The first forerunners of Renaissance art appeared in Italy in the 14th century. Artists of this time, Pietro Cavallini (1259-1344), Simone Martini (1284-1344) and (primarily) Giotto (1267-1337), when creating canvases of traditional religious themes, they began to use new artistic techniques: building a three-dimensional composition, using a landscape in the background, which allowed them to make images more realistic and lively. This sharply distinguished their work from the previous iconographic tradition, replete with conventions in the image.
The term is used to refer to their work. Proto-Renaissance (1300s - "Trecento") .

Giotto di Bondone (c. 1267-1337) - Italian painter and architect of the Proto-Renaissance era. One of the key figures in the history of Western art. Having overcome the Byzantine icon-painting tradition, he became the true founder of the Italian school of painting, developed a completely new approach to depicting space. Giotto's works were inspired by Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo.


Early Renaissance (1400s - "Quattrocento").

At the beginning of the 15th century Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446), Florentine scholar and architect.
Brunelleschi wanted to make the perception of the terms and theaters reconstructed by him more visual and tried to create geometrically perspective pictures from his plans for a certain point of view. In these searches, direct perspective.

This allowed the artists to get perfect images of three-dimensional space on a flat canvas of the picture.

_________

Another important step towards the Renaissance was the emergence of non-religious, secular art. Portrait and landscape established themselves as independent genres. Even religious subjects acquired a different interpretation - Renaissance artists began to consider their characters as heroes with pronounced individual traits and human motivation for actions.

The most famous artists of this period are Masaccio (1401-1428), Masolino (1383-1440), Benozzo Gozzoli (1420-1497), Piero Della Francesco (1420-1492), Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506), Giovanni Bellini (1430-1516), Antonello da Messina (1430-1479), Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449-1494), Sandro Botticelli (1447-1515).

Masaccio (1401-1428) - the famous Italian painter, the largest master of the Florentine school, the reformer of painting of the Quattrocento era.

Fresco. Miracle with the stater.

Painting. crucifixion.

Piero Della Francesco (1420-1492). The master's works are distinguished by majestic solemnity, nobility and harmony of images, generalization of forms, compositional balance, proportionality, accuracy of perspective constructions, soft gamma full of light.

Fresco. History of the Queen of Sheba. Church of San Francesco in Arezzo

Sandro Botticelli(1445-1510) - great Italian painter, representative of the Florentine school of painting.

Spring.

Birth of Venus.

High Renaissance ("Cinquecento").
The highest flowering of Renaissance art came for the first quarter of the 16th century.
Works Sansovino (1486-1570), Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), Rafael Santi (1483-1520), Michelangelo Buonarotti (1475-1564), Giorgione (1476-1510), Titian (1477-1576), Antonio Correggio (1489-1534) constitute the golden fund of European art.

Leonardo di Ser Piero da Vinci (Florence) (1452-1519) - Italian artist (painter, sculptor, architect) and scientist (anatomist, naturalist), inventor, writer.

self-portrait

Lady with an ermine. 1490. Czartoryski Museum, Krakow

Mona Lisa (1503-1505/1506)

Leonardo da Vinci achieved great skill in the transfer of facial expressions of the face and body of a person, ways of transferring space, building a composition. At the same time, his works create a harmonious image of a person that meets humanistic ideals.

Madonna Litta. 1490-1491. Hermitage.

Madonna Benois (Madonna with a flower). 1478-1480

Madonna with a Carnation. 1478

During his life, Leonardo da Vinci made thousands of notes and drawings on anatomy, but did not publish his work. Making an autopsy of the bodies of people and animals, he accurately conveyed the structure of the skeleton and internal organs, including small details. According to professor of clinical anatomy Peter Abrams, da Vinci's scientific work was 300 years ahead of its time and in many ways surpassed the famous Grey's Anatomy.

List of inventions, both real and attributed to him:

parachute, toolescovo castle,bicycle, tankh, llight portable bridges for the army, pprojector, toatapult, robot, dvohlenz telescope.

Later, these innovations were developed Rafael Santi (1483-1520) - a great painter, graphic artist and architect, a representative of the Umbrian school.

Self-portrait. 1483

Michelangelo di Lodovico di Leonardo di Buonarroti Simoni(1475-1564) - Italian sculptor, painter, architect, poet, thinker.

Paintings and sculptures by Michelangelo Buonarotti are full of heroic pathos and, at the same time, a tragic sense of the crisis of humanism. His paintings glorify the strength and power of man, the beauty of his body, while emphasizing his loneliness in the world.

The genius of Michelangelo left an imprint not only on the art of the Renaissance, but also on all further world culture. His activities are mainly associated with two Italian cities - Florence and Rome.

However, the artist was able to realize his most grandiose plans precisely in painting, where he acted as a true innovator of color and form.
By order of Pope Julius II, he painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (1508-1512), representing the biblical story from the creation of the world to the flood and including more than 300 figures. In 1534-1541, in the same Sistine Chapel for Pope Paul III, he performed the grandiose, dramatic fresco The Last Judgment.
Sistine Chapel 3D.

The work of Giorgione and Titian is distinguished by an interest in the landscape, the poeticization of the plot. Both artists achieved great skill in the art of portraiture, with the help of which they conveyed the character and rich inner world of their characters.

Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco ( Giorgione) (1476 / 147-1510) - Italian artist, representative of the Venetian school of painting.

Sleeping Venus. 1510

Judith. 1504

Titian Vecellio (1488 / 1490-1576) - Italian painter, the largest representative of the Venetian school of the High and Late Renaissance.

Titian painted pictures on biblical and mythological subjects, he became famous as a portrait painter. He was commissioned by kings and popes, cardinals, dukes and princes. Titian was not even thirty years old when he was recognized as the best painter in Venice.

Self-portrait. 1567

Venus Urbinskaya. 1538

Portrait of Tommaso Mosti. 1520

Late Renaissance.
After the sack of Rome by imperial troops in 1527, the Italian Renaissance entered a period of crisis. Already in the work of the late Raphael, a new artistic line is outlined, called mannerism.
This era is characterized by overstretched and broken lines, elongated or even deformed figures, often naked, tension and unnatural poses, unusual or bizarre effects associated with size, lighting or perspective, the use of a caustic chromatic scale, overloaded composition, etc. The first masters mannerism Parmigianino , Pontormo , Bronzino- lived and worked at the court of the dukes of the Medici house in Florence. Later, Mannerist fashion spread throughout Italy and beyond.

Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola (Parmigianino - "inhabitant of Parma") (1503-1540,) Italian artist and engraver, representative of mannerism.

Self-portrait. 1540

Portrait of a woman. 1530.

Pontormo (1494-1557) - Italian painter, representative of the Florentine school, one of the founders of mannerism.


Mannerism was replaced by art in the 1590s baroque (transitional figures - Tintoretto and El Greco ).

Jacopo Robusti, better known as Tintoretto (1518 or 1519-1594) - painter of the Venetian school of the late Renaissance.

The Last Supper. 1592-1594. Church of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice.

