Renaissance painting. Great Italian Artists Famous Italian Renaissance Artists
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 such thanks to the many creative personalities 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 important 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 “The 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.
August 7th, 2014
Students of art universities and people interested in art history 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. The result is an optical illusion that allows 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 early Renaissance, that contains a clue. The painting is called "Portrait of the Arnolfini Couple."
Jan Van Eyck "Portrait of the Arnolfini Couple" 1434
The painting simply shines with a huge amount of detail, which is quite interesting, because it was painted 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. Another important point 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 depiction of metal and glare is also a distinctive feature of Renaissance paintings; 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 Jan Van Eyck’s concave mirror could be the same mirror that is depicted in the painting, just from the 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 lens was an incredible revolution in visual art because the projection could now 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 of left-handed painters in the early stages of the use of 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 not just a 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 need to look with one eye and draw with your hands, cursed, deciding that such an inconvenience must be put an end to 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 from the 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 is revealed: the portrait of the Arnolfini couple by Van Eyck 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? The fact that he could easily have taken the secret of the Guild of St. Luke - the mirror - with him to Florence, where, as is believed in traditional history, the Renaissance began, and 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.
The first harbingers of Renaissance art appeared in Italy in the 14th century. Artists of this time, Pietro Cavallini (1259-1344), Simone Martini (1284-1344) and (most notably) Giotto
(1267-1337) when creating paintings of traditional religious themes, they began to use new artistic techniques: building a three-dimensional composition, using a landscape in the background, which allowed them to make the images more realistic and animated. This sharply distinguished their work from the previous iconographic tradition, replete with conventions in the image.
The term used to denote their creativity Proto-Renaissance (1300s - "Trecento")
.
Giotto di Bondone
(c. 1267-1337) - Italian artist and architect of the Proto-Renaissance era. One of the key figures in the history of Western art. Having overcome the Byzantine icon painting tradition, he became the true founder of the Italian school of painting and developed a completely new approach to depicting space. Giotto's works were inspired by Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo.
Early Renaissance (1400s - Quattrocento).
At the beginning of the 15th century Filippo Brunelleschi
(1377-1446), Florentine scientist and architect.
Brunelleschi wanted to make the perception of the baths and theaters he reconstructed more visual and tried to create geometrically perspective paintings from his plans for a specific point of view. In this search it was discovered direct perspective.
This allowed artists to obtain perfect images of three-dimensional space on a flat painting canvas.
_________Another important step on the path to the Renaissance was the emergence of non-religious, secular art. Portrait and landscape established themselves as independent genres. Even religious subjects acquired a different interpretation - Renaissance artists began to view their characters as heroes with pronounced individual traits and human motivation for actions.
The most famous artists of this period are Masaccio (1401-1428), Masolino (1383-1440), Benozzo Gozzoli (1420-1497), Piero Della Francesco (1420-1492), Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506), Giovanni Bellini (1430-1516), Antonello da Messina (1430-1479), Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449-1494), Sandro Botticelli (1447-1515).
Masaccio
(1401-1428) - famous Italian painter, the largest master of the Florentine school, reformer of painting of the Quattrocento era.
 |
| Fresco. Miracle with statir. |
 |
| Painting. Crucifixion. |
 |
| Fresco. The story of the Queen of Sheba. Church of San Francesco in Arezzo |
Sandro Botticelli(1445-1510) - great Italian painter, representative of the Florentine school of painting.
 |
| Spring. |
 |
| Birth of Venus. |
High Renaissance ("Cinquecento").
The highest flowering of Renaissance art occurred for the first quarter of the 16th century.
Works Sansovino (1486-1570), Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), Rafael Santi (1483-1520), Michelangelo Buonarotti (1475-1564), Giorgione (1476-1510), Titian (1477-1576), Antonio Correggio (1489-1534) constitute the golden fund of European art.
