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Exploring The Renaissance
The document discusses key aspects of the Renaissance period in Europe including its focus on individual achievement and reason over religious superstition. Artists and thinkers like Leonardo da Vinci flourished in cities like Florence which was a center of the Renaissance. The wealthy Medici family patronized artists such as Michelangelo and created a sculpting school for talented young artists, including Michelangelo. The Renaissance valued the rise of the individual and independence of thought.
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Exploring The Renaissance
- 1. Exploring the RenaissanceGreat eagerness in the pursuit of wealth, pleasure, or honor, cannot exist without sin. -- Erasmus, 1466-1536, Renaissance thinker
- 2. The RenaissanceThe Renaissance celebrated the achievements of individuals in a new movement called humanism It valued reason above religious superstition Artists and thinkers like Leonardo, pictured above, roamed Florence, the city that spawned the Renaissance
- 3. The Amazing MichelangeloThe Medicis were a wealthy and powerful family of patrons in the city-state of Florence during the Renaissance and beyond. The family sponsored artists such as Michelangelo. In fact, the Medicis created a sculpting school for a young artist who showed ability with a chisel. That artist was Michelangelo Buonarroti.
- 4. The Rise ofthe Individual
- 5. The French Ambassadorsby Hans Holbein the Younger
- 6. Let’s Go ToWill Shakespeare’s Renaissance England Queen Elizabeth I was monarch, though later in Shakespeare’s career, James I of Scotland reigned England was becoming a superpower; the 1588 defeat of the Spanish Armada created a great sense of national pride
- 7. A contemporary ofShakespeare’s wrote: “I say that the Muses would speak with Shakespeare’s fine filed phrase, if they would speak English.” Shakespeare came at just the right time: he did for the English language what Elizabeth did for England politically: he made English a powerful language. (Remember: before his time, the church used Latin and the court used French. English was for common folk For more on Shakespeare’s career, click here
- 8. Select a topicfor further study: Shakespeare’s life Shakespeare’s times Shakespeare’s contribution to the English language Shakespeare’s contemporaries Sir Philip Sidney Christopher Marlowe Ben Jonson Elizabeth I James I The sonnet cycle The Petrarchan sonnet The Globe Theater Shakespeare’s influences Shakespeare’s plays
Editor's Notes
- #3 Leonardo: http://z.about.com/d/atheism/1/0/N/e/LeonardoSelfPortrait.jpg
- #4 The famous statue of David was completed in 1504 and was made for the city of Florence as a symbol of its greatness, especially over the city of Siena, with which Florence had a fierce rivalry. David was made to symbolize the forces of good over evil, order over chaos. The sculpture was placed in the famous square, Piazza della Signoria, until the 19 th century when it was moved indoors, to a museum. The colossal statue – it stands 17 ft. tall – is of the nude Biblical King David. Here the values of the Renaissance – the rebirth of ancient ideas – can clearly be seen. Michelangelo depicted David as the ancients would have depicted their most handsome and admired gods; David looks like an Apollo. In fact, Michelangelo left him uncircumcised because he wanted a Biblical king to be just as “beautiful” as any pagan god.
- #5 Bronzino: http://www.powellhistory.com/art/Painting/Bronzino%20-%20Portrait%20of%20a%20Young%20Man.gif Fra Filippo Lippi: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/images/h2/h2_89.15.19.jpg The Renaissance saw the rise of the portrait as a result of new emphasis on the individual. The individuals in portraits were from wealthy families, so the important shift is not into a world that was class-less and not focused on the wealthy; that would take many more centuries. The shift here is from subject matter that was completely religious, as it was in the religio-centered Middle Ages, to subject matter that might be historical, mythological, biblical or of an individual. On the left is a wealthy young man; his stature can be seen in his elaborate clothing and confident stance. He grasps a book, likely a collection of poems, because Renaissance men were expected to know how to do many things, including read and write poetry. The idea of a liberal arts education was really born in the Renaissance, and Bronzino, the painting’s artist, was himself a writer of poetry. Michelangelo also took a shot at sonnet writing. Nowadays, people tend to be expert in one area; in the Renaissance men were expected to excel in many areas. On the right is a double portrait by a monk who was an artist. Here we see that both portraits show us a focus on the hands, symbols of action action, and in the woman’s case, piety as well. The Renaissance was a time when action and contemplation were paramount. Both were considered important in making one well-rounded. See below for more information about the works: Portrait of a Young Man , 1530s Bronzino (Agnolo di Cosimo di Mariano) (Italian, Florentine, 1503–1572) Oil on wood 37 5/8 x 29 1/2 in. (95.6 x 74.9 cm) H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929 (29.100.16) This portrait—among Bronzino's most arresting—was painted in the 1530s. The sitter is not