Quiz 3 Flashcards
Mary jesus baby gold
The Ognissanti Madonna by Giotto
ca. 1310
Before Giotto paintings were still 2 dimensional with flat stiff figures that were placed on top the environment instead of inside. But with this painting Giotto had set Mary in her chair but showing her form through shading and perspective through the angles of the chairs design and steps. His work had set forth the Renaissance movement that would produce artwork of increasing complexity.
long painting
the crucifix
Masaccio, “The Holy Trinity”, 1424, Fresco, Italian Renaissance (15th century Florence)
The medium that was used to create this art piece is fresco, which is the process of using colored wet plaster on a wall to create a piece.
This piece uses one point perspective, which at the time was new early in the Renaissance. It differentiated the realms of the Earthly and divine, similarly to what gothic works did with hierarchical scale. The Earthly figures were closer to the bottom, where the viewer would be, and the divine would be further up, creating the illusion of looking up at the Holy Trinity even though the work is flat. This was the more immersive aspect of Renaissance visual storytelling.
The scene depicts Jesus on the cross, with God behind him and the Holy Spirit on Jesus’ head (representated as a dove). Mary and John the Baptist stand below him, with Mary seemingly pointing to him and looking directly at the viewer as a visual cue.
As opposed to older works, the forms are rendered more naturalistic and God is depicted in the fresco, when it was almost taboo to do it before. This would be a sign of the more humanistic philosophy that was at its peak during the Renaissance, seeing the divine as more human.
spring
Sandro Botticelli**
Primavera
ca. 1482
tempera on pane
david
1501-1504
This sculpture is so big because it was meant to be placed high up on the cathedral, 40 feet above street level. In order for it to be visible, it had to be big. Michelangelo was given the commission just on the heels of his success in Rome, the “Pietà.”
school
Raphael, School of Athens, 1509-1511
The School of Athens represents all the greatest mathematicians, philosophers and scientists from classical antiquity gathered together sharing their ideas and learning from each other. These figures all lived at different times, but here they are gathered together under one roof. The two thinkers in the very center, Aristotle (on the right) and Plato (on the left, pointing up) have been enormously important to Western thinking generally, and in different ways, their different philosophies were incoporated into Christianity.
