Comparative Analysis of Antonio Del Pollaiyolo's Battle of the Nudes Essay

Comparative Analysis of Antonio Del Pollaiyolo's Battle of the Nudes and Francisco Goya's - Essay Example Experts are having difficulty in dating Antonio Del Pollaiyolo’s work on the basis of style because Pollaiyolo may have already used the style earlier and only changed a little during the course of his style1 . As an artist Pollaiyolo was considered ahead of his time and was said to be one of the first Italian artists to render the engraving of the human form2 in the same manner that Francisco Goya was also considered as one of the pioneers of modern painting3. The paintings of both Antonio Del Pollaiyolo’s Battle of the Nudes and Francisco Goya’s Third of May are also large at 42.4 x 60.9 centimeter and 268  ?  347  centimeter respectively. Pollaiyolo’s Battle of the Nudes â€Å"depicts five men wearing headbands and five men without, fighting in pairs with weapons in front of a dense background of vegetation4†. The characters in the engraving are posed in various athletic positions where they fiercely grimace and their muscle tones strongly emphasized. Rather than painted compared to Goya’s Third of May, Del Pollaiyolo’s Battle of the Nudes used return-stroke engraving that was employed in modeling the bodies to create a delicate and subtle effect5. Del Pollaiyolo’s Battle of the Nudes where ten sculpted men was fighting was inspired by Greek and Roman sculpture. Scholars opined that these engravings were not a depiction of a literary subject but rather was intended for artists to copy because Del Pollaiyolo’s was said to use model carvings himself before doing the engraved. Pollaiyolo’s work is artistically significant because it was credited to have been responsible of the seminal idea of Italian Renaissance’s modeling of the human form as an object of art. Del Pollaiyolo’s was also said to be one of the pioneers of Italian Renaissance engraving. Pollaiyolo’s engraving of the Battle of the Nude was even said to have been used as a model of German artists such as Albrecht Durer (1471-1528) and Jorg Breu (c. 1480-1573). The detailed engraving of the human form, its particularity of the anatomical structure and the explicitness of its expression has been credited to have been germinated by Pollaiyolo’s6. While Del Pollaiyolo’s work was rich in details, Goya’s The Third of May 1808 was intentionally painted with the face of the executioner to be anonymous to highlight the drama of innocent civilian that was about to be executed. In this particular work, the artistry was better rendered with the anonymity of the executioner7. What was highlighted instead was the atmosphere that contributes to the gore and brutality of the execution. The main subject which was a civilian with his arms spread like the Christ in crucifixion was set against the backdrop of the rising mountain and heavy blackness of the night to highlight the terror of the persecution8. He also emphasized fear in the painting by â€Å"trailing the line of unfor tunate captives into the distance, suggesting that this action will by repeated throughout the night9†. Unlike in Pollaiyolo’s The Battle of the Nudes where the features of the characters were detailed, Goya’s The Third of May painting was rendered with â€Å"broad and rough strokes of the brush [similar] to the mature work of the Great Spanish