Paragone

As Paragons (it.: comparison, juxtaposition ) is in art history of the " contest of the arts" primarily in the Renaissance and early Baroque referred, in which it as to the primacy within the visual arts and the relationship of the visual arts to other fine arts poetry went.

History

Starting from several ancient anecdotes narrated in the "Historia naturalis " by Pliny the Elder, relaxing in the second half of the 15th century in Italy, a debate on the question of what art form can claim from an aesthetic point of view and because of artistic ability the primacy This is followed .. humanists, poets, musicians and leaders in the visual arts involved. A focal point of the discussions was the question of ranking of painting and sculpture. The transmitted today in the Italian standard language name of the dispute, Paragons delle Arti, for the verb form paragonare exists, derives from the name of the then usual black touchstone - the Paragons - from the artist.

Among the artists who participated in the form of treatises on Paragons discourse, Leon Battista Alberti, Albrecht Dürer and Leonardo da Vinci were, all the painting awards for the primacy. Other artists exhibited by exemplary works of art the priority of the selected group dar. Allen artist but had in common that they ( forming ) studied arts rhetorically to ennoble as liberal arts and to define their position and their performance over the competition, the "mechanical". This was the Paragons for artists to a central vehicle of self-assurance and definition.

A culmination of the discussion reached in 1547 with the lectures of Benedetto Varchi on this issue and initiated by this survey of well-known painters and sculptors, including Michelangelo, and Giorgio Vasari. Both his own designs as well as the reply of the artists published Varchi 1549 in Florence. A second peak period took place in 1564 after the death of Michelangelo (who had called for a higher rank of the sculpture ). Sculptors such as Benvenuto Cellini wanted in the design of his tomb in Santa Croce, where personifications of the arts have been shown to express the primacy of sculpture, but the Accademia del Disegno which was dominated at that time by persons - especially as Vasari - painting favored.

After these two phases of high Paragons lived on into the 20th century, was being awarded depending on the author and era of painting or sculpture of priority. So led around the turn to ancient art in the 18th century to a strong appreciation of sculpture. In the late treatises in the Paragons tradition, such as the Laocoon of Lessing, the predominant in the 16th century, rivalry often faded into the background; now it was more about a characterization of the different genres with their expression and action options without prononcierte rating.