Art and Architecture in the Renaissance - Essay Example

Art and Architecture in the Renaissance Most people today recognize the term ‘Renaissance’ as meaning aspecific time period in Western European culture. If they’re fairly decent with dates, they’ll remember it as a period that began around 1400 and ended in the 1600s, appearing earlier in the Italian city-states. “The term ‘Renaissance’ might now be defined as a model of cultural history in which the culture of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Europe is represented as a repudiation of medieval values in favor of the revival of the culture of ancient Greece and Rome.”1 The word actually means “rebirth” and refers to the tremendous artistic renewal of this period that happened as people rediscovered the skill and knowledge of the ancient worlds of Greece and Rome. These early empires represented to the 14th through the 16th century citizens a golden age of shared culture, reason and creativity. However, the artistic focus of the Renaissance took a different approach to expression from that of their predecessors. It was because of the lessons learned from the ancients that many of the technical developments in portraying realistic images emerged during this period through the efforts of a variety of famous artists including Giotto, Masaccio, Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael. In order to fully understand the artistic revival in painting that took place during this time period, I feel it is necessary to understand the developments each of these artists contributed to the world of art in general and why the ancient world was of particular importance to them. Artists in Florence were able to quickly link the mathematical knowledge of the ancient Greeks and Romans to the proportional focus of their own world. These mathematical terms were a common factor between the makeup of great works of art as well as providing a means of immediately communicating understanding of balance and structure to their audience, who were also highly mathematically inclined. “In an age of non-standard shipping units, one had to be able to calculate contents and quantities of shipments fairly rapidly.”2 Painters used their foundational knowledge in geometry to create familiar elements in their paintings that would convey their intentions to the greatest possible audience. “In the same way that a painter could reduce the human form or settings to a play of geometrical figures, so could the merchant simplify all things to geometrical configurations.”3 By melding mathematics and artistic expression, artists discovered how to provide their figures with a new impression of weight and volume that had not been previously achieved. This new ability to provide realism in a painting led to even greater explorations into how the world around them manifested itself in visual awareness. This attention to the science of representation eventually led to a systematic development of ever more realistic methods of portraying an image such as the development of dimension, perspective rules, atmospheric interpretation and textural impression. One of the earliest individuals to influence Renaissance art was Giotto (1267-1337), who was known as a sculptor, architect and painter. “In painting, Giotto led the way in giving the human figure a greater sense of physical presence.”4 It is through the work of Giotto (1266-1337) that artists began working on creating more realistic pictures of the human figure and to present them as more dimensional. “Even during his lifetime, he was admired and highly regarded for his naturalism and his expressive, representative art.”5 In Giotto’s time, the technical knowledge of painting was still unknown. Things such as anatomy and rules of perspective were yet to be recognized and then expressed. However, he was instrumental in breaking the mold of previous artists in that he infused human emotion into his paintings, giving them a spirit and a life that had been missing. “In concentrating on these essentials, he created compelling pictures of people under stress, of people caught up in crises and soul-searching decisions.”6 This breakthrough in art led painters after him to continue searching for the path to realism that had eluded painters, but not sculptors, up to this point. Giotto’s greatness, then, lay not just in the subjects he painted, which had been painted previously by other artists, but in his ability to engage the tactile imagination, his ability to involve the emotions and more natural movements in his subjects and the influence this had on artists who followed him. Masaccio (1401-1428) followed Giotto by introducing a new way of using perspective and proportion to achieve dimension, as well as using light to bring out the contours of his elements. “Masaccio was the first Renaissance artist to have grasped and interpreted man’s deepest and most mundane reality. In his painting the rigorous construction of spatial perspective, and the sapient use of chiaroscuro and color, accompany a profound human and moral content expressed in intense, tragic drama.”7 Having