With classical completeness, the Renaissance was realized in Italy, in the Renaissance culture of which there are periods: Proto-Renaissance or the times of pre-Renaissance phenomena (“the era of Dante and Giotto”, around 1260-1320), partially coinciding with the period of Ducento (13th century), as well as Trecento (14th century). century), Quattrocento (15th century) and Cinquecento (16th century). More general periods are the Early Renaissance (14-15 centuries), when new trends actively interact with the Gothic, overcoming and creatively transforming it.

And also High and Late Renaissance, a special phase of which was mannerism. During the Quattrocento era, the Florentine school, architects (Filippo Brunelleschi, Leona Battista Alberti, Bernardo Rossellino and others), sculptors (Lorenzo Ghiberti, Donatello, Jacopo della Quercia, Antonio Rossellino, Desiderio da Settignano), painters (Masaccio) became the focus of innovation in all types of art , Filippo Lippi, Andrea del Castagno, Paolo Uccello, Fra Angelico, Sandro Botticelli) who created a plastically integral concept of the world with internal unity, which gradually spread throughout Italy (the work of Piero della Francesca in Urbino, Vittore Carpaccio, Francesco Cossa in Ferrara, Andrea Mantegna in Mantua, Antonello da Messina and the brothers Gentile and Giovanni Bellini in Venice).

It is natural that the time, which gave central importance to “divine” human creativity, brought forward personalities in art who - with all the abundance of talents of that time - became the personification of entire eras national culture(personalities-“titans”, as they were romantically called later). Giotto became the personification of the Proto-Renaissance; the opposite aspects of the Quattrocento - constructive severity and soulful lyricism - were respectively expressed by Masaccio, Angelico and Botticelli. The "Titans" of the Middle (or "High") Renaissance Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael and Michelangelo are artists - symbols of the great turn of the New Age as such. The most important stages of Italian Renaissance architecture - early, middle and late - are monumentally embodied in the works of F. Brunelleschi, D. Bramante and A. Palladio.

During the Renaissance, medieval anonymity was replaced by individual, authorial creativity. The theory of linear and aerial perspective, proportions, problems of anatomy and light and shadow modeling is of great practical importance. The center of Renaissance innovations, the artistic “mirror of the era” was an illusory life-like painting, in religious art it displaces the icon, and in secular art it gives rise to independent genres of landscape, household painting, portrait (the latter played a primary role in the visual affirmation of the ideals of humanistic virtu). The art of wood and metal engraving, which became truly widespread during the Reformation, gains its final intrinsic value. Drawing from a working sketch turns into a separate type of creativity; the individual style of stroke, stroke, as well as texture and the effect of incompleteness (non-finito) are beginning to be valued as independent artistic effects. Monumental painting also becomes picturesque, illusory and three-dimensional, gaining greater visual independence from the mass of the wall. All types of fine art now in one way or another violate the monolithic medieval synthesis (where architecture dominated), gaining comparative independence. Types of absolutely round statues, equestrian monuments, and portrait busts (in many ways reviving the ancient tradition) are being formed, and a completely new type of solemn sculptural and architectural tombstone is emerging.

During High Renaissance, when the struggle for humanistic Renaissance ideals acquired an intense and heroic character, architecture and fine art were marked by the breadth of social sound, synthetic generality and the power of images full of spiritual and physical activity. In the buildings of Donato Bramante, Raphael, Antonio da Sangallo, perfect harmony, monumentality and clear proportionality reached their apogee; humanistic fullness, bold flight of artistic imagination, breadth of reality are characteristic of the work of the greatest masters of fine art of this era - Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, Giorgione, Titian. From the second quarter of the 16th century, when Italy entered a time of political crisis and disappointment in the ideas of humanism, the work of many masters acquired a complex and dramatic character. In Late Renaissance architecture (Giacomo da Vignola, Michelangelo, Giulio Romano, Baldassare Peruzzi) there was an increased interest in spatial development composition, subordination of the building to a broad urban planning plan; in the richly and complexly developed public buildings, temples, villas, and palazzos, the clear tectonics of the Early Renaissance gave way to the intense conflict of tectonic forces (buildings by Jacopo Sansovino, Galeazzo Alessi, Michele Sanmicheli, Andrea Palladio). The painting and sculpture of the Late Renaissance were enriched by an understanding of the contradictory nature of the world, an interest in depicting dramatic mass action, in spatial dynamics (Paolo Veronese, Jacopo Tintoretto, Jacopo Bassano); reached unprecedented depth, complexity, internal tragedy psychological characteristics images in the later works of Michelangelo and Titian.

