Kolpashnikova, Daria D. The Influence of Theatrical Mysteries on the Sienese Art of the First Half of the 15th Century: The Example of Sassetta’s Works

Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://dx.doi.org/10.18688/aa199-5-53
Title The Influence of Theatrical Mysteries on the Sienese Art of the First Half of the 15th Century: The Example of Sassetta’s Works
Author email kolpashdd@mail.ru
About author Kolpashnikova, Daria Dmitrievna — Ph. D. student. Lomonosov Moscow State University, Leninskie Gory, 1, 119991 Moscow, Russian Federation.
In the section Art of the Renaissance DOI10.18688/aa199-5-53
Year 2019 Volume 9 Pages 596–605
Type of article RAR Index UDK 75.7.034(450)4.7.046.3 Index BBK 85.143(3)
Abstract

Theatrical performances that accompanied important Church festivals have been an integral part of European culture since the early Middle Ages. Their scenography and machinery, interpretation of subjects, decorative design had a significant impact on the development of Renaissance painting. This article considers the impact of images of religious mysteries on the altar painting of the first half of the Quattrocento on the example of the works created by a Sienese artist Stefano di Giovanni da Cortona (Sassetta). Siena was one of the Tuscan centers of the Renaissance that were especially active in the maintenance and decoration of feasts, including those associated with the celebration of recently canonized local saints (St. Bernardine, later St. Catherine of Siena). The Gothic style of Sassetta allowed the artist to figuratively and expressively interpret the impressions that he could get while watching one of the religious mysteries: the choir singing, actors’ movements, the machinery of the feast. Among Sassetta’s works which traced the influence of early Renaissance theatrical performances are a fragment of the altar of the Eucharist with the image of St. Anthony, images of the Ascension of the Virgin, the central panel of the San Sepolcro altarpiece dedicated to St. Francis.
Keywords
Reference Kolpashnikova, Daria D. The Influence of Theatrical Mysteries on the Sienese Art of the First Half of the 15th Century: The Example of Sassetta’s Works. Actual Problems of Theory and History of Art: Collection of articles. Vol. 9. Ed: A. V. Zakharova, S. V. Maltseva, E. Iu. Staniukovich-Denisova. — Lomonosov Moscow State University / St. Petersburg: NP-Print, 2019, pp. 596–605. ISSN 2312-2129. http://dx.doi.org/10.18688/aa199-5-53
Publication Article language russian
Bibliography
  • Baxandall M. Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy: A Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style. Oxford, Oxford University Press Publ., 1972. 192 p.
  • Bojadzhiev G. N. Vechno prekrasnyi teatr epokhi Vozrozhdeniia. Italiia. Ispaniia. Angliia (Forever Beautiful Theatre of the Renaissance. Italy. Spain. England). Leningrad, Iskusstvo Publ., 1973. 472 p. (in Russian).
  • Burckhardt J. The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy. London, Penguin Publ., 2004. 416 p.
  • Butovchenko Ju. A. Formation of a New Theatrical Space in Italy at the Turn of 15th–16th Centuries. Teatr i teatral’nost’ v kul’ture Vozrozhdeniia (Theatre and Theatricality in Renaissance Culture). Moscow, Nauka Publ., 2005. 203 p. (in Russian).
  • Carli E. Sienese Painting. London, Summerfield Press Publ., 1983. 79 p.
  • Christiansen K.; Kanter L. B.; Strehlke C. B. Painting in Renaissance Siena. 1420–1500. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Publ., 1988. 401 p.
  • Danilova I. E. A Vision... The Most Wonderful and By No Means Unspeakable. A Representation of the Annunciation in the Santissima Annunziata in Florence (1439) through the Eyes of Avramy of Suzdal. “Ispolnilas’ polnota vremen...”. Razmyshleniia ob iskusstve. Stat’i, etiudy, zametki (“The Fullness of Time Came True...”. Reflections on Art. Articles, Studies, Notes). Moscow, RSUH Publ., 2004, pp. 304–333 (in Russian).
  • Danilova I. E.; Smirnova L. M. (eds.). Teatral’noe prostranstvo: materialy nauchnoi konferentsii. Gosudarstvennyi muzei izobrazitel’nykh iskusstv imeni A. S. Pushkina; Vipperovskie chteniia (Theatre Space: Materials of the Scientific Conference. The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Readings in Honor of B. Vipper). Moscow, Sovetskii khudozhnik Publ., 1979. 484 p. (in Russian).
  • Davydova M. Ju. (ed.). Zapadnoevropeiskii teatr ot epohi Vozrozhdeniia do rubezha XIX–XX vv. Ocherki (Western European Theater from the Renaissance to the Turn of the 19th–20th Centuries. Essays). Moscow, Izdatel’skii Tsentr Rossiiskogo Gosudarstvennogo Gumanitarnogo universiteta Publ., 2001. 435 p. (in Russian).
