Renaissance synthesis question

The Renaissance occurred between the 1300’s and the 1600’s and was a time of great change. This era began an alternate perspective toward the arts. While the medieval period consisted mostly of religious artworks that were drawn in basic 2D with disproportionate figures, the early renaissance, while still heeding toward religion, drew detailed 3D with a more proportional view. The artists of this time were more educated, drawing accurate proportions of the human anatomy and using advanced artistic methods like shadowing.
Educated artists like Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci helped shape church and society ideology. The primary concern they had with Michelangelo’s and Leonardo Da Vinci’s art pieces were the “inappropriate” amount of detail they put into their paintings. Both artists would study dead bodies, observing the muscle structure in order to get an expert perspective on what the human anatomy looks like. They would use this newly acquired information to paint and sculpt naked human bodies. Portraying naked bodies as art was frowned upon by the church and was considered extremely inappropriate. However, as the renaissance period continued the church began to accept the new art form. The pope even hired Michelangelo to paint on church ceilings where he created some of his most famous paintings, such as, "The Separation of Sky and Water," “The Last Judgment” and his unfinished work on the Sistine Chapel. All have nude men in them and even show their genitalia. The renaissance period was not only the beginning of a new style of art, but the beginning of a new appreciation.

Renaissance Synthesis Asher Period 1 Team 6

Renaissance Synthesis Question

      Michaelangelo, a world renowned painter and sculptor, was commissioned by the church to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The chapel is now decorated with religious affirmations and biblical meanings that interlude Michaelangelo’s asceticism of the Roman Catholic affiliation and his self asceticism. The Sistine Chapel’s ceiling, though it is mainly biblical, also holds a self portrait of Michaelangelo, where his head lay above a disk held by a woman. This shows Michaelangelo’s true feelings towards the church, for he never wanted to paint the Sistine Chapel, but obliged by the church who threatened otherwise. His self portrait, is a severed head, with the eyes closed and mouth slightly gazed open to show his numbness in his reflection towards the church. Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was patronized by the Medicis of Italy. The Medicis wanted Leonardo to paint themselves as god like depictions. In the paintings, the Medicis seem to be glistening with a halo and yet the skin is dark and emotions very sinister. Leonardo did the same for religious paintings, where he would paint the requirements given by the church who leashed expansion of imagination to religious. The painted Christ and mother were shown in the front, but show Leonardo’s interest in nature and the surrounding, with the backgrounds depicting specific detail almost luring the rear as a main focus rather than the figures. The artists secular asceticism is being brought out in plain sight, and yet hidden to the simple thoughts as paintings show a religious affiliation at first, but with attention show the artists’ true intentions. The era of Catholicism was being studies, where the Renaissance, an age of rebirth of the arts began to emerge, people studies deeper into the ideas of religion and nature, where realism and fantasy collided to form new thoughts in artists. The society was questioning the church as the Renaissance slowly ended during the 1600’s, after the Black Plague had destroyed the hopes of the people. The artists began to evolve out of their society of Christian affiliation and began to wonder into the evolving society that soon formed a new belief that artists viewed critical in their paintings.

Renaissance Synthesis - Ash. Per. 3 Tm. 7

Leonardo Da Vinci was famous in part for his mathematical approach to painting, such as his use of the center of gravity and laws he studied about equilibrium. Especially in “The Last Supper,” in which the center of gravity lies in Jesus and his disciples are positioned in a very centered, focused way on the canvas. This piece illustrates a biblical, religious scene, but is changed in that Judas is not present. Da Vinci made this judgment, as well as choosing to paint this in a very nontraditional way. He paints this on dry wall, not plaster, making it not a true fresco, inventing his own techniques of painting. Michelangelo’s famous painting, or mural, centered around the Book of Genesis, of the Sistine Chapel, was commissioned by Pope Julius II. Originally, Michelangelo was only commissioned to paint the twelve apostles against a starry sky, but wanting something more challenging, the painting eventually contained more than 300 figures and included different parts of Bible, including Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, and The Great Flood. Like much of the thinking of the Renaissance, Christianity and religion play a dominant role in the subject choice of artworks, but both painters incorporated individual artistic opinions and aesthetic judgment to their pieces. These two artists created a marriage of traditional religious thought and creative standpoints that resonates very clearly in the entire Renaissance period.

Asher Period 3 Team 5

The Renaissance was a time period when both religion and innovation started to emerge greatly. For example, Leonardo Da Vinci made a famous masterpiece that lies in the Sistine Chapel. During that time, it was Michelangelo’s crowning achievement, “The Last Judgment.” This alone depicted the popularity of Christianity signaling the second coming of Christ. Religious asceticism was heavily practiced because there was a belief that if worldly pleasures were restrained, the soul may united with the divine or heaven in the afterlife. However, religion was not the only dominate force at the time. Others heavily practiced secularism such as Italian humanists. Humanism became another big part of the Renaissance era. Humanism focuses on human concerns and values and that humans can live a happy life with morals and ethics with the belief of God or any other religion. This movement differed to the art and literature created during the medieval era, which was religious, motivated. Humanists were those who sought to base their writings on nature or other worldly, secular themes. To name a few would be wealth, respect and love for the human body and the enjoyment of life.

