Aspects of Renaissance Art
chiaroscuro
modeling figures by means of
gradations of light and shade
Cimabue
c. 1280-90
Madonna
Enthroned
Giotto
c.1310
Giotto
1266-1337
 A shepherd boy who became the painter
Cimabue’s apprentice
 Based his figures on observation rather than
painterly or iconic traditions
 Employed chiaroscuoro to create dimensional
figures
 Figures display intense emotions
 Narrative fresco series
Herald of the Renaissance
Giotto
The Raising of
Lazarus
c. 1304-06
Fresco cycle in
Cappella degli
Scrovegni in
Padua.
devotional realism
pictorial emphasis on the human
nature and suffering of Christ with
details drawn from everyday life and
nature
Giotto
St. Francis of Assisi
Preaching to the Birds
1297-99
San Francesco, Upper Church,
Assisi, Italy
Fra Filippo Lippi
Madonna and Child
1459
Giotto
Lamentation
c. 1305
Fresco cycle in
Cappella degli
Scrovegni in
Padua.
Michelangelo, Pietas
1498-99
1547-55
narrative painting
painting that tells a story
Massacio
The Tribute Money
1420s
Brancacci Chapel
24. And when they were come to Capernaum, they that received tribute
money came to Peter, and said, Doth not your master pay tribute? 25. He
saith, Yes. And when he was come into the house, Jesus prevented him,
saying, What thinkest thou, Simon? of whom do the kings of the earth take
custom or tribute? of their own children, or of strangers? 26. Peter saith
unto him, Of strangers. Jesus saith unto him, Then are the children free. 27.
Notwithstanding, lest we should offend them, go thou to the sea, and cast an
hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up; and when thou hast opened
his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money: that take, and give unto them
for me and thee.
— Matthew 17:24–27
urbanity
interest in the life and governance
of cities
Lorenzetti, The Effects of Good
Government in the City, 1338
Lorenzetti, The Allegory of Bad Government in the City, 1338
Pride
Vanity
Avarice
Tyrant
classical humanism
recovery and study of Greek and Latin
texts, art and architecture with an
emphasis on the role of the individual
Botticelli, Primavera, c. 1482
Mercury
Three Graces
Venus
Flora Chloris Zephyrus
Botticelli, The Birth of Venus, c. 1486
Raphael, The School of Athens, 1509-10
Raphael, The Parnassus, 1509-10
linear perspective
the illusion of space and distance
on a flat surface
linear perspective
 System originated in Florence, Italy in the early
1400s.
 The artist and architect Brunelleschi demonstrated
its principles but
 The architect and writer, Leon Battista Alberti was
first to write down its rules
 An artist must first imagine the picture surface as
an "open window" through which to see the painted
world.
 Straight lines are then drawn on the canvas to
represent the horizon and "visual rays" connecting
the viewer's eye to a point in the distance
linear perspective
 The horizon line runs across the canvas at the eye
level of the viewer. The horizon line is where the sky
appears to meet the ground.
 The vanishing point should be located near the
center of the horizon line. The vanishing point is
where all parallel lines (orthogonals) that run
towards the horizon line appear to come together
like train tracks in the distance.
 Orthogonal lines are "visual rays" helping the
viewer's eye to connect points around the edges of
the canvas to the vanishing point. An artist uses
them to align the edges of walls and paving stones.
Widely believed to be the first painting, since the fall
of Rome (ca. 476 A.D.), to use Scientific Linear One
Point Perspective, or, all the orthogonals point to one
vanishing point, in this case, Christ. Also, it is one of
the first paintings that does away with the use of a
head-cluster. If you were to walk into the painting,
you could walk around Jesus Christ, in the semicircle
created, and back out the painting again with ease.
horizon line
vanishing point
orthogonal lines
Massacio
The Tribute Money
1420s
Brancacci Chapel
aerial perspective
the effect the atmosphere has on
the appearance of an object as it is
viewed from a distance
aerial perspective
 As the distance between an object and a
viewer increases, the contrast between the
object and its background decreases.
