The art of the Renaissance is usually the most familiar to nonspecialists, and for good reason. This was the era that produced some of the icons of civilization, including Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and Last Supper and Michelangelo’s Sistine ceiling, Pietà, and David. Marked as one of the greatest periods in history, the outburst of creativity of the era resulted in the most influential artistic revolution ever to have taken place. The period produced a substantial number of notable masters, among them Donatello, Filippo Brunelleschi, Masaccio, Sandro Botticelli, Raphael, Titian, and Tintoretto, who were fortunate to work in an ambiance that encouraged creativity and art production and who enjoyed the financial backing of eager patrons who believed in the power of art as manifestation of social, political, religious, and intellectual attitudes. The result was an outstanding number of exceptional works of art and architecture that pushed human potential to new heights, among them Masaccio’s Holy Trinity, Donatello’s Judith and Holofernes, Leon Battista Alberti’s Tempio Malatestiano, Botticelli’s Primavera, Giovanni Bellini’s San Giobbe Altarpiece, Raphael’s School of Athens, and Titian’s Venus of Urbino. The movement was launched in Italy and gradually spread to the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, France, and other parts of Europe and the New World, with figures such as Robert Campin, Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, Albrecht Dürer, and Albrecht Altdorfer emerging as the leaders in the Northern artistic front. While disagreements on the chronology of the Renaissance exist, most disciplines place the era between the years 1250 and 1648. The first of these two dates marks the death of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, which ended the Hohenstaufen rule and gave rise to the Hapsburg imperial line, and the second is the year when the Peace of Westphalia was effected, putting an end to the Thirty Years’ War.
The term Renaissance, which translates to rebirth, is a French word first used by historians Jules Michelet and Jacob Burckhardt to denote the renewed interest in all aspects of the classical world that existed during that time period and the application of Greco-Roman learning and methodologies to everything from culture and politics to philosophy, religion, and the sciences. Michelet and Burckhardt were merely translating the term from the Italian Rinascita, first mentioned in print in 1550 by Giorgio Vasari in Le Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori, ed architettori [The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects], but utilized since the era of Petrarch and Dante. Petrarch, in fact, had concluded that the heights of human achievement had been reached during the Greco-Roman era and he called for a return to the ideals of the classical past and its humanistic method of learning. It was also Petrarch who labeled the medieval era the Dark Ages and classified it as a stagnant episode in history.
A major factor in the renewed interest in antiquity was the conquest in 1204 by the crusaders of the Byzantine Empire, which resulted in the rediscovery of the writings of the ancients that had been lost to the West for a number of centuries but preserved in the East. This conquest also resulted in the migration of Greek humanists to the Italian peninsula; their familiarity with the classical past facilitated the dissemination of the newly acquired knowledge. Italian men of letters eventually contributed to this dissemination by translating ancient manuscripts from Greek into Latin, thereby making them available to a Western audience, and also by recovering the ancient Roman heritage that had remained just as obscure as the Greek past. Among these men were Poggio Bracciolini, Lorenzo Valla, Marsilio Ficino, and Daniele Barbaro, who played key roles in the development of the Renaissance ethos. The introduction of the printing press in the 1450s allowed for the more economical production of Greco-Roman texts and their translations than hand-written, illuminated copies, thus making them available to a much wider audience. Some of the recovered texts specifically dealt with art; for example, the original ancient version of Vitruvius’ treatise on architecture (De architectura) provided direct information on the ancient principles of building design and soon inspired Renaissance architects to write their own treatises.
The Renaissance began in central Italy, and specifically in Florence. Italy at the time was not one nation; rather, it consisted mainly of a series of autonomous city-states ruled by a prince or merchant family. Florence, located in the Tuscan region, was at the time one of the largest cities of Europe, boasting by the 13th century over 100,000 inhabitants when London and Paris each only had approximately 20,000 residents. Its flourishing economy, based on cloth manufacturing and banking, permitted the necessary capital to finance major artistic endeavors. The Ciompi Revolt (1378), carried out by day laborers in the cloth industry, paved the way for the Albizzi family to emerge as the rulers of an oligarchic political system. In 1434, that system was taken over by Cosimo de’ Medici, from one of the leading banking families of Florence. Medici rule was to last until 1737, with few interruptions, and the family’s interest in learning and the arts would give momentum to the development of the Renaissance. Soon, the Renaissance ideals would spread to the neighboring Tuscan cities of Pisa and Siena, and farther to places like Padua, Venice, Urbino, Mantua, and Rome.
Art historians have divided the Italian Renaissance period into various subcategories based on the stylistic changes and technical developments that took place in each era: the Proto-Renaissance, which encompasses the second half of the 13th and most of the 14th centuries; the Early Renaissance, the label given to the art of the 15th century; the High Renaissance, when Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael brought the developments of the previous century to their highest refinement; Mannerism, a movement that dissented from the rationality and classicism of the High Renaissance; and Baroque, which rose in roughly the 1580s in response to the requirements of the Counter-Reformation Church as it attempted to curtail the spread of Protestantism. These labels, however, are not as clear cut as one would like them to be, as overlaps are not uncommon. So, for instance, while Botticelli was creating his lyrical masterpieces for the Medici rulers of Florence, masterpieces normally qualified as Early Renaissance, Leonardo was inaugurating the High Renaissance by introducing pyramidal compositions and voluminous figures with naturalistic forms and lifelike temperament. While Michelangelo was sculpting his expressive forms and imbuing them with life, the Mannerists were distorting their figures’ anatomical details and posing them in bizarre, contorted ways. And as Mannerists were receiving papal commissions all over Rome, Caravaggio was introducing to the city a new, theatrical mode of painting that rejected the contortions and ambiguities of Mannerism, instead embracing naturalistic forms and unambiguous scenes that evoked piety from viewers.
The art of the Proto-Renaissance, sometimes also called Late Gothic or Late Medieval, has a distinct Byzantine flavor. The reason for this is that, aside from reintroducing the classical written heritage to the West after the conquest of Byzantium in 1204, the crusaders also brought back Byzantine icons, illuminated manuscripts, carvings, and other such art objects that they had seized—objects that deeply influenced the art of Italy. The devastation caused by the crusades in Byzantium not only lead to the migration of scholars to Italy, but it also led to the migration of artists in search of new patronage. Once they began catering to Italian patrons, these masters created art in the mode in which they had been trained. The Maniera Greca, as the Byzantine manner is usually called, which is characterized by the use of brilliant colors, heavy gilding, striations to denote the folds of fabric, and segments for the figures’ anatomical details, became the preferred style, with Italian painters such as Berlinghiero and Bonaventura Berlinghieri, Coppo di Marcovaldo, Guido da Siena, and Cimabue adopting it as their own and becoming its greatest exponents. Byzantine elements also made their way into the field of sculpture, though the Gothic style of Northern Europe, and particularly France, was a more prevalent influence in this medium. The composition of the Nativity scene in Nicola Pisano’s pulpit for the Baptistery of Pisa (1255–1260), for example, relies on Byzantine renderings, especially in the reclining pose of the Virgin Mary. The overall appearance of the pulpit, with its trilobed arches and columns resting on lions, is, however, French Gothic. There is a third component to Pisano’s design: an awareness of ancient statuary, as the Virgin in the Adoration of the Magi panel recalls the seated Phaedra in the sarcophagus at Campo Santo, Pisa, that features the legend of Hippolitus. Also, Pisano’s allegorical figure of Fortitude, above one of the columns’ capitals, is a classicized male Herculean nude that presents a less schematic and more realistic rendering of anatomy.
This interest in resurrecting ancient realism had much to do with the recovery from Byzantium of the works of Aristotle, who had advocated the empirical observation of nature and its phenomena. His view deeply influenced the art of the period as artists began to examine nature carefully and to imitate its details on pictorial and sculptural surfaces. They studied the works of the ancients carefully, as the masters from the past had also relied on nature for their representations. Pisano looked to ancient remains in the Tuscan region. In Rome, the ancient heritage was even more palpable as Roman and Early Christian remains were available for study at every turn. Therefore, the art of Rome during the Proto-Renaissance era, though influenced by the Maniera Greca, relied most heavily on the ancient prototypes, and particularly Early Christian mosaics, which looked to pagan techniques and visual language that evoked the same naturalism Aristotle had promoted. This resulted in a more realistic and monumentalized art than in the Tuscan region. Jacopo Torriti’s apse mosaics at Santa Maria Maggiore (c. 1294) and Pietro Cavallini’s Last Judgment fresco in Santa Cecilia in Trastevere (c. 1290) are representative of this approach.
Another important occurrence during the Proto-Renaissance era that proved to be a major force in the development of art was a shift in attitude toward religion. In 1209, St. Francis established the Franciscan Order and, contrary to the medieval custom among monks to seclude themselves from the rest of the world in monasteries, he and his followers went out into the streets and preached the word of God while ministering to the poor and the sick. They sermonized about love and kindness toward mankind and the valuing of nature and its creatures as God’s creations. This view, which contradicted the medieval tendency to scare the masses into believing by reminding them of the damnation that would occur if the teachings of the Church were not scrupulously followed, resulted in a softening of religion and, in turn, the themes of religious images also softened. The previous emphasis on punishment and the supernatural was now replaced by the human aspect of the divine protagonists in the story of salvation. Also, the valuing of nature advocated by these preachers gave further impetus to the renewed Aristotelian interest in imitating the natural world in art.
The artist who broke away completely from the Byzantine tradition to pursue a purely naturalistic form of representation was Giotto. Considered the father of the Renaissance, Giotto was the first to be recognized while living as one of the greatest artists in history and the first to attain international fame. Accolades from Dante in the Purgatory and Boccaccio in the Decameron to Vasari in the Vite and Ceninno Cennini in his Il libro dell’ arte paint a picture, so to speak, of an artist who was greatly admired, and for good reason. As Cennini put it, “Giotto translated the art of painting from Greek to Latin.” The high demand for his works took him to North, South, and Central Italy, the Arena Chapel in Padua remaining as one of his best-preserved and greatest achievements. Here, Giotto replaced the gilded backgrounds of the Maniera Greca with rocky landscapes and ultramarine blue skies to bring the scenes down from a divine to an earthly level. The figures and draperies are modeled with shadows in certain strategic places to create the illusion of volume, and the stage set in each fresco is detailed carefully with buildings placed at an angle so two sides can be seen at one time, granting them a three-dimensional appearance. But, more than anything else, the works by Giotto are deeply human and emotional. Emphatic grimaces and gestures tell the story of Christ, his mother, and grandparents in a compelling way never before seen in art. The abstracted symbolic representations of the medieval era here gave way to realistic narratives.
While Giotto was developing this new visual language, Duccio was establishing himself as a leading figure in the art scene in Siena. Duccio chose to continue painting in the Maniera Greca yet combined it with the latest developments introduced by Giotto. The work that brought him great fame was the Maestà Altarpiece (Siena, Museo dell’ Opera del Duomo), painted in 1308–1311 for the main altar of the Cathedral of Siena. With scenes of the infancy of Christ, his ancestry, Passion, and death, the altarpiece is closely related to Giotto’s Arena Chapel narratives, clearly denoting competition between the two masters from enemy Tuscan cities. Once Duccio completed his work, it was carried by the citizens of Siena with great pomp from his studio to the cathedral. A contemporary account relates that members of the Sienese government and clergy carried candles and torches, while others played trumpets and bagpipes. Siena could now boast of an artist as gifted as Giotto.
Both masters had a great following. Giotto’s successful career required many assistants to fulfill the large number of commissions he was receiving. Because of his talent, however, he overshadowed many of his pupils, of which only a handful were able to emerge as artists in their own right. Among these were Maso di Banco, Bernardo Daddi, and Taddeo Gaddi. Giotto’s Arena Chapel frescoes in Padua prompted the development of a local school of painting in that city led by Altichiero. Among Duccio’s followers were Simone Martini, who assisted the master on the Maestà Altarpiece, and the brothers Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, who became the leading artists of Siena once Martini left the city for Avignon, France.
