Renaissance Art Summary

Renaissance Art

Overview

  • Renaissance: Rebirth of culture, knowledge, and glory of classical antiquity (ancient Greece and Rome).
  • Origins around 1400, with changes appearing as early as the late 1200s.
  • Marked a revolution in how people perceived the world, the past, and their relationship with God.

Timeline

  • Classical Period: Greek and Roman civilizations.
  • Medieval Period: (Middle Ages/Dark Ages) Began with the fall of Rome.
  • Renaissance: Rebirth of interest in classical ideas, ending the Dark Ages.

Renaissance in Italy

  • Early Renaissance (1400-1490): Mostly Florence.
  • High Renaissance (1490-1520): Mostly Rome.
  • Renaissance = rebirth/revival; connected with the revival of ancient Rome.
  • Italians believed art, science, and scholarship flourished in the classical period but were destroyed by northern barbarians.

Giotto di Bondone

  • Scrovegni Chapel fresco paintings marked a turning point in pre-Renaissance painting.
  • Abandoned Byzantine art conventions for greater naturalism.
  • Innovation: rebirth of all that was noble and great in art.
  • Scrovegni Chapel, Padua, Italy; Gothic architecture, construction started c. 1305.

Characteristics of the Renaissance Era

  • Art subjects not exclusively religious; artists expressed themselves freely.
  • Italian artists drew inspiration from ancient Greece and Rome.
  • Nature (including human nature/form) became the ideal.
  • Awareness of Classical revival.
  • New attitude to individual fame; artists began signing their works.

Renaissance Humanism

  • Revival in the study of classical antiquity: texts, art, and philosophy.
  • Focused on the dignity, worth, and beauty of the human person.
  • "Man is the measure of all things" - Protagoras.
  • Individual human being is the ultimate source of value.

Humanist Spirit

  • Enthusiasm to discover what man can do over what God is doing.
  • Change in social status of the artist: from humble artisan (Middle Ages) to highly paid celebrity (Renaissance).
  • Giorgio Vasari wrote The Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects in 1550 – first artist biographies and art history book.
  • Artists signed their work and sometimes incorporated themselves into paintings.

Key Figures of the Early Renaissance

  • Brunelleschi: Architecture and development of linear perspective.
  • Masaccio: Painting.
  • Donatello: Sculpture.

Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446)

  • Main figure of Renaissance architecture.
  • Inspired by classical precedents (e.g., Pantheon in Rome).
  • Used circles and squares in building plans; constructed round arches supported by Classical columns.
  • Dome of Florence Cathedral (Santa Maria del Fiore) (1420-34): largest dome in Europe at the time.
  • Innovative engineering due to the wide space.

Linear Perspective

  • Brunelleschi credited with discovering and applying linear/one-point perspective in Italy.
  • Based on observed fact that distant objects appear smaller.
  • Technique creates the illusion of 3D space on a 2D surface.
  • Experimented with depth and perspective in designing the Duomo of Florence and Baptistery.
  • Andrea Mantegna (c. 1430–1506)\text{Andrea Mantegna (c. 1430–1506)}
    Used perspectival theory to achieve radical foreshortening in his Dead Christ.

Masaccio (1401 – 1428)

  • Revolutionized painting with one-point linear perspective.
  • The Holy Trinity fresco (1426): created the illusion of three-dimensional space.
  • Aligned with church architecture for ‘trompe l’oeil’ effect.
  • Visitors feel they are peering into a real chapel.
  • Tribute Money (1427): linear perspective, aerial perspective, chiaroscuro, cast shadows, figures in contrapposto.

Donatello (1386 – 1466)

  • Bronze David: Revolutionary depiction of the nude.
  • Pose recalls Polykleitos’s Spear Bearer.
  • Influenced by classical statues seen in Rome.
  • Illusion of depth turned into illusion of real form.
  • First nearly life-size freestanding nude statue since antiquity.
  • Heroic nudity: portraying a biblical hero rather than sinfulness.
  • Contropposto.
  • Lowered gaze signifies humility. Patriotic monument.

Sandro Botticelli (C.1445 - 1510)

  • Greatest humanist painter of the Early Renaissance.
  • Represented the pinnacle of the Medicis' Florence.
  • Strove towards beauty and virtue.
  • Accomplishments: Depicted non-religious subject matter, art for pleasure not only religious.
  • Bridged the gap between the Medieval Gothic style and Humanist Realism.
  • Exploration of emotional depth.
  • Birth of Venus (c. 1482): Reference to classical sculpture.

Northern European Renaissance: Jan van Eyck (C.1390-1441)

  • Combined interest in natural detail and tactile sensibility with Christian symbolism.
  • Borrowed Italian Renaissance techniques. The Father of Oil Painting.

High Renaissance (1490-1527)

  • Artists perfected techniques from Early Renaissance.
  • Included linear perspective, accurate human anatomy, foreshortening, trompe l'oeil.
  • New styles arose (e.g., Leonardo's sfumato).
  • Infusing ideals of beauty back into art.
  • Concerned with visual, symmetrical, and compositional perfection.

Innovations in Painting

  • Trompe l'oeil used by Raphael, Leonardo, and Michelangelo.
  • Masterworks painted in oil for lifelike results.
  • Emergence of compelling portraiture.
  • Leonardo's Sfumato: translucent glazes creating gradual transitions between tones.

Quadratura

  • Ceiling paintings unified with architecture.
  • Employment of trompe l'oeil.
  • Seamless integration of painting and location.
  • Required visual-spatial skill and masterful linear perspective.

Masters of the High Renaissance

  • Leonardo Da Vinci
  • Raphael
  • Michelangelo
  • Donato Bramante (architect)

Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519)

  • Invented sfumato.
  • Studied the proportions of man.
  • The Vitruvian Man (c. 1485).
  • Last Supper (c. 1495–98): Christ creating a triangular hub.
  • Mona Lisa (c. 1503–5): three quarters view.
  • radical innovation: Leonardo has left out the jewellery and decorative elements that focused on social standing and emphasized her personality.

Michelangelo (1475 - 1564)

  • Expert at anatomy.
  • Pietà (1498–1500): pyramidal structure.
  • Favourite material was marble.
  • David (1501–1504): classical contrapposto stance.
  • Creation of Adam (c. 1510): intimate with man.
  • Last Judgment (1534–41): Second Coming of Christ.

Raphael (1483 - 1520)

  • School of Athens (1509–11): invites viewers to enter the space.
  • Reflects the humanist interest, wisdom of classical antiquity.

Donato Bramante

  • Tempietto (“Little Temple” in Italian) San Pietro in Montorio, Rome, c. 1502–3.
  • Renaissance architecture turned to the classical use of domes, capitals and arches.
  • This architecture reflected symmetry and suggested perfection.

Mannerism (1520-1620)

  • Launched an imaginative period in art.
  • Move away from authentic portrayals.
  • Rejection of harmony.
  • Radical asymmetry.
  • Parmigianino’s Madonna and Child with Angels also called the Madonna of the Long Neck (c. 1535):
  • Non-Classical proportions.
  • Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1527-93)
  • Arcimboldo, Vertumnus (1591)