"عصر النهضه"، هو المصطلح الذي يتم الاشاره به الي الفتره من القرن الـ14 وحتي منتصف القرن الـ17 في اوروبا، اي بعد انتهاء عصور الظلام الوسطي، وبدايه المناداه بحريه الفكر وتجديده والخروج علي الاطر الجامده. وبدات بوادر تلك النهضه الحضاريه في ايطاليا ثم انتشرت الي باقي انحاء اوروبا.
تميّزت تلك الفتره بانفتاح المبدعين علي تطوير الفنون، والسعي نحو خلق واقعية جديدة في تصوير ومحاكاه الطبيعه، حيث قاموا بدراسات متانيه للطبيعه والشخصيه الانسانيه كتجسيد للثوره الثقافيه والفنيه، التي قامت ببعث شامل للاداب والفنون التي كادت ان تندثر.
ولم يبدا الفنانون الرواد في ثورتهم من فراغ، ولكن بالاعتماد – كغيرهم من فناني المدارس المختلفه- علي الثيمات الادبيه والدينيه والميثيولوجيه كموضوعات لابداعاتهم. وقد شكّلت الموضوعات الدينيه المصدر الاساسي لاعمإل ألتصوير والنحت، حيث اغترف الفنانون من حياه المسيح والعذراء والقديسين، المعروفه علي نطاق شعبي واسع، مضيفين اليها لمسه جديده تمزج بين الطبيعه وشفافيتها، واساطير الحياه اليوميه.
ولم يتخلّ فنانو عصر النهضه عن النسب الطبيعيه والابعاد الرياضيه في محاكاتهم للطبيعه والحياه المرئيه المحيطه بهم، ومحاولاتهم للتغلب علي مشكلات الواقع المنظور وتقديمه بشكل فني. ويرجع مؤرخو تلك الفتره ذلك، الي تاثر عدد من اهم فناني عصر النهضه بالرسام الايطالي بييرو ديلا فرانشيسكا بييرو ديلا فرانتشيسكا (1416-1492)، الذي كان اشبه بـOutsider Artist لقضائه اغلب حياته بعيدا عن فلورنسا التي كانت مركز الفن الايطالي، وساهم في نشر الفن الحديث -في حينها- وبسبب اهتمامه بالرياضيات والنظريات الهندسه، تميزت لوحاته بصرامه هندسيه تراعي نظريات المنظور في تصوير الاشياء، كما اعتمد علي الالوان المشرقه والناعمه.
والي جانب فرانشيسكا، كانت هناك شروحات المعماري فيليبو برونليسكي (1377-1446)، وتنظيرات ليون باتيستا البيرتي (1404-1472) لتطوير المنظور الخطي الواقعي، وصاحب ذلك تطوير الرسامين لتقنيات اخري بخصوص الضوء والظلال.
ونتعرّض لـ 5 فنانين ايطاليين، من ابرز رسامي عصر النهضه، ممن كان لهم دور ريادي في تطور فن الرسم.
ليوناردو دا فينشي ( 1452 – 1519 )
اشهر واهم فناني ايطاليا في عصر النهضة الأوروبية. كان رساما وعالما ونحاتا ومعماريا، ويرجع تنوع انجازاته ومواهبه الي شغفه الدائم للمعرفه والفضول العملي. امتد تاثيره علي الفن الايطالي حتي بعد وفاته، وقد وضع خلاصه فكره الفني في كتابه الشهير عن فن التصوير الزيتي، والذي يعرف باسم "نظريه التصوير".
ابن غير شرعي رعاه والده واشرف علي تعليمه وادرك نبوغه مبكرا في فن الرسم. رحل الي فلورنسا في شبابه لتعلّم النحت والرسم المعدني وقضي بها 30 عاما، ثم ذهب الي ميلانو وقضي بها 20 عاما اخري، اتبعها بـ19 عاما في الترحال المتامل لمعني الاتساق الكامن في الطبيعه.
طوّر دا فينشي كثيرا من فن التصوير، ووصلت تقنيات الالوان والضوء علي يديه الي مرحله متقدمه، تمكّن فيها من تحويل الاصباغ الملونه الي مرئيات حيّه. من اشهر لوحاته "الموناليزا"و"العشاء الاخير".
نحات ورسام ومعماري وشاعر ايطالي. اتخذ من الجسد البشري مركزا لاعماله الفنيه. كان يؤمن ان مصدر الفن هو الاحاسيس الداخليه، التي تنتج من تاثر الفنان بالبئيه المحيطه علي عكس ما كان يدعو ليوناردو دا فينشي.
منحوتاته النابضه بالحياه تصدر احساسا بقوه وعظمه الانسان، كما ان اعمآلة التصويريه تتجلي فيها عبقريته النحتيه، فتبدو وكانها ستبرز من الجدار. وتاثرت اعماله الفنيه بالفتره التاريخيه التي عاصرها، بكل ما فيها من تعصب الكنيسه وتطرفها، كما شهد الطفره العلميه بتبني العالم "كوبرنيكوس"لفكره وجود الشمس، وليس الارض كمركز المجموعه الشمسيه.
كان لانجازاته الفنيه اثر كبير علي فنون عصره والمراحل الفنيه الاوروبيه اللاحقه. عاش حياه طويله وزاخره بالنشاط، لم يتوقف عن العمل سوي قبل ايام من وفاته. كان مايكل انجلو متسقا مع ما يؤمن به، فقد تفاعل بحماس مع متغيرات عصره، وعبّر عن ذلك منذ حداثه سنه. نذكر مثلا منحوتته الجداريه بعنوان "معركه سانتاروس"، التي انجزها وهو في السادسه عشره من عمره، واستلهم موضوعها من اسطوره الخلق الاغريقيه.
انجز الفنان العديد من الايقونات الدينيه واسقف الكنائس الرائعه، واستطاع ترجمه قصص الكتاب المقدس الي لوحات زاهره، ولعل ابرز تلك الاعمال هي لوحه "خلق ادم"، التي تعتبر احدي قمم فن عصر النهضه، ورسمها بين عامي 1508 و 1512 علي سقف كنيسه سيستينا في الفاتيكان، وهي اكبر لوحة فنية علي سقف الكنيسه، وتُجسّد تصور مايكل انجلو الفني لقصه خلق الانسان، كما وردت في اناجيل العهد الجديد.
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Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (Italian: [leoˈnardo di ˌsɛr ˈpjɛːro da (v)ˈvintʃi] (About this soundlisten); 15 April 1452 – 2 May 1519), more commonly Leonardo da Vinci or simply Leonardo, was an Italian polymath of the Renaissance whose areas of interest included invention, painting, sculpting, architecture, science, music, mathematics, engineering, literature, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, writing, history, and cartography. He has been variously called the father of palaeontology, ichnology, and architecture, and he is widely considered one of the greatest painters of all time. Sometimes credited with the inventions of the parachute, helicopter, and tank, he epitomised the Renaissance humanist ideal.
Many historians and scholars regard Leonardo as the prime exemplar of the "Universal Genius" or "Renaissance Man", an individual of "unquenchable curiosity" and "feverishly inventive imagination", and he is widely considered one of the most diversely talented individuals ever to have lived. According to art historian Helen Gardner, the scope and depth of his interests were without precedent in recorded history, and "his mind and personality seem to us superhuman, while the man himself mysterious and remote". Marco Rosci notes that, while there is much speculation regarding his life and personality, his view of the world was logical rather than mysterious, although the empirical methods he employed were unorthodox for his time.
Leonardo was born out of wedlock to notary Piero da Vinci and a peasant woman named Caterina in Vinci in the region of Florence, and he was educated in the studio of Florentine painter Andrea del Verrocchio. Much of his earlier working life was spent in the service of Ludovico il Moro in Milan. He later worked in Rome, Bologna, and Venice, and he spent his last years in France at the home awarded to him by Francis I of France.
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Leonardo is renowned primarily as a painter. The Mona Lisa is the most famous of his works and the most parodied portrait, and The Last Supper is the most reproduced religious painting of all time. His drawing of the Vitruvian Man is also regarded as a cultural icon, being reproduced on items as varied as the euro coin, textbooks, and T-shirts. His painting Salvator Mundi sold for $450.3 million at a Christie's auction in New York on 15 November 2017, the highest price ever paid for a work of art. Perhaps 15 of his paintings have survived. Nevertheless, these few works compose a contribution to later generations of artists rivalled only by that of his contemporary Michelangelo, together with his notebooks, which contain drawings, scientific diagrams, and his thoughts on the nature of painting.
Leonardo is revered for his technological ingenuity. He conceptualised flying machines, a type of armoured fighting vehicle, concentrated solar power, an adding machine, and the double hull. Relatively few of his designs were constructed or even feasible during his lifetime, as the modern scientific approaches to metallurgy and engineering were only in their infancy during the Renaissance. Some of his smaller inventions, however, entered the world of manufacturing unheralded, such as an automated bobbin winder and a machine for testing the tensile strength of wire. A number of his most practical inventions are displayed as working models at the Museum of Vinci. He made substantial discoveries in anatomy, civil engineering, geology, optics, and hydrodynamics, but he did not publish his findings and they had no direct influence on later science.
رافاييل ( 1483 - 1520)
ولد في بيئه فنيه، ما سمح بتتلمذه في سن صغيره علي يد عدد من الفنانين. انتقل بعدها الي فلورنسا فتاثر باهم رموزها مثل دافينشي ومايكل انجلو. يعد واحدا من اعظم رسامي عصر النهضة الايطالية واكثرهم تاثيرا.
تميز اسلوبه بالرقه والعمق والجمال، وعنايته بانعكاس مشاعر كل شخصيه في لوحاته، الي جانب حساسيته في محاكاه المناظر الطبيعيه والمعماريه وانتقاء الالوان، والجمع بين دقه التنفيذ وتناغم الخطوط.
اكتسب مكانته وصيته كفنان فذّ بين جيله بعد رسمه جداريه "مدرسه اثينا في ستانزا ديلا سيجناتورا"، التي انفق لانجازها الكثير من البحث والدراسه والتخطيطات، اظهرت طاقته الهائله في الابتكار والابداع، ودشّنت اسلوبه القائم علي التدرج اللوني والمواضيع الهادئه والمناظر الواسعه. وعكست لوحاته المسيحيه ورعه الديني والتزامه.
كان رافاييل فنانا غزير الإنتاج، ورغم وفاته المبكرة في السابعة و الثلاثين، ترك لنا مجموعة كبيرة من الأعمال الفنية التي تشهد على عبقريته. لم ينل تلك الحظوة في حياته، نظرا لوجود مايكل أنجلو الساحق، ولكن بعد سنوات طويلة أعيد الاعتبار لأعمال رافاييل كنماذج أصيلة على التناغم الهاديء والرقة الدافئة.
