Thematic development of Italian Renaissance painting
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This article about the development of themes in Italian Renaissance painting is an extension to the article Italian Renaissance painting
Italian Renaissance painting
Italian Renaissance painting is the painting of the period beginning in the late 13th century and flourishing from the early 15th to late 16th centuries, occurring within the area of present-day Italy, which was at that time divided into many political areas...

, for which it provides additional pictures with commentary. The works encompassed are from Giotto in the early 14th century to Michelangelo
Michelangelo
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art...

's Last Judgement
The Last Judgment (Michelangelo)
The Last Judgment is a canonical fresco by the Italian Renaissance master Michelangelo executed on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City...

of the 1530s.

The themes that preoccupied painters of the Italian Renaissance were those of both subject matter and execution- what was painted and the style in which it was painted. The artist had far more freedom of both subject and style than did a Medieval painter. Certain characteristic elements of Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

 painting evolved a great deal during the period. These include perspective, both in terms of how it was achieved and the effect to which it was applied, and realism, particularly in the depiction of humanity, either as symbolic, portrait or narrative element.

Themes

The Flagellation of Christ by Piero della Francesca
Piero della Francesca
Piero della Francesca was a painter of the Early Renaissance. As testified by Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Artists, to contemporaries he was also known as a mathematician and geometer. Nowadays Piero della Francesca is chiefly appreciated for his art. His painting was characterized by its...

 (above) demonstrates in a single small work many of the themes of Italian Renaissance painting, both in terms of compositional elements and subject matter. Immediately apparent is Piero's mastery of perspective and light. The architectural elements, including the tiled floor which becomes more complex around the central action, combine to create two spaces. The inner space is lit by an unseen light source to which Jesus looks. Its exact location can be pinpointed mathematically by an analysis of the diffusion and the angle of the shadows on the coffered ceiling. The three figures who are standing outside are lit from a different angle, from both daylight and light reflected from the pavement and buildings.

The religious theme is tied to the present. The ruler is a portrait of the visiting Emperor of Byzantium
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

. Flagellation
Flagellation
Flagellation or flogging is the act of methodically beating or whipping the human body. Specialised implements for it include rods, switches, the cat o' nine tails and the sjambok...

 is also called "scourging". The term "scourge" was applied to the plague. Outside stand three men representing those who buried the body of Christ. The two older, Nicodemus
Nicodemus
Saint Nicodemus was a Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin, who, according to the Gospel of John, showed favour to Jesus...

 and Joseph of Arimathaea, are believed to be portraits of men who recently lost their sons, one of them to plague. The third man is the young disciple John, and is perhaps a portrait of one of the sons, or else represents both of them in a single idealised figure, coinciding with the manner in which Piero painted angels.

Elements of Renaissance painting

Renaissance painting differed from the painting of the Late Medieval period in its emphasis upon the close observation of nature, particularly with regards to human anatomy, and the application of scientific principles to the use of perspective and light.

Linear perspective

These pictures show the development of linear perspective in buildings and cityscapes.
  • In Giotto's fresco, the building is like a stage set with one side open to the viewer.
  • In Paolo Uccello
    Paolo Uccello
    Paolo Uccello , born Paolo di Dono, was an Italian painter and a mathematician who was notable for his pioneering work on visual perspective in art. Giorgio Vasari in his book Lives of the Artists wrote that Uccello was obsessed by his interest in perspective and would stay up all night in his...

    's fresco, the townscape gives an impression of depth.
  • Masaccio
    Masaccio
    Masaccio , born Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Simone, was the first great painter of the Quattrocento period of the Italian Renaissance. According to Vasari, Masaccio was the best painter of his generation because of his skill at recreating lifelike figures and movements as well as a convincing sense...

    's Holy Trinity
    Holy Trinity (Masaccio)
    The Holy Trinity, with the Virgin and Saint John and donors is a fresco by the Early Italian Renaissance painter Masaccio. It is located in the Dominican church of Santa Maria Novella, in Florence.-Description:...

    was painted with carefully calculated mathematical proportions, in which he was probably assisted by the architect Brunelleschi
    Filippo Brunelleschi
    Filippo Brunelleschi was one of the foremost architects and engineers of the Italian Renaissance. He is perhaps most famous for inventing linear perspective and designing the dome of the Florence Cathedral, but his accomplishments also included bronze artwork, architecture , mathematics,...

    .
  • Fra Angelico
    Fra Angelico
    Fra Angelico , born Guido di Pietro, was an Early Italian Renaissance painter described by Vasari in his Lives of the Artists as having "a rare and perfect talent"...

     uses the simple motif of a small loggia
    Loggia
    Loggia is the name given to an architectural feature, originally of Minoan design. They are often a gallery or corridor at ground level, sometimes higher, on the facade of a building and open to the air on one side, where it is supported by columns or pierced openings in the wall...

     accurately drafted to create an intimate space.
  • Gentile Bellini
    Gentile Bellini
    Gentile Bellini was an Italian painter. From 1474 he was the official portrait artist for the Doges of Venice.- Biography :...

     has painted a vast space, the Piazza San Marco
    Piazza San Marco
    Piazza San Marco , is the principal public square of Venice, Italy, where it is generally known just as "the Piazza". All other urban spaces in the city are called "campi"...

     in Venice
    Venice
    Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

    , in which the receding figures add to the sense of perspective.
  • Leonardo da Vinci
    Leonardo da Vinci
    Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...

     did detailed and measured drawings of the background Classical ruins preparatory to commencing the unfinished Adoration of the Magi.
  • Domenico Ghirlandaio
    Domenico Ghirlandaio
    Domenico Ghirlandaio was an Italian Renaissance painter from Florence. Among his many apprentices was Michelangelo.-Early years:Ghirlandaio's full name is given as Domenico di Tommaso di Currado di Doffo Bigordi...

     created an exceptionally complex and expansive setting on three levels, including a steeply descending ramp and a jutting wall. Elements of the landscape, such as the church on the right, are viewed partly through other structures.
  • Raphael
    Raphael
    Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...

    's design for Fire in the Borgo shows buildings around a small square in which the background events are highlighted by the perspective.

Landscape

The depiction of landscape was encouraged by the development of linear perspective and the inclusion of detailed landscapes in the background of many Early Netherlandish painting
Early Netherlandish painting
Early Netherlandish painting refers to the work of artists active in the Low Countries during the 15th- and early 16th-century Northern renaissance, especially in the flourishing Burgundian cities of Bruges and Ghent...

s of the 15th century. Also through this influence came an awareness of atmospheric perspective and the observation of the way distant things are affected by light.
  • Giotto uses a few rocks to give the impression of a mountain setting.
  • Paolo Uccello has created a detailed and surreal setting as a stage for many small scenes.
  • In Carpaccio
    Vittore Carpaccio
    Vittore Carpaccio was an Italian painter of the Venetian school, who studied under Gentile Bellini. He is best known for a cycle of nine paintings, The Legend of Saint Ursula. His style was somewhat conservative, showing little influence from the Humanist trends that transformed Italian...

    's Deposition of the Body of Christ, the desolate rocky landscape echoes the tragedy of the scene.
  • Mantegna
    Andrea Mantegna
    Andrea Mantegna was an Italian painter, a student of Roman archeology, and son in law of Jacopo Bellini. Like other artists of the time, Mantegna experimented with perspective, e.g., by lowering the horizon in order to create a sense of greater monumentality...

