Image via Complex Original
The Italian Renaissance holds a special place in modern visual culture, especially American pop culture. The number of times re-creations of Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper have popped up on the Internet speaks to the art movement's lasting influence. And if there's one famous painting that everyone knows, it's the Mona Lisa, another Renaissance staple.
In any case, have you ever stopped to think about the context of these artworks? The Italian Renaissance represents a complete rebirth and rediscovery of all kinds of knowledge—from mathematics to Ancient Greek and Roman techniques. The works we have come to love reflect a wealth of cultural change, much of which we can still learn from today. Check out our list of 10 Things Everybody Should Know About Italian Renaissance Art.
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Major Players
The Italian Renaissance spans from the 14th century to the beginning of the 16th century. Most classic paintings and statues that we immediately think of as Renaissance art, however, were completed during the High Renaissance, from the 1490 to 1527. While this movement took place in different areas of Italy, when you think Italian Renaissance, think Florence, Florence, Florence...with a dash of Rome, thanks to Michelangelo.
The leading men (female artists, in this time period, were few and far between—sorry, ladies) during the High Renaissance were everybody's favorite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Leonardo [da Vinci], Michelangelo, Raphael, and Donatello. These guys set the standard during the High Renaissance for color, proportion, and composition. They would be nothing without a few artists who came before them, though.
Giotto was one of the first artists who added weight and personality to his subjects. An easy way to remember his work is with the quote, “Giotto makes massive Madonnas." Then there was Masaccio, who was an early adapter of linear perspective. He was a brilliant mathematician and a talented artist (there were a bunch of those types of guys during the Renaissance).
Leading Patrons
The Medici family, a powerful Florentine banking family and political dynasty, became the main patrons of 15th century art in Italy along with the Catholic Church. This may seem like two separate groups, but the Medicis had a couple of popes and a couple of cardinals in the family (thank God for nepotism), so they were able to maintain their dominance as patrons of the arts.
Above are two dashing portraits of Medici men, but you can also play the game of “spot the patron” when looking at religious 15th-century Italian artwork, which often included depictions of the men with the money.
Sources of Inspiration
Italian Renaissance artists were looking to their Classical past and soaking up all of its artistic inspirational goodness. The Renaissance saw the discovery of many Greek and Roman sculptures and the rediscovery of Classical buildings.
Michelangelo was present when quite possibly the most influential sculpture, Laocoon, was being unearthed, and the twisting, highly muscular bodies influenced his work. In the background of the painting Delivery of the Keys by Renaissance master Pietro Perugino (in the Sistine Chapel), there are two Roman triumphal arches that are suspiciously similar to the Arch of Constantine, an Ancient Roman structure that's a 20-minute walk from the Sistine Chapel.
Technique and Medium
The medium of choice for artists in the Italian Renaissance was largely fresco, which is created when paint is applied to wet plaster. Somebody painting a fresco has to work very quickly because the plaster dries rapidly. Everything from Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling to Masaccio's Holy Trinity was painted with fresco.
Want to impress people at your next cocktail party with a little trivia? Da Vinci's The Last Supper is not a fresco. Da Vinci experimented with a new type of paint when he was creating The Last Supper, a type of paint which almost immediately started to flake off the wall. We're sure conservators are having a ball trying to stop one of the world's most famous paintings from falling off of the wall.
Biblical Subject Matter
Remember how we said that the Catholic Church was commissioning lots of the artwork during the Renaissance? As a result, you get more 2D Jesuses and other assorted Biblical subjects than you would probably ever want to see. Giotto ignited the Renaissance with his famous Madonna Enthroned, on view in Florence at the Uffizi Gallery. Notice how he highlighted the knee and the drapery, a new way to show volume that was highly innovative during his time.
Almost 100 years later, artists took a famous Biblical story about the battle between David and Goliath in order to assert Florence's dominance over Milan. The small Tuscan city of Florence was a rival of the larger city of Milan—the David to Milan's Goliath. Donatello's David shows the Biblical hero as he is described: a young, lithe boy, who stands with Goliath's head under his foot in victory. Michelangelo, on the other hand, chose to hide David's weapon, and his sculpture does not even show Goliath. He instead depicts David deep in concentration, focusing on his intellect, in line with the Renaissance's new emphasis on intellectual pursuit.
