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129-603: Historically, alterable objects of art have existed since the Renaissance , for example, in the Triptych " The Garden of Earthly Delights " by Hieronymus Bosch or in the so-called "alterable altarpieces ", such as the Isenheim Altarpiece by Matthias Grünewald , or Albrecht Dürer's Paumgartner altarpiece , where changing motifs could be revised in accord with the changing themes of the ecclesiastical calendar. Beginning in

258-523: A "long Renaissance" may put its beginning in the 14th century and its end in the 17th century. The traditional view focuses more on the Renaissance's early modern aspects and argues that it was a break from the past, but many historians today focus more on its medieval aspects and argue that it was an extension of the Middle Ages. The beginnings of the period—the early Renaissance of the 15th century and

387-464: A German bishop visiting north Italy during the 12th century, noticed a widespread new form of political and social organization, observing that Italy appeared to have exited from feudalism so that its society was based on merchants and commerce. Linked to this was anti-monarchical thinking, represented in the famous early Renaissance fresco cycle The Allegory of Good and Bad Government by Ambrogio Lorenzetti (painted 1338–1340), whose strong message

516-426: A New York-based firm headed by Donald Rattner. Rattner has designed modular art in the media of wall sculpture, rotational paintings, tapestries, artist's wallpapers and artist's books. To bring his work and those of other "modulartists" to the marketplace, Rattner founded A.R.T. (art-rethought), an art storefront focused on co-creative and modular work. In his writings Rattner has emphasized the post-industrial aspect of

645-460: A citizen and official, as well as a theorist and philosopher and also Quintilian . Perhaps the most succinct expression of his perspective on humanism is in a 1465 poetic work La città di vita , but an earlier work, Della vita civile , is more wide-ranging. Composed as a series of dialogues set in a country house in the Mugello countryside outside Florence during the plague of 1430, Palmieri expounds on

774-404: A combination of reasoning and empirical evidence . Humanist education was based on the programme of Studia Humanitatis , the study of five humanities: poetry , grammar , history , moral philosophy , and rhetoric . Although historians have sometimes struggled to define humanism precisely, most have settled on "a middle of the road definition... the movement to recover, interpret, and assimilate

903-401: A couple of years starting in 1938. From Wright he learned to utilize modular systems in generating architectural designs in two-dimensional plans as well as in three-dimensional applications, such as the development of building sections and interior built-ins. As an architect, Wright himself was part of a centuries-old continuum stretching back through Vitruvius to Greco-Roman antiquity in which

1032-514: A cultural rebirth at the close of the Middle Ages and rise of the Modern world. One of the distinguishing features of Renaissance art was its development of highly realistic linear perspective. Giotto di Bondone (1267–1337) is credited with first treating a painting as a window into space, but it was not until the demonstrations of architect Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446) and the subsequent writings of Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472) that perspective

1161-538: A faster propagation of more widely distributed ideas. In the first period of the Italian Renaissance , humanists favored the study of humanities over natural philosophy or applied mathematics , and their reverence for classical sources further enshrined the Aristotelian and Ptolemaic views of the universe. Writing around 1450, Nicholas of Cusa anticipated the heliocentric worldview of Copernicus , but in

1290-603: A framed shadow box. On each cube he applies paint in fields of bright color and abstract pattern with precise, controlled brush strokes. Like Carlsberg, Elimelech then invites the viewer to reposition any or all of the cubes to display one of their six sides, each of which is painted in a different pattern. Exhibiting since the 1980s, Elimelech shows primarily in California galleries, and has work represented in several museum design stores as well. Another portfolio of interactive modular art comes out of Studio for A.R.T. and Architecture,

1419-489: A love of books. In some cases, cultivated library builders were also committed to offering others the opportunity to use their collections. Prominent aristocrats and princes of the Church created great libraries for the use of their courts, called "court libraries", and were housed in lavishly designed monumental buildings decorated with ornate woodwork, and the walls adorned with frescoes (Murray, Stuart A.P.). Renaissance art marks

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1548-468: A new manner. At stake is the issue of transferring the phenomenology of human experience" into the arts. More recently, the artist Leda Luss Luyken has produced modular paintings, composed of movable painted panels set in steel frames. Luss Luyken has dubbed her work "ModulArt". In her work, changing the configuration of a modular painting constitutes a form of motion, offering the spectator alternative views and alternative interpretations, and thus aligning

1677-544: A new territory for American art, and a simultaneous rejection of residual inherited European artistic values. He pointed to evidence of this development in the works of an array of artists active in New York at the time, including Jasper Johns , Dan Flavin and Lee Bontecou . Of "preliminary" importance for Judd was the work of George Earl Ortman , who had concretized and distilled painting's forms into blunt, tough, philosophically charged geometries. These specific objects inhabited

1806-432: A perfect mind and body, which could be attained with education. The purpose of humanism was to create a universal man whose person combined intellectual and physical excellence and who was capable of functioning honorably in virtually any situation. This ideology was referred to as the uomo universale , an ancient Greco-Roman ideal. Education during the Renaissance was mainly composed of ancient literature and history as it

1935-403: A philosophical fashion. Science and art were intermingled in the early Renaissance, with polymath artists such as Leonardo da Vinci making observational drawings of anatomy and nature. Leonardo set up controlled experiments in water flow, medical dissection, and systematic study of movement and aerodynamics, and he devised principles of research method that led Fritjof Capra to classify him as

2064-705: A process of numerous aggregations that allow a composition to become infinite in principle. Several such compositions were performed in Europe, South America, Asia and in North America and discussed through conferences in Europe. The approach is being academically discussed at the University of West Georgia and the Carrollton Cultural Arts Centre in the USA. Writer, painter, and art theorist Gian Ruggero Manzoni described

