The Renaissance in Italy and Northern Europe II Renaissance Art

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The Renaissance in Italy and Northern Europe
IIRenaissance Art

• WHGCEs
• Era 5
• Craig Benjamin

Piazza dei Signori, Florence
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Introduction Art Beyond Italy

• Outside of Italy during the 14th and 15th
  Centuries there was a continuation of Gothic Art
• In painting and sculpture this meant a continued
  emphasis on unrealistic and lifeless detail
• In architecture a further elaboration of the
  Gothic cathedral style

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Italian Renaissance Art

• In 14th and 15th Century Italy, however,
  innovations took place that culminated in the
  classic High Renaissance style of the 16th
  Century
• This art was the product of a new society
  centered in wealthy cities, of the humanist
  spirit in thought and education, and of a revived
  interest in the classical art of Greece and Rome

Inside St. Peters, Vatican
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To Include

• Part One Florentine Artists of the Italian
  Renaissance
• Part Two The Venetian School
• Part Three Artists of the Northern Renaissance

Albrecht Durer Self Portrait
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PART ONE FLORENTINE RENAISSANCE ARTISTS

• The greatest figure in the transitional paintings
  of the 14th Century was the Florentine painter
  Giotto (1266-1337)
• It has been said that he achieved little less
  than the resurrection of painting from the dead
• Earlier Italian painters had copied the
  unrealistic, lifeless, flat and rigidly formulaic
  images of the Byzantines
• But Giotto observed from real life and painted a
  three-dimensional world peopled with believable
  humans moved by deep emotion

Giotto Detail from a fresco in the Basilica of
St. Francis, Assisi
quadernet.antville.org
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The Humanization of Art

• In many ways Giotto humanized painting in the
  same way Petrarch humanized thought
• And also in the same way that St. Francis (whose
  life was one of Giottos favorite subjects) had
  humanized religion
• Giotto also the pioneer in a new epoch in
  painting, which fused everyday reality with
  religious piety

Giotto. St. Francis Giving His Cloak to a Poor
Man. 1295-1300. Fresco. St. Francis, Upper
Church, Assisi
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Giotto The Mourning of Christ (1305)
www.princeton.edu
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Quattrocento Painting- Masaccio

• From the early 1400s (the quattrocento) a series
  of great masters emerged in Italy influenced by
  Giotto
• Masaccio (1401-1428) mastered technical problems
  of perspective, anatomical naturalism and the
  modeling of figures through light in shade
  (chiaroscuro)
• Painted nude figures, reversing the trend of
  Christian art and recapturing the classical ideal
  of the nude

Massaccio Expulsion from Eden (1425) Brancacci
Chapel, Florence
www2.gasou.edu
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Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506)
The Lamentation over the Dead Christ c. 1490
Tempera on canvas, 68 x 81 cmPinacoteca di
Brera, Milan

• Mantegna and della Francesca were superb
  technicians who mastered perspective and used
  science and mathematical precision to achieve
  realism
• Mantegnas painting of Christ lying on a marble
  slab demonstrates his mastery of perspective

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Piero della Francesco (1420-1492)

• Della Francesca was scientific in his approach to
  paining, leading to a neglect of motion
• His paintings are thus more abstract in
  realization

Left Portrait of Battista Sforza, Duchess of
Urbina Tempera on panel Right Portrait of
Federico da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbina Tempera
on panel
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Botticelli

• Sandro Botticelli (1447-1510) abandoned the
  techniques of straightforward representation and
  used a more sensitive line to capture emotion
• Associated with the Platonic Academy in Florence
  - Christian faith was fused with pagan mythology
• Birth of Venus depicts the goddess of love rising
  from the sea, but she is so ethereal as to
  symbolize a higher kind of divine and Platonic
  love

www.luminarium.org
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Botticelli The Birth of Venus
Uffizi Gallery, Florence
www.st.hirosaki-u.ac.jp
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New Directions in Sculpture

• Renaissance sculptors looked back to the
  classical past, and then related this to
  contemporary experience
• Florentine Ghiberti (1378-1455) strove to imitate
  nature with accurate perspective in a magnificent
  pair of bronze doors he created for the Bapistry
• Michelangelo later declared they were worthy to
  be the gates of Paradise, with their skillful
  relief depictions of small, modeled human figures
• His younger contemporary Donatello (1386-1466)
  produced free-standing figures based on an
  accurate representation of human anatomy,
  particularly his David

