Download Principle of Art shaped during the Renaissance

Architecture
In constructing churches, Renaissance
architects no longer used the shape of a
cross as a basis for their structures.
Instead, they based them on the circle.
Believing that ancient mathematicians
equated circles with geometric perfection,
architects used the circle to represent the
perfection of God.
In constructing their homes, wealthy people of the Renaissance often adopted a
Roman style, building the four sides of their homes around a courtyard. Simple,
symmetrical decorations--imitations of classical ones--were applied to the façades of
buildings, and some structures also featured columns reminiscent of ancient
temples.
Painting
The Renaissance painter depicted the human figure as realistically as possible, often
with backgrounds of the natural world. Science had taught the artist how to show
linear perspective--that is, how to represent objects in relative sizes so that smaller
objects appear to be farther from the viewer than larger objects. Careful use of light
and shadow (called "chiaroscuro") made figures appear full and real. Renaissance
painters not only portrayed objects with more realism than earlier artists did, they
often filled their canvases with more objects, all carefully and accurately depicted.
"Renaissance -- Symmetry, Shape, Size." Renaissance -- Symmetry, Shape, Size. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Mar. 2014.
An Introduction to the Basics of Renaissance Art
Time Period: 1400s-1600s
Background: The 14th century was a time of great crisis; the plague, the Hundred
Years war, and the turmoil in the Catholic Church all shook people’s faith in
government, religion, and their fellow man. In this dark period Europeans sought a
new start, a cultural rebirth, a renaissance.
The Renaissance began in Italy where the culture was surrounded by the remnants
of a once glorious empire. Italians rediscovered the writings, philosophy, art, and
architecture of the ancient Greeks and Romans and began to see antiquity as a
golden age which held the answers to reinvigorating their society. Humanistic
education, based on rhetoric, ethics and the liberal arts, was pushed as a way to
create well-rounded citizens who could actively participate in the political process.
Humanists celebrated the mind, beauty, power, and enormous potential of human
beings. They believed that people were able to experience God directly and should
have a personal, emotional relationship to their faith. God had made the world but
humans were able to share in his glory by becoming creators themselves.
These new cultural movements gave inspiration to artists, while Italy’s trade with
Europe and Asia produced wealth that created a large market for art. Prior to the
Renaissance Period, art was largely commissioned by the Catholic Church, which
gave artists strict guidelines about what the finished product was to look like.
Medieval art was decorative, stylized, flat, and two-dimensional and did not depict
the world or human beings very realistically. But a thriving commercial economy
distributed wealth not just to the nobility but to merchants and bankers who were
eager to show their status by purchasing works of art (the Church remained a large
patron of the arts as well). Artists were allowed greater flexibility in what they were
to produce, and they took advantage of it by exploring new themes and techniques.
Things to Look for in Renaissance Art:
Perspective. To add threedimensional depth and space
to their work, Renaissance
artists rediscovered and
greatly expanded on the ideas
of linear perspective, horizon
line, and vanishing point.
o Linear perspective:
Rendering a painting
with linear perspective is
like looking through a window and painting exactly what you see on the
window pane. Instead of every object in the picture being the same size,
objects that were further away would be smaller, while those closer to
you would be larger.
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o
o
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Horizon line: Horizon line refers to the
point in the distance where objects
become so infinitely small, that they
have shrunken to the size of a line.
Vanishing point: The vanishing point is
the point at which parallel lines appear
to converge far in the distance, often
on the horizon line. This is the effect
you can see when standing on railroad
tracks and looking at the tracks recede
into the distance.
Shadows and light. Artists were interested in
playing with the way light hits objects and
creates shadows. The shadows and light
could be used to draw the viewer’s eye to a
particular point in the painting.
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Emotion. Renaissance artists wanted the viewer to feel something while
looking at their work, to have an emotional experience from it. It was a form
of visual rhetoric, where the viewer felt inspired in their faith or encouraged
to be a better citizen.
