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- Virgin of the Rocks
- Artist: Leonardo Da Vinci
- Era: High Renaissance, 1485
- Techniques:
- oil on wood
- focus on linear significance
- sofetend edges
- no undulating contours
- pyramidal composition not trianglular
- chiaroscuro lighting
- sfumato lighting - haziness of light and shadow
- rigures emerge from subtle plays of light
- dusk time
- the light follows the undulating rocky setting
- scene of where Christ was born and burried
- gestures unite figures
- tenderness of mood and gesture
- Christ holds up two fingers - teacher
- chubby infants
- Angela and Mary have oval faces
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- The Last Supper
- Artist: Leonardo da Vinci
- Era: High Renaissance, 1495-1498
- Location: Refectory, Sta. Maria Delle Gracie, Milan, Italy
- Techniques:
- oil and tempera or plaster - corroded more easily
- first great figural composition of High Renaissance
- Christ with 12 decipals
- table is parallel to picture frame
- spacious, simple room
- dramatic, action-filled piece
- Christ is center and balaced
- Christ is isolated by the window which acts as a natural halo emphasized by the tympanum
- 3 windows allude to the holy trinity
- orthagonals meet above Christ's head - physical and psychological focus
- four groupings of three decipals united by gestures
- gestures go back to center
- Judas' face is in shadow
- Judas is clutching a money bag and is leaning on the table
- Judas and Christ are linked pyschologically and physically through their arms
- 2 decipals on the edges close off the scene are stop the action from expanding
- dramatic composition
- combined 2 major trends of 15th Century Italian Renaissance
- - monumentality and mathematically ordered space at the expense of movement
- - freedom of movement at the expense of monumentality and controlled space
- flat coffered ceiling and wall panels are orthagonals that create recession into space
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- Mona Lisa
- Artist: Leonardo da Vinci
- Era: High Renaissance, 1503-1505
- Location: Louvre, Paris, France
- Techniques:
- oil on wood
- wife of a banker, Giocanda
- "Mona" is short for my lady in Italian
- individualistic
- originally framed by columns and leaning on a ballistrade
- half length portrait
- disturbingly level gaze - females were supposed to lower their eyes to men, typically males would view the piece
- ambiguous smile created through chiaroscuro lighting - disguising the human syche
- planes are blurred through sfumato
- left side of her face is light and the right side is dark
- lots of shadow under brows
- hands are beautiful and smooth - no wrinkles around knuckles - look pudgy
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- Plan for New St. Peter's
- Artists: Bramante (plan) and Christoforo Foppa Caradosso (medal)
- Era: High Renaissance, 1505
- Location: Vatican, Rome, Italy
- Techniques:
- commissioned by Pope Julius II
- colossal splendor
- cross with equal length arms
- each arm ends in an apse
- crossing with a dome the size of the Pantenon
- intricate symmetrical design with 9 interlocking crosses
- 5 domed crosses
- supposedly the sight of St. Peter's grave
- function as Julius II's tomb
- four towers
- temple front facade
- began piers for crossing and lower walls of choir, and then he died
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- Il Tempietto
- Artist: Bramante
- Era: High Renaissance, 1502
- Location: San Pietro In Montorio, Rome, Italy
- Techniques:
- resembles a small Pagan temple from Antiquity
- commissionned by Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain to mark the location of St. Peter's crucifixion (not actual location)
- sculpturesque relicuary - small in nature
- originally inside a round colonnaded courtyard
- relies on effect of composition of volume and mass and solid and void instead of ornamentation
- circular stylobate
- Tuscan columns
- balance and harmony of dome, drum, and base
- ballistrade echoes rhythm of colonnade
- quick rhythm of ballistrade delays eye from going up
- ballistrade is mirror image of cornice
- play of light and shadow through voids and masses making it sculpture
- Alberti and Pilato's principles of architecture utilized
- crest of Ferdinand and Isabella is the only ornamentation
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- Pieta
- Artist: Michealangelo
- Era: HIgh Renaissance, 1498-1500
- Techniques:
- luminousity of marble
- extreme sensitivity to texture
- tender saddness of a youthful Mary - symbol of purity and virginity
- Christ is at peace, looks as though he is sleeping
- deeply undercut folds
- high surface patina
- mary has a larger base to support the body of Christ
- enlarged right hand supports his torso
- triangular compostion
- only sculpture he ever signed, across her sash
- contained and controlled emotion
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- David
- Artist: Michealangelo
- Era: High Renaissance, 1501-1504
- Techniques:
- pure white marble
- hero of the Florentine republic
- placed in a piazza over Florence looking at the entrance to the city
- sternly watchful
- before the action of killing Goliath
- Humanism and perfect male anatomy
- determination in brow line
- deeply set eyes
- pondering pose - contraposta
- tense muscles and veins - energy in reserve - Lysipos' Athlete
- Hellenistic emotion
- enlarged hands
- - show youth - he will grow into them
- - perspective of viewer
- - hands that had the power to create man
