The Renaissance is a phenomenal phenomenon in the history of mankind. Never again has there been such a brilliant outbreak in the field of art. Sculptors, architects and artists of the Renaissance (their list is long, but we will touch on the most famous), whose names are known to everyone, gave the world priceless Unique and exceptional people who showed themselves not in one field, but in several at once.
Early Renaissance painting
The Renaissance era has a relative time frame. It began first in Italy - 1420-1500. At this time, painting and all art in general are not much different from the recent past. However, elements borrowed from classical antiquity begin to appear for the first time. And only in subsequent years, sculptors, architects and artists of the Renaissance (the list of which is very long) were influenced modern conditions life and progressive trends are finally abandoned medieval foundations. They boldly adopt the best examples ancient art for his works, both in general and in individual details. Their names are known to many; let’s focus on the most prominent personalities.
Masaccio - the genius of European painting
It was he who made a huge contribution to the development of painting, becoming a great reformer. The Florentine master was born in 1401 into a family of artistic artisans, so a sense of taste and the desire to create were in his blood. At the age of 16-17 he moved to Florence, where he worked in workshops. Donatello and Brunelleschi, great sculptors and architects, are rightfully considered his teachers. Communication with them and the skills adopted could not but affect the young painter. From the first Masaccio borrowed a new understanding human personality, characteristic of sculpture. The second master has the basics. Researchers consider the “Triptych of San Giovenale” (in the first photo), which was discovered in a small church near the town where Masaccio was born, to be the first reliable work. The main work is the frescoes dedicated to the life story of St. Peter. The artist participated in the creation of six of them, namely: “The Miracle of the Statir”, “Expulsion from Paradise”, “Baptism of Neophytes”, “Distribution of Property and Death of Ananias”, “Resurrection of the Son of Theophilus”, “St. Peter Heals the Sick with His Shadow” and "St. Peter in the Pulpit."
Italian artists of the Renaissance were people who devoted themselves entirely to art, not paying attention to ordinary everyday problems, which sometimes led them to a poor existence. Masaccio is no exception: the brilliant master died very early, at the age of 27-28, leaving behind great works and large number debts
Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506)
This is a representative of the Paduan school of painters. He received the basics of his craft from his adoptive father. The style was formed under the influence of the works of Masaccio, Andrea del Castagno, Donatello and Venetian painting. This determined the somewhat harsh and harsh manner of Andrea Mantegna compared to the Florentines. He was a collector and connoisseur of cultural works of the ancient period. Thanks to his style, unlike any other, he became famous as an innovator. His most famous works: “Dead Christ”, “Triumph of Caesar”, “Judith”, “Battle of the Sea Deities”, “Parnassus” (pictured), etc. From 1460 until his death he worked as a court painter for the Dukes of Gonzaga.
Sandro Botticelli(1445-1510)
Botticelli is a pseudonym real name- Filipepi. He did not choose the path of an artist right away, but initially studied jewelry craftsmanship. In his first independent works (several “Madonnas”) one can feel the influence of Masaccio and Lippi. Later he also made a name for himself as a portrait painter; the bulk of orders came from Florence. The refined and sophisticated nature of his works with elements of stylization (generalization of images using conventional techniques - simplicity of form, color, volume) distinguishes him from other masters of that time. A contemporary of Leonardo da Vinci and the young Michelangelo, he left a bright mark on world art (“The Birth of Venus” (photo), “Spring”, “Adoration of the Magi”, “Venus and Mars”, “Christmas”, etc.). His painting is sincere and sensitive, and life path complex and tragic. The romantic perception of the world at a young age gave way to mysticism and religious exaltation in adulthood. The last years of his life Sandro Botticelli lived in poverty and oblivion.
Piero (Pietro) della Francesca (1420-1492)
Italian painter and another representative of the era early Renaissance originally from Tuscany. The author's style was formed under the influence of the Florentine school of painting. In addition to his talent as an artist, Piero della Francesca had outstanding abilities in the field of mathematics, and recent years dedicated his life to her, trying to connect her with high art. The result was two scientific treatises: “On Perspective in Painting” and “The Book of Five Regular Bodies.” His style is distinguished by solemnity, harmony and nobility of images, compositional balance, precise lines and construction, and a soft range of colors. Piero della Francesca had an amazing knowledge of the technical side of painting and the peculiarities of perspective for that time, which earned him high authority among his contemporaries. The most famous works: “The History of the Queen of Sheba”, “The Flagellation of Christ” (pictured), “Altar of Montefeltro”, etc.
High Renaissance painting
If the Proto-Renaissance and early era lasted almost a century and a half and a century, respectively, then this period covers only a few decades (in Italy from 1500 to 1527). It was a bright, dazzling flash that gave the world a whole galaxy of great, versatile and brilliant people. All branches of art went hand in hand, so many masters were also scientists, sculptors, inventors, and not just Renaissance artists. The list is long, but the peak of the Renaissance was marked by the work of L. da Vinci, M. Buanarotti and R. Santi.
