1. E.Renaissance Painting in
Florence
Massaccio (Big Tom) established a new
direction in Florentine painting (Giotto) by
integrating monumental and consistently
scaled figures into rational architectural
and natural settings using linear
perspective.

2. MASSACCIO. TRINITY WITH THE
VIRGIN, SAINT JOHN THE
EVANGELIST AND
DONORS, fresco, 1425- 27/28
Sta. Maria Novella, Florence
• Renaissance
interests:
• Realism based on
observation
• Application of
mathematics to
pictorial organization
of perspective
• Where is the
vanishing point?

3. • Holy Trinity provides a vivid example of a
pyramid or triangular composition. Rather
than placing his figures along a horizontal
line, Masaccio linked them in a series of
interlocking pyramids.
• First used by Masaccio, the pyramid
configuration became one of the hallmarks
of Renaissance art.

5. Masaccio’s Trinity and van Eyck’s Ghent altarpiece are
contemporary.
Compare and contrast the two works.

6. INTERIOR OF THE BRANCACCI CHAPEL. Sta. Maria del Carmine, Florence

7. TRIBUTE MONEY, fresco
Masaccio’s figures represent a revolutionary step in Western art—solid three-
dimensional figures, all standing in balanced contrapposto. A constant light
source creates a realistic blend of light and shade. This chiaroscuro give each
figure the illusion of volume.

10. MASACCIO.
THE EXPULSION FROM
PARADISE, fresco
Masaccio based his Eve on
this ancient statue of the
Modest Venus

11. In the 1440's, a Dominican Friar, Fra Angelico painted the interior of the
Monastery San Marco in Florence with frescoes. He decorated each of his
fellow monks' cells with a holy image for their contemplation (the
Dominicans were committed to work and prayer). At the top of the stairs
leading to their quarters he painted this large-scale Annunciation.

12. The works of Fran Angelico reveal elements of both Gothic and Renaissance.
Lacks symbolic objects…no book
Figures are painted shallowly, harking back to pre-Renaissance
The whole scene is a masterpiece of quiet understatement.

13. ANDREA DEL CASTANGO. LAST SUPPER, fresco, 1447
Trompe l’oeil effect is evident in the illusion of the room cut into the wall.
Castango was influenced by Masaccio and Donatello.
Castango was to influence later artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo.

14. Madonna and Child (1440-1445)
Filippo Lippi, (1406 – 1469)
National Gallery of Art, Washington,
DC.
Carmelite friar

15. Fra Filippo Lippi , Portrait of a
Woman with a Man at a
Casement, c.1435
This is the earliest surviving double
portrait in Italy, the first to show the
sitters in a domestic setting, and the
first with a view onto a landscape.
The woman, dressed luxuriously, her
sleeve embroidered with letters
spelling "faithful”, is observed by a
man—her betrothed?—appearing at
a window, his hands on an identifying
coat of arms. The two figures may be
Lorenzo di Ranieri Scolari and
Angiola di Bernardo Sapiti, who were
married about 1439. Lippi’s task was
complicated by the Italian preference
for the profile view.

16. Paolo Uccello. Battle of San Romano. C.1455 tempera on wood

17. • 1452Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise unveiled
• 1453Constantinople fall to Ottoman Turks
• 1455Donatello carves Penitent Magdalene
• 1465Botticelli apprenticed to Filippo Lippi
• 1469Lorenzo de’Medici takes rule
• 1473Medici bank beginning to lose money
• 1475Botticelli paints Adoration of the Magi
• 1478Pazzi consipiracy
• 1482Savonarola arrives in Florence
• 1490Savonarola preaches in Florence Cathedral
• 1491Savonarola made Prior of San Marco
• 1494Medici expelled, Savonarola seizes control
• 1497Bonfire of the Vanities
• 1498Republic of Florence revived; Savonarola executed

18. • During the second half of the 15th century, the
republic of Florence flourished under the
leadership of Lorenzo de’ Medici, grandson of
Cosimo.
• Lorenzo established the Platonic Academy of
Philosophy, consisting of scholars, poets, and
artists. This intimate circle included Botticelli.
• Botticelli was apprentice under Pollaiuolo. He
was known of his grace and rhythm.

19. SANDRO BOTTICELLI
PAINTER 1445—1510
Born in Florence
Apprenticed at age 14 to a goldsmith
Apprenticed in 1462 to Fra Filippo Lippi

20. Medici Patronage
Botticelli lived at the time of the city’s
greatest intellectual and artist
flowering, which coincides with the
reign of Lorenzo the Magnificent.
Medici Family, a very powerful and
political dynasty which not only ruled
Florence but also produced four
popes

21. • Botticelli’s style evolved into one that was
very distinct. His portraits seemed to have a
melancholy or sad characteristic. He
stressed line and detail…to bring his
characters alive.
• He included Neo-Platonism in his work.
This meant that he would bring together in
one painting ideas that belong to both
Christianity and pagan ideas which may
have included mythology.
• He was invited to Rome to take part in the
painting of the Sistine Chapel

22. SANDRO BOTTICELLI. PRIMAVERA, 1482, tempera
Neo-platonism was a court style, reflecting the advanced ideas of a small group of
well-educated and sophisticated people. The audience was elite.
Based on the teachings of Plato, they believed that the pagan gods could be reconciled
with Christian values. The gods and goddesses were given spiritual qualities that made
them representatives of Christian virtues like—innocence, love, spiritual and intellectual
as well as physical beauty.

