Renaissance. High renaissance artists All famous renaissance artists

01.07.2019

The first forerunners of Renaissance art appeared in Italy in the 14th century. Artists of this time, Pietro Cavallini (1259-1344), Simone Martini (1284-1344) and (primarily) Giotto (1267-1337), when creating paintings of traditional religious subjects, they began to use new artistic techniques: building a three-dimensional composition, using a landscape in the background, which allowed them to make images more realistic and lively. This sharply distinguished their work from the previous iconographic tradition, replete with conventions in the image.
The term is used to refer to their work. Proto-Renaissance (1300s - "Trecento") .

Giotto di Bondone (c. 1267-1337) - Italian painter and architect of the Proto-Renaissance era. One of the key figures in the history of Western art. Having overcome the Byzantine icon-painting tradition, he became the true founder of the Italian school of painting, developed a completely new approach to depicting space. Giotto's works were inspired by Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo.


Early Renaissance (1400s - "Quattrocento").

At the beginning of the 15th century Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446), Florentine scholar and architect.
Brunelleschi wanted to make the perception of the terms and theaters reconstructed by him more visual and tried to create geometrically perspective pictures from his plans for a certain point of view. In these searches, direct perspective.

This allowed the artists to get perfect images of three-dimensional space on a flat canvas of the picture.

_________

Another important step towards the Renaissance was the emergence of non-religious, secular art. Portrait and landscape established themselves as independent genres. Even religious subjects acquired a different interpretation - Renaissance artists began to consider their characters as heroes with pronounced individual traits and human motivation for actions.

The most famous artists of this period are Masaccio (1401-1428), Masolino (1383-1440), Benozzo Gozzoli (1420-1497), Piero Della Francesco (1420-1492), Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506), Giovanni Bellini (1430-1516), Antonello da Messina (1430-1479), Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449-1494), Sandro Botticelli (1447-1515).

Masaccio (1401-1428) - the famous Italian painter, the largest master of the Florentine school, the reformer of painting of the Quattrocento era.


Fresco. Miracle with the stater.

Painting. crucifixion.
Piero Della Francesco (1420-1492). The master's works are distinguished by majestic solemnity, nobility and harmony of images, generalization of forms, compositional balance, proportionality, accuracy of perspective constructions, soft gamma full of light.

Fresco. History of the Queen of Sheba. Church of San Francesco in Arezzo

Sandro Botticelli(1445-1510) - great Italian painter, representative of the Florentine school of painting.

Spring.

Birth of Venus.

High Renaissance ("Cinquecento").
The highest flowering of Renaissance art came for the first quarter of the 16th century.
Works Sansovino (1486-1570), Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), Rafael Santi (1483-1520), Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564), Giorgione (1476-1510), Titian (1477-1576), Antonio Correggio (1489-1534) constitute the golden fund of European art.

Leonardo di Ser Piero da Vinci (Florence) (1452-1519) - Italian artist (painter, sculptor, architect) and scientist (anatomist, naturalist), inventor, writer.

self-portrait
Lady with an ermine. 1490. Czartoryski Museum, Krakow
Mona Lisa (1503-1505/1506)
Leonardo da Vinci achieved great skill in the transfer of facial expressions of the face and body of a person, ways of transferring space, building a composition. At the same time, his works create a harmonious image of a person that meets humanistic ideals.
Madonna Litta. 1490-1491. Hermitage.

Madonna Benois (Madonna with a flower). 1478-1480
Madonna with a Carnation. 1478

During his life, Leonardo da Vinci made thousands of notes and drawings on anatomy, but did not publish his work. Making an autopsy of the bodies of people and animals, he accurately conveyed the structure of the skeleton and internal organs, including small details. According to professor of clinical anatomy Peter Abrams, da Vinci's scientific work was 300 years ahead of its time and in many ways surpassed the famous Grey's Anatomy.

List of inventions, both real and attributed to him:

parachute, toolescovo castle,bicycle, tankh, llight portable bridges for the army, pprojector, toatapult, robot, dvohlenz telescope.


Later, these innovations were developed Rafael Santi (1483-1520) - a great painter, graphic artist and architect, a representative of the Umbrian school.
Self-portrait. 1483


Michelangelo di Lodovico di Leonardo di Buonarroti Simoni(1475-1564) - Italian sculptor, painter, architect, poet, thinker.

Paintings and sculptures by Michelangelo Buonarotti are full of heroic pathos and, at the same time, a tragic sense of the crisis of humanism. His paintings glorify the strength and power of man, the beauty of his body, while emphasizing his loneliness in the world.

The genius of Michelangelo left an imprint not only on the art of the Renaissance, but also on all further world culture. His activities are mainly associated with two Italian cities - Florence and Rome.

However, the artist was able to realize his most grandiose plans precisely in painting, where he acted as a true innovator of color and form.
By order of Pope Julius II, he painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (1508-1512), representing the biblical story from the creation of the world to the flood and including more than 300 figures. In 1534-1541, in the same Sistine Chapel for Pope Paul III, he performed the grandiose, dramatic fresco The Last Judgment.
Sistine Chapel 3D.

The work of Giorgione and Titian is distinguished by an interest in the landscape, the poeticization of the plot. Both artists achieved great skill in the art of portraiture, with the help of which they conveyed the character and rich inner world of their characters.

Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco ( Giorgione) (1476 / 147-1510) - Italian artist, representative of the Venetian school of painting.


Sleeping Venus. 1510





Judith. 1504
Titian Vecellio (1488 / 1490-1576) - Italian painter, the largest representative of the Venetian school of the High and Late Renaissance.