Leonardo di Ser Piero da Vinci (Florence) (1452-1519) - Italian artist (painter, sculptor, architect) and scientist (anatomist, naturalist), inventor, writer.
 |
| Self-portrait |
 |
| Lady with an ermine. 1490. Czartoryski Museum, Krakow |
 |
| Mona Lisa (1503-1505/1506) |
 |
| Madonna Litta. 1490-1491. Hermitage Museum. |
 |
| Madonna Benois (Madonna with a Flower). 1478-1480 |
 |
| Madonna with Carnation. 1478 |
During his life, Leonardo da Vinci made thousands of notes and drawings on anatomy, but did not publish his work. While dissecting the bodies of people and animals, he accurately conveyed the structure of the skeleton and internal organs, including small details. According to clinical anatomy professor Peter Abrams, da Vinci's scientific work was 300 years ahead of its time and in many ways superior to the famous Gray's Anatomy.
List of inventions, both real and attributed to him:
Parachute, toOlestsovo Castle, inbicycle, tank, llightweight portable bridges for the army, pprojector, toatapult, rboth, dVuhlens telescope.
These innovations were subsequently developed Rafael Santi (1483-1520) - a great painter, graphic artist and architect, representative of the Umbrian school.
| Self-portrait. 1483 |
Michelangelo di Lodovico di Leonardo di Buonarroti Simoni(1475-1564) - Italian sculptor, artist, architect, poet, thinker.
The paintings and sculptures of Michelangelo Buonarotti are full of heroic pathos and, at the same time, a tragic sense of the crisis of humanism. His paintings glorify the strength and power of man, the beauty of his body, while simultaneously emphasizing his loneliness in the world.
Michelangelo's genius left its mark not only on the art of the Renaissance, but also on all subsequent world culture. His activities are connected mainly with two Italian cities - Florence and Rome.
However, the artist was able to realize his most ambitious plans precisely in painting, where he acted as a true innovator of color and form.
Commissioned by Pope Julius II, he painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (1508-1512), representing the biblical story from the creation of the world to the flood and including more than 300 figures. In 1534-1541, in the same Sistine Chapel, he painted the grandiose, dramatic fresco “The Last Judgment” for Pope Paul III.
Sistine Chapel 3D.
The works of Giorgione and Titian are distinguished by their interest in landscape and poeticization of the plot. Both artists achieved great mastery in the art of portraiture, with the help of which they conveyed the character and rich inner world of their characters.
Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco ( Giorgione) (1476/147-1510) - Italian artist, representative of the Venetian school of painting.
 |
||||
| Sleeping Venus. 1510 |
 |
| Judith. 1504g |
Titian painted paintings on biblical and mythological subjects; he also became famous as a portrait painter. He received orders from kings and popes, cardinals, dukes and princes. Titian was not even thirty years old when he was recognized as the best painter of Venice.
 |
| Self-portrait. 1567 |
 |
| Venus of Urbino. 1538 |
 |
| Portrait of Tommaso Mosti. 1520 |
Late Renaissance.
Following the sack of Rome by imperial forces in 1527, the Italian Renaissance entered a period of crisis. Already in the work of late Raphael, a new artistic line was outlined, called mannerism.
This era is characterized by inflated and broken lines, elongated or even deformed figures, often naked, tense and unnatural poses, unusual or bizarre effects associated with size, lighting or perspective, the use of a caustic chromatic range, overloaded composition, etc. The first masters mannerism Parmigianino
, Pontormo
, Bronzino-
lived and worked at the court of the Dukes of the Medici house in Florence. Mannerist fashion later spread throughout Italy and beyond.
Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola
(Parmigianino
- “resident of Parma”) (1503-1540) Italian artist and engraver, representative of mannerism.
 |
| Self-portrait. 1540 |
 |
| Portrait of a woman. 1530. |
Pontormo (1494-1557) - Italian painter, representative of the Florentine school, one of the founders of mannerism.
In the 1590s, art replaced mannerism baroque (transitional figures - Tintoretto And El Greco ).
Jacopo Robusti, better known as Tintoretto (1518 or 1519-1594) - painter of the Venetian school of the late Renaissance.
 |
| Last Supper. 1592-1594. Church of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice. |
El Greco ("Greek" Domenikos Theotokopoulos ) (1541-1614) - Spanish artist. By origin - Greek, native of the island of Crete.
El Greco had no contemporary followers, and his genius was rediscovered almost 300 years after his death.
