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Renaissance period:
A basic outline
"The Renaissance was a period of exploration in many new directions - the advancement of
humanistic and scientific knowledge; the discovery of new worlds by navigating the globe; the
continued growth of cities, with wealth in the hands of the merchant class and expanding
national states; and an unparalleled outburst of productivity in the Arts.
Humanistic scholars saw the Renaissance as an intellectual awakening after a long medieval
night. They searched the monasteries for neglected volumes and studied the Greco-Roman
classics from a new view-point. After the fall of Constantinople, many Greek scholars found
refuge in Italy, bringing with them their learning and ancient manuscripts. The humanists
rediscovered the beauties of life in the here and now, rather than in the hereafter, and they
reaffirmed the ancient belief that "nothing is more wonderful than man".
The invention of printing made books more readily available, aiding in the spread of
knowledge. In the fifty years after Gutenberg first published his Bible in 1456, more books
were printed than had been copied by hand in the previous thousand years.
More broadly, humanism promoted a revival of interest in the affairs of the everyday world,
reasserted the faith of men and women in themselves, and reinforced the role of individuals in
all spheres. Writers, dramatists, visual artists, and musicians flourished. Architects were
inspired by the geometrical clarity and harmonious proportions of the ancient Roman style.
Sculptors and painters studied geometry, optics, and anatomy in order to represent the world,
objects, and the human figure in three dimensions as the eye beholds them.
In northern Europe, Renaissance humanism expressed itself less in terms of the revival of
antiquity and more in scientific observation and careful study of natural phenomena. In the
Arts this meant a shift away from medieval symbolism and heavenly visions toward a more
careful description of forms as seen in the natural world.
The position of the Church, both as a powerful political force and as institution increasingly
concerned with worldly affairs, came under close scrutiny.
Abuses among the clergy in amassing worldly goods set the stage for the Reformation, as did
the papal interest in winning victories on the battlefield rather than caring for human souls.
Reformers rejected the central authority of the Church and the mediation of the priesthood.
They held that by reading the scriptures individuals could know and interpret the word of God
for themselves.
During the Renaissance the merchant and artisan classes rose to challenge the entrenched
position of the landed nobility. This progress of the new urban middle class was fortified by the
expansion of trade in the wake of geographical explorations and by a broader spread of a
political power among city officials and councils.
With these momentous developments in thought, science, religion, exploration, statecraft, and
the Arts, the Renaissance was truly a rebirth for humanity at the dawn of the modern era.
Renaissance Ideas:
In the Renaissance, the desire for personal prestige through art became of prime importance.
Wealthy families and individuals commissioned artists to build memorial churches and chapels
as well as create statues and paintings. The high regard for individual personality is also
mirrored in the number and quality of portraits painted at this time. since artists wer so
eagerly sought after, their status rose accordingly, and sculptors and painters became
important personalities in their own right.
The religious nature of the vast majority of the works of art has already been pointed out, but
personal patronage was in the ascendancy. Brunelleschi build the Pazzi Chapel,Masolino and
Masaccio decorated Brancacci Chapel, and Benozzo Gozzoli and Fra Filippo Lippi did the
paintings for the Medici Chapel, all on commission from private donors as memorials to
themselves and their families. San Lorenzo, the parish church of the Medici, was rebuilt and
redecorated by Brunelleschi and Donatello - but the money came from Cosimo and not from
the Church. Fra Angelico decorated the corridors of the monastery of San Marco, which was
also under the protection of the Medici family. Piousness and the desire for spiritual salvation
were not the only motives for such generosity. More important was the knowledge that the
donor's present and future fame depended on building monuments and choosing artists to
decorate them.
In addition to the circumstances of patronage, certain technical considerations within the arts
of themselves point in the same individualistic direction. The development of perspective
drawing, for implied that the subject in the picture - whether a Madonna, a saint, or an angel was definitely placed in this world rather than symbolically in the next. Hence the figure was
more on a basis of equality with the observer. The unification of space through the
convergence of all the lines at the point on the horizon tended to flatter the spectator. By clear
organization of lines and planes, linear perspective assumes that everything is seen from a
single optical vantage point. While the point of view is actually that of the artist, it is made to
seem as if it were also that of the observer. By closing the form, the artist further implies that
nothing of importance lies outside the painting, and the whole of the picture can be taken in at
a glance. Since nothing, then, is beyond the grasp of the viewer, and all can be understood
with relatively little effort, the eye and mind of the onlooker are reassured.
Human figures, whether rendered as prophets or portraits, tended to become more personal
and individual. Each statue by Donatello, be it "Lo Zuccone" or his David, was an individual
person who made a powerful, unique impression. Even Fra Angelico's Madonna is a personality
more than an abstraction, and his figure of Angel Gabriel possessed genuine human dignity.
Whether the medium was marble, terracotta, paint, there was a clear evidence of the new
value placed on human individuality. Whether the picture was a disguised family group, like
Botticelli's "Adoration of the Magi', or a personal portrait, like Verrocchio's bust of Lorenzo, the
figures were authentic personages rather stylized abstractions; even though Lorenzode'Medici
was the most powerful political figure of Florence, Verrocchio saw him as a man, not as an
institution.
The higher social status given to Florentine artists was evident in the inclusion of self-portraits
in such paintings as that of Benozzo Gozzoli in his "Jorney of the Magi" and the prominent
position Botticelli allowed himself in his "Adoration of the Magi". Giberti's personal
reminiscences in his Commentaries were probably the first autobiography of an artist in
history. His inclusion of the lives and legends of his famous 14th-century predecessors were
the first biographies of individual artists. He also included a self-portrait in one of the round
medallions in the center of his famous doors.
