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The Renaissance
1400-1600
Renaissance is a French word that means rebirth.
It is a term that refers to that time in European
history when people renewed their interests in the
arts, science, and philosophy.
Renaissance Europe
Renaissance Economy
• The Black plague killed many of the workers/surfs who
worked for large land owners
• Skilled workers demanded to be paid – end of Feudalism
• Growth of Cities (People earning money and having
money to spend)
• Art became the way to advertise economic success
• People were united under one king and one government
instead of small kingdoms run by lords
• Kings also had stronger military due to the invention of
the long bow
The Printing Press
• Invented by Johannes Gutenburg in 1463
• Books no longer were printed by
(monks)
• More books were made
(more production = cheaper cost)
• People wanted to learn how to read since books
were cheaper
Humanism
A philosophy in which emphasis is placed on
MAN and the extraordinary ability of the
human mind.
Scholars were influenced by the knowledge of
ancient Greek and Roman civilizations and
by the emphasis placed on man, his
intellect, and his life on Earth.
The Renaissance
In the Medieval period, the church was the
center of existence.
During the Renaissance, people began to
discover the world around them and realize
that they were an important part of that
world.
The Reformation
• Emergence of the Protestant religion and it’s
separation from the Roman Catholic Church
• Martin Luther – German monk who argued that
the Bible was the sole source of religious
authority (not the Pope)
• Church services and religious books done in
the vernacular (native language) of the area,
not just Latin
A New Art Style
Lamentation, 1305
Giotto di Bondone
1266-1337
Fresco
• A Medieval artist Giotto from Florence started changing the art world
with his paintings that showed real emotion, solid figures, and
perspective.
• Renaissance artists started building on Giotto’s ideas.
•Giotto’s paintings dealt largely with traditional religious subjects.
•Bright colors commonly associated with the Renaissance were used to create
harmony through out the painting.
Renaissance Art
• Artists started studying nature and surviving classical works of
art in order to make their own art more realistic.
• Development of perspective
Linear perspective – creates the illusion of depth on a
flat surface by slanting lines that converge at a
single point.

Devised by Filippo Brunelleschi in 1413.
Aerial perspective – use of duller, bluer hues for
Brunelleschi
distant objects
• Renaissance artists started using landscapes or architecture
to give their work a more realistic setting.
• Refined the technique of oil paint (instead of egg tempera)
(colors blended in a medium of linseed oil)
Early Renaissance
Masaccio
and
Linear Perspective
• Knowledge of linear perspective (first to
demonstrate linear perspective system devised by Filippo
Brunelleschi in 1413) and architectural styles.
The viewer’s eye level (horizon line) is at the base of the cross
and the vanishing point is in the center of the line – the point at
which the lines meet.
• Light source is from the front – modeling
the figures with light and shadow
• Chiaroscuro – refers to the new technique
for modeling forms in painting by which
lighter parts seemed to emerge from darker
areas, producing the illusion of rounded,
sculptural relief on a flat surface.
• Trompe l’oeil effect – barrel-vaulted niche
drawn through linear perspective / illusion of
The Trinity, 1427 stone funerary monument and altar table
fresco
• Praying donors in front
Fra Angelico, Annunciation, 1438-45(fresco)
at the Monastery of San Marco, Florence
• Fresco (painting on wet plaster)
• Natural light models
forms
• Perspective used
to create the
vaulted porch
• Landscape gives a
Gabriel and the Virgin Mary
glimpse of artist’s
interest in nature
High Renaissance
an explosion of creativity
1490-1520
Halos gone
More naturalism
Definite light source (shadows and threedimension)
Sense of stability and order (static
compositions)
Commissions from private sources
Leonardo da Vinci
•Born in 1452 in the village of Vinci
•Began career working for a master
painter in Florence
•1478 set up his own workshop
•Skilled in many fields scientist,
inventor,as well as an artist a true
“Renaissance Man”
•Filled 120 notebooks with
drawings from his study of subjects
ranging from anatomy to nature to
military fortifications
•Invented clever machines –
designed imitation wings
The Last Supper
by
Leonardo da Vinci
Tempera and oil on plaster c. 1495-98
Milan, Italy
•Painted in the dining hall of the Monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in
Milan
•The stage-like space recedes from the table to three windows on the back
wall, where the vanishing point of one-point perspective lies behind
Jesus’ head – Natural light surrounds Jesus’ head instead of the symbolic halo.
• Jesus’ out stretched arms form a pyramid at the center and the disciples
are grouped into threes on each side – reinforce a sense of order
•Leonardo was an acute observer of human beings and his art vividly
expressed human emotion – The scene captures the moment when
Jesus tells his companions that one of them will betray him.
Mona Lisa
•May have been the wife of a
prominent merchant in Florence
•Her solid pyramidal form is
silhouetted against distant mountains
•Mysterious atmosphere
•Gazes straight out at the viewer
•Her direct stare, combined with her
apparent serenity and inner strength,
has made the Mona Lisa one of the
most popular and best-known works
in the history of art.
Oil on wood
c. 1503
Michelangelo Buonarroti
• Born in 1475 in the small village of Caprese, in Tuscany
• Worked as an apprentice to the painter Domenico
Ghirlandaio learning the art of fresco
• Studied at the sculpture school in the Medici gardens
• Sculptor, painter, and architect
• Considered himself a sculptor instead of a painter
• He felt as if he was freeing the figures that were
trapped inside the block of marble
Michelangelo Buonarroti
• Tomb monument made for a cardinal (high
church official) in St. Peter’s Church in Rome.
