General characteristics of the art of the Renaissance. Periodization of art

Renaissance art

The Renaissance era is the heyday of all arts, including theater, literature, and music, but, undoubtedly, the main among them, most fully expressing the spirit of their time, was the visual arts.

It is no coincidence that there is a theory that the Renaissance began with the fact that artists ceased to be satisfied with the framework of the dominant "Byzantine" style and, in search of samples for their work, were the first to turn to antiquity. One of the first to abandon the "Byzantine manner" and began to use in frescoes the cut of the figures of Pietro Cavallini. But the paintings instead of icons were first created by the greatest master of the Proto-Renaissance, Giotto.

He was the first to strive to convey Christian ethical ideas through the image of real human feelings and experiences, replaced symbolism with the image of real space and specific objects. On the famous frescoes by Giotto in the Arena chapel in Padua, you can see quite unusual characters next to the saints: shepherds or a spinner. Each individual person in Giotto expresses quite specific experiences, a specific character.

In the era of Duchento (XIII century) in Italy instead of literary language Middle Ages - Latin - gradually formed vernacular- Italian. The greatest writer of that time Dante Alighieri (1256-1321) made a great contribution to its creation. In his early work “ New life"Written in italian, Dante tells the story of love for Beatrice, from their first meeting when they were still quite children, and until the death of his beloved when she was 18 years old.

The image of a simple city woman, exalted by the love of a poet, he carries through his whole life. And quite in the spirit of the Renaissance, a scene from his “ Divine Comedy", In which he depicts his Beatrice sitting on top of a wagon symbolizing the Church at the gates of Purgatory.

In the era of the early Renaissance in art, the development of the ancient artistic heritage takes place, new ethical ideals are formed, artists turn to the achievements of science (mathematics, geometry, optics, anatomy). Florence played a leading role in the formation of the ideological and stylistic principles of the early Renaissance art. Heroic and patriotic principles dominate in the images created by such masters as Donatello and Verrocchio ("St. George" and "David" by Donatello and "David" by Verrocchio).

The founder of Renaissance painting is Masaccio (murals of the Brancacci Chapel, "Trinity"), Masaccio knew how to convey the depth of space, linked the figure and landscape with a single compositional concept, and gave portrait expressiveness to individuals. But becoming and evolution pictorial portrait, reflecting the interest of the Renaissance culture in man, are associated with the names of the artists of the Umbian school: Piero della Francesca, Pinturicchio.

The work of the artist Sandro Botticelli stands apart in the early Renaissance. The images he created are spiritualized and poetic. Researchers note the abstraction and sophisticated intellectualism in the artist's works, his desire to create mythological compositions with complicated and encrypted content ("Spring", "The Birth of Venus").

One of Botticelli's biographers said that his Madonnas and Venuses give the impression of loss, evoking in us a feeling of indelible sadness ... Some of them have lost the sky, others - the earth.

The High Renaissance becomes the culmination in the development of the ideological and artistic principles of the Italian Renaissance. The founder of the art of the High Renaissance is considered Leonardo da Vinci - a great artist and scientist.

He created a number of masterpieces: "Mona Lisa" ("La Gioconda"), "Benois Madonna" and "Madonna Litta", "Lady with an Ermine". In his work, Leonardo strove to express the spirit of the Renaissance man. He was looking for sources of perfect forms of art in nature, but it was him who N. Berdyaev considers responsible for the coming process of mechanization and mechanization. human life, which tore people away from nature.

Painting achieves classical harmony in the work of Raphael. His art evolves from the early, coldish-detached Umbrian images of the Madonnas (Madonna of Conestabile) to the world of “happy Christianity” of Florentine and Roman works. "Madonna with a Goldfinch" and "Madonna in an Armchair" are soft, human and even mundane in their humanity.

But the image of the "Sistine Madonna" is majestic, symbolically connecting the heavenly and earthly worlds. Raphael is best known as the creator of the gentle images of the Madonnas. But in painting, he embodied the ideal of the Renaissance universal person(portrait of Castiglione), and the drama of historical events.

Michelangelo is a master who combined in his art beautiful physicality with the deep spirituality of images inherited from medieval Christian culture. Already in early work Michelangelo showed his tragic outlook ("The Crucifixion"), the subtlest psychologism of images and technical virtuosity ("Lamentation for Christ" from St. Peter's Cathedral). Michelangelo also creates his own concept of human history (the picturesque ceiling of the Sistine Chapel).

A special place in the era of the High Renaissance is occupied by the Venetian school, in which the enjoyment of life and love for nature were combined with the humanistic ideal (the works of Giorgione, Titian). The later Renaissance and Mannerism reflect the crisis of the Renaissance humanist ideals.

During this period, Michelangelo's work reflects the growing tragedy of his perception of the world (images of the Medici chapel, especially "Night", "Last Judgment" and the frescoes of the Paolina Chapel). Artists who continue the traditions of the High Renaissance have an increasing desire for decorativeness and splendor (Veronese), subjectivism and spiritualism are growing.

For the mannerists, the image is built not on the basis of the study of nature, as was the case with the Renaissance artists, but on their inner feeling. Mannerism intricately intertwines mysticism and the ideals of court culture, it is full of allegories and artistic plasticity. In Mannerism, there is a denial of the Renaissance tradition (Correggio, Amanti, etc.).

Simultaneously with the crisis of Renaissance art in Italy, it flourished in the Netherlands and Germany.

Jan van Eyck - the central figure of the initial pore Northern Renaissance... One of the fundamental features of this art is reflected in his work: a close connection with the art of late Gothic. The Ghent altarpiece, made by the van Eyck brothers, in its figurative structure combines a strict religious feeling with a joyful and poetic perception of earthly beauty, ideal images with portraits real people, complex symbolism with simple human emotions. Jan van Eyck's portraits emphasize spiritual fulfillment and piety in psychologically accurate and naturalistically accurate images.

Complex symbolism, fantasy and grotesque are manifested in the work of Hieronymus Bosch. His style seems so unusual for that time that many contemporary art critics consider Bosch the herald of surrealism.

The development of the art of the Northern Renaissance is associated with the name of Albrecht Durer, who laid the foundations of secular genres in Germany - portrait, landscape, genres of everyday life. Another striking feature of the Northern Renaissance is manifested in his work: the desire to portray a person as imperfect and ideal, but reliable.

Speaking about the art of the Northern Renaissance, of course, one should pay attention to the portraits of Holbein and the work of Bruegel.

Summing up, it should be noted that the Renaissance in Italy and the Reformation in Northern Europe can, as N. Berdyaev did, be considered as stages transition period, which marked the end on a historical scale of one type of civilization (cosmogenic, traditional) and the beginning of a new, technogenic civilization.

The Italian Renaissance was the source for the Northern Renaissance and Reformation. The Reformation supplemented and developed in a peculiar way the Renaissance ideas. If the Italian Renaissance was the beginning of a new urban bourgeois culture, then the Reformation, having created Protestantism, ensured the dynamic development of capitalism in Europe.

