time, and adopted Christianity. In the Suzdalian period, the Russian principalities gained a wide range of opportunities for developing their political and cultural ties not only with Byzantium, but with the European countries, as well, with a resulting impact on architecture and other cultural indicators. By the Muscovite period in the thirteenth century, Russian culture was recovering from the invasion of Batu Khan and subsequent domination of Russian lands by the Golden Horde.

The city-states of Novgorod and Pskov, which had been spared the Tatar raids, created an original kind of culture under some influence from their western Baltic neighbors. Finally, only by the end of the fifteenth century, Russia ended its subordination to the Golden Horde with the Great standing on the Ugra river of 1480, which marked the birth of the sovereign Russian state, headed by the Grand Prince of Moscow.

This new cultural era dates back to the adoption of Christianity in 989, when the principalities of Kievan Rus’ came under the sphere of influence of the Byzantine Empire, one of the most advanced cultures of the time. Vladimir the Great's political choice determined the subsequent development of the Russian culture.

Byzantine masters built their first cathedrals in Rus’ and decorated their interiors with mosaics and murals. Samples of pictorial art, such as icons and miniatures of illuminated manuscripts, came to Kiev and other cities from Constantinople. After the completion of the most important cathedral of Kievan Rus’—Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kiev, named after the principal cathedral of the Byzantine capital—a Russian clergyman, the metropolitan Ilarion, wrote his work On Law and Grace (Slovo o zakone i blagodati), confirming the basics of Russia's new Christian world outlook.

Thus, Kievan Rus’ became part of the broader Christian world, under Byzantium's influence. The metropolitan of Kiev was subordinated to the Patriarch of Constantinople. The Russian principalities adopted the Byzantine culture during a time when the apogee of the Eastern Roman Empire had already been overcome, but its decline was still far ahead. Byzantium remained the only direct successor of the Hellenistic world, which had applied the artistic achievements of antiquity to the spiritual experience of Christianity. Byzantine culture differed from the rest of

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the world by its refined taste and sophistication. Byzantine art differed in the depth of religious substance and virtuosity of formal methods. The principal achievement of Byzantine theology was the ecclesiastic writings of the holy fathers. The high cultural level of Greek teachers posed difficult tasks for Kievan Rus’.

Nevertheless, art of the Rus’ principalities of the tenth century differed from

Byzantine prototypes of the same period. The peculiarities of the first "Russian" works of art, created by the "visiting" Greeks, included a magnitude and representativeness which demonstrated the ambitions of the young Russian state and its princely authority. Byzantine influence, however, couldn't spread quickly over the enormous territory of Rus’ lands, and their Christianization would take several centuries. For example, there were numerous pagan uprisings in the principalities of Suzdal and Rostov until the twelfth century, led by the volkhvy

(волхвы, or pagan priests).

It is interesting to note that the Rus had this significant contact with the Byzantine Empire, and chose to have various parts of the Bible translated from the Greek into Church Slavonic, they did not seem to be interested in other cultural resources that contact with Constantinople would have provided them. That is, although the Rus would have had access to the vast libraries of Greek philosophy, mathematics, and science housed there; there is no evidence that they translated any of these into Slavonic. Since access to these same documents is what is most often cited as giving rise to the Renaissance in Western Europe, this disinterest on the part of the Rus seems to fly in the face of the argument that it was the Mongol invasions which caused Russia to "miss" the Renaissance. D. S. Likhachev notes that "the 'intelligentsia' of Kievan possessed very great mobility, and constantly traveled from principality to principality. Bands of builders, fresco-painters, and churchmen were continually moving from one principality to another, even in the years immediately following the Tatar-Mongol invasion".

К разделу V

Искусство эпохи Возрождения The art of the Renaissance

Renaissance Art in Italy (c.1400-1600)

History, Characteristics, Causes, Techniques

During the two hundred years between 1400 and 1600, Europe witnessed an astonishing revival of drawing, fine art painting, sculpture and architecture centred on Italy, which we now refer to as the Renaissance (rinascimento). It was given this name (French for 'rebirth') as a result of La Renaissance - a famous volume of history written by the historian Jules Michelet (1798-1874) in 1855 - and was better understood after the publication in 1860 of the landmark book "The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy" (Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien), by Jacob Burckhardt (1818-97), Professor of Art History at the University of Basel.

