The Renaissance

1. The Renaissance Jessica Sergio PSYC 5060

2. The Renaissance • Historical Age vs. Historical Movement • “Rebirth” • Rediscovery of ancient classical texts and their applications in the arts and sciences • Revitalization of European culture in general

3. Beginning of the Renaissance • No set starting point or place • Happened gradually at different places at different times • During the 13th through 16th Centuries • Universally ascribed to Central Italy • Specifically Florence

4. Explanations for the Renaissance • The Medici Family • Allowed for the advancement of artwork • The “Great Man” Argument • Artists of the day were geniuses • Rise of Individualism • Change from collective neutrality to the “lonely genius” • Black Plague Theory • Introduction of the Printing Press

5. Bubonic Plague • “Black Death” • Spread by fleas on rats • 20 million out of 70 million Europeans died • Indiscriminate • No protection • Led more people to think about life rather than afterlife

6. Printing Press • Gutenberg (1454) • Gutenberg Bible • Moveable-type Printing Press • Increased printing volume and decreased prices • Literature experienced a massive boom

7. Spread of the Renaissance • France • Imported by King Charles VIII • Poland & Hungary • Late 15th Century • Low Countries, Germany, England, Scandinavia, and Central Europe • Late 16th Century

8. Italy Medici Family Established a hereditary monarchy in Florence France King Charles VIII Louis XI England Henry VII Elizabeth I “Elizabethan era” Spain Ferdinand & Isabella Renaissance Rulers

9. 1520s – 1660s Dominant art form is literature Influenced by the Italians themselves 1300s – 1520s Art is driven by the visual arts (painting and sculpting) Classical Antiquity Italian vs. English Renaissance

10. Renaissance Art • Italian Renaissance Artists • Focused on religious figures as well as portraits of well-known figures of the day • Put religious figures in Greek or Roman backgrounds • Learned the rules of perspective • Used shading • Studied human anatomy • Northern Renaissance Artists • Focused on religious drawings • Later began to paint scenes of daily life • Perfected the oil painting technique

11. Renaissance Artists • Michelangelo Di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni • (1475 – 1564) • Italian sculpture, painter, architect, and poet who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art I cannot live under pressures from patrons, let alone paint. -- Michelangelo

12. Renaissance Artists • Leonardo Da Vinci • (1452-1519) • Italian painter, draftsman, sculptor, architect, and engineer whose genius epitomized the humanist ideal

13. Renaissance Artists • Donatello (1386 – 1466) • Greatest sculptor of the 15th century • Masaccio (1401 – 1428) • Created an illusion of three-dimensions • Raphael (1483 – 1520) • Best known for Modonnas and large figure compositions in the Vatican • Caravaggio (1573 – 1610) • Shadowing and details drew out emotions of the viewer

14. Literature and Poetry • Focus on translating and studying classic works from Latin and Greek • Attempt to integrate style into own work • Largely influenced by developing sciences and philosophy, as well as the politics of the day

15. Renaissance Authors • Poets • Dante Alighieri • The first poet to embody the spirit of the Renaissance • Edmund Spencer & John Milton • Increased interest in understanding English Christian beliefs • Playwrights • Christopher Marlowe & William Shakespeare • Represented the English take on life, death, and history • Philosophers • Sir Thomas More & Sir Francis Bacon • Published ideas about humanity

16. Architecture • New sense of light, clarity, and spaciousness • Reflects the philosophy of Humanism • Enlightenment and clarity of mind • Development of a new column order

17. Science and Philosophy • Humanism • Optimistic philosophy • Man is rational, able to think for himself • Man is good by nature • Direct contrast to the Catholic Church • Time of Scientific “backwardness” • Nature not governed by laws or mathematics • Logic and deduction secondary to intuition and emotion

18. The Catholic Church During the Renaissance • Influence and prestige was declining • Priests and Monks unable to keep up with growing needs of the communities • Leaders had much less need of an alliance with the Catholic Church • Weakened by the Great Schism • Event that divided Western Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.

19. Renaissance Wars • Hundred Years War (1337 – 1453) • England vs. France • Disrupted trade throughout northwest • War of the Roses (1455 – 1485) • Series of dynastic civil wars in England • Fought by the rival houses of Lancaster and York • Italian Wars (1494 – 1527) • Long-running series of wars between Florence and Milan

20. Positive Views of the Renaissance • Reconnection of the west with classical antiquity • The absorption of knowledge • particularly mathematics • The focus on the importance of living well in the present • Renaissance humanism • Creation of new techniques in art, poetry, and architecture

21. Negative Views of the Renaissance • Many Negative Social Factors • Poverty, ignorance, warfare, religious and political persecution, ect. • Worse during this time than during the Middle Ages • “Early Modern” • Transitional period (neither positive or negative)