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Creative Industries 1: Arts and Design Appreciation and Production.

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Renaissance period - 1: Humanism or Early

Renaissance.

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• A new artistic culture emerged and expanded in Italy in the 15th century.

• Humanism also fostered a belief in individual potential and encouraged individual achievement.

• Humanism also encouraged citizens to participate in the social, political, and economic life of their communities.

• Shifting power relations among the numerous Italian city-states fostered the rise of princely courts and control of cities by despots.

• Princely courts emerged as cultural and artistic centers.• Their patronage contributed to the formation and character of

Renaissance art.

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RenaissanceThe Italian Renaissance is divided into three phases for study:

• The Early Renaissance in the early and mid 1400s.

• The High Renaissance in the late 1400s-early 1500s.

• And Mannerism in the mid to late 1500s.

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The Early Renaissance in Italy

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Florence• Renaissance means rebirth.• Artistic leaders lived in Florence which was dominated

by the Medici – a powerful family who were great patrons of the arts.

• Florentine artists, fueled by a renewed interest in ancient Greece and Rome as well as science and math, created a “New Athens”.

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Sculpture and Civic Pride in the Early Renaissance

• The republic of Florence cultivated civic pride and responsibility resulting in competitions to embellish the city's buildings.

• The competitive nature of these projects, which were usually sponsored by civic or lay-religious organizations, promoted innovation and signaled official approval of the new, classically inspired style.

• The emulation of antique models, however, was also supplemented by a growing interest in the anatomical structure of the human body and the desire to show a naturalistic illusion of space.

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The “Gates of Paradise”

• One such competition was to create the doors to the baptistry at the Cathedral of Florence.

• Artists submitted brass relief panels on the subject – the “Sacrifice of Isaac”.

• The following panels were submitted for the competition.

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Filippo Brunelleschi's competition panel shows a sturdy and vigorous interpretation of the Sacrifice of Isaac.

Brunelleschi 1401-1402. Gilded bronze relief, 21" x 17". Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence.

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Lorenzo Ghiberti's competition panel emphasizes grace and smoothness.

Ghiberti1401-1402. Gilded bronze relief21" x 17”Museo Nazionale del Bargello Florence.

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• Lorenzo Ghiberti (1381-1455) won the competition.

• His "Gates of Paradise" are comprised of ten gilded bronze relief panels depicting scenes from the Old Testament.

View of the completed doors on the Baptistry, in Florence

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• In Isaac and His Sons, Ghiberti creates the illusion of space using perspective and sculptural means.

• Ghiberti also persists in using the medieval narrative method of presenting several episodes within a single frame.

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Donatello (1386-1466)

• Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi, universally known as Donatello, was born in Florence around 1386 and died there in 1466.

• The powerful expressive qualities of his work made him the greatest sculptor of the early Renaissance.

• Donatello's early works, still partly Gothic in style, are the impressive seated marble figure of St John the Evangelist for the cathedral façade and a wooden crucifix in the church of Santa Croce. The latter, according to an unproved anecdote, was made in friendly competition with Brunelleschi, a sculptor and an architect.

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• The wooden Crucifix in the Church of Santa Croce is attributed to Donatello, although this attribution is not shared by all art historians.

• The dating of this work is also controversial. Some scholars consider it as one of the first sculptures by Donatello while others think it was made around 1425.

• The study of the iconography suggests the date 1412-13.

• Brunelleschi hated the intensely life-like face of the dead Christ and accused Donatello of having, in Vasari's words, “crucified a peasant”

• The work reflects Donatello's creative force, his search for new forms of expression and liberation from established rules.

Crucifix, 1412-13Wood, 168 x 173 cmChurch of Santa Croce, Florence

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• Donatello’s St John which, together with the other Evangelists by Nanni di Banco, Niccolo Lamberti and Bernardo Ciuffagni, were to be placed on the facade of Santa Maria del Fiore in the tabernacle at the side of the central door.

• This statue, of St. John, which was commissioned by the Opera del Duomo but executed much later - the payments go from 1413 to 1415 - almost seems to anticipate the works of Michelangelo.

• Particularly remarkable are the saint's acute and penetrating expression, and the realistic treatment of his open hand on the book.

St John the Evangelist,1410-11Marble, height: 210 cm,Museo dell'Opera del DuomoFlorence

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• Donatello's bronze statue David is the first freestanding nude bronze since ancient times.

• The biblical David was a symbol of the independent Florentine republic.

• The figure stands in a relaxed classical contrapposto position.

David, ca. 1428–1432. Bronze, 5' 21/4" high. Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence.

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• The International Style persisted but became increasingly suffused with a variety of naturalistic detail.

Italian Painting in the Early Renaissance

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• The painter Masaccio (1401-1428), however, introduced a new monumental style that revolutionized Italian painting.

