1300 - 1600
How did the
Renaissance differ
from the Middle Ages?
What was the Renaissance?
•Rebirth
•Link to crusades
•Secular
•Classical
A form of education and culture based upon the
study of the classics.
Revolves around the liberal arts
Petrarch
DaVinci
Why Northern Italy?
• Economic
• Social
• Political
RENAISSANCE SOCIETY
Economic Recovery
• Hanseatic League
• Manufacturing grows:
woolens, printing,
mining
• Florence: banking
• Medici Family
The Nobility
• One of three estates in
society
• 2- 3% of population
• Political and military
power
• Concerned with social
status
Courtly Society In Italy
• Nobles & Aristocrats
• Ideals based upon The
Courtier
• Perfect Courtier: based
upon character,
military achievement,
education, & skills
• Serve Prince
The 3rd Estate of Peasants &
Townspeople
• 85-90% of population
• Decline in manorial
system
• Growth of towns
• Patricians: wealthy due to
trade, industry, banking
• Petty burghers: artisans,
guild members
• Propertyless workers
Slavery
• Due to effects of
Black Death
• Skilled & household
workers
• From E. Med & Black
Sea region
• Declines by end 15th
century
The Family
• Strong family bonds
• Arranged marriages:
dowry
• Great difference in age of
husbands/wives
• Father controlled wealth
• Children had to be
emancipated
• Wife: tend household and
have children
Holy Roman Emperor
Charles V kept three books
at his bedside.
What were they?
The Courtier
Ideal Man
• Well educated
• Charming, witty, polite
• Dance, write poetry, sing
• Physically graceful and
strong
Ideal Woman
• Well-educated
• Inspire the arts
• No political role
Divine Comedy: Dante
Political Ideas of the Renaissance
Niccolò Machiavelli
The Prince
Machiavelli believed:
“One can make this generalization about
men: they are ungrateful, fickle, liars,
and deceivers, they shun danger and are
greedy for profit”
Machiavelli observed city-state rulers of
his day and produced guidelines for the
acquisition and maintenance of power by
absolute rule.
He felt that a ruler should be willing to
do anything to maintain control without
worrying about conscience.
• Better for a ruler to be feared than to be loved
• Ruler should be quick and decisive in decision making
• Ruler keeps power by any means necessary
• The end justifies the means
• Be good when possible, and evil when necessary
http://www.cosmolearning.com/videos/the-medici-ep-1-birth-of-a-dynasty/
The Renaissance produced new ideas that were reflected in
the arts, philosophy, and literature.
Patrons, wealthy from newly expanded trade, sponsored works
which glorified city-states in northern Italy. Education became
increasingly secular.
Medieval art and literature focused
on the Church and salvation
Renaissance art and literature
focused on individuals and worldly
matters, along with Christianity.
Renaissance Artists embraced some of the ideals of Greece and
Rome in their art
They wanted their subjects to be realistic and focused on
humanity and emotion
New Techniques also emerged
Frescos: Painting done on wet plaster became popular because it
gave depth to the paintings
Sculpture emphasized realism and the human form
Architecture reached new heights of design
Born in 1475 in a small town near Florence, is
considered to be one of the most inspired men
who ever lived
David
Michelangelo
created his
masterpiece
David in
1504.
Sistine Chapel
About a year after creating
David, Pope Julius II
summoned Michelangelo to
Rome to work on his most
famous project, the ceiling
of the Sistine Chapel.
Creation of Eve
Separation of Light and Darkness
Creation of Adam
The Last Judgment
La Pieta 1499
Marble Sculpture
Moses
1452-1519
Painter, Sculptor,
Architect,
Engineer
Genius!
Mona Lisa
The Last Supper
Notebooks
Raphael
Painter
1483-1520
The School of Athens – Raphael, 1510 -11
Da Vinci
Raphael
Michelangelo
The School of Athens – Raphael, details
Plato:
looks to the
heavens [or
the IDEAL
realm].
Aristotle:
looks to this
earth [the
here and
now].
Averroes
Hypatia
Pythagoras
Zoroaster
Ptolemy
Euclid
Renaissance Art in Northern Europe
• Different from the Italian Renaissance.
• However, Italian influence was strong.
– In the North artists painted in OIL on Wood or did wood
carving.
– In Italy artists painted on frescos or did sculpture in stone
(marble, granite, etc)
• The differences between the two cultures:
– Italy  change was inspired by humanism with its emphasis
on the revival of the values of classical antiquity.
– No. Europe  change was driven by religious reform, the
return to Christian values, and the revolt against the authority
of the Church.
• In the North, more princes & kings were patrons of artists.
