The Renaissance in Venice is a separate and peculiar part of the Italian Renaissance. Here it began later, lasted longer, and the role of ancient tendencies in Venice was the least. The position of Venice among other Italian regions can be compared with the position of Novgorod in medieval Rus'. It was a rich, prosperous patrician-merchant republic that held the keys to sea trade routes. All power in Venice belonged to the "Council of Nine", elected by the ruling caste. The actual power of the oligarchy was exercised behind the scenes and cruelly, through espionage and covert assassinations. The outer side of Venetian life looked as festive as possible.

In Venice, there was little interest in excavations of ancient antiquities; its Renaissance had other sources. Venice has long maintained close trade ties with Byzantium, with the Arab East, traded with India. The culture of Byzantium took deep roots, but it was not Byzantine austerity that took root here, but its brilliance, its golden brilliance. Venice reworked both Gothic and Eastern traditions (the stone lace of Venetian architecture, reminiscent of the Moorish Alhambra, speaks of them).

St. Mark's Cathedral - Unparalleled architectural monument, the construction of which began in the X century. The uniqueness of the cathedral is that it harmoniously combines columns taken from Byzantium, Byzantine mosaics, ancient Roman sculpture, Gothic sculpture. Having absorbed the traditions of different cultures, Venice has developed its own style, secular, bright and colorful. The short-term period of the early Renaissance came here not earlier than the second half of the 15th century. It was then that paintings by Vittore Carpaccio and Giovanni Bellini appeared, captivatingly depicting the life of Venice in the context of religious stories. V. Carpaccio in the cycle "The Life of Saint Ursula" in detail and poetically depicts his hometown, its landscape, inhabitants.

Giorgione is considered the first master of the High Renaissance in Venice. His "Sleeping Venus" is a work of amazing spiritual purity, one of the most poetic images of a naked body in world art. Giorgione's compositions are balanced and clear, and his drawing is characterized by a rare smoothness of lines. Giorgione has a quality inherent in the entire Venetian school - colorism. The Venetians did not consider color as a secondary element of painting as the Florentines did. Love for the beauty of color leads Venetian artists to a new pictorial principle, when the materiality of the image is achieved not so much by chiaroscuro as by gradations of color. The work of Venetian artists is deeply emotional, immediacy plays a greater role here than that of the painters of Florence.

Titian lived a legendaryly long life - supposedly ninety-nine years, and his latest period is the most significant. Having become close to Giorgione, he was largely influenced by him. This is especially noticeable in the paintings "Earthly and Heavenly Love", "Flora" - works that are serene in mood, deep in colors. Compared to Giorgione, Titian is not so lyrical and refined, his female images more "down to earth", but they are no less charming. Calm, golden-haired, women of Titian, naked or in rich outfits, are, as it were, imperturbable nature itself, “shining with eternal beauty” and absolutely chaste in its frank sensuality. The promise of happiness, the hope for happiness and the complete enjoyment of life are one of the foundations of Titian's work.

Titian is intellectual, according to a contemporary, he was "a magnificent, intelligent interlocutor who knew how to judge everything in the world." Throughout his long life, Titian remained true to the high ideals of humanism.

Titian painted many portraits, and each of them is unique, because it conveys the individual originality inherent in each person. In the 1540s, the artist paints a portrait of Pope Paul III, the main patron of the Inquisition, with his grandchildren Alessandro and Ottavio Farnese. In terms of the depth of character analysis, this portrait is a unique work. The predatory and frail old man in the papal robe resembles a cornered rat, which is ready to rush somewhere to the side. The two young men act obsequiously, but this subservience is false: we feel the atmosphere of brewing betrayal, deceit, intrigue. Terrible in its adamant realism portrait.

In the second half of the 16th century, the shadow of Catholic reaction falls on Venice; although it remained formally an independent state, the Inquisition penetrates here too - and yet Venice has always been famous for its religious tolerance and the secular, free spirit of art. The country also suffers another disaster: it is devastated by an epidemic of the plague (Titian also died of the plague). In this regard, Titian's attitude is also changing, there is not a trace of his former serenity.

In his later works, one feels deep spiritual grief. Among them, the "Penitent Mary Magdalene" and "Saint Sebastian" stand out. The painting technique of the master in "Saint Sebastian" is brought to perfection. Up close, it seems as if the whole picture is a chaos of strokes. The painting of late Titian should be viewed from a distance. Then the chaos disappears, and in the midst of the darkness we see a young man dying under arrows, against the backdrop of a blazing fire. Large sweeping strokes completely absorb the line and generalize the details. The Venetians, and most of all Titian, took a new huge step, putting dynamic picturesqueness in place of statuary, replacing the dominance of the line with the dominance of the color spot.

Majestic and strict Titian in his last self-portrait. Wisdom, complete sophistication and consciousness of one's creative power breathe in this proud face with an aquiline nose, a high forehead and a look that is spiritual and penetrating.

The last great artist of the Venetian High Renaissance is Tintoretto. He writes a lot and quickly - monumental compositions, plafonds, large paintings, overflowing with figures in dizzying angles and with the most spectacular perspective constructions, unceremoniously destroying the structure of the plane, forcing closed interiors to move apart and breathe space. The cycle of his paintings dedicated to the miracles of St. Mark (St. Mark frees a slave). His drawings and paintings are a whirlwind, pressure, fire energy. Tintoretto does not tolerate calm, frontal figures, so St. Mark literally falls from the sky on the heads of the pagans. His favorite landscape is stormy, with stormy clouds and flashes of lightning.

Tintoretto's interpretation of the plot of the Last Supper is interesting. In his picture, the action takes place, most likely, in a dimly lit tavern, with a low ceiling. The table is set diagonally and leads the eye into the depths of the room. At the words of Christ, whole hosts of transparent angels appear under the ceiling. There is a bizarre triple lighting: the ghostly glow of angels, the wavering light of a lamp, the light of halos around the heads of the apostles and Christ. This is a real magical phantasmagoria: bright flashes in the twilight, swirling and diverging rays of light, the play of shadows create an atmosphere of confusion.

Renaissance in Italy.