Titian painted pictures on biblical and mythological subjects, he became famous as a portrait painter. He was commissioned by kings and popes, cardinals, dukes and princes. Titian was not even thirty years old when he was recognized as the best painter in Venice.

Self-portrait. 1567

Venus Urbinskaya. 1538
Portrait of Tommaso Mosti. 1520

Late Renaissance.
After the sack of Rome by imperial troops in 1527, the Italian Renaissance entered a period of crisis. Already in the work of the late Raphael, a new artistic line is outlined, called mannerism.
This era is characterized by overstretched and broken lines, elongated or even deformed figures, often naked, tension and unnatural poses, unusual or bizarre effects associated with size, lighting or perspective, the use of a caustic chromatic scale, overloaded composition, etc. The first masters mannerism Parmigianino , Pontormo , Bronzino- lived and worked at the court of the dukes of the Medici house in Florence. Later, Mannerist fashion spread throughout Italy and beyond.

Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola (Parmigianino - "inhabitant of Parma") (1503-1540,) Italian artist and engraver, representative of mannerism.

Self-portrait. 1540

Portrait of a woman. 1530.

Pontormo (1494-1557) - Italian painter, representative of the Florentine school, one of the founders of mannerism.


Mannerism was replaced by art in the 1590s baroque (transitional figures - Tintoretto and El Greco ).

Jacopo Robusti, better known as Tintoretto (1518 or 1519-1594) - painter of the Venetian school of the late Renaissance.


The Last Supper. 1592-1594. Church of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice.

El Greco ("Greek" Domenikos Theotokopoulos ) (1541-1614) - Spanish artist. By origin - a Greek, a native of the island of Crete.
El Greco had no contemporary followers, and his genius was rediscovered nearly 300 years after his death.
El Greco studied in the workshop of Titian, but, however, his painting technique differs significantly from that of his teacher. The works of El Greco are characterized by speed and expressiveness of execution, which bring them closer to modern painting.
Christ on the cross. OK. 1577. Private collection.
Trinity. 1579 Prado.

With classical completeness, the Renaissance was realized in Italy, in the Renaissance culture of which there are periods: the Proto-Renaissance or the times of pre-Renaissance phenomena, (“the era of Dante and Giotto”, about 1260-1320), partially coinciding with the Ducento period (13th century), as well as Trecento (14 century), Quattrocento (15th century) and Cinquecento (16th century). More common periods are the Early Renaissance (14th-15th centuries), when new trends actively interact with the Gothic, overcoming and creatively transforming it.

As well as the High and Late Renaissance, of which Mannerism became a special phase. In the Quattrocento era, the Florentine school, architects (Filippo Brunelleschi, Leona Battista Alberti, Bernardo Rossellino and others), sculptors (Lorenzo Ghiberti, Donatello, Jacopo della Quercia, Antonio Rossellino, Desiderio da Settignano), painters (Masaccio , Filippo Lippi, Andrea del Castagno, Paolo Uccello, Fra Angelico, Sandro Botticelli) who created a plastically integral concept of the world with internal unity, which gradually spread throughout Italy (the work of Piero della Francesca in Urbino, Vittore Carpaccio, Francesco Cossa in Ferrara, Andrea Mantegna in Mantua, Antonello da Messina and the brothers Gentile and Giovanni Bellini in Venice).

It is natural that the time, which attached central importance to the “divine” human creativity, put forward in the art of personalities who, with all the abundance of talents of that time, became the personification of entire eras of national culture (personalities-“titans”, as they were romantically called later). Giotto became the personification of the Proto-Renaissance, the opposite aspects of the Quattrocento - constructive rigor and sincere lyricism - were respectively expressed by Masaccio and Angelico with Botticelli. The "titans" of the Middle (or "High") Renaissance Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael and Michelangelo are artists - symbols of the great milestone of the New Age as such. The most important stages of Italian Renaissance architecture - early, middle and late - are monumentally embodied in the works of F. Brunelleschi, D. Bramante and A. Palladio.

In the Renaissance, medieval anonymity was replaced by individual, authorial creativity. Of great practical importance is the theory of linear and aerial perspective, proportions, problems of anatomy and light and shade modeling. The center of Renaissance innovations, the artistic "mirror of the era" was an illusory-natural-like painting, in religious art it displaces the icon, and in secular art it gives rise to independent genres of landscape, everyday painting, portrait (the latter played a primary role in the visual affirmation of the ideals of the humanistic virtu). The art of printed engraving on wood and metal, which became truly massive during the Reformation, receives its final value. Drawing from a working sketch turns into a separate type of creativity; the individual manner of the brushstroke, stroke, as well as the texture and the effect of incompleteness (non-finito) are beginning to be valued as independent artistic effects. Monumental painting also becomes picturesque, illusory-three-dimensional, gaining more and more visual independence from the massif of the wall. All types of visual arts now somehow violate the monolithic medieval synthesis (where architecture dominated), gaining comparative independence. Types of an absolutely round statue requiring a special detour, an equestrian monument, a portrait bust are being formed (in many respects reviving the ancient tradition), a completely new type of solemn sculptural and architectural tombstone is being formed.

