renaissance art

Compiled by Anriette van Wyk by utilising the studies

of various subject matter experts as source documents.

Renaissance Era1,200 A.D. - 1,700 A.D.

• Renaissance means rebirth. • Revival of cultural awareness and learning• Renewed interest in ancient Greek and

Roman art and design• Emphasis on human beings, their

environment, science, and philosophy.• Artwork was done on walls and ceilings of

churches, public buildings, and private dwellings.

• Renaissance art wanted to show joy in human beauty and life’s pleasures. Renaissance art is more lifelike than in the art of the Middle Ages.

Artistic Advancements

• Invention of oil paints

• Discovery of perspective drawing and painting

• Beginning of printmaking

Invention of Oil Paint

• Tempera paint was made by mixing pigment powder with egg yolks or gum VERY RESTRICTIVE.

• Oil paint was invented by mixing pigments with linseed oil

• Oil paint was easily blended, long lasting, slow drying, many different colors

Renaissance Terms

• Quattrocento: – Century beginning in 1400

• Humanist: – scholars who studied classical texts

• Vernacular: – common, everyday language

Three Major Periods

I. Early Renaissance

II. Italian Renaissance

III.Northern Renaissance

Early Renaissance

• Florence - early 1400s• Patron - a person who financially

supports an artist • Major Players:• Masaccio• Donatello*• Botticelli*

Masaccio (1401-1428)

• Christ Descending from the Cross

• Used the technique of perspective, which had been developed by Brunelleschi, to give the appearance of distance.

Donatello di Niccolo Bardi (1386-1466)

• Donatello is known for his sculpture.

• Acquired great fame in his lifetime and was called to many Italian cities to share his gift of sculpture

David

David, 1425 A.D.

• First free-standing nude sculpture in a 1000 years

• Church was finally less restrictive

• Depicts David slaying the Goliath

• The sculpture of David became a symbol for Florence

The condottiere Gattamelata in Padua by

Donatello

-His nudes epitomized the Renaissance -Rebirth of Classical mythology

Birth of Venus

Botticelli (bought tee Chel lee)

Botticelli, Birth of Venus, 1482, Tempera on Canvas

Botticelli, Birth of Venus

Venus – Roman Goddess of Love and Beauty

Zephyrus – God of Wind with his lover, Chloris

Pomona – Nymph greeting Venus with a robe

• Painting inspired by a poem by Angelo Poliziano, an Italian Humanist

• Commissioned by the Medici for the Medici family, a powerful wealthy Italian family

• From a series of paintings based on Classical themes

Primavera

The Annunciati

on

Italian Renaissance

• 16th Century, artistic leadership spread from Florence to Rome and Venice

• There was a focus on technical mastery including: composition, ideal proportions, and perspective

• Major Players:– Da Vinci*– Michelangelo*– Raphael*– Titian

Leonardo Da Vinci 1452-1519• Trained in Florence, Italy as a

painter and sculptor not a scholar

• Was a genius both scientifically and artistically

• Was not interested in books and what scholars had to say-he was interested in his own explorations and ideas

• Always had to prove everything• Struggle to work for

commission and finish work• Did drawings and sculptures on

his own terms.

Leonardo Da Vinci

• Renaissance Man• Stressed the intellectual aspects of art

and creativity• Didn’t like the solemnity of most

portrait paintings so he hired musicians and jesters to amuse his subjects

• Most important contribution might be his notebooks

“Mona Lisa”• Most famous portrait of

all time• Painting is the wife, Lisa,

of Francesco del Giocondo

• Painting has no hard lines or contours, technique called sfumato

• Painting leaves us something to guess

• Most striking is her ambiguous half smile

First portrait in which a woman looked straight into the viewer.

Portrait suggests a history, personality, mood, and feeling.

First recognized for its background.