2193-469: A similar modular sculpture system based on a single 23-inch tall module that could be stacked vertically by means of a centering pin; the module has a generally biomorphic, curvilinear outline that yields an undulating silhouette when multiple modules are placed on top of each other. The technique of stacking repetitive elements in the round recalls Constantin Brâncuși 's " Endless Column " of 1938. Starting in

2322-416: A space not comfortably classifiable as either painting or sculpture. That the categorical identity of such objects was itself in question, and that they avoid easy association with well-worn and over-familiar conventions, was a part of their value for Judd. This movement was heavily criticised by modernist formalist art critics and historians. Some critics thought minimal art represented a misunderstanding of

2451-585: A specific movement in the arts it is identified with developments in post–World War II Western Art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Minimalism is often interpreted as a reaction to abstract expressionism and a bridge to postminimal art practices. Prominent artists associated with this movement include Ad Reinhardt , Nassos Daphnis , Tony Smith , Donald Judd , John McCracken , Agnes Martin , Dan Flavin , Robert Morris , Larry Bell , Anne Truitt , Yves Klein and Frank Stella . Artists themselves have sometimes reacted against

2580-465: A theme and movement of and within a picture. For this very reason the contemporary composer Minas Borboudakis has dedicated the third part of his trilogy ROAI III for piano and electronics to the modular methodology. Italian composer and arts theoretician Stefano Vagnini has developed a theory of open-source composition based on modular aggregation. The concept of a musical work of art being something closed, limited and immobile disappears in favor of

2709-520: A wall in the form of pilasters. One of the first buildings to use pilasters as an integrated system was in the Old Sacristy (1421–1440) by Brunelleschi. Arches, semi-circular or (in the Mannerist style) segmental, are often used in arcades, supported on piers or columns with capitals. There may be a section of entablature between the capital and the springing of the arch. Alberti was one of the first to use

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2838-459: A wide range of writers. Classical texts could be found alongside humanist writings. These informal associations of intellectuals profoundly influenced Renaissance culture. An essential tool of Renaissance librarianship was the catalog that listed, described, and classified a library's books. Some of the richest "bibliophiles" built libraries as temples to books and knowledge. A number of libraries appeared as manifestations of immense wealth joined with

2967-400: Is a menace to clear sight. The laying bare of oneself is obscene. Art begins with the getting rid of nature." Reinhardt's remark directly contradicts Hans Hofmann 's regard for nature as the source of his own abstract expressionist paintings. A famous exchange in 1942 between Hofmann and Jackson Pollock was recorded by Lee Krasner in an interview with Dorothy Strickler (on 1964-11-02) for

3096-569: Is about the virtues of fairness, justice, republicanism and good administration. Holding both Church and Empire at bay, these city republics were devoted to notions of liberty. Skinner reports that there were many defences of liberty such as the Matteo Palmieri (1406–1475) celebration of Florentine genius not only in art, sculpture and architecture, but "the remarkable efflorescence of moral, social and political philosophy that occurred in Florence at

3225-557: Is also inspired in part by the paintings of Barnett Newman , Ad Reinhardt , Josef Albers , and the works of artists as diverse as Pablo Picasso , Marcel Duchamp , Giorgio Morandi , and others. Minimalism was also a reaction against the painterly subjectivity of abstract expressionism that had been dominant in the New York School during the 1940s and 1950s. In contrast to the previous decade's more subjective abstract expressionists, some minimalists explicitly stated that their art

3354-688: Is frequently employed as a design and planning tool. Architecture and modular sculpture intersected starting in the 1950s in the work of Norman Carlberg , Erwin Hauer and Malcolm Leland. All three received commissions to design perforated architectural screens built out of repetitive modular motives cast in concrete. Non-structural, the screens were used on building exteriors to divide space, filter light and create visual interest. Their work has come to be described as modular constructivism , reflecting both its compositional methodology and its architectural context. Each created stand-alone modular-themed sculptures into

3483-505: Is sometimes referred to as the "Honeycomb House". Smith would employ the hexagon and other elemental geometries in his own architectural practice and again in the sculpture he began to fabricate in the early 1960s. Freed from the programmatic and extensive structural requirements of his architectural work, Smith's sculptures are three-dimensional extrusions of modular form with no ostensible pragmatic purpose beyond aesthetic contemplation. Significantly, Smith himself did not manually fabricate

3612-535: Is that the devastation in Florence caused by the Black Death , which hit Europe between 1348 and 1350, resulted in a shift in the world view of people in 14th century Italy. Italy was particularly badly hit by the plague, and it has been speculated that the resulting familiarity with death caused thinkers to dwell more on their lives on Earth, rather than on spirituality and the afterlife . It has also been argued that

3741-504: Is to understand it rationally. A critical contribution to Italian Renaissance humanism, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola wrote De hominis dignitate ( Oration on the Dignity of Man , 1486), a series of theses on philosophy, natural thought, faith, and magic defended against any opponent on the grounds of reason. In addition to studying classical Latin and Greek, Renaissance authors also began increasingly to use vernacular languages; combined with

3870-555: The Black Paintings ) were included in the 1959 show, 16 Americans , organized by Dorothy Miller at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The width of the stripes in Stellas's pinstripe paintings were determined by the dimensions of the lumber used for stretchers, visible as the depth of the painting when viewed from the side, used to construct the supportive chassis upon which the canvas

3999-467: The longue durée , have instead focused on the continuity between the two eras, which are linked, as Panofsky observed, "by a thousand ties". The word has also been extended to other historical and cultural movements, such as the Carolingian Renaissance (8th and 9th centuries), Ottonian Renaissance (10th and 11th century), and the Renaissance of the 12th century . The Renaissance

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4128-866: The High Middle Ages in Western Europe and in the Islamic Golden Age (normally in translation), but Greek literary, oratorical and historical works (such as Homer , the Greek dramatists, Demosthenes and Thucydides ) were not studied in either the Latin or medieval Islamic worlds ; in the Middle Ages these sorts of texts were only studied by Byzantine scholars. Some argue that the Timurid Renaissance in Samarkand and Herat , whose magnificence toned with Florence as

