Week 9: Renaissance art and design: the revival of Classical ideals and the emergence of new technologies
Note: Some of this material may still be useful, but because of the fusing of the two versions of this class, the following list is no longer in effect. Please see the schedule or the "slides" page for a hot-linked slide list for this week.
Map: Renaissance Europe; see also the Wikimedia Commons Atlas of the Age of the Renaissance.
Pre-Renaissance (Medieval/Gothic)
Cimabue (Ceni di Pepo), Madonna Enthroned, c. 1285. The Vatican calls this image Madonna In Majesty to distinguish it from other paintings of the Virgin by Cimabue. It is also referred to as the Santa Trinita Madonna, because it was originally installed in the church of that name.
See the Kleiner book for the Giotto and Duccio Madonnas, as well as the Lamentation from the Church of St. Pantaleimon and the Crucifixion mosaic from the Church of the Dormition in Daphni, Greece (here's an online gallery with several mosaics from this church).
Northern Renaissance
Limbourg Brothers, "February" and "May" from Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, 1416. I strongly suggest that you be familiar with more than the pages I show in class.
Jan van Eyck, Ghent Altarpiece, 1432 (A thematic essay on this work is available on the Met's Timeline of Art History). The Wikipedia article on the altarpiece includes details of every segment.
Arnolfini Portrait, (or the Arnolfini Wedding) 1434 See also this link to a recent National Public Radio segment on David Hockney's contention that Renaissance and later artists took advantage of optical technologies to create works like this. The National Gallery of Art (London) owns the painting and has a zoomable image of it on the website.
Rogier van der Weyden, Descent from the Cross (Deposition), 1437 (both from Wikipedia). More images of van der Weyden's work are included on the page. CGFA includes a number of additional works, including two graphic images.
Hieronymus Bosch, The Seven Deadly Sins and the Last Four Things c. 1485. Bosch's works can be classified both as early (Northern) Renaissance and as late Gothic (also as Flemish Gothic) because of the range of dates.
The Garden of Earthly Delights, c. 1504 (another Wikipedia page, with a large scan). The Prado Museum in Madrid provides good images and some further information. And while you're in the vicinity, check out his graphic works (two pages).
Albrecht Dürer, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, 1497-98.
The Fall of Man (also known as Adam and Eve), 1504.
Hans Holbein the Younger, Portrait of Henry VIII, 1540. Germany. Click here for the CGFA biography. Although attributed to Holbein, this portrait was probably completed by his workshop. For other paintings and another biography, see the WebMuseum page on the Holbeins (Elder and Younger).
Anne of Cleves, 1539.
Renaissance in Italy
Giotto, The Kiss of Judas (The Betrayal of Christ), The Crucifixion, and The Lamentation over Christ, and The Last Judgment. Scrovegni Chapel, Padua, 1305. For a detailed essay with linked illustrations, see The Web Gallery of Art's pages on The Art of Giotto. The home page of the Scrovegni Chapel also has some beautiful scans and details of some of the frescoes in its image gallery.
The Epiphany, ca. 1320 (Met)
Fifteenth-Century Painting in Italy
Masaccio (Tommaso Cassai or Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Mone), Holy Trinity, 1425
The Tribute Money, 1426-27. The link is to Christus Rex, and presents the restored view. For context, see the Web Gallery Art page on the Brancacci Chapel's frescoes. The subject of the painting is the text of Matthew 17:24-27 (click on the arrows to get the sequence).
Piero della Francesca, Resurrection, 1463. Museo Civico Sansepolcro. The bolded link is to the museum's page on the painting, which is, alas, in Italian. Click on the image to enlarge it. If you use the drop-down menu and scroll down to "Piero della Francesca-Resurrezione-dettaglio 1" (etc.) and click "Conferma," you can get to details that can also be enlarged.
The Studiolo of the Liberal Arts from the Ducal Palace at Gubbio 1478-83. Designed by Francesco di Giorgio Martini and executed by Giuliano da Maiano and his studio.
Sandro Botticelli, Primavera, 1477-1480. The images are from CGFA, but see also the WebMuseum page for a short biography and more paintings, or Mark Harden's Artchive page on Botticelli.
Birth of Venus, c. 1485. For further details on the painting, see this WebMuseum essay.
Madonna Enthroned With Saints (San Barnaba Altarpiece), 1486
Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper, 1495-98. Here's a video from Smart History of the painting in context, with some useful commentary; also, check out this high-resolution, zoomable image with nice background music.
Mona Lisa (La Joconde), 1503-06. This is the Louvre's page, in French, with details. For more information on Leonardo, connect here.
Fifteenth-Century Italian Sculpture
Donatello, David, ca. 1440-1460. (Make sure you get the right one--the bronze, and check the date.)
Andrea del Verrocchio, David, ca. 1465-1470. The link is to a multimedia presentation on the figure from the High Museum. For the image, go to the Web Gallery of Art (scroll down), but it's also in the Kleiner Global History (the big book).
Tullio Lombardo, Adam, c. 1490 (Met)
Sixteenth-Century Painting and Sculpture
Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio), The School of Athens, 1509-11. Stanza della Segnatura, Vatican. At this link you can click on figures to identify them.
Parmigianino (Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola), Madonna with the Long Neck, 1535. See also the Met's thematic essay on Mannerism and its context.
