Renaissance in French means “rebirth”
Cultural center moves from France to Italy
Kings and princes rule independent city-states
A plague wipes out populations of entire cities in Europe and Asia. We a see a shift from medieval spirituality back to a focus on humanism and scientific observation.
Although there is evidence of the Renaissance in other regions, the two most significant are:
North- Flanders (Belgium and Netherlands)
South- Italy
The Limbourg Brothers
The calendar pages of Les Tres Riches Heures are rendered in the International style, a manner of painting common throughout Europe during the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries.
This style is characterized by ornate costumes embellished with gold leaf and by subject matter literally fit for a king, including courtly scenes and splendid processions.
Jan van Eyck
The fifteenth century saw the development of genre painting-painting that depicts ordinary people engaged in run-of-the-mill activities.
Yet they are no less devoid of symbolism.
Giovanni Arnolfini and His Bride- This unique double portrait was commissioned to serve as a kind of marriage contract or record of the couple’s taking of marriage vows.
Albrecht Durer
Durer’s passion for the Classical in art stimulated extensive travel in Italy, where he copied the works of the Italian masters, who were also enthralled with the Classical style.
Twenty years after the competition for the doors of the Baptistery of Florence, Brunelleschi was commissioned to cover the crossing square of the cathedral of Florence with a dome.
Andra del Verrocchio
Verrochio ran an active shop that attracted many young artists, including Leonardo da Vinci
Piero della Francesca
He was trained in mathematics and geometry and is credited with writing the first theoretical treatise on the construction of systematic perspective in art.
Sandro Botticelli
In his painting The Birth of Venus we see a return to a mythological theme.
Leon Battista Alberti
Some of the purest examples of Renaissance Classicism lie in buildings he designed
The High Renaissance
From the second half of the fifteenth century onward, a refinement of the stylistic principles and techniques associated with the Renaissance can be observed.
Most of this significant, progressive work was being done in Florence, where the Medici family played an important role in supporting the arts.
At the close of the decade, however, Rome was the place to be, as the popes began to assume the grand role of patron.
Three artists-the great masters of the High Renaissance-were in most demand:
Leonardo da Vinci -painter, scientist, inventor, and musician
Raphael Sanzio -Classical painter thought to have rivaled the works of the ancients
Michelangelo Buonarroti -painter, sculptor, architect, and poet
High and Late Renaissance in Venice
The artists who lived and worked in the city of Venice were the first in Italy to perfect the medium of oil painting.
The Venetian artists sought the same clarity of hue and lushness of surface in the oil-on-canvas works.
El Greco
Spanish art polarized into two stylistic groups of religious painting.
El Greco was able to pull these opposing trends together in a unique pictorial method.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Scenes of everyday life involving ordinary people were becoming increasingly popular.
One of the masters of this genre of painting was Pieter Bruegel the Elder, whose compositions focused on human beings in relation to nature and the life and times of plain Netherlandish folk.
Mannerist artists abandoned copying directly from nature, and instead copied art.
Several characteristics separate Mannerist art from the art of the Renaissance and the Baroque periods:
Distortion and elongation of figures
Flattened, almost two-dimensional space
Lack of a defined focal point
Use of discordant pastel hues