It is customary to designate periods in the history of Italian culture by the names of centuries: ducento (XIII century) - Proto-Renaissance(late century), trecento (XIV century) - continuation of the Proto-Renaissance, Quattrocento (XV century) - Early Renaissance, cinquicento (XVI century) - high renaissance(the first 30 years of the century). Until the end of the XVI century. it continues only in Venice; This period is often referred to as "Late Renaissance".

The last of the Italian cities, not earlier than the middle of the 15th century, Venice was imbued with the ideas of the Renaissance. Unlike the rest of Italy, she lived it in her own way. A prosperous city avoiding military conflicts, a center of maritime trade, Venice was self-sufficient. Its masters kept themselves apart to such an extent that when the Florentine Vasari in the middle of the 16th century began to collect material for the “Lives of the Most Famous Painters, Sculptors and Architects”, he was unable to obtain details of the biographies of people who lived a century earlier, and united everyone in one short chapter. .

Bellini. "Miracle at St. Lawrence Bridge". From the point of view of Venetian artists, all the saints lived in Venice and sailed on gondolas.

The masters of Venice did not seek to study ancient ruins in Rome. They much more liked Byzantium and the Arab East, with which the Venetian Republic traded. In addition, they were in no hurry to renounce medieval art. And the two most famous city buildings - St. Mark's Cathedral and the Doge's Palace - are two beautiful architectural "bouquets": the first one contains the motifs of Byzantine art, and the second coexists with a medieval lancet arch and an Arabic pattern.

Leonardo da Vinci, the great Florentine, condemned painters who were too fond of the beauty of color, considering relief to be the main advantage of painting. The Venetians had their own opinion on this matter. They even learned how to create the illusion of volume, almost without resorting to color and shadow, but using different shades one color. This is how "Sleeping Venus" by Giorgione is written.

Giorgione. "Storm". The plot of the film remains a mystery. But it is clear that the artist was most interested in the mood, the state of mind of the character at the present, in this case, the pre-storm moment.

Artists of the Early Renaissance painted paintings and frescoes with tempera, invented in antiquity. Oil paints have been known since antiquity, but painters were imbued with sympathy for them only in the 15th century. The Dutch masters were the first to improve the technique of oil painting.

Since Venice was built on islands in the middle of the sea, the frescoes were quickly destroyed due to the high humidity of the air. The masters could not write on the boards, as Botticelli wrote his Adoration of the Magi: there was a lot of water around, but little forest. They painted on canvas oil paints, and in this more than other Renaissance painters were like modern ones.

Venetian artists treated science coolly. They did not differ in versatility of talents, knowing only one thing - painting. But they were surprisingly cheerful and gladly transferred to the canvas everything that pleased the eye: Venetian architecture, canals, bridges and boats with gondoliers, a stormy landscape. Giovanni Bellini, a famous artist in his time in the city, was carried away, according to Vasari, by portrait painting and so infected his fellow citizens with it that every Venetian who reached any significant position was in a hurry to order his portrait. And his brother Gentile seemed to shock the Turkish Sultan to the depths of his soul by painting him from nature: when he saw his “second self”, the Sultan considered it a miracle. Titian painted many portraits. Living people were more interesting to the artists of Venice than ideal heroes.

The fact that Venice was delayed with innovations turned out to be a good thing. It was she who preserved, as best she could, the achievements of the Italian Renaissance in the years when it had faded in other cities. The Venetian school of painting became a bridge between the Renaissance and the art that came to replace it.

The art of Venice represents a special version of the development of the principles themselves artistic culture Renaissance and in relation to all other centers of Renaissance art in Italy.

Chronologically, the art of the Renaissance took shape in Venice somewhat later than in most other major centers of Italy of that era. It took shape, in particular, later than in Florence and in general in Tuscany. Formation of the principles of the artistic culture of the Renaissance in fine arts Venice began only in the 15th century. This was determined by no means by the economic backwardness of Venice. On the contrary, Venice, along with Florence, Pisa, Genoa, Milan, was one of the most economically developed centers of Italy at that time. It is precisely the early transformation of Venice into a great commercial and, moreover, predominantly commercial, rather than a productive power, which began from the 12th century and was especially accelerated during the crusades, is to blame for this delay.

The culture of Venice, this window of Italy and Central Europe, "cut through" to the eastern countries, was closely connected with the magnificent grandeur and solemn luxury of the imperial Byzantine culture, and partly with the refined decorative culture of the Arab world. Already in the 12th century, that is, in the era of the dominance of the Romanesque style in Europe, a rich trading republic, creating art that asserts its wealth and power, widely turned to the experience of Byzantium, that is, the richest, most developed Christian medieval power at that time. In essence, the artistic culture of Venice as early as the 14th century was a kind of interweaving of magnificent and festive forms of monumental Byzantine art, enlivened by the influence of the colorful ornamentation of the East and a peculiarly elegant rethinking of the decorative elements of mature Gothic art.

A characteristic example of the temporary delay of Venetian culture in its transition to the Renaissance in comparison with other areas of Italy is the architecture of the Doge's Palace (14th century). In painting, the extremely characteristic vitality of medieval traditions is clearly reflected in the late Gothic work of masters of the late 14th century, such as Lorenzo and Stefano Veneziano. They make themselves felt even in the work of such artists of the 15th century, whose art already bore a completely Renaissance character. Such are the "Madonnas" of Bartolomeo, Alvise Vivarini, such is the work of Carlo Crivelli, the subtle and elegant master of the Early Renaissance. In his art, medieval reminiscences are felt much stronger than those of his contemporary artists of Tuscany and Umbria. It is characteristic that the proto-Renaissance tendencies proper, similar to the art of Cavalini and Giotto, who also worked in the Venetian Republic (one of his best cycles was created for Padua), made themselves felt weakly and sporadically.

