Seventh lecture for GNED 1202 (Texts and Ideas). It is a required general education course for all first-year students at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Canada. My version of the course is structured as a kind of Intro to Western Civilization style course. The Renaissance lecture has been divided into three parts. This is the second.

1. Lecture 7b
MID RENAISSANCE
INTRO TO WESTERN HUMANITIES

2. Northern Renaissance

3. Robert Campin, Merode Altarpiece c. 1425
While this and other Northern Renaissance pieces often do not have the
accurate perspective of contemporary Italian works, there is an attention to
detail (often requiring a magnifying glass to see) as well as less homage
to classical forms.

4. Jan van Eyck, Ghent Altarpiece, c. 1432

8. Jan van Eyck,
Arnolfini Portrait, c. 1434

9. 5cm or 2.2”
10cm or 4”

11. Garden of Eden World Before the Flood Hell
Hieronymus Bosch, Garden of Earthly Delight, c. 1510

17. Albrect Durer (1471-1528)
Self portrait, 1484 [13 yrs old],
the youngest self portrait in art
history

18. Albrect Durer
Self Portrait 1493
[22 yrs old],
painted to send to his
fiancé (whom he had
never met)

22. Albrecht Dürer,
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, c. 1497-1498.
Woodcut, 15 2/5" x 11".

24. Gutenberg printing press [1450]

26. In the 15th century, we can also see a
transformation in artist’s willingness to
make the human body a focus of attention.

28. Masaccio [1425]
The Expulsion of Adam and Eve

29. Descent from the Cross,
c. 1435-1438

31. Botticelli, Mars and Venus, c. 1475.

32. Sandro Botticelli, Primavera, c. 1482.

33. Botticelli, Birth of Venus, c. 1480

34. Girolamo Savonarola (1452 –1498) was
an Italian Dominican friar and an influential contributor to
the politics of Florence from 1494 until his execution in
1498. He was known for his book burning, destruction of
what he considered immoral art, and his vehement
preaching against the moral corruption of much of the
clergy at the time.

35. Some Florentine artists responded to
Savaronola’s sermons by transforming their
visual style and returning to a more pietistic
style …

36. David, by Donatello, c. 1430-1440 vs
The Penitent Magdalene, by Donatello, c.

37. Botticelli late works, post Savonarola,
demonstrate a very noticeable rejection of the
classically-inspired worldview of his earlier
works.
Shown here:
Lamentation over the Dead Christ with Saints (1490)
Mystic Nativity (1501)

39. Execution of Savonarola and his
Companions in Piazza Della Signoria,
Florence, 1498

40. Other artists, especially those hired
by the papal court in Rome (and later
also by the merchants in Venice),
appear to have been unmoved by
Savaronola, and we continue to see
classical-inspired themes and an
interest in representing the human
body.
Raphael, Galatea, Rome, c. 1512.

42. Raphael. The Fornarina, c. 1518.

43. Giorgione, Sleeping Venus, c. 1509.

44. Titian. Venus of Urbino, c. 153

45. Indeed this style of female
representation became a common idiom
during the next 400 years of European
painting.