23. Patron: cousin of Lorenzo Medici, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco. Painted as a
celebration of his marriage in 1482.
Celebrates the arrival of spring—filled with mythological symbolism.
Venus (love) in orange grove;
Left—Flora (flowers/spring); Chloris (pursued by Zephyrus (wind). Based on a
poem by Ovid.
Right—Three Grace (companions of love); Mercury (messenger) inspects and
protects grove from intruders.
Overhead—Amor (Eros/Cupid)

24. Note the emotion on the face
of Chloris as she begins her
transformation into
Flora, Goddess of Flowers

25. In this allegory of life,
beauty and knowledge
united by love, Botticelli
catches the freshness of
an early spring morning,
with pale light shining
through the tall, straight
trees, already laden with
their golden fruit; oranges
or the mythical golden
apples of the Hesperides
(nymphs of the evening)?

26. SANDRO BOTTICELLI. THE BIRTH OF VENUS, 1484- 86, tempera
For the first time in a 1000 years, we see a painted a life-size female nude.
She is Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and beauty, whom the Romans
called Venus. Arisen from the waves and born by the wind Zephyrus, she glides
to shore on a shell. The shell is a symbol of baptism and rebirth.

27. • On Venus' right is Zephyrus, God of Winds, he
carries with him the gentle breeze Aura and
together they blow the Goddess of Love ashore.
The Horae, Goddess of the Seasons, waits to
receive Venus and spreads out a flower covered
robe in readiness for the Love Goddess' arrival.

28. Botticelli, Simonetta Vespucci
Model for Venus is though to be
Simone Cattaneo de Vespucci, a
favorite of the Medici Court

29. Aura and Venus based on Simonetta who died young and Botticello asked to be
buried at her feet.

30. Like Masaccio Venus is based on this antique statue.
But unlike Masaccio, Botticelli kept the pagan subject.
However, this is a complex allegory. Venus is symbolic of the Neo-Platonic way of
looking at beauty. Beauty as an idea—conceived in the mind. Beauty as divine beauty.
Just as we cannot have direct experience with the divine connection to God. We
cannot have direct experience with divine beauty.
In Neo-Platonic thought, the Biblical character Eve was identified with Venus.

31. Botticelli divieates from Renaissance characteristics.
Masaccio (like Giotto) natural weighted bodies, atmospheric perspective
Botticelli—stylized, elongated and weightless, no atmospheric perspective

32. Painting's capacity to catch a passing
moment is acute in this portrait of an
unknown wealthy man and a child. It
seems valedictory, as we see the old man
as if through the eyes of the little boy
looking up at the noble ruin of a venerable
face.
That face is dominated by the old man's
nose, a massive tumult of bulbous
growths - perhaps a product of the skin
condition rosacea. The little boy, his own
face a perfect, harmonious and childishly
chubby example of ideal Renaissance
beauty, complete with golden, curling
locks, appears to be examining the
disfigured face of age with clear-eyed
curiosity. At the same time, the boy's hand
is warm and loving, as is the downward,
benevolent gaze of the old man out of
heavily lidded, wrinkled, almost tortoise-
like eyes.
Domenico Ghirlandaio. An Old Man
and His Grandson c. 1490

33. Youth and age, beauty and the ravages of
time contemplate each other; the boy is
looking at his future, the proud old man at
one who will preserve his memory, as this
painting does. The man's fur-lined red
robe and the boy's elegant dress and hair
indicate that they bear a noble family
name, though it is lost to us.
Out of the window we see a landscape
that combines ruggedness and delicacy,
like the portrait's juxtapositions. The
gentle, hilly countryside leads to a hard
rocky peak, as forbidding as the old man's
nose. Like a traveller approaching a
natural wonder, the boy looks up in awe at
the old man, beloved monster.
Domenico Ghirlandaio. An Old Man
and His Grandson c. 1490

34. Fra Bartolomneo:
Fra Girolamo Savonarola
about 1497
• Savonarola becomes Prior of
the Dominican monastery of
San Marco in Florence.
• He sparks a renaissance of
religious fervor and preaches
against the corruption of the
Papacy and enunciates a
personal responsibility for the
care of ones soul.
• This runs counter to Church
policy of having to buy
forgiveness from sin from the
Vatican.
• He sees Revelations being
acted out in the political events
leading up to the end of the
millennium.