Bernini’s Fountain of Four Rivers constructed from 1648 to 1651 in the Piazza Navona in Rome for Pope Innocent X. The whole building consisted of two parts: the horizontal fountain and the rising Egyptian obelisk. The massive fountain is made of travertine, supporting the four river gods above and also serving as the foundation of the obelisk. Danube represents Europe. The Ganges refers to the continent of Asia. The Río de la Plata represents America, the New World, and the Niles is Africa. A certain amount of the allegory and metaphors also surround the four river gods respectively. On the slim body of Roman made obelisk (Curran 284), hieroglyphics are displayed in sequential, and a dove and an olive branch, the pacific symbol of the Pamphili …show more content…
Río de la Plata is the mostly discussed one as the newly converted land. Meanwhile, the Ganges looks away from the light of the church because of his spiritual ignorance, and the head of the Niles is secretly covered, mainly owing to its unknown or uncertain sources to the churches at that time. The Danube is the only river god embracing the divine light with comfortable appearance among them. All of the three ancient river gods have positive or negative delineations of their western appearances in the new center of Rome, except the Niles. There are records claiming “the river’s efforts to remove the cloth will take as long as it takes for the accumulation of empirical evidence to ascertain the source of the Niles (San Juan 86)”. On the other hand, the pose of the Niles is also perceived as the influence of the magnetic force of the Roman copy of the Egyptian obelisk. Since both of the Niles and the obelisk are coming from the same area, how could they resist the existence of each other? …show more content…
The obelisks represent the divine sun god in Egypt. When they enter the Rome, they are forced to change themselves, as the four rivers have to take on the appearances of ancient river gods. The connotations of the obelisks have been drastically changed according to the willing of the Catholic Church, whereas the churches remain their previous out looking in Egypt. The obelisks in the Western now signify the supreme spiritual illumination of Christianity, rather than the sun god in Egypt. The churches were significantly pleased by the exotic appearance with Christian connotation of the obelisk, which exemplified their conquering on the foreign lands, instead of the Niles with ancient god appearance. On the contrary, compared with the other river gods, the ancient Egyptian river god does not even have a dignified face in Rome only because of its unknown origins to the churches. For the Western, Egyptian culture, to some extent, is one of the evidence proving their superiority in the seventeenth
La Pietà of Giovanni Della Robbia is amazing religious glazed and painted terracotta dated 1510-1520. It was mainly intended to introduce the meaning of the Bible story to large and mainly illiterate audiences. One of the things that this image can tell us about life in western civilization is how much the artists were focused on translating the bible and trying to understand it without the help of the Catholic Church through art and humanism. La Pietà is one of the richest and best known collections of Della Robbia sculptures at the springtime of the renaissance. The creator of the sculpture is Giovanni Della Robbia; the first and epic of a dynasty of important pottery artists, decorators, potters, and terracotta workers. Della Robbia developed a unique pottery glaze that made his creations much more durable in the outdoors and therefore much suitable for use on the exterior of buildings. This was an extraordinarily formal and refined technique that immediately met with great success, so much so that the Della Robbia family’s work flourished for over one hundred years. It uniquely combines archaeometric and stylistic time-related information about the renaissance age in Western Civilization. In its context, La Pietà was created in the 15th century, the renaissance age , when there was a surge in artistic, literary, and scientific activity , especially in Florence, the third largest city in Europe, an independent republic where the Italian Renaissance began, and a banking and commercial capital after London and Constantinople. The renaissance era when this sculptured was created was also marked by few major events such as: religious problems in church, Erasmus publishing Greek edition of the New Treatment ...
Bernini’s sculptures transform people’s imagination into concrete marble. Two of his work, David and the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, were based on texts that illustrate human imagination. Nevertheless, Bernini was able to show the characters’ appearance, motion and feeling simultaneously in a visible way, thus his sculptures are even more impressive and express the fancy imagination even more explicitly than the text itself. The further analysis about David and the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa will prove this point.
