What is Harmony in the visual arts during 15th -19th centuary?
This will cover Classical, Mannerist and Baroque influences in
southern
europe and Northern europe and what there differences were and how
they later influenced each other?

I looking for information on what is harmony, with reference to works
of art/sculpture.

Thanks for asking!

I've located several particularly useful websites that should be of
assistance to you. In addition, I've performed web searches for
additional specific mentions of the concept of Harmony in relation to
Art styles you've specified. I've excerpted passages from several
articles and reports, and will provide link listings of the additional
resources.


HARMONY AND PROPORTION
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"Proportion within a geometrical figure, a musical scale , or indeed a
mathematical sequence, can be said to be

"an harmonious relationship between the parts, with and within the
whole".

These pages attempt to provide as simple as possible an introduction
to, and explanation of, the principles governing harmony and
proportion in space.

By linking proportion with underlying harmonious causes, Alberti was
referring back to a long tradition of philosophical thought, one
which, in the West at least, began with Plato and Pythagoras......."

Harmony and Proportion
http://www.aboutscotland.com/harmony/harmony.html

"One re-occurring theme was Aesthetics. What was the beauty of being?
How was beauty linked with form. There was less division between the
concept of beauty and the concept of usefulness than there is today.
That is to say; beauty as a state was seen as integral with its
property as being a functional aspect of existence. The way beauty
appears is a result of it being the way in which the universe is put
together . . . . and as such it is naturally congruent with such
concepts as; number, proportion, harmony, and music. The creation, the
universe, is beautiful because it perfectly reflects God's beauty who
made it according to that beauty.

The Timaeus - The Composition of the Soul 
http://www.aboutscotland.com/harmony/lamda.html

"Pythagoras taught that each of the seven planets produced by its
orbit a particular note according to its distance from the still
centre which was the Earth. The distance in each case was like the
subdivisions of the string refereed to above. This is what was called
Musica Mundana, which is usually translated as Music of the Spheres.
The sound produced is so exquisite and rarefied that our ordinary ears
are unable to hear it. It is the Cosmic Music which, according to
Philo of Alexandria, Moses had heard when he received the Tablets on
Mount Sinai, and which St Augustine believed men hear on the point of
death, revealing to them the highest reality of the Cosmos. (Carlo
Bertelli, Piero della Francesca, p. 60.) This music is present
everywhere and governs all temporal cycles, such as the seasons,
biological cycles, and all the rhythms of nature. Together with its
underlying mathematical laws of proportion it is the sound of the
harmony of the created being of the universe, the harmony of what
Plato called the "one visible living being, containing within itself
all living beings of the same natural order"."

Pythagoras - Music and Space
http://www.aboutscotland.com/harmony/prop.html

In his "Ten Books of Architecture" "Alberti develops the relationship
between the proportions of numbers and the measuring of areas.

Methodically, he lists three types of area; short, middle, and long."

And lists the proportions:

"Short: 1:1, 2:3, 3:4
Middling: 2:4. 4:9, 9:16
Long:1:3, 3:8, 1:4"

Alberti - Proportion and Harmony
http://www.aboutscotland.com/harmony/prop2.html

"When Andrea Palladio, (1508-1580), in "The Four Books of
Architecture", published in 1570, suggested seven sets of the most
beautiful and harmonious proportions to be used in the construction of
rooms, he chose measurements which reflect musical consonances."

"When Palladio goes on to talk about the generation of the height of
rooms, he elucidates three types of proportion which are traditionally
thought to have been discovered by Pythagoras:

The Arithmetic Mean, 
The Geometric Mean, 
The Harmonic Mean."

Palladio - Proportions of Rooms
http://www.aboutscotland.com/harmony/prop3.html 


MATHEMATICAL CONNECTIONS IN NATURE, SCIENCE AND ART
**********************************************************************

"Is it possible to compare the beauty of a sculpture, a temple, a
picture, a symphony, a poem, or a nocturne?  If a formula could be
found, then the loveliness of a chamomile flower and a naked body
could be measured and compared.  The well-known Italian architect
Leone Battista Alberti spoke about harmony as follows:  “There is
something greater, composed of combination and connection of three
things (number, limitation and arrangement), something that lights up
the face of beauty.  And we called it Harmony, which is, doubtlessly,
the source of some charm and beauty. You see assignment and purpose of
Harmony in arranging the parts, generally speaking, different in their
nature, by certain perfect ratio so that they meet one another
creating  beauty … It encompasses all human life, penetrates through
the nature of things.  Therefore everything that is made by Nature is
measured by the law of Harmony.  Also there is no greater care for the
Nature than that of everything created by it to be perfect.  It is
impossible to achieve this without Harmony; therefore without it the
greatest consent of the parts is disintegrated”.