Venice school

The Venetian School, one of the main painting schools in Italy, with its center in the city of Venice (partly also in the small towns of Terraferma - areas of the mainland adjacent to Venice). The Venetian school is characterized by the predominance of the picturesque principle, special attention to the problems of color, the desire to embody the sensual fullness and colorfulness of life. Closely linked to countries Western Europe and the East, Venice drew from foreign culture everything that could serve to decorate it: the elegance and golden shine of Byzantine mosaics, the stone surroundings of Moorish buildings, the fantastic nature of Gothic temples. At the same time, it developed its own original style in art, gravitating towards ceremonial colorfulness. The Venetian school is characterized by a secular, life-affirming principle, a poetic perception of the world, man and nature, and subtle colorism.

The Venetian school reached its greatest flourishing in the era of the Early and High Renaissance, in the work of Antonello da Messina, who opened for his contemporaries expressive possibilities oil painting, creators of ideally harmonious images Giovanni Bellini and Giorgione, the greatest colorist Titian, who embodied in his canvases the inherent Venetian painting cheerfulness and colorful plethora. In the works of the masters of the Venetian school of the second half of the 16th century, virtuosity in conveying the multicolored world, love for festive spectacles and a diverse crowd coexist with obvious and hidden drama, an alarming sense of the dynamics and infinity of the universe (paintings of Paolo Veronese and Jacopo Tintoretto). In the 17th century, the traditional interest in the problems of color for the Venetian school in the works of Domenico Fetti, Bernardo Strozzi and other artists coexisted with the techniques of Baroque painting, as well as realistic trends in the spirit of Caravaggism. Venetian painting of the 18th century is characterized by the flourishing of monumental and decorative painting (Giovan Battista Tiepolo), everyday genre (Giovan Battista Piazzetta, Pietro Longhi), documentary-accurate architectural landscape– vedata (Giovanni Antonio Canaletto, Bernardo Belotto) and lyrical, subtly conveying the poetic atmosphere everyday life Venice cityscape (Francesco Guardi).

Florence school

Florentine School, one of the leading Italian art schools of the Renaissance, centered in the city of Florence. The formation of the Florentine school, which finally took shape in the 15th century, was facilitated by the flourishing of humanistic thought (Francesco Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio, Lico della Mirandola, etc.), which turned to the heritage of antiquity. The founder of the Florentine school during the Proto-Renaissance was Giotto, who gave his compositions plastic persuasiveness and life-like authenticity.
In the 15th century, the founders of Renaissance art in Florence were the architect Filippo Brunelleschi, the sculptor Donatello, the painter Masaccio, followed by the architect Leon Battista Alberti, the sculptors Lorenzo Ghiberti, Luca della Robbia, Desiderio da Settignano, Benedetto da Maiano and other masters. In the architecture of the Florentine school in the 15th century, a new type of Renaissance palazzo was created, and the search began for the ideal type of temple building that would meet the humanistic ideals of the era.

The fine art of the Florentine school of the 15th century is characterized by a fascination with problems of perspective, a desire for a plastically clear construction of the human figure (works by Andrea del Verrocchio, Paolo Uccello, Andrea del Castagno), and for many of its masters - special spirituality and intimate lyrical contemplation (painting by Benozzo Gozzoli , Sandro Botticelli, Fra Angelico, Filippo Lippi,). In the 17th century, the Florentine school fell into decay.

Reference and biographical information for the "Planet Small Bay Art Galleries" has been prepared based on materials from the "History" foreign art" (ed. M.T. Kuzmina, N.L. Maltseva), " Art Encyclopedia foreign classical art", "Great Russian Encyclopedia".

August 7th, 2014

Students of art universities and people interested in the history of art know that at the turn of the 14th-15th centuries there was a sharp change in painting - the Renaissance. Around the 1420s, everyone suddenly became much better at drawing. Why did the images suddenly become so realistic and detailed, and why did light and volume appear in the paintings? No one thought about this for a long time. Until David Hockney picked up a magnifying glass.

Let us find out what he discovered...

One day he was looking at the drawings of Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, the leader of the French academic school of the 19th century. Hockney became interested in seeing his small drawings on a larger scale, and he enlarged them on a photocopier. That's how he stumbled upon the secret side of the history of painting since the Renaissance.

