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82-528: Holy Family is a Christian term for Jesus, the Virgin Mary and St. Joseph. Holy Family may also refer to: Holy Family The Gospels speak little of the life of the Holy Family in the years before Jesus' public ministry . Matthew and Luke narrate the episodes from this period of Christ's life, namely his circumcision and later Presentation , the flight to Egypt , the return to Nazareth, and

164-511: A Madonna and Child , with a Saint Joseph added. Often the figures were shown close-up, filling much of the picture space. Related variants add Jesus's slightly older cousin, Saint John the Baptist , and often his mother Saint Elizabeth ; but Joseph is often absent in these, removing them from the usual definition of a Holy Family . It was thought that the Holy Family stayed with Elizabeth on their return from Egypt, and these pictures tend to show

246-401: A boy pulling a thorn from his foot. Brunelleschi's creation is challenging in its dynamic intensity. Less elegant than Ghiberti's, it is more about human drama and impending tragedy. Ghiberti won the competition. His first set of Baptistry doors took 27 years to complete, after which he was commissioned to make another. In the total of 50 years that Ghiberti worked on them, the doors provided

328-639: A close-up with still life details, and adds Saint Joseph over the Virgin's shoulder. The Holy Family of Nazareth is a model of life for the priests and brothers of the Congregation of the Missionaries of the Holy Family . In their pastoral ministry, they emphasize the importance of sincere love and devotion to Jesus , Mary and Joseph . The founder of the congregation, Fr. John Berthier , wrote that "nothing can strengthen faith, hope and embrace hearts with love as

410-671: A collection of Flemish paintings and setting up a Humanist Academy . Antonello da Messina seems to have had access to the King's collection, which may have included the works of Jan van Eyck . Recent evidence indicates that Antonello was likely in contact with Van Eyck's most accomplished follower, Petrus Christus , in Milan in early 1456 and likely learned the techniques of oil painting, including painting almost microscopic detail and minute gradations of light, directly from Christus. As well, his works' calmer expressions on peoples' faces and calmness in

492-573: A competition was held amongst seven young artists to select the artist to create a pair of bronze doors for the Florence Baptistery , the oldest remaining church in the city. The competitors were each to design a bronze panel of similar shape and size, representing the Sacrifice of Isaac . Two of the panels from the competition have survived, those by Lorenzo Ghiberti and Brunelleschi . Each panel shows some strongly classicising motifs indicating

574-619: A family. The primary purpose of this feast is to present the Holy Family as a model for Christian families. From the 17th century, the feast has been celebrated at a local and regional level and at that level was promoted by Pope Leo XIII . In 1921, Pope Benedict XV made it part of the General Roman Calendar and set on the Sunday within the Octave of the Epiphany (cf. Epiphanytide ); that

656-702: A fresco cycle of the Life of St. Peter in the chapel of the Brancacci family, at the Carmelite Church in Florence. They both were called by the name of Tommaso and were nicknamed Masaccio and Masolino , Slovenly Tom and Little Tom. More than any other artist, Masaccio recognized the implications in the work of Giotto. He carried forward the practice of painting from nature. His frescos demonstrate an understanding of anatomy, of foreshortening, of linear perspective, of light, and

738-621: A major subject for High Renaissance painters such as Raphael and Titian and continue into the Mannerist period in works of artists such as Bronzino . With the growth of Humanism , artists turned to Classical themes, particularly to fulfill commissions for the decoration of the homes of wealthy patrons, the best known being Botticelli 's Birth of Venus for the Medici. Increasingly, Classical themes were also seen as providing suitable allegorical material for civic commissions. Humanism also influenced

820-580: A new standard for narrative pictures. His Ognissanti Madonna hangs in the Uffizi Gallery , Florence, in the same room as Cimabue's Santa Trinita Madonna and Duccio's Ruccellai Madonna where the stylistic comparisons between the three can easily be made. One of the features apparent in Giotto's work is his observation of naturalistic perspective. He is regarded as the herald of the Renaissance. Giotto had

