Renaissance Art
Out of the Middle Ages
[context]
Medieval:
 Early Middle Ages were dark ages because all
the learning of the classical age (Greek and
Roman) was lost or thought to be pagan.
 Pagan = vulgar.
 Sacredness of everything, God always
involved in people’s daily lives. God is
proximate.
Medieval Art
Art inspired
reverence.
Various levels of the
Church bureaucracy
commissioned art
(central = pope,
bishops, parishes,
monasteries).
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Timeline of Art History, 2004
<http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/07/eust/ho_2004.442.htm> (January 19,
2005); Veronica Sekules, Medieval Art: Oxford History of Art (Oxford:Oxford
University Press, 2001), 52.
Madonna and Child, ca
1300 by Duccio di
Buoninsegna.
Medieval Art con’t
Common subject matter: biblical scenes such as
crucifixion, Last Supper, nativity, Virgin Mary.
Beauty is god-like, colour and light especially.
Altar is where holy communion is given, so it
needs to be decorated with a special altarpiece.
The Crucifixion, 14th century
Italy. Part of a folding, portable
altar.
The Metropolitan Museum, The Cloisters, Works of Art, Collection Highlights, 2000,
<http://www.metmuseum.org/Works_Of_Art/viewOne.asp?dep=7&viewmode=0&item=61.200.1>
(January 19, 2005); . Veronica Sekules, Medieval Art: Oxford History of Art
(Oxford:Oxford University Press, 2001), 61.
Changes in Late Middle Ages
 Sacred and secular together, not
everything has to be related to God.
 Re-introduction to classical myths and
gods.

Timeline: 1300 - 1520?
Italian Renaissance
 Starting in the mid 14th century, the
commercial cities of northern Italy
(Milan, Venice, Florence) were the
scene of a great artistic and cultural
revival.
 Historians see it as a transition
between the Middle Ages and the
modern period.
Medieval vs. Renaissance
Cathedral
Church of San
Francesco, Assisi Gothic (stained
glass, cross shape).
Circle (Classical) rather
than the cross (Gothic)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Timeline of Art History, Italian Peninsula, 2004.
<http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ht/07/eust/ht07eust.htm> (January 19, 2005).
Duomo - Santa Maria del
Fiore by Brunelleschi (14171434). Octagonal.
“Italy”
Geography: a
collection of
city-states;
some republics,
autocracies and
a kingdom.
All were
wealthy.
Northern Italy
 Northern Italian rulers had money to
spend on patronizing the arts.
 The Medici family (bankers and
traders) ruled Florence and sponsored
well-known artists such as Botticelli
and Michelangelo .
Robert J. Walker, World Civilizations: A Comparative Study (Don Mills: Oxford University
Press, 1998), 263-264.
Florence (Firenze)
 Home of Donatello,
Michelangelo,
Brunelleschi, Alberti,
Machiavelli, Botticelli,
da Vinci, the Medici
family.
 Wealth based on
banking, trade and
commerce (textiles).
Importance of civic institutions
Palazzo Vecchio,
Florence.
Rome
 The city had been home to the papacy since St.
Peter was the first bishop of Rome.
 It fell into hard times but was revived in the 15th
century when it was rebuilt, inspired by
Renaissance artistic virtues.
 Famous art: The new St. Peter’s basilica,
Michelangelo’s painting of the Sistine Chapel
ceiling.
 There was great interest in Rome’s ancient ruins.
Humanism
 Study of the liberal arts: grammar, rhetoric,
poetry, history, philosophy (also music,
astronomy, geometry, theology, arithmetic).
 Secular: focused on improving life here on
earth, not just on the after-life. “Reason over
revelation.”
 Individualistic.
 Admired the Greeks and Romans.
 Perpetuated through education (humanist
schools).
Classicism
 Revived interest in classical works of Greece and
Rome:
 architecture
 art
 more secular
WebMuseum, Paris, Botticelli, The Birth of Venus,
2002,
<http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/botticelli/ve
nus/> (January 25, 2005).
Sandro Botticelli, Birth of Venus figures from classical mythology;
ideal beauty; earliest nudes.
Visual Art & Architecture
Humanist Art
 Portraiture: humans
the centre, not the
divine.
 Nature: humanistic
focus on realism, this
earth.
 Incorporated the latest
advances.
Titian, Venus of
Urbino (nudes
recall the
classical love for
ideal beauty).
Artistic Advances of the Renaissance
 Linear perspective:


Method of portraying
realism.
Foreshortening - gives a
3-D effect.
 Anatomy Michelangelo’s
sculpting and painting
of realistic musculature.
<L’assentesplinder.com> (January 25, 2005); Sister Wendy Beckett, The Story of
Painting (Toronto: Little Brown (Canada), 1994), 84-85.
Masaccio, The
Trinity, 1425.
Leonardo da Vinci [art reflects age]
 Born 1452 near Florence,
died 1519 in France.
 Worked for the duke of
Milan as a military and
civil engineer, sculptor.
 Known as “Renaissance
Man” for his many
interests - reflecting the
humanism, science, and
learning of the era.
National Gallery, Leonardo da Vinci Biography,
<http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/cgibin/WebObjects.dll/CollectionPublisher.woa/wa/artistBiography?artis
tID=384> (January 2005).
Leonardo Self Portrait,
1516.
Leonardo’s Science
 Anatomy: dissected
corpses to get accurate
drawings.
 Notebooks: 5000
pages of flying
machines, submarines,
parachutes, weapons,
thread-cutting
machine, water wheel.
“It seems to me
that those
sciences are vain
and full of error
which do not
spring from
experiment, the
source of all
certainty.”
Boston Museum of Science, Renaissance Man: Scientist, <http://www.mos.org/leonardo/scientist.html>
(January 25, 2005).
Anatomical
drawing.
Leonardo’s Use of Perspective
Leonardo da Vinci, study for Adoration of the Magi,
showing all the lines needed to create perspective.
Exploring Linear Perspective, Boston Museum of Science,
1997.<http://www.mos.org/sln/Leonardo/ExploringLinearPerspective.html> (January 25, 2005).
Leonardo’s Artistry
 Mona Lisa - 1505 - a portrait of
the wife of a Florentine
merchant.
 Sfumato - skillful use of
shading, natural appearance:
“how distance fades colours,
how shadows modulate, and
how surfaces pick up the
reflected tints of nearby
objects.”
 Focus on the way the viewer
interacts with the painting.
WebMuseum, Paris. Leonardo Da Vinci, La Jaconde, 2002,
<http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/vinci/joconde/> (January 25, 2005).
Mona Lisa
Michelangelo Buonarroti
 Born 1475 Florence, died
1564.
 Sculptor and painter.
 Very religious.
 Felt beauty is divine.
 Sculpted David (15011504) 14 feet high - a
biblical figure made to
reflect the power and
freedom of Florence.
WebMuseum, Paris, Michelangelo, 2003 <http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/michelangelo> (January
25, 2005).
Pieta
Pieta, 1375-1400,
German
 Body of the dead Jesus
Christ in his mother’s
arms.
 Michelangelo’s
version does not
depict agony but
nobility.
 Shown in St. Peter’s.
Metropolitan Museum, Works of Art,
<http://www.metmuseum.org/Works_Of_Art/viewOne.asp?dep=7&viewmode=0&item=48
.85> (January 19, 2005); Christus Rex, Basilica di San Pietro I - Michelangelo,k Pieta,
Michelangelo
and the Vatican
 Painted the ceiling of the
Sistine Chapel (80 feet
high) in the Vatican
combining Greek and
Roman mythology and
Old Testament figures.
 Designed the new St.
Peter’s basilica - modeled
the dome on the one in
Florence.
Christus Rex, Basilica di San Pietro, Esteriore, 2000,
<http://www.christusrex.org/www1/citta/B2-Dome.jpg>
(January 25, 2005).
Michelangelo’s dome.
Plan by Michelangelo.
Sistine Chapel
Michelangelo
worked here 1508 to
1512.
The holiest chapel
because it is where
popes prayed.
Vatican Museums Online, Sistine Chapel, 2003,
<http://mv.vatican.va/3_EN/pages/CSN/CSN_Main
.html> (January 25, 2005).
The Sistine Chapel.
Sistine Chapel Ceiling

