The High Renaissance flourished in Italy in the late 15th and early 16th centuries under great patrons like the Pope and Medici family. Artists such as Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Raphael, and the Venetian School produced masterpieces using techniques like linear perspective, foreshortening, and oil painting. Their works emphasized balance, symmetry, and idealized forms. Women also contributed as artists and patrons during this period, though they faced restrictions. The High Renaissance marked a rebirth of classical ideals in the arts.

1. High Renaissance in Italy
Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Raphael,
and the Venetian School
Mannerism appears late century…

2. Italian City States were conquered by
Spanish & French invaders.. Venice
stayed independent.
High Renaissance flourished in courts of
princes, dukes & popes… artistic
competition

3. High Renaissance Italy….
1495-1527 Big Ideas
• Pope Julius II revitalizes the city of Rome
• High Renaissance artists try to emulate Roman grandeur
with enormous frescoes, statues, and amazing architecture
• Compositions marked by balance, symmetry, and ideal
proportions.. Triangular layout is favored.
• Venetian painters take up oil with school of painting with
sophisticated color harmonies
• Portraiture reveals likeness of subject PLUS their character
and personality

4. High Renaissance Italy….
Patronage
• Pope Julius II is biggest patron.. Powerful force in Roman and
European politics and religion.
• Transformed Rome, a ramshackle medieval town, into an artistic
center to rival Florence.
• Women were also key patrons, such as Queen Isabella d’Este
• St. Peter’s church in Rome is rebuilt, first by Bramante then by
Michelangelo.
• Medici still have influence; Michelangelo originally studied sculptures
on one of their estates
• Kings and Queens of Europe become patrons of artists such as Da
Vinci and Titian.

5. High Renaissance Italy….
Perspective
• Artists continue to build on Brunelleschi’s work and Albertis, using
architectural & atmospheric perspective.
• Raphael’s School of Athens is a masterpiece of architectural
perspective.
• Remember this painting from the early Renaissance?

6. Stanza della Segnatura, Raphael, Vatican (Fresco view) - Pope’s library

7. School
of
Athens
Fresco
Raphael
1510-11

8. School of Athens, fresco,
Vatican
Raphael painted this in Pope
Julius II library; Philosophy
books shelved below
Vastness & variety of papal
library and interests
Buliding behind-Bramante’s plan
for St. Peters
Bramante is bald figure of Euclid
Nobility & monumentality of
Raphael in extreme right corner forms
Michelangelo is resting on stone block writing a Plato (w/Leonardo’s face)
poem pointing up and Aristotle
Overall composition influenced by Da Vinci’s
last supper
flashcard
Raphael continued to work for Julius II’
successor, born Giovvanie de Medici

9. Small Cowper Madonna, Raphael,
Oil on wood panel, 1505 (high
Renaissance)
Triangular composition favored in
Renaissance
Classical allusions; frequently
painted holy family
Atmospheric perspective behind
Mary
Raphael was very young
Clarity of forms, sweet expressions;
chiaroscuro renders modeling.

10. Raphael continued
working for the next Pope,
Leo X (who was a Medici
family member)…
Pope Leo X with Cardinals
Giulio de’ Medici and Luigi
de’ Rossi
1517
Oil on wood

11. La Pieta, Michelangelo
Marble, 1500, 6’ tall
St. Peter’s, Vatican,
La Pieta in the round
Pyramidal composition
Monumental
Heavy drapery masks
Mary’s size as she easily
holds Jesus in here lap
Only work Michelangelo
ever signed
Shows Mary’s beauty
and grief
Michelangelo was
Ghirlandaio’s apprentice
Patron French cardinal
“Set free the image from
the stone”

12. Michelangelo
David (flashcard)
Medium: Marble
Size: height 17' (5.18 m) without pedestal
Date: 1501–04
Source/ Museum: Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence
Commissioned as symbol of Florence, representing Florence as
she faced enemies like France
First colossal nude since ancient world
Muscular, tense, at the ready
David anticipated challenge of Goliath, great concentration on
the face
Slight contrapposto, little negative space
Marble, not bronze.. Evoked power of ancient art.. Purity of
expression
Influence of Spear Bearer by Polykleitos
2 minute video on Michelangelo's David

