Renaissance Art

1
Renaissance Art

• Advanced World History II

2
Definition of Renaissance

• Renaissance is a period, during the 14th, 15th,
  and 16th Centuries, of revival in classical
  learning characterized by a sharp increase in
  secular values and increased interest in learning
  the classics.  
• The spirit of the Renaissance is reflected in
  Humanism, an intellectual movement initiated by
  secular men of letters during the fifteenth
  century. Humanism focused on developing the full
  potential of man. This included not only the
  traditional virtues of love and honor but also
  virtues such as judgment, prudence and eloquence.
  The effect of Humanism was to inspire men to
  abandon the traditional values of the Medieval
  Period and bring about new thought and creations.

3
Features of Humanism

• Human nature is the primary study (as opposed the
  Medieval values of religion)
• Emphasized the Dignity of Man and his potential
  to master nature over the medieval value of
  penitence and forgiveness.
• Looked to the rebirth of the human spirit and
  wisdom over time

4
Pico della MirandolaOn Dignity of Man

• Oh unsurpassed generosity of God the
  Father, Oh wondrous and unsurpassable felicity of
  man, to whom it is granted to have what he
  chooses, to be what he wills to be! The brutes,
  from the moment of their birth, bring with them,
  as Lucilius says, from their mother's womb''
  all that they will ever possess. The highest
  spiritual beings were, from the very moment of
  creation, or soon thereafter, fixed in the mode
  of being which would be theirs through
  measureless eternities. But upon man, at the
  moment of his creation, God bestowed seeds
  pregnant with all possibilities, the germs of
  every form of life. Whichever of these a man
  shall cultivate, the same will mature and bear
  fruit in him. If vegetative, he will become a
  plant if sensual, he will become brutish if
  rational, he will reveal himself a heavenly
  being if intellectual, he will be an angel and
  the son of God. And if, dissatisfied with the lot
  of all creatures, he should recollect himself
  into the center of his own unity, he will there
  become one spirit with God, in the solitary
  darkness of the Father, Who is set above all
  things, himself transcend all creatures.

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Historical Context of the Renaissance
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Rise of the NationNew Monarchies

• New Monarchies The Fifteenth and Sixteenth
  centuries see the declining influence of the
  Church in the political affairs of Europe.
  Additionally, the peasants and serfs of Europe
  see the decline of feudalism and the rise of the
  middle class.
• The peasants life formerly secure if not
  luxurious began to be more precarious. The
  peasants saw themselves at the mercy of the
  Middle Class and Nobility.
• Examples of the Peasants disgust with the
  increase in prices due to the influx of gold from
  the New World and the increasing population
  (increased demand).
• The Peasant Revolts in England
• The Peasant Revolts in France

7
New Monarchies in Western Europe

• Loius XI of France(Spider King) established
  taille as a permanent tax an annual direct tax,
  usually on land or property.
• Henry VII of England (first Tudor King) abolished
  private armies.
• Isabelle of Castile married Ferdinand of Aragon
  in 1469 merging two of the strongest kingdoms of
  Spain.

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Rise of the NationThe School of Europe

• School of Europe Refers to the Italian States
  of the Fifteenth Century. These states are
  examples of the usefulness of statecraft in
  Nation Building. The Italian States (Venice,
  Florence, Milan, Naples, Sicily) were among the
  first to establish a working relationship outside
  of the feudal and religious boundaries of the
  Middle Ages.
• Florence
• Medici Family ruled Florence for over sixty-five
  years. Influential in the woolen mills and baking
  industries of Florence.
• Cosimo de Medici gained authority after the
  uprising of the woolen workers. Cosimo was able
  to appease the workers and appeared to be a man
  of Republican virtue. Many compared him to the
  Emperors of Greece.
• Lorenzo de Medici was a patron of the arts. He
  was neglectful of family business and is
  considered responsible for the loss of the Medici
  family authority. Lorenzo failed take care of
  business responsibilities and caused the fail of
  the Medici Bank.

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Rise of a Money Economy

• Hanseatic League group of German Merchants that
  joined together to protect their trading
  interests. This group is one example of why the
  European economy was able to stabilize and grow.
  The hansas would form protective groups against
  merchants as well as pirates and robbers.
• Venice regulated East/West trade. The Venetian
  ships were protected by the government, which
  enabled the Venetians to regulate prices, trade,
  and issues of supply and demand.
• Industry
• Divisions in labor became pronounced the guild
  system began to decline. This is the beginning of
  capitalism, where supply and demand were allowed
  to determine the sales.
• Banking
• Kings and small rulers began to loan money. This
  was a very risky business. Many times loans were
  not repaid, Kings would "fogive" themselves of
  loans. As a result the banks were allowed to
  charge very high interest rates. In one instance
  in Florence a bank recorded charging 266
  interest.
• Banks were charged with changing money.
• Banks facilitated transfer of money over long
  distances.
• Florence is widely recognized as the leader in
  the banking industry. The "Florin" was the unit
  of currency used by the bankers of Florence. This
  unit of currency is considered the first monetary
  unit of Europe to gain international significance.