902-514: A number of contemporaries who were either trained and influenced by him, or whose observation of nature had led them in a similar direction. Although several of Giotto's pupils assimilated the direction that his work had taken, none was to become as successful as he. Taddeo Gaddi achieved the first large painting of a night scene in an Annunciation to the Shepherds in the Baroncelli Chapel of

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984-421: A number of these in terra verde ("green earth"), enlivening his compositions with touches of vermilion. The best known is his equestrian portrait of John Hawkwood on the wall of Florence Cathedral . Both here and on the four heads of prophets that he painted around the inner clock face in the cathedral, he used strongly contrasting tones, suggesting that each figure was being lit by a natural light source, as if

1066-493: A richness of detail, and an idealised quality not compatible with the starker realities of Giotto's paintings. In the early 15th century, bridging the gap between International Gothic and the Renaissance are the paintings of Fra Angelico , many of which, being altarpieces in tempera, show the Gothic love of elaboration, gold leaf and brilliant colour. It is in his frescoes at his convent of Sant' Marco that Fra Angelico shows himself

1148-427: A shepherd boy from the hills north of Florence, became Cimabue's apprentice and emerged as the most outstanding painter of his time. Giotto, possibly influenced by Pietro Cavallini and other Roman painters, did not base the figures he painted upon any painterly tradition, but upon the observation of life. Unlike those of his Byzantine contemporaries, Giotto's figures are solidly three-dimensional; they stand squarely on

1230-514: A state of penitence and absolution. The inevitability of death, the rewards for the penitent and the penalties of sin were emphasised in a number of frescoes, remarkable for their grim depictions of suffering and their surreal images of the torments of Hell . These include the Triumph of Death by Giotto's pupil Orcagna , now in a fragmentary state at the Museum of Santa Croce, and the Triumph of Death in

1312-404: A training ground for many of the artists of Florence. Being narrative in subject and employing not only skill in arranging figurative compositions but also the burgeoning skill of linear perspective , the doors were to have an enormous influence on the development of Florentine pictorial art. The first Early Renaissance frescos or paintings were started in 1425 when two artists commenced painting

1394-623: Is in the Prado , with another at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California . Lorenzo Lotto also painted the subject several times, tending to add angels and saints from later periods, to produce versions of a sacra conversazione . Examples are Holy Family with Saint Catherine of Alexandria , Holy Family with St Jerome and St Anne , as well as one in the Louvre with the families of Jesus and John

1476-632: Is most often divided into four periods: the Proto-Renaissance (1300–1425), the Early Renaissance (1425–1495), the High Renaissance (1495–1520), and Mannerism (1520–1600). The dates for these periods represent the overall trend in Italian painting and do not cover all painters as the lives of individual artists and their personal styles overlapped these periods. The Proto-Renaissance begins with

1558-570: Is now at least awake, and often shown taking an active role in parenting. Many early Holy Family compositions are either Nativity scenes or the Rest on the Flight into Egypt with the removal of other event-specific elements, such as the ox and ass of the Nativity, to concentrate on the three main figures for devotional images, mostly intended for wealthy homes. Alternatively many compositions clearly derive from

1640-482: Is the painting of the period beginning in the late 13th century and flourishing from the early 15th to late 16th centuries, occurring in the Italian Peninsula , which was at that time divided into many political states, some independent but others controlled by external powers. The painters of Renaissance Italy , although often attached to particular courts and with loyalties to particular towns, nonetheless wandered

1722-465: Is thought he aided Masaccio in the creation of his famous trompe-l'œil niche around the Holy Trinity he painted at Santa Maria Novella . According to Vasari, Paolo Uccello was so obsessed with perspective that he thought of little else and experimented with it in many paintings, the best known being the three The Battle of San Romano paintings (completed by 1450s) which use broken weapons on