1. High Renaissance.
2. Works of Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, Raphael, Michelangelo.
3. Northern Renaissance: The Art of the Netherlands and Germany.

High Renaissance

High Renaissance art falls on the late 15th and first three decades of the 16th century. The "golden age" of Italian art was chronologically very short, and only in Venice did it last longer, right up to the middle of the century. But it was at this time that the wonderful creations of the titans of the Renaissance were created.

The highest rise of culture took place in the most difficult historical period life in Italy, in the face of a sharp economic and political weakening of the Italian states. Turkish conquests in the East, the discovery of America and a new sea route to India deprive Italian cities of their most important roles shopping centers; disunity and constant internecine feud make them easy prey for the growing centralized northwestern states. The transfer of capital within the country from trade and industry to agriculture and the gradual transformation of the bourgeoisie into a class of landowners contributed to the spread of feudal reaction. The invasion of French troops in 1494, the devastating wars of the first decades of the 16th century, and the defeat of Rome greatly weakened Italy. It was at this time, when the threat of its complete enslavement by foreign conquerors hung over the country, the forces of the people entering the struggle for national independence, for a republican form of government were revealed, and their national consciousness was growing. This is evidenced by the popular movements of the early 16th century in many Italian cities, and in particular in Florence, where republican rule was established twice: from 1494 to 1512 and from 1527 to 1530. A huge social upsurge served as the basis for the flourishing of a powerful High Renaissance culture. In the difficult conditions of the first decades of the 16th century, the principles of culture and art of a new style were formed.
A distinctive feature of the High Renaissance culture was the extraordinary expansion of the social horizons of its creators, the scale of their ideas about the world and space. The view of a person and his attitude to the world is changing. The type of artist himself, his worldview, his position in society are decisively different from that occupied by the masters of the 15th century, who are still largely associated with the class of artisans. Artists of the High Renaissance are not only people of great culture, but creative individuals, free from the framework of the guild foundations, forcing representatives of the ruling classes to reckon with their designs.
In the center of their art, generalized by artistic language, the image is ideal wonderful person, perfect physically and spiritually, not distracted from reality, but filled with life, inner strength and significance, the titanic power of self-affirmation. The most important centers of new art, along with Florence at the beginning of the 16th century, were papal Rome and patrician Venice. Since the 1530s, feudal-Catholic reaction has been growing in Central Italy, and along with it, a decadent trend in art, called Mannerism, has spread. And already in the second half of the 16th century, tendencies of anti-maneristic art appeared.
In this late period, when only individual centers of the Renaissance culture retain their role, it is they that produce the most significant works of art in terms of artistic merit. Such are the later works of Michelangelo, Palladio and the great Venetians.

The work of Leonardo da Vinci

Certain trends in the art of the High Renaissance were anticipated in the work of outstanding artists of the 15th century and were expressed in the desire for majesty, monumentalization and generalization of the image. However, the real founder of the High Renaissance style was Leonardo da Vinci, a genius whose work marked a tremendous qualitative shift in art. The significance of his all-encompassing activity, scientific and artistic, became clear only when the scattered manuscripts of Leonardo were examined. His notes and drawings contain brilliant insights in various fields of science and technology. He was, in the words of Engels, “not only a great painter, but also a great mathematician, mechanic and engineer, to whom we owe important discoveries the most diverse branches of physics ".

Art for Leonardo was a means of knowing the world. Many of his sketches serve to illustrate scientific work and at the same time they are works of high art. Leonardo embodied a new type of artist - a scientist, a thinker, striking in his breadth of views, versatility of talent.
Leonardo was born in the village of Anchiano, near the city of Vinci. He was the illegitimate son of a notary and a simple peasant woman. He studied in Florence, in the studio of the sculptor and painter Andrea Verrocchio. One of Leonardo's early works - the figure of an angel in Verrocchio's painting The Baptism (Florence, Uffizi) - stands out among the frozen characters with a subtle spirituality and testifies to the maturity of its creator.
Among the early works of Leonardo is the Madonna with a Flower kept in the Hermitage (the so-called Benois Madonna, circa 1478), which is decisively different from the numerous Madonnas of the 15th century. Rejecting the genre and careful detailing inherent in the creations of the early Renaissance masters, Leonardo deepens the characteristics, generalizes the forms. The figures of a young mother and baby, subtly modeled by side light, fill almost the entire space of the picture. The movements of the figures organically connected with each other are natural and plastic. They stand out clearly against the dark background of the wall. The clear blue sky that opens in the window connects the figures with nature, with the immense world in which man dominates. In the balanced construction of the composition, one can feel the inner regularity. But it does not exclude the warmth, the naive charm, observed in life.
In 1480, Leonardo already had his own workshop and received orders. However, a passion for science often distracted him from his art studies. The large altarpiece "Adoration of the Magi" (Florence, Uffizi) and "Saint Jerome" (Rome, Vatican Pinakothek) remained unfinished. In the first, the artist strove to transform the complex monumental composition of the altar image into a pyramidal, easily visible group, to convey the depth of human feelings. In the second - to a true image of complex angles human body, landscape space.
Not finding a proper appreciation of his talent at the court of Lorenzo Medici with his cult of exquisite sophistication, Leonardo entered the service of the Duke of Milan, Lodovico Moro. The Milanese period of Leonardo's work (1482-1499) turned out to be the most fruitful. Here the versatility of his talent as a scientist, inventor and artist was revealed in full force.
He began his career with the execution of a sculptural monument - an equestrian statue of the father of Duke Lodovico Moro Francesco Sforza. A large model of the monument, which received the unanimous high praise of contemporaries, perished during the capture of Milan by the French in 1499. Only drawings have survived - sketches of various versions of the monument, images of either a rearing horse full of dynamics, or a solemnly protruding horse, reminiscent of the compositional decisions of Donatello and Verrocchio. Apparently, this last version was turned into a model of the statue. It was much larger than the monuments of Gattamelate and Colleoni, which gave rise to contemporaries and Leonardo himself to call the monument "the great colossus." This work makes Leonardo one of the greatest sculptors of that time.
Not a single completed architectural project of Leonardo has come down to us. And yet his drawings and designs of buildings, plans for the creation of an ideal city speak of his gift of an outstanding architect.
The Milanese period includes paintings mature style - "Madonna in the grotto" and "The Last Supper". "Madonna in the grotto" (1483-1494, Paris, Louvre) - the first monumental altarpiece of the High Renaissance. Her characters Mary, John, Christ and the angel acquired features of greatness, poetic spirituality and fullness of life expressiveness. United by the mood of thoughtfulness and action - the infant Christ blesses John - in a harmonious pyramidal group, as if fanned by a light haze of chiaroscuro, the characters of the gospel legend are represented as the embodiment ideal images peaceful happiness.

