Week five began with new religious orders and ancient saintly bodies. We started Monday morning off with a trip to the Gesù. Mara gave a presentation on the changing organization of the church space under the direction of the Jesuit order. We compared the lay-out and facade with that of the Renaissance and early Christian spaces we have already encountered. We then moved on from architectural to imagery with Vicki leading us in a consideration of the early painted chapels of the church. In the chapel of the Madonna della Strada, a fragment of a fourteenth century fresco has been preserved and hung on the wall as though it is an icon. This refashioning of an art object as an icon fit nicely into our continuing examination of the changing religious image.
After the Gesù, we ventured across the river, via Tiber Island, to Santa Cecilia in Trastevere. Lauren presented on Stefano Maderno's sculpture of Saint Cecilia, situated in the high altar of the church. The sculpture was meant to be a representation of the early Christian saint upon the rediscovery of her body in 1599. When uncovered, she was said to be miraculously preserved 1200 years after her death. As a group, we discussed the function of an object as a replica of a miraculous relic and considered the transference of holy power from the body to the sculpture.
On Tuesday the undergraduates had their midterm for our 300-level course. As per usual, everyone performed well. Two exams down, two to go!
Wednesday we walked up Corso Vittorio Emanuele to Santa Maria in Vallicella. We were lucky enough to have a Barocci specialist guiding our ranks to lead us through the artist's conception of the Visitation. The more time we spent looking at this highly conceived work, the more we began to notice about Barocci's use of color, composition and meaning. We then turned to Rubens' high altar for one of our first tastes of the emerging differences between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. We were particularly fascinated by Rubens' drastically different use of color and organization of space that tempts the viewer into believing that the image is emerging into the church space.
On Thursday we immersed ourselves in Renaissance architecture. We visited Palazzo Venezia and the Cancelleria. We were particularly interested in the way that these palazzi incorporated churches, yet these churches were hidden within the overall plans of the buildings. In contrast to the early Christian structures we have been spending so much time in, this new arrangement of ecclesiastical space fueled the day's discussion.
No comments:
Post a Comment