4257-606: The Jewish Museum in New York , organized by the museum's Curator of Painting and Sculpture, Kynaston McShine and Systemic Painting , at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum curated by Lawrence Alloway also in 1966 that showcased geometric abstraction in the American art world via shaped canvas , color field , and hard-edge painting . In the wake of those exhibitions and a few others

4386-713: The Late Middle Ages have led some to theorize that its unusual social climate allowed the emergence of a rare cultural efflorescence. Italy did not exist as a political entity in the early modern period. Instead, it was divided into smaller city-states and territories: the Neapolitans controlled the south, the Florentines and the Romans at the center, the Milanese and the Genoese to

4515-745: The Levant . Their translations and commentaries on these ideas worked their way through the Arab West into Iberia and Sicily , which became important centers for this transmission of ideas. Between the 11th and 13th centuries, many schools dedicated to the translation of philosophical and scientific works from Classical Arabic to Medieval Latin were established in Iberia, most notably the Toledo School of Translators . This work of translation from Islamic culture, though largely unplanned and disorganized, constituted one of

4644-492: The Pisa Baptistry , demonstrates that classical models influenced Italian art before the Renaissance took root as a literary movement. Applied innovation extended to commerce. At the end of the 15th century, Luca Pacioli published the first work on bookkeeping , making him the founder of accounting . The rediscovery of ancient texts and the invention of the printing press in about 1440 democratized learning and allowed

4773-529: The Renaissance Papacy , and Naples . From Italy, the Renaissance spread throughout Europe and also to American, African and Asian territories ruled by the European colonial powers of the time or where Christian missionaries were active. The Renaissance has a long and complex historiography , and in line with general skepticism of discrete periodizations, there has been much debate among historians reacting to

4902-614: The art movement called minimal art emerged. The European roots of minimalism are found in the geometric abstractions of painters associated with the Bauhaus , in the works of Kazimir Malevich , Piet Mondrian and other artists associated with the De Stijl movement, and the Russian Constructivist movement, and in the work of the Romanian sculptor Constantin Brâncuși . Minimal art

5031-767: The crisis of the Late Middle Ages and conventionally ends by the 1600s with the waning of humanism , and the advents of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation , and in art the Baroque period. It had a different period and characteristics in different regions, such as the Italian Renaissance, the Northern Renaissance , the Spanish Renaissance , etc. In addition to the standard periodization, proponents of

5160-525: The rest of Italy and later throughout Europe. The term rinascita ("rebirth") first appeared in Lives of the Artists ( c.  1550 ) by Giorgio Vasari , while the corresponding French word renaissance was adopted into English as the term for this period during the 1830s. The Renaissance's intellectual basis was founded in its version of humanism , derived from the concept of Roman humanitas and

5289-587: The "father of modern science". Other examples of Da Vinci's contribution during this period include machines designed to saw marbles and lift monoliths, and new discoveries in acoustics, botany, geology, anatomy, and mechanics. A suitable environment had developed to question classical scientific doctrine. The discovery in 1492 of the New World by Christopher Columbus challenged the classical worldview. The works of Ptolemy (in geography) and Galen (in medicine) were found to not always match everyday observations. As

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5418-418: The 12th century , who had focused on studying Greek and Arabic works of natural sciences, philosophy, and mathematics, rather than on such cultural texts. In the revival of neoplatonism , Renaissance humanists did not reject Christianity ; on the contrary, many of the Renaissance's greatest works were devoted to it, and the Church patronized many works of Renaissance art. But a subtle shift took place in

5547-404: The 14th century with a Latin phase, when Renaissance scholars such as Petrarch , Coluccio Salutati (1331–1406), Niccolò de' Niccoli (1364–1437), and Poggio Bracciolini (1380–1459) scoured the libraries of Europe in search of works by such Latin authors as Cicero , Lucretius , Livy , and Seneca . By the early 15th century, the bulk of the surviving such Latin literature had been recovered;

5676-541: The 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and surpass the ideas and achievements of classical antiquity . Associated with great social change in most fields and disciplines, including art , architecture , politics, literature , exploration and science , the Renaissance was first centered in the Republic of Florence , then spread to

5805-663: The 1950-60s in Manchester (UK), American artist Mitzi Cunliffe developed sculptures consisting of multiple blocks about twelve inches square which she put together in a variety of combinations to give a sculptured effect on a large scale. She referred to them as modular sculptures . The University of Manchester and the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) acquired some of these works, although there are no references to them in published accounts of her work. Sculptor and ceramicist Malcolm Leland designed in 1954

5934-487: The 1960s and after as well. Robert Rauschenberg 's "White Painting" of 1951 — consisting of just four equal white squares, with its geometry of interlocking forms — is among the earliest statements of modularity as an autonomous subject of art. Rauschenberg explored this theme that same year in a three- and seven-panel format; the linear array of rectangular panels in these versions suggests their potentially infinite replication. The cool abstraction of these canvases presages

6063-498: The 1970s, Leland's contemporary Norman Carlberg produced groups of square framed prints which he placed together on a wall in a tight grid, each print conceived as an independent module. The viewer is then invited to rotate or reposition them to generate new composite images. The abstract quality of the prints enhanced the creative possibilities of their re-orientation insofar as they are non-directional and geometrically inter-related. Greek-born conceptual artist Leda Luss Luyken , who

6192-435: The 19th-century glorification of the "Renaissance" and individual cultural heroes as "Renaissance men", questioning the usefulness of Renaissance as a term and as a historical delineation. Some observers have questioned whether the Renaissance was a cultural "advance" from the Middle Ages, instead seeing it as a period of pessimism and nostalgia for classical antiquity , while social and economic historians, especially of

