Renaissance Art Teacher Notes PDF

# Renaissance Art ## Italian city states respected/venerated artists * Patronage by the wealthy and the Church. ## Architecture * 15th C medieval narrow streets/alleys * Interspersed with splendid buildings and works of art * Florence building boom 15th C * Elegant residences (stimulated cere...

# Renaissance Art ## Italian city states respected/venerated artists * Patronage by the wealthy and the Church. ## Architecture * 15th C medieval narrow streets/alleys * Interspersed with splendid buildings and works of art * Florence building boom 15th C * Elegant residences (stimulated ceremony) ## Renaissance architecture emphasized elegant simplicity: * Combined plain, white walls with colored arches, doors, window frames. * Palaces with columns, arches, stairways (seen as investment, sold for profit later). ### Filippo Brunelleschi: * Applied theories of classical architecture to Foundling Hospital in Florence * Constructed Dome of Florence Cathedral (Duomo completed 1413) * Rejected northern Gothic style * Vaulted ceilings * Pointed arches * Instead inspired by Roman: Flying buttresses ## Patronage and the Arts * Wealthy families, guilds, religious confraternities as main patrons. * Lesser artists painted coats of arms, tapestries. * Some humanist families of means believed they had the responsibility to play a role in the community as leaders, demonstrate wisdom by making good use of riches. * Commissioned works of art for public display. ## Moral leadership/right to govern: * Some humanist families of means believed they had a responsibility to play a role in the community as leaders, demonstrate wisdom by making good use of riches. * Commissioned works of art for public display. ## Renaissance Artists * Transcend human nature to understand eternal ideas * Artists could reproduce beauty of the soul * Sought to represent beauty in realistic way * “Mechanical art” ## Middle Ages painting * Based in craft tradition * Artist sold own works ## Medieval Family in Florence * Cosimo collected manuscripts, built palaces & churches. * Hired Michelangelo to design Medici tomb. * Recession in 15th C meant art better and more in vestment patronage * Patrons specified subject matter and details (saints/family members painted into a scene * Size and price also specified. * Cost of paint, etc, (paid for time as skill of artist) ## “Gud” = “high art” * Status of artists ↑ during Renaissance * Some given awards/crowned w/ laurels (poet laureate) ## Painting and Sculpture * Reflected influence of neo-Platonism * Eternal ideas (beauty, truth, goodness) * Existed beyond realm of every day life ## Media Family in Florence * Humanists believed mind could understand eternal idea. * Artists could reproduce beauty of the soul. * Sought to represent beauty in realistic way. * Proportions & mathematical perspective * Nature became more than just background. * Objects of everyday life. * More representation of facial expressions of humanity, deeply personal emotion. * Naturalism * Bring viewers closer to eternal form of beauty. * Painting/sculpting as bringing forth the human soul (emotions & passions) ## 1435 Leon Battista Alberti * Humanist treatise on painting “high art” ## da Vinci “Mona Lisa” 1503-07 * Artists began as apprentices. * Painters guild in Venice: 5 yrs as apprentice; 2 yrs as journeyman. ## 1400s-1500s * Most artists were male. * (Women couldn’t join guilds or universities) * Artist’s quest for humanist ideals. ## Masaccio “The Expulsion of Adam & Eve” c. 1427 * Use of color or placement of body to convey complex emotion. * Medieval art = rigid, flat, arranged in order of importance, symbols easily understood by viewer. ## Renaissance painters developed Perspective, illusion of 3-D.