1. Renaissance Art

2. Characteristics of Renaissance Art Vivid bright colours. Perspective (Depth/realism) Balance Classical themes (Greek, Roman and biblical themes dominate)

3. Renaissance Art Artists expressed their feelings about the place of humanity in the world Revived classic ideas of proportion, order, harmony, symmetry, and ideal themes Growing middle-class meant that more people could afford to hire painters – led to increase in true-life portraits

4. Art and Patronage Italians were willing to spend a lot of money on art. Art communicated social, political, and spiritual values. Italian banking & international trade interests had the money. Public art in Florence was organized and supported by guilds. Therefore, the consumption of art was used as a form of competition for social & political status!

5. RENAISSANCE / REALISM: OVERVIEW High Renaissance (1495-1525) short-lived (Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael) Renaissance art is more lifelike than in art of Middle Ages Work drew heavily from art of ancient Greece and Rome Contrasts of light and dark (chiaroscuro) and smokey atmosphere (sfumato) Perspective, study of human anatomy and proportion, refinement in techniques Flemish, Dutch, and German (Dürer, Cranach, Grünewald, Bosch, Brueghel) More realistic and less idealized New verisimilitude in depicting reality Stylistic residue of sculpture and illuminated manuscripts of Middle Ages Renaissance painting reflects Revolution of ideas and science (astronomy, geography) Reformation Painters are not mere artisans but thinkers as well (Dürer) Painting gained independence from architecture Not dominated religious imagery, secular subject matter returned (imagination) 5

6. Medival Art: Inspired by religious belief and authority. Reflect Christian values.

7. Medieval backdrop, to Renaissance Artistic innovations… Exclusive function of the Catholic Church Communicated familiar themes Chain of Being ‘Passion’ of Christ Biblical tales Preparation for the world to come...

8. Medieval backdrop, to Renaissance Artistic innovations… Medieval ‘art’ served a devotional role… For the largely illiterate masses… Dependent on the Catholic Church for salvation

9. MIDDLE AGES → RENAISSANCE 9 The Mourning of Christ (1305) Giotto di Bondone (1 st Renaissance painter (?)) Byzantine: Eastern Roman Empire from ~ 5 th century until fall of Constantinople in 1453

11. Mother Mary and Child

12. SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA RECEIVING THE STIGMATA Domenico Beccafumi, 1513-1515 Getty Museum, Los Angles Minimum of detail Striking pose to demonstrate ecstasy, she bends forward as if to meet tilting crucifix 12

13. Similarly, Medieval gothic architecture was meant to inspire: Awe Our place on the chain Ascension… Cologne Cathedral, Germany 

14. Medieval Art Architectural Examples: - Notre Dame de Paris - Duomo di Milano/Milan Cathedral

15. Artist Ego The Renaissance elevated the artist. During the Medieval period, we did not know the names of artists. During the Renaissance in Italy, good artists could gain elevated status so it was important to be known.

16. Renaissance Art: Key themes “Art….owes its origin to Nature itself”- Giorgio Vasari Realism Mimicking and reflecting Nature depicting the range of human emotion and experience Classicism Proportion; Order; Symmetry Humanism in Art Revision of Humanity’s place on the Chain… Celebrating human achievement; heroism; dignity’ strength; “this worldliness”

17. Piero della Francesca, “Flagellation of Christ” 1469

18. Realism Fillipo Lippi “Madonna San Trivulzio” ~1431 Innocence Children staring back at viewer Some critics argue one child has downs syndrome

19. Realism Massaccio “Expulsion of Adam and Eve” ~1424-25 Unabashed grief

20. Mantegna “Lamentation over the dead christ” ~1490 Realism

21. Giorgione “Portrait of an old Woman” ~1508

22.  Vitruvian Man  Leonardo da Vinci  1492 The Individual

23. Da Vinci: The Inventor

24. Leonardo, the Scientist (Biology): Pages from his Notebook  An example of the humanist desire to unlock the secrets of nature.

25. Realism Leonardo da Vinci: Anatomical study of the human arm in motion Alberti: Linear perspective

26. Perspective Perspective Perspective! Perspective! Perspective! Perspective! Perspective! First use of linear perspective! Perspective! Perspective!  The Trinity  Masaccio  1427 What you are, I once was; what I am, you will become.

27. The School of Athens

28. The School of Athens Raphael, 1509-1510 Stanze di Raffaello, Apostolic Palace, Vatican City 28 Plato (portrait of Leonardo da Vinci holding Timaeus) Plato points to heaven Aristotle (holding a copy of Nichomachean Ethics) Aristotle point to Earth Diogenes Michelangelo Hypatia of Alexandria Francesco Maria I della Rovere Magherite Raphael Pythagoras

29. Classicism Symmetry, order, proportion Perfected through Alberti’s use of “linear perspective” a mathematical system for creating the illusion of space and distance on a flat surface. Sketch of Leonardo’s “Adoration of the Magi”. Can you see the lines da Vinci has prepared?

