Renaissance Art Research Paper

At the surface level, Modern and Renaissance art seem to be two unrelated eras separated by centuries and countless stylistic differences. However, through the study of art history, the relationships between art pieces from two different periods is revealed. The similarities and differences of art from the Renaissance and Modern movements show how historic artists inspire the next generations and emerging artists draw on them for aspects they choose to incorporate or avoid in their own work.
Pablo Picasso and Raphael are two artists from these two distant eras. Each has a unique style that is famous in its own right. Both have inspired countless artists and continue to affect the creation of art today. Both artists were fascinated by the human form and focused a majority of their works on the human body and faces, despite having decidedly different ways of approaching their representation of these subjects. Picasso’s artwork went
through many stages of stylistic themes. His most famous works come from his cubism period and African Art period. He did not have a realistic representative style and used rudimentary shapes to form figures. Raphael, however, was nearly polar opposite. He dedicated much of his time to developing a near-perfect human figure that he employed in most of his work. Raphael’s work was as realistic as possible, with special attention to the people in them. In many ways they were very different artists. However, both often preferred warm colors in their painting. The color palette of an artwork is often overlooked but is very important to creating the atmosphere the artist desires to create. Picasso and Raphael’s works are linked by the warm colors they both used so often. This makes the two artists’ works feel similar even when the shapes and figures are so different.
Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon is an example of his African Art period. The influences of African art are clear in the colors of the work. The dominantly warm colored painting echoes the works of African artists who used the color of the subjects skin as the predominate color palette of a piece. However, the obvious difference between African and European skin color slightly separates this piece from the African art that inspired it. The faces of the women is also distinctly inspired by African art. The exaggerated and disproportionate facial features show a signature component of African art. The large eyes and noses especially mirror the art that inspired this period of Picasso’s art. In the time before painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, Picasso had been collecting African art as inspiration. He drew from Iberian sculptures to create the faces of three of the women but used an African totem pole as inspiration for the other two to allow a sense of diversity in the painting. The remainder of Picasso’s African period often featured figures similar to the two women on the right side side of Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. This painting was immensely important as the foundation of Picasso’s African Art period and as the standard off which he would base the human form during his African Art period.
Raphael’s philosophy on the human figure was contradictory to Picasso’s.
He spent years developing a perfected formula to replicate the human form in a markedly realistic manner. The School of Athens displays Raphael’s true abilities as an artist of the human form. The scene is quite crowded, yet every character looks extremely realistic. Contrary to Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, The School of Athens had specific attention to making each figure as realistic as possible. Raphael was heavily influenced by Leonardo da Vinci, who appears in The School of Athens, as well as Michelangelo. Both were classically styled artists who also had extremely realistic human form in their works. Leonardo da Vinci’s influence is clear in the faces of the characters. Each is a conscientious balance of expression and realism. Raphael utilizes the golden ratio to position each person in the scene precisely and carefully to keep the painting from feeling overcrowded and draw the viewer’s attention to Plato and Aristotle in the middle of the
painting.
The elegance and classically perfected work of Raphael’s School of Athens contrasts with the basic, shape-based form of Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. This shows the clear difference between the two artists’ chosen expression of the human form. However, the similarities between the two can be seen in the colors chosen and the similar subject matter shared between the two in a majority of their paintings. When examining art from two different eras closer, the similarities emerge while, simultaneously, the differences are interpreted in the context of the artists’ style and influences.