The document discusses the evolution of Renaissance art from the 14th to 17th century, highlighting its origins in Italy amid societal crises and a cultural rebirth. It outlines key periods of Renaissance art, notable artists like Donatello, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael, and significant works that reflect the humanistic ideals and innovative techniques of the time. The summary also emphasizes the transition from Byzantine art restrictions to the exploration of naturalism and emotional expression in art.

1. RENAISSANCE ART
14th to the 17th century
By: Lucylle Bianca
Cawaling, Alina Bianca
Arellano, Sofia Valera,
Rheana Gabriel,
Dominique Avanzando

4. RENAISSANCE
• The 14th century was a time of great crisis; the plague, the Hundred
Years war, and the turmoil in the Catholic Church all shook people’s
faith in government, religion, and their fellow man. In this dark period
Europeans sought a new start, a cultural rebirth, a renaissance.
• The Renaissance began in Italy where the culture was surrounded
by the remnants of a once glorious empire.
• Italians rediscovered the writings, philosophy, art, and architecture
of the ancient Greeks and Romans and began to see antiquity as a
golden age which held the answers to reinvigorating their society.
• Humanistic education, based on rhetoric, ethics and the liberal arts,
was pushed as a way to create well-rounded citizens who could
actively participate in the political process.
• Humanists celebrated the mind, beauty, power, and enormous
potential of human beings. They believed that people were able to
experience God directly and should have a personal, emotional
relationship to their faith. God had made the world but humans
were able to share in his glory by becoming creators themselves.

5. CATEGORIES OF RENAISSANCE ART
• Pre- (or "Proto"-) Renaissance
• around 1150 or so
• stable enough to allow explorations in art to develop
• Early Renaissance
• period of great creative and intellectual activity, during which artists broke
away from the restrictions of Byzantine Art
• 15th century, artists studied the natural world in order to perfect their
understanding of such subjects as anatomy and perspective.
• High Renaissance
• lasted from roughly 1495 to 1527
• Late Renaissance
• between 1527 and 1600
• artistic school known as Mannerism
• complexity and virtuosity over naturalistic representation
• favored compositional tension and instability rather than the balance and clarity
• distortion of the human figure, a flattening of pictorial space, and a cultivated
intellectual sophistication.

6. Pre-Renaissance Early Renaissance High Renaissance Late Renaissance
Nicola Pisano Brunelleschi Giovanni Bellini Pontormo
Arnolfo di Cambio Ghiberti Leonardo da Vinci Benvenuto Cellini
Giovanni Pisano Masolino Filippino Lippi Bronzino
Giotto Nanni di Banco Michelangelo Parmigianino
Pietro Lorenzetti Donatello Giorgione Tintoretto
Ambrogio Lorenzetti Fra Angelico Raphael Paolo Veronese
Taddeo Gaddi Uccello Titian Giambologna
Orcagna Masaccio Andrea del Sarto El Greco
Altichiero Filippo Lippi
Giusto de' Menabuoi Piero della Francesca
Andrea del Castagno
Gentile Bellini
Antonello da Messina
Botticelli
Signorelli
Perugino
Ghirlandaio

7. Donatello (ca. 1386–1466)
Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi

8. Donatello
• The greatest Florentine sculptor before Michelangelo (1475–1564)
and was the most influential individual artist of the 15th century in
Italy.
• He was gaining a reputation for creating larger-than-life figures
using innovative techniques and extraordinary skills. Before,
European sculptors used a flat background upon which figures were
placed. Donatello also drew heavily from reality for inspiration in his
sculptures, accurately showing expression in his figures’ faces and
body positions.

9. David [marble]
(1408–1409)
Museo Nazionale del
Bargello, Florence
The marble David is Donatello's
earliest known important
commission, and it is a work
closely tied to tradition, giving
few signs of the innovative
approach to representation that
the artist would develop as he
matured.

10. David [bronze]
(1400s)
Museo Nazionale del
Bargello, Florence
Donatello's bronze statue of
David is famous as the first
unsupported standing work of
bronze cast during the
Renaissance, and the first
freestanding nude male sculpture
made since antiquity. It depicts
David with an enigmatic smile,
posed with his foot on Goliath's
severed head just after defeating
the giant. The youth is completely
naked, apart from a laurel-topped
hat and boots, bearing the sword
of Goliath.

