Painting in the Renaissance
Page 1
Crabtree Publishing Company
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Painting
in the
Renaissance
Una D’Elia
Crabtree Publishing Company
www.crabtreebooks.com
For Lucy and Zoe
Author: Una D’Elia
Photographs and reproductions:
Editor-in-Chief: Lionel Bender
The Art Archive: Scrovegni Chapel, Padua/Gianni
Editors: Lynn Peppas, Simon Adams
Dagli Orti: pages 6; Musée du Louvre, Paris/Alfredo
Proofreader: Crystal Sikkens
Dagli Orti: page 8; Palazzo Ducale, Urbino/Alfredo
Project coordinator: Robert Walker
Dagli Orti: page 12; National Gallery/Eileen Tweedy:
Photo research: Susannah Jayes
pages 13, 24; Vatican Museum, Rome: page 16;
Design concept: Robert MacGregor
Museo Civico, Sansepolcro/Alfredo Dagli Orti:
Designer: Malcolm Smythe
page 18; Galleria degli Uffizi Florence/Alfredo
Production coordinator: Margaret Amy Salter
Dagli Orti: page 19; Accademia, Venice/Alfredo
Production: Kim Richardson
Dagli Orti: page 21
Prepress technician: Margaret Amy Salter
Self portrait, 1556 by Sofonisba Anguissola
(c.1532-1625), Muzeum Zamek, Lancut, Poland/
With thanks to First Folio.
The Bridgeman Art Library: cover
Corbis: Ali Meyer: page 11; Francis G Mayer: page 14; Cover photo: Renaissance painter Sofonisba Anguissola’s Arte & Immagini srl: page 15; © The Gallery
self-portrait from 1556.
Collection: page 20; Alinari Archives: page 22;
Dennis Marsico: page 31
Photo on page 1: The Mona Lisa, painted by Leonardo
da Vinci around 1503–05.
Istockphoto.com: pages 4, 10
Topfoto: pages 17, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30; Alinari: pages 5, 7; This book was produced for Crabtree Publishing Company OM: page 9; Luisa Ricciarini: pages 1, 23; © Print
by Bender Richardson White.
Collector/HIP: page 25
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data D'Elia, Una Roman, 1973-D'Elia, Una Roman, 1973-
Painting in the Renaissance / Una D'Elia.
Painting in the Renaissance / Una D'Elia.
p. cm. -- (Renaissance world)
Includes index.
(Renaissance world)
ISBN 978-0-7787-4612-6 (pbk. : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-0-7787-4592-1
Includes index.
(reinforced library binding : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-7787-4592-1 (bound).--ISBN 978-0-7787-4612-6 (pbk.) 1. Painting, Renaissance--Juvenile literature. I. Title. II. Series.
ND170.D45 2009
1. Painting, Renaissance--Juvenile literature. I. Title. II. Series: 759.03--dc22
Renaissance world (St. Catharines, Ont.)
ND170.D45 2009 j759.03 C2008-907900-0
2008052600
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Contents
The Renaissance
4
Patronage
6
The Riches of Italy
8
Becoming a Painter
10
Perspective and Light
12
Religious Art
14
Walls and Ceilings
16
Altarpieces
18
Oil Paint
20
Portraits
22
The Human Body
24
Everyday Life
26
The Imaginary World
28
The Rise of Art
30
Further Reading, Websites, Glossary, Index
32
3
The Renaissance
Renaissance artists painted realistic
printing press, which made many copies
people, animals, landscapes, and
of books, rather than have scribes copy the
buildings in order to create the illusion
books slowly and carefully by hand. With
that their paintings were real worlds.
the printing press, the ideas of Renaissance
These paintings show real Renaissance
scholars spread quickly, so that by the 1500s,
people and things that happened to them,
the Renaissance had reached other parts of
as well as Christian stories and myths.
Europe, including Germany, France, England,
Belgium, and the Netherlands.
