3.1 Cultural Contexts of Early European and Colonial American Art

The CED suggests 18 of Unit 3's 51 works for this topic. These notes cover twelve here and move six (the Merode Altarpiece, Birth of Venus, Pontormo's Entombment, Las Meninas, Woman Holding a Balance and Fruit and Insects) to 3.5, where their debated meanings fit. All 51 are required.

Catacomb of Priscilla (Rome; Late Antique Europe; c. 200–400 CE; excavated tufa and fresco). Catacombs are underground cemeteries dug into soft volcanic rock, with shelf-like burial niches in the walls. Early Christians decorated small chambers with frescoes: Christ as the Good Shepherd, a pose taken from classical art; orant figures, people praying with raised arms; and what may be one of the earliest images of the Virgin and Child. The images express hope in salvation. Catacombs were burial places, not hideouts.

Chartres Cathedral (Chartres, France; Gothic Europe; original construction c. 1145–1155, reconstructed c. 1194–1220; limestone, stained glass). After a fire in 1194, a relic believed to be the Virgin Mary's tunic survived, which people took as a sign to rebuild. Gothic features, pointed arches, rib vaults and flying buttresses (external arches that brace the walls), let the walls become thinner and hold huge stained-glass windows. Colored light was understood as divine light. The west portal, which survived the fire, has tall column statues of Old Testament kings and queens. The cathedral drew pilgrims to Mary.

Arena (Scrovegni) Chapel, including Lamentation (Padua, Italy; unknown architect; Giotto di Bondone; chapel c. 1303, fresco c. 1305; brick and fresco). Enrico Scrovegni, a rich banker, paid for this private chapel, many think partly to atone for his family's moneylending. Giotto covered the walls with scenes from the lives of Mary and Christ under a blue, starry vault. In the Lamentation, mourners grieve over Christ's body. Figures have weight, some turn their backs to you, and a rocky ridge slopes down to Christ's face. This new naturalism and emotion pointed toward the Renaissance.

Golden Haggadah (Late medieval Spain; c. 1320; illuminated manuscript, pigments and gold leaf on vellum). A Haggadah is the text read at the Passover seder, the meal retelling the Exodus. Its pages, made in Catalonia for a Jewish patron, set small scenes on gold backgrounds in the Gothic style also used in Christian books of the time. The required pages show the plagues of Egypt and the Israelites' liberation, and preparing for Passover. Scenes read right to left, like Hebrew.

Alhambra (Granada, Spain; Nasrid Dynasty; 1354–1391; whitewashed adobe stucco, wood, tile, paint and gilding). The palace of the last Muslim rulers in Spain. A plain fortress outside hides courtyards with fountains and water channels that evoke paradise gardens, like the Court of the Lions. Walls carry arabesques (curling plant patterns) and Arabic poetry. The Hall of the Sisters is crowned by a muqarnas dome, thousands of small carved cells that look like a honeycomb.

Madonna and Child with Two Angels (Fra Filippo Lippi; c. 1465; tempera on wood). Mary looks like a fashionable Florentine woman in a sheer veil, framed by a window onto a landscape, while an angel grins at you. Making holy figures look human and present is typical of humanism, a Renaissance movement that valued human experience and classical learning.

Sistine Chapel ceiling and altar wall frescoes (Vatican City; Michelangelo; ceiling c. 1508–1512; altar c. 1536–1541; fresco). Pope Julius II commissioned the ceiling: scenes from Genesis, such as the Creation of Adam, framed by prophets, sibyls and nude youths. Decades later, after the Protestant Reformation began and Rome was sacked in 1527, Michelangelo painted a darker, crowded Last Judgment on the altar wall. Nudity in it was partly covered after Michelangelo's death.

Allegory of Law and Grace (Lucas Cranach the Elder; c. 1530; woodcut and letterpress). The Protestant Reformation split Western Christianity; Cranach was a friend of its leader, Martin Luther. A tree divides the print: on the dead side, the Law of the Old Testament drives a man toward death and hell; on the living side, Christ's sacrifice offers grace. The lesson is Luther's: salvation comes through faith and God's grace, not good works. Printing let it spread cheaply, with text in German.

The Counter-Reformation was the Catholic Church's response to Protestantism. It used dramatic, emotional art to move worshippers.

Il Gesù, including Triumph of the Name of Jesus (Rome; Vignola, plan; della Porta, facade; Gaulli, ceiling fresco; church 16th century, facade 1568–1584, fresco and stucco 1676–1679; brick, marble, fresco and stucco). The mother church of the Jesuits, a Catholic order. A wide nave with side chapels suits preaching to crowds. On the ceiling, the letters IHS (a monogram for Jesus) glow while sinners seem to tumble out of the frame into the church, as painting and stucco merge.

San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane (Rome; Francesco Borromini; 1638–1646; stone and stucco). A small church on a cramped corner. Its oval dome is coffered with crosses, octagons and hexagons that shrink toward the top, so it looks taller, lit by hidden windows. Its wavy facade, added later, pushes in and out.

Ecstasy of Saint Teresa (Cornaro Chapel, Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome; Gian Lorenzo Bernini; c. 1647–1652; marble, stucco and gilt bronze). Teresa, a Spanish mystic, wrote of an angel piercing her heart with a golden arrow. Bernini shows her swooning on a cloud under gilt bronze rays, lit from a hidden window. Members of the Cornaro family watch from theater-like boxes, turning a vision into a staged event.

Hunters in the Snow (Pieter Bruegel the Elder; 1565; oil on wood). Part of a series on the seasons for an Antwerp merchant. Tired hunters with one small fox trudge downhill toward a village of skaters, and a diagonal line pulls your eye into the distance. It celebrates ordinary life and landscape in the Netherlands.