The History of the Italian Renaissance: Part 2
The Effect of The Philosophy of Humanism on Italian Renaissance Art
The Philosophy of Humanism puts less importance on religious and secular dogma instead stressing the importance of the dignity and worth of the individual and their virtuous action. This was evidenced by the growing idea that man, not fate or God, controlled human destiny. Nicely stated by the leading art theorist of the Renaissance, Leon Battista Alberti, “happiness cannot be gained without good works and just and righteous deeds”. This was a key reason for pictures with uplifting messages, history paintings, became regarded as the highest form of painting.
The causes of the Renaissance I mentioned in part 1, such as the “changing tastes and increasingly liberal attitude of patrons…” were brought on by the growth of this philosophy.
Florence, being the center of classical learning and philosophic study it was, attracted many scholars to come to devote themselves to studying and translating classical Latin and Greek texts. Who then became tutors for wealthy and noble households, that in turn came to share their literary enthusiasm. Which in turn created a desire for works of art featuring ancient history and legend. In order to enable painters to represent the desires of their patron’s new avenues of expression had to be explored.
The convergence of The Philosophy of Humanism and an emerging desire for works of art featuring ancient history and legend in and around Italy lead inexorably to a fundamental change in the art of the time.
The Fundamental Changes of Italian Renaissance Art
This fundamental change gave rise to the use of the individual figure over the stereotyped or symbolic figures commonly used in iconography. The use of greater realism and attention to detail reflected in the development of new painting techniques such as foreshortening, and the increased realism of human faces and bodies. Painters relearned anatomy, long excluded from fine art painting and medieval sculpture by religious principles, to understand the relation of bone and muscle and the dynamics of movement in order to portray the gods, goddesses, and heroes of classical myth.
The picture now treated as a three-dimensional space instead of simply a flat plane, required exploration and use of techniques including linear perspective, foreshortening, quadrature, and sfumato. The classical sculpture was an incentive to combine naturalism with an idea of perfect proportion and physical beauty. This new approach helps explain why the classical sculpture was revered, and Byzantine art became unfavorable.
What is Linear Perspective?
Linear perspective is, 3
“a system of creating an illusion of depth on a flat surface. All parallel lines (orthogonal) in a painting or drawing using this system converge in a single vanishing point on the composition’s horizon line…”
“The three components essential to the linear perspective system are orthogonal (parallel lines), the horizon line, and a vanishing point. So as to appear farther from the viewer, objects in the compositions are rendered increasingly smaller as they near the vanishing point…”
Today people know it as one, two, and three-point perspective, which is used in pretty much all artwork nowadays.
Conclusion
So as not to make this article too long I will discuss foreshortening, quadrature, and sfumato next week