The Baroque style in England.
Egyptian architecture.The architecture of Egypt developed from the 3rd millennium B. C. to the Roman period. Its most outstanding achievements are its massive funerary monuments and temples built of stone for permanence featuring only post-and-lintel construction, corbel vaults without arches, or vaulting and pyramids. This architecture gave the world the earliest buildings in dressed stone, invented the column; capital and cornice. Features peculiar to the ancient Egyptian architecture also include the obelisk, the steeply battered pylon, the symbolical lotus column, and incised relief decoration without any structural relevance. During the Old Kingdom, the period when Egypt was ruled by the Kings of the 3rd to 6th Dynasties, artists and craftsmen were drawn to the court to work under the patronage of the king and his great nobles. Techniques of working in stone, wood, and metal made tremendous progress, demonstrated by surviving large scale monuments, such as pyramids of the 4th Dynasty and the sun temples of the 5th Dynasty. The pyramids are the most spectacular of all funerary works and the only wonder of the world. These monuments celebrated the divinity of the kings of Egypt, linking the people with the great gods of earth and sky.This was a time when trade and economy flourished. Craftsmen worked in the finest materials which were often brought great distances, and were able to experiment with recalcitrant stones as well as new techniques of metalworking. This enabled them by the 6th Dynasty to produce large metal figures. The earliest that survive are the copper statues of Pepi I and his son. They are badly corroded but still impressive in their stiffly formal poses. The eyes are inlaid, and the crown and the kilt of the king, now missing, were probably made of gilded plaster. During the prosperous period known as the Middle Kingdom fortresses were built to defend the southern and eastern borders, and new areas of land were brought under cultivation. Craftsmen achieved new levels of excellence. Very little architecture remains – many royal monuments were robbed for their stone in later periods – but what has survived shows great simplicity and refinement. The establishment of the 18th Dynasty marked the beginning of the New Kingdom and a new blossoming of the arts and crafts of ancient Egypt. Craftsmen benefited from wider contact with other civilizations, such as those of Crete and Mesopotamia, and were also able to work with imported raw materials. The kings gave encouragement to artists and craftsmen by ordering great temples and palaces to be built throughout Egypt. The temple walls were covered with reliefs celebrating the achievements of the kings and the powers of the gods. The courtyards and inner sanctuaries were enriched with statuary. The most notable monuments are the Mortuary Temple and the magnificent Great Temple at Karnak to Amon.Ancient Egyptian architecture was revived under the Ptolemies, the successors of Alexander the Great, who built numerous temples of traditional style. Egyptians built temples to dignify the ritual observances of those in power and to exclude others. Thus, they were built within walled enclosures, their great columned halls (hypostyles) turning inward, visible from a distance only as a sheer mass of masonry. A hierarchical linear sequence of spaces led to successively more privileged precincts. In this way was born the concept of axis, which in the Egyptian temples was greatly extended by avenues of sphinxes in order to intensify the climatic experience of the approaching participants. The temples also introduce the monumental use of post-and-lintel construction in stone, in which massive columns are closely spaced and bear deep lintels.
|
|
|
The architecture of Ancient Greece
The architecture of Ancient Greece is the architecture produced by the Greek-speaking people (Hellenic people) whose culture flourished on the Greek mainland and Peloponnesus, the Aegean Islands, and in colonies in Asia Minor, and Italy for a period from about 700 BC until the 1st century AD., with the earliest remaining architectural works dating from the 6th century BC.
