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University of Dayton W5 High Renaissance in Rome Essay
1. Raphael’s School of Athens is considered to be one of the greatest examples of High Renaissance Humanism. Explain why this might be the case.
2. What do you suppose is the theological theme or message of Michelangelo’s St. Peter’s Pieta?
3. Which of Michelangelo’s three sculptures of the Pieta do you prefer? Explain why.
4. The Sistine Chapel is the Pope’s chapel. What is it about Michelangelo’s ceiling that would have served to support and emphasize the importance of the institution of the papacy?
5. What do you think is the subject of Giorgione’s Tempest? HERE DOWN IS THE ARTICLES AND THE VIDEOS TO WATCH Sarah Jones on Michelangelo and Pope Julius
Michelangelo, Last Judgment, Sistine Chapel
Raphael, Portraits of Angola and Maddalena Doni
Raphael, Madonna of the Goldfinch
Raphael, Marriage of Raphael: The Renaissance Virtuoso the Virgin
Raphael, School of Athens Virtual Tour
Titian, Assumption of the Virgin
Titian, Madonna of the Pesaro Family
Module 5 continues with an exploration of the High Renaissance in Rome, Florence and Venice. Let’s start with Michelangelo. Michelangelo was a Florentine artist, born in 1475; he was a painter, an architect, a writer, and most of all, a sculptor. In addition to the evidence of his works, we know much about Michelangelo because several of his contemporaries wrote biographies of his life; the most famous and detailed of these was the biography of the artist written Giorgio Vasari, himself a sixteenth century artist who was also a biographer of the artists of his day. At the age of 13 Michelangelo was apprenticed to the workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio (whom we discussed in an earlier module), where he learned the techniques of painting, particularly fresco but also tempera and oil painting. By the age of 16 Michelangelo was part of the Humanist group that met at the Medici Palace in Florence and it was there and in that ambient that Michelangelo was introduced to, and learned to appreciate, ancient classical art. Michelangelo also began sculpting at this time. After a set of smaller works carved in Florence, his first great work of sculpture, the Vatican Pieta, came at the age of 23 and established his reputation on an Italian and international scale. He would go on to create the David in 1501-4 in Florence before being called to work for Pope Julius II in Rome, first on the pope’s planned tomb and then in the Sistine Chapel. In the Sistine Chapel he would create two works, the ceiling from 1508-12 and the Last Judgement (for a later pope) between 1534-41. Michelangelo lived long beyond the High Renaissance, until 1564 (age 89), and he continued to modify his style throughout his life (you can read a bit about how his style changed in the article on Michelangelo’s Pietas assigned for this Module). At the end of his life he was known as “The Divine Michelangelo” because his reputation and status were so high. Not many other artists achieved this same high status, but in the High Renaissance the status of all artists improved immensely as their talents were recognized to be something special and beyond merely craftsmanship. Raphael was another artist who achieved considerable fame during this time. In fact, he is often talked about as the perfect High Renaissance artist because his art was beautiful, filled with idealized figures and landscape/architecture painted in clear, strong, balanced colors. Raphael grew up outside of Florence in the Humanist court of Urbino. At an early age he apprenticed with the leading painter of Urbino, Perugino. Both artists travelled to Florence and it was there that Raphael began to establish a reputation for creating beautiful images of the Virgin and Christ Child, like theMadonna of the Goldfinch you will hear about in the assigned videos. At the age of 26 Raphael was called to Rome to work for Pope Julius II and other important members of the Church hierarchy. One of the most important, and quintessentially High Renaissance, images that he produced during this time was the so-called School of Athensthat he created for the private library of Julius II in the Vatican. This fresco, and the space that it is in, is an excellent example of both the Humanist tradition (a synthesis of ancient and Christian thought) and the High Renaissance style (balance, clarity of space, use of perspective, harmony of all elements, idealized humanity). Raphael’s Galatea, also created at this time for Cardinal Farnese in his private residence, is a Humanist celebration of ancient mythology presented in the balanced, harmonious style for which Raphael became famous. When Raphael died suddenly at the age of 37 in 1520, the High Renaissance style and sense of idealism seemed to die with him. After this point, things changd, both socially and artistically, in significant ways. We will discuss these in Module 6.Another important tradition in High Renaissance art is that represented by Venice and the Venetian painters Giorgione and Titian. Venice, an island republic located at the very northern part of the Adriatic Sea, had long been a major sea-faring power and trading center with financial, political, and military interests and influence across the entirety of the known world. As in the case of late medieval and Early Renaissance Florence and High Renaissance Rome, money and wealthy patronage for art were in abundance in Venice, particularly among the major families of the city that ruled the Venetian Republic (often called “La Serenissima”) much as the powerful merchants and bankers ruled Florence and the Pope and the Cardinals controlled Rome. Two very important Venetian artists were Giorgione and Titian. Both of them perfected styles of art that were richly imbued with the subtle colors and tones of the Venetian environment that straddled quite literally the land (the Venetian mainland) and the sea (the Venetian lagoon). If monumentality and firmness of composition and drawing characterize High Renaissance art in Florence and Rome, it is a more a poetic and chromatic approach to nature and its translation into art that characterizes the art produced by Giorgione and his pupil Titian. Above all, Giorgione and Titian raise to a very high level painting with oil paints that allowed them to build up layer upon layer of coloristic nuances on the surfaces of their paintings.
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