One-point linear perspective

Perugino’s Christ Handing the Keys to Saint Peter

Christ-handing-keys-to-Saint-Peter — Pietro Perugino, Christ Handing the Keys of the Kingdom to St. Peter, Sistine Chapel, Vatican, Rome, Italy, 1481-83, fresco

Perhaps the most famous painting in the Sistine Chapel before Michelangelo’s time was one by fresco by Pietro Perugino called “Christ Handing the Keys of the Kingdom to Saint Peter”. Perugino carried on what Masaccio and others had been doing before, but he was able to place his painted forms in depicted space in a new and convincing way.

Perugino began his work after he was commissioned by Pope Sixtus IV (reigned 1471-1484) to paint part of a cycle of frescoes for the Sistine Chapel in Rome. The end result was a quintessential example of Early Renaissance painting that reduced the “flatness” of the two-dimensional surface and created a believable appearance of a scene in three dimensions. As far as the composition is concerned, the most striking element is line, through which Perugino almost left us with a textbook case study of one-point linear perspective. While the series of horizontal lines divide foreground from background, the diagonal orthogonal lines create the appearance of depth as they converge at the vanishing point near the doorway of the building in the background. The result is that the scene takes place on what appears to be a large grid which allows viewers to quite clearly ascertain the distance between figures in the foreground, middle ground, and background. In addition, Perugino used aerial perspective to make the hills on either side of the temple appear to fade into the background. Both types of perspective help the viewer understand visually that the scene is anchored realistically in three dimensions, even though it was obviously painted on a two-dimensional picture plane.

The subject matter of the scene was taken from Matthew 16:13-19:

When Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter said in reply, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Jesus said to him in reply, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

This particular story underscores the message of Petrine authority, so it is not surprising that Sixtus would want this scene to be painted in one of the important buildings of the Vatican. In the fresco, Christ is shown in the middle, literally giving St. Peter keys (alluding to the “keys to the kingdom of heaven”), while the apostles stand in groups behind them. Also around them are figures in contemporary dress, who seem to witness the momentous event. Quite clearly, the handing of the keys to Peter is meant to frame the Catholic doctrine of apostolic succession by which Christ handed power to Peter, and hence onto the popes. Christ and Peter are the figures of prime importance in this scene, and the importance of spiritual authority (embodied in the keys) is particularly emphasized by the key which hangs down vertically along the axis where the vanishing point is located.

The setting is a piazza, which is very spacious and airy. It is not a piazza from real life, but instead an idealized one with a temple in the middle of it. Aided by the grid-like ground pattern, we see separate groups of figures in the middle ground on both left and right sides of the piazza. These are scenes from episodes of the Gospels – one in which Christ says “render unto Caesar”, and the other in which the crowd is getting ready to stone Christ before he escapes.

The looming structures in the background are particularly notable. The temple is centrally-planned and domed, presumably with eight sides. For pilgrims visiting the Holy Land, the Temple of Solomon was thought to be associated with the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, and so what we are seeing here is based on a similarly octagonal and domed form. On either side of the temple, monumental arches stand decorated with reliefs and gilded surfaces. These are triumphal arches of the kind built by the ancient Romans. These particular arches, however, resemble one very specific arch built in Rome around 312 A.D. – the Arch of Constantine, who reigned as emperor from 306-337 A.D. Constantine was the first emperor to legalize the profession of the Christian faith in the empire after centuries of Christian persecution by pagan emperors, and he was also the patron of the greatest churches of the late antique period. One of these churches was the (Old) Basilica of St. Peter, which became the seat of the pope in Rome. It was also thought that Constantine was the first to officially recognize papal authority. Again, this underscores the idea of papal authority.

Overall, the scene is one showing a critical Biblical episode for the popes, and one which makes excellent use of Renaissance perspectival devices to create the illusion of depth on a two-dimensional surface. It would likely be the most important fresco inside the chapel if not for another series of frescos painted some three decades later by a painter who would produce one of the greatest masterpieces in the history of art – Michelangelo, and his Sistine Chapel ceiling cycle.

Masaccio’s Holy Trinity

Early Renaissance, Painting

Masaccio-Holy-Trinity — Masaccio, Holy Trinity, 1424, fresco

In the church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence is one of the best examples of the early Renaissance scientific approach to creating the convincing illusion of space within a painting. It is here, on one of the walls inside the church, that Masaccio painted his fresco of the Holy Trinity in 1424. The title of the painting comes from the three key figures: Christ on the cross, God the Father standing on a ledge behind Christ, and the Holy Spirit. Interestingly, God the Father is shown standing on a platform in the back, which is not an “otherworldly” place (where he would be traditionally depicted), but instead a realistic space which follows the laws of physics. Mary and St. John are also present at the Crucifixion at the foot of the cross, and one step down from them are Masaccio’s donors to either side. Unlike the biblical and divine figures, the donors are meant to appear to be in our space (the space of the viewer), and not in the recessed space in which the cross is located.

If we look at the composition of the figures, we see that they are in a kind of pyramidal shape. This is similar to composition of many other Renaissance works, such as Brunelleschi’s competition panel for the bronze doors of the Florence baptistery.