Only approximately from the middle of the 15th century can we say that the inevitable and natural process of the transition of Venetian art to secular positions, characteristic of the entire artistic culture of the Renaissance, finally begins to be fully realized. The peculiarity of the Venetian quattrocento was mainly reflected in the desire for increased festivity of color, for a peculiar combination of subtle realism with decorativeness in the composition, in a greater interest in the landscape background, in the landscape environment surrounding a person; moreover, it is characteristic that interest in the urban landscape, perhaps, was even more developed than interest in the natural landscape. It was in the second half of the 15th century that the formation of the Renaissance school in Venice took place as a significant and original phenomenon that occupied an important place in the art of the Italian Renaissance. It was at this time that, along with the art of the archaic Crivelli, the work of Antonello da Messina took shape, striving for a more holistic, generalized perception of the world, a poetic-decorative and monumental perception. Not much later, a more narrative line in the development of the art of Gentile Bellini and Carpaccio appears.

This is natural. Venice by the middle of the 15th century reaches the highest degree of its commercial and political heyday. The colonial possessions in the trading post of the "Queen of the Adriatic" covered not only the entire eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea, but also spread widely throughout the eastern Mediterranean. In Cyprus, Rhodes, Crete, the banner of the Lion of St. Mark flutters. Many of the noble patrician families that make up the ruling elite of the Venetian oligarchy, overseas act as rulers of large cities or entire regions. The Venetian fleet firmly controls almost the entire transit trade between East and Western Europe.

True, the defeat of the Byzantine Empire by the Turks, which ended with the capture of Constantinople, shook the trading positions of Venice. Yet by no means can one speak of the decline of Venice in the second half of the 15th century. The general collapse of the Venetian eastern trade came much later. The Venetian merchants invested huge funds for that time, partially released from trade, in the development of crafts and manufactories in Venice, partly in the development of rational agriculture in their possessions located on the peninsula adjacent to the lagoon (the so-called terra farm).

Moreover, the rich and still full of vitality republic in 1509-1516, combining the force of arms with flexible diplomacy, defended its independence in a difficult struggle with a hostile coalition of a number of European powers. The general upsurge caused by the outcome of this difficult struggle, which temporarily rallied all sections of Venetian society, caused the growth of the features of heroic optimism and monumental festivity that are so characteristic of the art of the High Renaissance in Venice, starting with Titian. The fact that Venice retained its independence and, to a large extent, its wealth, determined the duration of the heyday of the art of the High Renaissance in the Venetian Republic. Fracture to late Renaissance was outlined in Venice somewhat later than in Rome and Florence, namely, by the mid-40s of the 16th century.

art

The period of maturation of the prerequisites for the transition to the High Renaissance coincides, as in the rest of Italy, with the end of the 15th century. It was during these years that, in parallel with the narrative art of Gentile Bellini and Carpaccio, the work of a number of masters, so to speak, of a new artistic direction: Giovanni Bellini and Cima da Conegliano. Although in time they work almost simultaneously with Gentile Bellini and Carpaccio, they represent the next stage in the logic of the development of the art of the Venetian Renaissance. These were the painters, in whose art the transition to a new stage in the development of Renaissance culture was most clearly outlined. This was especially clearly revealed in the work of the mature Giovanni Bellini, at least to a greater extent than even in the paintings of his younger contemporary Cima da Conegliano or his younger brother, Gentile Bellini.

Giovanni Bellini (apparently born after 1425 and before 1429; died in 1516) not only develops and improves the achievements accumulated by his immediate predecessors, but also raises Venetian art and, more broadly, Renaissance culture as a whole to a higher level . The artist has an amazing sense of the monumental significance of the form, its inner figurative-emotional content. In his paintings, the connection between the mood created by the landscape and state of mind heroes of the composition, which is one of the remarkable conquests of modern painting in general. At the same time, in the art of Giovanni Bellini - and this is the most important - the significance of the moral world of the human personality is revealed with extraordinary force.

At an early stage of his work, the characters in the composition are still very static, the drawing is somewhat harsh, the combinations of colors are almost sharp. But the feeling of the inner significance of a person's spiritual state, the revelation of the beauty of his inner experiences, reach already during this period a tremendous impressive force. On the whole, gradually, without external sharp leaps, Giovanni Bellini, organically developing the humanistic basis of his work, frees himself from the moments of the narrative art of his immediate predecessors and contemporaries. The plot in his compositions relatively rarely receives a detailed dramatic development, but the stronger through the emotional sound of color, through the rhythmic expressiveness of the drawing and the clear simplicity of the compositions, the monumental significance of the form, and, finally, through the restrained, but full of inner strength mimicry, greatness is revealed spiritual world person.

Bellini's interest in the problem of lighting, in the problem of the relationship of human figures with their natural environment, also determined his interest in the achievements of the masters of the Dutch Renaissance (a feature generally characteristic of many artists of the north of Italian art of the second half of the 15th century). However, the clear plasticity of form, the craving for the monumental significance of the image of a person with all the natural vitality of his interpretation - for example, "Prayer for the Cup" - determine the decisive difference between Bellini as a master of the Italian Renaissance with his heroic humanism from the artists of the northern Renaissance, although in the earliest period of his creativity, the artist turned to the northerners, more precisely to the Netherlands, in search of sometimes emphatically sharp psychological and narrative characterization of the image ("Pieta" from Bergamo, c. 1450). Peculiarity creative way Venetian in comparison with both Mantegna and the masters of the North appears very clearly in his "Madonna with a Greek inscription" (1470s, Milan, Brera). This image of a mournfully pensive Mary, gently embracing a sad baby, remotely reminiscent of an icon, also speaks of another tradition from which the master repels - the tradition of Byzantine and, more broadly, of all European medieval painting. However, the abstract spirituality of the linear rhythms and color chords of the icon is decisively overcome Restrained and strict in their expressiveness, the color ratios are vitally specific. The colors are true, the solid molding of the three-dimensionally modeled form is very real. The subtly clear sadness of the rhythms of the silhouette is inseparable from the restrained vital expressiveness of the movement of the figures themselves, from the living human, and not the abstract spiritualistic expression of Mary's sad, mournful and thoughtful face, from the sad tenderness of the baby's wide-open eyes. Poetically inspired, deeply human, and not mystically transformed feeling is expressed in this simple and modest-looking composition.

