The High Renaissance in Italy

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The High Renaissance in Italy

• Da Vinci,
• Michelangelo
• Raphael

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Leonardo da Vinci the Renaissance Man
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• The term renaissance man is used to describe
  someone who has a wide variety of interests, and
  expertise in many fields.
• Leonardo da Vinci was the quintessential
  renaissance man. He was a painter, sculptor,
  inventor, architect, musician, engineer, and
  scientist.
• He is widely recognized as a genius of the
  highest level.
• Historians tell us that he was not only
  intellectually gifted, but that he was noble in
  appearance and manners as well.

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Leonardo da VinciThe Last Supper 1495 - 1498
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• Thank you Samantha and Lauren for introducing
  this work to us.

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• The Last Supper was painted on the wall of the
  refectory (dining hall) in the monastery of Santa
  Maria delle Grazie in Milan, Italy
• The Last Supper measures 450 870 centimeters
  (15 feet 29 ft)

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• Christ is depicted here with his disciples at the
  last meal he shared with them before his
  crucifixion. We are shown the moment after Jesus
  has announced that one of the disciples will
  betray him.
• The disciples react with dismay, and their
  gestures show their disbelief and concern.

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• Notice how effectively Da Vinci leads the
  viewers eye to Jesus
• By centering Jesus
• By using the lines of perspective in the walls
  and ceiling
• By framing Jesus head in the window
• By isolating Jesus, while all other figures are
  grouped and overlapping
• By following the gazes and gestures of the
  disciples
• By contrasting Jesus stillness with the
  agitation of the other figures

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Disasters plague The Last Supper

• The Last Supper is one of the most famous
  paintings in the world, but it has not been well
  preserved.
• Shortly after Da Vinci finished the painting it
  began to peel off the wall. (Da Vinci did not use
  the fresco technique instead, he sealed the
  surface of the wall and painted on top of it.)
• Several attempts by lesser artists were made to
  restore it, and parts of it were painted over
  with oil paints.
• At one point a door was cut into the wall below
  the picture, partly cutting off the bottom of the
  painting.
• During the Napoleonic wars, when the monastery
  was used as an armory, soldiers threw their boots
  at Judas.
• During WWII, the dining hall suffered a direct
  hit in a Nazi bombing raid.
• The painting was covered by a canvas, but trapped
  moisture caused fungus to grow on the surface of
  the painting.

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Leonardo da Vinci Mona Lisa (La Giaconda) 1503
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• Mona was an abbreviation of madonna, meaning my
  lady, the equivalent of Madame, or Signora. So
  the title means Madame Lisa.
• Lisa became the wife of a Florentine silk
  merchant at the age of 16. She was 24 years old
  when the portrait was completed.
• Da Vinci worked on it for four years and kept it
  with him until he died at age 50.

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• The painting was stolen from the Louvre in 1911
  by a former Louvre employee and rediscovered in a
  hotel room in Florence 2 years later.

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Mona Lisa, A Prototype for Renaissance Portraiture

• The portrait is a prototype of the Renaissance
  portrait. In other words, Da Vinci introduced a
  new way of painting portraits.
• He used both linear and aerial perspective in the
  background
• He used a relaxed, natural, three-quarter pose
  which was a departure from the stiff profile head
  and shoulders portraits which had become the norm
  at that time.
• He used a technique known as sfumato, (smoke)
  building the painting with layers of
  semi-transparent glazes, so the expression on the
  models face, especially her smile, is softly
  ambiguous, or mysterious.

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Leonardo da VinciThe Madonna of the Rocks
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• There are 2 versions of this painting, one in the
  Louvre, in Paris, and one at the National
  Gallery, in London.
• The scene refers to a legend that Jesus and John
  the Baptist met up as infants on the road to
  Egypt, fleeing Herods decree that all Jewish
  infants under the age of two years must be
  murdered.

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• The cross and halos that are absent in the first
  version (the Louvre version) were possibly added
  to the London version by another artist, to make
  identification of the two child figures easier.
• The pool of water foreshadows Johns role as the
  one who will baptize Jesus.

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Leonardo da VinciThe Virgin and St. Anne

• Da Vinci shows us three generations of the Holy
  Family here in an intimate and relaxed moment.
  The Virgin Mary sits in her mothers lap (St.
  Anne), and reaches lovingly toward Jesus, who
  plays with a lamb. The lamb, of course,
  symbolizes Jesus future role as a sacrifice for
  all mankind.

