Reframing the "finestra aperta". Venetian Variations on the Comparison of Picture and Window

• Autores: Johannes Grave
• Localización: Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, ISSN 0044-2992, Vol. 72, Nº. 1, 2009, págs. 49-68
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • A study of Venetian artists' variations on Leon Battista Alberti's concept of the picture as an open window, as addressed in his 1435 treatise De pictura. Alberti's window-picture comparison strengthens the accessibility to the picture. It could be seen as an essential challenge to cases where the picture was intended to represent the absolute Other and the window chiefly regarded as an allegorical figure. An essentially different twist to Alberti's comparison was put by Venetian artists Giovanni Bellini, Giovanni Battista Cima da Conegliano, Marco Basaiti, and Bartolomeo Montagna, who preferred to use it to create confusion and unsolvable ambiguity. By “reframing” Alberti's concept, these artists created images that combine the suggestion of presence, and the experience of withdrawal and absence, in an extremely unique manner. An earlier version of this essay was presented at the Fifty-Third Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America on March 24, 2007.