The Extraordinary Genius of Da Vinci
Perhaps this is the most extraordinary and outstanding personality in the history of the world. artistic culture. He was a universal man in the full sense of the word and possessed the most versatile knowledge and talents. Artist, sculptor, art theorist, mathematician, architect, anatomist, astronomer, physicist and engineer - all this is about him. Moreover, in each of the areas, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) proved himself to be an innovator. Only 15 of his paintings, as well as many sketches, have survived to this day. Possessing amazing vital energy and a thirst for knowledge, he was impatient and fascinated by the process of learning itself. At a very young age (20 years old) he qualified as a master of the Guild of St. Luke. His most important works were the fresco " Last Supper", paintings "Mona Lisa", "Madonna Benois" (pictured above), "Lady with an Ermine", etc.
Portraits of Renaissance artists are rare. They preferred to leave their images in paintings with many faces. Thus, controversy surrounding da Vinci’s self-portrait (pictured) continues to this day. There are versions that he made it at the age of 60. According to the biographer, artist and writer Vasari, the great master was dying in the arms of his close friend King Francis I at his castle of Clos-Lucé.
Raphael Santi (1483-1520)
Artist and architect originally from Urbino. His name in art is invariably associated with the idea of sublime beauty and natural harmony. For enough short life(37 years old) he created many world-famous paintings, frescoes and portraits. The subjects he depicted were very diverse, but he was always attracted by the image of the Mother of God. Absolutely justifiably, Raphael is called the “master of Madonnas,” especially those painted by him in Rome. He worked in the Vatican from 1508 until the end of his life as an official artist at the papal court.
Comprehensively gifted, like many other great Renaissance artists, Raphael was also an architect and also an archaeological excavator. According to one version, the latest hobby is directly related to premature death. Presumably, he contracted Roman fever at the excavations. The great master was buried in the Pantheon. The photo is his self-portrait.
Michelangelo Buoanarroti (1475-1564)
The long 70-year-old man was bright; he left to his descendants imperishable creations of not only painting, but also sculpture. Like other great Renaissance artists, Michelangelo lived in a time filled with historical events and upheaval. His art is a wonderful final note of the entire Renaissance.
The master put sculpture above all other arts, but by the will of fate he became an outstanding painter and an architect. His most ambitious and extraordinary work is the painting (pictured) in the palace in the Vatican. The area of the fresco exceeds 600 square meters and contains 300 human figures. The most impressive and familiar is the Last Judgment scene.
Italian Renaissance artists had multifaceted talents. So, few people know that Michelangelo was also an excellent poet. This facet of his genius fully manifested itself towards the end of his life. About 300 poems have survived to this day.
Late Renaissance painting
The final period covers the time period from 1530 to 1590-1620. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, the Renaissance is like historical period ended with the fall of Rome in 1527. Around the same time, the Counter-Reformation triumphed in southern Europe. The Catholic movement looked with caution at any free-thinking, including the glorification of the beauty of the human body and the resurrection of the art of the ancient period - that is, everything that was the pillars of the Renaissance. This resulted in a special movement - mannerism, characterized by the loss of harmony of the spiritual and physical, man and nature. But even this difficult period some famous artists The Renaissance created their masterpieces. Among them are Antonio da Correggio (considered the founder of classicism and Palladianism) and Titian.
Titian Vecellio (1488-1490 - 1676)
He is rightfully considered a titan of the Renaissance, along with Michelangelo, Raphael and da Vinci. Even before he turned 30, Titian gained the reputation of “king of painters and painter of kings.” The artist mainly painted paintings on mythological and biblical themes; moreover, he became famous as an excellent portrait painter. Contemporaries believed that to be captured by the brush of a great master meant to gain immortality. And this is true. Orders to Titian came from the most revered and noble persons: popes, kings, cardinals and dukes. Here are just a few of his most famous works: “Venus of Urbino”, “The Rape of Europa” (pictured), “Carrying the Cross”, “Crown of Thorns”, “Madonna of Pesaro”, “Woman with a Mirror”, etc.
Nothing is repeated twice. The Renaissance gave humanity geniuses, extraordinary personalities. Their names are inscribed in the world history of art in golden letters. Architects and sculptors, writers and artists of the Renaissance - the list is very long. We touched only on the titans who made history and brought the ideas of enlightenment and humanism to the world.
The Renaissance or Renaissance gave us many great works of art. This was a favorable period for the development of creativity. The names of many great artists are associated with the Renaissance. Botticelli, Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo Da Vinci, Giotto, Titian, Correggio - these are only a small part of the names of the creators of that time.
The emergence of new styles and paintings is associated with this period. The approach to depicting the human body has become almost scientific. Artists strive for reality - they work out every detail. People and events in the paintings of that time look extremely realistic.