taken his inspiration for natural movement from the pages of Giotto himself, Masaccio learned to paint early in life, which was fortunate as he died an early death, possibly from plague. “His monumental figures are sculpted by light, an approach pioneered by Giotto. Masaccio combined it with careful linear perspective to give the sense of real forms in real space. He was influenced by his friend Donatello’s advances in sculpture, which he then applied to painting.”8 Although several of the techniques Masaccio used in his paintings had already been developed, such as the idea of foreshortening, much of it had been applied to sculptural reliefs rather than painting, or to incidental details. The brilliance of Masaccio was in his bringing together of these ideas and concentrating on them as the focus of his painting rather than as a happy accidental occurrence. “Vasari said, ‘He may be ranked among the first who freed themselves of the imperfections and difficulties of the art ... giving figures a natural relief that no painter had succeeded in obtaining before.’”9 Masacchio was followed by Botticelli (1445-1510), who become principally known for his brilliance in the arena of portrait painting. With the advent of the wealthy merchant class and the desire for self-aggrandizement, a new form of art emerged in the form of the portrait. Botticelli set the example for expression in the human face by accurately portraying the images of political leaders, but doing so in such a way that their positive individual characteristics were brought out and they were given a certain impression of power and wealth. Within these portraits, Botticelli would include grand scenes of landscaping and themes of classical Greek and Roman mythology. Famous paintings such as The Birth of Venus and The Gift of the Magi are examples of this style that infuses the Neoplatonic ideals of the Medici patrons with classical themes and images. “Pure visual poetry, they are stylistically the quintessence of Botticelli; there is a deliberate denial of rational spatial construction and no attempt to model solid-looking figures; instead the figures float on the forward plane of the picture against a decorative landscape backdrop, and form, defined by outline, is willfully modified to imbue that outline with expressive power.”10 His concentration on the emotion of the piece, as well as his detail in expression and lighting, helped inspire his contemporary artists, but his greatness and works were largely ignored through much of later history until his rediscovery by the Pre-Raphaelites centuries later. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was one of the artists who were inspired by the use of light and technique in Botticelli’s paintings. In The Baptism of Christ, one can see the careful melding of Verrocchio (Leonardo’s teacher at the time), Leonardo and Botticelli. “Leonardo’s unique style was evident in his colorful painting of the angel on the left side of the painting. The rich and vibrant landscape in this painting is believed to be the contribution of Leonardo and … Botticelli.”11 Da Vinci again revolutionized the artistic world with his explorations in color, light, landscapes and expression. He is considered the master of the sfumato technique as well as chiaroscuro. Sfumato is a word deriving from the Italian word for smoke and refers to a technique in which translucent layers of color are overlaid to create a perception of depth, volume and form in a painting by blending the colors to such a degree that there is no perceptible transition from one color to the next. Chiaroscuro refers to the subtle shading between light and dark areas that provide a figure with a three dimensional effect. Both of these techniques are used brilliantly in one of Leonardo’s most well-known portraits, the Mona Lisa. “His use of soft lines and colors created the illusion of movement which became the trademark of High Renaissance art.”12 It is for this reason that Leonardo is marked as the father of the high renaissance. Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) made a similar splash in his painting styles, including free flowing movements, elegantly draped clothing and realistically rounded forms. His surviving full-size cartoon of Battle of Anghiari depicted a group of nude men in various states of alarm as they are informed of an impending attack. “These nudes, posed in a variety of turning and animated poses, established the Mannerist conception of the male nude as the principal vehicle for the expression of human emotions.”13 His most famous painting is, perhaps, the work done on the Sistine Chapel, which, once restored, demonstrated his formidable skills as a colorist. “Although he restricted himself to the nude in painting, his expressive use of the idealized human form had a tremendous impact on contemporaries and future generations – even Raphael was not above directly referring to the Sistine Chapel sibyls, with his fresco of Isaiah in Sant’ Agostino.”14 Raphael (1483-1520) further pushed the idea of naturalism with his focus on composition, balance and unity. His art can