Il 24 febbraio alle 14.00, in occasione della mostra Renaissance Masters: The art of Leonardo Da Vinci Michelangelo and Raffaello a Nanchino, il professor Andrea Baldini della Nanjing University tiene la conferenza Disegno e colore: Artists as Intellectuals in the Italian Renaissance presso il Nanjing Musuem.
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Sinossi della conferenza
During the Italian Renaissance, both theorists and artists discussed at length the essence of painting. In particular, an issue that became central to that debate focused on the following question: Is disegno (drawing) or colore (color) the most important aspect of painting? The issue at stake had larger import, insofar as discussions of drawing and color were also connected to the conception of the artist that emerged at that time. The Florentine school of painting, which is beautifully represented in the exhibition by three of its greatest masters (Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raffaello) preferred drawing. Drawing was understood as a product of the intellect. This in turn provided evidence for the view that an artist’s work was a product of reason just like a poem or a token of philosophical writing. Color, on the other hand, was championed by masters of the Venetian school such as Giorgione and Titian. Color is connected with the emotional rather than the intellectual part of the human soul. In this lecture, Prof Andrea Baldini will explore this opposition among the two main conceptions of painting during the Italian Renaissance. He will show how an emphasis on the intellectual aspect of drawing was instrumental for elevating artists to the status of full-fledged humanists – not mere craftsmen, but true intellectuals. The emphasis on the role that reason plays in creating art is also instrumental to understand Michelangelo’s conception of sculpture and, more generally, of the artist as a genius.
Andrea Baldini
Andrea Baldini is Associate Professor of Aesthetics and Art Theory at the Art Institute of Nanjing University. Previously, he was International Exchange Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences at that same university where he was part of a research project entitled “Visual Culture in Changing China.” Since 2015, he is also the coordinator of the Jinling Artist-in-Residence Program, whose aim is to promote cultural exchange between China and Italy. His main research interest is in philosophy of art and aesthetics, especially at their intersection with applied ethics, critical theory, metaphysics, social and political philosophy, public policy, and visual culture. The critical focus of his research is on socially-engaged artistic practices in the public domain, with a concentration on public art and street art. Recently, he has published articles in the Journal of Visual Culture and The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. He is also an independent curator, specializing on cross-cultural communication.