Having made photocopies of Ingres's small (about 30 centimeters) drawings, Hockney was amazed at how realistic they were. And it also seemed to him that Ingres’s lines were something to him
remind. It turned out that they reminded him of Warhol's works. And Warhol did this - he projected a photo onto a canvas and outlined it.

Left: detail of Ingres's drawing. Right: Warhol drawing of Mao Zedong

Interesting stuff, says Hockney. Apparently, Ingres used Camera Lucida - a device that is a structure with a prism that is mounted, for example, on a stand to a tablet. Thus, the artist, looking at his drawing with one eye, sees the real image, and with the other - the actual drawing and his hand. It turns out optical illusion, allowing you to accurately transfer real proportions onto paper. And this is precisely the “guarantee” of the realism of the image.

Drawing a portrait using a camera lucida, 1807

Then Hockney became seriously interested in this “optical” type of drawings and paintings. In his studio, he and his team hung hundreds of reproductions of paintings created over the centuries on the walls. Works that looked "real" and those that didn't. Arranging by time of creation and region - north at the top, south at the bottom, Hockney and his team saw a sharp change in painting at the turn of the 14th-15th centuries. In general, everyone who knows even a little about the history of art knows this - the Renaissance.

Maybe they used the same camera-lucida? It was patented in 1807 by William Hyde Wollaston. Although, in fact, such a device was described by Johannes Kepler back in 1611 in his work Dioptrice. Then maybe they used another optical device - a camera obscura? It has been known since the time of Aristotle and is a dark room into which light enters through a small hole and thus in the dark room a projection of what is in front of the hole is obtained, but inverted. Everything would be fine, but the image that is obtained when projected by a pinhole camera without a lens, to put it mildly, is not of high quality, it is not clear, it requires a lot of bright light, not to mention the size of the projection. But high-quality lenses were almost impossible to make until the 16th century, since there were no ways to obtain such high-quality glass at that time. Business, thought Hockney, who by that time was already struggling with the problem with the physicist Charles Falco.

However, there is a painting by Jan Van Eyck, a master from Bruges, a Flemish painter of the era early renaissance, - in which the hint is hidden. The painting is called "Portrait of the Arnolfini Couple."

Jan Van Eyck "Portrait of the Arnolfini Couple" 1434

The picture just shines a huge amount details, which is quite interesting, because it was written only in 1434. And a clue as to how the author managed to make such a big step forward in the realism of the image is the mirror. And also a candlestick - incredibly complex and realistic.

Hockney was bursting with curiosity. He got a copy of such a chandelier and tried to draw it. The artist was faced with the fact that such a complex thing is difficult to draw in perspective. One more important point there was the materiality of the image of this metal object. When depicting a steel object, it is very important to position the highlights as realistically as possible, as this gives great realism. But the problem with these highlights is that they move when the viewer's or artist's eye moves, meaning they are not easy to capture at all. And a realistic image of metal and glare is also distinguishing feature paintings of the Renaissance, before that artists had not even tried to do this.

By recreating an accurate 3D model of the chandelier, Hockney's team ensured that the chandelier in the Arnolfini Portrait was drawn accurately in perspective with a single vanishing point. But the problem was that such precise optical instruments as a camera obscura with a lens did not exist until about a century after the painting was created.

Fragment of Jan Van Eyck's painting "Portrait of the Arnolfini Couple" 1434

The enlarged fragment shows that the mirror in the painting “Portrait of the Arnolfini Couple” is convex. This means there were also mirrors on the contrary - concave. Moreover, in those days such mirrors were made in this way - a glass sphere was taken, and its bottom was covered with silver, then everything except the bottom was cut off. The back side of the mirror was not darkened. This means that the concave mirror of Jan Van Eyck could be the same mirror that is depicted in the painting, just with reverse side. And any physicist knows that such a mirror, when reflected, projects a picture of what is being reflected. This is where his friend physicist Charles Falco helped David Hockney with calculations and research.

A concave mirror projects an image of the tower outside the window onto the canvas.

The clear, focused part of the projection measures approximately 30 square centimeters - which is exactly the size of the heads in many Renaissance portraits.

Hockney outlines the projection of a man on canvas

This is the size, for example, of the portrait of “Doge Leonardo Loredan” by Giovanni Bellini (1501), the portrait of a man by Robert Campin (1430), the actual portrait of Jan Van Eyck “a man in a red turban” and many other early Dutch portraits.