6321-522: The 1st-century writer Vitruvius and the flourishing discipline of mathematics, Brunelleschi formulated the Renaissance style that emulated and improved on classical forms. His major feat of engineering was building the dome of Florence Cathedral . Another building demonstrating this style is the Basilica of Sant'Andrea, Mantua , built by Alberti. The outstanding architectural work of the High Renaissance

6450-510: The Black Death prompted a new wave of piety, manifested in the sponsorship of religious works of art. However, this does not fully explain why the Renaissance occurred specifically in Italy in the 14th century. The Black Death was a pandemic that affected all of Europe in the ways described, not only Italy. The Renaissance's emergence in Italy was most likely the result of the complex interaction of

6579-710: The Convent of San Donato in Scopeto in Florence. The Renaissance was certainly underway before Lorenzo de' Medici came to power – indeed, before the Medici family itself achieved hegemony in Florentine society. In some ways, Renaissance humanism was not a philosophy but a method of learning. In contrast to the medieval scholastic mode, which focused on resolving contradictions between authors, Renaissance humanists would study ancient texts in their original languages and appraise them through

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6708-520: The Creative Class (2002). Co-creation is closely associated with mass customization , a production model that combines the opportunity for individual personalization with mass production. Modular art and mass customization share a commonality in their synthesis of two opposing qualities. On the one hand, as previously stated the very concept of modularity implies a limitless supply of identical modules such as only industrial production can provide; on

6837-440: The Greek phase of Renaissance humanism was under way, as Western European scholars turned to recovering ancient Greek literary, historical, oratorical and theological texts. Unlike with Latin texts, which had been preserved and studied in Western Europe since late antiquity, the study of ancient Greek texts was very limited in medieval Western Europe. Ancient Greek works on science, mathematics, and philosophy had been studied since

6966-691: The Islamic steps of Ibn Khaldun . Pico della Mirandola wrote the "manifesto" of the Renaissance, the Oration on the Dignity of Man , a vibrant defence of thinking. Matteo Palmieri (1406–1475), another humanist, is most known for his work Della vita civile ("On Civic Life"; printed 1528), which advocated civic humanism , and for his influence in refining the Tuscan vernacular to the same level as Latin. Palmieri drew on Roman philosophers and theorists, especially Cicero , who, like Palmieri, lived an active public life as

7095-510: The Italian Proto-Renaissance from around 1250 or 1300—overlap considerably with the Late Middle Ages , conventionally dated to c.  1350–1500 , and the Middle Ages themselves were a long period filled with gradual changes, like the modern age; as a transitional period between both, the Renaissance has close similarities to both, especially the late and early sub-periods of either. The Renaissance began in Florence , one of

7224-462: The Latin literary, historical, and oratorical texts of antiquity , while the fall of Constantinople (1453) generated a wave of émigré Greek scholars bringing precious manuscripts in ancient Greek , many of which had fallen into obscurity in the West. It was in their new focus on literary and historical texts that Renaissance scholars differed so markedly from the medieval scholars of the Renaissance of

7353-564: The Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 1950 Herman Miller brought out the EAS Storage Unit series by Charles and Ray Eames, a very successful modular shelving and wall unit system that remains in production today. The module enjoys a long history in the realm of architecture. In antiquity architects utilized the module primarily as a unit of measurement guiding the proportions of plan and elevation. The Roman author and architect Vitruvius deployed

7482-561: The New Testament promoted by humanists Lorenzo Valla and Erasmus , helped pave the way for the Reformation . Well after the first artistic return to classicism had been exemplified in the sculpture of Nicola Pisano , Florentine painters led by Masaccio strove to portray the human form realistically, developing techniques to render perspective and light more naturally. Political philosophers , most famously Niccolò Machiavelli , sought to describe political life as it really was, that

7611-468: The Reformation and Counter-Reformation clashed, the Northern Renaissance showed a decisive shift in focus from Aristotelean natural philosophy to chemistry and the biological sciences (botany, anatomy, and medicine). The willingness to question previously held truths and search for new answers resulted in a period of major scientific advancements. Some view this as a " scientific revolution ", heralding

7740-532: The Renaissance quite precisely; one proposed starting point is 1401, when the rival geniuses Lorenzo Ghiberti and Filippo Brunelleschi competed for the contract to build the bronze doors for the Baptistery of the Florence Cathedral (Ghiberti won). Others see more general competition between artists and polymaths such as Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Donatello , and Masaccio for artistic commissions as sparking

7869-592: The Smithsonian Institution Archives of American Art . In Krasner's words: When I brought Hofmann up to meet Pollock and see his work which was before we moved here, Hofmann's reaction was—one of the questions he asked Jackson was, "Do you work from nature?" There were no still lifes around or models around and Jackson's answer was, "I am nature." And Hofmann's reply was, "Ah, but if you work by heart, you will repeat yourself." To which Jackson did not reply at all. The tendency in minimal art to exclude

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7998-548: The Workings of the Human Body ) by Andreas Vesalius , gave a new confidence to the role of dissection , observation, and the mechanistic view of anatomy. Minimalist art Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially Visual art and music , where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts. As

8127-458: The above factors. The plague was carried by fleas on sailing vessels returning from the ports of Asia, spreading quickly due to lack of proper sanitation: the population of England , then about 4.2 million, lost 1.4 million people to the bubonic plague . Florence's population was nearly halved in the year 1347. As a result of the decimation in the populace the value of the working class increased, and commoners came to enjoy more freedom. To answer

8256-448: The agency of the human hand. Jean Tinguely's efforts to create a self-destructive art machine constitute perhaps the ultimate expression of art's mutability, in this case by taking the form of its total eradication. Victor Vasarely postulated in his Manifest Jaune in 1955 in Paris that works of art should feature the properties of being multiplicable and repeatable in series. More recently,