Ghiberti Bapistry Doors, Florence
www.mce.k12tn.net/renaissance
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Ghiberti and Donatello Masters of Bronze
Ghiberti Detailed panel from the Bapistry doors
Donatello David
www.sulinet.hu
www.prometheus-imports.com
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Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446)

• Renaissance architects represented the influence
  of ancient Rome even more than the sculptors
• Brunelleschi mastered the principles of classical
  architecture, and then won a contract to
  construct the dome of the cathedral in Florence
• This was the first dome built since Roman times
• By employing Roman arches, Roman pediments and
  Roman columns, Brunelleschi recaptured the spirit
  of classicism in a style that was fresh, modern
  and original

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Brunelleschis Duomo, Florence Cathedral
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Architecture of the High Renaissance (1500-1530)
www.personal.psu.edu
www.christian-travelers-guides.com

• During the High Renaissance in Italy, painting,
  sculpture and architecture reached the peak of
  perfection
• Popes were lavish patrons who employed great
  artists to work at the Vatican, fusing pagan
  mythological figures with Christianity
• Bramante (1444-1514) commissioned by Julius II to
  replace the old basilica of St. Peter (which was
  1200 years old)
• Design exemplifies spirit of the Renaissance to
  recreate the grandeur and monumentality of Roman
  architecture
• Bramantes vision was left to Michelangelo and
  others to complete
• The dome Michelangelo ultimately built influenced
  the building of all other domes until the 20th
  Century

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Vatican Square, Rome - View from the Duomo
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Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)

• The great triad of High Renaissance painters is
  da Vinci, Raphael and Michelangelo
• Leonardo da Vinci was brilliant in a wide range
  of scientific and artistic fields - completed
  very few paintings
• A master of technique including modeling in light
  and shade, but also provided psychological
  insight into human nature
• Most famous paintings are La Gioconda (Mona Lisa
  with her enigmatic smile) and The Last Supper,
  which he painted on the walls of a refectory in
  Milan

La Gioconda (Mona Lisa)
www.chriswaltrip.com
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Leonardo da Vinci The Last Supper
www.eskimo.com
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Raphael (1483-1520)

• Raphael absorbed the style of Leonardo and
  Michelangelo, and was commissioned by Julius II
  to paint frescoes in the Vatican
• His work is a magnificent blend of classical and
  Christian, displaying careful planning, perfect
  design and serene balance

Raphael, Transfiguration. Vatican
www.rc.umd.edu/editions
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Raphael Two Portraits
Bindo Altovini, Raphael
La Fornarina, Raphael
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Michelangelo (1475-1564)
Michelangelo Buonarroti is the supreme artist of
the Renaissance, almost its quintessential figure
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Sistine Chapel

• Superhuman energy allowed him to paint the entire
  ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (several thousand
  square yards) in four years
• With astonishing creativity he devised a wealth
  of expressive positions and faces for each and
  every figure
• Creation of Adam depicts God instilling the
  divine spark of the soul into the body of Adam by
  his fingertips

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www.cs.utah.edu
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David

• Michelangelo also a quintessential uomo
  universale - painter, poet, architect and
  engineer but considered himself a sculptor
  above all
• Glorification of the nude human body his greatest
  achievement, as displayed supremely in his
  masterpiece David
• This was commissioned in 1501, and Michelangelo
  at the age of 26 expressed the very soul of the
  Renaissance in a large, restless youth with one
  foot in the classical past, and the other looking
  as though it was about to stride confidently into
  the future
• Michelangelo later completed the great dome at St
  Peters in 1564, when he was 90

pharaohs.addr.
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PART 2 The Venetian School - Giorgione
Giorgione Guitarist and Nerods

• In 1527 Rome was sacked by invaders Venice then
  became the center of Renaissance art for a time
• Venice a wealthy and more secular city its
  artists painted portraits of wealthy merchants
  and powerful Doges in magnificent clothing and
  jewels
• Giorgione (1477-1510) created a mood of delicate,
  dreamy lyricism, typified in Sleeping Venus

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Giorgione - Sleeping Venus c. 1510Oil on canvas,
108,5 x 175 cm (detail) Gemäldegalerie, Dresden
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Titian (1477-1576) - a master of every kind of
subject - was less subtle his Venuses are buxom
Venetian models who are mature and sex-conscious
Titian, Venus Anadyomene, or Venus Rising from
the Sea
www.haverford.edu/relg
Titian Mary Magdalene
ceiba.cc.ntu.edu.tw
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Mannerism The Anti-Renaissance Style

