Renaissance art is the apogee in Italian paintings that
stimulates, attracts, coaxes and cajoles the senses beyond your
imagination. It will always be a raison d' etre of your trip to
artistic delights in destination Italy. A coruscating efflorescence
of style, technique and vision, Renaissance paintings borrowed
heavily from the onrushing spirit of scientific enquiry during the
times. The resultant cross fertilization gave birth to such
inimitable elements as photographic realism, the illusion of
distance and perspective. Yet, Renaissance art is only the doorway
to destination Italy's artistic delights-and missing the rest would
be ill-advised.
CLASSICAL: GREEKS, ETRUSCANS & ROMANS
(5TH CENTURY B.C. TO A.D. 5TH CENTURY)
If the source of inspiration for Renaissance was classical, visit
the Hellenic fount at in Sicily and Southern Italy. The exquisite
outpourings were the handiwork of Greek settlers here. Discover the
classical conception of art as perfection of proportion, balance,
harmony, and form in the Greek murals are in Paestum's museum. The
later Etruscan flavors superimposed on the Greek sensibilities are
easily discernible in the best Etruscan art displayed in the Tuscan
towns as well as the tomb paintings seen in Tarqunia in Lazio and
Chiusi in Tuscany.BYZANTINE & ROMANESQUE
(5TH TO 13TH CENTURIES)
The rise of the eastern Roman capital in Byzantine led to an
effusion of religious themes. Its influence gradually percolated
till it determined the stylization of the Italian art. Much of the
symbolization - often at variance with reality -can be seen in the
illustrations of biblical scenes as well as myths and pagan
traditions in Ravenna -especially at San Vitale and both
Sant'Appollinare in Classe and Sant'Appollinare Nuovo, domes in
Basilica di San Marco in Venice and Chiostro del Duomo di Monreale
in Sicily; Il Duomo, Pisa; Bonano Pisano's bronze Door of St.
Ranieri, the 48 relief panels of the bronze doors in Basilica San
Zeno Maggiore, Verona .It is however the Byzantine mosaics that has
provided the most beautiful legacy of the period ,fusing the
Moorish subtleties with the western vitality to etch magic in
countless monuments and churches across Italy.INTERNATIONAL GOTHIC (LATE 13TH TO EARLY 15TH
CENTURIES)
Gothic paintings acquired more realism and naturalism but the
features and gestures were exaggerated for symbolic or emotional
emphasis. They had to .After all, paintings in this era adorned the
churches and were religious "advertisements" to pull in the masses
into the world of the Lord. The finely structured, sky piercing
Gothic structures could ill afford to have painted stories that
nobody understood. Giotto fathered the Gothic art , who introduced
the defining characteristics of realism like depth and emotion that
later gained more prominence. You can distinguish the incipient
elements of the Renaissance in such Gothic masterpieces as:
Pisano Pulpits in Pisa's Baptistry and Duomo, and in
Siena's Duomo; Ambrogio Lorenzetti's Allegory of Good
and Bad Government; Giotto fresco cycles in Assisi's Basilica di
San Francesco, Chapel of the Scrovegni, and Florence's Basilica di
Santa CroceRenaissance & Mannerism (Early
15th to Mid-17th Centuries)
Renaissance art, of course, overwhelmed all. Riding on the back of
heightened consciousness of the scientific nature, it was
engendered by countless painters, sculptors, and architects who
worked out the seeds of the inspiration and broke new grounds in
realism and naturalism. However due to the limitations of space
only works by the giants can be mentioned -though every opportunity
to visit any piece of Renaissance art is worth while.Botticelli One of the early innovators her
injected a badly needed realism-including linear perspective - into
the painting. Experience his courtly, graceful languid style in his
masterpieces like The Birth of Venus and Allegory of Spring
(Florence's Uffizi.)Leonardo da VinciThe
many sided genius experimented so frequently with his colours -not
to mention- techniques- that little of his remarkable painting
survives. But he definitely pioneered such effects as the
fine haze of sfumato that lends a diffused perspective to the
character. Its incredible glory of this effect can be experienced
first hand in the fresco of The Last Supper (1495-97) and his
earlier Annunciation (1481) in Florence's Uffizi.RaphaelThe consummate craftsman produced an
impeccable oeuvre that inspired every painter that came later.
While his Madonnas and papal portraits in Florence's Uffizi
,Palazzo Pitti and in Rome's National Gallery of Ancient Art amaze
you with detailing , the ethereal Transfiguration (1520), is in the
Vatican Museums is uplifting.Michelangelo
Perhaps the world's greatest artist, he enjoyed a love hate
relation ship with the pope .He worshipped the androgynous form and
his depiction of the male body showed every strained sinew , every
bone in an emaciated body and every line of expression in a face
full of emotion. Get swept of your feet by Mannerism in his magnum
opus - the Sistine Chapel frescoes. The powerful Moses on the tomb
of Julius II, as well as his works for Medici family tombs in
Florence's Medici Chapels, incorporating Dawn, Dusk, Day, and Night
(1531-33) are breathtaking .And you haven't even begun to glimpse
his sculptural masterpieces!BAROQUE &
ROCOCO (LATE 16TH TO 18TH CENTURIES)
In Baroque, the opulent is extravagantly grandiose and rises to an
ecstasy of decorative expressions. It's an impossible effusion of
exaggerated light and dark tones called chiaroscuro. Dynamic fury,
movement, color, and figures move together in an implosion of forms
that alas lacks the integrality of a soul. The rococo is even more
over the top. Caravaggio was its supreme exponent and
his St. Matthew cycle in Rome's San Luigi dei
Francesi, a series of paintings in Rome's Galleria Borghese, the
Deposition (1604) in the Vatican Museums will remain etched in your
mind's eye , long after you return from destination Italy.
Italy had very few artists of international repute after
these.
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