Ancient Greek architecture is best known from its temples, many of which are found throughout the region, mostly as ruins but many substantially intact. The second important type of building that is in evidence all over the Hellenic world is the open-air theatre, with the earliest dating from around 350 BC. Other architectural forms that are still in evidence are the processional gateway (propylaea), the public square (agora) surrounded by storied colonnade (stoa), the public monument, the monumental tomb (mausoleum) and the town house.Greek architecture is characterized by post and lintel system, i.e. orders consisting of vertical columns and horizontal entablatures. There are three Greek orders: the Doric, Ionic and Corinthian orders. The oldest order is the Doric. The parts of Greek Doric — the simple, baseless columns, the spreading capitals, and triglyph-metope (alternating vertically ridged and plain blocks) frieze above the columns — constitute an aesthetic development in stone incorporating variants on themes used functionally in earlier wood and brick construction. Doric long remained the favourite order of the Greek mainland and western colonies, and it changed little throughout its history.The Ionic order evolved later, in eastern Greece. About 600 BC, in Asia Minor, the first intimation of the style appeared in stone columns with capitals elaborately carved in floral hoops — an Orientalizing pattern familiar mainly on smaller objects and furniture and enlarged for architecture.It developed throughout so called Aeolic capital with vertically springing volutes or spiral ornaments to the familiar Ionic capital, the volutes of which spread horizontally from the centre and curl downward. The order was always fussier and more ornate, less stereotyped than the Doric. The Ionic temples of the 6th century exceed in size and decoration even I lie most ambitious of their Classical successors. Such were the temples of Artemis at Ephesus in Asia Minor and the successive temples of Hera on the island of Samos.The Corinthian order originated in the 5th century ВС in Athens. It had an Ionic capital elaborated with acanthus leaves. In its general proportions it is very like the Ionic. For the first time the Corinthian order was used for temple exteriors. Because of its advantage of facing equally In four directions it was more adaptable than the Ionic for corners. There are not many Greek examples of the Corinthian order. The Romans widely used it for its showiness. The earliest known instance of the Corinthian order used on the exterior is the choragic monument of Lysicrates in Athens, 335/334 ВС.Ancient Greek architecture can be truly called the most significant appearance in the history of art. We can name several large periods in art, inspired by the legacy of Greece. And of course, practically all styles use some details, taken from ancient masterpieces, because the Greeks created art, clear to all nations in all centuries.
|
|
|
|
|
|
5,6. Roman architecture.
Modern knowledge of Roman architecture derives primarily from extant remains scattered throughout the area of the empire. Some are well preserved, and other are known only in fragments and by theoretical restoration. Another source of information is a vast store of records. Especially important is a book on architecture by the architect Vitruvius. His De Architectura is the only treatise survived from ancient times. It consists of 10 books and covers almost every aspect on architecture.Pervasive Roman predilection was for spatial composition – the organization of lines, surfaces, masses, and volumes in space. In this the Romans differed from their predecessors in the ancient Mediterranean world.In Roman architecture there were three types of houses: the domus, the insula, and the villa.Thedomus, or town house, consisted of suites of rooms grouped around a central hall, or atrium, to which were often added further suits at the rear, grouped around a colonnaded court, or peristyle. The atrium, a rectangular room with an opening in the roof to the sky, and its adjoining rooms were peculiarly Roman elements; the peristyle was Greek or Middle Eastern. There were few windows on the street, light being obtained from the atrium or peristyle.Great blocks of flats or tenements were called insula. Excavations at Ostia, Italy, have revealed the design of these blocks. Planed on three or four floors with strict regard to economy of space, they depended on light from the exterior as well as from a central court. Independent apartments had separate entrances with direct access to the street.
The Latin word villa pertained to the estate, complete with house, grounds, and subsidiary buildings.The Romans were great builders and engineers famous for their factories, roads, aqueducts and bridges, grand thermae and amphitheatres, theatres, and temples.
|
|
|
The greatest surviving circular temple of antiquity is the Pantheon in Rome. It consists of rotunda surrounded by concrete walls, in which are the alternate circular and rectangular niches. Light is admitted around the central opening at the crown of the dome. There is a porch in front of the building. The rotunda and the dome are the finest examples of Roman concrete work. The interiors were lined with precious marbles, the coffers (decorative recessed panels) of the dome itself once were covered externally with bronze plates.
The largest and the most important amphitheatre of Rome was the Colosseum. It had seating for about 50 000 spectators, and its 80 entrances were so arranged that the building could be cleared quickly. The whole is built of concrete, the exterior faced with travertine and the interior with precious marbles.Imperial thermae were more than baths. They were immense establishment of great magnificence, with facilities for every gymnastic exercise and halls in which philosophers, poets, and those wno wished to hear them gathered.So, in the end, I can say that Roman architecture continued the development now referred to as classical, but with quiet different results. Unlike the tenuously allied Greek city-states, Rome became a powerful, well-organized empire that planted its constructions throughout the Mediterranean world. Romans built great engineering works – roads, canals, bridges, and aqueducts. Their masonry was more varied; they used bricks and concrete freely, as well as stone, marble, and mosaic.