11. Equestrian statue of
Gattamelata
(1453)
Piazza del Santo, Padua, Italy
After Erasmo of Narni's death in
1443, the mercenary’s family paid
for a sculpture in his honor. It is
the earliest surviving Renaissance
equestrian statue and the first to
reintroduce the grandeur of
Classical equestrian portraiture.
After its conception, the statue
served as a precedent for later
sculptures honoring military
heroes.

12. Penitent
Magdalene
(1453–1455)
Museo dell'Opera del
Duomo, Florence
A statue of a gaunt-looking
Mary Magdalene.
Donatello died of unknown
causes leaving his work
unfinished however
faithfully completed by his
student Bertoldo di
Giovanni.

13. Sandro Botticelli
1445- 17 MAY 1510
• flat backdrop
• Devoid of atmospheric perspective
• lyrical and courtly style of visual poetry parallel to the love
poetry of Lorenzo de’ Medici.

14. Botticelli
Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni
Filipepi, better known as Sandro
Botticelli, was born in Florence,
Republic of Florence (Italy)
Italian painter, belonging the
Florentine school under Lorenzo
de Medici
His work to represent the linear
grace of Early Renaissance
painting

15. The Virgin and
Child
Surrounded by
Five Angels
STYLE Early Renaissance
GALLERY Louvre, Paris, france
COMPLETION DATE c1470
TECHNIQUE oil
MATERIAL panel
DIMENSIONS 40X58 CM
GENRE religious painting

16. Madonna of
the Magnificat
STYLE Early Renaissance
GALLERY Galleria degli Uffizi,
Florence, Italy
START DATE 1480
COMPLETION DATE 1481
TECHNIQUE Tempera
MATERIAL panel
GENRE religious painting

17. Portrait of a
Young Man
STYLE Early Renaissance
GALLERY National Gallery
COMPLETION DATE 1483
TECHNIQUE tempera
MATERIAL wood
GENRE religious painting

18. The Mystical
Nativity
STYLE Early Renaissance
GALLERY National Gallery
COMPLETION DATE c.1500
TECHNIQUE tempera
MATERIAL canvas
DIMENSIONS 109X75 cm
GENRE religious painting

19. Leonardo Da Vinci

20. Leonardo Da Vinci
•Born in small town of Vinci, near Florence
•“Renaissance man”
•Unquenchable curiosity
•Studies Botany, Geology, cartography, zoology, Military, Engineering, Animal lore, Anatomy, and
Aspects of Physical Science, including hydraulics and Mechanics
•Studying gave him an understanding of perspective, light, and color that he used in his painting
•Scientific drawings are themselves artworks
•His great ambition in his painting, as well as scientific endeavors, was to discover the laws
underlying the processes and flux of naure
•All his scientific investigations made him a better painter

21. Madonna of
the Rocks
• Use of chiaroscuro
• Subtle play of light and dark
(modeling with light & shadow,
and expressing emotional
states = heart of painting for
Leonardo)
• 2 chief objects to paint
• Man
• Intention of his soul =
expressed by gestures and
the movement of his limbs
• Pyramidal grouping
• Share the same light-infused
environment

22. Last Supper
•For the refrectory of the Church of santa Maria delle Grazie in Millan
•Christ
• Center of the 2-dimensional surface
• Focal point of all converging perspective lines in the composition
• Perspectival focus
• Psychological focus and cause of Action
•Disciples
• Agitated
• In four groups of three, united among within themselves by the figures, gestures and postures
•Light source- corresponds to the window in the refrectory
•Emotional responses: fear, doubt, protestation, rage and love

24. Mona Lisa
• World’s most famous portrait
•Renaissance etiquette: a woman should not look
directly into a man’s eye’s
•Chiascuro and atmospheric perspective
•Portrayed of this self-assured young woman without
trappings of power but engaging the audience
psychologically
•Darker today than 500 years ago
•Backdrop of a mysterious uninhabited landscape

25. Anatomical Studies
• very few paintings
•Perfectionism, relentless experimenting and far-ranging curiosity
•Originated the scientific illustration
•http://www.royalcollection.org.uk/exhibitions/leonardo-da-vinci-anatomy/items

26. A male nude, and
a partial study of
the left leg
A study of the nude figure of a man
seen full length, facing the spectator.
His legs are set well apart, and his
arms are slightly raised from his sides,
resting on two sticks which are slightly
indicated. To the left is part of a flexed
left leg.
it was important for the artist to know
how to draw the muscles in tension, it
was just as important to know how to
draw the body when relaxed.