known, but he must have belonged to Bronzino's close circle of literary friends, which included the historian Benedetto Varchi and the poet Laura Battiferri, both of whom sat for the artist. Bronzino himself composed verses in the style of Petrarch, and some of the fanciful and witty conceits in this picture—the grotesque heads on the table and chair and the masklike face formed by the youth's breeches—would have been much appreciated in literary circles. The book is doubtless a collection of poems. Portrait of a Woman and a Man at a Casement , ca. 1440–44 Fra Filippo Lippi (Italian, Florentine, ca. 1406–1469) Tempera on panel 25 1/4 x 16 1/2 in. (64.1 x 41.9 cm) Inscribed on cuff: LEALT[À] Marquand Collection, Gift of Henry G. Marquand, 1889 (89.15.19) One of the greatest Florentine portraits of its time, this work is groundbreaking on several counts, not least in that it is the earliest surviving double portrait in Italian art. Although the coat of arms under the man's hands cannot be definitively identified, it is most likely that of the Scolari family of Florence, and the couple are probably Ranieri Scolari and Angiola di Bernardo Sapiti, who married in 1436. The bride is wearing the sumptuous clothing and jewelry of a newlywed. Her overdress is lined with fur, and the sleeves of her costly underdress are woven with loops of gold. Her headdress—known as a sella —is studded with pearls, which appear elsewhere in abundance, spelling out lealtà (loyalty) on the drapery flowing over her wrist. Numerous questions about this work continue to puzzle scholars: Is the woman a bride, a new mother, or perhaps commemorated in death? (The possible answers involve the suggested dates of the painting.) Why is the man shown as a subsidiary figure, and why do their gazes not meet? Is it possible that the man's placement was inspired by a passage from the Song of Solomon (2:9) interpreted as an allegory of the marriage of Christ and Mary, or the Church: "Behold, he standeth behind our wall, he looketh forth at the windows, showing himself through the lattice"?
- #6 http://www.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=338237&d=1207169547 1533, Oil on oak, London, National Gallery Info from: http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/hans-holbein-the-younger-the-ambassadors This picture memorialises two wealthy, educated and powerful young men. On the left is Jean de Dinteville, aged 29, French ambassador to England in 1533. To the right stands his friend, Georges de Selve, aged 25, bishop of Lavaur, who acted on several occasions as ambassador to the Emperor, the Venetian Republic and the Holy See. The picture is in a tradition showing learned men with books and instruments. The objects on the upper shelf include a celestial globe, a portable sundial and various other instruments used for understanding the heavens and measuring time. Among the objects on the lower shelf is a lute, a case of flutes, a hymn book, a book of arithmetic and a terrestrial globe. Certain details could be interpreted as references to contemporary religious divisions. The broken lute string, for example, may signify religious discord, while the Lutheran hymn book may be a plea for Christian harmony. In the foreground is the distorted image of a skull, a symbol of mortality. When seen from a point to the right of the picture the distortion is corrected. The view is called anamorphic perspective. This painting shows us what people of the Renaissance truly valued. Not only did the Renaissance value learning and exploration, but it still valued God and religion. In the back, behind the green curtain is a Crucifixion. That means the anamorphic skull may represent Adam’s skull. Christ died to redeem man from original, or Adam’s, sin. For more info on the painting, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ambassadors_(Holbein)
- #7 http://z.about.com/d/womenshistory/1/0/-/R/2/elizabeth_i_002a.jpg
- #8 Info and image from: http://www.folger.edu/template.cfm?cid=869 So far as we can tell, that career spanned about twenty years. In the 1590s, he wrote his plays on English history as well as several comedies and at least two tragedies (Titus Andronicus and Romeo and Juliet). These histories, comedies, and tragedies are the plays credited to him in 1598 in a work, Palladis Tamia, that in one chapter compares English writers with "Greek, Latin, and Italian Poets." There the author, Francis Meres, claims that Shakespeare is comparable to the Latin dramatists Seneca for tragedy and Plautus for comedy, and calls him "the most excellent in both kinds for the stage." He also names him "Mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare": "I say," writes Meres, "that the Muses would speak with Shakespeare's fine filed phrase, if they would speak English." Since Meres also mentions Shakespeare's "sugared sonnets among his private friends," it is assumed that many of Shakespeare's sonnets (not published until 1609) were also written in the 1590s
- #9 Some categories can be further sub-divided. For example: Shakespeare’s times: Clothing Food Religion Everyday rural life Everyday urban life The influence of the plague Art Each student should prepare a PowerPoint presentation or Prezi that is then posted on the wiki. Students will look at each other’s presentations and then answer discussion questions posted by each student on his/her PowerPoint.