Historians distinguish several periods in the development of painting during the Renaissance.
Gothic - 1200s. Popular style at court. He was distinguished by pompousness, pretentiousness, and excessive colorfulness. Used as paints. The paintings were the subject of altar scenes. The most famous representatives of this trend are the Italian artists Vittore Carpaccio and Sandro Botticelli.
Sandro Botticelli
Proto-Renaissance - 1300s. At this time, a restructuring of morals in painting was taking place. Religious themes are receding into the background, and secular ones are becoming increasingly popular. The painting takes the place of the icon. People are portrayed more realistically; facial expressions and gestures become important for artists. Appears new genre fine arts - . Representatives of this time are Giotto, Pietro Lorenzetti, Pietro Cavallini.
Earlier Renaissance - 1400s. The rise of non-religious painting. Even the faces on the icons become more alive - they acquire human facial features. Artists of earlier periods tried to paint landscapes, but they served only as an addition, a background to the main image. During the Early Renaissance it became an independent genre. The portrait also continues to develop. Scientists discover the law linear perspective, on this basis artists build their paintings. On their canvases you can see the correct three-dimensional space. Prominent representatives of this period are Masaccio, Piero Della Francesco, Giovanni Bellini, Andrea Mantegna.
High Renaissance - Golden Age. The horizons of artists become even wider - their interests extend into the space of Space, they consider man as the center of the universe.
At this time, the “titans” of the Renaissance appeared - Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Titian, Raphael Santi and others. These are people whose interests were not limited to painting. Their knowledge extended much further. The most prominent representative was Leonardo Da Vinci, who was not only a great painter, but also a scientist, sculptor, and playwright. He created fantastic techniques in painting, for example “smuffato” - the illusion of haze, which was used to create the famous “La Gioconda”.
Leonardo Da Vinci
Late Renaissance- fading of the Renaissance (mid 1500s to late 1600s). This time is associated with change, a religious crisis. The heyday is ending, the lines on the canvases are becoming more nervous, individualism is disappearing. The crowd is increasingly becoming the image of the paintings. Talented works of that time were written by Paolo Veronese and Jacopo Tinoretto.
Paolo Veronese
Italy gave the world the most talented artists of the Renaissance; they are the most mentioned in the history of painting. Meanwhile, in other countries during this period, painting also developed and influenced the development of this art. Painting in other countries during this period is called the Northern Renaissance.
An undoubted achievement of the Renaissance was the geometrically correct design of the painting. The artist built the image using the techniques he developed. The main thing for painters of that time was to maintain the proportions of objects. Even nature fell under mathematical techniques of calculating the proportionality of the image with other objects in the picture.
In other words, artists during the Renaissance sought to convey an accurate image of, for example, a person against a background of nature. If we compare it with modern techniques of recreating a seen image on some canvas, then, most likely, photography with subsequent adjustments will help to understand what the Renaissance artists were striving for.
Renaissance painters believed that they had the right to correct the shortcomings of nature, that is, if a person had ugly facial features, the artists corrected them in such a way that the face became sweet and attractive.
Leonardo da Vinci
The Renaissance became so thanks to many creative individuals who lived at that time. The world-famous Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519) created a huge number of masterpieces, the cost of which amounts to millions of dollars, and connoisseurs of his art are ready to contemplate his paintings for a long time.
Leonardo began his studies in Florence. His first painting, painted around 1478, is “Benois Madonna”. Then there were such creations as “Madonna in the Grotto”, “Mona Lisa”, the above-mentioned “Last Supper” and a host of other masterpieces written by the hand of a titan of the Renaissance.
The rigor of geometric proportions and accurate reproduction of the anatomical structure of a person - this is what characterizes the paintings of Leonard da Vinci. According to his convictions, the art of depicting certain images on canvas is a science, and not just some kind of hobby.
Rafael Santi
Raphael Santi (1483 - 1520), known in the art world as Raphael, created his works in Italy. His paintings are imbued with lyricism and grace. Raphael is a representative of the Renaissance, who depicted man and his existence on earth, and loved to paint the walls of the Vatican Cathedrals.
The paintings betrayed the unity of figures, the proportional correspondence of space and images, and the euphony of color. The purity of the Virgin was the basis for many of Raphael's paintings. His very first image of Our Lady is the Sistine Madonna, which was painted by the famous artist back in 1513. The portraits that were created by Raphael reflected the ideal human image.
Sandro Botticelli
Sandro Botticelli (1445 - 1510) is also a Renaissance artist. One of his first works was the painting “Adoration of the Magi.” Subtle poetry and dreaminess were his initial manners in the field of conveying artistic images.
In the early 80s of the 15th century, the great artist painted the walls of the Vatican Chapel. The frescoes made by his hand are still amazing.