Titian (Tiziano Vecellio), Venus of Urbino, 1538. See "Titian's Venus of Urbino: Understanding the Meaning Behind This Renaissance Masterpece," by Suzanne Hill, for some background.
Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti), Susanna and the Elders, c. 1555/56 (The text is in German; the painting is called "Susanna in the Bath" here.)
The Last Supper, 1592-94. The image is from a Hungarian encyclopedia, but information in English is available through Wikipedia and the WebMuseum. The painting is housed in the church of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, which we'll study next week.
Michelangelo, Pietà1498-99/1500 (nice details are available on this Hungarian page)
David, 1501-1504. An article from PBS's Culture Shock discusses controversies generated by the figure. For a digitized image, see Stanford's Digital Michelangelo project, with details of both back and front.
Sistine ceiling, 1508-1512; see also the Web Gallery of Art's page on the ceiling frescoes. Studies for the Libyan Sibyl (Met). The Web Gallery's page on Michelangelo's sibyls (linked to the bottom of the page) has the ceiling image, and a good biography. A cool feature of this site is its links to appropriate musical selections.
The Last Judgment 1537-41
Additional Resources |
New & Notable: The National Gallery of Art's online exhibition on Mannerism within a larger page on Italian Art in the Sixteenth Century New
at the NGA: An
Antiquity of Imagination: Tullio Lombardo and Venetian High Renaissance
Sculpture. Look more deeply into the work of this lesser-known
sculptor, whose Adam is featured on the slide list for this week.
The NGA film on perspective, Empire of the Eye: The Magic of Illusion features a segment on how Massachio's Holy Trinity makes use of Brunelleschi's concept of linear perspective. See the Intro film as well. Scroll down to locate the video.
Other resources For further information on David Hockney's controversial theory about the use of optical devices by Renaissance painters, see Art and Optics, and consider viewing the DVD, available in the Kelley Library. The Bryn Mawr Library's special print exhibition on The Invention of Antiquity graphically indicates the influence the ancient world exerted over the Renaissance in Europe. Renaissance graphic arts: The Origins of Printmaking in Europe, an exhibition from the National Gallery of Art, includes twelve examples of 15th-century woodcuts. On the technique of fresco and for examples, see this Met Timeline page, Italian Painting of the Later Middle Ages: Fresco. One
of the major subjects of Renaissance painting is Christ's Last Supper.
Numerous examples can be found at this
link. The film Michelangelo Restored focuses on the restoration of Michelangelo's frescoes on the ceiling and end wall of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican in Rome. The following links should provide background to augment the material in Janson and the film. Michelangelo was not the only artist to work on parts of the Chapel, so look for information that highlights the contributions of other painters. The Vatican Museum site has recently been updated. Be sure to spend some time there, because it's really worth it. The only problem I noticed was that the links to the Old and New Testaments are in Italian; otherwise the information is in English if you choose it on the main page. The plan of the ceiling is from a Christus Rex page that includes a legend that describes each of the sections. Here are some more: The Web Gallery of Art's Visit to the Sistine Chapel provides a nicely designed virtual tour. BBC News's article on the opening of the completed restoration in December, 1999. On the more recent controversy concerning the cleaning of Michaelangelo's David, see: Restoring Michelangelo (NPR); Michelangelo Statue Cleanup Ends (BBC); Chemical David (London Daily Telegraph) Robert Fulford's column about art restoration in Italy (Toronto Globe and Mail, February 11, 1998) provides another view. Here's a rather well constructed general site on Michelangelo, with a biography and other resources. The Sistine Chapel: A Glorious Restoration, by Carlo Pietrangeli (Editor), Michael Hirst (Contributor), Gianluigi Colalucci, Fabrizio Mancinelli, John Shearman (Contributor) covers the complete restoration. Michelangelo and Raphael with Boticelli, Perugino, Signorelli, Ghirlandaio and Rosselli inthe Vatican: All the Sistine Chapel, the Stanzas, and the Loggias (before the restorations). Available in the Kelley Library, ND2757.V35 M52 1983 National Geographic Magazine issued an extensive article with beautiful photographs (which I will pass around in class). Half Price books might have some copies available, and the Library has both paper and digital copies. I highly recommend Ross King's book Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling, which is now available in paperback. It, like another book by King on art history--Brunelleschi's Dome--provides a clear, insightful, interesting peek into the lives of great artists in the Renaissance. Other resources available in the Kelley Library: Lisa Jardine's Worldly Goods: A New History of the Renaissance. (This is the source of the passages I read on the Arnolfini Wedding and the Venus of Urbino.) CB 361 .J35 1996 Paul Grendler, The Encyclopedia of the Renaissance. A six-volume, comprehensive reference source. Ref CB 361 .E52 1999 On video: a thorough, albeit long, treatment of the early and high Renaissance, as well as the Baroque can be found in the Art of the Western World segment on these periods. VHS GD 1663. These are also available online from learner.org. An earlier film than the one we watched (made before the Last Judgment was cleaned) is available on video: Return to Glory VC098. My only contribution to the Da Vinci Code controversy is to refer you to art historian Robert Baldwin's critiques, available under "unpublished talks" on his website. |
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l schedule l slides 11.25.11 |