Renaissance

• Time of political, social, economic, and cultural change

• Change in how people viewed selves and their world

• Saw medieval world as disorder and disunity

• Latin and mathematics still relevant

Italian Renaissance

• Rebirth; 1300s-1500s, Greek and Roman, recovery from plague

• Urban societies became political, economic, and social centers

• New view emphasized individual ability and worth; well rounded individual capable of achievements in many areas of life: Leonardo da Vinci

• Upper class affected more, art everywhere

Intellectual and Artistic Renaissance

• Italian Renaissance Humanism- intellectual movement

• Most apparent were intellectual and artistic movements, intellectual was humanism

• Based on literary works of ancient Greece and Rome- focused on worldly subjects rather than religious issues of medieval thinkers

• Most were Christians who helped to use wisdom of ancients to increase understanding of own times

• Petrarch did most to help humanism’s development, generated movement to find forgotten Latin manuscripts

Education in the Renaissance• Humanists believed education changed lives and

should stimulate creative powers

• Liberal studies core of humanist schools, allowed individuals to reach full potential

• Goal to create complete citizens

• Females rarely attended schools

• Humanities?

• Subjects taught, grammar, rhetoric (study of using language effectively), poetry, and history

Italian City States

• Why start in Italy?

• Center of Roman empire with architectural remains, statues, coins, and inscriptions

• Visible reminders of Roman greatness

• Wealthy merchant classes promotes cultural rebirth and exerted both political and economic leadership by stressing education and individual achievement

Italian States

• Northern and central Italian city-states of Milan, Venice, and Florence crucial roles in politics, trade, and manufacturing

• Prospered from trade, linked England, Netherlands, Byzantine, and Mediterranean civilizations

• Who were the Medicis? (meh dee chee)

• 1400s Florence family

• Successful banking and other businesses

• Gained control of Florentine government in 1434, uncrowned rulers

• Lorenzo held Florence together in late 1400s during difficult times

• Patron?

• Financial supporter of the arts

Artistic Renaissance in Italy

• Artists sought to portray nature in their works

• Fresco- done on wet plaster w/ water based paints, created depth, 3D

• Religious figures against Greek or Roman background

• Perspective?

• Distant objects smaller than those close to viewer (appeared 3-D)

• Used geometry to understand perspective, studied human movement and anatomy, realistic portrayal of individuals chief aims

• Donatello modeled figures on Greek and Roman statues

• Filippo Brunelleschi new architecture based on Roman classical buildings, does not overwhelm the worshipper, space to fit human needs, human centered world

• Get away from Gothic style- wanted more columns, arches, and domes

Designed after Pantheon in Rome

Brunelleschi

Machiavelli and Statecraft

• Niccolo Machiavelli wrote The Prince, 1513, which is one of the most influential works on political power in western world

• How to get and keep political power• Human nature self-interested• Not moral, rather interest of state• Do what is necessary to achieve goals,

this more important than keeping promises

• Attacked for his views, “Devil”• Ethical questions

Renaissance Society

• 3 classes• Noble/aristocrat- have talent, character, and

grace; perform military exercises and gain classical education and enrich life with art; serve prince honestly

• Peasants- 85-90%, more legally free• Townspeople- remainder of people• 3 subclasses in towns- Patricians had wealth

from trade; Burghers were shopkeepers, artisans and guild members; while Workers made pitiful wages

• Arranged marriages sealed deals, dowry

• Father in charge of family, absolute authority, mother ran household

• High Renaissance (1490-1520), da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo dominated this period

• Leonardo mastered realistic painting, goal to capture perfection of nature and individual

• Man whose unquenchable curiosity was equaled only by his powers of invention.

• He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived.

• Dissected corpses to learn how muscles and bones worked

• Anatomy, optics, music, architecture, engineering were interests

• Sketches of flying machines and undersea boats

• Raphael- one of Italy’s greatest painters, beauty surpassing human standards

• School of Athens- imaginary gathering of great thinkers (Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Averroes, Michelangelo, Leonardo, and self

• Blending Christian and classical styles

• Michelangelo- painter, sculptor, architect known for great passion and energy

• Genius sculptor, engineer, painter architect, and poet

• Pieta as young man (Mary cradles Christ)

• David- harmony and grace of ancient Greek tradition

• One of the qualities most admired by his contemporaries was his terribilità, a sense of awe-inspiring grandeur, and it was the attempts of subsequent artists to imitate Michelangelo's highly personal style that resulted in the next major movement in Western art after the High Renaissance, Mannerism.

Sistine Chapel- Judgment(4 years to paint)

St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome

Northern Artistic Renaissance

• Present-day Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands, illustrated books and wooden panels; Gothic cathedrals didn’t have enough wall space, small scale made them masters of detail

• Jan van Eyck first to use oil paint, allowed wide variety of colors

• German Albrect Durer incorporated laws of perspective, Adoration of the Magi