During the period of the High Renaissance, when the struggle for humanistic Renaissance ideals acquired a tense and heroic character, architecture and fine arts were marked by the breadth of public sound, synthetic generalization and the power of images full of spiritual and physical activity. In the buildings of Donato Bramante, Raphael, Antonio da Sangallo, perfect harmony, monumentality and clear proportion reached their apogee; humanistic fullness, a bold flight of artistic imagination, the breadth of coverage of reality are characteristic of the work of the greatest masters of fine art of this era - Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, Giorgione, Titian. From the second quarter of the 16th century, when Italy entered a time of political crisis and disappointment in the ideas of humanism, the work of many masters acquired a complex and dramatic character. In the architecture of the Late Renaissance (Giacomo da Vignola, Michelangelo, Giulio Romano, Baldassare Peruzzi), there was an increased interest in the spatial development of the composition, the subordination of the building to a broad urban design; in public buildings, temples, villas, and palazzos that received a rich and complex development, the clear tectonics of the Early Renaissance was replaced by the intense conflict of tectonic forces (built by Jacopo Sansovino, Galeazzo Alessi, Michele Sanmicheli, Andrea Palladio). Painting and sculpture of the Late Renaissance were enriched by an understanding of the contradictory nature of the world, an interest in depicting dramatic mass action, in spatial dynamics (Paolo Veronese, Jacopo Tintoretto, Jacopo Bassano); unprecedented depth, complexity, inner tragedy reached the psychological characteristics of images in the later works of Michelangelo and Titian.

Venetian school

The Venetian school, one of the main schools of painting in Italy, with its center in the city of Venice (sometimes also in the small towns of Terraferma, areas of the mainland adjacent to Venice). The Venetian school is characterized by the predominance of the pictorial principle, special attention to the problems of color, the desire to embody the sensual fullness and colorfulness of being. Closely connected with the countries of Western Europe and the East, Venice drew from a foreign culture everything that could serve as its decoration: the elegance and golden sheen of Byzantine mosaics, the stone surroundings of Moorish buildings, the fantasticness of Gothic temples. At the same time, its own original style in art was developed here, gravitating towards ceremonial colorfulness. The Venetian school is characterized by a secular, life-affirming beginning, a poetic perception of the world, man and nature, subtle colorism.

The Venetian school reached its greatest prosperity in the era of the Early and High Renaissance, in the work of Antonello da Messina, who opened up for his contemporaries the expressive possibilities of oil painting, the creators of the ideally harmonic images of Giovanni Bellini and Giorgione, the greatest colorist Titian, who embodied in his canvases the cheerfulness and colorfulness inherent in Venetian painting. plethora. In the works of the masters of the Venetian school of the second half of the 16th century, virtuosity in conveying the multicolored world, love for festive spectacles and a diverse crowd coexist with overt and hidden drama, an alarming sense of the dynamics and infinity of the universe (paintings by Paolo Veronese and Jacopo Tintoretto). In the 17th century, the traditional interest of the Venetian school in the problems of color in the works of Domenico Fetti, Bernardo Strozzi and other artists coexists with the techniques of baroque painting, as well as realistic tendencies in the spirit of caravaggism. Venetian painting of the 18th century is characterized by the flourishing of monumental and decorative painting (Giovanni Battista Tiepolo), the genre of everyday life (Giovanni Battista Piazzetta, Pietro Longhi), the documentary-accurate architectural landscape - veduta (Giovanni Antonio Canaletto, Bernardo Belotto) and the lyrical, subtly conveying the poetic atmosphere daily life Venice cityscape (Francesco Guardi).

florentine school

The Florentine School, one of the leading Italian art schools of the Renaissance, is headquartered in the city of Florence. The formation of the Florentine school, which finally took shape in the 15th century, was facilitated by the flourishing of humanistic thought (Francesco Petrarca, Giovanni Boccaccio, Lico della Mirandola, etc.), which turned to the heritage of antiquity. The ancestor of the Florentine school in the era of the Proto-Renaissance was Giotto, who gave his compositions plastic persuasiveness and life authenticity.
In the 15th century, the founders of Renaissance art in Florence were the architect Filippo Brunelleschi, the sculptor Donatello, the painter Masaccio, followed by the architect Leon Battista Alberti, the sculptors Lorenzo Ghiberti, Luca della Robbia, Desiderio da Settignano, Benedetto da Maiano and other masters. In the architecture of the Florentine school in the 15th century, a new type of Renaissance palazzo was created, and the search began for an ideal type of temple building that would meet the humanistic ideals of the era.

The fine arts of the Florentine school of the 15th century are characterized by a passion for the problems of perspective, the desire for a plastically clear construction of the human figure (works by Andrea del Verrocchio, Paolo Uccello, Andrea del Castagno), and for many of its masters - a special spirituality and intimate lyrical contemplation (painting by Benozzo Gozzoli , Sandro Botticelli, Fra Angelico, Filippo Lippi). In the 17th century the Florentine school falls into decay.

Reference and biographical data of the Small Bay Planet Art Gallery are prepared on the basis of materials from the History of Foreign Art (edited by M.T. Kuzmina, N.L. Maltseva), the Artistic Encyclopedia of Foreign Classical Art, and the Great Russian Encyclopedia.

Renaissance (Renaissance). Italy. XV-XVI centuries. early capitalism. The country is ruled by wealthy bankers. They are interested in art and science.

The rich and powerful gather the talented and wise around them. Poets, philosophers, painters and sculptors have daily conversations with their patrons. For a moment it seemed that the people were ruled by sages, as Plato wanted.

They remembered the ancient Romans and Greeks. Which also built a society of free citizens. Where the main value is a person (not counting slaves, of course).

