Da Vinci and the Modern Female Portait - Essay Example

Insti Leonardo da Vinci had a greater insight into human personality in his female portraits in comparison to the counterpart male portraits. During the renaissance period, portraiture flourished as a humanism manifestation. In this way, it revived previous ancient classical interest that was in human affairs, emphasizing individual development. Early renaissance portrait who had realistic murals and panels were; Benozzo Gozzoli, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Piero della Francesca, and Giovanni Bellini. The celebrated masters of high renaissance such as Leonardo and Andrea del Sarto transformed formal portraiture to greater heights of refined perception, rich in color and light (Hale 34). Renaissance art portrayal is a naturalistic reflection of realities that is recent in terms of discovery, rather than just framed myths and gender-based constructions. Leonardo’s art portrayal was regarded as abnormal in social terms. He presented through art, a view of female sex, which was culturally abnormal in the patriarchy of his day. To them, a woman is an intelligent being, and therefore biologically equals half of human species. Earliest portraits preserved by Leonardo, referred to as Ginevra de’Benci, done in the late 1470s, puts forth a fundamentally new female age. It portrays a sitter posed in a three-quarter view and it engages the eye of the observer. Portraits done by Northern Renaissance painters indicates a preoccupation with realism and having a precise detail of physiognomy and the costume. This kind of approach is a characteristic of panels by the Flemish masters Rogier van der Weydan and Hans Memling (Victoria 100) High Middle Ages evolution of portraiture reached its crescendo in the fifteenth century. This was the period during which greatest masters of artistic illusionism begun to appear in Europe. Italian Renaissance painters discovered the use of textural properties of oil painting. Leonardo da Vinci was famous for his portraits that were life-like in their realism. He used to learn entirely from nature and science to make his paintings look real. He drew and took many notes from observation, since he believed that it is the basis of knowledge. Leonardo was among the first Italian Renaissance to use the three-quarter pose instead of the popular profile. His subjects had unique facial expressions that challenged viewers. The new technique he invented-chiaroscuro and sfumato, also brought his subjects to life (Patrick McDonnell 56) Rogier van der Weyden transcends the concept of naturalism formal or informal, in order to document ethereal beauty within the subjects of his portraits. Van der Weydens 1460 portrait of a lady results to the study of Petrus Christus’s portrait of a young girl, which dates 1465 to 1470. Both early portraits offer startlingly different, yet radically portrayal of femininity. Rogier van der Weyden faced challenges compressing sitters’ hands together at the lower edges of portraits. In the portrait of a woman, the unidentified sitter had a presentation of a geometric composition. In Van der Weyden’s portrait, the human appears serene and confident, sitting with hands folded and wearing a formal headdress. She is staring downward as though in modesty, the portrait is a study of her that evokes calm and presence. To the contrary, in Christus’s portrait, the young girl is looking away from the viewer and has an expression of boredom and dissatisfaction. Although her position is reminiscent of those in van der Weyden’s subject, this portrayal gives an entirely different impression. The woman appears to be ideal. The girl is however looking away as if wanting to literally escape. She looks imprisoned in her outfit rather than comfortable, and also has a look of unhappiness that to the viewer is registered as sullenness (Cecil 53) This painting marked a true advancement in naturalism from the fact that, for an art historian, it brought about the rise of individualistic consciousness during renaissance, since there was development of individualized, and more numerous portraiture at the time. These figures, when completely exposed at a gaze to the spectator, had the characteristic of being self-sufficient, invulnerable, and showing by the surface importance of the project, only the superficial of the self-contained being. In the twentieth century, the main focus of interest was the eye and the gaze, which was largely carried out in terms of psychoanalysis. In addition, various streams of criticism and theory bring the awareness of the structure of mythologies and images of the level to which the viewer are active, such that the eye is considered as the performing gent. Leonardo was the first to initiate the change in the preferred pose for female sitters, which was of greater significance. As depicted by Christus’s portrait of a young lady, in Northern fifteenth century portraits, it is never an occurrence for a female sitter to look directly into the viewer’s eyes. In this case, it has a profound difference, Leonardo stating in his aphorism that ‘the eye is said to be the window of the soul.’ (Rose 56). This painting of young woman listed, lacks characteristics of leonardo’s work. In his drawings, he didn’t draw subjects in profile and also avoided indicating his subjects as harsh cold and stiff as presented in this painting. The background is presented as plain black and without detail, on the top of the painting is the jewelry. The portrait has a touching up details like the head-dress, pearls and ribbons. These items are painted with particular skills, and Leonardo is known for accuracy in painting knots. The clarification by a feminist scholar has identified the exceptionality, whereby Patricia Simons has indicated the Quattrocento profile portrait convention. This presentation of young women was during their time of marriage; its’ description to them has beautiful and passive possessions of male heads. The portrait of living ermine, whose fur was much sought after served a three-fold purpose (Najemy 60). Early Netherlandish painting is in reference to the work of artists, referred to as Flemish Primitives. They were active in the Burgundian and Habsburg Netherlands. Their work was in relation to the International Gothic style. Early Netherlandish painting is viewed as an independent artistic culture, in contrast with the renaissance humanism that had its origin in Italy. The work of these painters is a representation of culmination of northern European medieval artistic heritage and also incorporated renaissance ideals, thus the painters had the combination of being both early renaissance and late gothic. Netherlandish painters include Rogier van der Weyden and Hugo van der Goes. They had a significant advancement in natural representation illusionism. In comparison to the