Difference Between Medieval and Renaissance Art
Pride in the past
Peace in the present
Confidence in the future
Why:
World View is completely different:
Medieval
Hierarchic (biggest figure based on significance)
Serial (persons show up in more than one part of the scene to tell the
story)
Life was illusory, and only the afterlife was important—no need to paint
daily life
Backgrounds unknown—for most of the figures were in heaven and who
knows what heaven looks like?
Gold backgrounds very popular to give it a sense of otherworldliness
Art was for the glory of God and for His eyes
Renaissance
Based on the idea that the ‘picture plane” (2-dimensional surface) is like a
transparent window—paintings affirm the truth of human experience and perception
Ancient Greek and Roman works were studied and gave a sense of the
past and the present as real places in time and space.
People in pictures needed to be standing on the ground, in the real world
and that real world needed to look like what people could see every day
Harmony, proportion and unity were the most important aspects of any
painting
Art was for many different purposes and was to be viewed by men
New techniques:
Linear Proportion: Alberti’s treatise of d1435.outlined exactly how to create
perspective based on geometry. Before that, artists had tried to create perspective but had
done so by eye and somewhat clumsily. He summarized and made evident the work that
three other artists during his time had been doing: Massacchio, Donatello and
Brunelleschi. His ideas were taken even further by Piero della Francesca who argued
that: “the visible world could be reduced to mathematical order by the principles of
perspective and solid geometry.”
Oils: Allowed the artist to work more slowly than tempera on plaster and to blend
colors. Added some new colors to the palette. Working in layers let the artist create a
luminescent effect, with deep, rich colors (almost like a stained glass window). Very
good for doing different textures, from smooth marble to fur.
Chiaroscuro: gradations of light and dark within a picture where forms are determined
more by the meeting of lighter and darker areas than by sharp outlines.
Contrapposto forms: Poses where the body is not straightly stiff, but twists either slightly
(with weight on one side), or twists so that the head and shoulders face in a different
direction from the hips. Gives movement to figures.
Foreshortenting: painting perspective of body
Focus on perspective:
Early artists tried to do this but often got it wrong. Later artists used the vanishing point
where parallel lines recede into the distance and come together at one point (like railroad
tracks)
Linear perspective also provides the idea that all objects grow smaller in all dimesions as
they are further away from the picture plan.
Artists often drew a “floor” and then a receding grid based on Alberti’s formula in order
to determine the layout of the picture and how figures should look.
Lippi, Couple at window, Raphael, school of Athens, Madonna and child, davinci
drawing
To provide perspective they did not use just Liner perspective:
Overlapping Shapes: had been done in medieval times, but without the other types of
perspective it wasn’t very helpful (Lippi, Adoration) (Fra Angelica, preaching)
Aerial or Atmospheric Perspective: based on the realization that the atmosphere makes
things in the distance look hazier and generally bluer. By making the far reaches of a
landscape fuzzy, it made that area look further away from the viewer. (Giovanni bellini,
infant bacchus) (davinci, carnation madonna)
Light and Shadow: By using light and shadow to help create volume, artists could make
a particular space have the look of depth.(bellini gentile, Jerome) (Francesca, dream)
Focus on Human beings:
Movement: (Michelangelo, study sybil) (da vinci, st. john)
Proportions: (davinci, virtruvian man
Foreshortening: (Mantagna, dead Christ)
Focus on Compostion:
Golden mean (
(Raphael, knight’s dream) (ghirliandros, last supper)
Focus on Narrative:
Story told often had symbols to help
Objects in many Christian paintings are symbols connoting the perpetual presence and reality of
the Passion of Christ. Thus, lilies in a jar could rep resent the Vi rgin Mary ’s purity,
a fireplace could stand for sinful, lustful passions, and realistically represented light
could be seen as Christ, the light of the world. Certain colors had symbolic meaning. Blue, the
color of the sky, symbolized Heaven. Gold was a symbol of pure light, the heavenly element in
wh i ch God lives. Red was a symbol of the blood of Christ or the Passion. Symbolism wa s
p ro b a bly a pervasive worldview, rather than a practice relegated exclusively to art.