• Masaccio's manipulation of light and shade (chiaroscuro) give an almost tangible sense of three-dimensional substance to his figures and

• his application of the new linear perspective to create the illusion of spatial depth or distance provided models of innovation and direction for future generations of painters.

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Masaccio's fresco of the Tribute Money in the Brancacci Chapel of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence shows psychologically and physically credible figures illuminated by a light coming from a specific source outside the picture.

Masaccio, Tribute Money, ca. 1427Brancacci Chapel, Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence, Italy, Fresco, 8' 1" x 19' 7".

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• The light models the figures to produce an illusion of deep sculptural relief.

• The main group of figures stand solidly in a semi-circle in the foreground of a spacious landscape.

• Masaccio employs both linear perspective and illusionistic perspective to enhance the sense of space and distance.

Detail: Tribute Money, Brancacci Chapel, Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence, Italy, ca. 1427. Fresco, 8' 1" x 19' 7".

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• Masaccio's Holy Trinity fresco in Santa Maria Novella embodies two principal Renaissance interests:– realism based on observation, – and perspective.

Masaccio, Holy Trinity, Santa Maria Novella, Florence, Italy, ca. 1428. Fresco, 21' x 10' 5".

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Fra Angelico (Guido di Pietro) (1400-55)

• A Dominican friar, “Brother Angel” was in fact a highly professional artist, who was in touch with the most advanced developments in contemporary Florentine art.

• He probably began his career as a manuscript illuminator, and his early paintings are strongly influenced by International Gothic.

• His most famous works were painted at the Monastery of San Marco in Florence.

• He and his assistants painted about fifty frescos.

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Fra Angelico's fresco of the Annunciation is simple and serene.

Fra Angelico, Annunciation, San Marco, Florence, 1440–1445. Fresco, 7' 1" x 10' 6".

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• Many of the frescos are in the friars' cells and were intended as aids to devotion; – with their immaculate

coloring, – their economy in drawing

and composition, and – their freedom from the

accidents of time and place, they attain a sense of blissful serenity.

Presentation in the Temple 1440-41, Fresco, 158 x 136 cm; Cell 10, San Marco, Florence.

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• The brilliance of the early morning is real enough, but the irradiating light, the floating rather than walking figure of Christ, the wealth of natural detail in the garden, are for devotional reasons and intended to stimulate the meditation of the monk who lived in the cell.

Noli Me Tangere,1440-41Fresco, 180 x 146 cm Convento di San Marco, Florence

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• Angelico would repeat his success with the frescoes at San Marcos with commissions for altarpieces that made their way to churches around the world.

• In this altarpanel which was sold to Spain we see his Annunciation recreated in egg tempera on a wooden panel with the Expulsion from the Garden scene in the background.

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Alessandro Botticelli (1445 - 1510)

• After Masaccio, Sandro Botticelli comes as the next great painter of the Florentine tradition.

• The new, sharply contoured, slender form and rippling sinuous line is synonymous with Botticelli .

• Nothing is more gracious, in lyrical beauty, than Botticelli's mythological paintings Primavera and The Birth of Venus, where the pagan story is taken with reverent seriousness and Venus is the Virgin Mary in another form.

• He often used mythology and allegory as metaphors for Christianity.

29 Sandro Botticelli, Birth of Venus, ca. 1482. Tempera on canvas,

approx. 5' 8" x 9' 1". Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

Sandro Botticelli's Birth of Venus is a lyrical and courtly image. The nude figure of Venus was derived from ancient Venus statues of Roman times.

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Botticelli's Venus is so beautiful that we don’t notice the unnatural length of her neck, the steep fall of her shoulders and the queer way her left arm is hinged to the body. Botticelli took liberties with nature in order to achieve a graceful outline and add to the beauty and harmony of the design because they enhance the impression of an infinitely delicate being, wafted to our shores as a gift from Heaven.

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• In Primavera  (Spring). Venus is standing in the center of the picture, above her Cupid is aiming one of his arrows of love at the three dancing Graces.

• The Garden of the goddess of love is guarded by Mercury (he is wearing winged shoes) on the left.

• From the right, Zephyr, the god of the winds, is pursuing a nymph.

• Next to her walks Flora, the goddess of spring, who is scattering flowers.

Botticelli. Primavera. c.1482. Tempera on panel. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy.

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La Primavera, "Allegory of Spring" (detail)1477-78Tempera on panelGalleria degli Uffizi, Florence

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La Primavera, "Allegory of Spring" (detail)1477-78Tempera on panelGalleria degli Uffizi, Florence

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This painting marks the end of Botticelli's ‘Medici” period, from this point onwards the subject-matter of his paintings changes and becomes increasingly religious.