14. Close ups of David

15. Sistine Chapel, Vatican, Rome
Michelangelo, Last Judgment and
ceiling (45’ x 128’)
Ceiling 1508-12; end wall 1536-41
La Capella Sistina (part 1)
Botticelli and Perugino, Ghirlandio,
and Raphael also painted areas of
the Sistine Chapel (not ceiling)
New popes are elected here

18. Last Judgment, Sistine Chapel,
Michelangelo
1536-41, Vatican, Rome
No cornice divisions like ceiling
Mannerism shown in distortions
of body, elongations,
crowded groups
1. Bottom: dead
rising/mouth of hell
2. Ascending elect, desc.
Sinners, angels
3. Saved around Jesus
4. Lunette: Angels w/cross
Justice shown
Spiraling composition a reaction
against High Renaissance
harmony; disunity of
church from the
Reformation
Drapery added later
St. Bartholomew modeled on
contemporary critic LOL
Michelangelos’ face in St. Bart’s
skin

19. Moses, Michelangelo, 1513-16, 1542-45,
Commissioned for tomb of Julius II
Never finished (was to be part of a huge
installation of sculptures, he was pulled of this
project to do the Sistine Chapel
Meant to be viewed from below
Horns are mistranslation of Bible; Moses thought
to have had HORNS coming out of his head,
really RAYS (like a halo)
Figure is in awe, heroic body
Inspired by Laocoon

20. Last Supper, da Vinci, 1495-98,
Monastery in Milan, Italy
Experiment with tempera and oil
on plaster (FAIL)
Painted for dining hall of a
monastery
Linear perspective; orthogonals
point to Jesus
Groupings of 3
Drama: Jesus says, One of You
will Betray ME
Judas falls back clutching his bag
of coins (bribe to betray Jesus)

21. Leonardo was a genius, scientist,
inventor, and artist who was the 1st
modern mind… because he wanted
to observe, not just take the Greeks
word for it.
Born illegitimate (bastard), he could
not study Greek nor Latin, so could
not read much. Instead he learned
to observe, draw, and document,
filing thousands of pages of
sketches of inventions, botanical
and anatomical illustrations.
This is a charcoal for a painting
from around 1500.
Da Vinci's Genius

22. Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci
1503, Louvre, Paris…
21” x 30”
3/4 profile, triangular composition
Sfumato, chiaroscuro used in
figure, atmospheric perspective in
background
Mysterious smile, psychological
intensity
Lots of mysteries and legends
surround this painting (da Vinci
code); recently have discovered
remains of da Vinci’s model
(da Vinci code?)

23. Da Vinci studied anatomy,
dissected cadavers, and was
in reality a scientist.
Vitruvian Man, ink, 1490
He studied and quantified
human proportions with the
Vitruvian man, based on the
work of the Greek schold
Vitruvius.
amazon video, go to 24
minutes

24. High Renaissance Italy….
Women and the Arts
• Women generally not allowed to study or
apprentice, with a few exceptions
• Women were also key patrons, such as
Queen Isabella d’Este
• Properzia de’Rossi notable exception -
sculptor
• Sofia Anguissola - skilled painter who did
many portraits
Queen Isabella d’Este,by Titian, oil on canvas

25. Joseph & Potiphar’s Wife
1525, Properzia de’ Rossi
Bologna
Famous woman sculptor;
mastered miniature
carvings such as the Last
Supper on a peach pit!
Carving in cathedral of
San Petronio in Bologna
Only woman included in
Vasari’s biography
Got over an unhappy love
affair by carving this
panel, according to Vasari
Rival male sculptor kept
her from being paid fairly
for her work

26. The Chess Game
1525, Sofia Anguissola
flashcard
Well known portait painter,
eventually went to the
Spanish court
Well educated in the arts,
did portraits but due to
here social status and
gender could not sell them
Michelangelo critiqued
one of her drawings
Court painter in Spain for
20 yers
Rivaled Titian
flashcard