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1804-568: Is to say, on the Sunday between January 7 through January 13, all inclusive (see General Roman Calendar of 1954 ). In the General Roman Calendar of 1954 , the Sunday within the Octave of Christmas was in fact celebrated on the Sunday only if it fell on 29, 30 or 31 December, since it gave way to the higher-ranked feasts of Saint Stephen , Saint John the Apostle and the Holy Innocents ; otherwise, it

1886-643: The Maestà , in the Palazzo Pubblico , Siena . Portraiture was uncommon in the 14th and early 15th centuries, mostly limited to civic commemorative pictures such as the equestrian portraits of Guidoriccio da Fogliano by Simone Martini , 1327, in Siena and, of the early 15th century, John Hawkwood by Uccello in Florence Cathedral and its companion portraying Niccolò da Tolentino by Andrea del Castagno . During

1968-556: The Camposanto Monumentale at Pisa by an unknown painter, perhaps Francesco Traini or Buonamico Buffalmacco who worked on the other three of a series of frescoes on the subject of Salvation. It is unknown exactly when these frescoes were begun but it is generally presumed they post-date 1348. Two important fresco painters were active in Padua in the late 14th century, Altichiero and Giusto de' Menabuoi . Giusto's masterpiece,

2050-664: The Finding in the Temple . Joseph and Mary were apparently observant Jews, as Luke narrates that they brought Jesus with them on the annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem with other Jewish families. The Feast of the Holy Family is a liturgical celebration in the Catholic Church , as well as in many Lutheran and Anglican churches, in honour of Jesus of Nazareth, his mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and his foster father, Saint Joseph, as

2132-491: The General Roman Calendar of 1960 , which ranks the Sunday within the Octave of Christmas as higher than these saints and keeps the Feast of the Holy Family on the Sunday after Epiphany . The 1969 revision of the General Roman Calendar moved the celebration of the Holy Family to the Sunday within the Octave of Christmas, that is, the Sunday between Christmas Day and New Year's Day (both exclusive), or if both Christmas Day and

2214-743: The High Renaissance many Italian paintings had a horizontal format. The subject was popular with Antonio da Correggio (examples are in Pavia , Orléans , the Royal Collection , Los Angeles and Mantua ), and Domenico Beccafumi (examples in Munich , Galleria Palatina, Florence and also the Uffizi there). Michelangelo 's tempera rendition (c. 1506) hangs in the Uffizi in Florence, Italy . A Holy Family by Giulio Romano

2296-590: The Sassetti Chapel at Santa Trinita and the Tornabuoni Chapel at Santa Maria Novella . In these cycles of the Life of St Francis and the Life of the Virgin Mary and Life of John the Baptist there was room for portraits of patrons and of the patrons' patrons. Thanks to Sassetti's patronage, there is a portrait of the man himself, with his employer, Lorenzo il Magnifico , and Lorenzo's three sons with their tutor,

2378-547: The Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God are Sundays, on 30 December, which is always a Friday in such years. When not celebrated on a Sunday, it is not a holy day of obligation . In the General Roman Calendar of 1969 the Feast of the Holy Family outranks the various saints whose feastdays fall during the Octave of Christmas, since it is usually to be celebrated on a Sunday. In the Catholic Church, hyperdulia and protodulia are

2460-460: The illusionistic pierced balustrade that surrounds a trompe-l'œil view of the sky that decks the ceiling of the chamber. Mantegna's main legacy in considered the introduction of spatial illusionism, carried out by a mastery of perspective, both in frescoes and in sacra conversazione paintings: his tradition of ceiling decoration was followed for almost three centuries. In 1442 Alfonso V of Aragon became ruler of Naples , bringing with him

2542-415: The 1460s, Cosimo de' Medici had established Marsilio Ficino as his resident Humanist philosopher, and facilitated his translation of Plato and his teaching of Platonic philosophy , which focused on humanity as the centre of the natural universe, on each person's personal relationship with God, and on fraternal or "platonic" love as being the closest that a person could get to emulating or understanding