8385-524: The arch on a monumental. Renaissance vaults do not have ribs; they are semi-circular or segmental and on a square plan, unlike the Gothic vault, which is frequently rectangular. Renaissance artists were not pagans, although they admired antiquity and kept some ideas and symbols of the medieval past. Nicola Pisano (c. 1220 – c. 1278) imitated classical forms by portraying scenes from the Bible. His Annunciation , from

8514-436: The arrangement of pre-determined formal units – rather than wholesale imaginative invention – defines the creative act. Finally, it is consistent with the notion implicit in modularity that the supply of modules in a modular system must be infinite, that is, that they be industrially rather than artisanally produced, for the system to be realized. (Bees in a honeycomb are essentially operating as an industrial enterprise insofar as

8643-463: The artwork as a failure of minimal art. Fried's essay was immediately challenged by postminimalist and earth artist Robert Smithson in a letter to the editor in the October issue of Artforum . Smithson stated: "what Fried fears most is the consciousness of what he is doing – namely being himself theatrical". Another critique of minimal art concerns a fact that many artists were only designers of

8772-692: The beginning of the modern age, others as an acceleration of a continuous process stretching from the ancient world to the present day. Significant scientific advances were made during this time by Galileo Galilei , Tycho Brahe , and Johannes Kepler . Copernicus, in De revolutionibus orbium coelestium ( On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres ), posited that the Earth moved around the Sun. De humani corporis fabrica ( On

8901-469: The center of a cultural rebirth, were linked to the Ottoman Empire , whose conquests led to the migration of Greek scholars to Italian cities. One of the greatest achievements of Renaissance scholars was to bring this entire class of Greek cultural works back into Western Europe for the first time since late antiquity. Muslim logicians, most notably Avicenna and Averroes , had inherited Greek ideas after they had invaded and conquered Egypt and

9030-687: The creativity of the Renaissance. Yet it remains much debated why the Renaissance began in Italy, and why it began when it did. Accordingly, several theories have been put forward to explain its origins. Peter Rietbergen posits that various influential Proto-Renaissance movements started from roughly 1300 onwards across many regions of Europe . In stark contrast to the High Middle Ages , when Latin scholars focused almost entirely on studying Greek and Arabic works of natural science, philosophy and mathematics, Renaissance scholars were most interested in recovering and studying Latin and Greek literary, historical, and oratorical texts. Broadly speaking, this began in

9159-434: The emergence of a service economy in place of a manufacturing one; the social and economic pre-eminence of the creative, professional and technical classes; the central place of theoretical knowledge as a font of innovation; the strong influence of technology on daily life; and high levels of urbanization. Modular art appears to synchronize perfectly with several of these criteria. For example, its manual changeability opens up

9288-551: The emergence of modularity as a full-fledged topic of minimalist art in the 1960s. Tony Smith , Sol LeWitt , Dan Flavin and Donald Judd are among this school's most prolific exponents during the period. In particular, the work of Smith is key to understanding the transformation of modularity from a compositional and production tool into a broadly investigated artistic theme in its own right. Smith began his career as an architectural designer. To further his education he apprenticed himself on some projects by Frank Lloyd Wright for

9417-570: The energy-filled and apparently highly subjective and emotionally charged paintings of Willem de Kooning or Franz Kline and, in terms of precedent among the previous generation of abstract expressionists, leaned more toward the less gestural, often somber, color field paintings of Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko . Although Stella received immediate attention from the MoMA show, artists including Kenneth Noland and Gene Davis , had also begun to explore stripes, monochromatic , and hard-edge formats from

9546-412: The final version of his sculptures. Instead, he outsourced their production to skilled ironworkers in foundries and industrial facilities, who worked off his drawings and models to manufacture the designs. In part this reflects Smith's training as an architect, who customarily designs and documents but does not construct his art. It further reinforces the idea of modular art as a generative system in which

9675-428: The first half of the 20th century, a number of contemporary artists sought to incorporate kinetic techniques into their work in an attempt to overcome what they saw as the predominantly static nature of art. Alexander Calder's mobiles are among the most widely known demonstrations of physical dynamism in the visual arts, in which form has the potential to continually vary through perpetual motion, sometimes even without

9804-484: The first modular product systems in their Cubex kitchen series of 1932. The series consisted of standardized and industrially produced components that could be combined and arrayed in limitless combinations to accommodate almost any size kitchen. New York designer Gilbert Rohde crafted several lines of modular casework for the Herman Miller Corporation in the 1930s and 40s; like De Koninck, Rohde standardized

9933-460: The first private exhibition of this work in 1950, his first public showing was the publication of the artist's book Yves: Peintures in November 1954. Ad Reinhardt , whose reductive nearly all-black paintings seemed to anticipate minimalism, wrote of the value of a reductive approach to art: "The more stuff in it, the busier the work of art, the worse it is. More is less. Less is more. The eye

10062-470: The great European states (France and Spain) were absolute monarchies , and others were under direct Church control, the independent city-republics of Italy took over the principles of capitalism invented on monastic estates and set off a vast unprecedented Commercial Revolution that preceded and financed the Renaissance. Historian Leon Poliakov offers a critical view in his seminal study of European racist thought: The Aryan Myth . According to Poliakov,

10191-645: The greatest transmissions of ideas in history. The movement to reintegrate the regular study of Greek literary, historical, oratorical, and theological texts back into the Western European curriculum is usually dated to the 1396 invitation from Coluccio Salutati to the Byzantine diplomat and scholar Manuel Chrysoloras (c. 1355–1415) to teach Greek in Florence. This legacy was continued by a number of expatriate Greek scholars, from Basilios Bessarion to Leo Allatius . The unique political structures of Italy during

10320-438: The height of the epidemic due to the chaotic conditions in the city, but a small group of officials was appointed to conduct the affairs of the city, which ensured continuity of government. It has long been a matter of debate why the Renaissance began in Florence , and not elsewhere in Italy. Scholars have noted several features unique to Florentine cultural life that may have caused such a cultural movement. Many have emphasized