During the 1480s, Giovanni Bellini takes a decisive step forward in his work and becomes one of the founders of the art of the High Renaissance. The originality of the art of the mature Giovanni Bellini stands out clearly when comparing his "Transfiguration" (1480s) with his early "Transfiguration" (Venice, Museo Correr). In the "Transfiguration" of the Correr Museum, the rigidly traced figures of Christ and the prophets are located on a small rock, reminiscent of both a large pedestal to the monument and an iconic "bream". The figures, somewhat angular in their movements, in which the unity of life characteristic and poetic elation of gesture has not yet been achieved, are distinguished by stereoscopicity. Light and cold-clear, almost flashy colors of volumetrically modeled figures are surrounded by a cold-transparent atmosphere. The figures themselves, despite the bold use of colored shadows, are still distinguished by a uniform uniformity of illumination and a certain static character.

The next stage after the art of Giovanni Bellini and Cima da Conegliano was the work of Giorgione, the first master Venetian school, wholly owned by the High Renaissance. Giorgio Barbarelli del Castelfranco (1477/78 - 1510), nicknamed Giorgione, was a junior contemporary and student of Giovanni Bellini. Giorgione, like Leonardo da Vinci, reveals the refined harmony of a spiritually rich and physically perfect person. Just like Leonardo, Giorgione's work is distinguished by deep intellectualism and, it would seem, crystalline rationality. But, unlike Leonardo, the deep lyricism of whose art is very hidden and, as it were, subordinate to the pathos of rational intellectualism, in Giorgione the lyrical principle, in its clear agreement with the rational principle, makes itself felt more directly and with greater force.

In the painting of Giorgione, nature, the natural environment, begin to play a more important role than in the work of Bellini and Leonardo.

If we still cannot say that Giorgione depicts a single air environment that connects the figures and objects of the landscape into a single plein-air whole, then we, in any case, have the right to assert that the figurative emotional atmosphere in which both the characters and nature live in Giorgione is the atmosphere is already optically common both for the background and for the characters in the picture. A peculiar example of the introduction of figures into the natural environment and the remelting of the experience of Bellini and Leonardo into something organically new - "Giorgionev", is his drawing "St. Elizabeth with the baby John", in which a special, somewhat crystal clear and cool atmosphere is very subtly conveyed by means of graphics, so inherent in the creations of Giorgione.

Few works of both Giorgione himself and his circle have survived to our time. A number of attributions are controversial. However, it should be noted that the first complete exhibition of works by Giorgione and the Giorgionescos, held in Venice in 1958, made it possible not only to make a number of clarifications in the circle of the master’s works, but also to attribute to Giorgione a number of previously controversial works, helped to more fully and clearly present the character of his creativity in general.

Relatively early works by Giorgione, completed before 1505, include his Adoration of the Shepherds in the Washington Museum and Adoration of the Magi in the National Gallery in London. In "The Adoration of the Magi" (London), despite the well-known fragmentation of the drawing and the insurmountable rigidity of the color, the master's interest in conveying the inner spiritual world of the characters is already felt. The initial period of creativity Giorgione completes his wonderful composition "Madonna of Castelfranco" (c. 1504, Castelfranco, Cathedral).

From 1505, the period of the artist's creative maturity began, soon interrupted by his fatal illness. During this short five years, his main masterpieces were created: "Judith", "Thunderstorm", "Sleeping Venus", "Concert" and most of the few portraits. It is in these works that the mastery inherent in the great painters of the Venetian school in mastering special coloristic and figurative expressive possibilities oil painting. It must be said that the Venetians, who were not the first creators and distributors of oil painting, were actually among the first to discover the specific possibilities and features of oil painting.

It should be noted that the characteristic features of the Venetian school were precisely the predominant development of oil painting and the much weaker development of fresco painting. During the transition from the medieval system to the Renaissance realistic system of monumental painting, the Venetians, naturally, like most peoples who passed from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance stage in the development of artistic culture, almost completely abandoned mosaics. Its highly brilliant and decorative chromaticity could no longer fully meet the new artistic challenges. Of course, the mosaic technique continued to be used, but its role is becoming less and less noticeable. Using the mosaic technique, it was still possible to achieve results in the Renaissance that relatively satisfy the aesthetic needs of the time. But just the specific properties of mosaic smalt, its unique sonorous radiance, surreal shimmer and, at the same time, increased decorativeness of the overall effect could not be fully applied under the conditions of the new artistic ideal. True, the increased light radiance of the iridescent shimmering mosaic painting, although transformed, indirectly, but influenced the Renaissance painting of Venice, which always gravitated towards sonorous clarity and radiant richness of color. But the very stylistic system with which the mosaic was associated, and consequently its technique, had, with a few exceptions, to leave the sphere of large monumental painting. The mosaic technique itself, now more often used for more private and narrow purposes, more of a decorative and applied nature, was not completely forgotten by the Venetians. Moreover, the Venetian mosaic workshops were one of those centers that brought the traditions of mosaic technology, in particular smalt, to our time.

Stained glass painting also retained some importance due to its “luminosity”, although it must be admitted that it never had the same significance either in Venice or in Italy as a whole as in the Gothic culture of France and Germany. An idea of the Renaissance plastic rethinking of the visionary radiance of medieval stained glass painting is given by "St. George" (16th century) by Mochetto in the church of San Giovanni e Paolo.

In general, in the art of the Renaissance, the development of monumental painting proceeded either in the forms of fresco painting, or on the basis of the partial development of tempera, and mainly on the monumental and decorative use of oil painting (wall panels).

Fresco is a technique with which such masterpieces as the Masaccio cycle, Raphael's stanzas and the paintings of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel were created in the Early and High Renaissance. But in the Venetian climate, it very early discovered its instability and was not widespread in the 16th century. Thus, the frescoes of the German Compound "Fondaco dei Tedeschi" (1508), executed by Giorgione with the participation of the young Titian, were almost completely destroyed. Only a few half-faded fragments, spoiled by dampness, have survived, among them the figure of a naked woman, full of almost Praxitele charm, made by Giorgione. Therefore, the place of wall painting, in the proper sense of the word, was taken by a wall panel on canvas, designed for a specific room and performed using the technique of oil painting.

