High Renaissance

• Sponsored by the popes and cardinals who vowed to transform Rome

• Michelangelo’s ceiling of the Sistine Chapel• Brmante’s Tempietto and basilica for Saint Peter• Raphael’s frescoes for the Stanza della Segnatura• Josquin des Prez’s Pangue Lingua –polyphonic

work, sang a cappella by the Sistine Chapel Choir• Humanistic ideals of the age• Aspiring to the standards of classical beauty

Leonardo da Vinci, Vitruvian Man, 1485.Vitruvius – the circle and the square are the ideal shapesPerfect shapes originate from the human body; they mirror the symmetry of the body

Rome at the Beginning of the 15th Century

• In the early 15th century, Rome seemed a pitiful place. Its population had shrunk from around 1 million in 100 CE to under 20,000 as the result of the Black Death

• The ancient Colosseum was now in the countryside, the Forum was a pasture for goats and cattle, and the aqueducts had collapsed

• The popes had even abandoned the city when in 1309 Avignon was established as the seat of the Church. When Rome reestablished itself as the titular seat of the Church in 1379, succeeding popes rarely chose to visit the city, let alone live in it

Anonymous, View of RomeOil on canvas, ca. 1550

Donato Bramante, Tempietto1502

• Bramante’s Tempietto (Little Temple), built directly over what was revered as the site of Saint Peter’s Martyrdom, is modeled after a classical temple

• The 16 exterior columns are Doric, their shafts original ancient Roman granite columns

• Diameter of the shaft defines the entire plan. Each shaft is spaced four diameters from the next, and the colonnade they form is two diameters from the circular walls

Bramante, Tempietto, 1502Embodiment of Italian humanist architectureSite of Saint Peter’s martyrdomModeled on a classical temple

Michelangelo, David Marble, 17' 13", 1501-04

• Michelangelo represents David before, not after, his triumph, confident, ready to take on whatever challenge faces him

• Each night, as workers installed the statue in the Piazza della Signoria, supporters of the exiled Medici hurled stones at it

• Others objected to the statue’s nudity, and before it was even in place, a skirt of copper leaves was prepared to spare the general public any possible offense

Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel

• While working on Julius II’s tomb, Michelangelo was commanded by Julius to paint the 45- by 128-foot ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. At first he refused, but in 1508 he reconsidered and began the task

• Michelangelo designed an ambitious plan—nine scenes from Genesis, surrounded by prophets, Sibyls, the ancestors of Christ, and other scenes, narrating events before the coming of the law of Moses

• To paint the ceiling, Michelangelo had to construct a scaffold that moved down the chapel from the entrance to the altar. Thus, the first frescoes painted were the Noah group, and the last, the Creation

Sistine Chapel Ceiling Fresco, 45' 128', 1508-12

Creation of Adam

• With the Creation of Eve serving as the center panel, Michelangelo planned the ceiling as a pairing of opposites, with the scenes before Eve representing Creation before the knowledge of good and evil entered the world, and everything after her showing the early history of fallen mankind

• In the Creation of Adam, Adam is lethargic, passive; God flies through the skies carrying behind him a bulging red drapery that suggests both the womb and the brain, creativity and reason

• Adam, father of humankind, and God the Father are posed along parallel diagonals, and their right legs are in nearly identical positions. The fluttering green ribbon in God’s space echoes the colors of the earth upon which Adam lies

Michelangelo, Creation of AdamSistine Chapel, Vatican, Rome, 1510

Michelangelo, Studies for the Libyan Sibyl

Red Chalk, 11-3/8" 8-7/26", ca. 1520

Michelangelo, Libyan SibylFresco, 1512

A virtuoso display of technique mastery, the Libyan Sibyl underwent dramatic changes between Michelangelo’s preliminary sketches and the final painting.