Renaissance Portraits

Painting was a highly paid job, and naturally, all business secrets were kept in the strictest confidence. It was beneficial for the artist that all uninitiated people believed that the secrets were in the hands of the master and could not be stolen. The business was closed to outsiders - the artists were members of the guild, and it also included a variety of craftsmen - from those who made saddles to those who made mirrors. And in the Guild of Saint Luke, founded in Antwerp and first mentioned in 1382 (then similar guilds opened in many northern cities, and one of the largest was the guild in Bruges, the city where Van Eyck lived) there were also masters making mirrors.

This is how Hockney recreated how a complex chandelier from a Van Eyck painting could be painted. It is not at all surprising that the size of the chandelier Hockney projected exactly matches the size of the chandelier in the painting “Portrait of the Arnolfini Couple”. And of course, the highlights on the metal - on the projection they stand still and do not change when the artist changes position.

But the problem is still not completely solved, because the advent of high-quality optics, which is needed to use a camera obscura, was 100 years away, and the size of the projection obtained using a mirror is very small. How to paint paintings larger than 30 square centimeters? They were created like a collage - from many points of view, it was like a spherical vision with many vanishing points. Hockney understood this because he himself made such pictures - he made many photo collages that achieve exactly the same effect.

Almost a century later, in the 1500s it finally became possible to obtain and process glass well - large lenses appeared. And they could finally be inserted into a camera obscura, the principle of operation of which had been known since ancient times. The camera obscura with a lens was an incredible revolution in visual arts, since now the projection could be any size. And one more thing, now the image was not “wide-angle”, but approximately of a normal aspect - that is, approximately the same as it is today when photographed with a lens with a focal length of 35-50mm.

However, the problem with using a pinhole camera with a lens is that the forward projection from the lens is a mirror image. This led to a large number left-handers in painting in the early stages of using optics. Like in this painting from the 1600s from the Frans Hals Museum, where a left-handed couple is dancing, a left-handed old man is shaking his finger at them, and a left-handed monkey is looking under the woman’s dress.

Everyone in this picture is left-handed

The problem is solved by installing a mirror into which the lens is directed, thus obtaining the correct projection. But apparently, a good, smooth and large mirror cost a lot of money, so not everyone had it.

Another problem was focusing. The fact is that some parts of the picture, at one position of the canvas under the projection rays, were out of focus and not clear. In the works of Jan Vermeer, where the use of optics is quite obvious, his works generally look like photographs, you can also notice places out of “focus”. You can even see the pattern that the lens produces - the notorious “bokeh”. Like here, for example, in the painting “The Milkmaid” (1658), the basket, the bread in it and the blue vase are out of focus. But the human eye cannot see “out of focus.”

Some parts of the picture are out of focus

And in light of all this, it is not at all surprising that a good friend of Jan Vermeer was Anthony Phillips van Leeuwenhoek, a scientist and microbiologist, as well as a unique master who created his own microscopes and lenses. The scientist became the artist's posthumous steward. This suggests that Vermeer depicted his friend on two canvases - “Geographer” and “Astronomer”.

In order to see any part in focus, you need to change the position of the canvas under the projection rays. But in this case, errors in proportions appeared. As you can see here: the huge shoulder of "Anthea" by Parmigianino (circa 1537), the small head of "Lady Genovese" by Anthony Van Dyck (1626), the huge legs of a peasant in a painting by Georges de La Tour.

Errors in proportions

Of course, all artists used lenses differently. Some were for sketches, some were composed from different parts - after all, now it was possible to make a portrait, and finish everything else with another model or even with a mannequin.

There are almost no drawings left by Velazquez. However, his masterpiece remained - a portrait of Pope Innocent 10th (1650). There is a wonderful play of light on the pope's mantle - obviously silk. Blikov. And to write all this from one point of view, it took a lot of effort. But if you make a projection, then all this beauty will not run away anywhere - the highlights no longer move, you can paint with those wide and fast strokes like Velasquez’s.

Hockney reproduces Velazquez's painting

Subsequently, many artists were able to afford a camera obscura, and it ceased to be a big secret. Canaletto actively used the camera to create his views of Venice and did not hide it. These paintings, due to their accuracy, allow us to talk about Canaletto as a documentarian. Thanks to Canaletto you can see more than just beautiful picture, but also the story itself. You can see what the first Westminster Bridge in London looked like in 1746.

Canaletto "Westminster Bridge" 1746

British artist Sir Joshua Reynolds owned a camera obscura and apparently didn't tell anyone about it, because his camera folds up and looks like a book. Today it is in the London Science Museum.

