A Renaissance refresher

The Renaissance defined Rebirth (of course), but what’s being reborn? 1,000 years after Rome fell (in to the Dark Age), the classical values of ancient Greece & Rome were rediscovered. Artists remastered technical secrets of classical artists lost in the Middle Ages. REALISM, 3-D, the balance found in classical statues. Sculptors caught and idealized human bodies caught in perfect balance between motion and rest. Artists turned for inspiration to ancient Greek and Roman works as paragons of beauty. Greek, Roman and Renaissance artists gloried the naked body. Humans are seen as strong and rational, almost gods on earth. Anatomy is realistic The revival of ancient Greek and Roman manuscripts highlighted the philosophy, erudition and aesthetics of the Classical world.

Renaissance man Shaper of his own destiny, not a plaything of the supernatural. The importance of the individual was on the rise. Life was seen as more than a preparation for the hereafter. Man could solve problems. This new “humanistic” attitude lead to greatest burst of original thinking & creativity since the Greeks came on the scene 2,000 years before.

Renaissance: the cultural revolution POLITICS democracy and the emergence of nation-states ECONOMICS both capitalism and the middle-class grew RELIGION a move away from the church and toward the assertion of man or “humanism” An assertion of man, not a repudiation of God Glorify God by glorifying humanity Man seen as God's most perfect work SCIENCE direct observation thrived and superstition was dismissed EXPLORATION Columbus and Magellan expanded European horizons SECULAR LEARNING revived after centuries of superstition and ignorance

Art before the Renaissance Characteristics of Medieval painting & sculpture – symbolic, to tell bible stories to the devout, but illiterate masses. Medieval artists painted stiff 2-D figures with no sense of movement. Backgrounds didn’t matter. people were generic icons as seen from God’s perspective. the church’s servant – to embellish the church and tell a story gave God’s ideal view – space, time, size didn’t matter.

Renaissance art rediscovered perspective and realism. Merged art and science, used math, laws of perspective & direct observation of nature to paint 3D on 2D surface. Foreshortening, which creates the illusion of distance and depth, showed the world from point of view of the viewer, a distinctly human perspective balanced & symmetrical. Statues stand “contraposto,” weight balanced on 1 leg, or are designed around central axis. Florentines coined the terms “Gothic” after the barbarians who looted Rome “Dark Ages” for the preceding era

Let’s step back a moment (or maybe a century or two) Berlinghiero, Madonna & Child, circa 1230 Cimabue, Santa Trinita Madonna, c. 1280, Uffizi

Out of the garden: Medieval, Early & late Renaissance Adam & Eve, Hildesheim, Germany, 1015 Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel, 1508 Masaccio, Brancacci Chapel, 1425

Almost to the Renaissance Giotto, Ognizzanti Madonna, 1310, Ufizzi Raphael, La Belle Jardiniere, 1507, Louvre

They say It all started in florence: Famous renaissance Florentines Michelangelo Buonarroti Lorenzo Ghiberti Leonardo Da Vinci Niccolo Machiavelli Donatello Dante Aligheri Sandro Botticelli Giovani Boccaccio Fillipo Brunelleschi Francesco Petrarch Amerigo Vespucci