There are many well-known “formulas of beauty” such as certain
geometrical shapes:  square, circle, isosceles triangle, and pyramid. 
However, the most wide-spread criterion of  beauty is one unique
mathematical proportion called the Divine Proportion, Golden Section,
Golden Number, or Golden Mean.  The Golden Section and related to it
Fibonacci numbers (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, …) permeate the history of
art. Examples of well known works, which exhibit this proportion, are
Khufu’s Pyramid of Egypt, the Parthenon in Athens, Greek sculpture,
the “Mona Lisa” by Leonardo da Vinci, paintings by Rafael, Shishkin,
and the modern Russian artist Konstantin Vasiljev, Chopin’s etudes,
music of Beethoven and Mozart, “Modulor” by Corbusier."

Museum of Harmony and the Golden Section
http://www.fenkefeng.org/essaysm18004.html


PHI AND THE GOLDEN SECTION IN ART
**********************************************************************

Laying out a painting on a canvas - "As the Golden Section is found in
the design and beauty of nature, it can also be used to achieve beauty
and balance in the design of art.  This is only a tool though, and not
a rule, for composition.

The Golden Section was used extensively by Leonardo Da Vinci.  Note
how all the key dimensions of the room and the table in Da Vinci's
"The Last Supper" were based on the Golden Section, which was known in
the Renaissance period as The Divine Proportion."

Phi and the Golden Section in Art
http://goldennumber.net/art.htm


ARTCYCLOPEDIA
**********************************************************************

Using the Artcyclopedia, you may trace both artists and art movements
through time, beginning with the Early Renaissance. On each page,
you'll find a brief description of the style (movement) and an
extensive listing of artists representative of each period."

"The Renaissance was a period or great creative activity, in which
artists broke away from the restrictions of Byzantine Art. Throughout
the 15th century, artists studied the natural world, perfecting their
understanding of such subjects as anatomy and perspective.

Among the many great artists of this period were Paolo Uccello, Sandro
Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio, and Piero della Francesca.

During this period there was a parallel advancement of Gothic Art
centered in Germany and the Netherlands, known as the Northern
Renaissance.

The Early Renaissance was succeeded by the mature High Renaissance
period, which began around 1500."

"The High Renaissance was the culmination of the artistic revolution
of the Early Renaissance, and one of the great explosions of creative
genius in history. It is notable for three of the greatest artists in
history: Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo Buonarroti, and Raphael.

Also active at this time were such masters as Giovanni Bellini,
Giorgione and Titian.

By about the 1520's, High Renaissance art had become exaggerated into
the style known as Mannerism."

"Mannerism, the artistic style which gained popularity in the period
following the High Renaissance, takes as its ideals the work of
Raphael and Michelangelo Buonarroti. It is considered to be a period
of technical accomplishment but of formulaic, theatrical and overly
stylized work.

Mannerist Art is characterized by a complex composition, with muscular
and elongated figures in complex poses. Discussing Michelangelo in his
journal, Eugène Delacroix gives as good a description as any of the
limitations of Mannerism:

"[A]ll that he has painted is muscles and poses, in which even
science, contrary to general opinion, is by no means the dominant
factor... He did not know a single one of the feelings of man, not one
of his passions. When he was making an arm or a leg, it seems as if he
were thinking only of that arm or leg and was not giving the slightest
consideration to the way it relates with the action of the figure to
which it belongs, much less to the action of the picture as a whole...
Therein lies his great merit; he brings a sense of the grand and the
terrible into even an isolated limb."

Prominent Members: In addition to Michelangelo, leading Mannerist
artists included Rosso Fiorentino, Pontormo, and Parmigianino."

