The Italian Renaissance occurred between the 14th and 17th centuries and was centered in Florence and Rome. It was characterized by a revival of classical Greco-Roman artistic and intellectual traditions and a focus on humanism. Key Renaissance artistic innovations included the development of techniques like linear perspective, sfumato, and chiaroscuro. Famous Renaissance artists included Filippo Brunelleschi, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael. Their works emphasized realistic proportions, foreshortening, and secular themes. Renaissance architecture revived classical orders and symmetry while sculpture emphasized realistic portrayals of the human form. Overall, the Renaissance marked a shift from medieval to modern Western civilization.

1. THE ITALIAN
RENAISSANCE

2. Renaissance
• 14th-17th century Italy
• Rinascimento=rebirth, revival
• Nerve center: Florence, Rome
• A broad intellectual movement known for its
cultural achievements.
• The rise of the artist as genius.

3. Architects
• Brunelleschi
• Leone Alberti
• Andrea Palladio
• Bramante
Bruneslleschi
Alberti

4. Artists
Giotto
Masaccio
Pierro dela Francesca
Domenico Ghirlandaio
Perugino
Michelangelo
Raphael
Botticelli
Leonardo da Vinci
Titian
Giotto
Masaccio
Leonardo da Vinci

5. New Techniques
• Tone contrast (Titian)
• Realistic proportions (Masaccio)
• Foreshortening
• Sfumato
• Chiaroscuro (Leonardo da Vinci and Giorgone)
• The first secular themes

6. Sfumato as "without lines
or borders, in the manner of
smoke or beyond the focus
plane.“ (da Vinci)
“sfumare” (Italian) – to tone
down”, “to evaporate like
smoke”
Leonardeschi: Corregio,
Raphael, Giorgione
Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa
1503-1506, oil on poplar

7. Masaccio, Holy Trinity, fresco, c. 1427, Santa Maria Novella, Florence
Realistic Proporitons

8. • Foreshortening refers to the
visual effect or optical
illusion that an object or
distance appears shorter
than it actually is because it
is angled toward the viewer.
Mantegna
Dead Christ

9. Chiaroscuro – use of strong
contrast of light and dark in
painting or drawing that
achieves 3d modeling of
forms
literally, light-dark
Correggio, Madonna and Child, 1515

10. Four canonical painting
modes of Renaissance Art
• Sfumato
• Unione
• Cangiante
• Chriaroscuro
• Tenebrism
Leonardo da Vinci study drawing

11. Early Renaissance (1401-1490s)
Giotto
Lamentation
Frescoe
1304-1306
Scrovegni Chapel
Giotto
Panel painting, the Ognissanti Madonna
Uffizi Gallery
1310

12. Masaccio, Holy Trinity, fresco, c. 1427, Santa Maria Novella, Florence

13. High Renaissance (1490s-1527)
• The period in art history denoting the peak in the visual arts
in the Italian Renaissance.
• Begun in the 1490s, with Leonardo's fresco of The Last Supper
in Milan and the death of Lorenzo de' Medici in Florence, and
to have ended in 1527, with the sacking of Rome by the
troops of Charles V.
• Culmination of the goals of the earlier period which was the
accurate representation of figures in space rendered with
credible motion and in an appropriately decorous style.

14. High Renaissance
Most famous painters
• Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)
• Michelangelo
• Raphael
Michelangelo
Buonarroti (1475-
1564)
Raphael Sanzio
(1483- 1520)

15. High Renaissance
Most famous works
• Last Supper
• The School of Athens
• Sistine Chapel ceiling
Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper
1494-1498
Tempera on gesso, pitch, and mastic
Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan

16. Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel ceiling
Sistine Chapel, Vatican
Fresco, 1508-1512

17. A section of the Sistine Chapel painting showing in the center
the creation of Adam by God.

18. Raphael, The School of Athens, 1509-1510,
Fresco, Apostolic Palace, Vatican City

19. 2: Epicurus
6: Pythagoras
12: Socrates
14: Plato (Leonardo da Vinci)
15: Aristotle (Giuliano da Sangallo)
21: Protegenes (Il Sodona, Perugino or Timoteo Viti)

20. • High Renaissance painting
evolved into Mannerism,
especially in Florence.
• Mannerist artists, who
consciously rebelled against
the principles of High
Renaissance, tend to
represent elongated figures
in illogical spaces.
• Modern scholarship has
recognized the capacity of
Mannerist art to convey
strong (often religious)
emotion where the High
Renaissance failed to do so. Parmigianino, Madonna with the
Long Neck, 1534-40

21. Key Ideas
• Humanism
• Humanism was an activity of reform engaged in by
scholars, writers and civic leaders in 14th century
Italy.
Da Vinci
Vitruvian Man

22. • Humanists reacted against
the utilitarian
approach to education
seeking to create a citizenry
(frequently including
women) able to speak and
write with eloquence and
thus able to engage the civic
life of their communities.
“studia humanitatis” or the
"humanities":
--grammar,
--rhetoric,
--history,
--poetry and
--moral philosophy.

