Facs
Transcript
for instance in this great tree, which is the Platonic “treehood” again, but here in a much more abstract way than we had it in the Dutch paintings. Here is the movement of St. Francis preaching to the fish, and the whole scene is full of the power of subjective piety. But the interesting thing which I now want to show you is the development from here to something which we come to in the end of this third level.
11) d e—Here you see how the approximation to nature has made a progress. This Christ is still speaking out of another world to us, but He is also in time and space as a definite separated body. I must hurry to the next, I'm sorry.
12) h i—Masaccio's pictures show the development of the human figure. Here the human figure becomes grandiose, powerful. Man as microcosmos, as the center and mirror of the universe, is discovered. The figures, not only that of the Christ, represent this central character of humanity in this period of the Renaissance.
13) n o—Here I would say it shows how, in the finite, without necessary distortion, without disruption of the surface, the infinite is present. And this is the principle of the Renaissance, the immanence of the infinite in the finite. In this sense the religious background is still visible here, but it is brought completely into a human relationship between Mother and Child, and into subjective piety as expressed in the eyes of the mother.
14) r s—Here you have the fulfilment of this development. Here you don’t
