Tuesday, March 19, 2019

Egg tempera and the Renaissance




Fascinating talk on egg tempera painting in the early Italian Renaissance. He's got a few modern prejudices - especially about Byzantine art - but a good overview of how the world of western art developed from the canons of the ancient Christian East.

It would be great if artists who know about the history of art would trouble themselves to learn something about the history of the Church, since the two are so intimately bound up.

("Pappacy"? ... really? I know it's kind of mean, but I can't stop smiling every time he tries to pronounce "Giotto". "Jeeyahddo."...)



~

3 comments:

tubbs said...

it’s GHEE-ODDO, aint it?

Hilary Jane Margaret White said...

No. The "i" following a "g" in Italian just changes the g from hard to soft, from "go" to "gin". It's like "sh" or "ea" in English. You don't pronounce them separately. "Giuseppe" isn't "Gee-you-sehpeh". It's "Joo-seppeh'. And a double consonant is held. Though Americans can't tell the difference between a "t" and a "d" Italians can. So "Giotto" is "Joh-TToh" two syllables, with the "t" actually pronounced as a hard "T" that is held slightly, as you would hold the "m" in "roommate".

Meem said...

Art historians are deliberately not trained in Church history, as reading any art history book will definitely demonstrate.