Signatures of artists on their works became the rule, not the exception. The culmination came
when Michelangelo realized his work was so highly individual that he no longer needed to sign
it. The desire for personal fame grew to such an extent that Benvenuto Cellini no longer was
content to let his work speak for him but wrote a lengthy autobiography filled with self-prize.
The painter Giorgio Vasari likewise took up the pen to record the lives of the artists he knew
personally and by reputation.
In the late medieval and early Renaissance times, artists were content with their status as
craftsmen. They were trained as apprentices to grind pigments, carve wooden chests, make
engravings, and prepare wall surfaces for frescoes, as well as to carve marble reliefs and paint
pictures. In the late 15th and early 16th centuries, however, it was not enough for artists to
create works of art. They had to know the theory of art and the place of art and the artist in
the intellectual and social atmosphere of their period.
Roman Renaissance Style
On April 18,1506,when the foundation stone of the new Basilica of St. Peter was Laid Rome
was well on its way to becoming the undisputed artistic and intellectual capital of the Western
world. Pope Julius was gathering about him the foremost living artists in all field and together
they continued the transformation of the Eternal City from its medieval past into the brilliant
Rome of today.
Donato Bramante originally from Umbria but educated in Lomabardy, was the architect
at work on the plans for the new St. Peter’s, the central church of the Christian world.
Michelangelo Buanorroti from Florence was collecting the marble for a monumental tomb for
Julius and was about to begin the painting of the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Raffaelo Sanzio of
Umbria would soon be summoned from Florence to decorate the rooms of the Vatican Palace.
The Florentine Andrea Sansovino was carving a cardinal’s tomb in one of Julius’s favorite
roman churches Santa Maria del Popolo, where the Umbrian Pintoricchio was covering its choir
volts with a series of frescoes.
The papal court under Julius II and his successor Leo X, was such a powerful magnet
that for three years the three greatest figures of the Renaissance – Leonardo da Vinci,
Michelangelo and Raffael – found themselves at the Vatican. In 1517, however, the aged
Leonardo abandoned the artistic field of honor there to join the court of Francis I of France.
The flight of the Medici from Florence in 1494 had signaled a general exodus of artists.
Many found temporary havens in the ducal courts of Italy, but Rome proved an irresistible
attraction. Hence, during the days of the two great Renaissance popes, JuliusII and Leo X, the
cultural capital shifted from Florence to Rome. And, since Leonardo, Andrea Sansovino,
Michelangelo, and Pope Leo were from Florence, and since Bramante and Raphael had
absorbed the Florentine styie and ideas in extended visits there, the cultural continuity was
unbroken. It was, in fact, like a smooth transplantation from the confines of a nursery to an
open field – a move that led artists to branch out from local styles into the universal air of
Rome.
Such project as the building of the world’s largest church, the construction of Julius II
tomb, the painting of the Sistine ceiling, and the Vatican Palace murals could be found only in
Rome. Nowhere else were monuments of such proportions or commissions of such magnitude
possible. In Rome also resided the Cardinals, who maintained palaces that rivaled the
brilliance of the papal court.
The interest in antiquity had animated many other Italian centers, but when the
Renaissance got underway in Rome, it was, so to speak, no home soil. When antique statues
were excavated elsewhere, they caused a considerable stir. In Rome, however, many of the
ancient monuments were still standing, and when the archeological shovels probed the proper
places, a veritable treasure was waiting. One by one the “Apolo Belvedere” marble, height 2,5
m, Vatican museums Rome; the “Venus of the Vatican” and the “Laoocon Group” marble,
height 2,50m Vatican museums, Rome, came to light to stimulate the work of Michelangelo
and other sculptors. The frescoes from Nero’s Domus Aurea and the Baths of Titus, provided
the first important specimens of ancient painting. While the art of painting on fresh plaster had
never died out, these ancient Roman fragments gave fresco painting a new impetus.
Julius II had received most of his training in diplomacy and state craft from his uncle,
Pope Sixtus IV. Fortunately, a passionate love of the arts was included in this education. It
was Sixtus who had built the chapel that has subsequently carried his name. Essentially a man
of action, Julius II was an expert with the soldier’s sword as well as the bishop’s staff. He met
his age on its own terms, and the spectacle of the pope riding a fiery horse into the smoke of
battle had a remarkably demoralizing effect on his enemies. As one of the principal architects
of the modern papacy, he also saw the need of a setting on a scale with the importance of the
church founded by St. Peter and made it a matter of policy to command artists as well as
soldiers. At the end of his career, Julius II became the subject of one of Raffaels most
penetrating portraits: “Pope Julius II, National gallery, London, 100 x 80 sm.”
When Leo X ascended on the papal throne one of the saying went: “Venus has had her
day, and Mars his, now comes the term of Minerva.” Venus symbolized the reign of the Borgia
Pope Alexander VI; Mars, of course referred to Julius II; and Minerva, the Roman equivalent of
Athena, was Leo. As the sun of Lorenzo the Magnificent, he brought with him to Rome the
intellectual spirit of Florence, the latter-day Athens. Michelangelo, whom Leo had know since
his childhood at the Medici Palace, was unfortunately bound by the terms of his contract to
serve the heirs of Pope Julius, but the suave and worldly Raffael was available – and more
congenial to the personal taste of Pope Leo than was the gruff titan Michelangelo. Once again
Raffael served as papal portraitist in an unusually fine study: “Leo X with two cardinals.”
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.