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Realism and naturalism. In addition to perspective, artists sought to make
objects, especially people, look more realistic. They studied human anatomy,
measuring proportions and seeking the ideal human form. People looked solid
and displayed real emotions, allowing the viewer to connect with what the
depicted persons were thinking and feeling.
Examples:
Let’s start out by looking at two different paintings of the Virgin Mary, one from the
Byzantine period, and one from the Renaissance period, so that you can get a feel
for the profound transformation art went through during the Renaissance:
Madonna and Child on a Curved Throne, 1200′s. In this wood panel painting from the
Byzantine period, the bodies of Mary and Jesus are bodiless and hidden in drapery.
The folds of the drapery are represented by gold leaf striations; even where you
would see knees, you have an accumulation of gold instead of light and shadow.
The picture lacks the feeling of depth and space. Also, Jesus is portrayed as an
infant, but looks like a miniature adult.
Madonna del Cardellino, by
Raphael, 1506. Now we’re
well into the Renaissance
and the changes in style are
readily apparent. Mary has
become much more
realistically human; she has a
real form, real limbs, a real
expression on her face. Not
only does she look natural,
but she is placed is a natural
setting. Jesus and John the
Baptist look like real babies,
not miniature adults.
Raphael utilized perspective
to give the painting depth.
He also captured the
Renaissance’s love of
combining beauty and
science-bringing back things
like geometry from the
ancient Greeks: Mary, Christ,
and John the Baptist form a
pyramid.
Tribute Money, by
Masaccio, 1425.
Masaccio was a
pioneer in the
technique of one
point perspective;
the painting is an
image of what one
person looking at the scene would see. Notice how Peter, next to the water, and
the mountains are paler and less clear than the objects in the foreground. The lines
in the painting meet atop Jesus’ head in a vanishing point. It appears that the
figures are lit by light from the chapel, as their shadows all fall away in the same
direction. Such a touch seems basic to us today, but incorporating a light from a
specific source and using it to lend figures three-dimensionality was groundbreaking
for the time.
The Last Supper,
by Leonardo da
Vinci, 1498. An
example of the
way in which
Renaissance
artists wished to
draw the viewer
into the painting
by depicting a
vibrant scene filled with real psychology and emotion. All the apostles have
different reactions to Christ revealing that one will betray him. Like in the Tribute
Money, Jesus’ head is located at the vanishing point for all the perspective lines.
Creation of Adam, by Michelangelo, 1511. In this most famous section of the Sistine
Chapel, the personal nature of faith, the divine potential of man, and the idea of
man being co-creator with God is vividly depicted. So is the Renaissance interest in
anatomy; God is resting on the outline of the human brain. Michelangelo, like
Leonardo, performed numerous dissections of human corpses in order to gain an
in-depth and realistic look at the parts and structure of the human body.
David, by Michelangelo, 1504. Renaissance
artists created the first free-standing nude
statutes since the days of antiquity.
Michelangelo believed that sculpture was
the highest form of art as it echoes the
process of divine creation. His David is the
perfect example of the Renaissance’s
celebration of the ideal human form. The
statue conveys rich realism in form, motion,
and feeling. The upper body and hands are
not quite proportional, perhaps owing to
the fact that the work was meant to be put
on a pedestal and viewed by looking
upwards. Michelangelo was a master at
portraying subjects at moments of
psychological transition, as if they had just
thought of something, and this statue is
often believed to be depicting the moment
when David decides to slay Goliath.
School of Athens, by
Raphael, 1510. This painting,
which depicts all the great
philosophers of ancient
Greece and Rome, serves
as an example of the way in
which Renaissance artists
were inspired by and
hearkened back to the days
of antiquity. The
perspective lines draw the
viewer to the center of the
painting and the vanishing point where history’s two greatest philosophers, Plato
and Aristotle, stand. In line with their philosophies, Plato points to the heavens and
the realm of Forms, while Aristotle points to the earth and the realm of things.
"The Basics of Art: The Renaissance." The Art of Manliness RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Mar. 2014.