RENAISSANCE ART

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication"  Leonardo Da Vinci

“My works are the issues of pure and simple experience, who is the one true mistress.  These rules are sufficient to enable you to know the true from the false”.   Da Vinci

Renaissance means “rebirth”.  The ideas of the Renaissance first emerged in the city-state of Florence, Italy in the 14th century.  It reached its height there in the 15th century then spread to the rest of Europe in the 16th century. The Renaissance was at first a rediscovery by scholars (called Humanists) of the writings of ancient Greeks and Romans. 

15th and 16th century intellectuals coined the term “Renaissance” to assert the superiority of their own age over the “middle” or “dark” ages – a period of light, awakening, spring, youth, vigor and innovation. 

Renaissance paintings must be read, for they were consciously designed to tell stories, teach lessons, and inculcate humanist ideals of knowledge, conduct, and piety.  They are also humanist in style.  The harmonies of their composition derive from the harmony of the human body. By imitating nature in his art man imitates the creativity of God and becomes himself a creator in the realm of art.  Ideas such as these are on source of the romantic idea of artistic genius.

The beginning of the classical Renaissance period begins with the rebuilding of the Papal Chapel under Pope Sixtus IV.  It was named in his honor - the Sistine Chapel (1477-1480).  Although no singular style characterizes the High Renaissance, the astounding mastery of the works of Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Titian is most closely associated with this period.

LEONARDO DA VINCI  (1452-1519)
Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath:  painter, sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, inventor and writer.  Even though Leonardo is primarily known as a painter, he epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal:  the ‘Renaissance Man’. 

“The Last Supper” (1495)
Tempura on gesso, pitch and mastic (Church of Holy Mary of Grace, Milan, Italy)
One of the great works of Western Art.  Bends the laws of perspective.  4 groups of three.  Theme: “One of you will betray me”.

“The Mona Lisa” (c. 1503-1506)
Oil on poplar (Louvre, Paris)
The Mona Lisa has been acclaimed as “the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world.”  The Mona Lisa is on permanent display at The Louvre museum (Paris) since 1797.

MICHELANGELO DI LODOVICO BUONARROTI SIMONI  (1475-1564)
Known as “Michelangelo”.  Renaissance Italian sculptor, painter, architect, poet and engineer.  Like Da Vinci, the quintessential ‘Renaissance Man’.

“Pieta” (1499)
Carrara marble statue (St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City)
Establishes’ Michelangelo’s fame. Depiction of the body of Jesus on the lap of his mother Mary after the Crucifixion.

“David”  (1504)
Carrara marble statue (Accademia Gallery, Florence, Italy)
David represents the Biblical hero David.  ‘David’ is 17 feet high and was made out of an abandon piece of granite.

The Sistine Chapel Ceiling (1508-1512)
Frescos (Sistine Chapel, Vatican City)
Michelangelo depicts nine scenes from the Book of Genesis. The scenes fall into three groups: “God Creating the Heavens and the Earth”; Adam & Eve”; and the “Plight of Humanity”.  The most well-known ceiling fresco is “The Creation of Adam” (18’x 9’).  Michelangelo paints man in a heroic fashion. Cornerstone work of High Renaissance art.

“The Last Judgment” (1536-1541)
Fresco (Sistine Chapel, Vatican City)
Influenced by the sack of Rome.  Depiction of the Second Coming of Christ and the final and eternal judgment by God of all humanity.  The souls of humans rise and descend to their fates, as judged by Christ.  To Christ’s right is his mother, Virgin Mary.  The two most notable saints are surrounding the two are Saint Peter, holding the Keys of Heaven and Saint Bartholomew with his own skin (thought to be a self-portrait of Michelangelo).  Other Saints include Paul, John the Baptist, Lawrence and Catherine of Alexandria.

St. Peter’s Basilica  (1546-1564)
After the “Last Judgement” Michelangelo was appointed architect of St. Peter’s Basilica in 1546.  The dome of St Peter's influenced the building of churches for many centuries, including Sant'Andrea della Valle in Rome and St Paul's Cathedral, London, as well as the civic domes of many public buildings and the state capitals across the United States of America.  After Michelangelo’s death, his spherical design was abandoned; the Dome’s ‘egg’ shape was designed by Della Porta.

Michelangelo Angels

RAFFAELLO SANZIO DA URBINO  (1483-1520)
Known as “Raphael” – third of the great Florentine artists.  Raphael’s signature works are the frescoes within the reception rooms of the Palace of the Vatican – known as the “Raphael Rooms”.

“Madonna of the Goldfinch”  (c. 1506)
Oil on Wood  (Uffizi Gallery, Florence)
Raphael uses da Vinci’s pyramid design.  The bird represents the passion of Christ (and his death).

