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  • Empires - The Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance
    Empires - The Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance
    A fascinating and highly entertaining look at one of the most important families of the Renaissance era--the Medici.
  • Sister Wendy - The Complete Collection (Story of Painting / Grand Tour / Odyssey / Pains of Glass)
    Sister Wendy - The Complete Collection (Story of Painting / Grand Tour / Odyssey / Pains of Glass)

    “Sister Wendy Beckett has transformed public appreciation of art through her astonishing knowledge, insight and passion for painting and painters.” This set includes Sister Wendy's Story of Painting, Sister Wendy's Odyssey, and Sister Wendy's Grand Tour. Simultaneously delightful and scholarly--this is a must have for anyone interested in art history.

  • Exit Through the Gift Shop
    Exit Through the Gift Shop
    When British stencil artist Banksy traveled to Los Angeles to work, he came across obscure French filmmaker Thierry Guetta and his badly organized collection of videotapes involving the activities of graffiti artists. Inspired, Banksy assembled them with new footage to create this talked-about documentary, and the result is a mind-boggling and odd film (so strange as to be thought a hoax by some) about outsider artists and the definition of art itself.
  • The Impressionists
    The Impressionists
    A dramatization of the Impressionist movement as seen through the eyes of Claude Monet. Highly entertaining and informative.
  • The Impressionists: The Other French Revolution
    The Impressionists: The Other French Revolution
    A very personal and revealing look at the personalities that created Impressionism.

Entries in Renaissance Art (33)

Monday
Apr182016

“Great George”

Giorgione - Adoration of the Shepherds - 1505-10 – Venice - Oil on canvas - National Gallery of Art, Washington (click photo for larger image)Italian painter (real name Giorgio Barbarelli or Giorgio da Castelfranco), who 'from his stature and the greatness of his mind was afterwards known as Giorgione (c. 1477-1510) [great George]' (Vasari). He was ranked by Vasari with Leonardo da Vinci as one of the founders of modern painting. He was the first exponent in Venice of the small picture in oils, intended for private collectors rather than for churches, and frequently mysterious and evocative in subject. Giorgione's achievement in transforming the character of Venetian painting has always seemed the more remarkable in a life, terminated by the plague of 1510, that was even shorter than Raphael's.

Friday
Apr152016

Harmony and Balance of Design

Raphael - Crucifixion (Città di Castello Altarpiece) - 1502-03 - Oil on wood, 281 x 165 cm (112.4 x 66 in.) - National Gallery, London (click photo for larger image)Paolo Giovio, Raphael’s (1483-1520) first biographer, commissioned this Madonna. Jesus has taken the cross from the boy Baptist, thus indicating the symbol of His Passion. The older boy is looking at him full of understanding, and visibly saddened. The Virgin has put her hand on his shoulder, as if to comfort him. Named after the Spanish ducal family of Alba, who owned the painting for over a century, this work was later purchased for the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, from which it was acquired for the Mellon Collection. The painting is a perfect expression of Renaissance art theory. Harmony and balance of design are found in Raphael's ability to stabilize the circular form of the painting, with a triangular arrangement of the figures and the strong horizontal line behind them, composed of the river and trees.

Monday
Apr112016

A Moment of Frozen Drama…

Luca Signorelli - Lamentation over the Dead Christ - 1502 - Wood, 270 x 240 cm (108 x 96 in.) Museo Diocesano, Cortona (click photo for larger image)The static pose of the figures, which are seen in a moment of frozen drama, reveals strong links with popular religious plays. An account of Vasari says that Luca Signorelli (1445-1523) wanted to represent—in the figure of the naked Christ—his own son, who died of plague in 1502. “The Lamentation”, a work done entirely by the artist alone, reveals all the poetry of the painter even in the context of an unrefined style, which may seem declamatory, scenic and rhetorical. It strikes the observer with great power and energy on account of its dimensions, the liveliness of its color and the strong statuesque attitude of the figures. The central characters are expressive and are painted in an attitude of pain. According to Vasari, Signorelli was a pupil of Piero della Francesca and this seems highly probable, on stylistic grounds. His solid figures and sensitive handling of light certainly echo the work of the master. Signorelli differed from Piero, however, in his interest in the representation of action, which put him in line with contemporary Florentine artists.

Friday
Apr082016

Bizarre, Romantic Fantasies

Piero di Cosimo - Forest Fire - c. 1500 - Panel, 71 x 203 cm (28.4 x 81.2 in.) - Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (click photo for larger image)Piero di Cosimo’s (1462-1522) mature style is exemplified by his mythological paintings, which exhibit a bizarre, romantic fantasy. Many are based on Vitruvius' account of the evolution of man. They are filled with fantastic hybrid forms of men and animals engaged in revels. “The Forest Fire” contains a disjunctive narrative with animals fleeing the fires. Human figures either flee also or concentrate on bringing water to the fire. The composition is not firmly set. Instead, Piero loosely divided the picture by the placement of trees. The decorative richness of the work and the transparent beauty of the glowing distances in the forest and rich, coral colors can now be appreciated after a recent cleaning. Piero’s is one of Vasari's most entertaining biographies, for he portrays the artist as a highly eccentric character who lived on hard-boiled eggs, "which he cooked while he was boiling his glue, to save the firing”. Piero helped Cosimo Rosselli in decorating the Sistine Chapel. Following this debut, his career progressed slowly, and his style changed. He was influenced by Leonardo and by Luca Signorelli and Filippino Lippi. He excelled at painting animals with a sympathy rare in his age.

Monday
Nov092015

La Fornarina

Raphael, Portrait of a Young Woman (La Fornarina) — 1518-19 - Oil on wood, 85 x 60 cm - Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (April 6 or March 28, 1483 – April 6, 1520. The pearl (in Italian, margarita) adorning the sitter’s hair may allude to the name of Raphael's mistress and model—Margherita Luti. Her stray curl exemplifies the "studied carelessness" or sprezzatura celebrated in “The Book of the Courtier”, written by the artist’s friend, Baldassare Castiglione. The story of Raphael and Margarita’s love has become "the archetypal artist-model relationship of Western tradition”, yet little is known of her life. Flaubert wrote of her, in his “Dictionary of Received Ideas”, that “Fornarina was a beautiful woman. That is all you need to know.” Raphael never married, but in 1514 he became engaged to Maria Bibbiena, Cardinal Medici Bibbiena's niece. His lack of enthusiasm seems to be indicated by the marriage's not taking place before she died in 1520. Raphael is said to have had many affairs, but a permanent fixture in his life in Rome was "La Fornarina” (Margherita), the daughter of a baker (fornaro). He did take care of in his will. He also died in 1520—only in his early thirties. There has been some suggestion that Raphael and Margherita were secretly wed.