Garter, Order of the

The highest order the English monarch can bestow. It was founded by Edward III in 1348. The blue Garter ribbon is worn under the left knee by men and on the upper left arm by women. The motto is Honi soit qui mal y pense (Evil to those who think evil).

Genius

in classical Rome, a person's invisible tutelary god. In art from the classical period onwards, the low-ranking god was depicted as a winged, usually childish figure.

genre

In a broad sense, the term is used to mean a particular branch or category of art; landscape and portraiture, for example, are genres of painting, and the essay and the short story are genres of literature.

genre painting

The depiction of scenes from everyday life. Elements of everyday life had long had a role in religious works; pictures in which such elements were the subject of a painting developed in the 16th century with such artists as Pieter Bruegel. Then Carracci and Caravaggio developed genre painting in Italy, but it was in Holland in the 17th century that it became an independent form with its own major achievements, Vermeer being one of its finest exponents.

Giottesques

A term applied to the 14th-century followers of Giotto. The best-known of the 'Giotteschi' are the Florentines Taddeo Gaddi, Maso di Banco, Bernardo Daddi, and to a lesser extent the Master of St Cecilia. Giotto's most loyal follower was Maso, who concentrated on the essential and maintained the master's high seriousness.

gisant

French term used from the 15th century onwards for a lying or recumbent effigy on a funerary monument. The gisant typically represented a person in death (sometimes decomposition) and the gisant position was contrasted with the orant, which represented the person as if alive in a kneeling or praying position. In Renaissance monuments gisants often formed part of the lower register, where the deceased person was represented as a corpse, while on the upper part he was represented orant as if alive.

glaze

paint applied so thinly that the base beneath it is visible through the layer.

glory

(1) The supernatural radiance surrounding a holy person.

(2) To have the distinction of one's deeds recognized in life and to be revered for them posthumously: this was glory. The nature of true gloria was much discussed, whether it must be connected with the public good, whether the actions that led to it must conform with Christian ethics, how it differed from notoriety. The concept did not exclude religious figures (the title of the church of the Frari in Venice was S. Maria Gloriosa), but it was overwhelmingly seen in terms of secular success and subsequent recognition, as determining the lifestyles of the potent and the form of their commemoration in literature, in portraits and on tombs. As such, it has been taken as a denial of medieval religiosity ('sic transit gloria mundi'), and thus a hallmark of Renaissance individual ism; as a formidable influence on cultural patronage; and as spurring on men of action, as well as writers and artists, to surpass their rivals - including their counterparts in antiquity.

Gobelins

French tapestry manufactory, named after a family of dyers and clothmakers who set up business on the outskirts of Paris in the 15th century. Their premises became a tapestry factory in the early 17th century, and in 1662 it was taken over by Louis XIV, who appointed Lebrun Director. Initially it made not only tapestries but also every kind of product (except carpets, which were woven at the Savonnerie factory) required for the furnishing of the royal palaces — its official title was Manufacture royale des meubles de la Couronne. The celebrated tapestry designed by Lebrun showing Louis XIV Visiting the Gobelins (Gobelins Museum, Paris, 1663-75) gives a good idea of the range of its activities. In 1694 the factory was closed because of the king's financial difficulties, and although it reopened in 1699, thereafter it made only tapestries. For much of the 18th century it retained its position as the foremost tapestry manufactory in Europe. 0udry and Boucher successively held the post of Director (1733-70). The Gobelins continues in production today and houses a tapestry museum.

Golden Fleece, Order of the Golden Fleece

a noble chivalric order, still in existence today, founded by Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy in 1430 in honor of the Apostle Andrew, for the defence of the Christian faith and the Church. In allusion to the legend of Jason and the Argonauts, the symbol of the order is a golden ram's fleece drawn through a gold ring.

golden section (Lat. sectio aurea)

In painting and architecture, a formula meant to provide the aesthetically most satisfying proportions for a picture or a feature of a building. The golden section is arrived at by dividing a line unevenly so that the shorter length is to the larger as the larger is to the whole. This ratio is approximately 8:13. The golden section (sometimes known as the golden mean), which was thought to express a perfect harmony of proportions, played an important role in Renaissance theories of art.

gonfalonier

Italian gonfaloniere ("standard bearer"), a title of high civic magistrates in the medieval Italian city-states.

In Florence the gonfaloniers of the companies (gonfalonieri di compagnia) originated during the 1250s as commanders of the people's militia. In the 1280s a new office called the gonfalonier of justice (gonfaloniere di giustizia) was instituted to protect the interests of the people against the dominant magnate class. The holder of this office subsequently became the most prominent member of the Signoria (supreme executive council of Florence) and formal head of the civil administration. In other Italian cities, the role of the gonfaloniers was similar to that in Florence. Gonfaloniers headed the militia from the various city quarters, while the gonfalonier of justice often was the chief of the council of guild representatives.