In conclusion, although Mycerinus and Kha-merer-nebty II and Augustus of Primaporta, do appear very different, come from entirely different geographic regions and were separated by thousands of years, they do have many things in common. When we consider subject, style, and function; perhaps other works of art have more in common than they appear to have.
The position of the statue of the Old Man provides a straightforward glimpse of the status of Rome and the legacy of Virgil. Standing straight and "erect" (XIV.104), the Old Man "looks at Rome" with his back "turned toward Damietta" (XIV.104-105). The statue’s back faces Damietta, an ancient city in Egypt. What’s more important, though, is that the Old Man is facing Rome. This precise detail makes it clear that Dante the poet wants his contemporary readers to know that Rome is the direction towards which society is converging. The image of the statue looking at Rome "as if it were his mirror" (XIV.105) drives this point further. Within Rome, the Old Man sees a reflection of all of his characteristics; Rome is a natural extension of all the great aspects of the Greek culture, including...
To some this story might seem like a tragedy, but to Christians this is a beautiful story. Although young Harry dies at the end, he is accepted into the kingdom of God, which is far superior to anything on Earth. A non-religious family raises him and the first taste of Christianity he gets makes him want to pursue God. In Flannery O’Conner’s short story, The River, the allure of Gods grace and the repelling of sinful ways are shown heavily through Harry.
and I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.". The scene reflects the honorable act of Jesus passing his legacy to St.Peter to continue following his path and spread words of God to all people. The keys represent forgiveness and admittance of all people to the kingdom of heaven. For the depiction of this important event, Perugino chose an idealized background of flat spacious piazza, where the Temple of Solomon is showed in the center of the painting, as it symbolizes the Jewish Faith and two identical triumphal arches on the sides (left and right) from the time of Roman Empire, they symbolize heathenism. The background shows an acknowledgment of the past beliefs as the predecessors of Jesus and the welcoming acceptance of all into
The artists of the Baroque had a remarkably different style than artists of the Renaissance due to their different approach to form, space, and composition. This extreme differentiation in style resulted in a very different treatment of narrative. Perhaps this drastic stylistic difference between the Renaissance and Baroque in their treatment of form, space, and composition and how these characteristics effect the narrative of a painting cannot be seen more than in comparing Perugino’s Christ Delivering the Keys of the Kingdom to St. Peter from the Early Renaissance to Caravaggio’s Conversion of St. Paul from the Baroque.Perugino was one of the greatest masters of the Early Renaissance whose style ischaracterized by the Renaissance ideals of purity, simplicity, and exceptional symmetry of composition. His approach to form in Christ Delivering the Keys of the Kingdom to St.Peter was very linear. He outlined all the figures with a black line giving them a sense of stability, permanence, and power in their environment, but restricting the figures’ sense of movement. In fact, the figures seem to not move at all, but rather are merely locked at a specific moment in time by their rigid outline. Perugino’s approach to the figures’themselves is extremely humanistic and classical. He shines light on the figures in a clear, even way, keeping with the rational and uncluttered meaning of the work. His figures are all locked in a contrapposto pose engaging in intellectual conversation with their neighbor, giving a strong sense of classical rationality. The figures are repeated over and over such as this to convey a rational response and to show the viewer clarity. Perugino’s approach to space was also very rational and simple. He organizes space along three simple planes: foreground, middle ground, and background. Christ and Saint Peter occupy the center foreground and solemn choruses of saints and citizens occupy the rest of the foreground. The middle distance is filled with miscellaneous figures, which complement the front group, emphasizing its density and order, by their scattered arrangement. Buildings from the Renaissance and triumphal arches from Roman antiquity occupy the background, reinforcing the overall classical message to the
The statue Augustus of Primaporta was not only used to convey the likeness of the Emperor Augustus to his people across the Roman Empire, it was also interspersed with symbols and messages about the ruler’s ideals and power. It was distributed throughout the empire as propaganda for Augustus and as a declaration of the new era he intended to bring about. This strategic imagery and its successfulness in conveying the greatness of its commissioner influenced many successive leaders around the world to command similarly symbolic likenesses to be made of themselves, such as Trajan in the second century CE.
