The High Renaissance

Liberal Studies 302A

Professor Emily Bonney

Masaccio, The Walls of the Brancacci Chapel, 1426-1427

Masaccio, The Tribute Money, 1426-1427

Masaccio, The Tribute Money, 1426-1427 (L), Peter and the fish (upper right), John (lower left) and Jesus speaking to the disciples (lower right)

Masaccio, Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, 1426-1427

Masolino’s Temptation, Brancacci Chapel

The Art and Architecture of the High Renaissance

• The period we call the High Renaissance begins around 1500.

• In its purest form the style lasts barely 30 years and appears chiefly in Rome and Venice

• While the artists of the Early Renaissance had used a visual vocabulary they though embodied universal rules, the artists of the High Renaissance saw themselves not as artisans but as creative beings.

• They also were inspired by additional discoveries of Greek and Roman Art and by the translation of more classical texts

Raphael (Rafaello Sanzio)(1483-1520)

• One of the giants of the High Renaissance

• Is best known for charming paintings of angels and Madonnas.

• Master draftsman with elegant, refined line.

• Defines characteristic features of the High Renaissance style– Clear primary and secondary

colors.– Stable pyramidal compositions– Awareness that how the

subject is depicted affects how the observer perceives the image. Form shapes content.

Small Cowper Madonna (1505)

Stanza della Segnatura (1509-1512)• Presents the four disciplines

that direct the well-ordered mind to the divine.

• In a sense can be seen as the outcome of the medieval concern with harmonizing faith and reason.

• Each wall is devoted to one of the disciplines – theology, philosophy, law and poetry – as embodied in some of the historical individuals associated with the disciplines.

• Personifications of each discipline are in tondos on the ceiling separated by mythological scenes.

The Ceiling of the Stanza della Segnatura with details of the tondos

Justice

Poetry Theology

Philosophy

The Ceiling of the Stanza della Segnatura with details of the panels

Adam and Eve The Prime Mover

The Judgment of Solomon

The Flaying of Marsyas

Justice from the Stanza della SegnaturaJustinian Presenting PandectsTo Trebonianus

Pope Gregory IX approving decretals

Mount Parnassus from the Stanza della Segnatura

Dante, Homer and Aeneas

Sappho The Muses with Ovid and Horace

Theology (The Disputation) from the Stanza della Segnatura

Group of Theologians Including St.Gregory the Great and Saint Jerome

Group of theologians including St. Bonaventura, Pope Sixtus IV, Savanarola and Dante

Philosophy (The School of Athens) from the Stanza della Segnatura

Plato (Da Vinci) and Aristotle

The Geometer Euclid (Bramamte) Heraclitus

(Michelangelo)

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)

• Has come to stand for the concept of the Renaissance Man.

• Inventor, student of anatomy, artist

• Vasari tells us “the greatest of all of Andrea’s pupils was Leonardo da Vinci, in whom, besides a beauty of person never sufficiently admired and a wonderful grace in all his actions, there was such a power of intellect that whatever he turned his min to he made himself master of with ease.”

• Study of the Vitruvian Man was a famous study of the Roman writer’s ideas about human proportions. Leonardo’s drawing emphasizes symmetry and may allude to unity of the cosmos.

The Last Supper (1498)

Mona Lisa (“La Gioconda”) (1503-1507):chiaroscuro and sfumato: less is more

http://britton.disted.camosun.bc.ca/mona/jbmona.htm

Donato Bramante (1444-1514)

• “Being anxious to make a name and to please the cardinal, Bramante displayed the utmost industry and diligence, and speedily completed the work.' Although it was not of perfect beauty, it brought him a great reputation, as there were not many in Rome who devoted so much love, study and activity to architecture as he. “ Vasari

• “The first to bring to light good and beautiful architecture which from the time of the ancients to his day had been forgotten.” — Palladio

The Tempietto (1502)

• Marked the spot where St. Peter, founder of the church, had been crucified.

• Embodies the stable circular and closed cosmos of the High Renaissance

• 16 Doric columns with 48 metopes bearing papal symbols.

• Most harmonious Renaissance building.

• Places the church at the center of the cosmos

• Aligns papal authority with the authority of the empires of the past.

• Earth is at the center of the cosmos and the church is at the center of the earth in terms of power and authority.

Giorgione (1478?-1510)

• The Tempest (1508)• Subject matter of the painting

remains a mystery• Accomplishment of the

painting is not. Captures the space and atmosphere of the landscape in totally new way. Artist has used his tools to recreate the appearance of nature so that as E.H. Gombrich has observed, painting is no longer just drawing plus coloring. Giorgione has discovered a new set of rules for making a new kind of painting.