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Leonardo da VinciCecilia Gallerani 1489 - 1490
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• The Lady with the Ermine was painted in oils on
  wooden panel
• Cecilia Gallerani was the mistress of Leonardo's
  employer, Lodovico Sforza
• At the time of her portrait, Cecilia was about
  sixteen.
• was renowned for her beauty, her scholarship, and
  her poetry. She was betrothed at the age of about
  ten years to a young nobleman of the house of
  Visconti but the marriage was called off. Cecilia
  became the mistress of the Duke and bore him a
  son, but he chose to marry a girl from a more
  noble family, Beatrice d'Este.3

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• Cecilia's dress is comparatively simple,
  revealing that she is not a noblewoman. Her
  coiffure, known as a "coazone", confines her hair
  smoothly to her head with two bands of hair bound
  on either side of her face and a long plait at
  the back. Her hair is held in place by a fine
  gauze veil with a woven border of gold-wound
  threads, a black band and a sheath over the plait.

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Why an Ermine?

• There are several interpretations of the
  significance of the ermine in her portrait. The
  ermine was a traditional symbol of purity because
  it was believed that an ermine would face death
  rather than soil its white coat by hiding in a
  muddy burrow.
• For Ludovico il Moro the ermine had a further
  personal significance in that he had been in the
  Order of the Ermine in 1488 and used it as a
  personal symbol.
• Given that Cecilia gave birth to a son
  acknowledged by Lodovico in May of 1491, and the
  association of weasels and pregnancy in Italian
  Renaissance culture, it is also possible that the
  animal was a symbol of Cecilia's pregnancy.

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Leonardo da Vinci La Belle Ferroniere
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• This is one of only four portraits of women by
  Leonardo da Vinci.
• It is thought by some art historians that this
  woman was another mistress of the Duke of Milan.

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Leonardo da Vinci

• Vitruvian Man 1487
• The Vitruvian Man remains one of the most
  referenced and reproduced artistic images in the
  world today.

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• Vitruvian Man is a world-renowned drawing created
  by Leonardo da Vinci around the year 1487. It is
  accompanied by notes based on the work of the
  famed classical architect, Vitruvius, for which
  it is named.
• The drawing and text are sometimes called the
  Canon of Proportions or, less often, Proportions
  of Man.

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• According to Leonardo's notes, (written in mirror
  writing), it was made as a study of the
  proportions of the (male) human body as described
  in Vitruvius. For example
• the length of a man's outspread arms (arm span)
  is equal to his height
• the distance from the top of the head to the
  bottom of the chin is one-eighth of a man's
  height etc. (ie. The figure is 8 heads high)

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• The Renaissance was a period in which the human
  form was recognized as noble, made in the image
  of God. Mankind was seen as the measure of all
  things, and human proportions were thought to
  correspond with measurements found in the natural
  world and in the structure of the universe

The Renaissance was a period in which the
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Leonardo da Vincidrawing of a womans head
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Da Vinci the medical researcher study of a fetus
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Leonardo da Vincianatomical drawing human lungs
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Da Vinci the inventor sketch design of a
helicopter
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• Michelangelo
• Sculptor
• Painter
• Architect

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• "In every block of marble I see a statue as plain
  as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect
  in attitude and action. I have only to hew away
  the rough walls that imprison the lovely
  apparition to reveal it to the other eyes as mine
  see it."Michelangelo

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• Michelangelos David.
• This statue is perhaps the most iconic image of
  the Renaissance period.
• Michelangelos statue stands 17 feet high (about
  3 metres)

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• "In it may be seen most beautiful contours of
  legs, with attachments of limbs and slender
  outlines of flanks that are divine nor has there
  ever been seen a pose so easy, or any grace to
  equal that in this work, or feet, hands and head
  so well in accord, one member with another, in
  harmony, design, and excellence of artistry. And,
  of a truth, whoever has seen this work need not
  trouble to see any other work executed in
  sculpture, either in our own or in other times,
  by no matter what craftsman."Giorgio Vasari
  1550

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Michelangelos David

• It was sculpted between1501 and 1504.
• Michelangelo was only twenty-six years old, when
  he won the commission to complete the statue from
  a block of marble (the giant) that had been
  abandoned 30 years earlier by another artist.
• When it was finished, David was placed in front
  of the entrance to the Palazzo Vecchio, the town
  hall. In 1873 the statue was moved from the
  piazza, to protect it from damage, and brought to
  its current location in the Academia Gallery, in
  Florence.