El Greco studied in Titian's studio, but, however, his painting technique differs significantly from that of his teacher. El Greco's works are characterized by speed and expressiveness of execution, which bring them closer to modern painting.
 |
| Christ on the cross. OK. 1577. Private collection. |
 |
| Trinity. 1579 Prado. |
The first harbingers of Renaissance art appeared in Italy in the 14th century. Artists of this time, Pietro Cavallini (1259-1344), Simone Martini (1284-1344) and (most notably) Giotto
(1267-1337) when creating paintings of traditional religious themes, they began to use new artistic techniques: building a three-dimensional composition, using a landscape in the background, which allowed them to make the images more realistic and animated. This sharply distinguished their work from the previous iconographic tradition, replete with conventions in the image.
The term used to denote their creativity Proto-Renaissance (1300s - "Trecento")
.
Giotto di Bondone
(c. 1267-1337) - Italian artist and architect of the Proto-Renaissance era. One of the key figures in the history of Western art. Having overcome the Byzantine icon painting tradition, he became the true founder of the Italian school of painting and developed a completely new approach to depicting space. Giotto's works were inspired by Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo.
Early Renaissance (1400s - Quattrocento).
At the beginning of the 15th century Filippo Brunelleschi
(1377-1446), Florentine scientist and architect.
Brunelleschi wanted to make the perception of the baths and theaters he reconstructed more visual and tried to create geometrically perspective paintings from his plans for a specific point of view. In this search it was discovered direct perspective.
This allowed artists to obtain perfect images of three-dimensional space on a flat painting canvas.
_________Another important step on the path to the Renaissance was the emergence of non-religious, secular art. Portrait and landscape established themselves as independent genres. Even religious subjects acquired a different interpretation - Renaissance artists began to view their characters as heroes with pronounced individual traits and human motivation for actions.
The most famous artists of this period are Masaccio (1401-1428), Masolino (1383-1440), Benozzo Gozzoli (1420-1497), Piero Della Francesco (1420-1492), Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506), Giovanni Bellini (1430-1516), Antonello da Messina (1430-1479), Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449-1494), Sandro Botticelli (1447-1515).
Masaccio
(1401-1428) - famous Italian painter, the largest master of the Florentine school, reformer of painting of the Quattrocento era.
|
| Fresco. Miracle with statir. |
|
| Painting. Crucifixion. |
|
| Fresco. The story of the Queen of Sheba. Church of San Francesco in Arezzo |
Sandro Botticelli(1445-1510) - great Italian painter, representative of the Florentine school of painting.
|
| Spring. |
|
| Birth of Venus. |
High Renaissance ("Cinquecento").
The highest flowering of Renaissance art occurred for the first quarter of the 16th century.
Works Sansovino (1486-1570), Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), Rafael Santi (1483-1520), Michelangelo Buonarotti (1475-1564), Giorgione (1476-1510), Titian (1477-1576), Antonio Correggio (1489-1534) constitute the golden fund of European art.
Leonardo di Ser Piero da Vinci (Florence) (1452-1519) - Italian artist (painter, sculptor, architect) and scientist (anatomist, naturalist), inventor, writer.
|
| Self-portrait |
|
| Lady with an ermine. 1490. Czartoryski Museum, Krakow |
|
| Mona Lisa (1503-1505/1506) |
|
| Madonna Litta. 1490-1491. Hermitage Museum. |
|
| Madonna Benois (Madonna with a Flower). 1478-1480 |
|
| Madonna with Carnation. 1478 |
During his life, Leonardo da Vinci made thousands of notes and drawings on anatomy, but did not publish his work. While dissecting the bodies of people and animals, he accurately conveyed the structure of the skeleton and internal organs, including small details. According to clinical anatomy professor Peter Abrams, da Vinci's scientific work was 300 years ahead of its time and in many ways superior to the famous Gray's Anatomy.
List of inventions, both real and attributed to him:
Parachute, toOlestsovo Castle, inbicycle, tank, llightweight portable bridges for the army, pprojector, toatapult, rboth, dVuhlens telescope.