27. Self-portrait,
Sofonisba
Anguissola
Oil on cardboard
2.5” x 3.25”
1552

28. Noli Me Tangere, Lavinia
Fontana
Oil on canvas
1581
Bologna was center for
accopmlished women painters
She was in her 20s when she
painted scene of Jesus
appearing to Mary Magdalen
before returning to heaven
Tiny figures at tomb in
background give plunge into
depth and sapce
Mannerist style painting

29. Venice & the Venetto
• Venice was major naval power
• Rich light, pattern, and color inspired by
Byzantium
• Oil painting universally preferred on both
wood and canvas
• Giorgione & Titian early; later Veronese
and Tintoretto

30. The Tempest,
Giorgione (f. card)
1506 (Venetian School)
Oil on canvas
Studied w/Bellini
Meaning debated
POESIE- painted
poems, viewers
enjoyed trying to
understand what is
happening
Emerging use of oil in
Venice; softer tones
Emerging landscape
tradition
Lightning, mysterious
ruins in landscape
Gypsy girl
breastfeeding baby

31. Pastoral Concert,
Allegory on the
Invention of
Pastoral Poetry
Titian, Venetian
School, 1510
Oil on canvas
Louvre
Chiaroscuro, no
clear cut edges
Titian was Giogrione’s apprentice. Also studied with Bellini … again poesie, painted
poem. Are the 2 nudes the musician’s muses? Mythical world plus real world,
landscape

33. Venus of Urbino, Titian, oil on canvas, 1538.
Sensuous painting, skin tones, probably a courtesan, looks directly at viewer, deep
space in picture, flora motif. Dog = faithful, standard for future reclining female nudes

34. Titian’s later work
became more
expressive.
This piece has loose
brushstrokes and
diagonals, finished
in late 1570s in
Venice
Pieta

35. Feast in the House of Levi, Veronese, oil on canvas, 1573 (Venetian school). Originally
last supper, was called before Pope’s Inquisition to question presence of drunks,
dwarves, etc. at last supper…. Changed title to another supper instead to avoid being
jailed and tortured. Continued classical perspective and painted for Dominican
monastery

36. Last Supper, Tintoretto, 1594, Oil on canvas (Venetto), developed from Titian’s style,
mannerist elongated forms, radiant light around Christ and angels, corner view, still life
on tables and cat - deep chiariscuro… fast painter, Daughter became artist.

37. MANNERISM IN
ITALY
•Intellectually intricate subjects
•Highly skilled techniques
•Beauty for beuaty’s sake
•Elegeant, elongated figures
•Distortionf of formal conventions
Fall of the Giants
Fresco, 1530-32,
Palazzo del Te, Mantua
(Mannerist architecture)
Unusual spiraling composition
Giulio Romano

38. Entombment, Pontormo
Oil & tempera on wood, altarpiece
in church in Florence
Mannerist painting with twisted,
elongated figures and spiraling
composition (what’s in center?)
Little background.
High key colors
Yearning
Which are men and which are
women???
flashcard

39. Astronomy, or Venus Urania
Bronze gilt, 15” high, 1573
Mannerist sculpture

40. Assumption of the Virgin,
Correggio, fresco, dome in
Parma Cathedral, Italy, 1530
Spiraling composition again
typical of mannerism
Saints at bottom, thjen Virgin
escorted to heaven with angels,
Christ waits for Mary
Glowing colors prefigures the
Baorque
flashcard

41. Madonna with the long Neck,
Parmigianino, oil on wood, 1534-40,
Florence
7 feet by 4 feet
Small head, long neck, delicate,
graceful gestures
Elongated and detahced limbs
Column perspective looks odd
Pose reminiscent of la Pieta
flashcard

42. Portrait of a Young
Man, Bronzino, oil on
wood, 1540
Mannerist painter.
Captures subject’s
physical appearance
as well as personality.
Bronzino worked for
the Medici as well as
Pontormo.