El Greco ("Greek" Domenikos Theotokopoulos ) (1541-1614) - Spanish artist. By origin - a Greek, a native of the island of Crete.
El Greco had no contemporary followers, and his genius was rediscovered almost 300 years after his death.
El Greco studied in the workshop of Titian, but, however, his painting technique differs significantly from that of his teacher. The works of El Greco are characterized by speed and expressiveness of execution, which bring them closer to modern painting.

Christ on the cross. OK. 1577. Private collection.

Trinity. 1579 Prado.

The beginning of Renaissance painting is considered the era of Ducento, i.e. end of the thirteenth century. The Proto-Renaissance is still closely connected with the medieval Romanesque. Gothic and Byzantine traditions. Artists of the late XIII - early XIV centuries. are still far from the scientific study of the surrounding reality. They express their ideas about it, still using the conventional images of the Byzantine visual system - rocky hills, symbolic trees, conditional turrets. But sometimes the appearance of architectural structures is so accurately reproduced that this indicates the existence of sketches from nature. Traditional religious characters are beginning to be depicted in a world endowed with the properties of reality - volume, spatial depth, material materiality. The search for transmission methods on the plane of volume and three-dimensional space begins. The masters of this time revive the well-known antiquity principle of chiaroscuro modeling of forms. Thanks to it, figures and buildings acquire density and volume.

Apparently, the first who applied the ancient perspective was the Florentine Cenny di Pepo (data from 1272 to 1302), nicknamed Cimabue. Unfortunately, his most significant work - a series of paintings on themes from the Apocalypse, the life of Mary and the Apostle Peter in the church of San Francesco in Assisi, has come down to us almost in a ruined state. His altar compositions, which are in Florence and in the Louvre Museum, are better preserved. They also go back to Byzantine prototypes, but they clearly show the features of a new approach to religious painting. Cimabue returns from Italian painting of the 13th century, which adopted Byzantine traditions, to their immediate origins. He felt in them what remained inaccessible to his contemporaries - the harmonious beginning and the sublime Hellenic beauty of the images.

Great artists appear as bold innovators who reject the traditional system. Such a reformer in Italian painting of the XIV century should be recognized Giotto di Bondone(1266-1337). He is the creator of a new painting system, the great reformer of all European painting, the true founder of the new art. This is a genius who rises high above his contemporaries and many of his followers.

A Florentine by birth, he worked in many Italian cities, from Padua and Milan in the north to Naples in the south. The most famous of the works of Giotto that have come down to us is the cycle of murals in the chapel del Arena in Padua, dedicated to the Gospel stories about the life of Christ. This unique pictorial ensemble is one of the milestone works in the history of European art. Instead of disparate individual scenes and figures characteristic of medieval painting, Giotto created a single epic cycle. 38 scenes from the life of Christ and Mary ("Meeting of Mary and Elizabeth", "Kiss of Judas", "Lamentation", etc.) are connected by the language of painting into a single narrative . Instead of the usual golden Byzantine background, Giotto introduces a landscape background. The figures no longer float in space, but acquire solid ground under their feet. And although they are still inactive, they show a desire to convey the anatomy of the human body and the naturalness of movement.

The reform made by Giotto in painting made a deep impression on all his contemporaries. Unanimous reviews of him as a great painter, an abundance of customers and patrons, honorary commissions in many cities of Italy - all this suggests that contemporaries perfectly understood the significance of his art. But the next generations imitated Giotto as timid students, borrowing particulars from him.

The influence of Giotto acquired its strength and fruitfulness only after a century. The artists of Quattrocento carried out the tasks that were set by Giotto.

The glory of the founder of painting Quattrocento belongs to the Florentine artist Masaccio who died very young (1401-1428). He was the first to solve the main problems of Renaissance painting - linear and aerial perspective. On his frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel of the Florentine church of Santa Maria del Carmine, figures painted according to the laws of anatomy are connected with each other and with the landscape.

The Church of Santa Maria del Carmine became a kind of academy, where generations of artists who were influenced by Masaccio studied: Paolo Uccello, Andrei Castagno, Domenico Veniziano and many others up to Michelangelo.

The Florentine school for a long time remained leading in the art of Italy. It also had a more conservative trend. Some artists of this trend were monks, so in the history of art they were called monastic. One of the most famous among them was fra (i.e. brother - the appeal of the monks to each other) Giovanni Beato Angelico da Fiesole(1387-1455). His images of biblical characters are written in the spirit of medieval traditions, they are full of lyricism, calm dignity and contemplation. His landscape backgrounds are imbued with a sense of cheerfulness, characteristic of the Renaissance.

One of the most outstanding artists of Quattrocento - Sandro Botticelli(1445-1510) - an exponent of the aesthetic ideals of the court of the famous tyrant, politician, philanthropist, poet and philosopher Lorenzo de' Medici, nicknamed the Magnificent. The court of this uncrowned sovereign was the center of artistic culture, bringing together famous philosophers, scientists, and artists.

The early Renaissance lasted for about a century. It is completed by the period of the High Renaissance, which accounts for only about 30 years. Rome became the main center of artistic life at this time.

By the turn of the XV-XVI centuries. include the beginning of a long foreign intervention in Italy, the fragmentation and enslavement of the country, the loss of independence of free cities, the strengthening of feudal Catholic reaction. But a patriotic feeling grew among the Italian people, contributing to political activity and the growth of national self-consciousness, the desire for national unification. This rise in popular consciousness created a broad folk basis for the culture of the High Renaissance.

The end of the Cinquecento is associated with 1530, when the Italian states lost their freedom, becoming the prey of powerful European monarchies. The socio-political and economic crisis of Italy, based not on the industrial revolution, but on international trade, was being prepared for a long time. The discovery of America and new trade routes deprived Italian cities of advantages in international trade. But, as you know, in the history of culture, the periods of flourishing of art do not coincide with the general socio-economic development of society. And in a period of economic decline and political enslavement, in difficult times for Italy, a short century of the Italian Renaissance begins - the High Renaissance. It was at this time that the humanistic culture of Italy became a world heritage, ceased to be a local phenomenon. Italian artists began to enjoy all-European popularity, which they really deserved.

If the art of the Quattrocento is analysis, searches, discoveries, the freshness of a youthful worldview, then the art of the High Renaissance is a result, a synthesis, a wise maturity. The search for an artistic ideal during the Quattrocento period led art to a generalization, to the disclosure of general patterns. The main difference between the art of the High Renaissance is that it renounces particulars, details, details in the name of a generalized image. All experience, all searches for predecessors are compressed by the great masters of the Cinquecento in a grandiose generalization.

The realistic method of the artists of the High Renaissance is peculiar. They are convinced that the significant can exist only in a beautiful shell. Therefore, they tend to see only exceptional phenomena that rise above everyday life. Italian artists created images of heroic personalities, beautiful and strong-willed people.

It was the era of the titans of the Renaissance, which gave world culture the work of Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo. In the history of world culture, these three geniuses, despite all their dissimilarity, creative individuality, personify the main value of the Italian Renaissance - the harmony of beauty, power and intellect. The fates of these artists (whose powerful human and artistic individuality forced them to act as rivals, to treat each other with hostility) had much in common. All three were formed in the Florentine school, and then worked at the courts of patrons, mainly popes. Their lives are evidence of the change in the attitude of society towards the creative personality of the artist, which is characteristic of the Renaissance. Masters of art became prominent and valuable figures in society, they were rightly considered the most educated people of their time.