In 1348, the Black Death struck and both Florence and Siena lost roughly 50 to 75 percent of their populations. Many artists succumbed to the plague, including Bernardo Daddi and the Lorenzetti brothers, making way for a new wave of artists. Since catastrophes such as this were deemed to be God’s punishment, the works commissioned at this time reverted to the medieval subjects of death and final judgment meant to expiate whatever sins were believed to have caused the onset of the plague and its deadly consequences. Andrea Orcagna painted the Enthroned Christ with Virgin and Saints (1354–1357) for the Strozzi Chapel at Santa Maria Novella in Florence inspired by the apocalyptic themes in the Book of Revelations, Giovanni da Milano created his Pietà (1365, Florence, Accademia) showing the suffering Christ who sacrificed himself to save humanity, and Francesco Traini rendered the Triumph of Death (mid-14th century) in the Campo Santo in Pisa to remind viewers of the temporality of life.
In 1401, a specific event marked the end of the Proto-Renaissance era and inaugurated a new moment in history—the Early Renaissance. This event was the competition held in Florence for the execution of the east doors of the Baptistery, the Romanesque structure across from the cathedral where all Florentine citizens were baptized. Andrea Pisano had already executed in the previous century the south doors, which featured scenes from the life of St. John the Baptist, and the new portals were to harmonize with his design and depict stories from the Old Testament. Artists were asked to submit a relief depicting the sacrifice of Isaac in gilded bronze enclosed in a quatrefoil design similar to those used by Pisano on his doors. Seven artists submitted their entries, including Lorenzo Ghiberti, Filippo Brunelleschi, and Jacopo della Quercia. The prize went to Ghiberti, whose entry utilized a classical vocabulary suitable to the tastes of the day.
In the following year, Giangaleazzo Visconti of Milan, who controlled most of Northern Italy and a large part of Central Italy, had Florence surrounded on three sides. But, as he readied for the final blow, he died suddenly and his army had no choice but to retreat. The Florentines viewed the incident as an act of God. They expressed the pride they felt for having been spared from the clutches of their powerful enemy by embellishing their city with new structures, sculptures, and paintings. One of those projects was the building of the dome of the Cathedral of Florence, begun by Arnolfo di Cambio in 1296 and completed by Francesco Talenti in the 1350s, save for the dome. When Arnolfo had rendered his plans, he had left an octagonal opening for the dome that spanned 140 feet, and no architect had the skills to build a structure large enough to cover that opening. All this changed when Brunelleschi entered the scene. In 1407 he suggested to the committee of Cathedral Works that a drum be built to support the dome. Three years later, the drum was approved and Brunelleschi was asked in 1417 to provide a model. In 1420 his design was accepted and building commenced soon thereafter.
To prevent the dome from buckling under its own weight, Brunelleschi built a double-shelled structure over a skeleton of 24 ribs, only 8 of which are now visible from the exterior. To further lighten the dome, he utilized stone at the base and brick on the upper portions and capped it with a lantern to stabilize the ribs and prevent them from arching outward. Not only did Brunelleschi provide an unprecedented design, but he also invented a series of machines for greater building efficiency. He was able to resolve the problems involved in the construction of the massive dome by traveling with the sculptor Donatello to Rome and carefully studying the structures the ancients had built, taking exact measurements of each. Other buildings by Brunelleschi include the Ospedale degli Innocenti (1419–1424), the Church of San Lorenzo (beg. 1421) with its Old Sacristy (1421–1428), and the Pazzi Chapel at Santa Croce (1433–1461). These, like the dome, break away from the medieval mode of building, instead embracing the ancient principles of balance, order, and symmetry, as well as Pythagorean methods of proportion.
While Brunelleschi revolutionized the field of architecture, Donatello did the same in sculpture, and Masaccio in painting. Donatello had assisted Ghiberti in the execution of the bronze doors for the Baptistery and soon surpassed his master’s talents. For one of the exterior niches at Orsanmichele, Florence, he created the St. Mark statue (1411–1413); his patrons were the members of the Guild of Linen Drapers and Peddlers, the Arte dei Linaiuoli e Rigattieri. Appropriately, the saint stands on a sculpted pillow, one of the products manufactured by the guild. Inspired by ancient prototypes, Donatello’s figure stands in contrapposto (counterpoise), his appearance that of a philosopher from antiquity. His one leg is engaged, the other resting, his shoulders and hips forming two opposing diagonals—a natural pose, first utilized in sculpture by the ancients, that implies movement and that, once reintroduced in the 15th century, allowed sculptors to represent the figure in every position imaginable.
Vasari relates that, upon seeing the completed statue in the artist’s studio, the members of the guild rejected it. Donatello promised he would correct the elongations and exaggerated features they found so troublesome once the work was installed in its niche. At the final site, Donatello placed a screen around the statue and pretended to work on it. Once he revealed it to his patrons, they enthusiastically approved the commission. It escaped the guild members that Donatello had included the elongations and distortions to compensate for the fact that the work would be viewed from below and at a distance. This visual compensation allowed viewers to perceive the figure’s anatomical proportions, once in its intended placement, as logical and to see clearly the details of the figure from afar, including the furrowed brows and intense gaze that grant him an aura of power and intelligence. Donatello would later create other statues for the niches of Orsanmichele, including St. George (c. 1415–1417) for the Arte dei Corazzai e Spadai (Guild of Armorers and Swordmakers), a work that captures the anticipation of the saint facing his imminent combat with the dragon. His Zuccone (1423–1425), for one of the niches in the Campanile of the Cathedral of Florence, seems to be caught in some sort of spiritual frenzy as he speaks to the multitudes below about the coming of the Lord. The expressiveness of these figures affirms Donatello’s mastery at infusing life into the sculpted image, one of the earliest Renaissance masters to achieve this.
Like Donatello, Masaccio sought to attain lifelike reality. He was the first to use one-point linear perspective in painting, a mathematical method thought to have been devised by Brunelleschi that entails converging all of the orthogonals at a single vanishing point to construct a three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface. Masaccio’s Holy Trinity fresco at Santa Maria Novella in Florence (1427) uses this technique to render a chapel with Brunelleschian architectural elements that is so convincing as to grant the illusion that a hole has been punched through the wall to reveal an adjoining space. God the Father stands on a platform and presents the crucified Christ to the viewer, the vanishing point placed in the center of the masonry altar below the figures. Flanking them are the Virgin Mary and St. John, and outside the painted chapel are the Lenzi, husband and wife who commissioned the work from the artist. Together the figures form a pyramid that is as rational, orderly, and balanced as Brunelleschi’s buildings. Masaccio again utilized one-point linear perspective to render the Tribute Money in the Brancacci Chapel at Santa Maria delle Carmine, Florence (c. 1425), the vanishing point directly above Christ’s head, which makes him the physical as well as spiritual center of the painting. Masaccio here combined the Brunelleschian formula with the ancient method of atmospheric perspective—the blurring of forms as they move further into the distance to also enhance the depth of the space depicted. For the first time since antiquity, the figures in this fresco cast shadows on the ground in response to the true light that enters the chapel through its window, a feature that integrates the painting into the physical space it occupies.
The technical advancements introduced by Brunelleschi, Donatello, and Masaccio were perfected by subsequent masters, thus inaugurating what Frederick Hartt called the Second Renaissance Style. Leon Battista Alberti became Brunelleschi’s heir; not only did he design imposing structures that utilized a classical vocabulary—such as the Tempio Malatestiano in Rimini (beg. 1450), the façade of Santa Maria Novella in Florence (c. 1456–1470), and the Church of Sant’ Andrea in Mantua (beg. 1470)—but he also wrote a number of influential treatises. In this he was inspired by the writings of the ancient Roman engineer Vitruvius. His topics varied from architecture, sculpture, and painting to horses and the family. With his writings on art and architecture, Alberti was able to raise the fields to a scientific and humanistic level. Alberti rejected the vestiges of Gothicism left in Brunelleschi’s structures. His vocabulary instead was purely classical and more monumental than that of his predecessor. For his Church of Sant’ Andrea in Mantua, he utilized the ancient triumphal arch motif, appropriately to denote the triumph of the Christian Church over paganism. For his Santa Maria Novella façade, he looked to pedimented ancient temple types, while his Palazzo Rucellai in Florence (beg. c. 1453) is the earliest Renaissance structure to use the Colosseum principle—the correct application of the ancient orders, with the Doric superimposed by the Ionic and then the Corinthian.
In painting, the heirs of Masaccio were Fra Angelico and Fra Filippo Lippi. These men adopted the master’s mathematical perspective formula as well as the solidity of his figures and draperies. But, while Masaccio had placed his figures in front of natural or man-made settings, Fra Angelico and Lippi’s figures truly exist in and interact with their surrounding spaces. Under the sponsorship of Cosimo de’ Medici, Fra Angelico adorned the cells of the Monastery of San Marco, Florence, with images that inspired devotion among the monks who therein resided. The appealing pastel colors, sweet, humble figure types, and sparse settings Fra Angelico used reflect the purpose of these frescoes and the ascetic life of the men who prayed and meditated in front of them. Lippi, who took his vows less seriously than Fra Angelico, rendered matronly Madonnas with diaphanous draperies arranged in varied directions to add visual interest and animation. His Madonna and Child (c. 1455; Florence, Uffizi) presents monumental figures, the Christ Child a pudgy infant who seeks his mother’s embrace. One of the angels who supports him has a mischievous grin, showing that Lippi desired to give his figures a personality and not just concentrate on rendering their physical appearance. The composition of this work, with the figures by a window through which a landscape is seen, presages the portraits rendered by Leonardo where figure and nature commingle.
By midcentury, Paolo Uccello, Domenico Veneziano, Andrea del Castagno, and Piero della Francesca had taken the lead. Uccello was best known for his obsessive use of one-point linear perspective and foreshortening, as seen in his Battle of San Romano series (c. 1430s; London, National Gallery; Paris, Louvre; and Florence, Uffizi), painted for the Medici, and his Deluge (c. 1450) in the Chiostro Verde (Green Cloister) at Santa Maria Novella. His gridlike arrangements resulted in orchestrated scenes that denoted his approach to the craft of painting from a scientific, methodical standpoint. Though Domenico Veneziano was also methodic in his use of perspective, his forte was in colorism and light. In his St. Lucy Altarpiece (c. 1445–1447; Florence, Uffizi), he combined pastel hues in pleasing ways and bathed the scene with a bright light to emphasize its sacred nature. For Andrea del Castagno, the figure in movement was key. His Crucifixion with Four Saints (c. 1445; Florence, Sant’ Apollonia Refectory) shows his interest in human anatomy and the response of muscles and tendons to physical stress. His David shield (c. 1451; Washington, National Gallery) presents the youthful would-be king of the Israelites with windswept drapery—one of the earliest Renaissance representations of the human form in action. For Piero della Francesca, the human form could be rendered through the use of simple geometric shapes, such as cylinders, spheres, and cones, clearly seen in his Resurrection (c. 1458; San Sepolcro, Museo Civico). His geometric approach won him the admiration of the Cubists in the early 20th century.
Hartt recognizes three major trends that developed in Florence in the late 15th century: the first led by Pollaiuolo and Verrocchio, who approached the human form scientifically; the second championed by Botticelli, who was concerned with rendering poetic images; and the third represented by Ghirlandaio, who recorded contemporary life as he saw it. Pollaiuolo was among the first to dissect human corpses to gain a better understanding of the body’s structure. Like Andrea del Castagno, he was fascinated with the body in action and concentrated on depicting it in complex movements, as in his Hercules and Antaeus (c. 1460; Florence, Uffizi) where the mythical hero combats the son of Gaia, the Earth. His Battle of the Ten Nudes (c. 1465; New York, Metropolitan Museum) recalls illustrations in anatomy manuals as each figure is posed differently and performs a different action. Verrocchio, the teacher of Leonardo, not only wished to present the human form with all its anatomical details, but he also was keenly interested in physiognomic treatises that related the human temperament to that of animals. So, for example, his Colleoni Monument (1481–1496; Venice, Campo dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo) presents the commander Bartolomeo Colleoni with leonine features to enhance his heroism.
Botticelli was a member of the court of Lorenzo “the Magnificent” de’ Medici and his works reflect the interests of his patron, particularly Neoplatonism, a philosophy based on the teachings of Plato that embraces the concept that the soul possesses a high, pure form and a low, corrupt part. While common individuals succumb to passions and vices, enlightened ones are able to achieve the soul’s ascent through contemplation and its eventual union with the highest principle. Botticelli’s works, such as the Primavera (c. 1482; Florence, Uffizi), are considered by some to translate visually the Neoplatonic concepts of interest to the members of the Medici court, their purpose to aid viewers in attaining a higher level of contemplation. While Botticelli catered to the Medici, Ghirlandaio’s patrons were mostly successful Florentine merchants who may not have been as interested in intellectualism. Instead of providing images with philosophical intonations for these patrons, Ghirlandaio included them among the witnesses of religious scenes, allowing these to unfold in local Florentine settings. His frescoes in the Sassetti Chapel (1483–1486) at Santa Trinità, Florence, for instance, place recognizable members of the Tornabuoni family, related to the Medici by marriage, among those who observe the miracle effected by St. Francis in front of the Church of Santa Trinità, not where the event is said to have taken place. In the Birth of the Virgin in the Cappella Maggiore at Santa Maria Novella (1485–1490), Ghirlandaio depicted Ludovica Tornabuoni within a Florentine domestic setting.