Characteristics of Northern
Renaissance Art
• Continued the medieval attention to detail.
• Tendency toward realism & naturalism, less
emphasis on the “classics & the perfect form”
• Painted landscapes.
• Emphasis on middle-class and peasant life.
• Details of domestic interiors.
• Great skill in portraiture.
Jan van Eyck (1395 – 1441)
• More courtly and
aristocratic work.
– Court painter to the
Duke of Burgundy,
Philip the Good.
• The Virgin and
Chancellor Rolin,
1435.
Jan Van Eyck
Portrait of
Giovanni Arnolfini
and his Wife
(1434)
Northern
Renaissance
Van Eyck
Portrait of
Giovanni
Arnolfini and
his Wife
(detail)
Van Eyck:
 The Crucifixion
&
The Last Judgment 
1420-1425
Brings together Christian and
pagan stories/traditions.
Rogier van der Weyden (1399-1464)
The
Deposition
1435
van der Weyden’s Deposition
Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528)
• The greatest of German
artists.
• Scholar & artist
• Hired by Holy Roman
Emperor Maximilian I.
• Also a scientist
– Wrote books on geometry,
fortifications, and human
proportions.
• Self-conscious
individualism of the
Renaissance is seen in his
portraits.
•  Self-Portrait at 26, 1498.
Dürer – Self-Portrait in Fur-Collared Robe,
1500
Dürer
The Last
Supper
woodcut, 1510
Durer – The Triumphal Arch, 1515-1517
Hans Holbein, the Younger (1497-1543)
• One of the great German artists,
did most of his work in England.
• Befriended Erasmus.
– Erasmus Writing, 1523 
• Great portraitist noted for:
– Objectivity & detachment.
– Doesn’t conceal the weaknesses
of his subjects.
Artist to the Tudors
Henry VIII (left), 1540
and the future Edward VI
(above), 1543.
Holbein’s, The Ambassadors, 1533
A Skull
Multiple Perspectives
Hieronymus Bosch (1450-1516)
• A pessimistic view of human
nature.
• Had a wild and lurid
imagination.
• Untouched by the
values of the Italian
Renaissance like
perspective.
– Figures are flat.
– Perspective is ignored.
• More a landscape painter
than a portraitist.
Hieronymus
Bosch
The Garden
of Earthy
Delights
1500
Hieronymus
Bosch
The Garden
of Earthy
Delights
(details)
1500
Hieronymus
Bosch
The
Temptation
of St.
Anthony
1506-1507
Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1525-1569)
•
•
•
•
One of the greatest artistic geniuses of his age.
Worked in Antwerp and then moved to Brussels.
Deeply concerned with human vice and follies.
Master of landscapes; not a portraitist.
– People in his works often have round, blank, heavy faces.
– They are expressionless, mindless, and sometimes
malicious.
– They are types, rather than individuals.
– Their purpose is to convey a message.
Bruegel’s, Tower of Babel, 1563
Bruegel’s, Mad Meg, 1562
Bruegel’s, Hunters in the Snow, 1565
Bruegel’s, The Harvesters, 1565
Petrarch
Sonnets, humanist
scholarship
Francesco Petrarch
1304-1374
Assembled Greek and
Roman writings.
Wrote
Sonnets to Laura,
love poems in the
Vernacular
Northern Renaissance
• Growing wealth in Northern Europe supported Renaissance ideas.
• Northern Renaissance thinkers merged humanist ideas with
Christianity.
• The movable type printing press and the production and sale of
books
(Gutenberg Bible) helped disseminate ideas.
Northern Renaissance writers
• Erasmus—The Praise of Folly (1511)
• Sir Thomas More—Utopia (1516)
Northern Renaissance artists portrayed religious and secular subjects.
Literature flourished during the Renaissance
This can be greatly attributed to Johannes
Gutenberg
In 1455 Gutenberg printed the first book produced
by using moveable type.
The Bible
Erasmus
Dutch humanist
Desiderius Erasmus
Pushed for a Vernacular form of the
Bible
“I disagree very much with those who
are unwilling that Holy Scripture,
translated into the vernacular, be
read by the uneducated . . . As if the
strength of the Christian religion
consisted in the ignorance of it”
The Praise of Folly
Used humor to show the immoral and
ignorant behavior of people, including
the clergy. He felt people would be
open minded and be kind to others.
Sir Thomas More
English Humanist
Wrote: Utopia
A book about a perfect society
Believed men and women live in
harmony. No private property,
no one is lazy, all people are
educated and the justice system
is used to end crime instead of
executing criminals.
Bibliography
Images from:
Corbis.com
Web Gallary of Art
www.wga.hu