The Romans introduced the commemorative or thriumphal arch and the coliseum or stadium. They further developed the Greek theatre and the Greek house.
7,8. Byzantine Architecture.
The art characteristic of the developed Byzantine Empire can be traced back to the period just before the reign of Justinian, c. AD 500. The style had enormous influence on both the East and the West. Early Byzantine art may to some extant be regarded as Roman art transformed under influence of the East. It reached a high point in the 6th century, rose again for a short time to new heights during the 11th and 12thcenturies and still survive among Greek or orthodox communities.
The dominant Byzantine art was architecture. As in Early Christian times, the two chief types of church were basilican with a long colonnaded nave covered by a wooden roof and terminating in a semi-circular apse and the vaulted centralizedchurch with its separate components gathered under a central dome.
The outstanding example of basilica which combined the longitudinal qualities of the basilica with the centralized volume of the martyrion was the church of Holy Wisdom (Hagia Sophia) in Constantinople.
Brick was the main material used for the construction of Byzantine churches. It was covered externally with plaster and internally with thin marble ladoes and mosaics above. Byzantine decoration was flat and incised in contrast with the bold modelling of western surfaces.Byzantine architecture of the period of Hagia Sophia was markedly concerned with mathematics.The historian Procopius wrote of the great church: “Through the harmony of its measurements it is distinguished by indescribable beauty.”By the 9th century, the Byzantine style was wide spread throughout the countries of the Near East and eastern Europe, where the Greek and Orthodox religion was followed and was beginning to appear in Russia.These Byzantine churches followed the plan of a Greek cross, that is a central dome space with four short square arms. This form of church eventually became almost universal, focusing in the brilliantly lit central space which dissolved mystically into the dark screens and galleries in the arms of the cross.Byzantine figurative art developed a characteristic style; its architectural application took the form of mosaics, great mural compositions executed in tiny pieces of coloured marble and gilded glass, a technique presumed to have been borrowed from Persia.
10. The Gothic Style.
The architecture of the central Middle Ages was termed Gothic during the Renaissance because of the association with the barbarian north. Now this term is used to describe the important international style in most countries in Europe from the early 12th century to the advent of the Renaissance in the 15th century.
At technical level gothic architecture is characterized by the ribbed vault, the pointed arch, and the flying buttress.One of the earliest buildings in which these techniques were introduced in a highly sophisticated architectural plan was the abbey of Saint Denis, Paris.The proportions are not large, but the skills and precision with which the vaulting is managed and the subjective effect of the undulating chain windows around the perimeter have given the abbey its traditional claim to the title “first gothic building”.
It should be said that in France and Germany this style is subdivided into the Early, High, and Late Gothic.The French middle phase is called Rayonant, the late - Flamboyant.
In English architecture the usual divisions are Early English, Decorated, and Perpendicular.
Early English Gothic developed from 1180 to 1280. The most influential building in the new fashion was the choir of Canterbury cathedral.
The building retains a passage at clerestory level – an Anglo-Norman feature that remained standard in English architecture well into 13th century. Both in the shape of the piers and in the multiplicity of attached colonettes, Canterbury resemble Laon. Colonettes became extremely popular with English architects, particularly because of the large supplies of Purbeck marble, which gave any elevation a special coloristic character.English architects for a long time retained a liking for heavy surface decoration: thus, when Rayonnant tracery designs were imported, they were combined with the existing repertoire of colonettes, attached shafts, and vault ribs. The result which could be extraordinarily dense has been called the English Decorated style (1280-1350).The architectural affects achieved (notably the retrochair of Wells cathedral or the choir of St. Augustine, Bristol) were more inventive generally than those of contemporary continental buildings.
English Gothic came to an end with the final flowering of the Perpendicular style (c. 1350—1550). It was characterized by vertical emphasis in structure and by elaborate fan vaults.The first major surviving statement of the Perpendicular style is probably the choir of Gloucester cathedral (begun soon after 1330). Other major monuments can be found in Westminster, Windsor, Cambridge, and Canterbury.Gothic was essentially the style of the Catholic countries of Europe. It was also carried to Cyprus, Malta, Syria, and Palestine by the Crusaders and their successors in the Mediterranean. The forms that were developed within the style on a regional basis were often of great beauty and complexity. They were used for allsecular buildings, as well as for cathedrals, churches, and monasteries.
