What are the two principle demands for artefact in Italy between 1300 Essay

What are the two principle demands for artefact in Italy between 1300 and 1600 - Essay Example Between 1300-1600 years, Italy was influenced by economic and social changes which had a great impact on social values and traditions, tastes and preferences. The demand for art was caused by different factors including wealth accumulation and the role of religion in everyday life. The principle demands for artifacts in Italy were increasing role of religion and church in life of citizens and new consumption patterns caused by accumulation of wealth and financial prosperity.The demand for a religious art was caused by increasing role of church and religion in life of the state. The supreme task of church art was to serve the liturgy. Hence church art was determined by a particular purpose. The building and furnishing of the House of God were subordinate to that purpose. This subordination was the very reverse of a restriction or hampering of creative power. It was not so much a matter of subordination as of integration into the great reality of God's dealings with man. Images in chur ch were meant to be at the service of the preaching of the faith. This immensely high task required the artist to submit his creative action to the judgment of the word of God. His uncontrolled subjectivity and creative fantasy had to be disciplined by faith. Since he was being called to be a witness to the truth through his work, he did not regard it as a restriction of his freedom when the Church exercised her pastoral office and refused to have images inside the church which contradicted truths of faith. This ordinance was not concerned with aesthetic questions of style and form. In these, so long as no offense was offered to the dignity and holiness of the faith, the artist was free. The Church's preaching, whose task was to declare and explain it, had to conform to this same order. Hence it had to be the measure of the making of images. No indifference could attach to the question of what was displayed in a church, nor to that of where the emphasis was placed in the choice of t hemes (Nanert, 2006). In Italy, literary texts were essential for understanding the devotional trends, and the art of the era was likewise a rich source of information. This was particularly true of panel painting, in which the artist was free to incorporate a wide variety of primary and secondary motifs. The painting of the fifteenth century, for example, was well known for its elaborate symbolism: not only conventional details such as saints' attributes but also specific vestments worn by angels could hold symbolic value (Nanert, 2006). The painter of an annunciation scene, for example, could draw upon several kinds of symbolic and expressive vocabulary: nuances of emotion might be conveyed in the Virgin's facial expression and posture; the painter might suggest linkage between the Old and New Testaments by showing Mary with a Bible open to a prophetic text; an anachronistic portrait of Jesus might hang on the wall behind his mother-to-be; Trinitarian theology could be expressed by showing the Father ho vering above the scene, while the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove winged its way from the Father to the Virgin along a beam of celestial light; and the artist might use flowers, candles, and other objects for their established symbolic value. "Liturgical utensils, accessories, and furnishings constituted a distinct category of these goods that satisfied a steady demand generated by religious needs, and Italian products enjoyed great success in markets abroad" (Goldthwaite 1995,p. 9). Panel painting was increasingly used to represent narrative scenes as well as static portraits (or icons): scenes from the life of Christ, the legend of the Virgin, and legends of the saints were favorite narrative motifs. The accumulation of symbolic, iconic, and narrative elements reached its fullest development as individual