27. Recto: The superficial
anatomy of the
shoulder and neck.
Verso: The muscles of
the shoulder
This sheet displays the full range of
Leonardo’s illustrative techniques,
showing the structure of the muscles
of the shoulder. Pectoralis major is
divided into parts to represent the
lines of force along which it acts. This
method reaches its logical conclusion
in the drawing at top right, which is an
example of Leonardo’s ‘thread model’.
This technique - invented by Leonardo
- reduced the muscles to single cords
along their central lines of force, such
that the spatial structure of an entire
system can be perceived at once.

28. Recto: The foetus in
the womb. Verso:
Notes on
reproduction, with
sketches of a foetus in
utero, etc.
Recto: Large drawing of an embryo
within a human uterus with a cow's
placenta; smaller sketch of the same;
notes on the subject; illustrative
drawings in detail of the placenta &
uterus; diagram demonstrating
binocular vision; a note on relief in
painting & on mechanics. Verso: A
note on light & shade; numerous notes
on reproduction; L side of a foetus
with a cord; 3 drawings of foetal liver,
stomach & umbilical vein; sketches of
chick embryo & membranes & front
(uterus is sphere-shaped;
characterization of lining is incorrect)

29. Recto: The heart,
bronchi and bronchial
vessels. Verso: A
sketch of the heart
and great vessels
Recto: Drawing of a bovine heart,
great vessels & bronchial tree. Details
of trachea & effects of respiration on
it; numerous notes on the action of
the heart. Verso: Sketch of human
heart & main vessels

30. Michelangelo (1475–1564)
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

31. Michelangelo
•Italian sculptor, painter, architect, poet, and engineer of the
High Renaissance who exerted an unparalleled influence on
the development of Western art.
•He believed the image produced by the artist’s hand must
come from the idea in the artist’s mind. But artists are not
the creators of the ideas they conceive. They find their ideas
in the natural world, reflecting the absolute idea: beauty.

32. Michelangelo
•The artistic license to aspire far beyond the “rules” was, in
part, a manifestation of the pursuit of fame and success that
humanism fostered.
•He put in its stead a style of vast, expressive strength
conveyed through complex, eccentric, and often titanic
forms that loom before the viewer in tragic grandeur.
Terribilità the sublime shadowed by the awesome and the
fearful conception and execution in an artist.

33. Pietà
(1498–1500)
Saint Peter’s, Vatican City,
Rome
Michelangelo’s
representation of Mary
cradling Christ’s corpse
brilliantly captures the
sadness and beauty of the
young Virgin but was
controversial because the
Madonna seems younger
than her son.

34. Pietà
•French cardinal Jean de Bilhères Lagraulas
commissioned the statue to adorn the
chapel in Old Saint Peter’s in which he was
to be buried .
• Michelangelo transformed marble into
flesh, hair, and fabric with a sensitivity for
texture that is almost without parallel. The
polish and luminosity of the exquisite
marble surface.

35. David
(1501–1504)
Galleria
dell’Accademia,
Florence
In this colossal statue,
Michelangelo represented
David in heroic classical
nudity, capturing the tension
of Lysippan athletes and the
emotionalism of Hellenistic
statuary.

36. David or “the Giant”
•Florence Cathedral building committee
commissioned him to fashion a statue of
David.
•Served as a symbol of Florentine liberty.
•Michelangelo chose to represent the
young biblical warrior sternly watchful of
the approaching foe.

37. David or “the Giant”
•David exhibits the characteristic
representation of energy in reserve.
•The anatomy of David’s body plays an
important part in this prelude to action:
Every aspect of his muscular body,
including his face, is tense with gathering
power.
His rugged torso, sturdy limbs, and large
hands and feet alert viewers to the
strength to come.
The swelling veins and tightening sinews
amplify the psychological energy of the
pose.

38. David or “the Giant”
•He greatly admired Greco-Roman statues, in
particular the skillful and precise rendering of
heroic physique.
•David is compositionally and emotionally
connected to an unseen presence beyond the
statue, a feature also of Hellenistic sculpture.
• Michelangelo invested his efforts in presenting
towering, pent-up emotion rather than calm,
ideal beauty.

39. The Sistine Chapel
1473

40. The Sistine Chapel
•Takes its name from Pope Sixtus IV della Rovere
•Restored between 1477 and 1480
• A team of Renaissance painters that included Sandro
Botticelli, Pietro Perugino, Pinturicchio, Domenico
Ghirlandaio and Cosimo Roselli, created a series of
frescos depicting the Life of Moses and the Life of
Christ

41. The Sistine Chapel Ceiling (1508–12)
Sistine Chapel, Vatican City, Rome, Italy
Fresco painting that Michelangelo labored almost four years in the Sistine Chapel painting more than 300
biblical figures on the ceiling illustrating the Creation and Fall of humankind.

