Renaissance - Early Netherlandish
Renaissance
"The Annunciation," by Leonardo da Vinci
The Renaissance (1450 - 1600) was great rebirth of humanism, and a revival in cultural achievements for their own sake. The Renaissance began in Italy and then spread throughout northern Europe. Art, science and literature all grew tremendously during the Renaissance, led by artists like Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, scientists like Galileo, and writers like Shakespeare.
In art, the Renaissance renewed interest in naturalistic styles and formal rules of composition such as perspective. The Greek classical ideals of ideal proportions (for depicting the human body as well as for architecture and painting) also regained popularity. Important artists of the Italian Renaissance were Donetello, Piero, Raphael, Titian, along with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. In northern Europe, important Renaissance artists were Albrect Dürer, Hans Holbein, and Pieter Brueghel.
Donatello's equestrian statue of Gattamelata
The Madonna of the meadow - Rafael
Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) was the first artist to paint a full-length female nude in his Birth of Venus. The figure actually recalls the exact pose of a Greek sculpture (the Venus de Medici, which he had access to under their patronage), though he has added flowing hair and elongated limbs. The figure occupies the center of the canvas, traditionally reserved only for the subject of the Virgin. Referring to classical mythology, this is perhaps the most pagan image of the entire Renaissance. Primavera (Spring) is another painting of classical subject commissioned for the Medici family.
The Birth of Venus, tempera on canvas,1485
Linear perspective
Perspective is a technique for representing three-dimensional space on a flat surface. Many artists around the world have employed various techniques for portraying depth. However, it wasn't until the Renaissance that artists invented a mathematical system to show depth logically and consistently. The system of linear perspective gave artists a powerful new tool for creating realistic art.
One and two point perspective Linear perspective is based on the way the human eye sees the world—objects which are closer appear larger, and more distant objects appear smaller. To create this illusion of space, the artist establishes a vanishing point on the horizon line. Objects are drawn using orthogonal lines which lead to the vanishing point(s). In one-point perspective, the forms are seen face on and are drawn to a single vanishing point. Objects seen at an angle would be drawn with two-point perspective using two vanishing points.
Giotto (1267-1337) is considered the "Father of the Renaissance". Characterized as a Proto-Renaissance painter, his work is a transition from the late medieval (Gothic). His innovations were the use of approximate perspective, increased volume of figures, and a depth of emotion which suggests human feeling instead of static and passive icons.
Lamentation of the Death of Christ
Cleansing of the Temple
Filippo Brunelleschi (1337-1446) was a Florentine architect and engineer; the first to carry out a series of optical experiments that led to a mathematical theory of perspective. Brunelleschi devised the method of perspective for architectural purposes, but once the method of perspective was published in 1435 (by Alberti), it would have a dramatic impact on the depiction of 3-dimensional space in the arts.
Masaccio (1401- 1428) was the one of the first artists to apply the new method of linear perspective in his fresco of the Holy Trinity. The barrel vaulted ceiling imitates with precision the actual appearance of the architectural space as it would appear from the viewer's point of view. His figures are accurate in their description of human anatomy, influenced by the artist's study of sculpture.
In this painting, the vanishing point resides below the feet of Jesus. The illusion of the architecture is so real that one feels as if the wall has been opened up to reveal the scene. Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Ghost (symbolized by the dove) are joined by Mary and St.John the Evangelist. Flanked on the sides are the donors (whose tomb was discovered beneath the mural). A painted skeleton lies on an illusionary sarcophagus below the inscription: "What you are, I once was; what I am, you will become".
Masaccio includes three different moments a the story in the same scene (a technique known as "continuous narrative"): At center, Peter asks Jesus why he should have to pay the tax collector's since his allegiance is only to God and not the Romans. Jesus's response is to "give to the Romans what is due to them and to the Lord what is due to Him. He intructs Peter to find the money by going fishing (at the left, Peter extracts a coin from the fish's mouth); and, to the right, Peter hands the tribute money to the tax collector in front of his house.
Piero della Francesca (1416-1492) was another early Renaissance artist who expressed an obsession with perspective. His work is characterized by carefully analyzed architectural spaces, a sensitivity to geometric purity of shapes, and a sculptural understanding of the figure. He was so obsessed with perspective and geometry, that he wrote several treatises on the subject.