Some of these masters from the Tuscan region traveled to other parts of Italy, taking the new Tuscan vocabulary with them. Domenico Veneziano worked in Perugia in the 1430s, as did Benozzo Gozzoli, a pupil of Fra Angelico, in nearby Montefalco in the 1450s. Pietro Vannucci, called Perugino, learned the Florentine vocabulary from their example, thus bringing Perugia out from artistic obscurity. He eventually received the attention of Pope Sixtus IV, who invited him to Rome to render Christ Giving the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven to St. Peter (1482) on one of the walls of the Sistine Chapel. This was part of a major decorative campaign for a building that to this day is used to elect the new pontiff, with a large number of artists involved, including Botticelli. In a commission that proved to be somewhat of a disaster from the artistic standpoint, Perugino’s fresco stands out as the most successful. His elegant figures with their dreamy eyes and swaying poses would prove to be a major influence on the art of his pupil Raphael.
Melozzo da Forli, a native of the Romagna region, also worked for Sixtus IV in Rome. He had come into contact with Piero della Francesca at the court of Federico da Montefeltro in Urbino through whom he would have acquainted himself with the new mode of painting. Once in Rome, he created frescoes utilizing a di sotto in sù technique, an exaggerated form of foreshortening. His Christ in Glory (1481–1483), painted for the Church of Santi Apostoli, Rome (partially destroyed; fragments in the Vatican Museum and the Quirinal Palace in Rome), formed part of an Ascension frescoed in the church’s apse with the apostles witnessing the event below and Christ and windswept musical angels hovering above. The illusion Melozzo sought to create was that of a vision taking place in the heavens above the viewer, which was to open the doors to the development of illusionistic ceiling painting.
Lippi, Uccello, and Castagno worked in Venice, and Donatello in nearby Padua. Though a school of painting had already been established in the region by Paolo Veneziano in the previous century, the impact of the new Florentine mode was deeply felt, with a major school emerging dependent on these examples. Jacopo Bellini established a family of artists that included his two sons Giovanni and Gentile, and his son-in-law Andrea Mantegna. Best known for his drawing books, now housed in the Paris Louvre and the British Museum, Jacopo’s greatest contribution was as a teacher. The drawings in these books show his complete understanding of one-point linear perspective, this commingled with the Venetian interest in the depiction of nature or man-made scenery dominant over humanity. Religious and mythological scenes become subordinate to the landscape or the Venetian urban environment.
Mantegna, a native of the Paduan region, was particularly interested in antiquity and Donatello’s sculptures. His figures demonstrate a solidity and monumentality that translate into painting what Donatello had created in bronze and stone. In fact, his St. James Led to His Execution (1454–1457) painted in the Ovetari Chapel in the Church of the Eremitani, Padua (destroyed; known through photographs) includes a figure with a shield that is based on Donatello’s St. George at Orsanmichele, Florence. In rendering the San Zeno Altarpiece (1456–1459; Verona, Church of San Zeno), Mantegna again looked to Donatello, and specifically his altar at San Antonio, Padua (1444–1449) for his figural and architectural arrangements. Like Melozzo, Mantegna was a master of foreshortening. His ceiling in the Camera Picta (1465–1474) at the Ducal Palace in Mantua, painted for Ludovico Gonzaga and his family, is made to look like an open oculus surrounded by a parapet with putti and servants leaning over it to gaze down at the viewer.
Mantegna’s brother-in-law, Gentile Bellini, was the Venetian counterpart to the Florentine Ghirlandaio. Like his Tuscan colleague, Gentile specialized in images that included the people of his city and recorded its important events. His Procession of the True Cross (1496; Venice, Accademia) commemorates a specific cortege in 1444 in which the relic of the True Cross, owned by the Scuola di San Giovanni Evangelista and whose members paid for the painting, effected a miraculous cure, proving its validity. The painting is of great historical value, not only in that it includes members of the confraternity, clergy, the doge (the chief magistrate of the Republic of Venice), and his retinue, but it also depicts the Basilica of San Marco as it looked in the 15th century, including the decorations by Paolo Uccello on the façade, which have since been destroyed.
Giovanni Bellini, Gentile’s brother, stands out as the most admired of the Venetian masters of the period. His Frari (1488; Venice, Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari) and San Giobbe (c. 1487; Venice, Accademia) altarpieces established a new standard in Venice for the depiction of the Madonna and Child that entailed elevating these figures on a high throne with elaborate architecture to set them apart from the accompanying saints. These two paintings Bellini rendered in oil applied in various translucent layers, giving a velvety quality to the painted surface. He learned the technique from Antonello da Messina who, while active in Naples, had had the opportunity to study the works of the Flemish masters. The Flemish School will be discussed in detail below. Here, it will suffice to note that, by now, Flemish art was well represented in Italy and, in fact, the art collection of King Alfonso of Naples included examples from the Northern masters, where Antonello would have studied them. Also, in 1456, Antonello was working in the court of Galeazzo Maria Sforza in Milan, possibly alongside Petrus Christus, the painter from Bruges from whom he would have learned firsthand how to apply oil glazes onto the pictorial surface to achieve luminous, velvety effects. If color and light are the true subjects of Bellini’s paintings, it is because of the environment in which he worked. Venice is composed of a series of islets contained within a sheltered lagoon along the Adriatic Sea. Color and light bounce off the water surfaces, effects that could not have been replicated on the painted surface had it not been for the oil technique learned from Antonello. The particular golden glow of Bellini’s paintings was also inspired by the mosaics inside the Basilica of San Marco. In fact, the two paintings by Bellini just mentioned place the Virgin and Child in front of an apse covered with mosaics that imitate those in the Venetian landmark.
As Giovanni Bellini was creating his masterpieces in Venice, and Botticelli his in Florence, Leonardo da Vinci was already inaugurating the High Renaissance by utilizing the innovations introduced during the century and taking them to their ultimate state. Leonardo was what one would call a true Renaissance man. Not only was he active as painter, but his interests reached just about every area of learning. He delved into anatomy, hydraulics, optics, astronomy, mathematics, and urban planning, to name a few of his areas of interest. He kept scrupulous notes of his experiments, research, and discoveries, which have survived to provide testimony to his inquisitive nature. Leonardo was also instrumental in elevating the artist’s status from craftsman to genius. He wrote a treatise on painting and in it he compared the creative power of artists to those of God. For him, painting was to be considered a liberal, not manual, art and to take precedence over poetry and music because it depends on the eye, for him an organ superior to the ear on which these other outlets for creativity rely.
His masterpiece is, of course, the Mona Lisa (1503), one of the most venerated works of art ever created. Though hordes of people flock to the Louvre Museum in Paris every day to view the work, few understand the true importance of the Mona Lisa to the history of art. The woman portrayed is Lisa di Antonio Maria Gherardini, wife of the prominent Florentine banker Francesco del Giocondo, hence the reason she is sometimes also called La Gioconda. Prior to this portrait, the usual format was head and shoulders. Here, Leonardo extended the view to include her torso and hands, which permits the assessment that the figure is seated. She also looks directly at the viewer when most female portraits of the era showed the figure in profile. Leonardo’s contemporaries were creating portraits of women that emphasized their social status by the elegant costumes and jewelry they wore. Leonardo, on the other hand, removed any blatant display of luxury, instead focusing on the woman herself. Mona Lisa smiles at the viewer, a detail that grants her a personality and denotes that Leonardo sought to capture her appearance as well as her psychology. She forms a large, solid pyramid placed in front of a landscape that echoes the forms of her body and hair, tying the two together. The sfumato, a shading technique Leonardo devised, grants her an aura of mystery. With this portrait, Leonardo introduced a new, more naturalistic mode of portrayal.
Other works by Leonardo were just as innovative. His Last Supper (1497–1498) in the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan, depicts the moment when Christ establishes the Eucharist as a sacrament by inviting his disciples to drink the wine, representative of his blood, and the bread, which denotes his body. This is also the moment when Christ declares that one of his followers will betray him and they, in turn, react to this momentous statement by engaging in agitated gestures as if to say, “Lord, is it I?” in accordance with the biblical account of the event. The drama of the moment makes this work stand out from earlier representations of the theme. Leonardo’s interest in mathematics and numerology is clearly reflected in this work, as the apostles are posed in four groups of three, the windows behind Christ number three, and the doorways on the lateral walls number four. These ciphers and their sum have spiritual significance. Three refers to the Holy Trinity and the three Theological Virtues, while four is the number of the Gospels, Cardinal Virtues, rivers of paradise, and seasons of the year. Seven, the sum of the two, are the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the joys of the Virgin, and her sorrows. Three multiplied by four is 12, and 12 is the number of the apostles, the gates of Jerusalem, the months of the year, the hours of the day, and the hours of the night. With this, Leonardo expressed the perfection of God’s creation of both spirit and matter.
While Leonardo considered painting to be the noblest form of art, Michelangelo placed sculpture at the highest level. Nourished by a wet nurse in a village of stonecutters called Settignano, Michelangelo often joked that he had become a sculptor because he had suckled the instruments of his trade with his wet nurse’s milk. But, in spite of his preference for sculpture, Michelangelo also excelled in painting and was able to create one of the most outstanding examples of art: the Sistine ceiling (1508–1512). The work was commissioned by Pope Julius II, the nephew of Sixtus IV who had patronized the decoration of the walls in the Sistine Chapel where Perugino contributed his fresco, Christ Giving the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven to St. Peter, previously mentioned. Preparatory drawings indicate that Michelangelo first intended to paint the 12 apostles separated into compartments. He then, contemporaries inform us, complained to the pope that the ceiling’s overall design would not be imposing enough, with Julius replying that Michelangelo could do as he wished. It is not clear whether this account is in fact accurate. What is clear is that Michelangelo created a ceiling that was unlike any other seen before. The ceiling, as it was executed, is organized into three bands. On the outer bands are enthroned prophets and sibyls who foretold the coming of Christ. Above each sit two ignudi (nude male figures) holding a medallion painted to resemble bronze. In the central band are nine scenes from the Book of Genesis that deal with the story of Creation, up to the Drunkenness of Noah. Between the prophets and sibyls are triangular fields with Christ’s ancestors; at either side of each are seated bronze-colored nudes. Christ’s ancestors also occupy the lunettes above the windows. On the spandrels in the corners of the ceiling are narratives from the Old Testament that prefigure the sacrifice of Christ, such as the Brazen Serpent, which speaks of Christ on the cross. Many interpretations have been given of Michelangelo’s ceiling, one of which ties it to Neoplatonism, a plausible reading as the artist was part of the Medici court. According to this view, Michelangelo’s ceiling speaks of the history of humankind as it gradually moved from a time before religion, to paganism, and finally the Christian era. The crescendo from blindness to enlightenment corresponds to the Neoplatonic tenet of the soul’s trajectory from the mundane to the spiritual through contemplation in order to achieve union with the highest principle.
Michelangelo’s best-known sculpture is the David (1501–1504; Florence Accademia). Originally intended for one of the buttresses of the Cathedral of Florence just below the dome, the figure was so well received that the fathers of the city decided to place it instead in front of the Palazzo Vecchio, the seat of government, as a symbol of the new Florentine Republic established when the Medici were temporarily expelled from the city. As the work was meant to be viewed from below and at great distance, Michelangelo exaggerated the figure’s proportions, just as Donatello had done at Orsanmichele. Unlike earlier representations of David, Michelangelo’s is a grown man, not a shepherd boy. He is a powerful, fully nude figure rendered in the Greco-Roman mode to enhance his heroism. Instead of standing on Goliath’s head, as in the earlier examples, here David is shown before the confrontation, his anticipation clearly denoted by his furrowed brow and tense muscles. In this, Michelangelo was inspired by Donatello’s St. George at Orsanmichele, which also presents the figure before combat with the enemy, his face showing signs of anticipation and tension.
