Sunday, May 15, 2011

EMPEROR MAXIMILIAN: the iconographic study


Painting By Peter Paul Rubens

His armour is an important piece of this paint. It is typical of this part of era, the model and is motifs are some of the particularity of the influence and the image of the King, Emperor or the Power. This armour is making only for one person and all the measures are taken by a confection of the royalty. The most important thing is to be more seen by the population in the territories. Each of the power members need to be seen for their money and for their power in the society.

The armour style of early 16th century was first made for the Emperor Maximilian I, in modern term this style has the name: Maximilian armour. “The armour is characterized by armets and close helmets with bellows visors, small fan-shaped narrow and parallel fluting often covering most of the harness (but never the greaves), etching, work taken from woodcuts and sharply waisted cuirasses and squared sabatons.”[1]

Basically this armour was designed to be fashion, to be visually pleasing and to procure a good protection. The style was a mix of Italian and of German style.

All the piece of the armour was worked to be confortable, attractive and protective. The fabrication takes a lot of time, but it was created in the early 1500s, so these Maximilian armour was very advances. The metal procure an awesome look, this is the major goal in the design of armours.

“Among the skillfull armours of the sixteenth century there were helmets that looked like the heads of creatures. Also visors in the shape of a lion could be found. The intention using these artistic ornaments however was not only limited to communicate fear. At the same time these precious plate armours marked exceptional pieces of artwork that should demonstrate the status of their owners. In this manner the knight was able to allegorise a totally different personality so you can consider wearing a plate armour as masquerad as well. These precious plate armours were not constructed to serve in combat..”[2]

No comments:

Post a Comment