In late March, I went to Venice with our programme and then visited other cities like Florence and Milan. The trip was a travel back in time, a time that was one of the peaks of the human civilization.
The outside preserves the exterior; the inside houses the essence. All the works that are supposed to be the most renowned masterpieces shocked me - a shock that I felt more deeply than last year when I visited Rome. One really has to look at the real piece of work to be able to admire the awe of it. It was not until I saw the original artworks that I truly understood the beauty and greatness of it. Originals may also surprise you and make you fall in love with an artist you have not paid much attention before. This time, the one that surprised me and was also the first masterpiece that came into my eyes was the Frari Triptych of Giovanni Bellini (fig. 1).
Fig. 1 Frari Triptych, by Giovanni Bellini, 1488, St. Mary of the Fraris (Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari), Venice
My teacher said, 'This is the work that made me decide to become an art historian.' I went closer and observed carefully to see what it was that made it so special to her. The triptych is not very close from the viewer, but even from far away, it looks so realistic. The arch seems to be a real concave space. The figures are so naturalistic. The more you gaze at it, the more life-like the figures become. The saint in black seems to look back at you with his penetrating eyes. All the volumes of bodies and the sense of space are so real. Finally when you finish observing the main figures, your eye fall onto the angels at Virgin's feet. And you are attracted by them so much again. They look so lovely and real with on the same realistic steps that seem to extend into our space. My eyes lingered on the angels and the details, trying to see them as clearly as possible and did not want to leave.
The next day, we went to the church of San Zaccharia where I saw another Bellini's altarpiece, one of his late works, that was even more astounding and beautiful to me than the Frari one and is by far my favourite, favourite piece of him. The Virgin appears younger and prettier, and the two female saints beautifully drawn add to the sweetness and tenderness of this painting that made me like it more. Figures and the scene are integrated in one space instead of being separated by a triptych. And again everything looks so naturalistic. With the viewer being able to look at it much closer, I admired it better and more, and it was the moment that I truly saw the beauty of Bellini and was in love with him. It is the ultimate naturalism and the sweet idealism - of especially the female figures - that are so touching.
Fig. 2 San Zaccharia Altarpiece, by Giovanni Bellini, 1505, San Zaccharia Church (Chiesa di San Zaccaria), Venice
Florence, the centre of the Renaissance, houses many of the best works of that time. I saw
The Birth of Venus (fig. 3), the most celebrated work of another early Renaissance master Botticelli and probably also the most celebrated work of the Uffizi Gallery. It totally grabbed my heart no matter how many times I had seen it in books or on the screen. The experience of looking at the real painting is so different from that of looking at it from elsewhere. It was a wholly new experience as if I had never seen it before. Not only could I able to observe the details and the quality better, look at the colours more truly, but the sheer size of it also shocked me and contributed to the beauty of it - an experience and feeling I had every time when I looked at an original masterpiece. You will always be surprised by the size of a work, something out of your expectation, and then you will feel that the size of the work is just appropriate to make it a great piece of work. The same experience happens when I went into the refectory that houses the
Last Supper of Leonardo. The sheer size of it shocked me first and the most, and it was also the size that made the work appear all the more wonderful; and only after that, after appreciating the scale of it, I started to scrutinize the details within such perfect scale of the work. Similarly, the size of
The Birth of Venus appeared bigger than I thought which adds to the grandeur of the work, but not too big and looks just enough to render the heavenly figures, the details, and to emanate such a sense of beauty. The same face that I have been familiar with looks like a new beauty and evermore sweet. Even though the colour fads a bit, but it still looks so comfortable and harmonious. Only in front of the work did I realize the extremely sweet feeling that the figures brought to us and the wonder of the work. You would not feel the robot-like feels of the figures, not feel the little bit awkwardness of the gesture, nor the paleness of the skin; all you can feel is beauty and perfection. Venus, standing lively in the painting, right in front of and high above you, looks so charming. It was from the real experience that I really got to understand the sweetness of Botticelli which is manifested in every figure of him. Sweet, modest, and peaceful - a real beauty of the pure Renaissance.
