art history
TY0496
chapter13.pptxHigh Renaissance
1500-1600
High Renaissance
Main centers: Rome and Venice
Combination of polytheistic architecture and Christian theme
Awe-inspiring projects emulated by Roman grandeur
Characteristics: balance, symmetry and ideal proportions
Triangular composition favored
The High Renaissance
The Beautiful, Spiritual, and Scientific in Italian Art
No singular style characterizes the High Renaissance, but the major artists of the period—Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Titian—exhibit a high level of technical and aesthetic mastery.
These artists also enjoyed an elevated social status, while their art was raised to the status formerly only given to poetry.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519)
Leonardo da Vinci's wide-ranging interests and scientific investigations informed and enhanced his art.
He studied the human body and considered the eyes the most vital organs and sight the most essential function.
Detail, Last Supper Leonardo da Vinci 1498
tempera and oil on plaster Santa Maria della Grazie, Milan
Leonardo da Vinci Last Supper Refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan c. 1495-1498
Experimental combination of painting : the paint began to peel off
Dramatic tension
Real human emotions
Unified architectural setting
Illusionistic room
Icon
Linear perspective: orthogonals of ceiling and floor point to Jesus
Leonardo's famous portrait of Mona Lisa shows a half-length figure seated against the backdrop of a mysterious uninhabited landscape.
Leonardo uses a smoky sfumato and atmospheric perspective to enhance the figure's ambiguous facial expression, which serves to conceal or mask her psychic identity from the viewer.
Mona Lisa c. 1503–1505 Oil on wood
approx. 2'6" x 1'9"
Louvre
In 1499, Michelangelo completed this Pieta for the Vatican.
Michelangelo Pieta 1499. Marble.
St. Peter’s, Vatican.
Michelangelo was only 23 when he carved this Pieta.
The detailed play of muscles over the figure's torso and limbs serves to enhance the mood and posture of tense expectation as David watches for the approach of Goliath.
The pent-up energy of David's psychic and muscular tension is contrasted with his apparently casual pose.
David is also represented as the defiant hero of the Florentine republic.
Michelangelo David
1501–1504. Marble 14' 3" high.
Galleria dell 'Accademia, Florence
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Returning, famous, to Florence in 1501, Michelangelo was commissioned by the new republican government to carve a colossal David, symbol of resistance and independence.
The monumental nude statue of David reveals Michelangelo's early fascination with the male body.
Michelangelo, David, 1501–1504. Marble, 14' 3" high. Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence
It is the twisting of the wrist, the agility of the joints, the movement of the head, the concentration of the look that pulls the features towards us.
In less than four years, (1508-1512) Michelangelo painted a monumental fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel organized around a sequence of narrative panels describing the Creation as recorded in the biblical book Genesis.
1536-1541
Fresco
48’ x 44’
Last Judgement Sistine Chapel
Raphael Santi (1483-1520)
In 1504, Raphael moved to Florence, where he remained until 1508.
These years were very important for his development.
He studied works of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo there, by which he was greatly influenced.
Yet he proved, that his ability to adapt from others what was necessary to his own vision and to reject what was incompatible with it was faultless.
Madonna of the Goldfinch
Raphael
1506
Oil on wood
42 x 30 inches
School of Athens
Raphael
1509-1511
Fresco
Stanza della
Segnatura,
Palazzi Pontifici
Vatican
Plato and Aristotle are standing in the center of the picture at the head of the steps.
This detail shows the portraits of Raphael and Sodoma.
Ptolemy (he has his back to us on the lower right), holds a sphere of the earth, next to him is Zaroaster who holds a celestial sphere.
Titian (1488/90 - 1576)
Titian trained with both Bellini and Giorgione before establishing his own workshop.
Giorgione had such a lasting influence on the young Titian to such a degree, that some works which are now thought to have been painted by Titian used to be attributed to Giorgione, and vice versa.
Madonna of the Pesaro Family
Titan
1519-26 oil on canvas
16 x 19 feet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=-ngmZo-dvy4
Titian's so-called Venus of Urbino shows a nude woman reclining on a luxurious pillowed couch.
Although she is posed as the goddess of classical mythology, the woman is probably a courtesan seen in her bedchamber.
This is an extremely fine composition. It invites us to dwell on more than just the warm, golden figure of this young woman with her cascading curls and the attractive, carefully studied movement of her arm.
Observe the way the sheet has been painted, with masterful blends of color, the small dog lazily curled up asleep.
Venus of Urbino Titan 1538 Oil on canvas 3’11” x 5’ 5”
Protestant Reformation
By the early 1500s, many people in Western Europe were growing increasingly dissatisfied with the Christian Church. Many found the Pope too involved with secular (worldly) matters, rather than with his flocks’ spiritual well-being. Lower church officials were poorly educated and broke vows by living richly and keeping mistresses. Some officials practiced simony or passing down their title as priest or bishop to their illegitimate sons. In keeping with the many social changes of the Renaissance, people began to boldly challenge the authority of the Christian Church.