A leading figure of Italian High Renaissance classicism, Raphael is best known for his "Madonnas," including the Sistine Madonna, and for his large figure compositions in the Palace of the Vatican in Rome.
Raphael was born on April 6, 1483, in Urbino, Italy. He became Perugino's apprentice in 1504. Living in Florence from 1504 to 1507, he began painting a series of "Madonnas." In Rome from 1509 to 1511, he painted the Stanza della Segnatura ("Room of the Signatura") frescoes located in the Palace of the Vatican. He later painted another fresco cycle for the Vatican, in the Stanza d'Eliodoro ("Room of Heliodorus"). In 1514, Pope Julius II hired Raphael as his chief architect. Around the same time, he completed his last work in his series of the "Madonnas," an oil painting called the Sistine Madonna. Raphael died in Rome on April 6, 1520.
Italian Renaissance painter and architect Raphael was born Raffaello Sanzio on April 6, 1483, in Urbino, Italy. At the time, Urbino was a cultural center that encouraged the Arts. Raphael’s father, Giovanni Santi, was a painter for the Duke of Urbino, Federigo da Montefeltro. Giovanni taught the young Raphael basic painting techniques and exposed him to the principles of humanistic philosophy at the Duke of Urbino’s court.
In 1494, when Raphael was just 11 years old, Giovanni died. Raphael then took over the daunting task of managing his father’s workshop. His success in this role quickly surpassed his father’s; Raphael was soon considered one of the finest painters in town. As a teen, he was even commissioned to paint for the Church of San Nicola in the neighboring town of Castello.
In 1500 a master painter named Pietro Vannunci, otherwise known as Perugino, invited Raphael to become his apprentice in Perugia, in the Umbria region of central Italy. In Perugia, Perugino was working on frescoes at the Collegio del Cambia. The apprenticeship lasted four years and provided Raphael with the opportunity to gain both knowledge and hands-on experience. During this period, Raphael developed his own unique painting style, as exhibited in the religious works the Mond Crucifixion (circa 1502), The Three Graces (circa 1503), The Knight’s Dream (1504) and the Oddi altarpiece, Marriage of the Virgin, completed in 1504.
In 1504, Raphael left his apprenticeship with Perugino and moved to Florence, where he was heavily influenced by the works of the Italian painters Fra Bartolommeo, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Masaccio. To Raphael, these innovative artists had achieved a whole new level of depth in their composition. By closely studying the details of their work, Raphael managed to develop an even more intricate and expressive personal style than was evident in his earlier paintings.
From 1504 through 1507, Raphael produced a series of "Madonnas," which extrapolated on Leonardo da Vinci's works. Raphael's experimentation with this theme culminated in 1507 with his painting, La belle jardinière. That same year, Raphael created his most ambitious work in Florence, the Entombment, which was evocative of the ideas that Michelangelo had recently expressed in his Battle of Cascina.
Raphael moved to Rome in 1508 to paint in the Vatican "Stanze" ("Room"), under Pope Julius II’s patronage. From 1509 to 1511, Raphael toiled over what was to become one of the Italian High Renaissance’s most highly regarded fresco cycles, those located in the Vatican's Stanza della Segnatura ("Room of the Signatura"). The Stanza della Segnatura series of frescos include The Triumph of Religion and The School of Athens. In the fresco cycle, Raphael expressed the humanistic philosophy that he had learned in the Urbino court as a boy.
In the years to come, Raphael painted an additional fresco cycle for the Vatican, located in the Stanza d'Eliodoro ("Room of Heliodorus"), featuring The Expulsion of Heliodorus, The Miracle of Bolsena, The Repulse of Attila from Rome and The Liberation of Saint Peter. During this same time, the ambitious painter produced a successful series of "Madonna" paintings in his own art studio. The famed Madonna of the Chair and Sistine Madonna were among them.
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By 1514, Raphael had achieved fame for his work at the Vatican and was able to hire a crew of assistants to help him finish painting frescoes in the Stanza dell’Incendio, freeing him up to focus on other projects. While Raphael continued to accept commissions -- including portraits of popes Julius II and Leo X -- and his largest painting on canvas, The Transfiguration (commissioned in 1517), he had by this time begun to work on architecture. After architect Donato Bramante died in 1514, the pope hired Raphael as his chief architect. Under this appointment, Raphael created the design for a chapel in Sant’ Eligio degli Orefici. He also designed Rome’s Santa Maria del Popolo Chapel and an area within Saint Peter’s new basilica.
Raphael’s architectural work was not limited to religious buildings. It also extended to designing palaces. Raphael’s architecture honored the classical sensibilities of his predecessor, Donato Bramante, and incorporated his use of ornamental details. Such details would come to define the architectural style of the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods.
On April 6, 1520, Raphael’s 37th birthday, he died suddenly and unexpectedly of mysterious causes in Rome, Italy. He had been working on his largest painting on canvas, The Transfiguration (commissioned in 1517), at the time of his death. When his funeral mass was held at the Vatican, Raphael's unfinished Transfiguration was placed on his coffin stand. Raphael’s body was interred at the Pantheon in Rome, Italy.
Following his death, Raphael's movement toward Mannerism influenced painting styles in Italy’s advancing Baroque period. Celebrated for the balanced and harmonious compositions of his "Madonnas," portraits, frescoes and architecture, Raphael continues to be widely regarded as the leading artistic figure of Italian High Renaissance classicism.
ساندرو بوتيتشيلي (1445 - 1510)
أحد رموز الحركة التشكيلية الايطالية في عصر النهضة، وتنبع أغلب لوحاته من الموضوعات الدينية والميثولوجية الإغريقية في مسحة من المثالية والبساطة. عاش بفلورنسا وعمل لصالح عائلة ميديسي، حيث أبدع الكثير من أعماله لزخرفة منازلها. وعلى عكس أقرانه من فناني فلورنسا، لم يشاركهم الاهتمام بالطبيعة وموافقة تصوير المناظر ذات الأبعاد لقوانين المنظور، ولكن تميّزت لوحاته بالخطوط الواضحة والألوان الهادئة والزخارف المتعددة.
يمكن تقسيم أعماله إلى قسمين: دنيوي وديني، صوّر فيها المتع الحسية والأساطير إلى جانب اللوحات الملحمية، التي تتعرض لموضوعات دينية. في مرحلة متأخرة من حياته حرق بعضا من لوحاته غير الدينية، واقتصر رسمه على اللوحات الدينية فقط بقية حياته.
من أشهر لوحاته واحدة بعنوان "ميلاد فينوس"، أنجزها في عام 1487، ويجسد فيها الفنان الإلهة فينوس – إلهة الحب والجمال لدى الرومان – لدى خروجها من البحر.
Sandro Botticelli Painter (1445–1510)
Sandro Botticelli was an Italian painter of the early Renaissance-era. He contributed to the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel and painted the immortal The Birth of Venus.
Sandro Botticelli was born in the mid-1440s in Florence, Italy. As a boy, he apprenticed as a goldsmith and then with master painter Filippo Lippi. By his forties, Botticelli was himself a master and contributed to the decoration the Sistine Chapel. His best known work is The Birth of Venus. He died in 1510.
تيتيان (1490 – 1576)
من أشهر الرسامين الايطاليين في القرن السادس عشر. قضى فترة في تعلم الرسم تحت إدراة جيوفاني بليني، وتأثر بصديقه الفنان جيورجوني إلى أن نجح في لفت الأنظار في أوروبا، فعمل لدي باباوات روما، وصار مطلوبا لدى أباطرة أوروبا وملوكها، مثل فرانسوا الأول وفيليب الثاني وشارل الخامس وفرديناند الأول.
عرف تيتان باستخدامه للألوان الفاتحة، والإيحاء بامتزاج الألوان في لوحاته، وتأثر بأسلوبه عدد من كبار رسامي أوروبا مثل رامبرنت وبول روبنز. وتشمل أعماله تصويرات ورسومات للأساطير والمشاهد الدينية، وكذلك المشاهد الطبيعية والبورتريهات الشخصية.
في لوحاته الطبيعية، اهتم تيتان بإبراز الألوان المبهجة، وفي الرسومات الدينية برع في تكنيك التدرج اللوني للون الواحد، وتوزيع الظلال والضوء على أجزاء اللوحة وشخصياتها، أما في البورتريهات الشخصية فقد اهتم بإبراز دواخل الشخصيات بأسلوب هاديء أعطى لها لمسة إنسانية جليلة، وخلال مسيرته الفنية الطويلة، أنجز الكثير من الأعمال، التي رسّخت مكانته كأحد أبرز الرسامين في تاريخ الفن.
Titian Painter (c. 1488–1576)
Titian was a leading artist of the Italian Renaissance who painted works for Pope Paul III, King Philip II of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.
Born sometime between 1488 and 1490, Titian became an artist's apprentice in Venice as a teenager. He worked with Sebastiano Zuccato, Giovanni Bellini and Giorgione before branching out on his own. Titian became one of Venice's leading artists around 1518 with the completion of "Assumption of the Virgin." He was soon creating for works for leading members of royalty, including King Philip II of Spain and Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor. Pope Paul III also hired Titian to paint portraits of himself and his grandsons. Titian died on August 27, 1576.
Born Tiziano Vecellio in what is now Pieve di Cadore, Italy, sometime between 1488 and 1490, Titian is considered one of the greatest painters of the Italian Renaissance. The oldest of four children born to Gregorio and Lucia Vecellio, Titian spent his early years in the town of Pieve di Cadore, near the Dolomite mountains.
In his teens, Titian became an apprentice to the Venetian artist Sebastiano Zuccato. He soon went work with such leading artists as Giovanni Bellini and Giorgione. Giorgione proved to be especially influential to the young painter.
In 1516, Titian began work on his first major commission for a church called Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in Venice. He painted "Assumption of the Virgin" (1516-1518) for the church's high altar, a masterwork that helped establish Titian as one of the leading painters in the area. He was known for his deft use of color and for his appealing renderings of the human form.
A short time after completing the legendary altarpiece, Titian created "The Worship of Venus" (1518-1519). This mythology-inspired work was just one of several commissioned by Alfonso I d'Este, duke of Ferrara. Titian managed to cultivate a broad range of royal patrons during his career, including King Philip II of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.
Titian's Venetian home was a mecca for many of the community's artistic types. He had an especially close friendship with writer Pietro Aretino. Aretino is said to have helped Titian get some of his commissions. Sculptor and architect Jacopo Sansovino was another frequent visitor.