This characteristic, perhaps more than other figures of the Renaissance, is suitable for Leonardo da Vinci(1452-1519). He combined artistic and scientific genius. Leonardo was a scientist who studied nature not for the sake of art, but for the sake of science. Therefore, so few finished works of Leonardo have come down to us. He started pictures and abandoned them as soon as the problem seemed to him articulated. Many of his observations anticipate the development of European science and painting for centuries. Modern scientific discoveries fuel interest in his sci-fi engineering drawings. Leonardo's theoretical reflections on colors, which he outlined in his Treatise on Painting, anticipate the main premises of nineteenth-century Impressionism. Leonardo wrote about the purity of the sound of colors only on the light side of the subject, about the mutual influence of colors, about the need for painting in the open air. These observations of Leonardo are not used at all in his painting. He was more theoretician than practical. Only in the 20th century did the active collection and processing of his huge manuscript heritage (about 7,000 pages) begin. Its study will undoubtedly lead to new discoveries and explanations of the mysteries of the legendary work of this titan of the Renaissance.

A new stage in art was the painting of the wall of the refectory of the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie on the plot of The Last Supper, which was painted by many Quattrocento artists. "The Last Supper" is the cornerstone of classical art, it carried out the program of the High Renaissance. It influences by absolute thoughtfulness, coordination of parts and the whole, by the power of its spiritual concentration.

Leonardo worked on this piece for 16 years.

One of the most famous paintings in the world was the work of Leonardo "La Gioconda". This portrait of the wife of the merchant del Giocondo has attracted attention for centuries, hundreds of pages of comments have been written about him, he was kidnapped, forged, copied, he was credited with witchcraft power. The elusive facial expression of the Mona Lisa defies exact description and reproduction. The slightest change in shades (which may simply depend on the lighting of the portrait) in the corners of the lips, in the transitions from the chin to the cheek, changes the character of the face. On different reproductions, the Gioconda looks a little different, sometimes a little softer, sometimes more ironic, sometimes more thoughtful. Elusiveness in the very appearance of Mona Lisa, in her penetrating gaze, as if inseparably following the viewer, in her half-smile. This portrait has become a masterpiece of Renaissance art. For the first time in the history of world art, the portrait genre has risen to the same level as compositions on a religious theme.

The ideas of the monumental art of the Renaissance found a vivid expression in the work of Rafael Santi(1483-1520). Leonardo created the classical style, Raphael approved and popularized it. The art of Raphael is often defined as the "golden mean". His composition surpasses everything that has been created in European painting, with its absolute harmony of proportions. For five centuries, the art of Raphael has been perceived as the highest landmark in the spiritual life of mankind, as one of the examples of aesthetic perfection. Raphael's work is distinguished by the qualities of the classics - clarity, noble simplicity, harmony. With all its essence, it is connected with the spiritual culture of the Renaissance.

The most outstanding of Raphael's monumental works are the murals in the Vatican apartments of the pope. Multi-figure large-scale compositions cover all the walls of the three halls. Pupils helped Raphael in painting. The best frescoes, such as, for example, "The School of Athens", he performed with his own hands. The mural subjects included frescoes-allegories of the main spheres of human spiritual activity: philosophy, poetry, theology and justice. In the paintings and frescoes of Raphael - an ideally sublime image of Christian images, ancient myths and human history. He knew how to combine the values ​​of earthly existence and ideal ideas like no other of the masters of the Renaissance. The historical merit of his art is that he connected two worlds into one whole - the Christian world and the pagan world. Since that time, the new artistic ideal has been firmly established in the religious art of Western Europe.

The bright genius of Raphael was far from the psychological depth into the inner world of a person, like Leonardo, but even more alien to the tragic worldview of Michelangelo. In the work of Michelangelo, the collapse of the Renaissance style was indicated and the sprouts of a new artistic worldview were outlined. Michelangelo Buonarroti(1475-1564) lived a long, difficult and heroic life. His genius manifested itself in architecture, painting, poetry, but most clearly in sculpture. He perceived the world plastically, in all areas of art he is primarily a sculptor. The human body seems to him the most worthy subject of the image. But this is a man of a special, powerful, heroic breed. The art of Michelangelo is dedicated to the glorification of the human fighter, his heroic activity and suffering. His art is characterized by gigantomania, a titanic beginning. This is the art of squares, public buildings, and not palace halls, art for the people, and not for court aristocrats.

The most grandiose of his works was the painting of the vault of the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo did a truly titanic work - for four years he alone painted an area of ​​\u200b\u200babout 600 square meters. meters. Day after day, he wrote at a height of 18 meters, standing on the scaffolding and throwing back his head. After the end of the painting, his health was completely undermined, and his body was disfigured (his chest sank, his body arched, a goiter grew; for a long time the artist could not look straight ahead and read, raising the book above his head). The grandiose painting is dedicated to the scenes of sacred history, starting from the creation of the world. Michelangelo painted about 200 figures and figurative compositions on the ceiling. Never and nowhere has there been anything like Michelangelo's plan in scope and integrity. On the vault of the Sistine Chapel, he created a hymn to the glory of heroic humanity. His heroes are living people, there is nothing supernatural in them, but at the same time, they are wonderful powerful, titanic personalities. Long before Michelangelo, the Quattrocento masters illustrated various episodes of church tradition on the walls of the chapel; Michelangelo wanted to represent the fate of mankind before redemption on the vault.

Any thought that the picture is a plane disappears. The figures move freely in space. Frescoes by Michelangelo break through the plane of the wall. This illusion of space and movement was a huge achievement of European art. Michelangelo's discovery that decoration can push forward or push back a wall and ceiling later makes use of the decorative art of the Baroque.

Art, faithful to the traditions of the Renaissance, continues to live in the 16th century in Venice, the city that has retained its independence the longest. In this rich patrician-merchant republic, which has long maintained trade relations with Byzantium, with the Arab East, oriental tastes and traditions were processed in their own way. The main influence of Venetian painting is in its extraordinary color. The love of color gradually led the artists of the Venetian school to a new pictorial principle. The volume, materiality of the image is achieved not by black and white modeling, but by the art of color modeling.

Renaissance painting

The beginning of Renaissance painting is considered the era of Ducento, i.e. XIII century. The Proto-Renaissance is still closely connected with medieval Romanesque, Gothic and Byzantine traditions. Artists of the late XIII - early XIV centuries. are still far from the scientific study of the surrounding reality. They express their ideas about it, still using the conditional images of the Byzantine visual system - rocky hills, symbolic trees, conditional turrets. But sometimes the appearance of architectural structures is so accurately reproduced that this indicates the existence of sketches from nature. Traditional religious characters are beginning to be depicted in a world endowed with the properties of reality - volume, spatial depth, material materiality. The search for transmission methods on the plane of volume and three-dimensional space begins. The masters of this time revive the well-known antiquity principle of chiaroscuro modeling of forms. Thanks to it, figures and buildings acquire density and volume.