Titian (1488/90-1576)

• Student of Giorgione’s.• The greatest of the Venetian

painters of the High Renaissance.

• Has become identified with the painterly style because of his use of color.

• His financial success helped to stimulate the use of oil on canvas as the new and preferred medium for painting.

• Painted for so long that he has three different phases each characterized by new ways of working with oil paint.

Fete Champetre (1508) (left) and Noli me Tangere (1511-1512)

Muses of Poetry following Aristotle’s Poetics

Giorgione’s Sleeping Venus (1508)(left); Titian’s Venus of Urbino (1538) (right)

Romanesque Music 600-1150

• Gregorian Chant: more properly called “Plainchant.”

• Monophony: one voice• Responsorial: soloist with

choral response• Conjunct: connected notes

with small intervals producing flowing sound

• Melismatic: syllable extended over several notes emphasizing particular words.

• Purpose: encourage prayerful state without distraction of instruments

• Anonymous creators who improvised and transmitted work orally.

• Haec dies (“This is the day..”)

• This is the day• which the Lord hath made;• we will rejoice and be• glad of it

• O give thanks to the Lord• for He is good:• for his mercy • endureth• forever.

Gothic Music 1150-1450

• Polyphony: more than one voice, all equally important.

• Organum: lower voice sings Gregorian chant slowly while upper voice moves freely and quickly and usually atextually(“without a text”).

• Composer: Leonin is the earliest known. Choices need to be made, and those choices reflect individual creator.

• Musical Notation: required to assist singers in knowing what note to sing next.

• Modes: fixed melodic and rhythmical patterns combined to create particular compositions.

• Secular music, secular audiences and the concept of respectful listening.

• Haec dies, ca. 1175 in the style of Leonin, Notre Dame School of Paris (Center of development of polyphonic music)

• Motet: appears early 13th century. Attributed to Perotin, also at Notre Dame. Addition of third or even fourth voice singing different texts.

• Instrumental accompaniment: Optional.

• Ostinato: Stretched out Gregorian chant in repeated patterns. Anchors the motet. Sung by Tenor (from Latin tenere “to hold”)

• Countermelody: Opposed melodies moving freely and rhythmically above the Ostinato.

• *************************************• Ars Nova: fourteenth century.

Increased rhythmical and harmonic complexity.

• New importance of intellect and control in music.

• Secular music becomes form of high art.

• O mitissima/Virgo/Haec dies• Top voice:• O sweetest Virgin Mary• beg thy son• to give us help • and resources• against the deceptions • of the demons • and their iniquities.

• Middle voice:

• Virgin of virgins, • light of lights,• reformer of men,• who bore the Lord,• through thee, Mary,• let grace be given• as the Angel announced:• Thou art a Virgin before and after.

• Tenor voice:

• Haec dies (repeated over and over)• ***************************************• “Rose, Lily” (ca. 1350)

• Rose, lily, spring, greenery,• flower, balm, and the sweetest• fragrance, beautiful lady, • you surpass them all in sweetness.• And all the gifts of nature• you possess, for which I adore you.• Rose, lily, spring, greenery,• flower, balm and the sweetest• fragrance.

• And, since beyond all creatures• your virtue excels, I can honestly say:• rose, lily, spring, greenery, • flower, balm, and very sweet• fragrance, beautiful lady,• you surpass them all in sweetness.

Renaissance Music: 1450-1600

• Humanism in Music: Like artists turned to pre-Christian models. Wanted music to have same effect on listener as Greek music had. Knew about Pythagorean views on music as representing order of cosmos with the power to change nature and alter souls.

• Continuous imitation: lines imitate each other.

• Cantus firmus: Fixed melody serves as basis for elaborate imitation by other voices.

• Homophony: Composition with several voices in which one melodic line dominates other musical lines.

• Word painting; musical gesture reflects meaning of the word being sung.

• Josquin Desprez, “Ave Maria . . . virgo serena” 1470s

• Hail Mary, full of grace.• The Lord is with you, gentle Virgin.• Hail, whose conception, • Full of solemn joy,• Fills the heaven, the earth,• With new rejoicing.• Hail, whose birth• Was our festival,• As our luminous rising light• Coming before the true sun.• Hail, pious humility,• Fertility without a man,• Whose annunciation• Was our salvation.• Hail, true virginity,• Unspotted chastity, • Whose purification was our cleansing.• Hail, famous with all• Angelic virtues, • Whose assumption was• Our glorification.