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Renaissance Art
Medieval Art
Byzantine mosaic in Sicily
Late 12th century
Wilton Diptych - 1400
The Effects of Good Government
Ambrogio Lorenzetti, 1338
Art during the Hundred Years War
Early Renaissance Art
• What was different in the Renaissance:
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Realism
Perspective
Classical (pagan) themes
Geometrical arrangement of figures
Light and shadowing (chiaroscuro)
Softening of edges (sfumato)
Backgrounds
Artist able to live from commissions
Masaccio
• Lived 1401-1428
• First great painter of the
Quattrocento period of
the Italian Renaissance
• Considered the greatest
painter of his generation
• Noted for his skill at:
– Recreating lifelike figures
and movements
– Creating a convincing sense
of three-dimensionality by
utilizing linear perspective
Masaccio Self-Portrait
Masaccio
• Realism and expression
– The Expulsion from Paradise
Masaccio
Perspective
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One of the most significant discoveries in
the history of art was "perspective" --the
method for creating the illusion of depth on
a flat surface.
Perspective became the foundation of
European painting for the next 500 years.
Linear perspective created the optical effect
of objects receding into the distance
through lines that appeared to converge at
a single point in the picture, known as the
vanishing point.
Painters also reduced the size of objects and
muted colors or blurred detail as objects got
further away.
The vaulted arch in the painting to the right
by Masaccio is a perfect illustration of the
linear perspective that he pioneered.
Masaccio painted this scene so that all the
sightlines converge on a single point, just as
we would see the lines painted on a straight
road getting smaller as the road recedes
into the distance.
The Holy Trinity, Masaccio, c 1420, fresco
Masaccio
• Perspective
– The Tribute Money
– Size of people diminishes with distance
– Use of light, shadow and drama
Masaccio
• Perspective (cont.)
– The Holy Trinity
with the Virgin and
St. John
– Geometry
– Inscription: “What
you are, I once
was; what I am,
you will become.”
Perspective
Sandro Botticelli
• Lived 1445-1510
• Belonged to the Florentine
school under the patronage
of Lorenzo de’ Medici
• One of the greatest artists of
the “golden age” of the
Italian Renaissance
• His reputation as an artist
suffered until the late 19th
century
• Best known works are:
– The Birth of Venus
– Primavera
Self Portrait from Adoration of the Magi, c 1475,
Tempera on panel
Sandro Botticelli
• Pagan themes
– La Primavera
– The Birth of
Venus
• Attempt to
depict perfect
beauty
Botticelli, Sandro Primavera c. 1482
Tempera on wood, 203 x 314 cm, Uffizi, Florence
3 Graces of Poetry, Music, Drama
Nature = goddess of spring (Flora)
Botticelli, Sandro, The Birth of Venus c. 1485
Tempera on canvas, 172.5 x 278.5 cm, Uffizi, Florence
Botticelli
The Individual
• Pure visual poetry, Botticelli’s
paintings are stylistically unique.
• There is a deliberate denial of
rational spatial construction and
no attempt to model solidlooking figures; instead the
figures float on the forward
plane of the picture against a
decorative landscape backdrop.
• The forms are defined by a dark
outline.
Classical Pose
Birth of
Venus
Medici
Venus
(1st century
AD)
Leonardo da Vinci
• Lived 1452-1519
• Educated in the studio of the
renowned Florentine painter
Verrocchio
• The ideal Renaissance Man,
who was considered an expert:
– Painter, sculptor, architect,
musician, mathematician,
engineer, inventor, anatomist,
geologist, cartographer, botanist,
and writer.
Self Portrait, c 1510, Red chalk on paper
Renaissance Man
•
Broad knowledge about many
things in different fields
•
Deep knowledge of skill in one
area
•
Able to link areas and create new
knowledge
•
Why were there so many
Renaissance men during the
Renaissance?
– Lack of boundaries between
disciplines
– Knowledge was just knowledge
Da Vinci – Early Life
• Madonna of the
Rocks
– Geometrical
arrangement of
figures
– Chiaroscuro
– Sfumato
– Foreshortening
– Background
treatments
– Artists live on
commissions
Da Vinci - Milan
• Last Supper
– Used new fresco
method
– Built into the room's
end
• Light from the side
with the window
• Door cut below
• During WWII a bomb
hit the monastery
• Destroyed by erosion
Da Vinci
“Among all the studies and reasoning,
Light chiefly delights the beholder; and
among the great features of
mathematics the certainty of its
demonstrations is what preeminently
tends to elevate the mind of the
investigator. Perspective, therefore must
be preferred to all the discourses and
systems of human learning.”
– Leonardo da Vinci
Da Vinci – Mona Lisa
• Acclaimed as the greatest
painting in history
• Thought to be a portrait of
Lisa Gherardini
• The expression of the
woman, composition,
subtle modeling and
atmospheric illusionism all
contribute to the
continued fascination of
the painting
Da Vinci, The Mona Lisa c. 1503-1519
Oil on poplar, 77 x 53 cm, The Louvre, Paris
Da Vinci - Science
"'Those [artists] who are
enamored of practice without
science,' Leonardo explained, 'are
like sailors who board a ship
without rudder and compass,
never having any certainty as to
whither they go.'"
– Isacoff, Stuart, Temperament, Vintage Books, 2001, p. 85.
Da Vinci’s Notebooks
• Coded
– Read R
mirror
L with a
• Scientific
illustration
– Used science to
support art
Da Vinci – Military
Da Vinci – Aeronautics
Da Vinci – Anatomy
Da Vinci – Anatomy
Da Vinci – Technology
• Machines
• Hydraulics
• Vehicles on
land
• Architecture
• Scientific
method
Da Vinci - Science
“Those sciences are vain and filled
with errors which are not borne of
experiment, the mother of all
certainty.”