The Renaissance is not just copying the art of ancient civilizations. This is a mixture. Mythology and Christianity. Realism of nature and sincerity of images. Physical beauty and spiritual beauty.

It was just a flash. The period of the High Renaissance is about 30 years! From the 1490s to 1527 From the beginning of the flowering of Leonardo's creativity. Before the sack of Rome.

The mirage of an ideal world quickly faded. Italy was too fragile. She was soon enslaved by another dictator.

However, these 30 years determined the main features of European painting for 500 years ahead! Up to .

Image realism. Anthropocentrism (when a person is the main character and hero). Linear perspective. Oil paints. Portrait. Landscape…

Incredibly, in these 30 years, several brilliant masters worked at once. Which in other times are born one in 1000 years.

Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael and Titian are the titans of the Renaissance. But it is impossible not to mention their two predecessors. Giotto and Masaccio. Without which there would be no Renaissance.

1. Giotto (1267-1337)

Paolo Uccello. Giotto da Bondogni. Fragment of the painting “Five Masters of the Florentine Renaissance”. Beginning of the 16th century. .

XIV century. Proto-Renaissance. Its main character is Giotto. This is a master who single-handedly revolutionized art. 200 years before the High Renaissance. If not for him, the era that humanity is so proud of would hardly have come.

Before Giotto there were icons and frescoes. They were created according to the Byzantine canons. Faces instead of faces. flat figures. Proportional mismatch. Instead of a landscape - a golden background. As, for example, on this icon.


Guido da Siena. Adoration of the Magi. 1275-1280 Altenburg, Lindenau Museum, Germany.

And suddenly Giotto's frescoes appear. They have big figures. Faces of noble people. Sad. Mournful. Surprised. Old and young. Various.

Frescoes by Giotto in the Scrovegni Church in Padua (1302-1305). Left: Lamentation of Christ. Middle: Kiss of Judas (detail). Right: Annunciation of St. Anne (Mary's mother), fragment.

The main creation of Giotto is a cycle of his frescoes in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua. When this church opened to parishioners, crowds of people poured into it. Because they've never seen anything like it.

After all, Giotto did something unprecedented. He kind of translated the biblical stories into a simple, understandable language. And they have become much more accessible to ordinary people.


Giotto. Adoration of the Magi. 1303-1305 Fresco in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, Italy.

This is what will be characteristic of many masters of the Renaissance. Laconism of images. Live emotions of the characters. Realism.

Read more about the frescoes of the master in the article.

Giotto was admired. But his innovations were not further developed. The fashion for international gothic came to Italy.

Only after 100 years will a master appear, a worthy successor to Giotto.

2. Masaccio (1401-1428)


Masaccio. Self-portrait (fragment of the fresco “Saint Peter in the pulpit”). 1425-1427 The Brancacci Chapel in Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence, Italy.

Beginning of the 15th century. The so-called Early Renaissance. Another innovator enters the scene.

Masaccio was the first artist to use linear perspective. It was designed by his friend, the architect Brunelleschi. Now the depicted world has become similar to the real one. Toy architecture is in the past.

Masaccio. Saint Peter heals with his shadow. 1425-1427 The Brancacci Chapel in Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence, Italy.

He adopted the realism of Giotto. However, unlike his predecessor, he already knew anatomy well.

Instead of blocky characters, Giotto is beautifully built people. Just like the ancient Greeks.


Masaccio. Baptism of neophytes. 1426-1427 Brancacci Chapel, Church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence, Italy.
Masaccio. Exile from Paradise. 1426-1427 Fresco in the Brancacci Chapel, Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence, Italy.

Masaccio lived a short life. He died, like his father, unexpectedly. At 27 years old.

However, he had many followers. Masters of the following generations went to the Brancacci Chapel to learn from his frescoes.

So the innovations of Masaccio were picked up by all the great titans of the High Renaissance.

3. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)


Leonardo da Vinci. Self-portrait. 1512 Royal Library in Turin, Italy.

Leonardo da Vinci is one of the titans of the Renaissance. Which colossally influenced the development of painting.

It was he who raised the status of the artist himself. Thanks to him, representatives of this profession are no longer just artisans. These are the creators and aristocrats of the spirit.

Leonardo made a breakthrough primarily in portraiture.

He believed that nothing should distract from the main image. The eye should not wander from one detail to another. This is how his famous portraits appeared. Concise. Harmonious.


Leonardo da Vinci. Lady with an ermine. 1489-1490 Chertoryski Museum, Krakow.

The main innovation of Leonardo is that he found a way to make images ... alive.

Before him, the characters in the portraits looked like mannequins. The lines were clear. All details are carefully drawn. A painted drawing could not possibly be alive.

But then Leonardo invented the sfumato method. He blurred the lines. Made the transition from light to shadow very soft. His characters seem to be covered in a barely perceptible haze. The characters came to life.

. 1503-1519 Louvre, Paris.

Since then, sfumato will enter the active vocabulary of all the great artists of the future.

It is often believed that Leonardo, of course, is a genius. But he couldn't complete anything. And he often didn't finish painting. And many of his projects remained on paper (by the way, in 24 volumes). In general, he was thrown into medicine, then into music. And even the art of serving at one time was fond of.

However, think for yourself. 19 paintings. And he is the greatest artist of all times and peoples. Some of them are not even close in size. At the same time, having written 6000 canvases in his life. Obviously, who has a higher efficiency.

Read about the most famous painting of the master in the article.