Over time, his paintings became characterized by the calmness of the buildings of antiquity, the liveliness of the characters depicted, and the harmony of the images. In addition, Botticelli’s passion for drawings for famous literary works is known, which also only added fame to his work.
Michelangelo Buonarotti
Michelangelo Buonarotti (1475 – 1564) is an Italian artist who also worked during the Renaissance. This man, known to many of us, did everything he could do. And sculpture, and painting, and architecture, and also poetry. Michelangelo, like Raphael and Botticelli, painted the walls of the Vatican churches. After all, only the most talented painters of those times were involved in such responsible work as painting images on the walls of Catholic cathedrals. He had to cover more than 600 square meters of the Sistine Chapel with frescoes depicting various biblical scenes. The most famous work in this style is known to us as “ Last Judgment" The meaning of the biblical story is expressed fully and clearly. Such precision in the transfer of images is characteristic of all of Michelangelo’s work.
During difficult times for Italy, a short-lived “golden age” began Italian Renaissance- the so-called High Renaissance, the highest point of the flowering of Italian art. The High Renaissance thus coincided with the period of fierce struggle of Italian cities for independence. The art of this time was permeated with humanism, faith in creative forces of man, in the unlimited possibilities of his capabilities, in the reasonable structure of the world, in the triumph of progress. In art, the problems of civic duty, high moral qualities, heroism, the image of beauty, harmoniously developed, strong in spirit and the body of a human hero who managed to rise above the level of everyday life. The search for such an ideal led art to synthesis, generalization, to the disclosure of general patterns of phenomena, to the identification of their logical relationship. The art of the High Renaissance abandons particulars and insignificant details in the name of a generalized image, in the name of the desire for a harmonious synthesis of the beautiful aspects of life. This is one of the main differences High Renaissance from early.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was the first artist to clearly embody this difference. Leonardo's first teacher was Andrea Verrocchio. The figure of an angel in the teacher’s painting “Baptism” already clearly demonstrates the difference in the perception of the world by the artist of the past era and new era: no frontal flatness of Verrocchio, the finest light and shadow modeling of volume and extraordinary spirituality of the image. . Researchers date the “Madonna with a Flower” (“Benois Madonna,” as it was previously called, after the owners) to the time of Verrocchio’s departure from the workshop. During this period, Leonardo was undoubtedly influenced for some time by Botticelli. From the 80s of the 15th century. Two unfinished compositions by Leonardo have survived: “The Adoration of the Magi” and “St. Jerome." Probably in the mid-80s, the “Madonna Litta” was created in the ancient tempera technique, in the image of which the type of Leonardo found expression female beauty: heavy, half-lowered eyelids and a subtle smile give the Madonna’s face a special spirituality.
Combining scientific and creative principles, possessing both logical and artistic thinking, Leonardo spent his whole life engaged in scientific research along with the fine arts; distracted, he seemed slow and left little art behind. At the Milanese court, Leonardo worked as an artist, technical scientist, inventor, mathematician and anatomist. The first major work he performed in Milan was “Madonna of the Rocks” (or “Madonna in the Grotto”). This is the first monumental altar composition of the High Renaissance, interesting also because it fully expressed the features of Leonardo's style of painting.
Leonardo's greatest work in Milan, the highest achievement of his art, was the painting of the wall of the refectory of the monastery of Santa Maria della Grazie on the subject of the Last Supper (1495-1498). Christ meets with his disciples for the last time at dinner to announce to them the betrayal of one of them. For Leonardo, art and science existed inseparably. While engaged in art, he did scientific research, experiments, observations, he went through perspective into the field of optics and physics, through problems of proportions into anatomy and mathematics, etc. “The Last Supper” completes a whole stage in the artist’s scientific research. It is also a new stage in art.
Leonardo took time off from studying anatomy, geometry, fortification, land reclamation, linguistics, versification, and music to work on “The Horse,” an equestrian monument to Francesco Sforza, for which he primarily came to Milan and which he completed in full size in the early 90s in clay. The monument was not destined to be embodied in bronze: in 1499 the French invaded Milan and Gascon crossbowmen shot the equestrian monument. In 1499, the years of Leonardo’s wanderings began: Mantua, Venice and, finally, the artist’s hometown of Florence, where he painted the cardboard “St. Anna with Mary on her lap,” from which he creates an oil painting in Milan (where he returned in 1506)
In Florence, Leonardo began another painting: a portrait of the merchant del Giocondo's wife, Mona Lisa, which became one of the most famous paintings in the world.
Portrait of Mona Lisa Gioconda is a decisive step towards the development of Renaissance art
For the first time, the portrait genre became on the same level as compositions on religious and mythological themes. Despite all the undeniable physiognomic similarities, Quattrocento’s portraits were distinguished by, if not external, then internal constraint. The majesty of the Mona Lisa is already conveyed by the mere juxtaposition of her strongly extended towards the edge of the canvas, emphasized volumetric figure with a landscape with rocks and streams visible as if from afar, melting, alluring, elusive and therefore, despite all the reality of the motif, fantastic.