Time of Rebirth
The Renaissance, which lasted from about
Ancient Ruins
1300 to 1600, was a time of great change
The Renaissance began in Italy, where
in Europe. The term “Renaissance” means
ancient Roman sculptures lay half-buried in
“rebirth” in French. During the Renaissance,
the ground and where the ruins of ancient
artists and scholars looked back more than
Roman temples still stand. People in the
1,000 years to the ideas and discoveries of
Middle Ages, the period of time before the
ancient Rome and Greece, when the arts and
Renaissance, ignored the crumbling ruins of
sciences flourished. They wanted to recreate
the Roman empire. They grazed cows in the
the greatness of these ancient civilizations
grass that grew around them and ransacked
and outdo them in painting, sculpture,
the remains, looking for stone and other
architecture, music, theater, biology,
materials to reuse in new buildings.
physics, and astronomy.
Explorers circled the globe
searching for new lands
and inventors built new
machines, such as the
The ancient ruins that
inspired many Renaissance
thinkers to study ancient
Greek and Roman ideas, such
as the ruins of the Forum in
Rome, Italy, still stand today.
4
Renaissance artists and
scholars considered the
ruined buildings and
sculptures to be precious
treasures from the past.
They studied ancient works
of art, and searched out old
manuscripts in which they
read about the lives of the
Romans and Greeks.
Art and Life
Art during the Renaissance
was both beautiful and
practical. Renaissance artists
Artists in the Renaissance began to show scenes from everyday painted on the walls and
life, such as this detail from a larger painting showing a game ceilings of churches, palaces,
using tarot cards. They produced everything from expensive and the homes of wealthy
paintings to cheap playing cards.
people, as well as on
wooden panels, canvases, and furniture.
owned works of art, such as printed playing
The rich bought silk tapestries, statues for
cards, painted pots, and small religious
their gardens, silver and gold jewelry and
statues. They came into daily contact with
tableware, carved and painted furniture,
art as they washed their clothes in fountains
painted portraits of themselves and their
designed by famous sculptors and walked
families, and elegantly handpainted books.
past newly built and architectually beautiful
Even people who were not very wealthy
palaces, public buildings, and churches.
T I M E L I N E
1290s: Giotto begins to change art
1485: Sandro Botticelli paints the
1511: Raphael paints the School of
by painting realistic people
Birth of Venus
Athens, linking Italian culture
1410: Filippo Brunelleschi, Italian
1495–98: Leonardo da Vinci paints
with that of ancient Greece
architect, uses mathematical
The Last Supper
1543: Andreas Vesalius publishes
formulas to create perspective
1503: Leonardo da Vinci paints the
his book on human anatomy
1427: Masaccio creates depth
Mona Lisa
including accurate printed
using perspective in his frescoes
1508–12: Michelangelo paints the
images by highly trained artists
1436: Jan van Eyck, Flemish
frescoes on the ceiling of the
1550: Giorgio Vasari publishes
painter, is one of the first to
Sistine Chapel, a chapel in
Lives of the Most Eminent Italian
use oil paints and glazes
the Vatican, Rome
Architects, Painters, and Sculptors
5
Patronage
During the Renaissance, art was big
Contracts
business. Patrons, who included the
A patron and artist usually signed a contract,
church, rulers, bankers, merchants,
which stated how much the artist would be
and other wealthy people, hired artists
paid, what the subject of the painting would
to create paintings, sculptures, furniture,
be, what materials would be used, how long
and other works of art for them to display
it would take to complete the painting, and
in their grand houses, churches, or other
what size the finished work would be.
public buildings.
A contract often included a sketch of the
Why Buy Art?
painting as well as other details, giving
Patrons commissioned paintings
the patron a good idea of what the finished
to show their wealth and power,
work would look like.
display their education
and taste, remember their
families and other loved
ones, and to inspire prayer.
Patrons also supported
the arts by establishing
academies, or schools, where
artists attended lectures on
subjects such as anatomy,
geometry, and optics.
On the left of his painting,
The Last Judgment , Giotto
showed orderly rows of saved
people floating in the air,
while on the right, he painted
naked, twisted sinners being
tormented by rivers of
burning fire and many
monstrous demons.
