Art of the Early Renaissance

1
Art of the Early Renaissance

• Mike Venegas

2
Outline

• I will focus on the visual arts of the Early
  Renaissance period.
• What the Renaissance was?
• How it started?
• Where it started?
• How Early Renaissance art was created
• The Workshop system
• Innovations of Early Renaissance art
• Early Renaissance artists and sculpture

3
Renaissance

• A period from the early 1300s to roughly 1600
  when there was a renewed interest in history
  literature and art.
• Renaissance Rebirth
• Europes economic recovery
• Renewed study of ancient Greece and Rome

4
Humanism

• The birth of humanism
• Humanism was an ideal that focused on the world
  of mankind as much as a concern for the
  hereafter.
• Rejected medieval view of humanity and focused on
  the goodness of mankind

5
Humanism (cont.)

• Began in Florence, Italy
• Ideal setting
• Wealthy patrons

6
Early Renaissance

• Period from 1400 to 1500
• Artist as a craftsmen
• Art created by commission
• Art through imitation

7
Workshop system

• Collaboration of masters and apprentices
• Family-based
• Run like a business

8
Workshop

• Art was commissioned
• Apprentice started in early teens
• Studied under master for several years

9
Products of the workshop system

• Michaelangelo
• Master Domenico Ghirlandaio
• Leonardo da Vinci
• Master- Andrea del Verocchio

10
Innovations

• Frescoes- art created on damp plaster
• Oil paints
• Realistic portrayal of human nature

11
Innovations

• Chiaroscurro- use of shadows to show balance of
  light and dark
• Science
• Linear perspective- allowed artist to represent
  objects in relative sizes

12
Giotto

• Giotto is considered to be the most influential
  artist on Renaissance painting.
• Father of the Renaissance
• Giottos dignified figures seemed to displace
  space, to stand upon the ground with real
  substance and weight.
• The figures seem to extend both backward, into
  the picture, and forward, toward the spectators
  space.

13

• slide

14
Filippo Bruneleschi(1337-1446)

• Florentine architect and engineer
• First to carry out a series of optical
  experiments that led to a mathematical theory of
  perspective.
• His method of perspective had a dramatic impact
  on the depiction of 3-dimensional space in the
  arts

15
One point linear perspective

• Pierro della Francesca View of an Ideal City

16
Masaccio(1401-1428)

• One of first artists to apply the new method of
  linear perspective in his fresco of the Holy
  Trinity
• Used a barrel vaulted ceiling to imitate with
  precision the true appearance of architectural
  space
• Figures depict accurate human anatomy

17
The Holy Trinity
18
Pierro della Francesca(1416-1492)

• Expressed an obsession with perspective
• His works are characterized by carefully analyzed
  architectural spaces and sensitivity to geometric
  purity of shapes.
• Wrote several treatises on perspective and
  geometry

19
Carefully analyzed perspective and geometry

• The Discovery and Proving of the True Cross

20
Donatello(1386-1466)

• New sense of naturalism in sculpture
• Use of classical contrapposto stance (relaxed not
  rigid)
• Statue of David considered first full scale nude
  since ancient times

21
(No Transcript)
22
Andrea Mantegna(1430-1506)

• Created unusual vantage points
• Looking at figures from below
• Lamentation of the Dead Christ the viewer is
  looking from the feet of the subject.
• Deep foreshortening
• Effectively placed the viewer at the scene,
  adding to the sense of empathy

23
Lamentation of the Dead Christ

• Use of unusual vantage points

24
Sandra Boticelli(1445-1510)

• First artist to paint a full-length female nude
• In Birth of Venus the figure occupies the center
  of the work which was traditionally reserved for
  the Virgin. This work is possibly the most pagan
  image of the entire Renaissance.

25
(No Transcript)
26
(No Transcript)
27
Literature in the Early Renaissance

• Jennifer Montes

28
Before the Renaissance

• Christian Age
• Literary production limited
• Important original books of the time
• Exameron by St. Ambrose
• City of God and the Confessions by St. Augustine
• Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius

29
Characterized by

• Large collections of church hymns
• Didactic poems of relative significance
• Sermons
• Theological treatises
• Legends of various saints
• Fables
• Historical chronicles beginning with Creation

30
Rise of Humanism

• Involved the modern discovery or rediscovery of
  those fields we now call the humanities
• History, moral and political philosophy, poetry,
  literature, rhetoric, grammar, and linguistic
  study and interpretation. 
• Humanism was a deliberate revival, renascence, or
  "renaissance" of the arts and humanities. 

31
Humanism

• Humanists took Christian ideas and secular and
  pagan (Greek and Roman) ideas to gain knowledge
  useful in making them better people
• Virtuous, responsible, educated citizens, aware
  of what had been thought and done at other times
  and places. 
• The humanists sought to understand what it was to
  be fully human.