Castriota, David. The Ara Pacis Augustae and the imagery of abundance in later Greek and early Roman imperial art. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995. (P. 64)
The full power of Donatello first appeared in two marble statues, “St. Mark” and “St. George” which were completed in 1415. “St. George” has been replaced and is now in the Bargello. For the first time the human body is rendered as a functional organism. The same qualities came in the series of five prophet statues that Donatello did beginning in 1416. The statues were of beardless and bearded prophets as well as a group of Abraham and Isaac in 1416-1421 and also the “Zuccone” and “Jeremiah”. “Zuccone” is famous as the finest of the campanile statues and one of the artist’s masterpieces. Donatello invented his own bold new mode of relief in his marble panel “St. George Killi...
In this research paper I will be looking at two different artworks by the same artist. The two I will be looking at are the Sistine Chapel Ceiling (1508-1512) and The Last Judgment (1534). Both of these painting are painted in the Sistine chapel which is located in the Vatican. I am going to attempt to evaluate these two pieces of art painted by Michelangelo and explain the cultural and religious aspects of them. I will also look to other scholars to get their perspective and their reactions to the paintings. The last step of my research will be to formulate a theory about the relationship between culture and religion and use my topic to help defend my theory.
...ctives and elevations of the fountain recall the cityscapes seen on the walls of the cubiculum and other paintings having something to do with scenae frons architecture (11). The exhedrae, which usually adjoined open palestria or peristyles, offer a good comparison with their semicircular arcades forming annular volumes. These spaces communicate with the outer area but still have their own sense of place and charm. They also have a particular public character more appropriate to looking at the Piazza, than say, the semicircular arcades of the markets of Trajan behind one exhedra of his forum (12). While an engaging space in its own right, the Piazza d'Italia fountain operates only partially within the realm of ancient Greco-Roman architecture (Moore's Ph.D dissertation at Princeton was on water in architecture, so he had ample material to draw from. Kiem pp. 196-198).
The Italian Architects of the seventeenth century faced a huge volume of orders to carry out. The most required orders were churches. (Bazin 15) When Urban VIII became pope he asked Bernini to design a baldachino, also known as a canopy, to define the altar area. Bernini built something that was half sculpture and half architecture that had four columns that were very detailed. The columns were designed with spiraling grooves and vines made of bronze. The spiraling and decorative effects were made to symbolize the union of the new and Old Testaments, the vine of the Eucharist climbing the columns of the temple of Solomon. The Eucharist was the Christian ceremony commemorating the Last Supper. The elements of the Ionic and Corinthian orders are at the top of the columns. Angels are along the entablatu...
Alberti was known to be a great advisory to me and he was influenced from a lot of people including Sigismondo Malatesta. During that time of when he was in Rimini, Italy, he was working with an outstanding person in which this person would realize his most delicate and original ideas in marble, shaping brilliant, carefully chosen stones with dazzling precision until they embodied Alberti’s vision of fortune as a filled sail. Malatesta has ransacked his way from the churches in the surrounding area. It was worse in which Sigismondo ran out of money long before Alberti’s full design was complete, so that neither does the second story that Alberti had planned for his façade nor the magnificent lead-roofed dome that he has planned to raise at the east end of the church that has ever builded.
Here, we will be looking at a rendition of the high marble statue of Augustus Caesar known as “Augustus of Prima Porta.” Originating from 1st Century A.D., it is said that there is a possibility that the original sculpture could have been of greek descent. Upon a general overview of the sculpture, one can see that Augustus fulfils a millitarial role of some kind. From his very stance to the garments portrayed on him, Augustus is draped in a decorative cuirass and a tunic, accompanied by a figure of Cupid clutching on to his right calf. After taking the general themes of the work into account, one can then began to start unraveling the many symbolic elements embedded into the sculpture that allude to godly themes. Starting from the crown of his head, the very chiselment and structure of his face gives the work a youthful element to it, even though some say that Augustus was around 40 years old. A recurring theme within Greek and Roman culture is the matter of godliness and immortality amongst idolized figures themselves. This idea is usually depicted by displaying powerful human being in a younger light. This