Pallas and the Centaur, 1482, Tempera on canvas, 207 x 148 cm, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

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Alessandro Botticelli. Portrait of Giuliano de' Medici. c.1476-1477. Tempera on panel. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC..

Perhaps the most authentic portrait of Giuliano assumed that to be painted in the lifetime of Giuliano. However, the death symbols (the dove sitting on the dead branch and the half-open door) on the picture contradict this assumption.

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• Many of Botticelli's paintings are undated, but this Adoration of the Magi has been dated by modern scholarship to c. 1475.

• This is important because it provides evidence of Botticelli having already secured the patronage of the Medici whose portraits appear in the picture.

Botticelli, Adoration of the Magi, Tempera on panel, 27 ½ x 41”, Uffizi, Florence

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Early 15th century Architecture

• Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446) adopted a classically inspired rational approach to architecture that employed both classical architectural forms (e.g., round arches, columns) and a system of design based on carefully proportioned shapes (e.g., the square, circle) or units fitted together in strict but simple ratios.

• Brunelleschi studied the ancient monuments in Rome.

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Brunelleschi's double-shelled dome for the Florence Cathedral is original in section and designed around a skeleton of twenty-four

ribs, of which eight are visible on the exterior. The structure is anchored at the top with a heavy lantern.

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• The architect Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472) designed a façade for the Church of Sant'Andrea that linked together a Roman temple front and a triumphal arch.

• The façade's vertical and horizontal dimensions are proportionally related.

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Plan of Sant'Andrea, Mantua, Italy, designed ca. 1470.

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Interior of Sant'Andrea, Mantua, Italy, designed ca. 1470

The vaults in the interior may have been inspired by the Basilica Nova of Constantine in Rome.

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• A profound understanding of ancient Roman architecture was achieved by Alberti, who advocated (in his own treatise on architecture) a system of ideal proportions expressed in simple numerical ratios.

• He also proposed a more rigorous and correct application of Roman architectural principles.

• Alberti's design for the Palazzo Rucellai in Florence includes classical elements such as flat pilasters, a classical cornice, and rustication.

• The flat façade is modeled on the Colosseum and uses different capitals for each story: Tuscan for the ground floor, Composite for the second story, and Corinthian for the third floor.

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LEON BATTISTA ALBERTI, Palazzo Rucellai, Florence, Italy, ca. 1452–1470.

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• The design also includes the use of scrolls to unite the broad lower part and the narrow upper part of the façade, and to screen the sloping roofs over the aisles.

Alberti,, west façade of Santa Maria Novella, Florence, Italy, ca. 1458–1470.

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• Alberti's design for the façade of Santa Maria Novella in Florence follows a Romanesque model but organizes the elements according to a system of proportions that can be expressed in simple numerical ratios.

Diagrams of west façade, Santa Maria Novella, Florence, Italy.

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Review: Early Renaissance• The spread of humanism and the growing interest in

classical antiquity contributed significantly to the growth and expansion of artistic culture in 15th-century Italy.

• Also important were political and economic changes that contributed to the rise of a new class of wealthy patrons such as the Florentine Medici who fostered art and learning on a lavish scale.

• As part of Civic pride, artistic competitions become popular. Lorenzo Ghiberti wins the competition to design the “Gates of Paradise”

• Humanism's emphasis on individual achievement and recognition gave new impetus to portraiture, both private and commemorative.

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• In architecture, an understanding of ancient Roman architecture was achieved as well as systems of ideal proportions expressed in simple numerical ratios. In another competition Filippo Brunelleschi wins the commission to build the dome to the Cathedral of Florence.

• The use of new humanist-inspired ideas and features contributed to a growing secularization of traditional religious subject matter. Donatello creates his David, the first freestanding nude since antiquity.

• Masaccio's fresco of the Tribute Money psychologically and physically credible figures illuminated by a light coming from a specific source outside the picture.

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• Sandro Botticelli's Birth of Venus is a lyrical and courtly image.

• Fra Angelico brings a human touch to his religious scenes in the Monastery of San Marcos.

• Besides in Florence, the princely courts of Naples, Urbino, Milan, Ferrara, and Mantua, rulers nurtured the arts.

• in the Ducal Palace in Mantua, Andrea Mantegna produced the first consistent illusionistic decoration applied to an entire room.

• In his fresco of the Resurrection Piero della Francesca used a triangle of figures to organize and stabilize the composition.

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LINKS:• 15th-Century Art in Italy: The Early Renaissance• Gates of Paradise (Web gallery of Art)

• Frescoes in the Convento di San Marco (Angelico)• Filippo Brunelleschi• Allegorical paintings by Botticelli• Quattrocento (lesser known paintings)• Renaissance (AICT)• Overview of Italian Painters from 1200 to 1750