AHIS 120g 1st Edition Lecture 19Current LectureThe Renaissance BodyGermany: Albercht Durer- Best known for his prints, Durer was also a gifted draftsman and skilled painter. - Self-Portrait (1500)o Belongs to the Flemish tradition of Jan van Eyck’s Man in a Red Turban but thesolemn pose and the idealization of the features have an authority not found inportraits at the time.o Durer places himself frontally in the composition, a pose usually reserved for imagesof the divine.o Patterned after images of Christ.- Adam and Eve (1504)o Fusion between Northern European and Italian traditions is apparent in thisengraving. o The figures of Adam and Eve are not observed from life; they are constructedaccording to what Durer believed to be the perfect proportions based on Vitruvius.o Durer enlarged the vocabulary of descriptive marks an engraver could use: the linestaper and swell; they intersect at varying angles; marks start and stop and dissolveinto dots called stipples. The result is a monochrome image with a great tonal and textural range.o Animals selected to populate the composition was deliberate: scholars haveinterpreted the cat, rabbit, ox and elk as symbols of the medieval theory of bodilyfluids, called humors, that controlled personality and that coexisted in balance withideal human beauty. Cat: choleric humor; quick to anger. Ox: phlegmatic humor; lethargic and slow.  Elk: melancholic humor. Rabbit: sanguine humor; energetic and sensual.The High Renaissance in FlorenceAntonio Pollaiulo in Florence- Battle of the Nudes (1465)o One of Pollaiulo’s most elaborate designs. o Its subject is not known, thought it may derive from an ancient text.o One purpose of the engraving serves is to display the artist’s mastery of the nudebody in action and thus to advertise his skill.o At the time of its print—between 1465-70—depicting the nude in action was still anovel problem, which Pollaiulo explored in his paintings, sculptures and prints. He realized full understanding of movement demanded a detailed knowledgeof anatomy, down to the last muscle.o These naked men look almost as if their skin has been stripped off to reveal the playof muscles underneath.Leonardo da Vinci- Upon moving to Milan, Leonardo turned to analysis and research to solve a variety ofproblems, both artistic and scientific. - He believed the world to be intelligible through mathematics, which formed the basis for hisinvestigations. o To him, the eye was the perfect means of gaining knowledge. - His drawings, such as Embryo in the Womb, combine his own vivid observations with theanalytic clarity of diagrams—sight and insight.Michelangelo in Florence- David (1501)o Directors of the newly re-established Republican Florence commissionedMichelangelo to execute a figure for the Florence cathedral.o Completed in 1504, a committee of civic leaders and artists decided to place the 18-foot-high David in front of the Palazzo della Signoria, the seat of the Florentinegovernment. o The city of Florence claimed the figure as an emblem of its own republican virtues.o Michelangelo treated the biblical figure not as a victorious hero but as the ever-vigilant guardian of the city.o Michelangelo omits the head of Goliath; instead, David nervously fingers a slingshot,as his eyes focus on an opponent in the distance.o A nude sculpture, Michelangelo integrated deeply into the sculpture an emotion-charged musculature similar to Hellenistic sculpture.Its heroic scale, superhuman beauty and power, and the swelling volume of their forms becamepart of Michelangelo’s own style and of Renaissance art in