The most significant of Leonardo's monumental paintings, The Last Supper, executed in 1495-1497 for the Santa Maria della Grazie monastery in Milan, brings to the world of real passions and dramatic feelings. Departing from the traditional interpretation of the gospel episode, Leonardo gives an innovative solution to the theme, composition, deeply revealing human feelings and experiences. By minimizing the outline of the refectory setting, deliberately reducing the size of the table and pushing it to the foreground, he focuses on the dramatic culmination of the event, on the contrasting characteristics of people of different temperaments, the manifestation of a complex range of feelings, expressed in both facial expressions and gestures with which the apostles respond to the words of Christ: "One of you will betray me." A decisive contrast to the apostles is made by the images of the outwardly calm, but sadly pensive Christ, who is in the center of the composition, and the traitor Judas, leaning on the edge of the table, whose rough predatory profile is immersed in the shadow. Confusion, accentuated by the gesture of a hand convulsively clutching a purse, and a gloomy appearance distinguish him from other apostles, on whose illuminated faces one can read an expression of surprise, compassion, indignation. Leonardo does not separate the figure of Judas from the other apostles, as did the masters of the early Renaissance. And yet the repulsive appearance of Judas reveals the idea of ​​betrayal more sharply and deeper. All twelve disciples of Christ are located in groups of three, on either side of the teacher. Some of them jump up in excitement from their seats, turning to Christ. The artist subjects the various internal movements of the apostles to strict order. The composition of the fresco is striking in its unity, integrity, it is strictly balanced, centered in construction. The monumentalization of images, the scale of the painting contribute to the impression of the deep significance of the image, which subjugates the entire large space of the refectory. Leonardo brilliantly solves the problem of the synthesis of painting and architecture. By placing the table parallel to the wall, which is decorated with the fresco, he asserts its plane. The perspective reduction of the side walls depicted in the fresco, as it were, continues the real space of the refectory.
The fresco is badly damaged. Leonardo's experiments using new materials did not stand the test of time; later recordings and restorations almost hid the original, which was only cleared away in 1954. But the surviving engravings and preparatory drawings make it possible to fill in all the details of the composition.
After the capture of Milan by French troops, Leonardo left the city. The years of wandering began. By order of the Florentine Republic, he made cardboard for the fresco "Battle of Anghiari", which was supposed to decorate one of the walls of the Council Hall in Palazzo Vecchio (city government building). In creating this cardboard, Leonardo entered into competition with the young Michelangelo, who was filling an order for the fresco "Battle of Cachin" for another wall of the same room. However, these cardboards, which received universal recognition from contemporaries, have not survived to this day. Only old copies and engravings make it possible to judge the innovation of the geniuses of the High Renaissance in the field of battle painting.
In the full drama and dynamics of Leonardo's composition, the episode of the battle for the banner, the moment of the highest tension of the forces of the fighting is given, the cruel truth of the war is revealed. The creation of the portrait of Mona Lisa (La Gioconda, circa 1504, Paris, Louvre), one of the most famous works of world painting, dates back to this time. The depth and significance of the created image is extraordinary, in which the features of the individual are combined with great generalization. Leonardo's innovation also manifested itself in the development of Renaissance portraiture.
Plastically elaborated, closed in silhouette, the majestic figure of a young woman dominates a distant landscape shrouded in a bluish haze with rocks and water channels winding among them. The complex semi-fantastic landscape subtly harmonizes with the character and intelligence of the subject. It seems that the unsteady changeability of life itself is felt in the expression of her face, enlivened by a barely perceptible smile, in her calmly confident, penetrating gaze. The face and sleek hands of a patrician woman are painted with amazing care and gentleness. The subtlest, as if melting, haze of chiaroscuro (the so-called sfumato), enveloping the figure, softens the contours and shadows; there is not a single sharp brushstroke or angular outline in the picture.
In the last years of his life, Leonardo devoted most of his time to scientific research. He died in France, where he arrived at the invitation of the French king Francis I and where he lived for only two years.
His art, scientific and theoretical research, his very personality had a tremendous impact on the development of world culture. His manuscripts contain countless notes and drawings attesting to the versatility of Leonardo's genius. Here are carefully drawn flowers and trees, sketches of unknown tools, machines and apparatus. Along with analytically accurate images, there are drawings that are distinguished by an extraordinary scope, epic or subtle lyricism. A passionate admirer of experimental knowledge, Leonardo strove for its critical understanding, for the search for generalizing laws. “Experience is the only source of knowledge,” said the artist. "The Book of Painting" reveals his views as a theoretician of realistic art, for whom painting is at the same time "a science and the legitimate daughter of nature." The treatise contains Leonardo's statements on anatomy, perspective, he is looking for patterns in the construction of a harmonious human figure, writes about the interaction of colors, about reflexes. Among the followers and students of Leonardo, however, there was not a single one who approached the teacher in strength of giftedness; deprived of an independent view of art, they only externally assimilated its artistic manner.

Pictures and biography of Tiziano Vecellio

Titian Venus of Urbinskaya, 1538 Uffizi Gallery, Florence Venus and Adonis, 1550s Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

Secular love (Earthly Vain) 1515	Young Man with a Torn Glove, 1515-1520	Flora 1515	Francesco della Rovere 1538	Portrait of a Young Woman, 1536

Earthly and heavenly love, 1515

Portrait of Pietro Aretino 1545	Portrait of Charles V 1548	Danae 1554	Sisyphus 1549	Venus with a mirror 1555

Ascension of Mary, (Assunta), 1518	Tarquinius and Lucretia 1568-1571	The position in the coffin 1524-1526	Saint Sebastian 1570	Lamentation for Christ 1576

Madonna of the Pesaro family, 1519-1526	Bacchus and Ariadne 1522	Introduction to the temple 1534-1538	, 1546	Allegory of time 1565

Titian (actually Tiziano Veccellio, Tiziano Veccellio) (circa 1488/1490 - 1576), Italian painter of the High and Late Renaissance. Studied in Venice with Giovanni Bellini, in whose workshop he became close to Giorgione; worked in Venice, as well as in Padua, Ferrara, Mantua, Urbino, Rome and Augsburg. Closely associated with the artistic circles of Venice (Giorgione, architect Jacopo Sansovino, writer Pietro Aretino), an outstanding master of the Venetian school of painting, Titian embodied the humanistic ideals of the Renaissance in his work. His life-affirming art is distinguished by its versatility, breadth of coverage of reality, and revealing the deep dramatic conflicts of the era. Interest in the landscape, poetry, lyrical contemplation, subtle coloring are related to the early works of Titian (the so-called "Gypsy Madonna", Museum of Art History, Vienna; "Christ and the Sinner", Art Gallery, Glasgow) with the work of Giorgione; the artist began to develop an independent style by the mid-1510s, after becoming acquainted with the works of Raphael and Michelangelo. Calm and joyful images of his paintings during this period are marked by full-bloodedness, brightness of feelings, inner enlightenment, the major coloring is built on the consonance of deep, pure colors ("Earthly and Heavenly Love", circa 1514-1516, Borghese Gallery, Rome; "Flora", c. 1515, Uffizi; The Denarius of Caesar, 1518, Picture Gallery, Dresden). At the same time, Titian painted several portraits, strict and calm in composition, and subtly psychological ("A young man with a glove", Louvre, Paris; "Portrait of a Man", National Gallery, London). The new period of Titian's work (late 1510s - 1530s) is associated with the social and cultural rise of Venice, which in this era became one of the main strongholds of humanism and urban freedom in Italy. At this time, Titian created monumental altar images filled with stately pathos ("The Ascension of Mary", circa 1516-1518, the Church of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, Venice), the composition of which is permeated with movement, paintings on the Gospels and Venus of Urbinskaya, 1538 Uffizi Gallery, Florence Venus and Adonis, 1550s Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

