Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Renaissance impact on literature
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
This article discusses the philosophies of Marsilio
Ficino and how they influenced many famous people like
Lorenzo de' Medici and Sandro Botticelli. Ficino was a great Neoplatonist philosopher who worked under Cosimo de' Medici. Lorenzo and Marsilio "shared the belief that a unity between spirit and beauty could be achieved through the admiration of Venus."(33) Lorenzo encouraged Ficino's study of Christian doctrine. While studying this Christian doctrine and interpreting platonic thought Ficino came up with a new philosophy. This philosophy dealt with a relationship between "the physical world of matter" and the "spiritual realm of God." He discusses a hierarchy from the physical world, which leads to the spiritual realm of God. Every level of the hierarchy has come from God and these people wish to make their way back to God.
This desire to return to God is called Love, according to Ficino. With this love comes beauty because if you love someone you find beauty within him or her. This material beauty is then linked with spiritual beauty.
Lorenzo understood the link between earthly and heavenly beauty. He showed this by loving Simonetta Cattaneo who was dying of Tuberculosis. Although, she was not very attractive because of her disease Lorenzo thought she was very beautiful. The earthly beauty they saw in her reflected her spiritual perfection. Simonetta Cattaneo became the vision behind Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus." In his painting he shows the two forms of love and depicts the nude Venus as spiritual love.
I find Ficino's philosophy to have a lot of validity because we can find beauty in things or people that appear to be very ugly. Also, some people are very close to God and spend their life being great Christians while others do not follow religious doctrine at all.
Andrea Schiavone devised a strategy to distinguish himself from the master painters before him. This style is marked by a sense on incompleteness and feathery brushwork. The painting The Marriage of Cupid and Psyche shows Schiavone at his best because it is the perfect example of the harmony between Titian and Parmigianino. The sinuous lines depicted in the painting give it a lot of sex appeal, while his heavy-duty paint handling keeps it from cloying. In this work Schiavone forces you think past the accepted notions of what is right, and instead focus on the beauty that lies past right and wrong. The painting itself is of Venetian origins, dating back to 1550. It is composed of oil on wood and it was originally octagonal in shape. The corners were add...
By the turn of the sixteenth century, the Italian Renaissance had produced writers such as Danté, Petrarch, Boccaccio and Castiglione, each with ideas rooted in the revival of Greek and Roman Classics, localization of the Christian traditions, idealistic opinions of women and individualism. From these authors spread the growth of the humanistic movement which encompassed the entirety of the Italian rebirth of arts and literature. One among many skeptics, including Lorenzo Valla, who had challenged the Catholic Church fifty years earlier in proving the falsity of the Donation of Constantine, Niccolò Machiavelli projected his ideas of fraudulence into sixteenth century Italian society by suggesting that rulers could only maintain power through propaganda, as seen with the success of Ferdinand of Aragon in Spain circa 1490. Today, the coined term Machiavellian refers to duplicity in either politics or self-advancement. Unlike most philosophers of the sixteenth century, Machiavelli wrote from the perspective of an anti-Humanist; he criticized not only the Classics and the Catholic Church, but also encouraged the deceitful use of religion and hated the humanist concepts of liberty, peace and individualism.1
Pico della Mirandola was an Italian Philosopher and a humanist. A lot of people would consider Pico della Mirandola an ideal man of the Italian Renaissance. Pico really helped the Renaissance, he made a huge impact on a lot of other philosophers, and a lot of other philosophers influenced him. Pico della Mirandola once stated,“Whatever seeds each man cultivates will grow to maturity and bear in him their own fruit. If they be vegetative, he will be like a plant.”(BrainyQuote). Pico della Mirandola was the biggest influence on Renaissance philosophy because of his book, Oration on the Dignity of Man, his 900 theses, and his religious impact.
“The Met’s very own Mona Lisa” (Tomkins 9). That is what Duccio di Buoninsegna’s Madonna and Child painting is known as today. “The Metropolitan Museum of Art bought the Madonna and Child for forty-five to fifty million dollars” (Tomkins 1). However, the painting was not always in public hands; in fact, the Met purchased the last known work of Duccio in private hands. Originally, the painting was held in the private hands of Adolphe Stoclet and his wife. When the couple died, their house and their collection went to their son, Jacques who held onto the painting, and passed it down to his daughters who lent it to an exhibition in Siena of Duccio and his school. The painting was eventually withdrawn from the exhibition and sold (Tomkins 2). Madonna and Child painting dated 1300 and was painted by Duccio di Buoninsegna a Sienese painter, who is considered the founder of modern Italian painting. I chose to research this painting because the subject matter of religious imagery and symbols interests me. Also because when I looked at the painting the emotion on the Madonna’s face almost jumped out at me. It is as if, she is looking at her newborn child with this deep sadness, which almost makes you think that the painting is foreshadowing the death of Jesus Christ. In addition, the burns of the side of the frame peaked my interest, as to why they were there. Art critics were also interested in this work they even consider Madonna and Child one of Duccio’s perfect works, and it said to be worth all the other paintings exhibited under the name of Duccio (Christiansen 14). The Madonna and Child painting’s iconography, imagery, emotional appeal to the viewers, and meaning all make this painting still a great work of art today.
