Italian Ceiling Painting: Renaissance and Baroque Developments in Fresco Composition
Overview
This coursework analyzes the evolution of Italian ceiling painting from the Proto-Renaissance through the Baroque period, examining three seminal works: Giotto's Arena Chapel ceiling, Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling, and Fra Andrea Pozzo's ceiling at the Gesu. The paper traces how artists progressively developed spatial relationships between architectural framing and figural representation, moving from medallion-based compositions to immersive illusionistic spaces.
What this coursework covers
- Giotto's Arena Chapel: medallion-framed figures in abstract spatial realm separated from church interior
- Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel: gridded architectural framing with figures dynamically weaving in front of and behind the grid structure
- Fra Andrea Pozzo's Gesu: illusionistic architectural continuation creating dramatic celestial opening without framed limitations
Preview
The Frescos
Italian Ceiling Painting
Be sure to review Chapter 9, 267-269 and Chapter 10, “Fra Andrea Pozzo,” pp. 302-302.
Ceiling paintings from the Renaissance into the Baroque echo the three-part structure we have been following in ancient and Medieval art in this course.
Giotto
Title: Ceiling of the Arena (Scrovengi) Chapel in Padua.
Dates: 1305-1306
Period: Proto-Renaissance
Materials/medium: Pigment on plaster.
Subject: Christ, Mary, and prophets depicted in small medallions, in the context of a sky that serves as the vault of heaven, with stars.
Function & Significance: The choice of colors (notably, blue) and the arrangement of elements in the ceiling relate to the scenes depicted on the walls of the chapel, below. Through these formal means, Giotto establishes a relationship between the ceiling and walls of the church. Note how the images of Christ, Mary, and other figures are located in medallions that are separated from each other.
Michelangelo
In the Sistine Chapel ceiling, along the central spine of the chapel, Michelangelo painted nine scenes from the book of Genesis that exist almost as framed paintings. As Michelangelo painted fictive extensions of the church’s architecture to act as these frames, a gridded arrangement of several painted fields results.
Title: Michelangelo Buonarotti—The Sistine Chapel Ceiling
Period: High Renaissance, 1508-1512
Materials/medium: Pigment on plaster.
Size/scale : 5,800 square feet; 70 feet high above pavement
Subject : The central Biblical themes in the Christian history of man: the creation, fall, and redemption of humanity, from Adam to Christ. More than 300 figures.