Transcript Chapter 11, Lesson 2 New Ideas and Art

Chapter 11, Lesson 2
New Ideas and Art
It Matters Because:
Renaissance artists, scientists, and scholars helped
shape the way we see our world.
Renaissance Humanism
• New way of thinking about the world developed, humanism
• Humanism – belief in worth of individual & that reason is path to
knowledge
• Wanted to gain knowledge through reason, not just faith
• Based on Greek & Roman ideas
• Western European brought knowledge of Greek & Roman classics
back from Middle East after Crusades
• Petrarch, considered the father of Renaissance humanism, studied
Roman writers
• Italians began to restore damaged ruins of Roman statues, columns,
etc.
Renaissance Literature
• Educated Renaissance authors used classical Latin language
• Authors also used vernacular languages
• Dante Alighieri, Florentine poet, wrote The Divine Comedy, describes
Dante’s imagined journey through Heaven and Hell
• Written as political revenge; Dante placed his enemies in Hell to be
punished
• Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales in English
• Stories about people making a religious journey
• Includes people from all classes of society
• Modern English comes from vernacular form used by Chaucer
Gutenberg’s Printing Press
• 1450s, Johannes Gutenberg invented movable type
• Carved letters could be set, used, reset, and reused
• Much quicker, cheaper than hand-writing
• Printing press made books available to many Europeans who were
learning to read
• Scholars could read each others’ work and ideas spread quickly
• Gutenberg’s Bible printed in 1455
• More books printed in next 50 years than in all of history to that
point
Renaissance Art
• Renaissance art was very different from medieval art
• Tried to portray people through realism
• Tried to reveal emotion of the subject
• Florentine painter Gioto was first to use gesture and facial expression to
show emotion
• Most important technique was perspective
• Perspective – showing people and objects as they appear at different
distances
• Perfected by da Vinci
• Gave paintings 3-dimensional look
• Artists like da Vinci studied human anatomy to represent it accurately
Leading Artists
• 1490-1520 considered golden age of Italian painting
• Leonardo da Vinci is considered the greatest mind of the
Renaissance
• Pioneered artistic techniques and made many discoveries in
science and engineering
• Michelangelo began as a sculptor in Florence
• Hired by Pope to work at the Vatican
• Painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel with scenes from the
Bible
Michelangelo’s
La Pietà
• Carved from marble,
shows Mary cradling the
crucified body of Jesus
• Revered for its intimate
depiction of Mary and
Jesus
• Blends Renaissance
ideal of natural beauty
with naturalism
• “Pietà” means
“compassion” or
“mercy”
Leading Artists
• Raphael also worked for the Vatican
• Painted frescoes (murals) in the Pope’s palace
• Known for his painting School of Athens
• In School of Athens, the philosophers Plato and Aristotle are
shown in the center
• Raphael used Leonardo as the model for Plato because of his
great respect for da Vinci
• Also known for his many paintings of Mary with the infant Jesus
The Northern Renaissance
• In late 1400s, Renaissance spread from Italy into Northern Europe
• Artists in Northern Europe began painting with oils, rather than water-based paints
• Provided richer color and greater detail
• Jan van Eyck (from Fleming) was a skilled oil painter
• The Arnolfini Portrait shows a couple in a formal setting
• Praised for its great detail
• Albrecht Dürer (Germany) blended Renaissance techniques with German
traditions
• Known for his engravings
• Carved on metal or wood and transferred to paper with ink
• Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is a famous woodcarving
England’s Theaters
• Renaissance in England reached its peak during reign of
Elizabeth I, late 1500s
• About 1580, first theatres built in England
• Open air theatres attended by all classes of people
• William Shakespeare was greatest English playwright
• Wrote comedies, tragedies, histories
• Known for Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, etc.