Leonardo da Vinci
Da Vinci – Legacy
• Only 17 paintings
• Notebooks
• Drawings of unfinished
works
• Diverted rivers to
prevent flooding
• Principles of turbine
• Cartography
• Submarine
• Flying machine
• Parachute
• …And much more….
Michelangelo Buonarroti
• Lived 1475-1564
• Considered a contender for
the title of the archetypal
Renaissance man, along with
Da Vinci
• The attempts of subsequent
artists to imitate
Michelangelo's impassioned
and highly personal style
resulted in Mannerism, the
next major movement in
Western art after the High
Renaissance.
Commissions by Medici
• Lived in the Medici palace
• Studied anatomy
• Several pieces for the
Medici tombs, etc.
Michelangelo
• The Pietá
• 1498-1499
• St. Peter’s
Basilica,
Vatican City
• Only piece
signed by
Michelangelo
Michelangelo – David
Return to Rome
• Worked on tomb
for Julius II
• Sistine Chapel
Sistine Chapel
Sistine Chapel
Michelangelo – Legacy
• World’s greatest sculptor
– See the figure inside the stone
and remove excess
• Painter
– Mannerism
• Poet
• Architect
• Engineer
Raphael
• Lived 1483-1520
• Italian painter and
architect of the High
Renaissance.
• His work is admired for its
clarity of form and ease of
composition
• Together with
Michelangelo and
Leonardo da Vinci, he
forms the traditional
trinity of great masters of
that period.
Raphael – School of Athens
Raphael – School of Athens
Raphael
• The Madonna of
the Meadow
• C. 1506
• Using Leonardo’s
pyramidal
composition for
subjects of the Holy
Family
Raphael
• Saint George
and the Dragon
• For the court of
Urbino
• Louvre, Paris
Raphael
• Transfiguration
• 1516-1520
• Last piece by
Raphael, left
unfinished at his
death
Legacy of Raphael
• Refinement
• Exemplar of the
Renaissance
• Expertise:
– Artist,
archeologist,
writer,
philosopher,
teacher
Mannerism (1520-1600)
The Changing Role of the Artist
• Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the
Artists, 1568.
• He believed that the artist was
no longer just a member of a
crafts guild.
• The artist was an equal in the
courts of Europe with scholars,
poets, and humanists.
• Therefore, the artist should be
recognized and rewarded for
his unique artistic technique
[maneria].
Background
• Late Renaissance [Pre-Baroque].
• Art was at an impasse after the perfection and
harmony of the Renaissance.
• Antithetical to the principles of the High
Renaissance.
• From the Italian de maneria.
– A work of art done in the artist’s characteristic
“touch” or recognizable “manner.”
• First used by the German art historian, Heinrich
Wölfflin in the early 20c.
• Influenced by Michelangelo’s later works.
Michelangelo’s
“Last Judgment”
(Sistine Chapel)
Michelangelo’s “Last Judgment”
(Sistine Chapel – left side)
Michelangelo’s “Last Judgment”
(Sistine Chapel – right side)
Features of Mannerism
1.
2.
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9.
Replace Harmony with Dissonance & Discord
Replace Reason with Emotion
Replace Reality with Imagination
Create Instability instead of Equilibrium
Bodies are Distored
Colours are Lurid
Pictorial Space is Crowded
A Void in the Centre
Hanging Figures
1. Replace Harmony
With Dissonance
& Discord
• “Susanna & the Elders”
• Alessandro Allori
• Twisted bodies or
“weight shift”
[contrapposto]
2. Replace Reason with Emotion
• “Pietà” by Rosso Fiorentino
• 1530-1540
“Pietà” by El Greco 1587-1597
3. Replace
Reality with
Imagination
• “The Mystic
Marriage of St.
Catherine”
• Parmigianino
• 1525-1527
• “Charity”
• Andrea del Sarto
• 1518
• An allegory of the
French royal family.
4. Create Instability Instead of Equilibrium
• “The Rape
of Helene”
• Francesco
Primaticcio
• 1530-1539
5. Bodies Are
Distorted
• “Christ in Agony on the
Cross”
• El Greco
• 1600s.
• An attempt to express
the religious tensions of
the times.
• “Adoration of the
Name of Jesus”
• El Greco
• 1578-1580.
• Philip II of Spain in “Adoration of the Name of Jesus”
• “The Baptism of
Christ”
• El Greco
• 1608-1628.
• “Portrait of a
Cardinal”
• El Greco
• 1600
• “St. Jerome” by El
Greco
• 1587-1597
6. Colors are Lurid
• “The
Tempest”
• Giorgione
• 1510
• Caravaggio ,The Calling of St. Matthew 1599-1600, Oil on Canvas
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El Greco
View of Toledo
1597
Oil on Canvas
7. Pictorial Space
is Crowded
• “Madonna with
the Long Neck”
• Parmagianino
• 1534-1540
•
Jacopo Pontormo, Joseph in Egypt 1515-1518; Oil on wood
• Tintoretto The Last Supper 1594
8. A Void in the Center
• “Bacchus &
Ariadne”
• Titian
• 1522-1523
?
?
• Giorgione Pastoral Concert 1508-1510
9. Hanging Figures
• Tintoretto The Annunciation 1583-1587
• “Moses Drawing
Water form the
Rock”
• Jacopo Tintoretto
• 1577