Camera obscura disguised as a book

Finally, at the beginning of the 19th century, William Henry Fox Talbot, using a camera lucida - the one in which you have to look with one eye and draw with your hands, cursed, deciding that such an inconvenience must be ended once and for all, and became one of the inventors of chemical photography, and later a popularizer who made it mass.

With the invention of photography, painting's monopoly on the realism of a picture disappeared; now photography has become a monopolist. And here, finally, painting freed itself from the lens, continuing the path from which it turned in the 1400s, and Van Gogh became the forerunner of all art of the 20th century.

Left: Byzantine mosaic 12th century. Right: Vincent Van Gogh, Portrait of Monsieur Trabuc, 1889.

The invention of photography is the best thing that happened to painting in its entire history. It was no longer necessary to create exclusively real images; the artist became free. Of course, it took the public a century to catch up with artists in their understanding of visual music and stop thinking people like Van Gogh were “crazy.” At the same time, artists began to actively use photographs as “reference material.” Then people like Wassily Kandinsky, the Russian avant-garde, Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock appeared. Following painting, architecture, sculpture and music also liberated themselves. True, the Russian academic school of painting is stuck in time, and today in academies and schools it is still considered a disgrace to use photography as an aid, and the highest feat is considered to be the purely technical ability to paint as realistically as possible with bare hands.

Thanks to an article by journalist Lawrence Weschler, who was present during the research of David Hockney and Falco, another interesting fact: Van Eyck's portrait of the Arnolfini couple is a portrait of an Italian merchant in Bruges. Mr. Arnolfini is a Florentine and, moreover, he is a representative of the Medici bank (practically the masters of Florence during the Renaissance, they are considered patrons of the art of that time in Italy). What does this mean? That he could easily have taken the secret of the Guild of St. Luke - the mirror - with him to Florence, in which, as it is believed, traditional history, and the Renaissance began, and the artists from Bruges (and, accordingly, other masters) are considered “primitivists.”

There is a lot of controversy surrounding the Hockney-Falco theory. But there is certainly a grain of truth in it. As for art critics, critics and historians, it’s hard to even imagine how many scientific works on history and art actually turned out to be complete nonsense, but this changes the entire history of art, all their theories and texts.

The facts of the use of optics do not in any way detract from the talents of artists - after all, technology is a means of conveying what the artist wants. And vice versa, the fact that these paintings contain the most real reality only adds weight to them - after all, this is exactly what people of that time, things, premises, cities looked like. These are the real documents.

Renaissance painting

The beginning of Renaissance painting is considered to be the era of Ducento, i.e. XIII century. The Proto-Renaissance is still closely connected with medieval Romanesque, Gothic and Byzantine traditions. Artists of the late XIII - early XIV centuries. are still far from scientific study of the surrounding reality. They express their ideas about it, also using conventional images of the Byzantine pictorial system - rocky hills, symbolic trees, conventional turrets. But sometimes the appearance architectural structures reproduced so accurately that it indicates the existence of sketches from life. Traditional religious characters begin to be depicted in a world endowed with the properties of reality - volume, spatial depth, material substance. The search begins for methods of transmission on the plane of volume and three-dimensional space. The masters of this time revived the principle of light and shadow modeling of forms, known from antiquity. Thanks to it, figures and buildings acquire density and volume.

Apparently, the first to use ancient perspective was the Florentine Cenni di Pepo (information from 1272 to 1302), nicknamed Cimabue. Unfortunately, his most significant work- a series of paintings on the themes of the Apocalypse, the life of Mary and the Apostle Peter in the Church of San Francesco in Assisi has reached us in an almost destroyed state. His altar compositions, which are located in Florence and in the Louvre Museum, are better preserved. They also go back to Byzantine prototypes, but they clearly show the features of a new approach to religious painting. Cimabue returns from Italian painting

XIII century, which adopted Byzantine traditions to their immediate origins. He felt in them what remained inaccessible to his contemporaries - the harmonious beginning of the sublime Hellenic beauty of images.

Rigidity and schematism give way to musical smoothness of lines. The figure of Madonna no longer seems ethereal. In medieval painting, angels were interpreted as signs, as attributes of the Mother of God; they were depicted as small symbolic figures. In Cimabue, they acquire a completely new meaning, they are included in the scene, these are beautiful young creatures, anticipating those graceful angels that will appear among the masters of the 15th century.

Cimabue's work was the starting point of those new processes that determined the further development of painting. But the history of art cannot be explained only in evolutionary terms. Sometimes there are sharp jumps in it. Great artists appear as bold innovators who reject the traditional system. Giotto di Bondone (1266-1337) should be recognized as such a reformer in Italian painting of the 14th century. This is a genius who rises high above his contemporaries and many of his followers.

