Renaissance (14th–16th Centuries)
Essiam 6
Evans Essiam
Professor Anne Monahan
Art 104
Monday, November 2, 2020
Renaissance (14th–16th Centuries)
The Impact of New Technologies
The first period of the 1300s wasn't the renaissance yet, and some historians call it the late gothic, implying it was a part of the Middle Ages. However, the century was a transition period where the formerly medieval economy that relied on farming shifted to a trade-based one. For instance, the increase in wool production spearheaded the textile trade, which benefited countries such as Flanders and Italy (Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker). The money generated was invested in architecture and art projects. The artist also devised ways to capture the buyers' attention by doing their works in a naturalistic style. They tried to represent people and space realistically. For example, the Italian artists began to paint sacred figures in three dimensions to make them appear like normal humans on the earth. This change was a great shift from the works that were made during the medieval period.
In the first period into the 1400s, artwork continued on two different tracks. The Italian artists were preoccupied with knowing how to present a body in space. Their quest led to the emergence of the technology, considering the linear perspective. In the process, they compared the works to a classical sculpture that showed real people. Elsewhere in Flanders, currently Belgium, the artist was interested in using texture and light in their arts. They also had their technology of atmospheric perspective and oil paint. The two sets of artists converged their efforts, and they both used them in later works (Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker). Renaissance in north Europe was different from Italy partly due to the classical roman architecture and art present the Romans used. The artists in the northern regions were also biased about Italian masters such as Leonardo da Vinci. Many people considered Italy the renaissance for a long period leading to the 16th century. The 14th and 15th centuries were full of artistic developments and inventions such as the atmospheric perspective, scientific thinking, linear perspective, and oil paint.
Renaissance artists were concerned with coming up with new artistic methods and techniques to improve their works' aesthetic and composition effect. The newly identified quest for antiquity was also pursued. Besides, they were concerned with formulating new perspectives and improved their architectural forms. The artists intended to create works that followed proportions and resembled reality. Thus, they came up with the linear view formerly used by Italian artists but were yet to be discussed. Linear perspective is mathematical and is used to present an illusion of distance and space on a horizontal surface. Using the technique, a painter imagines an open window through which he can view the subject drawn. The painting is divided into flat sections with a fixed vanishing point. After the 1400s, almost all artists in Italy and Flanders represented their works using a geometrical perspective. Following the development of the linear perspective in artworks, the later centuries oversaw further discoveries such as quantum mechanics, relativity, analytic and algebraic geometry.
However, north Europe was reluctant to adopt the changes partly due to a lack of classical references found in Italy and failure to accept the linear perspective in paintings for some decades. The art historians claim that the themes were recognized in specified terms in this region. The protestant reformation was a major setback considering most artworks relied on classical references mainly attached to the roman catholic church. The roman ruins were found in Italy, meaning other artists had to travel there to study them. The invention of the printing press in the 14th century allowed artists to make arts that were cheap, portable, and plentiful (Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker). Therefore, it is right to conclude that new technologies were essential to the development of artwork, as do other economy sectors during the transition period.
The Impact of Naturalism
The classical sculpture inspired the lifelike accuracy in the renaissance art, a feature that had disappeared during the middle and dark ages. Elements of naturalism reappeared in Giotto paintings during the proto-renaissance period. As opposed to the flat formal figures, Giotto came up with natural forms with gestures, posture, expressions, and eye contact that portrayed an unleveraged level of emotions. The paintings were composed in an organized space with overlapping figures that showed the depth of illusion and presented a narrative flow. The skills used in developing the quality of naturalism associated with high renaissance art stemmed from the observational drawing.
They were a combination of nature and anatomy in the painting. Many artists endeavored to study anatomy to know more about human forms. Some of them, such as Leonardo da Vinci dissected dead bodies to insight into what lies under the human skin. Such were the artists' levels during the renaissance to understand and apply classic beauty's naturalism in their works. As the knowledge of anatomy increased, the clothes decreased, and nudity returned for the first time since antiquity. Scenic elements were also used in artworks to create naturalism of the figures in their composition.
As the century went by the oil paint was invented, and it played a significant role in enhancing naturalism. It could produce a penetrating range of color, subtle tone blends, and other unique details. With their broad understanding of shade and light, the artist could create natural forms of objects and humans. During the early renaissance, naturalism was challenged by the lack of a devised way to arrange buildings and figures in space to form an illusion depth. Thus, the discovery of linear perspective in the 14th century was a great relief. Artists could portray figures on a two-dimensional surface using a given point of view. Naturalism was also about combining a model with a factual background with harmonic proportions. The Greeks believed that mathematics was the basic element of beauty and harmony.
The renaissance process started with an observation, then recording and refining the image to a natural state. The process has become an essential part of all the paintings and drawings in the years that followed. In northern Europe, especially Flanders, naturalism became an important part after they discovered the oil paint. It was a combination of powdered minerals suspended in linseed oil, which took time to dry (Dr. Bonnie Noble). The technique enabled the artists to thin the paint and apply it in layers such that it appeared to glow from inside. The artist could shade the objects with more subtlety to create a distinction of what is drawn. It is easy to distinguish what is drawn specifically without any form of mistake. The Flemish artists had discovered the use of oil paint earlier before their compatriots in Italy adopted the technique. The use of oil in high profile works was considered cheap in Flanders and took long before accepted in some devotional materials used in churches.
The artists must consider all the finer details in the paintings to enable them to come up with images and drawings showing naturalism. It is assumed that natural laws govern all the changes and structure of the universe. One of the important naturalist branches is methodological naturalism, which asserts that religious affiliation has no place in science. The shift towards the naturalistic representation of humans and their habitat began in the 1300s. The drawings became more lifelike, meaning the figure appeared as a real human with flesh and blood. As we have seen earlier, the invention of oil paint and the development of linear perspective were essential in developing naturalism during the high renaissance in Northern Europe and Italy.
Works Cited
Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, "Toward the High Renaissance, an introduction," in Smarthistory, August 9, 2015, accessed November 1, 2020, https://smarthistory.org/toward-the-high-renaissance-an-introduction/.
Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, "A brief history of Western culture," in Smarthistory, June 8, 2018, accessed November 1, 2020, https://smarthistory.org/a-brief-history-of-western-culture/.
Dr. Bonnie Noble, "An introduction to the Northern Renaissance in the fifteenth century," in Smarthistory, August 9, 2015, accessed November 1, 2020, https://smarthistory.org/an-introduction-to-the-northern-renaissance-in-the-fifteenth-century/.