Renaissance Art
Italian and Northern
Characteristics of Italian Art
•Influenced by Byzantine art for 800 years
•2 dimensional
•Large eyes
•Tempura paint: egg yolk mixed w/paint powder
•Gold background
•Quattrocento: 1450-1500 Florentine Art
•Art should be rational and appeal to intellect
•Made the profession respectable
•Balance, symmetry, and harmony like music
•Represent true form
•Concerned with reality
•Artist are learned and literary…many more
subjects to draw from
Madonna and Child
Enthroned with Saints
Cimabue; 1290-1295; tempura on wood
Giotto; c. 1305-1310; tempura on wood
Detail—
Jesus' face
David
Donatello; c. 1430; Bronze
Mary Magdalene
Donatello; 1454-1455; wood
Baptistery
Doors,
Florence
Gates of Paradise
Lorenzo Ghiberti;
1425-52, Bronze,
Baptistery, Florence
Detail of Baptistery Doors
Isaac Sends Isaiah to Hunt
(panel from the eastern door)
Trinity
Massacio; 1425-28; Fresco
Example of
Linear
Perspective
Father
Son
Church
Members/Patrons
Detail—
Jesus and
Holy Father
Detail—
Patrons
and Clergy
Tribute Money
1426-1482; Fresco; Massacio; Brancacci Chapel;
Baptistery Dome
Brunelleschi Florence, 1420-1436
Detail of the Dome
Mona Lisa
1503-1505; Leonardo da
Vinci; oil on panel
The Last Supper
1498; Leonardo da Vinci; Fresco
Vitruvian
Man
“Renaissance
Man”
1492; da Vinci; pen, ink,
water color and metal
point on paper
Birth of Venus
Sandro Botticelli c. 1485 Tempera on canvas
Pieta
Michelangelo; 1499; marble
Detail—Pieta
David
Michelangelo; 1501; marble
"I SAW THE
ANGEL IN THE
MARBLE AND
CARVED UNTIL
I SET HIM FREE."
Detail of David
Ceiling of Sistine Chapel
Michelangelo; 1508-1512; Vatican City, Rome
The Creation of Man
Detail-Adam
Expulsion of Adam and Eve
from Eden
Cowper
Madonna
Raphael; c. 1505;
Oil on wood
School of Athens
Raphael; 1509; fresco
Characteristics of Northern Art
“beauty created absolutely
everything you see.”
•Used oil—gives more richness of color;
easier to work with
•Perspective: observation and experimentation
•Faces are more real…accuracy of detail
•Revival of portraiture
•Interested in naturalism
No real
“rebirth”…di
rect access
not an
Self-Portrait
Albrecht Dürer; 1500;
oil on wood
“I, Albrecht Dürer,
divinely inspired
artist.”
Adam and Eve
Dürer; 1508-1512; engraving
Portrait of
Erasmus
Dürer; 1520, black chalk,
Portrait of
Giovanni
Arnolfini and
his Wife
Jan Van
Eyck
Jan Van Eyck;
1434; oil on oak
signature
Shows
perspective
and
background
Detail—
Wedding
Portrait
Peasant Wedding
Peter Brueghel the Elder; 1568; oil on wood;
Hunters in the Snow
Brueghel; 1565; oil on panel
Peasant Dance
Brueghel; 1568; oil on oak panel
Triptych, plus shutters
Hieronomyous Bosch; c. 1504; Oil on panel
The Earthly Paradise
(Garden of Eden)
Left Wing

Detail—Eve
Garden of
Earthly
Delights
(Ecclesia's
paradise)
Center Panel
Detail—
Center Panel
Detail—
Center Panel
Hell--Right Wing
Detail—Tavern
Detail—Processional
Erasmus of
Rotterdam
Hans Holbein the
Younger; 1523;
Oil on wood
Sir Thomas
More
Holbein; 1527;
Tempera on wood
The End!
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