| This examination of many Italian paintings dealing with the subject of the Assumption of the Virgin details the significant ways in which the idea of the Virgin's Assumption into heaven was expressed by painters throughout Italy between 1480 and 1580 with emphasis on the period of the High Renaissance, 1480-1520. This research attempts to determine the relationship between the artist's aesthetic vocabulary and the way he has perceived the subject of the Virgin's Assumption within a total context, that is, in light of various stimuli: prior representations, apocryphal texts, The Golden Legend, theological debates, sermons, and miracle plays. In addition, environment , patronage, and such pivotal events in Church history as the Reformation, the sack of Rome, and the Council of Trent, are examined for their possible bearing.;The Conclusion affirms style as having generally determined iconography in Assumption paintings between c. 1450 and 1520. However, the reforming spirit correlative with the Council of Trent affected many later 16th century statements of the Assumption. In this period, it can be said that a new iconography prescribed by the Church proceeded to determine style.;Finally, an Appendix discusses the theme of the Madonna della Cintola because the cult bears an implicit connection with the Assumption. In a sense, the Madonna della Cintola might be termed a quasi-Assumption. (Abstract shortened with permission of author.).;The study is organized into four chronological divisions. Chapter I considers those paintings created between 1480-1500, but first traces the origins of the main motifs used in the "devotional" and the "historical" Assumption. After 1500, the style in which the Virgin's Assumption was represented gradually evolved into a High Renaissance style out of which emerged, somewhat later, a radical iconographic change. Chapter II discusses this development. Chapter III looks at variations on the Assumption theme painted between c. 1520 and c. 1545. These continue to modify the stylistic and iconographic innovations of Raphael and Titian. Chapter IV deals with the subject as depicted by a generation of painters who either adapted the motifs of the Assumption to the stylistic imperatives of Mannerism or altered their bella maniera to respond to the developing Counter-Reformation, or who painted Assumptions in an Anti-Mannerist vein. |
