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Allegory and Symbolism in Italian Renaissance Painting

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Mikhail Vladimirovitch Alpatov

Extract

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Art-historians of our time have concerned themselves mainly with research into the literary and philosophic sources of Renaissance works; this leads to a detailed philological commentary on its broader themes. However, it may be noted that neither iconology nor semiotics have yet observed the existence of various types of figuration in the plastic arts of that period.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 19 , Issue 76 , December 1971 , pp. 1 - 25
Copyright
Copyright © 1971 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

References

1 J. Bialostocki, "The Renaissance Concept of Nature and Antiquity," Studies in Western Art, 1963, II, p. 19-30.

2 G. Gadamer, " Symbol und Allegorie," Umanesimo e Simbolismo, Rome-Milan, 1960.

3 F. Th. Vischer, "Das Symbol," Ausgewählte Werke, Leipzig, s.a. VIII, 2, p. 314.

4 C. R. Muller, "Die geschichtlichen Voraussetzungen des Symbolbegriffs," in Goethe's Kunstanschauung, Leipzig, 1937.

5 R. Klein, "The Figurative Thought of the Renaissance," Diogenes, 1960, Nr. 32 p. 134.

6 B. Croce, " Sulla natura dell'Allegoria," Nuovi saggi su estetica, Bari, 1926, p. 26.

7 J. Sauer, " Symbolik des Kirchengebäudes und seiner Ausstattung," in Die Auffassung des Mittelalters, Freiburg i. Br, 1927 p. 12. J. Schlasser, Kunstliteratur, Vienna, 1924, p. 69.

8 A. Chastel, Marcel Ficin et l'Art, Geneva, 1957. E. Panofsky, Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art, Stockholm, II p. 191.

9 H. Seldmayr, P. Bruegel. Der Sturz der Blinden, Epochen und Werke, Vienna - Munich, 1959, I, p. 333.

10 R. Klein, La Forme et l'intelligible, Paris, 1970, p. 363. The notion of the visual metaphor indicated by the author has remained obscure to this day.

11 R. Wittkower, Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism, London 1949. E. Battisti, Rinascimento e Barocco, Turin, 1960.

12 Evidently the notion of a symbol is not dealt with in its widest meaning in this article, as a "movement of the soul whose spiritual foundation is connected with the sensory sign." (E. Cassire).

13 M. E. Chernowitz, Proust and Painting, New York, 1945, p. 67-69.

14 F. Rintelen, Giotto und die Giotto-Apokryphen, Munich, 1912.

15 M. Alpatov, "The Parallelism of Giotto's Paduan Frescoes," Art Bullettin, September 1947, p. 149-154.

16 Cf. the text: " Questa santa virtù la dove regge induce al unità li animi molti." N. Rubinstein "Political Ideas in Sienese Art: the frescoes of A. Lo renzetti and Taddeo di Bartolo in the Palazzo Pubblico," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 1958, XXI, 3-4, p. 17.

17 C. V. Simson, "Ueber die Bedeutung von Masaccios Trinitäts-Fresco in S. Maria Novella," Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen, 1966, VIII.

18 M. Alpatov, "La signification de la Trinité de Roublev," Studi vari di umanità in onore di F. Flora, Milan, 1963, p. 825.

19 C. Bell, Kunst, Dresden, 1922.

20 E. Wind, Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance, 1967, p. 127.

21 E. Wind, op. cit. p. 48.

22 A. Warburg, S. Botticelli's Geburt der Venus und Frühling; 1893; E. Gombrich, "Botticelli's Mythologies," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 1945, VIII, p. 7-61; E. Panofsky, op. cit., p. 191; P. Francastel, La réalité figurative, Paris, 1965, p. 272.

23 L. Venturi, Botticelli, Vienna 1937, p. 13-14.

24 A. Chastel, Arte e umanesimo al tempo di Lorenzo il Magnifico, Turin, 1964, p. 267.

25 L. Becherucci, La Primavera di Botticelli, Florence, Forma e Colore, s.a.

26 E. Wind, op. cit. p. 118-121.

27 E. Gombrich, op. cit. E. Panofsky, op. cit. The resemblance to a Coronation of the Virgin has been noted by G. Dunaev in his unedited study of Botticelli.

28 J. Gantner, Leonardo's Visionen, Berne, 1958.

29 H. Guntmann, "Zur Ikonologie der Fresken Raphaels in der Stanza della Segnatura," Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 1958, p. 37.

30 P. Hirschfeld, Mazene. Die Rolle des Aufträgegebers in der Kunst, Munich. 1968, p. 140. Cf. the text of P. Bembo's letter of 1 January 1505 concerning the invention and fantasy of the artist. Hartlaub, Giorgione's Geheimnis, Munich, 1935 p. 5.

31 It is paradoxical that H. Gutmann, (op. cit.) affirms that the poets are represented by Raphael on Parnassus as prophets, while the author does not take into consideration the fact that the greater painter was also a poet and a prophet, and considers him in his study as the docile illustrator of a literary programme.

32 H. Tieze, Tizian, Vienna s.a. I, p. 91; E. Panofsky, Studies in Iconology, New York, 1967, p. 150; E. Wind, op. cit. p. 142.

33 G. Tschmelitsch, Harmonia est discordia concors, Vienna 1966.

34 E. Wind, Giorgione's Tempesta. With comments on Giorgione's poetic allegories, Oxford, 1969.

35 L. Coletti, Giorgione, Milan, 1955, planche 57.

36 L. Venturi, Giorgione e il Giorgionismo, 1912, p. 85.

37 In an excellent paraphrase of the Tempest, J. Piper neglected the struc ture which is reminiscent of a triptych, the landscape becomes panoramic. P. Saches, Modern Prints and Drawings, New York, 1954, p. 169.

38 Creighton Gilbert, "On Subject and Not Subject in Italian Renaissance Picture," Art Bulletin, September 1952, p. 202, the author defines the essence of the Tempest as "a symbolism."

39 E. Panofsky, Studies, p. 231; L. Goldschneider, Michelangelo. The Sculptures, New York s.a. p. 14, Ch. De Tolnay, The Tomb of Julius II, Princeton, 1954.

40 E. Panofsky, Studies, p. 86. The allegory of London is of a very different kind from that of Budapest, where the figures are simply confronted in the painting.

41 E. Battisti, op. cit. p. 112; H. Tietze, op. cit. p. 247.

42 J. Neumann, Die Schindung Marsyas, Prague, 1962. This excellent study incurs only one criticism. The author makes efforts to find all the meanings in the painting of which Dante speaks in his celebrated letter to Cangrande, while the symbolism of the XVIth century is of a new kind.

43 E. Wind, Pagan Mysteries, p. 117. The divergence between the inter pretation of this subject by Mr. Wind and that given in this article may be explained by the fact that Mr. Wind based his on the literary sources which might have been known to Raphael, and the author of this article based his on what the great painter's work immediately offers us.