10449-493: The immune system, leaving young children without a fighting chance. Children in city dwellings were more affected by the spread of disease than the children of the wealthy. The Black Death caused greater upheaval to Florence's social and political structure than later epidemics. Despite a significant number of deaths among members of the ruling classes, the government of Florence continued to function during this period. Formal meetings of elected representatives were suspended during

10578-413: The increased need for labor, workers traveled in search of the most favorable position economically. The demographic decline due to the plague had economic consequences: the prices of food dropped and land values declined by 30–40% in most parts of Europe between 1350 and 1400. Landholders faced a great loss, but for ordinary men and women it was a windfall. The survivors of the plague found not only that

10707-420: The individual hexagonal modules that define the floor plan and various vertical elements. Wright's use of the hexagon here is by no means an arbitrary aesthetic choice, but an example of how he rooted his architecture in nature by drawing from its forms and principles – the interlocking hexagonal cells of the bee's honeycomb being nature's most perfect representation of modular design. Not surprisingly, this project

10836-511: The introduction of the printing press , this allowed many more people access to books, especially the Bible. In all, the Renaissance can be viewed as an attempt by intellectuals to study and improve the secular and worldly, both through the revival of ideas from antiquity and through novel approaches to thought. Political philosopher Hans Kohn describes it as an age where "Men looked for new foundations"; some like Erasmus and Thomas More envisioned new reformed spiritual foundations, others. in

10965-478: The label due to the negative implication of the work being simplistic. Minimalism in visual art, generally referred to as "minimal art", literalist art , and ABC Art emerged in New York in the early 1960s. Initially minimal art appeared in New York in the 60s as new and older artists moved toward geometric abstraction ; exploring via painting in the cases of Frank Stella, Kenneth Noland , Al Held , Ellsworth Kelly , Robert Ryman and others; and sculpture in

11094-464: The language, literature, learning and values of ancient Greece and Rome". Above all, humanists asserted "the genius of man ... the unique and extraordinary ability of the human mind". Humanist scholars shaped the intellectual landscape throughout the early modern period. Political philosophers such as Niccolò Machiavelli and Thomas More revived the ideas of Greek and Roman thinkers and applied them in critiques of contemporary government, following

11223-576: The late 50s through the 1960s. Monochrome painting had been initiated at the first Incoherent arts ' exhibition in 1882 in Paris, with a black painting by poet Paul Bilhaud entitled Combat de Nègres dans un tunnel ( Negroes fight in a tunnel ). In the subsequent exhibitions of the Incoherent arts (also in the 1880s) the writer Alphonse Allais proposed seven other monochrome paintings, such as Première communion de jeunes filles chlorotiques par un temps de neige ( First communion of anaemic young girls in

11352-590: The many states of Italy . Various theories have been proposed to account for its origins and characteristics, focusing on a variety of factors, including Florence's social and civic peculiarities at the time: its political structure, the patronage of its dominant family, the Medici , and the migration of Greek scholars and their texts to Italy following the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire . Other major centers were Venice , Genoa , Milan , Rome during

11481-494: The mid-century Minimalist artists was, with a few exceptions, not changeable. A school of thought coming out of the United States emphasizes modular art's alignment with the post-industrial character of 21st century culture and its contrast with traditional notions of art. Core characteristics of post-industrialism, as largely defined by the theorist Daniel Bell in his 1973 book The Coming of Post-Industrial Society , include

11610-447: The minimal work of art, particularly minimal sculpture, was based on an engagement with the physicality of the spectator. He argued that work like Robert Morris's transformed the act of viewing into a type of spectacle , in which the artifice of the act of observation and the viewer's participation in the work were unveiled. Fried saw this displacement of the viewer's experience from an aesthetic engagement within, to an event outside of

11739-511: The modern dialectic of painting and sculpture as defined by critic Clement Greenberg , arguably the dominant American critic of painting in the period leading up to the 1960s. The most notable critique of minimalism was produced by Michael Fried , a formalist critic, who objected to the work on the basis of its "theatricality". In "Art and Objecthood", published in Artforum in June 1967, he declared that

11868-452: The modular method in his descriptions of the classical orders and the composition of buildings in his treatise Ten Books on Architecture , the only complete text on architecture to survive from antiquity. Architects of the Renaissance perpetuated the Vitruvian system in their resurrection of the classical orders, a tradition which continues to the present day. Among modern architects, the module

11997-403: The modularity of Vagnini's compositions as "circular like the existence, his works are not finished, but merely stimulus for new voices". Renaissance The Renaissance ( UK : / r ɪ ˈ n eɪ s ən s / rin- AY -sənss , US : / ˈ r ɛ n ə s ɑː n s / REN -ə-sahnss ) is a period of history and a European cultural movement covering

12126-410: The module was utilized to proportion built and sculpted form. In the case of Wright, the interest in modular design also may have derived from his familiarity with modular practice in traditional Japanese architecture (such as tatami ). Wright's Hanna House of 1937 is a clear example of the master's facility with modern modular design in multiple dimensions. Its striking angled forms are built up from

12255-436: The most recent trends in modular art, coining the term "New Industrialism" to denote mass customization, production on demand, open innovation, co-creative design, tele-fabrication, robotics and other computer-driven technologies that are re-defining how things are made in the global marketplace. Modularity in music can be seen as bringing two key elements of musical composition and film into the world of painting: variation of

12384-592: The north and west respectively, and the Venetians to the north east. 15th-century Italy was one of the most urbanized areas in Europe. Many of its cities stood among the ruins of ancient Roman buildings; it seems likely that the classical nature of the Renaissance was linked to its origin in the Roman Empire's heartland. Historian and political philosopher Quentin Skinner points out that Otto of Freising (c. 1114–1158),