Battle between Heraclius and Chosroes
المعركة الفاصلة بين الروم والفُرس سنة 628 م
المعركة بين جيش قيصر الروم هرقل وشاه فارس كسرى الثاني. بريشة پييرو ديلَّا فرانشيسكا، حوالي سنة 1452م
لوحة فنيَّة من كنيسة القديس فرنسيس في أريتسو. يظهرُ فيها انتصار الروم البيزنطيين بقيادة القيصر هرقل على الفُرس الساسانيين بقيادة الشاه كسرى الثاني، واسترجاعهم الصليب الحقيقيّ وإعادته إلى بيت المقدس
This artwork is a part of The Legend of the True Cross - a series of frescoes painted by Francesca in the Basilica of San Francesco in Arezzo. Not only is it his largest work, but it is also considered one of his finest, as well as one of the finest works of the Early Renaissance period. The theme of the frescoes was derived from a 13th century book on the lives of the Saints, and the Triumph of the True Cross, which was said to be the actual cross on which Christ was crucified. The exact date of the painting is unknown, but it believed to be after 1447
للرسام الايطالي بييرو ديلا فرانشيسكا Piero Della Francesca رسمت ما بين عامي 1452 و 1466
بييرو ديلا فرانتشيسكا عاش هو رسّام إيطالي من عصر النهضة. تعتبر أعماله خلاصة الفن التصويري في إيطاليا في القرن الرابع عشر. على غرار الرسّام "أندريا ماتينيا"والذي امتد تأثيره على شمال إيطاليا، فقد كانت للتصاوير الدينية لـ"ديلا فرانتشيسكا"أثرٌ كبير على حركة فن التصوير في وسط وجنوب إيطاليا.
لوحة «تعميد السيد المسيح» (1445) الموجودة في متحف الناشيونال غاليري في لندنللرسام الايطالي بييرو ديلا فرانشيسكا
Baptism of Christ
The Baptism of Christ was originally commissioned as a triptych by the Camaldolese abbey of San Sepolcro. Although the exact date of the painting is not known, it is thought to be of his early career, as it exhibits the “light painting” technique of Francesca’s teacher, Domenico Veneziano. The painting illustrates Christ being baptized by John, and three angels are standing to the left of the tree, with hands held, symbolizing the unification of the Eastern and Western Churches. Francesca’s knowledge and execution of geometry can be seen in John’s arm and leg, both of which are two angles of the same size.
هدم الجسر للرسام الايطالي بييرو ديلا فرانشيسكا رسمت ما بين عامي 1452 و 1466
Burial of the Holy Wood
Burial of the Holy Wood by PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA
رسم ديلا فرانشيسكا لوحة "القيامة"بين 1450 و1465 على جدار ما كان وقتها مبنى لمجلس البلدية والذي أصبح الآن متحفا
The Resurrection
This painting now resides in Piero della
Francesca’s hometown of San Sepolcro,
at the Museo Civico. The painting depicts
the figure of Christ standing over four
sleeping soldiers. The artist included
a self-portrait in the figure of the sleeping
soldier who is dressed in brown. During
World War II, the city of San Sepolcro was supposed to be bombed, which would have destroyed the painting. But, the pilot of
the bomber plane, Captain Clarke, who
had read Aldous Huxley’s reports that The Resurrection was the greatest painting in
the world, remembered that the painting
was held in San Sepolcro.
He ordered his men to stop the bombing,
this saving the painting and the town from
annihilation. After the fighting was over,
it was determined that the Nazi soldiers had
already left the area, and so the bombing wasn’t necessary. Captain Clarke was regarded as a hero, and the city of San Sepolcro named a street
after him as a symbol of their gratitude.
إنسـان فيتـروفيـوس للفنان الإيطالي ليــونــاردو دافـنـشـي، 1487
The Vitruvian Man
The proportions of the human figure (The Vitruvian Man)
هذه اللوحة مهمّة جدّا، ليس فقط لأننا اعتدنا رؤيتها في الكثير من الأماكن، وإنما لأنها أيضا ترمز إلى امتزاج الفنّ بالعلم خلال عصر النهضة، كما أنها توفّر دليلا آخر على عبقرية دافنشي وتنوّع مشاغله واهتماماته.
في اللوحة يصوّر ليوناردو رجلا عاريا في وضعين عموديين متداخلين، بينما تبدو ذراعاه وساقاه في حالة تماسّ مع محيط مربّع ودائرة. وفي أعلى اللوحة وأسفلها سجّل الرسّام بعض الملاحظات التي أراد من خلالها أن يشرح ما قصده من اللوحة.
وعلى الرغم من بساطة الشكل المرسوم فإنه أصبح مع مرور الأيّام احد أشهر الأعمال التشكيلية وأوسعها انتشارا. وكثيرا ما تُستدعى اللوحة عند الحديث عن مواضيع مثل التناغم الداخلي والشفاء الذاتي من خلال اليوغا والتأمّل.
وليس بالمستغرب أن يكون للّوحة هذا الظهور الدائم والمتكرّر في الإعلانات وعلى شعارات المراكز والنوادي الصحّية.
والأساس الذي بنى عليه دافنشي موضوع اللوحة هو فكرة وردت في كتاب للمهندس المعماري الروماني ماركوس فيتروفيوس الذي عاش في القرن الأوّل قبل الميلاد.
كان فيتروفيوس، بالإضافة إلى اشتغاله بالهندسة المعمارية، مهتمّا بالفلسفة وبالأمور الروحانية. وكان يتبنّى فكرة تقول بالتكامل بين شكل الجسد الإنساني والبنى المعمارية. كما كان ميّالا إلى استخدام مصطلحات معمارية لوصف جسم الإنسان، مؤكّدا على أن العمارة الجيّدة ليست في واقع الأمر سوى استمرار لقوانين الطبيعة.
ولطالما اعتبر فيتروفيوس جسم الإنسان نموذجا للكمال وأن شكل أطرافه يتفق مع الأشكال الهندسية الكاملة، أي الدائرة والمربّع.
فلسفة فيتروفيوس وأفكاره الهندسية لاقت رواجا واسعا خلال عصر النهضة الإيطالي. وقد طُبّقت مبادئه وأفكاره في تصميم الكنائس التي روعي في بنائها الأشكال الدائرية، باعتبار أن الدائرة مرتبطة بالقداسة وباكتمال الخَلق وإحكامه. وهو ما كان يقول به فيتروفيوس وغيره من فلاسفة الرومان القدماء.
وكانت تلك الأفكار مصدر إلهام للكثير من الرسّامين. وقد حاول ليوناردو من خلال هذا الرسم المنفّذ بالحبر الأسود توضيح عنصري التكامل والسيميترية اللذين تحدّث عنهما الرومان في العلاقة بين المعمار وجسم الإنسان.
وما ساعد ليوناردو على إتمام هذه المهمّة براعته ومعرفته الواسعة بالتشريح والهندسة المعمارية. واللوحة تعبّر عن فهم الفنان للعلاقة الوثيقة بين الإنسان والطبيعة. إذ كان دافنشي يعتقد بأن وظائف جسم الإنسان تشبه كثيرا وظائف الكون وتتكامل معها. كما كان يرى في المربّع رمزا للوجود المادّي وفي الدائرة رمزا للوجود الروحي. ولعلّه أراد من خلال اللوحة أيضا أن يؤكّد على العلاقة القويّة والمتبادلة بين هذين العنصرين.
A Vitruvian Man prototype by Giacomo Andrea
من المعروف أن فيثاغوراس، أيضا، تبنّى أراءً قريبة ممّا قال به فيتروفيوس ودافنشي. كان يرى، مثلا، أن الدائرة مرتبطة بالسماء وبالكواكب التي تدور حول الأرض؛ ما يعطيها، أي الدائرة، رمزية روحية. وهذا ما يفسّر اهتمام الناس بتوظيف الأشكال الدائرية في بناء المعابد والكنائس وغيرها من دور العبادة. بينما المربّع مرتبط بالعالم المادّي، فهناك أربعة فصول وأربعة عناصر وأربعة اتّجاهات.. إلى آخره.
كما كان فيثاغوراس يعتقد أن الرموز والتجريدات الرقمية تشكّل أساسا لفهم العلاقة بين الإنسان والكون، وأن فهم هذه العلاقة بشكل أفضل لا يتحقّق إلا من خلال التأمّل والغذاء النباتي والتمسّك بأهداب الأخلاق والفضيلة.
الغريب أن فيثاغوراس عاش في نفس الفترة التي عاش فيها بوذا. وكلاهما كان معنيا بمسائل التأمّل والتطهير والتقمّص والطبيعة المزدوجة للإنسان.
الجدير بالذكر أن ليوناردو دافنشي لم يكن الرسّام الوحيد الذي حاول تصوير العلاقة بين الإنسان والكون. فقد جاء بعده فنّانون حاولوا تقليد هذه اللوحة والنسج على منوالها، ومن أشهرهم الرسام وليام بليك والنحّات أندرو ليستر.
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The Vitruvian Man (Italian: Le proporzioni del corpo umano secondo Vitruvio, which is translated to "The proportions of the human body according to Vitruvius"), or simply L'Uomo Vitruviano (Italian pronunciation: [ˈlwɔːmo vitruˈvjaːno]), is a drawing made by the Italian polymath Leonardo da Vinci around 1490. It is accompanied by notes based on the work of the architect Vitruvius. The drawing, which is in ink on paper, depicts a man in two superimposed positions with his arms and legs apart and inscribed in a circle and square. The drawing and text are sometimes called the Canon of Proportions or, less often, Proportions of Man. It is kept in the Gabinetto dei disegni e stampe of the Gallerie dell'Accademia, in Venice, Italy, under reference 228. Like most works on paper, it is displayed to the public only occasionally, so it is not part of the normal exhibition of the museum.
The drawing is based on the correlations of ideal human body proportions with geometry described by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius in Book III of his treatise De architectura. Vitruvius described the human figure as being the principal source of proportion among the classical orders of architecture. Vitruvius determined that the ideal body should be eight heads high. Leonardo's drawing is traditionally named in honor of the architect.
This image demonstrates the blend of mathematics and art during the Renaissance and demonstrates Leonardo's deep understanding of proportion. In addition, this picture represents a cornerstone of Leonardo's attempts to relate man to nature. Encyclopædia Britannica online states, "Leonardo envisaged the great picture chart of the human body he had produced through his anatomical drawings and Vitruvian Man as a cosmografia del minor mondo (cosmography of the microcosm). He believed the workings of the human body to be an analogy for the workings of the universe."
According to Leonardo's preview in the accompanying text, written in mirror writing, it was made as a study of the proportions of the (male) human body as described in Vitruvius' De architectura 3.1.2–3, which reads:
For the human body is so designed by nature that the face, from the chin to the top of the forehead and the lowest roots of the hair, is a tenth part of the whole height; the open hand from the wrist to the tip of the middle finger is just the same; the head from the chin to the crown is an eighth, and with the neck and shoulder from the top of the breast to the lowest roots of the hair is a sixth; from the middle of the breast to the summit of the crown is a fourth. If we take the height of the face itself, the distance from the bottom of the chin to the under side of the nostrils is one third of it; the nose from the under side of the nostrils to a line between the eyebrows is the same; from there to the lowest roots of the hair is also a third, comprising the forehead. The length of the foot is one sixth of the height of the body; of the forearm, one fourth; and the breadth of the breast is also one fourth. The other members, too, have their own symmetrical proportions, and it was by employing them that the famous painters and sculptors of antiquity attained to great and endless renown.