These innovations were subsequently developed Rafael Santi (1483-1520) - a great painter, graphic artist and architect, representative of the Umbrian school.
| Self-portrait. 1483 |
Michelangelo di Lodovico di Leonardo di Buonarroti Simoni(1475-1564) - Italian sculptor, artist, architect, poet, thinker.
The paintings and sculptures of Michelangelo Buonarotti are full of heroic pathos and, at the same time, a tragic sense of the crisis of humanism. His paintings glorify the strength and power of man, the beauty of his body, while simultaneously emphasizing his loneliness in the world.
Michelangelo's genius left its mark not only on the art of the Renaissance, but also on all subsequent world culture. His activities are connected mainly with two Italian cities - Florence and Rome.
However, the artist was able to realize his most ambitious plans precisely in painting, where he acted as a true innovator of color and form.
Commissioned by Pope Julius II, he painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (1508-1512), representing the biblical story from the creation of the world to the flood and including more than 300 figures. In 1534-1541, in the same Sistine Chapel, he painted the grandiose, dramatic fresco “The Last Judgment” for Pope Paul III.
Sistine Chapel 3D.
The works of Giorgione and Titian are distinguished by their interest in landscape and poeticization of the plot. Both artists achieved great mastery in the art of portraiture, with the help of which they conveyed the character and rich inner world of their characters.
Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco ( Giorgione) (1476/147-1510) - Italian artist, representative of the Venetian school of painting.
|
||||
| Sleeping Venus. 1510 |
|
| Judith. 1504g |
Titian painted paintings on biblical and mythological subjects; he also became famous as a portrait painter. He received orders from kings and popes, cardinals, dukes and princes. Titian was not even thirty years old when he was recognized as the best painter of Venice.
|
| Self-portrait. 1567 |
|
| Venus of Urbino. 1538 |
|
| Portrait of Tommaso Mosti. 1520 |
Late Renaissance.
Following the sack of Rome by imperial forces in 1527, the Italian Renaissance entered a period of crisis. Already in the work of late Raphael, a new artistic line was outlined, called mannerism.
This era is characterized by inflated and broken lines, elongated or even deformed figures, often naked, tense and unnatural poses, unusual or bizarre effects associated with size, lighting or perspective, the use of a caustic chromatic range, overloaded composition, etc. The first masters mannerism Parmigianino
, Pontormo
, Bronzino-
lived and worked at the court of the Dukes of the Medici house in Florence. Mannerist fashion later spread throughout Italy and beyond.
Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola
(Parmigianino
- “resident of Parma”) (1503-1540) Italian artist and engraver, representative of mannerism.
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| Self-portrait. 1540 |
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| Portrait of a woman. 1530. |
Pontormo (1494-1557) - Italian painter, representative of the Florentine school, one of the founders of mannerism.
In the 1590s, art replaced mannerism baroque (transitional figures - Tintoretto And El Greco ).
Jacopo Robusti, better known as Tintoretto (1518 or 1519-1594) - painter of the Venetian school of the late Renaissance.
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| Last Supper. 1592-1594. Church of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice. |
El Greco ("Greek" Domenikos Theotokopoulos ) (1541-1614) - Spanish artist. By origin - Greek, native of the island of Crete.
El Greco had no contemporary followers, and his genius was rediscovered almost 300 years after his death.
El Greco studied in Titian's studio, but, however, his painting technique differs significantly from that of his teacher. El Greco's works are characterized by speed and expressiveness of execution, which bring them closer to modern painting.
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| Christ on the cross. OK. 1577. Private collection. |
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| Trinity. 1579 Prado. |
The names of Renaissance artists have long been surrounded by universal recognition. Many judgments and assessments about them have become axioms. And yet, treating them critically is not only the right, but also the duty of art history. Only then does their art retain its true meaning for posterity.
Of the Renaissance masters of the mid and second half of the 15th century, it is necessary to dwell on four: Piero della Francesca, Mantegna, Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci. They were contemporaries of the widespread establishment of seigneuries and dealt with princely courts, but this does not mean that their art was entirely princely. They took from the lords what they could give them, paid with their talent and zeal, but remained the successors of the “fathers of the Renaissance,” remembered their behests, increased their achievements, strived to surpass them, and indeed sometimes surpassed them. During the years of gradual reaction in Italy, they created wonderful art.
