RENAISSANCE

( ITALIAN):ART AND NEW LEARNING

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​INTRODUCTION

Renaissance art is the painting, sculpture and decorative arts of the period
of European history, emerging as a distinct style in Italy in about 1400, in
parallel with developments which occurred in philosophy, literature, music,
science and technology. Renaissance Art, perceived as the noblest of
ancient traditions, took as its foundation the art of Classical antiquity, but
transformed that tradition by absorbing recent developments in the art of
Northern Europe and by applying contemporary scientific knowledge.
Renaissance art, with Renaissance humanist philosophyspread throughout
Europe, affecting both artists and their patrons with the development of
new techniques and new artistic sensibilities. Renaissance art marks the
transition of Europe from the medieval period to the Early Modern age.

The Italian Renaissance was a 'rebirth' of Classical values in art, literature

and philosophy. It was a period of artistic development in Western Art that
stretched from the revival of naturalism in the art of Giotto at the end of the
13th century to the expressive forms of Mannerism in the art of
Michelangelo at the start of the 16th century. Its influence spread across
Europe and gave rise to the cultural and scientific ideas that shaped artistic
thought for the next five hundred years.

The term 'Renaissance', which means 'rebirth' in French, was coined in

1855 by Jules Michelet in his nineteen-volume masterpiece 'Histoire de
France'.

In Italy the Renaissance proper was preceded by an important

“proto-renaissance” in the late 13th and early 14th centuries, which drew
inspiration from Franciscan radicalism. St. Francis had rejected the formal
Scholasticism of the prevailing Christian theology and gone out among the
poor praising the beauties and spiritual value of nature. His example
inspired Italian artists and poets to take pleasure in the world around them.
The most famous artist of the proto-renaissance period, Giotto di Bondone
(1266/67 or 1276–1337), reveals a new pictorial style that depends on
clear, simple structure and great psychological penetration rather than on
the flat, linear decorativeness and hierarchical compositions of his
predecessors and contemporaries, such as the Florentine painter Cimabue
and the Siennese painters Duccio and Simone Martini. The great poet
Dante lived at about the same time as Giotto, and his poetry shows a
similar concern with inward experience and the subtle shades and
variations of human nature. Although his Divine Comedy belongs to the
Middle Ages in its plan and ideas, its subjective spirit and power of
expression look forward to the Renaissance. Petrarch and Giovanni
Boccaccio also belong to this proto-renaissance period, both through their
extensive studies of Latin literature and through their writings in the
vernacular. Unfortunately, the terrible plague of 1348 and subsequent civil
wars submerged both the revival of humanistic studies and the growing
interest in individualism and naturalism revealed in the works of Giotto and
Dante. The spirit of the Renaissance did not surface again until the
beginning of the 15th century.

ARTIST AND THEIR ART :

● LEONARDO DA VINCI
The Mona Lisa or La Gioconda French:​ La Joconde is a half-length
portrait painting by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. It is considered an
archetypal masterpiece of the Italian Renaissanceand has been described
as "the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung
about, the most parodied work of art in the world".The painting's novel
qualities include the subject's expression, which is frequently described as
enigmatic,the monumentality of the composition, the subtle modelling of
forms, and the atmospheric illusionism.
The painting is likely of the Italian noblewoman Lisa Gherardini, the wife of
Francesco del Giocondo, and is in oil on a white Lombardy poplar panel. It
had been believed to have been painted between 1503 and 1506; however,
Leonardo may have continued working on it as late as 1517. Recent
academic work suggests that it would not have been started before 1513.It
was acquired by King Francis I of France and is now the property of the
French Republic itself, on permanent display at the Louvre Museum in
Paris since 1797.

The Mona Lisa is one of the most valuable paintings in the world. It holds
the Guinness World Record for the highest known insurance valuation in
history at US$100 million in 1962[15] (equivalent to $660 million in 2019).

