Spatial Transfiguration: Anamorphic Mixed-Reality in the Virtual Reality Panorama

Spatial illusion and immersion was achieved in Renaissance painting through the manipulation of linear perspective’s pictorial conventions and painterly technique. The perceptual success of a painted trompe l’œil, its ability to fool the observer into believing they were viewing a real three-dimensional scene, was constrained by the limited immersive capacity of the two-dimensional painted canvas. During the baroque period however, artists began to experiment with the amalgamation of the ‘real’ space occupied by the observer together with the pictorial space enveloped by the painting’s picture plane: real and pictorial space combined into one pictorial composition resulting in a hybridised ‘mixed-reality’. Today, the way architects, and designers generally, use the QuickTime Virtual Reality panorama to represent spaces of increasing visual density have much to learn from the way in which Renaissance and baroque artists manipulated the three-dimensional characteristics of the picture plane in order to offer more convincing spatial illusions. This paper outlines the conceptual development of the QuickTime VR panorama by Ken Turkowski and the Apple Advanced Technology Group during the late 1980s. Further, it charts the technical methods of the Virtual Reality panorama’s creation in order to reflect upon the VR panorama’s geometric construction and range and effectiveness of spatial illusion. Finally, through a brief analysis of Hans Holbein’s Ambassadors [1533] and Andrea Pozzo’s nave painting in Sant ‘Ignazio [1691-94] this paper proposes an alternative conceptual model for the pictorial construction of the VR panorama that is innovatively based upon an anamorphic ‘mixed-reality’

Raphael\u27s School of Athens: A Theorem in a Painting?

Raphael\u27s famous painting The School of Athens includes a geometer, presumably Euclid himself, demonstrating a construction to his fascinated students. But what theorem are they all studying? This article first introduces the painting, and describes Raphael\u27s lifelong friendship with the eminent mathematician Paulus of Middelburg. It then presents several conjectured explanations, notably a theorem about a hexagram (Fichtner), or alternatively that the construction may be architecturally symbolic (Valtieri). The author finally offers his own null hypothesis : that the scene does not show any actual mathematics, but simply the fascination, excitement, and joy of mathematicians at their work

"You've Really Got a Hold on Me": The Power and Emotion in Women's Correspondence in Fifteenth-Century Italy

This thesis examines the lives of Alessandra Strozzi and Lucrezia de'Medici of Florence. The fifteenth-century in Italy saw women's power declining, and patrician women used letter writing to enter the public sphere and exert power. This study analyzes socially constructed emotional themes in women's correspondence which is in concert with scholars like Barbara Rosenwein in that it seeks to instead situate emotions in specific historical contexts. For Alessandra, we see how she successfully employs the emotions of guilt and shame to manipulate her sons into behaving properly, as these emotions were closely connected to Italian culture. Second, in the patronage letters written to Lucrezia by potential clients, we see the use of motherly emotions by clients in hopes that Lucrezia will essentially fill a mother's role, helping them with their hardships. Even though client's letters represent a "fictive" mother/child relationship, they are a testament to Lucrezia's power as a mother