Secular love (Earthly Vain) 1515	Young Man with a Torn Glove, 1515-1520	Flora 1515	Francesco della Rovere 1538	Portrait of a Young Woman, 1536

In the later period of his work, Titian reached the heights both in his painting skills and in the emotional and psychological interpretation of religious and mythological themes. The life-affirming beauty of the human body, the plethora of the surrounding world became the leading motif of the artist's works with themes drawn from ancient mythology (Danae, circa 1554, Prado, Madrid and the Hermitage, Petersburg; Venus in front of a mirror, 1550s, National Gallery of Art, Washington; Diana and Actaeon, 1556, and Diana and Callisto, 1556-1559, both paintings are at the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh).

Earthly and heavenly love, 1515

Portrait of Pietro Aretino 1545	Portrait of Charles V 1548	Danae 1554	Sisyphus 1549	Venus with a mirror 1555

Ascension of Mary, (Assunta), 1518	Tarquinius and Lucretia 1568-1571	The position in the coffin 1524-1526	Saint Sebastian 1570	Lamentation for Christ 1576

Madonna of the Pesaro family, 1519-1526	Bacchus and Ariadne 1522	Introduction to the temple 1534-1538	Pope Paul III with his grandchildren Farnese, 1546	Allegory of time 1565

Art by Raphael Santi

The idea of ​​the brightest and most lofty ideals of humanism of the Renaissance was most fully embodied in his work by Raphael Santi (1483-1520). The younger contemporary of Leonardo, who lived a short, extremely eventful life, Raphael synthesized the achievements of his predecessors and created his ideal of a beautiful, harmoniously developed person surrounded by stately architecture or landscape. Raphael was born in Urbino, the son of a painter who was his first teacher. Later he studied with Timoteo della Viti and Perugino, perfectly mastering the manner of the latter. In Perugino, Raphael perceived that smoothness of lines, that freedom of setting a figure in space, which became characteristic of his mature compositions. As a seventeen-year-old boy, he reveals real creative maturity, creating a series of images full of harmony and spiritual clarity.

Delicate lyricism and subtle spirituality distinguish one of his early works - "Madonna Conestabile" (1502, St. Petersburg, Hermitage), an enlightened image of a young mother depicted against the background of a transparent Umbrian landscape. The ability to freely arrange figures in space, to connect them with each other and with the environment is also manifested in the composition "The Betrothal of Mary" (1504, Milan, Brera Gallery). The spaciousness in the construction of the landscape, the harmony of forms of architecture, the balance and integrity of all parts of the composition testify to the formation of Raphael as a master of the High Renaissance.
With his arrival in Florence, Raphael easily absorbs the most important achievements of the artists of the Florentine school with its pronounced plastic beginning and wide coverage of reality. The content of his art remains a light lyrical theme maternal love, to which he attaches particular importance. She gets a more mature expression in such works as "Madonna in the Green" (1505, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum), "Madonna with a Goldfinch" (Florence, Uffizi), "The Beautiful Gardener" (1507, Paris, Louvre). Essentially, they all vary the same type of composition, composed of the figures of Mary, the infant Christ and the Baptist, forming pyramidal groups against the background of a beautiful rural landscape in the spirit of compositional techniques found earlier by Leonardo. The naturalness of the movements, the soft plasticity of the forms, the smoothness of the melodious lines, the beauty of the ideal type of the Madonna, the clarity and purity of landscape backgrounds help to reveal the sublime poetry of the figurative structure of these compositions.
In 1508, Raphael was invited to work in Rome, to the court of Pope Julius II, a domineering, ambitious and energetic man who sought to increase the artistic treasures of his capital and attract the most talented cultural figures of that time to his service. At the beginning of the 16th century, Rome inspired hopes for the national unification of the country. The ideals of the national order have created the basis for creative upsurge, for the embodiment of advanced aspirations in art. Here, in close proximity to the heritage of antiquity, Raphael's talent flourishes and matures, acquiring a new scope and features of calm grandeur.
Raphael receives an order to paint the ceremonial rooms (the so-called stanzas) of the Vatican Palace. This work, which continued intermittently from 1509 to 1517, nominated Raphael among the greatest masters of Italian monumental art, confidently solving the problem of the synthesis of architecture and painting of the Renaissance. The gift of Raphael, a monumentalist and decorator, manifested itself in all its splendor during the painting of the Station della Senyatura (press room). On the long walls of this room, covered with sailing vaults, there are compositions "Dispute" and "School of Athens", on the narrow walls - "Parnassus" and "Wisdom, Moderation and Strength", personifying the four areas of human spiritual activity: theology, philosophy, poetry and jurisprudence ... The vault, divided into four parts, is decorated with allegorical figures that form a single decorative system with wall paintings. Thus, the entire space of the room was filled with painting.

Adam and eve 1510	School of athens 1509	Triumph of Galatea 1511	Dispute 1510	Prophet Isaiah 1512

