The Italian Renaissance

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The Italian Renaissance

• Art of An Emerging Modern Europe

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Influences That Shaped the Renaissance

• Johannes Gutenberg perfected the printing press.
• Humanism the interest in the classics and the
  Greco-Roman belief that each individual has
  dignity and worth.
• Florence became the artistic capital of Italy.

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Masaccio

• 1401-1428
• Compared to Giotto
• The Holy Trinity, c. 1428, Fresco.
• In the Florentine church of Santa Maria Novella.
• Ignored unnecessary detail and focused attention
  on mass and depth.

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Linear Perspective

• Filippo Brunelleschi
• Figure 16.4 16.5
• Linear Perspective a graphic system that showed
  artists how to create the illusion of depth and
  volume on a flat surface.

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Aerial Perspective

• Uses hue, value, and intensity to show distance
  in a painting.

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Masaccio

• Strong directional light on one side.
• Other side in deep shadow.
• Faint back ground.
• Larger figures.
• Figures seem to pop on the page.

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Fra Angelico

• Uses Masaccios techniques on The Annunciation.
  Figure. 16.6.
• Uses a mixture of the Renaissance and Gothic
  ideas.
• Not interested in perspective.

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Ghiberti

• Used this mixture of style with sculpture.
• Baptistery door.
• The Gates of Paradise.
• Used more Renaissance ideas.

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Foreshortening

• Drawing figures or objects according to the rules
  of perspective so that they appear to recede or
  protrude into three dimensional space.

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Piero della Francesca

• The Baptism of Christ, figure 16.10.
• Vertical lines.
• Horizontal lines.
• Curved lines.
• Serious, calm, still.

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Donatello

• Contrapposto.
• Realistic.

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Filippo Brunelleschi

• The dome of the Florence Cathedral.
• 8 gothic ribs.
• 4 ribs seen on outside.
• Placed on a drum.
• Circular windows allowed light in.

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Brunelleschi

• Chapel for the Pazzi family.
• Balance between vertical and horizontal
  movements.
• Dark moldings, pilasters, and columns used to
  divide and organize the wall surfaces.

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Botticelli

• Crisp, sharp contour lines.
• Proportion
• Emphasis

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Leonardo da Vinci

• The Last Supper, figure 16.18.
• Christ is in the center of the composition.
• Silhouetted in the window.
• Calm and silent.
• Grouped in threes.
• Jammed together to accent the action of the
  drama.

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Michelangelo

• Pietà
• Mary mourning over the body of Jesus.
• Small face compared to her body.
• Emotionless.

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The Sistine Chapel

• The story of humanity from the Creation to the
  Flood.
• Sculptor painting in sculptural style.
• Scaffolding 68 feet above the chapel.
• 145 pictures with more than 300 figures, many 10
  feet high.

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Raphael

• Learned shading from Leonardo to create the
  illusion of 3D.
• Learned from Michelangelo how to add vitality and
  energy to his figures.
• Blended these together to create his own style.

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Interpretation

• The Alba Madonna, Figure 16.24.
• Halos
• Mary, Christ, John the Baptist.
• Cross held by John the Baptist.
• All stare at the cross.

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Women Artists

• Most expected to tend to household duties/being
  wife and mother.
• Not allowed education to be an artist.
• Embroideries, tapestries, and occasionally
  illustrated manuscripts.
• Sofonisba Anguissola, Double Portrait of a Boy
  and Girl of the Attavanti Family, fig. 16.25.