Apparently, the first who applied the ancient perspective was the Florentine Cenny di Pepo (data from 1272 to 1302), nicknamed Cimabue. Unfortunately, his most significant work - a series of paintings on the themes of the Apocalypse, the life of Mary and the Apostle Peter in the church of San Francesco in Assisi, has come down to us almost in a ruined state. His altar compositions, which are in Florence and in the Louvre Museum, are better preserved. They also go back to Byzantine prototypes, but they clearly show the features of a new approach to religious painting. Cimabue returns from Italian painting

XIII century, which adopted the Byzantine traditions, to their immediate origins. He felt in them what remained inaccessible to his contemporaries - the harmonious beginning of the sublime Hellenic beauty of the images.

Rigidity and schematism give way to the musical smoothness of the lines. The figure of the Madonna no longer seems incorporeal. In medieval painting, angels were interpreted as signs, as attributes of the Mother of God, they were depicted as small symbolic figures. With Cimabue, they acquire a completely new meaning, they are included in the scene, these are beautiful young creatures, anticipating those graceful angels that will appear with the masters of the 15th century.

The work of Cimabue was the starting point of those new processes that determined the further development of painting. But the history of art cannot be explained in evolutionary terms alone. Sometimes there are sharp jumps in it. Great artists appear as bold innovators who reject the traditional system. Giotto di Bondone (1266-1337) should be recognized as such a reformer in Italian painting of the fourteenth century. This is a genius who rises high above his contemporaries and many of his followers.

Florentine by birth, he worked in many Italian cities. The most famous of the works of Giotto that have come down to us is the cycle of murals in the chapel del Arena in Padua, dedicated to the Gospel stories about the life of Christ. This unique pictorial ensemble is one of the milestone works in the history of European art. Instead of disparate individual scenes and figures characteristic of medieval painting, Giotto created a single epic cycle. 38 scenes from the life of Christ and Mary (“Meeting of Mary and Elizabeth”, “Kiss of Judas”, “Lamentation”, etc.) are connected by the language of painting into a single narrative. Instead of the usual golden Byzantine background, Giotto introduces a landscape background. The figures no longer float in space, but acquire solid ground under their feet. And although they are still inactive, they show a desire to convey the anatomy of the human body and the naturalness of movement. Giotto gives the forms an almost sculptural perceptibility, heaviness, density. It models the relief, gradually highlighting the main colorful background. This principle of light and shade modeling, which made it possible to work with pure, bright colors without dark shadows, became dominant in Italian painting until the 16th century.

The reform made in Giotto's painting made a deep impression on all his contemporaries.

The influence of Giotto acquired its strength and fruitfulness only after a century. The artists of Quattrocento carried out the tasks that were set by Giotto. The stage of the Early Renaissance is called a triumphal period in the history of art. The generosity and scope of artistic creativity in Italy in the 15th century gives the impression of an unprecedented creative activity of sculptors and painters.

The glory of the founder of painting Quattrocento belongs to the Florentine artist Masaccio, who died very young (1401-1428). On his frescoes, the figures, painted according to the laws of anatomy, are connected with each other and with the landscape. Its hills and trees go into the distance, forming a natural air environment. The life of people and nature is connected into a single whole, into a single dramatic action. This is a new word in the world art of painting.

The Florentine school for a long time remained leading in the art of Italy. It also had a more conservative trend. The artists of this trend were monks, so in the history of art they were called monastic. One of the most famous among them was the brother of Giovanni Beato Angelico da Fiesole (1387-1455).

A characteristic feature of the painting of the late Quattrocento is the diversity of schools and trends. At this time, the Florentine, Umbian (Piero dela Francesca, Pinturicchio, Perugino), Northern Italian (Mantegni), Venetian (Giovanni Bellini) schools were formed.

One of the most prominent artists of Quattrocento - Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) - the spokesman for the aesthetic ideals of the court of the famous tyrant, politician, philanthropist, poet and philosopher Lorenzo de' Medici, nicknamed the Magnificent. The court of this uncrowned sovereign was the center of artistic culture, bringing together famous philosophers, scientists, and artists.

In the art of Botticelli, a kind of synthesis of medieval mysticism with the ancient tradition, the ideals of the Gothic and the Renaissance takes place. In his mythological images, there is a revival of symbolism. He depicts beautiful ancient goddesses not in sensual forms of earthly beauty, but in romantic, spiritualized, sublime images. The painting that glorified him is The Birth of Venus. Here we see a peculiar female image of Botticelli, which cannot be confused with the works of other artists. Botticelli surprisingly combined pagan sensuality and increased spirituality, sculptural femininity and delicate fragility, sophistication, linear accuracy and emotionality, variability. He is one of the most poetic artists in art history. He prefers symbolic, allegorical themes, likes to dream, to express himself in a hint.

The early Renaissance lasted for about a century. It is completed by the period of the High Renaissance, which accounts for only about 30 years. Rome became the main center of artistic life at this time.

If the art of the Quattrocento is analysis, searches, discoveries, the freshness of a youthful worldview, then the art of the High Renaissance is a result, a synthesis, a wise maturity. The search for an artistic ideal during the Quattrocento period led art to a generalization, to the disclosure of general patterns. The main difference between the art of the High Renaissance is that it renounces particulars, details, details in the name of a generalized image. All experience, all searches for predecessors are compressed by the great masters of the Cinquecento in a grandiose generalization.

The image of a beautiful, strong-willed person is the main content of the art of that time. Unlike the art of the 15th century, it is characterized by the desire to comprehend and embody the general regularity of the phenomena of life.

It was the era of the titans of the Renaissance, which gave world culture the work of Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo. In the history of world culture, these three geniuses, despite all their dissimilarity, creative individuality personify the main value of the Italian Renaissance - the harmony of beauty, power and intellect. Their lives are evidence of the change in the attitude of society towards the creative personality of the artist, which is characteristic of the Renaissance. Masters of art became prominent and valuable figures in society, they were rightly considered the most educated people of their time.

This characteristic, perhaps more than other figures of the Renaissance, is suitable for Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519). He combined artistic and scientific genius. Leonardo was a scientist who studied nature not for the sake of art, but for the sake of science. Therefore, so few finished works of Leonardo have come down to us. He started pictures and abandoned them as soon as the problem seemed to him articulated. Many of his observations anticipate the development of European science and painting for centuries. Modern scientific discoveries fuel interest in his sci-fi engineering drawings.

His "Madonna in the Grotto" is the first monumental altarpiece of the High Renaissance. This is a large painting of a format common in Renaissance painting, which resembles a window rounded at the top.