Combining images in painting Christian religion and pagan mythology testified to the spread among the humanists of that time of the ideas of reconciliation of the Christian religion with ancient culture and of the unconditional victory of the secular principle over the church. Even in the "Dispute" (the dispute of the church fathers about the sacrament), dedicated to the depiction of church leaders, among the participants in the dispute, one can recognize the poets and artists of Italy - Dante, Fra Beato Angelico and other painters and writers. About the celebration humanistic ideas in Renaissance art, the composition "The School of Athens", which glorifies the mind of a beautiful and strong man, ancient science and philosophy, speaks of its connection with antiquity. The painting is perceived as a dream come true for a bright future. From the depths of the suite of grandiose arched spans, a group of ancient thinkers emerges, in the center of which is the stately gray-bearded Plato and the confident, inspired Aristotle, with a gesture of his hand pointing to the ground, the founders of idealistic and materialistic philosophy. Below, on the left by the stairs, Pythagoras bent over the book, surrounded by his students, on the right - Euclid, and here, at the very edge, Raphael depicted himself next to the painter Sodoma. He is a young man with a gentle, attractive face. All the characters of the fresco are united by the mood of high spiritual uplift, deep thought... They form groups, indissoluble in their integrity and harmony, where each character precisely takes its place and where architecture itself, in its strict regularity and majesty, contributes to the recreation of an atmosphere of high rise of creative thought.
The fresco "The Expulsion of Eliodor" in Stanza d'Eliodoro stands out for its intense drama. The suddenness of the happening miracle - the expulsion of the robber of the temple by the heavenly horseman - is conveyed by the swift diagonal of the main movement, using the light effect. Pope Julius II is depicted among spectators gazing at the expulsion of Eliodorus. This is an allusion to events contemporary to Raphael - the expulsion of French troops from the Papal States.
The Roman period of Raphael's work was marked by high achievements in the field of portraiture. The characters of Mass in Bolsene (frescoes in Stanza d'Eliodoro) take on sharp-looking portrait features. TO portrait genre Raphael also turned to easel painting, showing his originality here, revealing the most characteristic and significant in the model. He painted portraits of Pope Julius II (1511, Florence, Uffizi), Pope Leo X with Cardinal Ludovico dei Rossi and Giulio dei Medici (circa 1518, ibid.) And other portrait paintings. An important place in his art continues to be occupied by the image of the Madonna, acquiring the features of great grandeur, monumentality, confidence, and strength. Such is the Madonna della Cedia (Madonna in the Chair, 1516, Florence, Pitti Gallery) with its harmonious, closed composition.
At the same time, Raphael created his greatest creation "The Sistine Madonna" (1515-1519, Dresden, Picture Gallery), intended for the church of St. Sixtus in Piacenza. Unlike the earlier, lighter in mood, lyrical Madonnas, this is a stately image full of deep meaning. The curtains spread from the top on the sides reveal Mary easily walking on the clouds with a baby in her arms. Her gaze allows you to look into the world of her experiences. Seriously and sadly, she looks somewhere into the distance, as if anticipating tragic fate son. To the left of the Madonna is depicted Pope Sixtus, enthusiastically contemplating a miracle, to the right is Saint Barbara, reverently looking down. Below are two angels looking up and, as it were, returning us to the main image - the Madonna and her childishly thoughtful baby. Impeccable harmony and dynamic balance of the composition, delicate rhythm of smooth linear outlines, naturalness and freedom of movement make up the irresistible power of this whole, beautiful image. Life truth and the features of the ideal are combined with the spiritual purity of a complex tragic nature Sistine Madonna. Some researchers found its prototype in the features of "Ladies in a Veil" (about 1513, Florence, Pitti Gallery), but Raphael himself, in a letter to his friend Castiglione, wrote that his creative method is based on the principle of selection and generalization of life observations: to paint a beauty, I need to see many beauties, but due to the lack of ... beautiful women I use some idea that comes to my mind. " Thus, in reality, the artist finds features that correspond to his ideal, which rises above the accidental and transitory.
Raphael died at the age of thirty-seven, leaving unfinished paintings of the Villa Farnezina, the Vatican Loggias and a number of other works, completed on the basis of cardboard and drawings by his students. Free, graceful, casual drawings by Raphael put their creator into the ranks of the largest draftsmen in the world. His work in architecture and applied arts testify to him as a versatile gifted figure of the High Renaissance, who won great fame among his contemporaries. The very name of Raphael later became the common name of the ideal artist.
Numerous Italian students and followers of Raphael erected the teacher's creative method into an indisputable dogma, which contributed to the spread of imitation in Italian art and foreshadowed the imminent crisis of humanism.

The work of Michelangelo Buonarroti

The culmination of the High Renaissance and at the same time a reflection of the deep contradictions of the culture of the era was the work of the third of the titans of Italian art - Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564). Even in comparison with Leonardo and Raphael, striking in their versatile talent, Michelangelo differs in that in each of the areas artistic creation he left works of great scale and power, embodying the most progressive ideas of the era. Michelangelo was a genius sculptor, painter, architect, draftsman, military engineer, poet, and at the same time he was a fighter for high humanistic ideals, a citizen, with arms in his hands, defended the freedom and independence of his homeland.
The great artist and the wrestler are inseparable in the idea of ​​Michelangelo. His whole life is an unceasing heroic struggle to assert the human right to freedom, to creativity. Throughout the long creative path in the center of the artist's attention was a person who was effective, active, ready for a feat, seized with great passion. In his works of the late period, the tragic collapse of the Renaissance ideals is reflected.
Michelangelo was born in Caprese (in the vicinity of Florence), in the family of the mayor. As a thirteen-year-old boy, he entered the workshop of Ghirlandaio, and a year later - in art school at the court of Lorenzo Medici the Magnificent. Here, in the so-called Medici gardens at the monastery of San Marco, he continued his studies under the guidance of Bertoldo di Giovanni, a staunch admirer of antiquity. Having become acquainted with the rich and refined culture of the Medici court, with wonderful works of ancient and modern art, with renowned poets and humanists, Michelangelo did not withdraw into an exquisite court environment. Even his early independent works confirm his gravitation towards large monumental images, full of heroism and strength. The relief "Battle of the Centaurs" (early 1490s, Florence, Casa Buonarroti) reveals the drama and stormy dynamics of the battle, the fearlessness and energy of the fighters, the mighty plasticity of interconnected strong figures, permeated with a single rapid rhythm.
Final formation public conscience Michelangelo falls at the time of the expulsion of the Medici from Florence and the establishment of the republican system there. Trips to Bologna and Rome facilitate completion arts education... Antiquity opens up before him gigantic opportunities hidden in sculpture. In Rome, the marble group "Pieta" (1498-1501, Rome, St. Peter's Basilica) was created - the first large original work of the master, imbued with faith in the triumph of the humanistic ideals of the Renaissance. Dramatic theme The sculptor resolves the mourning of Christ by the Mother of God in a deep psychological sense, expressing immense grief by tilting his head, as if found by the gesture of the Madonna's left hand. Moral purity images of Mary, the noble restraint of her feelings reveal the strength of character and are conveyed in classically clear forms, with amazing perfection. Both figures are arranged in an indissoluble group, in which not a single detail violates the closed silhouette, its plastic expressiveness.