Der Herrscher im Bild: Präsenz und Propaganda in Büchern des Quattrocento

Bilder sind heute im Raum des Politischen unerlässlich geworden. Vielfach werden sie genutzt, um Macht zu generieren und zu festigen. Die Sprache der Bilder teilt sich unmittelbarer mit als ein Text und appelliert stärker an das Gefühl, weshalb sie zu Überredungs- oder Propagandazwecken eingesetzt werden. Bilder können Präsenz herstellen, komplizierte Sachverhalte veranschaulichen und Dinge evident machen. Diese Praxis wurde zum ersten Mal seit der Antike konsequent in der italienischen Frührenaissance erkannt und umgesetzt. Im Zentrum text-bildlicher Inszenierungsstrategien italienischer Herrscher stand dabei das Buch. Seit den 1440er Jahren ist an den Höfen ein zunehmendes Interesse an humanistischen Büchern zu verzeichnen, die im Epos, in Tugendschriften oder in einer Historiografie die Vita eines zeitgenössischen Regenten kunstvoll darstellen. Diese von Hofhumanisten verfassten Texte wurden häufig von Bildern begleitet, die in einem fruchtbaren Konkurrenzverhältnis zum Wort stehen und die Texte anstatt sie lediglich zu illustrieren über ihre fiktionalen Möglichkeiten der Präsenz und der Evokation von Antike visuell ausdeuten und interpretieren. Ausführlich behandelte Referenzpunkte sind dabei Hofkünstler wie Pisanello, Mantegna, Piero della Francesca und die Klassiker der Antike. Wie die mit ihnen verwandten Medaillen wurden Bücher mit zeithistorischen Bildern als diplomatische Geschenke an befreundete Höfe verschickt und im höfischen Zeremoniell präsentiert. Egal ob die Visconti und Sforza in Mailand, die Este aus Ferrara, die Malatesta von Rimini, Federico da Montefeltro in Urbino oder die Könige von Aragon aus Neapel: Sie alle erkannten die Macht von mobilen Wort-Bild-Kombinationen, um memoria und fama zu sichern.Today, images have become indispensable in the political sphere. They are often used to generate and consolidate power. The "language" of images communicates more directly than a text and appeals more to the emotions, which is why they are used for persuasion or propaganda purposes. Images can establish presence, illustrate complicated issues and make things evident. This practice was recognised and implemented consistently for the first time since antiquity in the early Italian Renaissance. The book was at the centre of the text-pictorial staging strategies of Italian rulers. From the 1440s onwards, there was an increasing interest in humanist books at the courts, which artfully portrayed the vita of a contemporary ruler in the form of epic poems, virtue writings or historiography. These texts, written by court humanists, were often accompanied by images that competed fruitfully with words, visually interpreting and interpreting the texts - rather than merely illustrating them - through their fictional possibilities of presence and evocation of antiquity. The points of reference treated in detail are court artists such as Pisanello, Mantegna, Piero della Francesca and the "classics" of antiquity. Like the medals related to them, books with contemporary historical images were sent as diplomatic gifts to friendly courts and presented in courtly ceremonial. Whether the Visconti and Sforza of Milan, the Este of Ferrara, the Malatesta of Rimini, Federico da Montefeltro of Urbino or the kings of Aragon of Naples, they all recognised the power of mobile word-image combinations to secure memoria and fama

"Viva Bacco e viva Amore": Bacchic Imagery in the Renaissance

The fifteenth century in Italy is often studied for its revival of antiquity, but looking at this revival through the particular lens of Bacchus and his band of ecstatic followers reveals a unique view of the complex texture of the intellectual, cultural, and artistic fabric of the Renaissance. Although Bacchus, as a god of wine and revelry, was not an obvious role model for Renaissance patrons, he appeared nonetheless in drawings, paintings, engravings, plaquettes, and sculpture, and in marriage parades, banquet entertainments, plays, and songs. This dissertation examines how and why such a god and his wild cohort could acquire such a broad appeal and what they signified to their contemporary audiences. Stepping off from Aby Warburg's insight that emotionality is a third vector of historical measurement in addition to form and content, we first explore what it was in ancient Bacchic art that appealed to Renaissance artists striving to reinvigorate their work, finding that they were drawn to its expressive realism, shown with vigorous movement and figural variety, as well as its portrayal of lassitude and voluptuous pleasure. We look also at shifts in ideas about invention, imagination, composition, and imitation, and their impact on how artists viewed this antique inheritance and found inspiration in the Bacchic figures. Philosophical concepts, especially Neoplatonic ideas of inspiration and Aristotelian notions of Necessity, are considered for their impact on the meanings gleaned from Bacchic imagery. Each member of the Bacchic retinue is then explored to determine how his or her gestural vocabulary was employed, and what meanings he or she was made to bear in new settings. The frenzied maenad, with her hints of madness and untamed eroticism, was transformed into grieving Mary Magdalenes, heroic Judiths, and dancing Salomes, or was prettified into all'antica serving girls, nymphs, and personifications. The discovery of a sleeping Ariadne, unveiled by a satyr, contributed to one of the more popular motifs of the Renaissance, which even in new contexts retained associations with the epiphany and resurrection experienced by Ariadne when she was rescued by Bacchus. Revived epithalamic traditions employed the Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne as a metaphor for both the taming forces of marriage and the bittersweet aura of youth and love. The frolicking, ithyphallic satyr embodied visions not only of a lost Arcadia, but also of the balancing forces of nature that require sexuality to sustain life. Tales of Silenus' wisdom inflected Renaissance depictions of the dissipated old satyr with contemporary notions of the morosoph, or wise fool. And as a symbol of the cosmos, Pan became the leader of a revived pastoral mode, a noble prince for a restored Golden Age. As a fecund, frenzied god, Bacchus came to embody the newly awakened Neoplatonic notion of divine furor: the inspiration that fueled all transcendent thought and creative imagination. At a moment when visual artists were striving to attain the status of their poetic counterparts, Bacchus epitomized the nature of artistic frenzy as a complement to the poet's Apollonian furor. The Bacchanalian paintings commissioned for Alfonso d'Este's Camerino d'Alabastro in Ferrara were a final flourish to this revival of Bacchus (before the archaeological and mythographical rigor of the mid-sixteenth century reduced him to a stereotype). The god's associations with love and fertility enhanced the duke's self-presentation as a magnanimous, liberal, and prolific ruler. The presentation of Epicurean delights signified a true understanding of an elevated voluptas, which saw the greatest good attained through the metaphor of sensual pleasures. Titian's paintings fully materialized the energy and pathos that first attracted the early Renaissance artists to Bacchic imagery