    's landscape has a sculptural, three dimensional quality that is suggestive of a real physical space. The details of the rocks, their strata and fractures, suggest that he studied the geological
    Geology
    Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...

     formations of the red limestone
    Limestone
    Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....

     prevalent in areas of Northern Italy.
  • Antonello da Messina
    Antonello da Messina
    Antonello da Messina, properly Antonello di Giovanni di Antonio was an Italian painter from Messina, Sicily, active during the Italian Renaissance...

     sets the grim scene of the Crucifixion
    Crucifixion (Antonello da Messina)
    The Crucifixion is the subject of three different paintings by the Italian Renaissance master Antonello da Messina; the first two were completed around 1454/1455, the third in 1475...

    in contrast to the placid countryside which rolls into the far distance, becoming paler and bluer as it recedes.
  • Giovanni Bellini
    Giovanni Bellini
    Giovanni Bellini was an Italian Renaissance painter, probably the best known of the Bellini family of Venetian painters. His father was Jacopo Bellini, his brother was Gentile Bellini, and his brother-in-law was Andrea Mantegna. He is considered to have revolutionized Venetian painting, moving it...

     has created a detailed landscape with a pastoral scene between the foreground and background mountains. There are numerous levels in this landscape, making it the equivalent of Ghirlandaio's complex cityscape (above).
  • Perugino has set the Adoration of the Magi against the familiar hilly landscape of Umbria
    Umbria
    Umbria is a region of modern central Italy. It is one of the smallest Italian regions and the only peninsular region that is landlocked.Its capital is Perugia.Assisi and Norcia are historical towns associated with St. Francis of Assisi, and St...

    .
  • Leonardo da Vinci, displays a theatrical use of atmospheric perspective in his view of the precipitous mountains around Lago di Garda at the foothills of the Alps
    Alps
    The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....

     in Northern Italy.

Light

Light and shade exist in a painting in two forms. Tone is simply the lightness and darkness of areas of a picture, graded from white to black. Tonal arrangement is a very significant feature of some paintings. Chiaroscuro
Chiaroscuro
Chiaroscuro in art is "an Italian term which literally means 'light-dark'. In paintings the description refers to clear tonal contrasts which are often used to suggest the volume and modelling of the subjects depicted"....

 is the modelling of apparent surfaces within a picture by the suggestion of light and shadow. While tone was an important feature of paintings of the Medieval period, chiaroscuro was not. It became increasingly important to painters of the 15th century, transforming the depiction of three dimensional space.
  • Taddeo Gaddi
    Taddeo Gaddi
    Taddeo Gaddi was a medieval Italian painter and architect.-Biography:He was the son of Gaddo di Zanobi, called Gaddo Gaddi. He was a member of Giotto's workshop from 1313 to 1337, when his master died...

    's Annunciation to the Shepherds is the first known large painting of a night scene. The internal light source of the picture is the angel.
  • In Fra Angelico
    Fra Angelico
    Fra Angelico , born Guido di Pietro, was an Early Italian Renaissance painter described by Vasari in his Lives of the Artists as having "a rare and perfect talent"...

    's painting, daylight, which appears to come from the actual window of the friary cell which this fresco adorns, gently illuminates the figures and defines the architecture.
  • In his Emperor's Dream, Piero della Francesca
    Piero della Francesca
    Piero della Francesca was a painter of the Early Renaissance. As testified by Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Artists, to contemporaries he was also known as a mathematician and geometer. Nowadays Piero della Francesca is chiefly appreciated for his art. His painting was characterized by its...

     takes up the theme of the night scene illuminated by an angel and applies his scientific knowledge of the diffusion of light. The tonal pattern thus created is a significant element in the composition of the painting.
  • In his Agony in the Garden
    Agony in the Garden (Bellini)
    The Agony in the Garden is an early painting by the Italian Renaissance master Giovanni Bellini, who painted it around 1459-65. It is in the National Gallery, London....

    , Giovanni Bellini
    Giovanni Bellini
    Giovanni Bellini was an Italian Renaissance painter, probably the best known of the Bellini family of Venetian painters. His father was Jacopo Bellini, his brother was Gentile Bellini, and his brother-in-law was Andrea Mantegna. He is considered to have revolutionized Venetian painting, moving it...

     uses the fading sunset on a cloudy evening to create an atmosphere of tension and impending tragedy.
  • In Domenico Veneziano
    Domenico Veneziano
    Domenico Veneziano was an Italian painter of the early Renaissance, active mostly in Perugia and Tuscany.Little is known of his birth, though he is thought to have been born in Venice, hence his last name. He then moved to Florence in 1422-23 as a boy, to become a pupil of Gentile da Fabriano. He...

    's formal portrait, the use of chiaroscuro to model the form is slight. However, the painting relies strongly on the tonal contrasts of the pale face, mid-tone background and dark garment with patterned bodice for effect.
  • Botticelli uses chiaroscuro to model the face of the sitter and define the details of his simple garment. The light and shadow on the edge of the window define the angle of the light.
  • The suggested authorship of this early 16th century portrait includes Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio, Mariotto Albertinelli
    Mariotto Albertinelli
    Mariotto di Bigio di Bindo Albertinelli was a High Renaissance Italian painter of the Florentine school, closely involved with Fra Bartolomeo and influenced by Raphael.-Biography:Mariotto Albertinelli was born in Florence...

     and Giuliano Bugiardini
    Giuliano Bugiardini
    Giuliano Bugiardini was an Italian painter of the late-Renaissance period known as Mannerism, active mainly in Florence....

    . The painting combines many of the lighting effects of the other works in this gallery. The form is modelled by the light and shade, as if by a setting sun, which gives an element of drama, enhanced by the landscape. The tonal pattern created by the dark garment, the white linen and position of the hand is a compositional feature of the painting.
  • In Leonardo da Vinci
    Leonardo da Vinci
    Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...

    's John the Baptist
    St. John the Baptist (Leonardo)
    St. John the Baptist is an oil painting on walnut wood by the artist Leonardo da Vinci. Completed from 1513 to 1516, when the High Renaissance was metamorphosing into Mannerism, it is believed to be his last painting. The original size of the work was 69x57 cm. It is now exhibited at the Musée du...

    , elements of the painting, including the corners of the model's eyes and mouth, are disguised by shadow, creating an air of ambiguity and mystery.

Anatomy

While remaining largely dependent upon topographic observation, the knowledge of anatomy was advanced by Leonardo da Vinci's meticulous dissection of 30 corpses. Leonardo, among others, impressed upon students the necessity of the close observation of life and made the drawing of live models an essential part of a student's formal study of the art of painting.
  • Cimabue
    Cimabue
    Cimabue , also known as Bencivieni di Pepo or in modern Italian, Benvenuto di Giuseppe, was an Italian painter and creator of mosaics from Florence....

    's Crucifixion, now sadly destroyed by flood, shows the formal arrangement, with curving body and drooping head that was prevalent in late Medieval art. The anatomy is strongly stylised to conform with traditional iconic formula.
  • Giotto abandoned the traditional formula and painted from observation.
  • Massacio's figure of Christ is foreshortened as if viewed from below, and shows the upper torso strained as if with the effort of breathing.
  • In Giovanni Bellini
    Giovanni Bellini
    Giovanni Bellini was an Italian Renaissance painter, probably the best known of the Bellini family of Venetian painters. His father was Jacopo Bellini, his brother was Gentile Bellini, and his brother-in-law was Andrea Mantegna. He is considered to have revolutionized Venetian painting, moving it...

    's Deposition the artist, while not attempting to suggest the brutal realities of the crucifixion, has attempted to give the impression of death.
  • In Piero della Francesca
    Piero della Francesca
    Piero della Francesca was a painter of the Early Renaissance. As testified by Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Artists, to contemporaries he was also known as a mathematician and geometer. Nowadays Piero della Francesca is chiefly appreciated for his art. His painting was characterized by its...

    's Baptism, the robust figure of Jesus is painted with a simplicity and lack of sharply defined muscularity that belies its naturalism.
  • The figure of Jesus in this painting, which is the combined work of Verrocchio and the young Leonardo, has in all probability been drafted by Verrocchio. The contours retain the somewhat contorted linearity of Gothic art. Much of the torso, however, is thought to have been painted by Leonardo and reveals a strong knowledge of anatomical form.
  • Leonardo's picture of St. Jerome shows the results of detailed study of the shoulder girdle, known from a page of drawings.
  • Michelangelo
    Michelangelo
    Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art...

     used human anatomy to great expressive effect. He was renowned for his ability in the creation of expressive poses and was imitated by many other painters and sculptors.

