July 18, 1610: Porto Ercole, Italy. The ports and city on the northeastern shore of the Tuscan city remained under Spanish jurisdiction. Two days prior, a man whom resembled a Spanish outlaw, was arrested and imprisoned upon arrival in the port. Authorities were unable to identify the man's true identity because his real identity was also that of a convicted outlaw, Michelangelo Merisi. Some time before he was released from the jail, Merisi contracted malaria and it would claim his life on this day. Merisi, known throughout Europe as simply "Caravaggio" (after the city he was from), was not just a murderer on the run; Caravaggio was a famous artist, made infamously popular by his paintings of graphic and sometimes violent biblical scenes.…
The High Renaissance, which began in the cinquecento in Italy and later spread through the rest of Europe, was a period around the 1500s, the starting date of the renaissance itself. High Renaissance artists where frequently talented in numerous fields, Leonardo Da Vinci was an expert of many sciences, Michelangelo Buonarroti was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, poet, and engineer of the High Renaissance who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art and lastly, Raffaello Sanzio, an architect and painter of that time. However, even though these three are widely known, Da Vinci himself is the greatest portraitists of all time. There are a few paintings that make up for his fame; the portrait of Ginevra de Benci,…
The Renaissance began in Italy in the fourteenth century and extended in England past the middle of the seventeenth century. Renaissance means “rebirth” and it applied to this time period because it was a period where there was a rebirth of Greek and Latin ideas. Florence was the focal point of intellectual trends and artistic accomplishments and also the home to Leonardo Da Vinci. Da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452. His father, Ser Piero, took custody of him very shortly after he was born because his mother, Caterina Da Vinci remarried and moved to another town. He came from a small Tuscan town near Florence and lived there until the 1480’s when he left for Milan. From the time he left for Milan he moved from place to…
Piazzale Michelangelo- The Piazzale Michelangelo is one of the most popular sites in the city.…
The Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore has managed to raise several questions and curiosity amongst scholars. In the early 14th century a feud between Florence and other emerging cities began, each trying to beat the other with building bigger cathedrals. Florentines didn’t like the look of gothic cathedrals, for inspiration for their dome, they looked at ancient Rome’s famous building that payed tribute to all of the gods, the Pantheon. A mural, years…
From my perspective, but limited familiarity with works of art in general, the Raphael painting is significant in that it is considered a prime example of High Renaissance art and considered Raphael’s masterpiece. I believe it is also significant because as a component of the School of Athens (1509-1511) the painting over a period of 500 years continues to influence discussion and analysis among art historians and scholars.…
There were many great Renaissance artists such as Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, Donatello, and many others but the greatest of these is Michelangelo. He was great at painting, sculpting, architecture, and poetry. He also had famous sculptures and paintings.…
It is remarkable that The Pantheon even today, nearly two thousand years after it was constructed, is as stable as when it was first built. It is almost beyond understanding that the Romans could build this structure without the benefit of modern machines or tools. Nor did the Pantheon engineers have the advantage of modern transportation methods. All the materials were floated down the Tiber and moved to the site by man and animal on carts of the period.…
Michelangelo had several successes in his life of painting, architecture, and sculpting. He was a leading figure of baroque and renaissance art. His first large-scale sculpture was Bacchus. Around the same year of 1498, Michelangelo did the marble Pieta, which is the only work he ever signed. In 1536, Michelangelo started the Last Judgment for the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel.…
Francesco Borromini was a stone mason by trade and started off as a stone mason in his early career. Under directions of his father, he was sent to Milan for perfecting his skills in stone cutting when he was introduced to the craft of architecture before moving to Rome in the early 1600’s and started work for his distant relative and architect, Carlo Maderno. Only after Maderno’s death did Borromini became acquainted with the great Gian Bernini. Bernini became Borromini’s great friend and colleague as they worked on projects such Maderno’s Palazzo Barberini and the Baldachin in Saint Peter’s Cathedral. Bernini was impressed with Borromini’s novel formulation of architectural detail, something he has greatly perfected as a stonemason.…
7. Disegno – provides the measure of progress in the arts from their rebirth with Giotto to the overwhelming teleological achievement of Michelangelo…
Michelangelo’s version of the Pieta is very different from the other versions from his time. He not only used Northern ideals that hadn’t reached Italy yet, but Michelangelo carved his Pieta with less pain and more serenity. A piece of marble was chosen and turned into a masterpiece by Michelangelo that many people see as a significant piece of work for his era. Both Mary and Jesus are very realistic and detailed, giving the Pieta a truly humanistic look at classical beauty.…
There was need for a new life in the cities of Europe because most were in the grotesquely style of Gothic architecture. It had “lacked proportion, order, and beauty”(Payne). Whereas the newly acquired architectural ideas and designs had high arches, long, strong pillars, domes, large doors (because they were churches and cathedrals), but most of all symmetry. Michelangelo had taken over a project that had been meant to be constructed for decades, designing Saint Peter's Basilica. He added some of his own ideas, “preserved much of what Bramante had planned but improved upon the design” buttresses with double columns and ribs.…
Michelangelo’s process of sculpting was very unique compared to the other artists of the Renaissance era. Some say that his greatest accomplishment was his statue of David which soars an astonishing 17 ft. Michelangelo took on this 4 year project, 1500-1504, at the age of 26. In the Renaissance time period, it was common for sculptors to make their works from many pieces such as carving the body from one piece of stone then the arms, legs and head from smaller ones. This was largely due to the veins that run through rocks. If a vein was carved into, there was a good possibility the statue would crack, rendering it useless. It was much easier to determine faults in smaller stones than bigger ones, hence the use of smaller stones to make larger…
The great masters of the Renaissance — da Vinci, Michelangelo, et al. — if asked by the House of Medici, the Holy Father or any other influential patron of the visual arts to put a “rush job” on their masterpieces, would’ve probably dropped their palettes, chisels and other tools of the trade and wryly replied, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”…