History - Renaissance

Renaissance

The rebirth and revival of interest in neoclassical art and architecture

What did the Italian poet Petrarch say on the Middle Ages

The world is about to break out of darkness... and return to the pure brightness of Ancient Greece and Rome.

List 5 reasons why the Renaissance began in Italy

1. Ruins of Ancient Rome

2. Competition between City States

3. Fall of Constantinople

4. Invention of the printing press

5. Wealth and Patronage

Explain how the Ruins of Ancient Rome contributed to the reason the Renaissance started in Italy

The ruins were studied and copied by European artists, it inspired them to create equal or even better artworks and architecture

Explain how Competition between City States contributed to the reason the Renaissance started in Italy

Cities such as Rome, Florence and Milan tried to outclass each other by producing better works of art and architecture than one another

Explain how the fall of Constantinople contributed to the reason the Renaissance started in Italy

Many educated scholars brought over their learnings of the ancient Greeks and Romans to Italy before the fall of Constantinople

Explain how the invention of the printing press contributed to the reason the Renaissance started in Italy

The invention of the printing press was able to spread the words of the Greeks and Romans throughout Italy and wider Europe

Explain how Wealth and Patronage contributed to the reason the Renaissance started in Italy

As Italy was a country that made a lot of overseas trade, the Italian merchants grew very rich and were able to sponsor some of the greatest artworks

Secular

Non-Religious

Tempera

Medieval paints that used egg yolk and powdered colours which meant changes couldn’t be made

Features of Medieval Paintings

• Near to all artworks had a religious message

• Lifeless people, similar faces

• Limited variety in colour

• No depth or perspective

• Uses Tempera

• Painted on wooden panels

Perspective

The use of perspective creates an illusion. It makes you think that there is depth in the painting and makes you see three-dimensions

Fresco

A painting done on wet or damp plaster

Features of Renaissance art

• Mostly painted on canvas

• Classical-Architecture in background

• Realistic people (thanks to the study of anatomy)

• Variety of colour

• Mostly secular subject

• Uses oil paints that dried slower so changes could be made

Features of Medieval sculpture

• Religious themes

• Lacking in feeling

• Part of a church or cathedral

Features of Renaissance sculpture

• People were more realistic and lifelike

• Stand-alone sculptures

• More than religious themes

Features of Medieval Architecture (Gothic style)

• Buttresses

• Pointed arches

• Rose windows

• Spires

• Gloomy feel

Features of Renaissance architecture (Classical architecture)

• Domes

• Rounded Arches

• Pediments

• Columns

Where and when was Da Vinci born?

He was born in Florence in 1452

Who apprenticed Da Vinci in Florence?

Master Verrocchio

Who did Da Vinci work for and what did he paint in Milan?

He worked for Ludovico Sforza and he painted the Last Supper

What did portrait did Da Vinci paint up until his death?

The Mona Lisa

Where and when did Da Vinci die?

He died in France in 1519

Sfumato

A technique that creates a fine shading using blurring/smokiness

Virgin of the Rocks (1485)

It depicts the Virgin Mary and Jesus on a background of trees and rocks, showing Da Vinci’s interest in nature

The Last Supper (1498)

It depicts Jesus and the Twelve Apostles around the table for Jesus’s last meal. It uses lines of perspective to make Jesus the focal point of the whole painting

What helped Da Vinci paint realistic and lifelike human subjects?

Da Vinci dissected around 30 bodies of men and women to get a better understanding of the human body

What subjects was Da Vinci interested in?

Biology, Botany, Engineering, Geology and Mathematics

List 3 of Da Vinci’s sketches that inspired modern-day machines

• Helicopter

• Tank

• Parachute

Where and when was Michelangelo born?

He was born in 1475

What did Michelangelo say about sculpting

He said, 'Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the job of the sculptor to discover it.'

How many sculptures did Michelangelo create?

42

How many buildings did Michelangelo design?

5

How many paintings did Michelangelo create

9

How many paintings did Da Vinci create

15-25

Where did Michelangelo carve David?

He carved David in Florence

Where did Michelangelo carve Pietà?

He carved the Pietà in Rome

Where did Michelangelo study sculpture

He studied sculpture in Lorenzo de Medici’s sculpture school

Who was he apprenticed to and where was it

He was apprenticed to Master Ghirlandaio in Florence

Where and when was Michelangelo born?

