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The Figurative Thought of the Renaissance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 July 2024

Robert Klein
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Attempts to reconstruct the “psychology” of a past era always have a specious side which should properly be mistrusted. Was the “Renaissance man” a visualizer? Arguments for and against this thesis have been found, but nothing can be solved, because it will always be impossible to prove that a phenomenon, even if it is very widespread and completely characteristic of a given period, is symptomatic of a particular psychic constitution of the men of that time. If the writings and the art of the sixteenth century seem to us to include the elements of a complete logic of figurative thought, which would certainly be of interest for the history of intellectual methods, the fact as such must not be translated into terms of the psychology of individuals.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 8 , Issue 32 , December 1960 , pp. 107 - 123
Copyright
Copyright © 1960 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

References

1. See esp. M. W. Bundy, The Theory of Imagination in Classical and Mediaeval Thought (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, I927); G. Verbeke, L'Évolution de la doctrine du pneuma (Paris and Louvain, I945); Marian Heitzman, "L'agostinismo avicennizzante di Marsilio Ficino," Giorn. critico della filosofia ital., Vols. XVI and XVII (N.S. III and IV); R. Klein, "L'Imagination comme vêtement de l'âme," Revue de métaphysique et morale, I956.

2. The idea of an imagination-discrimination is at the origin of all theories of taste in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and it may be said that through this inter mediary Kant's Critique of Judgment is related to the psychology of Renaissance Platon ism.

3. L. Volkmann, "Ars memorativa," Jahrbuch der kunsthist. Sammlungen in Wien, N.F. III (I929); Frances A. Yates, "The Cicieronian Art of Memory," in Medioevo e Rinascimento: Studi in onore di Bruno Nardi (Florence, I955), II, 87I-903; P. Rossi, "La costruzione delle immagini nei trattati de memoria artificiale del Rinascimento," in Umanesimo e simbolismo: Atti del IV Convegno di studi umanistici (Padua, I958), pp. I6I-78.

4. Systema mnemicum duplex (Frankfurt, I6I0), quoted by P. Rossi, op. cit., p. I74, n. 32.

5. See esp. E. Panofsky, Idea ("Vorträge der Bibl. Warburg," Vol. V [Leipzig, I924]); also L. Volkmann, Bilderschriften der Renaissance (Leipzig, I923); K. Giehlow, "Die Hieroglyphenkunde des Humanismus," Jahrbuch der kunsthist. Samml. d. allerh. Kaiserhauses, Vol. XXXII (I9I5); E. Gombrich, "Icones symbolicae," Journal of the Warburg Inst., Vol. XI (I948).

6. Francisco de Hollanda, Four Dialogues on Painting, trans. Aubrey Bell (Oxford University Press, I928), p. 64.

7. A. Chastel, Art et humanisme à Florence au temps de Laurent le Magnifique (Paris, I960), pp. 327-34.

8. Francisco de Hollanda, op. cit., p. 36.

9. "For the design, which proceeds from the intellect, extracts from several objects a universal judgment, similar to a form or an idea of all the objects of nature, which is quite regular; from this it results that it recognizes … the proportion of the whole with the parts, and of the parts among themselves and with the whole. And of this knowledge is born a certain judgment formed about this thing in the mind; and, when expressed by the hands, this judgment is called design" (Vite, ed. Milanesi, I, I68 ff.; English based on the author's French translation of the passage. Cf. Aristotle, Posterior Analytics II. I9. I00a 4-I3: "So out of sense-perception comes to be what we call memory, and out of frequently repeated memories of the same thing develops experience; for a num ber of memories constituted a single experience. From experience again—i.e., from the universal now stabilized in its entirety within the soul, the one beside the many which is a nigh identity with them all—originate the skill of the craftsman and the knowledge of the man of science, skill in the sphere of coming to be and science in the sphere of being" (G. R. G. Mure [trans.]), Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. Richard McKeon [New York: Random House, I94I], p. I85.). Also Metaphysics I. I.98Ia 5-7: "Now art arises when from many notions gained by experience one universal judgment about a class of objects is produced" (W. D. Ross [trans.], Basic Works, p. 689).

10. Examen de ingenios (I578). English from the French Examen des esprits pour les sciences (I645), pp. 7-8.

11. G. Bruno, Opera latina (Ediz. Nazionale), II, No. 2, I33-34.

12. E. Wind, Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance (New Haven, I958). It is true that the writer denies any link between intellectual intuition and the visualization in the sym bolism; cf. however, the quotation from Ficino in the lines below.

13. Marsilius Ficinus, Comment. Plotinus, on Enneade V. 8,6.

14. In addition to the works by Volkmann, Giehlow, and Gombrich, cited in n. 5 above, see esp. Mario Praz, Studies in Seventeenth Century Imagery (2 vols.; London: Warburg Institute, I939-I947); and R. Klein, "L'Expression figurée et les imprese," Bibl. d'humanisme et Renaissance, Vol. XIX (I957).

15. M. Bataillon has recently shown that the meaning of this symbol was originally purely moral: the Emperor "went farther" than Hercules, the hero who traditionally represented the virtues of rulers. The application to the possessions in America was added after the fact. It should be noted that an impresa which would have done no more than to express flatly a datum of political geography would have been felt to be defective, be cause it would have lacked the essential element, the metaphor.

16. We are using the excellent work by Cesare Vasoli, "Umanesimo e simbologia nei primi scritti lulliani e mnemotechnici del Bruno," in Umanesimo e simbolismo, op. cit., pp. 250-304. Other material in our article is referred to in n. I above.

17. Vasoli, op. cit., p. 269, n. 50.

18. Opera latina, II, 3, 89.

19. Ibid., pp. I0I-2.

20. The name of the sign is justified by an anecdote of Cicero and Pliny: Zeuxis, un able to find a beautiful enough model for Venus, combined the perfections of the five most beautiful girls of Crotona. It was customary to use this story to illustrate the ideal izing power of art "which surpasses nature."