A new stage in art was the painting of the wall of the refectory of the monastery of Santa Maria del Grazie on the plot of The Last Supper, which was painted by many Quattrocento artists. "The Last Supper" is the cornerstone of classical art, it carried out the program of the High Renaissance. Leonardo worked on this piece for 16 years. The huge fresco, where the figures are painted one and a half times their natural size, has become an example of a wise understanding of the laws of monumental painting associated with the real space of the interior. It embodied the artist's scientific research in the field of physics, optics, mathematics, anatomy, necessary to solve the problems of proportions and perspectives in a vast pictorial space. Most importantly, the brilliant work of Leonardo has tremendous psychological power. None of the artists depicting the Last Supper before Leonardo set such a difficult task - through the reaction of different people, personalities, temperaments, emotional responses, to show the single meaning of this great moment. 12 apostles, 12 different characters manifest themselves in different ways at the moment of spiritual upheaval. Through their emotional reactions, expressed in the movement, the eternal questions of man are revealed: about love and hatred, devotion and betrayal, nobility and meanness.

One of the most famous paintings in the world was the work of Leonardo "La Gioconda". This portrait of the wife of the merchant del Giocondo has attracted attention for centuries, hundreds of pages of comments have been written about him, he was kidnapped, forged, copied, he was credited with witchcraft power. The elusive facial expression of the Mona Lisa defies exact description and reproduction. This portrait has become a masterpiece of Renaissance art.

For the first time in the history of world art, the portrait genre has risen to the same level as compositions on a religious theme.

The ideas of the monumental art of the Renaissance found a vivid expression in the work of Raphael Santi (1483-1520). Leonardo created the classical style, Raphael approved and popularized it. The art of Raphael is often defined as the "golden mean".

Raphael's work is distinguished by the qualities of the classics - clarity, noble simplicity, harmony. With all its essence, it is connected with the spiritual culture of the Renaissance. He was 30 years younger than Leonardo, and died almost simultaneously with him, having done so much in the history of art that it is hard to imagine that one person could do all this. A versatile artist, architect, muralist, master of portraiture and multi-figure composition, a talented decorator, he was a central figure in the artistic life of Rome. The pinnacle of his skill was the "Sistine Madonna", written in 1516 for the Benedictine monastery in Piacenza (now the picture is in Dresden). For many, it is a measure of the most beautiful that art can create.

This altar composition has been perceived for centuries as a formula of beauty and harmony. A tragic feeling emanates from the amazingly spiritualized faces of the Madonna and the baby God, whom she gives in atonement for human sins. Madonna's gaze is directed, as it were, through the viewer, it is full of mournful foresight. This image embodies the synthesis of the ancient ideal of beauty with the spirituality of the Christian ideal.

The historical merit of Raphael's art is that he connected two worlds into one whole - the Christian world and the pagan world. Since that time, the new artistic ideal has been firmly established in the religious art of Western Europe.

Renaissance sculpture

The bright genius of Raphael was far from the psychological depth into the inner world of man, like that of Leonardo, but even more alien to the tragic worldview of Michelangelo. Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) lived a long, difficult and heroic life. His genius manifested itself in architecture, painting, poetry, but most clearly in sculpture. He perceived the world plastically, in all areas of art he is primarily a sculptor. The human body seems to him the most worthy subject of the image. But this is a man of a special, powerful, heroic breed. The art of Michelangelo is dedicated to the glorification of the human fighter, his heroic activity and suffering. His art is characterized by gigantomania, a titanic beginning. This is the art of squares, public buildings, and not palace halls, art for the people, and not for court aristocrats.

The 15th century is the heyday of monumental sculpture in Italy. It leaves the interiors on the facades of churches and civil buildings, on the city square, becomes part of the city ensemble.

One of the earliest and most famous works of Michelangelo is a five-meter statue of David in the square in Florence, symbolizing the victory of young David over the giant Goliath. The opening of the monument turned into a national celebration, because the Florentines saw in David a hero close to them, a citizen and defender of the republic.

Renaissance sculptors turned not only to traditional Christian images, but also to living people, contemporaries. With this desire to perpetuate the image of a real contemporary, the development of the genre of sculptural portrait, tombstone, portrait medal, equestrian statue is connected. These sculptures adorned the squares of cities, changing their appearance.

Renaissance sculpture returns to the ancient traditions of plastic arts. Monuments of ancient sculpture become an object of study, an example of plastic language. Sculpture, before painting, departs from medieval canons and embarks on a new path of development. Perhaps this is due to the place that she occupied in medieval temples. During the construction of large cathedrals, workshops were created that trained sculptors-decorators who were well trained here. The workshops of sculptors were the leading centers of artistic life and played an important role in the study of antiquity and the anatomy of the human body. The achievements of sculpture of the Early Renaissance had a great influence on painters who perceived a living person through the prism of plasticity. The sculptors of the Renaissance achieve the full significance of the human body, they free it from under the mass of clothes in which the figures were hidden by medieval Gothic. The path that Hellas took in three centuries was completed by three generations of masters in the Renaissance.

Italy is a country that has always been famous for its artists. The great masters who once lived in Italy glorified art throughout the world. We can say for sure that if it were not for the Italian artists, sculptors and architects, the world would look very different today. The most significant in Italian art, of course, is considered. Italy in the Renaissance or Renaissance reached an unprecedented rise and prosperity. Talented artists, sculptors, inventors, real geniuses who appeared in those days are still known to every schoolchild. Their art, creativity, ideas, developments today are considered classics, the core on which world art and culture are built.

One of the most famous geniuses of the Italian Renaissance, of course, is the great Leonardo da Vinci(1452-1519). Da Vinci was so gifted that he achieved great success in many areas of activity, including the visual arts and science. Another famous artist who is a recognized master is Sandro Botticelli(1445-1510). Botticelli's paintings are a real gift to humanity. Today, his dense are in the most famous museums in the world and are truly priceless. No less famous than Leonardo da Vinci and Botticelli is Rafael Santi(1483-1520), who lived for 38 years, and during this time managed to create a whole layer of stunning painting, which became one of the brightest examples of the Early Renaissance. Another great genius of the Italian Renaissance is no doubt Michelangelo Buonarotti(1475-1564). In addition to painting, Michelangelo was engaged in sculpture, architecture and poetry, and achieved great results in these arts. The statue of Michelangelo called "David" is considered an unsurpassed masterpiece, an example of the highest achievement of the art of sculpture.

In addition to the artists mentioned above, the greatest artists of Italy of the Renaissance were such masters as Antonello da Messina, Giovanni Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, Paolo Veronese, Jacopo Tintoretto, Domenico Fetti, Bernardo Strozzi, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Francesco Guardi and others. . All of them were a prime example of the delightful Venetian school of painting. The Florentine school of Italian painting includes such artists as: Masaccio, Andrea del Verrocchio, Paolo Uccello, Andrea del Castagno, Benozzo Gozzoli, Sandro Botticelli, Fra Angelico, Filippo Lippi, Piero di Cosimo, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Fra Bartolommeo, Andrea del Sarto.

To list all the artists who worked during the Renaissance, as well as during the late Renaissance, and centuries later, who became known to the whole world and glorified the art of painting, developed the basic principles and laws that underlie all types and genres of fine arts, perhaps it will take several volumes to write, but this list is enough to understand that the Great Italian Artists are the very art that we know, that we love and that we will appreciate forever!