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A Classic Pose

• David is a Renaissance interpretation of a common
  ancient Greek theme of the standing heroic male
  nude.
• In the High Renaissance, contrapposto poses were
  thought of as a distinctive feature of antique
  sculpture. In David, the figure stands with one
  leg holding its full weight and the other leg
  relaxed. This classic pose causes the figures
  hips and shoulders to rest at opposite angles,
  giving a slight s-curve to the entire torso. This
  curve gives the figure its classical grace.
• Michelangelos David has become one of the most
  recognized pieces of Renaissance sculpture,
  becoming a symbol of both strength and youthful
  human beauty.

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• Traditionally, David was portrayed after his
  victory, triumphant over the giant Goliath. Both
  Verrochios and Donatellos Davids are depicted
  standing over Goliath's severed head.
• Michelangelo has depicted David before the
  battle. Davis is tense, but not so much in a
  physical as in a mental sense. The slingshot he
  carries over his shoulder is almost invisible,
  emphasizing that David's victory was one of
  cleverness, not sheer force.

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• The hand that holds the stone is larger than the
  other, drawing the viewers attention to the
  action that is about to unfold.

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Facing down the enemy

• Michelangelo was a citizen of the city state of
  Firenze (Florence), and Florence was surrounded
  by much more powerful enemy city states.
• When the statue of David was placed on the square
  in front of the city hall, the people of Florence
  immediately identified with him as the cunning
  underdog triumphing over the big bad guy. David
  was positioned so that his glare was directed
  south, toward the rival city of Rome.

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Michelangelo - Moses
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Michelangelos Moses

• This statue was commissioned by Pope Julius II
  for Julius tomb.
• It was one of 40 figures that were intended to
  adorn the tomb in St. Peters Basilica. The tomb
  ended up in a smaller church, with only a third
  of the originally planned figures.

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Moses

• Moses, sculpted in marble, has horns on his head,
  in the manner that was traditional in medieval
  depictions of Moses (tongs of fire according to
  the bible).
• Horns were symbolic of authority in ancient Near
  Eastern culture, and the medieval depiction had
  the advantage of giving Moses a convenient
  attribute by which he could easily be recognized
  in crowded pictures.

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Michelangelo Pieta
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Pieta

• Pieta means Pity, and this is certainly the
  emotion that this magnificent sculpture evokes.
• We feel pity for Christs suffering, but also for
  his grieving mother, who holds her sons body in
  an attitude of quiet acceptance.

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Michelangelos Pieta

• The Pieta balances the Renaissance ideals of
  classical beauty with naturalism. The statue is
  one of the most highly finished works by
  Michelangelo.
• The structure is pyramidal. The statue widens
  progressively down the drapery of Mary's dress,
  to the base. The figures are quite out of
  proportion, owing to the difficulty of depicting
  a fully-grown man cradled full-length in a
  woman's lap. By concealing much of Mary's body in
  her monumental drapery, Michelangelo made the
  relationship of the figures appear quite natural.

It is an important work as it balances
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• Note that Michelangelo's sculpted a young and
  beautiful Mary rather than an older woman. One
  explanation for this is that her youth symbolizes
  her incorruptible purity. Another is that Mary is
  really seeing her child, the infant Jesus, while
  the viewer is seeing an image of the future.
• The marks of the crucifixion are limited to very
  small nail marks and an indication of the wound
  in Jesus' side.

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Michelangelo as a PainterThe Sistine Chapel

• The Sistine Chapel is located in the Vatican City
  
• in Rome, attached to St. Peters Basilica,
  the papal apartments and the vast complex of
  buildings that make up the Vatican museums.
• Michelangelo was commissioned by Pope Julius II
  to paint the ceiling of the chapel. He resisted,
  as he preferred sculpture to painting, but had to
  do as he was told.
• The works are frescoes, (painted into fresh
  plaster) and they cover about 4,000 square metres
  of ceiling.
• Michelangelo built scaffolding so that he could
  work on his back, and laboured over the frescoes
  from 1508 to1512.

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MichelangeloThe Sistine Chapel
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MichelangeloThe Creation of Adam (The Sistine
Chapel)
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• Thank you Jon, for introducing this work to us.

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Interpretations of The Creation of Adam

• It has been suggested that the background figures
  and shapes portrayed behind the figure of God
  bear a striking similarity to a cross section of
  the human brain, including the frontal lobe,
  optic chiasm, brain stem, pituitary gland, and
  the major sulci of the cerebrum.
• Alternatively, it has been observed that the red
  cloth around God has the shape of a human uterus
  and that the scarf hanging out, colored green,
  could be a newly cut umbilical cord.

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• Both of these interpretations suggest the mystery
  of creation in the mind, where ideas are born,
  and in the womb, where life originates.
• The painting depicts the symbolic birth of the
  human race, as God reaches out to give the breath
  of life to Adam, the first man, reclining on the
  newly made earth.
• Under Gods left arm is Eve, as yet unborn.
• Michelangelos fascination with and his
  familiarity with human anatomy are in evidence
  here.