In 1515, at the suggestion of the French king Francis I, Leonardo left for France forever.
Leonardo was the greatest artist of his time, a genius who opened new horizons of art. He left behind few works, but each of them was a stage in the history of culture. Leonardo is also known as a versatile scientist. His scientific discoveries For example, his research in the field of aircraft is of interest in our age of astronautics. Thousands of pages of Leonardo's manuscripts, covering literally every field of knowledge, testify to the universality of his genius.
The ideas of monumental art of the Renaissance, in which the traditions of antiquity and the spirit of Christianity merged, found their most vivid expression in the work of Raphael (1483-1520). In his art, two main tasks found a mature solution: the plastic perfection of the human body, expressing the inner harmony of a comprehensively developed personality, in which Raphael followed antiquity, and a complex multi-figure composition that conveys all the diversity of the world. Raphael enriched these possibilities, achieving amazing freedom in depicting space and the movement of the human figure in it, impeccable harmony between the environment and man.
None of the Renaissance masters perceived the pagan essence of antiquity as deeply and naturally as Raphael; It is not without reason that he is considered the artist who most fully connected ancient traditions with Western European art of the modern era.
Rafael Santi was born in 1483 in the city of Urbino, one of the centers of artistic culture in Italy, at the court of the Duke of Urbino, in the family of a court painter and poet, who was the first teacher of the future master
Early period Raphael's creativity perfectly characterizes small painting in the form of a tondo “Madonna Conestabile”, with its simplicity and laconism of strictly selected details (with all the timidity of the composition) and the special, inherent in all Raphael’s works, subtle lyricism and a sense of peace. In 1500, Raphael left Urbino for Perugia to study in the workshop of the famous Umbrian artist Perugino, under whose influence The Betrothal of Mary (1504) was written. The sense of rhythm, proportionality of plastic masses, spatial intervals, the relationship between figures and background, coordination of basic tones (in “The Betrothal” these are golden, red and green in combination with a soft blue sky background) create the harmony that is already evident in Raphael’s early works and distinguishes him from the artists of the previous era.
Throughout his life, Raphael searched for this image in the Madonna; his numerous works interpreting the image of the Madonna earned him worldwide fame. The merit of the artist, first of all, is that he was able to embody all the subtlest shades of feelings in the idea of motherhood, to combine lyricism and deep emotionality with monumental grandeur. This is visible in all his Madonnas, starting with the youthfully timid “Madonna Conestabile”: in the “Madonna of the Greens”, “Madonna with the Goldfinch”, “Madonna in the Armchair” and especially at the pinnacle of Raphael’s spirit and skill - in the “Sistine Madonna”.
“The Sistine Madonna” is one of Raphael’s most perfect works in terms of language: the figure of Mary and the Child, strictly silhouetted against the sky, is united by a common rhythm of movement with the figures of St. The barbarians and Pope Sixtus II, whose gestures are addressed to the Madonna, as are the views of two angels (more like putti, which is so characteristic of the Renaissance), are in the lower part of the composition. The figures are also united by a common golden color, as if personifying the Divine radiance. But the main thing is the type of face of the Madonna, which embodies the synthesis of the ancient ideal of beauty with the spirituality of the Christian ideal, which is so characteristic of the worldview of the High Renaissance.
The Sistine Madonna is a late work by Raphael.
At the beginning of the 16th century. Rome takes over cultural center Italy. The art of the High Renaissance reaches its greatest flowering in this city, where, by the will of the patronizing popes Julius II and Leo X, artists such as Bramante, Michelangelo and Raphael simultaneously work.
Raphael paints the first two stanzas. In the Stanza della Segnatura (room of signatures, seals) he painted four fresco-allegories of the main spheres of human spiritual activity: philosophy, poetry, theology and jurisprudence. (“The School of Athens”, “Parnassus”, “Disputa”, “Measure, Wisdom and Strength” "In the second room, called the "Stanza of Eliodorus", Raphael painted frescoes on historical and legendary scenes glorifying the popes: "The Expulsion of Eliodorus"
It was common for the art of the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance to depict sciences and arts in the form of individual allegorical figures. Raphael solved these themes in the form of multi-figure compositions, sometimes representing real group portraits, interesting both for their individualization and typicality
The students also helped Raphael in painting the Vatican loggias adjacent to the Pope’s rooms, painted according to his sketches and under his supervision with motifs of ancient ornaments, drawn mainly from newly discovered ancient grottoes (hence the name “grotesques”).
Raphael performed works of various genres. His gift as a decorator, as well as a director and storyteller, was fully manifested in a series of eight cardboards for tapestries for the Sistine Chapel on scenes from the life of the apostles Peter and Paul (“A Miraculous Catch of Fish,” for example). These paintings throughout the 16th-18th centuries. served as a kind of standard for classicists.