The Last Supper

“The Last Supper” 1498

• Painting demonstrates one point perspective

• Jesus' head is the vanishing point

• Leonardo would spend a full day just looking at the painting-studying

• Located on end wall of the refectory of Santa Maria delle in Millan

• One of the most renowned paintings of the Renaissance

• Painting depicts the scene Jesus and the apostles at the last supper, when Jesus tells the apostles that one of them will betray him

• Leonardo painted himself• Controversial Mary Magdalene

The problem with frescos

His notebooks…

Machine gunflight

canon

flight

Designs for: canals, central heating, printing press, telescope, portable bombs, theory of circulation 100 years before Harvey, studies of fetus in womb so accurate that they could be used today to teach embryology

• Was a pioneer in the study of human anatomy

• Dissected over thirty bodies

• Almost 2,500 drawings and studies of his ideas left in notebooks

• Most of his notes and drawings were kept-people knew of the importance of them and the genius of Leonardo

• Leonardo was left handed• He took all of his notes from right to

left• Need a mirror to read his notes

Inventor

• Created many drawings of machines and different items of functions

• Examples of war machines: armored car, ladder for besieging walls, rock thrower

Different architectural designs

Drawings of Flying Machines

• Pulleys• Drilling machines• Furnace designs• Pile driver• Fans

Michelangelo Buonarroti

• He was one of the greatest artists of all time. Like Leonardo, Michelangelo was a “Renaissance Man” of many talents. He was a great sculptor, a painter, and an architect.

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564)

• Trained in Florence, Italy• Dissected humans and drew the

human body in many different positions

• Influenced by Greek and Roman Sculptures

• Sculpture was his true love, he hated to paint

• Michelangelo was a prickly-tempered, mistrusting and lonely man, lacking in both interpersonal skills and confidence in his physical appearance.

• Was often hated by other artists because of his supreme talent and he often told you about how good he was

• His conceit and arrogance cost him many friends and found himself working alone

• Nobody could argue his brilliance and geniuses

Michelangelo

• Patron = Lorenzo de’Medici at the age of 15 as a sculptor

• Believed that creativity was divinely inspired• Lived a life of solitude – never apprenticed

anyone• Like Da Vinci, he dissected corpses to study

anatomy• Later in life focused on architecture

improving several structures for popes and civic leaders

The statue of “David”

• Stands over 14’ tall carved of marble

• Three long years to complete the sculpture

The Statue of “David”

• “A civic hero, he was a warning...whoever governed Florence should govern justly and defend it bravely. Eyes watchful...the neck of a bull...hands of a killer...the body, a reservoir of energy. He stands poised to strike." -Michelangelo

• Combined beauty with powerful meaning

• Statue stood Palazzo Vecchio, as a symbol of our Republic

• Statue took 40 men 5 days to move it in place

Sistine Chapel How it began:

• Michelangelo, while working on what he loves most (sculpture), is summoned to The Vatican by Pope Julius II to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

• Bramante, persuaded the Pope to commission Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel

• Bramnate did not want Michelangelo involved in the construction of the St. Peters Cathedral

• Bramante knew that Michelangelo was a self-proclaimed “terrible painter”

• Hoping he would “screw” up the paintings and the Pope would have him killed and Raphael (his friend) would take the paintings over.

• Plan did not succeed

Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel

“Genius is Internal Patience”• Commissioned by Julius II

• Began creating drawings and studies in 1508• Him and a team of artist starting painting in

the fall of 1508• 1509, Michelangelo fired all of his assistants

and removed all paintings and took the job over himself

• Kept his work hidden to all except the Pope• He painted high on scaffolding on his back

"After four tortured years, more than

400 over life-sized figures, I felt as old

and as weary as Jeremiah. I was only 37, yet friends did

not recognize the old man I had become."

-Michelangelo

“The Creation of Adam and Eve”

David The Pieta

When Michelangelo did a statue of Moses, he included veins and muscles in the arms and legs. He also did the same

in David’s sculpture.