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Sistine Chapel The Temptation of Adam and Eve
(The Sistine Chapel)
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Michelangelo The Sistine ChapelThe Last
Judgment
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• The Last Judgment is on the altar wall of the
  Sistine Chapel. It took four years to
  complete(1537 to 1541). Michelangelo began
  working on it three decades after finishing the
  ceiling of the chapel.
• The work is massive and spans the entire wall
  behind the altar of the Sistine Chapel. The Last
  Judgment is a depiction of the Second Coming of
  Christ and the apocalypse. The souls of humans
  rise and descend to their fates, as judged by
  Christ surrounded by his saints.

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• The Last Judgment was a source of conflict
  between Cardinal Carafa and Michelangelo the
  artist was accused of obscenity, having depicted
  naked figures, inside the most important church
  of Christianity,)
• When the Pope's own Master of Ceremonies, Biagio
  da Cesena, said that it was no work for a papal
  chapel but rather "for the public baths and
  taverns," Michelangelo worked Cesena's face into
  the scene as Minos, judge of the underworld (far
  bottom-right corner of the painting) with Donkey
  ears i.e. foolishness while his nudity is
  covered by a coiled snake.
• It is said that when Cesena complained to the
  Pope, the pontiff joked that his jurisdiction did
  not extend to hell, so the portrait would have to
  remain

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Detail from The Last Judgement Minos
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• In the painting, Michelangelo does a self
  portrait depicting himself as St. Bartholomew
  after he had been flayed (skinned alive). This is
  reflective of the feelings of contempt
  Michelangelo had for being commissioned to paint
  The Last Judgement.

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Michelangelo as an Architect The dome of St.
Peters in Rome
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• The dome of St. Peters Basilica, Rome

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St Peters Square - Rome
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Raphael Sanzo

• 8 years younger than Michelangelo
• Interested in archeology, he became an expert in
  ancient Roman art.
• Commissioned to decorate the state rooms in the
  Vatican at the same time that Michelangelo was
  working on the Sistine Chapel frescoes.

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• Raphael, unlike Michelangelo, was well mannered,
  well dressed, well liked.
• He always carried around a sketch book in which
  he constantly sketched women and children. These
  sketches formed the basis of his many Madonnas.
• He was influenced by Perugino to use soft
  colours, simple circular forms, and gentle
  landscapes in his paintings.
• He is best remembered for his madonnas, his
  portrayals of the Virgin with the infant Jesus.

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The Sistine Madonna
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Raphael The Sistine Madonna (detail of the
angels)
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• Raphaels madonnas seem simple and effortless,
  but their apparent simplicity is the fruit of
  deep thought, careful planning and immense
  artistic wisdom. A painting like Raphael's
  'Madonna dell Granduca', is truly 'classical' in
  the sense that it has served countless
  generations as a standard of perfection in the
  same way as the works of the classical sculptors
  Pheidias and Praxiteles.

, their apparent simplicity is the fruit of deep
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• The Madonna del Granduca
• The way the Virgin's face is modeled and recedes
  into the shade, the way Raphael makes us feel the
  volume of the body wrapped in the freely flowing
  mantle, the firm and tender way in which she
  holds and supports the Christ Child - all this
  contributes to the effect of perfect poiseto
  change the group ever so slightly would upset the
  whole harmony. Yet there is nothing strained or
  sophisticated in the composition. It looks as if
  it could not be otherwise, and as if it had so
  existed from the beginning of time.

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Raphael Madonna della Sedia - 1514
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Raphael The Alba Madonna 1500
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Raphael The Madonna of the Meadow 1505
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• Raphael The Cowper Madonna.
• 1505

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Raphael The School at Athens
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• Thank you Erica and Chiara for introducing us to
  this work.

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Raphael The School at Athens. 1509-1510

• Raphaels famous fresco decorates a wall in the
  papal palace at the Vatican, in Rome.
• He depicts famous figures from various fields of
  knowledge, with the Greek philosophers, Plato and
  Aristotle at the centre of the composition. Plato
  is shown with Leonardo da Vincis features.
• Also included in the painting are Socrates
  (another philosopher), Alexander the Great
  (military genius) and Pythagoras and Euclid
  (mathematicians).

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• Raphael has also paid tribute to his fellow
  artist, Michelangelo, by placing him in the
  foreground.
• The work is a brilliant demonstration of the
  technique of linear (line) perspective. The
  architectural space recedes infinitely through
  the arches of the marble hall to the open sky
  beyond.