He may just seem like another rapper to you but if you actually listen to his lyrics you can see he’s not like any rapper out there. His name is Kanye West and he was born in Chicago Illinois. He grew up in the “ghetto” and learned to appreciate life. He didn’t learn to really, truly appreciate life until October of 2002. Driving back to his hotel late one night after a recording session, the new-coming rap/hip-hop artist was involved in a devastating, near fatal car accident. The crash left him with a broken jaw in three places and an appreciation for life. Just weeks after being released from the hospital he recorded his first major hit, “Through the Wire,” with his mouth still wired shut. He records every song like its going to be his last song and that makes every song better than the last. He’s not only a rap artist but also a producer. He has been responsible for being behind songs like Jay-Z’s Izzo, Girls, Girls, Girls, The Takeover, and 03 Bonnie and Clyde.
As the last speaker, and the most important one, Socrates connects his ideas with Diotima of Mantinea’s story of Love’s origin, nature and purpose. Different from the earlier five speakers who regard Love as an object and praise different sides of it, Socrates, referring to Diotima’s idea, considers Love as a pursuit of beauty gradually ranging from “physical beauty of people in general” (Symposium, Plato, 55) to the “true beauty” (55). The first five speeches bond with each other. Each of them mentions the opinions of the former in order to either support or against them. However, just like the elements of a beautiful picture, they fail to show us the integration of love.
Botticelli’s Primavera can be labeled as one the most notable interpretative challenges of art history, due to the plethora of differing interpretations of its meaning. Some interpret the Primavera as a mythological depiction surrounding a wedding in the painting’s patron’s family, others believe it is an allegorical representation of the arrival of spring or a symbolic portrayal of Neoplatonic philosophies concerning the nature of love. Although scholars disagree on what exactly Botticelli trying to express in Primavera, most do agree on the identity of the figures in the painting which include mythological figures based primarily on the works of the Greek poet, Ovid. Although the exact meaning will remain unknown, considering differing interpretations can assist in understanding the notions presented and can aid in analysing the findings accordingly.
Loves power has suggested to many that it serves as a link to the divine, and that the feeling instilled in man by love comes from the supernatural, be it God or otherwise. In La Vita Nuova Dante Alighieri makes it clear that he believes in the transcendent power and effects of love.
Sandro Botticelli was a painter in the early Renaissance and was not appreciated during his time. Botticelli never wed because he did not like the idea of marriage and he claimed that it gave him nightmares. There were suspicions that he was homosexual, but it was never proven right or wrong. One of his most famous paintings is The Birth of Venus, which depicts the goddess Venus. Another famous painting of him is Primavera , also known as Allegory of Spring, portrays a group of mythological figures in a garden. It did not have an art historian named it. By analyzing the cultural background, the theme, and details we will be able to understand why Botticelli is considered an important painter.
To say it lightly, Stanley Crouch does not like the hip-hop genre of music. The dreadlocks, the clothing style, and the "vulgar": gold chains are just a few things he does not approve of at all. (Crouch, 1 ) It astounds him to see how far African-American music has fallen since the days of the Motown. Stanley was quoted as saying this about rap, "It is rudeness, vulgarity, and pornography disguised as ‘keeping it real.'" (Crouch, 1) He also went on to say the hip-hop music genre has the worst impact of all music genres on our culture today. (Crouch, 2) Crouch believes one does not need much talent to become a successful rapper unlike the jazz greats he listens to all the time.
J. Cole is a hip hop artist, record producer, and song writer. He was raised in a rough childhood. While growing up, he was well aware that his mother had a difficult time supporting the family. He recalls his mother refusing to eat at all one day, so that she had enough money to buy him food to eat (Music times, 2014). This is one of many ways J. Cole’s mother has expressed unconditional love for him. Although he was aware that his home he lived in was unstable, he appreciated the fact that he was granted with the privacy of his own room. Something as simple as having privacy from ownership of space encouraged J. Cole to further improve musically. “Having my own bedroom did a lot for me. I had privacy to listen to music, rap in front of the mirror, write, and
For the ancient Greek doctor and philosopher, Eryximachus, Love’s potential for health and destruction were rooted in its divine origins. Good love “stems from the Muse Celestia” and “Common Love,” from “Polymnia” (Symposium 22). He saw these two loves as at the center of human/divine communication: “all the ways in which gods and men communicate with one another—are solely concerned with the perpetuation or the cure of love” (Symposium 23). Love provided the link, then, between the mortal and immortal beings. It was a common project that both humans and gods could work on. Eryximachus further articulated, “It is (Love) who makes it possible for us to interact on good terms with one another and with our divine masters” (Symposium 23-4). It is the element of life that transcends the human realm, giving the people a taste of the divine in their own lives.
The only love is true love. This means that when one loves another, the love that they are feeling should encompass all attributes of the person they are loving. If one were to say that they loved another for their beautiful eyes, this would not be true love. In order for it to be love, one would not just see the beautiful eyes, they would see everything about that person as beautiful. Elizabeth Barrett Browning agrees when she says to not love for a smile or a look, instead one should love for loves sake. ?Thou mayst love on, through love?s eternity? (206 14). True love is also a love that is eternal; true love is never ending.
... also argued that there are two forms of reality, formal reality and spiritual reality. ”The idea that mind and matter were indeed too different to interact, and therefore did not do so, but only seemed to from the viewpoint from our finite and inadequate understandings”(Grayling 165). He argued that God was in fact a part of this spiritual reality, this is known as Cartesian Dualism. Although he had these reasonings defending the truth in God, Descartes’s works were place on the index of prohibited books by Pope Leo because he believed Descartes’s ideas were influencing people and going against fundamental Christian teachings. Pope Leo feared that his works advocated the questioning of the church because religion is purely faith and not fact, therefore it would inspire others to think in rationalistic ways especially towards the infallibility of the pope and clergy.
This description is not of lustrous beauty, but of the true love he felt for her. This statement and