The name of the Renaissance period always echoes as the period where art flourished to most people. This isn’t hard to imagine since many great Italian artists such as Michelangelo created his masterpieces during this time. However, when it comes to the architecture, many including me would come up with less vivid ideas, not because that the early Renaissance architecture lacks in making an impression, but because of its simpler form yet still bearing some similarities with the style of the past, it was difficult for me to define and explain the logics behind Renaissance architecture prior to this particular lesson.
The Renaissance period occurred after the crusades
had traveled to Eastern Europe, fascinated with the civilization and especially
the grand architecture such as Hagia Sofia, they had also brought back ancient
texts (Greek and Latin) which was then, printed and distributed through out the
bourgeois of the society. In my opinion, the Renaissance period marked the birth
of many intellectuals, it was when the first University of the world started,
thus it also represented the growth in the intellect area as well as art. Since
these unseen secular texts has been distributed, people were getting emphasized
on the individual analysis rather than the analysis from medieval scholars,
they believed in humanism which was the belief in the capability of human
beings, that each individual can excel, along with this emphasis, came the
belief in “anthropomorphism” which relates to the geometries derived from the
proportions of the human body, hence, the Vitruvius man… From this belief,
early Renaissance architectures featured the frequent use of simple geometries
such as squares and circles – which are the shapes derived from human proportion
according to the Vitruvius Man. Such others examples are the centrally planned
churches such as Leon Battista Albeti’s Santa Maria Novella and Basilica di
Sant’Andrea, Mantua (1462-1790) where they also exhibited the plan derived from
the “sacred cut” (when a square is turned 45 degree and placed upon another
unturned one), this again, is derived from the proportion of the human body
seen in the Vitruvius Man. The early Renaissance also wanted to bring classical
features back into architecture, however, reduced in complexity in the order to
make it more temporary, for examples, the Greek orders would be put in, but not
as columns but on the facades, in a way, this reminds me of Venturi’s decorated
shed theory.
 |
| Vituvius man - human proportion in relation with simple geometries. |
 |
| The plan of a centrally planned church. |
 |
| Le Corbusier’s Modular Man |
Overall, from what I understand, the early Renaissance period was
a period of renewal, opening up to the new secular belief and no longer relying
entirely upon the religious viewpoint. They were inspired from the great past,
prior to the Christian era, way back to the Greek, Roman and Ottoman Empire,
thanks for the texts and scripts the crusades brought back. Forms were reduced
to simpler, purer geometry and the idea of “anthropomorphism” was put to use,
thus, human were started to play a more important role in the creation of
architecture. Interestingly, despite the obvious difference in aesthetic, I’ve
found this humanism idea of the Renaissance to be applicable with the father of modernism, Le Corbusier in the way that, Le Corbusier also works with human
scales and proportion, that he had created a human standard or the “modular man”
as a tool for creating architecture. The only slight difference that I think is
that the Early Renaissance buildings were designed FROM human proportion, while
Le Corbusier was designing FOR human proportion…
ไม่มีความคิดเห็น:
แสดงความคิดเห็น