Realism

The observation of nature meant that set forms and symbolic gestures which in Medieval art, and particularly the Byzantine style prevalent in much of Italy, were used to convey meaning, were replaced by the representation of human emotion as displayed by a range of individuals.
  • In this Resurrection, Giotto shows the sleeping soldiers with faces hidden by helmets or foreshortened to emphasise the relaxed posture.
  • In contrast, Andrea Castagno has painted a life-sized image of the condotierre, Pippo Spano, alert and with his feet over the edge of the painted niche which frames him.
  • Filippo Lippi
    Filippo Lippi
    Fra' Filippo Lippi , also called Lippo Lippi, was an Italian painter of the Italian Quattrocento .-Biography and works:...

     in this early work shows a very naturalistic group of children crowding around the Virgin Mary, but looking with innocent curiosity at the viewer. One of the children has Down's Syndrome.
  • Masaccio
    Masaccio
    Masaccio , born Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Simone, was the first great painter of the Quattrocento period of the Italian Renaissance. According to Vasari, Masaccio was the best painter of his generation because of his skill at recreating lifelike figures and movements as well as a convincing sense...

     depicts the grief resulting from loss of innocence as Adam and Eve
    Adam and Eve
    Adam and Eve were, according to the Genesis creation narratives, the first human couple to inhabit Earth, created by YHWH, the God of the ancient Hebrews...

     are expelled from the presence of God.
  • Antonello da Messina
    Antonello da Messina
    Antonello da Messina, properly Antonello di Giovanni di Antonio was an Italian painter from Messina, Sicily, active during the Italian Renaissance...

     painted several versions of Ecce Homo
    Ecce Homo (Antonello da Messina)
    Ecce Homo is the title of a series of paintings by the Italian Renaissance master Antonello da Messina. They date from 1470 to 1475.Antonello is known to have treated this subject four times; three are variations of the same design; a fourth differs.*a) Christ Crowned with Thorns, in the...

    , the tormented Christ as he was presented to the people by the Roman Governor. Such paintings usually show Christ in a tragic but heroic role, minimising the depiction of suffering. Antonello's depictions are starkly realistic.
  • In his Lamentation over the Dead christ, Mantegna
    Andrea Mantegna
    Andrea Mantegna was an Italian painter, a student of Roman archeology, and son in law of Jacopo Bellini. Like other artists of the time, Mantegna experimented with perspective, e.g., by lowering the horizon in order to create a sense of greater monumentality...

     has here depicted the dead body of Jesus with daring foreshortening, as if the viewer were standing at the end of the slab.
  • In this detail from a larger painting, Mantegna shows a nervous little child, wearing a tummy-binder and holey slippers, turning away and chewing its fingers while the infant Christ is circumcised.
  • Giorgione
    Giorgione
    Giorgione was a Venetian painter of the High Renaissance in Venice, whose career was cut off by his death at a little over thirty. Giorgione is known for the elusive poetic quality of his work, though only about six surviving paintings are acknowledged for certain to be his work...

     paints a natural and unglamorised portrait of an old woman, unusual in its depiction of her illkempt hair and open mouth with crooked teeth.

Figure composition

Among the preoccupations of artists commissioned to do large works with multiple figures were how to make the subject, usually narrative, easily read by the viewer, natural in appearance and well composed within the picture space.
  • Giotto combines three separate narrative elements into this dramatic scene set against the dehumanising helmets of the guards. Judas
    Judas Iscariot
    Judas Iscariot was, according to the New Testament, one of the twelve disciples of Jesus. He is best known for his betrayal of Jesus to the hands of the chief priests for 30 pieces of silver.-Etymology:...

     betrays Jesus
    Jesus
    Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...

     to the soldiers by kissing him. The High Priest signals to a guard to seize him. Peter slices the ear off the high priest's servant as he steps forward to lay hands on Jesus. Five figures dominate the foreground, surrounding Jesus so that only his head is visible. Yet by skilful arrangement of colour and the gestures of the men, Giotto makes the face of Jesus the focal point of the painting.
  • In The Death of Adam, Piero della Francesca
    Piero della Francesca
    Piero della Francesca was a painter of the Early Renaissance. As testified by Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Artists, to contemporaries he was also known as a mathematician and geometer. Nowadays Piero della Francesca is chiefly appreciated for his art. His painting was characterized by its...

     has set the dying patriarch so that he is cast into relief against the black garment worn by one of his family. His importance to the story is further emphasised by the arch of figures formed around him and the diagonals of the arms which all lead to his head.
  • The Resurrection of the Son of Theophilus is a remarkably cohesive whole, considering that it was begun by Masaccio
    Masaccio
    Masaccio , born Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Simone, was the first great painter of the Quattrocento period of the Italian Renaissance. According to Vasari, Masaccio was the best painter of his generation because of his skill at recreating lifelike figures and movements as well as a convincing sense...

    , left unfinished, vandalised, and eventually completed by Filippino Lippi
    Filippino Lippi
    Filippino Lippi was an Italian painter working during the High Renaissance in Florence, Italy.-Biography:...

    . Masaccio painted the central section.
  • Pollaiuolo
    Pollaiuolo
    Pollaiulo is the name of several people:* Brothers Antonio del Pollaiolo and* Piero del Pollaiolo, 15th-Century artists....

    , in this highly systemised painting, has taken the cross-bow used by the archers in the foreground, as the compositional structure. Within this large triangular shape, divided vertically, he has alternated the figures between front and back views.
  • Botticelli's long, narrow painting of Mars and Venus
    Venus and Mars (Botticelli)
    Venus and Mars is a c. 1483 painting by the Italian Renaissance master Sandro Botticelli. It shows the Roman gods Venus and Mars in an allegory of Beauty and Valour. Venus watches Mars sleep, while two infant satyrs play carrying his armour while another rests under his arm...

    is based on a W with the figures mirroring each other. The lovers, who shortly before were united, are now separated by sleep. The three small fawns who process across the painting hold the composition together.
  • Michelangelo
    Michelangelo
    Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art...

    s mastery of complex figure composition, as in his The Entombment was to inspire many artists for centuries. In this panel painting the figure of Christ, though vertical, is slumped and a dead weight at the centre of the picture, while those who try to carry the body lean outwards to support it.
  • At first glance, Signorelli's Fall of the Damned is an appalling and violent jumble of bodies, but by the skilful placement of the figures so that the lines, rather than intersecting, flow in an undulating course through the picture, the composition is both unified and resolved into a large number of separate actions. The colours of the devils also serve to divide the picture into the tormentors and the tormented.
  • The Battle of Ostia was executed by Raphael
    Raphael
    Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...

    's assistants, probably to his design. The foreground of the painting is organised into two overlapping arched shapes, the larger showing captives being subdued, while to the left and slightly behind, they are forced to kneel before the Pope. While the Pope rises above the second group and dominates it, the first group is dominated by a soldier whose colour and splendid headdress acts like a visual stepping stone to the Pope. At the edges of this group two stooping figures mirror each other, creating a tension in which one pushes away from the edge of the painting and the other pulls upward at its centre.

Altarpieces

Through the Renaissance period, the large altarpiece
Altarpiece
An altarpiece is a picture or relief representing a religious subject and suspended in a frame behind the altar of a church. The altarpiece is often made up of two or more separate panels created using a technique known as panel painting. It is then called a diptych, triptych or polyptych for two,...

 had a unique status as a commission. An altarpiece was destined to become a focal point, not only visually in the religious building it occupied, but also in the devotions of the worshippers. Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...

's Madonna of the Rocks, now in the National Gallery, London
National Gallery, London
The National Gallery is an art museum on Trafalgar Square, London, United Kingdom. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The gallery is an exempt charity, and a non-departmental public body of the Department for Culture, Media...

 but previously in a chapel in Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

, is one of many images that was used in the petitioning of the Blessed Virgin Mary against plague. The significance of these images to those who commissioned them, who worshipped in their location, and who created them is lost when they are viewed in an art gallery.
  • The two Enthroned Madonnas by Cimabue
    Cimabue
    Cimabue , also known as Bencivieni di Pepo or in modern Italian, Benvenuto di Giuseppe, was an Italian painter and creator of mosaics from Florence....

     and Duccio di Buoninsegna demonstrate the variations on a theme that was formalised and constrained by tradition. Although the positions of the Madonna and Child are very similar, the artists have treated most of the features differently. Cimabue's throne is front-on and uses perspective to suggest its solidity. The angels, their faces, wings and haloes, are arranged to form a rich pattern. The gold leaf detailing of the Madonna's garment picks out the folds in a delicate network. The Child sits regally, with his feet set at the same angle as his mother's.
  • In Duccio's Rucellai Madonna
    Rucellai Madonna
    The Madonna Rucellai is a painting by the Italian late medieval artist Duccio di Buoninsegna, housed in the Uffizi Gallery of Florence, Italy.- History :...

