For HUMN 1101 at Savannah Technical College

1. Renaissance Art
A Discussion

2. What is the title of the statue?
Who is the artist?
Relate the biblical story behind the
sculpture.
What might be the artist’s message be
by portraying the subject as slim and
youthful?

3. What is the title of the statue?
David
Who is the artist?
Donatello
Relate the biblical story behind the sculpture.
David has slayed Goliath and is standing on his head
for which he had just decapitated.
What might be the artist’s message be by
portraying the subject as slim and youthful?
Virtue overcomes oppression. It may also show the
religious commitments of the author, that despite
certain Greco-Roman commitments in the art forms,
Donatello chooses to display David as he might be
imagined in the biblical account.

4. Questions to Consider:
How would you compare and contrast
Michelangelo’s portrayal of David with
Donatello’s?
How would you describe the
mood/attitude portrayed by
Michelangelo’s David?

5. Artists use science to mimic what the eye sees.
Brunelleschi’s linear perspective Identify the vanishing point in this paining.

6. Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper depicts what critical moment? Can you
identify Judas in the picture? Also, note the use of chiaroscuro, the method of
using contrast between light and shadow to show how people and things look
to us in the real world.

7. Leonardo Da Vinci’s
Mona Lisa has puzzled
art scholars for
centuries. Its relatively
small size for one thing
until we learn that he
carried it with him
wherever he went on
his travels.
One art critic suggested
the following
experiment: Cover the
left side of her face
with an index card, and
you will see a warm,
sensuous woman gazing
at you.
Cover the right side of her
face and you will see an
aristocratic woman who
finds something mildly
amusing.
If this is so, Leonardo
could be revealing the
ambiguity of human
nature through this
famous portrait.

8. Michelangelo’s The Pieta,
as exquisite as it is, had its
critics. What do you think
they found wrong with
the sculpture?
What is your response?

9. Michelangelo’s The Pieta, as
exquisite as it is, had its critics.
What do you think they found
wrong with the sculpture?
Mary’s age in the picture is too
young.
What is your response?

10. Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment
that sits behind the altar of the Sistine
Chapel was originally painted with
bodies in the nude. After his death,
painters were hired to cover the
nudity.
Why do you think Michelangelo
painted the figures in The Last
Judgment without any covering?
Do you think it was the right thing to
do to alter the paintings by adding
clothing?

11. Raphael’s The School of
Athens uses Linear
Perspective. Identify the
vanishing point in the
painting.
Who are the people
represented in the painting?
Why were they chosen?
There is also a self-portrait of
the artist (Raphael) himself.
Can you find him?