Renaissance Art and Architecture

Introduction

Fra Angelico: Annunciation(c. 1440–45), fresco, north corridor, monastery of S Marco, Florence; photo
credit: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY
The Renaissance refers to the era in Europe from the 14th to the 16th century in which a new style
in painting, sculpture and architecture developed after the Gothic. Although a religious view of the
world continued to play an important role in the lives of Europeans, a growing awareness of the
natural world, the individual and collective humanity’s worldly existence characterize the
Renaissance period. Derived from the French word, renaissance, and the Italian word rinascità, both
meaning ‘rebirth’, the Renaissance was a period when scholars and artists began to investigate what
they believed to be a revival of classical learning, literature and art. For example, the followers of the
14th-century author Petrarch began to study texts from Greece and Rome for their moral content
and literary style. Having its roots in the medieval university, this study called Humanism centered
on rhetoric, literature, history and moral philosophy.
During the Renaissance, many features of the medieval persisted, including the heritage of the
artistic techniques used in books, manuscripts, precious objects and oil painting. The paintings of
Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden record the exquisite details of the natural world in order to
facilitate the viewer’s religious and spiritual experience. North of the Alps, Renaissance ideals
culminated in the work of Albrecht Dürer in the early 16th century, and Germany became a
dominant artistic centre. With the Reformation and the absence of the Catholic church in German
speaking lands of the 16th century, prints in the form of woodcuts and engravings helped to
disseminate the spread of Protestant ideals. As a result, artists such as Pieter Bruegel I in the
Netherlands and Hans Holbein in England specialized in more secular subjects, such as landscape
and portraiture.
Finally, the pinnacle of the period, referred to as the High Renaissance, is best known for some of
Western art’s greatest masters: Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael. Renowned works like
Leonardo’s Mona Lisa, Michelangelo’s ceiling frescoes of the Sistine Chapel, and Raphael’s famous
Madonnas continue to marvel viewers with their naturalism. Following the High Renaissance,
Mannerism developed from c. 1510–20 to 1600. Works of this style often emphasized the artifice
and adroit skill of the artist. Major works such as the Palazzo del Te by Giulio Romano and
Parmigianino’s Madonna of the Long Neck reflect Mannerist innovations. In France, the presence
of Italian Mannerist painters at Fontainebleau established the courtly taste. For many, the artistic
creations of the Renaissance still represent the highest of achievements in the history of art.

Renaissance Art
Known as the Renaissance, the period immediately following the Middle Ages
in Europe saw a great revival of interest in the classical learning and values of
ancient Greece and Rome. Against a backdrop of political stability and
growing prosperity, the development of new technologies–including the
printing press, a new system of astronomy and the discovery and exploration
of new continents–was accompanied by a flowering of philosophy, literature
and especially art. The style of painting, sculpture and decorative arts
identified with the Renaissance emerged in Italy in the late 14th century; it
reached its zenith in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, in the work of
Italian masters such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael. In
addition to its expression of classical Greco-Roman traditions, Renaissance
art sought to capture the experience of the individual and the beauty and
mystery of the natural world.
Origins of Renaissance Art
The origins of Renaissance art can be traced to Italy in the late 13th and early
14th centuries. During this so-called “proto-Renaissance” period (1280-1400),
Italian scholars and artists saw themselves as reawakening to the ideals and
achievements of classical Roman culture. Writers such as Petrarch (1304-
1374) and Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) looked back to ancient Greece
and Rome and sought to revive the languages, values and intellectual
traditions of those cultures after the long period of stagnation that had
followed the fall of the Roman Empire in the sixth century.

Did you know? Leonardo da Vinci, the ultimate "Renaissance man," practiced
all the visual arts and studied a wide range of topics, including anatomy,
geology, botany, hydraulics and flight. His formidable reputation is based on
relatively few completed paintings, including "Mona Lisa," "The Virgin of the
Rocks" and "The Last Supper."
The Florentine painter Giotto (1267?-1337), the most famous artist of the
proto-Renaissance, made enormous advances in the technique of
representing the human body realistically. His frescoes were said to have
decorated cathedrals at Assisi, Rome, Padua, Florence and Naples, though
there has been difficulty attributing such works with certainty.

Early Renaissance Art (1401-1490s)

In the later 14th century, the proto-Renaissance was stifled by plague and
war, and its influences did not emerge again until the first years of the next
century. In 1401, the sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti (c. 1378-1455) won a major
competition to design a new set of bronze doors for the Baptistery of the
cathedral of Florence, beating out contemporaries such as the architect
Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446) and the young Donatello (c. 1386- 1466),
who would later emerge as the master of early Renaissance sculpture.
The other major artist working during this period was the painter Masaccio
(1401-1428), known for his frescoes of the Trinity in the Church of Santa
Maria Novella (c. 1426) and in the Brancacci Chapel of the Church of Santa
Maria del Carmine (c. 1427), both in Florence. Masaccio painted for less than
six years but was highly influential in the early Renaissance for the intellectual
nature of his work, as well as its degree of naturalism.