Fig. 3 The Birth of Venus, by Sandro Botticelli, c.1484-86, Uffizi Gallery (Galleria degli Uffizi), Florence
A similar experience was when I visited
Madonna of the Chair (fig. 4) of Raphael, the most famous work of the Palatine Gallery in Florence. It is almost a second painting along with
The Birth of Venus that represent the art of Florence whose postcards are displayed everywhere in the city. Looking at the postcard, it was no more than a sweet painting of Raphael. But again, when approaching the real work, the beauty penetrated me. The delineation of the Virgin is so sweet, smooth, and perfect. The whole composition is so unusual but wonderfully contrived within the round frame. Moreover, the use of the primary colours and green make it rich in colour and beautiful, and it is unusual in the way of using the green - rarely as the main colour of a religious work, especially with the patterns on it, giving a humane feeling to the Virgin. Real beauty is real beauty; there is no way you could escape from it. It grabbed my eyes and I couldn't turn myself from it. Even though I walked away, I walked back as if it were a magnet. It is the idealization of the female beauty that made it so powerful and great. And underneath it, it is naturalism as well. And especially this painting has one of the most naturalistic figures of the works of Raphael, without traces of early-Renaissance robot-like feels and stiffness of face, but full of rounded, three-dimensional, and smooth features. It is sweet, perfect, and harmonious. It is again a sweet, calm representation of Renaissance, with a sense of humanity. The beauty of this painting seems to penetrate you more than that of Botticelli, because of the better naturalism and its near-perfection of the depiction of the figures and the very smooth, tender feel of the facial features of Virgin. However, it is too sweet and naturalistic that when you look at it longer, it is as if you were eating a sweet candy -sweet at the beginning, but the sweetness seem to be a bit too much as you have it more the more. Therefore for me, the sweetness of Botticelli, even though less naturalistic than that of Raphael, seems to be more long-lasting and comfy. But no one would doubt the reaching of perfection of Raphael, the ultimate idealism perfected by Raphael, and the penetrating otherworldly beauty of him - a beauty that shakes your heart and body and sticks your eyes and feet.
Fig. 4 Madonna of the Chair (or Madonna della Seggiola), by Raphael, 1514, Palatine Gallery (Galleria Palatina), Florence
After the trip in Italy, I am thinking again what it is that makes an art touching and great? What makes a masterpiece stand out among all the others? The things that made me fall in love this time in Italy are the naturalism, seen in its ultimate exemplification in Bellini, and idealism, developed all the way from early Renaissance to Raphael, the peak of the idealism and the High Renaissance, but each with their own interpretation of the ideal. Naturalism is the basis of idealism, because without the figures being naturalistic drawn, the beauty and idealism could not be build upon. Interestingly, these two features - the tendencies of naturalism and of idealism - are exactly the most significant and representative features of the Renaissance art as all the textbook and teachers once taught us. They are not only the summarized features, but are also the points that touched our hearts. Therefore, it seems reasonable the development of such trends, and it is legitimate for philosophers of the Renaissance to advocate such theories of art practices. The Neoplatonism prevalent in the Renaissance time proposed naturalism as the principle of art because God is in the image of a man, as well as idealism - the making of the ideally beautiful man as an approximate imitation of God's image, because God is in the image of a perfect beauty. These seem not only theoretical advices that come from nowhere, they are reasonable advocations, since even for me, a person totally detached from that context could be touched and feel the divinity expressed through the naturalistic and idealistic depictions - they give you a feeling of beauty and wonder, a feeling of nobility and purification, a feeling not only for admiring the beauty of art, but also of the world, of divinity, and of human ourselves. Art is not only a rediscovery of beauty, but a purification and sublimation of the self and the soul through beauty. I feel my heart is purified and glorified through the gaze at such ideal beauties. That is probably the ultimate aim of applying the principle of idealism based on naturalism.
The naturalism, idealism, and calmness make the Italian Renaissance all the more long-lasting. It is natural, so it does not disobey natural rules and it appears harmonious. It is ideal, so it sublimates the normal and glorify the divine, making it heavenly and eternal. It is calm, so it does not disturb the hearts and it relieve our soul. It is an art that wonderfully balances the symbolism and the humanity, and its harmony, divinity, and peace make it evermore lasting.