 The colors of the object become
less saturated and shift towards the
background color.
 Leonardo da Vinci. He called it ‘the
perspective of disappearance.’
aerial perspective
Leonardo da Vinci
The Virgin and Child with St. Anne
(c. 1510)
Louvre Museum
sfumato
Leonardo da Vinci described sfumato
as "without lines or borders, in the
manner of smoke or beyond the focus
plane."
sfumato
Leonardo da Vinci
Mona Lisa or La Gioconda
(1503–1505/1507)
Louvre, Paris, France
Leonardo da Vinci
Virgin of the Rocks
1843-46
Louvre,
anatomy
scientific observation and study of
the human body
Leonardo da Vinci
Vitruvian Man
1487
Donatello, 1432
Davids
Michelangelo, 1504
tondo
a circular painting or sculpture
Michelangelo, The Taddei Tondo
(The Virgin and Child with the Infant St. John)
1504-06
Botticelli, Madonna of the Pomegranate
1487
fresco
mural painting on walls or ceilings
fresco
Fresco comes from the Italian word affresco which
derives from the Latin word for "fresh”
Buon fresco technique consists of painting
in pigment mixed with water on a thin layer of wet,
fresh plaster
A secco painting is done on dry plaster (secco is
"dry" in Italian). The pigments thus require a
binding medium, such as egg (tempera), glue
or oil to attach the pigment to the wall
Michelangelo, The Sistine Chapel, 1508-12
Michelangelo, The Sistine Chapel, 1508-12
The Creation of Adam
Adam and Eve
The Flood
portraits and self-portraits
hallmarks of a new self-consciousness
coupled with the desire for fame and
immortality
proposed identities and models in Raphael’s The School of Athens
1: Zeno of Citium – 2: Epicurus – 3: unknown (believed to be Raphael or Federico II of Mantua?) –
4: Boethius or Anaximander or Empedocles? – 5: Averroes – 6: Pythagoras – 7: Alcibiades or Alexander
the Great? – 8: Antisthenes or Xenophon or Timon? – 9: Hypatia, or Raphael, or Fornarina as a
personification of Love[ or Francesco Maria della Rovere? – 10: Aeschines or Xenophon? –
11: Parmenides? (Leonardo da Vinci) – 12: Socrates – 13: Heraclitus (Michelangelo) –
14: Plato (Leonardo da Vinci) – 15: Aristotle (Giuliano da Sangallo) – 16: Diogenes of Sinope –
17: Plotinus (Donatello?) – 18: Euclid or Archimedes with students (Bramante?) –
19: Strabo or Zoroaster? (Baldassare Castiglione) – 20: Ptolemy? – R: Apelles (Raphael) –
21: Protogenes (Il Sodoma, Perugino, or Timoteo Viti)
donor portraits
Andrea Mantegna, Madonna Della Vittoria
1495-96
Commissioned by Francesco II Gonzaga
to commemorate his victory at the Battle of Fornova
family portraits
Andrea Mantegna
The Court of
Mantua
(the Gonzaga
family)
c. 1474
Jan van Eyck, The Arnolfini Portrait,
1434
reflection of the artist
Hans Holbein the Younger
Self-Portrait
1542
The Tudors by Hans Holbein
Prince Edward
Henry VIII
Princess Mary
Princess Elizabeth
Katherine Howard?
Anne Boleyn
Anne of Cleves
Jane Seymour
Hans Holbein the Younger
Portrait of Desiderius Erasmus of
Rotterdam with Renaissance Pilaster,
1523
Albrecht Dürer, Self-Portrait,
1500
Albrecht Dürer, Erasmus
1526
Sofonisba Anguisola, Self-Portrait,
c. 1554
Sofonisba Anguisola,
Portrait of Queen Anne of
Austria, 1570
Lavinia Fontana, Self-Portrait,
1577
Lavinia Fontana, Newborn Baby in a Crib,
1583
Artemesia Gentileschi, Pittura,
1630
Artemesia Gentileschi,
Portrait of a Condottiere
Judith Leyster
Self-Portrait, 1635