Renaissance Art. Victoria Charles

du Louvre, Paris.

      Another Umbrian painter was Lehrzeit Perugino (around 1448 to 1524). Although he was one of the most important masters of Umbrian style and thus held in high esteem by his contemporaries, he achieved greater significance as a teacher of Raphael, whose first stage of development he had a crucial influence on, than as an artist in his own right. Perugino later also had close contact with the Florentine circle around Verrocchio. However he, only initially and very hesitantly, adopted the view of naturalism prevailing there, and preferred to remain true to his softer, successful style. This was because his contemporaries always demanded sensitive devotional pictures, which nobody except he knew how to paint with such a beautiful lustre of colours. In his paintings St Sebastian and Madonna and Child enthroned with St John the Baptist this becomes quite clear. The disadvantage of the popularity of his paintings was, of course, that it led to a mass production, during which even the expression of the greatest heavenly rapture became a cliché. But the series of frescoes he painted in the Sistine Chapel from 1480 with, among others, Christ gives Peter the Key to the Kingdom of Heaven or the altar with Adoration of the Child (1491), or the Vision of St Bernhard (around 1493), which was probably painted for the Cistercian church del Castello in Florence, belong to the absolute masterpieces of religious paintings. But he also became familiar with ancient art.

      However, in these classical portrayals his student Bernadino Pinturicchio (1455 to 1513) was far superior to him. In 1481 to 1483 he worked together with Perugino in the Sistine Chapel on frescoes with subjects from the Old and New Testament, but he also created his own frescoes, whose meticulous execution was reminiscent of miniature painting, in the Vatican Hall of Saints. This earned him the approval and goodwill of his clients, as well as did his well-developed sense for fitting out a large room in a unified, decorative style. This talent made him the founder of Renaissance decoration.

      Apart from the Umbrian school, there were also schools in Padua, Bologna and Venice, which were of significance in the second half of the fifteenth century.

      From the artists of these schools, Andrea Mantegna (1431 to 1506) is doubtlessly to be regarded as one of the greatest. Mantegna’s greatness lies in the depiction of important characters that he mainly found in classical works of art. This enthusiasm for classical art, which he wanted to match, dominated Mantegna’s life. He had been working in Mantua for the margrave Ludovico Gonzaga since 1460 and provided the spouses’ room with wall and ceiling decorations in their Castello di Corte in 1473 and 1474.

      Perugino (Pietro di Cristoforo Vannucci), St Sebastian, c. 1490–1500.

      Oil on wood, 176 × 116 cm.

      Musée du Louvre, Paris.

      In this work he proved his skills in perspective foreshortening in vault frescoes, and by far surpassed his professional colleagues in Florence regarding power and greatness of the characteristics. For a series of paintings destined for a room in the margrave’s palace, he also proved his change of direction to the classics. More than once Mantegna demonstrates a certain sympathy for the “underdogs”. One of the examples for this attitude is his dignified portrayal of the lower classes in religious pictures and the illustration of the prisoners in Triumph of Caesar (1488/1492). His art always remained directed towards the great and serious, and he only seldom moderated his harsh forms through pleasing gracefulness. Examples for this are among others the Madonna della Vittoria and John the Baptist (1496) in which the kneeling Duke Francesco Gonzaga is being blessed, as well as the tempera painting the Parnassus (1497) with Mars and Venus on a fanciful rock throne with the muses dancing in front and Apollo’s string playing. Mantegna’s revival of classical antiquity was so convincing that it even cast its spell over Raphael.

      Whilst Gentile Bellini is more of an art historian, Giovanni continued the artistic lines of his father and brother-in-law Mantegna. Giovanni Bellini’s favourite subject was without doubt the Madonna, portrayed alone, with child or sitting enthroned as a Madonna surrounded by saints. In these figures, as well as old and young or male and female figures he created types of beauty, which have not been surpassed in their rapturous emotional state of mind. In the composition of the colouring there is always a harmony reminiscent of music, and this element of life, indispensable to Venetians, is not missing on any of the Bellini altarpieces. In contrast, many devotional pictures of the Florentines and Paduans originating from this time seem austere and stern, and those of the Umbrian painters detached and tearful. They were all much less likely to evoke devotion than the paintings of the Venetians.

      In the colourful art of the Early Renaissance, represented by Bellini, we can already feel the transition to the High Renaissance approaching that was then actually made by his students, and in his mythological paintings he had already thrown open the door to the High Renaissance.

      The Italian High Renaissance

      In Italy, art flourished and reached its highest peak with the three unsurpassable masters Leonardo (1452 to 1519), Michelangelo (1475 to 1564) and Raphael (1483 to 1520). They have left an inestimable treasure for future generations. Once again, Florence was indeed a starting-point, but not the only scene for this development. Leonard soon left for Milan and Michelangelo and Raphael worked in Rome.

      Andrea Mantegna, St Sebastian, c. 1455–1460.

      Tempera on wood, 68 × 30 cm.

      Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

      Andrea Mantegna, Mars and Venus, c. 1497–1502.

      Tempera on canvas, 150 × 192 cm.

      Musée du Louvre, Paris.

      Leonardo da Vinci

      Leonardo da Vinci, The Virgin of the Rocks, 1483–1486.

      Oil on panel, 199 × 122 cm.

      Musée du Louvre, Paris.

      Leonardo da Vinci and Andrea del Verrocchio, The Baptism of Christ, 1470–1476.

      Oil and tempera on wood panel, 177 × 151 cm.

      Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

      Leonardo started his apprenticeship with Andrea del Verrocchio in approximately 1469, and was accepted into the master guild in Florence in 1472. How soon he was his master’s equal can be recognised in the Baptism of Christ (around 1475), with the angels and parts of the landscape he painted into the picture. Even at that time, his view of nature differed, due to the size of the structure of the form and his characteristic of the performances, which were seen as the peak of Florentine art. But the large picture handed over to him after he had completed his apprenticeship, an Adoration of the Magi, intended for a monastery church, was not finished. He really wanted to surpass all reputable Florentine artists with this painting; his plan never went further than the first undercoat of paint, despite many thorough preliminary studies. Even if his tendency as a painter and sculptor dominated, he also worked as an art theoretician and left behind many significant objects as an inventor and naturalist, as an architect, master builder of fortresses and a designer of engines of war. In the end, Leonardo’s creative power was no match for this universality, so later in his life, the completion of his pieces of work that had been prepared with a great deal of time, was occasionally at risk. Florence quickly became too constrictive for him, so that very soon he took an appointment to Milan to the court of Ludovico Sforza (1452 to 1508). His absolute masterpiece, The Last Supper (1495/1497) had to be restored for the first time as early as the sixteenth century, as it was subject to extensive decay, partly due to his appetite for experimenting, partly to climatic influence and wilful destruction. The gestures of his apostles, scenically arranged and summarised in a billowing movement, stand for his demand to depict “the intention of the soul” through movement.

      The end of Ludovico Sforza’s reign was a catastrophe for Leonardo.