The title of the painting, which is known in English as Mona Lisa, comes
from a description by Renaissance art historian Giorgio Vasari, who wrote
"Leonardo undertook to paint, for Francesco del Giocondo, the portrait of
Mona Lisa, his wife."
Mona in Italian is a polite form of address originating as ma donna – similar
to Ma'am, Madam, or my lady in English. This became madonna, and its
contraction mona. The title of the painting, though traditionally spelled
Mona (as used by Vasari),is also commonly spelled in modern Italian as
Monna Lisa (mona being a vulgarity in some Italian dialects), but this is rare
in English.

Leonardo da Vinci had begun working on a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo,

the model of the Mona Lisa, by October 1503.It is believed by some that
the Mona Lisa was begun in 1503 or 1504 in Florence.Although the Louvre
states that it was "doubtless painted between 1503 and 1506",art historian
Martin Kemp says that there are some difficulties in confirming the dates
with certainty.
Circa 1505,Raphael executed a pen-and-ink sketch, in which the columns
flanking the subject are more apparent. Experts universally agree that it is
based on Leonardo's portrait.Other later copies of the Mona Lisa, such as
those in the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design and The
Walters Art Museum, also display large flanking columns. As a result, it
was thought that the Mona Lisa had been trimmed.

The record of an October 1517 visit by Louis d'Aragon states that the Mona
Lisa was executed for the deceased Giuliano de' Medici, Leonardo's
steward at the Belvedere Palace between 1513 and 1516—but this was
likely an error.According to Vasari, the painting was created for the model's
husband, Francesco del Giocondo.A number of experts have argued that
Leonardo made two versions (because of the uncertainty concerning its
dating and commissioner, as well as its fate following Leonardo's death in
1519, and the difference of details in Raphael's sketch—which may be
explained by the possibility that he made the sketch from memory). The
hypothetical first portrait, displaying prominent columns, would have been
commissioned by Giocondo circa 1503, and left unfinished in Leonardo's
pupil and assistant Salaì's possession until his death in 1524. The second,
commissioned by Giuliano de' Medici circa 1513, would have been sold by
Salaì to Francis I in 1518 and is the one in the Louvre today.Others believe
that there was only one true Mona Lisa, but are divided as to the two
aforementioned fates.At some point in the 16th century, a varnish was
applied to the painting. It was kept at the Palace of Fontainebleau until
Louis XIV moved it to the Palace of Versailles, where it remained until the
French Revolution.In 1797, it went on permanent display at the Louvre.
 ● GINEVRE DE BENCHI(LEONARDO DA VINCI)

Flawless chalk-white skin, porcelain-fine features, and a reserved,

somewhat impenetrable expression reflect the refinement of the 1
6-year-old Ginevra de' Benci. Like most portrait subjects of the
Renaissance, she was from a wealthy family, and educated. She was also
known as a poet and learned conversationalist. Young women of the time
were expected to comport themselves with dignity and modesty. Virtue was
prized and guarded, and a girl’s beauty was thought to be a sign of
goodness. Portraitists were expected to enhance—as needed—a woman’s
attractiveness according to the period's standards of beauty.
Why was this young woman’s likeness painted? One possibility is that the
commission was occasioned by her betrothal. Ginevra married Luigi
Niccolini in 1474. Another likelihood reflects a cultural phenomenon of the
Italian Renaissance period—platonic love affairs between well-mannered
gentlemen and ladies. Such affairs, often conducted from afar, focused on
effusive literary expressions that displayed the courtier’s and lady’s
sophistication.

Leonardo da Vinci, Wreath of Laurel, Palm, and Juniper with a Scroll

inscribed Virtutem Forma Decorat [reverse], c. 1474/1478c. 1474/1478
Leonardo da Vinci, Wreath of Laurel, Palm, and Juniper with a Scroll
inscribed Virtutem Forma Decorat [reverse], c. 1474/1478, tempera on
panel, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 1967.6.1.b