previous illustrations from the text, their work typically featured complex iconography. In addition, their subjects focused on religious scenes or small portraits, its painting rarely had narrative painting or mythological subjects (Masters 23). Netherlandish painters richly described its landscape, which contrasts Leonardo da Vinci paintings. Moreover, the paintings generally involves oil on a panel. The procedure for this can be carried out either as single activity or more complex portable or fixed altarpieces, in either diptychs or polyptychs forms. Generally, early northern art was not properly regarded in the periods 17th and mid-19th century. The documentation of the painters involved were on the other hand not properly done until mid-19th century when there reinvigoration of interest in Early Netherlandish art. The effect this led was art historians spending almost another century figuring out attributions and studying iconography. Leonardo da Vinci’s known paintings were Mona Lisa and the Great Lady, and these paintings revealed more than woman’s status and position. The Mona Lisa is an extremely recognized and sought after painting. This painting by da Vinci had three quarter pose, thus incorporating the newly established style of poses being used until currently. Leonardo’s most portraits were silhouettes having prominent backgrounds during the period of 15th century. The painting is made visually appealing by the arms and body at the lesser half of the portrait. Leonardo brought about a technique referred as ‘sfumato’, which in Italian refers to blended. In this technique, it brought about ability to layer translucent color, creating depth volume and form. Mona Lisa’s identification is as a female archetype. It has connection with renaissance concept of the portrait, thus bringing about an image of triumph over mortality and death. Thus, from Rosand’s point of view, Mona Lisa holds in dialectical tension the fluid, changing landscape, in which to him is bound to have endless deformation by water, the agent of time, and the reproductive and critical forces of life. This is thus contrasted to the image of a perfect human beauty (Masters 16). Secondly, in Leonardo’s painting, the Virgin of the Rocks, the material nature is illustrated in detail, and the form it takes tends to assure the presence of cosmic nature. The difference in this case is from Leonardo’s naturalism. Independent drawings used form an image of a plant, emphasizing its pattern of growth, providing the implication that the source of change is within the matter. Leaves arrangement from the plant’s base portrays the spiral form of generation, where its presentation being as inseparable from matter. Thus, Leonardo in many ways not only shared but also helped define faith during his era in the capacity of his art in order to preserve life and transcend time. Leonardo’s ‘Great Lady’ drawing brings about a presentation of a synthesized image of circulatory, respiratory, and generative processes in the female body. This with the representation of male anatomy differs significantly. The drawing has a distinctive graphic completeness expressing Leonardo’s knowledge that blood flow in the female body as a linkage to the role of procreation, hence Leonardo had knowledge of the systemic order of biological process in the female body (Clough 90) Giovanna Tornabouni’s portrait by Domenico Ghirlandaio showed women in profile, thus bringing out contrast to Leonardo’s paintings. In this painting, it has an inscription having the date 1488 which implies conduct and soul. The characteristics were considered valuable and laudable commodities carried by a woman. In addition, a challenging task in which representation of these invisible virtues were depicted. This profile portrait of Giovvanna’s has a participation in a language of visual and social convections. They do not simply display a preexistent social or visual reality. Womanly presentation in these portraits is that, a woman can apply cosmetics and extravagant decoration forbidden by both legal and moral codes. Therefore, a woman’s painted presence has a position of cultural values of the period, which manifests an idealized stock of impressive manipulative language that is accessible within Quattrocento. Visual art, shared and shaped social language and hence should not be viewed as passive reflection of reality determination (Garrard 75). In the presentation of the women, the form of the profile and its particulars were suited in tasks involving construction, and not the case of reflection of invisible reality. The limitation for this is that, the uniqueness appears to the degree that streamlining silhouettes can stand for specific faces (Simons 46). Nevertheless, full characterization relies upon facial asymmetry and momentary moods are suppressed by the timeless patterning profile. Botticelli paintings are not pure, instead the heads are slightly turned, hence enabling one to see a little bit far away. In contrast, while comparing Ghirlandaio’s portrait of Giovanna, the Ghirlandaio perfect and highly stylish has been loosened in these two Botticelli portraits. The Frankfurt panel brakes from the convention of human facing left (Henderson 29). Conclusion Renaissance paintings call upon the viewer to look into habitable spaces whereby religious and mythological events occur, and that life is chronicled through the observation of detail. The Artists in both Northern and Southern Europe, shared a belief of power of observation. Leornado da Vinci’s statement was that observation is the mutual mother of all disciplines and the arts. The artists used pictorial system in order to imitate what hired. Linear one perspective relies on mathematical systems with a fixed viewpoint. In the north, the observation is that the room fixed and the viewer’s eye has been invited to meander about the area or space. The other case is whereby linear one perspective is based on a mathematical system having a fixed view point. Works Cited Clough, Cecil. Italian Renaissance portraiture and printed portrait-books. New Young: Print, 1993. Hale. Renaissance. New York: Print, 2006. Najemy, John. Italy in the age of the renaissance 1300-1550. New York: Oxford University, 2004. Patrick McDonnell, McDonnell. Art. New York: Print, 2006. Rose, Frederick P. The Art of Renaissance in Europe. New York: Print, 2000. Henderson, Charles, ed. Classical, Mediaeval and Renaissance Studies in Honor of Berthold Louis Ullmann. Ed. di storia e letteratura, 1964. Victoria, Charles. Renaissance Art. New York: Printing Press, 2007. Garrard, Mary D. Leonardo da Vinci: Female Portraits, Female Nature. 1992. Masters, Rachel D. "The Portraiture of Women During the Italian Renaissance." (2013). Simons, Patricia. "Women In Frames." The Expanding Discourse: Feminism and Art History. New York: Icon Editions (1992): 39-58. Read More