Art History IIInstructor Dustin M Price

What did we cover last time?

-Sixteenth Century Art in Italy

- High Renaissance

-Two important developments affected the arts in Italy during the High Renaissance

- Artist Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael – all leading artists of the High Renaissance

- Sfumato

-The Virgin on the Rocks

- The Last Supper

- The Mona Lisa

- Raphael’s portraits of Agnelo Doni and his wife Maddelena Strozzi

What do I want you to know specifically about The School of Athens?

- By Raphael, Commissioned for the papal library by Pope Julius II

- It was part of a group of paintings illustrating the four branches of knowledge as conceived in the 16th century: Religion, Philosophy (the school of Athens), Poetry, and Law

- It contains a self portrait of Raphael as well as a portrait of Michelangelo

- Contains the most famous philosophers of ancient times, including Plato at the center of the composition with his finger pointed upwards

- The sweeping arcs of the composition are activated by the variety and energy of their poses and gestures, creating a dynamic unity that is a prime characteristic of High Renaissance art

Trump L’oeil (French for 'deceive the eye‘ it is an art technique involving extremely realistic imagery in order to create the optical illusion that the depicted objects appear in three dimensions.

Onto Michelangelo: 1475 - 1564Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

- Was a sculptor who painted when he had to

-The Pietà 1498-1499 (next slide) is a masterpiece of Renaissance sculpture and housed in St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City.

- One of Michelangelo’s early commissioned sculptures

- The statue was commissioned for the French cardinal Jean de Billheres, who was a representative in Rome.

- The statue was made for the cardinal's funeral monument, but was moved to its current location, the first chapel on the right as one enters the basilica, in the 18th century.

- It is the only piece Michelangelo ever signed

Michelangelo: 1475 - 1564

David

-In 1501, 25-year-old Michelangelo Buonarroti begins working on his colossal masterpiece, the 17-foot-tall marble David. From a huge block of marble that has been abandoned decades earlier by another sculptor

- Originally commissioned as one of a series of statues of prophets to be positioned along the roofline of the east end of the Florence Cathedral, the statue was instead placed in a public square, outside the Palazzo della Signoria, the seat of civic government, it was then moved to the Accademia Gallery in Florence in 1873

- Unlike many other triumph versions with David standing on the slain Goliaths head Michelangelo chose to show the warrior before the fight

Michelangelo: 1475 - 1564

David

-, Every year, around 1.3 million tickets are sold for the Accademia, and David is the gallery’s star attraction.

- In 1527, during one of their periodic uprisings, a Florentine mob managed to break David's left arm

- There is currently a huge debate on not only who owns the David (Florence or the country Italy) but also on how to clean it.

- There is also discussion on the possibility of moving the statue to a location on the edge of town because of tourist congestion downtown and foot/vehicle vibrations that may cause damage to the statue