Renaissance Art: The Italians.

Characteristics of Renaissance Art

RealismThree-dimensionalBalanced and orderedPortraitsLandscapes and attention to depictions

of natureClassical styleDepiction of classical themes and

stories

Renaissance Art (cont.)

• led to many changes in both the technical aspects of painting and sculpture, as well as to their subject matter

• new techniques in the manipulation of light and darkness,

• (see tone contrast evident in many of Titian’s portraits) & development of sfumato* and chiaroscuro by da Vinci

• mostly made for commissions or religious reasons• Sfumato: subtle gradation of tone which was used

to obscure sharp edges, eg, da Vinci’s MonalisaFrom http://painting.about.com/od/oldmastertechniques/a/sfmuato_chiaros.htm

Renaissance Art (cont.)• Significant change: the artist came to occupy

a different place in society- art was becoming more than just a craft.

• Renaissance society was dominated by guilds, which represented the important trades in the city.

• All were connected to a patron saint & each looked out for their fellow members, ensuring that all had employment & a decent wage.

• Workshops –abundant: a master paid to take on an apprentice to teach practical skills in the field.

Sculptors, too, began to rediscover many ancient techniques such as contrapposto. (counterpose: It is used in the visual arts to describe a human figure standing with most of its weight on one foot so that its shoulders and arms twist off-axis from the hips and legs. This gives the figure a more dynamic, or alternatively relaxed appearance)Donatello’s sculptures of David

• Following with the humanist spirit of the age, art became more secular in subject matter, depicting ancient mythology & Christian themes. This genre of art is often referred to as Renaissance Classicism.

• In the North: the most important Renaissance innovation was the widespread use of oil paints-greater colour & intensity.

• In 1290 Giotto began painting in a manner that was less traditional & more based upon observation of nature.

• His fresco cycle at the Scrovegni Chapel, Padua is seen as the beginnings of a Renaissance style.

Cappella Scrovegni (Arena Chapel), Padua

The Cappella Scrovegni was dedicated to Santa Maria della Carità at the Feast of the Annunciation, 1305.

Giotto's fresco cycle focuses on the life of the Virgin & celebrates her role in human salvation.

Giotto’s angel began to show a greater sense of real space

and form

Early Renaissance

Above: Classical subjects like the unsupported nude — his second sculpture of David

Below: Donatello’s classical techniques such as contrapposto

High Renaissance

• Sculptor & architect Brunelleschi studied the architectural ideas of ancient Roman buildings for inspiration. Giotto & Ghiberti contributed works of art in the Florence cathedral.

• Masaccio perfected certain elements [composition, individual expression, & human form] to paint frescoes [Brancacci Chapel]

High Renaissance• High Renaissance artists: Leonardo da

Vinci, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Titian & Raffaello Sanzio.

• The 15th-century artistic developments in Italy (interest in systems of perspectives, in depicting anatomy, & in classical cultures) developed during the 16th Century

• The art of those most closely associated with this period: mastery of technique & aesthetics.

• Artists created works of authority which later generations of artists used as models for instruction.

• These works of art further raised the prestige of artists.

Right: Raffaello(1483 - 1520) Portrait of Bindo AltovitiOil on wood, 1512-1515National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., USA

Above: Angel (fragment of the Baronci Altarpiece)

High Renaissance• Artists could claim divine inspiration,

thereby raising visual art to a status formerly given only to poetry.

• Painters, sculptors, & architects successfully claimed for their work a high position among the fine arts.

• In a way, 16th- century masters created a new profession with its own rights of expression & its own respected character.

Masaccio. Tribute Money Brancacci Chapel, Church of Santa Maria del

Carmine, Florence 1427

• impt. roles played by: atmospheric perspective, spaciousness & depth of landscape, combined light source

• interweaving of arms: we follow Peter through space

• artist used oppositional colours & deeply formed drapery to symbolise light & shade.

• narrative told through: lines, perspective, gestures of figures & facial expressions

Masaccio. Tribute Money .Brancacci Chapel,

Church of Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence 1427

Giotto. Homage of a Simple Man. Detail. 1295-1300. Fresco. St. Francis, Upper Church,

Assisi, Italy.

Note: he began to show a greater sense of real space & form, although he had not yet understood the idea of perspective

Religion remained a major focal point of Renaissance art -The Sistine Chapel-

Michelangelo

Individualism –Portraits -portraits celebrated the unique qualities and

personality of the individual person (two examples by Leonardo da Vinci)

Sandro Botticelli or Il Botticello "little barrels"; 1445 -1510

• Primavera 1478

Botticelli: The Birth of Venus. 1486

Carpaccio’s Birth of Marycirca 1502-1504

Raffaello Sanzio: Urbino 1483 -1520

Saint Sebastian

Raffaello: L'escola d'AtenesPlato Aristotle

Ptolemy

EuclidMichelangelo

Pythagoras

Apollo

Athena

• The building is a modification of *Bramante's first design for St Peter's.

• Plato and Aristotle as central figures walking in a wandering manner through the Lyceum*. A one-point (linear) perspective is used , one method to show 3-D objects on a 2-D surface.

• *Bramante:• *Lyceum: building for public events

Lines which appear to go away from the viewer meet at a single point on the horizon, the so called vanishing point. The perspective is such that this point is between Plato and Aristotle stressing the importance of these two persons.

• To an almost equal distance between Plato and Aristotle we have Euclid (23) and Pythagoras (30).

• A transition from Philosophy to pure Science (from left to right) that also is represented by Apollo and Athena sculptures on the left and right side.

• Many figures (all except Socrates?) were drawn according to persons of Raphael's epoch such as Plato whose face is that of Leonardo. There is also, although not perfect or proportional, some temporal ordering of the persons from the centre.

Bartolomeo Vivarini 1488

Veronese Paolo Caliari 1528-88. : Feast in the House of Levi 1573

His penchant was for feast scenes from the Bible.

•His painting for the Basilica di Santi Giovanni e Paolo, The Last Supper, contained not only the Biblical scene, but exotic dwarves, soldiers, & an array of animals. •Typical of narrative quality assoc. with his paintings. 

• The work was completed in 1573. However the Inquisition summoned him to explain the inclusion of exotic items within the context of a religious picture. •His solution: renamed the painting as The Feast in the House of Levi.

Veronese (continued)

Sofonisba Anguissola (1532-1625) was one of the most famous female painters

• Three Sisters Playing Chess.  

• Oil on canvas, 1555

• Painted when she was only 20 years old

• Phillip II of Spain, originally attributed to Sanchez Colo, a fellow court painter, but attributed to  Sofonisba Anguissola in 1996. She portrays a sombre Phillip II fingering his Order of the Golden Fleece & dressed in the high hat and black clothing that typified his midlife.

Titian.  Man with a Glove, c. 1519.  Oil on canvas, Louvre, Paris.

Tiziano: Venus with an Organist and a Dog (ca. 1550)

Doge of Venice 1474Gentile Bellini