By the Gothic Survival is meant the survival of Gothic forms, particularly in provincial traditional building.It developed after the advent of the Renaissance and into the 17th century. It should be differed from the Gothic Revival (Neo-Gothic) in the 18th — the 19th centuries.
13. The Renaissance.
The Renaissance began in Italy, where there was always a residue of classical feeling in art.Knowledge of the classical style in architecture was derived during the Renaissance from two sources: the ancient classical buildings, particularly in Italy but also in France and Spain and the treatise De architecture by the Roman architect Vitruvius. For classical antiquity and, therefore, for the Renaissance, the basic element of architectural design was the order, which was a system of traditional architectural units. During the Renaissance five orders were used, the Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, and Composite, with various ones prevalent in different periods. For example, the ornate, decorative quality of the Corinthian order was embracedduring the.early.Renaissance,while.the masculine simplicity and strength of the Doric was preferred during the Italian High Renaissance.On theauthority of Vitruvius, the Renaissance architects found a harmony between the proportions of the human body and those of their architecture. There was even a relationship between architectural proportions and the Renaissance pictorialdevice of perspective.The concern of these architects for proportioncaused that clear, measured expression and definition of architectural space and mass that differentiates the Renaissance style from the Gothic andencourages in the spectator animmediate and fullcomprehension of the building.In the early 15th century an Italian architect Filippo Brunelleschi formulated linear perspective, which was to become a basic element of Renaissance art. At the same time, Brunelleschi investigated ancient Roman architecture andacquired the knowledge of classical architecture and ornament that he used as a foundation for Renaissance architecture.His brilliant work, theloggiaoftheOspedaledegliInnocenti(1419— 51) was the first building in the Renaissance manner; a verygraceful arcadewas designed with Composite columns, and windows with classical pediments were regularly spaced above each of the arches.Donato Bramante's Tempietto San Pietro in Montorio(1502) symbolized the beginning of the High Renaissance style in Rome. Erected on the supposed site of themartyrdom of St. Peter, the Tempietto is circular in plan, with a colonnade of 16 columns surrounding a small cella, or enclosed interiorsanctuary.In 1505 Pope Julius II decided to rebuild St. Peter's, which was in a very poor condition. Bramante prepared plans for a monumental church and in 1506 the foundation stone waslaid.St . Peter's Cathedral is the largest church in the Christian world. It has 29 altars in addition to the high altar, interior length, 187m.,width at front, 26,5m., length of transept, 137m. The dome (diameter, 42 m., height, 123m. to the top of thelantern) was built by Michelangelo.In Russia the Renaissance is represented by the works of Italian masters (the Moscow Kremlin, the 15th— 16th cc.) The cathedral of the Assumption was built in 1475—1479 by AristotileFioravante on the site of an old church dating back to the reign of Ivan Kalita. By combining the characteristic features of the Vladimir-Suzdal and early-Moscow style with Italian Renaissance decoration and construction methods Fioravante produced a masterpiece of lasting beauty. Another example is the Cathedral of the Archangel Michael, designed by Alevisio Novi in 1505- 1508.The GranovitayaPalata (Faceted Palace, 1487—91) was built by Russian craftsmen according to the design of Italian architects MarcoRuffo, Aloisio da Carcano, and Pietro Antonio Solari. Its eastern facade is faced with faceted white stones,hence the name.
