The Early Renaissance

RENAISSANCE ART

Introduction

The Renaissance, an age of discovery, found painters deeply concerned with investigations and experiments. New impor­tance was given to the human figure, which now became one of the essential motifs of all painting and the basis of Renais­sance humanism. In its initial stages Renaissance painting was stimulated by antique sculpture to an intensive study of the human body — its structure and mechanism. The 15th century artists were fascinated by science, mathematics, geometry and above all perspective. The breadth of knowledge of these artists was astounding, ranging from the simplest craft processes to the highest intellectual speculation.

The Early Renaissance

§ 2. Giotto (1266/76—1337)

The history of painting in Western Europe begins with the thirteenth-century pioneer, Giotto. From the relatively stiff artistic background of his time Giotto developed a majestic, sculptural style which set Italian art on its future path. Although his technical contribution to painting is enormous, Giotto's great feeling for humanity makes his work a high point in the movement toward the humanizing of art and life begun early in the century. In both respects he is a key figure, his personality stamped on the whole course of Italian art. For more than two hundred years after his death artists acknowledged their debt to this master of monumental dignity and controlled emotional strength.

The young Giotto helped with the frescoes in the great church of St Francis in Assisi. Here the young apprentice absorb­ed both the flat-patterned, emotional art of his own teacher (Cimabue, a Florentine artist) and the rounded forms of the painters from Rome who had been influenced by the ancient sculptures in the Eternal City. Giotto combined these qualities to form a new and personal style.

In a "St Francis" done for the Church of Santa Croce in Flo­rence, Giotto repeated the powerful sculpturesque impression and sense of dignity achieved by him earlier in his frescoes paint­ed at Padua. To these elements he added the quality of decora­tive symmetry. "The Death of St Francis" reveals a carefully balanced composition which increases the effectiveness of the pre­sentation in a way that was to become increasingly characteris­tic of Italian art.

In a neat shallow box space the deathbed is flanked by two door­ways, each with its group of five mourners. Another five stand against the rear wall, while three figures kneel on either side of the bed. The actuality and solidity of these figures is heighten­ed by the draperies covering them. This powerful impression of form is apparent even over the shoes of the foreground characters whose faces are not seen, but whose reality cannot be doubted.

§ 3. Masaccio (1401—1428/29)

Giotto's method had been to outline the figure and, through the powerful contour, suggest a third dimension. Line was a short­hand method of indicating form; it carried the eye of the spec­tator in the directions desired by the painter. Masaccio achiev­ed a considerable optical illusion of depth in his landscapes, as well as in the painting of architectural constructions, apply­ing the laws of perspective. Masaccio's method is illustrated by the famous "The Tribute Money". It differentiates between the light that falls on a rounded figure and the shadows it casts — more or less what actually happens in nature. The light-and-dark, or chiaroscuro technique was conceived almost at one stroke. During a period of perhaps three years, the artist developed this new way of building up the mass of a form and of placing it in a given part of three-dimensional space. The effect of his remarkable feat can be traced in the work of the great masters of the High Renaissance.

Masaccio was also able to portray figures out of doors so convincingly that they appear to blur as they move away from us. Linear perspective reproduces the effect of forms growing smaller in the distance. With his new aerial perspective Masac­cio pointed out that they also grow dimmer and out of focus.

§ 4. Van Eyck (1370/85—1441)

Realism became a force that gave new life to art in the whole of Europe during the early fifteenth century, and one of its lead­ing figures was the Flemish painter Jan van Eyck.

Jan van Eyck discovered for himself that the illusion of real­ity could be heightened by a systematic arrangement of light and shade which subdued the colour of the object and created atmos­phere.

The paintings of Jan van Eyck have an enamel-like surface giving an almost jewelled effect; the particularly shiny and trans­parent quality is due to the use of the newly-developed oil-and-egg emulsion. The rooms are filled with atmosphere that seems so real as to be almost tangible. This atmospheric effect is a constant feature of Flemish painting. Along with the luminous detail and highly polished finish of the various objects, it turns up once more in the Dutch painters of the seventeenth century like Vermeer.

Van Eyck's great masterpieces are the paintings for the altar at Ghent: "The Betrothal of the Arnolfini" and "The Rollin Madonna" (or "The Virgin with Chancellor Rollin"). He reached his greatest triumph in the painting of portraits which stressed the unique human features of each individual.

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