The third key figure of the High Renaissance is Raphael. Raphael was not as innovative as Leonardo or Michelangelo, but he certainly was one of the best-loved artists of the era. The grace and beauty of his paintings are what his contemporaries found so appealing about the master. He specialized in Madonna figures, these inspired by Leonardo’s pyramidal Virgins in the landscape. But, when he arrived in Rome to work for Pope Julius II and saw Michelangelo’s Sistine ceiling, his style changed to a more monumentalized mode of painting. His School of Athens (1510–1511) in the Stanza della Segnatura at the Vatican is his response to Michelangelo’s work. Painted with greater vigor than his earlier renditions, the fresco speaks of the spirit of the Renaissance, as it includes the greatest ancient men of learning then so admired. Plato and Aristotle stand in the background center, each accompanied by their respective followers. Aristotle points down and Plato up to denote that the former was interested in nature and its phenomena while the latter preferred to focus on elusive subjects such as ethics and morality. Other important figures of the history of philosophy and learning accompany these men, including Socrates, Diogenes, Pythagoras, Ptolemy, and Heraclitus. This last is a portrait of Michelangelo dressed in a stonecutter’s smock and boots. He is shown brooding because melancholy was then considered a sign of genius. With this, Raphael paid homage to the man who had just achieved the impossible.
Raphael’s scene takes place in an architectural setting that recalls Donato Bramante’s buildings. Bramante was the leading architect in Rome at the time when Michelangelo and Raphael were working there. He built the Tempietto (c. 1502–1512) in the courtyard of San Pietro in Montorio, Rome, to commemorate the site where St. Peter was supposedly crucified, a commission financed by Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain. The small, centrally planned structure was inspired by Early Christian martyria that, as their name indicates, marked the spot where saints were martyred. The Tempietto features a completely classical vocabulary, with Doric columns and frieze capped by a balustrade, followed by a hemispherical dome reminiscent of the dome of the Pantheon, built in the Roman era. Christian liturgical instruments, such as the challis and paten, adorn the frieze and denote that, in spite of the pagan vocabulary, the building is very much a Christian structure.
In 1506, Julius commissioned Bramante to provide a plan for a new St. Peter’s, the mother church of the Catholic faith, as the old Early Christian basilica had fallen into disrepair. Of Bramante’s design, all that is left is a coin minted by Cristoforo Caradoso, one of his assistants, and a half-plan that suggests that he wanted to build again a centrally planned martyrium, in this case to mark the site of St. Peter’s tomb. Bramante died and his project was not completed until Michelangelo took over in 1546. Working under Pope Paul III, he modified Bramante’s plan by thickening the outer walls and four main piers. He also simplified the interior space arrangements for a more unified design and defined more clearly the entrance to the basilica. The final result is an organic structure with rhythmic repetitions, alternating forms, and in and out movements of the exterior walls. The dome, completed by Michelangelo’s pupils after his death, is a Brunelleschian type that sits on a base and is built around a skeleton of ribs. A lantern stabilizes the ribs as they did in Brunelleschi’s dome for the Cathedral of Florence.
The artists of the High Renaissance mentioned thus far represent the Florentine/Roman School. As discussed previously, their art depended on order, balance, and symmetry. In painting, drawing the figure and objects with great precision prior to adding color was the norm, and light was no more than a tool to enhance the sculptural quality of the various forms depicted. As a result, the images of the Florentine/Roman artists, save for Leonardo’s, are solid and linear, each section clearly recognizable and separate from the next. In Venice, a competing group emerged, led by Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto, and Paolo Veronese. These individuals used the foundations Bellini had laid as a springboard for further advancement. As mentioned, Bellini rendered images where colorism and warm glows were the most outstanding features. The Venetian artists of the 16th century continued the layered application of oils to obtain these effects, but now their brushwork became as lush as the colors they were using and their figures became more sensuous. Also, the Venetians became aware of Leonardo’s art and began experimenting with his sfumato technique, applying it in certain areas to soften line and contours and to achieve ethereal effects. They also adopted Leonardo’s characteristic placement of humans within nature. For the Venetians, in fact, the sensuous nude in the landscape became a common feature of their art, as Giorgione’s Fête Champetre (c. 1510; Louvre, Paris) and Sleeping Venus (c. 1510; Dresden, Gemäldegalerie) epitomize. Hence, what distinguishes the Venetians from the Florentine/Roman masters is that they created their forms with color and light, their loose brushwork lending vibrancy to their images. These differing approaches by the two groups gave way to debates on colorito (colorism) versus disegno (draughtsmanship) that were to last well into the 18th century when the Poussinists, who favored the classicism and precision of the Florentine/Roman School, debated against the Rubenists, who preferred the lush application of paint to augment the dynamism and drama of their scenes.
The vitality of Venetian art depended as well on the introduction of diagonal arrangements. Titian’s Madonna of the Pesaro Family in the Church of Santa Maria dei Frari, Venice (1519–1526), is of the same stock as Bellini’s San Giobbe and Frari altarpieces. The Virgin and Child sit on an elevated throne, saints flank them at either side, architecture sets them apart from the other figures, and color and light take on a primary role. Titian, however, moved his scene to an open portico, allowing sunlight to bathe the various surfaces, and pushed the throne to the right to form a right triangle that differs from the pyramidal compositions of the members of the Florentine/Roman School, which are centered and perfectly symmetrical. This right triangle introduces a sharp diagonal line that adds a sense of movement to the scene. For added animation, Titian’s Christ Child is a pudgy infant who stands on his mother’s lap and plays peek-a-boo with her veil, obviously undisturbed by the fate that awaits him.
As Titian aged and his eyesight failed, his brushwork became looser. His apprentice, Tintoretto, also applied his colors loosely, using large brushes and working at great speed. Though Tintoretto learned well the lessons Titian offered, his works possess an originality that departs from his teacher’s art. Tintoretto’s works present noisy, overpopulated scenes that are filled with action. In his Last Supper in the Scuola di San Rocco, Venice (1577–1581), the table on which Christ and his disciples take their last meal together is placed in a diagonal that recedes rapidly into space. Instead of showing Christ seated in the center of the composition, as Leonardo depicted him, he stands at the back of the room and administers the Eucharist to St. Peter. In the foreground, the servants who served the meal rest on the steps where a dog wags its tail, hoping to receive a morsel. The reverence of Leonardo’s Last Supper is lost in Tintoretto’s version and, instead, Christ and the apostles are presented as everyday men who have gathered at an inn. Only the administration of the Eucharist in the background hints at the fact that this is no ordinary moment. In this, he was following Jacopo Bellini’s custom of treating religious scenes as incidental occurrences unfolding in a large setting.
Veronese, Tintoretto’s competitor, also depicted the Last Supper as a noisy event populated with figures. The work, painted for the refectory (dining hall) of the Dominican Monastery of Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice, was deemed indecorous by the officials of the inquisition because, more than Tintoretto’s version, it lacked any suggestion of sacredness. Veronese rendered the moment as a contemporary Venetian banquet attended by the local nobility, dressed in their most sumptuous clothes and bedecked in jewels. Buffoons and dwarfs are there for their entertainment, as are exotic animals, and some of the individuals depicted are in a drunken stupor. Veronese was able to avoid persecution simply by changing the title of the work to the Feast in the House of Levi (1573; Venice, Accademia), a less sacred episode in Christ’s life.
Veronese stands as one of the great masters of illusionism. His Triumph of Mordecai (1556) at San Sebastiano and Triumph of Venice in the Hall of the Great Council of the Doge’s Palace (c. 1585), both in Venice, are ceiling paintings that present the figures di sotto in sù. In the Triumph of Mordecai, a procession passes above the viewer, the horses so foreshortened as to reveal their undersides. Figures look down, recalling the individuals in Mantegna’s Camera Picta who peer down from the ceiling’s painted oculus. The Triumph of Venice also presents a pageantry scene, with the allegorical representation of the city enthroned in the clouds like a Virgin Mary, floating above the viewer.
At a certain point in his career, Michelangelo became dissatisfied with the order, symmetry, and balance of the Renaissance and began to experiment with an anticlassical vocabulary. The unprecedented architectural forms he introduced in the vestibule of the Laurentian Library (1524–1534) and Medici Chapel (Old Sacristy of San Lorenzo, 1519–1534), and the sculptural figures in this last commission with their muscular forms and unsteady poses, gave impetus to the development of Mannerism, a movement that emerged in Florence in roughly the 1520s as a revolt against the strict classicism imposed by the Renaissance masters on art and architecture. Working for Duke Federigo Gonzaga of Mantua, Giulio Romano designed the Palazzo del Tè, one of the great masterpieces of Mannerist architecture. Like Michelangelo, Giulio broke away from the rationality of the Renaissance by spacing pilasters asymmetrically, breaking the stringcourses with massive keystones, and adding pronounced rustications on all the surfaces.
Jacopo da Pontormo and Rosso Fiorentino were the early exponents of Mannerist painting. Pontormo’s key work is the Deposition (1525–1528; Florence, Capponi Chapel), an image filled with baffling ambiguities. Although the title of the painting denotes that it is meant to represent the removal of the body of Christ from the cross for burial, the cross is missing. The composition is circular, with a void in the center where a series of stacked hands can be seen—so the main focus of the work is not the dead Christ but those hands. The scene moves up instead of logically receding into space so that the figures seem to float and the colors are combined abruptly, not harmoniously, with too much blue used. The lighting is harsh, without the subtle Renaissance gradations from light to medium to dark, and, finally, the figures, though inspired by Michelangelo, are in poses that would be impossible for humans to attain, with body parts that do not seem to belong to any of the characters included. Rosso Fiorentino’s Descent from the Cross (1521; Volterra, Pinacoteca) is no less jarring. The light here is so harsh that it divides the draperies into facets and the poses are so contorted that they grant a sense of turbulence to the scene. The oval composition with a void in the center is also present here. What is Michelangelesque in Rosso’s work is Christ’s pose. His body is a reversed version of Christ in Michelangelo’s Pietà at the Vatican.
Mannerism soon spread to other parts of Italy and Europe. Perino del Vaga pioneered it in Rome and Genoa, Domenico Beccafumi in Siena, Correggio in Parma, and Parmigianino in Parma, Rome, and Bologna. A second wave of Mannerist artists emerged toward the middle of the 16th century, including Agnolo Bronzino, Vasari, and Federico Barocci. Benvenuto Cellini, Bartolomeo Ammannati, and Giovanni da Bologna translated the Mannerist idiom into sculpture, and Ammannati, Vasari, and Giulio Romano into architecture.
In 1517, the authority of the Church was threatened when Martin Luther, dissatisfied with the excessive sale of indulgences and abuses from the clergy, posted his Ninety-Five Theses on the main portals of Wittenberg Cathedral, Germany. Soon these theses, which attacked the pope and explained Luther’s own position on contrition and penance, were circulated throughout Northern Europe, giving impetus to the Reformation. As a result, Protestantism emerged as a new religion meant to satisfy the needs of those who questioned the excessive power of the Catholic Church.
In 1545, Pope Paul III convoked the Council of Trent to fight the spread of Protestantism and to enact reforms that would eliminate abuses related to Church administration, an act that would officially launch the Counter-Reformation. The council’s last session took place in 1563 and is of particular importance to the history of art because enactments were then made that stipulated the proper way to depict religious subjects. Art, it was decreed, should instruct the faithful on redemption, the intercessory role of the saints and the Virgin, and the veneration of relics. Religious images were to invoke piety and inspire viewers to engage in virtuous behavior. The effects of these enactments were not felt until over a decade later when key Church figures began writing treatises to instruct artists on the Tridentine stipulations. St. Charles Borromeo, archbishop of Milan, provided in 1577 a treatise on the proper building of churches, and Gabriele Paleotti, archbishop of Bologna, wrote the Intorno alle imagini in 1582, a guide on the correct depiction of sacred and profane images. These events marked the beginning of the Baroque era.
The first church to be built that satisfied the demands of the Counter-Reformation was Il Gesù in Rome (1568–1575; façade fin. 1584), the mother church of the Jesuit Order. Financed by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, a relative of Pope Paul III, the building was designed by Giacomo da Vignola, who used Leon Battista Alberti’s Sant’ Andrea in Mantua as his prototype. Like Alberti, Vignola eliminated the aisles, leaving only a broad barrel-vaulted nave to accommodate large crowds and to prevent visual obstructions to the main altar where the rituals of the mass take place. Vignola’s façade, reworked by Giacomo della Porta, looked to Alberti’s at Santa Maria Novella, Florence, imitating its two-story elevation, equal height and width, and decorative scrolls that visually connect the upper and lower stories. Il Gesù became the standard Counter-Reformation design for longitudinal churches.