Paintings by great Italian artists

Andrea Mantegna - Fresco in the Camera degli Sposi

Giorgione - Three Philosophers

Leonardo da Vinci - Mona Lisa

Nicolas Poussin - The Magnanimity of Scipio

Paolo Veronese - Battle of Lepanto

The Renaissance caused profound changes in all areas of culture - philosophy, science and art. One of them is. which is becoming more and more independent of religion, ceases to be the "handmaid of theology", although it is still far from complete independence. As in other areas of culture, the teachings of ancient thinkers are being revived in philosophy, primarily Plato and Aristotle. Marsilio Ficino founded the Platonic Academy in Florence, translated the works of the great Greek into Latin. Aristotle's ideas returned to Europe even earlier, before the Renaissance. During the Renaissance, according to Luther, it is he, and not Christ, who "rules in the European universities."

Along with the ancient teachings, the natural philosophy, or the philosophy of nature. It is preached by such philosophers as B. Telesio, T. Campanella, D. Bruno. In their works, thoughts are developed that philosophy should not study a supernatural God, but nature itself, that nature obeys its own internal laws, that the basis of knowledge is experience and observation, and not divine revelation, that man is part of nature.

The spread of natural philosophical views was facilitated by scientific discoveries. Chief among them was heliocentric theory N. Copernicus, which made a real revolution in ideas about the world.

It should, however, be noted that the scientific and philosophical views of that time are still under a noticeable influence from religion and theology. Such views often take the form pantheism in which the existence of God is not denied, but He is dissolved in nature, identified with it. To this we must also add the influence of the so-called occult sciences - astrology, alchemy, mysticism, magic, etc. All this takes place even in such a philosopher as D. Bruno.

The Renaissance brought about the most significant changes in artistic culture, art. It was in this area that the break with the Middle Ages turned out to be the deepest and most radical.

In the Middle Ages, art was largely applied in nature, it was woven into life itself and was supposed to decorate it. In the Renaissance, art for the first time acquires intrinsic value, it becomes an independent area of ​​beauty. At the same time, for the first time, a purely artistic, aesthetic feeling is formed in the perceiving viewer, for the first time, a love for art is awakened for its own sake, and not for the sake of the purpose it serves.

Never before has art enjoyed such high honor and respect. Even in ancient Greece, the work of an artist in its social significance was noticeably inferior to the activities of a politician and a citizen. An even more modest place was occupied by the artist in ancient Rome.

Now place and role of the artist in society are growing immeasurably. For the first time he is considered as an independent and respected professional, scientist and thinker, a unique individuality. In the Renaissance, art is perceived as one of the most powerful means of knowledge and in this capacity is equated with science. Leonardo da Vinci considers science and art as two completely equal ways of studying nature. He writes: "Painting is a science and the legitimate daughter of nature."

Still more highly valued art as creativity. In terms of his creative abilities, the Renaissance artist is equated with God the Creator. This explains why Raphael received the addition "Divine" to his name. For the same reasons, Dante's Comedy was also called "Divine".

Art itself is undergoing profound changes. It makes a decisive turn from a medieval symbol and sign to a realistic image and a reliable image. The means of artistic expression are becoming new. They are now based on linear and aerial perspective, the three-dimensionality of volume, and the doctrine of proportions. Art in everything strives to be true to reality, to achieve objectivity, authenticity and vitality.

The Renaissance was primarily Italian. Therefore, it is not surprising that it was in Italy that art during this period reached its highest rise and flourishing. It is here that there are dozens of names of titans, geniuses, great and simply talented artists. There are also great names in other countries, but Italy is beyond competition.

In the Italian Renaissance, several stages are usually distinguished:

• Proto-Renaissance: second half of the 13th century. - XIV century.
• Early Renaissance: almost the entire XV century.
• High Renaissance: late 15th century - first third of the 16th century
• Late Renaissance: the last two thirds of the 16th century.

The main figures of the Proto-Renaissance are the poet Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) and the painter Giotto (1266/67-1337).

Fate presented Dante with many trials. He was persecuted for participating in the political struggle, he wandered, died in a foreign land, in Ravenna. His contribution to culture goes beyond poetry. He wrote not only love lyrics, but also philosophical and political treatises. Dante is the creator of the Italian literary language. Sometimes he is called the last poet of the Middle Ages and the first poet of the Modern Age. These two beginnings - the old and the new - are really closely intertwined in his work.

The first works of Dante - "New Life" and "Feast" - are lyrical poems of love content dedicated to his beloved Beatrice, whom he met once in Florence and who died seven years after their meeting. The poet kept his love for life. In terms of its genre, Dante's lyrics are in line with medieval courtly poetry, where the object of chanting is the image of the "Beautiful Lady". However, the feelings expressed by the poet already belong to the Renaissance. They are caused by real meetings and events, filled with sincere warmth, marked by a unique individuality.

The pinnacle of Dante's work was "The Divine Comedy”, which has taken a special place in the history of world culture. In its construction, this poem is also in line with medieval traditions. It tells about the adventures of a man who got into the afterlife. The poem has three parts - Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, each of which has 33 songs written in three-line stanzas.

The repeated number "three" directly echoes the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. In the course of the narrative, Dante strictly follows many of the requirements of Christianity. In particular, he does not allow his companion in the nine circles of hell and purgatory - the Roman poet Virgil - into paradise, for the pagan is deprived of such a right. Here the poet is accompanied by his deceased beloved Beatrice.

However, in his thoughts and judgments, in his attitude to the characters portrayed and their sins. Dante often and very significantly disagrees with Christian teaching. So. instead of the Christian condemnation of sensual love as a sin, he speaks of the "law of love", according to which sensual love is included in the nature of life itself. Dante treats the love of Francesca and Paolo with understanding and sympathy. although their love is linked to Francesca's betrayal of her husband. The Renaissance spirit triumphs in Dante on other occasions as well.

Among the outstanding Italian poets is also Francesco Petrarch. In world culture, he is known primarily for his sonnets. At the same time, he was a broad-based thinker, philosopher and historian. He is rightfully considered the founder of the entire Renaissance culture.

The work of Petrarch is also partly within the framework of medieval courtly lyrics. Like Dante, he had a lover named Laura, to whom he dedicated his "Book of Songs". At the same time, Petrarch more decisively breaks ties with medieval culture. In his works, the expressed feelings - love, pain, despair, longing - appear much sharper and more naked. They have a stronger personal touch.

Another prominent representative of the literature was Giovanni Boccaccio(1313-1375). world famous author Decameron". Boccaccio borrows the principle of constructing his collection of short stories and the plot outline from the Middle Ages. Everything else is imbued with the spirit of the Renaissance.

The main characters of the novels are ordinary and ordinary people. They are written in surprisingly bright, lively, colloquial language. They do not contain boring moralizing, on the contrary, many short stories literally sparkle with love of life and fun. The plots of some of them have a love and erotic character. In addition to the Decameron, Boccaccio also wrote the story Fiametta, which is considered the first psychological novel in Western literature.

Giotto di Bondone is the most prominent representative of the Italian Proto-Renaissance in the visual arts. His main genre was fresco paintings. All of them are written on biblical and mythological subjects, depict scenes from the life of the Holy Family, evangelists, saints. However, the interpretation of these plots is clearly dominated by the Renaissance beginning. In his work, Giotto abandons medieval conventions and turns to realism and plausibility. It is for him that the merit of the revival of painting as an artistic value in itself is recognized.