4. Michelangelo (1475-1564)

Daniele da Volterra. Michelangelo (detail). 1544 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Michelangelo considered himself a sculptor. But he was a universal master. Like his other Renaissance colleagues. Therefore, his pictorial heritage is no less grandiose.

He is recognizable primarily by physically developed characters. Because he portrayed the perfect man. In which physical beauty means spiritual beauty.

Therefore, all his characters are so muscular, hardy. Even women and old people.

Michelangelo. Fragments of the Last Judgment fresco in the Sistine Chapel, Vatican.

Often Michelangelo painted the character naked. And then I added clothes on top. To make the body as embossed as possible.

He painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel himself. Although this is a few hundred figures! He didn't even let anyone rub the paint. Yes, he was a loner. Possessing a steep and quarrelsome character. But most of all, he was dissatisfied with ... himself.


Michelangelo. Fragment of the fresco "Creation of Adam". 1511 Sistine Chapel, Vatican.

Michelangelo lived a long life. Surviving the decline of the Renaissance. For him it was a personal tragedy. His later works are full of sadness and sorrow.

In general, the creative path of Michelangelo is unique. His early works are the praise of the human hero. Free and courageous. In the best traditions of ancient Greece. Like his David.

In the last years of life - these are tragic images. A deliberately rough-hewn stone. As if we have before us monuments to the victims of fascism of the 20th century. Look at his "Pieta".

Sculptures by Michelangelo at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence. Left: David. 1504 Right: Pieta of Palestrina. 1555

How is this possible? One artist in one lifetime went through all the stages of art from the Renaissance to the 20th century. What will the next generations do? Well, go your own way. Knowing that the bar has been set very high.

5. Raphael (1483-1520)

. 1506 Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy.

Raphael has never been forgotten. His genius has always been recognized. And during life. And after death.

His characters are endowed with sensual, lyrical beauty. It is he who is rightfully considered the most beautiful female images ever created. Their external beauty reflects the spiritual beauty of the heroines. Their meekness. Their sacrifice.

Raphael. . 1513 Old Masters Gallery, Dresden, Germany.

The famous words “Beauty will save the world” Fyodor Dostoevsky said precisely about. It was his favorite picture.

However, sensual images are not Raphael's only strong point. He thought very carefully about the composition of his paintings. He was an unsurpassed architect in painting. Moreover, he always found the simplest and most harmonious solution in the organization of space. It seems that it cannot be otherwise.


Raphael. Athens school. 1509-1511 Fresco in the rooms of the Apostolic Palace, Vatican.

Rafael lived only 37 years. He died suddenly. From caught colds and medical errors. But his legacy cannot be overestimated. Many artists idolized this master. Multiplying his sensual images in thousands of his canvases..

Titian was an unsurpassed colorist. He also experimented a lot with composition. In general, he was a bold and bright innovator.

For such a brilliance of talent, everyone loved him. Called "King of painters and painter of kings".

Speaking of Titian, I want to put an exclamation point after each sentence. After all, it was he who brought dynamics to painting. Pathos. Enthusiasm. Bright color. Shine of colors.

Titian. Ascension of Mary. 1515-1518 Church of Santa Maria Gloriosi dei Frari, Venice.

Towards the end of his life, he developed an unusual writing technique. The strokes are fast and thick. The paint was applied either with a brush or with fingers. From this - the images are even more alive, breathing. And the plots are even more dynamic and dramatic.


Titian. Tarquinius and Lucretia. 1571 Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, England.

Doesn't this remind you of anything? Of course, it's a technique. And the technique of artists of the XIX century: Barbizon and. Titian, like Michelangelo, will go through 500 years of painting in one lifetime. That's why he's a genius.

Read about the famous masterpiece of the master in the article.

Renaissance artists are artists of great knowledge. To leave such a legacy, one had to know a lot. In the field of history, astrology, physics and so on.

Therefore, each of their images makes us think. Why is it shown? What is the encrypted message here?

Therefore, they are almost never wrong. Because they thoroughly thought out their future work. Using all the baggage of their knowledge.

They were more than artists. They were philosophers. Explaining the world to us through painting.

That is why they will always be deeply interesting to us.

Sandro Botticelli(March 1, 1445 - May 17, 1510) - a deeply religious man, worked in all the major churches of Florence and in the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican, but remained in the history of art primarily as the author of large-format poetic canvases on subjects inspired by classical antiquity - "Spring" and "The Birth of Venus". .

For a long time, Botticelli was in the shadow of the giants of the Renaissance who worked after him, until he was rediscovered in the middle of the 19th century by the British Pre-Raphaelites, who revered the fragile linearity and spring freshness of his mature canvases as the highest point in the development of world art.

Born in the family of a wealthy citizen Mariano di Vanni Filipepi. Received a good education. He studied painting with the monk Filippo Lippi and took over from him that passion in depicting touching motifs that distinguishes Lippi's historical paintings. Then he worked for the famous sculptor Verrocchio. In 1470 he organized his own workshop..

He adopted the subtlety and precision of lines from his second brother, who was a jeweler. For some time he studied with Leonardo da Vinci in the workshop of Verrocchio. The original feature of Botticelli's own talent is his inclination towards the fantastic. He was one of the first to introduce ancient myth and allegory into the art of his time, and he worked with special love on mythological subjects. Especially spectacular is his Venus, who swims naked on the sea in a shell, and the gods of the winds shower her with a rain of roses, and drive the shell to the shore.