The architecture in which the Crucifixion takes place is also significant. We see what looks like a Roman triumphal arch, with a coffered ceiling, barrel vault, pilasters, and columns. This type of structure hearkens back to Roman architecture, and indicates the type of interest that Masaccio (and others at this time) had in antique buildings.

Perhaps the most significant aspect of this fresco is the way Masaccio makes use of one-point linear perspective to convey the sense that the images recedes back in space. The coffers on the ceiling create the orthogonal lines, and the vanishing point is at base of cross, which happens to be at the eye level of the viewer. This creates the sense that the space we are looking at in the fresco is actually a continuation of the chapel space in which the fresco is painted. Masaccio paid extremely close attention to the dimensions of the objects and spaces that he painted, so much so that you can actually determine the dimensions of the room we are looking at in the fresco.

Moving our eyes down the fresco, we see a skeleton in a tomb at the bottom. This part of the fresco had been covered over for many years, and it was not until recently that it was uncovered. The tomb is meant to appear as an outward projection, but it also has its own recess near the area where the skeleton lay. Above the skeleton is an inscription, which states (translated), “What you are I once was; what I am, you will be”. This message tells us of our own (the viewer’s) mortality and future death. In the end, we will end up like the skeleton as well. This morbid message projects out into the viewer’s space, but when we look above we see a message of hope in the Crucifixion, which means freedom from death for believers. Note how the vanishing point, at a level between the tomb below and the cross above, unites the two different spaces. Masaccio approached this fresco in a very rational way to masterfully create a convincing illusion of space, and he has done so in a way which elevates the important Christian meaning at the core of the scene.

Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper

High Renaissance, Painting

DaVinci_LastSupper — Leonardo da Vinci, Last Supper, 1495-1498, oil/tempera on plaster

Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper is a Renaissance masterpiece, though it is one which has struggled to survive intact over the centuries. It was commissioned by Duke Ludovico Sforza for the refectory of the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, and in order to paint it Leonardo used an oil/tempera mix and applied it to a dry wall. He did this because he wanted to capture the look of an oil painting, but even within his lifetime it began to wear off. Further destruction was caused in the seventeenth century, when a door was cut into the bottom (obviously Leonardo’s work was not esteemed at that time like it is today).

In painting the Last Supper, Leonardo created the effect that the room in which Christ and the apostles are seen was an extension of the refectory. This is quite appropriate, since the Last Supper takes up the basic theme (eating) of the purpose of the refectory. The extension of space that we see here is similar to what we saw with Masaccio’s Holy Trinity fresco, painted in the church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence. Leonardo is thus using some of the same pictorial devices used by his painter-predecessors earlier in the century.

The scene shows us figures in a rectangular room with coffers on the ceiling and tapestries on either side of the room. The room terminates at three windows on end of wall and through the windows we can see into a beautiful landscape setting. We see how the landscape in the background terminates in a kind of misty, grayish horizon. This painterly device, in which the horizon’s colors become more dull and colorless, is called aerial perspective and was used by Renaissance artists to create the illusion of depth in landscape scenes.

As far as the composition is concerned, Christ is in center among the apostles, and his body forms a triangle-like shape which is not overlapped by any apostles. There are four sets of three apostles at the table beside Christ, and these numbers may have been important for Leonardo for symbolic reasons (for example, there are four Gospels in the Bible, and three is the number of the Trinity). We can easily see Leonardo’s use of one-point linear perspective, in which the vanishing point is at Christ’s head (the orthogonals can be seen by following the tops of the wall tapestries or the coffers to where they intersect at Christ), which his also framed by the pediment above and back-lit by the open window behind. Thus, Leonardo was keeping up with the innovative artistic techniques developed early in the Quattrocento.

In addition to Christ being the center of the composition, he is also the center of psychology here. The scene we are viewing comes from the Gospel accounts on the night before Christ’s Passion and Death when Christ and the apostles are together in a room for supper. More exactly, we are witnessing them at a point in the narrative after which Christ has made a great revelation to the apostles: one of them will betray Christ (“One of you is about to betray me”, Matthew 26:21 ). He is, of course, referring to Judas, but at this point there is commotion as all the apostles question who the betrayer really is. Although the Last Supper had been depicted in art many times before, this particular moment in the story is one which had not been depicted. This dramatic moment opens a door for Leonardo to explore the psychological reactions of the figures involved. We can see this in the various apostles, who are linked by their hand movements. Emotions range from protest (Philip, #8) to sadness (John, next to Christ) to acceptance (Christ). Judas, however, is shadowed, so that we only see part of his face while he clutches the money bag containing silver pieces. Judas was normally arranged across the table from the other apostles in Last Supper depictions, but here he is depicted in the same grouping as John and Peter. All of these figures would go on to play prominent roles in the Passion of Christ (Judas in the betrayal, Peter with his denials, and John who remains with Christ at the cross).

Leonardo’s Last Supper is a type of painting which builds on the early Renaissance painting traditions in areas such as composition and perspective. Yet, it is innovative in terms of its study of emotional reactions and psychological states, all captured in a type of naturalism which was unknown in Italian painting in the previous century. It is thus with Leonardo that we see the beginning of the climactic years of the Renaissance when virtuosity was at its peak, when original ways of depicting figures or scenes came full force, and when the course of European art began to change as we know it. This was the beginning of the High Renaissance.

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