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Printing, Thought and Literature

• Language
• Many different versions of language. The most
  common of educated men was Latin. Most, but not
  all, books would have been written in Latin.
• Writers
• Dante Allegerhi Divine Comedy Traces a journey
  from Hell into the light of Heaven. Dante is lead
  on this journey by Virgil, a Roman poet who
  embodies all knowledge.
• Petrarch Known for his sonnets of love.
  Particularly to his love Laura. His work is
  considered to be the "perfected" Italian sonnet.
• Erasmus He is considered the one who best
  reflects the humanist desire to draw on all
  wisdom to create his works. The Praise of Folly
  (see class handout) is one of his best-known
  works. In this work his mocks the monks of the
  church.
• Machiavelli The Prince Political satire. Brings
  to issue the ethics of politicians. The question
  "Do the ends justify the means"?
• Chaucer Made use of the English vernacular in
  his book The Canterbury Tales. Tells the stories
  of people traveling to Thomas a Becket's grave in
  Canterbury. It is important because the book
  allows us to see the spectrum of classes in
  England during the fifteenth century.

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Dante Allegerhi

• Divine Comedy Traces a journey from Hell into
  the light of Heaven. Dante is lead on this
  journey by Virgil, a Roman poet who embodies all
  knowledge.

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Petrarch

• Alone, and lost in thought, the desert glade
• Measuring I roam with lingering steps and slow
• And still a watchful glance around me throw,
• Anxious to shun the print of human tread
• No other means I find, no surer aid
• From the world's prying eye to hide my woe
• So well my wild disordered gestures show,
• And love-lorn looks, the fire within me bred,
• That well I think each mountain, wood and plain,
• And river knows, what I from man conceal,
• What dreary hues my life's fool chances dim.
• Yet whatever wild or savage paths I've taken,
• Wherever I wander, love attends me still,
• Soft whispring to my soul, and I to him.
• Sonnet 28 To Laura in Life

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Erasmus

• In Praise of Folly
• And next these come those that commonly call
  themselves the religious and monks, most false in
  both titles, when both a great part of them are
  farthest from religion, and no men swarm thicker
  in all places than themselves. Nor can I think of
  anything that could be more miserable did not I
  support them so many several ways. For whereas
  all men detest them to that height, that they
  take it for ill luck to meet one of them by
  chance, yet such is their happiness that they
  flatter themselves. For first, they reckon it one
  of the main points of piety if they are so
  illiterate that they can't so much as read. And
  then when they run over their offices, which they
  carry about them, rather by tale than
  understanding, they believe the gods more than
  ordinarily pleased with their braying. And some
  there are among them that put off their
  trumperies at vast rates, yet rove up and down
  for the bread they eat nay, there is scarce an
  inn, wagon, or ship into which they intrude not,
  to the no small damage of the commonwealth of
  beggars. And yet, like pleasant fellows, with all
  this vileness, ignorance, rudeness, and
  impudence, they represent to us, for so they call
  it, the lives of the apostles. Yet what is more
  pleasant than that they do all things by rule
  and, as it were, a kind of mathematics, the least
  swerving from which were a crime beyond
  forgiveness--as how many knots their shoes must
  be tied with, of what color everything is, what
  distinction of habits, of what stuff made, how
  many straws broad their girdles and of what
  fashion, how many bushels wide their cowl, how
  many fingers long their hair, and how many hours
  sleep which exact equality, how disproportionate
  it is, among such variety of bodies and tempers,
  who is there that does not perceive it? And yet
  by reason of these fooleries they not only set
  slight by others, but each different order, men
  otherwise professing apostolical charity, despise
  one another, and for the different wearing of a
  habit, or that 'tis of darker color, they put all
  things in combustion. And among these there are
  some so rigidly religious that their upper
  garment is haircloth, their inner of the finest
  linen and, on the contrary, others wear linen
  without and hair next their skins. Others, again,
  are as afraid to touch money as poison, and yet
  neither forbear wine nor dallying with women. In
  a word, 'tis their only care that none of them
  come near one another in their manner of living,
  nor do they endeavor how they may be like Christ,
  but how they may differ among themselves.

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Machiavelli
What does this painting tell us about the modern
interpretations of Machiavellis political
attitudes?