23. • The movement was largely
founded on the ideals of
Italian scholar and poet
Francesco Petrarca, which
were often centered around
humanity’s potential for
achievement.
1304-1374

24. • While humanism initially
began as a predominantly
literary movement, its
influence quickly pervaded
the general culture of the
time, reintroducing
classical Greek and Roman
art forms, leading directly to
the Renaissance.

25. Donatello became renowned
as the greatest sculptor of the
Early Renaissance, known
especially for his humanist and
unusually erotic statue of
David.
--first unsupported standing work
of bronze cast during
the Renaissance
-- first freestanding
nude male sculpture made since
antiquity.
Donatello, David, ca 1440
Museo Nazionale del Bargello

26. • While medieval society
viewed artists as servants
and craftspeople,
Renaissance artists were
trained intellectuals, and
their art reflected this
newfound perspective.
• Craftsmen to Artist
• Autonomy
• Genius
Yale University Press

27. • In humanist painting, the
treatment of the elements
of perspective and
depiction of light became
of particular concern.
Pietro Perugino
Sistine Chapel fresco
1481-82
Brought Renaissance to Rome

28. Architecture
• Renaissance architecture first developed in Florence
in the 15th century and represented a conscious
revival of classical antique styles.
Started with the Gothic style,
1296, consecrated 1436
Basilica de Santa Maria del Fiore
(Il Duomo di Firenze)
Arnolfo di Cambio (design)
Filippo Brunelleschi (dome)

29. • Filippo Brunelleschi was the
first to develop the
Renaissance view of
architecture.
• His enormous brick dome
that covers the central
space of Florence's Duomo
or cathedral was the first
dome erected since classical
Rome and became a
ubiquitous feature in
Renaissance churches.

30. • The Renaissance style of
architecture emerged in
Florence not as a slow
evolution from preceding
styles but rather as a
conscious development put
into motion by architects
seeking to revive the golden
age of classical antiquity.
Tempietto di San Pietro
Montorio, Rome
Bramante, 1502
Temple of Vesta
Rome
205 AD

31. • The Renaissance style
eschewed the complex
proportional systems and
irregular profiles
of medieval buildings.
• Placed emphasis
on symmetry, proportion,
geometry, and regularity of
parts. Sta. Maria Novella
Completed by Leon Battista Alberti
in 1470
Minor basilica
Style: Gothic-Renaissance

32. • 15th-century architecture in
Florence popularized the
use of classical antique
features such as orderly
arrangements of columns,
pilasters, and lintels,
semicircular arches, and
hemispherical domes.

33. • The buildings of the early
Renaissance in Florence
expressed a new sense of
light, clarity, and
spaciousness that reflected
the enlightenment and
clarity of mind glorified by
the philosophy of
Humanism.
Ospedale Degli Innocenti
Florence
Fillipo Brunelleschi
1424-1445

34. Sculpture
• Renaissance sculpture originated in Florence in the
15th century and was deeply influenced by ancient
Roman sculpture.
Michelangelo
David
Marble
1501-1504
17 ft height

35. • Renaissance sculpture
proper is often taken to
begin with the famous
competition for the doors of
the Florence baptistry in
1403, which was won by
Lorenzo Ghiberti.

36. • Ghiberti designed a set of
doors for the competition,
housed in the northern
entrance, and another more
splendid pair for the eastern
entrance, named the Gates
of Paradise. Both these
gates depict biblical scenes.
Detail, Gates of Paradise
10 panels
1452
27 years to complete

37. • Donatello's genius made
him an important figure in
the early Italian
Renaissance period.
Sculpted between 1430-32,
his bronze David is an
example of his mature
work. It is currently located
in the Bargello Palace and
Museum.
• Made for Cosimo de Medici

38. • Ghiberti set up a large
workshop in which many
famous Florentine sculptors
and artists were trained. He
reinvented the lost-wax
casting of bronze, a
technique which had been
used by the ancient Romans
and subsequently lost.
--a duplicate metal sculpture (often silver,
gold , brass or bronze is cast from an
original sculpture

39. • The period was marked by a
great increase in patronage
of sculpture by the state for
public art and by the
wealthy for their homes.
• Public sculpture became a
crucial element in the
appearance of historic city
centers, and portrait
sculpture, particularly busts,
became hugely popular in
Florence.
Lorenzo de Medici, b 1449

40. Key Terms
• Humanism
• Oil painting
• Fresco
• Sfumato
• Mannerism
• Perspective
• High Renaissance
• Entablature
• Pilaster
• Quattrocento
• Baptistry
• Lost wax
• Allegory
• Giotto
• Masaccio
• Filippo Brunelleschi
• Lorenzo Ghiberti
• Leonardo da Vinci
• Michelangelo Buonarotti
• Raphael Sanzio

41. End