Similarly, in the members of a temple there ought to be the greatest harmony in the symmetrical relations of the different parts to the general magnitude of the whole. Then again, in the human body the central point is naturally the navel. For if a man be placed flat on his back, with his hands and feet extended, and a pair of compasses centred at his navel, the fingers and toes of his two hands and feet will touch the circumference of a circle described therefrom. And just as the human body yields a circular outline, so too a square figure may be found from it. For if we measure the distance from the soles of the feet to the top of the head, and then apply that measure to the outstretched arms, the breadth will be found to be the same as the height, as in the case of plane surfaces which are perfectly square.
Leonardo's drawing combines a careful reading of the ancient text with his own observation of actual human bodies. In drawing the circle and square he observes that the square cannot have the same centre as the circle, but is centered at the groin. This adjustment is the innovative part of Leonardo's drawing and what distinguishes it from earlier illustrations. He also departs from Vitruvius by drawing the arms raised to a position in which the fingertips are level with the top of the head, rather than Vitruvius's much lower angle, in which the arms form lines passing through the navel.
The drawing itself is often used as an implied symbol of the essential symmetry of the human body, and by extension, the symmetry of the universe as a whole.
It may be noticed by examining the drawing that the combination of arm and leg positions creates sixteen different poses. The pose with the arms straight out and the feet together is seen to be inscribed in the superimposed square. On the other hand, the "spread-eagle" pose is seen to be inscribed in the superimposed circle.
The drawing was purchased from Gaudenzio de' Pagave by Giuseppe Bossi, who described, discussed and illustrated it in his monograph on Leonardo's The Last Supper, Del Cenacolo di Leonardo da Vinci libri quattro (1810). The following year he excerpted the section of his monograph concerned with the Vitruvian Man and published it as Delle opinioni di Leonardo da Vinci intorno alla simmetria de'Corpi Umani (1811), with a dedication to his friend Antonio Canova.
After Bossi's death in 1815 the Vitruvian Man was acquired in 1822, along with a number of his drawings, by the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice, Italy, and has remained there since.
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci's collaboration with the author of Divina proportione (Divine Proportion) have led some to speculate that he incorporated the golden ratio in Vitruvian Man, but this is not supported by any of Leonardo's writings, and its proportions do not match the golden ratio precisely.
Many artists attempted to design figures which would satisfy Vitruvius' claim that a human could fit into both a circle and a square. Leonardo may have been influenced by the work of his friend Giacomo Andrea de Ferrara, a Renaissance architect and an expert on Vitruvius. Andrea's drawing features erasure marks indicating its unique creation. As with Leonardo's Vitruvian Man, Andrea's circle is centered on the naval, but only one pose is included. Leonardo's design includes two sets of arms and legs to touch both the circle and the square.
Translation of the text
The text is in two parts, above and below the image. The upper part paraphrases Vitruvius:
Vetruvio, architect, puts in his work on architecture that the measurements of man are in nature distributed in this manner: that is a palm is four fingers, a foot is four palms, a cubit is six palms, four cubits make a man, a pace is four cubits, a man is 24 palms and these measurements are in his buildings.
If you open your legs enough that your head is lowered by one-fourteenth of your height and raise your hands enough that your extended fingers touch the line of the top of your head, know that the centre of the extended limbs will be the navel, and the space between the legs will be an equilateral triangle.
The lower section of text gives these proportions:
The length of the outspread arms is equal to the height of a man; from the hairline to the bottom of the chin is one-tenth of the height of a man; from below the chin to the top of the head is one-eighth of the height of a man; from above the chest to the top of the head is one-sixth of the height of a man; from above the chest to the hairline is one-seventh of the height of a man. The maximum width of the shoulders is a quarter of the height of a man; from the breasts to the top of the head is a quarter of the height of a man; the distance from the elbow to the tip of the hand is a quarter of the height of a man; the distance from the elbow to the armpit is one-eighth of the height of a man; the length of the hand is one-tenth of the height of a man; the root of the penis is at half the height of a man; the foot is one-seventh of the height of a man; from below the foot to below the knee is a quarter of the height of a man; from below the knee to the root of the penis is a quarter of the height of a man; the distances from below the chin to the nose and the eyebrows and the hairline are equal to the ears and to one-third of the face.
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A space suit patch based on Vitruvian Man
The points determining these proportions are marked with lines on the drawing. Below the drawing is a single line equal to a side of the square and divided into four cubits, of which the outer two are divided into six palms each, two of which have the mirror-text annotation "palmi"; the outermost two palms are divided into four fingers each, and are each annotated "diti".
المونـاليــزا للفنان الإيطالي ليــونــاردو دافـنـشـي، 1506 Mona Lisa
الموناليزا أو الجيوكاندا هي اشهر لوحة في تاريخ الفن بلا منازع. وبسبب هذه اللوحة، توارت الجوانب الأخرى التي شكّلت شخصية الفنان الكبير ليوناردو دافنشي. فنادرا ما يتذكّره أحد اليوم باعتباره مهندسا أو نحّاتا أو رياضيا أو فلكيا بارزا.
ما تبقّى من دافنشي اليوم وما حفظ اسمه في سجلّ الخالدين هو إبداعه لهذه اللوحة بالذات، التي طغت شهرتها أحيانا كثيرة على شهرة الفنان الذي أبدعها.
وقد ظلت الموناليزا مثارا للكثير من النقاشات والدراسات الأكاديمية التي لم تترك جانبا من جوانب هذا العمل الفني الفريد إلا وتعرضّت له بالنقد والدراسة والتمحيص.
وقد قام العديد من الفنانين التشكيليين بتعديل وتغيير ملامح المرأة التي تصوّرها اللوحة التي تستقرّ اليوم في متحف اللوفر بباريس، من اجل خدمة فكرة ما أو غاية سياسية أو اجتماعية معينة.
A margin note by Agostino Vespucci (visible at right) discovered in a book at Heidelberg University. Dated 1503, it states that Leonardo was working on a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo.
وكمثال على ذلك، ما فعله الفنان السوريالي الفرنسي مارسيل ُدوشان الذي رسم موناليزا بشاربين وملامح ذكرية، محاولا بطريقة ساخرة ترجمة كلام سيغموند فرويد الذي أشار إلى غموض فكرة الجندر عند دافنشي وزعم أن الفنان ربما كان مثليا، جنسيا، وأنه عندما رسم اللوحة لم يرسم في واقع الأمر سوى نفسه.
وهناك فنانون آخرون أعادوا رسم اللوحة بأسلوب ينحو باتجاه "أنسنة"موناليزا ونزع المسحة الميثيولوجية عنها وجعلها اقرب إلى روح ومزاج الطبقة الوسطى، عبر تقويض الأعراف والقواعد الصارمة التي كانت تتّبع في رسم البورتريه إبان عصر النهضة الأوربي.
الحديث عن قصة الموناليزا ودافنشي متشعّب وطويل، وهناك العديد من المواقع الإليكترونية المكرّسة للحديث عن اللوحة والفنان بإسهاب وتوسّع اكثر.
The Mona Lisa (/ˌmoʊnə ˈliːsə/; Italian: Monna Lisa [ˈmɔnna ˈliːza] or La Gioconda [la dʒoˈkonda], French: La Joconde [la ʒɔkɔ̃d]) is a half-length portrait painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci that has been described as "the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world". The Mona Lisa is also one of the most valuable paintings in the world. It holds the Guinness World Record for the highest known insurance valuation in history at $100 million in 1962, which is worth nearly $820 million in 2018.
The painting is thought to be a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, and is in oil on a white Lombardy poplar panel. It had been believed to have been painted between 1503 and 1506; however, Leonardo may have continued working on it as late as 1517. Recent academic work suggests that it would not have been started before 1513. It was acquired by King Francis I of France and is now the property of the French Republic, on permanent display at the Louvre Museum in Paris since 1797.
The subject's expression, which is frequently described as enigmatic, the monumentality of the composition, the subtle modelling of forms, and the atmospheric illusionism were novel qualities that have contributed to the continuing fascination and study of the work.
The title of the painting, which is known in English as Mona Lisa, comes from a description by Renaissance art historian Giorgio Vasari, who wrote "Leonardo undertook to paint, for Francesco del Giocondo, the portrait of Mona Lisa, his wife." Mona in Italian is a polite form of address originating as "ma donna"– similar to "Ma’am", "Madam", or "my lady" in English. This became "madonna", and its contraction "mona". The title of the painting, though traditionally spelled "Mona" (as used by Vasari), is also commonly spelled in modern Italian as Monna Lisa ("mona" being a vulgarity in some Italian dialects), but this is rare in English.
Vasari's account of the Mona Lisa comes from his biography of Leonardo published in 1550, 31 years after the artist's death. It has long been the best-known source of information on the provenance of the work and identity of the sitter. Leonardo's assistant Salaì, at his death in 1524, owned a portrait which in his personal papers was named la Gioconda, a painting bequeathed to him by Leonardo.
Raphael's drawing, based on the portrait of Mona Lisa
That Leonardo painted such a work, and its date, were confirmed in 2005 when a scholar at Heidelberg University discovered a marginal note in a 1477 printing of a volume written by the ancient Roman philosopher Cicero. Dated October 1503, the note was written by Leonardo's contemporary Agostino Vespucci. This note likens Leonardo to renowned Greek painter Apelles, who is mentioned in the text, and states that Leonardo was at that time working on a painting of Lisa del Giocondo.
In response to the announcement of the discovery of this document, Vincent Delieuvin, the Louvre representative, stated "Leonardo da Vinci was painting, in 1503, the portrait of a Florentine lady by the name of Lisa del Giocondo. About this we are now certain. Unfortunately, we cannot be absolutely certain that this portrait of Lisa del Giocondo is the painting of the Louvre."
The model, Lisa del Giocondo, was a member of the Gherardini family of Florence and Tuscany, and the wife of wealthy Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo. The painting is thought to have been commissioned for their new home, and to celebrate the birth of their second son, Andrea. The Italian name for the painting, La Gioconda, means "jocund" ("happy" or "jovial") or, literally, "the jocund one", a pun on the feminine form of Lisa's married name, "Giocondo". In French, the title La Joconde has the same meaning.
Before that discovery, scholars had developed several alternative views as to the subject of the painting. Some argued that Lisa del Giocondo was the subject of a different portrait, identifying at least four other paintings as the Mona Lisa referred to by Vasari. Several other women have been proposed as the subject of the painting. Isabella of Aragon, Cecilia Gallerani, Costanza d'Avalos, Duchess of Francavilla, Isabella d'Este, Pacifica Brandano or Brandino, Isabela Gualanda, Caterina Sforza—even Salaì and Leonardo himself—are all among the list of posited models portrayed in the painting. The consensus of art historians in the 21st century maintains the long-held traditional opinion, that the painting depicts Lisa del Giocondo.
