Renaissance artists and theoreticians such as Palladio, Alberti and
Giorgi attempted to link art with philosophy, including rhetoric.
Palladio introduced the use of classical orders from ancient Greece and
ancient Rome. Alberti's theory of architecture was based on dimensions
that created musical harmony and the physical proportions found in
god's greatest creation: man (see the Vitruvian man). "The 'problem' of
squaring the circle, that is, changing a circle into a square, had
occupied mathematicians since the time of Pythagoras. The circle, with
no beginning or end, symbolized perfection and deity, and the square
symbolized the physical world (the square was traditionally a symbol
of earth, the triangle a symbol of fire).
1
Therefore, the 'problem' of squaring the
circle was a problem of how to change the divine into earthly material."
2 However, not everone
agreed with Alberti's views concerning architecture. Two examples of
architecture that could be in close proximity: one building of a pagan
(ancient Greek) temple in purposeful disrepair in a rustic setting, but nearby,
a church, with garden carefully maintained, the church in perfect condition.
The stark difference was to show the victory of Christianity over the pagan
religion.
As time passed, another major viewpoint emerged, especially during the Baroque,
that was based on the views of the rhetorician Longinus in his book, "Peri Hypsous"
("On The Sublime"). This new viewpoint allowed for the unity or combination of
divergent "styles"(for example, the architectural styles of the Renaissance,
the Baroque, the Gothic, unities of "male" with "female": harmony with deliberate
disharmony), to create an aesthetic of fear, horror and excess: a radical
destruction of assumptions. Thus it should not be surprising that different
parts of a building might strongly clash or appear discordant with each other.
1
"Dance and the Garden: Moving and Static Choreography
in Renaissance Europe", by Jennifer Nevile, Renaissance
Quarterly, vol. 52, 1999, p. 823
2
"The Eloquent Body: Dance and Humanist Culture in
Fifteenth-Century Italy", by Jennifer Nevile, Indiana
Univ. Press, 2004, p. 219, footnote 27.
Website Terms of Use