    , the largest of its kind at 4.5 metres high, the throne is set diagonally and the Child, much more of a baby despite his gesture, sits diagonally opposed to his mother. While the positioning of the kneeling angels is quite simplistic, they have a naturalism in their repeated postures and are varied by the beautiful colour combinations of their robes. On the Madonna's robe the gold border makes a meandering line, defining the form and contours, and enlivening the whole composition with a single decorative detail.
  • Giotto's Ognissanti Madonna
    Ognissanti Madonna
    Madonna Enthroned, also known as the Ognissanti Madonna, is a painting by the Italian late medieval artist Giotto di Bondone, housed in the Uffizi Gallery of Florence, Italy. It is generally dated to around 1310. The painting has a traditional Christian subject, representing the Virgin Mary and...

    is now housed in the same room of the Uffizi
    Uffizi
    The Uffizi Gallery , is a museum in Florence, Italy. It is one of the oldest and most famous art museums of the Western world.-History:...

     as Cimabue's and Duccio's, where the advances that he made in both drawing from the observation of nature, and in his use of perspective can be easily compared with the earlier masters. While the painting conforms to the model of an altarpiece, the figures within it do not follow the traditional formula. The Madonna and Child are solidly three dimensional. This quality is enhanced by the canopied throne which contributes the main decorative element, while gold borders are minimised. The angels, which mirror each other, each have quite individual drapery.
  • A hundred years later, Masaccio
    Masaccio
    Masaccio , born Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Simone, was the first great painter of the Quattrocento period of the Italian Renaissance. According to Vasari, Masaccio was the best painter of his generation because of his skill at recreating lifelike figures and movements as well as a convincing sense...

    , still within the constraints of the formal altarpiece, confidently creates a three dimensional figure draped in heavy robes, her chubby Christ Child sucking on his fingers. The lutes played by the little angels are both steeply foreshortened.
  • In Fra Angelico
    Fra Angelico
    Fra Angelico , born Guido di Pietro, was an Early Italian Renaissance painter described by Vasari in his Lives of the Artists as having "a rare and perfect talent"...

    's painting the figures lack the emphasis on mass of Masaccio's. Angelico was renowned for his delicacy in depicting the Madonna. The appeal of such paintings is demonstrated in the way the adoring angels are clustered around. As in Masaccio's painting, the Madonna's halo is decorated with pseudo-kufic
    Pseudo-Kufic
    Pseudo-Kufic, or Kufesque, also sometimes Pseudo-Arabic, refers to imitations of the Arabic Kufic script, or sometimes Arabic cursive script, made in a non-Arabic context, during the Middle-Ages or the Renaissance: "Imitations of Arabic in European art are often described as pseudo-Kufic, borrowing...

     script, probably to suggest her Middle Eastern origin.
  • In the hands of Piero della Francesca
    Piero della Francesca
    Piero della Francesca was a painter of the Early Renaissance. As testified by Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Artists, to contemporaries he was also known as a mathematician and geometer. Nowadays Piero della Francesca is chiefly appreciated for his art. His painting was characterized by its...

     the formal gold frame is transformed into a classical niche, drawn in perfect linear perspective and defined by daylight. The assorted saints cluster round in a natural way, while the Madonna sits on a realistic throne on a small podiun covered by an oriental carpet
    Oriental carpets in Renaissance painting
    Carpets of Middle-Eastern origin, either from the Ottoman Empire, Armenia, Azerbaijan, the Levant or the Mamluk state of Egypt or Northern Africa, were used as important decorative features in paintings from the 14th century onwards...

    , while the donor Federico da Montefeltro
    Federico da Montefeltro
    Federico da Montefeltro, also known as Federico III da Montefeltro , was one of the most successful condottieri of the Italian Renaissance, and lord of Urbino from 1444 until his death...

     kneels at her feet. A concession to tradition is that the Madonna is of a larger scale than the other figures.
  • In Bellini
    Bellini
    -People:*Vincenzo Bellini , opera composer*a family of Italian painters:**Jacopo Bellini , father of Gentile and Giovanni**Gentile Bellini **Giovanni Bellini , the most famous of the three...

    's painting, while on one hand, the figures and the setting give the effect of great realism, Bellini's interest in Byzantine icons is displayed in the hierarchical enthronement and demeanour of the Madonna.
  • The Milan
    Milan
    Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

    ese painter Bergognone has drawn on aspects of the work of Mantegna
    Andrea Mantegna
    Andrea Mantegna was an Italian painter, a student of Roman archeology, and son in law of Jacopo Bellini. Like other artists of the time, Mantegna experimented with perspective, e.g., by lowering the horizon in order to create a sense of greater monumentality...

     and Bellini to create this painting in which the red robe and golden hair of Catherine of Alexandria are effectively balanced by the contrasting black and white of Catherine of Siena, and framed by a rustic arch of broken bricks.
  • In Andrea Mantegna
    Andrea Mantegna
    Andrea Mantegna was an Italian painter, a student of Roman archeology, and son in law of Jacopo Bellini. Like other artists of the time, Mantegna experimented with perspective, e.g., by lowering the horizon in order to create a sense of greater monumentality...

    's Madonna della Vittoria
    Madonna della Vittoria
    The Madonna della Vittoria is a painting by the Italian Renaissance painter Andrea Mantegna, executed in 1496.-History:On 6 July 1495 the French army of Charles VIII of France and that of the Holy League of the Italin states led by Francesco II Gonzaga clashed at the battle of Fornovo, the latter...

    , the Madonna may occupy the central position, framed in her garlanded gazebo, but the focus of attention is Francesco II Gonzaga whose achievements are acknowledged not only by the Madonna and Christ Child but by the heroic saints, Michael and George.
  • Leonardo da Vinci
    Leonardo da Vinci
    Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...

     abandoned any sort of formal canopy and surrounded the Madonna and Child with the grandeur of nature into which he set the figures in a carefully balanced ye seemingly informal trapezoid composition.
  • The Sistine Madonna
    Sistine Madonna
    Sistine Madonna, also called La Madonna di San Sisto, is an oil painting by the Italian artist Raphael. Finished shortly before his death, ca. 1513–1514, as a commissioned altarpiece, it was the last of the painter's Madonnas and the last painting he completed with his own hands...

    by Raphael
    Raphael
    Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...

     uses the formula not of an altarpiece but the formal portrait, with a frame of green curtains through which a vision can be seen, witnessed by Pope Sixtus II
    Pope Sixtus II
    Pope Sixtus II or Pope Saint Sixtus II was Pope from August 30, 257 to August 6, 258. He died as a martyr during the persecution by Emperor Valerian....

     for whom the work is named. The clouds around the Virgin are composed of cherubic faces, while the two iconic cherubs so beloved with the late 20th century fashion for angels, prop themselves on the sill. This work became the model for Murillo
    Bartolomé Estéban Murillo
    Bartolomé Esteban Murillo was a Spanish Baroque painter. Although he is best known for his religious works, Murillo also produced a considerable number of paintings of contemporary women and children...

     and many other painters.
  • Andrea del Sarto
    Andrea del Sarto
    Andrea del Sarto was an Italian painter from Florence, whose career flourished during the High Renaissance and early Mannerism. Though highly regarded during his lifetime as an artist senza errori , his renown was eclipsed after his death by that of his contemporaries, Leonardo da Vinci,...

    , while using figures to a very natural and lifelike effect, abandons in the Madonna of the Harpies practical reality by setting the Madonna on a Classical plinth as if she were a statue. Every figure is in a state of instability, marked by the forward thrust of the Madonna's knee against which she balances a book. This painting is showing the trends that were to be developed in Mannerist painting
    Mannerism
    Mannerism is a period of European art that emerged from the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520. It lasted until about 1580 in Italy, when a more Baroque style began to replace it, but Northern Mannerism continued into the early 17th century throughout much of Europe...

