High Renaissance Notes
The High Renaissance
A divide in the Catholic Church in the 14th century led to the Papacy moving to Avignon, France.
In 1420, Pope Martin V (papacy 1417-31) brought the papacy back to Rome, tasking popes with becoming patrons of the arts and architecture.
The period from Pope Sixtus IV (papacy 1471-84) until 1527 is known as the High Renaissance.
The High Renaissance is characterized by:
Self-confident humanism of its artists.
Admiration for classical art and literature.
Art and architecture that aspired to balance, order, and harmony.
Developments in 15th-century Italian art matured during the 16th century.
There was no single style, but major artists—Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Titian—exhibited technical and aesthetic mastery.
These artists enjoyed an elevated social status, and their art was viewed as divinely inspired creative genius.
In 1503, Pope Julius II asked Donato Bramante to replace Saint Peter’s Basilica with a new church.
The Pope commissioned the greatest artists and spared no expense; this superfluity contributed to the Protestant Reformation.
Indulgences were used to fund the new St. Peter’s Basilica.
The old St. Peter’s (built during Constantine’s reign around 320) was replaced by a new, larger basilica.
Bramante, like his contemporaries, was a humanist, believing in beauty through balance, harmony, and mathematical proportions.
Today, Vatican City is the smallest nation in the world, located within Rome, Italy.
In his plan for the new Saint Peter’s, Bramante adopted the Vitruvian square, placing it inside a Greek cross and topping it with a central dome reminiscent of the Pantheon.
The resulting plan is a circle inscribed within a square, symbolizing the perfection of God in Renaissance thinking.
Construction began in 1506 but halted due to the deaths of Julius (1513) and Bramante (1514). Michelangelo developed its final plan in 1546.
The Pantheon
The Pantheon’s dates from 118-125 AD, in Rome.
Vitruvian Man
Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man (ca. 1485–90) is based on writings of Vitruvius, who studied Polyclitus’ Canon of Proportions.
It illustrates the perfection of measurement through a perfect square in a perfect circle and the perfection of the form of man within these shapes, exemplifying the perfection of God’s creation.
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo believed that art was a science and science and art, aimed at discovering truth.
He studied natural phenomena (wind, storms, water movement), anatomy, physiology, physics, mechanics, music, mathematics, plants, animals, geology, and astronomy.
He left voluminous notes with sketches of botany, geology, zoology, hydraulics, military engineering, and physical sciences.
His scientific investigations were meant to make him a better painter.
He often presented himself as a military engineer first when seeking employment from dukes and courts across Europe, mentioning his supreme artistry at the end.
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452, in Vinci, Italy, and died on May 2, 1519, in Amboise, France.
Leonardo originated scientific illustration methods like the “cutaway” and “exploded” view.
Renaissance Portraiture
Humanism's emphasis on individual achievement and recognition gave new impetus to portraiture.
Following ancient Rome, portraits were usually bust-length.
Around 1470, three-quarter and full-face portraits began to replace profile portraits.
An interest in expressing the psychology of the sitter emerged towards the end of the century.
Leonardo was a master of studying human psychology through art.
The Melding of Science and Art & Leonardo da Vinci
Optics: Leonardo was interested in how the eye sees.
Drawn representations with lines and edges can be beautiful but, according to Leonardo, do not depict optical fact.
The human eye sees gradations and nuances of light, shade, and color more than definitive lines and hard edges, as seen with atmospheric perspective.
Human psychology: The expression of emotional states was at the heart of painting for Leonardo.
He wrote that a good painter has two chief objects to paint: man and the intention of his soul.
Leonardo considered the eyes the most vital organs and sight the most essential function.
Leonardo da Vinci incorporates Masaccio’s discovery of chiaroscuro, the subtle play of light and dark.
It is suffused with sfumato (smoky or lost in smoke), indicating a new approach to space conveyed by tonal degradation expressing the enveloping atmosphere.
He created sfumato by glazing, layering colored oil paint with transparent oil paint.
Leonardo da Vinci - Mona Lisa
Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa (1503-1505) is oil on wood, 2’ 6” x 1’ x 9” (present size).
Vasari wrote that the woman is Lisa di Antonio Maria Gherardini, wife of Francesco del Giocondo.
―Mona‖ is a contraction for the Italian ―ma donna,‖ meaning ―My Lady,‖ so Mona Lisa is ―My Lady, Lisa.‖
Records confirm Leonardo was commissioned to paint a portrait of Francesco del Giocondo’s wife, Lisa.
Mona Lisa’s smile results from Leonardo’s skill with chiaroscuro and atmospheric perspective.
It shows a half-length figure seated in a loggia with columns against a mysterious landscape.
Leonardo uses sfumato and atmospheric perspective to enhance the figure's ambiguous facial expression.
Leonardo da Vinci - The Last Supper
Leonardo’s The Last Supper (1485-98) is a fresco, oil, and tempera on plaster, 15’ 1 1/8‛ x 28’ 10 ½‚ located in Milan, Italy.
Commissioned by the Duke of Milan for the dining hall of the Dominican monastery Santa Maria delle Grazie.
Like Masaccio’s Trinity, it was meant to create the illusion of another room where Jesus and the disciples were seated.
The monks were to contemplate Christ’s last meal in a wall-sized painting.
The painting is in disrepair because Leonardo used a new fresco technique that did not work.
Christ is the psychological and perspectival focus.
The Twelve Disciples are arranged into four groups of three, unified through gestures and postures, showing a range of emotional responses.
Leonardo planned each disciple’s individual reaction, aiming to show the full scope of human emotion, demonstrating psychological realism.
Bartholomew, James, and Andrew form a group; all are aghast.