Oil painting received a particularly wide and rich development in Venice, however, not only because it seemed the most convenient way to replace the fresco with another painting technique adapted to the humid climate, but also because the desire to convey the image of a person in close connection with the natural environment around him environment, interest in the realistic embodiment of the tonal and coloristic richness of the visible world could be revealed with particular completeness and flexibility precisely in the technique of oil painting. In this regard, pleasing with its great color strength and clearly shining sonority, but more decorative in nature, tempera painting on boards in easel compositions should naturally give way to oil, and this process of displacing tempera with oil painting was especially consistently carried out in Venice. It should not be forgotten that for Venetian painters, a particularly valuable property of oil painting was its ability to be more flexible compared to tempera, and even with fresco, to convey light-color and spatial shades of the human environment, the ability to softly and sonically sculpt a form human body. For Giorgione, who worked relatively little in the field of large monumental compositions (his painting was, in essence, either easel in nature, or they were monumental in their general sound, but not connected with the structure of the surrounding architectural composition of the interior), these possibilities inherent in oil painting were especially valuable. It is characteristic that the soft molding of the form with chiaroscuro is also inherent in his drawings.

a feeling of the mysterious complexity of the inner spiritual world of a person, hidden behind the apparent clear transparent beauty of his noble external appearance, finds expression in the famous "Judith" (before 1504, Leningrad, the Hermitage). "Judith" is formally a composition on a biblical theme. Moreover, unlike the paintings of many Quattrocentists, it is a composition on a theme, and not an illustration of a biblical text. Therefore, the master does not depict any culminating moment from the point of view of the development of the event, as the Quattrocento masters usually did (Judith strikes Holofernes with the sword or carries his severed head along with the maid).

Against the backdrop of a calm pre-sunset landscape, under the canopy of an oak tree, leaning thoughtfully on the balustrade, slender Judith stands. The smooth tenderness of her figure is set off in contrast by the massive trunk of a mighty tree. Clothes of a soft scarlet color are permeated with a restless-broken rhythm of folds, as if a distant echo of a passing whirlwind. In her hand she holds a large double-edged sword resting on the ground with its tip on the ground, the cold shine and straightness of which contrastly emphasize the flexibility of the half-naked leg trampling Holofernes' head. An imperceptible half-smile glides across Judith's face. This composition, it would seem, conveys all the charm of the image of a young woman, coldly beautiful, which is echoed, like a kind of musical accompaniment, by the soft clarity of the surrounding peaceful nature. At the same time, the cold cutting edge of the sword, the unexpected cruelty of the motive - the tender naked foot trampling the dead head of Holofernes - bring a feeling of vague anxiety and anxiety into this seemingly harmonious, almost idyllic in mood picture.

On the whole, of course, the clear and calm purity of the dreamy mood remains the dominant motive. However, the comparison of the bliss of the image and the mysterious cruelty of the motif of the sword and the trampled head, the almost rebus complexity of this dual mood, can plunge the modern viewer into some confusion.

But Giorgione's contemporaries, apparently, were less struck by the cruelty of the contrast (Renaissance humanism was never overly sensitive), rather than attracted by that subtle transmission of the echoes of distant storms and dramatic conflicts, against which the acquisition of refined harmony, the state of serenity of the dreamily dreaming beautiful human soul.

In literature, there is sometimes an attempt to reduce the meaning of Giorgione's art to the expression of the ideals of only a small humanistically enlightened patrician elite of Venice at that time. However, this is not entirely true, or rather, not only so. The objective content of Giorgione's art is immeasurably wider and more universal than the spiritual world of that narrow social stratum with which his work is directly connected. The feeling of the refined nobility of the human soul, the desire for ideal perfection beautiful image a person who lives in harmony with environment, with the outside world, had a great general progressive significance for the development of culture.

As mentioned, interest in portrait sharpness is not characteristic of Giorgione's work. This does not mean at all that his characters, like the images of the classical ancient art devoid of any specific individual identity. His magi in the early "Adoration of the Magi" and the philosophers in "Three Philosophers" (c. 1508, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum) differ from each other not only in age, but also in their appearance, in their character. However, they, and in particular the "Three Philosophers", with all the individual differences in images, are perceived by us mainly not so much as unique, vividly characterized individuals, or even more so as an image of three ages (a young man, a mature husband and an old man), but as the embodiment of various aspects , different facets of the human spirit. It is no coincidence and partly justified the desire to see in three scientists the embodiment of three aspects of wisdom: the humanistic mysticism of Eastern Averroism (a man in a turban), Aristotelianism (an old man) and contemporary artist humanism (a young man inquisitively peering into the world). It is quite possible that Giorgione put this meaning into the image he created.

But the human content, the complex richness of the spiritual world of the three heroes of the picture is wider and richer than any one-sided interpretation of them.

In essence, the first such comparison within the framework of the emerging Renaissance art system was carried out in the art of Giotto - in his fresco "Kiss of Judas". However, there the comparison of Christ and Judas was read very clearly, since it was connected with the universally known religious legend of that time, and this opposition has the character of a deep irreconcilable conflict between good and evil. The maliciously treacherous and hypocritical face of Judas acts as an antipode to the noble, exalted and strict face of Christ. Due to the clarity of the plot, the conflict of these two images has a huge immediately conscious ethical content. Moral and ethical (more precisely, moral and ethical in their fusion) superiority, moreover, the moral victory of Christ over Judas in this conflict, is undeniably clear to us.

In Giorgione, the juxtaposition of the outwardly calm, unconstrained, aristocratic figure of a noble husband and the figure of a somewhat vicious and base character occupying a dependent position in relation to her is not connected with a conflict situation, in any case, with that clear conflict intransigence of characters and their struggle, which gives such a high the tragic meaning of Giotto, brought together by the kiss of the reptile Judas and Christ, beautiful in his calmly strict spirituality ( It is curious that the embrace of Judas, foreshadowing the teacher's torment on the cross, echoes again, as it were, with the compositional motif of the meeting of Mary with Elizabeth, included by Giotto in the general cycle of the life of Christ and broadcasting about the coming birth of the Messiah.).

Clairvoyant and harmonious in its hidden complexity and mystery, the art of Giorgione is alien to open clashes and struggles of characters. And it is no coincidence that Giorgione does not catch the dramatic conflicting possibilities hidden in the motif depicted by him.