Ginevra is known to have had several admirers who composed poetry in

her honor and entreated her to share own verse with them. Among them
was Lorenzo de’Medici, whose elite family was known for its art patronage.
Even more significant to Ginevra was Bernardo Bembo, the Venetian
ambassador to Florence. It may have been he who commissioned her
portrait to celebrate—and substitute for—the object of his admiration and
esteem. The painting’s reverse side, Wreath of Laurel, Palm, and Juniper
with a Scroll inscribed Virtutem Forma Decorat [reverse], is an image of
Ginevra’s emblem or impresa and offers another kind of “portrait.” The
central juniper, ginepro in Italian, a cognate of Ginevra’s name and thus her
symbol, also represents chastity. The palm (right) stands for moral virtue,
while the laurel (left) indicated artistic or literary inclinations. Palm and
laurel also appear in Bembo’s emblem, and infrared examination of the
painting’s layers has also revealed Bembo’s motto, Virtus et honor (virtue
and honor), painted beneath Ginevra’s scrolling motto which encircles all
three elements and means “Beauty adorns virtue.”
 ● michaelangelo :
(creation of Adam)
fresco
The most famous section of the Sistine Chapel ceiling is Michelangelo’s
Creation of Adam. This scene is located next to the Creation of Eve, which
is the panel at the center of the room, and the Congregation of the Waters,
which is closer to the altar.
The Creation of Adam differs from typical Creation scenes painted up until
that time. Here, two figures dominate the scene: God on the right, and
Adam on the left. God is shown inside a floating nebulous form made up of
drapery and other figures. The form is supported on angels who fly without
wings, but whose flight is made clear by the drapery which whips out from
underneath them. God is depicted as an elderly, yet muscular, man with
grey hair and a long beard which react to the forward movement of flight.
This is a far cry from imperial images of God that had otherwise been
created in the West dating back to the time of late antiquity. Rather than
wearing royal garments and depicted as an all-powerful ruler, he wears
only a light tunic which leaves much of his arms and legs exposed. One
might say this is a much more intimate portrait of God because he is shown
in a state that is not untouchable and remote from Man, but one which is
accessible to him.

Unlike the figure of God, who is outstretched and aloft, Adam is depicted as
a lounging figure who rather lackadaisically responds to God’s imminent
touch. This touch will not only give life to Adam, but will give life to all
mankind. It is, therefore, the birth of the human race. Adam’s body forms
a concave shape which echoes the form of God’s body, which is in a
convex posture inside the nebulous, floating form. This correspondence of
one form to the other seems to underscore the larger idea of Man
corresponding to God; that is, it seems to reflect the idea that Man has
been created in the image and likeness of God – an idea with which
Michelangelo had to have been familiar.

One of the questions that has been raised about this scene is the identity of
the figures next to God. Given her privileged placement under the arm of
God, the female figure is presumably an important one. Traditionally, she
has been thought to be Eve, the future wife of Adam, who waits to the side
until she is created out of Adam’s rib. More recently, however, a theory has
been floated that this is actually the Virgin Mary, who takes this place of
honor next to God and the child next to her, who would therefore be the
Christ Child. This view is supported by the placement of God’s fingers on
the child – the same fingers that the priest would use to raise the Eucharist
during the Mass. Since Catholic theology holds that the Eucharist is the
Body of Christ, this theological understanding would be embodied in this
painting. If this latter interpretation is correct, the Creation of Adam would
be intrinsically linked to the future coming of Christ, who comes to reconcile
man after the sin of Adam.
In all, the painting shows several hallmarks of Michelangelo’s painting style:
the lounging position of both Adam and God, the use of bodies which are
both muscular and twisting, and the painting of figures who come across as
works of sculpture. It is good to remember that Michelangelo was, after all,
a sculptor. Painting was not his primary area.

The Creation of Adam is one of the great jewels of Western art, though it
and the rest of the Sistine Chapel ceiling suffered the ill effects of centuries
of smoke that had caused the ceiling to darken considerably. It was not
until 1977 that the cleaning of the ceiling was begun. The result of the
cleaning was astonishing after its completion in 1989; what was once dark
and drab became vivid. The change from pre-cleaning to post-cleaning
was so great that some initially refused to believe that this is the way
Michelangelo actually painted. Today, we have a much better
understanding of Michelangelo’s palette and the world he painted,
beautifully captured across the ceiling

● RAPHAEL (SISTINE MADONNA ):

The Sistine Madonna, also called the Madonna di San Sisto, is an oil
painting by the Italian artist Raphael. The painting was commissioned in
1512 by Pope Julius II for the church of San Sisto, Piacenza. The canvas
was one of the last Madonnas painted by Raphael. Giorgio Vasari called it
"a truly rare and extraordinary work".
The painting was moved to Dresden from 1754 and is well known for its
influence in the German and Russian art scene. After World War II, it was
relocated to Moscow for a decade before being returned to Germany.