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2624-414: The 15th and first half of the 16th centuries, one workshop more than any other dominated the production of Madonnas. They were the della Robbia family, and they were not painters but modellers in clay. Luca della Robbia , famous for his cantoria gallery at the cathedral, was the first sculptor to use glazed terracotta for large sculptures. Many of the durable works of this family have survived. The skill of

2706-517: The 15th century portraiture became common, initially often formalised profile portraits but increasingly three-quarter face, bust-length portraits. Patrons of art works such as altarpieces and fresco cycles often were included in the scenes, a notable example being the inclusion of the Sassetti and Medici families in Domenico Ghirlandaio 's cycle in the Sassetti Chapel . Portraiture was to become

2788-782: The Baptist. North of the Alps, prints from the 1490s by Albrecht Dürer probably preceded any paintings. An early northern painting is by the Master of the Saint Bartholomew Altarpiece around 1500, where the composition has clearly been freshly imagined. By contrast, the Holy Family by the Dutch artist Joos van Cleve of c.1512 in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art , essentially reduces Jan van Eyck 's Lucca Madonna to

2870-692: The Church of Santa Croce, Florence. The paintings in the Upper Church of the Basilica of St. Francis, Assisi , are examples of naturalistic painting of the period, often ascribed to Giotto himself, but more probably the work of artists surrounding Pietro Cavallini . A late painting by Cimabue in the Lower Church at Assisi, of the Madonna and St. Francis , also clearly shows greater naturalism than his panel paintings and

2952-655: The Concert by Lorenzo Costa of about 1490. Important events were often recorded or commemorated in paintings such as Uccello's Battle of San Romano , as were important local religious festivals. History and historic characters were often depicted in a way that reflected on current events or on the lives of current people. Portraits were often painted of contemporaries in the guise of characters from history or literature. The writings of Dante , Voragine's Golden Legend and Boccaccio 's The Decameron were important sources of themes. In all these subjects, increasingly, and in

3034-591: The Eremitani , near the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua. Unfortunately, the building was mostly destroyed during World War II, and they are only known from photographs which reveal an already highly developed sense of perspective and a knowledge of antiquity, for which the ancient University of Padua had become well known, early in the 15th century. Mantegna's last work in Padua was a monumental San Zeno altarpiece , created for

3116-585: The Holy Family of Nazareth is the see of the Diocese of Tulsa in Oklahoma . A pious practice among Christians, especially Catholics, is to write "✝ J.M.J. ✝" often flanked by two Christian crosses at the top of letters, cards, documents and personal notes as a reference to Jesus, Mary, and Joseph as the Holy Family. Where it is written, "✝ J.M.J. ✝" is an "appeal for the blessing of the Holy Family." Italian Renaissance painting Italian Renaissance painting

3198-455: The Madonna and Child. These two painters, with their contemporaries, Guido of Siena , Coppo di Marcovaldo and the mysterious painter upon whose style the school may have been based, the so-called Master of St Bernardino, all worked in a manner that was highly formalised and dependent upon the ancient tradition of icon painting. In these tempera paintings many of the details were rigidly fixed by

3280-531: The Renaissance period . The following is a summary of points dealt with more fully in the main articles that are cited above. A number of Classical texts, that had been lost to Western European scholars for centuries, became available. These included Philosophy, Poetry, Drama, Science, a thesis on the Arts and Early Christian Theology. The resulting interest in Humanist philosophy meant that man's relationship with humanity,

3362-583: The abbot of the Basilica of San Zeno , Verona from 1457 to 1459. This polyptych of which the predella panels are particularly notable for the handling of landscape elements, was to influence the further development of Renaissance art in Northern Italy. Mantegna's most famous work is the interior decoration of the Camera degli Sposi in the Ducal palace, Mantua , dated about 1470. The walls are frescoed with scenes of

