The cube pattern with strong colour contrast on the ceiling of the Chapel of the Cardinal of Portugal

The Chapel of the Cardinal of Portugal is located in the basilica of San Miniato al Monte in Florence and it was built during the late fifteenth century with many fascinating ornamental factors. In this thesis, the author focuses on the ceiling design created by Luca della Robbia and especially pays attention to the cube pattern being used as ornament, trying to figure out the possible function of the application of this pattern including its representational meaning and its psychological function to the viewers.Both the tradition art-historian approaches like historical and anthropological approaches and the new psychological approach have been applied in this research.The author firstly discusses the possible origins of the cube pattern and the colour combination of this pattern, and it turns out that the cube pattern is a traditional ornament being always applied to the floor design instead of ceiling design, which made the case in the Cardinal's Chapel a quite special one. Next,...Show moreThe Chapel of the Cardinal of Portugal is located in the basilica of San Miniato al Monte in Florence and it was built during the late fifteenth century with many fascinating ornamental factors. In this thesis, the author focuses on the ceiling design created by Luca della Robbia and especially pays attention to the cube pattern being used as ornament, trying to figure out the possible function of the application of this pattern including its representational meaning and its psychological function to the viewers.Both the tradition art-historian approaches like historical and anthropological approaches and the new psychological approach have been applied in this research.The author firstly discusses the possible origins of the cube pattern and the colour combination of this pattern, and it turns out that the cube pattern is a traditional ornament being always applied to the floor design instead of ceiling design, which made the case in the Cardinal's Chapel a quite special one. Next, the author discusses the function of the ceiling and dome designs in religious buildings in general to reach a conclusion of the question what the patrons and the designer expected the ceiling and the cube pattern to function.Then, the author applies the present psychological approaches to figure out the visual effects created by the cube pattern to the viewers and how viewers could react to such design.In the end, the conclusion could be reached that the cube pattern can definitely attract the viewers attention which gives more chance for the viewers to spend more time observing the ceiling design and finally to understand the motif of the ceiling design,but if it plays an intermediary role for the main motif still remains controversial.Show less

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The cube pattern with strong colour contrast on the ceiling of the Chapel of the Cardinal of Portugal