Raphael

• As Michelangelo was beginning work on the Sistine ceiling, the young painter Raphael arrived in Rome and quickly secured a commission from Julius II to paint the pope’s private rooms in the Vatican Palace

• The first of these rooms was the Stanza della Segnature, Room of the Signature, which Julius used as a library

• On each of the four walls Raphael was to paint one of the four major areas of human learning: Law and Justice, to be represented by the Cardinal Virtues; the Arts, to be represented by Mount Parnassus; Theology, to be represented by the Disputà, or Dispute over the Sacrament; and Philosophy, to be represented by the School of Athens. Two scenes had classical themes, the other two Christian

Raphael, School of AthensFresco, 19' 27', 1510-11

Raphael, Pope Leo X with Cardinals Giulio de’ Medici and Luigi de’ Rossi

Panel, 60½" 47", 1517

• After Julius died in 1513, the new pope, Leo X, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, quickly hired Raphael for other commissions

• His portrait of Leo suggests a new direction in Raphael’s art. The lighting is more somber, and there is greater emphasis on the material reality of the scene

• The painting creates a sense of drama, as if the viewer is witness to an important historical moment

Michelangelo, Laurentian Library Staircase

Designed beginning 1524; completed 1559

• Michelangelo’s most original contribution to the library, which was designed to house the Medici’s book collection, is the large triple stairway

• The cascading waterfall effect suggests that Michelangelo was becoming increasingly interested in exploring realms of the imagination beyond the humanist vision of a rational world governed by structural logic

Santi di Tito, Niccolò Machiavellica. 1510

• A humanist scholar, Machiavelli (1469-1527) had studied the behavior of ancient Roman rulers and citizens at great length

• In 1512, Machiavelli was dismissed from his post as second chancellor, wrongfully accused of being involved in a plot to overthrow the new heads of state, imprisoned, tortured, and finally exiled permanently to a country home in the hills above Florence

• There, beginning in 1513, he wrote The Prince, his essay on political power

The High Renaissance in Venice

• Of all the Italian cities, Venice alone could claim invincibility because it possessed the natural fortification of being surrounded on all sides by water

• Venice considered itself blessed by Saint Mark, whose relics resided in the cathedral of Saint Mark’s

• A center of fashion, Venice provided the continent with satins, velvets, and brocades

• During the Renaissance, an elaborate, sensuous style of architecture would develop in Venice

View of the Doge’s Palace, with Saint Mark’s Cathedral to the Left

Carpaccio, Lion of Saint Mark, 1516, VeniceVenice considered itself blessed by Saint Mark, whose relics resided in the cathedral of Saint Mark

Masters of the Venetian High Renaissance:Giorgione and Titian

• The two great masters of painting in the Venetian High Renaissance were Giorgione da Castelfranco, known simply as Giorgione (ca. 1478-1510), and Tiziano Vecelli, known as Titian (ca. 1489-1576)

• Giorgione especially had been inspired by Leonardo’s visit to Venice in 1500. As did Leonardo in his landscapes, Giorgione and Titian built up color on their canvases by means of glazing

• Their paintings, like the great palaces of Venice whose reflections shimmered on the Grand Canal, demonstrate an exquisite sensitivity to the play of light and shadow, to the luxurious display of detail and design, and to an opulent variety of pattern and texture

Giorgione, TempestOil on canvas, 31¼" 28¾", ca. 1509

• Nothing about this painting could be called controlled. The landscape is overgrown and weedy—just as the man and woman are disheveled and disrobed

• Lightning has revealed to the viewer a scene not meant to be witnessed

• Sensuality, even outright sexuality, would become a primary subject of Venetian art

Giorgone, Tempest, 1509Mysterious quality, atmospheric paintingAlmost nude young woman, German mercenary soldierPediment topped with two broken columns

Pastoral Concert

• A harmony of opposites: male and female, clothed and nude, the nobleman and the peasant, court music and folk song, city and country, and so on

• Musical instruments (the lute and the flute)—metaphors for parts of male and female anatomy, a usage common in both the art and the literature of the period

• Narrative presents a purposefully mysterious dream world, giving the viewer’s imagination the freedom to play

Giorgone, pastoral Concert, 1510SensualityMen are fully clothedVenetian nobleman, peasant garbInstruments -metaphors

Titian, Sacred and Profane love, 1514Lamp –divine lightNeoplatonic ideal of the celestial Venus and sacred love

Titian, Sacred and Profane LoveOil on canvas, 46½" 109-7/8", ca. 1514

Two female figures—nude is sacred love and luxuriously clothed is earthly or profane love—probably represent two aspects of the same woman.

Titian, Reclining Nude, 1538Venus of Urbino –more like a woman than an ethereal goddess

Titian, Reclining Nude (Venus of Urbino)

Oil on canvas, 47" 65", ca. 1538

More real woman than ethereal goddess, this “Venus” stares out at the viewer with matter-of-factness, suggesting she is totally comfortable with her nudity.