Art History: Trecento to Northern Renaissance

Vocabulary flashcards generated from the Art History lecture notes covering the Trecento, Quattrocento sculpture, architecture, and painting in Italy, as well as the Northern Renaissance.

Trecento

Refers to the 1300s or 14th century.

Proto-Renaissance

The beginning period of the Renaissance.

Maestà

Meaning "majesty", refers to an altarpiece painting in tempera on wood created by Duccio, significant for its iconography, drapery, and modeling.

Fresco

A painting technique used on walls.

Illusionistic space

The technique of making a flat surface look like it has depth.

Humanism

An increased focus on humans and the human experience.

Quattrocento

Refers to the 1400s or 15th century.

Renaissance

Meaning "rebirth", an artistic and cultural movement characterized by core ideas of humanism and naturalism.

Orsanmichele

An important location for Renaissance sculpture in Florence.

Contrapposto

A natural standing pose where the body's weight is shifted to one leg.

Linear perspective

An artistic method that creates the illusion of 3D space using elements like vanishing points, horizon lines, and orthogonals.

Foreshortening

Making an object or figure look like it extends toward or away from the viewer.

Memento mori

Meaning a reminder of death, as depicted in Masaccio's fresco Holy Trinity.

Atmospheric perspective

A technique that helps create depth on a flat surface by changing how distant objects appear.

Triptych

A three-panel artwork, such as Robert Campin's Mérode Altarpiece.

Duccio

Artist of the Sienese School known for the Maestà altarpiece and his traditional style.

Giotto

Artist of the Florentine School known for naturalism, humanism, realistic space, and frescoes in the Arena/Scrovegni Chapel.

Donatello

Quattrocento sculptor known for works utilizing contrapposto and perspective, including Saint Mark and Feast of Herod.

Brunelleschi

Important Renaissance architect who reintroduced classical architecture, designed the Florence Cathedral Dome (1420–1430), and built the Pazzi Chapel.

Masaccio

Quattrocento Italian painter recognized for perspective, naturalism, foreshortening, and works such as Madonna and Child Enthroned, Holy Trinity, and Tribute Money.

Fra Angelico

Quattrocento Italian painter known for his fresco of the Annunciation that utilizes a box of space.

Botticelli

Quattrocento Italian painter known for Birth of Venus, tempera on canvas, Neo-Platonism, Venus pudica, and contrapposto.

Northern Renaissance

15th-century art movement in Northern Europe (Netherlands, Flanders, Northern France) focused on oil painting and extreme detail of the natural world, with no interest in antiquity and no linear perspective.

Limbourg Brothers

Artists who created Très Riches Heures, a manuscript illumination and miniature painting on vellum/parchment functioning as a Book of Hours.

Robert Campin

Northern Renaissance painter who created the Mérode Altarpiece, an oil on wood triptych featuring the Annunciation in the center, donors on the left, and Saint Joseph on the right.

Jan van Eyck

Northern Renaissance artist in the Netherlands who created Giovanni Arnolfini and His Bride (1434) using oil on wood, featuring a convex mirror and detailed observation of the world.