He was born in 1475, near Florence

Pietà (1499)

Pietà depicted the idealised human in the form of Mary, and she was holding the deceased Jesus in her hands, Michelangelo sculpted it out of Carrara marble in St.Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The dead Jesus was very realistic as Michelangelo had studied anatomy like Da Vinci

David (1504)

The sculpture depicted David standing after defeating the Goliath from the Old Testament story “David and the Goliath”. Michelangelo sculpted David from a block of marble in Florence that had been damaged by another sculptor

Name 2 buildings Michelangelo designed

Capitoline Hill and the Dome of St.Peter’s Basilica

When and where did Michelangelo die?

He died in Rome in 1564

What was life like for women during the Renaissance

• They were treated like second-class citizens

• They were legally subject to their husbands

• They were expected to do housework

What did upper-class women do during the Renaissance

They had a choice of marriage or joining a convent

What did middle-class women do during the Renaissance

They could work in shops (although this was rare)

What did lower-class women do during the Renaissance

They worked in the fields or as servants to royalty on-top of running the household

Where and when was Sofonisba Anguissola born?

She was born in Cremona in 1532 to a nobleman

Who was Anguissola apprenticed to?

She was apprenticed to a local master

Where did Anguissola go to study works of art?

She went to Rome

Who noticed Anguissola’s talent?

Michelangelo noticed her talent and gave her advice on her sketches

What did Anguissola mainly paint?

Self-Portraits and Portraits

Who encouraged Anguissola to become an artist?

Her parents

Who invited her to become a court painter?

The King of Spain

When did Anguissola die?

1625

Anguissola was the first (…)

She was the first female painter to achieve international fame and inspired many other women to become artists

What was Anguissola not allowed to study?

She wasn’t allowed to study Anatomy

When, where and who invented the printing press?

Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press in Mainz, Germany in 1450

What skill helped Gutenberg make the printing press?

He was a goldsmith so he was able to easily craft the individual letters

In simple terms, describe how the printing press works

1. Firstly, individual metal letters are set up on a frame

2. Then, you use a big ink roller to ink the letters

3. And finally, when all the letters are inked, you press down the frame onto paper, you repeat for all pages.

What was the first book printed by Gutenberg?

The Bible was the first book printed and it sold for 1/10 of the price of a similar manuscript of the Bible

When did Italy get its first printing press?

Italy got one 5 years after the invention and by 1500 there were over 100 all over Europe

Self-Portrait at the Easel (1556)

Depicts Anguissola painting, features dark and muted greens and blues

The Chess Game (1555)

Depicts Anguissola playing chess with her sisters on a vibrant and colourful background

Where and when was William Shakespeare born?

He was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564

Where did Shakespeare work?

In his 20s he got a job at King’s Men, a theatre company in London and worked as an Actor and Playwright

Vernacular

Language of the people (similar to modern-day slang), such as eyeball, lonely

How did Shakespeare contribute to the English Language?

• He contributed to the local vernacular

• As his plays became widespread, they helped standardise grammar and punctuation

• He created new phrases such as “in a pickle” and “with bated breath”

How many plays and sonnets did Shakespeare create?

38 plays and 154 sonnets

Where did Shakespeare perform?

He performed in the Globe Theatre in London and he attracted the masses

List some of his plays

Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Macbeth on top of many others

What did Ptolemy say about the Solar System?

He said that the Earth was the centre of the Solar System (geocentric) and the sun and all the other planets orbited around it, the Catholic Church supported this view

What did Nicolaus Copernicus say about the Solar System?

Copernicus said that the Sun was the centre of the Solar System (heliocentric), and he challenged the views of the Catholic Church, he published his findings the year he died

What did Johannes Kepler say about the planet’s orbits

He disproved Copernicus’s theory that the planets orbited in circular motion by using mathematics to prove that they move in elliptical orbits

Where and when was Galileo born?

He was born in Pisa in 1564

What did Galileo study and where did he work?

Galileo studied maths and physics and became Professor of Mathematics in the University of Pisa in 1589 and in the University of Padua in 1592

List 5 significant contributions that Galileo made to Renaissance science

• The Scientific method

• The Law of Falling bodies

• The pendulum clock

• The telescope

• Astronomy

The Scientific Method

Galileo said that scientists must base their results on evidence,“Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so.”

The Law of Falling Bodies

Aristotle claimed that heavier objects fall faster but Galileo proved that all object fall to the ground at the same speed regardless of their weight

The pendulum clock

Aristotle claimed that long pendulum swings take longer than short swings, Galileo proved through experiments that this was not true and this led to the development of pendulum clocks

The telescope

Galileo heard of a telescope being developed in Belgium, he invented his own version through trial and error and was able to discover four of Jupiter’s moons

Astronomy

Galileo used the telescope to support Copernicus’s views on the solar system, he published his findings in a book he wrote. This got him in trouble with the Catholic Church who charged him with Heresy and sentenced him to house arrest for the rest of his life, his book was also banned for 200 years.