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What Were the Characteristics of the Renaissance?

In very simple terms, the Italian Renaissance re-established Western art according to the principles of classical Greek art, especially Greek sculpture and painting, which provided much of the basis for the Grand Tour, and which remained unchallenged until Pablo Picasso and Cubism.

From the early 14th century, in their search for a new set of artistic values and a response to the courtly International Gothic style, Italian artists and thinkers became inspired by the ideas and forms of ancient Greece and Rome. This was perfectly in tune with their desire to create a universal, even noble, form of art which could express the new and more confident mood of the times.

Effect of Humanism on Art

In the visual arts, humanism stood for. The emergence of the individual figure, in place of stereotyped, or symbolic figures. Greater realism and consequent attention to detail, as reflected in the development of linear perspective and the increasing realism of human faces and bodies; this new approach helps to explain why classical sculpture was so revered, and why Byzantine art fell out of fashion. An emphasis on and promotion of virtuous action: an approach echoed by the leading art theorist of the Renaissance Leon Battista Alberti (1404-72) when he declared, "happiness cannot be gained without good works and just and righteous deeds".

The promotion of virtuous action reflected the growing idea that man, not fate or God, controlled human destiny, and was a key reason why history painting (that is, pictures with uplifting 'messages') became regarded as the highest form of painting. Of course, the exploration of virtue in the visual arts also involved an examination of vice and human evil.

Causes of the Renaissance

What caused this rebirth of the visual arts is still unclear: the 14th century (trecento) in Europe witnessed several catastrophic harvests, the Black Death (1346), and a continuing war between England and France. Hardly ideal conditions for an outburst of creativity, let alone a sustained rinascita of paintings, drawings, sculptures and new buildings. Moreover, the Church - the biggest patron of the arts - was racked with disagreements about spiritual and secular issues.

Increased Prosperity

However, more positive currents were also evident. In Italy, Venice and Genoa had grown rich on trade with the Orient, while Florence was a centre of wool, silk and jewellery art, and was home to the fabulous wealth of the cultured and artconscious Medici family.

Prosperity was also coming to Northern Europe, as evidenced by the establishment in Germany of the Hanseatic League of cities. This increasing wealth provided the financial support for a growing number of commissions of large public and private art projects, while the trade routes upon which it was based greatly assisted the

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spread of ideas and thus contributed to the growth of the movement across the Continent.

Allied to this spread of ideas, which incidentally speeded up significantly with the invention of printing, there was an undoubted sense of impatience at the slow progress of change. After a thousand years of cultural and intellectual starvation, Europe (and especially Italy) was anxious for a re-birth.

Why Did the Renaissance Start in Italy?

In addition to its status as the richest trading nation with both Europe and the Orient, Italy was blessed with a huge repository of classical ruins and artifacts. Examples of Roman architecture were found in almost every town and city, and Roman sculpture, including copies of lost sculptures from ancient Greece, had been familiar for centuries. In addition, the decline of Constantinople - the capital of the Byzantine Empire - caused many Greek scholars to emigrate to Italy, bringing with them important texts and knowledge of classical Greek civilization. All these factors help explain why the Renaissance started in Italy.

Sienese School of Painting (c.1250-1550)

The Siena school of Italian art, founded by Guido da Siena (active after 1250) and Coppo di Marcovaldo (1225-1274), flourished in Siena, between the 13th and 15th centuries. Devoted exclusively to Christian art, it had a significant influence on the development of Pre-Renaissance Painting (c.1300-1400). For many years - being Ghibelline and anti-papacy - it rivalled Florence, whose armies it crushed as late as 1260, but artistically it was more conservative - gaining inspiration from the style of fresco murals in Romanesque painting, and being inclined towards the decorative beauty and grace of Byzantine art and the International Gothic.