David	Pieta	Madonna and child	Moses

Deep conviction, the excitement of a person striving for feat is captured in the statue of David (Florence, Academy of Fine Arts), executed in 1501-1504 upon the return of the sculptor to Florence. In the image of the legendary hero, the idea of ​​a civil feat, courageous valor and intransigence was embodied. Michelangelo abandoned the narrative of his predecessors. Unlike Donatello and Verrocchio, who portrayed David after defeating the enemy, Michelangelo introduced him before the battle. He focused on the strong-willed composure and tension of all the hero's forces, transmitted by plastic means. In this colossal statue, the peculiarity of Michelangelo's plastic language is clearly expressed: with the outwardly calm pose of the hero, his entire figure with a powerful torso and superbly modeled arms and legs, his beautiful inspired face expresses the utmost concentration of physical and spiritual forces. All muscles appear to be riddled with movement. Michelangelo's art returned to nudity the ethical meaning that it possessed in ancient plastic art. The image of David also acquires a broader meaning as an expression of the creative powers of a free man. Already at that time, the Florentines understood the civic pathos of the statue and its significance, having installed it in the center of the city in front of the Palazzo Vecchio building as a call for the protection of the fatherland and for a just government.
Having found a convincing form for solving the statue (with support on one leg), skillfully modeling it, Michelangelo made him forget about the difficulties that he had to overcome in working with the material. The statue was hewn from a block of marble, which, as everyone believed, was spoiled by an unfortunate sculptor. Michelangelo managed to fit the figure into the finished block of marble so that it would fit in it extremely compactly.
Simultaneously with the statue of David, cardboard was made for the painting of the Council Hall of the Palazzo Vecchio "Battle of Cachin" (known for engravings and a pictorial copy). Coming into competition with Leonardo, young Michelangelo received a higher public rating for his work; the theme of exposing the war and its atrocities, he opposed the glorification sublime feelings the valor and patriotism of the soldiers of Florence, rushing to the battlefield at the call of the trumpet, ready for a feat.
Having received an order from Pope Julius II for the construction of his tombstone, Michelangelo, without completing the "Battle of Cachin", moved to Rome in 1505. He designs a magnificent mausoleum, decorated with numerous statues and reliefs. To prepare the material - marble blocks - the sculptor went to Carrara. During his absence, the Pope lost interest in the idea of ​​building a tomb. Offended by Michelangelo, he left Rome and only after the pope's persistent appeals did he come back. This time he received a new grandiose order - painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which he accepted with great reluctance, since he considered himself primarily a sculptor, not a painter. This painting has become one of the greatest creations of Italian art.

In the most difficult conditions, for four years (1508-1512) Michelangelo worked, completing the entire painting of the huge plafond (600 sq. M) with his own hand. In accordance with the architectonics of the chapel, he dismembered the vault overlapping it into a series of fields, placing in a wide central field nine compositions on scenes from the Bible about the creation of the world and the life of the first people on earth: "Separation of light from darkness", "Creation of Adam", "The Fall" , "The Drunkenness of Noah" and others. On either side of them, on the slopes of the vault, figures of prophets and sibyls (soothsayers) are depicted, in the corners of the fields - sitting naked young men; in the sails of the vault, stripping and lunettes above the windows - episodes from the Bible and the so-called ancestors of Christ. The grandiose ensemble, including more than three hundred figures, seems to be an inspirational hymn to beauty, power, human reason, glorification of his creative genius and heroic deeds. Even in the image of God - a majestic powerful old man, first of all, the creative impulse is emphasized, expressed in the movements of his hands, as if they were really capable of creating worlds and giving life to a person. Titanic strength, intellect, perspicacious wisdom and sublime beauty characterize the images of the prophets: deeply thoughtful mournful Jeremiah, poetically inspired Isaiah, the mighty Sibyl of Kum, the beautiful young Delphic Sibyl... The characters created by Michelangelo have a tremendous power of generalization; for each character, he finds a special pose, turn, movement, gesture.
If in individual images of the prophets tragic thoughts were embodied, then in the images of the naked - young men, the so-called slaves, the feeling of the joy of being, irrepressible strength and energy is conveyed. Their figures, presented in complex foreshortenings, in movements, receive the richest plastic development. All of them, without destroying the planes of the vaults, enrich them, reveal tectonics, enhancing general impression harmony. The combination of grandiose scale, harsh power of action, beauty and concentration of color gives rise to a feeling of freedom and confidence in the triumph of a person.

Northern Renaissance

The renaissance was an international phenomenon that swept, besides Italy, where it expressed itself with the greatest force, also the Netherlands, Germany, France, Spain. Today appeared special term"Northern Renaissance", which describes the features of the Renaissance in other European countries. It means “not only a purely geographical characteristic, but also some features of the Renaissance in England, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Switzerland and France. Very important feature The Northern Renaissance was that it took place during the Reformation, as well as the fact that in the culture of the peoples of these countries, due to historical reasons, there was no such abundance of antiquity monuments as in Italy "'.

Reformation(from Lat. reformatio - transformation) represented the same powerful religious movement, which is now, for example, fundamentalism in Islamic countries. Both of them advocated a return to the original values ​​of faith (to its foundation) and demanded serious changes (reformation) of the existing religious practice.

The beginning of the Reformation was marked by the speech in Germany in 1517 by Martin Luther (1483-1546), who put forward 95 theses that rejected the basic dogmas of Catholicism. The ideologists of the Reformation denied the need for the Catholic Church with its hierarchy and the clergy in general, the right of the Church to land wealth, rejecting the Catholic Sacred Tradition as a whole. The peasant wars of 1524-1526 took place under the ideological banner of the Reformation. in Germany, the Netherlands and the English Revolution. The Reformation laid the foundation for Protestantism (in a narrow sense, the reformation is the implementation of religious transformations in its spirit).

German Renaissance was the end of the spiritual (Lutheran reform) and social (the rise of the peasantry) crisis, which lasted half a century and greatly changed medieval Germany. The work of three artists - Grunewald (between 1470 and 1475-1528), Durer (1471-1528) and Holbein the Younger (1497 or 1498-1543) - is associated with the "golden age" of German painting. Lacking the integrity of the Italian Renaissance, the German Renaissance developed in a chronologically short period and did not have its logical continuation.

The outstanding representative of the Renaissance in Germany, whose work defined German art for a long time, was the painter and master of engraving Dürer. It is believed that Dürer was equally gifted as a painter, printmaker and draftsman; drawing and engraving occupy a large, sometimes even leading, place for him. The legacy of Dürer the draftsman, numbering more than 900 sheets, in terms of its vastness and diversity, can only be compared with the legacy of Leonardo da Vinci. He brilliantly owned everything known then graphic technicians- from a silver pin and a reed pen to an Italian pencil, charcoal, watercolors As for the masters of Italy, drawing became for him the most important stage of work on a composition, including sketches, studies of heads, arms, legs, draperies. It is a learning tool characteristic types- peasants, smart gentlemen, Nuremberg women of fashion. Dürer had a huge impact on the development of German art first half of XVI century. The greatest master of engraving in Europe, Dürer became famous for his cycle of works on the themes of the "Apocalypse" (1498).

His many-sided activities became one of the incarnations of the "titanism" of the Renaissance. He is the only master of the Northern Renaissance who, in terms of the direction and versatility of his interests, the desire to master the laws of art, the development of the perfect proportions of the human figure and the rules of perspective construction, can be compared with the greatest masters Italian Renaissance. The heyday of the art of the German Renaissance is often called the "era of Dürer".

Dürer's contemporaries were the great masters of painting Hans Holbein the Younger, Grunewald and Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553).

Accurate, clear-cut portraits (painting and drawing) of Holbein the Younger, his paintings on religious themes, engravings are characterized by realism, clarity and grandeur of Renaissance art, and the monumental integrity of the composition (Dead Christ, 1521). Grunewald, whose life is still little studied, represents another direction of the German Renaissance: for him, feelings dominate over reason, and subjectivity over objective analysis. The artist's genius was embodied in the main work - "Isenheim Altar" (1512-1515), where mystical images coexist with humanistic, enlightened ones. His work, associated with the ideology of the lower classes and heresies, is full of dramatic power, tension, dynamism.