Composition :-
The oil painting measures 265 cm by 196 cm. In the painting the Madonna,
holding the Christ Child and flanked by Saint Sixtus and Saint Barbara,
stands on clouds before dozens of obscured cherubim, while two distinctive
winged cherubim rest on their elbows beneath her.

Materials used :-
Pigment analysis of Raphael's masterpiece reveals the usual pigments of
the renaissance period such as malachite mixed with orpiment in the green
drapery on top of the painting, natural ultramarine mixed with lead white in
the blue robe of Madonna and a mixture of lead-tin-yellow, vermilion and
lead white in the yellow sleeve of St Barbara.

History :-
The painting was commissioned by Pope Julius II in honor of his late uncle,
Pope Sixtus IV, as an altarpiece for the basilica church of the Benedictine
Monastery of San Sisto in Piacenza, with which the Rovere family had a
long-standing relationship. The commission required that the painting
depict both Saints Sixtus and Barbara. Legend has it that when Antonio da
Correggio first laid eyes on the piece, he was inspired to cry, "And I also, I
am a painter!"
Relocation to Germany
In 1754, Augustus III of Poland purchased the painting for 110,000 –
120,000 francs, whereupon it was relocated to Dresden and achieved new
prominence; this was to remain the highest price paid for any painting for
many decades. In 2001's The Invisible Masterpiece, Hans Belting and
Helen Atkins describe the influence the painting has had in Germany:

Like no other work of art, Raphael's Sistine Madonna in Dresden has fired
the Germans' imagination, uniting or dividing them in the debate about art
and religion.... Over and again, this painting has been hailed as 'supreme
among the world's paintings' and accorded the epithet 'divine'....
If the stories are correct, the painting achieved its prominence immediately,
as it is said that Augustus moved his throne in order to better display it. The
Sistine Madonna was notably celebrated by Johann Joachim Winckelmann
in his popular and influential Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums (1764),
positioning the painting firmly in the public view and in the center of a
debate about the relative prominence of its Classical and Christian
elements. Alternately portraying Raphael as a "devout Christian" and a
"'divine' Pagan" (with his distinctly un-Protestant Mary who could have as
easily been Juno), the Germans implicitly tied the image into a legend of
their own, "Raphael's Dream." Arising in the last decades of the 18th
century, the legend—which made its way into a number of stories and even
a play—presents Raphael as receiving a heavenly vision that enabled him
to present his divine Madonna. It is claimed the painting has stirred many
viewers, and that at the sight of the canvas some were transfixed to a state
of religious ecstasy akin to Stendhal Syndrome (including one of Freud's
patients). This nearly miraculous power of the painting made it an icon of
19th-century German Romanticism. The picture influenced Goethe,
Wagner and Nietzsche According to Dostoyevsky, the painting was "the
greatest revelation of the human spirit". Legend has it that during the
abortive Dresden uprising of May 1849 Mikhail Bakunin "(unsuccessfully)
counseled the revolutionary government to remove Raphael's Sistine
Madonna from The Gemäldegalerie, and to hang it on the barricades at the
entrance to the city, on the grounds that the Prussians were too cultured 'to
dare to fire on a Raphael.'" The story was invoked by the Situationist
International as "a demonstration of how the art of the past might be utilized
in the present." In 1855, the "Neues Königliches Museum" (New Royal
Museum) opened in a building designed by Gottfried Semper, and the
Sistine Madonna was given a room of its own.

