A construção da figura humana no tratado de Filippe Nunes

Abstract

The construction of the human figure in art presents a relation not only with the human’s representation but with a set of ideas e thoughts that involves religious beliefs, moral aspect of how the human being see and position itself in front of the world and also has relations with the aesthetics and the artistic style of each historical period. In 1615 it was published in Portugal the first treaty about painting. Arte da Pintura Symmetria, e Perspectiva was written by the Dominican Filippe Nunes. In this period Europe was living a crisis in relation to the religious reforms and Portugal was part the Spanish Kingdom with the Iberian Union. The Lusitanian world echoes to the tridentine values reinforced by clerics. Every printed publication was submitted to a rigorous censorship system. The Arte da Pintura presents a small volume of information that are divided in sections. There is, in the Arte da Pintura, a whole section dedicated to the division and measurements of the human body, where Nunes quotes the theory of four important writers – Albrecht Dürer, Juan de Arfe, Daniele Barbaro and Vitruvio. In front of this, the research leans over in understanding the role that the human figure performs in the treaty and how it is constructed. For such an understanding, we go through some paths such as the treaty analysis, its insertion in the Iberian world and its possible effects. We seek to discover the erudition of its author, his sources and the environment in which he was immerse. And finally we seek to understand the idea of the construction of human figure and its echoes inside Arte da Pintura.