Baroque
Baroque and late Baroque, or Rococo, are termsappliedto European art of the period from the early 17th century to the mid-18th century."Baroque" was probably derived from the Italian wordbarocco. This term was used by philosophers during the Middle Ages to describe an obstacle in schematic logic. This word also described an irregular or imperfectly shapedpearl.During the Baroque period (c. 1600-1750), architecture, painting, and sculpture were integrated into decorative ensembles. Architecture and sculpture became pictorial, and painting became illusionistic. Baroque art was essentially concerned withvividcolours,hiddenlight sources, luxuriousmaterials, andelaborate, contrastingsurface textures.Baroque architects made architecture ameansof propagatingfaith in the church and in the state. Baroque space, with directionality, movement, and positive molding, contrasted markedly with the static, stable, and defined space of the High Renaissance and with the frustrating conflict of unbalanced spaces of thepreceding Mannerist period. Mannerism is the term applied to certain aspects of artistic style, mainly Italian, in the period between the High Renaissance of the early 16th century and the beginning of Baroque art in the early 17th century.The Baroquerapidly developed into two separate forms: the strongly Roman Catholic countries (Italy, Spain, Portugal, Flanders, Bohemia, southern Germany, Austria, and Poland) tended toward freer and more active architectural forms and surfaces; in Protestant regions (England, the Netherlands, andthe remainder of northern Europe) architecture was morerestrained and developed asober quiet monumentality impressive in itsrefinement. In the Protestant countries and France, whichsoughtthespirit through the mind, architecture was more geometric, formal, andprecise— anappeal to the intellect.Hardouin-Mansart 's Dome des Invalides, Paris (c. 1675), is generally agreed to be the finest church of the last half of the 17th century in France. The correctness and precision of its form, the harmony and balance of its spaces, and the soaring vigour of its dome make it a landmark not only of the Paris skyline but also of European Baroque architecture.Other greatest works of this style are the church of Santa Susanna, Versailles, National Palace in Madrid, Royal Palace at Caserta.
Rococo.During the period of the Enlightenment (about 1700 to 1780), various currents of post-Baroque art and architectureevolved. A principalcurrent, generally known as Rococo, refined therobust architecture of the 17th century to suit elegant 18th-century tastes. Vivid colours werereplaced by pastel shades; diffuse lightfloodedthe building volume; violent surface relief was replaced by smoothflowingmasseswith emphasis only at isolated points. Churches and palaces still exhibited an integration of the three arts, but the building structure was lightened to render interiors graceful andethereal. Interior and exterior spaceretained none of the bravado and dominance of the Baroque butentertained andcaptured the imagination byintricacyandsubtlety.
By progressively modifying the Renaissance-Baroque horizontal separation intodiscreteparts, Rococo architectsobtained unified spaces, emphasized structural elements, created continuous decorative schemes, and reduced column sizes to a minimum. In churches, the ceilings of side aisles were raised to the height of the nave ceiling to unify the space from wall to wall.
Baroque in Russia
Baroque and late Baroque, or Rococo, are termsappliedto European art of the period from the early 17th century to the mid-18th century."Baroque" was probably derived from the Italian wordbarocco. This term was used by philosophers during the Middle Ages to describe an obstacle in schematic logic. This word also described an irregular or imperfectly shapedpearl.
During the Baroque period (c. 1600-1750), architecture, painting, and sculpture were integrated into decorative ensembles. Architecture and sculpture became pictorial, and painting became illusionistic. Baroque art was essentially concerned with vividcolours,hiddenlight sources, luxuriousmaterials, andelaborate, contrasting surface textures.In Russia the Baroque was created by BartolomeoRastrelli. His father, famous sculptor Carlo Rastrelli was invited to Russia by Peter the Great. His sixteen-year-old son had no professional training when he came to Russia. He learned at the construction sites of St. Petersburg masters and became an architect of world renown, the designer of many magnificent palaces and churches in the Russian capital.The Winter Palace executed in the fine taste and on a gigantic scale is Rastrelli's masterpiece. Rastrelli himself made the drawings and plans of the palace, designed the ornamentation patterns for window platbands, carvings, sculptures, lattices, parquetry, interiors and furniture. The palace building is nearly two kilometres long in perimeter. Originally it had 1,050 chambers, 117 staircases, 1886 doors and 1,945 windows.The project was started in the reign of Elizabeth, Peter the Great's daughter who was fond of the Baroque, so the Winter Palace is lavishly adorned with columns, stucco window platbands and sculptures over the roof cornice.
The Baroque style in England.
