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High Renaissance . 16.3 . High Renaissance . One of the most remarkable things about the Renaissance was its great wealth of artistic talent. Between the years 1495-1527, known as the High Renaissance , the master artist Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael created timeless masterpieces.
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High Renaissance 16.3
High Renaissance One of the most remarkable things about the Renaissance was its great wealth of artistic talent. Between the years 1495-1527, known as the High Renaissance , the master artist Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael created timeless masterpieces. All three lived in Italy and were commissioned by the popes of Rome to create ambitious artworks that glorified religious themes. Like all artists before them, these great masters dreamed of achieving new levels of excellence.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) Even when he was a child, people saw that Leonardo da Vinci was blessed with remarkable powers. He had gracious manners, a fine sense of humor, and great physical strength. Leonardo also had a curiosity that drove him to explore everything. As he grew older, he studied architecture, mathematics, sculpture, painting, anatomy, poetry, literature, music, geology, botany, and hydraulics. It is estimated that he completed 120 notebooks filled with drawings surrounded by explanations. The subjects range from anatomy to storm clouds to rock formations to military formations.
Leonardo’s Sketchbooks Leonardo dissected cadavers at a time when the practice was outlawed. The enabled him to learn how arms and legs bend and how muscles shift as the body moves. He was especially interested in the head, practically how the eye sees and how the mind reasons. He searched for the part of the brain where senses meet, believing that this was where the soul would be found.
The Last Supper (explained) Leonardo da VinciFresco - 1495-98 Leonardo left many projects unfinished because of the results did not please him or because he was eager to move on to a new task. He was also experimenting, and many of these experiments ended in failure. Perhaps his biggest “failure” is his version of The Last Supper. This was a magnificent painting that began to flake off the wall shortly after he applied the final brushstroke because he had used a new painting technique. The last supper had been painted many times before, and so Leonardo probably welcomed the challenge of creating his own version. He had an entire wall to work on in a dinning hall used by monks in the Monastery of Santa Maria delle grazie in Milan.
The Last Supper (explained) Used linear perspective and designed the scene so that it would look like a continuation of the dining hall. Christ is at the center of the composition. All the lines of the architecture lead to him silhouetted in the window. He has just announced that one of the apostles (Judas) would betray him, and his news has unleashed a flurry of activity around the table. Only Christ remains calm and silent, and this further sets him apart from the others. The apostles are grouped in threes, all expressing disbelief in his statement except Judas. The 3rd figure on Christ’s right, Judas, leans on the table and stares at Christ his expression a mixture of anger and defiance. He is further set apart by the fact that his face is the only one in shadow. Leonardo chose not to spread his figures out because that would have reduced the impact of the scene. Instead he jammed them together to accent the action and drama. Leonardo broke with tradition and chose to include Judas, but he made him easy to find to show that Judas was separated from the other apostles in a spiritual way rather than a physical way.
Mona Lisa Leonardo da VinciC.1503-06. Oil on Wood As a perfectionist, Leonardo was never entirely satisfied with his efforts. When he died, he still had in his possession the Mona Lisa portrait. He had been working on it for 16 years. Yet, he claimed it was still unfinished. Is now one of the most popular artworks ever created.
Michelangelo (1475-1564) Ranked along side Leonardo as one of the greatest artists of the Renaissance was Michelangelo Buonarroti. Like Leonardo, Michelangelo was skilled in many fields, including sculpture, painting, and poetry. Everything that Michelangelo set out to do was on a grand scale. For this reason, many projects were never completed. Pope Julius II assigned the artist to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican.
Ceiling of the Sistine ChapelMichelangelo1508-12. Fresco. The chapel is about 40 ft. wide and 133 ft. long and has a rounded ceiling. Michelangelo was not excited to start the project because of how difficult and time consuming it would be, painting ceilings was deemed less important than painting wall space, and he saw himself as a sculptor and not a painter. Before he could start working he needed to build scaffolding stretching the length of the chapel. Accepting no help, he would lay on his back painting the wet plaster he applied to the ceiling. He claimed after finishing that he could never fully stand in the upright position. He divided the ceiling in to 9 sections and in these he painted the story of humanity from the Creation to the Flood. When he was finished he had painted 145 pictures with more than 300 figures!
Raphael (1483-1520) Raphael Sanzio was successful, wealthy, and admired throughout his brief but brilliant career. As a child in a small town in central Italy, he was apprenticed to a respectful artist. He learned to use soft colors, simple circular forms, and gentle landscaping in his paintings. The young, ambitious artist never traveled to Florence to study the works of the leading artists of the day. From Leonardo he learned how to use shading to create the illusion of form. From Michelangelo he learned how to add vitality and energy to his figures. By blending the ideas of those artists in his own works, he became the most typical artist of the Renaissance.
The School of AthensRaphael 1509-11 In 1508, about the same time Michelangelo was painting the Sistine Chapel, Pope Julius II summoned Raphael to paint a series of rooms in the Vatican Palace. In the first of these rooms he painted frescoes celebrating the four domains of learning: theology, philosophy, law, and the arts. The most famous of these paintings is The School of Athens. The “school” to which this works refers is actually two opposing schools of philosophy represented by the two great classical philosophers Plato and Aristotle. He placed these two figures before an open archway and to further emphasize their importance he arranged all the perspective lines so they would converge at the vanishing point placed between these two figures. On one side of the composition are ancient philosophers concerned with the mysteries of the here and now and on the other side are philosophers and scientists interested in nature and the affairs of humankind.
Renaissance Women Artists You may have noticed that in the coverage of art periods up to this point, there has been no mention of women artists. The reason for this is that few works by women artists completed before the Renaissance have come to light. Furthermore, it was not until the Renaissance had passed its peak that women artists were able to make a name for themselves as serious artists. Even in the enlightened period, it was not easy for women to succeed as artists because of the obstacles that they had to overcome.
Role of Women in the Medieval Period During the Medieval period, most women were expected to ten to duties within the household. Their first responsibilities were those of wife and mother. If that failed to occupy all their time, they were required to join their husbands in the backbreaking chores awaiting in the fields. Women were, in general, excluded from the arts because, as women, most of them were prevented from gaining knowledge and skills needed to become artists. Their involvement in art was limited, for the most part , to making embroideries and tapestries and occasionally producing illuminated manuscripts.
The Role of Artists During the Renaissance, the new importance attached to artists made it even more difficult for women to pursue a career in art. Artists at that time were required to spend longer periods in apprenticeship. During this time they studied mathematics, the laws of perspective, and anatomy. Serious artists were also expected to journey to major art centers. There they could study the works of famous living artists as well as the art of the past. This kind of education was out of the question for most women in the 15th and 16th centuries. Only a handful were determined enough to overcome all these barriers and succeed as serious artists. One of these women was SofonisbaAnguissola.
SonfonisbaAnguissola(1532 – 1625) The first Italian women to gain a worldwide reputation as an artist. She was the oldest in a family of 6 daughters and 1 son born to a nobleman in Cremona about 12 years after Raphael's death. Sonfonisba’s father was pleased to find that all his children showed an interest in art or music. He encouraged them all, especially his oldest daughter. She was allowed to study with local artists, and her skills quickly recognized. Her father wrote to Michelangelo about her and his response was for her to study and copy as part of her training. Many of her early works were portraits of her family and herself. Her father sent these portraits to various courts. While still in her twenties the King of Spain asked her to join his court and paint portraits of the royal family.