Among the talented creators of the German Renaissance, the portrait painter Lucas Cranach the Elder, the court painter of Friedrich the Wise and a friend of M. Luther, occupies an honorable place, thanks to whose activities the landscape received special development. He laid the foundation for the school of landscape, known as the Danube School.

Renaissance in ENGLAND... The ENGLISH Renaissance became famous not so much for painting and architecture as for theater. It flourished at the end of the 16th - beginning of the 17th century, reaching its peak in the work of William Shakespeare (1564-1616). The end of the 16th century was a period of unprecedented revival of theatrical life in England, a time of economic growth and the country's transformation into a world power. It is also called the "Elizabethan era". The prestige of the theater has grown; actors, previously despised by wandering comedians, were surrounded by universal attention, they enjoyed the patronage of patrons of the grandees. In 1576, the first public theater opened in London; by the mid-1980s, there were already several such theaters. Shakespeare's troupe, which received royal status in 1589, changed more than one scene, until finally in 1598-1599. a permanent building called the Globe Theater was not built for it. Playwright Shakespeare became a co-owner of the theater. Shakespeare's plays (there are 37 of them) reflected the political and spiritual life of England at that time.

Shakespeare's first comedies, in particular Much Ado About Nothing (1598), were filled with optimism. However, at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries. his worldview has changed. Last years Elizabeth's reign was marked by popular unrest and economic decline. The authority of the state and the Church was declining. The tragedies Romeo and Juliet (1595), Hamlet (1601), Othello (1604), King Lear (1605) show the crisis of universal values ​​and morality. Shakespeare's heroes are thinking, feeling and suffering personalities who experience the loss of life orientations, and the world unable to help them find themselves.

1. INTRODUCTION

"Renaissance" (Renaissance) is a term coined by the architect, painter and historian Giorgio Vasari to define the era in which the cultural movement was called upon to revive antiquity and open the prospects for the development of Western culture. The era of the Middle Ages was seen as a break in the development of cultures, it was a period of barbarism and ignorance. The revival originated in Italy, and was associated, first of all, with the emergence of bourgeois relations in feudal society, and as a consequence - the emergence of a new worldview. A return to the forgotten achievements of ancient culture began. All the changes were most pronounced in the work of people of art.

The growth of cities and the development of crafts, the rise of world trade, the great geographical discoveries of the late 15th and early 16th centuries, changed the life of medieval Europe. Urban culture created new people and shaped a new attitude towards life. Printing appeared, which opened up opportunities for the dissemination of literary and scientific works.

At this time, the Italian society begins to take an active interest in culture. Ancient Greece and Rome, manuscripts of ancient writers are being sought. Various spheres of the life of society - art, philosophy, literature, education, science - are becoming more and more independent and independent of the church. The focus of attention in the Renaissance was a man, therefore, the worldview of the carriers of this culture is denoted by the term “humanistic” (from Latin humanitas - humanity). For the Italian humanists, the main thing was the focus of a person on himself. His fate is largely in his own hands, he is endowed by God with free will.

The humanists of the Renaissance believed that in a person it is not his origin or social status, a personal qualities... As " ideal person"A strong, talented and comprehensively developed personality was recognized. The main dignity of the individual began to be considered civic virtues. “One must judge a person by his qualities, and not by his attire,” as one ancient author wittily says, “do you know why he seems so tall to you? The height of his heels deceives you: the plinth is not yet a statue. Measure a person without stilts. Let him put aside his wealth and rank and appear before you in one shirt. "

The humanists were inspired by antiquity, which served as a source of knowledge and an example of artistic creativity for them. The art of the Renaissance laid the foundations of modern European culture. All the main forms of art - painting, graphics, sculpture, architecture - have changed a lot.

In the era Italian Renaissance it is customary to distinguish several periods: Proto-Renaissance (second half of the XIII-XIV centuries), early Renaissance (XV century), High Renaissance (late XV - first decades of the XVI century), later Renaissance (last two thirds of the XVI century).

2. VALUABLE FOUNDATIONS OF THE ART OF THE RENAISSANCE

The Renaissance was characterized by the cult of beauty, above all the beauty of man. Italian painting depicts wonderful, perfect people.

Artists and sculptors in their work strove for naturalness, for a realistic recreation of the world and man. The plane image ceased to be used, painting was enriched with linear and aerial perspective, knowledge of the anatomy and proportions of the human body, problems of accurate drawing, natural movement were solved.

The human body, modern and religious subjects became the objects of art. Attention, interest of artists increasingly focused on a person and on everything that surrounds him. However, art Early renaissance was complex, contradictory, and this contradiction led him forward. In the art of the Early Renaissance, along with fine detailing, the consciousness of a generalized, monumental and heroic image of a perfect person is outlined.

In the Renaissance, man again becomes the main theme of art, and the human body is considered the most perfect form in nature. The humanistic culture of the Renaissance is permeated with the dream of a new man and his new spiritual development... The main dignity of the individual began to be considered civic virtues. Theocentric consciousness began to be supplanted by the anthropocentric one. The ideas of humanism were most vividly and fully embodied in art, the main theme of which was a beautiful, harmoniously developed person, possessing unlimited spiritual and creative possibilities... The art of the Renaissance is permeated with humanism, faith in the creative powers of man, in the unlimitedness of his possibilities, in the triumph of progress. Figures in painting acquire volume and a noticeable desire, it is true, to convey the anatomy of the human body.

The signs of bourgeois culture and the emergence of a new world outlook were especially vividly manifested in the 15th century. But, precisely because the formation new culture, and the new worldview was not completed, the 15th century is full of creative freedom, bold daring, admiration for the human individual. This is the age of humanism, belief in the boundless power of reason, the era of intellectualism. The perception of reality is tested by experience, controlled by the mind. That is why the spirit of order is so characteristic of the art of the Renaissance. Anatomy, the teaching of the proportions of the human body are of great importance for artists.

Antiquity acquires the meaning of an independent value and plays big role in the formation of secular culture. For art, features of ancient simplicity and harmony are becoming characteristic in architecture. The libraries contain a rich collection of antique manuscripts. Museums appear, filled with statues, fragments of ancient architecture. Antique Rome is being restored. But the influence of antiquity is layered on the traditions of the Middle Ages and Christian art, which gives a complex character to the culture of revival.

In art, the problems of civic duty, high moral qualities, feat, the image of a harmoniously developed, strong in spirit and the body of a human hero who managed to rise above the level of everyday life. High Renaissance art abandons insignificant details in the name of general image, striving for harmony of the beautiful sides of life. Portrait painting developed and became one of the important achievements of the Renaissance. The most prestigious art form was sculpture, which flourished with the establishment of the Baroque. In the late Renaissance, there were fewer illusions and more realism in understanding reality. The ideals of beauty and harmony were comprehensively comprehended and even became the norm, which influenced various types of creative activity.

