Visual Studies
RENAISSANCE
By
MENAL DWIVEDI
BATCH 1
FP(UG DESIGN)
RENAISSANCE
The Renaissance (from French Renaissance, meaning
"rebirth"; Italian: Rinascimento, from re- "again" and
nascere "be born") was a cultural movement that
spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning
in Italy in the late Middle Ages and later spreading to the
rest of Europe.
As a cultural movement, it encompassed a revival of
learning based on classical sources, the development of
linear perspective in painting, and gradual but
widespread educational reform.
PERSPECTIVE IN RENAISSANCE ART
Linear perspective was rediscovered and used extensively
during the Renaissance. Leonardo Da Vinci's Last Supper uses
one-point perspective very effectively.
The vanishing point is right on Jesus' face, which emphasizes
Jesus as the focal point of the drawing.
Perspective as a Geometric Tool that Launched
the Renaissance
Not only in the Roman era, but subsequently in
the 14th century, painters such as Cimabue,
Giotto and the Lorenzetti brothers were
struggling with the concepts of linear
perspective.
One of the first uses of perspective was in
Giotto’s ‘Jesus Before the Caïf’ more that 100
years before Brunelleschi’s perspectival
demonstrations galvanized the widespread use
of convergent perspective of the Renaissance
proper.
‘Jesus Before the Caïf’, by Giotto (1305)
The ceiling rafters show the Giotto’s introduction of
convergent perspective. Detailed analysis, however,
reveals that the ceiling has an inconsistent vanishing
point and that the Caïf’s dais is in parallel perspective,
with no vanishing point.
‘The Healing of the Cripple and the Raising of Tabitha’, by
Masolino (1425)
We can note the accurate central convergence of structures from the
front of the canvas to the far distant background.
‘The School of Athens’ by Raphael (1518), a fine
example of architectural perspective with a central
vanishing point, marking the end of the classical
Renaissance.
The Hunt in the Forest is a
painting by the Italian artist Paolo
Uccello, painted around 1470.
The painting is an early
example of the effective use
of perspective in Renaissance
art, with the hunt participants,
including people, horses,
dogs and deer, disappearing
into the dark forest in the
distance.
RENAISSANCE HUMANISM
Renaissance Humanism was a European
intellectual movement beginning in Florence in
the last decades of the 14th century. The
humanist movement developed from the
rediscovery by European scholars of many Latin
and Greek texts
The early beliefs of humanism were that,
although God created the universe, it was
humans that developed and industrialized it.
By the mid-15th century humanism described a
curriculum — the studia humanitatis — comprising
grammar, rhetoric, moral philosophy, poetry and history
as studied via classical authors
Social or civic humanism
Humanism was a pervasive cultural mode, not merely the
product of a handful of geniuses, like Giotto or
Leon Battista Alberti.
Petrarch's Virgil
Illuminated manuscript by Simone Martini, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan.
LIGHT AND SHADE IN RENAISSANCE ART
One of the distinct features of the renaissance
was that painters also developed other
techniques, studying light, shadow, and,
famously in the case of Leonardo da Vinci,
human anatomy.
Underlying these changes in artistic method
was a renewed desire to depict the beauty of
nature, and to unravel the axioms of aesthetics,
with the works of Leonardo, Michelangelo and
Raphael representing artistic pinnacles that were
to be much imitated by others.
• Nancy Ekholm Burkert is an American
artist and illustrator.
Beginning with The Nightingale and concluding
with Snow White, her mastery of light, shadow
and depth combined Renaissance chiaroscuro
with an Oriental awareness of space in settings
that were realistic in detail, yet also fanciful and
timeless in content.
Her later work continued this emphasis on
intense, intimate detail, revealing a passion for
the complexity and variety of life.
The Nightingale
Representation of the ideal human
form
Leonardo,
Vitruvian Man,
1490, Ink
Human body is seen as a form of
measurement, true idea of Humanism
seen here.
Artists throughout history have turned to
geometric shapes and mathematical
proportions to seek the ideal presentation
of the human form
Leonardo (and before him Vitruvius)
equated the ideal man with both circle and
square
Diagram for the ideal male figure
Donatello's
David
Michelangelo's David
Michelangelo's David
is possibly the most
famous sculpture in the
world, which was
unveiled on September
8, 1504. It is an
example of the
contrapposto style of
posing the human
figure, which again
borrows from classical
sculpture.
DEPICTION OF DRAPERY IN RENAISSANCE
ART
Early
Renaissance
drapery, detail of
“The Primavera,”
painting on panel
by Sandro
Botticelli, 1477–
78; in the Uffizi
Gallery, Florence.
DEPICTION OF SPACE AND MOVEMENT
IN RENAISSANCE ART
To a large extent, linear schemes were avoided in the
16th century in favor of spaces populated by classical
figures adorned in flowing garments.
There is extensive exploration of the three-dimensional
visual space, but it is done with shading and
foreshortening, avoiding the use of linear structures that
would define and constrain the spatial development. Two
examples of this approach are shown in Michelangelo’s
‘Noah and the Flood’ and Tintoretto’s ‘The Origin of the
Milky Way’.
‘The Flood’ ‘The Origin of
by the Milky Way’
Michelangelo by Tintoretto
(1510) (1570).
Example by Giovanni Bellini
In art, the sacra conversazione refers to a depiction of the
Madonna with infant Jesus amidst the saints. The form developed
during the Italian Renaissance as artists replaced earlier hieratic
triptych or polyptych formats with compositions in which figures
interacted within a unified perspectival space.
FEW MASTERPIECES OF RENAISSANCE ART
Leonardo, The Last
Supper, 1495-98, Oil
and Tempera on
Plaster
Leonardo offers a choice to the audience to consider/soul search for the difference between good and
evil – human emotion
The space is defined by a coffered ceiling with four pairs of tapestries that seem to extend the dining hall
into another room
The Humanism in this piece is that people viewing it are almost eating with Jesus himself
Raphael, School of Athens, 1510-11, Fresco
Ideals of Renaissance papacy shown here with
harmoniously arranged forms, rational space, and
calm dignity
Main scene is viewed through a trompe l’oeil arch
Aristotle with his outstretched hand (palm down)
emphasizes the importance of gathering empirical
knowledge from observing the material world
Clear, even light (single source), characteristic of
the High Renaissance
Vanishing point is between the conversation of
Aristotle and Plato, as if they are having an infinite
conversation
People (artists) are elevated to be in the same
room as the great thinkers (Humanism)