This is his difference not only from Giotto, but also from his brilliant student Titian, who, in the period of the first flowering of his still heroic and cheerful creativity, albeit in a different way than Giotto, caught in his "Denarius of Caesar", so to speak, the ethical meaning of the aesthetic opposition of the physical and spiritual nobility of Christ to the vile and brute strength of the Pharisee's character. At the same time, it is extremely instructive that Titian also refers to the well-known Gospel episode, emphatically conflicting in the nature of the plot itself, solving this topic, of course, in terms of the absolute victory of the rational and harmonious will of a person who embodies here the Renaissance and humanistic ideal over his own opposite.

Turning to the actual portrait works of Giorgione, it should be recognized that one of the most characteristic portraits of his mature period of creativity is the wonderful "Portrait of Antonio Brocardo" (c. 1508 - 1510, Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts). In it, of course, the individual portrait features of a noble youth are accurately conveyed, but they are clearly softened and, as it were, woven into the image of a perfect person.

The unconstrainedly free movement of the young man’s hand, the energy felt in the body, half-hidden under loose-wide robes, the noble beauty of a pale swarthy face, the restrained naturalness of planting the head on a strong, slender neck, the beauty of the contour of an elastically defined mouth, the thoughtful dreaminess of a person looking into the distance and to the side from the viewer's gaze - all this creates an image of a person full of noble power, seized by a clear, calm and deep thought. The soft curve of the bay with still waters, the silent mountainous coast with solemnly calm buildings form a landscape background ( Due to the darkened background of the painting, the landscape in the reproductions is indistinguishable.), which, as always with Giorgione, does not unanimously repeat the rhythm and mood of the main figure, but, as it were, indirectly consonant with this mood.

The softness of the cut-off sculpting of the face and hand is somewhat reminiscent of Leonardo's sfumato. Leonardo and Giorgione simultaneously solved the problem of combining the plastically clear architectonics of the forms of the human body with their softened modeling, which makes it possible to convey all the richness of its plastic and chiaroscuro shades - so to speak, the very "breath" of the human body. If with Leonardo it is rather a gradation of light and dark, the finest shading of the form, then with Giorgione sfumato has a special character - it is, as it were, modeling the volumes of the human body with a wide stream of soft light.

Giorgione's portraits begin a remarkable line of development of the Venetian portrait of the High Renaissance. The features of the Giorgione portrait will be further developed by Titian, who, however, unlike Giorgione, has a much sharper and stronger sense of the individual uniqueness of the depicted human character, a more dynamic perception of the world.

The work of Giorgione ends with two works - "Sleeping Venus" (c. 1508 - 1510, Dresden, Art Gallery) and the Louvre "Concert" (1508). These paintings remained unfinished, and the landscape background in them was completed by Giorgione's younger friend and student, the great Titian. "Sleeping Venus", in addition, has lost some of its pictorial qualities due to a number of damages and unsuccessful restorations. But be that as it may, it was in this work that the ideal of the unity of the physical and spiritual beauty of man was revealed with great humanistic fullness and almost ancient clarity.

Immersed in a quiet slumber, naked Venus is depicted by Giorgione against the backdrop of a rural landscape, the calm gentle rhythm of the hills is so in harmony with her image. The atmosphere of a cloudy day softens all contours and at the same time preserves the plastic expressiveness of forms. It is characteristic that here again the specific correlation of the figure and the background is manifested, understood as a kind of accompaniment to the spiritual state of the protagonist. It is no coincidence that the tensely calm rhythm of the hills, combined in the landscape with the wide rhythms of meadows and pastures, enters into a peculiarly consonant contrast with the soft, elongated smoothness of the contours of the body, which, in turn, is contrasted by the restless soft folds of the fabric on which the naked Venus reclines. Although the landscape was completed not by Giorgione himself, but by Titian, the unity of the figurative structure of the picture as a whole is indisputably based on the fact that the landscape is not just in unison with the image of Venus and not indifferently related to it, but is in that complex relationship in which the line is found in music. melodies of the singer and the choir accompanying him in contrast. Giorgione transfers to the sphere of the relationship "man - nature" the principle of decision that the Greeks of the classical period used in their statuary images, showing the relationship between the life of the body and the draperies of light clothing thrown over it. There, the rhythm of the draperies was, as it were, an echo, an echo of the life and movement of the human body, submitting in its movement at the same time to a different nature of its inert being than the elastic-living nature of a slender human body. So in the game of draperies of statues of the 5th - 4th centuries BC. e. a rhythm was revealed, contrastingly shading the clear, elastically "rounded" plasticity of the body itself.

Like other creations of the High Renaissance, George's Venus in its perfect beauty is closed and, as it were, "alienated", and at the same time "mutually related" both to the viewer and to the music of the nature surrounding her, consonant with her beauty. It is no coincidence that she is immersed in clear dreams. quiet sleep. Thrown over the head right hand creates a single rhythmic curve that embraces the body and closes all forms into a single smooth contour.

A serenely light forehead, calmly arched eyebrows, softly lowered eyelids and a beautiful strict mouth create an image of transparent purity indescribable in words.

Everything is full of that crystal transparency, which is achievable only when a clear, unclouded spirit lives in a perfect body.

"Concert" depicts against the backdrop of a calmly solemn landscape, two young men in magnificent clothes and two naked women, forming an unconstrainedly free group. The rounded crowns of trees, the calmly slow movement of moist clouds are in amazing harmony with the free, wide rhythms of the clothes and movements of young men, with the luxurious beauty of naked women. The lacquer darkened with time gave the picture a warm, almost hot golden color. In fact, her painting was originally characterized by a balanced overall tone. It was achieved by an accurate and subtle harmonic juxtaposition of restrainedly cold and moderately warm tones. It was this subtle and complex soft neutrality of the general tone, acquired through precisely captured contrasts, that not only created the unity characteristic of Giorgione between the refined differentiation of shades and the calm clarity of the coloristic whole, but also somewhat softened that joyfully sensual hymn to the magnificent beauty and enjoyment of life, which is embodied in the picture. .

