Why were many painters during the Renaissance also excellent architects?
For example, Giotto, the founder of the Florentine School of Painting, designed the bell tower of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, and Bernini designed the colonnade and bronze baldachin of St. Peter's Basilica.
In particular, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, and Michelangelo, the three masters of the Renaissance, are all famous painters, sculptors, and outstanding architects!
The answer may be found in Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece "Vitruvian Man".
Vitruvius is the most famous architect in ancient Rome. His book "Ten Books on Architecture" can be called an encyclopedia, which covers architecture, geometry, astronomy, optics, music, painting, All aspects of philosophy.
Vitruvius emphasized many times that a good architect must know geometry, astronomy, music and painting. From the "Ten Books on Architecture" we can see that ancient architecture before ancient Rome has always advocated The building is constructed based on the harmonious proportions of the human body.
This is why many great painters and sculptors are also excellent architects. That is, whether painting, sculpture, or architecture, the principle they follow is the application of the "proportional relationship" of the human body. !
For example, "Ten Books on Architecture" has begun to use the perspective of light to measure the "large and small near and far" of buildings.
Vitruvius even compared the shape of the sky to a triangle harp.
Looking back at China, the earliest complete architectural book was Li Jie's "Building Methods" during the Song Dynasty. Lu Ban, who is regarded as the founder of Chinese architecture, seems to have left no legacy to future generations except for the "Lu Ban Ruler" It was not until the Ming Dynasty that the "Lu Ban Jing" appeared among the people. Most woodworking skills were passed down orally from masters to apprentices.
During the Qing Dynasty, the second architectural work "Regulations on Engineering Practices of the Ministry of Works of the Qing Dynasty" appeared in our country. It is a pity that our huge country has only two professional architectural works since ancient times!
In his book "History of Chinese Architecture", Liang Sicheng, the master of Chinese architecture, compared the differences between Chinese and Western ancient buildings. The first one is the main material: Chinese ancient buildings use wood as the main material, while Western buildings use wood as the main material. Most of the country's ancient buildings are made of stone.
Perhaps it was Lu Ban's "myth" that led the style of Chinese ancient architecture to the direction of "wooden structure".
However, there is a group of key figures in both East and West who promote the development of ancient architecture, and that is philosophers!
Western ancient architecture, from the triangle shape of ancient Greece to the circle of ancient Rome, is actually a reflection of the Pythagorean philosophy!
The "Mozi" written in the Spring and Autumn Period of China is actually an encyclopedia comparable to Vitruvius's "Ten Books on Architecture" in ancient Rome. "Mozi Gongshu" records Mozi and The story of Lu Ban's battle of wits. In the end, all Lu Ban's siege plans were completely defeated by Mozi.
In the book "Mozi", the hanging door structure of the city gate, the structure of the city gate and various defense facilities inside and outside the city, the manufacturing technology of various offensive and defensive equipment, and Waterway and tunnel construction technology.
China has drafted more than 60 calendars in the past dynasties, among which the longest-used calendar is the "Time Calendar". Its main drafter is Guo Shoujing, the Taishi Ling of the Yuan Dynasty, and Guo Shoujing Liu Bingzhong, his teacher, was a great philosopher who led the design of the city walls of Dadu in the Yuan Dynasty.
Liu Bingzhong is the founder of Chinese arithmetic mysticism and can be called China’s Pythagoras.
Based on the meaning of "Great Qianyuan" in the "Book of Changes", Liu Bingzhong suggested that Kublai Khan set the name of his country as "Dayuan".
At that time, Liu Bingzhong personally surveyed the Feng Shui around Beijing and set the Temple of Heaven to be round and the Temple of Earth to be square, with the central axis pointing to the North Star of Ziweiyuan in the north.
At the same time, planning and construction were carried out in accordance with the guiding ideology of capital construction in "Zhou Li Kao Gong Ji", such as the "three dynasties and three gates system", which took eighteen years to build the city.
Later, Kublai Khan adopted Liu Bingzhong's suggestion and named the new capital "Dadu". Starting from Dadu in the Yuan Dynasty, the original outline of Beijing city was basically delineated.
Generally speaking, apart from the differences in main materials and architectural geometry, Chinese and Western ancient buildings actually attach great importance to the application of philosophy. The Chinese call it "Feng Shui" and the Westerners call it "astrology" .
For example, the dome of St. Peter's Basilica designed by Michelangelo is actually very similar to the caisson in ancient Chinese architecture! Both are meant to be models of the universe.
Among the ancient buildings that hint at the model of the universe, the most "popular" is the dome of the Pantheon in Rome.
But the difference is that while Western ancient architecture makes full use of geometric shapes, ancient Chinese architecture has one characteristic that has been passed down to this day. It can be called a symbolic feature of Chinese architecture, and that is "symmetry"!
It is said that the great ancient Greek philosophers Socrates and Pythagoras had a profound enlightenment while standing in front of an ancient Greek temple. Will one day, when you admire an ancient building, you will also suddenly have an enlightenment? ?