32
Early Renaissance affected by

• Works of Dante
• Works of Petrarch
• Invention and widespread use of movable type

33
Dante Alighieri

• Born in Florence, Italy in 1265
• Son of Alighiero di Bellincione Alighieri and his
  first wife Bella
• Wrote his first book Vita Nuova (New Life) in
  1294
• Exiled in 1302

34
Exile

• De Vulgari Eloquentia treatise on his native
  language
• Never completed
• Il Convivio collection of verse
• Never completed
• Began writing the Commedia (Divine Comedy) in
  1306

35
La Divina Commedia

• The Divine Comedy
• Completed in 1321
• Narrative poem
• Written in terza rima (third rhyme)
• a verse form consisting of tercets
• rhyme scheme (aba, bcb, cdc)
• Form modified by Dante

36
Divine Comedy

• Allegory of human life written to convert the
  corrupt to righteousness
• Represents three realms of the Christian
  afterlife
• Inferno (Hell)
• Puragatorio (Purgatory)
• Paradiso (Heaven

37
Influences of Dante

• Virgil
• Lucan
• Theological Influences
• St. Thomas Aquinas
• Sts. Gregory, Isidore, Anselm, and Bonaventure
• Boethius

38
Influenced by Dante

• Artists
• Giotto
• Cimabue thought/To lord it over paintings
  field and now/ The cry is Giottos, and his name
  eclipsed. (Purgatorio, canto XI)
• Michelangelo Buonarrotis Last Judgement
• Salvadore Dali

39
Michelangelo
40
Dalis representation of Dante
41
Influenced by Dante

• Authors
• Shelley
• Byron
• Yeats
• T.S. Eliot

42
Francesco Petrarca

• Born in Arezzo in 1304
• Son of a Ser Petracco
• 1341 crowned poet laureate in Rome
• Created works in Latin
• Most popular are those written in Italian
• Trionfiallegorical and moral
• Written in terza rima

43
Canzoniere

• Song Book
• Considered Petrarchs masterpiece
• Contains mostly sonnets
• To a lesser degree canzoni, sestine, ballate, and
  madrigals

44
Canzoniere

• Inspired by the lady, Laura
• Deals with Love, political and patriotic feeling,
  and issues of morality
• Unrequited Love
• Seeing her brings him joy
• Creates unfulfilled desires

45
Laura

• First saw his muse, Laura, April 6, 1327 (Good
  Friday) in the church of Sainte-Claire d Avignon
• Some doubt her existance
• Others believe she may have been the wife of
  Hugues de Sade

46
The Petrarchian Sonnet

• Now known also as the Italian Sonnet
• 14 lines
• Consists of 2 divisions
• First eight lines (octet)
• Second six lines (sestet)
• Rhyme Scheme
• Abbaabbacdecde

47
Sonnet 140

• Amor, che nel penser mio vive et regna (a)
• e 'l suo seggio maggior nel mio cor tene, (b)
• talor armato ne la fronte vene (b)
• ivi si loca et ivi pon sua insegna. (a)
• Quella ch' amare et sofferir ne 'nsegna (a)
• e vol che 'l gran desio, l'accesa spene (b)
• ragion, vergogna, et reverenza affrene, (b)
• di nostro ardir fra se stessa si sdegna. (a)
• Onde Amor paventoso fugge al core, (c)
• lasciando ogni sua impresa, et piange et trema
  (d)
• ivi s'asconde et non appar più fore. (e)
• Che poss' io far, temendo il mio signore, (c)
• se non star seco infin a l'ora estrema? (d)
• ché bel fin fa chi ben amando more. (e)

48
Influences of Petrarch

• Dante
• Cicero
• Virgil

49
Influenced by Petrarch

• Chaucer makes reference to Petrarch in the
  prologue to the Clerks Tale in his Canterbury
  Tales
• "Francis Petrarch, the laureate poet/ Was this
  clerk's name, whose rhetoric so sweet/ Illumed
  all Italy with poetry
• Sir Thomas Wyatt
• Imitated his form in at least 27 of his poems

50
Petrarchanism

• French and Italian poets imitated his style
  indirectly
• Bembo called for poets to imitate the original
  only

51
Rejecters of Petrarchanism

• The English rejected Petrarchs form
• Elizabethan sonnet writers thought it was
  obsolete and created their own style
• No direct imitation of Petrarch in England
• Marked avoidance
• Canzioniere not published in England until 1850s

52
Impact of Movable Type

• Invented in 1440 By Johannes Gutenberg
• Led to a great demand for books in the mid 15th
  century
• Printers met the high demand by printing an
  over-abundance of books.
• Prices plummeted (20 less than a manuscript)

53
Gutenbergs Press
54
Movable type

• Aided in political and religious revolution
• Humanist movement fueled its success.
• Canterbury Tales and Dantes Divine Comedy were
  some of the first printed
• Led to the rise of the vernacular (non-Latin)
  literary text

55
Early Renaissance

• The style and ideas from the Early Renaissance
  carried throughout the renaissance period and
  left a lasting impact on modern culture.

56
(No Transcript)