The High Renaissance
Just as the beginning of the Renaissance is linked to the specific circumstances of the competition for the Florence Baptistry doors, so the climactic part of the era, known as the High Renaissance, is sometimes considered to have started with the mural of The Last Supper in Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, painted in the last years of the fifteenth century by Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519). Apart from its magnificent spatial and illusory qualities, this painting endowed each of the characters with identifiable psychological traits, and successfully froze the action to capture the mood of a precise moment. His use of sfumato , a blurred outline whereby tones gradually but imperceptibly changed from light to dark, was of crucial importance to his ability to make his figures appear as living beings with a soul - a technique best seen in his portraits. In Florence, the most original painter of the generation after Leonardo was Fra' Bartolommeo della Porta (c1474-1517), who was caught up in the religious fanaticism that also influenced Botticelli. As a device to stress the otherness of the divine, he clad the figures in his religious compositions in plain drapery, rather than the colourful contemporary costumes which had hitherto been fashionable. He also did away with elaborate backgrounds and anecdotal detail, concentrating instead on expression and gesture. Mariotto Albertinelli (1474-1515), who worked with him in the same workshop in San Marco that had once been run by Fra' Angelico, painted in a broadly similar but less austere manner. Andrea del Sarto (1486-1530), on the other hand, was the one Florentine artist who shared the Venetian precept of colour and shade as being the most important ingredients of a picture. His figures are classical in outline, aiming at a balance of nuance, proportion and monumentality. These Florentines, however, stood very much in the shadow of Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564), with whom the Renaissance period reaches its climax. Michelangelo's first love was the creation of marble statues. He had little interest in relief, and none at all in bronze or clay, believing that the slow building up of forms was too simple a task for a great artist. His technique is illustrated most graphically in the unfinished Slaves in Florence's Accademia, who seem to be pushing their way out of the stone. The colossal early David , also in the Accademia, shows his mastery of the nude, which thereafter became the key focus of his art. In spite of claiming to be a reluctant painter, Michelangelo's single greatest accomplishment was the ceiling fresco of the Sistine Chapel, one of the world's most awe-inspiring acts of individual human achievement. Its confident and elated mood is offset by the overpowering despondency of The Last Judgement on the end wall, painted three decades later. His later works are more abstract, as seen in the pietas in the Museo dell'Opera in Florence and the Milan Castello, which contrast sharply with the formal beauty of his youthful interpretation of the scene in St Peter's. Raphael (1483-1520) stands in almost complete antithesis to his rival Michelangelo, though the personal friendships he forged with his powerful patrons were as significant in raising the status of the artist as was the latter's less compromising approach. A pupil of Perugino, he quickly surpassed his teacher's style, going to Florence where he became chiefly renowned for numerous variants of the Madonna and Child and Holy Family . Raphael also developed into a supreme portraitist, skilled at both the psychological and physical attributes of his sitters. His greatest works, however, are the frescoes of his Roman period, notably those in the Stanze della Segnatura in the Vatican and the Villa Farnesina. Influenced by Michelangelo's achievement in the Sistine Chapel, Raphael's late works show him moving towards a large-scale, more dramatic and mannered style, but his early death meant that the continuation of this trend was left to his pupils. Closely related to the classicizing tendency of Raphael is that of the Florentine-born sculptor Andrea Sansovino (c1467-1529), whose grandiose tombs in Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome, with standing effigies of the Virtues, set the tone for sixteenth-century funerary monuments. His pupil Jacopo Sansovino (1486-1570) took his name and carried on his tradition, spending the latter part of his career in Venice, where although principally active as an architect, he also made monumental sculptures which are inseparable from the buildings they adorn. Sebastiano del Piombo (c1485-1547), on the other hand, stood as a direct rival to Raphael in Rome, striving to transfer Michelangelo's heroic manner to panel painting. In this, he was only variably successful, though he was a highly sensitive portraitist. Meanwhile Antonio Correggio (1489/94-1534) managed to carve out a brilliant career for himself in Parma. His three ceiling frescoes there develop the illusionistic devices of Mantegna, marking Correggio out as a precursor