Rational Order and the Resurgence of the

Classics
Suqui, Caitlin B. & Enriquez, Stacey Jahzeah P.

Significant Events
Black Death A bubonic plague pandemic in 1348
Hundred Years War An armed conflict between France and
England that ended in 1453.
The western schism that involved conflict
1378-1417 between the French and Italians over which
pope should be at the helm of the Roman
Catholic Church
1455 Johannes Guttenberg (1397-1468) produced
the earliest printed Bible.
Thriving commerce allowed Renaissance
In the middle of the 15th century cities to evolve, allowing successful
merchants to become new patrons of the arts.

The Renaissance
- Covers the 14th to 16th centuries
- To use the term “Renaissance” is to evoke a process of re-birth.
- The resurgence of the forms and values of the classical antiquity built on the Christian doctrine.
- Widely disseminated in France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and elsewhere.

Italy
- The cities were artistic centers in the Renaissance, often being governed by the nobility.
- Was the site of an artistic, humanistic, technological, and scientific transformation (Also known
as the Renaissance)

Florence
- The seat of Renaissance in the middle of the 15th century
- There was immense competition amongst Renaissance cities in Italy that produced magnificent
works of art created by leading artists.

Painting the New Order of Seeing

Drawing
- Initial draft for a painting or sculpture about to be rendered (meaning to depict artistically)
- Highly detailed drawings may be a study of human form, still life, or landscape.
- Can also serve as a draft for a scene an artist is about to compose.
(Artists drafted in velum or parchment paper)
- Drafting is an initial step of conceptualizing the work through drawing

Oil Paint
- An extensively used medium in the Renaissance
- Pigments were manually mixed with linseed oil

Robert Campin (1375-1444)

- A Flemish artist among the first to explore the use of oil paint.
- Used the sfumato technique, a painting where glazes are applied and contours of figures are
diffused as though they are emerging into the light

The Annunciation, also known as the Merode Altarpiece by Robert Campin

- Made up of paintings in three panels that were meant for devotions in the home.
- Has a carefully rendered interior domestic setting which makes it distinct
 Details of The Annunciation
Book, candle, and lilies Symbolic of the virgin
- Book: old and new testaments
- Lilies: Mary’s purity
Ax, saw, and the rod Reference a carpentry workshop.
- May also serve as an allusion to the Christ
who was raised by Joseph, a woodworker.
Figures The ones that commissioned Robert Campin,
The Ingelbrecht family, included themselves
in the painting.

The Renaissance in Netherlands

- Was marked by prosperity and urban development
- Campin, along with Jan Van Eyck (known for the Ghent altarpiece) and Rogier Van der
Weyden were esteemed artists from the Netherlands.

Linear perspective
- Where imaginary parallel lines seem to meet at a vanishing point, with the scale of figures
differing from foreground, middle ground, and the background.
- Made two-dimensional planes look three-dimensional

Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472)

- Wrote the treatise Della Pittura
- He declared: “Painting possesses a truly divine power in that not only does it make the absent
present, but it also represents the dead to the living many centuries later, so that they are
recognized by the spectators with pleasure and deep admiration for the artist.”
- Meaning, that painting has a special charm wherein it can make the artist’s imagination become
a reality, and also be a representation of the dead so that people in the future can recognize them,
and also admire the artist.

Palaces
- Displays of authority and splendor
- Architecture served as monuments of prestige than military fortifications, unlike in the Dark
Ages where they had to also keep the defensive attributes.

Ludvico II Gonzaga (1444-78)

- A member of the family that ruled Mantua (A city in Italy) since 1328.
- Commissioned Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506) to paint frescos on the walls and ceiling of the
Camera degli Sposi (room for the newlyweds) in the Palazzo Ducale because the Gonzagas
thought that because of the competition, the palace must be impressive.

Camera degli Sposi

- The room’s decorations depicted everyday courtly life
- Also known as the Camera Picta, it reminded the viewer of an oculus seen in Roman domes.
- It was a trompe l’oiel painting (In French, meaning fool the eye) made it seem like it was
opening up to the heavens.

Portraiture
- Flourished during the Renaissance
- Immortalizes the likeness and personality traits of heads of state, church officials, scholars,
poets, and artists.
- Also commissioned to commemorate an important occasion

Giovanni di Mone Cassai (1401-1428) or Massacio

- A painter known for his innovate approach to linear perspective
- His defining approaches to art are monumental scale and illusionistic painting

Holy Trinity fresco by Massacio

- Demonstrates the principles in geometry as seen in the pictorial organization
- With the use of linear perspective, Massacio successfully rendered the illusion of spatial depth.
- Christian symbolism and human artistic achievement is seen
The Medicis of Florence
- A wealthy family of merchants that rose to power.
- Expelled from Florence in 1494

Cosmo de Medici
- A banker who wielded power and influence in the city.
- He commissioned a scholar to translate all of Plato’s works to Latin and established a library.
- With his support, scholars were able to study the literature and philosophy of Classical Greece.

Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510)

- A favorite of the Medicis, produced the works of his maturity in the late 15th century.
- The painter of Primavera
- A close association between painting and poetry is often seen in his works

Primavera by Sandro Botticelli

- Painted with tempera
- Showcased Botticelli’s deep knowledge of ancient literature
- displays a multiple unity-clusters of mythological figures arranged in the picture plane as
though they are tableaus in a scene for a play.
- This work shows a mastery of line and color with its rational approach to composition.

Robert Williams
- A scholar that stated in a book called Art theory (2009), that scholars refer to the Renaissance
as the rise of humanism in early modern culture.