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3444-776: The art of painting. The establishment of the Medici Bank and the subsequent trade it generated brought unprecedented wealth to a single Italian city, Florence . Cosimo de' Medici set a new standard for patronage of the arts, not associated with the church or monarchy. The serendipitous presence within the region of Florence of certain individuals of artistic genius, most notably Giotto , Masaccio , Brunelleschi, Piero della Francesca , Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo , formed an ethos that supported and encouraged many lesser artists to achieve work of extraordinary quality. A similar heritage of artistic achievement occurred in Venice through

3526-515: The artistic disciple of Giotto. These devotional paintings, which adorn the cells and corridors inhabited by the friars, represent episodes from the life of Jesus , many of them being scenes of the Crucifixion . They are starkly simple, restrained in colour and intense in mood as the artist sought to make spiritual revelations a visual reality. The earliest truly Renaissance images in Florence date from 1401, although they are not paintings. That year

3608-628: The children older than newborns. The extended family of Jesus, already popular as a subject in art, is called the Holy Kinship ; this might include up to twenty figures. The Parte Guelfa Holy Family by Luca Signorelli dates from about 1490. Mantegna appears to have invented the very tightly focused group in the late 1490s, painting several variants with John the Baptist and his mother, such as one now in Dresden . Some of these have standing or vertical infants, mostly toddlers rather than new-borns. By

3690-623: The cult of the Holy Family." The members of the Holy Family are also the patrons of the Congregation of Holy Cross . The Holy Cross Sisters are dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary , the Holy Cross Brothers to Saint Joseph , and the Priests of Holy Cross to the Sacred Heart . The Sons of the Holy Family is another religious congregation devoted to the Holy Family. The Cathedral of

3772-468: The decoration of the Padua Baptistery , follows the theme of humanity's Creation, Downfall, and Salvation, also having a rare Apocalypse cycle in the small chancel. While the whole work is exceptional for its breadth, quality and intact state, the treatment of human emotion is conservative by comparison with that of Altichiero's Crucifixion at the Basilica of Sant'Antonio , also in Padua. Giusto's work relies on formalised gestures, where Altichiero relates

3854-428: The della Robbias, particularly Andrea della Robbia , was to give great naturalism to the babies that they modelled as Jesus , and expressions of great piety and sweetness to the Madonna. They were to set a standard to be emulated by other artists of Florence. Among those who painted devotional Madonnas during the Early Renaissance are Fra Angelico , Fra Filippo Lippi , Verrocchio and Davide Ghirlandaio . The custom

3936-401: The direction that art and philosophy were moving, at that time. Ghiberti used the naked figure of Isaac to create a small sculpture in the Classical style. The figure kneels on a tomb decorated with acanthus scrolls that are also a reference to the art of Ancient Rome. In Brunelleschi's panel, one of the additional figures included in the scene is reminiscent of a well-known Roman bronze figure of

4018-469: The dome which was not built until the following century. During the later 14th century, International Gothic was the style that dominated Tuscan painting. It can be seen to an extent in the work of Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, which is marked by a formalized sweetness and grace in the figures, and Late Gothic gracefulness in the draperies. The style is fully developed in the works of Simone Martini and Gentile da Fabriano , which have an elegance and

4100-463: The early 16th century, in both Italian Renaissance painting and Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting . The popularity of the subject was associated with an increased interest in, and devotion to, Saint Joseph. In the later Middle Ages he had become something of a comic figure, whose age was emphasized, and was often shown asleep in Nativity scenes. In the 15th century confraternities dedicated to Joseph were part of revived devotional interest, who

4182-413: The first half of the 15th century, the achieving of the effect of realistic space in a painting by the employment of linear perspective was a major preoccupation of many painters, as well as the architects Brunelleschi and Alberti who both theorised about the subject. Brunelleschi is known to have done a number of careful studies of the piazza and octagonal baptistery outside Florence Cathedral and it