By the late 16th century, there were several anti-Mannerist attempts
to reinvigorate art with greater naturalism and emotionalism. These
developed into the Baroque style, which dominated the 17th century."

"Baroque Art emerged in Europe around 1600, as an reaction against the
intricate and formulaic Mannerist style which dominated the Late
Renaissance. Baroque Art is less complex, more realistic and more
emotionally affecting than Mannerism.

This movement was encouraged by the Catholic Church, the most
important patron of the arts at that time, as a return to tradition
and spirituality.

One of the great periods of art history, Baroque Art was developed by
Caravaggio, Annibale Carracci, and Gianlorenzo Bernini, among others.
This was also the age of Rubens, Rembrandt, Velázquez, and Vermeer."
"Neoclassical Art is a severe, unemotional form of art harkening back
to the style of ancient Greece and Rome. Its rigidity was a reaction
to the overbred Rococo style and the emotional Baroque style. The rise
of Neoclassical Art was part of a general revival of classical
thought, which was of some importance in the American and French
revolutions.

Important Neoclassicists include the architects Robert Adam and Robert
Smirke, the sculptors Antonio Canova, Bertel Thorvaldsen, and
Jean-Antoine Houdon, and painters Anton Raphael Mengs,
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, and Jacques-Louis David.

Around 1800, Romanticism emerged as a reaction to Neoclassicism. It
did not really replace the Neoclassical style so much as act as a
counterbalancing influence, and many artists were influenced by both
styles to some degree.
  
Neoclassical Art was also a substantial direct influence on
19th-century Academic Art"

"Academic Art is the painting and sculpture produced under the
influence of the European Academies, where many artists received their
formal training. It is characterized by its highly finished style, its
use of historical or mythological subject matter, and its moralistic
tone. Neoclassical Art was closely associated with the Academies.

The term "Academic Art" is associated particularly with the French
Academy and its influence on the Salons in the 19th century. Artists
such as Bouguereau and Jean-Leon Gerome epitomize this style."

Artcyclopedia.com
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/history/early-renaissance.html 
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/history/high-renaissance.html
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/history/mannerism.html
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/history/baroque.html
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/history/neoclassicism.html
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/history/academic-art.html
   
Artcyclopedia.com
Artists by Movement
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/history/index.html


ART HISTORY RESOURCES - Wittcombe
**********************************************************************

15th-Century Renaissance Art 
http://witcombe.sbc.edu/ARTHLinks2.html

16th-Century Renaissance Art 
http://witcombe.sbc.edu/ARTH16thcentury.html

Baroque Art 
http://witcombe.sbc.edu/ARTHbaroque.html

18th-Century Art 
http://witcombe.sbc.edu/ARTH18thcentury.html

19th-Century Art 
http://witcombe.sbc.edu/ARTHLinks5.html


FURTHER READING - ART AND HARMONY
**********************************************************************

Historicism of Quantified Proportion
http://home.worldcom.ch/~negenter/00AA2_WittkoHist_1_Tx01.html

The Alba Madonna by Raffaello Sanzio 
http://www.kfki.hu/~arthp/html/r/raphael/5roma/1/06alba.html

What Did the Renaissance Patron Buy?
http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/subjects/history/hsy2860/secure/docs/5gilbert.pdf

Renaissance Art and Architecture
http://www.bartleby.com/65/re/Renaisart.html

Great Books Presentation, Georgio Vasari 
November 18, 2002
Dr. Barbara England, November 18, 2002
http://faculty.fhu.edu/ldrive/England,Barbara/vasari%2011-18/Vasari%2014pt.doc

Re-examining the Renaissance through the prism of rivalry 
http://ur.rutgers.edu/focus/index.phtml?Article_ID=1054

Muggle Art Leonardo di Vinci
http://www.muggleart.camelogic.com/Leonardo.htm


**********************************************************************
Google Search Terms:

harmony + proportion art history
"art theory" harmony classical OR baroque OR renaissance OR mannerist

It's been a pleasure gathering these resources for you. Should you
have any questions about the material or links provided, please, feel
free to ask.

--larre

---

Request for Answer Clarification by stimmer-ga on 05 Apr 2003 01:15 PST

Thanks for this, perfect.