Divine Inspiration and Heroic Virtue in Sculpture

Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378-1455)

- He won a competition sponsored by the wool merchants’ guild in 1401 where they invited
artists to create doors of the Baptistery of San Giovanni.
- He made doors of gilded bronze portraying scenes from the Old Testament (completed in 1452)
with astounding spatial depth and perspective.
- Michelangelo admired Ghiberti’s work and said that it would do well for the “Gates of
Paradise”, hence its name. It is now housed at the Museo dell Opera in Duomo, France
- Led a large, successful workshop.

Donato di Niccolo Bardi (1386-1466) or Donatello

- A contemporary of Ghiberti
- His creations were distinct for the use of contrapposto and the rendition of voluminous
draperies as though blown by the wind.

David by Donatello
- Commissioned for Palazzo Medici
- A symbol of strength fit for a Florentine city that recovered after a threat of invasion.
- First of its kind to be produced
- Follows the classical rules of proportion and contrapposto, although the figure of the male is
leaner, akin to male youth.
- Made of bronze

Gattamelata
- An equestrian sculpture of the heroic general Erasmo Narni that Donatello was tasked to create
in his stay in Padua from 1443-53.
- Stood in the Pizza del Santo Padua, Italy. It is made of bronze, towering above the viewer to
demonstrate solidity, stability, and strength.

Classical Order and Rationality in Architecture

Esteemed Renaissance architects

Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1466) - Designed the ribbed dome in the Florence
cathedral, which was unrivaled at the time.
 Donato Bramante (1444-1514) - Tempietto by Bramante is a shrine near
Saint Peter’s Basilica.
- Also called as little temple
- It is located inside the cloisters of the San
Pietro Church in Rome.
- Ushered the High Renaissance style in the
Tempietto
- Pope Julius II tasked Bramante to be the
architect for the new Saint Peter’s Basilica,
but he unfortunately died when construction
started.

The Most Esteemed in Their Time

The three most esteemed artists in the Renaissance were Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Raphael,
whose works are still imitated in the tradition of art.

Michelangelo Buonarroti Simoni (1475-1564)

- Or Michelangelo; was a painter, sculptor, and an architect.
- Was a favorite of the Medicis
- Appointed the architect of the new St. Peter’s Basilica after Bramante’s death
- He designed a hemispherical dome, left unfinished at his death. It was modified until the dome
was completed under Giacomo della Porta (1540-1602)
- His famous works:
- A masterfully rendered limp human form of
Christ, alongside the emotional intensity of a
Pieta (marble, 1497) mother mourning for her son.
- Michelangelo was only 22 when he worked
on Pieta in Rome
- Michelangelo returned to Florence in 1501
to create the sculpture, and completed it in
David 1504 to adorn the Florence Cathedral
- Eventually placed in the Palazzo della
Signora to symbolize the Florentine spirit
struggling against invaders.
- Fresco
The Creation of Adam - Michelangelo used a technique known as
cangiante to convey three dimensionality.
The Last Judgement - A terrifying version of damnation for
sinners and salvation for the faithful.

Giorgo Vasari
- A de facto art historian and artist who authored Lives of the Artists during the Renaissance
- He described the unity of the three arts (painting, sculpting, and architecture) brought by
Michelangelo as disegno.
Disgeno - Intellect
- Or an idea that unites the art forms.
Invenzione - Invention
Ingegno - Innate talent
Fantasia - Imagination

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)

- Native of Tuscany
- Known simply as da Vinci or Leonardo
- Known for rigorous anatomical studies
Madonna of the Rocks
- Leonardo achieved unity of composition
- The Madonna, Christ Child, and John the Baptist seem to be gradually emerging out of
the nuances of light and dark
- The subtle transition of light and dark is the sfumato technique, and using this technique
da Vinci achieves an atmospheric perspective.
 - da Vinci uses the Chiaroscuro effects (strong contrast of light and dark) to mold three-
dimensional forms using techniques in shading.

Raffaelo Sanzio (1483-1520) or Raphael

- Native of Urbino
- Painter of the fresco Scuola di Atene or School of Athens
- In Scuola di Atene, Raphael demonstrates the achievements of pictorial representation in the
High Renaissance.
- Raphael differs from da Vinci in the sense that atmospheric effects are conveyed using more
vibrant colors. This is called unione, in which the gradual transition between dark areas to light is
rendered using different hues.
- Also succeeded Bramante as the architect of Saint Peter’s Basilica.
- He met his death as he was about to complete a fresco for an audience hall.

High Renaissance
- Set between 1496 and the deaths of Leonardo da Vinci in 1519 and Raphael in 1520.
Michelangelo died in 1564.
- The period was marked by the time that the status of the artist has been fully elevated to the
level of a poet.

Accademia del Disegno

- Was the first formally incorporated academy of art in Florence in 1563 during the reign of
Duke Cosmo di Medici, who also established the Florentine Academy of literature a few years
earlier.
- The works of Renaissance masters were often imitated here.

Making Meaning
Pictorial Plane The imaginary plane on which the painted
image is created and viewed
Linear perspective The relative size, shape, and position of
figures determined by imaginary lines
converging at a vanishing point on the
horizon to give the illusion of depth and
distance.
Spatial depth An illusion of distance made possible by
drawing figures of diminishing sizes, and
relative sizes that follow the imaginary
parallel lines that meet at the vanishing point.
Sfumato A fine shading technique that uses gradations
of color in order to make contours transition
gradually from areas of light to dark.
Cangiante A technique in which a color is changed to a
different lighter hue when the original cannot
be made lighter, or a darker hue when it
cannot be made darker.
Chiaroscuro The use of contrasts between light and dark to
achieve a sense of volume.
Unione Like sfumato but maintains vibrant colors
Trompe l’oiel An illusionistic painting technique that means
“fool the eye”