Renaissance Art Characteristics Composition: balanced, static forms, often triangular in shape Medium: wall frescoes, egg tempura on wood panels, later used oil paints Sense of depth: linear perspective, atmospheric perspective, sfumato, chiaroscuro Use of light: recognized single light source that casts uniform shadows Subjects: religious figures updated into Renaissance costumes and settings; references to classical mythology Human form: reflected Renaissance humanism; freestanding statues using contrapposto; emphasis on underlying human anatomy
Masaccio
Donatello
Donatello vs. Michelangelo
Sandro Botticelli
Botticelli’s Annunciation
Leonardo da Vinci
Michelangelo
Raphael
Raphael’s portrait of Castiglione
Brunelleschi
Bramante
Andreas Palladio
Northern Renaissance Location: Netherlands, Flanders (Belgium), Germany Realistic: detailed, sharp focus on details of daily life Medium: oil paints on stretched canvas Use of Light: subtle variations of light and shade; atmospheric perspective Broke with Gothic past, but rarely used classical themes Religious themes: paintings often reflect religious intensity of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation Secular subjects: middle class Protestant merchants in the Netherlands wanted portraits, still lifes and other secular paintings. In Germany, the lives of peasants were carefully recorded by various artists Graphic arts: woodcuts and engravings appeared with the printing press and made inexpensive art widely available
Jan Van Eyck c
Van Eyck Arnolfini Wedding,1434
Hieronymous Bosch c
Pieter Brueghel: c
Magpie on the Gallows
Hans Holbein
Jane Seymour and Anne of Cleves
Albrecht Durer
Durer self-portraits
Mannerism: provided the transition between Renaissance and Baroque art styles of the 17th century rejected the symmetrical and realistic style of the Renaissance in favor of emotions, distorted figures, lurid colors and mystical scenes reflected the emotional turmoil of the Reformation, Counter Reformation and Thirty Years’ War techniques: unnatural lighting, diagonal compositions sometimes out of the frame, elongated bodies, swirling smoke or clouds, miraculous subject matter helped the Catholic church fight back against Protestant beliefs
Parmigianino c.1503-c.1540
Tintoretto:
El Greco
Contrast of the Annunciation by Giotto with El Greco’s version