be seen to have been strongly influenced by the artists who had come before him upon his arrival in Florence. “His drawing style changed from the tight contours and interior hatching he had learned from Perugino toward the freer, more flowing style of Leonardo. From Leonardos “Virgin of the Rocks” he evolved a new Madonna type seated in a soft and gentle landscape … He adopted the “Mona Lisa” format for his portraits, and he also studied closely the sculpture of Michelangelo.”15 These influences appear in Raphael’s School of Athens, often considered one of the finest examples of the High Renaissance style. In this painting, Raphael created a balance between “the movement of the figures and the ordered and stable space. He people this space with figures in a rich variety of poses yet controlled poses and gestures to make one group lead to the next in an interweaving and interlocking pattern, brining the eye to the central figures of Plato and Aristotle at the converging point of the perspective construction.”16 However, several of his other works begin to demonstrate a greater concern with light and shade that suggests the earliest entry into the Baroque period. Throughout the approximately two centuries in which the Renaissance flourished in Florence, there were significant advancements not only in the way in which artists and architects approached their craft, but also in the techniques, subjects and methods in which this was accomplished. Beginning with sculpture and architecture, the idea of a return to the classical ideals and mathematical knowledge regarding naturalism and mathematical inclusion in creating more realistic images and representations, Italy led the way for the rest of the world. The painters of the Italian states introduced naturalism, proportion, perspective and ways of dealing with light that revolutionized the industry in a period of only a few hundred years as compared to the almost static developments occurring during the many centuries intervening between the classical Greeks and Romans and the Renaissance. Although these innovations were not limited to Italy – the Renaissance also took place in Germany, France, Spain and England – it is because of the way in which the movement seemed to grow out of the advances and investigations of the artists in Italy that the Italian Renaissance is often given a greater significance. An understanding of how the Renaissance affected paintings in Italy helps to understand the way in which the movement affected other parts of the world. Endnotes 1 Campbell, Gordon. Renaissance Art and Architecture. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004, pp. v-vi. 2 Lemaitre, Alain J. & Lessing, Erich. Florence and the Renaissance. Paris: Terrail Press, 1993, p. 15. 3 Ibid. 4 “Renaissance Art and Architecture.” The Columbia Encyclopedia. Sixth Ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. 5 Gallwitz, Karl Ludwig. The Handbook of Italian Renaissance Painters. Munich: Prestel, 1999, p. 116. 6 Pioch, Nicolas. “Giotto di Bondone.” WebMuseum Paris. July 27, 2002. June 10, 2006 < http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/giotto/> 7 “Masaccio: The Life, the Genius, the Works.” n.d. June 10, 2006 8 “Masaccio.” The National Gallery. Trafalgar Square, London: The National Gallery, 2006. June 10, 2006 < http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/cgi-bin/WebObjects.dll/CollectionPublisher.woa/wa/artistBiography?artistID=433> 9 Ibid. 10 West, Shearer. The Bullfinch Guide to Art History. Boston: Bullfinch Press, 1996. 11 Connor, Linda. “Leonardo da Vinci: A Portrait of a Man and His Time.” Computer Application in Education. Manitoba, Canada: University of Manitoba, n.d. June 10, 2006 12 Ibid. 13 West, (1996). 14 Ibid. 15 “painting, Western.” Encyclopædia Britannica. 2006. Encyclopædia Britannica Premium Service. June 10, 2006  . 16 Ibid. Works Cited Campbell, Gordon. Renaissance Art and Architecture. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Connor, Linda. “Leonardo da Vinci: A Portrait of a Man and His Time.” Computer Application in Education. Manitoba, Canada: University of Manitoba, n.d. June 10, 2006 Gallwitz, Karl Ludwig. The Handbook of Italian Renaissance Painters. Munich: Prestel, 1999. Lemaitre, Alain J. & Lessing, Erich. Florence and the Renaissance. Paris: Terrail Press, 1993. “Masaccio.” The National Gallery. Trafalgar Square, London: The National Gallery, 2006. June 10, 2006 < http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/cgi-bin/WebObjects.dll/CollectionPublisher.woa/wa/artistBiography?artistID=433> “Masaccio: The Life, the Genius, the Works.” n.d. June 10, 2006 “painting, Western.” Encyclopædia Britannica. 2006. Encyclopædia Britannica Premium Service. June 10, 2006  . Pioch, Nicolas. “Giotto di Bondone.” WebMuseum Paris. July 27, 2002. June 10, 2006 < http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/giotto/> “Renaissance Art and Architecture.” The Columbia Encyclopedia. Sixth Ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. West, Shearer. The Bullfinch Guide to Art History. Boston: Bullfinch Press, 1996. Read More