The best creation of Botticelli is considered to be the frescoes he began in 1474 in the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican. Completed many paintings commissioned by the Medici. In particular, he painted the banner of Giuliano Medici, brother of Lorenzo the Magnificent. In the 1470-1480s, the portrait becomes an independent genre in the work of Botticelli ("Man with a Medal", ca. 1474; "Young Man", 1480s). Botticelli became famous for his delicate aesthetic taste and such works as The Annunciation (1489-1490), The Abandoned Woman (1495-1500), etc. In the last years of his life, Botticelli, apparently, left painting ..

Sandro Botticelli is buried in the family tomb in the Ognisanti church in Florence. According to the will, he was buried near the grave of Simonetta Vespucci, who inspired the most beautiful images of the master.

Leonardo di Ser Piero da Vinci(April 15, 1452, the village of Anchiano, near the town of Vinci, near Florence - May 2, 1519, - the great Italian artist (painter, sculptor, architect) and scientist (anatomist, naturalist), inventor, writer, one of the largest representatives of the art of the High Renaissance, a prime example of the "universal man" . .

Leonardo is primarily known to our contemporaries as an artist. In addition, it is possible that da Vinci could have been a sculptor: researchers from the University of Perugia - Giancarlo Gentilini and Carlo Sisi - claim that the terracotta head they found in 1990 is the only sculptural work of Leonardo da Vinci that has come down to us. However, da Vinci himself at different periods of his life considered himself primarily an engineer or scientist. He did not devote much time to the fine arts and worked rather slowly. Therefore, the artistic heritage of Leonardo is not quantitatively large, and a number of his works have been lost or badly damaged. However, his contribution to world artistic culture is extremely important even against the background of the cohort of geniuses that the Italian Renaissance gave. Thanks to his works, the art of painting moved to a qualitatively new stage in its development. The Renaissance artists who preceded Leonardo decisively abandoned many of the conventions of medieval art. It was a movement towards realism and much has already been achieved in the study of perspective, anatomy, greater freedom in compositional decisions. But in terms of picturesqueness, work with paint, the artists were still quite conventional and constrained. The line in the picture clearly outlined the subject, and the image had the appearance of a painted drawing. The most conditional was the landscape, which played a secondary role. .

Leonardo realized and embodied a new painting technique. His line has the right to blur, because that's how we see it. He realized the phenomenon of light scattering in the air and the appearance of sfumato - haze between the viewer and the depicted object, which softens color contrasts and lines. As a result, realism in painting moved to a qualitatively new level. . renaissance painting botticelli renaissance

Rafael Santi(March 28, 1483 - April 6, 1520) - the great Italian painter, graphic artist and architect, representative of the Umbrian school ..

The son of the painter Giovanni Santi underwent an initial artistic training in Urbino with his father Giovanni Santi, but at a young age he ended up in the studio of the outstanding artist Pietro Perugino. It was the artistic language and imagery of Perugino's paintings, with their inclination towards a symmetrical balanced composition, clarity of spatial resolution and softness in the resolution of color and lighting, that had a primary influence on the manner of the young Raphael.

It is also necessary to stipulate that the creative style of Raphael included a synthesis of techniques and finds of other masters. At first, Raphael relied on the experience of Perugino, later in turn - on the findings of Leonardo da Vinci, Fra Bartolomeo, Michelangelo. .

Early works ("Madonna Conestabile" 1502 - 1503) are imbued with grace, soft lyricism. He glorified the earthly existence of man, the harmony of spiritual and physical forces in the paintings of the rooms of the Vatican (1509-1517), achieving an impeccable sense of proportion, rhythm, proportions, harmony of color, unity of figures and majestic architectural backgrounds.

In Florence, having come into contact with the works of Michelangelo and Leonardo, Raphael learned from them the anatomically correct image of the human body. At the age of 25, the artist goes to Rome, and from that moment begins the period of the highest flowering of his work: he performs monumental paintings in the Vatican Palace (1509--1511), among which is the undisputed masterpiece of the master - the fresco "Athenian School", writes altar compositions and easel paintings, distinguished by the harmony of design and execution, works as an architect (for some time Raphael even supervises the construction of St. Peter's Cathedral). In the tireless search for his ideal, embodied for the artist in the image of the Madonna, he creates his most perfect creation - the "Sistine Madonna" (1513), a symbol of motherhood and self-denial. The paintings and murals of Raphael were recognized by his contemporaries, and soon Santi became a central figure in the artistic life of Rome. Many noble people of Italy wanted to intermarry with the artist, including Raphael's close friend Cardinal Bibbiena. The artist died at the age of thirty-seven from heart failure. The unfinished paintings of the Villa Farnesina, the Vatican Loggias and other works were completed by Raphael's students according to his sketches and drawings.

One of the largest representatives of the art of the High Renaissance, whose paintings are characterized by the emphasized balance and harmony of the whole, the balance of the composition, the regularity of the rhythm and the delicate use of the possibilities of color. Impeccable command of the line and the ability to generalize and highlight the main thing made Raphael one of the most outstanding masters of drawing of all time. The legacy of Raphael served as one of the pillars in the process of the formation of European academicism. Adherents of classicism - the Carracci brothers, Poussin, Mengs, David, Ingres, Bryullov and many other artists - extolled the legacy of Raphael as the most perfect phenomenon in world art ..

Titian Vecellio(1476/1477 or 1480s-1576) - Italian Renaissance painter. The name of Titian is on a par with such Renaissance artists as Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael. Titian painted pictures on biblical and mythological subjects, he became famous as a portrait painter. He was commissioned by kings and popes, cardinals, dukes and princes. Titian was not even thirty years old when he was recognized as the best painter in Venice.

