Renaissance Art

Italian Early and High Renaissance Art

Art and PatronageArt and PatronageItalians 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!

Characteristics of Renaissance Art

Realism & ExpressionRealism & Expression

Expulsion fromExpulsion fromthe Gardenthe Garden

MasaccioMasaccio

14271427

First nudes sinceFirst nudes sinceclassical timesclassical times..

2. Perspective2. Perspective

First use First use of linear of linear

perspectivperspective!e!

The TrinityThe Trinity

MasaccioMasaccio

14271427

3. Classicism3. Classicism

Greco-Roman influence.

Secularism.

Humanism.

Individualism free standing figures.

Symmetry/BalanceThe The “Classical Pose”“Classical Pose”Medici “Venus”Medici “Venus”

4. Emphasis on 4. Emphasis on IndividualismIndividualism Batista Sforza &

Federico de Montefeltre: The Duke & Dutchess of Urbino

Piero della Francesca, 1465-1466.

5. Geometrical 5. Geometrical Arrangement of Arrangement of FiguresFigures

The Dreyfus Madonna with the Pomegranate

Leonardo da Vinci

1469

The figure as architecture!

6. Artists as 6. Artists as Personalities/CelebritiePersonalities/Celebritiess

Lives of the Lives of the Most Most Excellent Excellent Painters, Painters, Sculptors, andSculptors, andArchitectsArchitects

Giorgio VasariGiorgio Vasari

15501550

Early Renaissance

The First Three

Hall-of-Famers

Masaccio1401-1428

Founder of early Renaissance Painting

Painted human figure as a real human being

(3D) Used perspective Consistent source of

light (accurate shadows)

The Tribute Money

#2 Donatello 1386-1466

The sculptor’s Masaccio

David (1430-32)– First free standing,

life-size nude since Classical period

– Contrapposto– Sense of Underlying

skeletal structure

The Penitent Magdalen (Donatello)

realgaunt

“Speak, speak or the plague take you!”

#3 Boticelli

1482 Rebirth of Classical

mythology Fully Pagan THE BIRTH OF

VENUS

The Italian Renaissance

Leonardo Michelangelo Raphael Titian

Da VinciMona Lisa (1503-06)Perspective,Anatomy, Composition

Cultural icon

The Last Supper

Emotions Response

Michelangelo

DavidDavid

MichelangeloMichelangeloBuonarottiBuonarotti

15041504

MarbleMarble

Raphael School of Athens 1510

Raphael

Da Vinci

Michelangelo

AristotleAristotle::looks to thislooks to thisearth [theearth [thehere andhere and

now].now].

PlatoPlato::looks to thelooks to theheavens [or heavens [or

the IDEALthe IDEALrealm].realm].

Pythagoras

Ptolemy

Euclid

Titian

Dazzling contrasting colors

Ample female forms Asymmetric

compositions Bacchanal of the

Adrians 1518

Venus of Urbino Venus of Urbino – Titian, – Titian, 15581558

A Portrait of SavonarolaA Portrait of Savonarola By Fra Bartolomeo,

1498.

Dominican friar who decried money and power.

Anti-humanist he saw humanism as too secular, hedonistic, and corrupting.

The “Bonfire of the Vanities,” 1497.

/ Burned books, artwork, jewelry, and other luxury goods in public.

/ Even Botticelli put some of his paintings on the fire!!