Italian art in the 20th century has played out against a historical background of continuity and heaviness. The historical presence is noticeable in several of the art directions. Even the more rabid and formally subversive art reveals sophisticated artistic approaches that require familiarity with art history. The historical heaviness meets us, among other things, as…
Author: globalsciencellc
Art in Italy Before 1900 Part I
When the migrations around the year 400 AD overturned the West Roman Empire, classical art on Italian soil had long since dissolved. But the legacy of antiquity was to break forth and create new highlights in the development of Italian art. In Venice, St. Mark’s Church was equipped with numerous Byzantine-style wall and dome mosaics….
Art in Italy Before 1900 Part II
The international style The international style of Italy was first and foremost represented by the Siena school in the early 1300s. Contact with the countries north of the Alps became lively; Simone Martini (1284–1344) worked for a period as Pope’s court painter in Avignon. He gave Giotto the characters some weight, but was closer to…
Art in Italy Before 1900 Part III
Sandro Botticelli, one of the greatest painters of Florentine Hungary, spent most of his life in Florence, where the Medici family were his protectors. Venus’ birth is one of his main works, painted around 1468. Mannerism The mannerisms in the visual arts are evident in Florentine painters such as Jacopo Pontormo (1494–1557) and Agnolo Bronzino…