Early Modern/Renaissance Art and Culture
A brief overview
What was the Renaissance?
Or, what happened in early modern culture that was distinct from Medieval culture?
What was the Renaissance?
Beginning in Italy, growth of the merchant classes
Rapid recovery from the plague, esp. in cities like Florence, stimulated artistic and intellectual development on a par with that of Ancient Greece
Relative prosperity of survivors of the Plague
Growth of patronage of the arts by merchant class rather than exclusively by church and crown
Rise of certain concepts we now term "Renaissance" world-view
What was the Renaissance? continued
Terminology issues:
Until recently, termed "the Renaissance" to affirm a "rebirth" of classical techniques and ideals
Now many scholars call it the "Early Modern" period to indicate 1) the need to historicize concepts like "renaissance" (whose Renaissance, they ask?) and 2) the idea that rather than simply a revival of classical ideals, this was the beginning of what we now call "modernity."
"Renaissance/Early Modern" characteristics
Given that the artists, techniques, paintings, etc. considered "Renaissance" rather than "Medieval" lived/occurred all over Europe at different times, what were these Renaissance or "early modern" characteristics?
"Renaissance/Early Modern" characteristics 1
Increased emphasis on the domestic, the secular, the human
Examples: in Northern Renaissance, Van Eyck’s portrait of Arnolfini and his wife
First painting in Western art to portray a secular couple in a domestic interior
(view image and discuss)
"Renaissance/Early Modern" characteristics 2
Increasing focus on the individual
not simply servant of God or the king
Sometimes self-reflexive quality to work (self-consciousness, art that includes shadow or reflection or even body of painter)
Even when subject is not the self, the emotional and psychological aspects of the human figure predominate
(view Michelangelo images)
"Renaissance/Early Modern" characteristics, 3
Idea that artists were creators rather than technicians
birth of the idea of the artistic genius
Vasari’s Lives of the Painters 1550
(note contemporaneity with subject matter)
(look again at Van Eyck and also at Velasquez)
"Renaissance/Early Modern" characteristics 4
Exploration of (later, anxiety about) the relationship between the present and the past
Relationship to traditions (artistic, intellectual, religious, etc.)
"Renaissance/Early Modern" characteristics 5
Growing sense of global culture
Explorations/imperialism
"Renaissance/Early Modern" characteristics 6
Emphasis on science and rationalism that would culminate in "the Enlightenment" of the 18th century and then continue to our own time
Intersections between arts and sciences, for example, anatomy (art and medicine)
Key figure: Leonardo da Vinci
Key figure: architect, philospher Filippo Brunelleschi, who discovered 1st system of linear perspective (making 2-dimensional paintings have depth perspective, look 3-dimensional)
"Renaissance/Early Modern" characteristics 7
Relative secularization of life in comparison to Medieval era (more like ancient Greece, Rome)
Religious and political upheavals; rise of interest in magic, superstition pre-Enlightenment (dark side of the Renaissance?)
Willingness to challenge authorities of various kinds that we now associate with modern iconoclasm
Characteristics specific to art:
Rise of portraiture and not simply of religious or classical figures
Naturalism in the early period, Idealism in later periods
Interiors in the early period, outside or "plein air" portraits later on
Different timelines for different countries
Selected areas we will look at: Italy (original site of growth), Germany, Netherlands
Italy
Early Renaissance:
[Giotto], Massaccio, Bellini, Botticelli
High Renaissance:
Raphael (concept that Raphael produces quantum leap in technique)
Leonardo da Vinci
Michelangelo
Northern Renaissance
Germany: Durer and Cranach
The Netherlands: Van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, later Brueghel and Bosch
To think about:
As we read more works in the history of medicine, as well as moving into the world of literature with Montaigne, Bacon, and Shakespeare, how does this increasing emphasis on the human being work itself out as an emphasis on and exploration of the human body? The body alone is not the focus of Renaissance art, medicine, and literature, and yet it plays a signficant role in all areas. Let’s explore what meanings the body has and how writers express those meanings.