RENAISSANCE ART

THE BIRTH OF VENUS, FLORENCE

         Renaissance art is the painting, sculpture and decorative arts of that period of European history known as the Renaissance, emerging as a distinct style in Italy in about 1400, in parallel with developments which occurred in philosophy, literature, music, and science. Renaissance art, perceived as the noblest of ancient traditions, took as its foundation the art of Classical antiquity, but transformed that tradition by absorbing recent developments in the art of Northern Europe and by applying contemporary scientific knowledge. Renaissance art, with Renaissance Humanist philosophy, spread throughout Europe, affecting both artists and their patrons with the development of new techniques and new artistic sensibilities. Renaissance art marks the transition of Europe from the medieval period to the Early Modern age.

THE LAST SUPPER 

                    

ARTIST:

 Leonardo da Vincci  , 1494

  

        The work is presumed to have been commenced around 1495–1496 and was commissioned as part of a plan of renovations to the church and its convent buildings by Leonardo's patron Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan. The painting represents the scene of The Last Supper of Jesus with his apostles, as it is told in the Gospel of John. Leonardo has depicted the consternation that occurred among the Twelve Disciples when Jesus announced that one of them would betray him.

PAINTING

      The Last Supper measures 460 cm × 880 cm (180 in × 350 in) and covers an end wall of the dining hall at the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, Italy. The theme was a traditional one for refectories, although the room was not a refectory at the time that Leonardo painted it. The main church building had only recently been completed (in 1498), but was remodeled by Bramante, hired by Ludovico Sforza to build a Sforza family mausoleum.The painting was commissioned by Sforza to be the centerpiece of the mausoleum.The lunettes above the main painting, formed by the triple arched ceiling of the refectory, are painted with Sforza coats of arms. The opposite wall of the refectory is covered by the Crucifixion fresco by Giovanni Donato da Montorfano, to which Leonardo added figures of the Sforza family in tempera. These figures have deteriorated in much the same way as has The Last Supper. Leonardo began work on The Last Supper in 1495 and completed it in 1498 he did not work on the painting continuously. 

DAVID

                                                                           ARTIS :
    
                                                                      Michelangelo ,1490

                                                           

                                               

                 David is one of Michelangelo’s most-recognizable works, and has become one of the most recognizable statues in the entire world of art.  Standing 13’5″ tall, the double life-sized David is depicted patiently waiting for battle, prepped with slingshot in one hand and stone in the other.  The twentysomething-Michelangelo carved the David after he had already carved the Pieta in Rome in the late 1490s and returned to Florence in 1501.  Knowledge of his talent as a sculptor, therefore, was growing, and his career was accelerating when he was commissioned to carve the biblical David for the outside of the Florence Cathedral.  Because the statue was intended to be placed in a high location on the church, it had to be large enough to be seen from below. Today, it resides not outside the cathedral, but inside the comfortable confines of the Accademia Museum in Florence.

                              

               

            

                                                                LAST JUDGEMENT 

        ARTIST: 

           Michelangelo, 1536 - 1541

     

                                                      

       The Last Judgment  is a fresco by the Italian Renaissance painter Michelangelo covering the whole altar wall of the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City. It is a depiction of the Second Coming of Christ and the final and eternal judgment by God of all humanity. The souls of humans rise and descend to their fates, as judged by Christ who is surrounded by prominent saints.
  

      Altogether there are over 300 figures, with nearly all the males and angels originally shown as nudes many were later partly covered up by painted draperies, of which some remain after recent cleaning and restoration.The reception of the painting was mixed from the start, with much praise but also criticism on both religious and artistic grounds. Both the amount of nudity and the muscular style of the bodies has been one area of contention, and the overall composition another.

            In the lower part of the fresco, Michelangelo followed tradition in showing the saved ascending at the left and the damned descending at the right. In the upper part, the inhabitants of Heaven are joined by the newly saved. The fresco is more monochromatic than the ceiling frescoes and is dominated by the tones of flesh and sky. The cleaning and restoration of the fresco, however, revealed a greater chromatic range than previously apparent. Orange, green, yellow, and blue are scattered throughout, animating and unifying the complex scene.

MONA LISA 

      ARTIST:
  
            Leonardo da Vincci ,   1503-06, until 1517

                                                         

                                           

                                           
                                                    

      The Mona Lisa , Monna Lisa or La Gioconda , La Joconde is a half-length portrait painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci that has been described as "the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world". The Mona Lisa is also one of the most valuable paintings in the world. It holds the Guinness World Record for the highest known insurance valuation in history at one hundred million dollars in 1962, which is worth nearly eight hundred million dollars in 2017.

     The painting is thought to be a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, and is in oil on a white Lombardy poplar panel. It had been believed to have been painted between 1503 and 1506; however, Leonardo may have continued working on it as late as 1517. Recent academic work suggests that it would not have been started before 1513.It was acquired by King Francis I of France and is now the property of the French Republic, on permanent display at the Louvre Museum in Paris since 1797.

     The subject's expression, which is frequently described as enigmatic, the monumentality of the composition, the subtle modelling of forms, and the atmospheric illusionism were novel qualities that have contributed to the continuing fascination and study of the work.