Pieta

Moses

from the tomb of Julius II - St. Peter

of the Chains

Rome, Italy

Marble quarries of Tuscany

Raphael Sanzio (1483-1520)

• Raphael was strictly a painter

• Raphael was well liked with an easy going attitude

• Had a tough artistic reputation to live up with Leonardo (31 years older) and Michelangelo (8 years older)

• Heavily influenced by both

• Had a short career

Raphael

• Most popular by the people who lived at the time

• Decorated rooms in the Vatican

• Star of the Papal Court and with the ladies…

• He combined the strengths of Da Vinci and Michelangelo

Raphael (1483-1520)Raphael was a favorite painter of Pope Leo X.Notice realistic forms and expressions even in a painting with a religious theme.

RaphaelNotice realistic facial features and expressions in this portrait.

School of Athens, 1510-1512

Sistine Madonna

Deposition

Titian (TISH un)

• Father of Modern Painting• First to really use oil on canvas as his

main medium• Used strong colors

• Venetian (different from Florence and Rome in that they were fascinated with color, texture and mood)

Bacchus and Ariadne

Assumption of Mary

Northern Renaissance

• This is the Renaissance north of Italy• Netherlands, Belgium, Holland, and

Germany• Lacked Roman ruins, inspiration was nature• Lacked Classical sculpture, painted reality

as they saw it instead of ideal proportions• Used perspective by making objects in the

back appear “hazy” suggesting depth.

Hans Holbein

• One of the greatest portraitists ever

• His patron was Erasmus

• Enjoyed symbolic knickknacks (typical of this movement)

The French Ambassadors

It is an anamorphic image of a human skull. An anamorphosis is an image that is distorted in such a way that it only assumes the proportions of a recognizable image when viewed from a certain angle, or by reflection in curved surface. The image of the skull in The Ambassadors is only visible as a skull when viewed from below and to one side of the painting. It has been suggested that it was meant to be displayed above a staircase, so that those climbing the stairs would be startled by the apparition of the skull as they glanced upward at the painting. You can see a photographic restoration of the skull image as seen from that angle here.

King Henry VIIIErasmus von Rotterdam

Dürer (DEWR er)

• -”Leonardo of the North”• Believed art should be based on

scientific observation• Raised the status of artist from

craftsman to near prince• First to do many self-portraits• Famous for his woodcuts• First to use printmaking as a major

medium for art

Self-Portrait

Erasmus von RotterdamWing of a Blue Jay

Saint Jerome

Albrecht Durer(Germany)

• Artists like Durer helped spread Renaissance ideas to Northern Europe. Durer traveled France to work for Francis I. When he returned to his home in Germany, he brought with him Renaissance techniques and ideas.

Hans Holbein (Germany)

• Known for painting portraits, including Henry VIII of England.

Jan van Eyck (Flanders)

• Italian merchant and his wife living in Flanders

• Symbolism in the painting:

• Candle in the chandelier represents Jesus

• Fruit on the windowsill represents the innocence of humanity

Jan Van Eyck

• Painted microscopic details in brilliant color

• -Portrait painting = had sitter look at painter (1st)

The

Arnolofini

Marriage

Bruegal (BROY gull)

• Flemish painter of peasant life• -satiric edge • -Elevated genre painting (scenes

of everyday life) to the stature of “high art”

Hunters in the Snow or Return of the Hunters

Peasant’s Dance

The Peasant Wedding

Resources:

• Boyer-Switala, J. (2011). Renaissance Art. [Online], Available: http://www.slideshare.net/jboyerswitala/renaissance-art-9085448 Accessed: 8 March 2014

• Coon, I. (2012). Art history. [Online], available: http://www.slideshare.net/waukeestudent/art-history-14489743 Accessed: 8 March 2014

• Dale, A. (2013). Early Renaissance Art in Italy. [Online], available: http://www.slideshare.net/loveart2/early-renaissance-in-italy-19241166?qid=48890e77-ddc1-4c33-8712-91473f1508cc&v=qf1&b=&from_search=11 Accessed: 8 March 2014

• David, J. (2010). Renaissance. [Online], available: http://www.slideshare.net/Daviddrake/renaissance-5709486 Accessed: 8 March 2014

• MrRed. (2009). Renaissance Art. [Online], available: http://www.slideshare.net/MrRed/renaissance-art-2674528 Accessed: 8 March 2014