The High Renaissance

Masaccio, The Walls of the Brancacci Chapel,

Masaccio, The Tribute Money, 1426-1427

Masaccio, The Tribute Money, 1426-1427 (L), Peter and the fish (upper right), John (lower left) and Jesus

speaking to the disciples (lower right)

Masaccio, Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, 1426-1427

Masolino’s Temptation, Brancacci Chapel

The Art and Architecture of the High Renaissance• The period we call the High Renaissance begins around

1500.

• In its purest form the style lasts barely 30 years and appears chiefly in Rome and Venice

• While the artists of the Early Renaissance had used a visual vocabulary they though embodied universal rules, the artists of the High Renaissance saw themselves not as artisans but as creative beings.

• They also were inspired by additional discoveries of

Raphael (Rafaello Sanzio)(1483-1520)

• One of the giants of the High Renaissance

• Is best known for charming paintings of angels and Madonnas.

• Master draftsman with elegant, refined line.

• Defines characteristic features of the High Renaissance style

• Clear primary and secondary colors.

• Stable pyramidal compositions

• Awareness that how the subject is depicted affects how the observer perceives the image. Form shapes content.

Small Cowper Madonna (1505)

Stanza della Segnatura

• Presents the four disciplines that direct the well-ordered mind to the divine.

• In a sense can be seen as the outcome of the medieval concern with harmonizing faith and reason.

• Each wall is devoted to one of the disciplines – theology, philosophy, law and poetry – as embodied in some of the historical individuals associated with the disciplines.

• Personifications of each discipline are in tondos on the ceiling separated by mythological scenes.

The Ceiling of the Stanza della Segnatura with details of the tondos

Justice

Poetry Theology

Philosophy

The Ceiling of the Stanza della Segnatura with details of the panels

Adam and Eve The Prime Mover

The Judgment of SolomonThe Flaying of Marsyas

Justice from the Stanza della Justinian Presenting Pandects

To Trebonianus

Pope Gregory IX approving decretals

Mount Parnassus from the Stanza della Segnatura

Dante, Homer and Aeneas

Sappho The Muses with Ovid and Horace

Theology (The Disputation) from the Stanza della Segnatura

Group of Theologians Including St.Gregory the Great and Saint Jerome

Group of theologians including St. Bonaventura, Pope Sixtus IV, Savanarola and Dante

Philosophy (The School of Athens) from the Stanza della Segnatura

Plato (Da Vinci) and Aristotle

The Geometer Euclid (Bramamte) Heraclitus (Michelangelo)

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)

• Has come to stand for the concept of the Renaissance Man.

• Inventor, student of anatomy, artist

• Vasari tells us “the greatest of all of Andrea’s pupils was Leonardo da Vinci, in whom, besides a beauty of person never sufficiently admired and a wonderful grace in all his actions, there was such a power of intellect that whatever he turned his min to he made himself master of with ease.”

• Study of the Vitruvian Man was a famous study of the Roman writer’s ideas about human proportions. Leonardo’s drawing emphasizes symmetry and may allude to unity of the cosmos.

The Last Supper (1498)

Mona Lisa (“La Gioconda”) (1503-1507):chiaroscuro and sfumato: less is more

http://britton.disted.camosun.bc.ca/mona/jbmona.htm

Donato Bramante

• “Being anxious to make a name and to please the cardinal, Bramante displayed the utmost industry and diligence, and speedily completed the work.' Although it was not of perfect beauty, it brought him a great reputation, as there were not many in Rome who devoted so much love, study and activity to architecture as he. “ Vasari

• “The first to bring to light good and beautiful architecture which from the time of the ancients to his day had been forgotten.” — Palladio

The Tempietto (1502)

• Marked the spot where St. Peter, founder of the church, had been crucified.

• Embodies the stable circular and closed cosmos of the High Renaissance

• 16 Doric columns with 48 metopes bearing papal symbols.

• Most harmonious Renaissance building.

• Places the church at the center of the cosmos

• Aligns papal authority with the authority of the empires of the past.

• Earth is at the center of the cosmos and the church is at the center of the earth in terms of power and authority.

Giorgione (1478?-1510)

• The Tempest (1508)

• Subject matter of the painting remains a mystery

• Accomplishment of the painting is not. Captures the space and atmosphere of the landscape in totally new way. Artist has used his tools to recreate the appearance of nature so that as E.H. Gombrich has observed, painting is no longer just drawing plus coloring. Giorgione has discovered a new set of rules for making a new kind of painting.

Titian (1488/90-1576)

• Student of Giorgione’s.

• The greatest of the Venetian painters of the High Renaissance.

• Has become identified with the painterly style because of his use of color.

• His financial success helped to stimulate the use of oil on canvas as the new and preferred medium for painting.

• Painted for so long that he has three different phases each characterized by new ways of working with oil paint.

Fete Champetre (1508) (left) and Noli me Tangere (1511-1512)

Muses of Poetry following Aristotle’s Poetics

Giorgione’s Sleeping Venus (1508)(left); Titian’s Venus of Urbino (1538) (right)

LEON battista AlbertiDe Pictura/Della Pittura 1435De Statua 1438De Re aedificatoria libri decem, written between 1442 and 1452

Antionio Averlino called Filarete 1400- 1465Libro Architettonico

Sebastiano Serlio 1475- 1555Tutt l’opere d’architettura et prospettiva

Andrea Palladio 1508 - 1580I Quattro Libri dell’architettura

Vincenzo Scamozzi 1548 - 1616L’idea della architettura universale 1615

Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo 1584Trattato dell’arte de la pitturaIdea del tempio della pittura

LEON battista AlbertiDe Pictura/Della Pittura 1435De Statua 1438De Re aedificatoria libri decem, written between 1442 and 1452

Antionio Averlino called Filarete 1400- 1465Libro Architettonico

Sebastiano Serlio 1475- 1555Tutt l’opere d’architettura et prospettiva

Andrea Palladio 1508 - 1580I Quattro Libri dell’architettura

Vincenzo Scamozzi 1548 - 1616L’idea della architettura universale 1615

Frederico Zuccaro 1607Idea dei Pittori, Scultori ed Architetti

Disegno

Drawing as craftDrawing as intention

Drawing as techniqueDrawing as symbolism