A history of Italian tiles - Infotile

comments on Giotto, above). Art
for him is a matter not of outward
splendour; its splendours are cerebral
ones. With Leonardo art was constantly
being replaced by the desire to know.
The method was more important than
the results.
Knowledge was valued as something
desirable in itself, and while certain
areas were off-limits to the over
zealous mind and eye, such as doctrine
(consider the Churches treatment
of Galileo), the burgeoning number
of universities, the importance of
libraries, the impact of printing, were
all signs of the desire for knowledge
and the wish to know the truth of
things. Man himself became a less
passive creature, less the subject of
revelation and more himself the one
who revealed.
With an understated flourish my duck
liver and spinach torta was placed
before me. Here was a revelation
indeed.
Rinascimento art encouraged the
spectator to reflect on his own
reactions, both mental and physical,
to what he was looking at. Beyond
the researches of Paolo Uccello
in the field of perspective or the
technical innovations of Brunelleschi’s
architecture, a special knowledge was
enshrined: knowledge not only of what
the eye could see and the hand could
accomplish, but self knowledge. No
more simply the minutely observed
surface detail of Giotto’s naturalism
but psychological insight. When we
view Early Rinascimento masterpieces
we are meant to refer back to our
own experience and thus confirm
their utter truthfulness. Experience
has passed from being a subjective
state of mind into being objectively
rendered in stone and paint.
This new relationship between what
art expresses and what a human being
perceives and feels is shown to crystal
perfection in two masterpieces (clearly
there are many others, but Bodkin
singles these two out): Mantegna’s
fresco of the Gonzaga court of Mantua,
and the ‘Mona Lisa’. In Mantegna’s
fresco the Gonzaga court are not being
put on public display, nor are they
stirring us to admire their heroism or
their beauty or their virtue, only their
vitality. No claim is made for these
people except that they are human
- thence comes their dignity. With the
‘Mona Lisa’ her realism is not a matter
of surfaces but of depth. This is not
so much what a person actually looks
like as an attempt to convey in paint
the impression of a personality. She
comes to us without title or wealth,
an ordinary, rather plain woman,
nevertheless meriting our attention
and respect, as she did Leonardo’s, by
virtue of her humanity.
Art of all kinds was seeking - and
finding - new methods of involving
people in its aura, postulating a climate
of pleasure rather than instruction.
The decorative arts were no longer
employed solely to serve the Church
and Princes, but helped to make a
prosperous citizen’s environment
agreeable and ‘artistic’.
Unlike some later art theorists,
the architect Leon Battista Alberti
emphasised that painting attempts
to please the masses and he saw
nothing wrong in that. Behind all his
artistic instructions there is clearly
present the standard of man, his
needs and legitimate pleasures. For
Alberti, as for the ancient Greeks
“man is the measure of all things.”
In his architectural treatise DE RE
AEDIFICATORIA he takes a broad
civic view of his subject... The city
becomes virtually a mirror of the
harmoniously arranged universe, with
all its buildings disposed according to
their function. The ultimate purpose
of the city is to provide the best
possible setting in which the citizens
can live. The architect’s purpose is to
“serve successfully and with dignity
the needs of man.”
figure E
Alberti maintains that man remains
the standard, not only in the sense of
creating and inhabiting what is built, but
in giving his proportions as the standard
by which a harmonious building is
judged. Luca Pacioli, a pupil of Piero
della Francesca and friend of Alberti and
Leonardo, claimed that in the human
body were to be found all ratios and
proportions “by which God reveals the
innermost secrets of nature.”
The aim of such art is clear: to express
the fundamental cosmic truths of
proportion, order and harmony which
lie beneath external appearances.
Restraint is essential. Exaggerated
ornament is likely to militate against
true beauty: “a certain regular harmony
of all parts of a thing, of such a kind
that nothing could be added or taken
away or altered without making it less
pleasing” (Alberti), words that applied
equally to the superb torta I had just
eaten as they did to Alberti’s vision of
architectural perfection.
But ‘take away’ he did; at least my
empty plate, returning soon after with
the balsamic vinegar ice-cream and
an expresso. As the last spoonful
of ice-cream melted in my mouth I
remembered that it was in Sicily that
ice-cream had been invented - the
Arab influence again. Bodkin was right,
I thought, when he wrote towards the
beginning of the third volume that
“transmission across several cultures,
whether happily or unhappily, was
an integral part of the Rinascimento