The kings of France traditionally bore the title gonfalonier of St. Denis. The honorary title of gonfalonier of the church (vexillifer ecclesiae) was conferred by the popes, from the 13th until the 17th century, on sovereigns and other distinguished persons.

Gothic

Gothic, which may well have originated with Alberti as a derogatory term and which certainly corresponds to Vasari's 'maniera tedesca' ('German style'), is properly the descriptive term for an artistic style which achieved its first full flowering in the Ile de France and the surrounding areas in the period between c. 1200 and c. 1270, and which then spread throughout northern Europe. It is characterized by the hitherto unprecedented integration of the arts of sculpture, painting, stained glass and architecture which is epitomized in the great cathedrals of Chartres, Amiens, and Reims or in the Sainte Chapelle in Paris. In all the arts the predominantly planar forms of the Romanesque are replaced by an emphasis on line. There is a transcendental quality, whether in the soaring forms of the pointed arches or in the new stress on the humanity of Christ, which similarly distinguishes it from the preceding Romanesque style.

In thinking of Nicola (d. c. 1284) or Giovanni Pisano (d. after 1314) there is same danger of forgetting what had happened in French sculpture half a century or more earlier, and likewise it is hard to remember that the spectacular achievements of early Renaissance art are a singularly localized eddy in the continuing stream of late gothic European art. By northern European standards few Italian works of art can be called gothic without qualification, and the story of 13th and 14th century Italian architecture is as much one of resistance to the new style as of its reception, whether directly from France or through German or central European intermediaries. In sculpture and in painting, the Italian reluctance to distort the human figure, conditioned by a never wholly submerged awareness of the omnipresent antique heritage, gives a special quality to the work of even those artists such as Giovanni Pisano or Simone Martini who most closely approached a pure gothic style.

Nevertheless, the vitalizing role of Northern gothic art throughout the early Renaissance and the period leading up to it should never be underestimated. The artistic, like the cultural and commercial, interaction was continuous and much of the Italian achievement is incomprehensible if seen in isolation. It is not merely at the level of direct exchanges between one artist and another, or the influence of one building; painting, manuscript or piece of sculpture upon another, that the effects are to be felt. The streaming quality of line which is so characteristic of Brunelleschi's early Renaissance architecture surely reflects a sensitivity to the gothic contribution which is entirely independent of, and lies much deeper than, the superficial particularities of form.

The counterflow of influence and inspiration from South to North must likewise not be underrated. In particular, the contribution of Italian painters from Duccio and Simone Martini onwards is central to the evolution of the so-called International Gothic style developing in Burgundy, Bohemia and north Italy in the late 14th and early 15th centuries.

gouache

Gouache is opaque watercolour, known also as poster paint and designer's colour. It is thinned with water for applying, with sable- and hog-hair brushes, to white or tinted paper and card and, occasionally, to silk. Honey, starch, or acrylic is sometimes added to retard its quick-drying property. Liquid glue is preferred as a thinner by painters wishing to retain the tonality of colours (which otherwise dry slightly lighter in key) and to prevent thick paint from flaking. Gouache paints have the advantages that they dry out almost immediately to a mat finish and, if required, without visible brush marks. These qualities, with the capacities to be washed thinly or applied in thick impasto and a wide colour range that now includes fluorescent and metallic pigments, make the medium particularly suited to preparatory studies for oil and acrylic paintings. It is the medium that produces the suede finish and crisp lines characteristic of many Indian and Islamic miniatures, and it has been used in Western screen and fan decoration and by modern artists such as Rouault, Klee, Dubuffet, and Morris Graves.

Grand Manner

Term applied to the lofty and rhetorical manner of history painting that in academic theory was considered appropriate to the most serious and elevated subjects. The classic exposition of its doctrines is found in Reynolds's Third and Fourth Discourses (1770 and 1771), where he asserts that 'the gusto grande of the Italians, the beau idéal of the French, and the great style, genius, and taste among the English, are but different appellations of the same thing'. The idea of the Grand Manner took shape in 17th-century Italy, notably in the writings of Bellori. His friend Poussin and the great Bolognese painters of the 17th century were regarded as outstanding exponents of the Grand Manner, but the greatest of all was held to be Raphael.

Grand Tour

An extensive journey to the Continent, chiefly to France, the Netherlands, and above all Italy, sometimes in the company of a tutor, that became a conventional feature in the education of the English gentleman in the 18th century. Such tours often took a year or more. It had a noticeable effect in bringing a more cosmopolitan spirit to the taste of connoisseurs and laid the basis for many collections among the landed gentry. It also helped the spread of the fashion for Neoclassicism and an enthusiasm for Italian painting. Among the native artists who catered for this demand were Batoni, Canaletto, Pannini, and Piranesi, and British artists (such as Nollekens) were sometimes able to support themselves while in Italy by working for the dealers and restorers who supplied the tourist clientele. There was also a flourishing market in guide books.