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4264-481: The gentle and pretty figures painted by Masolino on the opposite side of Adam and Eve receiving the forbidden fruit . The painting of the Brancacci Chapel was left incomplete when Masaccio died at 26 in 1428. The Tribute Money was completed by Masolino while the remainder of the work in the chapel was finished by Filippino Lippi in the 1480s. Masaccio's work became a source of inspiration to many later painters, including Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo . During

4346-460: The ground, and fields on the distant hills to give an impression of perspective. In the 1450s Piero della Francesca , in paintings such as The Flagellation of Christ , demonstrated his mastery over linear perspective and also over the science of light. Another painting exists, a cityscape, by an unknown artist, perhaps Piero della Francesca, that demonstrates the sort of experiment that Brunelleschi had been making. From this time linear perspective

4428-414: The ground, have discernible anatomy and are clothed in garments with weight and structure. But more than anything, what set Giotto's figures apart from those of his contemporaries are their emotions. In the faces of Giotto's figures are joy, rage, despair, shame, spite and love. The cycle of frescoes of the Life of Christ and the Life of the Virgin that he painted in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua set

4510-405: The high altar and created a series of bronze panels in which he achieved a remarkable illusion of depth, with perspective in the architectural settings and apparent roundness of the human form all in very shallow relief. At only 17 years old, Mantegna accepted his first commission, fresco cycles of the Lives of Saints James and Christopher for the Ovetari Chapel in the transept of the church of

4592-421: The incidents surrounding Christ's death with great human drama and intensity. In Florence, at the Spanish Chapel of Santa Maria Novella , Andrea di Bonaiuto was commissioned to emphasise the role of the Church in the redemptive process, and that of the Dominican Order in particular. His fresco Allegory of the Active and Triumphant Church is remarkable for its depiction of Florence Cathedral , complete with

4674-473: The latter works of Giovanni Bellini , and Titian . The Mannerist period, dealt with in a separate article, included the latter works of Michelangelo, as well as Pontormo , Parmigianino , Bronzino , and Tintoretto . The influences upon the development of Renaissance painting in Italy are those that also affected architecture, engineering, philosophy, language, literature, natural sciences, politics, ethics, theology, and other aspects of Italian society during

4756-475: The length and breadth of Italy, often occupying a diplomatic status and disseminating artistic and philosophical ideas. The city of Florence in Tuscany is renowned as the birthplace of the Renaissance , and in particular of Renaissance painting, although later in the era Rome and Venice assumed increasing importance in painting. A detailed background is given in the companion articles Renaissance art and Renaissance architecture . Italian Renaissance painting

4838-403: The life of the Gonzaga family , talking, greeting a younger son and his tutor on their return from Rome, preparing for a hunt and other such scenes that make no obvious reference to matters historic, literary, philosophic or religious. They are remarkable for simply being about family life. The one concession is the scattering of jolly winged putti , who hold up plaques and garlands and clamber on

4920-411: The love of God. In the Medieval period, everything related to the Classical period was perceived as associated with paganism. In the Renaissance it came increasingly to be associated with enlightenment . The figures of Classical mythology began to take on a new symbolic role in Christian art and in particular, the Goddess Venus took on a new discretion. Born fully formed, by a sort of miracle, she

5002-476: The manner in which religious themes were depicted, notably on Michelangelo's Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel . Other motifs were drawn from contemporary life, sometimes with allegorical meaning, some sometimes purely decorative. Incidents important to a particular family might be recorded like those in the Camera degli Sposi that Mantegna painted for the Gonzaga family at Mantua . Increasingly, still lifes and decorative scenes from life were painted, such as

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5084-429: The most influential painters of northern Italy was Andrea Mantegna of Padua , who had the good fortune to be in his teen years at the time in which the great Florentine sculptor Donatello was working there. Donatello created the enormous equestrian bronze, the first since the Roman Empire, of the condotiero Gattemelata , still visible on its plinth in the square outside the Basilica of Sant'Antonio . He also worked on

