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About The High Renaissance
Period
Classical humanism,
was a major factor of the Italian Renaissance. This philosophical
movement was based on the idea that every persons life had value and
dignity. Humanism also stressed man's position in the natural world.
The Humanists believed modern man should look to the classical writings
and art of the ancient
Greeks and
Romans as exemplary guides for ethical living and scholarship.
Francesco Petrarch,
1304-1374, called the Father of Humanism,
Italian Intellectual, Poet, and Humanist
stated, "No one intellect should ever strive for distinction in more
than one pursuit. Those who boast of preeminence in many arts are either
divinely endowed or utterly shameless or simply mad. Who ever heard of
such presumption in olden times, on the part of either Greeks or men of
our own race? It is a new practice, a new kind of effrontery. To-day men
write up over their doors inscriptions full of vainglory, containing
claims which, if true, would make them, as Pliny puts it, superior even
to the law of the land.. ." The sense of humanism pervading
renaissance painting is still palpable. The painters touched on a
multitude of issues regarding the human condition - death, love,
reason, religion, universal morality, social problems.
Until the
Middle Ages
men regarded themselves
as following the
Good
Shepherd, and
art consequently did not
recognize the individual
in particular. In the
structure and position
of the figures, as
in their expression, a
general and uniform type
of beauty prevailed. The
early Renaissance marks
the victory of
individualism and the
uncompromising
prominence of he
individual.
According to Renaissance
historian Walter Pater "Here,
artists and philosophers
and those whom the
action of the world has
elevated and made keen,
do not live in
isolation, but breathe a
common air, and catch
light and heat from each
other’s thoughts. There
is a spirit of general
elevation and
enlightenment in which
all alike communicate.
The unity of this spirit
gives unity to all the
various products of the
Renaissance; and it is
to this intimate
alliance with the mind,
this participation in
the best thoughts which
that age produced, that
the art of Italy in the
fifteenth century owes
much of its grave
dignity and influence.."
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Key Descriptive Words
and Phrases associated
with the Renaissance
Movement -
rebirth,
rediscovery of the classical world, publication of Della
Pittura, a book about the laws of mathematical perspective for
artists, sfumato, chiaroscuro, spiritually
significant,
illuminated
manuscript, idealized biblical themes,
scriptorium,
illuminator,
plague, Age of Discovery, curiosity about the natural world, realistic use of colours and
light, Old Testament stories, ethereal and
vaporous surroundings, Gospel parables, romanticized landscapes,
Christian symbolism.
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