    .

Fresco cycles

The largest, most time-consuming paid work that an artist could do was a scheme of fresco
Fresco
Fresco is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Greek word affresca which derives from the Latin word for "fresh". Frescoes first developed in the ancient world and continued to be popular through the Renaissance...

es for a church, private palace or commune building. Of these, the largest unified scheme in Italy which remains more-or-less intact is that created by a number of different artists at the end of the Medieval period at the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi. It was followed by Giotto's Proto-Renaissance scheme at Padua and many others ranging from Benozzo Gozzoli
Benozzo Gozzoli
Benozzo Gozzoli was an Italian Renaissance painter from Florence. He is best known for a series of murals in the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi depicting festive, vibrant processions with wonderful attention to detail and a pronounced International Gothic influence.-Apprenticeship:He was born Benozzo di...

's Magi Chapel
Magi Chapel
The Magi Chapel is a chapel in Palazzo Medici Riccardi of Florence, Italy. It includes a famous cycle of frescoes by the Renaissance master Benozzo Gozzoli, painted in 1459-1461....

 for the Medici
Medici
The House of Medici or Famiglia de' Medici was a political dynasty, banking family and later royal house that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici in the Republic of Florence during the late 14th century. The family originated in the Mugello region of the Tuscan countryside,...

 to Michelangelo
Michelangelo
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art...

's supreme accomplishment for Pope Julius II
Pope Julius II
Pope Julius II , nicknamed "The Fearsome Pope" and "The Warrior Pope" , born Giuliano della Rovere, was Pope from 1503 to 1513...

 at the Sistine Chapel
Sistine Chapel ceiling
The Sistine Chapel ceiling, painted by Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512, at the commission of Pope Julius II, is a cornerstone work of High Renaissance art. The ceiling is that of the large Papal Chapel built within the Vatican between 1477 and 1480 by Pope Sixtus IV after whom it is named...

.
  • Giotto painted the large, free-standing Scrovegni Chapel in Padua
    Padua
    Padua is a city and comune in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 212,500 . The city is sometimes included, with Venice and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, having...

     with the Life of the Virgin
    Life of the Virgin
    The Life of the Virgin, showing narrative scenes from the life of Mary, the mother of Jesus, is a common subject for pictorial cycles in Christian art, often complementing, or forming part of, a cycle on the Life of Christ. In both cases the number of scenes shown varies greatly with the space...

    and the Life of Christ
    Life of Christ
    The Life of Christ as a narrative cycle in Christian art comprises a number of different subjects, which were often grouped in series or cycles of works in a variety of media, narrating the life of Jesus on earth, as distinguished from the many other subjects in art showing the eternal life of...

    . Breaking from medieval tradition, it set a standard of naturalism.
  • The two large frescoes of Allegories of Good and Bad Government painted by Ambrogio Lorenzetti
    Ambrogio Lorenzetti
    Ambrogio Lorenzetti was an Italian painter of the Sienese school. He was active between approximately 1317 to 1348. His elder brother was the painter Pietro Lorenzetti....

     for the Commune of Siena are completely secular and show detailed views of a townscape with citizens, emphasising the importance of civic order.
  • By contrast, Andrea di Bonaiuto, painting for the Dominican
    Dominican Order
    The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...

    s at the new church of Santa Maria Novella, completed a huge fresco of the Triumph of the Church, which shows the role of the church in the work of Salvation
    Salvation
    Within religion salvation is the phenomenon of being saved from the undesirable condition of bondage or suffering experienced by the psyche or soul that has arisen as a result of unskillful or immoral actions generically referred to as sins. Salvation may also be called "deliverance" or...

    , and in particular, the role of the Dominicans, who also appear symbolically as the Hounds of Heaven, shepherding the people of God. The painting includes a view of Florence Cathedral.
  • Masaccio
    Masaccio
    Masaccio , born Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Simone, was the first great painter of the Quattrocento period of the Italian Renaissance. According to Vasari, Masaccio was the best painter of his generation because of his skill at recreating lifelike figures and movements as well as a convincing sense...

     and Masolino collaborated on the Brancacci Chapel
    Brancacci Chapel
    The Brancacci Chapel is a chapel in the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence, central Italy. It is sometimes called the "Sistine Chapel of the early Renaissance" for its painting cycle, among the most famous and influential of the period. Construction of the chapel was commissioned by...

     fresco cycle which is most famous for Masaccio's lifelike innovations, Masolino's more elegant style is seen in this townscape which skillfully combines two episodes of the Life of St. Peter.
  • Piero della Francesca
    Piero della Francesca
    Piero della Francesca was a painter of the Early Renaissance. As testified by Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Artists, to contemporaries he was also known as a mathematician and geometer. Nowadays Piero della Francesca is chiefly appreciated for his art. His painting was characterized by its...

    's fresco cycle in the church of San Francesco, Arezzo, closely follows the Legend of the True Cross as written by Jacopo da Varagine in the Golden Legend
    Golden Legend
    The Golden Legend is a collection of hagiographies by Jacobus de Voragine that became a late medieval bestseller. More than a thousand manuscripts of the text have survived, compared to twenty or so of its nearest rivals...

    . The pictures reveal his studies of light and perspective, and the figures have an almost monolithic solidity.
  • Benozzo Gozzoli
    Benozzo Gozzoli
    Benozzo Gozzoli was an Italian Renaissance painter from Florence. He is best known for a series of murals in the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi depicting festive, vibrant processions with wonderful attention to detail and a pronounced International Gothic influence.-Apprenticeship:He was born Benozzo di...

    's fresco cycle for the private chapel
    Magi Chapel
    The Magi Chapel is a chapel in Palazzo Medici Riccardi of Florence, Italy. It includes a famous cycle of frescoes by the Renaissance master Benozzo Gozzoli, painted in 1459-1461....

     of the Medici Palace
    Palazzo Medici Riccardi
    The Palazzo Medici, also called the Palazzo Medici Riccardi after the later family that acquired and expanded it, is a Renaissance palace located in Florence, Italy.-History:...

     is a late work in the International Gothic
    International Gothic
    International Gothic is a phase of Gothic art which developed in Burgundy, Bohemia, France and northern Italy in the late 14th century and early 15th century...

     style, a fanciful and richly ornamental depiction of the Medici with their entourage as the Three Wise Men.
  • The elaborate cycle for the House of Este's Palazzo Schifanoia
    Palazzo Schifanoia
    Palazzo Schifanoia is a Renaissance palace in Ferrara, Emilia-Romagna built for the Este family. The name "Schifanoia" is thought to originate from "schivar la noia" meaning literally to "escape from boredom" which describes accurately the original intention of the palazzo and the other villas...

     at Ferrara, executed in part by Francesco del Cossa
    Francesco del Cossa
    Francesco del Cossa was an Italian early-Renaissance painter of the School of Ferrara.-Biography:...

    , was also fanciful in its depictions of Classical deities and Zodial signs which are combined with scenes of the life of the family.
  • Mantegna
    Andrea Mantegna
    Andrea Mantegna was an Italian painter, a student of Roman archeology, and son in law of Jacopo Bellini. Like other artists of the time, Mantegna experimented with perspective, e.g., by lowering the horizon in order to create a sense of greater monumentality...

