Week One – Renaissance
Farah Azam
Artist: Michelangelo
Michelangelo was considered to be the greatest living artist of his time, and is still seen as one of the most influential artists of all time. He was an artist of many disciplines, including painting, sculpture, poetry, architecture, and more. Interestingly, he had a low opinion of painting, but he created two of the most influential paintings of Western Art: the Creation of Adam (pictured below) and The Last Judgement, painted in the Sistine Chapel in Rome, Italy. He was also the first Western artist who had his biography published while he was still alive. Michelangelo will always be considered to be one of the most influential and unparalleled artists of Western Art, and many artists today still aspire to reach his incredible level of grandeur and style.
Jessica Brown
Artist: Albrecht Durer (1471-1528)
Durer was a man of many talents including printmaking, engraving, and painting. He was also a well known mathematician and theorist. He was born the 3rd child of 18 to a German goldsmith in Nuremberg. At a young age he worked with his father learning the crafts of goldsmithing and drawing. However as he excelled in drawing he left his father to apprentice under Wolgemut. Durer rose in the world of art and became well known for introducing classical motifs to the Northern Renaissance. His knowledge of Italian art and German humanism led him to become one of the most influential artists of the Northern Renaissance. Many of his works included portraits or religious depictions, such as his Adam and Eve (1507).
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Artist: Leonardo da Vinci
Da Vinci was an Italian painter, inventor, architect, and scientist ahead of his time. He believed that science and art are complimentary and that sight is mankind’s most important sense. He is most famous for his paintings “Mona Lisa” and “The Last Supper,” which are two of the most famous paintings in the world. Although during his lifetime he was most well known as a painter, his scientific theories, anatomical studies, and inventions realized centuries later make him a genius before his time. His notes show inventions like the helicopter, bicycle, and a plane based on the aerodynamics and physiology of a bat.
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Artist: Giovanni Bellini (1430-1516)
Bellini is from Venice, Italy and is often considered the father of the Venetian Renaissance. He is known for his depiction of color and light as well as his ability to convey human emotions in his paintings. His work focused on religious images of which his masterpiece, the San Zaccaria Altarpiece in the Church of San Zaccaria, Venice is a great example. Bellini’s style of painting influenced a period of creativity in Venice and throughout Europe. During most of his life he painted such religious figures and scenes but moved toward secular landscapes and mythology at the end of his career.
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D’chante Mckenzie
Blog 1: Renaissance
Artist: Raphael
Raphael was a leading figure in Italian High Renaissance Classicism. He is best know for his Madonnas and his large compositions in the Palace of the Vatican in Rome.He studied under his father, Giovanni Santi, and took over in his place when he died (Raphael was 11). Raphael began developing his own unique painting styles, apparent in his religious works. The last great work he completed before he died in 1520 was the Sistine Madonna (pictured below).
Sistine Madonna:
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Artist: Sandro Botticelli
Sandro Botticelli was an Itailian painter of the Renaissance who was born the son of a tanner but received artistic opportunities after being the apprentice of Filippo Lippi, an infamous Medici artist. He had his own workshop by the time he was 15, where he formed his own style, including Neo-Platonism. His style brought the focus of the painting to the musculature of the human figure instead of the space around it. He was later pushed out of the artistic spotlight by other artists, such as Di Vinci and Michelangelo.
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Artist: Tiziano Vecellio (Titian) 1490-1576
Titian was one of the painters in the 16th center Venetian school and is one of the leading artists during the High Renaissance. When he was nine he travelled to Venice where Gentile and Bellini taught him how to paint. His accomplishments included being a nobleman under Charles V, painting in the court o Charles V, and creating 676 works. Titian is considered one of the most famous artists in Venetian history. He used color to create portraits, landscapes, and mythological/religious works. Titian’s self-portrait (shown below) influenced Rembrandt’s composition of his own self-portrait.
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Artist: Vittore Carpaccio
Vittore Carpaccio was an Italian Renaissance painter of the Venetian school. He was born in Venice into a family of fisherman and boat builders in 1465. He studied under Gentile Bellini, who influenced the narrative style of his work. Carpaccio’s pieces often featured Venice as a backdrop for story-telling. His most famous work is The Legend of St. Ursula, a cycle of nine oil paintings (one of which is pictured below) commissioned by the Venetian Scuola dedicated to St. Ursula. Carpaccio’s style is characterized by detailed depictions of events and a particular command of light, which created a unified atmosphere in even his larger, more complex paintings.