The artistic reform in painting was led by Federico Barocci in Urbino, the Carracci in Bologna, and Caravaggio in Rome. In this discussion, Barocci was already placed among the Mannerists. However, in the 1580s, he suddenly changed his style and began creating works that were well suited to the demands of the Counter-Reformation. His Visitation (1586; Rome, Chiesa Nuova) presents common figure types, made more appealing by the various touches of pink on their cheeks and lips and the tilting of their heads as they witness Mary visiting her cousin Elizabeth to inform her that she is with child. The ambiguities of Mannerist art are gone. Instead, sharp diagonals direct the viewer’s gaze toward the main protagonists, who occupy the center of the composition. Contemporary accounts relate how all of Rome lined up for three days to view the work once it arrived from Urbino and of St. Philip Neri experiencing ecstatic raptures in front of the painting. Clearly, the artist rendered an appealing image that evoked emotive responses from viewers, as the stipulations of the Council of Trent and the treatises published thereafter demanded.
In Bologna, Annibale, Agostino, and Ludovico Carracci established an academy that offered a progressive learning environment where students could draw from life, receive lessons in anatomy, and participate in competitions and learned discussions about art. Their purpose was to restore art from what they viewed as the excesses of Mannerism, their intensions expounded clearly in Annibale’s Butcher Shop (c. 1582; Oxford, Christ Church Picture Gallery), as has been noted in current scholarship on the Carracci. This work includes the portraits of the three Carracci, with Ludovico, who was the son of a butcher, standing behind the counter, Agostino weighing meat to the left, and Annibale slaughtering a lamb in the foreground. The contorted, overdressed figure on the extreme left refers to what they perceived as the inadequacy of Mannerism as visual language, while the meat that hangs in the shop expresses the Carracci’s style, which they described as da viva carne (of living flesh), meaning that, unlike the Mannerists, they painted from nature. Annibale used Michelangelo’s Sacrifice of Noah on the Sistine ceiling as the prototype for the slaughtering of the lamb to allude to their desire to rescue painting from the artificiality of Mannerism and to restore it to the classicism of the great Renaissance masters.
The Carracci were very eclectic, their style melding elements from Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, and even the Mannerist Correggio, whom they deeply admired. Caravaggio looked mainly to the Venetians, adopting their rich palette and gold lighting. He gave the Venetian manner a new twist by pushing the figures close to the foreground and showing them with all their imperfections, exaggerating the diagonal arrangements, and dramatizing the light through pronounced contrasts of light and dark. His paintings in the Contarelli Chapel (1599–1600, 1602) in the Church of San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome, meet all the Tridentine demands. They depict the three main events in the life of St. Matthew: his calling by Christ, his writing of the Gospel, and his martyrdom. The story is conveyed clearly through dramatic gestures and glances, and the stories validate sainthood and the nobility of dying for the faith, both questioned by the Protestants. The scene of Matthew’s conversion invites those who may have strayed from the Church to return.
Of the three reformers, Caravaggio had the greatest impact as his style spread throughout Europe. In Italy, Caravaggism lost its appeal by 1620 and the Carracci followers came to dominate the scene, among them Domenichino, Guercino, Giovanni Lanfranco, Francesco Albani, and Andrea Sacchi. In the 1630s, a Neo-Venetianism was established by Pietro da Cortona who would revolutionize the art of ceiling painting by allowing his figures to weave in and out of fictive frameworks. His Glorification of the Reign of Urban VIII in the Barberini Palace in Rome (1633–1639), which presents these features, contrasts markedly with Sacchi’s Divine Wisdom (1629–1633) in the same building. Sacchi’s work includes a lesser number of figures and lesser dynamism, which makes for easier readability. The differing styles of these two individuals resulted in a series of debates at the Accademia di San Luca, Rome’s painting academy, on the proper representation of history paintings. This was nothing more than a revival of the 16th-century debate on colorism versus draughtsmanship, of the Venetian versus the Florentine/Roman mode, of visual vibrancy versus classical restraint. The debate had already existed among connoisseurs of the 17th century, some of which preferred the classicism of the Carracci while others were partisans of Caravaggio’s naturalism. This dichotomy of visual preference spilled into sculpture and architecture as well. In sculpture, Gian Lorenzo Bernini embodied the dramatic, theatrical mode of representation, with his Ecstasy of St. Theresa in the Cornaro Chapel at Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome (1645–1652), serving as an example. Alessandro Algardi chose the classical approach, as demonstrated by his Tomb of Pope Leo XI (1634–1644) at St. Peter’s. Surprisingly, in architecture, Bernini was the one to favor classical, sober lines while Francesco Borromini designed structures that took on biomorphic forms, swelling and contracting before the viewer’s eyes.
The Baroque era lasted until the end of the 17th century, which falls outside the scope of the present study. Left is the task of examining the art created in the other major artistic centers of Europe. For this, it is necessary to return to the 14th century.
The mode of painting that developed in Italy in the early 1300s, with its emphasis on naturalism, spread to Northern Europe when Simone Martini, Duccio’s pupil, arrived in Avignon, France, in 1335 to work in the papal court. Pope Clement V had moved the papacy to Avignon in 1309 to avoid the constant conflicts caused by rival political factions in Rome, as well as the intrusions of the Holy Roman Emperor. This period in the history of the papacy, which was to last until 1377, is called the Babylonian Captivity. When Martini went to Avignon, he brought with him the Sienese mode of painting, a style that, as mentioned, combined Byzantine gilding and brilliant colors with the naturalism and monumentality introduced by Giotto. As the papal court was frequented by prelates and other individuals from all over Europe who conducted business there, soon this mode of painting spread throughout France, the Netherlands, Austria, Bohemia, and Catalonia, and aptly became known as the International Style.
In France, the moment was ripe for the eager reception of Martini’s manner as interest in naturalism already existed there prior to the master’s arrival. The same impetus that had prompted Italian artists to strive for more naturalistic forms also touched the masters of the North. Here, a major force in this respect was St. Thomas Aquinas, who had declared the physical world to be a metaphor for the spiritual. Also, as in Florence, France enjoyed the wealth necessary to produce works of art. Charles V of France and the Dukes of Anjou, Orleans, Berry, and Burgundy, all grandsons of Philip VI from the French royal house of Valois, shared a passion for art, and particularly illuminated manuscripts. Under these men, the International Style came to its highest glory, maintaining its position until the 1420s, when war with England and internal strife resulted in the decline of art production in the region.
Of the art objects from France’s International Style, only illuminated manuscripts have survived, with few exceptions. In this medium, it was Jean Pucelle who held the lead. It was he who, aware of Duccio’s works, combined the French Gothic mode with the new treatment of space introduced by the Italians. His Annunciation in the Hours of Jeanne d’Evreux (1325–1328; New York, Cloisters) presents the Virgin and Angel Gabriel within an architectural setting constructed through the use of orthogonals that attempt to converge in the center of the composition, therefore granting the work a sense of volume. Once the International Style made its way to Northern Europe, illuminations became more emphatically luxurious, though still retaining their emphasis on realism, with André Beauneveu and the Limbourg brothers at the forefront, all patronized by the Duke of Berry. The Limbourg brothers, in fact, created one of the most handsome illuminations of the International Style, Les Trés Riches Heures du duc de Berry (1416; Chantilly, Musée Condé), with landscapes populated by courtly men and women and peasants performing activities appropriate to their social rank.
In 1384, Louis de Mâle, Count of Flanders, died and his son-in-law, Philip the Bold, the Valois Duke of Burgundy, inherited the Flemish lands. These were to remain under Burgundian rule until 1477 when Charles the Bold, the last Duke of Burgundy, died. Philip moved his court seat to Dijon and there he asserted his wealth and power through, among other things, the patronage of art. Philip focused mainly on the Chartreuse de Champmol, the local Carthusian convent he established to house the tombs of the Burgundian dukes. There, Claus Sluter worked on the Well of Moses (1395–1406; Dijon, Musée Archéologique), Jean Malouel on a series of large scale paintings, and Melchior Broederlam on the side wings for a carved altarpiece, the Dijon Altarpiece (1394–1399; Dijon, Musée des Beaux-Arts); these last were indebted to Italian art, and particularly the Lorenzetti brothers, in the construction of the background architecture, the treatment of the landscape, and the volume of the figures. The bright colorism and heavy gilding were also elements borrowed from the Sienese masters and characteristic of the International Style. Typically Northern was the emphasis on symbolism. The round tower in the background of Broederlam’s Annunciation refers to Jerusalem, the old law of Moses, and the Old Testament, while the Gothic chapel in which the scene takes place denotes the New Testament and the new law of Christ. Further, the tumbling statue in the Flight into Egypt is a detail from an apocryphal account where pagan idols fall as Christ is taken to safety.
In mid-15th century, Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy from 1419–1467, set up courts in Bruges, Brussels, and Lille in an effort to form an empire of his own situated between France and Germany. In so doing, he attracted merchants, bankers, artists, and all sorts of individuals who wished to benefit from his patronage. The result was a major economic expansion in Flanders and the development of what became the most influential art center of Northern Europe. There, the International Style evolved into a more sober, less luxuriant visual language, first in Tournai, a major trade center known primarily for its manufacture of tapestries, and later the port city of Bruges, which by now had become the commercial link between North and South as well as a major banking center. The pioneer of this new mode of painting was the Master of Flémalle, now identified as Robert Campin of Tournai, who placed religious episodes in believable domestic settings while emphasizing a vivid colorism and sculptural forms inspired by the statuary for which Tournai was well known. Following the tradition established by Broederlam, Campin’s works also include what Erwin Panofsky called “disguised symbolism.” His Mérode Altarpiece (c. 1426; New York, The Cloisters) is his grand masterpiece. The triptych’s central panel shows the Annunciation in a Flemish household setting, with the Virgin seated on the ground and reading her book of devotions. Her position denotes her humility while her action speaks of her piety. As the angel alights to announce the coming of the Lord, a miniaturized Christ Child carrying the cross enters the room through a window and flies toward his mother’s womb. The action of passing through glass without shattering it signifies the preservation of Mary’s virginity in spite of the conception. The objects around the room add to the symbolic import of the painting: the niche in the background speaks of the tabernacle in the temple, and the hanging towel refers to the washing of the hands by the priest before the mass. With these inclusions, Campin brought the spiritual to a human level to incite devotion from the faithful as they viewed the painting.
Campin executed the Mérode Altarpiece in the oil medium, one of the earliest artists to use it, with it providing more options than just the rather lusterless finish of tempera. His emphasis on even the minutest details in this painting denotes that he was tied to the miniaturist tradition established by manuscript illuminators such as Pucelle and the Limbourg brothers. Campin’s figures, however, are weightier than those rendered by the miniaturists and covered by heavy draperies that are more decorative than realistic as they form an endless cascade of fabric that falls in a series of carefully arranged angular folds. These became the main features of Flemish art.
In Bruges, Jan van Eyck held the lead. Working as the official painter to Philip the Good from 1424 until his death in 1441, van Eyck, like Campin, blended naturalistic elements with disguised symbolism. His Ghent Altarpiece (c. 1425–1432; Ghent, Cathedral of St-Bavon) is one of the greatest masterpieces of Flemish art. It presents a rendering in brilliant colors of the apocalyptic Adoration of the Lamb, with God the Father enthroned above it. He wears a papal tiara and is flanked by the Virgin Mary and St. John the Baptist, angels, and the nude Adam and Eve, whose sin required the coming of Christ and his sacrifice. Inscriptions above Mary and John extol their virtues respectively as mother and forerunner of Christ. The humanization of the protagonists of the story of salvation that had touched the Italian masters and caused them to shift from troubling scenes of damnation to benevolent images of love and forgiveness also touched the masters of the North. As a result, van Eyck’s God the Father is not the stern God who administers punishment but rather the loving paternal figure who gives up his own son to save humanity. This is clearly brought across by the pelicans depicted behind him, who tear their chest open to feed their young with their own blood. The details of figures and objects are astonishing, again pointing to the miniaturist tradition as the foundation from which Flemish art developed. By the time van Eyck had rendered this work, Masaccio had already introduced one-point linear perspective to Italian painting and other artists were using it freely. In the North, the technique did not become known until the following century. The paintings by van Eyck, however, present a logical recession into space arrived at not by a specific mathematical formula but intuitively through the close imitation of nature.