.The High Renaissance was the culmination of the artistic developments of the Early Renaissance, and one of the great explosions of creative genius in history. It is notable for three of the greatest artists in history: Michelangelo Buonarroti, Raphael Sanzio and Leonardo da Vinci.
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti (March 6, 1475 – February 18, 1564), commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet and engineer. Despite making few forays beyond the arts, his versatility in the disciplines he took up was of such a high order that he is often considered a contender for the title of the archetypal Renaissance man, along with his rival and fellow Italian Leonardo da Vinci.
Michelangelo's output in every field during his long life was prodigious; when the sheer volume of correspondence, sketches and reminiscences that survive is also taken into account, he is the best-documented artist of the 16th century. Two of his best-known works, the Pietà
and the David,
were sculpted before he turned thirty. Despite his low opinion of painting, Michelangelo also created two of the most influential works in fresco in the history of Western art: the scenes from Genesis on the ceiling and The Last Judgment on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel in Rome.
Later in life he designed the dome of St. Peter's Basilica in the same city and revolutionised classical architecture with his use of the giant order of pilasters.
In a demonstration of Michelangelo's unique standing, he was the first Western artist whose biography was published while he was alive. Two biographies were published of him during his lifetime; One of them, by Giorgio Vasari, proposed that he was the pinnacle of all artistic achievement since the beginning of the Renaissance, a viewpoint that continued to have currency in art history for centuries. In his lifetime he was also often called Il Divino ("the divine one").[3] 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 impassioned and highly personal style that resulted in the next major movement in Western art after the High Renaissance, Mannerism.
Michelangelo was a profound perfectionist. If he found the tiniest flaw in one of his works, he considered it ruined.
Early Netherlandish
Bosch produced several triptychs. Among his most famous is The Garden of Earthly Delights. This painting depicts paradise with Adam and Eve and many wondrous animals on the left panel, the earthly delights with numerous nude figures and tremendous fruit and birds on the middle panel, and hell with depictions of fantastic punishments of the various types of sinners on the right panel. When the exterior panels are closed the viewer can see, painted in grisaille, God creating the Earth. These paintings have a rough surface from the application of paint; this contrasts with the traditional Flemish style of paintings, where the smooth surface attempts to hide the fact that the painting is man-made.
"The Annunciation," by Leonardo da Vinci
The Renaissance (1450 - 1600) was great rebirth of humanism, and a revival in cultural achievements for their own sake. The Renaissance began in Italy and then spread throughout northern Europe. Art, science and literature all grew tremendously during the Renaissance, led by artists like Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, scientists like Galileo, and writers like Shakespeare.
In art, the Renaissance renewed interest in naturalistic styles and formal rules of composition such as perspective. The Greek classical ideals of ideal proportions (for depicting the human body as well as for architecture and painting) also regained popularity. Important artists of the Italian Renaissance were Donetello, Piero, Raphael, Titian, along with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. In northern Europe, important Renaissance artists were Albrect Dürer, Hans Holbein, and Pieter Brueghel.
Donatello's equestrian statue of Gattamelata
The Madonna of the meadow - Rafael
Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) was the first artist to paint a full-length female nude in his Birth of Venus. The figure actually recalls the exact pose of a Greek sculpture (the Venus de Medici, which he had access to under their patronage), though he has added flowing hair and elongated limbs. The figure occupies the center of the canvas, traditionally reserved only for the subject of the Virgin. Referring to classical mythology, this is perhaps the most pagan image of the entire Renaissance. Primavera (Spring) is another painting of classical subject commissioned for the Medici family.
The Birth of Venus, tempera on canvas,1485
Linear perspective
Perspective is a technique for representing three-dimensional space on a flat surface. Many artists around the world have employed various techniques for portraying depth. However, it wasn't until the Renaissance that artists invented a mathematical system to show depth logically and consistently. The system of linear perspective gave artists a powerful new tool for creating realistic art.
One and two point perspective Linear perspective is based on the way the human eye sees the world—objects which are closer appear larger, and more distant objects appear smaller. To create this illusion of space, the artist establishes a vanishing point on the horizon line. Objects are drawn using orthogonal lines which lead to the vanishing point(s). In one-point perspective, the forms are seen face on and are drawn to a single vanishing point. Objects seen at an angle would be drawn with two-point perspective using two vanishing points.