    's paintings for the Gonzaga also show family life but have a preponderance of highly realistic elements and skillfully utilise the real architecture of the room they decorate, the mantelpiece forming a plinth for the figures and the real ceiling pendentives being apparently supported on painted pilasters.
  • While in the Brancacci Chapel, historians seek to identify the faces of Masaccio, Masolino and perhaps Donatello among the apostles, Domenico Ghirlandaio
    Domenico Ghirlandaio
    Domenico Ghirlandaio was an Italian Renaissance painter from Florence. Among his many apprentices was Michelangelo.-Early years:Ghirlandaio's full name is given as Domenico di Tommaso di Currado di Doffo Bigordi...

     at the Sassetti Chapel
    Sassetti Chapel
    The Sassetti Chapel is a chapel in the basilica of Santa Trinita in Florence, Italy. It is especially notable for its frescoes of the Stories of St. Francis, considered Domenico Ghirlandaio's masterwork.-History:...

     makes no attempt to disguise his models. Each fresco in this religious cycle has two sets of figures: those who tell the story and those who are witness to it. In this scene of the Birth of the Virgin Mary, a number of the noble women of Florence have come in, as if to congratulate the new mother.
  • The Punishment of the Sons of Korah by Botticelli is one of episodes the Life of Moses series, which, together with The Life of Christ, was commissioned in the 1480s as decoration to the Sistine Chapel
    Sistine Chapel
    Sistine Chapel is the best-known chapel in the Apostolic Palace, the official residence of the Pope in Vatican City. It is famous for its architecture and its decoration that was frescoed throughout by Renaissance artists including Michelangelo, Sandro Botticelli, Pietro Perugino, Pinturicchio...

    . The artists Perugino, Domenico Ghirlandaio
    Domenico Ghirlandaio
    Domenico Ghirlandaio was an Italian Renaissance painter from Florence. Among his many apprentices was Michelangelo.-Early years:Ghirlandaio's full name is given as Domenico di Tommaso di Currado di Doffo Bigordi...

     and Cosimo Rosselli
    Cosimo Rosselli
    Cosimo Rosselli was an Italian painter of the Quattrocento, active mainly in his birthplace of Florence.-Biography:Born in Florence, at the age of fourteen he became a pupil of Neri di Bicci, and in 1460 he worked as assistant to his cousin Bernardo di Stefano Rosselli...

     all worked on the carefully designed and harmonious scheme.
  • Michelangelo
    Michelangelo
    Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art...

    's painting of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which he executed alone over a period of five years, with narratives from Genesis, prophetic figures and the Ancestors of Christ, was destined to become one of the most famous artworks in the world.
  • Simultaneously, Raphael
    Raphael
    Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...

     and a number of his assistants painted the papal chambers known as Raphael Rooms
    Raphael Rooms
    The four Stanze di Raffaello in the Palace of the Vatican form a suite of reception rooms, the public part of the papal apartments. They are famous for their frescoes, painted by Raphael and his workshop...

    . In The School of Athens
    The School of Athens
    The School of Athens, or in Italian, is one of the most famous paintings by the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael. It was painted between 1510 and 1511 as a part of Raphael's commission to decorate with frescoes the rooms now known as the , in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican...

    Raphael depicts famous people of his day, including Leonardo, Michelangelo, Bramante and himself, as philosophers of ancient Athens.

Subjects

Devotional images of the Madonna and Child were produced in very large numbers, often for private clients. Scenes of the Life of Christ, the Life of the Virgin
Life of the Virgin
The Life of the Virgin, showing narrative scenes from the life of Mary, the mother of Jesus, is a common subject for pictorial cycles in Christian art, often complementing, or forming part of, a cycle on the Life of Christ. In both cases the number of scenes shown varies greatly with the space...

, or Lives of the Saints were also made in large numbers for churches, particularly scenes associated with the Nativity
Nativity of Jesus in art
The Nativity of Jesus has been a major subject of Christian art since the 4th century. The artistic depictions of the Nativity or birth of Jesus, celebrated at Christmas, are based on the narratives in the Bible, in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, and further elaborated by written, oral and...

and the Passion of Christ. The Last Supper was commonly depicted in religious refectories.

During the Renaissance an increasing number of patrons had their likeness committed to posterity in paint. For this reason there exists a great number of Renaissance portraits for whom the name of the sitter is unknown. Wealthy private patrons commissioned artworks as decoration for their homes, of increasingly secular subject matter.

The Madonna

These small intimate pictures, which are now nearly all in museums, were most often done for private ownership, but might occasionally grace a small altar in a chapel.
  • The Madonna adoring the Christ Child with two Angels has always been particularly popular on account of the expressive little boy angel supporting the Christ Child. Paintings of Filippo Lippi
    Filippo Lippi
    Fra' Filippo Lippi , also called Lippo Lippi, was an Italian painter of the Italian Quattrocento .-Biography and works:...

    's such as this were to particularly influence Botticelli.
  • Verrocchio separates the Madonna and Christ Child from the viewer by a stone sill, also used in many portraits. The rose and the cherries represent spiritual love and sacrificial love.
  • Antonello da Messina
    Antonello da Messina
    Antonello da Messina, properly Antonello di Giovanni di Antonio was an Italian painter from Messina, Sicily, active during the Italian Renaissance...

    's Madonna and Child is superficially very like that of Verrocchio, but it is much less formal and both the mother and the child appear to be moving rather than posing for the painter. The foreshortened elbow of the Child as he reaches for his mother's breast occurs in Raphael's work and can be seen in a different form in Michelangelo's Doni Tondo.
  • The figures placed at opposing diagonals seen in this early Madonna and Child by Leonardo da Vinci
    Leonardo da Vinci
    Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...

     was a compositional theme that was to recur in many of his works and be imitated by his pupils and by Raphael.
  • Giovanni Bellini
    Giovanni Bellini
    Giovanni Bellini was an Italian Renaissance painter, probably the best known of the Bellini family of Venetian painters. His father was Jacopo Bellini, his brother was Gentile Bellini, and his brother-in-law was Andrea Mantegna. He is considered to have revolutionized Venetian painting, moving it...

     was influenced by Greek Orthodox icon
    Icon
    An icon is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, from Eastern Christianity and in certain Eastern Catholic churches...

    s. The gold cloth in this painting takes the place of the gold leaf background. The arrangement is formal, yet the gestures, and in particular the mother's adoring gaze, give a human warmth to this picture.
  • Vittore Carpaccio
    Vittore Carpaccio
    Vittore Carpaccio was an Italian painter of the Venetian school, who studied under Gentile Bellini. He is best known for a cycle of nine paintings, The Legend of Saint Ursula. His style was somewhat conservative, showing little influence from the Humanist trends that transformed Italian...

    's Madonna and Child is very unusual in showing the Christ Child as a toddler fully dressed in contemporary clothing. The meticulous detail and domesticity are suggestive of Early Netherlandish painting
    Early Netherlandish painting
    Early Netherlandish painting refers to the work of artists active in the Low Countries during the 15th- and early 16th-century Northern renaissance, especially in the flourishing Burgundian cities of Bruges and Ghent...

    .
  • Michelangelo
    Michelangelo
    Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art...

    's Doni Tondo is the largest of these works, but was a private commission. The highly unusual composition, the contorted form of the Madonna, the three heads all near the top of the painting and the radical foreshortening were all very challenging features, and Agnolo Doni was not sure that he wished to pay for it.
  • Raphael
    Raphael
    Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...

     has skillfully set opposing forces into play, and united the Madonna and Child with a loving gaze.

Portraits

During the latter half of the 15th century, there was a proliferation of portraits. Although the subjects of some of them were later remembered for their achievements or their noble lineage, the identities of many have been lost and that of even the most famous portrait of all time, Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...

's Mona Lisa
Mona Lisa
Mona Lisa is a portrait by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. It is a painting in oil on a poplar panel, completed circa 1503–1519...

, is open to speculation and controversy.
  • The advantage of a profile portrait such as Piero della Francesca
    Piero della Francesca
    Piero della Francesca was a painter of the Early Renaissance. As testified by Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Artists, to contemporaries he was also known as a mathematician and geometer. Nowadays Piero della Francesca is chiefly appreciated for his art. His painting was characterized by its...

