Italian Renaissance painting

• 1. Giotto's Naturalism

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  In the year 1305, a painter named Giotto stood before the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua and began to paint figures that breathed. These were not the flat, golden icons of the Italo-Byzantine tradition that had dominated Tuscan art for centuries. His Madonna and Child possessed weight and volume, standing squarely on the ground with discernible anatomy. The faces of his disciples showed joy, rage, despair, shame, spite, and love. This emotional depth set a new standard for narrative pictures. Before Giotto, the angle of a Virgin's head or the folds of her veil were repeated in countless paintings without variation. He broke this rigid pattern by basing his work on observation of life rather than ancient tradition. His contemporaries like Taddeo Gaddi followed him into naturalism but none achieved his success. A night scene painted by Gaddi in the Baroncelli Chapel demonstrated how light could create drama.

• 2. Masaccio's Perspective

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  The year 1425 marked the start of true Early Renaissance frescos when two artists named Masaccio and Masolino began painting the Life of St Peter in the Brancacci Chapel. Masaccio recognized the implications in the work of Giotto and carried forward the practice of painting from nature. His fresco Tribute Money used a single vanishing point to convey three-dimensional quality through strong contrast between light and dark. Figures of Adam and Eve expelled from Eden realistically depicted human form and emotion. These figures contrasted sharply with the gentle and pretty forms painted by Masolino on the opposite side of the chapel. Masaccio died at age twenty-six in 1428 leaving the work incomplete. The Tribute Money was finished by Masolino while the rest of the chapel was completed by Filippino Lippi in the 1480s. Paolo Uccello later became obsessed with perspective, experimenting with it in many paintings including the Battle of San Romano series completed by the 1450s. Piero della Francesca demonstrated mastery over linear perspective and science of light in works like The Flagellation of Christ during the 1450s.

• 3. Leonardo's Sfumato

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  Leonardo da Vinci spent his formative years training in the Florence workshop of Verrocchio before moving to Milan where he worked from 1482 to 1499. He studied flowers, river eddies, rocks, mountains, and how light reflected from foliage or sparkled in jewels. He dissected thirty or more unclaimed cadavers from a hospital to understand muscles and sinews. His Last Supper painted from 1495 to 1498 in the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie became the benchmark for religious narrative painting for the next half millennium. Leonardo achieved realism in human expression prefigured by Giotto but unknown since Masaccio's Adam and Eve. In paintings such as the Mona Lisa and Virgin of the Rocks he used light and shade with subtlety known as sfumato or smoke. He defined transitions between figures by color modulation instead of actual lines. This invited viewers into a mysterious world of shifting shadows and chaotic mountains. His studies of light anatomy landscape and human expression were disseminated through his retinue of students.

• 4. Michelangelo's Ceiling

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  In 1508 Pope Julius II succeeded in getting Michelangelo to agree to continue the decorative scheme of the Sistine Chapel. The ceiling was constructed with twelve sloping pendentives supporting the vault that formed ideal surfaces on which to paint the Twelve Apostles. Michelangelo devised an entirely different scheme far more complex both in design and iconography. The scale of the work took nearly five years to complete single-handedly except for manual assistance. The theme of the ceiling was not God's grand plan for humanity's salvation but about humanity's disgrace. It explained why humanity and faith needed Jesus. Figures were of superhuman dimension and beauty so great that biographer Vasari claimed it looked as if God himself had designed them. Despite individual beauty, Michelangelo did not glorify the human state nor present the Humanist ideal of platonic love. Ancestors of Christ painted around the upper section demonstrated all worst aspects of family relationships displaying dysfunction in many forms. Raphael later painted at least two figures imitating Michelangelo's prophets after seeing them during a preview given by Bramante.

• 5. Raphael's Synthesis

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  Raphael born in 1483 died at age thirty-seven just one year after Leonardo da Vinci. His name is synonymous with the High Renaissance though he was younger than Michelangelo by eighteen years and Leonardo by almost thirty. He worked in the Umbrian workshop of Perugino before moving to Florence in 1504 and Rome in 1508. In his works individual qualities of numerous painters became unified. Rounded forms and luminous colors from Perugino combined with lifelike portraiture of Ghirlandaio realism and lighting of Leonardo and powerful draughtsmanship of Michelangelo. The School of Athens fresco completed between 1509 and 1511 depicted a meeting of ancient Athenians gathered in grand classical setting around Plato modeled upon Leonardo. Heraclitus sitting by a large block of stone was a portrait of Michelangelo referencing his painting of Prophet Jeremiah in the Sistine Chapel. A self-portrait appeared to the right beside teacher Perugino. His main popularity came not from major works but small Florentine pictures of Madonna and Christ Child featuring plump calm-faced blonde women and chubby babies. The Sistine Madonna used as design for countless stained glass windows now provides iconic image of two small cherubs reproduced on everything from paper table napkins to umbrellas.

• 6. Venetian Color

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  Giovanni Bellini born within a year of brother Gentile lived a decade longer than first two and almost three decades longer than Antonello da Messina. He painted right up until death illustrating several influences including Mantegna's incisive lines early on. After Antonello's stay in Venice from 1475 to 1476 his works adopted Flemish-like realism and luminous colors showing high success at adopting oil painting techniques. He became only great fifteenth-century painter to cross threshold from Early Renaissance to High Renaissance style with works like Portrait of Doge Leonardo Loredan completed in 1501. Giorgione often credited as founder of Venetian High Renaissance style died in 1510 at about thirty-five years old. Despite brevity of career he increased use of gradations of color and light known as color modulation to define shapes of figures and landscapes creating atmosphere wherein all components unified. In The Tempest color modulation almost entirely replaced line creating artistic vision where humankind and nature combined. Titian trained in workshop of Giovanni Bellini alongside Giorgione then assisted Giorgione before becoming monarch of Venetian School for over sixty years following Giorgione's death. He applied colors paste-like in patches alongside each other with loose sweeping brush strokes bringing out light and color equally.