The Renaissance
15th Century Italian Painters:
Art Appreciation
The Renaissance: 15th Century Italian Painters.
So the first of three painters were going to
explore today will start with a painter from the
early Renaissance is Martin Schongauer. The
piece we are going to talk about is the
Temptation of Saint Anthony, 1480-1490. When
you look at Schongauer’s work, who a son of a
Goldsmith learned most of is skills from his
father’s workshop. He became one of Italy’s
Most highly esteemed painters with works like
Temptation of Saint Anthony, Madonna im
Rosenhag which were influenced by his idol
Roger Van Wyden. (Martin Schongauer archive
1987, retrieved June 14th, 2008 from:
http://www.schongauer-martin.com/).Schongauer’s engravings
techniques were very spiritually intense with the
use of a wide range contrasts, textures, modeling
and shading in his works. (Art, brief history,
Third edition, 2008).When looking at the
Temptation of St. Anthony it’s a very unique
with the many characters usage of different
types of movements, and horrible depictions of
figures attacking St. Anthony in many ways. It’s
a different perspective use of technique by
Schongauer, as well as how he uses it in relation
to religion. This piece of work is not in any form
of 3-d quality or effects when you look at it, it’s
just in one dimensional form. It’s just a simply
way of using engraving to its finest form, which
shows Schongauer’s great talent and creative
thinking, skills used in most of his work. This
would explain why he was a very admired artist
of his time. So when looking at the Temptation
of Saint Anthony’s piece, it really doesn’t show
any use of mathematical or perspective types of
systems in this exact piece of work by Martin
Schongauer as you can see in the image on the
next page.
Martin Schongauer. The Temptation of St. Anthony. c. 1480-90. Engraving. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA.
Now in the next piece of art by Pietro
Perugino’s Delivery of the keys to Saint Peter,
There is great use of of both Linear and
Atmospheric perspectives used in this painting
Had both good color, clarity used to convey
The spatial depth of the painting. The figures
And buildings are scaled to perfect size
According to their distance from the picture
Mathias Grunewald (c. 1470-1528) was a German painter who created the Isenheim Altarpiece between 1512 and 1516. This work consists of different wings that fold out to reveal more of the work (Collings, 2007) (including the crucifixion of Christ), is on the display at the Unterlinden Museum at Colmar, Alsace, France, and was commissioned for the Monastery of Saint Anthony in Isenheim, near Colmar. On one of these wings is the figure of Saint Anthony of Egypt, whose temptation has been the inspiration for many works of art as well as literature. Unlike other artists of the Renaissance period, Grunewald’s paintings depict religious figures as artists of the middle ages had done, creating imagery for the Church in Rome. And while the Isenheim Altarpiece, and indeed the Temptation of Saint Anthony, was commissioned b...
It was examined by infrared reflectogram and x-rayed for the first time and, on the basis of stylistic hallmarks such as “emphatic cross-hatching,” such as on the face of the saint, it was confirmed to be a Michelangelo (Michelangelo, n.d.). The painting depicts a pale St. Anthony, who was a mystic and possessed the gift of levitation, floating in mid-air being accosted and attacked by several demons, one holding a fiery torch. A correction to the upper curve of one of the bat-like demon’s arms, where Michelangelo applied a slight paint stroke, can be seen.
Paolucci, Antonio. The origins of Renaissance art: the Baptistery doors, Florence. New York: George Braziller, 1996.
Across Europe, between 1400 and 1650, there were women present in all major styles of time. They worked along side of great artists and were developing new techniques and styles. Women also played a very important role in the Renaissance. Although not as well documented as their male counterparts, women worked along with the other great masters, were just as innovating, and were key in developing new techniques.
The last years of Donatello’s life were spent designing twin bronze pulpits for St. Lorenzo, and again in the service of his old patrons the Medici, he died on December 13, 1466. These twin bronze pulpits covered with reliefs showing the passion of Christ, are works of tremendous spiritual depth and complexity. Even though some parts were left unfinished, they had to be completed by lesser artists.