    's Portrait of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta
    Portrait of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta
    The Portrait of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta is a painting by the Italian Renaissance master Piero della Francesca . It portrays the condottiero and lord of Rimini and Fano Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, and is housed in the Musée du Louvre of Paris.The portrait depicts the condottiero by profile...

    is that it identifies the subject like a facial signature. The proportions of the face, the respective angles of the forehead, nose and brow, the position and shape of the eye and the set of the jaw remain recognisable through life. Moreover, once a profile likeness has been taken, it can be used to cast a medal or sculpt an image in relief.
  • Pollaiuolo
    Pollaiuolo
    Pollaiulo is the name of several people:* Brothers Antonio del Pollaiolo and* Piero del Pollaiolo, 15th-Century artists....

     has conformed to the formula, emphasising this young woman's profile with a fine line which also defines the delicate shape of her nostrils and the corners of her mouth. But he has added a three-dimensional quality by the subtle use of chiaroscuro
    Chiaroscuro
    Chiaroscuro in art is "an Italian term which literally means 'light-dark'. In paintings the description refers to clear tonal contrasts which are often used to suggest the volume and modelling of the subjects depicted"....

     and the treatment of the rich Florentine brocade of her sleeve.
  • Alesso Baldovinetti, on the other hand, has used the profile of this strong-featured girl to created a striking pattern of a highlighted contour against the darker background. The background is a lively shape adding to the compositional structure of the painting. The little black fillet on her forehead responds to the dynamic pattern of the embroidered sleeve.
  • Botticelli's portrait, although turned to three-quarter view with strong tonal modelling, has much to do with Baldovinetti's painting in its striking arrangement of shapes in the red garment, the hat and the dark hair and the pattern that they form against the background.
  • Antonello da Messina
    Antonello da Messina
    Antonello da Messina, properly Antonello di Giovanni di Antonio was an Italian painter from Messina, Sicily, active during the Italian Renaissance...

    's portrait, some years earlier than Botticelli's, bears it a passing similarity. But this painting does not rely heavily on the skilful arrangement of clearly contoured shapes. Antonello has used the advantages of oil paint, as against Botticelli's tempera
    Tempera
    Tempera, also known as egg tempera, is a permanent fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigment mixed with a water-soluble binder medium . Tempera also refers to the paintings done in this medium. Tempera paintings are very long lasting, and examples from the 1st centuries AD still exist...

    , to achieve a subtle and detailed likeness in which the bushy eyebrows, the imperfections of the skin and the shadow of the beard have been rendered with photographic precision.
  • Ghirlandaio
    Ghirlandaio
    Ghirlandaio is the surname of a family of Renaissance Italian painters:* Domenico Ghirlandaio , Michelangelo's teacher* Davide Ghirlandaio , younger brother of Domenico...

    's tempera portrait of an old man with his grandson combines the meticulous depiction of the old man's enlarged nose and parchment-like skin with a tenderness usually reserved for portrayals of The Madonna and Child. Ghirlandaio takes this analogy further by setting the scene against a window and landscape.
  • Pintoricchio's portrait of a boy sets him high in the picture frame, reducing his scale in proportion to the area in contrast to the usual way of showing adults. The painting is set against a landscape such as used by Leonardo and Bellini. Pinturicchio's main fame lay in his skillfully characterised portraits like this.
  • In the Mona Lisa
    Mona Lisa
    Mona Lisa is a portrait by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. It is a painting in oil on a poplar panel, completed circa 1503–1519...

    Leonardo employed the technique of sfumato, delicately graded chiaroscuro that models the surface contours, while allowing details to disappear in the shadows. The technique gives an air of mystery to this painting which has brought it lasting fame. The beautiful hands become almost a decorative element.
  • Giovanni Bellini
    Giovanni Bellini
    Giovanni Bellini was an Italian Renaissance painter, probably the best known of the Bellini family of Venetian painters. His father was Jacopo Bellini, his brother was Gentile Bellini, and his brother-in-law was Andrea Mantegna. He is considered to have revolutionized Venetian painting, moving it...

    's portrait of the elected Duke of Venice has an official air and could hardly be more formal. Yet the face is characterised with what one might hope for in the Doge, wisdom, humour and decisiveness. Although a more elaborate painting, it has much in common with Baldovinetti's sense of design.
  • The subject of Titian
    Titian
    Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488/1490 – 27 August 1576 better known as Titian was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near...

    's portrait is unknown, and its considerable fame rests solely on its beauty and unusual composition in which the face is supported and balanced by the large blue sleeve of quilted satin. The sleeve is almost the same colour as the background; its rich tonality gives it form. The white linen of the shirt enlivens the composition, while the man's eyes pick up the colour of the sleeve with penetrating luminosity.
  • Superficially, Andrea del Sarto
    Andrea del Sarto
    Andrea del Sarto was an Italian painter from Florence, whose career flourished during the High Renaissance and early Mannerism. Though highly regarded during his lifetime as an artist senza errori , his renown was eclipsed after his death by that of his contemporaries, Leonardo da Vinci,...

    's portrait has many of the same elements as Titian's. But it is handled very differently, being much broader in treatment, and less compelling in subject. The painting has achieved an imediacy, as if the sitter has paused for a moment and is about to return to what he is doing.
  • Raphael
    Raphael
    Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...

    , in this much-copied portrait of Pope Julius II
    Pope Julius II
    Pope Julius II , nicknamed "The Fearsome Pope" and "The Warrior Pope" , born Giuliano della Rovere, was Pope from 1503 to 1513...

    , set a standard for the painting of future popes. Unlike the contemporary portraits here by Bellini, Titian and del Sarto, Raphael has abandoned the placement of the figure behind a shelf or barrier and has shown the Pope as if seated in his own apartment. Against the green cloth decorated with the keys of St. Peter, the red velvet papal garments make a rich contrast, the white beard being offset by the pleated white linen. On the uprights of the chair, the acorn finials are the symbol of the Pope's family, the Rovere.


The nude

These four famous paintings demonstrate the advent and acceptance of the nude as a subject for the artist in its own right.
  • In Botticelli's Birth of Venus, the nude figure, although central to the painting, is not of itself the subject. The subject of the painting is a story from Classical mythology
    Classical mythology
    Classical mythology or Greco-Roman mythology is the cultural reception of myths from the ancient Greeks and Romans. Along with philosophy and political thought, mythology represents one of the major survivals of classical antiquity throughout later Western culture.Classical mythology has provided...

    . The fact that the Goddess Venus rose naked from the sea provides justification for the nude study that dominates the centre of the work.
  • Painted thirty years later, the exact meaning of Giovanni Bellini
    Giovanni Bellini
    Giovanni Bellini was an Italian Renaissance painter, probably the best known of the Bellini family of Venetian painters. His father was Jacopo Bellini, his brother was Gentile Bellini, and his brother-in-law was Andrea Mantegna. He is considered to have revolutionized Venetian painting, moving it...

    's picture is unclear. Had the subject been painted by an Impressionist
    Impressionism
    Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...

     painter, it would be quite unnecessary to ascribe a meaning. But in this Renaissance work, there is the presence of a mirror, an object that is usually symbolic and which suggests an allegory. The young lady's nakedness is a sign not so much of seduction, as innocence and vulnerability. However, she decks herself out in an extremely rich headdress, stitched with pearls, and having not one, but two mirrors, sees only herself reflected endlessly. The mirror, often a symbol of prophecy, here becomes an object of vanity, with the young woman in the role of Narcissus
    Narcissus (mythology)
    Narcissus or Narkissos , possibly derived from ναρκη meaning "sleep, numbness," in Greek mythology was a hunter from the territory of Thespiae in Boeotia who was renowned for his beauty. He was exceptionally proud, in that he disdained those who loved him...

    .
  • Giorgione
    Giorgione
    Giorgione was a Venetian painter of the High Renaissance in Venice, whose career was cut off by his death at a little over thirty. Giorgione is known for the elusive poetic quality of his work, though only about six surviving paintings are acknowledged for certain to be his work...

    's painting possibly predates Bellini's by ten years. It has always been known as The Sleeping Venus
    Sleeping Venus (Giorgione)
    The Sleeping Venus, also known as the Dresden Venus, is a painting by the Italian Renaissance master Giorgione, with, it is now generally accepted, the landscape and sky, by Titian, completed after Giorgione's death in 1510, as Vasari first noted...

    but there is nothing in the painting to confirm that it is, indeed, Venus. The painting is remarkable for its lack of symbolism and the emphasis on the body simply as an object of beauty. It is believed to have been completed by Titian.
  • Titian
    Titian
    Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488/1490 – 27 August 1576 better known as Titian was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near...