5166-413: The names respectively reserved in a specific way to the veneration of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary and the Most Chaste Saint Joseph. Those venerations are more important than the dulia reserved to any other saint. In fact, the Virgin Mary has the Marian title of Queen of Angels and Queen of Saints and Saint Joseph is the patron of the Roman Catholic Church. The Holy Family became a subject popular in art in

5248-410: The objects would have excited Piero della Francesca . In Florence, in the later 15th century, most works of art, even those that were done as decoration for churches, were generally commissioned and paid for by private patrons. Much of the patronage came from the Medici family, or those who were closely associated with or related to them, such as the Sassetti, the Ruccellai, and the Tornabuoni. In

5330-483: The paintings of Masaccio and Paolo Uccello . Simultaneous with gaining access to the Classical texts, Europe gained access to advanced mathematics which had its provenance in the works of Byzantine and Islamic scholars. The advent of movable type printing in the 15th century meant that ideas could be disseminated easily, and an increasing number of books were written for a broad public. The development of oil paint and its introduction to Italy had lasting effects on

5412-461: The professional life of the painter Giotto and includes Taddeo Gaddi , Orcagna , and Altichiero . The Early Renaissance style was started by Masaccio and then further developed by Fra Angelico , Paolo Uccello , Piero della Francesca , Sandro Botticelli , Verrocchio , Domenico Ghirlandaio , and Giovanni Bellini . The High Renaissance period was that of Leonardo da Vinci , Michelangelo , Raphael , Andrea del Sarto , Coreggio , Giorgione ,

5494-421: The remains of his earlier frescoes in the upper church. A common theme in the decoration of Medieval churches was the Last Judgement , which in northern European churches frequently occupies a sculptural space above the west door, but in Italian churches such as Giotto's Scrovegni Chapel it is painted on the inner west wall. The Black Death of 1348 caused its survivors to focus on the need to approach death in

5576-410: The small painting is framed by a late Gothic arch, through which is viewed an interior, domestic on one side and ecclesiastic on the other, in the centre of which the saint sits in a wooden corral surrounded by his possessions while his lion prowls in the shadows on the floor. The way the light streams in through every door and window casting both natural and reflected light across the architecture and all

5658-473: The source was an actual window in the cathedral. Piero della Francesca carried his study of light further. In the Flagellation he demonstrates a knowledge of how light is proportionally disseminated from its point of origin. There are two sources of light in this painting, one internal to a building and the other external. Of the internal source, though the light itself is invisible, its position can be calculated with mathematical certainty. Leonardo da Vinci

5740-426: The study of drapery. In the Brancacci Chapel , his Tribute Money fresco has a single vanishing point and uses a strong contrast between light and dark to convey a three-dimensional quality to the work. As well, the figures of Adam and Eve being expelled from Eden , painted on the side of the arch into the chapel, are renowned for their realistic depiction of the human form and of human emotion. They contrast with

5822-521: The subject matter, the precise position of the hands of the Madonna and Christ Child, for example, being dictated by the nature of the blessing that the painting invoked upon the viewer. The angle of the Virgin's head and shoulders, the folds in her veil, and the lines with which her features were defined had all been repeated in countless such paintings. Cimabue and Duccio took steps in the direction of greater naturalism, as did their contemporary, Pietro Cavallini of Rome. Giotto (1266–1337), by tradition

5904-493: The talented Bellini family, their influential inlaw Mantegna , Giorgione , Titian and Tintoretto . Much painting of the Renaissance period was commissioned by or for the Catholic Church . These works were often of large scale and were frequently cycles painted in fresco of the Life of Christ , the Life of the Virgin or the life of a saint, particularly St. Francis of Assisi . There were also many allegorical paintings on

5986-657: The theme of Salvation and the role of the Church in attaining it. Churches also commissioned altarpieces , which were painted in tempera on panel and later in oil on canvas . Apart from large altarpieces, small devotional pictures were produced in very large numbers, both for churches and for private individuals, the most common theme being the Madonna and Child . Throughout the period, civic commissions were also important. Local government buildings were decorated with frescoes and other works both secular, such as Ambrogio Lorenzetti 's The Allegory of Good and Bad Government , and religious, such as Simone Martini 's fresco of