“The School of Athens”  (1509)
Fresco (Apostolic Place, Vatican City)

“The Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple” (1512)
Fresco (Apostolic Place, Vatican City)
Located in the Stanza di Eliodoro room of the Vatican.  The scene of ‘Heliodorus’ is from the Biblical episode from 2 Maccabees (3:21-28).  Heliodorus is ordered by Seleucus IV Philopator, the king of Syria, to seize the treasure preserved in the Temple in Jerusalem (~178 BC). Answering the prayers of the high priest Onias, God sends a horseman assisted by two youths to drive Heliodorus out.

GIORGIONE  (1478-1510)
Founder of the Venetian school of Italian Renaissance painting (along with Titian).  Style known for an elusive poetic quality and mood as contrasted from the more linear draftsmanship style (“disegno”) of the Florentine school.

“Sleeping Venus”  (c. 1510)
Oil on Canvas  (Old Masters Gallery, Dresden)

 “Pastoral Concert”  (c. 1509)
Oil on Canvas  (Louvre, Paris)
Originally attributed to Giorgione (musical and pastoral elements), but some modern critics assign it to his pupil titian (due to the robustness of the nudes).

TITIAN  (c. 1490-1576)
Versatile Italian artist from Venice (16th-century Venetian school) who’s painting methods influenced many Renaissance painters as well as later generations of Western art.

“The Assumption of the Virgin” (1518)
Oil on Canvas  (Frari, Venice)
Revolutionary painting; Titian splits the scene into upper and lower sections.  It commemorates the rising of Mary to heaven before the decay of the body – a sign of her passing into eternal life.

“Venus of Orbino”  (1538)
Oil on Canvas  (Uffizi Gallery, Florence)
The figure’s pose is based on Giorgione’s ‘Sleeping Venus’ (which he completed).  It later became the inspiration for Edouard Manet’s 1863 ‘Olympia’

Northern Renaissance Painters
By the time of Michelangelo’s death in 1564, the reformation of the Church, heralded by the German Martin Luther (1517), marked the end of the Pope’s universal authority in European eccelastical matters.  The establishment of the Protestant church made a notable impact on the great artists ‘North of the Alps’.  Many thinkers of the Reformation considered all art to be forbidden graven images – especially sculptures.

ALBRECHT DURER  (1471-1528)
Durer was a German painter, engraver, printmaker and mathematician.  His high-quality woodcuts established his reputation at the great artist of the Reformation (Luther was an ardent supporter) and is regarded as the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance.

"Melancholia I" (1514)
Engraving (National Gallery of Art, Washington DC)
Lord Kenneth Clark (Civilization) gives insight to “Melancholia I”, “In the Middle Ages, melancholia had meant a simple combination of sloth, boredom and despondency…liked cooped up together in monasteries…But Durer’s application is far from simple.  This figure is humanity at its more evolved with wings to carry her upwards.  She sits in the attitude of Rodin’s Penseur (“The Thinker”) and still holds in her hand the compasses - symbols of measurement by which science will conquer the world.  Around her are all the emblems of constructive action.  A saw, a plane, pincers, and those two prime elements in solid geometry - the sphere and the dodecahedron.  And yet, all these aids to construction are abandoned.  She sits there brooding on the futility of human effort.  Her obsessive stare reflects some deep psychic disturbance.  The German mind that produced Durer and the Reformation also produced psychoanalysis."

Behind her is the “Magic Square”.  The two middle cells of the bottom row giving the date of the engraving: 1514. The square's four quadrants, corners and center also equal 34.

Self-Portrait (1498)
Oil on panel (Museo Del Prado, Spain)

"Young Hare" (1502)

Watercolor & Body Color (Albertina, Vienna) 

“Knight, Death and the Devil” (1502)
Engraving (Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY)
“Knight, Death and the Devil” is infused with complex iconography and symbolism, the precise meaning of which has been argued over for centuries. Some historians have interpreted the engraving to be Durer’s homage to Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536), the Dutch Renaissance humanist, Catholic priest and theologian, where the armored knight takes battle with the Church and to reform its teachings. In times of crisis, Erasmus took the stance that people yearn for tolerance, reason and simplicity of life. And even for civilization.
On the tide of fierce emotional and biological impulses, the Erasmian point-of-view became powerless. "Knight, Death and the Devil" became a propaganda tool for the Nazis as representing the racially pure Aryan. Hitler was interpreted as the "knight without fear or blame...that cried out to the world: even if the world is full of devils, we must win anyway!"

HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER  (c. 1497-1543)
As the ideas of the Reformation took hold (eg, Switzerland), the artist’s traditional role of painting religious images for churches declined.  A new source of business was portrait painting of which Holbein excelled in.  Holbein’s art is often called realist, since he drew and painted with rare precision.  During the 1530’s Holbein moved to England and became a painter for King Henry VIII.

“Virgin and Child”  (1528)

“The Ambassadors”  (1533)
A double portrait.  Includes objects of learning.  At the bottom of the painting is a distorted human skull – symbol of the treachery of diplomacy, mortality.

“Henry VIII”  (1536)

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