42. The Sistine Chapel Ceiling
•Its dimensions (some 5,800 square feet), its height above the pavement (almost 70
feet), and the complicated perspective problems the vault’s height and curve
presented.
•A long sequence of narrative panels describing the Creation, as recorded in Genesis,
runs along the crown of the vault. (God’s Separation of Light and Darkness to
Drunkenness of Noah)
•More than 300 figures in a grand drama of the human race.
•The ceiling’s design and narrative structure not only presents a sweeping chronology
of Christianity but also is in keeping with Renaissance ideas about Christian history.

43. The Sistine Chapel Ceiling
•The Hebrew prophets and pagan sibyls who foretold the coming of Christ appear
seated in large thrones on both sides of the central row of scenes from Genesis,
where the vault curves down.
•In the four corner pendentives, where the four Old Testament scenes placed with
David, Judith, Haman, and Moses and the Brazen Serpent.
•The ancestors of Christ fill the triangular compartments above the windows,
nude youths punctuate the corners of the central panels, and small pairs of putti
in grisaille. (monochrome painting using shades of gray to imitate sculpture)

44. The Sistine Chapel Ceiling
•Focuses on figure after figure
•The body was the manifestation of the soul or of a state of mind and
character.
•Michelangelo represented the body in its most simple, elemental aspect—in
the nude or simply draped, with no background and no ornamental
embellishment.
•That is why many of the figures seem to be tinted reliefs or freestanding
statues.

45. The Creation of Adam (1510)
Life leaps to Adam like a spark from the extended hand of God in this fresco, which recalls the
communication between gods and heroes in the classical myths so admired by Renaissance humanists.

46. The Creation of Adam
•Michelangelo did not paint the traditional representation but instead produced a
bold, humanistic interpretation of the momentous event.
•God and Adam confront each other in a primordial unformed landscape of which
Adam is still a material part, heavy as earth while the Lord transcends the earth,
wrapped in a billowing cloud of drapery and borne up by his powers.
•Michelangelo incorporated into his fresco one of the essential tenets of Christian
faith—the belief that Adam’s Original Sin eventually led to the sacrifice of Christ:
Redemption of humankind.

47. The Creation of Adam
•The focal point of this right-to-left-to-right movement—the fingertips
of Adam and the Lord—is dramatically off-center.
•Michelangelo’s style is The reclining positions of the figures, the
heavy musculature, and the twisting poses are all intrinsic.
•Michelangelo replaced the straight architectural axes thus, motion
directs not only the figures but also the whole composition.

48. The Last Judgement
(Il Giudizio Universale)
(1536–1541)
Sistine Chapel, Vatican City
The fresco painting depicted
Christ as the stern judge of the
world—a giant who raises his
mighty right arm in a gesture of
damnation so broad and
universal as to suggest he will
destroy all creation.

49. The Last Judgement
(Il Giudizio Universale)
•A large fresco for the Sistine Chapel’s altar wall
•Michelangelo depicted Christ as the stern judge of
the world—a giant who raises his mighty right arm
in a gesture of damnation so broad and universal
as to suggest he will destroy all creation.
•The choirs of Heaven surrounding him pulse with
anxiety and awe.
•On the left, the dead awake and assume flesh.
•On the right, demons whose gargoyle masks and
burning eyes revive the demons of Romanesque
tympana, torment the damned.

50. The Last Judgement
(Il Giudizio Universale)
•Michelangelo’s terrifying vision of the fate
that awaits sinners goes far beyond any
previous rendition.
•The figures are huge and violently
twisted, with small heads and contorted
features.

52. Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino
(APRIL 6 OR MARCH 28, 1483 -
APRIL 6, 1520)

53. Raphael
• also known as just Raphael
• His work is known for its clarity of form and ease of composition
• left behind an extraordinary amount of work despite having died an early death
at 37
•declared a master, meaning he was fully trained, in 1501
•His career falls naturally into three phases and three styles: his early years
in Umbria, then a period of about four years (1504–1508) absorbing the artistic
traditions of Florence, followed by his last hectic and triumphant twelve years in
Rome, working for two Popes and their close associates.