The Creation
of Man 
Layout of the Ceiling, Michelangelo’s Cistine
Chapel Ceiling, 2001,
<http://sun.science.wayne.edu/~mcogan/Hum
anities/Sistine/Ceiling/index.html> (January
19, 2005); WebMuseum, Paris. Michelangelo,
2003,
<http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/michel
Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio)
 Born 1483, died 1520.
 Used the latest techniques
such as perspective to
paint naturally and
realistically.
 Influenced by Leonardo
and Michelangelo (also
painted at the Vatican and
for a time was the chief
architect of the new St.
Peter’s basilica).
St. Catherine of
Alexandria, 1507-08.
Known for grace and
movement.
National Gallery, Past Exhibitions, <http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/exhibitions/raphael/default.htm>
(January 25, 2005).
School of Athens - Raphael
 Painted 1510-1511.
 Classical figures
include Plato,
Aristotle, Pythagoras,
Ptolemy, and Euclid.
 Renaissance figures
include Michelangelo,
da Vinci, and himself.
School of Athens classical references
Sister Wendy Beckett, The Story of Painting (Toronto: Little Brown (Canada),
1994), 128.
Raphael con’t
School of Athens
painted in the
pope’s private
apartment (library
and private office).
Note: Averroes.
Christus Rex, Stanze e Loggia di Raffaello, 2000,
<http://www.christusrex.org/www1/stanzas/0Raphael.html> (January 25, 2005).
Global Influences
A new school of thought holds that the
Renaissance was partly spurred by nonwestern influences, other than Greek and
Roman.
 Chinese
 Islamic (800 years of Al Andalus, Islamic
Spain) – India via Islam?
Islamic Influences
Islamic knotwork
motif on Italian
plate, 1500-1520
The Getty, 2004, The Arts of Fire: Islamic Influences on the Italian Renaissance
http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/arts_fire/
(July 1, 2009).
Islamic Influences, con’t
 Sicily (Normans) and Cordoba and Toledo (Moors) were
major areas for transmission of:




Math
Philosophy
Medicine
Architecture
John M. Hobson, The Eastern Origins of Western Civilization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
From Google Books (July 1, 2009). 179-182
Abbasid Caliphate,
th
9
Century
Baghdad: access to Indian numbering system (became Arabic numerals)
University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Applications: web-based Precalculus. 2001. http://ualr.edu/lasmoller/aljabr.html (August 14, 2009).
Back in Time
 Islamic society in Spain (Al Andalus) was
more open to reason than Europe well
before the Renaissance

800s: Al Khwarizmi
• Algebra, astronomy, circumference of the earth

1100s: Averroes (Ibn Rushd):
• Medicine, astronomy, law, philosophy
(commentaries on Aristotle)
BBC Radio. In Our Time: Averroes. 2006. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime_20061005.shtml (August 14, 2009).
Averroes
Avicenna

1000s: Avicenna (Ibn
Sina)
• Medical encyclopedia
(Canon on Medicine)
The “Persian
Galen” at work
Canon,
1632
Arabic
copy
A Unesco medal honouring Avicenna
quotes him: “Cooperate for the well-being
of the body and the survival of the human
species.”
William and Kathleen McKee, World History: Connections to Today. Teacher’s Ed. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 2001. 261-266.
Wellcome Library. Avicenna’s Canon of Medicine. http://library.wellcome.ac.uk/doc_WTX023437.html (August 14, 2009).
Washington State University, College of Pharmacy, History of Pharmacy. 2009. http://www.pharmacy.wsu.edu/HISTORY/history13.html (August 14, 2009).
UNESCO. Avicenna Medal. 2002. http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=26452&URL_DO=DO_PRINTPAGE&URL_SECTION=201.html (August 14. 2009).
Bibliography
Annenberg/Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Middle Ages. 1997.
<http://www.learner.org/exhibits/middleages/>.
Beckett, Sister Wendy. The Story of Painting: The Essential Guide to the
History of Western Art. Toronto: Little Brown (Canada), 1994.
Boston Museum of Science. Leonardo da Vinci. 1997.
<http://www.mos.org/leonardo/>.
Christus Rex et Redemptor Mundi. 1997. <christus.rex.org>.
Dersin, Denise (ed.). What Life Was Like at the Rebirth of Genius:
Renaissance Italy AD 1400-1550. Alexandria, Virginia: Time-Life
Books, 1999.
King, Ross. Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling. New York: Penguin
Group, 2003.
Layout of the Ceiling, Michelangelo’s Cistine Chapel Ceiling, Wayne
State University Humanities. 2001.
<http://sun.science.wayne.edu/~mcogan/Humanities/Sistine/Ceiling/in
dex.html>.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Works of Art. The Cloisters. 2004.
<http://www.metmuseum.org/Works_Of_Art/department.asp?dep=7>.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Timeline of Art History. 2004.
<http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/splash.htm>.
McDonald, Jesse. Michelangelo. London: PRC Publishing Ltd., 2001.
National Gallery. 2005. <http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/default.htm>.
Sekules, Veronica. Medieval Art: Oxford History of Art. Oxford:Oxford
University Press, 2001.
Vatican Museums Online. 2003.
<http://mv.vatican.va/3_EN/pages/MV_Home.html>.
Walker, Robert J. World Civilizations: A Comparative Study. Don Mills:
Oxford University Press, 1998.
WebMuseum, Paris. The Italian Renaissance. 2002.
<http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/tl/it-ren/>.