Formats to tell a story
Sequential (comic strip style):
(mascacio, tribute money)(fabriano, adoration)
continuous (main event part of everyday life)
botticelli, adoration (Francesca, flagellation) fabriano, presentation)
Single moment (crucial point)
(Davinci, last supper) giotto , st francis death
Types of paintings:
Decorations for churches and civic buildings: huge works, often took years and even
decades, fresco work, though some wooden panels (altarpieces)
Portraits: after death, as gifts to commemorate an occaision
At first ideal beauty, then later, more realistic, show characteristics
Move from side (impersonal) to three-quarter (a little more personal) to full front (very
direct)
1200s: begin to see a breaking away from convention and an emphasis on providing
emotion in the paintings, to make it “speak” to people longing for religious meaning. A
move to the more compassionate side of Christianity—why the Virgin and Child became
so popular. This movement was helped along by the teachings of St. Francis, who
focused on a simple life full of love and service.
Pisano, N: two sculptures
(Cimabue (madonab)
1300s: Interest in human beings and their surroundings began to become a strong force
in art. Spurred on my humanistic ideas. In sculpture, new free-standing monumental
sculptures are revived as an art form.
Giotto: portrait of a young man, mandonna enthroned (little depth), marriage of the
virgin (suitor with foot up), lamentation (emotion)
Lorenzetti: good govt and bad govt (secular subjects) life of st Nicholas (some
background)
Pisano, Andrea: baptistery doors
1400s:
Started with competition of 1401 in Florence to create doors to the Baptistery to rival
those of Pisano. Ghilberti won and Brunelleschi became an architect. Still most work
done in workshops by anonymous painters who were assts to a master. Most artists
workshops did lots of thigns—gold smith, sculpture in stone and bronze, fresco painting,
ect.
Details about human beings and nature were being closely studied before being painted:
anatomy, perspective, details of nature, landscape backgrounds and form and color in
light. As more and more writings were deciphered from ancient Rome and Greece, a
strong curiosity arose about the glorious past. Classic forms and subjects of art were
considered appropriate. The classic ideal of beauty (beauty of the person reflects beauty
of the soul) was reinstated. And harmony was the most important part of a piece of art—
if something is taken away, then the whole is lessened. “Harmony” involved not just the
component parts of the painting, but its relationship to the viewer.
Ghiberti: doors, statues
Donatello bust of niccolo (brought back classical sculpture) st rosser, david 1 and 2,
gattmelata,
Della Robbia: ascension, ma roses
Brunelleschi: dome, a couple of other buildings
Massacio: trinity (illusion of depth, viewer is at eye levl, pyramid composition, two
donors at bottom), Madonna of humilty (tries foreshortening—doesn’t work well)
Lippi, madonnas, annunciation, assumption
Angelico: judas, szentek
Mantegna, Madonna with angels, crucifixtion, infant savior, agony, rondele
Gentile Bellini: st Jerome, sermon at st. mark, miracle
Giovanni Bellini frari, san giobe, feast pieta,portrait of youth,
Vittore Carpaccio (1460-1525), st Augustine, madman
Botticelli, venus and graces, venus and mars, Madonna and child with angels, adoration
of the magi, portrait of a youth
Shops:
Pollaiuolo family intense studies of human bodies—kept plasters of hands, feets, torsos,
etc. on hand in shop.
Ghirlandaios
Andrea Verrocchio, medici, st Thomas, putti, boy on dolphin
Shops wanted to make money without letting their art suffer, use trickes to help speed up
process.
1500s: High Ren. Neo-platonism encouraged attempts to reconcile the pagan past with
Christianity, and many pagan myths became allegories of Christian belief, with
symbolism to mediate between the two. They still felt that the pagan past would not
undermine the church, only illuminate Christianity for the better. The neo-platonist ideal
of beauty reflected the idea that God was the source of beauty, that man was God’s image
and therefore that the ideally beautiful man is the closest approximation of God on this
earth. A stronger emphasis on place and time as part of picture. Illusion is played with.
Use of canvas, which is much more portable that walls or wood panels. Have canvas will
travel. Helped open up subject matter as didn’t have to paint huge pictures to make a
living—could do lots of portraits—affordable.
Leonardo virgin of rocks, st. anne, ermine, other portrait, last supper, mona lisa, drawings
of lots of thigns.
Raphael, school of Athens, small cowper, st. george, almuti, doni, alba, spozal, aragon
Michelangelo, david, pieta, tomb, slave, moses, Sistine chapel,
Contributions of the Renaissance for Art
Naturalism (mantagna, gonzola family) (Francesca, saints2)
Organization of Space (Raphael, Sistine Madonna), (bellini Giovanni, sangio altarpiece)
Invention of parallel perspective (vanishing point) (
Classical motifs (mantagna, mars and venus) (botticelli, birth of venus)
New Dignity of the Individual (Raphael, altovi) (botticellil, man with medal)
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Naturalism
Organization of Space
Invention of parallel perspective
Classical motifs
New Dignity of the Individual