6068-453: The universe and with God was no longer the exclusive province of the Church. A revived interest in the Classics brought about the first archaeological study of Roman remains by the architect Brunelleschi and sculptor Donatello . The revival of a style of architecture based on classical precedents inspired a corresponding classicism in painting, which manifested itself as early as the 1420s in

6150-502: The works of almost all painters, certain underlying painterly practices were being developed: the observation of nature, the study of anatomy, of light, and perspective. The art of the region of Tuscany in the late 13th century was dominated by two masters of the Italo-Byzantine style, Cimabue of Florence and Duccio of Siena . Their commissions were mostly religious paintings, several of them being very large altarpieces showing

6232-793: The works' overall composition also appears to be a Netherlandish influence. Antonello went to Venice in 1475 and remained there until the fall of 1476 so it is likely that Antonello passed on the techniques of using oil paints, painting the gradation of light, and the principles of calmness to Venetian painters , including Giovanni Bellini, one of the most significant painters of the High Renaissance in Northern Italy, during that visit. Antonello painted mostly small meticulous portraits in glowing colours. But one of his most famous works, St. Jerome in His Study , demonstrates his superior ability at handling linear perspective and light. The composition of

6314-626: Was continued by Botticelli, who produced a series of Madonnas over a period of twenty years for the Medici ; Perugino , whose Madonnas and saints are known for their sweetness and Leonardo da Vinci , for whom a number of small attributed Madonnas such as the Benois Madonna have survived. Even Michelangelo , who was primarily a sculptor, was persuaded to paint the Doni Tondo , while for Raphael , they are among his most popular and numerous works. One of

6396-476: Was destroyed by fire, but replaced with a new image in the 1330s by Bernardo Daddi , set in an elaborately designed and lavishly wrought canopy by Orcagna . The open lower storey of the building was enclosed and dedicated as Orsanmichele . Depictions of the Madonna and Child were a very popular art form in Florence. They took every shape from small mass-produced terracotta plaques to magnificent altarpieces such as those by Cimabue , Giotto and Masaccio . In

6478-671: Was the new Eve , symbol of innocent love, or even, by extension, a symbol of the Virgin Mary herself. We see Venus in both these roles in the two famous tempera paintings that Botticelli did in the 1480s for Cosimo's nephew, Pierfrancesco de' Medici , the Primavera and the Birth of Venus . Meanwhile, Domenico Ghirlandaio , a meticulous and accurate draughtsman and one of the finest portrait painters of his age, executed two cycles of frescoes for Medici associates in two of Florence's larger churches,

6560-550: Was to carry forward Piero's work on light. The Virgin Mary , revered by the Catholic Church worldwide, was particularly evoked in Florence, where there was a miraculous image of her on a column in the corn market and where both the Cathedral of "Our Lady of the Flowers" and the large Dominican church of Santa Maria Novella were named in her honour. The miraculous image in the corn market

6642-499: Was transferred to December 30, and if the feast of Saint Thomas Becket , one of the most popular additions to the calendar in the Middle Ages, was celebrated in double rite (as it was universally after 1907), then it too took precedence over this Sunday, until the 1911 reforms where double feasts no longer did so automatically. The 1962 Roman Missal , whose use is still authorized per the 2007 motu proprio Summorum Pontificum , follows

6724-543: Was understood and regularly employed, such as by Perugino in his Christ Giving the Keys to St. Peter (1481–82) in the Sistine Chapel . Giotto used tonality to create form. Taddeo Gaddi in his nocturnal scene in the Baroncelli Chapel demonstrated how light could be used to create drama. Paolo Uccello , a hundred years later, experimented with the dramatic effect of light in some of his almost monochrome frescoes. He did

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