Download The Renaissance: Context and Concepts

The Renaissance:
Context and Concepts
The Renaissance:
Terminological definition:
The Renaissance started much earlier in Italy than it started in Britain. The Canterbury Tales is recorded
at a late medieval time, this doesn’t mean if you move to a different cultural context such as the
Mediterranean that this also late medieval.

All these terms (Renaissance, Late medieval) are applied since the 19th century.

These terms are always applied in hindsight.
o
Just as the Renaissance is applied in hindsight.
o
It was first used in 1550 by a Painter

Very much reinvoking a sense of classical structure.

A rebirth, a return of classical structures.

This is of course one aspect of the Renaissance but certainly not the dominant
one.
The Italian renaissance started in 15th century, you have earlier poets of course like Petrarc, who
invented the sonnet, had a huge influence on sonneterians like Shakespeare, Spencer.

It is not because we don’t categorise Petrarc as a Renaissance poet that he doesn’t have an
influence.

The importance of periodisation.
o
So for Britain:

Before the 15th century is medieval

After the 15th century is Renaissance.

15th century to the 17th century we speak of the English or British Renaissance.
However its origin in Italy:

The Italian Renaissance was specialized in the arts.
o
Philosophy
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Inventions of scientists such as Da Vinci

o
Da Vinci forbearer of the Renaissance
Technological innovation.

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Trying to differ from the reglementation of the Catholic faith and the scheme
that the catholic faith had imposed on scientific progress.
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
Trying to evade/break the censorship that the catholic church had put on
science.
Picture:

Dynamic structure:
o
Torso:

Very realistic

Medieval sculpture would be static


There is dynamic movement in the sculpture.
Movement not only to break loose, also from authority:
o
Movement also in terms of self assertion
o
Movement to change the accepted norm of society
o
Movement to change your position in society
o
Move away from the standard form, the clearly accepted norms


The Middle Ages imposed a strict view on yourself:

We are not mobile in the Middle Ages.

You’re a human being and you are here to serve.
Movement in philosophy


Some philosopher start questioning Genesis
Movement in the natural sciences

All of a sudden more realistic demonstration in statues
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Such as the picture:

Very much in the classical tradition.

This is far from it:

The thighs, the lower part of the legs, the hands

Two faces
o
You would clearly see that there is
naturalism.

Movement in art

There is a naturalism that didn’t exist before.

Before there was symbolism, allegorical representation, abstraction that
become visual but still remain abstract.

How did sculptures get the sense of the naturalism:
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o
Anatomy:

Very simple you cut open some dead bodies.

Cutting open dead bodies was strictly prohibited.

The balance of the soul/ human body had to remain
intact. You would disturb a balance that God had given
to you.

Michelangelo drew from a large part from cut
open bodies. He did studies on original body
parts.
o
He used the dead arm, put it in certain
position and drew.
o
Quite revolutionary, artist were risking
punishment from the church.
o
Genitalia here not covered.

Pre -Renaissance

During Renaissance:

Tended not to use the fig leaf anymore.

Catholic church wanted to introduce a certain
shame.

The Renaissance this is a holistic image of the
body, and this holistic image was extremely
important.

Previously the human being had been part of a
strict order.
o
You had to contribute to society and
church and die.

In the Renaissance:
o
Individual bodies, characters
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Medieval are more types
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Individualism becomes extremely
important.
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
Holistic representation tries to contest all
aspects of the human being:
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Both morality, both philosophical and
physical.
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Mobility
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Man and woman relationship

Gender discourse is implicated.
Architecture:
High Gothic:

We do not find the style flamboyant or perpendicular style in Italy.
o

More classical architecture.
Image 1:
o
Cathedral of Reims:

Early example of perpendicular style

Started in Late middle ages => completed in high Renaissance

Stain glass windows: very impressive

Still medieval gloom in some parts of the cathedral.

But already a bit of light coming in from the beautiful stain glass
windows.

