Humanism and the visual arts

Realism

Humanists paid conscious tribute to realistic techniques in art that had developed independently of humanism. Giotto, the Florentine painter responsible for the movement away from the Byzantine style and toward ancient Roman technique, was praised by Giorgio Vasari as “the pupil of Nature.” Giotto’s own contemporary Giovanni Boccaccio said of him in the Decameron that

there was nothing in Nature—the mother and ruling force of all created things with her constant revolution of the heavens—that he could not paint with his stylus, pen, or brush or make so similar to its original in Nature that it did not appear to be the original rather than a reproduction. Many times, in fact, in observing things painted by this man, the visual sense of men would err, taking what was painted to be the very thing itself.

Boccaccio, himself a naturalist and a realist, here subtly adopts the painter’s achievement as a justification for his own literary style. So Shakespeare, at the end of the Renaissance, praises Giulio Romano (and himself), “who, had he himself eternity and could put breath into his work, would beguile Nature of her custom, so perfectly he is her ape” (The Winter’s Tale). It should be noted that neither Vasari nor Boccaccio nor Shakespeare endorses realistic style as a summum bonum. Rather, realism is the means for regaining touch with the sovereign creative principle of Nature.

Classicism

Like the humanists, Italian artists of the 15th century saw a profound correlation between Classical forms and realistic technique. Classical sculpture and Roman painting were emulated because of their ability to simulate perceived phenomena, while, more abstractly, Classical myth offered a unique model for the artistic idealization of human beauty. Leon Battista Alberti, himself a close friend of Donatello and Filippo Brunelleschi, codified this humanistic theory of art, using the fundamental principle of mathematics as a link between perceived reality and the ideal. He developed a Classically based theory of proportionality between architectural and human form, believing that the ancients sought “to discover the laws by which Nature produced her works so as to transfer them to the works of architecture.”

Anthropocentricity and individualism

Humanism and Italian art were similar in giving paramount attention to human experience, both in its everyday immediacy and in its positive or negative extremes. The religious themes that dominated Renaissance art (partly because of generous church patronage) were frequently developed into images of such human richness that, as one contemporary observer noted, the Christian message was submerged. The human-centredness of Renaissance art, moreover, was not just a generalized endorsement of earthly experience. Like the humanists, Italian artists stressed the autonomy and dignity of the individual. High Renaissance art boasted a style of portraiture that was at once humanely appreciative and unsparing of detail. Heroes of culture such as Federico da Montefeltro and Lorenzo de’ Medici, neither of whom was a conventionally handsome man, were portrayed realistically, as though a compromise with strict imitation would be an affront to their dignity as individuals. Similarly, artists of the Italian Renaissance were, characteristically, unabashed individualists. The biographies of Giotto, Brunelleschi, Leonardo da Vinci, and Michelangelo by Giorgio Vasari not only describe artists who were well aware of their unique positions in society and history but also attest to a cultural climate in which, for the first time, the role of art achieved heroic stature. The autobiographical writings of the humanist Alberti, the scientist Girolamo Cardano, and the artist Benvenuto Cellini further attest to the individualism developing both in letters and in the arts. Montaigne dramatized the analogy between visual mimesis and autobiographical realism when he said, in the preface to his Essays, that, given the freedom, he would have painted himself “tout entier, et tout nu” (“totally complete, and totally nude”).

Art as philosophy

Italian Renaissance painting, especially in its secular forms, is alive with visually coded expressions of humanistic philosophy. Symbol, structure, posture, and even colour were used to convey silent messages about humanity and nature. Renaissance style was so articulate, and the Renaissance sense of the unity of experience so deeply ingrained, that even architectural structures could be eloquently philosophical. Two features of Federico’s palace at Urbino exemplify the profound interrelationship between humanistic principle and Renaissance art. The first feature is architectural. On the ground floor of the palace, two private chapels, of roughly the same dimensions, stand side by side. The chapel at the left is a place of Christian worship, while that at the right is dedicated to the pagan Muses. Directly above these chapels is a study, the walls of which are covered with representations (in intarsia) of assorted humanistic heroes: Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Virgil, Seneca, Boethius, St. Augustine, Dante, Petrarch, Bessarion, and Federico’s revered teacher Vittorino, among others. The message conveyed by the positioning of the three rooms is hard to ignore. Devotion to the opposing principles of Christianity and earthly (pagan) beauty is rendered possible by a humanistic learning (represented by the study) so generous and appreciative as to comprehend both extremes.

The second feature is iconographic—a portrait (probably by Pedro Berruguete) of Federico and his son, Guidobaldo, that occupies a central position on the wall of the study. It depicts the duke, his full coat of armour partly covered by a courtly robe, sitting and reading. The son stands beside his father’s chair, gazing out of the picture toward the viewer’s left. An abbot’s mitre rests on a shelf in the upper left, while the duke’s helmet sits on the floor in the lower right. Here also a typically humanistic message is evident. The duke’s scholarly attitude and curious attire suggest his triple role as warrior, ruler, and humanist. The two main axes of the picture—the line between mitre and helmet and the line between father and son—converge at the book, symbolizing the central role of humanistic learning in reconciling the concerns of church and state and in conveying humanistic virtue from generation to generation. The boy’s outward gaze implies the characteristic direction of humanistic learning: into the world of action. The scope and organic wholeness of Federico’s humanistic iconography are so striking as to rival great expressions of religious faith. The private heart of his palace concealed, like a genetic code, the principle that had given shape to the edifice and informed the state.