This style had its birth in Rome and later appeared in England. It was a reaction from Classic forms as standardized by Palladio, and often characterized by over-elaboration of scrolls, curves, and carved ornament. England had not been tyrannised over by Inigo Jones to thesame extent as Italy had been by Palladio, so English conditions were not favourable to its full development. But we can see Baroque features in twisted columns, broken pediments, altar-pieces, marble fonts, mural tablets, and sepulchral monuments in churches.The principle of central composition - essential for an understanding of the architecture of Renaissance and Baroque was used in town planning. The earliest plans of the type were mere plans and remained plans, during Mannerism centrally planned towns were actually built (e.g. Versailles). As for Britain, Wren's plan remained a plan. And the contribution of London to town planning of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is the square - introduced by Inigo Jones - i.e. an isolated, privately owned area with houses of, as a rule, similar but not identical design. The sensation in walking through the West End from square to square is a modem and secular version of the typically English sensation of the visitor passing from isolated compartment to isolated compartment in a Saxon or Early English church..John Wood was the first after Inigo Jones to impose Palladian uniformity on an English square. All the squares in London and in other towns laid out since 1660 had left it to each owner to design it as he liked, and it was only due to the rule of taste in Georgian society that not one of these houses ever clashed with its neighbours. John Wood made one palace front with central portico out of his Queen Square in Bath (1728). His son, John Wood the Younger in the Royal Crescent of 1767-c 1770 broke open the compactness of earlier squares and provided his vast semi-elliptical palace frontage of thirty houses with giant Ionic columns with a spacious, gently sloping lawn. Nature is no longer the servant of architecture. The two are equals. The late designs of Inigo Jones for Whitehall Palace (1638) and Queen's Chapel (1623) in London introduced English patrons to the prevailing architectural ideas of northern Italy in the late 16th century. Although he was influenced heavily by the 16th-century architects such as Palladio, Serlio, and Vincenzo Scamozzi, Jones approached the Baroque spirit in his late works by unifying them with a refined compositional vigour. Sir Christopher Wren presented English Baroque in its characteristic restrained but intricate form in St. Stephen's Walbrook, London (1672), with its multiple changing views and spatial and structural complexity. Wren's greatest achievement, St. Paul's Cathedral, London (1675-1711), owes much to French and Italian examples of the Baroque period; but the plan shows a remarkable adaptation of the traditional English cathedral plan to Baroque spatial uses. Wren is notable for his large building complexes (Hampton Court Palace, 1689, and Greenwich Hospital, 1696), which, in continuing the tradition of Inigo Jones, paved the way for the future successes of Sir John Vanbrugh. Vanbrugh's Castle Howardin Yorkshire (1699) and Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire (1705) mark the culmination of the Baroque style in England.
MODERN ARCHITECTURE
Modern architecture is the term universally applied to the style of building, which evolved in a number of countries after the First World War as the International Style, or Functionalism, and which has culminated in the current designs of glass, concrete land steel based on module construction presently being erected all over the world.In the early 20th century an instinctive desire of architects to break away from the confusions and contrivances of the 19th century, and their efforts to introduce a style which responded to new social needs and exploited new materials led to the changed appearance of buildings; simple rectangular outlines; avoidance of symmetry as a result of the insistence on a building's function determining its form rather than some picture in the architect's mind; absence of applied ornament; flat roofs and white walls, resulting from the use of reinforced concrete, now, the favourite material; large windows, which new structural techniques permitted, but which were encouraged too by the spirit of the times, which believed in opening up the interiors of buildings to light and air.
The development of the International Style was reinforced by two events: a series of exhibitions at which architects from different countries saw and were influenced by each other's experiments, and the formation of an international organization through which ideas could be exchanged and mutual support enjoyed. Exhibitions provided opportunities to explore an environment created wholly by modern buildings; they had been experienced only as single structures against an alien background.The international organization was theCongresInternationauxd'ArchitectureModerne, known as CIAM. At its meetings, the leading European architects formulated their beliefs and set them out in a series of manifestos. Founded in Switzerland in 1928, the organization lasted until 1959 and concerned itself especially with planning and the social role of architecture. During the period of CIAM's greatest influence, in the 1930s, among its members were most of the great architects of the day, Including Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier and Alvar Aalto.
Until the 1930s, Germany was the main centre of the new architecture because of the presence there of another unifying institution, the Bauhaus, a college of design, established at Weimar by Walter Gropius in 1919. The Bauhaus became synonymous with modern teaching methods in architecture and the applied arts, and with a functional aesthetic for the industrial age. The closure of the Bauhaus, persecuted by the Nazi regime, rich disliked all forms of internationalism, in 1933 increased its influence, because many of its members fled to Britain or to America, the USA becoming a place of remarkable architectural energy. In the years after 1945 the emphasis was on town-planning and housing, and in most countries also on legislation to control building in the public interest, in which activities Britain set the lead. This was the era of new towns, vast housing estates and attempts- too often abortive-to gear building programmes both to social needs and to industrialized systems and techniques. It was also the era of population explosions and the comprehensive redevelopment of town centres by property companies, for whom social priorities were irrelevant, resulting in the disruption, functionally and visually of their age-old pattern.In matters of architectural style, it became less a question of conflict between period revival and modern design than between buildings designed for effect and those that aimed at the creation of a modern vernacular and a humane and harmonious environment.Architectural creation is a never-ending process. Modern architects should work so that many buildings of the 21th century would not become for future generations evidence of an architectural dark epoch.