6
but Pope Julius II forced him to come back
Plague!
and paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel,
Giotto di Bondone, who died in 1337, is
a chapel in the official residence of the pope.
regarded as the most important painter
This became Michelangelo’s most famous
of the late 1200s and early 1300s. He,
work. It took him four years to finish. In
like many artists, worked in Florence,
the end the entire ceiling was covered
Italy, which was considered the center
in 40 scenes from the Bible.
of early Renaissance painting. In 1348,
the plague, also known as the Black
Death, swept across southern Europe
Saved by Painting
and Italy and killed many people in the
In 1305, Enrico Scrovegni commissioned
city, including artists and craftspeople.
the artist Giotto to paint a scene of the Last
So many died that interest in the arts
Judgment, the moment when, according
also died down for a time.
to Christians, God decides who has been a
good person and goes to Heaven and who
has been a sinner and goes to Hell. Enrico
Disagreements
hoped the painting would teach Christians
Even with contracts, artists and patrons
to be good, but he also hoped it would keep
sometimes disagreed. One of the sharpest
him and his father from going to Hell. Like
arguments was between two fierce and
other bankers, they lent money for interest,
difficult men: the famous painter, sculptor,
which the church considered a sin. Enrico is
and architect Michelangelo Buonarotti and
in the painting, kneeling among the saved.
Pope Julius II, head of the Roman Catholic
Church from 1503 to 1513 and a great patron
of the arts. Michelangelo dared to disagree
many times with the powerful pope about
which artworks he would make and how
they should be done. The artist stormed
away from Rome and did not want to return,
The patron of this work, a wealthy
businessman named Leonardo Buonafede,
ran screaming from the painting because he
thought that Rosso had painted the saints to
look like scary devils. He paid for the work
anyway, but put it in a tiny church in a small
town, where he did not have to look at it.
7
The Riches of Italy
Some Renaissance painters lived and
sets, table decorations, carriages, floats for
worked in the courts of kings, queens,
parades, and lavish displays of fireworks.
dukes, and duchesses. It was the job of
court artists to paint flattering portraits
Po
et and Patron
of the rulers, heroic battle scenes, ancient
Lorenzo de’ Medici, a banker and ruler of
myths, and religious works so that their
Florence, Italy, was a well-known patron
noble patrons looked beautiful, rich,
of the arts. He was called “The Magnificent”
sophisticated, powerful, and pious.
and was well educated, wrote poetry, and
surrounded himself with other artists. He
How the Rich Lived
established libraries in Florence and had
Life in the court was very comfortable.
famous painters Botticelli and Michelangelo
Court artists were paid a salary, a specific
in his court.
amount of money given at
regular time periods such as
weekly or monthly, rather
than a separate fee for each
piece of work they did. They
were often given splendid
houses, wore expensive
clothes, and feasted at
banquets with musicians,
writers, and other important
members of the court. Court
artists did not just paint.
They also designed theater
Portrait of Isabella d’Este,
a great patron of the arts,
by Italian painter Giovanni-
Francesco Caroto. Since
Isabella had little money
of her own, she sold her
jewelry to pay for art.
8
The Sculpture Garden
Lorenzo de’ Medici kept a garden of ancient
sculptures that Michelangelo, in his spare
time, together with other young artists,
would study and copy. One day, when
Lorenzo was visiting the garden, he saw
Michelangelo sculpting the head of a
mythical creature out of marble. Lorenzo was
so impressed that he invited the 15-year-old
boy to move into the Medici family palace
and be raised with his children. There,
Michelangelo studied philosophy and
literature. This education led him to become
a great poet as well as a painter, sculptor,
and architect. Lorenzo, however, was more
successful as a patron than a ruler. After his
Lorenzo de’ Medici was not officially the king
death in 1492 his family fortunes quickly
of Florence, which was a republic with elected
declined and they lost control of Florence.
officials, but he had as much power as any king
and would even on special occasions dress up
Noble Female Patrons
as a king and ride a richly decorated horse
Patrons were usually men, because men held