ITALIAN RENAISSANCE ART

ESPÍRITU SANTO ENGLISH COLLEGE

-Noelia Gallego Cruz-José Miguel García Cruz

-2º BHCS – Integrated Project

-Italian city states in 1494

Major centers in the Renaissance

General Characteristics

• Study of classic works from Ancient Greece and Imperial Rome.

• Use of profane topics.

• Human beings are God’s best creation.

• There were a lot of studies about nature.

• Study of human anatomy.

• Artists started to gain prestige.

• Patronage is promoted because of the spreading of the idea of prosperity, so nobility in the Renaissance era will sponsor artists in order to go down in history. One of the most important families will be the Medicis in Florence.

Quattrocento’s architecture

•Architects wanted to control space with simple elements.•Space gets rationalizated and organised.•Typical elements of Greek and Roman art were used: columns, front doorways, semicircular archs, cornices and domes.•The first grand work of •The first grand work of Renaissance style was the Dome of Florence’s cathedral, by Filippo Brunelleschi.•Besides churches and cathedrals, the “palazzi” (for nobility and bourgeoisie) were the most important buildings.

Palazzo Pitti

The Palazzo Pitti is a vast mainly Renaissance palace in Florence, Italy. The palace was bought by the Medici family in 1549 and became the chief residence of the ruling families of the Grand

Duchy of Tuscany. It grew as a great treasure house as later generations amassed paintings, plates, jewelry and luxurious possessions. The architect’s name is unknown.

Quattrocento’s sculpture•Sculptors worried about human representation in an ideal and well-proportioned way. Classical models and nudes were brought back. •They used marble, which is very difficult to sculpt, demostrating that they had quite a bit of skill with that material.•They introduce the main characters of the Renaissance.

Donatello will be the forerunner of this style, because he worked with

elegance and harmony, so he will give a lot of vitality he will give a lot of vitality

to his works. Verrochio, Leonardo’s teacher, will work with

emotions.We’ll understand by

comparing these sculptures of the same

David.

Quattrocento’s sculpture

•Another well-known artist of this period is Lorenzo Ghiberti, who worked with bronze and used reliefs in his porchs. His most famous work will be the Gates of Paradise, Baptistery, Florence.

Quattrocento’s paintings

•The most innovative thing will be the use of perspective and the study of lights.•Artists will be obsessed by the illustration of depth in a flat surface.•Naturalistic representations of landscapes will be fundamental.•Regarding portraits, artists will try •Regarding portraits, artists will try to despict a wide range of emotions.•These works will touch religious and mythological themes.•Patrons will be often despicted in those works of art.•Masaccio, Piero della Francesca or Sandro Boticelli were some of those painters.

Masacio: La Trinidad

Quattrocento’s paintingsPiero della Francesca: The Brera Madonna.

This work represents a 'sacra conversazione', with the Virgin enthroned and the sleeping Child in the middle, surrounded by a host of angels and saints. On the right low corner, kneeling and wearing his armor, the patron of wearing his armor, the patron of arts and condottiero duke Federico da Montefeltro. It’s a geometric composition, based in a triangle and a sphere, with pale colours and a cold light.

Quattrocento’s paintings

Sandro Boticelli: Primavera or Allegory of Spring. The painting, depicting a group of mythological figures in a garden, is allegorical for the lush growth

of Spring.

Cinquecento’s architecture

•The main example of this architecture is Saint Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. Bramante, Raphael Sanzio, Michelangelo, Bellini and Maderno all take part in this work.•Cinquecento’s architecture was more dramatic than more dramatic than Quattrocento’s.•This kind of architecture used classical models from Ancient Greece and Imperial Rome.•High Renaissance architecture exactly followed classical canons of proportion, and observed the basic equality of form and function.

Cinquecento’s Architecture: St Peter’s dome

Saint Peter's Basilica has the largest interior of any Christian church in the world. Saint Peter's is regarded as one of the holiest Catholic sites.

Cinquecento’s architecture: St Peter’s dome

Florence’s cathedral. Brunelleschi (1417 – 1420) Dome of Saint Peter’s Basilica. Michelangelo (XVI century)

Cinquecento’s architecture: Palladio

Villa La Rotonda is a Renaissance villa just outside Vicenza, northern Italy, designed by Andrea Palladio.

Cinquecento’s sculpture

•The most important sculptor of this period will be Michelangello Buonarroti.

•He didn’t seek neither balance nor harmony, he will try to find a dramatic expression, which will be known as terribilità.

•While he develops his arts,

Moses

•While he develops his arts, his sculptures will get more lively and dramatic, showing us the tension and the strength of the characters. Moses (done for Julius II tomb) and Davidare good examples of this.

David

Cinquecento’s sculpture: Michelangelo

•The Pietà (1498–1499) is a masterpiece ofRenaissancesculpture by Michelangelo,housed in St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City. It is the first of a number of works of the same theme by the artist: the rest of by the artist: the rest of the sculptures are “The Deposition” ( “The Florentine pietà”) and “The Rondadinni pietà”. All of them are done in marble.

Cinquecento’s sculpture: Cellini

Benvenutto Cellini was a great sculptor of that time, but he was eclipsed by Michelangelo. His main pieces were the Perseus and the Cellini Salt Cellar, a present to Francis I, king of France.

Cinquecento’s paintings: Leonardo da Vinci•Leonardo da Vinci was a great mind of the Renaissance era, being the archetypical Renaissance man: he was interested in sciences, arts, and all sorts of knowledge.•He had great skills painting, and his obsessions were lights, perspective and atmosphere.•The Last Supper, a fresco painting made in Milan, achieves a balanced, harmonious composition.

Cinquecento’s paintings: Leonardo da Vinci•He improves artistic representation with techniques like the sfumato, which reflects the fog that surrounds bodies in the horizon.•Among the qualities that make Leonardo's work unique are the innovative techniques that he used in laying on the paint, his detailed knowledge of anatomy, light, botany and geology.

Cinquecento’s paintings: Raphael Sanzio•He is considered the top of Renaissance painting because the mastered the technique.•He makes splendid, psychological portraits.•His compositions were elegant and harmonious.

Cinquecento’s paintings: Michelangelo•His most important piece of art is the Sistine Chapel Ceiling.•As a student Michelangelo studied and drew from the works of the two most renowned Florentine fresco painters of the early Renaissance, Giotto and Masaccio.•For him, the body is simply the manifestation of the soul, or of a state of mind and character.

Cinquecento’s paintings: Venetians•In the 15th century Venetian painting developed through influences from the Paduan School and Antonello da

Messina, who introduced the oil painting technique of Early Netherlandish painting. It is typified by a warm colour scale and a picturesque use of colour. Among the leading early masters were Giorgione and Titian,

then Tintoretto and Veronese.

Giorgione: The Tempest. Veronese: Venus and Adonis.

Cinquecento’s paintings: Venetians

Tintoretto: The Last SupperTintoretto was a Venetian painter and a notable exponent of the

Renaissance school. Tintoretto's Last Supper incorporates an imbalanced composition and visual complexity.

Cinquecento’s paintings: Venetians

Titian: Danae

Tiziano Vecelli was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. Recognized by his contemporaries as "The Sun

Amidst Small Stars“,Titian was one of the most versatile of Italian painters.