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Renaissance
Art Appreciation 153
Instructor: Heidi Lung
Learning Objectives:
 Explain the key aspects of Renaissance art and
architectural theory
 Describe the role and influence of patrons
 Explain the relationship of science, humanism, and
artistic production
 Describe the materials and techniques of Renaissance
painting, sculpture, and printmaking
High Renaissance
1500-1520
In the sixteenth century, the Renaissance spread from Florence to Rome
and Venice, where the Art Super Heroes created masterful sculpture and
paintings. Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael applied composition,
ideal proportions and perspective to art of the High Renaissance.
Leonardo di Vinci
(1452–1519)
• The first true “Renaissance Man” – a person who is
omnitalented (universally talented) and who radiates
wisdom.
• Trained in Florence as a painter and sculptor.
• Leonardo's curiosity and insatiable hunger for
knowledge never left him. He was constantly observing,
experimenting, and inventing, and drawing was, for him,
a tool for recording his investigation of nature.
• Less than 20 works by Leonardo survive. Although
completed works by Leonardo are few, he left a large
body of drawings (almost 2500) that record his ideas.
• His interested included: anatomy, engineering,
astronomy, mathematics, natural history, music,
sculpture, architectures, and painting.
• He was also and avid mountain climber, fascinated with
flight and paid people to set caged birds free.
Leonardo da Vinci, possible Self-Portrait,
c. 1513
"A good painter has two main objects to
paint, man and the intention of his soul. The
former is easy, the latter hard as he has to
represent it by the attitude and movement of
the limbs." - Leonardo da Vinci
Drawing in the
Renaissance
Leonardo drew what he observed
from the world around him,
including human anatomy, animal
and plant life, the motion of water,
and the flight of birds.
He also investigated the
mechanisms of machines used in
his day, inventing many devices
like a modern-day engineer.
See the MET link for more info on
Renaissance Drawing:
Leonardo da Vinci , The Fetus and Lining of the Uterus,
1511–1513 (9-5)
http://www.metmuseum.org/
toah/hd/drwg/hd_drwg.htm
Mona Lisa,
ca 1503–1505
Leonardo may be credited with the most
famous portrait, wife of Francesco del
Giocondo, and known as the Mona Lisa
(Mrs. or Madonna “Lisa”).
An aura of mystery surrounds this painting,
which is veiled in a soft light, creating an
atmosphere of enchantment. There are no
hard lines or contours. A technique of
painting known as sfumato—fumo in Italian
means "smoke“ means only seamless
transitions between light and dark.
The most striking feature of the painting is
the sitter's ambiguous half smile. She looks
directly at the viewer, but her arms, torso,
and head each twist subtly in a different
direction, conveying an arrested sense of
movement.
Mona Lisa, Louvre, Paris
Last Supper
1495–1498, 13’ 9” X 29’ 10”, Oil and tempera on plaster
1495–1498
Last Supper 1495–1498
• Leonardo depicts Christ just as he announces that one of his disciples will
betray him, and each one reacts. Christ is both the psychological focus of
Leonardo's fresco and the focal point of all the converging perspective lines.
• Leonardo experimented with the oil/tempera emulsion that failed to bond to
the plaster. The fresco started denigrating before the end of his lifetime.
• The building was used as a stable and partly destroyed during WWII.
Behind a barricade od sandbags the fresco mildewed.
• A 20 year restoration project was completed in 1999.
Michelangelo 1475-1564
 Raised by a wet nurse whose husband was a stonecutter.
As a boy he was obsessed with carving, drawing, and art
even through his family beat him severely to force him
into a “respectable” profession.
 Michelangelo, the Renaissance genius who was a
sculptor first, but also a painter, architect, engineer and
poet. He did more to elevate the status of the artist than
any other and believed creativity was divinely inspired.
 He labored almost four years in the Sistine Chapel
painting more than 300 biblical figures illustrating the
creation and fall of humankind. Wow.
 Last Supper Monty Python Bit: http://youtu.be/
w1IJiAXjj7k
David, 1501–1504
• Statue is HUGE at 17’ high
• Marble
• Commissioned by the city of
Florence and placed in the public
square outside the Palazzo della
Signoria, the seat of civic
government.
• Depicted before the act of slaying
Goliath.
Sistine Chapel
MUST SEE! the Sistine Chapel in 3-D at this link:
http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/sistina_vr/index.html
Raphael
Emulating Leonardo's pyramidal
composition but rejecting his dusky
modeling and mystery, Raphael set his
Madonna in a well-lit landscape and
imbued her with grace, dignity, and
beauty.
Raphael was adored by the public.
Vasari wrote that Raphael was “so
gentle and so charitable that even
animals adored him.”
Raphael, Madonna in the Meadow
1505–1506
3’ 8 1/2” X 2’ 10 1/4”
Oil on Wood
Raphael, Philosophy (School of Athens), 1505-1511
Vatican Palace, Rome, Italy
Fresco, 19’ X 27’
The Northern Renaissance
Northern Europe also experienced an
artistic Renaissance, but unlike the
Italians, it was not inspired by Classical
culture and art. Rather, artists in the
Netherlands-modern Belgium and
Holland- looked to nature for
inspiration.
Portraits were painted as realistically as
possible, so realistically that Charles VI
of France sent a painter to three royal
courts to paint portraits of prospective
brides.
The new medium of oil made all of this
realism possible. Since oil took longer
to dry, it could be mixed with other
colors. Creating “atmospheric
perspective”.
Hans Holbein the Younger, The French Ambassadors
1533, Oil and tempera on wood, 6’ 8” X 6’ 9 1/2”
Note: The skull that can be viewed with a mirror in the
foreground.
Symbolism
What disguised symbolism is present in
this painting?”
Some Examples:
• dog is fidelity
• the orange is fertility
Van Eyck played a major role in
popularizing oil painting and in
establishing portraiture as an
important art form. In this portrait of
an Italian financier and his wife, he
also portrayed himself in the mirror.
JAN VAN EYCK, Giovanni Arnolfini and His Bride, 1434
The Printed
Image
Martin Schongauer was the most
skilled of the early masters of
metal engraving. By using a burin
to incise lines in a copper plate,
he was able to create a marvelous
variety of tonal values and
textures.
Saint Anthony Tormented by Demons, 1480–1490
Martin Schongauer (German, ca. 1445–1491)
Engraving, 1’ 1/4” X 9”
Four Horsemen of the
Apocalypse
ca. 1497–98
Albrecht Dürer
(German, 1471–1528)
Woodcut
Printmaking
& Dürer
Albrecht Dürer was the first
Northern European artist to become
an international celebrity. Fall of
Man, with two figures based on
ancient statues, reflects his studies of
the Vitruvian theory of human
proportions.
Fall of Man (Adam and Eve)
Engraving, 9 7/8” X 7 5/8”
the DAVIDS
Compare and contrast these works of art.
What makes them so important to the Renaissance?
Note: We will learn about
a third David next week.
Donatello
Michelangelo