of the Baroque. One of the great painters of mythological scenes, he was also a relentless explorer of the dramatic possibilities of light and shade. Another fine exponent of the contrasts of light was the Ferrarese Dosso Dossi (1479/90-1542), a romantic spirit who created fantastic landscapes peopled with sumptuously dressed figures. The golden period of Venetian painting, ushered in by Bellini, continued with his elusive pupil, Giorgione (1475-1510), whose short life is shrouded in mystery. One of the few paintings certainly by him is The Tempest in the Venice Accademia, whose true subject matter baffled even his contemporaries. In it, the figures are, for the first time in Italian art, completely subsidiary to the lush landscape illuminated by menacing shafts of light. The haunting altarpiece in the duomo of his native town of Castelfranco Veneto is also almost certainly his, but many other paintings attributed to him may actually be by one of many painters who maintained something of his poetic, colourful style. Some of these, notably Vincenzo Catena (c1480-1531) and Palma il Vecchio (c1480-1528), developed recognizable artistic personalities of their own. Lorenzo Lotto (c1480-1556) was the most distinctive of this circle, travelling widely throughout his career, assimilating an astonishing variety of influences. Giorgione's influence is also marked in the early works of Titian (c1485-1576), the dominant personality of the Venetian school and one of the most versatile painters of all time. His art embraced with equal skill all the subjects that were required by the Renaissance - altarpieces, mythologies, allegories and portraits. Even more than Michelangelo, he was able to pick and choose his patrons, and was the first artist to build up a truly international clientele. As a portraitist of men of power, Titian was unrivalled, setting the vocabulary for official images which was to prevail until well into the seventeenth century. His complete technical and compositional mastery was already apparent in relatively early works such as the Assumption in I Frari, the first example of what was to become a Venetian speciality: a panel painting specially designed to fit an architectural space. Towards the end of his life, Titian abandoned his bravura and brilliant palette in favour of a very free style, stretching the possibilities of oil paint to their very limits. Giovanni Antonio Pordenone (1483/4-1539) was a provincial north Italian painter strongly influenced by Giorgione and Titian. More obviously in direct descent from the Venetian masters was the school of Brescia. Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo (active 1508-48) showed particular adeptness at light effects, and was a pioneer of night scenes, while Alessandro Moretto (c1498-1554) was one of the most incisive portraitists of the Renaissance, and seems to have been responsible for introducing the full-length form to Italy. His altarpieces are more variable, but often have a suitably grand manner.
South ItalyLeila says "the southern coast of italy" www.italiana.co.ukClaire McDonough says "Italiana.co.uk was formed in late 2005 to offer a unique reference point on everything about italian food and drink.
Italian food is enjoyed by people the world over. This great site offers a plethora of information about Italian cuisine and culture.
Our features and articles are written by professional journalists and experts - who have a particular interest or background in this area.
" Tour Italy On Line (Video + Stills)IntrepidBerkeleyExplorer says "My film "Gondola With the Wind 2" can be seen on the web if you have a high speed internet connection. The video features Rome, Florence, Venice, Pompeii, Capri, Pisa, and many other parts of north and south Italy.
This is a free, non-commercial, streaming video on the Windows Media Player. No ads and no strings attached. I sell absolutely nothing.
With any modem you can view a new gallery of still pictures from my trips to Italy at:
There are over 30 of my other amateur travel videos on-line covering all 7 continents, including trips to China, Australia, Russia, Antarctica, American National Parks, an African safari, Egypt, Peru, Mayan pyramids, Berlin & Paris, Greece and Turkey; see whales, penguins, or polar bears. One of these films is the original “Gondola With the Wind”, filmed seven years before Gondola 2. It begins with Italy, followed by Eastern Europe.
The planet is yours, including my Home Page giant galaxy of still pictures.
To watch the videos or check out stills, please ask a search engine for:
Intrepid Berkeley Explorer" VaticanVista B&B - RomeSilvia Epps says "Bed and breakfast overlooking St.Peter's dome and Vatican Museums.
" obsessionsnoob says "if your a obsess noob go to italy and own lvl 3 mages in the wildy"
Your Tip for Italy
Help other backpackers! Write your own guides and backpacking tips to Italy - they will appear instantly on this page - Please only write a tip/guide to Italy - visit the main Italy forum to ask a question!
Please do not post links to your site here (they won't work) - please use the Italy webguide section below! Thanks.
|
