Conclusion
He wasn't just an imitator of the Classical antiquity. His figures are original creations that came into being through a thorough study and understanding of the antique prototypes. He is the most important precursor of Italian Renaissance sculpture by reinstating antique representations. Therefore, surveys of the Italian Renaissance usually begin with the year 1260, the year that Nicola Pisano dated this pulpit in the Pisa baptistery.
However, as the pulpit of the Siena Cathedral shows, Nicola Pisano was still attached to the contemporary Gothic art. However this appreciation may arise because this pulpit was finished by his son Giovanni Pisano who didn't appreciate this liking for the Antiquity in the same manner.
Both styles coexisted for several generations and International Gothic and its variations would even become more popular in the 15th century than the Classicism of the High Renaissance.
Nicola Pisano has pushed 13th century Tuscan sculpture in the direction of a Gothic art that already integrated the noble features of Roman art, while simultaneously staying attached to the Gothic art from Northern Europe.
The true inheritor of his classical style was Arnolfo di Cambio (c. 1250-1302), whose early death left the field clear for Giovanni Pisano, who, by then, was already pursuing his own mixture of French Gothic and the classical style.
Giorgio Vasari included a biography of Nicola Pisano in his Lives.
Read more about this topic: Nicola Pisano
Famous quotes containing the word conclusion:
“The conclusion suggested by these arguments might be called the paradox of theorizing. It asserts that if the terms and the general principles of a scientific theory serve their purpose, i. e., if they establish the definite connections among observable phenomena, then they can be dispensed with since any chain of laws and interpretive statements establishing such a connection should then be replaceable by a law which directly links observational antecedents to observational consequents.”
—C.G. (Carl Gustav)
“We must not leap to the fatalistic conclusion that we are stuck with the conceptual scheme that we grew up in. We can change it, bit by bit, plank by plank, though meanwhile there is nothing to carry us along but the evolving conceptual scheme itself. The philosopher’s task was well compared by Neurath to that of a mariner who must rebuild his ship on the open sea.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“No one can write a best seller by trying to. He must write with complete sincerity; the clichés that make you laugh, the hackneyed characters, the well-worn situations, the commonplace story that excites your derision, seem neither hackneyed, well worn nor commonplace to him.... The conclusion is obvious: you cannot write anything that will convince unless you are yourself convinced. The best seller sells because he writes with his heart’s blood.”
—W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1966)