Raphael was also the greatest portrait painter of his era. (“Pope Julius II”, “Leo X”, the artist’s friend the writer Castiglione, the beautiful “Donna Velata”, etc.). And in his portrait images, as a rule, internal balance and harmony prevail.
At the end of his life, Raphael was disproportionately loaded with a variety of works and orders. It’s even hard to imagine that all this could be done by one person. He was central figure artistic life Rome, after the death of Bramante (1514), he became the chief architect of the Cathedral of St. Peter, was in charge of archaeological excavations in Rome and its environs and the protection of ancient monuments.
Raphael died in 1520; his premature death was unexpected for his contemporaries. His ashes are buried in the Pantheon.
The third greatest master of the High Renaissance - Michelangelo - far outlived Leonardo and Raphael. The first half of it creative path falls during the heyday of the art of the High Renaissance, and the second - during the Counter-Reformation and the beginning of the formation of Baroque art. Of the brilliant galaxy of artists of the High Renaissance, Michelangelo surpassed everyone with the richness of his images, civic pathos, and sensitivity to changes in public mood. Hence the creative embodiment of the collapse of Renaissance ideas.
Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) In 1488 in Florence he began to carefully study ancient sculpture. His relief “Battle of the Centaurs” is already a work of the High Renaissance in its internal harmony. In 1496, the young artist left for Rome, where he created his first works that brought him fame: “Bacchus” and “Pieta”. Literally captured by the images of antiquity. “Pieta” opens a whole series of works by the master on this subject and puts him forward among the first sculptors of Italy.
Returning to Florence in 1501, Michelangelo, on behalf of the Signoria, undertook to sculpt the figure of David from a block of marble damaged before him by an unlucky sculptor. In 1504, Michelangelo completed the famous statue, which the Florentines called the “Giant” and placed in front of the Palazzo Vecchia, the city hall. The opening of the monument turned into a national celebration. The image of David inspired many Quattrocento artists. But Michelangelo portrays him not as a boy, as in Donatello and Verrocchio, but as a young man in the full bloom of his strength, and not after a battle, with the head of a giant at his feet, but before the battle, at the moment of the highest tension of strength. In the beautiful image of David, in his stern face, the sculptor conveyed the titanic power of passion, unyielding will, civil courage, and the boundless power of a free man.
In 1504, Michelangelo (as already mentioned in connection with Leonardo) begins to work on the painting of the “Hall of the Five Hundred” in the Palazzo Signoria
In 1505, Pope Julius II invited Michelangelo to Rome to build his tomb, but then refused the order and ordered a less grandiose painting of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican Palace.
Michelangelo worked alone on the painting of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, from 1508 to 1512, painting an area of about 600 square meters. m (48x13 m) at a height of 18 m.
Michelangelo dedicated the central part of the ceiling to scenes of sacred history, starting from the creation of the world. These compositions are framed by the same painted cornice, but creating the illusion of architecture, and are separated, also by picturesque rods. Picturesque rectangles emphasize and enrich the real architecture of the ceiling. Under the picturesque cornice, Michelangelo painted prophets and sibyls (each figure is about three meters), in lunettes (arches above the windows) he depicted episodes from the Bible and the ancestors of Christ as ordinary people busy with everyday activities.
The nine central compositions unfold the events of the first days of creation, the story of Adam and Eve, the global flood, and all these scenes, in fact, are a hymn to the person inherent in him. Soon after the completion of work in Sistine, Julius II died and his heirs returned to the idea of a tombstone. In 1513-1516. Michelangelo performs the figure of Moses and slaves (captives) for this tombstone. The image of Moses is one of the most powerful in the work of the mature master. He invested in him the dream of a wise, courageous leader, full of titanic strength, expression, will-qualities, so necessary then for the unification of his homeland. Slave figures were not included in final version tombs.
From 1520 to 1534 Michelangelo worked on one of the most significant and most tragic sculptural works- above the Medici tomb (Florentine church San Lorenzo), expressing all the experiences that befell both the master himself and his hometown, and the whole country as a whole. Since the late 20s, Italy was literally torn apart by both external and internal enemies. In 1527, mercenary soldiers defeated Rome, Protestants plundered the Catholic shrines of the eternal city. The Florentine bourgeoisie overthrows the Medici, who ruled again from 1510
In a mood of severe pessimism, in a state of increasing deep religiosity, Michelangelo works on the Medici tomb. He himself built an extension to the Florentine church of San Lorenzo - a small but very high room, covered with a dome, and decorated two walls of the sacristy (its interior) with sculptural tombstones. One wall is decorated with the figure of Lorenzo, the opposite with Giuliano, and below at their feet there are sarcophagi decorated with allegorical sculptural images - symbols of fast-flowing time: “Morning” and “Evening” in Lorenzo’s tombstone, “Night” and “Day” in Giuliano’s tombstone .
