Recreating the Renaissance

An Experience

Welcome to the Golden AgeGolden Age

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• Explore. Look and appreciate the art, and enjoy it.

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To:Italian Artists

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Artists

Albrecht Durer painted in a humanist style. He was a German Renaissance artist who created multiple woodcuts (over 350) as well as many self portraits. The realism and humanism within the painting is visible. He created his first self-portrait at age 13, and continued to create them due to his friends support (he created 5, to be exact).

Albrecht Durer was a Christian. He read from the bible and produce paintings and woodcuts from them. One of these woodcuts was “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” It depicts the opening of the first gate to the destruction of the world. These horsemen emerged from the gate in an interesting order. First, came a white horse with a man wielding a bow, representing Conquest. Then emerged a man riding a red horse, wielding a Sword, War. Then, upon a brown horse a man wielding scales appeared, Famine. Finally, the last horseman came, and all be brought was Death. He rode a black horse.

Neverlandish Proverbs was painted by Pieter Bruegel. Like many Flemish works from this period, proverbs, or wise sayings, were incorporated into paintings to spread a message to the audience. Netherlandish Proverbs, however, was one of the first to have so many themes spread throughout a single picture. Bruegel was known for painting scenes of peasant life, which is also visible in this painting. It was painted in 1559 with oil on an oak board. Some examples are “carrying a basket of light into the daylight”, which means working hard at unnecessary labor, and “having your roof covered in tarts”, which means having a great quantity of everything.*

The Death of the Virgin was painted around 1564 with oil by Pieter Bruegel. It was made at the request of one of Bruegel’s friends, Abraham Ortelius. It is based on the event from Golden Legend by Jacobus de Voragine in which the Virgin Mary dies and multiple biblical people surround her.

The Crucifixion and the Last Judgment are both very significant biblically mentioned events. Jan van Eyck, the artist of this painting, put them next to each other to show contrast. Inscribed on the frame and within the picture of The Crucifixion and the Last Judgment are verses from the Bible that describe the two events depicted. It was painted in 1433 with oil on canvas. One of these contrasts is that the Crucifixion portion of the painting was painted very realistically while the Last Judgment half used size and placement of individuals to show importance. For example, the figure in the Last Judgment in the upper center beneath the cross is most likely Jesus, and because of his importance he is bigger than all the other characters in the picture, besides the skeleton, which is also important, since it probably represents death and Hell.

In this painting of Boticelli’s, The Mystical Nativity, it shows his distinguish emphasizes on outlines. As you can see the lines in this painting are very heavy and dark, giving it the Boticelli bold and melancholy feeling. It also gives away the Renaissance essence of setting religious themes on the classical Greek or Roman background, due to the lines in Greek on the very top of the painting. What makes this painting interesting is that it is the only painting he signed, and that it associates him with the hellfire preacher Savonarola.

In this self-portrait of his, Leonardo exercised his genius in details with just red chalk alone. As you know individual achievements was a main point of the renaissance humanism movements, so this portrait captures the very heart of it all. Not to mention this painting could be the only portrait Leonardo painted of himself

In Titian’s painting Pietà, he used shades of coloring to make it realistic, although straying from the a bit from perspective view caused the painting to lose some of its realism. However, the painting still managed to reflect the renaissance style. This painting is also gifted by Titian’s talent in giving the subjects of his paintings a persona, or the raw emotions and dramatic effects from within a painting. The persona portrayed is unparalleled through this work of Titian’s. It should also be mentioned that this painting, unfinished through Titian’s death, was completed by Palma il Giovane who added the final touch of the cherub holding the torch.

In the painting, St. Peter healing with his shadow based in the Acts of Apostles (5: 12-14), Massacio displays his famed technique and the spirit of the Renaissance. His technique uses scientific perspective to give it a 3D optical effect, as you can see by the objects it uses to the sizes of the objects, giving them the appearance of distance. The spirit of the Renaissance being humanism, which strived for individual achievements as one of its main components, shows as the people in the portrait besides St. Peter and St. John were the well-known people of the day such as Donatello.

St. George Fighting the Dragon (Washington Ed.) by Raphael is about the story of St. George saving a princess who was to be sacrificed to a dragon. He probably drew this work of art because of its popularity during the time, and its religious background.

Thanks For Coming! Have a nice day!

Bibliography:Netherlandish Proverbs

    Pic: http://www.artchive.com/artchive/b/bruegel/proverbs.jpg    Info: http://www.uvm.edu/~fleming/index.php?category=exhibitions&page=netherlandish

Crucifixion and last Judgment    Pic: http://www.artchive.com/artchive/v/van_eyck/crucifixion.jpg

   Info: http://www.metmuseum.org/explore/Vaneyck/van_eyck9.htm

Durer self portrait    Pic: http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/durer/self/self-22.jpg

Info: http://www.artchive.com/ftp_site.htm

Four Horsemen    Pic: http://www.artchive.com/artchive/d/durer/4horse.jpg

Info: Turner Co. Family Bible, 2nd Ed.Massacio- St. Peter healing with his shadow

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/m/masaccio/shadow.jpgLeonardo da Vinci- Self-Portrait

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/l/leonardo/leonardo_self-portrait.jpgRaphael (Rafaello Sanzio)- St. George Fighting the Dragon

http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/raphael/nga-george.jpgTitian (Tiziano Vecellio)- Pieta

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/t/titian/titian_pieta.jpg

Sandro Boticelli- The Mystical Nativityhttp://www.artchive.com/artchive/b/botticelli/

mystical_nativity.jpg

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