Download Art History – Precursors of the Renaissance.

The
Renaissance
Basic Questions to hit key
themes
1. What is the Renaissance?
2. Where did the Renaissance come from?
3. Did the Renaissance effect all people in the
same way?
4. How were the Renaissance of the North
and South Different?
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Southern Renaissance
Humanism
Secularism
Individualism
Classical Values
Northern Renaissance
Christian Humanism
Thomas More
Utopia
Desiderius
Erasmus
Secularism
Individualism
Classical Values
In Praise of
Folly
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Petrarch – Father of Humanism
• 1333 – Found 2 lost manuscripts of Cicero &
spent the rest of his life collecting more.
– Library contained: all available works of great
Roman poets, Iliad, Odyssey, Aristotle’s main
books, St. Augustine’s Confessions, the Divine
Comedy (Dante), The Decameron (Boccaccio).
• 1341 – Named Poet Laureate of Rome.
– Some say this was the start of the Renaissance
– Wrote love poetry, biographies of heroes, obsessed
with fame, debated qualities of good literature
with Boccaccio. Big impact on literature!
– The works of Petrarch, Dante, and Boccaccio
developed the English language.
• Near the end of his life said “I do not ask to
be God and possess eternity & fill heaven
and earth. Human glory is enough for me.”
Background to the Italian
Renaissance
• Italian City-States
– Not ruled by a single monarch.
– Wealthy from trade.
– Lots of autonomy; different kinds of governments developed
(monarchies, papal states, or republics).
– States named after the city that ruled them (ex: Florence).
• New Social Classes due to concentration of wealth &
power
– Land = wealth in Middle Ages. Held by Nobles only.
– Now, Wealth mostly in hands of non-aristocrats.
– Nobility borrowed money to gamble, party, fight wars, etc. &
defaulted on loans.
• Lost parts of their lands to wealthy bankers.
• By the end of the 15th c. most wealth transferred from nobles
(including Pope) to commercial class.
3
Hierarchy of Renaissance
Italy
5 Classes, but different around Italy.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
•
TOP: Old Nobility & Merchant Class that ruled the
cities.
Emerging capitalist and bankers that identified with
lower class, but wanted to be as powerful as top
class.
Less wealthy merchants and trades-people
Poor & destitute. 25% - 35% of urban population.
Domestic Slaves. Few in number. Reintroduction of
slavery as an economic practice to Europe.
Lowest three classes resented the top two.
4
Florence, Italy & The Medici Family
• Rise of Towns & Town government =
regular citizens in government.
• Florence, Italy: Merchants became
more powerful than nobles (and
often wealthier).
– 1400s: One powerful banking family
too control of the Florentine
government after 200 years of citizen
control (republican government).
• Cosimo de Medici 
– Richest man in Europe
– Dictator of Florence for 30 years.
– Patron of the arts.
•
The Italian Renaissance
• “Renaissance” – French for “rebirth” (rinascimento in Italian).
• Italy was the logical starting place as Rome was part of its history.
– Specifically Florence; home to Dante, Machiavelli, Boccaccio, the
Medicis. Center of trade. Roman ruins.
• Other later Renaissances:
– English Renaissance 16th – 17th c.
– German Renaissance 15th – 16th c.
– Northern Renaissance after 1500
– French Renaissance 15th – 17th c.
– Renaissance in the Netherlands 1500s
– Polish Renaissance 15th -16th
– Spanish Renaissance 15th – 16th c.
– Renaissance architecture in Eastern Europe 1500s
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Art History –
Precursors of the
Renaissance.
• 11th –12th centuries, Italy was
mostly influenced by
Byzantine Art.
• By the 13th century shifts in
W. European Art.
• Classic Byzantine Image
– Traits?
Precursors of the Renaissance
• Giotto di Bondone
(c. 1267-1337)
• created new developments.
• Born near Florence (center
of Renaissance culture)
• “Brought the art of
painting out of Medieval
darkness and into daylight”
- Boccaccio
• Petrarch (father of
humanism) owned one of
his pieces
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Cimabue c. 1280-90 vs. Giotto c. 1310
Duccio, Kiss of Judas, 1308-11 vs.
Giotto, Kiss of Judas, 1305
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Early 15th Century
Painting
• Masaccio (1401-c.1428)
– Used innovations of Giotto
– Developed a revolutionary
new monumental style with
scientific perspective.
– Single vanishing point would
be at eye level of the
observer.
– “Reminder of death”
– Realism
• The Holy Trinity
– In the church of Santa Maria
Novella in Florence,
commissioned by the Lenzi
family
Filippo Lippi c. 1406-69
Madonna and Child with Scenes from the Life of Saint Anne
(1450s). Pitti Palace, Florence
• Lippi was an orphan
– grew up in a
monastery that had
Masaccio’s frescoes.
