Art 6 Lecture 7

The Renaissance Ideal
	At the age of sixteen, Isabella d'Este was able to speak Greek and Latin as well as play the lute, sing, dance and debate. She was very well-educated and her political talent benefited Mantua while she was ruling. When her husband left, Isabella governed the city on her own, and after he died she took over his job. She showed great leadership skills in 1509 when she became Chief of State in Mantua. At this time she also founded a school for young women where they had to observe a strict code of morals. She was a significant patron of the arts and wrote over two thousand letters during her lifetime in which she commented on everything from politics to war. That was the closest that any woman at that time ever got to writing history. http://www.yesnet.yk.ca/schools/projects/renaissance/renaissancewomen.html
Titian. Isabella d'Este. 1536. http://www.rfi.fr/actues/images/081/arte_italia_tiziano_ isabelle_deste_230_20060913.jpg

Medieval Embroidery

Medieval embroidery demonstration
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8484734@N04/1334215439/

Opus Anglicanum = embroidered works made in English workshops during the 11th century

By 1250, these professional women embroiderers in England were highly respected

Popes regularly ordered liturgical garments from their shops which were considered as valuable as jewelry

In 1271 Henry III paid £220 for a bejeweled altar frontal equal to about £100,000 today

the labor of the four women who made it cost £36

it took them three years to create it

The Syon Cope. c. 1300.
http://www.vam.ac.uk/images/image/53930-popup.html

The Battle of Hastings. Detail of the Bayeux Tapestry. c. 1086.
Janson, H.W. and Anthony F. Janson. History of Art. Sixth edition. University of North Carolina, Wilmington: Prentice Hall, Inc., 2001.

Banquet Scene. Detail of the Bayeux Tapestry. c. 1086.
http://www.corbisimages.com/stock-photo/rights-managed/IH164033/detail-of-banquet-scene-from-the-bayeux

Aelfyva and the Cleric

Aelfgyva and the Cleric. Detail from the Bayeux Tapestry. c. 1086.
http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/zzdeco/2tapestr/2bayeux/02bayeux.html

More Bayeux Tapestry

Bayeux Tapestry

Making the Bayeux Tapestry
http://www.essentialnormanconquest.com/images/story/making_bayeux_tapestry.jpg

Historical Context
1445	Guttenberg begins selling one of the first books published with movable type in the West (movable type invented in China about 400 years earlier)	Gutenberg Bible
1470	Portuguese explorers reach Africa's Gold Coast
1484	Pope Innocent VII succeeds to papacy and outlaws witchcraft
1492	Columbus discovers West Indies and South America
1511	First road map of Europe published
1517	Beginning of Protestant Reformation
1522	First circumnavigation of the earth
1527	Sack of Rome

Leonardo da Vinci. Vitruvian Man. c. 1487.	Significant developments in the western world view become influential by the 1400s:
	Increased exploration of the world
	Scientific investigation of nature and the human body
	Medieval religious zeal becomes more tempered
	Development of the city-state and nations
	Growth of capitalism and trade
	Guilds become more powerful and women's participation in them less common
	The artist's social standing is eventually elevated from skilled laborer to gifted intellectual

Lucas Cranach. Martin Luther. 1532. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Martin-Luther-1532.jpg	The Protestant Reformation
	1517 Luther post the "95 Theses"
	He demands that the Catholic Church make 95 Reforms

	Strove to rid the Church of pagan practices and rituals
	Promoted importance of individual faith
	Thought devotion to the saints was distracting
	Especially critical of the sale of indulgences

15th century intellectuals were aware of the great changes of their age and became the first people to name their own time	Lavinia Fontana . Self-Portrait. 1579. http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8jbLh9YEAEI/SHMqGNqXkPI/AAAAAAAADCQ/ bitAor6z7Mk/s320/000%2BLavinia%2BFontana%2B-%2BAutorretrato.jpg
Renascita = the rebirth

Inspired by newly discovered ancient ruins, artworks and texts, Renaissance intellectuals declared the Classic world the height of western civilization thus far
But, they always made clear that their civilization would be better...

Humanism = a cultural and intellectual movement during the Renaissance, following the rediscovery of the art and literature of ancient Greece and Rome. A philosophy or attitude concerned with the interests, achievements and capabilities of human beings rather than with the abstract concepts and problems of theology.

Medieval Pieta	Renaissance Pieta
Roettgen Pieta. Early 14th century. Janson, H.W. and Anthony F. Janson. History of Art. Sixth edition. University of North Carolina, Wilmington: Prentice Hall, Inc., 2001.	Michelangelo. Pietà. c. 1500. Richard G. Tansey & Fred S. Kleiner. Gardner's Art Through the Ages. Tenth ed. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1996.

Characteristics of Renaissance art	Jan van Eyck. Adam and Eve (details of the Ghent Altarpiece). 1432. Janson, H.W. and Anthony F. Janson. History of Art. Sixth edition. University of North Carolina, Wilmington: Prentice Hall, Inc., 2001.
Reflects admiration of classic art
Sense of stability and order
Emphasis on logic and reason
Idealized form
Adam & Eve Reproached by the Lord from the Doors of Bishop Bernward. 1015. Janson, H.W. and Anthony F. Janson. History of Art. Sixth edition. University of North Carolina, Wilmington: Prentice Hall, Inc., 2001.