In his works, the natural landscape is quite realistically depicted, on which trees, rocks, and temples are clearly visible. All participating characters, including the saints themselves, appear as living people, endowed with physical flesh, human feelings and passions. Their clothes outline the natural forms of their bodies. Giotto's works are characterized by bright coloring and picturesqueness, fine plasticity.

The main creation of Giotto is the painting of the Chapel del Arena in Padua, which tells about events from the life of the Holy Family. The strongest impression is made by the wall cycle, which includes the scenes "Flight into Egypt", "Kiss of Judas", "Lamentation of Christ".

All the characters depicted in the paintings look natural and authentic. The position of their bodies, gestures, emotional state, views, faces - all this is shown with rare psychological persuasiveness. At the same time, the behavior of each strictly corresponds to the role assigned to him. Each scene has a unique atmosphere.

So, in the scene "Flight to Egypt" a restrained and generally calm emotional tone prevails. "Kiss of Judas" is filled with stormy dynamism, sharp and decisive actions of characters who literally grappled with each other. And only the two main participants - Judas and Christ - froze without moving and fight with their eyes.

The scene "Lamentation of Christ" is marked by special drama. It is filled with tragic despair, unbearable pain and suffering, inconsolable grief and sorrow.

The early Renaissance finally approved new aesthetic and artistic principles of art. At the same time, biblical stories are still very popular. However, their interpretation becomes completely different, there is little left of the Middle Ages in it.

Motherland Early Renaissance became Florence, and the "fathers of the Renaissance" are the architect Philippe Brunelleschi(1377-1446), sculptor Donatello(1386-1466). painter Masaccio (1401 -1428).

Brunelleschi made a huge contribution to the development of architecture. He laid the foundations of Renaissance architecture, discovered new forms that existed for centuries. He did much to develop the laws of perspective.

Brunelleschi's most significant work was the erection of a dome over the finished structure of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence. He faced an exceptionally difficult task, since the required dome had to be of enormous size - about 50 m in diameter. With the help of the original design, he brilliantly gets out of a difficult situation. Thanks to the solution found, not only the dome itself turned out to be surprisingly light and, as it were, hovering over the city, but the entire building of the cathedral acquired harmony and majesty.

No less beautiful work of Brunelleschi was the famous Pazzi Chapel, erected in the courtyard of the Church of Santa Croce in Florence. It is a small, rectangular building, covered in the center with a dome. Inside it is lined with white marble. Like other buildings of Brunelleschi, the chapel is distinguished by simplicity and clarity, elegance and grace.

Brunelleschi's work is notable for the fact that he goes beyond places of worship and creates magnificent buildings of secular architecture. An excellent example of such architecture is the orphanage, built in the shape of the letter "P", with a covered gallery-loggia.

The Florentine sculptor Donatello is one of the most prominent creators of the Early Renaissance. He worked in a variety of genres, everywhere showing genuine innovation. In his work, Donatello uses the ancient heritage, relying on a deep study of nature, boldly updating the means of artistic expression.

He participates in the development of the theory of linear perspective, revives the sculptural portrait and the image of a naked body, and casts the first bronze monument. The images he created are the embodiment of the humanistic ideal of a harmoniously developed personality. With his work, Donatello had a great influence on the subsequent development of European sculpture.

Donatello's desire to idealize the depicted person was clearly manifested in statue of young David. In this work, David appears as a young, beautiful, full of mental and physical strength young men. The beauty of his naked body is emphasized by a gracefully curved torso. The young face expresses thoughtfulness and sadness. This statue was followed by a whole series of nude figures in Renaissance sculpture.

The heroic principle is strong and distinct in the statue of St. George, which became one of the pinnacles of Donatello's work. Here he fully managed to embody the idea of ​​a strong personality. Before us is a tall, slender, courageous, calm and self-confident warrior. In this work, the master creatively develops the best traditions of ancient sculpture.

A classic work of Donatello is the bronze statue of the commander Gattamelatta - the first equestrian monument in the art of the Renaissance. Here the great sculptor reaches the ultimate level of artistic and philosophical generalization, which brings this work closer to antiquity.

At the same time, Donatello created a portrait of a specific and unique personality. The commander appears as a real Renaissance hero, a courageous, calm, self-confident person. The statue is distinguished by laconic forms, clear and precise plasticity, natural posture of the rider and horse. Thanks to this, the monument has become a real masterpiece of monumental sculpture.

In the last period of creativity, Donatello creates a bronze group "Judith and Holofernes". This work is filled with dynamics and drama: Judith is depicted at the moment when she raises her sword over the already wounded Holofernes. to finish him off.

Masaccio rightfully considered one of the main figures of the Early Renaissance. He continues and develops the trends coming from Giotto. Masaccio lived only 27 years and managed to do little. However, the frescoes he created became a real school of painting for subsequent Italian artists. According to Vasari, a contemporary of the High Renaissance and an authoritative critic, "no master came so close to modern masters as Masaccio."

The main creation of Masaccio are the frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel of the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence, telling about episodes from the legends of St. Peter, as well as depicting two biblical scenes - "The Fall" and "Exile from Paradise".

Although the frescoes tell of the miracles performed by St. Peter, there is nothing supernatural and mystical in them. The depicted Christ, Peter, the apostles and other participants in the events appear to be quite earthly people. They are endowed with individual traits and behave quite naturally and humanly. In particular, in the scene of "Baptism" a naked young man shivering from the cold is surprisingly authentically shown. Masaccio builds his composition using not only linear, but also aerial perspective.

Of the whole cycle, special mention deserves fresco "Expulsion from Paradise". She is a true masterpiece of painting. The fresco is extremely laconic, there is nothing superfluous in it. Against the background of a vague landscape, the figures of Adam and Eve who left the gates of Paradise are clearly visible, above which an angel with a sword hovers. All attention is focused on Mom and Eve.

Masaccio was the first in the history of painting to be able to paint a naked body in such a convincing and authentic way, to convey its natural proportions, to give it stability and movement. The inner state of the characters is just as convincingly and vividly expressed. Adam, who was striding broadly, lowered his head in shame and covered his face with his hands. Sobbing, Eve threw back her head in despair with her mouth open. This fresco opens a new era in art.

What Masaccio did was continued by such artists as Andrea Mantegna(1431 -1506) and Sandro Botticelli(1455-1510). The first became famous primarily for its paintings, among which a special place is occupied by frescoes telling about the last episodes of the life of St. James - the procession to the execution and the execution itself. Botticelli preferred easel painting. His most famous paintings are Spring and The Birth of Venus.

From the end of the 15th century, when Italian art reaches its highest peak, High Renaissance. For Italy, this period was extremely difficult. Fragmented and therefore defenseless, it was literally devastated, plundered and bled dry by invasions from France, Spain, Germany and Turkey. However, art during this period, oddly enough, is experiencing an unprecedented flowering. It was at this time that such titans as Leonardo da Vinci were creating. Raphael. Michelangelo, Titian.

