High Renaissance and its influences

Ciao da Roma!!

This week in Rome we spent a lot of time talking about the High Renaissance and its immediate influences. High Renaissance art flourished for about 35 years, around the early 1490s to 1527 and there are three major artists of this period, Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), Michelangelo (1475–1564), and Raphael (1483–1520). While I will spend some time talking about Michelangelo and Raphael, allow me to start with the Florentine artist, Antonio Averulino, known as Filarete (1400-1469) whose work on the central doors found on St.Peter's Basilica helped pave the way for the later High Renaissance artists.  

When Pope Eugene IV is was at the beginning of the Renaissance, right as the Popes returned Rome from exile. There was a great effort at this time to restore the glory of Rome and therefore Pope Eugene put in a great effort to restore arts to the city and encouraged his cardinals to do the same. He commissioned these doors which were meant for the Old St. Peter's Basilica built by Constantine, and the doors were finished in 1445. At the top on the left is an image of Christ and to his right is an image of Mary. Mary's arms are crossed in this panel which is a mark of her submission. They are both enthroned in heaven. The next two panels depict St. Paul and St. Peter, who are credited as the men responsible for the spread of the Catholic church. The bottom two panels show the narrative of each of their respected martyrdoms.  

Part of what makes this door so important to our class is the way that Filarete is challenging how artists are perceived. Here we can see Father Waldrop pointing to one of the clues that influence this change, that of the Greek acanthus flower. Filarete itself is a nickname given to, Antonio Averulino which translate to "lover of virtue" or "excellence in all things". He gained this nickname because of his dedication to the arts and intellect and because of his knowledge of classical Greek culture as emphasized by his use of the acanthus. Up until the Renaissance, artists were only viewed as manual workers as they were just craftsmen who worked with their hands. Filarete challenged that idea and created the notion that artists were of the same prestige as poets because they were both creators and intellectuals. Filarete is also known for his architectural treatise which took ideas from classical culture and painted a suggestion for the ideal Renaissance city which would be referred to by other Renaissance artists who would come after him. 

On Friday, June 16th, our group had the pleasure of going to the Vatican Museum where we got to see two of the most famous pieces of Renaissance art; The Sistine Chapel ceiling and altar wall painted by Michaelangelo and The School of Athens fresco painted by Raphael.

The absolutely innovated and expressively divine style of Michaelangelo's figures may excuse the fact that I mistakenly could not even identify this painting though I already know the iconography of The Last Judgement paintings. The thing about Michaelangelo that made his paintings so spectacular, besides his ability to make humanoid figures look so divine, was the fact that even though they are paintings, they look like sculptures.  The figure in the center of the fresco is Jesus though he looks more like a fully sculptured Hercules. This is due to the fact that Michaelangelo was inspired by the Belvedere Torso which had been excavated at the time that he was painting the Sistine Chapel. 

 

Michaelangelo brought a strong sculptural element to his figures painted in the Sistine Chapel, both in on the Last Judgment alter wall as well as the ceiling painting, whose central panels depict nine scenes from the Book of Genesis. The sculptural feel of the images comes from Michaelangelo's use of dimensions, which is what sets aside the work of the High Renaissance from say, the art of the middle ages and even from the art of the early Renaissance as well. When Michaelangelo's work in the chapel was unveiled in 1512, even today it is easy to see why it was considered revolutionary. He certainly had an ability to carve paintings in a way that showcased both strength and elegance simultaneously.

The last piece of art I would like to talk about is the School of Athens fresco done by Raphael in the Stanza della Segnatura, which are rooms in the papal palace. Raphael was actually painting this fresco and various others at the same time the Michaelangelo was painting the Sistine Chapel. This fresco is, of course, meant to represent Philosophy, with Plato and his student Aristotle in the center of the piece. The gestures of Plato and Aristotle in the painting reference the ideas of these philosophers. Plato points to the heavens, as his writings dealt with intangible heavenly things. Aristotle points down because he was interested in observable, tangible, earthly things.

These two figures are surrounded by other great philosophers and mathematicians of antiquity, such as Pythagoras, Socrates, Zoroaster, Diogenes and even the great pre-Socratic philosopher of "flow and change" fame, Heraclitus. It is obvious to see that Raphel was inspired by Michelangelo's work in the Sistine Chapel.

 Heraclitus, whose features are based on Michelangelo's and his seated pose is based on the prophets and sibyls from Michelangelo's frescos on the Sistine Chapel Ceiling. Heraclitus also was known and said by Diogenes to have written a philosophical treatise that only those with great genius could understand. Perhaps this is part of why Raphael chose Heraclitus as the philosopher to use when representing Michaelangelo.

Raphael himself was known for painting figures with much more grace than that of his contemporary Michelangelo. Raphael was always inspired by those artists around him, even the perfect geometry and symmetry that was alluded to in the School of Athens fresco was inspired by the design Bramante was constructing for St.Peter's Basilica.

There is so much more to be said about all of this but alas, I am running out of time. I hope those of you who read this may have learned a bit more about the High Renaissance and those who influenced it. Ciao for now!! ~ McCalla Ann