Image 2:
o
King’s college chapel:

Perpendicular style at its best

Perpendicular style is particular variation of Gothic style


High arches

Highly supported structures at the side.
The lightness of the sandstone combined with a very fine filligrane work.

The windows thirty meters tall
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Stain glass and stone => filligrane
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Morning service:

The light, how the hole cathedral is fused by it.
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
It was built in over 25 years
o


Many medieval cathedrals are not that complex
Not many cathedrals left from that period in Britain: (Bath,..)

Most of the times a underground that is Romanesque

And then perpendicular superposed

Not one is as ambitious as this one.
o
This is symbolic for man’s attempt to reach the heaven.
o
Nothing as this chapel inspired to be places of devotion, to pray.
After act of supremacy, and especially after 1534 the church possessions were
property of the crown

All monasteries were resolved, all priests had gone back to Rome.

All these buildings became political symbols.

As in the visual representation of the statue:
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This architecture is a new introduction of the Renaissance,
trying to inspire to reach the grandeur of god.
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No long limiting yourself to praying on earth alone but trying
the show to the world how sophisticated architecture and
engineering you got.
o
Breughel: Winter scene with a bird trap:

What does it tell us?

If you compare it to the Bayeux tapestry (commemorating the Battle of
Hastings)
o

One dimensional narrative of the invasion of Britain.
What does it show:
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Brueghel largely worked in Antwerp.
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Influenced painters and sculptures up to the 17th century.


One of the greatest artist of the Renaissance.
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Produced for German emperor and British court.
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Specialised in landscape and large groups of people.
He introduced for the first time people are no longer aristocratic.
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If we thing of the image of the pilgrims and the way that they
are arranged.
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
Canterbury Tales:

People on a line

Various types, remaining in line for the
pilgrimage.
o
Breughel:

People not in lines but aside, not necessarily an order.

Magnifying glass:

All the faces have individual faces.

You will also find a very great richness in colour.
o
Not found in medieval paintings, unless
for aristocratic consumption.

He painted for court and very rich merchants.

Very realistic and naturalism:
o
Doesn’t look naturalistic, but to the
court and people it looked and was
naturalistic.

We must not judge from our
own version of naturalism.
o
o
Moving away from symbolism!!!
Eve and Adam: Lucas Carnach

Eve reaching the apple to Adam but he’s doubting.

Eve then eats the apple, Adam scratching his head and of course Adam
eats the apple as well.

The faces again clearly individual:

When you compare all medieval Madonna’s or Mary’s they all look
practically pretty much the same.
o

These have individual features.
He was specialized in female nudes
o
But always one garment, an underdress.

o

Underdress was used to conceal the genitalia.
Here you still have the fig leafs.
The tree of knowledge and the animals, Eve and Adam:
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

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Garden of Eden:
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A sense of harmony between men and animal kingdom
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After expulsion they have to kill animals to live.

Before they received food.

Going from vegetarian diet to non-vegetarian diet.
Still ecclesiastical them but rendered in individualist terms.

Individualist themes

What he said wasn’t original but the way he said it was ground braking.
Queen Elisabeth I by???

There are 93 paintings of her:

On the first she looked much older than on the

We know that she was toothless and hairless and sick (picture is three
weeks before he death.
o
The hair of course is not real:

Shave the hair to escape all kinds of skin diseases and
lice.
o

She was also incontinent.
Still she was depicted as an angel.
o
She was toothless, hairless, sick at the end of her life but still
depicted as a angel. (Picture 3 weeks before her death)

Ermine

Symbol of royalty.

Here we have a combination of a naturalistic representation (look at the
face) and this is high renaissance:
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Very white
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Very strong lipstick
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Lace colour
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And then (second of combination) Ermine with crown around its
neck.
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…

Just Renaissance:

One dimensional features , it looks as if there is no perspective to it.
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There is a certain perspective but not the same as in the Renaissance

The figure of Christ is not anatomically correct.