العشـاء الأخيــر للفنان الإيطالي ليــونــاردو دافـنـشـي، 1499
Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper, 1499
أصبحت هذه اللوحة واحدة من اشهر الأعمال الفنية في العالم بعد وقت قليل من إتمامها في العام 1498. ولم تفقد شيئا من ذلك البريق والوهج والشهرة حتى اليوم. وبالرغم من تغيّر الأذواق والأساليب الفنية، والتدهور الفيزيائي السريع الذي حلّ باللوحة، فإن مكانتها باعتبارها إبداعا استثنائيا لم تكن أبدا عرضة للشكّ أو التساؤل.
وأهمية "العشاء الأخير"لا تكمن فقط في الخصائص الفنية للوحة وانما في تفوّق دافنشي التعبيري. واللوحة هي تمثيل صوري بليغ للحدث الأكثر أهمية في تاريخ المسيحية. وليس هناك لوحة أخرى عن هذا الموضوع استطاعت أن تثير خيال الناس بمثل ما فعلته تحفة دافنشي هذه.
وهناك طبعات ونسخ كثيرة من اللوحة تزيّن البيوت ودور العبادة والمتاحف عبر العالم. ومع ذلك فإننا عندما نتذكّر قصّة العشاء الأخير للمسيح فإن أذهاننا تتحوّل تلقائيا إلى دافنشي ولوحته الفريدة.
A study for The Last Supper from Leonardo's notebooks showing nine apostles identified by names written above their heads
هذه اللوحة كانت مثار اهتمام الكثيرين أيضا بسبب عمليات الترميم التي أجريت عليها منذ إنجازها في القرن الخامس عشر. وآخر عمليات الترميم تلك استمرّت عشرين عاما وكانت موضع جدل كبير.
واللوحة التي بقيت بعد تلك الترميمات يقال أنها "أعيد رسمها"وليس "ترميمها". ورغم أن الترميم قد يكون "عدّل"اللوحة إلى درجة ما فانه أطال عمرها لكي يمكن للأجيال القادمة أن تراها وتقدّر الإبداع المبذول فيها.
يذكر في هذا الصدد أن اللوحة نجت بمعجزة من قصف قوات الحلفاء لروما في العام 1943.
رسم دافنشي اللوحة بناءً على طلب دوق ميلانو الذي كان يريد من الفنان رسم تلك الواقعة التاريخية المهمة، وعمل دافنشي على اللوحة حوالي 18 سنة، وقد رسمها في غرفة الطعام في دير سانتا ماريا.
استخدمت اللوحة في الكثير من الإعلانات التجارية والمواد المكتوبة. ولو كان دافنشي ما يزال حيا إلى اليوم لكان قد كسب البلايين من وراء هذه اللوحة وربّما لكان الفنان الأغلى في العالم الآن.
العشاء الأخير تصوّر المسيح جالسا على المائدة مع حوارييه الـ 12 الذين يظهرون بهيئة بشرية بسيطة فهم يتصرّفون وينفعلون مثل الناس العاديين.
وهناك نقطة مهمة جدا في هذه اللوحة تتعلق بالمنظور الفني الذي اتبعه الفنان بشكل إعجازي في رسم عناصر اللوحة. فكل عنصر فيها يوجه اهتمام الناظر مباشرة إلى وسطها، أي إلى رأس السيد المسيح نفسه. ويقال إن العشاء الأخير هي اعظم مثال تم إبداعه عن منظور النقطة الواحدة.
في الليلة التي سبقت خيانة المسيح من قبل أحد اتباعه، جمعهم للطعام واخبرهم بما سيحدث. واللوحة تحكي عن تلك الثواني القليلة من القصة أي بعد أن ألقى المسيح على الحواريين مفاجأته الصاعقة بأن أحدهم سيخونه قبيل شروق الشمس.
واللوحة تكشف بوضوح عن ردود فعل الحواريين التي كانت مزيجا من الرعب والصدمة والغضب.
بالإضافة إلى المسيح نفسه، فإن الشخصية المحورية في اللوحة هي شخصية يهودا المتآمر "الخامس من اليسار"، وقد تعمّد دافنشي رسم وجهه في الظل، بينما بدا خلف يهودا مباشرة بطرس بلحية بيضاء ووجه غاضب متحدّثا إلى يوحنّا المعمدان الذي يظهر بملامح أنثوية بينما يميل برأسه ليستمع إلى بطرس.
الشخص الوحيد في الغرفة الذي يبدو وجهه هادئا هو المسيح نفسه.
يقال أن دافنشي نجح كثيرا في تصوير الانفعالات الدقيقة على وجوه الشخصيات بفضل الساعات الطوال التي قضاها في دراسة التشريح، وهذا بالذات هو ما يميّز "العشاء الأخير"عن عشرات اللوحات الأخرى التي تناولت نفس القصة.
The Last Supper (Italian: Il Cenacolo [il tʃeˈnaːkolo] or L'Ultima Cena [ˈlultima ˈtʃeːna]) is a late 15th-century mural painting by Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci housed by the refectory of the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, Italy. It is one of the western world's most recognizable paintings.
The work is presumed to have been started around 1495–96 and was commissioned as part of a plan of renovations to the church and its convent buildings by Leonardo's patron Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan. The painting represents the scene of the Last Supper of Jesus with his apostles, as it is told in the Gospel of John, 13:21. Leonardo has depicted the consternation that occurred among the Twelve Apostles when Jesus announced that one of them would betray him.
Due to the methods used, a variety of environmental factors, and intentional damage, very little of the original painting remains today despite numerous restoration attempts, the last being completed in 1999.
The Last Supper measures 460 cm × 880 cm (180 in × 350 in) and covers an end wall of the dining hall at the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, Italy. The theme was a traditional one for refectories, although the room was not a refectory at the time that Leonardo painted it. The main church building had only recently been completed (in 1498), but was remodeled by Bramante, hired by Ludovico Sforza to build a Sforza family mausoleum.
Crucifixion, opposite Leonardo's Last Supper
The painting was commissioned by Sforza to be the centerpiece of the mausoleum. The lunettes above the main painting, formed by the triple arched ceiling of the refectory, are painted with Sforza coats-of-arms.
The opposite wall of the refectory is covered by the Crucifixion fresco by Giovanni Donato da Montorfano, to which Leonardo added figures of the Sforza family in tempera. (These figures have deteriorated in much the same way as has The Last Supper.)
Leonardo began work on The Last Supper in 1495 and completed it in 1498—he did not work on the painting continuously. The beginning date is not certain, as the archives of the convent for the period have been destroyed, and a document dated 1497 indicates that the painting was nearly completed at that date.
One story goes that a prior from the monastery complained to Leonardo about the delay, enraging him. He wrote to the head of the monastery, explaining he had been struggling to find the perfect villainous face for Judas, and that if he could not find a face corresponding with what he had in mind, he would use the features of the prior who complained.
The Last Supper specifically portrays the reaction given by each apostle when Jesus said one of them would betray him. All twelve apostles have different reactions to the news, with various degrees of anger and shock. The apostles are identified from a manuscript (The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci p. 232) with their names found in the 19th century. (Before this, only Judas, Peter, John and Jesus were positively identified.) From left to right, according to the apostles' heads:
The Last Supper, ca. 1520, by Giovanni Pietro Rizzoli, called Giampietrino (active 1508–1549)
after Leonardo da Vinci, Oil on canvas, in the collection of The Royal Academy of Arts, London; full-scale copy that was the main source for the twenty-year restoration of the original
(1978-1998). It includes several lost details such as Christ's feet and the salt cellar
spilled by Judas. Giampietrino is thought to have worked closely with Leonardo
when he was in Milan. The painting hung in the chapel of Magdalen College, Oxford from 1992
Bartholomew, James, son of Alphaeus, and Andrew form a group of three; all are surprised.
Judas Iscariot, Peter, and John form another group of three.
Judas is wearing green and blue and is in shadow, looking rather withdrawn and taken aback by the sudden revelation of his plan. He is clutching a small bag, perhaps signifying the silver given to him as payment to betray Jesus, or perhaps a reference to his role within the 12 disciples as treasurer. He is also tipping over the salt cellar. This may be related to the near-Eastern expression to "betray the salt" meaning to betray one's Master. He is the only person to have his elbow on the table and his head is also horizontally the lowest of anyone in the painting.
Peter looks angry and is holding a knife pointed away from Christ, perhaps foreshadowing his violent reaction in Gethsemane during Jesus' arrest. He is leaning towards John and touching him on the shoulder, perhaps because in John's Gospel he signals the "beloved disciple" to ask Jesus who is to betray him.
The youngest apostle, John, appears to swoon and lean towards Peter.
Jesus
Apostle Thomas, James the Greater, and Philip are the next group of three.
Thomas is clearly upset; the raised index finger foreshadows his incredulity of the Resurrection.
James the Greater looks stunned, with his arms in the air. Meanwhile, Philip appears to be requesting some explanation.
Matthew, Jude Thaddeus, and Simon the Zealot are the final group of three.
Both Jude Thaddeus and Matthew are turned toward Simon, perhaps to find out if he has any answer to their initial questions.
The Last Supper, ca. 1520, Andrea Solari, after Leonardo da Vinci, oil on canvas, in the Leonardo da Vinci Museum, Tongerlo Abbey.
In common with other depictions of the Last Supper from this period, Leonardo seats the diners on one side of the table, so that none of them has his back to the viewer. Most previous depictions excluded Judas by placing him alone on the opposite side of the table from the other eleven disciples and Jesus, or placing halos around all the disciples except Judas.
Leonardo instead has Judas lean back into shadow. Jesus is predicting that his betrayer will take the bread at the same time he does to Saints Thomas and James to his left, who react in horror as Jesus points with his left hand to a piece of bread before them. Distracted by the conversation between John and Peter, Judas reaches for a different piece of bread not noticing Jesus too stretching out with his right hand towards it (Matthew 26: 23). The angles and lighting draw attention to Jesus, whose turned right cheek is located at the vanishing point for all perspective lines; his hands are located at the golden ratio of half the height of the composition.
A protective structure was built in front of the da Vinci wall fresco. This photo shows the bombing damage in 1943, suggesting the magnitude of the greater damage that was averted.
The painting contains several references to the number 3, which represents the Christian belief in the Holy Trinity. The Apostles are seated in groupings of three; there are three windows behind Jesus; and the shape of Jesus' figure resembles a triangle. The painting can also be interpreted using the Fibonacci series: 1 table, 1 central figure, 2 side walls, 3 windows and figures grouped in threes, 5 groups of figures, 8 panels on the walls and 8 table legs, and 13 individual figures. There may have been other references that have since been lost as the painting deteriorated.
