Italian High Renaissance (1490-1530)

The High Renaissance is generally taken to refer to a period of exceptional artistic production in the Italian states, principally Rome, capital of the Papal States, under Pope Julius II. Assertions about where and when the period begins and ends vary, but in general the best-known exponents of Italian Renaissance painting are painters of the High Renaissance, including Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and early Raphael.  The High Renaissance is widely viewed as a great explosion of creative genius, High Renaissance sculpture, as exemplified by Michelangelo's Pietà and the iconic David, is characterized by an "ideal" balance between stillness and movement.

Michelangelo

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (1475-1564), commonly known as Michelangelo, was a Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer. Despite making few forays beyond the arts, his versatility in the disciplines he took up was of such a high order that he is often considered a contender for the title of the archetypal Renaissance man, along with fellow Italian Leonardo da Vinci.

Michelangelo's output in every field during his long life was prodigious; when the sheer volume of correspondence, sketches, and reminiscences that survive is also taken into account, he is the best-documented artist of the 16th century. Two of his best-known works, the Pietà (1498-99) and David (1504), were sculpted before he turned thirty.

 

Despite his low opinion of painting, Michelangelo also created two of the most influential works in fresco in the history of Western art: the scenes from Genesis on the ceiling and The Last Judgment on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. In a demonstration of Michelangelo's unique standing, he was the first Western artist whose biography was published while he was alive.

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was an Italian Renaissance: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer. Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the Renaissance Man, a man of "unquenchable curiosity" and "feverishly inventive imagination". He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived.

Leonardo was and is renowned primarily as a painter. Among his works, the Mona Lisa (1503-1519) is the most famous and most parodied portrait and The Last Supper the most reproduced religious painting of all time, with their fame approached only by Michelangelo's Creation of Adam

Leonardo's drawing of the Vitruvian Man is also regarded as a cultural icon, being reproduced on everything from the euro to text books to t-shirts. Perhaps fifteen of his paintings survive, the small number due to his constant, and frequently disastrous, experimentation with new techniques, and his chronic procrastination.  Nevertheless, these few works, together with his notebooks, which contain drawings, scientific diagrams, and his thoughts on the nature of painting, compose a contribution to later generations of artists only rivalled by that of his contemporary, Michelangelo.

Leonardo is revered for his technological ingenuity. He conceptualised a helicopter, a tank, concentrated solar power, a calculator, the double hull and outlined a rudimentary theory of plate tectonics.

 

Raphael

Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (1483-1520), known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance, celebrated for the perfection and grace of his paintings and drawings. Together with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, he forms the traditional trinity of great masters of that period.

Raphael was enormously productive, running an unusually large workshop, and despite his death at 37, a large body of his work remains. Many of his works are found in the Apostolic Palace of The Vatican, where the frescoed Raphael Rooms were the central, and the largest, work of his career. The best known work is The School of Athens in the Vatican Stanza della Segnatura. After his early years in Rome much of his work was self-designed, but for the most part executed by the workshop from his drawings, with considerable loss of quality. He was extremely influential in his lifetime, though outside Rome his work was mostly known from his collaborative printmaking. After his death, the influence of his great rival Michelangelo was more widespread until the 18th and 19th centuries, when Raphael's more serene and harmonious qualities were again regarded as the highest models. His career falls naturally into three phases and three styles, first described by Giorgio Vasari: his early years in Umbria, then a period of about four years (from 1504–1508) absorbing the artistic traditions of Florence, followed by his last hectic and triumphant 12 years in Rome, working for two Popes and their close associate.

    

Sistine Madonna (1513-14)

Tasks:

1.    Produce a range of 2 dimensional drawings of the ‘human figure’ using pencil, charcoal, graphite and pen. 

2.    On location produce a range of 2 dimensional drawings of the ‘human figure’ in a setting. (Homework).

3.    Create a 3 dimensional figure directly recorded from the ‘human figure’. (Please photograph this).

4.    Evaluation and group Crit. 

Research:

1.    Print and annotate examples of the drawings of Michelangelo,  Leonardo Da Vinci and Raphael.

2.    Compare the work of these 3 masters.  What type of art did they produce? What are the differences and similarities of their work?  What is you opinion of the work?  

Leonardo da Vinci