Colour variation:

Clear colour scheme of blue and red

Not the richness in the colour as found with Carnach, Breughel or
Holbein.
o

So very early image as opposed to a late image.
Techniques change from a more scene, static to a more dynamic moving.

Moved to an individual that is truly powerful.
Transdisciplinary concept:


Rebirth
o
You also have renaiscience??? but not widely used anymore.
o
Very common in the 19th century that spelling of Renaissance.
Reawaking of scholarship
o
Latin and Greek had a scholarship, architectural scholarship, engineering scholarship,..

Through reading classical works.

Latin primarily, Greek later.
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Not many people were able to read classical Greek (improved early 17th century)
o
Most of the scholarships of the Renaissance were based on Latin


Earlier was Latin, through Renaissance
Rediscovery of ancient learning and classical Rome and Greece
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Cultures of classical Rome and Greece were rediscovered
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Bear in mind the invention of the British book
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Revival of classical cultures:

Import from Italy, then start to copy and sell them again.

Sculptures,…


Usually perfected in terms of proportion
Invigorated activity in the realms of scientific and religious inquiry
o
Explaining the Bible = inquiry
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Da Vinci:

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Helicopter, submarine
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Didn’t work but he was working on them.

He was one of many scientists.

Basically inspired and based on the work Archimedes.
Medical sciences:

Surgeries being performed, new kind of operating.

New materials, equipment being invented and applied.

Medieval:

You don’t have any professional doctors:
o


Physicists they were called.
Leech, letting blood…
More invasive surgeries:

Performed in the Renaissance you would most properly die but you had
an actual chance to survive.
o
The ‘formation” for of the individual and its detachment/emancipation from bodies of
authority:

Is the most complex.

The formation of the individual: Individuals realized, mainly upper-class
individual that they had desires and wanted to practice these desires.


There institutional aim to curb these desires for the catholic church
These individuals realized that it was an authority limiting their practices.

They started to question the catholic church and justification of various
church parctices
o
Indulgences:

Buy your ticket to heaven.

When you were rich you had to buy one a month.


If you had no money you were damned to hell.
Humanism:
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Studia humanitatis
o
The centres:
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Erasmus of Rotterdam

He was also influential in Britain.
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The subjects as such do not exist, you have to have a comprehensive approach
to ideas,
o
The liberal arts:

Rhetoric:



How to speak
Grammar

Very much in term of classical languages.

How senses worked,…

Always starting on the basis of classical authors.
Poetry:

How to read? How to understand? How to understand art forms?

Poetry comprises theological and philosophical writing, and of course
the normal notion poetry.
o
Very much like poesy: Renaissance term and a lot more
comprehensive.

History and moral philosophy

Moral is new:
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Modern branch of philosophy in a more comprehensive sense in
the renaissance.
o

o
A very clear connection between theology and a sense of ethics.
…
The ideal of the universal man

Cultivated in Italy as uomo universal


Specially by Da Vinci
These Italian scientists were competent in all these liberal arts, music,…

It was very common to speak up to ten languages.

You needed only Latin but also Greek and other languages.

An appreciation of all the cultural

The ideal of is realized in the Renaissance

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Disappears in the 18th century.
o
Knowledge explodes and universal is not possible anymore.
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Its centre in Britain was Oxford:

Second centre developed in 1600 was Saint-Pauls cathedral church
Renaissance hierarchies:
Medieval world was dominated by a hierarchy (men could not move)hierarchy that was static
In Renaissance still a hierarchy: Great chain of being

Bottom: stones, animals

Top: God, angels, men
o
Men have souls, this makes us different from stones and animals.



Highest is the rational soul

The intellectual part.

Symbolized by the brains.
Sensual or appetitive soul

Human being is an animal but it shares the life organs.

Usually symbolized by the heart.
Lowest/vegative soul:

o
Usually
You had to keep them in clear harmony.

