Renaissance Art

Middle Ages

• lacked– depth– perspective– realism – looked flat– color– individualism

• people were viewed in terms of their place in society

– an excitement about life• life during Middle Ages was a preparation for heaven or

hell rather than an experience worth having

It was....

• Sacred• Symbolic• Simplified• Stylized• Background is flat and stage-like

Giotto

• a Renaissance Man• transitional piece• Mary and baby are the focus• not intended to show everyday life,

but life in Heaven• Mary and Christ are large than

others• background covered with gold –

showing this is God’s kingdom• gold halos• baby Jesus is small man• facial features are the same• only god can create

Madonna and Child

Adding Math and Science

• Leonardo da Vinci has circles and squares to find the mathematical proportions of man

• “aim of science and art are one”

• artists study geometry, anatomy, botany, physics

• subjects provide the information needed to better represent artistically what they were drawing

Proportions of Man

Masaccio• rediscovered the technique of

linear perspective • a technique that creates the

appearance of three dimensions

• creating the illusion of “real space”

• established an imaginary line on the viewer’s eye level called the horizon line

• center of this line called the vanishing point– the point at which lines leading

into the distance seem to meet

Trinity with the Virgin and St. John

New things Renaissance Artists

added....• Single light source

– putting together science and nature

• Sfumate “up in smoke”– aerial perspective for showing distance outdoors– figures closest to viewer – clean and bright– figures far away – light, hazy, fade into the distance

• Chiaroscuro– blending

• Proportion– haze– eliminate contrast in background

Da Vinci

• Mona Lisa

– Single light source

– Sfumato

– Chiaroscuro

– Proportion

Michelangelo

• The Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican

Coming face to face with God

The famous hands of Adam and God

the Delphic Sibyl

• A perspective device called foreshortening

The School of AthensRaphael

Michelangelo

Archimedes

Euclid

RaphaelRaphael

Leonardo

Birth of VenusBotticelli

Adoration of the Magi

Botticelli

Arnolfini Wedding

Jan Van Eyck

• Oil Painting• Symbolism

Compare/Contrast

Middle Ages Renaissance