Art and the Body

Sources

Studying the Body. Renaissance artists had little personal freedom in how they depicted the divine body, especially that of Christ. Pictorial tradition emphasized the need to demonstrate both the divine and human aspects of Christ’s nature. Techniques that stressed Christ’s smooth and serene forehead, upstanding carriage, and dignified demeanor influenced pictorial conventions of other religious figures. As artists mastered naturalistic canons, they ran the risk of creating religious images that awakened problematic emotions in the viewer. For example, the image of St. Sebastian, located in San Marco in Florence, was removed because of reports that the comely, seminude image had provoked women to sexual fantasies. Renaissance artists also glorified the human body and strove to master the perfection of form. Inspired by the canons of proportion, based on classical antiquity, they created idealized figures whose proportions and measurements internalized order and in turn exemplified Renaissance ideals of harmonious beauty. The Renaissance fascination with the sculptural idea of contrapposto (the shifting weight of limbs to suggest the natural poise of the still body) clearly manifests this ideal. At the same time, scientific interest in anatomical dissection allowed artists to draw from cadavers, stimulating a better understanding of muscular and skeletal structures so that artists could produce a more naturalistic representation of the human body. Classical medical authorities, such as the second-century Greek physician Galen, however, still remained the standards by which artists and scientists interpreted the functioning of the human body. Leonardo da Vinci’s fascination with the way in which human character connected with physiognomy led him to create a series of graphic studies of cadavers, portrait caricatures, and scientific notes on the working of the human body. In Giorgio Vasari’s Vite de' piú eccelenti architetti, pittori ed scultori italiani (Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Artists, 1550, commonly known as Lives of the Artists), he recorded how da Vinci struggled in his The Last Supper (1495-1497) to depict the inner character of each disciple through external poses and bodily gestures and the ultimate challenge of creating compelling representations of Good and Evil in his portraits of Christ and Judas Iscariot.

The Suffering Body. The image of Christ as the Man of Sorrows was a key late-medieval devotional model for understanding heroic bodily suffering. The deep sorrows expressed by the Virgin Mary and Christ’s disciples established how the viewer was to respond with pity and piety for Christ’s sacrifice for mankind. Dominican friars had

“This text has been suppressed due to author restrictions”

such images in their cells and were encouraged to visualize this event while praying, reading, or meditating. The friars saw that the Virgin and her son looked back at them with a compassionate gaze. A half-length figure of Christ wearing a crown of thorns, arms crossed to display the nail wounds in his hands, became a popular image recollecting his suffering and burial. Such images were based upon the heavenly vision Pope Gregory the Great received while he was celebrating mass. Because his vision recorded a “vera icon,” or true portrait, of the Man of Sorrows, all other models based on it were considered accurate. After Gregory’s painting was relocated to the church of Santa Croce at Rome, the monks commissioned German artist Israhel van Meckenem to reproduce it as an engraving in the 1490s. His print recorded the history and image of the icon. The text stated that prayers recited before the icon gave remission from temporal punishments (Purgatory) after death.

Taming the Body. The forceful message of eternal damnation was a prominent theme in late-medieval art and prompted viewers to ponder their own mortality. Last Judgment scenes on church exteriors reminded those who entered of heaven and hell. Wall paintings at burial grounds depicted the skeletal dead leading mankind in a dance of death. Tomb portraits of the dead as decaying bodies recalled the brevity of life to the passersby. Preoccupation with worldly pleasures, especially depictions of the seven deadly sins, reminded viewers to mend their ways. The Netherlandish painter Hieronymus Bosch’s Tabletop of The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things (1485) is a visual representation of the relationship between God, sin, and mankind. The center of the panel depicts the Eye of God with Christ standing in his tomb displaying his wounds. The Latin text cautions, “Beware, beware God is watching.” At the outer ring the seven deadly sins (sloth, gluttony, avarice, envy, anger, pride, and lust) are illustrated in separate scenes. Bosch pays particular attention to the role of gender and class and the social repercussions of sinful behavior, but the key message is that the lack of self-control leads to universal human folly. For example, the scene of lust shows a noble couple courting in the presence of two fools. A brawl outside an inn takes place between two men and a woman whose actions are the folly of anger. At the outer edges of the panel, death, divine judgment, and heaven or hell await the sinners.

The Gendered Body. Print culture commented on the folly of love and sensuality as well and clarified the differences between true and false love, lawful marriage and adultery, for the urban middle classes. Fifteenth-century municipal governments manifested similar concerns by enacting stricter legislation against adultery, prostitution, and illegitimacy. Classical and biblical conceptions of women as lustful seducers inspired many depictions of the “power of women” theme. Print series that recorded the downfall of male biblical heroes such as Samson, Solomon, and David, who lost their strength, wisdom, and piety to feminine wiles, were displayed in town halls and on decorative objects. In humanist circles the theme of Aristotle and Phyllis added new dimensions to the depiction of women as lustful seducers. Elite viewers recognized the story of the great philosopher, Aristotle, who chastised his pupil Alexander the Great about his excessive devotion to the youthful Phyllis. In visual representations Phyllis wreaks her revenge by reducing him to a beast of burden. Classical images of Hercules at the Crossroads, choosing between virtue and vice represented by two women who woo him, also illustrated the dilemma of male desire.

The Socialized Body. Renaissance humanists emphasized that the duality of human nature and free will allowed human beings to develop their higher, divine nature by cultivating the mind or upper body and suppressing the desires of the lower body. In 1530 Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus penned a short etiquette manual intended for the instruction of children. Erasmus’s Manners for Children begins with the premise that a disciplined body is as much a product of a liberal education as a well-trained mind. Learning how to blow one’s nose, break wind, and urinate discreetly in public were seen as important steps toward social behaviors that disciplined the latent animality of human nature. Erasmus’s emphasis on bodily discipline paralleled sixteenth-century reformers’ efforts to impose new standards of moral behavior upon the general European populace and contributed to the popularity and proliferation of etiquette manuals as a literary genre. Writing about his experience at the ducal court in Urbino, Italian writer Baldassare Castiglione articulated the emergence of a new code of noble behavior in his Il cortegiano (The Courtier, 1528). For Castiglione, sprezzatura (grace), the ability to conceal physical exertion as well as inner feelings, was the guiding principle of courtly demeanor. It permitted courtiers to manipulate patronage systems at court and control their social identities by distinguishing themselves from their peers. The control of bodily gestures, facial expressions, and carriage gradually came to be envisioned as an index of civil and Christian society. This ideal was readily manifest in the field of courtly portraiture, where the conventions of self-representation focused on the decorum and dignity of the sitter. Raphael’s painting of Castiglione (circa 1515) established a widely emulated standard for court portraits in the sixteenth century. The elegance of his clothing, refinement of his gestures, and overall restraint in demeanor exemplified the new mannered courtly ideal.

Sources

Michael Baxendall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy: A Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972).

Edward Muir, Ritual in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997).

Jane Turner, ed., The Dictionary of Art (New York: Grove, 1996).

Evelyn Welch, Art and Society in Italy, 1350-1500 (Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).