12513-406: The notion that visual art need not be conceived solely in terms of perpetually fixed objects is embodied in performance and installation art by virtue of their unfolding and temporary qualities. Modularity enters the modern artistic repertory largely through the disciplines of industrial design and architecture. Belgian architect Louis Herman De Koninck led a team of countrymen in creating one of

12642-408: The object according to its specifications. Not only does this computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) allow for the customization of mass-produced objects, it also enables a much higher level of precision and fit – qualities critical for modules to be physically joined together. Bell's identification of technology as a central axis of post-industrial life is underscored in the intertwining of the digital with

12771-439: The options made available by the vendor. Applied to the purpose of composing a work of modular art onscreen, it can greatly facilitate the design of a modular assembly by allowing the user to study multiple design options more quickly and in far greater depth than by using analog methods. Once the design is established a computer file is then sent over the air to a manufacturing facility where robotically controlled equipment produces

12900-403: The other hand, the ability of the individual to re-arrange these modules in the work of art based on aesthetic criteria re-injects a subjective and purely human dimension into the creative act. Mass customization is itself only made possible with the advent of computers and a type of software known as a configurator . A configurator is a software tool used by the buyer to configure a product from

13029-584: The paintings of Giotto . As a cultural movement, the Renaissance encompassed innovative flowering of literary Latin and an explosion of vernacular literatures , beginning with the 14th-century resurgence of learning based on classical sources, which contemporaries credited to Petrarch ; the development of linear perspective and other techniques of rendering a more natural reality in painting; and gradual but widespread educational reform . It saw myriad artistic developments and contributions from such polymaths as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo , who inspired

13158-480: The physical realization of modular art. In Europe, where the 1960s Minimalist school of modular art was often seen as a principally American phenomenon, the discussion of modularity often focuses on its changeability. For example, the mutability of art is a core principle of Arte Povera , a contemporaneous movement that emerged in Italy which holds that works of art "should not be seen as fixed entities", but as objects of change and movement to "include time and space in

13287-461: The pictorial, illusionistic, and fictive in favor of the literal led to a movement away from painterly and toward sculptural concerns. Donald Judd had started as a painter, and ended as a creator of objects. His seminal essay, "Specific Objects" (published in Arts Yearbook 8 , 1965), was a touchstone of theory for the formation of minimalist aesthetics. In this essay, Judd found a starting point for

13416-457: The possibility of co-creative art, in which the collector or user collaborates with the originating modular artist to jointly determine the appearance of the work of art. This presupposes the existence of creative people capable of and interested in serving such a role – a demographic evolution that was already underway in Bell's time and that has since been studied in works like Richard Florida's Rise of

13545-419: The prevailing cultural conditions at the time. Lorenzo de' Medici (1449–1492) was the catalyst for an enormous amount of arts patronage, encouraging his countrymen to commission works from the leading artists of Florence, including Leonardo da Vinci , Sandro Botticelli , and Michelangelo Buonarroti . Works by Neri di Bicci , Botticelli, Leonardo, and Filippino Lippi had been commissioned additionally by

13674-459: The prices of food were cheaper but also that lands were more abundant, and many of them inherited property from their dead relatives. The spread of disease was significantly more rampant in areas of poverty. Epidemics ravaged cities, particularly children. Plagues were easily spread by lice, unsanitary drinking water, armies, or by poor sanitation. Children were hit the hardest because many diseases, such as typhus and congenital syphilis , target

13803-399: The production of cells is without end.) The work of Smith and the minimalist school constitute the most far-ranging exploration of modularity in art before the millennium. However, neither it nor the explorations of movable and alterable art in the preceding centuries synthesized the two central features of modular art. Mobiles and other kinetic pieces were not modular, and the modular work of

13932-412: The qualities of the ideal citizen. The dialogues include ideas about how children develop mentally and physically, how citizens can conduct themselves morally, how citizens and states can ensure probity in public life, and an important debate on the difference between that which is pragmatically useful and that which is honest. The humanists believed that it is important to transcend to the afterlife with

14061-414: The rediscovery of classical Greek philosophy , such as that of Protagoras , who said that "man is the measure of all things". Although the invention of metal movable type sped the dissemination of ideas from the later 15th century, the changes of the Renaissance were not uniform across Europe: the first traces appear in Italy as early as the late 13th century, in particular with the writings of Dante and

14190-544: The role played by the Medici , a banking family and later ducal ruling house , in patronizing and stimulating the arts. Some historians have postulated that Florence was the birthplace of the Renaissance as a result of luck, i.e., because " Great Men " were born there by chance: Leonardo, Botticelli and Michelangelo were all born in Tuscany . Arguing that such chance seems improbable, other historians have contended that these "Great Men" were only able to rise to prominence because of

14319-522: The same time". Even cities and states beyond central Italy, such as the Republic of Florence at this time, were also notable for their merchant republics , especially the Republic of Venice. Although in practice these were oligarchical , and bore little resemblance to a modern democracy , they did have democratic features and were responsive states, with forms of participation in governance and belief in liberty. The relative political freedom they afforded

14448-558: The snow , white), or Récolte de la tomate par des cardinaux apoplectiques au bord de la Mer Rouge ( Tomato harvesting by apoplectic cardinals on the shore of the Red Sea , red). However, this kind of activity bears more similarity to 20th century Dada , or Neo-Dada , and particularly the works of the Fluxus group of the 1960s, than to 20th century monochrome painting since Malevich. Yves Klein had painted monochromes as early as 1949, and held

14577-420: The term "Renaissance man". In politics, the Renaissance contributed to the development of the customs and conventions of diplomacy, and in science to an increased reliance on observation and inductive reasoning . The period also saw revolutions in other intellectual and social scientific pursuits, as well as the introduction of modern banking and the field of accounting. The Renaissance period started during