Judas, Peter, and John form the next group; Judas’s face is in shadow, Peter is angry, and John is passing out.
Christ is calm in the midst of the storm.
Thomas, James Major, and Philip are next; Thomas is agitated, James is stunned, and Philip is asking for clarification.
Matthew, Thaddeus, and Simon comprise the last group, gesticulating and discussing.
Michelangelo Buonarotti
Michelangelo da Buonarotti (1475 – 1564) was from Florence, Italy.
Often hot-tempered and passionate, Michelangelo was a complicated genius.
Michelangelo created works in architecture, sculpture, and painting that departed from High Renaissance regularity.
His complex and eccentric style expressed strength and tragic grandeur.
He insisted on the artist's authority and believed that an artist's inspired judgment could identify pleasing proportions.
His David captured the attention of Pope Julius II, leading to major papal commissions.
Following the death of Julius II, Michelangelo entered the service of the Medici popes (Leo X and Clement VII).
Michelangelo - David
The monumental nude statue of David (1501–04) was created from a single piece of marble.
The marble piece had a large crack and was deemed ―unsculptable‖ by Florentine sculptors.
Michelangelo’s goal was to create a masterpiece from the unusable marble.
David watches for the approach of Goliath.
The pent-up energy of David's psychic and muscular tension is contrasted with his casual pose.
David is presented as the defiant hero of the Florentine republic.
Michelangelo - Pietà
At age 23, Michelangelo accepted a commission from a cardinal in Rome to provide the most beautiful statue in the city.
In the Pietà (1497 – 1500), Mary is portrayed as young and beautiful, which was controversial.
Michelangelo explained that Mary’s ageless beauty expressed her purity and holiness.
Her son, though dead, slumps in her lap as if asleep, and his wounds are barely visible.
Mary, grief-stricken, remains composed and calm in her tender, silent sadness.
The Sistine Chapel
Construction commissioned by Sixtus IV in 1473, for whom the chapel is named.
Built between Old Saint Peter’s and the papal palace.
The chapel used the same proportions described in the Hebrew Bible for the Temple of Solomon.
It is decorated with frescoes commissioned by Sixtus IV, including works by Botticelli and Perugino.
It has served as the meeting place of the conclave of cardinals during the election of new popes.
Michelangelo - Sistine Chapel Ceiling
Michelangelo painted the 45 x 128 foot ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (1508–12) after initially refusing.
He painted a monumental fresco organized around narrative panels describing the Creation from Genesis.
The decorative scheme includes Hebrew prophets and pagan sibyls, four corner pendentives showing Old Testament scenes, ancestors of Christ in triangular compartments, nude youths in the corners of central panels, and pairs of putti.
Michelangelo concentrated on the human figure, revealing both the beauty of the body and its spiritual significance.
God flies through the skies carrying a red drapery suggesting the womb and brain, referencing creativity and reason in the Creation of Adam (1510).
Other figures behind God are human beings yet to be created, residing in the mind of God.
God’s right arm reaches to animate Adam, and his left arm encircles a female figure (possibly Eve) and a baby (possibly the Christ child).
Michelangelo - Last Judgment
Michelangelo's Last Judgment (1534-41) is on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel, measuring 48' × 44’.
Raphael
As Michelangelo worked on the Sistine ceiling, Raphael arrived in Rome and secured a commission from Julius II to paint the pope’s private rooms in the Vatican Palace.
The first room, the Stanza della Segnature, was used as a library and for signing documents; it is next to the Sistine Chapel.
Raphael painted one of the four major areas of human learning on each wall: Law and Justice, the Arts, Theology, and Philosophy.
Raphael - The School of Athens
Philosophy was represented by The School of Athens (1509), which depicts philosophers and scientists conversing in a vast hall with statues of Apollo and Athena.
Plato (with Leonardo da Vinci's features) and Aristotle are at the vanishing point.
Platonists are to Plato’s left, and Aristotelians are on the right.
Renaissance humanists regarded all figures as embodying the pursuit of knowledge.
Raphael modeled several philosophers on fellow artists, such as Michelangelo, Bramante, and Leonardo, and included his self-portrait.
Renaissance Venice, Italy
Venice is a city essentially built on water, stretching over 118 small islands.
Throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Venice was the center of the Republic of Venice, a city-state that dominated trade in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East.
After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, artists and scholars arrived from the east, and trade with Northern Europe introduced Venetian artists to oil painting.
Venice was the center of fashion, providing satins, velvets, and brocades.
The Venetian Style
Venetian artists used oil paint to render the world with greater luminosity and realism than tempera.
Emphasis on realistic details of everyday life sets Venetian painting apart from both its medieval predecessors and other Renaissance painting in Italy.
Titian
Titian’s Reclining Nude (Venus of Urbino) (1538) was painted for the Duke of Urbino, probably to celebrate his wedding.
The woman stares out at the viewer with frank sensuality.
The ladies in the background unpack her chest, suggesting she is newly married and moving into her husband’s home.
The dog at the end of the bed symbolizes fidelity and lust.
Her skin is painted with layers of yellow-whites and pinks, contrasting with the bluish-white of the bedsheets, making her seem to glow.
Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne (1522) portrays the moment when Bacchus meets Ariadne, who has been deserted on the island of Naxos by Theseus.
Bacchus and Ariadne fall in love at first sight.
The overturned vase (bottom left) is inscribed Titian F[ecit], “Titian made this,” a signature indicating the Renaissance celebration of the individual artist.
Such paintings would have shocked the common folk, who lacked the knowledge of classical mythology.
The humanist nobleman could justify owning such works as satisfying an intellectual appetite, not a sensual or sexual appetite.