---

Clarification of Answer by larre-ga on 05 Apr 2003 01:44 PST

You're welcome! Glad to be of assistance. Thanks for the kind words and tip!

--l

Many thanks, an exceptional piece of research and will be of great help to me.

Hello Stimmer,

I assembled following information for you:

------- Harmony in the Renaissance

The idea of harmony in the Renaissance epoch
http://www.goldenmuseum.com/0402Renaissance_engl.html
"The Renaissance epoch in a history of culture of the Western and
Central Europe countries is the transient epoch from the medieval
culture to the culture of new time. (...)

Together with other achievements of the ancient art the scientists and
the artists of the Renaissance epoch perceived the Pythagorean idea of
the Universe harmony and the golden section with a huge enthusiasm.
And it is not incidentally that just Leonardo da Vince who was one of
the brightest persons of the Renaissance epoch introduced in wide use
the name of the "golden section", which at once became as the
aesthetic canon of the Renaissance epoch. (...)

Belief in the fact that the nature is created according to the
mathematical schedule and that the God is the creator of harmony is
expressed during this period not only by scientists, but also by
poets, and also by art representatives. (...)

In works by Bramante, Leonardo da Vince, Rafael, Jordano, Tizian,
Alberti, Donatello, Michelangelo it is shown the strong orderness and
harmony subordinated to the golden proportion. The law of harmony, law
of a number are uncovered in the art works and scientific-methodical
researches by Leonardo da Vince, Durer, Alberti."

The Italian Renaissance (1420-1600)
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/tl/it-ren/
"The quest for scientific precision and greater realism culminated in
the superb balance of harmony of Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo.
The influence of Humanism is reflected in the increase of secular
subjects. In the final phase of the Renaissance, Mannerism became the
dominant style."


------- Baroque, Classicism, Mannerism

Baroque
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/glo/baroque/
"Baroque period, era in the history of the Western arts roughly
coinciding with the 17th century. Its earliest manifestations, which
occurred in Italy, date from the latter decades of the 16th century,
while in some regions, notably Germany and colonial South America,
certain of its culminating achievements did not occur until the 18th
century. The work that distinguishes the Baroque period is
stylistically complex, even contradictory. In general, however, the
desire to evoke emotional states by appealing to the senses, often in
dramatic ways, underlies its manifestations. Some of the qualities
most frequently associated with the Baroque are grandeur, sensuous
richness, drama, vitality, movement, tension, emotional exuberance,
and a tendency to blur distinctions between the various arts."

Classicism
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/glo/classicism/
"Aesthetic attitudes and principles based on the culture, art and
literature of ancient Greece and Rome, and characterized by emphasis
on form, simplicity, proportion, and restrained emotion."

The Northern Renaissance (1500-1615), Mannerism
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/tl/north-ren/
"The 16th century heralded a new era for painting in the Netherlands
and Germany. Northern artists were influenced by the great innovations
in the South; many artists travelled to Italy to study; and the
Renaissance concern for bringing modern science and philosophy into
art was also evident in the North. There was, however, a difference of
outlook between the two cultures. In Italy change was inspired by
Humanism, with its emphasis on the revival of the values of classical
antiquity. In the North, change was driven by another set of
preoccupations: religious reform, the return to ancient Christian
values, and the revolt against the authority of the Church.

The Renaissance in the North crystallized around the intense vision
and realism of Dürer's work. Other painters in both Germany and the
Netherlands followed the Northern impulse for precise observation and
naturalism in the fields of landscape painting (Patinir and Bruegel)
and portraiture (Holbein). As in Italy, the Northern Renaissance ended
with a Mannerist phase. Mannerism was to last about a generation
longer in the North than it did in Italy, where it was outmoded by
1600."


------- Discussions of Harmony in Paintings

To find some paintings discussed, try following search results:

Google - harmony "this painting" renaissance
http://google.com/search?q=harmony+%22this+painting%22+renaissance

As well as:

Google - balance "this painting" renaissance
http://google.com/search?q=balance+%22this+painting%22+renaissance

-------


Hope it helps!


Further resources:

Proportion and the Golden Section
http://faculty.ccc.edu/khope/archproportion.html
(Middle of page)


Search terms:
harmony renaissance
mannerism site:ibiblio.org
(...)