Art History 361: Renaissance Summary

http://courses.washington.edu/ah361/resources/summary.html

Art History 361

Summary of the Renaissance

The word "Renaissance" comes from the French and means rebirth, the rebirth of ancient learning. In Italian, the word is Rinascenza. The Italian Renaissance period is usually divided into Early Renaissance (1420-1500) and High Renaissance (1500-20). Major Time Periods in Renaissance Art: 13th Century 14th Century 15th Century 16th Century Ideas and Concepts: Humanism, Neoplatonism, and Aristotelianism The Classical in the Renaissance The Renaissance's Five Great Achievements Renaissance Characteristics: Painting Sculpture
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Art History 361: Renaissance Summary

http://courses.washington.edu/ah361/resources/summary.html

Architecture

13th Century
Christian painting and sculpture were just beginning to break away from the restraints of the dogma and conventions of the earlier medieval period. Breaking away in order to give greater human emotional content to religious subject matter. The life and teachings of St. Francis of Assisi had been largely responsible for this. Also responsible were the contacts with French Gothic art.

14th Century
Once attention had been drawn to human emotion, it was only natural that interest in the human being himself and in his physical surroundings should follow. The resulting secularization of religious subject matter is apparent in the paintings of the 14th century.

15th Century
More detailed observation of man himself and of nature
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Art History 361: Renaissance Summary

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followed in the 15th century with the growth of interest in anatomy, perspective, details of nature, landscape backgrounds, and form and color in light. Paintings of the 15th century also reflect the growing curiosity about man's achievement in Italy's past--that is, the Classic past. It is this preoccupation with and study of Classic culture and art that gave the Renaissance in Italy its particular character. Classic culture also brought with it mythology and the ideal of beauty.

16th Century
Christianity was added to Platonic ideal: Neo-platonism. Michelangelo in the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and Raphael in the Vatican Stanze are representative of this movement at the beginning of the 16th century; they brought the Renaissance to the highest achievement in painting in Rome. But the attempt to reconcile paganism and Christianity foundered. The Reformation intervened and the works of the Mannerists show what resulted in painting. The Counter-Reformation ushered in the new period, the Baroque.

Ideas and Concepts: Humanism, Neoplatonism, and Aristotelianism

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Art History 361: Renaissance Summary

http://courses.washington.edu/ah361/resources/summary.html

The art of a period is a reflection of the psychological, religious, and political forces at work during that period.
Humanism

Humanism was the basic concept of the Italian Renaissance. It is the term used to define that philosophical movement in Italy at the end of the 14th century and during the 15th and 16th centuries which asserted the right of the individual to the use of his own reason and belief, and stressed the importance and potential of man as an individual. This concept can be identified with a belief in the power of learning and science to produce "the complete man". This rational and scientific conception of the world is the basis of our modern civilization. Modern Humanism originated in the Renaissance when scholars, writers, poets, artists, philosophers and scientists sought regeneration in the freer intellectual spirit of Classical times. The Humanists saw no conflict between the New Learning--the newly rediscovered wisdom of the ancient world--and the authority of the Church. They felt that the study of the ancient great writers of Greece and Rome was a tool for the understanding of true Christian doctrine, and that Platonic philosophy (the belief in the ideal of physical beauty as the mani-festation of God, the One Supreme Being) could only illumi-nate, never undermine, theology.

Neo-Platonism

Neo-Platonism in the Renaissance was the philosophy based on the teachings and doctrines of a group of thinkers of the early Christian era who endeavored to reconcile the teachings of Plato with
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Art History 361: Renaissance Summary

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Christian concepts. The Neo-Platonists, being at the same time both lovers of the pagan past with its Platonic ideals of physical beauty, and being Christians, wanted to fuse this pagan idealism with Christian doctrine. The art and taste during the Renaissance for complicated mythological fantasies intermingled with allegories and symbolisms tried to achieve this fusion of the Platonic idealism with Christian doctrine. The allegorical value of the art lies in this union of the Classical antique and the Christian. The Neo-Platonists conceived of the Christian religion as an eternal doctrine existing even before the advent of historical Christianity. The main object of the Neo-Platonic Academy in Florence in the 15th century was the reconciliation of the spirit of antiquity with that of Christianity. The meaning of God to the Neo-Platonists was thus: God was Beauty and the source of Beauty. God's image is Man. Therefore, the ideally beautiful Man is the closest approximation of God on this earth. Michelangelo was the greatest Neo-Platonic artist who believed that the spirit of Classical art inspired and guided the formation of the concetto (concept) of beauty in the mind.

Aristotelianism

In the Renaissance, another school of classical learning was coterminous and was finally reconciled with Neo-Platonism, called

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Art History 361: Renaissance Summary

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Aristotelianism. Leon Battista Alberti (1404-72) first formulated this concept of art based on the writings of Aristotle via Vitruvius (early 1st century A.D. classical author). It is the Aristotelian conception of the visible world as ultimate reality. Alberti's concept of beauty in a work of art is the harmony between all the parts so that nothing can be added to it or taken from it without impairing the whole. The work of art is synthesized by adding together the most beautiful observable examples of the component parts. Leonardo da Vinci, always the scientist, even when a painter, was the chief exponent of the Aristotelian concept.

The Classical in the Renaissance

In the broadest artistic sense, Classical art is that art which is based on the study of classical models, and art which emphasizes qualities considered to be characteristically Greek and Roman in style and spirit: Reason Objectivity Discipline Restraint Order Balance Discipline Restraint These characteristics can be summed up in one term: Harmony. The essential conditions that encourage Classical art are:

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Art History 361: Renaissance Summary

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Pride in the past Peace in the present Confidence in the future

The Renaissance's Five Great Achievements

There are five fundamental elements in the great achievements of the Italian Renaissance in the world of Art: Naturalism Organization of space Invention of parallel perspective by Filippo Brunelleschi: the scientific use of a perspective based on lines that come together at a single vanishing point on the horizon The use of classical motifs The new dignity of the individual

Characteristics of Renaissance Painting

Harmonious proportions among all elements of a painting Reintroduction of chiaroscuro: the gradations of light and dark within a picture, especially one in which the forms are largely determined, not by sharp outlines but by the meeting of lighter and darker areas The perfection of geometric or parallel perspective

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Art History 361: Renaissance Summary

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Characteristics of Renaissance Sculpture

The reintroduction of contrapposto: the pose of the human form in which the head and shoulders face in a different direction from the hips and legs -- a spiral twist The systematic study of anatomy and of the organic functions of the body Free-standing monumental statues

Characteristics of Renaissance Architecture

A harmony of all parts with symmetry and order of geometric proportions and designs using Classical architectural elements.

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