• French king invaded Italy in 1494 war lasted
  until 1559 and Italy became a battleground
  between French and Spanish kings
• Also, the radical transformation in religion
  brought about by the Reformation led to a
  profound change of outlook on life
• Optimism of the High Renaissance gave way to a
  profound pessimism based on a view of mans evil
  nature
• Italian artists responded to the stresses of
  their age with a new style called Mannerism,
  expressing their doubts in a manner that provoked
  shock

witcombe.sbc.edu
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Michelangelo The Last Judgment

• Michelangelo had also felt this as he painted
  The Last Judgment on the wall of the Sistine
  Chapel in the 1530s, following the sack of Rome.
• Detail of Charon The Boatman of Hades, from The
  Last Judgment

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Mannerist Artists

• A supreme example of mannerist painting is
  Parmigianinos Madonna With the Long Neck (1535)
• The womans smooth, elongated, languid features
  embody an ideal of unearthly beauty that bears
  little resemblance to reality
• Also characteristic are huge discrepancies in
  ill-proportioned scale (note the tiny figure of
  the prophet)

Parmigianino Madonna With the Long Neck
carljung.hihome.com
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Tintoretto (1518-1594) Crucification

• Tintoretto replaced the harmony, proportion and
  idealized balance of the Renaissance with
  dramatic force, crowded canvases and violent
  contrast and movement

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Benevuto Cellini (1500-1571)

• Sculptor Benevuto Cellini was a braggart whose
  Autobiography reflects the violence and
  corruption of the age
• Eventually Mannerism gave way at the end of the
  16th century to the new style of the 17th the
  Baroque

Perseus, Benvenuto Cellini, 1545-1554. Loggia dei
Lanzi, Florence
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Renaissance Music

• Middle Ages dominated by Gregorian Chant
  simple, single-voiced melody
• Later medieval composers wrote more complex
  polyphonic music (many voices) that revolved
  around counterpoint and harmony
• High Renaissance composers also wrote polyphonic
  music, but in a calmer and grander manner

www.ibiblio.org
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Josquin des Pres (1440-1521)

• Flemish composer Josquin des Pres a master of
  technique, yet produced music that is grand,
  serene and balanced
• Renaissance stimulated secular forms of music a
  gentleman and gentlewoman were expected to have
  the ability to sing, read music and play and
  instrument leading to the emergence of many
  French and German secular songs

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Part Three Painters of the Northern Renaissance

• Before the Italian Renaissance began to influence
  intellectual circles in Northern Europe, the
  painters of modern Belgium, Luxembourg and the
  Netherlands had been making significant artistic
  advances of their own
• The most significant Northern Renaissance artists
  are Jan van Eyck, Albrecht Durer, Heironymous
  Bosch and Pieter Brueghel

Albrecht Durer, Self Portrait
www.intrend.com
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Jan van Eyck (1395-1441)

• Flemish master Jan van Eyck made significant
  early advances, using extraordinary attention to
  detail to bring his portraits to life

Jan Van Eyck, Madonna del cancelliere Rolin, 1439
Parigi Louvre
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Albrecht Durer (1471-1528)

• German Albrecht Durer deeply influenced by
  Italian art his work a unique blend of old
  medieval themes with the realism and nobility of
  the Renaissance

Albrecht Dürer. St. Jerome. 1521. Oil on panel.
Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon, Portugal
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Pieter Brueghel (1525-1569)
Flemish painter Pieter Brueghel remained immune
to Italian influences and produced large canvases
of village life, with details of peasants at
work, dancing, skating and landscapes that were
extraordinarily realistic - Battle of Carnival
and Lent
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Hieronymus BoschVisions of Hell
Dutch master Hieronymus Bosch (1480-1516) was a
stern moralist obsessed with sin he filled his
canvases with nightmarish scenes of hell peopled
with frenzied sinners in torment
www.ridance.com
memopolis.uni-regensburg.de
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Bosch, Paradise and Hell
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Conclusion

• Like the intellectuals of the Renaissance,
  artists also reflected the new human-centered
  environment
• The extent to which the painters and sculptors of
  the Italian Renaissance in particular succeeded
  in this is one of the glories of Western
  Civilization
• But the anti-Renaissance Mannerist style has also
  received much favorable attention from art
  critics ever since
• Long dismissed as grotesque and ugly, Mannerist
  art is now recognized as the forerunner of
  surrealism and expressionism
• In the 16th Century these ideas crossed the Alps
  and combined with distinctive local traditions to
  produce superb, distinctive art