Both images - Lorenzo and Giuliano - do not have a portrait resemblance, which differs from the traditional solutions of the 15th century.
Paul III, immediately after his election, began to persistently demand that Michelangelo fulfill this plan, and in 1534, interrupting work on the tomb, which he completed only in 1545, Michelangelo left for Rome, where he began his second work in the Sistine Chapel - to the painting "The Last Judgment" (1535-1541) - a grandiose creation that expressed the tragedy of the human race. Features of the new artistic system appeared even more clearly in this work by Michelangelo. The creative judgment, the punishing Christ is placed in the center of the composition, and around him in a rotating circular motion are depicted sinners casting themselves into hell, the righteous ascending to heaven, and the dead rising from their graves to God's judgment. Everything is full of horror, despair, anger, confusion.
Painter, sculptor, poet, Michelangelo was also a brilliant architect. He completed the staircase of the Florentine Laurentian Library, designed the Capitol Square in Rome, erected the Pius Gate (Porta Pia), and since 1546 he has been working on the Cathedral of St. Peter, begun by Bramante. Michelangelo owns the drawing and drawing of the dome, which was executed after the master’s death and is still one of the main dominant features in the city’s panorama.
Michelangelo died in Rome at the age of 89. His body was taken at night to Florence and buried in oldest church hometown of Santa Croce. Historical significance Michelangelo's art, its impact on his contemporaries and on subsequent eras can hardly be overestimated. Some foreign researchers interpret him as the first artist and architect of the Baroque. But most of all he is interesting as a bearer of the great realistic traditions of the Renaissance.
Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco, nicknamed Giorgione (1477-1510), is a direct follower of his teacher and a typical artist of the High Renaissance. He was the first on Venetian soil to turn to literary themes and mythological subjects. Landscape, nature and the beautiful naked human body became for him a subject of art and an object of worship.
Already in the first known work, “Madonna of Castelfranco” (circa 1505), Giorgione appears as a fully established artist; the image of the Madonna is full of poetry, pensive dreaminess, permeated with that mood of sadness that is characteristic of everyone female images Giorgione. Over the last five years of his life, the artist created his best works, executed in oil technique, the main one in the Venetian school at that time. . In the 1506 painting “The Thunderstorm,” Giorgione depicts man as a part of nature. A woman nursing a child, a young man with a staff (who can be mistaken for a warrior with a halberd) are not united by any action, but are united in this majestic landscape by a common mood, a common state of mind. The image of “Sleeping Venus” (circa 1508-1510) is permeated with spirituality and poetry. Her body is written easily, freely, gracefully, it is not for nothing that researchers talk about the “musicality” of Giorgione’s rhythms; it is not without sensual charm. "Rural Concert" (1508-1510)
Titian Vecellio (1477?-1576) -greatest artist Venetian Renaissance. He created works on both mythological and Christian subjects, worked in the genre of portraiture, his coloristic talent is exceptional, his compositional inventiveness is inexhaustible, and his happy longevity allowed him to leave behind the richest creative heritage, which had a huge influence on descendants.
Already in 1516 he became the first painter of the republic, and from the 20s - the most famous artist of Venice
Around 1520, the Duke of Ferrara commissioned him to create a series of paintings in which Titian appears as a singer of antiquity, who was able to feel and, most importantly, embody the spirit of paganism (“Bacchanalia”, “Feast of Venus”, “Bacchus and Ariadne”).
Rich Venetian patricians commissioned Titian to create altarpieces, and he created huge icons: “The Assumption of Mary”, “Madonna of Pesaro”
"The Presentation of Mary into the Temple" (c. 1538), "Venus" (c. 1538)
(group portrait of Pope Paul III with nephews Ottavio and Alexander Farnese, 1545-1546)
He still writes a lot on ancient subjects (“Venus and Adonis”, “The Shepherd and the Nymph”, “Diana and Actaeon”, “Jupiter and Antiope”), but increasingly turns to Christian themes, to scenes of martyrdom in which pagan cheerfulness, ancient harmony is replaced by a tragic attitude (“The Flagellation of Christ”, “Penitent Mary Magdalene”, “St. Sebastian”, “Lamentation”),
But at the end of the century, the features of the impending new era in art, a new artistic direction. This can be seen in the work of two major artists of the second half of this century - Paolo Veronese and Jacopo Tintoretto.
Paolo Cagliari, nicknamed Veronese (he was born in Verona, 1528-1588), was destined to become the last singer of the festive, jubilant Venice of the 16th century.