- tree stump for support
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- Moses
- Artist: Michealangelo
- Era: High Renaissance, 1513-1515
- Location: Tomb of Julius II, San Pietro In Vincoli, Rome, Italy
- Techniques:
- marble
- meant to be seen from below
- left leg pushed back as if about to stand and extol the laws on the people
- terribilita
- clenched teeth denoted in jaw and cheek
- deep set eyes with heavy brow line
- buldging muscles
- deeply undercut folds
- play of light and shadow
- high surface patina
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- Bound Slaves
- Artist: Michealangelo
- Era: High Renaissance, 1513-1516
- Techniques:
- imprisonned in marble
- planned for Tomb of Julius II
- originally 20 slave sculptures
- embody powerful emotional states associated with oppression
- defiant figures carved in violent contraposta
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- Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
- Artist: Michealangelo
- Era: High Renaissance, 1508-1512
- Location: Vatican, Rome, Italy
- Techniques:
- fresco
- shallow curve of ceiling
- 300 figures
- depicts creation, fall, and redemption of humanity
- crown of vault - Genesis
- curve of vault - Hebrew prophets and Pagan sibyls that foretold of the coming of Christ
- 4 corner pendentives - Old Testament scenes
- in triangle compartments above windows are ancestors of Christ
- nude figures punctuate corners of triangles
- pairs of putti in grisalle inbetween triangles
- strongly outlined figures
- plain backgrounds
- painted to be sculpture
- brighter colors
- women are pudgy and thick
- also had Pagan ideals, not strictly Christian
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- Creation of Adam
- Artist: Michealangelo
- Era: High Renaissance
- Location: Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Vatican, Rome, Italy
- Techniques:
- fresco
- unformed landscape
- Adam is heavy and material because he has not been given the spark of life from god
- Adam is concave and god's cape is convex - unifying shape
- off center
- most open space of ceiling, composition
- line between god and Adam links through arms and legs
- Adam modelled after sculpture of David
- Eve under god's arm
- baby next to Eve - allusion to Madonna and child
- curved lines and diagonals
- contraposta
- cloak resembles a brain - Humanism focus on intelligence
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- School of Athens
- Artist: Raphael
- Era: High Renaissance, 1509-1511
- Location: Stanza Della Segnatura, Vatican Palace, Rome
- Techniques:
- fresco
- philosophers of the ancient world are holding a convention to teach the new generation
- massive hall with coffered barrel vaults - roman architecture - similar to new St. Peter's
- three arches
- dome after first arch
- Plato points up and Aristotle points down
- ideal vs material
- reality is earth bound according to Aristotle
- colossal statues of Apollo and Athena
- one point perspective with vanishing point between Aristotle and Plato
- philosophies came from the gods of wisdom
- philosophers on Plato's side deal with mysteries that transcend the world
- Aristotle's side is filled with scientists and mathemeticians
- Pathaderus writes while servant holds harmonic scale in bottom left
- Heraclitus is Michelangelo - brooding figure that is all alone
- Diogenes sits on stairs all alone
- Plato is Leonardo da Vinci
- self-portrait on right, painted in with scientists because painting is because of observation and study
- Ptolemy holds the globe
- figures are naturally moving but they are carefully staged, complex
- human drama
- eloquent poses and gestures that symbolize their doctrines
- self-assurance and dignity results in reason and balance
- every character reflects the mood of his beliefs, which unites each group
- from the center where the two figures are silhouetted against the sky outwards all the figures are grouped in an elliptical layout - elliptical composition
- Pagan figures but Christian learning
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- Marriage of the Virgin
- Artist: Raphel
- Era: High Renaissance, 1504
- Techniques:
- oil on wood
- based on the Golden Legend, literature, 13 century stories about the lives of the saints
- Joseph competing for Mary’s hand in marriage
- virgin is given by high priest to whichever suitor presented to him a rod that had miraculously bloomed
- foreshortening used on figure bending forward
- central plan temple in background - resembles Tempietto - missing balustrade, lantern - more rounded
- Bruneleschi style arcades
- floor projects foreground to background
- focus on vertical
- rapid connection between foreground and background
- oval faces - Neo-Platonist idea of beauty
- slightly tilted face
- less formal bodies
- more natural position
- contraposta
- men have hats
- secular focus
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- Madonna of the Meadow
- Artist: Raphael
- Era: High Renaissance, 1505-1506
- Techniques:
- oil on panel
- inspired by Fra Filippo Lippi's real connection between mother and child
- Humanist setting - mother playing with two children, St. John the Baptist and Christ
- Renaissance costume
- babies are chubby infants and are playful
- thin subtle halo - look like human beings
- severe use of modeling of faces and figures in slight chiaroscruo
- substantial weight, more mass to figures- light feathery trees and lighter tones
- pyramidal composition with Mary at the apex
