Comparison between Piero Della Francesca and Oskar Schlemmer.

1. Piero Della Francesca
&
Oskar Schlemmer
Zakriya Chughtai

2. Piero Della Francesca
Piero Della Francesca was an Italian painter who mainly explored the use of perspective
in his paintings, who became well renowned in the 20th century, mainly due to the
mathematics and geometrics used in his artworks. He contributed to the Italian
renaissance with his large geometrical frescoes. There is not much known about Piero’s
training as a painter in his early life, however its thought he was taught by local masters
who had been influenced by Sienese art, which was founded in Florence, Italy. In 1439
Piero worked as an assistant of Domenico Veneziano, who at the time was painting
frescoes for the hospital of Sta, in Italy. Piero would have been advised to similar well
known artists by Domenico Veneziano, whose own work show emphasis on colour and
light. The contacts with the early Renaissance artists of Florence provided the
foundation of Piero’s own style. In 1442, Piero was elected to the town council. The
Misericordia Altarpiece shows Piero’s appreciation to the Florentines Donatello and
Masaccio, his affection for geometric form, and the slowness and deliberation with which
he habitually worked. Piero Della Francesca’s style is shown in frescoes painted in the
choir of the church of S. Francesco at Arezzo. In his old age Piero stopped painting and
instead wrote a treatise on painting between 1474 and 1482, which was called ‘On
Perspective in Painting’. He included a range of diagrams on geometric, proportional and
perspectival problems. His most notable pupils were Signorelli and Perugino, where its
easy to see his influence on perspective and proportion.

3. Influences
• In 1439 he was working in Florence
with Domenico Veneziano, whose
use of space and proportion
influenced him.
• Piero’s teachers were influenced by
Sienese art. Therefore his style was
based on the techniques used in the
style of Sienese.
• Around 1448 Piero worked in the
service of Marchese Leonello d’Este
in Ferrara, where he may have been
influenced by northern Italian art.

4. Quotes
Quote Analysis
“Certainly many painters who do not use
perspective have also been the object of
praise; however, they were praised with
faulty judgement by men with no
knowledge of the value of this art.”
This quote shows that his artistic style
is based around perspective, and it
shows that his approach on each of his
artworks is mathematical as well as
artistic. The quote also shows that he
ranks the use of perspective very
highly within his artworks.
“The division of our culture is making us more obtuse than we
need be: we can repair communications to some extent: but, as I
have said before, we are not going to turn out men and women
who understand as much of their world as Piero Della
Francesca did of his, or Pascal, or Goethe. With good fortune,
however, we can educate a large proportion of our better minds
so that they are not ignorant of the imaginative experience,
both in the arts and in science, nor ignorant either of the
endowments of applied science, of the remediable suffering of
most of their fellow humans, and of the responsibilities which,
once seen, cannot be denied.”
This statement isn’t said by Piero but
his name is used in the context where,
he is described as one of the best as
what he does; and how knowledgeable
he is within his area of art.

5. Two Examples
The painting above has delicate line qualities due to the line
weight being very light. The use of shape is very intricate
with a large use of repetition of rectangles and squares to
make up the overall building, however with the central
building being curved, it contrast with its surroundings. Due
to the artwork being an architectural painting, the forms
need to be in proportion to each other which they are. The
colour is important to this painting as it creates a sense of
depth as the tone in the sky and the buildings are more
dull/flat in the background which is then emphasised by the
one point perspective which adds to the overall proportion.
When looking at the artwork, you can see the clear
horizontal and vertical lines which creates a formal
atmosphere.
In this artwork it’s easy to see grid-like nature of the painting
which has been thought out by Francesca. The nature of the
horizontal and vertical lines again influence the perspective
which pushes the left side to the background and enforces the
foreground. The figures help create a sense of scale of the
buildings and of their surroundings. Colour plays a large role to
the painting as the warm vibrancy of the foreground and cold
tones in the left side almost creates a layered affect and
separated each half of the image. The reason for this is because
of the figures on the right being exposed to more natural light
due to them being outside. Overall the painting captures a large
space and movement, as the buildings and tree behind the
figures on the right creates the illusion of the distance between
the two. Although the painting is balanced by colours and the
form of the architecture and flooring on each side.

