Summary
At the beginning of the 15th century, Italy experienced a cultural rebirth, a renaissance that would massively affect all sectors of society. Turning away from the preceding Gothic and Romanesque periods' iconography, Florentine artists spurred a rejuvenation of the glories of classical art in line with a more humanistic and individualistic emerging contemporary era. Based in this flourishing new environment that empowered people to fully immerse themselves in studies of the humanities, Early Renaissance artists began to create work intensified by knowledge of architecture, philosophy, theology, mathematics, science, and design. The innovations that emerged in art during this period would go on to cause reverberations, which continue to influence creative and cultural arenas today.
This Early Renaissance is also known as the Quattrocento, derived from the Italian mille quattrocento, meaning 1400, and refers primarily to the period dominating the 15th century in Italian art. It was the forebear to the following High Renaissance, North European Renaissance, Mannerism, and Baroque periods that followed.
Key Ideas
Most Important Art
Expulsion from the Garden of Eden (1426-27)
This scene is part of a fresco cycle of Biblical scenes in the Brancacci Chapel painted by Masaccio, as well as Masolino and other artists. In depicting the two naked, the artist departed from the Biblical account in which they wore fig leaves, and also, boldly, created the first nudes in painting since the Roman era. He also added the arch and reduced the multiple cherubs mentioned in the Biblical account to focus on one angel.
The scene resides at the left entrance to the Chapel hall, becoming the first image encountered by visitors, launching them into the famous narrative, as Adam and Eve walk out of the arch that is a painted extension of an architectural column. The artist's inclusion of the architecture into the pictorial space was not his only radical innovation. His use of linear perspective, chiaroscuro (the strategic use of shadow and light to create depth), and a realistic figurative approach were in direct opposition to the standard flat iconographic style of presenting religious stories and figures. The result is that Adam and Eve become humanized, rather than relegated on the devotional pedestal as sacred symbols. The pair are fully embodied and expressive, inhabiting real space, their shoulders bent, and their steps weighed down by the enormity of their expulsion. Art critic Clyde Haberman noted that Masaccio "broke with medieval traditions by giving raw realism to human forms and expressions. No one can doubt the anguish of his Adam and Eve as they are expelled from Paradise."
Subsequent artists would go on to envision their own work within this new aesthetic paradigm of Masaccio's vision. Both Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci extensively visited the Chapel to study and sketch Masaccio's human figures, which da Vinci called "perfect." Later artists like the sculptor Henry Moore also studied his works.
The Holy Trinity (1426-1427)
Customary to Masaccio's work, this piece helped revolutionize painting with its use of one point linear perspective, creating the illusion of three-dimensional space. The artist intentionally aligned the sighting of the fresco with the existing architecture of the church to enhance the trompe l'oeil effect. To create the work, he used a grid framework etched into the surface, and consulted Brunelleschi on linear perspective, as the perspective of even the nails in the cross show his rigorous approach. The design used a Roman triumphal arch and barrel vault to create a rational but divine space that the life-sized holy figures occupy, while the patrons and the skeleton, placed outside the barrel vault, occupy the space of the viewer. Visitors at the time were amazed at the artist's ability to create a work so realistic that many thought they were peering into a real chapel. A visceral experience of the work was spurred, creating an experience of contemplation in regard to mortality and timelessness.
The life-sized figures also present a remarkably naturalistic effect of volume, movement, and deep emotional expression. As Mary McCarthy, art historian, wrote, "The fresco, with its terrible logic, is like a proof in philosophy or mathematics, God the Father, with His unrelenting eyes, being the axiom from which everything else irrevocably flows." At the same time, Mary, her face solemn, creates a bridge between the divine and the human by looking toward the viewer and gesturing toward her son, providing a way into the sacred realm, through contemplation. As Vasari wrote in his Lives of the Artists (1550) about Masaccio's work, "Everything done before him can be described as artificial, whereas he produces work that is living, realistic and natural."