14706-467: The units in dimensions, materials and configurations to facilitate mass production and interchangeability. His Executive Office Group (EOG) line, launched in 1942, was a similarly ground-breaking systems approach to office furniture. Just a year before Eero Saarinen and Charles Eames had jointly produced a suite of modular domestic furniture for the Red Lion Company, a result of a competition held by

14835-421: The use of ethnic origin myths are first used by Renaissance humanists "in the service of a new born chauvinism". Many argue that the ideas characterizing the Renaissance had their origin in Florence at the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries, in particular with the writings of Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) and Petrarch (1304–1374), as well as the paintings of Giotto di Bondone (1267–1337). Some writers date

14964-467: The way that intellectuals approached religion that was reflected in many other areas of cultural life. In addition, many Greek Christian works, including the Greek New Testament, were brought back from Byzantium to Western Europe and engaged Western scholars for the first time since late antiquity. This new engagement with Greek Christian works, and particularly the return to the original Greek of

15093-501: The words of Machiavelli , una lunga sperienza delle cose moderne ed una continua lezione delle antiche (a long experience with modern life and a continuous learning from antiquity). Sociologist Rodney Stark , plays down the Renaissance in favor of the earlier innovations of the Italian city-states in the High Middle Ages , which married responsive government, Christianity and the birth of capitalism . This analysis argues that, whereas

15222-495: The work more closely than a static object to the dynamism of physical human experience. Art historian and theorist Denys Zacharopoulos called this "a new way of motion in painting". The concept of modular art allows the user to de-compose and to re-compose a work of art that is already completed by re-arranging its parts, thus providing numerous possibilities for ever newer pictures not yet imagined. The original painting can be re-contextualized ad libitum and ad infinitum. Working in

15351-515: The works of Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael representing artistic pinnacles that were much imitated by other artists. Other notable artists include Sandro Botticelli , working for the Medici in Florence, Donatello , another Florentine, and Titian in Venice, among others. In the Low Countries , a particularly vibrant artistic culture developed. The work of Hugo van der Goes and Jan van Eyck

15480-825: The works of various artists including David Smith , Anthony Caro , Tony Smith, Sol LeWitt , Carl Andre , Dan Flavin, Donald Judd and others. Judd's sculpture was showcased in 1964 at the Green Gallery in Manhattan as were Flavin's first fluorescent light works, while other leading Manhattan galleries like the Leo Castelli Gallery and the Pace Gallery also began to showcase artists focused on geometric abstraction. In addition there were two seminal and influential museum exhibitions: Primary Structures : Younger American and British Sculpture shown from April 27 to June 12, 1966 at

15609-565: Was a cultural movement that profoundly affected European intellectual life in the early modern period . Beginning in Italy, and spreading to the rest of Europe by the 16th century, its influence was felt in art , architecture , philosophy , literature , music , science , technology , politics, religion, and other aspects of intellectual inquiry. Renaissance scholars employed the humanist method in study, and searched for realism and human emotion in art. Renaissance humanists such as Poggio Bracciolini sought out in Europe's monastic libraries

15738-634: Was conducive to academic and artistic advancement. Likewise, the position of Italian cities such as Venice as great trading centres made them intellectual crossroads. Merchants brought with them ideas from far corners of the globe, particularly the Levant . Venice was Europe's gateway to trade with the East, and a producer of fine glass , while Florence was a capital of textiles. The wealth such business brought to Italy meant large public and private artistic projects could be commissioned and individuals had more leisure time for study. One theory that has been advanced

15867-405: Was formalized as an artistic technique. The development of perspective was part of a wider trend toward realism in the arts. Painters developed other techniques, studying light, shadow, and, famously in the case of Leonardo da Vinci , human anatomy . Underlying these changes in artistic method was a renewed desire to depict the beauty of nature and to unravel the axioms of aesthetics , with

15996-403: Was initially trained as an architect, has been exploring modularity in the medium of painting since the 1990s. In her work standardized canvas panels are mounted as modules onto a steel frame within which they can be moved and rotated. In the U.S. Moshé Elimelech created what he has called "Cubic Constructions". These are multiple groupings of approximately three-inch cubes set inside pockets in

16125-416: Was not about self-expression, theirs was 'objective'. In general, minimalism's features included geometric , often cubic forms purged of much metaphor , equality of parts, repetition, neutral surfaces, and industrial materials. One of the first artists specifically associated with minimalism was the painter Frank Stella, whose early "pinstripe" paintings (the earliest group of which are also referred to as

16254-490: Was particularly influential on the development of painting in Italy, both technically with the introduction of oil paint and canvas, and stylistically in terms of naturalism in representation. Later, the work of Pieter Brueghel the Elder would inspire artists to depict themes of everyday life. In architecture, Filippo Brunelleschi was foremost in studying the remains of ancient classical buildings. With rediscovered knowledge from

16383-422: Was stretched. The decisions about structures on the front surface of the canvas were therefore not entirely subjective, but pre-conditioned by a "given" feature of the physical construction of the support. In the show catalog, Carl Andre noted, "Art excludes the unnecessary. Frank Stella has found it necessary to paint stripes . There is nothing else in his painting." These reductive works were in sharp contrast to

16512-418: Was the rebuilding of St. Peter's Basilica , combining the skills of Bramante , Michelangelo, Raphael, Sangallo and Maderno . During the Renaissance, architects aimed to use columns, pilasters , and entablatures as an integrated system. The Roman orders types of columns are used: Tuscan and Composite . These can either be structural, supporting an arcade or architrave, or purely decorative, set against

16641-427: Was thought that the classics provided moral instruction and an intensive understanding of human behavior. A unique characteristic of some Renaissance libraries is that they were open to the public. These libraries were places where ideas were exchanged and where scholarship and reading were considered both pleasurable and beneficial to the mind and soul. As freethinking was a hallmark of the age, many libraries contained

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