Campin’s pupil, Rogier van der Weyden, also from Tournai, was the third of the pioneers of Flemish art. In 1436, he became the official painter of the city of Brussels. Unlike his master, van der Weyden had little interest in representing everyday objects set in household scenes. Instead, he pressed his figures into shallow spaces in imitation of Gothic niche statuary and imbued his images with heart-wrenching emotionalism. In his Deposition (c. 1438; Madrid, Prado), commissioned by the Archers’ Guild of Louvain for Notre Dame Hors-les-Murs, the figures are made to look like sculpture come alive. A fainting Mary occupies the foreground surrounded by others who are doubled over in pain, their eyes and noses red from the tears they have shed. The painting invites viewers to pity the Lord for the suffering he had to endure, just as the figures around him do.
A second generation of Flemish masters continued the style established by Campin, van Eyck, and van der Weyden. They include Petrus Christus, Hugo van der Goes, Hans Memlinc, and Gerard David. Petrus Christus, van Eyck’s pupil and successor, continued the custom of rendering every detail. His St. Eligius as a Goldsmith (1449; New York, Metropolitan Museum) presents the metalsmith saint in his shop weighing a wedding ring he wishes to sell to a young couple. A convex mirror on the counter reflects the market square where the shop is located and two male figures who look in, a feature that calls to mind van Eyck’s Arnolfini Wedding Portrait (1434; London, National Gallery), which includes a mirror that, like Christus’, unites the pictorial space with the space occupied by the viewer.
Hugo van der Goes was active in Ghent. In 1478, he entered the Monastery of the Red Cloister in Soignes, near Brussels, as a lay brother. Of his works, only the Portinari Altarpiece (c. 1474–1476; Florence, Uffizi) can be attributed to him firmly. Commissioned by Tommaso Portinari, an Italian representative of the Medici bank in Bruges, the painting represents the Adoration of the Shepherds witnessed by members of Portinari’s family. Like van der Weyden, van der Goes created a work with deep emotional content. The idealized Portinari exhibit great decorum, contrasting with the crude shepherds who seem to be in an ecstatic state as they kneel in front of the newly born Christ Child. This work was taken by Portinari to Italy when his tenure in Flanders as a Medici bank representative ended and caused a major sensation there. Ghirlandaio was deeply influenced by van der Goes’ painting, as his Nativity and Adoration of the Shepherds (1483–1486), the altarpiece in the Sassetti Chapel at Santa Trinità, Florence, testifies. In this work, Ghirlandaio’s shepherds are as crude as van der Goes’ and the detailed objects in the foreground were also borrowed from the Flemish master.
Perugino was also aware of Flemish art and looked to Memlinc for inspiration, imitating his pale, delicate figures, emphasis on details, and drapery types. Memlinc worked in Bruges and painted in the manner of van der Weyden, though without the deep pathos. In his Martyrdom of St. Sebastian (c. 1470; Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts), the saint does not seem too affected by the fact that he is being shot by archers for refusing to forsake his faith. His delicate, graceful form contrasts markedly with the brutish men who effect his martyrdom. Here, Memlinc’s interest in the representation of the nude male body is clear. In 1484, he would experiment with the female nude as well, as seen in his Bathsheba panel at the Stuttgart Staatsgalerie (1484). When Memlinc died, Gerard David became the leading painter of Bruges. Once exposed to Memlinc’s art, David’s figures, which had been solid and linear, became softer and more naturalistic. His rendering of space also gained greater rationality, as demonstrated by his Judgment of Cambyses (1498; Bruges, Groeningemuseum), originally intended for Bruges’ Town Hall. Utilizing an Eyckian method, David established depth by diminishing the size of the tiles on the floor as they move away from the viewer. He also placed the figures in a diagonal and added two windows beyond the crowd that offer an Eyckian miniaturized view of Bruges with all details included.
The last of the great masters of the Flemish School was Hieronymus Bosch. A native of sHertogenbosch, now Holland, Bosch rejected conventional subjects, instead creating fantastic landscapes populated by humans engaged in bizarre activities and monstrous creatures. The Hay Wain Triptych (c. 1490–1495; El Escorial, Monasterio de San Lorenzo) utilizes the usual altarpiece format, yet the subject is unconventional as it does not conform to any particular biblical or apocryphal account. In the central panel, the hay wagon of earthly goods is followed by various characters, including the pope and members of the clergy, the emperor and the nobility, the rich and the poor. Lovers sit on top of the wagon accompanied by an angel and a demon, and are clearly expected to choose between evil and good. The representations in the lateral panels suggest they will choose sinful pleasures. On the left are the Creation of Eve, the woman who caused the Fall, the Expulsion from Paradise, and Rebel Angels Being Cast Out of Heaven. On the right is hell and includes Bosch’s usual demonic creatures torturing those who wasted their lives on worldly pleasures. Though the intended meanings of many of Bosch’s works are no longer fully understood, immediately recognizable is the humorous component to his art and his ability to recognize the absurdity of living. For Bosch, human nature is to sin and, in his mind, sinning comes with dire consequences.
By the time Bosch had created the Hay Wain Triptych, the Duchy of Burgundy had disintegrated. In 1477 Charles the Bold, Philip the Good’s successor, died. Louis XI of France occupied Burgundy and became the guardian of Charles’ daughter and heiress, Mary of Burgundy, whom he married off to the Hapsburg Archduke Maximilian of Austria, later Holy Roman Emperor. Mary died in 1482 and her lands were inherited by her children, Margaret of Austria and Philip the Handsome. Margaret was married off to Louis’ son and heir and, with this, France obtained the lands of Burgundy. Philip succeeded his father and, consequently, the Low Countries became part of the Hapsburg dominion. Philip married Juana la Loca (Joan the Mad), the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, and he established the Spanish Hapsburg dynasty as King Philip I.
In the 16th century, Mannerism made its way to the Low Countries, where the major art center shifted from Bruges to Antwerp. Called the Romanists, the leading figures of this Italianate mode were Jan Gossart (called Mabuse), Joos van Cleve, Bernard van Orley, and Jan van Scorel. Gossart trained in Antwerp before entering in the service of Philip the Handsome in Walcheren, near Middleburg. In 1508, he traveled to Rome with Philip, which gave him the opportunity to study the art of the Italian and ancient masters. This experience was to have an immense impact on his art, as he began to experiment with one-point linear perspective and the classical nude form. His Neptune and Amphitrite (1516; Berlin, Staatliche Museen), part of a mythological series created for Philip’s Suytborg Castle, is a completely classicized and idealized rendition of two mythical characters, the first in Flemish history—characters that differ markedly from the nudes Memlinc had rendered in the previous century. Van Cleve was also active in Antwerp. Sometime after 1530, he went to work for Francis I of France, and there he became acquainted with the art of Leonardo. This resulted in major changes in his style that included the use of deep contrasts of light and dark to model figures and objects. The crowding of figures in his Last Judgment (c. 1520–1525; New York, Metropolitan Museum) and their elongation and contortions are all Italian Mannerist elements that van Cleve would have seen well represented in Francis’ court. Van Orley was court painter to Margaret of Austria, regent of the Netherlands, and later her successor, Mary of Hungary. He was exposed to the Italian manner in 1517 when he supervised the execution of tapestries based on the cartoons Raphael had rendered. His Last Judgment Altarpiece (1525; Antwerp, Musée Royal des Beaux-Arts) includes a domelike rendition of the heavens with Christ at the apex, recalling Raphael’s semicircular arrangement of the heavens in the Disputà in the Stanza della Segnatura at the Vatican. Van Scorel was in Venice in c. 1518–1519, and two years later he also went to Rome where the Dutch Pope Hadrian VI put him in charge of the antiquities housed in the Belvedere, a position he held until 1523 when the pope died. Venetian and Mannerist influences often appear in van Scorel’s art. His Mary Magdalen (c. 1529, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) places a monumental figure within a landscape that is charged with atmospheric effects, recalling the landscapes of Giorgione and Titian. Mary Magdalen’s porcelain-like complexion, her elongated anatomy, and her elaborate costume are Mannerist features.
Aside from Mannerism, the 16th century also saw the development of genres, including landscape painting, still lifes, and peasant scenes. Pieter Aertsen’s Butcher Shop (1551; Uppsala, University Collection) is a Mannerist rendition that includes the Flight into Egypt behind the meats displayed in the foreground. Contrary to tradition, the still life in this painting takes on the central role and the religious scene becomes an incidental element. Pieter Bruegel the Elder specialized in peasant scenes where the individuals are shown either working or feasting. His Harvesters (1565; New York, Metropolitan Museum), part of a series depicting the seasons, is an objective view of toiling peasants, while the Wedding Dance (1566; Detroit Institute of Art) presents a comical scene of men and women frolicking outdoors.
The Reformation was a major force behind the rise of genre painting, as Protestants do not decorate their churches or utilize religious imagery as a visual focus for devotion. This meant that artists had to adjust to an art market where religious works were no longer needed. As part of Catholic Spain, the official religion of the Netherlands was Catholicism. However, Protestantism there had spread considerably and, by the mid-1560s, those who embraced this new faith were causing civil disturbances to protest their persecution by Church authorities. Troubled by the profusion of religious imagery in the local churches, which in their view conflicted with the second commandment on idolatry, the Protestants initiated an iconoclastic campaign that resulted in the destruction of these sacred objects. In 1567, King Philip II of Spain sent the Duke of Alba to the Netherlands to restore order. In turn, William “the Silent” of Orange, the stadtholder (governor) of Holland, Utrecht, and Zeeland appointed to the office by Philip himself, led a revolt that resulted in the declaration of emancipation by the United Dutch provinces in 1581. In 1576, Flanders had joined in the revolt, but in 1584 the Spanish army recovered the territory. Consequently, Flanders remained Catholic while the Dutch territories embraced Protestantism as their official religion.
For that reason, religious art continued to be commissioned in large quantities in Flanders well into the 17th century. Then, the main figures in the region were Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, and Jacob Jordaens. Of the three, Rubens was the most accomplished. He traveled to Italy in 1600 and to Spain in 1603 and, with this, he became enamored with the art of Titian, well represented in both regions. He also learned well the lessons Caravaggio had to offer. His Elevation of the Cross (1610–1611; Antwerp, Cathedral) was painted for the Church of St. Walburga in Antwerp. The triptych presents a scene set against a Titianesque landscape rendered in loose strokes and brilliant colors. The turmoil of men straining to raise the cross and the dog barking in the foreground are also borrowed from Venetian art. The contrasts of light and dark, on the other hand, and the crude figure types are elements one would find in Caravaggio’s paintings. Van Dyck’s career was somewhat overshadowed by that of Rubens. In fact, he worked in the same regions and for some of the same patrons as the older master. In the 1630s, he was in the court of Charles I of England and there he catered to the king and the nobility. His Rinaldo and Armida (1629; Baltimore Art Museum) shows that his style was closely tied to that of Rubens, particularly in the lush application of paint. Van Dyck exerted tremendous influence in the development of the art of England, and particularly portraiture. There the British artist William Dobson followed van Dyck’s example and rendered portraits of members of the royal court with the same dynamism and lush surfaces as those of the Flemish master. Jordaens did not travel to the major art centers of Europe or ever work in any court. Instead, he catered primarily to a bourgeois audience. His Martyrdom of St. Apollonia (1628; Antwerp, Augustinian Church) depicts the saint having her teeth pulled one by one by her tormentors with heavy pincers for refusing to renounce the Catholic faith. The work, like Caravaggio’s scenes of conversion and martyrdom in the Contarelli Chapel, speaks of upholding Catholicism at all cost and the dignity of sacrifice for its sake.
In the United Dutch provinces, the leading figures in the first half of the 17th century were Frans Hals, Rembrandt, and the Utrecht Caravaggists. Frans Hals specialized in portraiture, catering mainly to the bourgeoisie. He excelled particularly at rendering portraits of militia companies, such works as the Officers and Sergeants of the St. Hadrian Civic Guard of Haarlem (c. 1633; Haarlem; Frans Halsmuseum), where he infused with life a scene normally depicted by others as men posing around a table. In Hals’ painting, the men have gathered at an enclosed courtyard and turn as if the presence of the viewer has interrupted their conversation. Some stand, others sit, both groups forming a horizontal line across the pictorial space. This horizontal is balanced by the verticals and diagonals formed by the men’s lances, banners, and sashes. The constant movement of lines in various directions animates the scene, as do the choppy brushstrokes Hals used to apply the color.