Dome of Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore (Florence Cathedral) (1420-1436)
Brunelleschi's architectural genius can be seen in the structure's sense of buoyancy with its white ribs emphasizing the vertical lift and the steep curvature narrowing at the top. Brunelleschi also designed the white lantern at its tip, though his friend, the architect Michelozzi, completed it in 1461, fifteen years after Brunelleschi's death. The dome became a visual symbol of "The New Athens," as Florence dubbed itself, as it evoked a sense of classical restraint and proportion, echoing the octagonal shape of the cathedral below and drawing it heavenward.
The dome was a revolutionary masterpiece, as the architect dispensed with both the internal scaffolding and the external supports (like buttresses) that were previously thought necessary. Instead, he created a dome within a dome, thus inventing a new system of support, where bricks lain in an inverted arch of herringbone pattern directed weight outward rather than downward. He also manufactured the technology he needed to materialize his project, including the first mechanical hoist and, later, the castello, or horizontal crane. Other structural innovations included the use of a catenary arch, a type of pointed arch, for support and internal wood, stone, and iron chains, formed in octagonals, to work like barrel hoops to hold the dome together.
This work was informed by Brunelleschi's careful study of the Pantheon (113-125) and other ancient Roman buildings. Yet, in his customary fashion, the architect kept his discoveries to himself, working without notes or plans. As he was later to say, when he applied for and was awarded the first modern patent for a water transport vehicle, "we must not show to all and sundry the secrets of the waters flowing in ocean and river, or the devices that work on these waters. Let there be convened a council of experts and masters in mechanical art to deliberate what is needed to compose and construct these works." Because of his enigmatic working fashion, many critics initially deemed his designs impossible. He was to prove them wrong. As historian Paulo Galluzi wrote of the Cathedral, "It is one of the most beautiful, technically audacious buildings ever constructed. It unites technology and aesthetics in an astonishingly elegant way. It symbolizes perfectly the union of science and of art."
All the architects of the next generation were influenced by Brunelleschi's work, and Leonardo da Vinci was fascinated by both his architecture and the technology he invented.
David (1430-1440)
Donatello also revived and refined the classical technique of lost wax casting to create this work. After casting the form, he finished it by hand, adding a thin layer of gold to create a lustrous surface with warm tones. A sense of the tactile informs the work, as the sleek smoothness of the youth's skin contrasts with the rough materials of Goliath's hair and helmet. One of the wings of Goliath's helmet extends up the back of David's leg, as if caressing him, adding a homoerotic element to the work. At the same time on the fallen giant's helmet the sculptor depicted a scene of Bacchus, the Greek god of wine and excess, suggesting that the virtue of beauty has conquered the pagan warrior.
Having recently defeated the larger and more powerful city-state of Milan, Florence identified itself with the story of the shepherd boy who defeated the giant warrior Goliath with a single stone from his slingshot. Later depictions of David by Andrea del Verrocchio, Bartolomeo Bellano, and most notably, Michelangelo and Bernini, took Donatello's sculpture as the starting point, whether drawing upon or countering its influence. Vasari wrote of the work, "This figure is so natural in its vivacity and softness that artists find it hardly possible to believe it was not moulded on the living form." Contemporary criticism in The New York Times stated, "Donatello's sculptures are startling, dramatic and unpredictable.... a sustained meditation on time."
The Annunciation (1450)
The emphasis on an ordinary but intimate moment was radically new and reflected Humanism's appreciation of the individual. It also reflects the Early Renaissance's distinct move away from traditional medieval imagery of religious narratives, removing the barriers between the sacred and the everyday in ways that invited viewers to feel part of the devotional tales in more familiar ways. The perspective, emphasizing the repeating diagonal line of Corinthian columns on the left, the arch framing Mary, and the foreground's horizontal edging and column, emphasizes the sacred space the two inhabit, while the viewer stands outside, as if listening in upon a private conversation.
The Medici family commissioned this work, along with more than fifty additional frescos and a new altarpiece in 1440, to complete the redesign of the friary of San Marco, which also included the first public library since the Roman Era. Fra Angelico, a Dominican friar, painted small frescos of Biblical scenes in the monks' cells to aid in devotional meditation. His intention was to bring the sacred into the monks' everyday physical reality, and he painted this scene, one of the last frescoes to be painted, in front of the staircase, so that monks returning to their cells would encounter it first.
Michael Glover, the art critic, has noted, "austere and more intimate in mood... The whole scene is a masterpiece of quiet understatement."
