Page 104 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

inner regions of the human body. The paintings
and engravings of Antonio Pollaiuolo from 1460
onwards reveal his ambition to become what
Leonardo was to call an "anatomical painter/'
but it is impossible to demonstrate that his
depictions depend upon any deeper knowledge
than that obtained by surface inspection of the fig. 15. Hans Holbein, Dead Christ. 1521, oil on panel. Offentliche Kunstsammlung Basel Kunstmuseum
body and the making of casts. His understand-
ing, which was considerable, appears to blend
direct scrutiny of living figures with the keen
adoption of certain conventions from Roman very start of his career when working under the tion that the artist should have "compasses in
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sculpture. In his famous Battle of the Nudes wing of the older sculptor. his eyes" rather than in his hands. This does
(cat. 160), he may also have drawn upon ana- One of the key requirements for Italian Re- not mean that Michelangelo denied the ultimate
tomical texts such as De usu partium by the naissance artists was to use anatomical knowl- existence of musical proportions in the human
ancient philosopher, Galen. 35 edge within the context of a system of figure, and in fact his drawings show evidence
Sixtus iv's bull in 1482 helped to clarify the proportional beauty for the human figure. They of his own research into modular systems. 43
Church's attitude towards dissection, and spe- knew well enough that the revered Greek artist, Rather, he wished to emphasize that the artist's
cifically sanctioned the dissection in medical Polykleitos, had demonstrated the theory of understanding should have become so natural-
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schools of the bodies of executed criminals. It harmonic proportions by means of his Canon ized as to transcend the need for laborious con-
may have been within a climate of greater toler- (the name of both his treatise and one of his structions. It was on this basis that he was so
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ance that Leonardo and Michelangelo were able statues). In the absence of detailed informa- critical of Diirer's elaborate formulas.
to receive their earliest direct experiences of tion about the Canon, however, Renaissance The sense of natural mastery of anatomy and
dissection in the monastic hospitals of Florence. theorists beginning with Cennino Cennini proportion in even the most complex poses,
The best documented of the dissections is Leo- looked both to the Roman scheme outlined in which in the hands of Michelangelo looks so
nardo's autopsy of a "centenarian" in the hospi- Vitruvius' Ten Books on Architecture and to the easy, had been hard won by generations of
tal of Santa Maria Nuova in the winter of 1507- surviving legacy of a proportional system in artists. Equally hard won had been the patrons'
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1508. During the same period Michelangelo's Byzantine art. Confirmation of the canon was own growing sense of ease and comfort regard-
drawings exhibit an understanding of the sur- increasingly sought through direct measure- ing depictions of the nude human figure.
face configurations of the human body that ment of the human figure. Typically, Alberti in Paradoxically, the acceptance of nakedness in art
presupposes a developed understanding of the his De statua did not attempt to describe indi- was harder to achieve in domestic than in reli-
attachments and course of each muscle. This vidual human specimens as such, but rather gious settings. The portrayal of the naked body
increased knowledge was accompanied by a tried to define the underlying ideal, searching (to draw upon Clark's distinction between the
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reexamination of the way in which the artist for "not simply the beauty found in this or that "naked" and the "nude") had specific meaning
should use anatomical information. Its overt body, but, as far as possible, that perfect beauty in certain religious subjects, such as the Expul-
display in all circumstances, making every fig- distributed by nature, as it were, in fixed pro- sion of Adam and Eve. And the nakedness of the
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ure look like a "sack of nuts" (to use Leonardo's portions in many bodies." His research Christ Child in Renaissance paintings of the
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term), was not to be sanctioned. Looking back resulted in a head-length in a ratio of 1:7.5 to Madonna and Child was intended to emphasize
from his vantage point in the mid-sixteenth the full height of a man, which departs both the idea that "the Word had become flesh." 45
century, Vasari criticized artists of the gen- from Vitruvius' 8-head norm and the Byzantine The near-naked dead Christs of Mantegna (cat.
eration of Pollaiuolo and Verrocchio for demon- 9-face system. This program of research was 154) and Holbein dramatically illustrate how the
strating their knowledge in too direct and dry a sustained and extended by Leonardo (cat. 177) new resources for the portrayal of the corporeal-
manner; he praised Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Diirer (cat. 194), and the latter devised ity of the human body could be used to trans-
and Raphael for showing how anatomical under- alternative systems for figures of inherently form the impact of religious images. Using the
standing could be placed in the service of the different types and ages. It is difficult to know technique of foreshortening, Mantegna lays his
overall character, motion, and emotion of each whether artists actually used specific propor- Christ on the unyielding stone of unction, com-
subject. The revered works of classical antiquity, tional modules in the making of figures, or posed of veined marble, which, according to
such as the Apollo Belvedere and the Belvedere whether their designs should be seen as legend, was stained forever by the Virgin's
Torso, provided some guidance, but the three responding in a more general way to the idea of tears. His feet, the "lowest" part of Jesus, with
High Renaissance masters each achieved his proportional beauty. Diirer certainly thought their open wounds, are thrust assertively into
own particular way of integrating the fruits of that the Italians owed the superior beauty of our space and our view. The realism of their
his study into the general framework of his their figure style to their adherence to precise wrinkled soles is precisely of the kind that
compositions. The contrast between the wiry, measures, and he keenly sought initiation into would disconcert Caravaggio's patrons over a
calculated detail in the re-creation in bronze of the "secret" from his Venetian colleague, Jacopo century later. Holbein, for his part, uses
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a Roman sarcophagus relief by Michelangelo's de' Barbari. On the other hand, a number resources of a realism that was no less uncom-
master, Bertoldo di Giovanni (cat. 164), and the of artists raised their voices to caution that promising if different in emphasis. Whereas
rhythmic power of Michelangelo's own Battle of proportional measures should not be used in a Mantegna uses his sculptural synthesis of forms
the Centaurs (see essay by Argan in this cata- mechanical, slavish way. Donatello, when asked in perspective to provide a selective assertion of
logue) already signals the transformation in to demonstrate his "abacus," is reputed simply Christ's mutilation, every inch of Holbein's fig-
figure style acclaimed by Vasari, even though to have made a freehand drawing, and Michel- ure bears eloquent witness to the unbearable
Michelangelo's relief was undertaken at the angelo was repeatedly credited with the injunc- strains to which Christ has been subjected. The

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