: “Feast in the House of Levi” “Marriage in Cana of Galilee” for the refectory of the monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore
Jacopo Robusti, known in art as Tintoretto (1518-1594) (“tintoretto”-dyer: the artist’s father was a silk dyer). "The Miracle of St. Mark" (1548)
(“The Rescue of Arsinoe”, 1555), “Introduction into the Temple” (1555),
Andrea Palladio (1508-1580, Villa Cornaro in Piombino, Villa Rotonda in Vicenza, completed after his death by students according to his design, many buildings in Vicenza). The result of his study of antiquity were the books “Roman Antiquities” (1554), “Four Books on Architecture” (1570-1581), but antiquity was a “living organism” for him, according to the fair observation of the researcher.
The Dutch Renaissance in painting begins with the "Ghent Altarpiece" by the brothers Hubert (died 1426) and Jan (c. 1390-1441) van Eyck, completed by Jan van Eyck in 1432. Van Eyck improved oil technology: oil made it possible to more comprehensively convey the brilliance, depth, richness of the objective world that attracted the attention of Dutch artists, its colorful sonority.
Of the many Madonnas by Jan van Eyck, the most famous is the “Madonna of Chancellor Rollin” (circa 1435)
(“Man with a Carnation”; “Man in a Turban”, 1433; portrait of the artist’s wife Margaret van Eyck, 1439
Dutch art owes a lot in solving such problems to Rogier van der Weyden (1400?-1464) “The Descent from the Cross” - typical work Vayden.
In the second half of the 15th century. accounts for the work of a master of exceptional talent, Hugo van der Goes (circa 1435-1482) “The Death of Mary”).
Hieronymus Bosch (1450-1516), creator of dark mystical visions, in which he also turns to medieval allegorism, “The Garden of Delights”
The pinnacle of the Dutch Renaissance was, undoubtedly, the work of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, nicknamed Muzhitsky (1525/30-1569) (“Kitchen of the Skinny”, “Kitchen of the Fat”). The “Winter Landscape” from the cycle “The Seasons” (other title - “Hunters in the Snow”, 1565), “The Battle of Carnival and Lent” (1559).
Albrecht Durer (1471-1528).
“Feast of the Rosary” (another name is “Madonna with the Rosary”, 1506), “Horseman, Death and the Devil”, 1513; "St. Jerome" and "Melancholia",
Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543), "The Triumph of Death" ("Dance of Death") portrait of Jane Seymour, 1536
Albrecht Altdorfer (1480-1538)
Renaissance Lucas Cranach (1472-1553),
Jean Fouquet (c. 1420-1481), Portrait of Charles VII
Jean Clouet (about 1485/88-1541), son of François Clouet (about 1516-1572) - the most important artist France XVI V. portrait of Elizabeth of Austria, circa 1571, (portrait of Henry II, Mary Stuart, etc.)
The Renaissance began in Italy. It acquired its name due to the dramatic intellectual and artistic flowering that began in the 14th century and greatly influenced European society and culture. The Renaissance was expressed not only in paintings, but also in architecture, sculpture and literature. The most prominent representatives of the Renaissance are Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli, Titian, Michelangelo and Raphael.
In these times, the main goal of painters was a realistic depiction of the human body, so they mainly painted people and depicted various religious subjects. The principle of perspective was also invented, which opened up new possibilities for artists.
Florence became the center of the Renaissance, Venice took second place, and later, closer to the 16th century, Rome.
Leonardo is known to us as a talented painter, sculptor, scientist, engineer and architect of the Renaissance. Most of Leonardo worked throughout his life in Florence, where he created many masterpieces known throughout the world. Among them: “Mona Lisa” (otherwise known as “La Gioconda”), “Lady with an Ermine”, “Benois Madonna”, “John the Baptist” and “St. Anna with Mary and the Christ Child."
This artist is recognizable due to the unique style that he has developed over the years. He also painted the walls of the Sistine Chapel at the personal request of Pope Sixtus IV. Botticelli wrote famous paintings on mythological themes. Such paintings include “Spring”, “Pallas and the Centaur”, “Birth of Venus”.
Titian was the head of the Florentine school of artists. After the death of his teacher Bellini, Titian became the official, generally recognized artist of the Venetian Republic. This painter is known for his portraits on religious themes: “The Ascension of Mary”, “Danae”, “Earthly Love and Heavenly Love”.
The Italian poet, sculptor, architect and artist painted many masterpieces, including the famous statue of “David” made of marble. This statue has become a major attraction in Florence. Michelangelo painted the vault of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, which was a major commission from Pope Julius II. During the period of his creativity, he paid more attention to architecture, but gave us “The Crucifixion of St. Peter”, “Entombment”, “The Creation of Adam”, “Forteller”.
His work was formed under the great influence of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, thanks to whom he gained invaluable experience and skill. He painted the state rooms of the Vatican, representing human activity and depicting various scenes from the Bible. Among famous paintings Raphael - “The Sistine Madonna”, “The Three Graces”, “St. Michael and the Devil”.
Ivan Sergeevich Tseregorodtsev
