Depth of Field: Giovanni di Paolo's Landscapes in Fifteenth-Century Siena

Noah Margulis, Oberlin CollegeFollow

Location

King Building 321

Document Type

Presentation

Start Date

4-28-2017 4:30 PM

End Date

4-28-2017 5:50 PM

Abstract

This thesis examines the landscape backgrounds of Giovanni di Paolo within the context of Sienese civic identity, developments in Italian Renaissance painting, and attitudes towards nature and farm land in Tuscany in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In depicting sacred scenes, Giovanni di Paolo (1403-1482) frequently sets them in his contemporary Tuscan surroundings, with demarcated plots of contado farmland and the crenellated walls of Central Italy’s hill towns and cities in the distance. Exploration of di Paolo’s artistic influences and rural society sheds light on the civic identity and values of Quattrocento Siena. The study considers how the representation of an organized, fertile landscape communicates the political and spiritual ideals of justice and harmony in nature.

Keywords:

art, history, Italy, Renaissance, agriculture, environment, economics

Notes

Session III, Panel 14 - Art | Identity
Moderator: Jennifer Fraser, Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology

Major

Art History

Advisor(s)

Erik Inglis, Medieval Art History

Project Mentor(s)

Erik Inglis, Medieval Art History

April 2017

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Apr 28th, 4:30 PM Apr 28th, 5:50 PM

Depth of Field: Giovanni di Paolo's Landscapes in Fifteenth-Century Siena

King Building 321

This thesis examines the landscape backgrounds of Giovanni di Paolo within the context of Sienese civic identity, developments in Italian Renaissance painting, and attitudes towards nature and farm land in Tuscany in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In depicting sacred scenes, Giovanni di Paolo (1403-1482) frequently sets them in his contemporary Tuscan surroundings, with demarcated plots of contado farmland and the crenellated walls of Central Italy’s hill towns and cities in the distance. Exploration of di Paolo’s artistic influences and rural society sheds light on the civic identity and values of Quattrocento Siena. The study considers how the representation of an organized, fertile landscape communicates the political and spiritual ideals of justice and harmony in nature.