“The Renaissance”
• Renaissance means “Rebirth”
• It was a cultural movement that began
in Italy (Florence) in the Middle Ages,
which later spread to the rest of
Europe.
• Between 14th-17th Centuries
• Before the Renaissance, Europeans
lived in a period we call the Middle
Ages.
During the Middle Ages:
• Europeans were concerned with the church
and religion.
• Everyone's activities centered around getting
to heaven rather than life here on earth.
• The Black Death, a plague that killed one
third of Europe's people (an estimated of 34
million people) made daily European life
scary and dangerous.
• To escape the danger, at least in their minds,
people turned to God and the church.
EFFECTS:
• Caused massive depopulation and change
in social structure.
• Weakened influence of Church.
Characteristics of the Middle Ages Art,( the period
before the Renaissance):
• Most art in Europe featured heavenly figures
devoted to the worship of Christ.
• Because the people in Medieval paintings were
citizens of heaven, and the artists painting these
pictures had never actually seen heaven, the
background was left to the imagination and the
teachings of the church. Gold backgrounds were
very common, as the air in heaven surely must be
precious.
Duccio di Buoninsegna
Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints
from Siena Cathedral, Siena, Italy
1308-1311
tempera on wood
7 ft. x 13 ft.
Simone Martini and Lippo Memmi
Annunciation
1333
tempera and gold leaf on wood
Cimabue
Madonna Enthroned with Angels and
Prophets
1280-1290
tempera on wood
12 ft. 7 in. x 7 ft. 4 in.
MAP OF EUROPE IN 1470
MAP OF ITALY-1400’S
A change of view on Humankind begins:
•
The worth of the human being
•
Humankind is God’s greatest creation, as opposite of
the beliefs during the Middle Ages: Men is only
important to serve God and to seek salvation of the
soul.
•
The ability of Humankind was recognized.
•
Optimism.
In ART:
• When people became more interested in the world
around them and the ideas of other people rather
than heaven and the teachings of Christ and the
saints, landscapes and buildings began to show up
in paintings, copying real life (beginning of the
Renaissance).
Types of Renaissance
• Proto Renaissance in Italy
•
Northern Renaissance (1400-1525)
Jan van Eyck, Van der Weyden, Hieronymus Bosch
• Early Renaissance in Italy
• Early Renaissance in France
•
High Renaissance in Italy (1425-1525)
Da Vinci, Bellini, Michelangelo, Rafael, Titian
•
German Renaissance
• Characteristics of the REINASSANCE
• Painters needed to be able to translate the three-dimensional
world around them onto the two-dimensional surface of a
painting, called the "picture plane."
• Use of "linear perspective“ discovered by architect Filippo
Brunelleschi (1377-1446). Idea that converging lines meet at a
single vanishing point.
• Part of this change was influenced by the study of ancient
Greek and Roman writings on scientific matters, government,
philosophy, and art.
• Scholars turned away from traditional areas of study such as
religion, medicine and the law and became interested in
other areas of science, the natural world, biology and
astronomy. People now studied mathematics, engineering,
and architecture.
• Artists, writers, musicians and composers began creating
work outside of the church. Artists signed their work and
authors wrote autobiographies and memoirs — stories about
themselves.
The holy family of
Mary, Joseph and
baby Jesus are joined
here by shepherds
and an angel in the
center playing a lute.
The landscape around
them is earthly rather
than heavenly.
Giovanni Agostino
The Adoration of the Shephards
1510. Oil on panel