Renaissance (1450-1650) Ash.p1.t4

‘Renaissance’ is literally defined as ‘rebirth,’ as the era reclassified literature, painting, architecture, and even religion. Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo reveal the synthesis of religious asceticism and secular aestheticism through their light-intensified paintings. Leonardo da Vinci saw life in various lights and reproduce them in his paintings; using different contrasts in light and creating emphasis on what was physically light and dark. The painting of the “Virgin on the Rocks” (or “Madonna of the Rocks”), for instance, illustrates the concept of light perfectly (Michelangelo). He also introduces ties with religious asceticism as it showcases faces of Madonna and baby Jesus, both of which are accented with a glow while the two different pathways behind them are either extremely bright or extremely dark. These pathways are painted with the unique coloring to symbolize heaven and hell. Another form of art that was reborn was sculpting, especially nude sculptures because of the confidence and pride of the body. Michelangelo created many statues that are quite famous today; the “Statue of David,” the biblical hero in David and Goliath, for example, symbolizes freedom and is completely nude (Michelangelo). “The Last Judgment” is a fresco painting by Michelangelo that illustrated the second coming of Jesus Christ and the apocalypse. In the painting, Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary were naked, and though the Renaissance Era celebrated the nude, it was considered sacrilegious and was later censored (Michelangelo). The synthesis between the contradictory asceticism’s reflect the changing religious and philosophical ideologies by rebirthing emphasizing classical antiquity, which resembles God-like qualities from Greek culture.

Bibliography:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_of_the_Rocks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelangelo#Statue_of_David

Renaissance Synthesis Question Ash.P4.T5

In the Renaissance Period, most artists created art pertaining to the prevalent religion. The Catholic Church gave the most funding to the artists, for it was the richest institution in its time. Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinchi were of the many artists that painted biblical events or pictures that referenced Christianity on grand scales. Despite that Da Vinci held steady to scientific and skeptic beliefs, his paintings were primarily based on religion. In his art, the central focus was on the humans depicted. The secular asceticism is synthesized with religious asceticism by appealing to the Catholic church by painting artwork that was relevant to Christianity, but drawing attention and focus to the humanism of the art, not the otherworldly concepts that would emphasize what lies beyond life on Earth, faith, and religion. In “The Last Supper” painting, Di Vinci paints a scene of the dinner before Jesus is betrayed by Judas, but he does not allude to the future resurrection or ascension of Jesus. Many paintings of Jesus also depict him with a halo around his head, but Da Vinci leaves this out, keeping the painting strictly of human nature. Likewise, Michelangelo created paintings that stood in opposition to the counter-Reformation movement of the Catholic Church. In his painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, the story of creation, prophets, and the downfall of man were depicted with nude persons. This led to conflict between Michelangelo and the church authorities that prohibited nudity in religious art. This reflects the changing philosophical and religious conceptual theories within Michelangelo pertaining to humanism, for he did not settle into the Catholic or Christian culture, but rather pushed his boundaries to focus on the humanistic aspects of his art by creating masterpieces that depicted nudity. Both he and Di Vinci reflected the evolving society in the Renaissance as the personal, spiritual relationship with God during the Medieval Era was being pushed away and human nature without religion gained popularity. 

Renaissance Synthesis Period 1 Team 1

The Renaissance was a time period where humanism can to be. This idea focused on human nature and bolsters the ideas of reason and logic, but this was against the Catholic Church, and so prominent artists like Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci had to find ways around this, creating works of art that portrayed both secular aesthetics and religious doctrines. One of the most famous examples of this synthesis is Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel. The Pope had asked him to create a work of art on the ceiling and Michelangelo despised the job, but he did it anyway. The painting portrays many religious ascetics such as the Creation of Adam and The Last Judgment, but looking at the Creation of Adam closely, God and his angels look like a brain. There are also various pictures where God’s neck looks similar to a brain stem. The Sistine Chapel reveals that there was a synthesis of religious and secular aspects. There were pictures of God and the heavens, and yet there are scientific images scattered throughout. This synthesis reflects the changing views because the artists of the Renaissance were becoming more humanist, and desired to explore humanity more than religion. The fact that there are pictures of brains and brain stems show how there was a shift in sensibility from religion to science. Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa has been debated many times whether there are scientific mysteries behind it, such as bone structure and how it was even Da Vinci himself. He had paintings of inventions and studied the human anatomy and he reveals how there was a shift from religion to the desire for knowledge.