The early Renaissance art in Florence focused on an elaborate, Gothic style of painting; very formal and traditional, yet there was always something that seemed to be lacking. Perspective and depth were two very important qualities in painting, yet up until the time of young Masaccio, (born Tommaso Guidi), paintings were beautiful, but seemed to just be art that hung on the wall. In Masaccio’s work, “rather than recede in space, the figures seem to come forward” (Cole 120). He may not have known it at the time, but his style of painting would influence many painters well after his death; Donatello, Michelangelo, and so on. Masaccio may have only painted for a total of 8 years, but during those 8 years he revolutionized not only the time of the Renaissance, but also the way painting could be created by the artist, and seen by its viewers. Through the use of linear perspective and astronomical instruments, he was able to create amazing works that defied the limits of the human eye, and allowed a painting to possess realistic depth. Through his skills, Masaccio was able to move away from the Gothic and elaborate style of the time, and his paintings reflect the first use of perspective in order to create a sense of a realistic, three dimensional world.
Though the Renaissance era included all of Europe, Italy was the cradle of the movement. The cities of Florence, Rome and Venice were of great importance to this period. Major artists created art mainly in these three. As the center of Italy, Rome held the residence of the Pope and many other important factors. Throughout history, the Roman Catholic Church was very insistent on promoting their ideas. During this time, they used artists and their creativity to promote the Bible and other aspects of their beliefs. Artists were paid, or commissioned by patrons (often the Pope) to create art they wanted. One of the most ambitious patrons was Pope Julius II, who realized the impact visual images had on people’s ideas (Kleiner, 599). Pope Julius II was called the warring Pope, because he often went and involved himself in wars. He also held very humanistic ideas. Because of this, Michelangelo’s relationship to Pope Julius II was very different from his relationship with Pope Leo X, who succeeded Julius II. Julius, because of his adaptions to humanistic thoughts, he let Michelangelo express himself to the fullest, even when forcing him to paint the Sistine Chapel. Leo X, however, was very critical of everything Michelangelo set out upon. This resulted a strained relationship, and eventually abandonment of projects that were supposed to be completed. It is clear that Pope Julius II had a liking for Michelangelo, while the Medici’s looked on him as a type of lowly artist subject to their will.
Rousseau, Theodore. "The Merode Altarpiece." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 16.4 (1957): 117-29. JSTOR. Web. 1 Apr. 2010.
During my second time visiting the museum, I looked at paintings from the 15th and 19th centuries. Two of the art works that I choose is “The Story of Joseph” from the Renaissance period and “The Marketplace” from the modern art period. Both of these paintings were from different time periods but they were also very similar in content and style.
The Italian Renaissance is appropriately known as a period of such dynamic change within cultural innovations amongst European civilization that it is seen as a major turning point in European history. This age of rebirth abnormally broke the bonds of earlier cultural restraint and unleashed an outbreak of innovations that would forever change the course of history. Despite the common misunderstanding of the Italian Renaissance being a period of originality or of a reawakening of older cultures, it generated fundamental modernizations that accelerated growth in a vast number of forever impacting ways. Lasting from about 1350-1550, this age of modernized technology conveyed a sense of distinctive themes in art, which globalized the unification of a diverse culture. Within the Italian Renaissance, artistic innovations accelerated a new and centralized life and culture in Western European history.
Partridge, Loren. The Art of Renaissance Rome 1400-1600. New York, NY: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1996.
Ziegler, Joanna E. “Michelangelo and the Medieval Pietà: The Sculpture of Devotion or the Art
The tendencies of Baroque translated differently in parts of Europe. In Italy, it reflected the return of intense piety through dense church ornamentations, complex architecture, and dynamic painting. Calabrese’s work exhibits the combined artistic stimuli of the 17th century and culminates in the acquired Caravagesque style that alters how paintings were composed from then on. Executed at the height of Calabrese’s most creative phase, St. John the Baptist Preaching is indicates the monumentality of change in urbanization as well as the return of Catholic permanence in the 1600’s. Aside from the Baroque power of the artwork, Calabrese’s St. John is a piece worth gravitating to and stands as reminder of the grandiose excesses of Baroque art.
John Warrack, author of 6 Great Composers, stated, “Any study of a composer, however brief, must have as its only purpose encouragement of the reader to greater enjoyment of the music” (Warrack, p.2). The composers and musicians of the Renaissance period need to be discussed and studied so that listeners, performers, and readers can appreciate and understand the beginnings of music theory and form. The reader can also understand the driving force of the composer, whether sacred or secular, popularity or religious growth. To begin understanding music composition one must begin at the birth, or rebirth of music and the composers who created the great change.
Larmann, R., & Shields, M. (2011). Art of Renaissance and Baroque Europe (1400–1750). Gateways to Art (pp. 376-97). New York: W.W. Norton.