Artist: Donatello
Title: "Equestrian Statue of Erasmo do Narni"(Gattamelata)
Stylistic Period: 15th Century-Early Renaissance.
Bronze, height approx. 12' 2?
In 1443, Donatello was probably called to Padua to execute an Equestrian Statue to commemorate the Paduan general of the Venetian army, Erasmo da Narni, nicknamed "Gattamelata"(meaning "Honeyed Cat" -a reference to his mother, Melania Gattelli). If any im
Equestrian Statue of Erasmo di Narni, (Gattamelata)
15th Century-Early Renaissance.
(Lecture Notes)
Donatello's Equestrian Statue of Erasmo di Narni (Gattamelata) was regraded as a heroic figure.
This is a sculpture that is meant for outdoors which means it is intended for public view.
It is life-size and elevated to be higher up. He is a commander of t
Artist: Verrochio
Title: "David"
Stylistic Period: 15th-Century-Early Renaissance
Commissioned by Lorenzo de Medici for the Medici Palace. Bronze with gilded details, height 49 5/8?
One of the most prestigious and active workshops in Florence was that of Andrea di Michele Cioni, nicknamed "Vercocchio" ("true eye"). Trained as a goldsmith, but best known for his works as a painter and bronze sculptor, Vercocchio was also a gifted teac
Verrochio, "David"
15th-Century-Early Renaissance
(Lecture Notes)
Verrochio's David was made for the Medici family. He casted this 4 foot statue in bronze. He portrays the Biblical Hero of David as a young man who just killed Goliath.
Compared to Donatello's David, Verrochio's has a greater interest in naturalism and ha
Artist: Desiderio da Settignano
Title: Bust of a Little Boy
Stylistic Period: 15th Century-Early Renaissance
Marble.
(Lecture Notes and internet sources)
Born into a Florentine family of carvers and stonemasons, Desiderio da Settignano was a sculptor whose work was greatly influenced by Donatello. Scholars have even argued that he may have been Donatello's pupil. Greatly admired by Leonardo, his works, whi
Artist: Masaccio
Title: "Trinity with the Virgin, St. John the Evangelist, and The Donors"
Stylistic Period: 15th Century-Early Renaissance
Fresco, 21' x 10' 5?
Even though his brief career lasted less than a decade, Tommasi di Ser Giovanni di Mone Cassai, nicknamed "Masaccio" (meaning "Big Tom"), established a new direction in Florentine painting, much as Giotto had a century earlier. He did this by integrating
Artist: Masaccio
Title: "The Tribute Money"
Stylistic Period: 15th Century-Early Renaissance
Fresco, 8' 1? x 19' 7?
Symbolic- If Jesus can pay taxes then so can the Florentines. (The Florentines had just raised their taxes).
In The Tribute Money, Masaccio portrays an incident from the life of Jesus that highlights St. Peter (Matthew 17:24-27), to whom this chapel was dedicated. In the central scene a tax collector (dressed in a short red tunic and seen from behind) asks Peter
Artist: Masaccio
Title: "Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise"
Stylistic Period: 15th Century-Early Renaissance
Fresco, 7' x 2'11
Masaccio's brief career culminated in the frescos he painted on the walls of the Brancacci Chapel in the church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence. Reproduced here are two of the best-known scenes: THE EXPULSION OF ADAM AND EVE FROM PARADISE and THE T
Artist: Uccello
Title: "The Battle of San Romano"
Stylistic Period: 15th Century-Early Renaissance
Tempera on wood panel, approx. 6' x 10' 6?
This ferocious but bloodless battle seems to take place in a dream, but it depicts a historical event. Under an elegantly fluttering banner, the Florentine general Niccol� da Tolentino leads his men against the Sienese at the Battle of San Romano, which t
Artist: Fra Filippo Lippi
Title: "Madonna and Child with Angels"
Stylistic Period: 15th Century-Early Renaissance
Tempra on wood panel.
This tempura on wood painting was meant for a private individual. The Madonna and Child are set in front of a window and there is a beautiful landscape outside. This shows greater naturalism because there are buildings, people, and a sea out the window. T
Artist: Botticelli
Title: "The Birth of Venus"
Stylistic Period: 15th Century-Early Renaissance
Tempera and gold on canvas, 5' 8 7/8? x 9' 1 7/8?
Like most artists in the second half of the fifteenth century, Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, called "Botticelli" ("the little barrel," a nickname borrowed from his older brother), painted sculptural figures that were modeled by light from a con
Artist: Piero della Francesca
Title: "Battista Sforza and Federico da Montefeltro"
Stylistic Period: 15th Century-Early Renaissance
Oil on wood panel, each 18 1/2? x 13?
This small oil on panel diptych is an allegorical portrait of the Duke and Duchess of Urbino. She died before the painting was finished. The Duchess was educated and bore 11 children and when the Duke left for a military campaign, she took over as head of
Artist: Mantegna
Title: "Interior and Ceiling of the Painted Chamber"
Stylistic Period: 15th Century-Early Renaissance
Fresco, room 26' 6? square
Working at Ludovico's court was Andrea Mantegna, a painter trained in Padua and profoundly influenced by the sculptor Donatello, who arrived in Padua in 1443 and worked there for a decade. Mantegna learned the Florentine system of linear perspective and p
Artist: Mantegna
Title: "Interior and Ceiling of the Painted Chamber"
Stylistic Period: 15th Century-Early Renaissance
Fresco, diameter of false oculus 8' 9?