World War II and Soviet possession

Sistine Madonna was rescued from destruction during the bombing of
Dresden in World War II,[20] but the conditions in which it was saved and
the subsequent history of the piece are themselves the subject of
controversy. The painting was stored, with other works of art, in a tunnel in
Saxon Switzerland; when the Red Army encountered them, they took them.
The painting was temporarily removed to Pillnitz, from which it was
transported in a box on a tented flatcar to Moscow. There, sight of the
Madonna brought Soviet leading art official Mikhail Khrapchenko to declare
that the Pushkin Museum would now be able to claim a place among the
great museums of the world.

In 1946, the painting went temporarily on restricted exhibition in the

Pushkin, along with some of the other treasures the Soviets had retrieved.
But in 1955, after the death of Joseph Stalin, the Soviets decided to return
the art to Germany, "for the purpose of strengthening and furthering the
progress of friendship between the Soviet and German peoples." There
followed some international controversy, with press around the world
stating that the Dresden art collection had been damaged in Soviet storage.
Soviets countered that they had in fact saved the pieces. The tunnel in
which the art was stored in Saxon Switzerland was climate controlled, but
according to a Soviet military spokesperson, the power had failed when the
collection was discovered and the pieces were exposed to the humid
conditions of the underground. Soviet paintings Partisan Madonna of Minsk
by Mikhail Savitsky and And the Saved World Remembers by Mai Dantsig
are based on the Sistine Madonna.

Stories of the horrid conditions from which the Sistine Madonna had been
saved began to circulate. But, as reported by ARTnews in 1991, Russian
art historian Andrei Chegodaev, who had been sent by the Soviets to
Germany in 1945 to review the art, denied it:

It was the most insolent, bold-faced lie.... In some gloomy, dark cave, two
[actually four] soldiers, knee-deep in water, are carrying the Sistine
Madonna upright, slung on cloths, very easily, barely using two fingers. But
it couldn’t have been lifted like this even by a dozen healthy fellows...
because it was framed.... Everything connected with this imaginary rescue
is simply a lie.

ARTnews also indicated that the commander of the brigade that retrieved
the Madonna also described the stories as "a lie", in a letter to
Literaturnaya Gazeta published in the 1950s, indicating that "in reality, the
‘Sistine Madonna,’ like some other pictures, ...was in a dry tunnel, where
there were various instruments that monitored humidity, temperature, etc."
But, whether true or not, the stories had found foothold in public
imagination and have been recorded as fact in a number of books.

Contemporary display :-
After its return to Germany, the painting was restored to display in the
Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, where guidebooks single it out in the
collection, variously describing it as the "most famous", the "top", the
"showpiece", and "the collection's highlight". From 26 May to 26 August
2012, the Dresden gallery celebrated the 500th anniversary of the painting.
The Birth of Venus (Italian: Nascita di Venere is a painting by the Italian
artist Sandro Botticelli, probably made in the mid 1480s. It depicts the
goddess Venus arriving at the shore after her birth, when she had emerged
from the sea fully-grown (called Venus Anadyomene and often depicted in
art). The painting is in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy.

Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus (c. 1484–1486). Tempera on canvas.

172.5 cm × 278.9 cm (67.9 in × 109.6 in). Uffizi, Florence

Details:- The face of Venus

Although the two are not a pair, the painting is inevitably discussed with
Botticelli's other very large mythological painting, the Primavera also in the
Uffizi. They are among the most famous paintings in the world and icons of
the Italian Renaissance; of the two, the Birth is better known than the
Primavera. As depictions of subjects from classical mythology on a very
large scale they were virtually unprecedented in Western art since classical
antiquity, as was the size and prominence of a nude female figure in the
Birth. It used to be thought that they were both commissioned by the same
member of the Medici family, but this is now uncertain.

They have been endlessly analysed by art historians, with the main themes
being: the emulation of ancient painters and the context of wedding
celebrations (generally agreed), the influence of Renaissance
Neo-Platonism (somewhat controversial), and the identity of the
commissioners (not agreed). Most art historians agree, however, that the
Birth does not require complex analysis to decode its meaning, in the way
that the Primavera probably does. While there are subtleties in the painting,
its main meaning is a straightforward, if individual, treatment of a traditional
scene from Greek mythology, and its appeal is sensory and very
accessible, hence its enormous popularity.