  • Dzhivelegov A. K.; Boiadzhiev G. N. Predstavlenie misterii. Istoriia zapadnoevropeiskogo teatra. Ot vozniknoveniia do 1789 goda (Presentation of a Mystery. History of Western Theater. From the Origins to 1789). Moscow, Iskusstvo Publ., 1941. 616 p. (in Russian).
  • Garbero Zorzi E.; Sperenzi M. (eds.). Teatro e spettacolo nella Firenze dei Medici. Modelli dei luoghi teatrali. Florence, L. S. Olschki Publ., 2001. 220 p. (in Italian).
  • Grashhenkov V. N. Istoriia i istoriki iskusstva. Stat’i raznyh let (History and Art Historians. Articles of Different Years). Moscow, Knizhnyi dom Universitet Publ., 2005. 656 p. (in Russian).
  • Israёls M. Sassetta’s Arte della Lana Altar-Piece and the Cult of Corpus Domini in Siena. The Burlington Magazine, 2001, vol. 143, no. 1182, pp. 532–543.
  • Israёls M. Absence and Resemblance: Early Images of Bernardino da Siena and the Issue of Portraiture (with a New Proposal for Sassetta). I Tatti Studies, 2008, vol. 11, pp. 77–114.
  • Kawsky D. L. The Survival, Revival and Reappraisal of Artistic Tradition: Civic Art and Civic Identity in Quattrocento Siena, Ph. D. Thesis. Princeton, 1995. 266 p.
  • Kolpashnikova D. D. Towards the Attribution of Two Landscapes from the Pinacoteca Nazionale (Siena): Sassetta as a Landscape Painter. Mal’tseva S. V.; Stanyukovich-Denisova E. Yu.; Zakharova A. V. (eds.). Actual Problems of Theory and History of Art: Collection of Articles, vol. 7. St. Petersburg, Saint Petersburg University Press Publ., 2017, pp. 516–521. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.18688/aa177-5-52 (accessed 2 March 2019) (in Russian).
  • Mâle É. L’Art religieux du XIII-e siécle en France. Paris, Colin Publ., 1968. 428 p. (in French).
  • Maleto E. I. Walking of Avramy Of Suzdal. Antologiia khozhdenii russkikh puteshestvennikov XII–XV veka: issledovaniia, teksty, kommentarii (Anthology of Russian Travelers of the 12th–15th Centuries: Studies, Texts, Comments). Moscow, Direkt-Media Publ., 2014, pp. 328–336 (in Russian).
  • Mokul’skii S. S. Istoriia zapadnoevropeiskogo teatra. Chast’ 1: Antichnyi teatr. Srednevekovyi teatr. Teatr epohi Vozrozhdeniia (History of Western European Theater. Part 1: Ancient Theatre. Medieval Theater. Theater of the Renaissance). Moscow, Khudozhestvennaia literatura Publ., 1936–1939. 543 p. (in Russian).
  • Norman D. Siena and the Virgin. Art and Politics in a Late Medieval City State. New Haven; London, Yale University press Publ., 1999. 264 p.
  • Pope-Hennessy J. Sassetta. London, Chatto & Windus Publ., 1939. 239 p.
  • Seidel M. (ed.). Da Jacopo della Quercia a Donatello. Le arti a Siena nel primo Rinascimento. Milano, Federico Motta editore Publ., 2010. 639 p. (in Italian).
  • Smith T. B.; Steinhoff J. B. Art as Politics in Late Medieval and Renaissance Siena. London, MPG Books group Publ., 2012. 233 p.
  • Syson L.; Angelini А.; Jackson Р.; Nevola F.; Piazzotta C. et al. Renaissance Siena. Art for a City. London, National Gallery company Publ., 2007. 372 p.
  • Vasari G. Le vite de’piu eccelenti pittori, scultori ed architettori, 9 vols. Florence, Sansoni Publ., 1878–1885 (in Italian).
  • Vavilina N. Ju. Teatral’noe prostranstvo florentiiskikh misterii epokhi kvatrochento. Vzaimodeistvie teatral’nogo i izobrazitel’nogo iskusstv (Theatrical Space of the Florentine Mysteries of the Quattrocento Era. Interaction of Theatre and Fine Arts), Ph. D. Thesis. Moscow, 2009. 311 p. (in Russian).
  • Verdon T.; Henderson J. Christianity and the Renaissance: Image and Religious Imagination in the Quattrocento. Syracuse, Syracuse university Press Publ., 1990. 611 p.