Rembrandt was perhaps the most talented of the 17th-century Dutch masters. He was deeply influenced by Caravaggio and Rubens, though his paintings possess a pathos the two other masters lacked. Also, Rembrandt’s figures feature a glow that seems to come from within and a very unique palette composed mainly of earth tones and golds, both elements adding to the emotive content of his works. In his Judas Returning the Thirty Pieces of Silver (1629; Yorkshire, Mulgrave Castle), the emotionalism is so intense, in fact, that Constantijn Huygens, secretary to Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange, praised it in his autobiography, calling Rembrandt the greatest of the history painters. Although the art market in the Netherlands had changed as a result of the Protestant Reformation, Rembrandt specialized in religious scenes, particularly from the Old Testament. This is because there were still individuals living in the Dutch provinces who professed Catholicism in private and who, therefore, required these images for devotion.
Rembrandt was active first in Leiden and later in Amsterdam. In Utrecht, there was also a large Catholic population. In this region, a group of artists, called the Utrecht Caravaggists, emerged. It included Dirck van Baburen, Hendrick Terbrugghen, and Gerrit van Honthorst. All three masters went to Rome either in the first or second decade of the 17th century, where they rendered mainly religious scenes in the Caravaggist style. When they returned to Utrecht, they almost completely abandoned religious depictions, instead favoring genre paintings. Van Baburen’s Procuress (1622; Boston, Museum of Fine Arts), Terbrugghen’s The Pipe Player (1624; Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz Museum), and Honthorst’s Merry Fiddler (1623; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) are three examples of the works they rendered upon their return North. The first shows a brothel scene, and the other two male musicians. All three works borrow from Caravaggio’s in theme and in style. The figures are shown in three-quarter format, pushed so close to the foreground that they occupy most of the pictorial space, rendered in brilliant colors, with linear contours, dressed in contemporary costumes, and illuminated through the use of theatrical lighting.
The popularity of genre scenes continued throughout the rest of the century, much owed to the Little Masters, so called because of the small scale in which they worked. This was a group of artists who specialized in depictions of domestic interiors, barrack scenes, cityscapes, tavern scenes, and other mundane topics, among them Johannes Vermeer, Pieter de Hooch, Gerard Terborch, Gabriel Metsu, and Jan Steen. They catered not to monarchs and the nobility but to the middle classes who used their works for no other purpose than to decorate their homes. These paintings were no longer necessarily executed to order but could be produced without a patron in mind and then sold by dealers or art galleries. With this, the art market as it is known today was set.
Like Flanders, Germany was an important trade and industrial center because its rivers and alpine passes provided natural routes for the transportation of goods from the Mediterranean to Northern Europe. However, it lacked a centralized government, as in 1356 Emperor Charles IV drew up a constitution stipulating that seven electors would be in charge of selecting Germany’s emperors. These electors were the archbishops of the cities of Trier, Cologne, and Mainz, and the rulers of the Palatinate, Saxony, Brandenburg, and Bohemia. This meant that the power of the emperor was a shared power, a situation that kept the region divided into small principalities that often engaged in war against each other or the emperor. In fact, it was not until 1871 that Germany was finally united into one nation. The impact on art as a result of these divisions was the development of distinct regional styles that depended on Flemish examples.
Stephan Lochner held the lead in Cologne. His Madonna in the Rose Bower (c. 1438–1440; Cologne Wallraf-Richartz-Museum) presents doll-like rounded, voluminous figures inspired by Flemish prototypes, though less modeled and more subdued in color. The angular draperies of the figures are also Flemish, though not as pronounced. Konrad Witz was from Rottweil in Württemberg and moved to Basel, where he dominated the scene. His key work is the Miraculous Draft of Fishes (1444; Geneva, Musée d’Art et d’Histoire), part of the St. Peter Altarpiece commissioned by Bishop François de Mies for the chapel of Notre-Dame des Maccabées in the Cathedral of St.-Pierre in Geneva. The scene shows that Witz was as interested in rendering nature with all its details as the Flemish masters. Hans Pleydenwurff was the most important painter in Nuremberg. His Descent from the Cross (1462; Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum), originally part of the Breslau Altarpiece, exhibits the same solidity of figures, angular drapery folds, and the deep pathos of van der Weyden, though his compositional arrangement emphasizes the vertical, not horizontal, axis.
The introduction of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg gave German artists the upper hand in the field of engraving. Israhel van Meckenem the Younger of Bocholt, for example, left over 600 plates with scenes from everyday life, such as the Morris Dance (c. 1475), a form of comical acrobatic dance performed during carnival; The Visit to the Spinner (c. 1495), which presents a middle-class domestic setting; and Self-Portrait with His Wife Ida (c. 1490), among the earliest self-portraits in an engraving to have survived. Martin Schongauer from Colmar left approximately 115 plates, the Temptation of St. Anthony (c. 1470–1475) being the most often reproduced in the scholarly literature. These men paved the way for later masters, such as Albrecht Dürer, Hans Holbein the Younger, Lucas Cranach the Elder, and Albrecht Altdorfer, who would exploit the printing medium to the fullest.
The 16th century brought on the Protestant Reformation, which caused further dissent among the German principalities. At this time, two tendencies developed in Germany: a continuation of the primitive mode that departed from Flemish art, as introduced earlier by Lochner, Witz, Pleydenwurff, and Pacher, and an idealized, classicized art based on Italian precedents, which by now had become well-known in the North. The key representative of the first tendency was Matthias Grünewald, active in Mainz. His works are characterized by a deep emotionalism that brings the primitive style of his predecessors to a new, higher plane. His Isenheim Altarpiece (fin. 1515; Colmar, Musée d’Unterlinden) epitomizes his ability to evoke pity from viewers as it shows a crucified, broken, and bloodied Christ with a deeply distraught Mary Magdalen at his feet, contorting in agony. Grünewald could also depict great joy, as his Stuppach Madonna (c. 1517–1520), painted for the Church of Stuppach, demonstrates. Here the Virgin and Child are caught in an intimate, playful moment, their bliss resonating like a joyful song in their movements and exuberant facial expressions. Grünewald’s colors are as bright as those used by the Flemish masters, his lighting magical and resplendent.
The artist who best exemplifies the German classical tendency is Dürer, the most important master of the North in the 16th century. Active in Nuremberg, Dürer perfected his drawing skills by copying Mantegna’s mythological engravings, adding his own touches to try to improve upon the work of the Italian master. In 1494, Dürer went to Venice, where he was able to study Italian art firsthand. This resulted in richer textural surfaces and figures that better conformed to the classicizing tendencies of the South, as seen in his prints Hercules at the Crossroads (c. 1497–1498) and Four Witches (c. 1497), and in paintings such as the Adoration of the Magi (1504; Florence, Uffizi), which he rendered for Frederick the Wise, elector of Saxony, inspired by Leonardo’s work of the same subject. Dürer took a second trip to Italy in 1505–1507 to study the technique of one-point linear perspective and, while there, he visited Giovanni Bellini, whom he deeply admired. Upon his return, he rendered the Adoration of the Holy Trinity (1508–1511; Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum) for the chapel in an almshouse in Nuremberg founded by Matthew Landauer, who is included in the painting among the worshipers. Dürer also began work on a theoretical treatise on art, which he completed in 1523. Two years later, he published The Teaching of Measurements with Rule and Compass and, in 1527, he issued an essay on The Art of Fortification while also working on his Four Books on Human Proportions, published posthumously in 1528.
Dürer is considered the Leonardo of the North, as he was not only an artist but also an intellectual. His treatises represent the introduction of analytical thought into art in Northern Europe. Like Leonardo, Dürer sought to raise the status of the artist from craftsman to creator, a point he drove across on a number of occasions with his self-portraits. In the 1500 version now in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich, he presented himself as a Christ type with long tresses and beard to impart his view that art is produced from the hand of a creator.
Other 16th-century German artists of note are Altdorfer, Cranach, and Holbein. Altdorfer was the most important member of the Danube School that developed along the Danube River from Regensburg, where he lived, to Austria, its members focusing mainly in the depiction of emotive landscapes. Altdorfer’s Danube Landscape near Regensburg (c. 1522–1525; Munich, Alte Pinakothek) is completely devoid of figures and the customary religious intonations. Instead, he depicted nature for nature’s sake and poeticized it to invoke emotive responses from viewers. His Battle of Alexander (1529; Munich, Alte Pinakothek), commissioned by Duke William IV of Bavaria, emphasizes the horror of war by the addition of a cataclysmic sky and a barren landscape that seems to engulf the battling figures. Cranach was also a member of the Danube School, active in Vienna and later in Wittenberg, where he worked for Frederick the Wise. For Cranach, the landscape was also an important element, which he included as backdrops to his portraits and mythologies. Examples of this are his portraits of Johannes Cuspinian and his wife, Anna (both c. 1502; Winterhur, Oskar Reinhart Collection), where the figures are set in front of atmospherically charged landscapes, and his Judgment of Paris (1530; Karlsruhe, Staatliche Kunsthalle), which features the goddesses Venus, Minerva, and Juno in the nude silhouetted against an evocative natural background. Holbein was from Augsburg, but active first in Basel and later England. He specialized in portraits with an Italianate twist that emphasized strongly modeled figures with linear, well-defined contours, as, for example, the portrait he rendered of the humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam (c. 1523; Paris, Louvre) in profile, at a desk, writing.
The golden age of painting in Germany ended in 1525 with the Peasant’s Revolt, caused by discontent among the peasantry for the exploitation they were suffering at the hands of the nobility and the heavy taxation being imposed upon them due to economic decline and military expenditures. Among their demands were the abolition of serfdom, the right to fish and hunt, and the right to choose their own pastors. Though at first concessions were made to their demands, in the end the revolt was crushed by the Swabian League, causing the death of approximately 100,000 peasants.
In the 15th century, Spain was also deeply affected by the works of the Flemish masters, particularly after the Low Countries had fallen in the hands of the Spanish Hapsburgs. The Spanish artists adopted the Flemish figure types, heavy drapery, elaborate architectural and landscape settings, and deep emotionalism. Distinctively Spanish, however, was the rejection of bright pigments in favor of muted tones, the continued use of the gilded backgrounds of the International Style, less emphasis on minutia, looser brushwork, and a lack of interest in spatial clarity and in disguised symbolism. Among the greatest exponents of the Hispano-Flemish mode of painting were Luis Dalmau, the first to introduce it to Spain in the mid-1440s, Fernando Gallego, Juan de Flandes, and Bartolomé Bermejo. There were also Spanish painters of the 15th century who continued painting in the International Style, including Luis Borrassá, Bernardo Martorell, and Marzal de Sax. The Sienese influence on these masters had much to do with the fact that Spain had contact with Italy since the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily were ruled by the Spanish crown.
In the 16th century, Charles V of Spain, the son of Philip the Handsome and Juana la Loca, patronized mainly foreign masters, among them Bernard van Orley, Pieter Coecke, and Titian. His son, Philip II, followed suit, though he also commissioned works from the locals, including Navarrete, Sánchez Coello, and El Greco, who had settled in Toledo, for the monastery he established at El Escorial in honor of St. Lawrence to commemorate Spanish victory in the Battle of San Quentin in 1557 against the French. The Spanish architect Juan Bautista de Toledo designed the structure and Toledo’s pupil, Juan de Herrera, completed it. The Italians Fabrizio Castello, Pellegrino Tibaldi, and Luca Cambiaso also contributed to its decoration.
The Golden Age of Spain did not occur until early in the 17th century when Francisco Ribalta launched it. He was the first Spanish master to experiment with the Caravaggist mode of painting, a mode he learned in Valencia when he studied the collection of his patron, the Archbishop Juan de Ribera, who directed the Counter-Reformation in the region. Ribalta’s St. Bernard Embracing Christ (c. 1625; Madrid, Prado) depicts a vision experienced by the saint who founded the Cistercian Order to assert the validity of mystic episodes ridiculed by the Protestants. The proximity of the figures to the frontal plane, the theatrical lighting, and the deep emotionalism of the saint as he embraces Christ are all Caravaggist elements.