Flagellation of Christ (c. 1455)
It was notable as an early example of oil painting on a small panel, for which Della Francesca departed from the large frescos, painted with tempera, favored by the artists of his day. A precision of detail and line is evinced in his treatment of the architectural motifs, as seen in the intricate slats of the building on the far right, and the lines of the figures, with a curiously modern effect. The work conveys a sense of surreal calm and order, its almost architectural harmony contrasting with the flagellation. With its precise delineation and scientific use of perspective, the artist, who was also a mathematician, created a naturalistic work that is both convincing, and yet almost modern in its dissonance.
The art historian Kenneth Clark was to rank the painting as one of the ten finest paintings of all time.
Camera Degli Sposi Frescoes (1465-74)
Mantegna's fresco was groundbreaking for the time as it was the first example of di sotto in sù, or illusionistic ceiling painting. It also employed trompe l'oeil to create a scene where the architecture and painting become indistinguishable from each other within the fictive space. He incorporated the fresco into the building by painting the ceiling ribs and lozenges to resemble marble, and the triangular areas at the edge to look like mosaics.
He also used extreme foreshortening in the figures to tweak the viewer's perception of the height of the ceiling. This work embodied Alberti's argument in his De Pictura (1435) that a painting should be a window into reality.
The Gonzaga family commissioned this piece for their Camera degli Sposi, a small square reception room in their Ducal Palace. In addition to the ceiling fresco, he also painted The Court Scene (1465-1471), portraying the Gonzaga family on the north wall, and The Meeting (1465-1471), with two other smaller scenes on the west wall, and the last two walls with a decorative pattern.
Mantegna's work greatly influenced not only Renaissance artists like Raphael, but also artists of the Baroque and Rococo movements.
Lamentation over the Dead Christ (c. 1480)
The artist's mastery of foreshortening to create a pictorial plane that becomes architectural, as well as the work's near graphic directness, was not only ground breaking for its time, but potently modern. Mantegna's sculptural sense of the human figure is apparent in the image, but his radical innovation was his sense of the painting as part of a total spatial illusion. His techniques influenced artists of his generation but also later masters, like Leonardo da Vince, Albrecht Dürer, and Correggio. Contemporary art historian Nicholas Fox Weber has called the work, "an unsettling masterpiece," where "Mantegna's vision of agony as a prelude to resurrection and celebration resounds."
Primavera (1481-1482)
On the far right, the artist has combined two myths from the Roman poet Ovid. In the first myth Zephyrus, the god of the wind, depicted here with bluish green skin and puffed out cheeks, raped the nymph Chloris. In the painting, her nude figure, clothed in a diaphanous gown, falls forward, with feet that have already left the ground. As she turns back to look at him, tendrils and flowers emerge from her mouth, leading forward to the figure of Flora, the goddess of spring. The myth states, that full of remorse, Zephyrus changed Chloris into the goddess of spring.
This work, commissioned by the Medici family for a wedding celebration, broke new ground by borrowing from classical mythology for its subject. But it also reflects the integration of scientific observation into art as the artist depicted over 500 identifiable plant species into the piece. Each detail in the work is allusive in meaning. For example, the golden oranges allude to the symbol of the Medici family, the orbs of Hesperus from Greek myth, and to the Garden of Eden. The result is, as art historian Gloria Fossi has written, "one of the most written about, and most controversial paintings in the world."
Visually the work also presents an idyll of beauty, its female figures depicted with a linear rhythm, soft contours, and subtle color, to create what art historian Kenneth Clark described as, "one of the most personal evocations of physical beauty in the whole of art."
Christ Handing the Keys of the Kingdom to St. Peter (1482)
Behind, in the middle distance, two scenes from the New Testament are depicted. The scene on the left shows Christ and the disciples paying the tribute money, and the scene on the right shows Christ escaping from an attempted stoning. Two identical arches, resembling the Arch of Constantine, built by the Roman Emperor who in 313 legalized Christianity with the Edict of Milan, flank the Temple in the background. Beyond the plaza, mountains recede into the distance, due to the artist's employment of aerial perspective. Behind Christ on the left, and behind Peter on the right, illustrious figures of the era, including a self-portrait of the artist, mingle with the disciples. The central one point perspective married with the calculated composition of the painting's subjects, create a perfectly balanced symmetry.
