Rennaisance to Neoclassicism Flashcards
Italian/Florentine Renaissance Humanism
1400 - 1600
Movement in thought, literature, art, typified by revived interest in the classical antiquity as a source of absolute standards for judging cultural activity and a focus on what it means to be human as opposed to religion. This involved moving away from medieval ideals of chivalry where birth and nobility were prioritised, to a system of values that placed intellectual prowess and civic virtue on a higher pedestal.
This mode of thought was nurtured by the Italian city states who could trace their origins to Ancient Rome and its Republican (not clerical or aristocratic) ideals. Authors such as the poet Petrarch (1304-1374) sought ‘lost’ ancient manuscripts; religion was not rejected outright, but there was greater focus on the here and now rather than the hereafter.
Petrarch: ‘when the darkness breaks, the generations to come may contrive to find their way back to the clear splendour of the ancient past’
By the 15th century CE, humanism had spread across Europe.
Dutch/Flemish Renaissance
1550
Form of renaissance outside Italy, which were less focused on theory and interest in antiquity marked a similar break from the art of immediate predecessors. In particular, this movement was to contribute the development of easel and panel painting, through the concerted use and invention of oil painting techniques (such as the application of translucent glazes to opaque colours, to give the appearance of depth), as new artists sought to a new medium more luminous than tempera.
As opposed to Florentine theories and systematic rules for representing 3d space, this movement discovered linear and aerial perspective by trial and error. Unlike in Italy, living artists belonging to this movement did not appear in collection of lives of famous men, with no biographies or works..
