Vocabulary to be memorized

area — пространство, площадь

basilica — базилика

blade — лезвие

blend — сливаться (о красках)

border — кайма, бордюр

borrow — заимствовать

carved — резной

carving — резьба, резные украшения

catastrophe — катастрофа

clay — глина

close [klous] — близкий, тесный

close [klouz]—заканчивать, закрывать

conventional — условный, традицион­ный

curious — любопытный, интересный

dagger — кинжал

dentil — зубчик

depict — изображать

deposits — отложения

describe — описывать

design — узор

discoverer — тот, кто обнаружил что-нибудь от discover — обнару­живать

draughtboard — шашечная доска

filler — воронка

fishscale — рыбья чешуя

flat-surfaced — с плоской поверх­ностью

frame — окаймлять, окантовывать, об­рамлять

frame-work — окантовка, бордюр, окаймление

glaze—покрывать глазурью

graceful — изящный

ground — фон

grave — могила, захоронение shaft-grave — шахтовая могила

hide — скрывать

introduce — вводить

identical — идентичный

lengthen — удлинять

life-sized — в натуральную величину

light — светлый, легкий

linear — линейный

lozenge — ромб

lustrous — блестящий, глянцевитый

monochrome — монохромный

pink — розовый

pit — шахта, яма

place — зд. относить, помещать

plaster — штукатурка, лепные укра­шения

polychromy — полихромия

precede — предшествовать

predecessor — предшественник

procession — процессия

reach — достигать

relief — рельеф high-relief — высокий рельеф bas-relief - барельеф

remove — удалять

rest — остальная часть, остаток

sacrificial — жертвенный

sarcophagus — саркофаг

scheme — схема, план

sculpturesque — скульптурный

shape — форма

simultaneous — одновременный

slip — облицовка, ангоб

spectator — зритель

spiral — спираль

stretch — простираться

succeed — следовать за чем-либо

suggest — наводить на мысль

survive (to) — сохраниться, дожить

touch — прикосновение

trace — след

triglyph — триглиф

varnish — лакировать

variety — разнообразие

vary — варьировать

vase — ваза

Text V

Italian painting 1200-1600

No style of art suddenly appears fully developed, like Athena springing from the head of Zeus. There are always antecedents and contributory elements, the past and the contemporary. Style, like time, is an «ever-rolling stream». Therefore before taking up the study of painting in Italy from about 1200 to 1600, we should familiarize ourselves somewhat with the major stylistic currents in European art that contributed to the formation of the painting styles in central Italy and Tuscany around the year 1200. Otherwi­se a plunge back to that time might well leave us confused and lacking in understanding.¹

We choose as the point of departure² for our study the period around 1200 not because there had been no painting in Italy be­fore that time but because certain events in the political and re­ligious life of medieval Italy about 1200 provided the impetus for a renewed activity in the arts of architecture, sculpture, and pain­ting in Tuscany and central Italy. This activity was to reach its climax in the High Renaissance of the sixteenth century.

There are four styles with which we should have some acquaintance as we begin our study. The oldest of these is the Classic style, the product of the ancient cultures of Greece and Rome. It is the ancestor of most later styles produced in Europe no matter how³ changed they may have become from the original. Its roots never died, but furnished the impetus for many subse­quent Classical revivals, one of which we shall encounter in fif­teenth-century Italy. The three other styles present in medieval Europe at the time we begin our survey of Italian painting were the Byzantine, the style of eastern Europe, and the Romanesque and the Gothic, the styles of the west.

Classic representational art was primarily concerned with⁴ the human figure as a physical material entity. This figure, howe-ver, was subjected to a certain proportional relationship of parts to produce an ideal of physical beauty. This was best achieved in sculpture and in the representations of the nude male and the traditionally draped female forms, the nude female figure appea­ring in later Greek and in Roman art. The Greek passion for the beauty of form was such that the drapery, when used, was repre­sented as diaphanous or as if wet and clinging to the form. This use of drapery to express the form beneath is called functional drapery.

In relief sculpture too, in order to have these ideal figures pre­dominate,⁵ the composition was kept very simple and there was no indication of environment, the backgrounds being neutral or tinted with a plain color. A prime example of this type of relief is the famous Orpheus, Eurydice, and Hermes in the National Mu­seum in Naples. Like two parts of a parenthesis, the end figures of Orpheus and Hermes turn to enclose and emphasize the beautiful figure of Eurydice. The major elements of the Classic style then are natural ideal human forms as the main elements of a compo­sition, functional drapery, neutral backgrounds, and simple, ba­lanced compositions.