If Florentine art is above all naturalistic, Sienese painting has a lyrical, dreamlike quality created by a mixture of Byzantine heritage, miraculous subject matter, inattention to proportions, and atmospheric colouration.

Duccio di Buoninsegna

Its greatest representative is undoubtedly Duccio di Buoninsegna (1255-1319) whose paintings combined Byzantine composition with enormous grace and humanity. His finest masterpiece is the great Maesta Altarpiece (1311), painted for Siena Cathedral, whose surving panels are held in the Opera del Duomo, Siena, the National Gallery London, the Frick Collection New York, and the National Gallery in Washington DC. See also his exquisite panel painting known as the Stroganoff Madonna (1300). Other major Sienese painters include Duccio's pupil Simone Martini (1285-1344), Segna di Buonaventura (active 1298-1331), Pietro (active 1320-45) and Ambrogio (Active 1319-48) Lorenzetti, Domenico (1400-1447) and Taddeo (1362-1422) di Bartolo, Sassetta (1394-1450), and Matteo di Giovanni (1430-1495). From the middle of the trecento (14th century), the Sienese school fell into a slow but terminal decline. Within two centuries, the city of Siena fell

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under the control of its arch-rival Florence. (For earlier influences on the Siena school, see: Romanesque painting in Italy.)

Sienese School of Painting: 14th Century

The highpoint of the Sienese school was the period 1300-50. It witnessed the flowering of Duccio di Buoninsegna - who is to Sienese painting what Giotto is to Florence - whose religious art infuses the austerity of Byzantine styles with the humanism being championed by the new Franciscan and Dominican orders. His exquisite colours, gold decoration, and controlled draughtsmanship paved the way for the emergence of International Gothic. This refined, cosmopolitan and courtly trend was also presaged by Simone Martini (1284-1344), noted for the Maesta in the Palazzo Pubblico, Siena (1315), and his fresco painting in the lower church of S. Francesco at Assisi (1320-30). Yet Martini was at heart a large-scale decorative illustrator, notably of illuminated manuscripts. Almost all his Medieval manuscript illumination has been lost - save for a frontispiece to a copy of Virgil (Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana) that belonged to Petrarch - but evidence of his impact on Gothic illuminated manuscripts is clear. His sumptuous decoration can be seen as the end of an era, where Giotto's realism ushers in the Proto-Renaissance and marks a new beginning. Martini's main follower was Lippo Memmi (c.1295-1356).

By comparison, the brothers Pietro Lorenzetti and Ambrogio Lorenzetti were greatly influenced by Giotto and preferred narrative realism to Simone Martini's decorative style. Even so, as former pupils of Duccio, several of their works (eg. Carmelite Altarpiece, 1329, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena) owe a debt to Duccio and Martini. Ambrogio's best pictures are the frescoes representing the Effects of Good and Bad Government (1339, Palazzo Pubblico, Siena), which art historians often cite as the apogee of naturalism in 14th-century Italian painting.

Sienese School of Painting: 15th Century

During the 15th century the two leading painters of the Sienese School were Sassetta (Stefano di Giovanni) (c.1395-1450) and Giovanni di Paolo (1403-1483). Sassetta, an artist who delighted in the slender figurative forms of International Gothic and in the clarity of Early Renaissance pictorial space, is famous for the St Francis Altarpiece painted for Borgo S. Sepolcro (1437-1444, in the Louvre, and National Gallery, London). Giovanni di Paolo's mature work is recognizable for the harshness of its colour, its elongated forms and its overall dreamlike quality. His most important paintings are the panels featuring the life of John the Baptist.

Other 15th century Sienese painters include Taddeo Di Bartolo (1362-1422), tutor of Domenico Di Bartolo (1400-1447), noted for his frescoes on Roman Republican heroes and civic virtues (1406-14) in the Palazzo Pubblico. His conservative style harked back to earlier works by Simone Martini and the Lorenzetti brothers. Domenico Di Bartolo went on to teach Piero della Francesca (1415-92), one of the

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