On the domed ceiling, the artist painted a tour de force of radical perspective in a technique called di sotto in s� ("from below upwards"). The room appears to be open to a cloud-filled sky through a large oculus in a simulated marble-and mosaic covered
Artist: Ghirlandaio
Title: "Portrait of a Man and Boy"
Stylistic Period: 15th Century-Early Renaissance
This tempura painting was made for private purposes. The artist is aware of the reflection of color bouncing from his shirt to face. He uses very rich color and uses several different colors to make the skin look realistic. The shadows are not just a dark
Europe in the 16th Century
Two young artists-Raphael and Michelangelo-although rivals in almost every sense-were in linked in service to Pope Julius II(pontificate 1503-1513) in the early years of the sixteenth century. Raphael was painting the pope's private library (1509-1511) wh
Artist: Leonardo da Vinci
Title: "The Last Supper"
Stylistic Period: 16th Century-High Renaissance
Tempera and oil on plaster, 15' 2? x 28' 10?
Leonardo da Vinci was 12 or 13 when his family moved to Florence from the Tuscan village of Vinci. After an apprenticeship in the shop of the Florentine painter and sculptor of Andrea del Vercocchio, and a few years on his own, Leonardo traveled to Milan
Artist: Leonardo da Vinci
Title: "Mona Lisa"
Stylistic Period: 16th Century-High Renaissance
Oil on wood panel, 30 1/4" x 21?
Leonardo returned to Florence in 1500, after the French, who had invaded Italy in 1494, claimed Milan by defeating Leonardo's Milanese patron, Ludovico Sforza. Perhaps the most famous of his Florentine works is the portrait he painted between about 1503 a
Artist: Raphael
Title: "Philosophy"(School of Athens)
Stylistic Period: 16th Century-High Renaissance
Fresco
SIDE NOTE:
Plato is pointing to the heavens, Aristotle is pointing to the earth.
Julius II intended the Stanza Della Segnatura, or Room of the Signature, to be his personal study. Raphael sought to create an ideal setting for papal activities, with murals proclaiming that all human knowledge exists under the power of divine wisdom. He
Artist: Raphael
Title: "Baldassare Castiglione"
Stylistic Period: 16th Century-High Renaissance
This oil on wood painting located in Louvre Museum in Paris was inspired by Leonardo. He poses the same as Leonardo's Mona Lisa, which is 3/4 angle and 3/4 length. There is light on the forehead to symbolize the mind. He wears dark colors to emphasis the
Artist: Michelangelo
Title: "David"
Stylistic Period: 16th Century-High Renaissance
Marble, height 17' feet tall without pedestal.
In 1501, Michelangelo accepted a Florentine commission for a statue of the biblical hero DAVID, to be placed high atop a buttress of the cathedral. But when it was finished in 1504, the David was so admired that the city council instead placed it in the p
Artist: Michelangelo
Title: "Sistine Chapel Ceiling"
Stylistic Period: 16th Century-High Renaissance
Despite Michelangelo's contractual commitment to Florence Cathedral for additional statues, in 1505, Pope Julius II, who saw Michelangelo as an ideal collaborator in the artistic aggrandizement of the papacy, arranged for him to come to Rome to work on th
Trompe l'oeil
A manner of representation in which artists faithfully describe the appearance of natural space and forms with the express intention of fooling the eye of the viewer, who may be convinced momentarily that the subject actually exists as three-dimensional r
Artist: Michelangelo
Title: "The Creation of Adam"
Stylistic Period: 16th Century-High Renaissance
Fresco. 9' 2? x 18' 8?
Perhaps the most familiar scene on the ceiling is the CREATION OF ADAM, where Michelangelo captures the moment when God charges the languorous Adam-in a pose adapted from the Roman river-god type-with the spark of life. As if to echo the biblical text, Ad
Artist: Michelangelo
Title: "Last Judgement"
Stylistic Period: 16th Century-High Renaissance
Fresco, 48' x 44'
In 1534 Pope Clement VII invited Michelangelo back to Rome (after two decades in Florence) to work on the altar wall in the Sistine chapel. Michelangelo had not painted in fresco for over twenty years, yet his Last Judgement was a highly original, if not
Illusion of Reality
To make an image appear as if it were really in front of you.
Ex. Masaccio made the "Trinity with the Virgin, St. John the Evangelist, and Donors" appear as if were a real chapel and not a fresco on a wall.
Linear Perspective
A method of creating the illusion of three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface by delineating a horizon line and multiple orthogonallines. These recede to meet at one or more points on the horizon (vanishing point), giving the appearance of spa
Atmospheric Perspective
A system for representing three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface. Atmospheric or aerial perspective: a method of rendering the effect of spatial distance by subtle variations in color and clarity of representation.
Chiaroscuro
An Italian word designating the contrast of dark and light in a painting, drawing, or print. Chiaroscuro creates spatial depth and volumetric forms through gradations in the intensity of light and shadow.
Vanishing Point
In a perspective system, the point on the horizon line at which orthogonals meet. A complex system can have multiple vanishing points.
Sfumato
Italian term meaning "smoky," soft, and mellow. In painting, the effect of haze in an image. Resembling the color of the atmosphere at dusk, sfumato gives a smoky effect.
Ex. Leonardo's Mona Lisa and other works by Leonardo
Allegory
In a work of art, an image (or images) that symbolizes an idea, concept, or principle, often moral or religious