Stability and Symmetry
Another telltale Renaissance characteristic is a stable, symmetrical composition. Renaissance artists love triangles, and a pyramid is a very stable shape. Take a look at da Vinci's The Last Supper (above). Ignore the man/woman to Jesus' right, and take a look at the figure of Jesus himself. He is a triangle. Then look at how Leonardo organizes the disciples. They are also in triangular compositions of three.
Michelangelo's Pietà, which represents the tender moment when Mary held the deceased Jesus after he had been taken off the cross, is also a large triangle in composition. Michelangelo enlarges Mary's lower body (take a look at her knees—if she were to stand up, she would tower over Jesus) and covers it with heavy drapery to accommodate having a fully grown man lie comfortably across her lap. Mary's lap and Jesus' body create the base of the triangle, and Mary's upper body completes the form.
Mathematical Composition
Many artists during the Renaissance were both artists and mathematicians. Remember how many things da Vinci did? One of the biggest advancements during the Renaissance was the successful application of one-point perspective in Masaccio's Holy Trinity. The fresco shows a crucified Jesus, and under the cross is a skeleton meant to remind the viewer that they, too, are mortal—we know, it's very uplifting. The lines of painted architecture behind the cross recede in space to create the illusion that Jesus is there before the viewer. If you are about the height of a 15th century Italian (not that tall), then the illusion works beautifully. We can't speak for people who are 6 foot and up.
In 1502, the architect Donato Bramante memorialized the spot in Rome where St. Peter is believed to have been martyred with his Tempietto, a perfect little, round temple dedicated to Jesus' right hand man. The tiny building is made up of circular forms and capped with a dome. Every architectural element of this structure has been painstakingly proportioned so it would be completely harmonious, symmetrical, and stable.
The Pazzi Chapel in Florence is also incredibly geometric in its architectural design. Its facade can be broken down into sub-shapes of squares, rectangles, and circles. Using highly geometric, symmetrical, and proportional forms in architecture was believed to reflect the divine because of how flawless the shapes are. The architects were designing God into their buildings.
The Dome
Advancements in math had a huge impact on architecture. For the first time since Ancient Rome, people were building domes that spanned large areas. One of the most famous domes of the earlier Renaissance is the Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, also known as the Duomo, designed by Filippo Brunelleschi. Until Brunelleschi built his double dome (yes, there is an interior dome and an exterior dome), there was nothing covering the large opening in the Florentine cathedral. It's kind of the original “build it, and it will come” moment.
Later, Michelangelo designed his dome for St. Peter's Basilica in Rome so that it would be just a few feet smaller than the dome of the Pantheon (the Ancient Roman building famous for its concrete dome), in order to pay homage to the Classical architects that came before him.
Depictions of Classical Subjects
If artists weren't painting Biblical subjects, they were painting Classical ones. Sandro Botticelli's The Birth of Venus shows the moment when Venus, birthed from the sea, is blown to shore on her half seashell, waiting to be clothed. She strikes the viewer as incredibly beautiful, but if you look at the proportion of her body, her neck has what looks like 10 vertebrae in it, and her arms are way too long. Botticelli distorts the body in order to create an ideal of beauty, which represents the revival of Classical thought.
There is almost no better way to assert your intellectual superiority than to cram all of the most well-known Classical minds into one room. That's what Raphael did for the Church in his The School of Athens, which some believe represents the absolute pinnacle of Renaissance perfection. In the middle of the picture, we have Aristotle and Plato, who looks suspiciously like Leonardo da Vinci. Radiating outward is every person who has made an intellectual impact. Raphael emphasizes the central two figures through one-point perspective. These minds are all joined together in a space which looks shockingly similar to the interior of St. Peter's Basilica.
The Belief That Mankind Is Nearly Perfect
All of these advancements in mathematics, architecture, and intellect naturally gave man a big ego. People were starting to view mankind as nearing a sort of divine perfection. There is probably no more famous moment in Italian Renaissance art than Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam, where Adam is dangerously close to touching God's outstretched finger. Adam and God share the same incredibly muscular body type. They are almost the same size, equal in height to each other, and almost touching. To spare you a rant on Medieval art, just know that this was unheard of a couple 100 years ago. Before this moment, God was seen as a judgmental, super scary individual. In the The Creation of Adam, God is like us, and we are like him.
The concept continues in da Vinci's Vitruvian Man, where a man's body fits perfectly into a circle and a square. Man fitting neatly into these mathematically perfect figures, which were thought of as divine in their perfection, meant that man is closer to being perfect and divine himself.