54. Early Work
•Reputedly an apprentice of Pietro Perugino due to their similar
techniques and stylistic closeness.
•For example, having paint applied thickly to shadows and darker
garments but applied thinly on flesh areas. Many art historians
claim to detect his hand in Perugino's work.

55. Early Work
These are large works,
some in fresco, where
Raphael confidently
marshals his
compositions in the
somewhat static style of
Perugino.
The Oddi Altarpiece is an
altarpiece of the Coronation of
the Virgin painted in 1502-1504

56. The Mond Crucifixion.
An early work
influenced by Perugino,
it was originally an
altarpiece in the church
of San Domenico in
Città di Castello, near
Raphael's hometown of
Urbino.

57. The Wedding of the
Virgin, Raphael's
most sophisticated
altarpiece of this
period.

58. Influence of Florence
•Raphael was able to assimilate the influence of Florentine art, whilst
keeping his own developing style.
•Most striking influence is Leonardo da Vinci's work.
•He also perfects his own version of Leonardo's sfumato modelling, to
give subtlety to his painting of flesh, and develops the interplay of
glances between his groups, which are much less enigmatic than
those of Leonardo. But he keeps the soft clear light of Perugino in his
paintings.

59. The Madonna of
the Meadow, c.
1506, using
Leonardo's
pyramidal
composition for
subjects of the
Holy Family

60. Saint
Catherine of
Alexandria,
1507,
borrows
from the
pose of
Leonardo's
Leda

61. Roman Period
By the end of 1508, he had moved to Rome, where he lived for the rest of his life.
Raphael was immediately commissioned by Julius to fresco what was
intended to become the Pope's private library at the Vatican
Palace.This was a much larger and more important commission than
any he had received before; he had only painted one altarpiece in
Florence itself.

62. This first of the
famous "Stanze" or
"Raphael Rooms" to
be painted, now
always known as the
Stanza della Segnatura
after its use in Vasari's
time, was to make a
stunning impact on
Roman art, and
remains generally
regarded as his
greatest masterpiece,
containing The School
of Athens, The
Parnassus and the
Disputa.

63. •Raphael was clearly influenced by Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel
ceiling in the course of painting the room.
•The reaction of other artists to the daunting force of
Michelangelo was the dominating question in Italian art for the
following few decades, and Raphael, who had already shown his
gift for absorbing influences into his own personal style, rose to
the challenge perhaps better than any other artist.
•Michelangelo accused Raphael of plagiarism and years after
Raphael's death, complained in a letter that "everything he knew
about art he got from me".

64. One of the first and
clearest instances was
the portrait in The
School of Athens of
Michelangelo himself,
as Heraclitus, which
seems to draw clearly
from the Sybils and
ignudi of the Sistine
ceiling. Other figures in
that and later paintings
in the room show the
same influences, but as
still cohesive with a
development of
Raphael's own style.

65. The Mass at Bolsena is located in the Stanza di Eliodoro, which is named after The Expulsion of Heliodorus
from the Temple.
The Mass at Bolsena shows an incident that is said to have taken place in 1263. A Bohemian priest who
doubted the doctrine of transubstantiation, celebrated mass at Bolsena, where the bread of the eucharist
began to bleed.

67. The liberation of
Saint Peter is
located in the
Stanza di Eliodoro.
The painting shows
how Saint Peter was
liberated from
Herod's prison by
an angel, as
described in Acts
12.

68. Other Work
(portraits)
The woman portrayed is
Elisabetta Gonzaga, wife of
Duke Guidobaldo I of Urbino
(the portrait is now
exhibited at the Uffizi next
to the latter's) and a woman
of literary and artistic
interests. Details include the
black dress with applied
trim in a patchwork pattern,
and the scorpion-like
diadem on the woman's
forehead. Her hairdo
includes the coazzone, a
long plait which is present
also in a medal of her now
at the British Museum.

69. The portrait of
Pope Julius II was
unusual for its
time and would
carry a long
influence on papal
portraiture.

70. Raphael's last and unfinished portrait
The Transfiguration is the last painting by the Italian High
Renaissance master Raphael. Commissioned by Cardinal Giulio de
Medici, the later Pope Clement VII (1523–1534) and conceived as an
altarpiece for the Narbonne Cathedral in France, Raphael worked on
it until his death in 1520. The painting exemplifies Raphael's
development as an artist and the culmination of his career.
Unusually for a depiction of the Transfiguration of Jesus in Christian
art, the subject is combined with an additional episode from the
Gospels in the lower part of the painting.