Giotto (1267-1337) is considered the "Father of the Renaissance". Characterized as a Proto-Renaissance painter, his work is a transition from the late medieval (Gothic). His innovations were the use of approximate perspective, increased volume of figures, and a depth of emotion which suggests human feeling instead of static and passive icons.
Lamentation of the Death of Christ
Cleansing of the Temple
Filippo Brunelleschi (1337-1446) was a Florentine architect and engineer; the first to carry out a series of optical experiments that led to a mathematical theory of perspective. Brunelleschi devised the method of perspective for architectural purposes, but once the method of perspective was published in 1435 (by Alberti), it would have a dramatic impact on the depiction of 3-dimensional space in the arts.
Masaccio (1401- 1428) was the one of the first artists to apply the new method of linear perspective in his fresco of the Holy Trinity. The barrel vaulted ceiling imitates with precision the actual appearance of the architectural space as it would appear from the viewer's point of view. His figures are accurate in their description of human anatomy, influenced by the artist's study of sculpture.
In this painting, the vanishing point resides below the feet of Jesus. The illusion of the architecture is so real that one feels as if the wall has been opened up to reveal the scene. Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Ghost (symbolized by the dove) are joined by Mary and St.John the Evangelist. Flanked on the sides are the donors (whose tomb was discovered beneath the mural). A painted skeleton lies on an illusionary sarcophagus below the inscription: "What you are, I once was; what I am, you will become".
Masaccio includes three different moments a the story in the same scene (a technique known as "continuous narrative"): At center, Peter asks Jesus why he should have to pay the tax collector's since his allegiance is only to God and not the Romans. Jesus's response is to "give to the Romans what is due to them and to the Lord what is due to Him. He intructs Peter to find the money by going fishing (at the left, Peter extracts a coin from the fish's mouth); and, to the right, Peter hands the tribute money to the tax collector in front of his house.
Piero della Francesca (1416-1492) was another early Renaissance artist who expressed an obsession with perspective. His work is characterized by carefully analyzed architectural spaces, a sensitivity to geometric purity of shapes, and a sculptural understanding of the figure. He was so obsessed with perspective and geometry, that he wrote several treatises on the subject.
.The High Renaissance was the culmination of the artistic developments of the Early Renaissance, and one of the great explosions of creative genius in history. It is notable for three of the greatest artists in history: Michelangelo Buonarroti, Raphael Sanzio and Leonardo da Vinci.
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti (March 6, 1475 – February 18, 1564), commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet and engineer. Despite making few forays beyond the arts, his versatility in the disciplines he took up was of such a high order that he is often considered a contender for the title of the archetypal Renaissance man, along with his rival and fellow Italian Leonardo da Vinci.
Michelangelo's output in every field during his long life was prodigious; when the sheer volume of correspondence, sketches and reminiscences that survive is also taken into account, he is the best-documented artist of the 16th century. Two of his best-known works, the Pietà
and the David,
were sculpted before he turned thirty. Despite his low opinion of painting, Michelangelo also created two of the most influential works in fresco in the history of Western art: the scenes from Genesis on the ceiling and The Last Judgment on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel in Rome.
Later in life he designed the dome of St. Peter's Basilica in the same city and revolutionised classical architecture with his use of the giant order of pilasters.
In a demonstration of Michelangelo's unique standing, he was the first Western artist whose biography was published while he was alive. Two biographies were published of him during his lifetime; One of them, by Giorgio Vasari, proposed that he was the pinnacle of all artistic achievement since the beginning of the Renaissance, a viewpoint that continued to have currency in art history for centuries. In his lifetime he was also often called Il Divino ("the divine one").[3] 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 impassioned and highly personal style that resulted in the next major movement in Western art after the High Renaissance, Mannerism.
Michelangelo was a profound perfectionist. If he found the tiniest flaw in one of his works, he considered it ruined.
Early Netherlandish
Bosch produced several triptychs. Among his most famous is The Garden of Earthly Delights. This painting depicts paradise with Adam and Eve and many wondrous animals on the left panel, the earthly delights with numerous nude figures and tremendous fruit and birds on the middle panel, and hell with depictions of fantastic punishments of the various types of sinners on the right panel. When the exterior panels are closed the viewer can see, painted in grisaille, God creating the Earth. These paintings have a rough surface from the application of paint; this contrasts with the traditional Flemish style of paintings, where the smooth surface attempts to hide the fact that the painting is man-made.