They emphasized art in general, and especially visual art, which was followed by the art of words – poetry, and to a lesser extent, rhetoric. Sandro Botticelli – Adoration of the Magi, detail with the self-portrait of the painter. Visual art. Emblematic and symbolic art. Renaissance artists rediscovered the ancient purpose of myths and restored their meaning. For a Renaissance neoplatonist, ancient depictions contain original reflections of certain ideas. The ancient portrayal of justice was not just a representation, but truly contained an echo, taste, or essence of the divine idea of Justice. This applies to words and sounds as well. A true artist becomes someone who is able to reflect the “shadow of ideas.” Symbolic art is expressed in different ways, depending on whether it is inspired by the Aristotelian tradition and is part of the medieval heritage or draws inspiration from the Neoplatonic philosophy that arose from the Florentine renewal. In the Aristotelian spirit, a symbolic depiction is an allegory, a metaphor
According to the Platonic interpretation, a symbol is an imperfect reflection of a higher reality that awakens the desire for perfection in the contemplator. In this interpretation, symbols are not ordinary representations but archetypal images.
Therefore, the value of a symbol is proportional to its similarity to ancient symbols that were considered a “revelation” of the world of ideas. For example, the Renaissance attached the greatest importance to Egyptian symbols, which were transmitted through the Hellenic work Hieroglyphica by Horapollo. Ficino, who attributes the invention of hieroglyphs to Hermes, perceives these signs as a profound method of expression, revealing hidden insights. It’s true.
Melozzo da Forli – Angel with a Lute
Its counterpart is a second, female triptych, somewhat similar to the three Graces: Venus, the goddess of divine love, Diana, the goddess of purity and fertility, and Athena Palada, the goddess of intuitive wisdom and spiritual combativeness.
Sandro Botticelli – Magnificent Virgin, detail
Ethics and aesthetics
The symbolic image should be observed in a contemplative manner because through the eyes of those who look at it, it penetrates their minds, revealing its nature and arousing in them a love for what it represents and a desire to imitate it. Philosophy dispels the seductive muses whose songs cater to passions but remains with them to lead towards a vision that brings tranquility. Philosophy, therefore, leads from the passion of the senses to the passion of the intelligible.
For Ficino, Good is found in the center of a sphere whose surface is Beauty, so they are like two aspects of the same reality – inner perfection and external perfection. The relationship between Good and Beauty is directly related to ethics. com and aesthetics. This theory was complemented by Pico della Mirandola, who emphasized the difference between Good and Beauty, subordinating Beauty to Good, just as aesthetics is subordinate to ethics.
Leonardo da Vinci – Salvator Mundi, detail
Sacred Art
Active imagination enables a connection between the perceptible and imperceptible, between the transient dimension and the transcendent, timeless dimension. In the spirit of the Renaissance, the artist is an interpreter of divine things, hidden mysteries. They rise towards the sky and strive to make the invisible reality visible. The Renaissance artist does not “illustrate” a biblical or historical scene. Contemplating higher planes of existence inspires them and enables them to present an image of a higher reality, regardless of whether the source is biblical or pagan, in an iconography that can be ancient or contemporary. Everything that comes from this “revelation” is sacred. In this sense, artists are conveyors (media) of a higher reality, they are the priests of the Renaissance.
From the book Edited by: Luka Marić