    's Venus of Urbino
    Venus of Urbino
    The Venus of Urbino is a 1538 oil painting by the Italian master Titian. It depicts a nude young woman, identified with the goddess Venus, reclining on a couch or bed in the sumptuous surroundings of a Renaissance palace. It hangs in the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence. The figure's pose is based...

    , on the other hand, was painted for the pleasure of the Duke of Urbino, and as in Botticelli's Birth of Venus, painted for a member of the Medici family, the model looks directly at the viewer. The model may very well have been the mistress of the client. Venus of Urbino is not simply a body beautiful in its own right. She is an individual and highly seductive young woman, who is not in the nude state indicative of heavenly perfection, but is simply naked, having taken off her clothes but left on some of her jewellery.

Classical mythology

Paintings of classical mythology were invariably done for the important salons in the houses of private patrons. Botticelli's most famous works are for the Medici, Raphael painted Galatea for Agostino Chigi and Bellini's Feast of the Gods was, with several works by Titian, in the home of Alfonso I d'Este
Alfonso I d'Este
Alfonso d'Este was Duke of Ferrara during the time of the War of the League of Cambrai.-Biography:He was the son of Ercole I d'Este and Leonora of Naples....


  • Pollaiuolo
    Pollaiuolo
    Pollaiulo is the name of several people:* Brothers Antonio del Pollaiolo and* Piero del Pollaiolo, 15th-Century artists....

    's Hercules and the Hydra typifies many paintings of mythological subjects which lent themselves to interpretation that was both Humanist and Christian. In this work good overcomes evil, and courage is glorified. The figure of Hercules has resonances with the Biblical character of Samson
    Samson
    Samson, Shimshon ; Shamshoun or Sampson is the third to last of the Judges of the ancient Israelites mentioned in the Tanakh ....

     who also was renowned for his strength and slew a lion.
  • In Botticelli's Pallas and the Centaur
    Pallas and the Centaur
    Pallas and the Centaur is a painting by the Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli, circa 1482. It is housed in the Uffizi of Florence. The painting was discovered in 1895....

    , Wisdom, personified by Athena, leads the cowering Centaur by the forelock, so learning and refinement are able to overcome brute instinct, which is the characteristic symbolised by the centaur.
  • Raphael
    Raphael
    Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...

    's Galatea
    Galatea (Raphael)
    The Triumph of Galatea is a fresco masterpiece completed in 1512 by the Italian painter Raphael for the Villa Farnesina in Rome.The Farnesina was built for the Sienese banker Agostino Chigi, one of the richest men of that age. The Farnese family later acquired and renamed the villa, smaller than...

    , though Classical in origin, has a specifically Christian resonance that would have been recognised by those who were familiar with the story. It is about the nature of love. While all around her aspire to earthly love and succumb to the arrows shot by the trio of cupids, Galatea has chosen spiritual love and turns her eyes to Heaven.
  • Three large works remain that were painted for a single room for the Este by Bellini
    Filippo Bellini
    Filippo Bellini was an Italian painter from Urbino....

     and his successor Titian
    Titian
    Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488/1490 – 27 August 1576 better known as Titian was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near...

    . Of these, Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne
    Bacchus and Ariadne
    Bacchus and Ariadne is an oil painting by Titian. It is one of a cycle of paintings on mythological subjects produced for Alfonso d'Este, the Duke of Ferrara, for the Camerino d'Alabastro – a private room in his palazzo in Ferrara decorated with paintings based on classical texts...

    represents a moment in a narrative. The other two paintings are jolly drinking scenes with a number of narrative elements introduced in a minor way, in order that characters might be identifiable. This painting does not appear to have any higher allegorical sentiment attached to it. It appears to be simply a very naturalistic portrayal of a number of the ancient gods and their associates, eating, drinking and enjoying the party.

See also

  • Italian Renaissance painting
    Italian Renaissance painting
    Italian Renaissance painting is the painting of the period beginning in the late 13th century and flourishing from the early 15th to late 16th centuries, occurring within the area of present-day Italy, which was at that time divided into many political areas...

  • Pseudo-Kufic
    Pseudo-Kufic
    Pseudo-Kufic, or Kufesque, also sometimes Pseudo-Arabic, refers to imitations of the Arabic Kufic script, or sometimes Arabic cursive script, made in a non-Arabic context, during the Middle-Ages or the Renaissance: "Imitations of Arabic in European art are often described as pseudo-Kufic, borrowing...

  • Oriental carpets in Renaissance painting
    Oriental carpets in Renaissance painting
    Carpets of Middle-Eastern origin, either from the Ottoman Empire, Armenia, Azerbaijan, the Levant or the Mamluk state of Egypt or Northern Africa, were used as important decorative features in paintings from the 14th century onwards...


General

  • Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Artists, (1568), 1965 edition, trans George Bull, Penguin, ISBN 0140441646
  • Frederick Hartt, A History of Italian Renaissance Art, (1970) Thames and Hudson, ISBN 0500231362
  • R.E. Wolf and R. Millen, Renaissance and Mannerist Art, (1968) Abrams, ISBN unknown
  • Keith Chistiansen, Italian Painting, (1992) Hugh Lauter Levin/Macmillan, ISBN

0883639718
  • Helen Gardner, Art through the Ages, (1970) Harcourt, Brace and World, ISBN 155037628
  • Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy, (1974) Oxford University Press, ISBN 0198813295
  • Margaret Aston, The Fifteenth Century, the Prospect of Europe, (1979) Thames and Hudson, ISBN 0500330093
  • Ilan Rachum, The Renaissance, an Illustrated Encyclopedia, (1979) Octopus, ISBN 0706408578
  • Diana Davies, Harrap's Illustrated Dictionary of Art and Artists, (1990) Harrap Books, ISBN 0245546928
  • Luciano Berti, Florence: the city and its art, (1971) Scala, ISBN unknown
  • Luciano Berti, The Ufizzi, (1971) Scala, Florence. ISBN unknown
  • Michael Wilson, The National Gallery, London, (1977) Scala, ISBN 0850972574
  • Hugh Ross Williamson, Lorenzo the Magnificent, (1974) Michael Joseph, ISBN 0718112040

Painters

  • John White, Duccio, (1979) Thames and Hudson, ISBN 0500091358
  • Cecilia Jannella, Duccio di Buoninsegna, (1991) Scala/Riverside, ISBN 1878351184
  • Sarel Eimerl, The World of Giotto, (1967) Time/Life, ISBN 0900658150
  • Mgr. Giovanni Foffani, Frescoes by Giusto de' Menabuoi, (1988) G. Deganello, ISBN unknown
  • Ornella Casazza, Masaccio and the Brancacci Chapel, (1990) Scala/Riverside, ISBN 1878351117
  • Annarita Paolieri, Paolo Uccello, Domenico Veneziano, Andrea del Castagno, (1991) Scala/Riverside, ISBN 1878351206
  • Alessandro Angelini, Piero della Francesca, (1985) Scala/Riverside, ISBN 1878351044
  • Peter Murray and Pier Luigi Vecchi, Piero della Francesca, (1967) Penguin, ISBN 0140086471
  • Umberto Baldini, Primavera, (1984) Abrams, ISBN 0810923149
  • Ranieri Varese, Il Palazzo di Schifanoia, (1980) Specimen/Scala, ISBN unknown
  • Angela Ottino della Chiesa, Leonardo da Vinci, (1967) Penguin, ISBN 0140086498
  • Jack Wasserman, Leonardo da Vinci, (1975) Abrams, ISBN 0810902621
  • Massimo Giacometti, The Sistine Chapel, (1986) Harmony Books, ISBN 051756274X
  • Ludwig Goldschieder, Michelangelo, (1962) Phaidon, ISBN unknown
  • Gabriel Bartz and Eberhard König, Michelangelo, (1998) Könemann, ISBN 382900253X
  • David Thompson, Raphael, the Life and Legacy, (1983) BBC, ISBN 0563201495
  • Jean-Pierre Cuzin, Raphael, his Life and Works, (1985) Chartwell, ISBN 0890098417
  • Mariolina Olivari, Giovanni Bellini, (1990) Scala. ISBN unknown
  • Cecil Gould, Titian, (1969) Hamlyn, ISBN unknown
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