NEW LEARNING
● The Renaissance Writers Who Shaped the Modern
World
Contrary to popular misconception, the Middle Ages were not a “dark age”
in our collective history. Not only is that term a Western-centric view of the
world (while Europe and the former territories of the Western Roman
Empire did indeed suffer long periods of social decline and disorder, many
other areas of the world flourished during the same period, and the
continuation of the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, was at its most
stable and influential during the so-called Dark Ages), it’s also inaccurate.
The popular image of ignorant peasants and sequestered monks living in
ignorance and superstition while the world fell into darkness is largely
fiction.

What marked the Middle Ages in Europe more than anything else was the
dominance of the Catholic Church and political instability (at least
compared to the centuries of stable Roman dominance). The Church,
viewing Greek and traditional Roman philosophy and literature as Pagan
and a threat, discouraged their study and teaching, and the disintegration
of a unified political world into many small kingdoms and duchies. One
result of these factors was a shift from a human-centered intellectual focus
to one that celebrated the things that held society together: shared religious
and cultural beliefs.

The Renaissance was a period beginning in the later 14th century and
lasting until the 17th century. Far from a sudden lurch back towards
scientific and artistic achievement, it was really a rediscovery of the
human-centric philosophies and art of the ancient world, coupled with
cultural forces driving Europe towards social and intellectual revolutions
that celebrated the human body and reveled in near-nostalgia for Roman
and Greek works that suddenly seemed modern and revolutionary again.
Far from a miraculous shared inspiration, the Renaissance was sparked in
large part by the collapse of the Byzantine Empire and the fall of
Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire. The massive influx of people
fleeing from the East into Italy (most notably Florence, where political and
cultural realities made for a welcoming environment) brought these ideas
back into prominence. At almost the same time, the Black Death decimated
populations across Europe and forced the survivors to contemplate not the
afterlife but their actual physical existence, shifting intellectual focus to
earthbound concerns.
It’s important to note that as in many historical periods, the people living
during the Renaissance had little idea they were alive during such a
famous period of time. Outside of the arts, the Renaissance saw the
decline of the political power of the Papacy and the increased contact
between European powers and other cultures through trade and
exploration. The world became fundamentally more stable, which in turn
allowed people to worry about things beyond basic survival, things like art
and literature. Some of the writers who emerged during the Renaissance
remain the most influential writers of all time and were responsible for
literary techniques, thoughts, and philosophies that are still borrowed and
explored today. Reading the works of these 10 Renaissance writers will not
only give you a good idea of what characterized Renaissance thought and
philosophy, but it will also give you a solid grasp of modern writing in
general ​because these writers are where our modern sense of literature
began.

● WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE :

One does not discuss literature without mentioning ​shakespeare .his

influence simply cannot be overstated. he created many words still in
common English usase today (including bedazzled, which might be his
greatest achievement),he coined many of the phrases and idioms we still
use today (every time you break the ice ,say short prayer to bill) ,and he
codified certain stories and plot devices that have become the invisible
vocabulary of every story composed. heck ,they still adapt his plays into
flims and other media on a early basis . There is literally no other writer
who has had bigger influence on the English language ,with the possible
expectation .
 ● GEOFFREY CHAUCER :
Chucers influence can be summeraizhed in one sentence, without him
shakespeare wouldn't be shakespeare. not only did chaucers 'centenbury
tales' mark the first time English was used for serious work literary
ambition (English being considered as "common " language for the
uneducated at time when the royal family of England still considered
themselves in many ways French and infact French wast official language
of court), but chaucers technique of using five stresses in line was the
direct ancestor of ambic pentameter used by
Shakespeare and his contemporaries.

BIBLIOGRAPHIY​ :

●
● https://www.thoughtco.com/top-renaissance-writers-4156665
● The Hindu newspaper
● https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-arthistory/chapter/the-it
alian-renaissance/
● https://www.artyfactory.com/art_appreciation/art_movements/italian-r
enaissance/italian-renaissance-art.html
● https://www.britannica.com/art/Renaissance-art
●