Piero della Francesca
Piero della Francesca was until recently the least known and recognized. The influence of the Florentine masters of the early 15th century on Piero della Francesca, as well as his reciprocal influence on his contemporaries and successors, especially on the Venetian school, has been rightly noted. However, the exceptional, outstanding position of Piero della Francesca in Italian painting is not yet sufficiently realized. Presumably, over time, his recognition will only increase.
Piero della Francesca (c. 1420-1492) Italian artist and theorist, representative of the Early Renaissance
Piero della Francesca owned all the achievements of the “new art” created by the Florentines, but did not stay in Florence, but returned to his homeland, to the province. This saved him from patrician tastes. He gained fame with his talent; princes and even the papal curia gave him assignments. But he did not become a court artist. He always remained true to himself, his calling, his charming muse. Of all his contemporaries, he is the only artist who did not know discord, duality, or the danger of slipping onto the wrong path. He never sought to compete with sculpture or resort to sculptural or graphic means of expression. Everything is said in his language of painting.
His largest and most beautiful work is a cycle of frescoes on the theme “The History of the Cross” in Arezzo (1452-1466). The work was carried out according to the will of the local merchant Bacci. Perhaps a clergyman, the executor of the will of the deceased, took part in the development of the program. Piero della Francesca relied on the so-called “Golden Legend” of J. da Voragine. He also had predecessors among artists. But the main idea obviously belonged to him. The artist's wisdom, maturity and poetic sensitivity clearly shine through in him.
Hardly the only pictorial cycle in Italy of that time, “The History of the Cross,” has a double meaning. On the one hand, everything is presented here that is told in the legend about how the tree from which the Calvary cross was made grew, and how its miraculous power later manifested itself. But since the individual paintings are not in chronological order, this literal meaning seems to recede into the background. The artist arranged the paintings in such a way that they give an idea of different forms of human life: about the patriarchal - in the scene of the death of Adam and in the transfer of the cross by Heraclius, about the secular, court, urban - in the scenes of the Queen of Sheba and in the Finding of the cross, and finally about the military, battle - in the "Victory of Constantine" and in the "Victory of Heraclius". In essence, Piero della Francesca covered almost all aspects of life. His cycle included: history, legend, life, work, pictures of nature and portraits of contemporaries. In the city of Arezzo, in the church of San Francesco, politically subordinate to Florence, there was the most remarkable fresco cycle of the Italian Renaissance.
The art of Piero della Francesca is more real than ideal. A rational principle reigns in him, but not rationality, which can drown out the voice of the heart. And in this respect, Piero della Francesca personifies the brightest, most fruitful forces of the Renaissance.
Andrea Mantegna
Mantegna's name is associated with the idea of a humanist artist, in love with Roman antiquities, armed with extensive knowledge of ancient archaeology. All his life he served the Dukes of Mantua d'Este, was their court painter, carried out their instructions, served them faithfully (although they did not always give him what he deserved). But deep down in his soul and in art he was independent, devoted to his high the ideal of ancient valor, fanatically faithful to his desire to give his works a jeweler's precision. This required enormous exertion of spiritual strength. Mantegna's art is harsh, sometimes cruel to the point of mercilessness, and in this it differs from the art of Piero della Francesca and approaches Donatello.
Andrea Mantegna. Self-portrait in the Ovetari Chapel
Early frescoes by Mantegna in the Eremitani Church of Padua on the life of St. James and his martyrdom are wonderful examples of Italian mural painting. Mantegna did not at all think about creating something similar to Roman art (the painting that became known in the West after the excavations of Herculaneum). Its antiquity is not the golden age of mankind, but the iron age of emperors.
