Renaissance Art Characteristics

Composition: balanced, static forms, often triangular in shape

Medium: wall frescoes, egg tempura on wood panels, later used oil paints

Sense of depth: linear perspective, atmospheric perspective, sfumato, chiaroscuro

Use of light: recognized single light source that casts uniform shadows

Subjects: religious figures updated into Renaissance costumes and settings;

references to classical mythology

Human form: reflected Renaissance humanism; freestanding statues using contrapposto; emphasis on underlying human anatomy

Masaccio 1401-1428

Donatello 1386-1466

Donatello vs. Michelangelo

Sandro Botticelli 1444-1510

Botticelli’s Annunciation

Leonardo da Vinci 1452-1519

Michelangelo 1475-1564

Raphael 1483-1529

Raphael’s portrait of Castiglione

Brunelleschi 1377-1446

Bramante 1444-1514

Andreas Palladio 1508-1580

Northern Renaissance

• Location: Netherlands, Flanders (Belgium), Germany• Realistic: detailed, sharp focus on details of daily life• Medium: oil paints on stretched canvas

• Use of Light: subtle variations of light and shade; atmospheric perspective

• Broke with Gothic past, but rarely used classical themes

• Religious themes: paintings often reflect religious intensity of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation

• Secular subjects: middle class Protestant merchants in the Netherlands wanted portraits, still lifes and other secular paintings. In Germany, the lives of peasants were carefully recorded by various artists

• Graphic arts: woodcuts and engravings appeared with the printing press and made inexpensive art widely available

Jan Van Eyck c.1390-1441

Van Eyck Arnolfini Wedding,1434

Hieronymous Bosch c.1450-1516

Pieter Brueghel: c.1525-1569

Magpie on the Gallows

Hans Holbein 1497-1543

Jane Seymour and Anne of Cleves

Albrecht Durer 1471-1528

Durer self-portraits

Mannerism: 1520-1600

• provided the transition between Renaissance and Baroque art styles of the 17th century

• rejected the symmetrical and realistic style of the Renaissance in favor of emotions, distorted figures, lurid colors and mystical scenes

• reflected the emotional turmoil of the Reformation, Counter Reformation and Thirty Years’ War

• techniques: unnatural lighting, diagonal compositions sometimes out of the frame, elongated bodies, swirling smoke or clouds, miraculous subject matter helped the Catholic church fight back against Protestant beliefs

Parmigianino c.1503-c.1540

Tintoretto: 1518-1594

El Greco 1541-1614

Contrast of the Annunciation by Giotto with El Greco’s version

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