Early Byzantine

Tile Icon of St. NicholasConstantinople10th-11th century

Characteristics:No backgroundFlat faced

Icon of Christ

Russian, Moscow

Tempera on wood and gilded silver

Middle Ages

•saints in paintings wore halos around their heads•hieratic scale: representing the sizes of things according to their importance, rather than how they would appear in the real world •saints or members of the family of God larger in scale than ordinary or less important figures

The Art of the

Italian Renaissance

The act of painting would no longer be to glorify God, as it had been in Medieval Europe. Painting in the Renaissance

related instead, to those people looking at the painting.

What was different in the Renaissance?

Realism

Perspective

Classical (pagan) themes

Geometrical arrangement of figures

Light and shadowing (chiaroscuro)

Softening of edges (sfumato)

Backgrounds

Artist able to live from commissions

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!

Characteristics of Renaissance Art

1. Realism & 1. Realism & ExpressionExpression

Expulsion from the Garden

Masaccio

1427

First nudes since classical times.

2. Perspective

Perspective!Perspective!PerspectivePerspective!!Perspective!Perspective!

PerspectivePerspective!!PerspectivePerspective!!

First use First use of linear of linear

perspective!perspective!

PerspectivePerspective!!PerspectivePerspective!!

The Trinity

Masaccio

1427

What you are, I once was; what I

am, you will become.

Discovery of Perspective:

About 1420

Attributed to Brunelleschi

Perspective produced a greater sense of realism

All made possible through mathematics.

3. Classicism

Greco-Roman influence.

Secularism.

Humanism.

Individualism free standing figures.

Symmetry/Balance

The “Classical Pose”Medici “Venus” 1st C

Birth of Venus Botticelli 1482–1486

4. Emphasis on Individualism

Batista Sforza & Federico de Montefeltre: The Duke & Dutchess of Urbino

Piero della Francesca, 1465-1466.

5. Geometrical Arrangement of Figures

Leonardo da Vinci

1469

The figure as architecture!

The Dreyfus Madonna with the Pomegranate

6. Light & Shadowing/Softening Edges6. Light & Shadowing/Softening Edges

Chiaroscuro:use of light and shade

Sfumato:gradual blending of one area of color into another without a sharp outline

Ginevra de' Benci, a young Florentine noblewoman who, at the age of sixteen, married Luigi Niccolini in 1474.

7. Artists as Personalities/Celebrities

Giorgio Vasari

1550

Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, andArchitects

Biographies of Italian artists

Giotto di Bondone

Considered the first in a line of great artists

who contributed

to the Italian

Renaissance

1267-1337

Giotto di BondoneFigures seem to exist in real space with recognizable human emotions.

The camels: have blue eyes, ears like a donkey and feet like a cow. Had Giotto ever seen a camel in real life?

Is the star Halley’s Comet which appeared in 1301?

The Adoration Of The Magi

1304-06

A Contest to Decorate the Baptistry in 1401 Sacrifice of Isaac Panels

BrunelleschiGhiberti

Ghiberti – Gates of Paradise

Ghiberti wins.

Made: 1425-1452

Michelangelo coins them the Gates of Paradise

Piero della Francesca The Ideal City -1470

David by Donatello

1430

First free-standing bronze since Roman times

The statue originally belonged to Cosimo de' Medici, and was placed in the courtyard of the Palazzo Medici

Sculpture

15c15c

16c 16c

WhatWhat

aa

differencedifference

aa

centurycentury

makes!makes!

The Renaissance ManThe Renaissance Man

Broad knowledge about many things in different fields.

Deep knowledge/skill in one area.

Able to link information from different areas/disciplines and create new knowledge.

The Greek ideal of the “well-rounded man” was at the heart of Renaissance education.

Self-PortraitSelf-Portrait da Vinci, 1512 da Vinci, 1512

1452 - 15191452 - 1519

Artist

Sculptor

Architect

Scientist

Engineer

Inventor

Vitruvian Man Vitruvian Man

Leonardo da VinciLeonardo da Vinci

14921492

The Last Supper - da Vinci, 1498Geometry

RefractoryConvent of Santa Maria delle Grazie

Milan

15 feet × 29 ft

horizontal

vert

ical

Perspective!Perspective!

The Last Supper The Last Supper - da Vinci, 1498- da Vinci, 1498

Detail of Jesus

New technique that resulted in rapid deterioration

Deterioration

Apostles First time Judas was painted as one of the twelve

Mona Lisa

Da Vinci

1503

Oil

Poplar panel

da Vinci carries it with him and the painting is next to him when he dies in France in 1519

Botticelli The Birth of Venus

It depicts the goddess Venus, having emerged from the sea as a full grown woman, arriving at the sea-shore 1482–1486

Michelangelo Buonorrati

1475 – 1564Born near Florence

Adopted by Medici family

He represented the body in three dimensions of sculpture.

David

1504

Marble

Heroic

Intense

High Renaissance 1500-1525

Associated with these three artists:

da Vinci - MilanRaphael - RomeMichelangelo - Rome

Renaissance RomeThe High Renaissance

The Sistine Chapel

Michelangelo

1508-1512

About a year after creating David, Pope Julius II summoned Michelangelo to Rome to work on his most famous project, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

The Sistine Chapel’s CeilingMichelangelo Buonarroti

1508 - 1512

Raphael

The School of Athens 1510 FrescoVatican City

Perspective

Subjects are mainly secular, but can be religious

Figures look idealized, but can also look like everyday ordinary people

Bodies are active

Clothed or unclothed

Faces are expressive

Detail

Plato:looks to the heavens-or the IDEALrealm.Painted as da Vinci

Aristotle:looks to thisearth-thehere andnow

Marriage in the Renaissance

Marriage vows were often treated like business contracts-carefully arranged marriage to strengthen business or family ties

A dowry-a bride’s family's gift to the bridegroom

A woman was expected to become a part of her new husband’s family Raphael Marriage of the Virgin-1529

Lorenzo Lorenzo the Magnificentthe Magnificent

1478 - 15211478 - 1521

Cosimo de MediciCosimo de Medici

1517 - 15741517 - 1574

Florence Under the MediciFlorence Under the Medici

Medici ChapelMedici Chapel

The Medici PalaceThe Medici Palace

Other Famous DomesOther Famous Domes

Il Duomo St. Peter’s St. Paul’s US capital Florence Rome London Washington