He glorifies Roman valor, almost better than the Romans themselves did. His heroes are armored and statuary. His rocky mountains are precisely carved by a sculptor’s chisel. Even the clouds floating across the sky seem to be cast from metal. Among these fossils and castings, battle-hardened heroes act, courageous, stern, persistent, devoted to a sense of duty, justice, and ready for self-sacrifice. People move freely in space, but, lining up in a row, they form a semblance of stone reliefs. This world of Mantegna does not enchant the eye; it chills the heart. But one cannot help but admit that it was created by the artist’s spiritual impulse. And therefore, the decisive importance here was the artist’s humanistic erudition, not the advice of his learned friends, but his powerful imagination, his passion bound by will and confident skill.
Before us is one of the significant phenomena in the history of art: great masters, by the power of their intuition, stand in line with their distant ancestors and accomplish what later artists who studied the past but were unable to equal them failed to do.
Sandro Botticelli
Botticelli was discovered by the English Pre-Raphaelites. However, even at the beginning of the 20th century, despite all the admiration for his talent, they did not “forgive” him for deviations from generally accepted rules - perspective, light and shade, anatomy. Subsequently, it was decided that Botticelli had turned back to the Gothic. Vulgar sociology summed up its explanation for this: the “feudal reaction” in Florence. Iconological interpretations established Botticelli's connections with the circle of Florentine Neoplatonists, especially evident in his famous paintings "Spring" and "Birth of Venus".
Self-portrait of Sandro Botticelli, fragment of the altar composition "Adoration of the Magi" (circa 1475)
One of the most authoritative interpreters of "Spring" Botticelli admitted that this picture remains a charade, a labyrinth. In any case, it can be considered established that when creating it, the author knew the poem “Tournament” by Poliziano, in which Simonetta Vespucci, the beloved of Giuliano de’ Medici, is glorified, as well as ancient poets, in particular, the opening lines about the kingdom of Venus in Lucretius’ poem “On the Nature of Things” . Apparently he also knew the works of M. Vicino, which were popular in Florence in those years. Motifs borrowed from all these works are clearly discernible in the painting acquired in 1477 by L. de' Medici, cousin of Lorenzo the Magnificent. But the question remains: how did these fruits of erudition come into the picture? There is no reliable information about this.
Reading modern scholarly comments on this painting, it is difficult to believe that the artist himself could delve so deeply into the mythological plot in order to come up with all sorts of subtleties in the interpretation of figures, which even today cannot be understood at a glance, but in the old days, apparently, were understood only in Medici mug. It is more likely that they were suggested to the artist by some erudite and he managed to achieve the fact that the artist began to interlinearly translate the verbal sequence into the visual one. The most delightful thing about Botticelli's painting is the individual figures and groups, especially the group of the Three Graces. Despite the fact that it has been reproduced an infinite number of times, it has not lost its charm to this day. Every time you see her, you experience a new attack of admiration. Truly, Botticelli managed to impart eternal youth to his creations. One of the scholarly commentators on the painting suggested that the dance of the graces expresses the idea of harmony and discord, which the Florentine Neoplatonists often spoke about.
Botticelli owns unsurpassed illustrations for the Divine Comedy. Anyone who has seen his sheets will invariably remember them when reading Dante. He, like no one else, imbued with the spirit of Dante's poem. Some of the drawings to Dante are in the nature of an accurate graphical subscript to the poem. But the most beautiful are those where the artist imagines and composes in the spirit of Dante. These are the most common among illustrations of heaven. It would seem that painting paradise was the most difficult thing for Renaissance artists, who so loved the fragrant earth and everything human. Botticelli does not renounce the Renaissance perspective, spatial impressions depending on the viewer's angle of view. But in paradise he rises to the transfer of the non-perspective essence of the objects themselves. His figures are weightless, shadows disappear. Light penetrates them, space exists outside of earthly coordinates. The bodies fit into a circle as a symbol of the celestial sphere.
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo is one of the generally recognized geniuses of the Renaissance. Many consider him the first artist of that time, in any case, his name first of all comes to mind when it comes to the remarkable people of the Renaissance. And that is why it is so difficult to deviate from the usual opinions and consider his artistic heritage with an unbiased mind.
Self-portrait where Leonardo portrayed himself as an old sage. The drawing is kept in the Royal Library of Turin. 1512
Even his contemporaries admired the universality of his personality. However, Vasari already expressed regret that Leonardo paid more attention to his scientific and technical inventions than to artistic creativity. Leonardo's fame reached its apogee in the 19th century. His personality became some kind of myth; he was seen as the embodiment of the “Faustian principle” of all European culture.