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- Galatea
- Artist: Raphael
- Era: High Renaissance, 1513
- Location: Villa Franesina, Rome
- Techniques:
- fresco
- commissioned by a wealthy banker to decorate his palace with mythology
- based on poem by Ovid, Metamorphoses
- daughter of Poseidon fleeing from her lover the Cyclops, Polyphemius
- she is being pulled by dolphins
- surrounded by sea creatures and cupids
- song in praise of human beauty and zestful love
- find the true most energetic version of love, joy, and exuberance
- figures are wheeling around Galatea
- she is twisting her body
- sweeping circle of her body is echoed in the circle of the figures around her
- cupids are foreshortened to imply bending
- sculptural figures
- Galatea is strong vigorous and stuppile (flexible)
- similar to Botticelli
- refers back to Hellenistic sculpture
- vibrant colors
- lack of interest and familiarity of female attributes
- centaurs grabbing sea nymphs
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- Tomb of Giuliano de' Medici
- Artist: Michelangelo
- Era: High Renaissance, 1519-1534
- Location: New Sacristy San Lorenzo, Florence
- Techniques:
- marble
- seated larger than life statue
- done when Medici popes were patrons
- unfinished
- compositionally a twin to his brother's tomb
- would've been a pair of river gods under sarcophagus to balance figures on sloping sides - creating stability
- levels suggests the ascent of a persons should through the levels of as Neo-Platonic universe
- lowest level
- - river gods that represented the under world
- - symbolizes brute matter - source of evil
- middle level
- - two statues on sarcophagus
- - world of time, human earthly time cycles of dawn, day, evening, and night
- - humanity’s state in this world is one of pain exhausting, anxiety, frustration
- two figures of night and day
- female is night, male is day
- never relaxed tensions, twisting bodies
- twisting masses
- reminiscent of his bound slaves
- day
- - the thickness of a tree, anatomy of Hercules, straining limbs against each other
- - under shoulder is unfinished face?
- night
- - supposed to be a time of rest but she twists as if she is having trouble sleeping
- - wrenched and feverish posture - surrounded by image of an owl, poppy flowers, and a hideous mask - symbolic of nightmares
- third level
- - Medici sits here
- - rises above troubles of the realm of time
- - symbolic of ideal human type of the active man who has done his job on earth and has been promoted to this higher realm
- - Giuliano is in military attire
- Lorenzo was a thinker - contrast and compliment
- Lorenzo was poet and artist
- as an individual a person should strive for an active lifestyle to go to heaven either through meditation or action
- not accurate portrayals but no one cares
- generalized features of Giuliano
- armor reminiscent to Roman emperors' cuirass
- head turning reminiscent to Moses
- leg pushed back ready to stand - Moses
- double pilasters
- little tympanums and volutes above blind windows
- garland reminiscent of Roman
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- Vestibule of Laurentinan Library
- Artist: Michelangelo
- Era: High Renaissance (sometimes Mannerism), 1524
- Location: Florence
- Techniques:
- room is taller than wide, compressed verticality - shaft like space, tall and narrow
- indifferent to classical norms - Mannerism
- putting columns in pairs and sinking them back into the wall
- breaks columns around corners
- double volutes under columns
- pilasters that taper down instead of up- stairway flows out of door and protrudes into shaft like tongue - Baroque
- stairs are like a flow of lava, slow and shallow
- stair are odd because sides end in scroll volutes
- weird combination of curvilinear and angular form
- walls divided with cornices, recessed fake windows
- round tympanums and triangular pediments
- pediment above door
- tow toned - emphasizes oddities
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- Campidoglio
- Artist: Michelangelo
- Era: High Renaissance, 1537
- Location: Capitoline Hill, Rome
- Techniques:
- built around two preexisting building
- goal was to match and balance old buildings
- two building were from Roman times
- preexisting buildings form an 80 degree angle
- creates third building making a trapezoid and then adds oval to make it feel like a square
- balustrade closes off trapezoid
- oval makes balance and symmetry
- Vitruvian idea that buildings should follow the human body, circular
- Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius, Christianity over Paganism, in center of plaza- oval shaped base, balances it with trapezoid
- oval is important in Baroque
- pattern is marble inlay in concrete
- balustrade has statuary
- view from hill leads to Vatican
- same angle as palace of senator to palace of conservators
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- Museo Capitolino
- Artist: Michelangelo
- Era: High Renaissance, 1537
- Location: Campidoglio, Capitoline Hill, Rome
- Techniques:
- Alberti’s colossal floor to ceiling pilasters
- two story facade
- pilasters used as walls to uniform registers
- pilasters separated by deep voids
- soften the voids with columns and lintels*
- balustrade has sculpture
- triangle pediment in center on upper level, marks the central entrance
- columnettes surrounding widows on second level
- each window has a broken tympanum on second level
- medallions in tympanums and pediments
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