6. Oskar Schlemmer
Oskar Schlemmer is a German painter, sculptor, choreographer, and designer who is
known for ballet/theatre productions and also his paintings. Schlemmer was working with
design at a young age, as he worked in a marquetry workshop, and also took classes in the
school of applied arts in Stuttgart, where he then carried on to studying in the Stuttgart
Academy of Fine Art. After returning back from Berlin, where he researched into artistic
trends, he returned to Stuttgart in 1912 to become a student of Adolf Holzel. In 1919,
after returning from fighting in WW1, he helped build and modernize the curriculum at
the Stuttgart Academy of Fine Art. Although a year later he was invited to the Bauhaus
by Walter Gropius. He contributed to sculpture(metal works), life drawings, mural
paintings and then later becoming a teacher who focused on form. He is most famous for
his ‘Triadic Ballet’ which he choreographed and designed the costumes based on cylinder,
sphere, cone and spiral shapes. The theatre/dance productions that he was involved in
influenced the style of his paintings and the way he painted figures. Schlemmer was
commissioned to paint murals across Germany in the 1920s, however many of then were
vandalised or destroyed by the Nazi party. He moved on to teach in a state art academy in
Breslau, where he did most of his famous paintings, for example ‘Bauhaus Stairway’.
Although, the Nazi party again restricted him from teaching which forced him to move to
Switzerland. Towards the end of his life, he struggled to exhibit his work due to the Nazi
Regime. The Nazi party did display his work once in 1937, where the exhibition was
named ‘Degenerate Art’ which was propaganda for the Nazi party.

7. Influences
• Schlemmer served as head of the stage
workshop at the Bauhaus from 1923 to 1929.
His experience with dance influenced his works,
like the ‘Dancer’ and ‘Bauhaus stairway’
• His artworks mainly deals with the idea of a
figure in space. Where he mixes formal
geometric shape into the form of the figure.
• He is also influenced by Cubism, which taught
him to integrate figures into geometric
structures.
• His use of choreography, influenced the way he
painted his figures, where his ideas were also
incorporated with linear geometrics from the
key ideas of the Bauhaus.

8. Quotes
Quote Analysis
“If today's arts love the machine, technology and organization,
if they aspire to precision and reject anything vague and
dreamy, this implies an instinctive repudiation of chaos and a
longing to find the form appropriate to our times.”
This quote implies that Schlemmer doesn’t strive
towards perfection and precision of specific forms and
shapes, otherwise he feels it would have a negative
impact towards art. Its almost like he feels that the
creation of art should be natural.
“Life has become so mechanized, thanks to machines and a
technology which our senses cannot possibly ignore, that we are
intensely aware of man as a machine and the body as a mechanism.
In art, especially in painting we are witnessing a search for the
roots and sources of all creativity; this grows out of the bankruptcy
brought on by excessive refinement.”
This shows his dislike towards machinery and technology. This
links back to the last quote where he believes that too many
people want to specifically find creativity, which he fells is
being provoked by technology. This shows that in his own
approach he uses natural forms which aren’t forced upon him.
“In the face of the economic plight, it is our task to
become pioneers of simplicity, that is, to find a simple
form for all of life’s necessities, which is at the same
time respectable and genuine.”
Schlemmer in this quote shows that his thinking is
basic and approach on design is all about simplicity.
This thinking is influenced by the basic teachings of
the Bauhaus school where Schlemmer taught.

9. Two Examples
The painting to the right works well due to the
juxtaposition between the curved human
figures and the linear geometrics of the
structure of the buildings. However the figures
allude to 2D shapes like rectangles, squares
and triangles, then the curvature and shade
turn them into 3D objects. What also sets the
figures and architecture apart is the texture.
On the figures the texture is rough yet the
staircase is smooth. Schlemmer creates
movement in the painting through the flow and
rhythm of the figures. This is due to his theatre
and choreography background. The use of light
on each figure and surface produces a soft
atmosphere. There is a good harmony between
the colour scheme as he utilises mainly white,
black, grey and blue. Although immediately the
viewer’s eye is drawn to the orange figure in the
centre, this balances the rest of the surrounding
artwork.
The sculpture above has a semi-abstract shape which alludes to the
human figure. With Schlemmer’s background of teaching form at the
Bauhaus and also use of dance, he captures the movement of the figure,
with the flowing curved nature of the object. This is emphasised by the
use of steel, which reflects light and silver tones around the sculpture
which keeps the viewers eye moving around the sculpture. Although in
the centre of the model the formal linear geometrics contrast against
curves, but the monochrome material keeps the rhythm of the overall
aesthetics. The texture is seen to be smooth because of the steel which
adds soft accents of white light. Finally space is captured within the
artwork, as the layered forms creates different shadows on each façade.