Leonardo was a great scientist, an insightful thinker, a writer, the author of the Treatise, and an inventive engineer. His comprehensiveness raised him above the level of most artists of that time and at the same time set him a difficult task - to combine a scientific analytical approach with the artist’s ability to see the world and directly surrender to feeling. This task subsequently occupied many artists and writers. For Leonardo, it took on the character of an insoluble problem.
Let us forget for a while everything that the wonderful myth about the artist-scientist whispers to us, and let us judge his painting the way we judge the painting of other masters of his time. What makes his work stand out from theirs? First of all, vigilance of vision and high artistry of execution. They bear the imprint of exquisite craftsmanship and the finest taste. In his teacher Verrocchio’s painting “The Baptism,” the young Leonardo painted one angel so sublimely and sublimely that next to him the pretty angel Verrocchio seems rustic and base. Over the years, “aesthetic aristocracy” intensified even more in Leonardo’s art. This does not mean that at the courts of sovereigns his art became courtly and courtly. In any case, his Madonnas can never be called peasant women.
He belonged to the same generation as Botticelli, but spoke disapprovingly, even mockingly, of him, considering him behind the times. Leonardo himself sought to continue the search for his predecessors in the art. Not limiting himself to space and volume, he sets himself the task of mastering the light-air environment that envelops objects. This meant the next step in the artistic comprehension of the real world, and to a certain extent opened the way for the colorism of the Venetians.
It would be wrong to say that his passion for science interfered with Leonardo's artistic creativity. The genius of this man was so enormous, his skill so high, that even an attempt to “stand up to the throat of his song” could not kill his creativity. His gift as an artist constantly broke through all restrictions. What is captivating in his creations is the unmistakable fidelity of the eye, the clarity of consciousness, the obedience of the brush, and the virtuosic technique. They captivate us with their charms, like an obsession. Anyone who has seen La Gioconda remembers how difficult it is to tear yourself away from it. In one of the halls of the Louvre, where she found herself next to the best masterpieces of the Italian school, she triumphs and proudly reigns over everything that hangs around her.
Leonardo's paintings do not form a chain, like many other Renaissance artists. In his early works, like Benoit's Madonna, there is more warmth and spontaneity, but even in it the experiment makes itself felt. "Adoration" in the Uffizi - and this is an excellent underpainting, a temperamental, lively image of people reverently turned to an elegant woman with a baby on her lap. In "Madonna of the Rocks" the angel, a curly-haired youth looking out from the picture, is charming, but the strange idea of transferring the idyll into the darkness of the cave is repellent. The famous “Last Supper” has always delighted in its apt characterization of the characters: gentle John, stern Peter, and the villainous Judas. However, the fact that such lively and excited figures are arranged three in a row, on one side of the table, looks like an unjustified convention, violence against living nature. Nevertheless, this is the great Leonardo da Vinci, and since he painted the picture this way, it means he intended it this way, and this mystery will remain for centuries.
Observation and vigilance, to which Leonardo called artists in his Treatise, do not limit his creative capabilities. He deliberately tried to spur his imagination by looking at the walls, cracked from age, in which the viewer could imagine any plot. In the famous Windsor drawing of sanguine "Thunderstorm" by Leonardo, what was revealed to his gaze from some mountain peak was conveyed. A series of Windsor drawings on the theme of the Flood is evidence of a truly brilliant insight of the artist-thinker. The artist creates signs that have no answer, but which evoke a feeling of amazement mixed with horror. The drawings were created by the great master in some kind of prophetic delirium. Everything is said in them in the dark language of John’s visions.
Leonardo's internal discord in his declining days makes itself felt in two of his works: the Louvre "John the Baptist" and the Turin self-portrait. In the late Turin self-portrait, the artist, who has reached old age, looks at himself in the mirror with an open gaze from behind his frowning eyebrows - he sees in his face the features of decrepitude, but he also sees wisdom, a sign of the “autumn of life.”