The Meeting of Etherius and Ursula and the Departure of the Pilgrims (1498)
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Artist: Fra Angelico
Fra Angelico was an Italian early renaissance painter. He went by many names but the Italians usually called him il Beato Angelico or the blessedangelico because it was believed he had been given the talent of painting from God himself. He is now deemed a “conferred beatification” meaning he is on his was to becoming a saint. During this time period the rich would commission bright and colorful paintings using expensive pigments such as gold. Fra Angelico did many of these paintings for the pope and for rich families alter pieces. But his most famous painting are simple gentle painting of the life of Jesus that he did for the Friars of the time.
The Deposition (c.1437 – 1446)
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Emily Brawley
Artist: Pieter Bruegel the Elder or “Peasant Bruegel” (1525-1569)
Flemish artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder established an artistic independence. The scenes and subjects he chose were not lavish, exalted subjects. Rather, they were depictions of messy, colorful peasantry, detailed landscapes, and quirky religious scenes. Bruegel often painted the relationship between man and nature. His paintings are so vibrant, detailed, and picturesque they almost seem to evoke a more folk-art feel than Renaissance feel. While they capture the humanism of peasant life, they are carefully constructed and organized in form and color palette. I was most struck by the seasonal moods that his pieces create (in terms of color). All of his pieces have an overall emotional color tint to them. Bruegel was able to distinguish himself artistically, appreciating both life’s simplicities and complexities during the Renaissance.
Winter Scene with a Bird Trap
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Masaccio came out of the Italian Renaissance movement and produced prominent works circa 1420. He is known for his exploration of the interaction of bodies in space and studying their weights to produce life-like figures. Massacio means “Big Tom” and some of his most well known frescos are “The Tribute Money” and “Expulsion,” seen below, which demonstrates his capability for realistic body structure. Masaccio is also a frontrunner in the use of perspective and depth, being the first to use a vanishing point, which went on to influence many other artists in his time period. Some of his works can be seen in The Brancacci Chapel in the church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence.
Masaccio_expulsion-1427.jpg
Expulsion c.1427
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Hi! It’s Raven. For Week 1, Renaissnace, I chose Jan van Eyk, an Early Netherlands Renaissance painter who was active in Bruges during the 15th century. I think that his works demonstrate various techniques with oil painting that have expanded over the years, especially during this time frame. As seen in much of his work, and that of other renaissance painters is the development of light and shadow as well as differing perspectives in painting. A piece by him that I find to be intriguing is actually a painting with an unusual perspective, the Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife (detailed image of background linked below). The painting also uses various lines to guide the eye throughout the painting. While I do not find the Renaissance period in my list of favorites (and have therefore linked a detail of the painting, and not of the original piece itself), I do appreciate the detail involved in works that occurred during this time. Another piece that I find striking is the Portrait of a Man in a Turban–again the attention to detail and the use of shading and light really brings out the image itself, even if it is a more simple subject, which I have also linked below (one cold almost imagine that the subject is watching you). One other interesting fact about the artist himself that I would like to note is that he was known to have dated and signed his paintings in Greek characters, while creating a pun with his name.
http://www.jan-van-eyck.org/Portrait-of-Giovanni-Arnolfini-and-his-Wife-(detail-3)-1434.html
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Artist: Hieronymus Bosch (1450-1516)
Bosch was a painter form the Netherlands who was most known for triptych paintings that showed religious narratives. Unlike many other Dutch painters at the time, Bosch painted with rough surfaces. One of his most famous triptychs, “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” particularly interests me because I have seen this painting at the Museo de Prado in Madrid. Bosch uses the three panels of the painting to show different parts of his narrative. Together, the three panels tell a story of Creation. The left panel shows Adam and Eve, the middle panel shows many nude people, animals, and fruit, and the right panel shows hell. What I find most interesting about this painting is the contrast between the right panel and the other two panels. Bosch’s use of color creates a hellish mood by using blacks and browns as opposed to red. The dark and twisted imagery greatly contrasts the bright, heavenly feel of the other two panels, which Bosch painted with light greens and blues. He uses the contrast of high and low key in most of his paintings in order to set the scene for his narratives. I find that his grotesque, fantastical and twisted imagery to be very unique in the Renaissance era which makes his work stand out. Rather than showing one scene from a narrative, Bosch is able to tell entire religious stories or moral narratives through his use of color and detailed imagery in his works.
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Benozzo Gozzoli (c.1421- 1497)
Gozzoli was a well known painter, notably for his paintings on the walls of the chapel of the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi palace. His work is recognized as having elaborate and complicated background and has been named one of the first painters using detailed landscapes in his work. These complex backgrounds and paintings are well known for having birds and animals placed in all sorts of various ways. Gozzoli paintings have been known to depict festive, vibrant processions with lots of fine detail and “pronounced international Gothic influence”. Benozzo sadly died of the plague on October 4, 1947.
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