30. Classicism Da Vinci: Annunication

31. Duccio di Buoninsegna: Last Supper (late Medieval) Note awkward use of linear perspective Compare with Da Vinci’s rendition

32. Classicism

33. A Da Vinci “Code”: St. John or Mary Magdalene?

34. Domenico Ghirlandaio “The Visitation” ~1490 Note use of linear perspective to see 3 different depths (front, shore, and other side of shore)

35. ‘Classicism’ in Renaissance Architecture Florence Cathedral (Arnolfo di Cambio) Idea for Dome: Brunelleschi Reintroduced classical use of spheres, proportion http://www.greatbuildings.com/types/styles/renaissance.html

36. Classicism in Architecture Leon Battista Alberti Mario d’Amadio, Venice, Ca’ d’Oro, 1434CE Where do you see evidence of the use of planes, proportion, curves, symmetry? http://www.lib.virginia.edu/dic/colls/arh102/screen/sixW18.jpg

37. Palazzo Ducale, Venice, 1550CE http://www.lib.virginia.edu/dic/colls/arh102/screen/sixW17.jpg

38. Humanism: Revisiting the Chain, celebrating humanity, this worldliness Michelangelo “Adam” Sistine Chapel ~1508

39. Leonardo Da Vinci: The Mona Lisa

40. The Human Condition Renaissance began the notion of art representing the world around us, depicting the human condition da Vinci’s Last Supper has a very human Jesus, seeing the divine in the ordinary da Vinci’s Mona Lisa remains the most mysterious and thoroughly human portrait of his time Examples: Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper (1498) Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa (1503-1505/1507)

41. Humanism: the Portrait

42. Who was the Mona Lisa?

43. Mona Lisa OR da Vinci??

44. The Mona Lisa in the 21 st Century

45. Would the real Mona Lisa please stand up?

46. WHERE IS LISA? 46 The Salon Carre and the Grand Galerie of the Lourve John Scarlett Davis, 1831, British Embasy, Paris Le Salon Carré Giuseppe Castiglione, 1865 Gallery of the Louvre Samuel F. B. Morse, 1831-1833 Musee americain, Giverny

47. Cecilia Gallerani (Lady with an Ermine) Leonardo da Vinci (1483-90) Czartorychi Muzeum, Cracow, Poland 47 La belle Ferronière Leonardo da Vinci (1490) Musée du Louvre, Paris

48. HONEST APPROACH TO ART 48 ‘Ginevra is beautiful but austere; she has no hint of a smile and her gaze, though forward, seems indifferent to the viewer’ ‘There are three things I have always loved but never understood; art, music, and women.’ - Bernard de Fontenelle

49. Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel

50. Religious Belief’s Why aren’t their fingers touching? Renaissance artists introduced their civic and humanist values in buildings, sculptures, and paintings In his work for the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo’s God reaches out to Adam, to signify the special place of humans in the world Examples: Michelangelo’s ceiling of the Sistine Chapel: -Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam -Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment

51. NO PICTURES PLEASE 51 Without having seen the Sistine Chapel one can form no appreciable idea of what one man is capable of achieving – Goethe … before Michelangelo no one had ever articulated and depicted human pathos as he did in those paintings. Since then all of us have understood ourselves just that little bit deeper, and for this reason I truly feel his achievements are as great as the invention of agriculture – Werner Herzog

52. THE ENTOMBMENT Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, 1602-03 Pinacoteca Vaticana, Vatican City Diagonal cascade of mourners sliding downward to dead, limp Christ and bare stone Italian Christs die generally bloodlessly Where do arms point? Dead God → stone Mary → heaven Message of Christ: God come to earth, and mankind reconciled with the heavens Theory: cryptic depiction of resurrection Westerner's eye typically reads artwork from top left to bottom right much same way it reads printed text If painting were reversed it would show an obvious descending line from left to right. But as painting is it shows a prominent ascending line from left to right. Thus showing resurrection. 52

53. MADONNA WITH THE LONG NECK Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola (1534-40) Uffizi, Florence Mannerism: late Renaissance art (1530- 1580), whose proponents sought to create dramatic and dynamic effects by depicting figures with elongated forms and in exaggerated, out-of-balance poses in manipulated irrational space, lit with unrealistic lighting Mannerism appealed to knowledgeable coterie audiences with its arcane iconographic programs and exaggerated new sense of an artistic "personality", an exciting new development at a time when primary purpose of art was to inspire awe and devotion, to entertain and to educate Michelangelo displayed tendencies towards Mannerism 53

54. Botticelli: The Birth of Venus

55. Painting Classical myths became a legitimate source of inspiration Examples: Sandro Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus (1485- 1486) Sandro Botticelli’s Primavera (1482)

56. Humanism in Sculpture Donatello’s nude David 1425-1430CE Like Renaissance portraits, sculpture celebrated the ‘realistic’ human image Nude body not pornographic, rather ‘veil to the soul’ http://www.artist-biography.info/gallery/donatello/12 /

57. Sculpture He’s nude! Donato Donatello’s David (1440s) was the first free- standing, life-size statue since ancient times Examples: - Michelangelo’s David - Michelangelo’s Pietà In St. Peter’s Basilica

58. Humanism in Sculpture Michelangelo Buonarroti’s, nude David First ‘fully nude’ David (Donatello’s wore boots and a hat!) 1501-1504 Beauty, strength, heroism & humility of the nude human form

59. Michelangelo’s David

60.  David  Michelangelo Buonarotti  1504  Marble