In architecture, the beginning of the High Renaissance is associated with creativity Donato Bramante(1444-1514). It was he who created the style that determined the development of architecture of this period.

One of his early works was the church of the monastery of Santa Maria della Grazie in Milan, in the refectory of which Leonardo da Vinci would paint his famous fresco The Last Supper. Its glory begins with a small chapel called Tempetto(1502), built in Rome and became a kind of "manifesto" of the High Renaissance. The chapel has the shape of a rotunda, it is distinguished by the simplicity of architectural means, the harmony of parts and rare expressiveness. This is a real little masterpiece.

The pinnacle of Bramante's work is the reconstruction of the Vatican and the transformation of its buildings into a single ensemble. He also owns the design of the Cathedral of St. Peter, in which Michelangelo will make changes and begin to implement.

See also: Michelangelo Buonarroti

In the art of the Italian Renaissance, a special place is occupied by Venice. The school that developed here differed significantly from the schools of Florence, Rome, Milan or Bologna. The latter gravitated towards stable traditions and continuity, they were not inclined towards radical renewal. It was on these schools that the classicism of the 17th century relied. and neoclassicism of later centuries.

The Venetian school acted as their original counterbalance and antipode. The spirit of innovation and radical, revolutionary renewal reigned here. Of the representatives of other Italian schools, Leonardo was closest to Venice. Perhaps it was here that his passion for research and experiment could find proper understanding and recognition. In the famous dispute between "old and new" artists, the latter relied on the example of Venice. This is where the trends that led to the Baroque and Romanticism began. And although the Romantics honored Raphael, their real gods were Titian and Veronese. In Venice, El Greco received his creative charge, which allowed him to shock Spanish painting. Velazquez passed through Venice. The same can be said about the Flemish artists Rubens and Van Dyck.

Being a port city, Venice found itself at the crossroads of economic and trade routes. She experienced the influence of Northern Germany, Byzantium and the East. Venice has become a place of pilgrimage for many artists. A. Dürer was here twice - at the end of the 15th century. and the beginning of the 16th century. She was visited by Goethe (1790). Wagner here listened to the singing of the gondoliers (1857), under whose inspiration he wrote the second act of Tristan and Isolde. Nietzsche also listened to the singing of the gondoliers, calling it the singing of the soul.

The proximity of the sea evoked fluid and mobile forms, rather than clear geometric structures. Venice gravitated not so much to reason with its strict rules, but to feelings, from which the amazing poetry of Venetian art was born. The focus of this poetry was nature - its visible and felt materiality, a woman - the exciting beauty of her flesh, music - born from the play of colors and light and from the enchanting sounds of spiritualized nature.

The artists of the Venetian school preferred not form and pattern, but color, the play of light and shadow. Depicting nature, they sought to convey its impulses and movement, variability and fluidity. They saw the beauty of the female body not so much in the harmony of forms and proportions, but in the most living and feeling flesh.

They were not enough realistic plausibility and reliability. They sought to reveal the riches inherent in painting itself. It is Venice that deserves the merit of discovering a pure picturesque principle, or picturesqueness in its purest form. The Venetian artists were the first to show the possibility of separating painting from objects and form, the possibility of solving the problems of painting with the help of one color, purely pictorial means, the possibility of considering painting as an end in itself. All subsequent painting, based on expression and expressiveness, will follow this path. According to some experts, one can go from Titian to Rubens and Rembrandt, then to Delacroix, and from him to Gauguin, Van Gogh, Cezanne, etc.

The founder of the Venetian school is Giorgione(1476-1510). In his work, he acted as a true innovator. The secular principle finally wins for him, and instead of biblical subjects, he prefers to write on mythological and literary themes. In his work, the establishment of an easel painting takes place, which no longer resembles an icon or an altar image.

Giorgione opens a new era in painting, the first to start painting from nature. Depicting nature, for the first time he shifts the focus to mobility, variability and fluidity. An excellent example of this is his painting "Thunderstorm". It was Giorgione who began to search for the secret of painting in light and its transitions, in the play of light and shadow, acting as the forerunner of Caravaggio and Caravaggism.

Giorgione created works of different genres and themes - "Country Concert" and "Judith". His most famous work was "Sleeping Venus"". This picture is devoid of any plot. She sings of the beauty and charm of the naked female body, representing "nudity for the sake of nakedness itself."

The head of the Venetian school is Titian(c. 1489-1576). His work - along with the work of Leonardo, Raphael and Michelangelo - is the pinnacle of Renaissance art. Most of his long life falls on the Late Renaissance.

In the work of Titian, the art of the Renaissance reaches its highest rise and flourishing. His works combine the creative search and innovation of Leonardo, the beauty and perfection of Raphael, the spiritual depth, drama and tragedy of Michelangelo. They have an extraordinary sensuality, thanks to which they have a powerful effect on the viewer. Titian's works are surprisingly musical and melodic.

As Rubens notes, together with Titian, painting acquired its flavor, and, according to Delacroix and Van Gogh, music. His canvases are painted with an open brushstroke that is both light, free and transparent. It is in his works that color, as it were, dissolves and absorbs form, and the pictorial principle for the first time acquires autonomy, appears in its pure form. Realism in his creations turns into a charming and subtle lyricism.

In the works of the first period, Titian glorifies the carefree joy of life, the enjoyment of earthly goods. He sings of the sensual principle, human flesh bursting with health, the eternal beauty of the body, the physical perfection of man. This is the subject of his canvases such as "Love on Earth and Heaven", "Feast of Venus", "Bacchus and Ariadne", "Danae", "Venus and Adonis".

Sensual beginning prevails in the picture "Penitent Magdalene”, although it is dedicated to the dramatic situation. But here, too, the penitent sinner has sensual flesh, a captivating body radiating light, full and sensual lips, rosy cheeks and golden hair. The canvas “Boy with Dogs” is filled with penetrating lyricism.

In the works of the second period, the sensual principle is preserved, but it is supplemented by growing psychologism and drama. In general, Titian makes a gradual transition from the physical and sensual to the spiritual and dramatic. The ongoing changes in the work of Titian are clearly visible in the embodiment of themes and plots that the great artist addressed twice. A typical example in this regard is the painting "Saint Sebastian". In the first version, the fate of a lonely sufferer abandoned by people does not seem too sad. On the contrary, the depicted saint is endowed with vitality and physical beauty. In a later version of the picture, located in the Hermitage, the same image acquires the features of tragedy.

An even more striking example is the variants of the painting “The Crowning with Thorns”, dedicated to an episode from the life of Christ. In the first of them, stored in the Louvre. Christ appears as a physically handsome and strong athlete, able to repulse his rapists. In the Munich version, created twenty years later, the same episode is conveyed much deeper, more complex and more meaningful. Christ is depicted in a white cloak, his eyes are closed, he calmly endures the beating and humiliation. Now the main thing is not crowning and beating, not a physical phenomenon, but a psychological and spiritual one. The picture is filled with deep tragedy, it expresses the triumph of the spirit, spiritual nobility over physical strength.

In the later works of Titian, the tragic sound is more and more intensified. This is evidenced by the painting “Lamentation of Christ”.