Martin Luther and his 95 Theses
A German monk by the name of Martin Luther was particularly bothered by the selling of indulgences. An indulgence, a religious pardon that released a sinner from performing specific penalties, could be bought from a church official for various fees. Martin Luther was especially troubled because some church officials gave people the impression that they could buy their way into heaven. To express his growing concern of church corruption, Martin Luther wrote his famous 95 Theses, which called for a full reform of the Christian Church. In it, he stressed the following points:
A few of the Theses:
The Pope is a false authority.
The bible is the one true authority.
All people with faith in Christ are equal.
People do not need priests and bishops to interpret the bible for them. They can read it themselves and make up their own minds.
People can only win salvation by faith in God's forgiveness.
The Church taught that faith, along with good works is needed for salvation.
St. Ignatius of Loyola – Society of Jesus
Counter-Reformation
Art as propaganda
Art as re-invigorator of belief/practice
Spiritual ecstasy
Counter-Reformation
By the end of the 16th century, the Catholic Church was once again feeling optimistic, even triumphant. It had emerged from the crisis with renewed vigor and clarity of purpose. Shepherding the faithful—instructing them on Catholic doctrines and inspiring virtuous behavior—took center stage.
While the Protestants harshly criticized the cult of images, the Catholic Church ardently embraced the religious power of art. The visual arts, the Church argued, played a key role in guiding the faithful.
Paolo Veronese 1528-1588
The painters of Verona between about 1510 and 1540 favored firm, regular volumes, strong colors that function largely in terms of contrasts, and conventionalized figures.
Veronese combined these elements of the local High Renaissance style with Mannerist elements, including complex compositional schemes that often employ a “worm's-eye view” perspective.
Veronese's huge monumental painting of Christ in the House of Levi shows Christ seated with other figures (robed lords, their colorful retainers, clowns, dogs, and dwarfs) in a great open loggia framed by three monumental arches.
Christ in the House of Levi Paolo Veronese
1573 Oil on canvas 18' 6" x 42' 6“ Galleria dell‘Accademia, Venice
When originally titled the Last Supper, the Holy Office of the Inquisition accused Veronese of impiety.
Veronese changed the painting's title to the present one.
Paolo Veronese. Christ in the House of Levi (detail) 1573 Oil on canvas. 18' 6" x 42' 6“ Galleria dell‘Accademia, Venice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhsjS5CtCTE
The Last Supper Tintoretto 1591-1594
12′ 0″ x 18′ 8″ Church of San Giorgio Maggiore
Albrecht Durer
Self-portrait
Oil on wood panel
1500
2’ 2” x 1’ 7”
Matthias Grünewald, Isenheim Altarpiece (closed)
c. 1500, painting c. 1510-1515 painted and gilt limewood, oil on panel
Matthias Grünewald, Isenheim Altarpiece (second position)
Matthias Grünewald, Isenheim Altarpiece (open)
Sofonisba Anguissola
Self-Portrait
c. 1556
Oil on parchment on cardboard
3 ¼” x 2 ½”
The Garden of Earthly Delights
Tryptich
Hieronymus Bosch
7’ 3” x 12’ 9”
Oil on panel
closed
Self-Portrait at the Easel
Caterina van Hemessen
1548
Oil on panel
12 ¼” x 9 ¼”
Burial of the Count of Orgaz
El Greco
1586–88
oil on canvas
Mannerism
The Late Renaissance in Italy
Mannerist art and architecture places an emphasis on staged and contrived imagery, elegance and beauty, imbalanced compositions, and unusual visual and conceptual complexities.
Space in may appear ambiguous, and traditional themes may be presented in unconventional or unexpected ways.
Mannerist art may be restless, with figures shown distorted, exaggerated, and with affected but often sinuously graceful postures.
Mannerism's requirement of "invention" led artists to produce self-conscious stylizations involving complexity, caprice, fantasy, elegance, perfectionism, and polish.
The Deposition can perhaps justly be described as the artist's masterpiece.
The composition is extravagant; an inextricable knot of figures and drapes that pivots around the bewildered youth in the foreground and culminates above in the two lightly hovering figures emerging from vague background.
This complicated bunch of forms is arranged in the shape of an upturned pyramid.
Deposition of the Cross (or the Entombment)
c. 1525-1528 Oil on wood 10’ 3” x 6’ 4”
Cappella Capponi Santa Felicità, Florence
Bronzino's skill with the nude was best deployed in the celebrated Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time which conveys strong feelings or eroticism under the pretext of a moralizing allegory.
His intricate allegorical invention shows Cupid and his mother Venus together with personifications of Folly, Time, Envy, and Inconstancy.
Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time 1540-45 Oil on wood 57 ½” x 46” National Gallery, London