Alte Götter – neue Helden:das neulateinische Epos zwischen Mythologie und Politik

Söldnerführer stürzen sich Seite an Seite mit Minerva in die Schlacht, Renaissancefürsten genießen die Förderung des Olymps – der Humanismus des Quattrocento ließ die antiken Götter nicht nur in die lateinische Epik zurückkehren, sondern brachte sie oft näher an die Welt der Sterblichen als je zuvor. Schon in den antiken Modellen hatte der Götterapparat eine Kernstelle inne, doch ging seine Verwendung in neulateinischen Epen über reine imitatio und aemulatio hinaus. Viele Epiker wählten, anders als ihre klassischen Vorläufer, Zeitgeschichte zum Gegenstand, daher wurde Camouflage militärischer oder politischer Fehlschläge, Neuarrangement ungünstiger Machtkonstellationen und Überzeichnung von Einzelereignissen zur panegyrischen Schlüsselkompetenz dichtender Hofhumanisten. Diese Studie zeigt anhand von Epen aus der Frühphase des panegyrischen neulateinischen Epos, wie pagane Götter und mythologischer Apparat zu einer wesentlichen Technik avancieren konnten, solche Anforderungen zu erfüllen.<br

Painting in Stone: The Symbolism of Colored Marbles in the Visual Arts and Literature from Antiquity until the Enlightenment

Colored marble has been used throughout the Mediterranean as a building material, architectural veneer, sculptural material, even a support for painting since at least the second century BC. This thesis examines the poetics and symbolism of marbles, as a medium more than a material, over many centuries along three predominant lines: as images of substance according to a pre-modern concept of matter and pre-modern notions of geology; marble's apparent ability to bear light due to its polish and occasional translucency; and the longue durée that colored marbles constituted a form of natural (hence divine) painting. The use of marble in architecture and sculpture, as well as its depiction in painting and its description in literature, is examined from the Augustan era up untnil the close of the seventeenth century. Examples range from Durham to Samarra, from Ottoman folklore to popular piety in Florida, from Etruscan tomb painting to installation art, but key monuments like Hagia Sophia and the Cornaro Chapel offer case studies for in-depth analysis

Maria-Grazia Pernis, Le platonisme de Marsile Ficin et la Cour d'Urbin

Weber Henri. Maria-Grazia Pernis, Le platonisme de Marsile Ficin et la Cour d'Urbin. In: Bulletin de l'Association d'étude sur l'humanisme, la réforme et la renaissance, n°47, 1998. pp. 109-111