A Florentine by birth, he worked in many cities in Italy. The most famous of Giotto's works that have come down to us is a cycle of paintings in the Arena Chapel in Padua, dedicated to the gospel stories about the life of Christ. This unique pictorial ensemble is one of the landmark works in history European art. Instead of the disparate individual scenes and figures characteristic of medieval painting, Giotto created a single epic cycle. 38 scenes from the life of Christ and Mary (“Meeting of Mary and Elizabeth”, “Kiss of Judas”, “Lamentation”, etc.) are connected into a single narrative using the language of painting. Instead of the usual golden Byzantine background, Giotto introduces a landscape background. The figures no longer float in space, but find solid ground under their feet. And although they are still inactive, they show a desire to convey the anatomy of the human body and the naturalness of movement. Giotto gives the forms an almost sculptural palpability, heaviness, and density. It models the relief, gradually lightening the main colorful background. This principle of cut-off modeling, which made it possible to work clean, bright colors without dark shadows, became dominant in Italian painting until the 16th century.

The reform carried out in Giotto's painting made a deep impression on all his contemporaries.

Giotto's influence acquired its strength and fruitfulness only a century later. The Quattrocento artists accomplished the tasks set by Giotto. The Early Renaissance stage is called a triumphant period in the history of art. Generosity, scope artistic creativity in Italy of the 15th century creates the impression of unprecedented creative activity of sculptors and painters.

The fame of the founder of Quattrocento painting belongs to the Florentine artist Masaccio, who died very young (1401-1428). In his frescoes, figures painted according to the laws of anatomy are connected with each other and with the landscape. Its hills and trees stretch into the distance, forming a natural air environment. The lives of people and nature are connected into a coherent whole, into a single dramatic action. This is a new word in the world art of painting.

The Florentine school remained leading in Italian art for a long time. There was also a more conservative movement within it. The artists of this movement were monks, which is why in the history of art they were called monastic. One of the most famous among them was Giovanni Beato's brother Angelico da Fiesole (1387-1455).

A characteristic feature of late Quattrocento painting is the variety of schools and directions. At this time, the Florentine, Umbian (Piero della Francesca, Pinturicchio, Perugino), Northern Italian (Mantegni), Venetian (Giovanni Bellini) schools took shape.

One of the most outstanding artists Quattrocento - Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) - exponent of the aesthetic ideals of the court of the famous tyrant, politician, philanthropist, poet and philosopher Lorenzo Medici, nicknamed the Magnificent. The courtyard of this uncrowned sovereign was the center artistic culture, which united famous philosophers, scientists, and artists.

In Botticelli's art there is a peculiar synthesis of medieval mysticism with ancient tradition, the ideals of Gothic and Renaissance. In his mythological images there is a revival of symbolism. He depicts beautiful ancient goddesses not in sensual forms of earthly beauty, but in romantic, spiritualized, sublime images. The painting that made him famous is “The Birth of Venus.” Here we see a peculiar female image Botticelli, which cannot be confused with the works of other artists. Botticelli amazingly combined pagan sensuality and heightened spirituality, sculptural femininity and gentle fragility, sophistication, linear precision and emotionality, variability. He is one of the most poetic artists in art history. He prefers symbolic, allegorical themes, likes to dream and express himself in hints.

The early Renaissance lasted about a century. It ends with the High Renaissance, which lasts only about 30 years. Main center artistic life at this time Rome becomes.

If the art of the Quattrocento is analysis, searches, discoveries, the freshness of a youthful worldview, then the art of the High Renaissance is the result, synthesis, wise maturity. The search for an artistic ideal during the Quattrocento period led art to generalization, to the discovery of general patterns. The main difference between the art of the High Renaissance is that it abandons particulars, details, details in the name of a generalized image. All experience, all searches for predecessors are compressed by the great masters of the Cinquecento in a grandiose generalization.

The image of beauty strong in spirit man constitutes the main content of the art of that time. Unlike the art of the 15th century, it is characterized by the desire to comprehend and embody the general pattern of life phenomena.

This was the era of the Renaissance titans, which gave world culture the work of Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo. In the history of world culture, these three geniuses, despite all their dissimilarity, creative individuality personify main value Italian Renaissance - harmony of beauty, power and intelligence. Their life is evidence of the change in society's attitude towards the creative personality of the artist, which is characteristic of the Renaissance. Masters of art became noticeable and valuable figures in society; they were rightly considered the most educated people of their time.