From his place of birth (Pieve di Cadore in the province of Belluno), he is sometimes called da Cadore; also known as Titian the Divine.

Titian was born into the family of Gregorio Vecellio, a statesman and military figure. At the age of ten, he was sent with his brother to Venice to study with the famous mosaicist Sebastian Zuccato. A few years later he entered the studio of Giovanni Bellini as an apprentice. He studied with Lorenzo Lotto, Giorgio da Castelfranco (Giorgione) and a number of other artists who later became famous.

In 1518, Titian paints the picture "The Ascension of the Mother of God", in 1515 - Salome with the head of John the Baptist. From 1519 to 1526 he paints a number of altars, including the altar of the Pesaro family.

Titian lived a long life. Until the last days he did not stop working. Titian wrote his last painting, Lamentation of Christ, for his own tombstone. The artist died of the plague in Venice on August 27, 1576, having contracted the disease from his son while caring for him.

Emperor Charles V summoned Titian to himself and surrounded him with honor and respect and said more than once: “I can create a duke, but where can I get a second Titian.” When one day the artist dropped his brush, Charles V picked it up and said: "It is honorable to serve Titian even to the emperor." Both the Spanish and French kings invited Titian to their place, to settle at court, but the artist, having completed the orders, always returned to his native Venice. A crater on Mercury was named in honor of Titian. .

Characteristic features in the art of the Renaissance

Perspective. To add three-dimensional depth and space to their work, Renaissance artists borrowed and greatly expanded the concepts of linear perspective, horizon line, and vanishing point.

§ Linear perspective. Painting with linear perspective is like looking out the window and painting exactly what you see on the window pane. Objects in the picture began to have their own dimensions, depending on the distance. Those that were farther from the viewer decreased, and vice versa.

§ Skyline. This is a line at the distance at which objects shrink to a point as thick as this line.

§ Vanishing point. This is the point at which parallel lines seem to converge far in the distance, often at the horizon line. This effect can be observed if you stand on the railroad tracks and look at the rails that go to yes. l.

Shadows and light. Artists played with interest in how light falls on objects and creates shadows. Shadows and light could be used to draw attention to a particular point in a painting.

Emotions. Renaissance artists wanted the viewer, looking at the work, to feel something, to experience an emotional experience. It was a form of visual rhetoric where the viewer felt inspired to become better at something.

Realism and naturalism. In addition to perspective, the artists sought to make objects, especially people, look more realistic. They studied human anatomy, measured proportions and searched for the ideal human form. The people looked real and showed genuine emotion, allowing the viewer to make inferences about what the people depicted were thinking and feeling.

The era of "Renaissance" is divided into 4 stages:

Proto-Renaissance (2nd half of the 13th century - 14th century)

Early Renaissance (early 15th - late 15th century)

High Renaissance (late 15th - first 20 years of the 16th century)

Late Renaissance (mid-16th - 1590s)

Proto-Renaissance

The Proto-Renaissance is closely connected with the Middle Ages, in fact, it appeared in the Late Middle Ages, with Byzantine, Romanesque and Gothic traditions, this period was the forerunner of the Renaissance. It is divided into two sub-periods: before the death of Giotto di Bondone and after (1337). Italian artist and architect, founder of the Proto-Renaissance era. One of the key figures in the history of Western art. Having overcome the Byzantine icon-painting tradition, he became the true founder of the Italian school of painting, developed a completely new approach to depicting space. Giotto's works were inspired by Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo. The central figure of painting was Giotto. Renaissance artists considered him a reformer of painting. Giotto outlined the path along which its development went: filling religious forms with secular content, a gradual transition from planar images to three-dimensional and relief images, an increase in realism, introduced a plastic volume of figures into painting, depicted an interior in painting.


At the end of the 13th century, the main temple building, the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, was erected in Florence, the author was Arnolfo di Cambio, then Giotto continued the work.

The most important discoveries, the brightest masters live and work in the first period. The second segment is connected with the plague epidemic that hit Italy.

The art of the proto-Renaissance first manifested itself in sculpture (Niccolò and Giovanni Pisano, Arnolfo di Cambio, Andrea Pisano). Painting is represented by two art schools: Florence and Siena.

Early Renaissance

The period of the so-called "Early Renaissance" in Italy covers the time from 1420 to 1500. During these eighty years, art has not yet completely renounced the traditions of the recent past (the Middle Ages), but is trying to mix into them elements borrowed from classical antiquity. Only later, under the influence of more and more changing conditions of life and culture, did the artists completely abandon the medieval foundations and boldly use examples of ancient art, both in the general concept of their works and in their details.

Whereas art in Italy was already resolutely following the path of imitation of classical antiquity, in other countries it long held on to the traditions of the Gothic style. North of the Alps, as well as in Spain, the Renaissance does not come until the end of the 15th century, and its early period lasts until about the middle of the next century.

Artists of the Early Renaissance

One of the first and most brilliant representatives of this period is considered to be Masaccio (Masaccio Tommaso Di Giovanni Di Simone Cassai), the famous Italian painter, the greatest master of the Florentine school, the reformer of painting of the Quattrocento era.

With his work, he contributed to the transition from Gothic to a new art, glorifying the greatness of man and his world. Masaccio's contribution to art was renewed in 1988 when his main creation - Frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel in Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence- have been restored to their original form.