مـدرسـة أثـيــنا للفنان الإيطالي رافـائيــل، 1509
The School of Athens,1509-1511, by the Italian painter Raphael
لوحة أخرى يعتبرها الكثير من النقّاد واحدةً من التحف الفنّية العالمية.
وقد ولدت فكرة هذا العمل عندما أوعز البابا يوليوس الثاني إلى الفنّان رافائيل برسم لوحة تكون محفّزا للنقاش الفكري ورمزا لأهميّة الثقافة، لكي يعلّقها البابا في مكتبته الخاصة.
Zeno of Citium
واللوحة تصوّر ما ُيفترض أنه ندوة فكرية جرت أحداثها في مدرسة أثينا باليونان القديمة حوالي سنة 380 قبل الميلاد.
رافائيل حاول أن يجعل اللوحة تجسيدا للحقيقة المكتسبة من خلال العقل، وهو لم يختر للوحة شخصيات مجازية أو أسطورية كما درج على ذلك الفنّانون في زمانه، بل فضّل أن تضمّ اللوحة شخصيات حقيقية لمفكّرين وفلاسفة مشهورين وضعهم داخل إطار معماري كلاسيكي تتّسم تفاصيله بالفخامة والمهابة والجلال.
Epicurus
وكل الشخصيات التي صوّرها رافائيل في "مدرسة أثينا"تشكّل اليوم ركائز ودعامات مهمّة في الفكر الغربي المعاصر.
وبفضل قدرته الوصفية الفائقة، عمد الفنان إلى توزيع الشخصيات على مساحة اللوحة بشكل متساو.
Averroes and Pythagoras
فليس هناك رمز معيّن يلتفّ حوله الباقون ويحيطونه بعلامات الاحترام والتبجيل.
بل الجميع هنا متساوون وهم منشغلون، بلا استثناء، بالحركة الدائبة والتفاعل وتبادل النقاش في ما بينهم.
Pythagoras
في هذا العمل جمع رافائيل ممثّلين لكافّة فروع المعرفة من هندسة ورياضيات وفلك وأدب وموسيقى وفلسفة وخلافه.
واختار كلا من أفلاطون وأرسطو، اللذين يظهران في وسط المشهد وهما منهمكان في الحوار، ليكونا محكّمين للنقاشات في الندوة.
Alcibiades or Alexander the Great and Antisthenes or Xenophon
في مقدّمة اللوحة الى اليمين نرى اقليدس وهو يشرح نظريّته لتلاميذه، وفوقه مباشرة يظهر زرادشت ممسكا بكرة أرضيّة مجسّمة، بينما يبدو ديوجين في الوسط متمدّدا على الدرج.
وإلى اليسار وغير بعيد عن ديوجين يظهر هيراكليتوس الفيلسوف المتشائم مستندا إلى قالب من الرخام ومسجّلا ملاحظاته على الورق.
Parmenides
وهيراكليتوس هنا يأخذ ملامح ميكيل انجيلو، وهي إشارة أراد رافائيل من ورائها تكريم انجيلو والإشادة بعمله الذي كان قد أنجزه للتوّ في سقف كنيسة سيستين.
ولم ينس رافائيل أن يرسم نفسه أيضا إذ يبدو واقفا في أقصى يمين اللوحة وقد اعتمر قبّعة سوداء.
Aeschines and Socrates
وإلى اليسار يظهر فيثاغوراس وهو يدوّن ملاحظاته في كرّاس، وغير بعيد منه نرى بن رشد وهو ينصت باهتمام إلى ما يجري.
وفوق قليلا تظهر امرأة يقال إنها هيباشيا وهي أشهر شاعرة وخطيبة وفلكية وعالمة رياضيات من النساء، وقد برز اسمها وذاعت شهرتها زمن مكتبة الاسكندرية.
Michelangelo as Heraclitus
في اللوحة أيضا يظهر سقراط وزينوفون وابيكوروس "أو ابيقور بالعربية"وبطليموس وسواهم.
فور إتمام رافائيل "مدرسة أثينا"حقّقت اللوحة نجاحا مدوّيا وقوبلت بحماس بالغ. وأصبحت منذ ذلك الحين صورة مجازية ترمز لحرّية الفكر وتقديس العقل وأهمية الحوار.
Leonardo da Vinci as Plato
The School of Athens (Italian: Scuola di Atene) is a fresco by the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael. It was painted between 1509 and 1511 as a part of Raphael's commission to decorate the rooms now known as the Stanze di Raffaello, in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican. The Stanza della Segnatura was the first of the rooms to be decorated, and The School of Athens, representing Philosophy, was probably the third painting to be finished there, after La Disputa (Theology) on the opposite wall, and the Parnassus (Literature). The picture has long been seen as "Raphael's masterpiece and the perfect embodiment of the classical spirit of the Renaissance"
Bramante as Euclid or Archimedes
The School of Athens is one of a group of four main frescoes on the walls of the Stanza (those on either side centrally interrupted by windows) that depict distinct branches of knowledge. Each theme is identified above by a separate tondo containing a majestic female figure seated in the clouds, with putti bearing the phrases: "Seek Knowledge of Causes,""Divine Inspiration,""Knowledge of Things Divine" (Disputa), "To Each What Is Due." Accordingly, the figures on the walls below exemplify Philosophy, Poetry (including Music), Theology, and Law. The traditional title is not Raphael's. The subject of the "School" is actually "Philosophy," or at least ancient Greek philosophy, and its overhead tondo-label, "Causarum Cognitio", tells us what kind, as it appears to echo Aristotle's emphasis on wisdom as knowing why, hence knowing the causes, in Metaphysics Book I and Physics Book II. Indeed, Plato and Aristotle appear to be the central figures in the scene. However, all the philosophers depicted sought knowledge of first causes. Many lived before Plato and Aristotle, and hardly a third were Athenians. The architecture contains Roman elements, but the general semi-circular setting having Plato and Aristotle at its centre might be alluding to Pythagoras' circumpunct.
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Aristotle
Commentators have suggested that nearly every great ancient Greek philosopher can be found in the painting, but determining which are depicted is difficult, since Raphael made no designations outside possible likenesses, and no contemporary documents explain the painting. Compounding the problem, Raphael had to invent a system of iconography to allude to various figures for whom there were no traditional visual types. For example, while the Socrates figure is immediately recognizable from Classical busts, the alleged Epicurus is far removed from his standard type. Aside from the identities of the figures depicted, many aspects of the fresco have been variously interpreted, but few such interpretations are unanimously accepted among scholars.
Zoroaster, Ptolemy, Raphael as Apelles and Perugino or Timoteo Viti as Protogenes
The popular idea that the rhetorical gestures of Plato and Aristotle are kinds of pointing (to the heavens, and down to earth) is very likely. But Plato's Timaeus – which is the book Raphael places in his hand – was a sophisticated treatment of space, time, and change, including the Earth, which guided mathematical sciences for over a millennium. Aristotle, with his four-elements theory, held that all change on Earth was owing to motions of the heavens. In the painting Aristotle carries his Ethics, which he denied could be reduced to a mathematical science. It is not certain how much the young Raphael knew of ancient philosophy, what guidance he might have had from people such as Bramante, or whether a detailed program was dictated by his sponsor, Pope Julius II.
Diogenes
Nevertheless, the fresco has even recently been interpreted as an exhortation to philosophy and, in a deeper way, as a visual representation of the role of Love in elevating people toward upper knowledge, largely in consonance with contemporary theories of Marsilio Ficino and other neo-Platonic thinkers linked to Raphael.
Plato's Academy mosaic from Pompeii
Finally, according to Vasari, the scene includes Raphael himself, the Duke of Mantua, Zoroaster and some Evangelists.
However, to Heinrich Wölfflin, "it is quite wrong to attempt interpretations of the School of Athens as an esoteric treatise ... The all-important thing was the artistic motive which expressed a physical or spiritual state, and the name of the person was a matter of indifference" in Raphael's time. Raphael's artistry then orchestrates a beautiful space, continuous with that of viewers in the Stanza, in which a great variety of human figures, each one expressing "mental states by physical actions," interact, in a "polyphony" unlike anything in earlier art, in the ongoing dialogue of Philosophy.
An interpretation of the fresco relating to hidden symmetries of the figures and the star constructed by Bramante was given by Guerino Mazzola and collaborators. The main basis are two mirrored triangles on the drawing from Bramante (Euclid), which correspond to the feet positions of certain figures.
The copy in the Victoria and Albert Museum
The identities of some of the philosophers in the picture, such as Plato and Aristotle, are certain. Beyond that, identifications of Raphael's figures have always been hypothetical. To complicate matters, beginning from Vasari's efforts, some have received multiple identifications, not only as ancients but also as figures contemporary with Raphael. Vasari mentions portraits of the young Federico II Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, leaning over Bramante with his hands raised near the bottom right, and Raphael himself. He was writing over 40 years after the painting, and never knew Raphael, but no doubt reflects what was believed in his time. Many other popular identifications of portraits are very dubious.
Luitpold Dussler [de] counts among those who can be identified with some certainty: Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Pythagoras, Euclid, Ptolemy, Zoroaster, Raphael, Sodoma and Diogenes of Sinope. Other identifications he holds to be "more or less speculative".
A more comprehensive list of proposed identifications is given below:
The parenthetical names are the contemporary characters from whom Raphael is thought to have drawn his likenesses
1: Zeno of Citium
2: Epicurus
3: unknown
4: Boethius or Anaximander
5: Averroes
6: Pythagoras
7: Alcibiades or Alexander the Great or Pericles
8: Antisthenes or Xenophon
9: unknown (sometimes identified as Hypatia in recent popular sources) or Fornarina as a personification of Love (Francesco Maria della Rovere)
10: Aeschines
11: Parmenides or Nicomachus
12: Socrates or Anaxagoras
13: Heraclitus (Michelangelo)
14: Plato (Leonardo da Vinci)
15: Aristotle (Giuliano da Sangallo)
16: Diogenes of Sinope or Socrates
17: Plotinus
18: Euclid or Archimedes (Bramante)
19: Strabo or Zoroaster (Baldassare Castiglione)
20: Ptolemy R: Apelles (Raphael)
21: Protogenes (Il Sodoma or Timoteo Viti)
Central figures
In the center of the fresco, at its architecture's central vanishing point, are the two undisputed main subjects: Plato on the left and Aristotle, his student, on the right. Both figures hold modern (of the time), bound copies of their books in their left hands, while gesturing with their right. Plato holds Timaeus, Aristotle his Nicomachean Ethics. Plato is depicted as old, grey, wise-looking, and bare-foot. By contrast Aristotle, slightly ahead of him, is in mature manhood, handsome, well-shod and dressed with gold, and the youth about them seem to look his way. In addition, these two central figures gesture along different dimensions: Plato vertically, upward along the picture-plane, into the beautiful vault above; Aristotle on the horizontal plane at right-angles to the picture-plane (hence in strong foreshortening), initiating a powerful flow of space toward viewers.
