I chose to write about The Life of John the Baptist, specifically the South door, which is on page 533 of our textbook.
The Life of John the Baptist located on the South end doors of a larger piece of art called The Baptistery Doors, was developed in 1330-1336 CE, and was presented as a gift to Andrea Pisano in place of money or another gift for his hard labor. The Baptistery that this door is located also has elements we have been studying such as the apse, which is a round extension in a cathedral (Stokad & Cothren, 2011). These doors are certainly interesting in the way they are decorated of gilded bronze. Gilding is a technique in which you apply gold coloring such as paint or gold leaf that allows certain elements within a piece of art to stand out more so than other elements (Whitley, 2011). In the South doors of The Baptistery Doors, you can see that this technique applies to the twenty-eight sections, or squares depicted amongst the two doors. These first twenty squares depict the lively events of John the Baptist’s life, and the last eight squares depict the eight personifications of the Virtues, which is stated in our textbook. These squares were also meant to be visualized just that of a book, in which you would read from left to right. The four scenes depicted at the very top show John the Baptist’s childhood life, and as his life story continues it shows events such as his public ministry, and the baptism of Jesus Christ (Bluffton.edu). The last eight squares, which was I mentioned earlier as being John the Baptist’s virtues were hope, faith, Charity, Humility, fortitude and temperance, and justice and prudence. Through these squares, are also cycles of John the Baptist’s life (Falk, Lanyi, 1943).
As it can easily be seen, the figures within each square has a surrounding border called the quatrefoil frame, and is the same shape throughout each of the squares. These quatrefoil frames have round as well as triangular shaped edges that allows for unique and stylistic representation of the story being presented. There is also noticeable diamond and round designed ornaments used as a border around each of the squares. Due to the strict structural elements within these two doors, it came to my mind as it wanting to be taken seriously, but also allowing for personality encased with in the structure to appear to the audience. Something about this makes it that more interesting, and would like to find out if it was just because it was a door, or was it trying to tell us something about this artwork.
What is interesting about this South door is the way you can be seen using naturalistic poses such as body anatomy visual, instead of being hidden under a robe such as earlier artwork we have seen this quarter. Arms and legs are posed but are naturally depicted to show gentle and flowing actions. In this article, in mentioned that the artwork is seen from an iconographic perspective, which I found to be interesting because the term did not come to mind before reading this article. We studied iconography earlier in the quarter, but just as a refresher, it is a way of representing a narrative using symbols and different elements associated with a person of interest, which was mentioned in lecture. When I look at this door, I get a sense of a rich culture, authentic, and something that has a lot of history behind it, but also because of the medium and the structure as discussed before, I almost in a way am intimidating by this door.
Falk, I. & Lanyi, J. (1943). The Genesis of Andrea Pisano’s Bronze Doors. College Art
Association, 25(2), 132-153.
Stokad, M. & Cothren, M. (2011). Art History. Pearson Education Publisher. Page
197.
I think that Pisano's doors are very interesting. These doors were originally located on the east side of the Florence Baptistery, but were later moved to the south side. Today, the famous Renaissance doors "The Gates of Paradise" (by Lorenzo Ghiberti) are located on the east side of the baptistery.
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