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Early Renaissance
Patrons
End of 15th
- a. Early Renaissance artists began careers as apprentices to masters in craft guilds
- i. Apprentices with unusual talentà mastersà own workshops
- 1. Artists= artisans
- b. Patrons played important role= commissions
- i. Wealthy upper class determined content and purpose of paints and sculpture
- c. End of 15th: transformioatn in artist position
- i. Especially talented individuals no longer artisans but artistic geniuses with divine creative energies
- 1. Artists= heroes, praised more for creavtivity than competence as craftspeople
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Respect for Artist
- a. Respect for artist grew= ability to profit economically from work and rise on social scale
- i. Equals into circles of upper class
- 1. Mingled with political and intellectual elite of their society and became more aware of new intellectual theories, which were embodied in art
- b. Platonic Academy and Renaissance Neoplatonism impacted Florentine painters
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I. The Northern Artistic Renaissance
- a. Trying to provide exact portrayal of worldà artists of north and Italy to do different things
- i. Human form= expression= Italian artists tried to master technical skills that allowed them to portray humans in realistic settings
- 1. Large wall spaces in Italian churches= fresco painting
- 2. North= Gothic cathedrals and stained glass windows emphasized illuminated manuscripts and wooden panel painting for altarpieces
- a. Space limited/ great care required for depiction= masters at details
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a. Most influential northern school of art in 15th c. : in __
Jan van Eyk
- Flanders
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i. Jan van Eyck first to use oil paintà variety of colors and fine details - 1. Giovanni Arnolfini and his Bride
- a. Staggering detail; precise portraits; chandelier, reflecting mirror
- b. Still, he was uncertain about perspective
- i. Work represents Renaissacne painters= tried to imitate nature, but did so not by mastery of laws of perspective and proportion, but by empirical observation of visual reality and accurate portrayal of details
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Northern Painters
i. Northern painters placed great emphasis on emotional intensity of religious feeling and created great works of devotional art, especially in their altarpieces
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Michelango says differences in n. and Italian Renaissance
1. Flanders: exact and deceptively outward appearance of things; subjects provoke piety; paint landscapes; pics have neither value nor grandeur
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After distinction of n. and Italian Renaissance, Artists from north did what?
Albert Durer
- i. Artists from north began studying in Italy and were influenced
- 1. Albrecht Durer from Nuremberg
- a. Two trips to Italy; absorbed most of what Italians could teach
- i. Mastered laws of perspective and Renaissance theories of proportion
- b. Wrote detailed treatises on both subjects
- c. Adoration of the magi
- i. Used minute details characteristic of northern artists, but itegrated Italian artists to get ideal beauty by careful examining human form
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I. Music in the Renaissance
- a. Court of dukes attracted best artists/ musicians
- i. Guillaume Dufay: most important composer of era
- 1. Lived in Italy and well suited to combine late medieval style of France
- 2. Contributed change in composition of Mass
- a. Secular tunes to replace Gregorian chants as fixed melody that served as basis for Mass
- i. Made secular songs
- 1. Music ceased to be in service of God; more about secular world of courts and cities
- a. Chief form of secular music= madrigal
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Madrigal
- i. Poem set to music; origins in 14th c. Italian courts
- 1. Texts 12 line poems in vernacular about love
- 2. Mid-16th: written for 5-6 voices and employed technique called text painting, in which the music tried to portray the literal meaning of the text
- a. Melody rose for heaven or used wavelike motion to represent water
- b. Also spread to England= fa-la-la
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