It is popularly thought that their gestures indicate central aspects of their philosophies, for Plato, his Theory of Forms, and for Aristotle, his empiricist views, with an emphasis on concrete particulars. Many interpret the painting to show a divergence of the two philosophical schools. Plato argues a sense of timelessness whilst Aristotle looks into the physicality of life and the present realm.
An elder Plato walks alongside Aristotle.
The building is in the shape of a Greek cross, which some have suggested was intended to show a harmony between pagan philosophy and Christian theology (see Christianity and Paganism and Christian philosophy). The architecture of the building was inspired by the work of Bramante, who, according to Vasari, helped Raphael with the architecture in the picture. (The resulting architecture was similar to the then new St. Peter's Basilica.)
There are two sculptures in the background. The one on the left is the god Apollo, god of light, archery and music, holding a lyre. The sculpture on the right is Athena, goddess of wisdom, in her Roman guise as Minerva.
The main arch, above the characters, shows a meander (also known as a Greek fret or Greek key design), a design using continuous lines that repeat in a "series of rectangular bends" which originated on pottery of the Greek Geometric period and then become widely used in ancient Greek architectural friezes.
Detail of the architecture
A number of drawings made by Raphael as studies for the School of Athens are extant. A study for the Diogenes is in the Städel in Frankfurt while a study for the group around Pythagoras, in the lower left of the painting, is preserved in the Albertina Museum in Vienna. Several drawings, showing the two men talking while walking up the steps on the right and the Medusa on Athena's shield, the statue of Athena (Minerva) and three other statues, a study for the combat-scene in the relief below Apollo and "Euclid" teaching his pupils are in the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology at Oxford University.
The cartoon for the painting is in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milan.
عـذراء كنيسـة سيسـتـين للفنان الإيطالي رافـائيــل، 1514
تعتبر لوحة "عذراء كنيسة سيستين"واحدة من اعظم الأعمال الفنية في العالم ومن أكثرها نقاشا واحتفاء.
وقد ظلت هذه اللوحة على الدوام رمزا مميزا للتطوّر الذي شهدته الفنون بعامة خلال عصر النهضة الإيطالي.
بل إن شعبيتها الكاسحة دفعت بعض النقاد إلى تشبيهها بلوحة الموناليزا لدافنشي.
وأحد عناصر اللوحة التي كانت مثارا للكثير من النقاش هو التعابير الغامضة التي رسمها رافائيل على وجه العذراء وطفلها وحاول النقاد ودارسو الفن فكّها ومعرفة كنهها.
وقد حاول الكثير من المؤرخين والفلاسفة عبر العصور تفسير المعاني والدلالات التي أراد الفنان تضمينها في هذه اللوحة، ومن بين هؤلاء غوته وشوبنهاور وشرودر.
شوبنهاور، مثلا، تحدّث عن ملامح الخوف التي ترتسم على وجه وعيني الصبي، بينما تساءل آخرون عن مغزى إظهار العذراء في حالة حيرة وارتباك.
في اللوحة تقف الشخصيات (العذراء وطفلها والقدّيس والقديسة والملاكان الصغيران إلى أسفل) على مقعد من الغيم تؤطّره ستارتان منفتحتان إلى أعلى.
وتبدو العذراء كما لو أنها هابطة من السماء فيما يتوجه القدّيس (إلى اليسار) بنظره إلى المسيح الصغير، بينما توجّه القديسة (إلى اليمين) نظراتها الحانية إلى الملاكين الصغيرين الظاهرين في اسفل الصورة.
ومما لا شك فيه أن أشهر جزء في هذه اللوحة الفريدة هو صورة الملاكين الصغيرين إلى الأسفل، إذ ُطبعت صورتهما على ملايين البوسترات والصور التذكارية.
لوحة "عذراء سيستين"كان مقدّرا لها على الأرجح أن تزيّن قبر البابا يوليوس الثاني، وقد ُعثر عليها في ما بعد في أحد الأديرة لتجد طريقها بعد ذلك إلى موسكو بعد الحرب العالمية الثانية، قبل أن تنقل إلى متحف مدينة درسدن الألمانية حيث ظلت هناك حتى اليوم.
ُيذكر أن هذه اللوحة أصبحت رمزا للأمومة المثالية. كما أن خطوطها المنحنية والعريضة نزولا وصعودا، وتوازن الكتل فيها وتوزيع الألوان الدقيق ما بين الذهبي والأخضر، والبني والأزرق، كل ذلك يعطي الناظر إليها شعورا بالسلام والطمأنينة.
تلقى رافائيل تعليمه على يد أبيه، الفنان هو الآخر، والذي لمس في ابنه الاهتمام والموهبة. وفي زمن قياسي اصبح فنانا موهوبا وتجلت عبقريته وهو ما يزال في سن السابعة عشرة.
انتقل الفنان بعد ذلك إلى فلورنسا حيث درس أعمال دافنشي ومايكل انجيلو وبارتولوميو.
لوحات رافائيل بشكل عام تجسّد فكرة الجمال المثالي وعظمة الإنسان، و "عذراء سيستين"تمثل ذروة عبقريته وتفرّده الفني، ولهذا اعتبر واحدا من اعظم الرسامين الذين جاد بهم عصر النهضة في إيطاليا.
artist Raphael 1514 . Virgin Sistine Chapel Italian
The Sistine Madonna, also called the Madonna di San Sisto, is an oil painting by the Italian artist Raphael Sanzio. The painting was commissioned in 1512 by Pope Julius II for the church of San Sisto, Piacenza. The canvas was one of the last Madonnas painted by Raphael. Giorgio Vasari called it "a truly rare and extraordinary work".
The painting was moved to Dresden from 1754 and is well-known for its influence in the German and Russian art scene. After World War II, it was relocated to Moscow for a decade before being returned to Germany.
Raffaello Sanzio
The oil painting, measures 265 cm by 196 cm. In the painting the Madonna, holding the Christ Child and flanked by Saint Sixtus and Saint Barbara, stands on clouds before dozens of obscured cherubim, while two distinctive winged cherubim rest on their elbows beneath her.
Pigment analysis of Raphael's masterpiece reveals the usual pigments of the renaissance period such as malachite mixed with orpiment in the green drapery on top of the painting, natural ultramarine mixed with lead white in the blue robe of Madonna and a mixture of lead-tin-yellow, vermilion and lead white in the yellow sleeve of St Barbara.
The painting was commissioned by Pope Julius II in honor of his late uncle, Pope Sixtus IV, as an altarpiece for the basilica church of the Benedictine Monastery of San Sisto in Piacenza, with which the Rovere family had a long-standing relationship. The commission required that the painting depict both Saints Sixtus and Barbara. Legend has it that when Antonio da Correggio first laid eyes on the piece, he was inspired to cry, "And I also, I am a painter!"
In 1754, Augustus III of Poland purchased the painting for 110,000 – 120,000 francs, whereupon it was relocated to Dresden and achieved new prominence; this was to remain the highest price paid for any painting for many decades. In 2001's The Invisible Masterpiece, Hans Belting and Helen Atkins describe the influence the painting has had in Germany:
Sistine Madonna (detail) by Raphael
Like no other work of art, Raphael's Sistine Madonna in Dresden has fired the Germans' imagination, uniting or dividing them in the debate about art and religion.... Over and again, this painting has been hailed as 'supreme among the world's paintings' and accorded the epithet 'divine'.
If the stories are correct, the painting achieved its prominence immediately, as it is said that Augustus moved his throne in order to better display it. The Sistine Madonna was notably celebrated by Johann Joachim Winckelmann in his popular and influential Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums (1764), positioning the painting firmly in the public view and in the center of a debate about the relative prominence of its Classical and Christian elements. Alternately portraying Raphael as a "devout Christian" and a "'divine' Pagan" (with his distinctly un-Protestant Mary who could have as easily been Juno), the Germans implicitly tied the image into a legend of their own, "Raphael's Dream." Arising in the last decades of the 18th century, the legend—which made its way into a number of stories and even a play—presents Raphael as receiving a heavenly vision that enabled him to present his divine Madonna. It is claimed the painting has stirred many viewers, and that at the sight of the canvas some were transfixed to a state of religious ecstasy akin to Stendhal Syndrome (including one of Freud's patients). This nearly miraculous power of the painting made it an icon of 19th-century German Romanticism. The picture influenced Goethe, Wagner and Nietzsche According to Dostoyevsky, the painting was "the greatest revelation of the human spirit". Legend has it that during the abortive Dresden uprising of May 1849 Mikhail Bakunin "(unsuccessfully) counseled the revolutionary government to remove Raphael's Sistine Madonna from The Gemäldegalerie, and to hang it on the barricades at the entrance to the city, on the grounds that the Prussians were too cultured 'to dare to fire on a Raphael.'" The story was invoked by the Situationist International as "a demonstration of how the art of the past might be utilized in the present." In 1855, the "Neues Königliches Museum" (New Royal Museum) opened in a building designed by Gottfried Semper, and the Sistine Madonna was given a room of its own.
Sistine Madonna was rescued from destruction during the bombing of Dresden in World War II, but the conditions in which it was saved and the subsequent history of the piece are themselves the subject of controversy. The painting was stored, with other works of art, in a tunnel in Saxon Switzerland; when the Red Army encountered them, they took them. The painting was temporarily removed to Pillnitz, from which it was transported in a box on a tented flatcar to Moscow. There, sight of the Madonna brought Soviet leading art official Mikhail Khrapchenko to declare that the Pushkin Museum would now be able to claim a place among the great museums of the world.
Sistine Madonna-inspired Partisan Madonna of Minsk by Mikhail Savitsky on a Belarusian postage stamp.
In 1946, the painting went temporarily on restricted exhibition in the Pushkin, along with some of the other treasures the Soviets had retrieved. But in 1955, after the death of Joseph Stalin, the Soviets decided to return the art to Germany, "for the purpose of strengthening and furthering the progress of friendship between the Soviet and German peoples." There followed some international controversy, with press around the world stating that the Dresden art collection had been damaged in Soviet storage. Soviets countered that they had in fact saved the pieces. The tunnel in which the art was stored in Saxon Switzerland was climate controlled, but according to a Soviet military spokesperson, the power had failed when the collection was discovered and the pieces were exposed to the humid conditions of the underground. Soviet paintings Partisan Madonna of Minsk by Mikhail Savitsky and And the Saved World Remembers by Mai Dantsig are based on the Sistine Madonna.