- Resurrection of the son of Theophilus, Masaccio and Filippino Lippi

- Adoration of the Magi

- Miracle with stater

Other important representatives of this period were Sandro Botticelli. great Italian Renaissance painter, representative of the Florentine school of painting.

- Birth of Venus

- Venus and Mars

- Spring

- Adoration of the Magi

High Renaissance

The third period of the Renaissance - the time of the most magnificent development of his style - is commonly called the "High Renaissance". It extends into Italy from approximately 1500 to 1527. At this time, the center of influence of Italian art from Florence moved to Rome, thanks to the accession to the papal throne of Julius II - an ambitious, courageous, enterprising man, who attracted the best artists of Italy to his court, occupied them with numerous and important works and gave others an example of love for art. . Under this Pope and under his immediate successors, Rome becomes, as it were, the new Athens of the time of Pericles: many monumental buildings are built in it, magnificent sculptural works are created, frescoes and paintings are painted, which are still considered the pearls of painting; at the same time, all three branches of art harmoniously go hand in hand, helping one another and mutually acting on each other. Antiquity is now being studied more thoroughly, reproduced with greater rigor and consistency; tranquility and dignity replace the playful beauty that was the aspiration of the preceding period; reminiscences of the medieval completely disappear, and a completely classical imprint falls on all works of art. But the imitation of the ancients does not stifle their independence in the artists, and with great resourcefulness and liveliness of imagination, they freely process and apply to business what they consider appropriate to borrow for themselves from ancient Greco-Roman art.

The work of three great Italian masters marks the pinnacle of the Renaissance, this is Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) Leonardo di Ser Piero da Vinci great Italian Renaissance painter, representative of the Florentine school of painting. Italian artist (painter, sculptor, architect) and scientist (anatomist, naturalist), inventor, writer, musician, one of the largest representatives of the art of the High Renaissance, a vivid example of the "universal man"

The Last Supper

Mona Lisa,

-Vitruvian Man ,

- Madonna Litta

- Madonna in the rocks

-Madonna with a spindle

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) Michelangelo di Lodovico di Leonardo di Buonarroti Simoni. Italian sculptor, painter, architect [⇨], poet [⇨], thinker [⇨]. . One of the greatest masters of the Renaissance [⇨] and early Baroque. His works were considered the highest achievements of Renaissance art during the life of the master himself. Michelangelo lived for almost 89 years, an entire era, from the High Renaissance to the origins of the Counter-Reformation. During this period, thirteen Popes were replaced - he carried out orders for nine of them.

Creation of Adam

Last Judgment

and Raphael Santi (1483-1520). great Italian painter, graphic artist and architect, representative of the Umbrian school.

- School of Athens

-Sistine Madonna

- Transformation

- Wonderful gardener

Late Renaissance

The Late Renaissance in Italy covers the period from the 1530s to the 1590s-1620s. The Counter-Reformation triumphed in Southern Europe ( counter-reformation(lat. Contrareformation; from contra- against and reformatio- transformation, reformation) - a Catholic church-political movement in Europe in the mid-16th-17th centuries, directed against the Reformation and aimed at restoring the position and prestige of the Roman Catholic Church.), which looked with caution at any free thought, including the chanting of the human body and resurrection of the ideals of antiquity as the cornerstones of the Renaissance ideology. Worldview contradictions and a general feeling of crisis resulted in Florence in the "nervous" art of far-fetched colors and broken lines - mannerism. In Parma, where Correggio worked, Mannerism reached only after the death of the artist in 1534. The artistic traditions of Venice had their own logic of development; until the end of the 1570s, Palladio worked there (real name Andrea di Pietro). great Italian architect of the late Renaissance and Mannerism.( Mannerism(from Italian maniera, manner) - Western European literary and artistic style of the 16th - first third of the 17th century. It is characterized by the loss of Renaissance harmony between the bodily and spiritual, nature and man.) The founder of Palladianism ( Palladianism or Palladian architecture- an early form of classicism, which grew out of the ideas of the Italian architect Andrea Palladio (1508-1580). The style is based on strict adherence to symmetry, taking into account perspectives and borrowing the principles of classical temple architecture of Ancient Greece and Rome.) And classicism. Probably the most influential architect in history.

The first independent work of Andrea Palladio, as a talented designer and gifted architect, is the Basilica in Vicenza, in which his original inimitable talent was manifested.

Among the country houses, the most outstanding creation of the master is the Villa Rotunda. Andrea Palladio built it in Vicenza for a retired Vatican official. It is notable for being the first secular building of the Renaissance, built in the form of an ancient temple.

Another example is the Palazzo Chiericati, which is unusual in that the first floor of the building was almost entirely given over to public use, which was consistent with the requirements of the city authorities of those times.

Among the famous urban constructions of Palladio, one should definitely mention the Olimpico Theatre, designed in the style of an amphitheatre.

Titian ( Titian Vecellio) Italian painter, the largest representative of the Venetian school of the High and Late Renaissance. The name of Titian is on a par with such Renaissance artists as Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael. Titian painted pictures on biblical and mythological subjects, he became famous as a portrait painter. He was commissioned by kings and popes, cardinals, dukes and princes. Titian was not even thirty years old when he was recognized as the best painter in Venice.

From his place of birth (Pieve di Cadore in the province of Belluno, Republic of Venice), he is sometimes referred to as da cadore; also known as Titian the Divine.

- Ascension of the Virgin Mary

- Bacchus and Ariadne

- Diana and Actaeon

- Venus Urbino

- Abduction of Europa

whose work had little in common with the crisis phenomena in the art of Florence and Rome.



Similar articles