This characteristic, perhaps more than other figures of the Renaissance, applies to Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519). He combined artistic and scientific genius. Leonardo was a scientist who studied nature not for the sake of art, but for the sake of science. That is why so few completed works of Leonardo have reached us. He started paintings and abandoned them as soon as the problem seemed clearly formulated to him. Many of his observations anticipate the development of European science and painting by entire centuries. Modern scientific discoveries fuel interest in his sci-fi engineering drawings.

His Madonna in the Grotto is the first monumental altarpiece of the High Renaissance. This big picture a format common in Renaissance painting that resembles a window rounded at the top.

A new stage in art was the painting of the wall of the refectory of the monastery of Santa Maria del Grazie based on the plot of the Last Supper, which was painted by many Quattrocento artists. "The Last Supper" - cornerstone classical art, it implemented the program of the High Renaissance. Leonardo worked on this work for 16 years. The huge fresco, where the figures are painted one and a half times larger than life-size, became an example of a wise understanding of the laws of monumental painting associated with the real space of the interior. It embodied the artist’s scientific research in the fields of physics, optics, mathematics, and anatomy, necessary to solve problems of proportions and perspective in a vast pictorial space. The main thing is brilliant work Leonardo has enormous psychological strength. None of the artists depicting the Last Supper before Leonardo set such a difficult task - through reaction different people, personalities, temperaments, emotional responses to show the unified meaning of this great moment. 12 apostles, 12 different characters manifest themselves differently at the moment of mental shock. Through their emotional reactions, expressed in movement, the eternal questions of man are revealed: about love and hatred, devotion and betrayal, nobility and meanness.

One of the most famous paintings Leonardo's work "La Gioconda" became famous in the world. This portrait of the merchant del Giocondo’s wife has attracted attention for centuries, hundreds of pages of commentary have been written about it, it has been stolen, forged, copied, and witchcraft powers have been attributed to it. The elusive expression on Gioconda's face defies precise description and reproduction. This portrait became a masterpiece of Renaissance art.

For the first time in the history of world art, the portrait genre stood on the same level as compositions on a religious theme.

The ideas of monumental art of the Renaissance found vivid expression in the work of Raphael Santi (1483-1520). Leonardo created classic style, Raphael approved and popularized it. Raphael's art is often defined as the "golden mean".

Raphael's work is distinguished by classic qualities - clarity, noble simplicity, harmony. In its entirety, it is connected with the spiritual culture of the Renaissance. He was 30 years younger than Leonardo, and died almost simultaneously with him, having accomplished so much in the history of art that it is difficult to imagine that one person could have accomplished it all. A versatile artist, architect, monumentalist, master of portraits and multi-figure compositions, a talented decorator, he was central figure artistic life of Rome. The pinnacle of his skill was “ Sistine Madonna", painted in 1516 for the Benedictine monastery in Piacenza (now the painting is in Dresden). For many, it is the measure of the most beautiful that art can create.

This altar composition has been perceived for centuries as a formula of beauty and harmony. Tragic feeling emanates from the amazingly spiritual faces of the Madonna and the Baby God, whom she gives as atonement for human sins. Madonna's gaze is directed as if through the viewer, it is full of mournful foresight. This image embodies the synthesis of the ancient ideal of beauty with the spirituality of the Christian ideal.

The historical merit of Raphael's art is that he connected two worlds into one - the Christian world and the pagan world. From that time on, the new artistic ideal was firmly established in the religious art of Western Europe.

Renaissance sculpture

The bright genius of Raphael was far from psychological depth in inner world a person like Leonardo, but even more alien to Michelangelo’s tragic worldview. Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) lived a long, difficult and heroic life. His genius manifested itself in architecture, painting, poetry, but most clearly in sculpture. He perceived the world plastically; in all areas of art he is primarily a sculptor. The human body seems to him the most worthy subject of depiction. But this is a man of a special, powerful, heroic breed. Michelangelo's art is dedicated to the glorification of the human fighter, his heroic activities and suffering. His art is characterized by gigantomania, a titanic beginning. This is the art of squares, public buildings, and not palace halls, art for the people, and not for court aristocrats.

The 15th century was the heyday of monumental sculpture in Italy. It emerges from the interiors onto the facades of churches and civil buildings, onto the city square, and becomes part of the city ensemble.