The most important master of the Spanish School was Diego Velázquez. A native of Seville, Velázquez began his career painting bodegónes, still lifes with a distinct Spanish flavor. The Old Woman Cooking Eggs (1618; Edinburgh, National Gallery of Scotland), a Caravaggist work in the manner of Ribalta, is one such bodegón and presents a woman adding the final ingredient to garlic soup—eggs—which Velázquez shows about to congeal. In 1623, the artist moved to Madrid, became court painter to Philip IV, and abandoned the depiction of bodegónes altogether. From this point on, he specialized mainly in portraiture, though at times he also rendered mythologies and, less often, religious scenes. He gained confidence after a trip to Italy and a visit by Rubens to the Spanish court. His Las Meninas (1656; Madrid, Prado) is one of the most innovative group portraits in history. It includes the artist himself in the act of painting a portrait of Philip’s daughter, the Infanta Margarita. She is surrounded by her maids of honor, court attendants, dwarfs, and dog. A mirror in the background shows the reflection of the king and his consort who have entered the room and interrupted the activities of those depicted. The scene takes place in the artist’s studio, which qualifies the art of painting as noble since it is the royal couple who visits the artist as he works, instead of summoning the artist to their own quarters. So here again was a master who wished to augment the status of painting and define his portrait as the product of a creative genius.
Like Velázquez, Francisco de Zurbarán was deeply affected by Caravaggism. He specialized in depictions of single saints either on their knees meditating or standing heroically, their attributes included for easy recognition by viewers. His St. Margaret of Antioch (1634; London, National Gallery) is one such example. According to her legend, the devil appeared to her in the form of a dragon and swallowed her. She carved her way out of the beast with a small crucifix she kept with her. In this work, the dragon wraps around the saint, who holds the crucifix and is dressed as a shepherdess because her story specifies that she was raised in the country. Her monumental scale and heroism recall Caravaggio’s St. Catherine of Alexandria (1598; Thyssen Bornemisza Collection), but her charm and aesthetic appeal are distinctive of Zurbarán.
Jusepe de Ribera was also a Spanish Caravaggist. An early stay in Naples coincided with Caravaggio’s visit there, which is how Ribera became acquainted with the master’s style. He later worked in Rome and then Parma, finally settling permanently in Naples where he would be known as Lo Spagnoletto (The Spaniard). His Drunken Silenus (1626; Naples, Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte) presents a comical rendition of the mythical follower of Bacchus. He reclines as the female nudes the Venetians depicted, yet he is a drunken overweight figure, his large belly sagging to the ground, a far cry from the sensuous women Giorgione and Titian rendered. Soon after Ribera created this work, he began experimenting with the classical, idealist mode of the Carracci and their followers as Neapolitan patrons were demanding these sorts of scenes. His brushwork loosened, his figures moved further into space, and his backgrounds became more elaborate. However, he never completely shed his interest in depicting common folk with all their imperfections. His Clubfooted Boy (1642; Paris, Louvre) is a sympathetic representation of a deformed child. Holding his crutch across his shoulder, wearing tattered clothes, and sporting a huge smile, the boy has stopped to greet the viewer. In his hand is a paper with the Latin phrase that reads in English Give me alms for the love of God. The low horizon emphasizes his deformity as it brings it closer to the viewer but also casts the figure as a monumental, heroic type. The painting reminds us of the Counter-Reformation notion that charity is the vehicle to the attainment of salvation.
It is fitting to end this discussion on the Renaissance with France, as it was France that robbed Italy of its primacy as cultural and artistic center toward the end of the 17th century. The arrival of the International Style in Avignon during the Babylonian Captivity has already been discussed. That France held the lead in art until the 1420s when war with England and internal strife stifled the production of art was also mentioned. In 1422, Charles VI of France died and Philip the Good made certain that Henry VI of England, then an infant, would take the French throne, appointing the British Duke of Bedford to act as Henry’s regent until the child reached maturity. The reason for Philip’s move was that the economy of Flanders was tied to England because the British provided the wool that the Flemish manufactured into cloth. Joan of Arc freed Orleáns from the British and led Charles VII to his coronation in Reims in 1429, only to be burned at the stake at Rouen in 1431 after her capture by the Burgundian troops. The French took control of Paris once again in 1436 and, by 1453, theirs finally became a free monarchy. In the midst of this turbulence, a handful of artists were able to emerge as leading figures, among them Jean Fouquet, Nicolas Froment, and Enguerrand Charonton, their art a melding of Flemish and Italian elements as Charles VIII and his successor, Louis XII, were involved in the Italian Wars, resulting in further Italian influence entering France.
In the 16th century, Mannerism reached France and became associated with courtly art. Though Leonardo had moved to France to work for Francis I, Louis XII’s successor, his art had little impact in the region. On the other hand, the Mannerists Rosso Fiorentino, Benvenuto Cellini, and Francesco Primaticcio, who also spent time in Francis’ court, deeply influenced the development of French art. Working in the Palace of Fontainebleau, Rosso and Primaticcio invented a new type of decoration that combined stucco, metal, and woodwork with painting and sculpture. With this, they established the Fontainebleau School. Cellini created his famed saltcellar for Francis (1540–1544; Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum) and, at Fontainebleau, he rendered a bronze relief lunette to be placed above a doorway depicting Diana, goddess of the hunt (1542–1544; Paris, Louvre), thus contributing to the spread of Mannerism in France.
Sixteenth-century French architecture was also Italianate. Giacomo da Vignola and Sebastiano Serlio both worked for Francis I and brought the classical vocabulary established by Bramante, Michelangelo, and others to France. Their example had an impact on Pierre Lescot’s design for the west wing of the Louvre, Paris (1546–1548) that, though somewhat more feminine and ornate than Italian palaces, features the correct application of the classical orders, a Brunelleschian repetition of arches on the lower story, and alternating pediments above the windows of the second floor. Lescot’s design was to influence the architecture of Philibert de L’Orme, who built the Château d’Anet (b. 1550) in Paris for Diane de Poitiers, mistress to Henry II, Francis’ successor. Of this building, only the frontispiece, entrance gate, and some of the chapel remain and, like Lescot’s Louvre wing, blends Italian and French elements. L’Orme would have learned the correct application of the orders, which he used in his building, from Serlio, Vignola, and Lescot, but also from his direct study of Italian architecture during a visit to Rome in 1533.
The two main figures in sculpture in 16th-century France were Jean Goujon and Germain Pilon. Goujon was deeply influenced by the works of Rosso, Primaticcio, and Cellini at Fontainebleau, adopting especially their elongated, elegant forms and emphasis on varied textures. His Pietà (1544–1545; Paris, Louvre) features these characteristics, adding the deep emotionalism and expressiveness found in French Medieval sculpture. Pilon’s Lamentation (c. 1580–1585; Paris, Louvre) is a bronze relief that originally formed part of the decoration of a chapel in the Church of Ste. Catherine du Val-des-Ecoliers in Paris. The artist had worked with Primaticcio and adopted the Mannerist elongations, yet the gestures in this work are more exaggerated, the lines more expressive, and the draperies considerably more complex than Primaticcio’s.
François Clouet was court painter to Henry II, Francis II, and Charles IX. Like the architects and sculptors of the era, he too borrowed Italianate elements, but combined them with Netherlandish features. His Lady in Her Bath (c. 1550–1570; Washington, National Gallery) may portray Diane de Poitiers, though some have questioned this identification. The woman is shown as a half-length figure, her arm leaning on the rim of her tub, a pose borrowed from Italian examples, such as Titian’s Man with Blue Sleeve (c. 1511–1515; London, National Gallery). The nursing mother who smiles at the viewer, the interior domestic setting, and the maidservant who has fetched the water for Diane’s bath are genre elements common to Netherlandish art.
In 1594, Henry IV took the throne, and three years later he ended the Wars of Religion in France by signing the Treaty of Nantes that guaranteed religious freedom to the Huguenots (French Protestants). Having achieved peace, he set out to improve the urban fabric of Paris. To this end, he completed the Pont Neuf, Place Dauphine (both beg. 1598) and Place Royale (now Place des Vosges; 1605), the latter to serve as a gathering place during feasts and to offer housing for the aristocracy. The end of the civil war also resulted in the building of new palaces, with Jean du Cerceau, Salomon de Brosse, and later Jacques Lemercier, François Mansart, and Louis Le Vau emerging as the leading architects of the period. In 1600, Henry married Marie de’ Medici and, in 1610, he was assassinated, leaving Louis XIII, then a child, as his heir and Marie as the boy’s regent. De Brosse built the Luxembourg palace for Marie (beg. 1615), and Rubens painted the Medici Cycle in one of its galleries (1622–1525) to glorify her as queen, mother, and regent.
At 13, Louis was considered to have reached maturity and he took the reigns of the kingdom from Marie. In 1615, she married him off to Anne of Austria, and two years later king and mother had a major fall-out. In 1622, Cardinal Richelieu, the king’s secretary of state and, after 1624, first minister of France, saw the wisdom to negotiate their reconciliation. Peace between mother and son did not last long. Marie conspired against Richelieu for his tolerant policies toward the Protestant Huguenots and, as a result, her son banished her permanently to Germany, where she spent the last years of her life.
Under Louis XIII, Simon Vouet made his career as the leading painter in France. His studio, in fact, became a place of dissemination of the king’s artistic ideology and where some of the most important French Baroque artists were trained, including Eustache Le Seur, Charles Le Brun, and Pierre Mignard. Vouet had already enjoyed success in Italy, where he worked until 1627. There he had adopted a Caravaggist mode of painting, rendering scenes such as St. Jerome and the Angel of Judgment (c. 1625; Washington, National Gallery) and the Birth of the Virgin (c. 1620; Rome, San Francesco a Ripa). By the mid-1620s, when interest in Caravaggism had lessened in Italy, he modified his style to the classicist mode patrons were demanding. His figures became more elegant and porcelain-like and his colors purer with an emphasis on silvery tones, much like the paintings of Guido Reni, a member of the Carracci School. Upon his return to Paris, Vouet brought this classicist vocabulary, with it infusing French painting, which by now had become rather stagnant, with new life.
Vouet’s career was threatened when in 1640 Nicolas Poussin, the French master who had settled in Rome, was summoned by Louis XIII to court. Like Vouet, Poussin had also experimented early in his career with the Caravaggist mode and later embraced the classical-idealist mode of the Carracci. In the mid-1640s, he developed a method of painting he called the grande maniera (grand manner) based on the classical Greek modes of music used to express different moods. It entailed codifying poses and assigning to each an emotion. Though his Rape of the Sabine Women (c. 1635; New York, Metropolitan Museum) was executed earlier than his formulation of the grande maniera, it already reveals Poussin’s cerebral approach to painting. The women who are being carried off by the Roman soldiers feature poses one would see in a choreographed ballet. Like dance, the painting evokes mood though the movement of the figures. Poussin’s subjects changed along with his style. Whereas earlier he had favored mythologies, he now preferred stoic scenes that spoke of heroism and vindication. Poussin’s art principles became central to the teachings of the French Academy. This institution was established in Paris 1648 with the blessing of Louis XIV, Louis XIII’s heir, its original purpose to provide art instruction in a progressive environment. Later, however, the king used the academy as a vehicle to impose his taste in art, which happened to coincide with Poussin’s philosophies. No sooner did the king die than members of the court began to commission lighthearted images that rejected the stoicism and severity of Poussin’s (and Louis’) art ideology, giving rise to the Rococo era.
When Burckhardt wrote his seminal work, Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien (published in 1860), he saw the Renaissance as a complete break from the Middle Ages. Today, scholars prefer to view the Renaissance as a continuation rather than the complete rejection of the previous historical period, and no one would dare qualify the medieval era as the Dark Ages, as Petrarch had called it. Scholarship on the Renaissance has benefited as well from the new approaches introduced in the 20th century, including feminism, psychoanalysis, and semiotics. These approaches have injected a new vitality to the study of the Renaissance, as they have revealed not only its key players but also those who were marginalized. It has offered greater understanding of the psychological forces that shaped the era and has recognized the signs and symbols then used to communicate contemporaneous ideals.
Though now viewed as a continuum of the previous era, the Renaissance saw the unprecedented transformation of art from miraculous and totemic artifact to object appreciated mainly for its intrinsic aesthetic value. Art became a commodity that could be collected, sold, or offered in exchange for sociopolitical favors. This elevation of art resulted in the concomitant rise in status of the artist from skilled craftsman to creative genius, moving closer to our own romantic notions of the function of art as vehicle of personal expression and of the artist as the lone figure struggling to translate those personal views and thoughts into a visual language.