• Christ with a
pomegranate
• Passing of time –
Perspective
• Individualism – Mary
• Classical Values
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• Andrea Mantegna
– Northern Italy’s leading
painter in the late 1400s.
• Ceiling of the Camera
degli Sposi, Ducal Palace,
Mantua, Italy. 1474.
Fresco .
– Shows the artists humor.
– New perspective; illusion
Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510)
Birth of Venus 1482
commissioned by the Medici Family
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Jan van Eyck
(c. 1380/90 – 1441)
Arnolfini Portrait
The High Renaissance in Italy
late 15th into 16th c.
• Age of great accomplishments in Western Art
• Politically: time of tension and turbulence.
• Ambitious & odd popes, made Rome the artistic center of Italy
– Alexander VI, Julius II, Leo X
• Goals: Reassert authority over all Christians, stamp out heresy
& bring uniformity to Christian belief, hold political power
over Papal States, Drive Ottoman Turks out of Europe (it
seemed as if they would take over Europe).
– Popes = very politically active; criticized by Northern
Humanists.
– These popes were also patrons to some of the best
Renaissance artists. (Julius II hired Michelangelo to paint the
Sistine Chapel)
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Artists of the High Renaissance
• Time period dominated by a small number of
powerful artistic personalities.
– Leonardo da Vinci (Florentine)
– Bramante (Roman)
– Michelangelo (Florentine)
– Raphael (Florentine)
– Giorgione (Venetian)
– Titian (leader of the Venetian school)
• Only Titian and Michelangelo lived beyond 1520, when
new artistic styles began to emerge and the short
period of the High Renaissance ended.
Donatello
• Focus on human body
• Focus on Personality
• David as a boy
(became King of Israel)
• 1460s
• First European
sculpture of large, freestanding nude since
ancient times.
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Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)
• Embryo in the Womb
c. 1510,
• Many Renaissance
artists studied human
anatomy
• Leonardo studied
musculature and the
reproductive,
digestive &
respiratory systems.
– More than artistic
interest!
The Last Supper
(c. 1495-98)
• Individualism
• Classical Values
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The Mona Lisa c. 1503-5
• Use of nature, architecture,
human form, geometry, &
character.
• Repeated shapes and colors
– landscape reflects
Leonardo’s description of
the human body as a
metaphor for the earth
(flesh = soil, bones = rocks,
blood = waterways)
Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564)
Pieta (1498-1500) Marble
• Architect, painter, writer, but
mostly saw himself as a
sculptor
• Talent recognized by the
Medici family before he was
16
– They paid for his education
(exposed him to classical art &
humanist thought)
• Moved to Rome to work for
the Pope
• Pieta was his first
monumental work & his only
signed work.
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David 1501-1504
•Michelangelo was 26 when
he created this.
•Commissioned by a
Church (wanted biblical
heroes)
•Biblical King David
•Before the fight – thinking
about the battle.
•Came to symbolize the
fight of Florence to stay a
free Republic.
•Chest & hands are larger
than normal.
Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel,
Vatican, Rome 1508-12
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Creation of Adam
• Most famous image from the Sistine
Chapel
• Is God
giving him
life… or
knowledge?
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Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio)
(1483-1520) The School of Athens
Who’s who in the School of Athens?
2. Epicurus, 6. Pythagoras, 7. Alcibiades or Alexander the
Great, 12. Socrates, 13. Heraclitus (Michelangelo), 14.
Plato (Leonardo da Vinci), 15. Aristotle, 18. Euclid
(Bramante), 19. Zoroaster, 20. Ptolemy. R = Raphael
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Bramante
Giorgione
Titian
The Downside of the Renaissance.
• The Renaissance didn’t introduce only good
cultural phenomena
– More volatile class division due to quick growing wealth
of some.
– Legal status of women declined severely.
– Slavery reintroduced.
• Slavery reintroduced as early as 1100s.
– Spanish started as key slave traders, but Italians
became large consumers of human slaves as city-states
grew.
– Not yet racial slavery. Most were Muslims from Spain,
North Africa, Crete, Balkans, and Ottoman Empire.
– Very few black slaves in Iberian Peninsula & Italy.
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The Downside of the Renaissance.
• Slaves in Italy
– Most were domestic servants
– Most wealthy in cities had at least one
– When purchased owner got full rights, including right to
sell and “enjoy” the slave.
– Slaves children were born free.
– If a slave owner & slave had a child, the slave owner
would raise the child as a legitimate.
• Slavery outside of Italy
– Venetian sugar cane plantations on Cyprus and Crete
– New kind of “plantation slavery” developed
– Sugar is labor intensive & the cheapest labor was
needed.
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