One of Michelangelo's earliest and most famous works is the five-meter statue of David in the square in Florence, symbolizing the victory of young David over the giant Goliath. The opening of the monument turned into a popular celebration, because the Florentines saw in David a hero close to them, a citizen and defender of the republic.

Renaissance sculptors turned not only to traditional Christian images, but also to living people, contemporaries. Associated with this desire to perpetuate the image of a real contemporary is the development of the genre of sculptural portrait, tombstone monument, portrait medal, equestrian statue. These sculptures decorated city squares, changing their appearance.

Renaissance sculpture returns to the ancient traditions of sculpture. Monuments of ancient sculpture become an object of study, an example of plastic language. Sculpture, earlier than painting, departs from medieval canons and takes a new path of development. Perhaps this is explained by the place it occupied in medieval churches. During the construction of large cathedrals, workshops were created that trained sculptors and decorators who worked here. good preparation. Sculptors' workshops were leading centers of artistic life and played a major role in the study of antiquity and the anatomy of the human body. The achievements of sculpture of the Early Renaissance had a great influence on painters who perceived a living person through the prism of plasticity. Renaissance sculptors achieve full meaning human body, they free it from under the mass of clothing in which the figures were hidden medieval gothic. The path that Hellas traveled in three centuries was completed by three generations of masters during the Renaissance.

Renaissance, which flourished in the 15th - 16th centuries, served as a new round in the development of art, and painting in particular. There is also a French name for this era - Renaissance. Sandro Botticelli, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, Michelangelo - to name a few famous names that represent that time period.

Artists of the Renaissance depicted the characters in their paintings as accurately and clearly as possible.

Psychological context was not originally included in the image. The painters set themselves the goal of achieving vividness in what they depicted. Regardless of whether the dynamism of the human face or the details of the surrounding nature had to be conveyed in paint as accurately as possible. However, over time, the psychological aspect becomes clearly visible in Renaissance paintings, for example, from portraits one could draw conclusions about the character traits of the person depicted.

Achievement of artistic culture of the Renaissance

The undoubted achievement of the Renaissance was geometrically correct design of the picture. 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 accurate image, for example, a person against the backdrop 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 flaws of nature, that is, if a person had ugly facial features, artists corrected them in such a way that the face became sweet and attractive.

Geometric approach in images leads to a new way of depicting spatiality. Before recreating the images on canvas, the artist marked their spatial location. This rule became established over time among the painters of that era.

The viewer was supposed to be impressed by the images in the paintings. For example, Raphael achieved full compliance with this rule by creating the painting “The School of Athens”. The vaults of the building are striking in their height. There is so much space that you begin to understand the size of this structure. And the depicted thinkers of antiquity with Plato and Aristotle in the middle indicate that in Ancient world there was a unity of various philosophical ideas.

Subjects of Renaissance paintings

If you start getting acquainted with Renaissance painting, you can draw an interesting conclusion. The subjects of the paintings were based mainly on events described in the Bible. More often, painters of that time depicted stories from the New Testament. The most popular image is Virgin and Child- little Jesus Christ.

The character was so alive that people even worshiped these images, although the people understood that these were not icons, they prayed to them and asked for help and protection. In addition to the Madonna, Renaissance painters were very fond of recreating images Jesus Christ, apostles, John the Baptist, as well as gospel episodes. For example, Leonardo da Vinci created the world-famous painting “The Last Supper.”

Why did Renaissance artists use subjects? from the Bible? Why didn’t they try to express themselves by creating portraits of their contemporaries? Maybe they were trying to portray ordinary people with their inherent character traits in this way? Yes, the painters of that time tried to show people that man is a divine being.

By depicting biblical stories, Renaissance artists tried to make it clear that the earthly manifestations of man can be depicted more clearly if biblical stories are used. You can understand what the Fall, temptation, hell or heaven is if you start getting acquainted with the work of artists of that time. Same image of Madonna conveys to us the beauty of a woman, and also carries an understanding of earthly human love.

Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo began his studies in Florence. His first painting, painted around 1478, is "Madonna Benoit". 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- this is the Sistine Madonna, which was painted famous artist back in 1513. The portraits that were created by Raphael reflected the ideal human image.

Sandro Botticelli

Sandro Botticelli (1445 - 1510) 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 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 of famous literary works, which also only added fame to his work.

Michelangelo Buonarotti

Michelangelo Buonarotti (1475 - 1564)- 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 important work as painting images on the walls of Catholic cathedrals.

More than 600 square meters of the Sistine Chapel he had to cover it 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.

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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 Italian artists Vittore Carpaccio, 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.