To a greater extent than other works by Giorgione, the "Concert" seems to prepare the appearance of Titian. At the same time, the significance of this late work by Giorgione is not only in its, so to speak, preparatory role, but in the fact that it once again reveals, not repeated by anyone in the future, the peculiar charm of his creative personality. The sensual joy of being in Titian also sounds like a bright and upbeat excited hymn to human happiness, its natural right to enjoyment. In Giorgione, the sensual joy of the motive is softened by dreamy contemplation, subordinated to a clear, enlightenedly balanced harmony of a holistic view of life.

The art of Venice represents a special version of the development of the very principles of the artistic culture of the Renaissance and in relation to all other centers of Renaissance art in Italy.

Chronologically, the art of the Renaissance took shape in Venice somewhat later than in most other major centers of Italy of that era. It took shape, in particular, later than in Florence and in general in Tuscany. The formation of the principles of the artistic culture of the Renaissance in the fine arts of Venice began only in the 15th century. This was determined by no means by the economic backwardness of Venice. On the contrary, Venice, along with Florence, Pisa, Genoa, Milan, was one of the most economically developed centers of Italy at that time. It is precisely the early transformation of Venice into a great commercial and, moreover, predominantly commercial, rather than a productive power, which began from the 12th century and was especially accelerated during the crusades, is to blame for this delay.

Venetian painting reached a special flowering, distinguished by its richness and richness of color. Pagan admiration for physical beauty was combined here with an interest in the spiritual life of man. The sensory perception of the world was more direct than that of the Florentines, and caused the development of the landscape.

Oil painting received a particularly wide and rich development in Venice, however, not only because it seemed the most convenient way to replace the fresco with another painting technique adapted to the humid climate, but also because the desire to convey the image of a person in close connection with the natural environment around him environment, interest in the realistic embodiment of the tonal and coloristic richness of the visible world could be revealed with particular completeness and flexibility precisely in the technique of oil painting. In this regard, pleasing with its great color strength and clearly shining sonority, but more decorative in nature, tempera painting on boards in easel compositions should naturally give way to oil, and this process of displacing tempera with oil painting was especially consistently carried out in Venice. It should not be forgotten that for Venetian painters, a particularly valuable property of oil painting was its ability to be more flexible than tempera, and even fresco, to convey light-color and spatial shades of the human environment, the ability to gently and sonorously sculpt the shape of the human body.

Creativity Giorgione.

Giorgione- italian artist, a representative of the Venetian school of painting; one of the greatest masters of the High Renaissance.

Giorgione was born in the small town of Castelfranco, Veneto, near Venice.

The real name of the artist is Giorgio, but he was usually called by the nickname Giorgione.

Unfortunately, neither the artist's manuscripts nor his notes on art, painting and music have survived, not even his letters have survived. As a very young Giorgione arrived in Venice. It is known that at the age of sixteen, the Italian painter was already trained and worked in the studio of the famous Venetian artist Giovanni Bellini. Actually, it was in the painting of Venice that new humanistic ideas were most clearly manifested. Venetian painting of the early 16th century was openly secular.

Already at the end of the 15th century, small easel paintings appeared in Venice instead of icons, satisfying the individual tastes of customers. Artists are now interested not only in people, but also in their surroundings, in the landscape. Giorgione was the first of all Italian painters to devote himself to religious, mythological and historical paintings an important place for a poetically invented, beautiful, and not alien to natural landscape. Along with compositions on religious themes (“The Adoration of the Shepherds”), the Italian painter created paintings on secular, mythological subjects, it was in his work that they gained predominant importance. In the works of Giorgione (“Judith”, “Three Philosophers”, “Thunderstorm”, “Sleeping Venus”), the artist’s poetic ideas about the wealth of life forces lurking in the world and man are revealed not in action, but in a state of universal silent spirituality.

"Madonna of Castelfranco" is the largest in size (200 x 152 cm) and the only work of Giorgione, written by him for the church.

In the later works of Giorgione ("Sleeping Venus"; "Country Concert"), the main topic creativity of the artist - the harmonious unity of man and nature. It is embodied in the discoveries of Giorgione in the region artistic language who played an important role in the development of European oil painting. While maintaining the clarity of volume, purity and melodic expressiveness of the contours, Giorgione, with the help of soft transparent chiaroscuro, achieved an organic fusion of the human figure with the landscape and achieved an unprecedented pictorial integrity of the picture. He gave a full-blooded warmth and freshness to the sound of the main color spots, combining them with many colorful nuances, interconnected with gradations of lighting and gravitating towards tonal unity. The creative concept of Giorgione in a peculiar way refracted his contemporary natural-philosophical ideas, which influenced the formation of Venetian humanism, and reflected the Renaissance's love for the beauty of man and earthly existence.

famous painting Giorgione "Thunderstorm" adorned the gallery of patron Gabriele Vendramin, "Three Philosophers" was in the collection of Taddeo Contarini, the painting "Sleeping Venus" at one time was in the collection of musician Girolamo Marcello. Giorgione, being a friend of these art lovers, had the opportunity to study the collections of humanists (it is known that his customer Gabriel Vendramin “had many extremely valuable paintings by excellent masters and many hand-drawn maps, antique things, many books, heads, busts, vases, antique medals"), which, undoubtedly, was reflected in his work, in the special sophistication and spirituality of the images, in the predilection for literary, secular themes. The general direction of the painter's work determined the intimate and lyrical coloring of his portraits ("Portrait of a Young Man"; the so-called "Laura").

The creative concept of the Italian painter in a peculiar way refracted the natural-philosophical concepts of the time, had a transformative effect on the painting of the Venetian school, and was further developed by his student Titian. Despite the transience of Giorgione's life, he had many students, later famous and famous artists, For example. Sebastiano del Piombo, Giovanni da Udine, Francisco Torbido (Il Moro) and, of course, Tiziano Veccellio. A significant number of masters of painting imitated the creative concept and style of Giorgione, including Lorenzo Lotto, Palma the Elder, Giovanni Cariani, Paris Bordone, Colleone, Zanchi, Pordenone, Girol Pennachi, Rocco Marcone and others, whose paintings were sometimes attributed as the work of a great master . The Venetian painter of the High Renaissance, Giorgio Barbarelli from Castelfranco, in his painting revealed the refined harmony of a spiritually rich and physically perfect person. Just like Leonardo da Vinci, Giorgione's work is distinguished by deep intellectualism and, it would seem, crystalline rationality. But, unlike the works of da Vinci, whose deep lyricism of art is very hidden and, as it were, subordinate to the pathos of rational intellectualism, the lyrical principle, in its clear agreement with the rational principle, in Giorgione's paintings makes itself felt with extraordinary force. The Italian painter died early, Giorgione died in Venice during the plague in the autumn of 1510.