The architecture of the scene reflects many things elemental to the Early Renaissance period. The work, commissioned by Pope Sixtus IV for the Vatican, was meant to illustrate the doctrine of apostolic succession and signal the rising importance of papal patronage in commissioning grand works of religious significance. The transmission of divine authority from Christ to Peter also harkens to the same transmission from Temple to the Vatican. Lastly, it is an example of the principles of science, mathematics, and design being injected into art by the leading artists of the time.
The elegant figures in their refined clothes, flowing drapery, and delicate detail reflect the influence of Andrea del Verrocchio's figurative treatments on the artist. Vasari was to credit Perugino with creating a new style that blended the Florentine line with a "delicacy blended with color," and the artist's sense of visual rhythm was to influence later artists, including Vasari himself.
The Birth of Venus (1483-1485)
The enigmatic work has compelled multiple descriptions. Vasari identified the young woman with her arms entwined around Zephyrus's waist as Aura, a mythological figure personifying light breezes. The woman on the right was thought to represent the Hora of spring, one of three such figures who were attendants of Venus. Other scholars connect this work to Botticelli's earlier Primavera, and have argued that Zephyrus's companion is Chloris, as shown by the symbolism of the flowers, and that the woman on the right is Flora, the goddess of spring. The artist also employed contemporary political symbolism. The laurel trees and Hora's laurel wreath visually pun upon the name "Lorenzo" of the Medici family who commissioned the work, while the motifs and colors of Hora's clothing and the robe she carries allude to the Republic of Florence.
The work was innovative for its large scale, for being painted on canvas, as well as it use of alabaster powder to brighten the paint and of gold to create highlights on the wings, the hair, the fabric, and the shell. But these innovations were overshadowed by its unprecedented depiction of the female nude in a pagan setting. While the figure created an impression of classical beauty, the artist has diverged from classical proportions. For instance, her body is off center, and her right leg curves too far over for her left leg to bear her weight. As the art historian Kenneth Clark noted, "Her differences from antique form are...rhythmic and structural. Her whole body follows the curve of a Gothic ivory. It is entirely without that quality so much prized in classical art, known as aplomb. She is not standing but floating." In this too, the artist was innovative, almost modern in his willingness to depart from naturalistic depiction in order to express an imagined internal concept of beauty. The work shows, as contemporary art historian Frederick Ilchman said, "Botticelli's attitude, his yearning to express ideals of beauty and human form." The work also is seen to reflect the era's Neo-Platonic philosophy that the mind could be drawn to the knowledge of divine beauty by contemplation of earthly beauty.
During the High Renaissance, Botticelli's works were eclipsed, and he became relatively unknown in the centuries that followed. The title "Birth of Venus" was given to this painting only in the 19th century when Botticelli's works were revived by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and embraced by the Arts and Crafts movement. Subsequently this work has become one of the world's most recognizable paintings, and artists including Salvador Dalí, Renée Magritte, Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, and the Superflat artist Tomoko Nagao have revisited it. The painting has endured fame in popular culture as it has been referenced in film, television, music videos, and has also informed the work of fashion designers like Elsa Schiaparelli and Dolce & Gabbana.
Portrait of an Old Man with His Grandson (1490)
Ghirlandaio was primarily known for his frescos, often portraying notable Florentines, as seen in his celebrated Tornabuoni Chapel cycle (1485-1490). What he brought to Early Renaissance painting most, though, was a vividly detailed and emotionally expressive portrayal of contemporary life and ordinary people, an emphasis that this singular portrait shares. The man's grey hair, the mole on his right forehead, and his deformed nose, indicate that he has the skin disorder rhinophyma. These characteristics are depicted with a remarkable realism that made the painting unique for its time. The work also subverted social attitudes, which associated defects in appearance with defects of character, by emphasizing the man's gentle and wise expression and quiet affection. Art historian Bernard Berenson wrote of this work, "There is no more human picture in the entire range of Quattrocento painting, whether in or out of Italy."
Ghirlandaio was also a notable teacher, as his most distinguished student was Michelangelo.