Sofia Castelli

Humanities Assignment
Professor: Carmen Helene Domenique Van Bruggen

From Renaissance to Impressionism

The Birth of Venus, Botticelli (1480) [painting 1]

The Temptation of St. Anthony, Cezanne (1875) [painting 2]

 The purpose of this paper is to analyze and compare two different art movements, the

Renaissance and the Impressionism, that at first they could appear very distant, but, since the

interpretation of art can be very wide, I will try to find the line that connects the two

movements. The Renaissance finds its roots in Italy in the 15th century with the idea of

rebirth after the dark period known as Middle Ages; as Gombrich states in his book “The

story of Art”, the idea of a revival was connected with the idea of the rebirth of the grandeur

that was Rome1. The turning point was with Brunelleschi, the architect that, through his

inventions found a way to use classical architectures to create harmony and beauty. Thanks to

his discoveries in the mathematical field, posterior artists such as Masaccio were able to

apply his techniques in their paintings and discover the perspective, which enabled to

represent things as they were in reality and making feel the spectator part of the work of art.

However, with new discoveries, new problems appeared and the one that emerged with

perspective was not easy to solve. Artists were struggling to find a way to arrange the figures

in the painting, their objective was to represent the reality as art was considered a mean to

mirror a fragment of the real world, but, in the real-world, figures do not

group harmoniously, nor do they stand out clearly against a neutral background2 (Gombrich

p.195). Some artists tried to face the problem several times but it was not really solved until

the Italian painter Botticelli painted the “Birth of Venus” [painting 1]; the painting had been

commissioned by Pier Francesco de Medici, a patron of the important Florentine family. In

the composition, Botticelli recalls a classical myth following the aim of the Renaissance to

recall the past glory of Rome. The painting represents a symbol of mystery since it portrays

the moment in which the divine message is announced to the world. The Venus, that is at the

center of the composition, is carried by a shell towards the land where a Nymph is waiting for

1
The Conquest of Reality- The Story of Art, E.H. Gombrich
2
Tradition and Innovation: I - The Story of Art, E.H. Gombrich
her with a purple mantle. Botticelli described the scene by constructing a perfectly balanced

and harmonious pattern, and he managed to do it by painting less solid figures than previous

Renaissance artists. The melodious lines of the composition recall the Gothic tradition,

perceived strongly in the slow and soft movement of the body. The Venus, depicted in the

Venus Pudica position, is incredibly beautiful, her skin looks like a porcelain vase and her

hair fall on the body with a perfect harmony. All those characteristics distract the observer to

notice the unusual length of the neck and the shape of the shoulders. The shapes are modified

on purpose by the artist because his intent was to achieve a graceful composition and to give

the idea of infinitely tender and delicate being3 (p.198). We can consider Botticelli’s painting

a turning point because he succeeded to solve the problem stated before and to create a

composition characterized by harmony, equilibrium, and beauty.

On the other side, there are the compositions belonging to the Impressionism

[painting2]. The movement commenced in France at the end of the 19th century and it lasted

for twelve years, few years that brought many changes in the perception of art. The term

Impressionism was born when the art critic Leroy saw one of Monet’s painting and to

describe it he said the word ‘impression' and after that, the term was used to identify the

artists of the movement. The group of the impressionist painters was very heterogeneous

however there were some shared characteristics between them: their art always represented

the instantaneity and the immediacy of the vision, in other words, they always tried to paint

the moment of an exact sensation. Their art started in reaction to the invention of

photography which ‘stole’ the role of painters as it could capture the reality in all its essence,

giving an absolute objective point of view. Photography obliged painters to describe the

reality from their subjective point of view since they could differentiate from the photography

only by representing their own vision. Among the group of artists of the movement, there is

3
Tradition and Innovation: I - The Story of Art, E.H. Gombrich
Cezanne, the painter of the Temptation of St. Anthony (painting on the right), in which we

perceive a different way of painting in comparison to the Renaissance’s compositions. There

is no harmony and clear balance in the painting anymore, but on the contrary, nothing is

perfect and there is less concentration on details. The details were not considered important,

as we can see the composition is sketchy and it looks unfinished, they thought that it was the

spectator’s job to finish the composition with his own eye and to imagine the details that

were missing, becoming part of the composition. Cezanne, as all the other impressionist,

worked “en plain air” so that they can perceive the nature in a better way and find inspiration

through it.4 If in this painting Cezanne would have portrayed all the details, the final outcome

would not have been the same, and the picture would look flat and without life. This conflict

resembles the one emerged with the discovery of perspective in the 15th century when artists

were depicting stiff and inflexible figures. As Brunelleschi modified the forms to adhere to

his ideal painting, impressionists had to blurry their lines to transmit their meaning of art.

They had created the feeling of a new freedom and a new power 5 (Gombrich p. 401).

In his painting, Cezanne combines colors, light and forms in order to transfer his impression

on the canvas. The woman at the center, that is considered to be an object of both adoration

and fear, looks like a classical goddess resembling the one of Botticelli.

The two paintings can appear very different but they both represented a turning point

for art, the first shows the ability to represent harmonious shapes in a mathematical landscape

and the second one, the courageousness to break all the canons and transfer on canvas the

emotions inspired by nature. Both movements gave a lot of importance to the real world and

nature, but they chose different ways to represent it. However, in these paintings I feel there

is a lot of connection in the positioning of the figures, both artists chose to put the women at

4
Cricco di Teodoro 4, Zanichelli
5
Permanent Revolution- The Story of Art, E.H. Gombrich
the center, highlighting her power also by forming a sort of triangle around her. By analyzing

the two periods, we can see that they impacted strongly the society. If the Renaissance artists

transformed the artistic society by their ability to unite art and science, impressionists

combined light and time6. The Impressionists used the ideals built in the Renaissance, such as

mythology, philosophy and literature, and used them to show the art from a different

perspective, analyzing it in people, nature and time.

6
Reneissance Art and Impressionism: The influence of Art and Science
 Works Cited

Gombrich, E. H. The story of art. Pocket ed. London: Phaidon Press, 2016. Print.

Cricco, G. Di Teodoro F.P. Il Cricco di Teodoro 2, dall’arte romanica al Rinascimento.

Zanichelli, 2015. Print.

Cricco, G. Di Teodoro F.P. Il Cricco di Teodoro 4, dal Barocco al Postimpressionismo.

Zanichelli, 2016. Print.

“Renaissance Art and Impressionism: The Influence of Art and Science.” Russia
Robinson, 7 Apr. 2017, russiarobinson.wordpress.com/2017/04/07/renaissance-art-and-
impressionism-the-influence-of-art-ad-science/.