The Holy Family, 1500, National Gallery of Art, Washington

"Trial by fire of Moses", 1500-1501, Uffizi, Florence

"Judgment of Solomon", 1500-1501, Uffizi, Florence

"Judith", 1504, State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg

"Madonna of Castelfranco". 1504, Cathedral of St. Liberal, Castelfranco

"Reading Madonna". 1505, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Adoration of the Magi, 1506-1507, National Gallery, London

"Adoration of the Shepherds", 1505-1510, National Gallery of Art, Washington

"Laura", 1506, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

"Young Man with an Arrow", 1506, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

"The Old Woman", 1508, Academy Gallery (Venice)

Storm, ca. 1508, Accademia Gallery, Venice.

Sleeping Venus, ca. 1508, Old Masters Gallery, Dresden.

"Three Philosophers", 1509, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

"Portrait of a young man", 1508-1510, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest.

Art of Venice The Renaissance took shape in Venice somewhat later than in most other major Italian centers of that era. It took shape, in particular, later than in Florence and in general in Tuscany. The formation of the principles of the artistic culture of the Renaissance in the fine arts of Venice began only in the 15th century. This was determined by no means by the economic backwardness of Venice. On the contrary, Venice, along with Florence, Pisa, Genoa, Milan, was one of the most economically developed centers of Italy at that time. It is precisely the early transformation of Venice into a great commercial and, moreover, predominantly commercial, rather than a productive power, which began from the 12th century and was especially accelerated during the crusades, is to blame for this delay.

Moreover, the rich and still full of vitality republic in 1509-1516, combining the force of arms with flexible diplomacy, defended its independence in a difficult struggle with a hostile coalition of a number of European powers. The general upsurge caused by the outcome of this difficult struggle, which temporarily rallied all sections of Venetian society, caused the growth of the features of heroic optimism and monumental festivity that are so characteristic of the art of the High Renaissance in Venice, starting with Titian. The fact that Venice retained its independence and, to a large extent, its wealth, determined the duration of the heyday of the art of the High Renaissance in the Venetian Republic. The turn towards the late Renaissance was outlined in Venice somewhat later than in Rome and Florence, namely, by the mid-40s of the 16th century. The flat image is replaced by a three-dimensional one.

Giorgione (Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco;) (1476 or 1477) - Italian painter of the Venetian school, singer and musician. Participated in the decoration of the Doge's Palace, frescoed the German courtyard in Venice. The main area - easel painting. Portraits, landscapes.. Soft transparent chiaroscuro, many colorful nuances. Works - "Judith", "Sleeping Venus". Giorgione passed away early, he died in Venice during the plague in the autumn of 1510.

Judith, 1504 Hermitage, St. Petersburg. Sleeping Venus

Titian. (1476/77 or 1480s, Pieve di Cadore, Venice) - Italian painter. Frescoes (worked with Giorgione). Early works are calm and joyful ("Christ and Magdalene"). Portraits (" male portrait”, “Young man with a glove”), landscape. Late 1510s-1530s - monumental compositions, ("The Assumption of Mary", about 1516-18, the church of Santa Maria, Venice). Late 1530s-1540s - flourishing time portrait art depicted character traits: self-confidence, pride and dignity, suspicion, hypocrisy, deceit, etc. In the late period - paintings on religious themes ("Penitent Mary Magdalene", 1560s, Hermitage, St. Petersburg). By the end of his life, he developed a new painting technique - he applied paints to the canvas with a brush, a spatula, and fingers.

Venus of Urbino, 1538 Penitent Mary Magdalene Bacchanalia, 1524

Veronese. - Paolo Cagliari (1528-1588), born in Verona (hence his nickname Veronese, that is, "Veronese"), was born in Verona in the family of the sculptor Gabriele Cagliari. He studied with the minor Verona painter Antonio Badile, who was his nephew. he painted balls for the rich and carefree aristocracy, using color polychromy (Veronese's green color is famous). In Venice, Veronese got acquainted with the work of Titian (circa 1477–1576), from whom he adopted the broad, free manner of writing that became characteristic of his works. The 1560s were the heyday of Veronese's work. His works are becoming increasingly secular in nature: he shows contemporary Venice, the architecture of the city, scenes from life; his characters are filled with proud dignity, luxuriously dressed in modern costumes.

His painting is full of optimism, fantasy and spontaneity, imbued with spring sunshine - by the end of the artist's life, it will become more modest, the colors will be darker. The picturesque mythology of Veronese filled the walls and ceilings of the Palazzo Ducale (“Apotheosis of Venice”). The artist creates a grandiose series “ Last supper” for the Venetian monasteries, including “The Feast in the House of Levi”, a gigantic canvas. Veronese is the author of the general plan for the decoration of the Church of St. Sebastian. Veronese died in 1588 and was buried in the church of San Sebastiano in Venice. The work of Paolo Veronese completes the art of the late Renaissance.

Temptation of Saint Anthony Mortification of St. George, 1564

Tintoretto. -Jacopo Robusti, nicknamed "Tintoretto" (1518-1594). He was the son of a dyer (hence the nickname). This is a mystic artist, he preferred biblical subjects of classical antiquity, folk festivals. He developed a sharp style of painting, preferred movement, and divergent lines ("Crucifixion"). The use of chiaroscuro, color contrasts, elongation of figures, fine weaving of light. The largest achievements commissioned by churches, “schools” and the Palazzo Ducale are the “Miracles of St. Mark”, “Marriage in Cana of Galilee”, “Paradise”, frescoes, dedicated to Venice, “The Entry of the Virgin into the Temple.” His most significant work can be considered 50 canvases, on which the master worked for 23 years.