3. ITALIAN RENAISSANCE

In the 15th century Italy surpassed all other European countries in terms of the abundance of talented craftsmen and the scope of artistic creativity. The changes in art were primarily reflected in sculpture. In the works of the master Niccolo Pisano, a clear influence of antiquity can be traced. But the beginning of a new era is associated with the name of the painter Giotto di Bondone (1266? -1337). Of his works, the best preserved frescoes of the Capella del Arena in Padua on the gospel stories, where there is already a desire to correctly convey the anatomy of the human body. “Giotto’s man resists the blows of fate. He is ready to endure adversity, without losing heart, without hardening against people. This understanding did not contradict medieval church morality, but it raised a person, asserted himself, gave him vigor. "

In the visual arts, several schools have formed with their own unique stylistic features.

3.1. FLORENTINE SCHOOL Xv century

It was only in the 15th century that the features of the new style began to appear in the architecture of Italy. Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446) completed the Florentine Cathedral in 1434 with a giant dome, a Gothic building dating from 1295. The secular architecture of the palazzo is characterized by a combination of external fortress inaccessibility with the internal atmosphere of comfort.

In church architecture, the facing of the facades of churches with multi-colored marble appears, which makes the facade "striped" - a characteristic feature of the Italian Renaissance.

The new sculpture was born in 1401, when a competition was organized to decorate the doors of the baptismal chamber of Florence Cathedral. The sculptor who had to solve the problems of European plastic - round sculpture, monument - was Donato di Niccolo di Betto Bardi (1386? -1466). Gothic reminiscences are also observed in his art. Donatello solves the problem of staging a human figure in growth according to the laws of plasticity, developed in ancient times, but forgotten in the Middle Ages. The statue of St. George, executed by Donatello, embodies the ideal of the early Renaissance: a sense of self-awareness and confidence in this image is emphasized by the free, calm pose of a figure resembling a column. This is "not a humanized god of antiquity, but a deified man of a new era" (N. Punin).

Donatello also has the honor of creating the first equestrian monument during the Renaissance. This is the equestrian statue of the Condottiere Erasmo di Narni in Padua.

Using the best traditions of medieval art, having studied antique plastic, Donatello came to his own decisions, to the images of deep humanity and true realism, which explains its enormous influence on all subsequent European sculpture.

The leading role in the painting of the Florentine early Renaissance fell to Tommaso di Giovanni di Simone Cassan Guidi, known as Masaccio (1401-1428). He solved the problems of pictorial art that Giotto had posed before. Masaccio showed himself to be an artist, for whom it was clear how to place figures in space, how to connect them with each other and with the landscape, what are the laws of the anatomy of the human body. He solved the main problems of the Renaissance - linear and aerial perspective.

The Renaissance or Renaissance has given us many great works of art. This was a favorable period for the development of creativity. The names of many great artists are associated with the Renaissance. Botticelli, Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo Da Vinci, Giotto, Titian, Correggio are just a few of the names of the creators of that time.

The emergence of new styles and painting is associated with this period. The approach to depicting the human body has become almost scientific. Artists strive for reality - they work through every detail. People and events in the paintings of that time look extremely realistic.

Historians distinguish several periods in the development of painting during the Renaissance.

Gothic - 1200s... Popular style at court. It was distinguished by pomp, pretentiousness, excessive color. Used as paints. The paintings were of altar subjects. The most famous representatives of this trend are Italian artists Vittore Carpaccio and Sandro Botticelli.

Sandro Botticelli

Proto-Renaissance - 1300s... At this time, a restructuring of mores in painting takes place. Religious topics recede into the background, and secular ones are gaining more and more popularity. The painting takes the place of the icon. People are portrayed more realistically, facial expressions and gestures become important for artists. A new genre of fine art appears -. Representatives of this time are Giotto, Pietro Lorenzetti, Pietro Cavallini.

Early Renaissance - 1400s... The flowering of non-religious painting. Even the faces on the icons become more alive - they acquire human traits faces. Artists of earlier periods tried to paint landscapes, but they only served as a background to the main image. During the Early Renaissance period becomes an independent genre. The portrait continues to develop. Scientists discover the law of linear perspective, and artists build their paintings on this basis. The correct three-dimensional space can be seen on their canvases. The prominent representatives of this period are Masaccio, Piero Della Francesco, Giovanni Bellini, Andrea Mantegna.

High Renaissance - Golden Age... The artists' outlook becomes even wider - their interests extend into the space of the Cosmos, they regard man as the center of the universe.

At this time, the "titans" of the Renaissance appeared - Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Titian, Raphael Santi and others. These are people whose interests were not limited to painting. Their knowledge extended much further. The most prominent representative was Leonardo Da Vinci, who was not only a great painter, but also a scientist, sculptor, playwright. He created fantastic techniques in painting, such as the "smooth" - the illusion of haze, which was used to create the famous "La Gioconda".

Leonardo Da Vinci

Late Renaissance- the extinction of the Renaissance (mid-1500s, late 1600s). This time is associated with changes, religious crisis. The flowering ends, the lines on the canvases become more nervous, individualism goes away. The crowd is increasingly becoming the image of the paintings. Talented works of that time belong to the pen of Paolo Veronese, Jacopo Tinoretto.

Paolo Veronese

Italy gave the world the most talented artists the Renaissance, they are most mentioned in the history of painting. Meanwhile, in other countries during this period, painting also developed, and influenced the development of this art. Painting of other countries during this period is called the Northern Renaissance.

Revival or Renaissance (Italian Rinascimento, French Renaissance) - restoration, ancient education, revival classical literature, art, philosophy, ideals the ancient world distorted or forgotten into "dark" and "backward" for Western Europe period of the Middle Ages. It was the form that the cultural movement known as humanism took from the middle of the 14th to the beginning of the 16th centuries (see brief and articles about it). It is necessary to distinguish humanism from the Renaissance, which is only a characteristic feature of humanism, which sought support for its world outlook in classical antiquity. The birthplace of the Renaissance is Italy, where the ancient classical (Greco-Roman) tradition, which bore a national character for the Italians, never faded away. In Italy, the oppression of the Middle Ages has never been felt particularly strongly. Italians called themselves "Latins" and considered themselves descendants of the ancient Romans. Despite the fact that the initial impulse for the Renaissance came in part from Byzantium, the participation of the Byzantine Greeks in it was negligible.

Renaissance. Video

In France and Germany, the antique style mixed with national elements, which in the first period of the Renaissance, the Early Renaissance, acted more sharply than in subsequent eras. The late Renaissance developed antique samples into more luxurious and powerful forms, from which the baroque gradually developed. While in Italy the spirit of the Renaissance penetrated almost evenly into all arts, in other countries only architecture and sculpture were influenced by antique samples. The Renaissance also underwent national processing in the Netherlands, England and Spain. After the Renaissance degenerated into rococo, a reaction has come, expressed in the strictest adherence to antique art, Greek and Roman examples in all their primitive purity. But this imitation (especially in Germany) finally led to excessive dryness, which in the early 60s of the XIX century. tried to overcome by returning to the Renaissance. However, this new reign of the Renaissance in architecture and art lasted only until 1880. Since that time, next to it, the Baroque and Rococo began to flourish again.