THE RENAISSANCEThe Re-Birth

The Renaissance• During the 1300s there was a cultural and intellectual revival in the south of Europe

• After the Black Death the populations of Europe began to grow again

• There was a demand for goods that had come from Middle East and other parts of the world• The Black Death had caused a decline in trade and the

need for goods however with the population growth came the need for goods

The Renaissance

• With the decline of the population and the beginnings of the end of Feudalism people began to move to the cities

• The business class began to grow• Bankers, merchants and

traders increased

• Europe experienced an increase in not only population but money

The Renaissance• Classicism

• With the new influx of money into Europe, Europeans were able to spend more time on leisure activities instead of fighting for survival

• Europeans began to study the literature of the Greeks and the Romans

• Europeans wanted to understand their cultural heritage and started to explore more deeply the legacy of the Greeks and Romans• Remember the Europeans were only able to study Greek and

Roman culture because the writing had been saved by the Muslims and the Jews

The Renaissance

• Secularism• As you remember most works of art during the Middle

Ages centered around the church because the church was seen as the center of the world

• During the Renaissance art , literature and philosophy began to center around the natural world and not the world of the church

• The Renaissance artist did not however turn their back on the church, this would have been very dangerous seeing the church still had a firm hold on the culture of Europe

The Renaissance

• Works of art • Writings• Paintings• Sculpture • All turned to natural ideas

• Renaissance scientist turned to Greek and Roman texts to solve the problems of the day• However Christianity still needed

to be incorporated into the solution otherwise it might lead to heresy and excommunication or even death at the hands of the church

The Renaissance• Humanism

• In the Middle Ages the idea of salvation and the afterlife is what kept most Europeans going through the hard times

• Personal life on earth was to be suffering while the afterlife was to be in glorious Heaven

The Renaissance

• With the re-discovery of the Greek and Roman texts many Europeans discovered that they could attain happiness in the worldly lifetime

The Renaissance• The literature and the philosophy of ancient writers spoke

about personal accomplishments• European began to focus on the here and now not on the

life after• Hedonistic

• Focused on worldly pleasures• Europeans did not become hedonistic-focus was still on the church

The Renaissance

• Humanism was perfect for the re-birth of Europe

• The celebration of the human and the human world was far-reaching

• This far reaching event could be seen closely associated with works of art produced.

Donatello David 1432

• Donatello     David• More than twenty years after the

“David” created for S. Maria del Fiore, probably following a journey to Rome in 1432, Donatello re-engaged the theme of the bronze model for the Medici family. The different cultural moment and the private destination of the work explain the completely different interpretation both in iconography and style that the artist used in the biblical subject, pushed this time by literature of a classical example in a humanistic, symbolic key using refined and esoteric illusions. Even now the cultural and formal apparatus of the Florentine environment is apparent in the overwhelming reality of a physical evidence and sensuality of the adolescent body.

Verrocchio David.  1473-1475.

• Verrocchio’s work, with its defiant stance, is a masterpiece of bravado; in its virility, it surpasses the sculpture that inspired it.  Florence’s ruling council so admired this work that they placed it in the seat of government, where it remained until Michelangelo’s David displaced it.

David Michelangelo marble, 1501-4

• Michelangelo has depicted David before the battle. Davis is tense, but not so much in a physical as in a mental sense.

• The slingshot he carries over his shoulder is almost invisible, emphasizing that David's victory was one of cleverness, not sheer force.

Rodin

• The Kiss• While visiting the second circle in Hell, Virgil and

Dante saw, among those who had committed sins of the flesh, Paolo and Francesca, two personages who had really lived in the Middle Ages in Italy.

• Around 1275, Francesca, the daughter of Guido da Polenta, married Gianciotto Malatesta, Lord of Rimini, who entrusted her in the care of his brother, the handsome young Paolo.

• Paolo and Francesca fell in love with each other while reading romances of courtly love. As soon as they exchanged their first kiss, Gianciotto caught them by surprise and stabbed them. "Love has led us to a unique death" Dante makes their shades say. This forbidden love and its consequent eternal damnation, was a favourite theme among 19th century artists, from Ingres to Delacroix, and from Ary Scheffer to Cabanel and Henri Martin.Rodin portrayed the famous lovers at the very instant they became aware of their feelings. He placed them in the centre of the left leaf of The Gates of Hell.

Rodin

• The Hand of God• How does the Hand of

God embellish the ideals of the Renaissance?

Your Art• What did you find out about your art and artist from the

Renaissance?