The Day the Universe Changed - James Burke [36]
There were still curious hangovers from the old ways, however. The Benedictine rules for silent communication by gesture were still shown. Affirmation was expressed with the back of the hand towards the viewer, demonstration with the palm towards the object indicated, grief with the palm pressed to the heart, shame by the hand covering the eyes. (In Masaccio’s Expulsion of Adam and Eve, Eve’s culpability is shown by the fact that she merely expresses grief, while Adam shows shame.) Welcome is shown with an extended hand, palm out, fingers drooping.
Mantegna’s fresco in the Bridal Chamber of the Ducal Palace, Mantua, shows Ludovico Gonzaga and his wife Barbara of Brandenburg with members of their family. The style is extremely realistic, conversational. Note one of the court dwarfs, bottom right.
Raphael’s School of Athens (1511), a major, dynamic work of the new perspective painting. The pavement lines and the receding arches enhance the realism of the scene, heightened by the way the figures are cut off at the edge, as if more would be visible if we were to move in through the arch.
In the great frescoes by Mantegna in Mantua, illustrating the life of his royal patrons the Gonzagas, the style is extremely naturalistic. The scenes are lifelike and casual. There is no narrative, merely a moment captured for the record. By signing his work, Mantegna enhanced the concept of art as witness to everyday life. The subjects in his frescoes are portrayed eating apples, holding hands, talking in asides to each other.
When Federigo da Montefeltro had his portrait painted, this brilliant general chose to show himself reading a book, or at home or on embassies, never at war. This growth in the sense of individualism is also seen on a grander scale. Around Federigo’s courtyard in the great Ducal Palace at Urbino, where he lived, is carved, ‘I am Federigo… and I built this place’.
In literature, too, writers began to express themselves more personally. The new interest in psychology produced biographies of ordinary men and women, no longer only of the saints. The first novella appeared, stories treating of people and their daily lives. Drama moved away from the church and religious subjects into the theatre. Secular music in the form of madrigals, with the solo line heard above the other parts, was now played in the home. Instrumental pieces were also being written for the first time.
The Malatesta church in Rimini, where Alberti’s design was imposed, in 1450, on an earlier building. The central triumphal arch supports the Roman-style inscription above, which identifies the patron, Sigismund Pandolf Malatesta.
But the most obvious example of the change in attitude is, of course, to be seen in architecture. The fact that classical forms were employed was due not so much to the new perspective as to the earlier interest in things humanist. The Florentines had little time for Gothic styles. In fact, the term itself was invented by one of them as a contemptuous description of the period that lay between them and ancient Rome—‘middle ages’ when barbarian influences were introduced by the invading Goths.
Florence looked for a substitute tradition and found it in classical antiquity. The classical orders, Ionic, Doric and Corinthian, were adopted in architecture. Triumphal arches were erected. (One survives today on the front of the Malatesta church in Rimini.) The portrait bust and the equestrian statue were eagerly sought by the Florentine nouveaux riches. Imitation Roman coffered ceilings replaced arched vaults.
But all this was peripheral to the central change in style which dictated that buildings were now to be constructed with man as their focal point. The scale of the building had to relate to the human observer and his point of view. The first manifestation of this change was the centre-plan church. It was essentially a pagan style, since it broke the long-held liturgical rule that clergy and laity were to be separate.
In about 1450 Alberti gave overall direction for the construction of these new churches. He said