RUBENS (1577-1640)
Peter Paul Rubens exercised in Flanders a great stylistic authority. Born near Cologne in 1577, the son of a Protestant emigrant from Antwerp, he spent his childhood in Germany. He received a thorough grounding in Latin and in theology, spent a few months as a page to a countess, and grew up as an unparalleled combination of scholar, diplomat and painter. Rubens spoke and wrote six modern languages, and was probably the most learned artist of all time. His house in Antwerp was a factory from which massive works emerged in a never-ending stream. Although most paintings were designed by Rubens in rapidly painted colour sketches on wood, all the large ones were painted by pupils and then retouched by the master.Rubens was the man of extraordinary character and intelligence. One visitor recounted how Rubens could listen to a reading of Roman history in Latin, carry on a learned conversation, paint a picture, and dictate a letter all at the same time.Rubens first emerged on the international scene during his visit to Italy in 1600 where he remained for eight years. Artistically Rubens was an adopted Italian, with little interest in the Early Netherlandish masters. With indefatigable energy he set out to conquer the fortress of Italian art. He made hundreds of drawings and scores of copies after Roman sculpture as well as paintings.An early work in Antwerp Cathedral, the Raising of the Cross, a panel more than fifteen feet high, painted in 160940, shows the superhuman energy with which Rubens attacked his mighty concepts. This central panel of a triptych is a complete picture in itself. There is no hint of Caravaggio's psychological interests. The executioners, whose muscularity recalls Michelangelo's - figures, raise the Cross, forming a colossal pyramid of struggling figures. In this painting the typical High Renaissance interfigural composition is transformed into a Baroque climax.The power of Rubens can be seen at its greatness in theFall of the Damned, painted about 1620, a waterspout of hurling figures raining down from Heaven, from which the rebels against divine love are forever excluded.As his style matured, Rubens's characteristic spiral-into-the-picture lost the dark shadows of his early works and took on a Titianique richness of colour.In 1621-25.Rubens carried out a splendid commission from Maria de'Medici, dowager Queen of France, widow of Henry IV, and regent during the minority of her son Louis XIIL, Twenty one large canvases represent an allegorized version of the Queen career, showing her protected at every point by the divinities of Olympus. The series were originally installed in a ceremonial gallery in the Luxembourg Palace. AH the canvases show the magnificence of Rubens's compositional inventiveness and the depth of his Classical learning; butHenry IV Receiving the Portrait of Maria de'Medici is one of the best. The ageing King, whose helmet and shield arc taken by Cupids, is advised by Minerva to accept as his second bride the Florentine princess, whose portrait is presented by Mercury, as Mio and Jupiter smile upon the proposed union. The happy promise of divine intervention; the youthful figure; the grandeur of the armoured king, and the distant landscape make this painting one of the happiest of Rubens's allegorical works. The Queen never paid for the series. But when she was driven out of France by her former protege Cardinal Richelieuw, she took refuge in Flanders. Rubens helped to support her during her twelve years of exile a remarkable tribute not only to the generosity of a great man but also to the position of a Baroque artist who could finance a luckless monarch.
English Renaissance
The Renaissance began in Italy, where there was always a residue of classical feeling in art in 15th century. At that time the style in England was Perpendicular Gothic, though the cities of Flanders and the City of London were socially of a similar structure.
It appeared in England in the early 16th century. According to Alberti's theoretical writings, the very essence of beauty is "the harmony and concord of all the parts achieved in such a manner that nothing could be added or taken away or altered except for the worse".
English Renaissance architecture may be divided as follows:
Дата добавления: 2019-02-12; просмотров: 606; Мы поможем в написании вашей работы! |
Мы поможем в написании ваших работ!