Stories of the horrid conditions from which the Sistine Madonna had been saved began to circulate. But, as reported by ARTnews in 1991, Russian art historian Andrei Chegodaev, who had been sent by the Soviets to Germany in 1945 to review the art, denied it:
It was the most insolent, bold-faced lie.... In some gloomy, dark cave, two [actually four] soldiers, knee-deep in water, are carrying the Sistine Madonna upright, slung on cloths, very easily, barely using two fingers. But it couldn’t have been lifted like this even by a dozen healthy fellows... because it was framed.... Everything connected with this imaginary rescue is simply a lie.
Detail, Sistine Madonna
also indicated that the commander of the brigade that retrieved the Madonna also described the stories as "a lie", in a letter to Literaturnaya Gazeta published in the 1950s, indicating that "in reality, the ‘Sistine Madonna,’ like some other pictures, ...was in a dry tunnel, where there were various instruments that monitored humidity, temperature, etc." But, whether true or not, the stories had found foothold in public imagination and have been recorded as fact in a number of books.
After its return to Germany, the painting was restored to display in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, where guidebooks single it out in the collection, variously describing it as the "most famous", the "top", the "showpiece", and "the collection's highlight". From 26 May to 26 August 2012, the Dresden gallery celebrated the 500th anniversary of the painting.
كاثـرين .. راهبـة الإسكنـدريــة للفنان الإيطالي رافـائيــل، 1507
Raphael, Saint Catherine of Alexandria, 1507
كانت كاثرين تنحدر من عائلة من النبلاء، وقد رأت في المنام ذات ليلة أنها تزوجّت المسيح.
وكان الإمبراطور الروماني ماكسينتيوس يرغب في الزواج من المرأة، لكن كان عليه أوّلا أن يقنعها بترك المسيحية.
وعندما فشل في مساعيه أرسل إليها خمسين فيلسوفا وعالما ليحاولوا استمالتها وإقناعها بالنزول عند رأيه. غير أن المرأة تمكّنت من تحويل هؤلاء جميعا إلى المسيحية، بحسب ما تذكره المصادر الإنجيلية.
قبض الإمبراطور على العلماء وحكم عليهم بالإعدام حرقا ثم أمر بأن تعذّب المرأة وذلك بأن تربط إلى عجلة ذات أضلاع مسنّنة.
لكن العجلة سرعان ما تدمّرت بفعل صاعقة رعدية ولم تصَب المرأة نفسها بأذى. لكن كاثرين أعدمت بعد ذلك بقطع رأسها بالسيف.
ولم يمض وقت طويل حتى تحوّلت هذه المرأة إلى قدّيسة وأصبح لها أتباع ومريدون كما شيّد لها في القرن السادس الميلادي دير يحمل اسمها على قمّة جبل طور سيناء حيث يعتقد بأن الملائكة قامت بنقل رفاتها إلى هناك.
وقد امتدحها الوعّاظ وتغنّى بها الشعراء في قصائدهم كما سمّيت الكثير من الكنائس على اسمها، ولا تخلو كنيسة أو دير من تمثال أو أيقونة تصوّرها.
تم تمثيل كاثرين راهبة الاسكندرية في العديد من اللوحات والتماثيل الفنية وكان يظهر إلى جوارها عجلة أو سيف، أو خاتم يرمز إلى واقعة زواجها الغامض من المسيح.
وأحيانا ما تصوّر وهي تمسك بكتاب أو تضع على رأسها تاجا في إشارة إلى خلفيّتها الملوكية.
Bernardino Luini – Portrait of Catherine of Alexandria
في اللوحة يتّضح مدى تأثّر رافائيل بأسلوب ليوناردو دافنشي الذي كان بارعا في تصوير وضعية الوقوف مع انثناء الجسد بطريقة لا تخلو من المهابة والجلال.
والمرأة تبدو هنا وهي تسند جنبها الأيسر إلى رمزها "العجلة"بينما أراحت يدها اليمنى على صدرها وأرسلت عينيها باتجاه السماء البعيدة المغمورة بالضياء.
ومن الواضح أن المنظر الطبيعي الذي يبدو في خلفية المشهد قد نفّذ بكثير من البراعة والإتقان وهو يذكّر إلى حدّ كبير بمناظر دافنشي ذات الطبيعة الحالمة والفانتازية.
ومن السّمات الأخرى في اللوحة غنى المشهد بالحركة المتناغمة للألوان. ويبدو أن رافائيل لم يكن يركّز كثيرا على إثارة الانفعالات حول الموضوع بل كان يحاول بلوغ أفضل توازن للألوان والتعابير والعناصر الجمالية الأخرى في اللوحة.
يقول بعض المؤرخين إن كاثرين (ومعنى الاسم: المرأة الطاهرة) قد تكون مجرّد شخصية خيالية اخترعتها مخيّلة الناس مدفوعين برغبتهم في أن يتمثلوا نموذجا بشريا يجسّد معاني التضحية والطهر والثبات على المبدأ.
Icon of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, with scenes from her martyrdom
وبعض الفلاسفة يعتبرون سينت كاثرين النموذج المناظر في العقلية القروسطية لـ "هيباشيا"الفيلسوفة والعالمة الوثنية الشهيرة التي عاشت هي أيضا في الاسكندرية في ذلك الوقت ولاقت نفس مصير كاثرين العاثر عندما قام بذبحها وتمزيق جسدها غوغاء مسيحيّون غاضبون بعد اتهامها بالهرطقة.
ومثل هيباشيا، يقال إن كاثرين كانت امرأة مثقّفة في الفلسفة واللاهوت وكانت تتمتّع بجمال أخّاذ وقد أعدمت بوحشية لأنها جاهرت بما تؤمن به.
في العام 1969 أزالت الكنيسة الكاثوليكية الرومانية اسم كاثرين من قائمة القدّيسين على أساس عدم كفاية الأدلة التي تؤكّد وجودها.
لكن قبل خمس سنوات وإذعانا لضغوط واحتجاجات المؤمنين من أنصارها، اضطرّت سلطات الفاتيكان إلى إعادة إدراج اسمها في تلك القائمة.
Saint Catherine of Alexandria by Artemisia Gentileschi
Saint Katharine of Alexandria, also known as Saint Catherine of the Wheel and The Great Martyr Saint Catherine (Greek: ἡ Ἁγία Αἰκατερίνη ἡ Μεγαλομάρτυς "Holy Catherine the Great Martyr"; Latin: Catharina Alexandrina), is, according to tradition, a Christian saint and virgin, who was martyred in the early 4th century at the hands of the pagan emperor Maxentius. According to her hagiography, she was both a princess and a noted scholar, who became a Christian around the age of 14, converted hundreds of people to Christianity, and was martyred around the age of 18. More than 1,100 years following her martyrdom, Saint Joan of Arc identified Catherine as one of the Saints who appeared to her and counselled her.
The Eastern Orthodox Church venerates her as a Great Martyr and celebrates her feast day on 24 or 25 November (depending on the regional tradition). In Catholicism she is traditionally revered as one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers. In 1969 the Roman Catholic Church removed her feast day from the General Roman Calendar; however, she continued to be commemorated in the Roman Martyrology on 25 November. In 2002, her feast was restored to the General Roman Calendar as an optional memorial.
Pietro Aretino, Vita di santa Caterina vergine e martire, 1636.
Some modern scholars consider that the legend of Catherine was probably based on the life and murder of the Greek philosopher Hypatia, with reversed roles of Christians and pagans.
According to the traditional narrative, Catherine was the daughter of Constus, the governor of Egyptian Alexandria during the reign of the emperor Maximian (286–305). From a young age she devoted herself to study. A vision of the Madonna and Child persuaded her to become a Christian. When the persecutions began under Maxentius, she went to the emperor and rebuked him for his cruelty. The emperor summoned 50 of the best pagan philosophers and orators to dispute with her, hoping that they would refute her pro-Christian arguments, but Catherine won the debate. Several of her adversaries, conquered by her eloquence, declared themselves Christians and were at once put to death.
Catherine of Alexandria, by Carlo Crivelli
Catherine was then scourged and imprisoned. She was scourged so cruelly and for so long, that her whole body was covered with wounds, from which the blood flowed in streams. The spectators wept with pity; but Catherine, strengthened by God, stood with her eyes raised to heaven, without giving a sign of suffering or fear. Maxentius ordered her to be imprisoned without food, so she would starve to death. During the confinement, angels tended her wounds with salve. Catherine was fed daily by a dove from Heaven and Christ also visited her, encouraging her to fight bravely, and promised her the crown of everlasting glory.
During her imprisonment, over 200 people came to see her, including Maxentius' wife, Valeria Maximilla; all converted to Christianity and were subsequently martyred. Twelve days later, when the dungeon was opened, a bright light and fragrant perfume filled it, and Catherine came forth even more radiant and beautiful.
Presumed portrait of Raphael
Upon the failure of Maxentius to make Catherine yield by way of torture, he tried to win the beautiful and wise princess over by proposing marriage. The saint refused, declaring that her spouse was Jesus Christ, to whom she had consecrated her virginity.
The furious emperor condemned Catherine to death on a spiked breaking wheel, but, at her touch, it shattered. Maxentius ordered her to be beheaded. Catherine herself ordered the execution to commence. A milk-like substance rather than blood flowed from her neck.
Ring of Saint Catherine, given to pilgrims visiting Mount Sinai.
Angels transported her body to the highest mountain (now called Mt. Saint Catherine) next to Mount Sinai, where God gave His Law. In 850, her incorrupt body was discovered by monks from the Sinai Monastery. The monks found on the surface of the granite on which her body lay, an impression of the form of her body. Her hair still growing, and a constant stream of the most heavenly fragranced healing oil issuing from her body. This oil produced countless miracles.
In the 6th century, the Eastern Emperor Justinian had established what is now Saint Catherine's Monastery in Egypt (which is in fact dedicated to the Transfiguration of Christ). Her relics include her left hand, often warm to the touch and her head. Her incorrupt body is not publicly displayed. Countless people make the pilgrimage to the Monastery to receive miracle healing from Saint Catherine.
Saint Catherine of Alexandria is a painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael. In the painting, Catherine of Alexandria is looking upward in ecstasy and leaning on a wheel - an allusion to the breaking wheel (or Catherine wheel) of her martyrdom.
Scenes from the Life of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, Germany, ca. 15th century,
It was painted c. 1507, towards the end of Raphael's sojourn in Florence and shows the young artist in a transitional phase. The depiction of religious passion in the painting is still reminiscent of Pietro Perugino. But the graceful contrapposto of Catherine's pose is typical of the influence of Leonardo da Vinci on Raphael, and is believed to be an echo of Leonardo's lost painting Leda and the Swan.
Raphael employed the usual Renaissance pigments such as natural ultramarine, madder lake, ochres and lead-tin yellow. He also mixed a special kind of finely powdered glass into several pigments to speed up the drying of the oil paints.
This picture was partially used on the cover of The Smashing Pumpkins album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.