• That Which Concerns a Prince on the Subject of
  the Art of War
• The Prince ought to have no other aim or
  thought, nor select anything else for his study,
  than war and its rules and discipline for this
  is the sole art that belongs to him who rules,
  and it is of such force that it not only upholds
  those who are born princes, but it often enables
  men to rise from a private station to that rank.
  And, on the contrary, it is seen that when
  princes have thought more of ease than of arms
  they have lost their states. And the first cause
  of your losing it is to neglect this art and
  what enables you to acquire a state is to be
  master of the art. Francesco Sforza, though being
  martial, from a private person became Duke of
  Milan and the sons, through avoiding the
  hardships and troubles of arms, from dukes became
  private persons. For among other evils which
  being unarmed brings you, it causes you to be
  despised, and this is one of those ignominies
  against which a prince ought to guard himself, as
  is shown later on.

Medieval Source Book. July 10, 2004
lthttp//www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/prince-exce
rp.htmlgt
Painting by Horwath
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Chaucer

• In April Geoffrey Chaucer at the Tabard Inn in
  Southwerk, across the Thames from London, joins a
  group of pilgrims on their way to the Shrine of
  Thomas à Becket in Canterbury. He describes
  almost all of the nine and twenty pilgrims in
  this company, each of whom practices a different
  trade (often dishonestly). The Host of the
  Tabard, Harry Bailey, proposes that he join them
  as a guide and that each of the pilgrims should
  tell tales (two on the outward journey, two on
  the way back) whoever tells the best tale will
  win a supper, at the other pilgrims' cost when
  they return. The pilgrims agree, and Chaucer
  warns his readers that he must repeat each tale
  exactly as he heard it, even though it might
  contain frank language. The next morning the
  company sets out, pausing at the Watering of St.
  Thomas, where all draw straws, and the Knight is
  thus selected to tell the first tale.

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Science and Religion

• Printing Press - Johann Gutenberg
• Books were not only cheaper but also less prone
  to the error one could make in copying a book.
• It allowed people to obtain knowledge for
  themselves rather than to read gain knowledge by
  listening to others.
• It is not until much later that an inexpensive
  formula for making paper is found, so books
  remain the domain of the middle and upper
  classes.

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Fine Arts

• Renaissance art extends well beyond simply a
  creator of pictures, sculpture etc. It expands to
  encompass the ideas of "any discipline involving
  the cultivation of skill and excellence was de
  facto an art".
• Characteristics of Renaissance Art
• Realism Realistic portrayal of artistic styles.
  Mastered perspective and anatomy as a means to
  achieve realism.
• Classical Classical forms and realistic
  technique
• Individualism Portrays the person as they are in
  an effort to describe their maximum or true
  potential
• Art as Philosophy Symbols, structure, posture,
  color as a means to determine a realistic
  portrayal of people and places.

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Which of these characteristics are evidenced in
the following paintings?

• Characteristics of Renaissance Art
• Realism Realistic portrayal of artistic styles.
  Mastered perspective and anatomy as a means to
  achieve realism.
• Classical Classical forms and realistic
  technique
• Individualism Portrays the person as they are in
  an effort to describe their maximum or true
  potential
• Art as Philosophy Symbols, structure, posture,
  color as a means to determine a realistic
  portrayal of people and places.

19
Fine Arts - Italy

• Italian Renaissance
• Centered in Florence
• Frescoes paintings done on fresh, wet plaster
  with water-based paints. (Example Sistine
  Chapel).
• Frequently artists were patronized by the
  religious leaders of the time, which explains the
  fact that Italian Renaissance art is
  characterized by religious themes.

20
Michelangelo Creation of Man

• Characteristics of Renaissance Art
• Realism Realistic portrayal of artistic styles.
  Mastered perspective and anatomy as a means to
  achieve realism.
• Classical Classical forms and realistic
  technique
• Individualism Portrays the person as they are in
  an effort to describe their maximum or true
  potential
• Art as Philosophy Symbols, structure, posture,
  color as a means to determine a realistic
  portrayal of people and places

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Michelangelo - Pieta
22
St. Peters Square - Rome
23
Da Vinci Mona Lisa
Da Vinci Vitruvian Man
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DaVinci Last Supper
25
Boticelli Birth of Venus
26
Raphael School of Athens
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Fine Arts Northern Renaissance

• Northern Renaissance
• Masters of painting detail.
• Oil paint. Jan van Eyck was one of the first to
  use them.

28
Van Eyk Bride of Arnolfini
http//employees.oneonta.edu/farberas/arth/arth214
_folder/van_eyck/arnolfini.html
29
Peter Bruegel Netherlandish Proverbs