BY SARAH GOTTESMAN
The High Renaissance is
often considered the peak of European art history, having ushered Leonardo da
Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo into the canon, among many others. These
artists revived the aesthetics of Ancient Greece, such as the contrapposto pose
and the tondo composition, in addition to discovering new and innovative
methods of artistic production. Each of these achievements required a new
vocabulary to describe them, and many of the art terms that emerged are still
in use today.
Contrapposto
Porch of the Maidens (south porch), Erechtheion
The twisting contrapposto
or “counterpose” is one of the most popular postures in Western
portraiture—both in painting and sculpture. Invented by the ancient Greeks in
the early 5th century B.C., the pose gives life to static figures, imbuing them
with a natural sense of movement. A person standing in contrapposto leans all
of his or her body weight on one leg (sometimes called the “engaged” leg),
while the other, more relaxed leg bends at the knee. The figure’s torso,
shoulders, and head all tilt away from the straightened leg, thus completing
the twist.
While figures in
contrapposto may appear true to life, the pose is actually quite uncomfortable
to recreate—try standing in the stance of Michelangelo’s David (1501-1504) and
see for yourself. The conceptual artist Bruce Nauman exposed the awkwardness of
this historic stance in his video performance Walk with Contrapposto (1968),
for which the artist tried to remain in the contrapposto pose while traveling
through a narrow passageway.
Last Judgment, Sistine
Chapel
Fresco—the medium employed
for Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel Ceiling (1508-1512) and Raphael’s School of Athens
(1509-1511)—is a wall-painting technique dating to antiquity. To create a
fresco, artists apply a mixture of powdered pigments and water to wet lime
plaster, prompting a chemical process that fuses the pigment with the wall.
Because plaster dries quickly, artists must complete their frescoes in
sections, each of which is called a giornata, Italian for “a day’s work.” While
frescoes were most popular in ancient Rome and during the Italian Renaissance
(Italy’s hot, dry climate providing especially favorable conditions for their
preservation), the medium was revived during the 20th century by Mexican
Muralists like Diego Rivera………….
https://www.artsy.net/article/the-art-genome-project-9-italian-art-terms
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