You no longer depended on a larger hierarchy.

You have responsibility in your own body to look after your soul.

It lived in you as long as you were alive

Left you through your mouth when you died.
Martin Luther (1483-1546)

He was a catholic priest and studied the law.
o

Realised that something was amiss.

Why does the church sell indulgences

The catholic church did not encourage the individual study of the bible

You had to be given guidance.

Didn’t agree with that either
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Reformation:
o
1505 Luther is converted.
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During a storm he is touched by the spirit, touched by a preacher.
Leo X renews the practice of selling indulgences to finance the construction of Saint
Peter’s.
o

The German empire had to contribute to that construction

Wittenberg had to contribute
31 October 1517 Luther nails his 95 theses to the door of the castle church door of
Wittenberg.

Main point was that he didn’t agree and he challenged the Pope: how can you
justify all this money

Pope ignored it.

The inauguration moment of German Protestantism.

o
Swiss and others followed 20 years later.
Luther gained the support or the count of Wittenberg and some other state dukes.

And within two years Luther had broken with Rome.

And married a former nun.
o
1519 breach with Rome, as Luther denies the infallibility of the Pope
o
Excommunication of Luther and a ban through Charles V
Henry VIII:

6 wives, Tudor king

Hans Holbein

Introduces Protestantism in Britain

Dates:
o
In response to authoring a treatise against Martin Luther, Henry VIII (King of Britain from
1509-47) from 1521 holds the papal title of “Defensor fidei”

He was a defender of the faith, he wrote in 1520 a treaties

He had a close friend Cardinal Wolsey

Not a very good advisor:
o
Numerous wars with France, Spain and sometimes the low
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countries.
o
1531 separation from the Queen, Catherine of Aragon

He was catholic, she was catholic
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He had already separated from his first wife

Second time the pope refused.

He threw Catherine of Aragon aside

Anne Boleyn was beheaded five years later.

o
o
o
o
Cardinal Wolsey:

He had lost favour.

First a very close friend had engaged in a lot of wars.

Sent to Rome with the whole of the catholic church.
1531: Proclamation of Henry VIII as head of the church

Not to confuse with Act of Supremacy

He was head of catholic church in Britain until the act of Supremacy.
1534 Act of Supremacy:

Act passed by parliament which made him head of the Anglican church.

Excommunicated by the Pope.
1534-1539: Dissolution of the monasteries

New churches are needed

Confiscated all the gold of relics, …

o
Mother of Elisabeth the f

Some were kept (Canterbury, Chester cathedral)

And became very rich in the process.
Not very popular with Spain
1549 Introduction of the Common Prayer Book: needed something new.

It was in English (in the vernacular)

Luther had translated the Bible and made it accessible.
First picture of the slide:
A juxtaposition of two:

Print a woodcut

Satire
o
Doesn’t look very satirical
o
What is being depicted are two catholic priests fighting

They represent the catholic church at the time of the dissolution of the
monasteries.
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
Strive between….

New:

English as language for church practice

Catholic priests had to be replaced but not enough protestant
replacements
o
Not able to train these so rapidly
o
Lake preaching

Anyone who had enough experience reading the bible
could preach.

Catholic faith sais that you should never ever read the Bible on your own.


It should be mediated to you by someone.
Luther:

You yourself should read bible on your own, you should struggle to get
its meaning.
o
Old vs. New testament

o
…
Protestant faith preached forgiveness:

Especially under the reign of Henry VIII

He said there is no hell.

No one dared to confront him with it because he had been a defender
of the faith and believing in hell.
o
And now no hell, no purgatory. No other punishment then
execution ordered by him.

The Queen is still official head of state and still head of Church.


Same functions for Henry VIII, all a monarchy needs.
Centralisation of the money

They no longer had to sent money to Rome.

Church had lost its impact:
o
Britain
o
Switzerland
o
And part of Germany
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