• Traveled to central Italy to select the marble
• Envisioned the statue as already existing
within the marble and needing only to be “set
free” from it.
• This masterpiece represents Mary holding
Jesus. She is a huge figure with an extremely
wide lap (inconsistencies of age and size)
Pieta
1498-1500
• Both are young and beautiful, more like an
ideal man and woman
• The entire sculpture fits into a smooth, simple
pyramid shape, although within the shape the
lines are complicated.
• Throughout the work, Michelangelo combines
opposites in this way, and as a result convinces
the viewer that it is both real and ideal.
David
1504 (marble 14.24 ft.)
•A model of heroic courage for Florentines
who recently had fought the forces
of Milan, Siena, and Pisa.
•Athletic, manly character, very
concentrated and ready to fight
•Infused formal beauty with powerful
expressiveness and meaning
•Example of contrapposto – a twisted
stance of the human figure where
most of the weight is on one foot– giving
the figure a relaxed appearance.
Sistine Chapel
Ceiling
•Illustrates the Book of Genesis, with scenes including
Creation of Adam and Eve, Temptation and Fall of
Adam and Eve, and the Flood.
•Michelangelo drew numerous figure studies,
devising scores of figure types and poses
demonstrating his understanding of human anatomy
and movement.
The Sistine Chapel
(ceiling frescoes by
Michelangelo, 1508–
1512)
God separating the
light from the
darkness
Creation of the Sun and Moon
The Creation of Adam
Raphael Sanzio
Born in 1483 in Urbino, Italy
Italian painter and architect of the High
Renaissance
Received training in art from his father and in
1499 became a student and assistant of the painter
Perugino
1508 – Pope Julius II commissioned frescoes for
the Vatican Palace – one was the School of Athens
Died young at the age of 37
School of Athens
by
Raphael
Aristotle
Plato
(da Vinci)
Michelangelo
Fresco c. 1510-11
Vatican, Rome
Raphael
The School of Athens, Raphael,
Mural, 1510 C.E.
Fills one whole wall in the pope’s palace in Rome.
Imaginary gathering of the great thinkers of
ancient Greece
Gesturing, moving, talking, and interacting
Gestures and expressions show us how important
their ideas are to them.
Arches frame the two most important philosophers
Plato and Aristotle who stand in the center
Architecture of classical antiquity
Perspective to create deep sense of space
The Alba Madonna, 1510
In “The Alba Madonna”,
Raphael was influenced by
Leonardo’s sfumato in the
portrayal of deep space, clear
light, and the Italian landscape.
The foreshortened leg of
Mary, her pose, and the sculptural
quality of her robes are
reminiscent of Michelangelo,
but the sensitive faces, graceful
gestures, and the balance of all
elements are Raphael’s.
Northern
Renaissance
Albrecht Durer
Born on 1471 in Nuremberg, Germany
Trained under his father who was a goldsmith
Apprenticed to Michel Wolgemut leading Nuremburg
painter and designer of woodcuts for book illustrations
Employed by Emperor Maximilian I and was granted a
pension
Produced over 70 paintings, over 1000 drawings, 250
woodcuts, and more than 100 engravings
Known as the first modern German painter to bring the
artistic language of the Italian Renaissance to the north.
Albrecht Durer
Durer’s work was influenced by his interest in humanism and
knowledge of science.
His keen observation of nature lent him to produce
extraordinary lifelike studies, superby drawn, of men,
animals, plants and landscapes.
Considered one of the greatest figures in the history of
graphic arts because of the technical mastery of his
works and his vivid power of imagination.
Albrecht Durer
The Four Horsement of the Apocalypse
• A woodcut
• Illustrates the Apocalypse, the last
book of the New Testament
• Four riders Death, Famine, War,
and Plague
• Expressive line – powerful left to
right motion of the horses
and riders by their diagonal
sweep across the picture
space.
• Less powerful zigzags of cowering
figures reveal their panic
in the face of the
unrelenting advance of the
horsemen.
The Four Horsemen
of the Apocalypse
1498
In this woodcut the aged and withered figure of Death rides the
skeletal horse, trampling a bishop whose head is in the jaws of a
monster. Cowering before the horse are figures awaiting destruction.
Next to Death, and the most prominent of the four, rides Famine,
carrying a scale. War brandishes a sword, which is parallel to the
angel above. Plague, riding the background horse, draws his bow (the
arrow’s wounds were associated with the sores caused by the plague.)
Finally, the presence of God as the ultimate motivation force behind
the four horsemen is indicated by rays of light entering the picture at
the upper left corner.
Albrecht Durer
Melencolia, 1514
• Copper engraving
• Portraying a melancholic personality (sadness
or depression)
• Represents Durer himself idle, uninspired
creator, and unemployed “genius”,
looking inward for inspiration and not
finding it.
• Idle tools : bell that does not ring,
empty scales, and a ladder leading
nowhere
• Hourglass refers to the passing of
time
• The bat in the darkened sky pierced by rays of
light contrast the mental states of black
melancholy and the light of inspiration
Late Renaissance
Mannerism- meaning simply “style”
A style developed in Florence and Rome between 1520-1600
that focused on the human form depicted in intricate poses
and in exaggerated, not always realistic settings.
Rejected the balance of the Renaissance period in favor of a
more emotional and distorted point of view.
Paintings contained artificial color, unrealistic spatial
proportions, and figures were elongated and exaggerated
Works were unsettling and strange, probably a result of
upheaval from the Reformation, plague, and sack of Rome.
El Greco, Burial of
Count Orgaz, 1586
Oil on canvas