Renaissance Art
The influence of humanism during its first two hundred years
transformed much of Europe’s intellectual and creative activity.
New inspirations were found, in fields as different as political
theory and epic poetry, among the writers of Greece and Rome.
Military strategy was rethought; universities changed their
curricula. But the most spectacular impact was on the visual arts,
whose radiance and originality have come to represent the era as
a whole. The very appreciation of genius was a by-product of
humanist thought and helped transform the artist into one of the
most honored and admired figures in society.
Theodore K. Rabb, Renaissance Lives
Categories of Renaissance Art
Architecture
Painting
Sculpture
Filippo Brunelleschi, dome of Florence Cathedral (1420-36)
Leon Battista Alberti, San Francesco, Rimini (begun 1451)
Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, courtyard of the Palazzo Farnese.
Third story and attic by Michelangelo (1548).
Michelangelo, St. Peter’s Basilica, 1546-1564. Dome completed by
Giacomo Della Porta in 1590.
Fra Angelico, Annunciation, (1440-1445), Florence.
Sandro Botticelli, Birth of Venus, (1482). Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.
Sandro Botticelli,
Portrait of a Young
Man, (1489-90).
National Gallery of
Art, Washington,
D.C.
Leonardo da Vinci,
Mona Lisa (1503-05).
Louvre, Paris.
Raphael, Marriage
of the Virgin, 1504.
Pinacoteca di Brera,
Milan.
Raphael, Philosophy (School of Athens), 1509-11. Stanza della
Segnatura, Vatican Palace, Rome.
Michelangelo, ceiling of the
Sistine Chapel, 1508-12
Hubert and Jan van Eyck, The Ghent Altarpiece (1432). Cathedral of
St. Bavo, Ghent, Belgium.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Peasant Dance, 1567. Kunsthistorisches
Museum, Vienna
Donatello, David (1428-32).
Bronze. Museo Nazionale
del Bargello, Florence.
Donatello, Mary Magdalene
(1454-55). Wood. Baptistery,
Florence.
Antonio Pollaiuolo,
Hercules and
Antaeus, 1475.
Bronze. Museo
Nazionale del
Bargello, Florence.
Michelangelo, Pieta, 1498-1500.
St. Peter’s, Vatican, Rome.
Michelangelo, David, 1501-04.
Galleria dell’Accademia,
Florence.