Florence in the Renaissance

Though the Catholic Church remained a major patron of the arts during the
Renaissance–from popes and other prelates to convents, monasteries and
other religious organizations–works of art were increasingly commissioned by
civil government, courts and wealthy individuals. Much of the art produced
during the early Renaissance was commissioned by the wealthy merchant
families of Florence, most notably the Medici.

From 1434 until 1492, when Lorenzo de’ Medici–known as “the Magnificent”
for his strong leadership as well as his support of the arts–died, the powerful
family presided over a golden age for the city of Florence. Pushed from power
by a republican coalition in 1494, the Medici family spent years in exile but
returned in 1512 to preside over another flowering of Florentine art, including
the array of sculptures that now decorates the city’s Piazza della Signoria.

High Renaissance Art (1490s-1527)

By the end of the 15th century, Rome had displaced Florence as the principal
center of Renaissance art, reaching a high point under the powerful and
ambitious Pope Leo X (a son of Lorenzo de’ Medici). Three great masters–
Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael–dominated the period known
as the High Renaissance, which lasted roughly from the early 1490s until the
sack of Rome by the troops of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V of Spain in
1527. Leonardo (1452-1519) was the ultimate “Renaissance man” for the
breadth of his intellect, interest and talent and his expression of humanist and
classical values. Leonardo’s best-known works, including the “Mona Lisa”
(1503-05), “The Virgin of the Rocks” (1485) and the fresco “The Last Supper”
(1495-98), showcase his unparalleled ability to portray light and shadow, as
well as the physical relationship between figures–humans, animals and
objects alike–and the landscape around them.

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) drew on the human body for inspiration

and created works on a vast scale. He was the dominant sculptor of the High
Renaissance, producing pieces such as the Pietà in St. Peter’s Cathedral
(1499) and the David in his native Florence (1501-04). He carved the latter by
hand from an enormous marble block; the famous statue measures five
meters high including its base. Though Michelangelo considered himself a
sculptor first and foremost, he achieved greatness as a painter as well,
notably with his giant fresco covering the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel,
completed over four years (1508-12) and depicting various scenes from
Genesis.

Raphael Sanzio, the youngest of the three great High Renaissance masters,
learned from both da Vinci and Michelangelo. His paintings–most notably “The
School of Athens” (1508-11), painted in the Vatican at the same time that
Michelangelo was working on the Sistine Chapel–skillfully expressed the
classical ideals of beauty, serenity and harmony. Among the other great
Italian artists working during this period were Bramante, Giorgione, Titian and
Correggio.

Renaissance Art in Practice

Many works of Renaissance art depicted religious images, including subjects
such as the Virgin Mary, or Madonna, and were encountered by contemporary
audiences of the period in the context of religious rituals. Today, they are
viewed as great works of art, but at the time they were seen and used mostly
as devotional objects. Many Renaissance works were painted as altarpieces
for incorporation into rituals associated with Catholic Mass and donated by
patrons who sponsored the Mass itself.

Renaissance artists came from all strata of society; they usually studied as
apprentices before being admitted to a professional guild and working under
the tutelage of an older master. Far from being starving bohemians, these
artists worked on commission and were hired by patrons of the arts because
they were steady and reliable. Italy’s rising middle class sought to imitate the
aristocracy and elevate their own status by purchasing art for their homes. In
addition to sacred images, many of these works portrayed domestic themes
such as marriage, birth and the everyday life of the family.

Expansion and Decline

Over the course of the 15th and 16th centuries, the spirit of the Renaissance
spread throughout Italy and into France, northern Europe and Spain. In
Venice, artists such as Giorgione (1477/78-1510) and Titian (1488/90-1576)
further developed a method of painting in oil directly on canvas; this technique
of oil painting allowed the artist to rework an image–as fresco painting (on
plaster) did not–and it would dominate Western art to the present day. Oil
painting during the Renaissance can be traced back even further, however, to
the Flemish painter Jan van Eyck (died 1441), who painted a masterful
altarpiece in the cathedral at Ghent (c. 1432). Van Eyck was one of the most
important artists of the Northern Renaissance; later masters included the
German painters Albrecht Durer (1471-1528) and Hans Holbein the Younger
(1497/98-1543).

By the later 1500s, the Mannerist style, with its emphasis on artificiality, had
developed in opposition to the idealized naturalism of High Renaissance art,
and Mannerism spread from Florence and Rome to become the dominant
style in Europe. Renaissance art continued to be celebrated, however: The
16th-century Florentine artist and art historian Giorgio Vasari, author of the
famous work “Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects”
(1550), would write of the High Renaissance as the culmination of all Italian
art, a process that began with Giotto in the late 13th century.

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