Greek cross

A cross with four arms of equal length.

graphic art

Term current with several different meanings in the literature of the visual arts. In the context of the fine arts, it most usually refers to those arts that rely essentially on line or tone rather than colour — i.e. drawing and the various forms of engraving. Some writers, however, exclude drawing from this definition, so that the term 'graphic art' is used to cover the various processes by which prints are created. In another sense, the term — sometimes shortened to 'graphics' — is used to cover the entire field of commercial printing, including text as well as illustrations.

grisaille (Fr. gris, "gray")

A painting done entirely in one colour, usually gray. Grisaille paintings were often intended to imitate sculpture.

Guelfs and Ghibellines

Italian political terms derived from the German Welf, a personal and thence family name of the dukes of Bavaria, and Waiblingen, the name of a castle of the Hohenstaufen dukes of Swabia apparently used as a battle cry. Presumably introduced into Italy 1198-1218, when partisans of the Emperor Otto IV (Welf) contested central Italy with supporters of Philip of Swabia and his' nephew Frederick II, the terms do not appear in the chronicles until the Emperor Frederick's conflict with the Papacy 1235-50, when Guelf meant a supporter of the Pope and Ghibelline a supporter of the Empire. From 1266 to 1268, when Naples was conquered by Charles of Anjou, brother of Louis IX, the French connection became the touchstone of Guelfism, and the chain of Guelf alliances stretching from Naples, through central Italy, to Provence and Paris, underwritten by the financial interests of the Tuscan bankers, became an abiding feature of European politics. The Italian expeditions of Henry of Luxemburg (1310-13) and Lewis of Bavaria (1327-29) spread the terms to northern Italy, with the Visconti of Milan and the della Scala of Verona emerging as the leading Ghibelline powers. Attempts by Guelf propagandists to claim their party as the upholder of liberty and their opponents as the protagonists of tyranny rarely coincide with the truth: power politics, then as now, generally overrode ideology in inter-state affairs.

Factional struggles had existed within the Italian states from time immemorial, the parties taking a multitude of local names. In Florence, however, Guelf and Ghibelline were applied to the local factions which supposedly originated in a feud between the Buondelmonte and Amidei clans, c. 1216. In 1266-67 the Guelf party, which had recruited most of the merchant class, finally prevailed over the predominantly noble Ghibellines; after this, internal factions in Florence went under other names, like the Blacks and the Whites who contested for control of the commune between 1295 and 1302. Meanwhile the Parte Guelfa had become a corporate body whose wealth and moral authority as the guardian of political orthodoxy enabled it to play the part of a powerful pressure group through most of the 14th century. After the War of the Eight Saints, the influence of the Parte declined rapidly. Although its palace was rebuilt c. 1418-58 to the designs of Brunelleschi, it had no part in the conflicts surrounding the rise of the Medici régime.

guild

An association of the masters of a particular craft, trade or profession (painters, goldsmiths, surgeons, and so on) set up to protect its members' rights and interests. Such guilds existed in virtually every European city in the 16th century. The guild also monitored standards of work, acted as a court for those who brought their trade into disrepute, and provided assistance to members in need.

guilds (in Italy)

Guilds were essentially associations of masters in particular crafts, trades, or professions. In Italy they go back a long way; there is documentary evidence of guilds in 6th century Naples. In origin they were clubs which observed religious festivals together and attended the funerals of their members, but in time they acquired other functions. Their economic function was to control standards and to enforce the guild's monopoly of particular activities in a particular territory. Their political function was to participate in the government of the city-state. In some cities, notably Florence in the 14th century, only guildsmen were eligible for civic office, thus excluding both noblemen (unless they swallowed their pride and joined, as some did), and unskilled workers like the woolcombers and dyers. In Florence in 1378 these groups demanded the right to form their own guilds, and there were similar movements of protest in Siena and Bologna.

Guilds were also patrons of art, commissioning paintings for guildhalls, contributing to the fabric fund of cathedrals and collaborating on collective projects like the statues for Orsanmichele at Florence. The guilds were not equal. In Florence, the 7 'Greater Guilds', including such prestigious occupations as judges and bankers, outranked the 14 'Lesser Guilds', and in general the guild hierarchy was reflected in the order of precedence in processions. The great age of the guilds was the 13th and 14th centuries. The economic recession after 1348 meant fewer opportunities for journeymen to become masters, and greater hostility between master and man. The shift from trade to land in the 15th and 16th centuries meant a decline in the social standing of the crafts. In some towns, such as Brescia and Vicenza, guild membership actually became a disqualification instead of a qualification for municipal office. The guilds lost their independence and became instruments of state control. In 16th century Venice, for example, they were made responsible for supplying oarsmen for the galleys of the state.