Movements of the Mind: Beyond the Mimetic Likeness in Early Modern Italy
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The Ohio State University / OhioLINK
2017
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| Online Access: | http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1492175533714909 |
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ndltd-OhioLink-oai-etd.ohiolink.edu-osu14921755337149092021-09-11T05:17:13Z Movements of the Mind: Beyond the Mimetic Likeness in Early Modern Italy Howard, Rebecca Marie Art History Renaissance early modern art history art painting portraiture portrait memory composition Early modern Italian portraiture is so well known that it might seem that nothing new could be written about it. After all, many of the period’s most celebrated portraits, such as Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, are endlessly reproduced and known to nearly everyone. Yet, this dissertation contends that there is much more to these images than meets our contemporary eyes. I argue that early modern artists intended to do more than simply render a naturalistic image of a particular person in materials like painting, bronze, or stone. Rather, the goal of early modern portraiture was to perpetuate a sitter’s memory in time. This dissertation aims to explain precisely how fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italian portraitists managed this complex task, creating specific compositions that purposefully recalled the ways that they understood our memories to function.Early modern artists ingeniously created portraits paired with symbolic and allegorical devices, which addressed not only the sitter’s appearance but also aspects of his/her character—what period persons called “the movements of the mind.” The artist’s ultimate goal was to better communicate these things to the mind of the viewer, instilling the whole of the sitter’s persona therein. As such, this dissertation explores an unexamined feature that figures prominently in this strategy, namely, the way that period portraits paired with devices were composed to mirror or imitate understandings of the workings of memory itself, often analogized as the impress of a seal in wax or as a group of images stored within a memory house. Other formats aimed to better perpetuate memory by directly communicating with the viewer, based on guidelines set forth by period authors such as Leon Battista Alberti, or by recalling period studies of the interior and exterior of human bodies. Thus, from portrait medallions, whose three-dimensional forms appear ready to “impress” themselves in the mind, to painted panel portraits accessed by way of decorated covers, thereby imitating the effect of a memory house, this dissertation sees the very structure of early modern portraits as reflecting beliefs about vision, communication, and the perpetuation of ideas in the mind. 2017-08-02 English text The Ohio State University / OhioLINK http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1492175533714909 http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1492175533714909 restricted--full text unavailable until 2023-05-08 This thesis or dissertation is protected by copyright: some rights reserved. It is licensed for use under a Creative Commons license. Specific terms and permissions are available from this document's record in the OhioLINK ETD Center. |
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NDLTD |
| language |
English |
| sources |
NDLTD |
| topic |
Art History Renaissance early modern art history art painting portraiture portrait memory composition |
| spellingShingle |
Art History Renaissance early modern art history art painting portraiture portrait memory composition Howard, Rebecca Marie Movements of the Mind: Beyond the Mimetic Likeness in Early Modern Italy |
| author |
Howard, Rebecca Marie |
| author_facet |
Howard, Rebecca Marie |
| author_sort |
Howard, Rebecca Marie |
| title |
Movements of the Mind: Beyond the Mimetic Likeness in Early Modern Italy |
| title_short |
Movements of the Mind: Beyond the Mimetic Likeness in Early Modern Italy |
| title_full |
Movements of the Mind: Beyond the Mimetic Likeness in Early Modern Italy |
| title_fullStr |
Movements of the Mind: Beyond the Mimetic Likeness in Early Modern Italy |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Movements of the Mind: Beyond the Mimetic Likeness in Early Modern Italy |
| title_sort |
movements of the mind: beyond the mimetic likeness in early modern italy |
| publisher |
The Ohio State University / OhioLINK |
| publishDate |
2017 |
| url |
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1492175533714909 |
| work_keys_str_mv |
AT howardrebeccamarie movementsofthemindbeyondthemimeticlikenessinearlymodernitaly |
| _version_ |
1719480049781964800 |