Raphael Sanzio, the youngest of the three great High Renaissance masters, learned from both da Vinci and Michelangelo. Though Michelangelo considered himself a sculptor first and foremost, he achieved greatness as a painter as well, notably with his giant fresco covering the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, completed over four years (1508-12) and depicting various scenes from Genesis. He carved the latter by hand from an enormous marble block the famous statue measures five meters high including its base. Peter’s Cathedral (1499) and the David in his native Florence (1501-04). He was the dominant sculptor of the High Renaissance, producing pieces such as the Pietà in St. Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) drew on the human body for inspiration and created works on a vast scale. Leonardo’s best-known works, including the “Mona Lisa” (1503-05), “The Virgin of the Rocks” (1485) and the fresco “The Last Supper” (1495-98), showcase his unparalleled ability to portray light and shadow, as well as the physical relationship between figures–humans, animals and objects alike–and the landscape around them. Leonardo (1452-1519) was the ultimate “Renaissance man” for the breadth of his intellect, interest and talent and his expression of humanist and classical values. Masaccio painted for less than six years but was highly influential in the early Renaissance for the intellectual nature of his work, as well as its degree of naturalism. 1426) and in the Brancacci Chapel of the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine (c. The other major artist working during this period was the painter Masaccio (1401-1428), known for his frescoes of the Trinity in the Church of Santa Maria Novella (c.

1386- 1466), who would later emerge as the master of early Renaissance sculpture. 1378-1455) won a major competition to design a new set of bronze doors for the Baptistery of the cathedral of Florence, beating out contemporaries such as the architect Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446) and the young Donatello (c. In 1401, the sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti (c. In the later 14th century, the proto-Renaissance was stifled by plague and war, and its influences did not emerge again until the first years of the next century. His frescoes were said to have decorated cathedrals at Assisi, Rome, Padua, Florence and Naples, though there has been difficulty attributing such works with certainty. The Florentine painter Giotto (1267?-1337), the most famous artist of the proto-Renaissance, made enormous advances in the technique of representing the human body realistically. His formidable reputation is based on relatively few completed paintings, including 'Mona Lisa,' 'The Virgin of the Rocks' and 'The Last Supper.' In addition to its expression of classical Greco-Roman traditions, Renaissance art sought to capture the experience of the individual and the beauty and mystery of the natural world.ĭid you know? Leonardo da Vinci, the ultimate 'Renaissance man,' practiced all the visual arts and studied a wide range of topics, including anatomy, geology, botany, hydraulics and flight. The style of painting, sculpture and decorative arts identified with the Renaissance emerged in Italy in the late 14th century it reached its zenith in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, in the work of Italian masters such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael.

Against a backdrop of political stability and growing prosperity, the development of new technologies–including the printing press, a new system of astronomy and the discovery and exploration of new continents–was accompanied by a flowering of philosophy, literature and especially art. Known as the Renaissance, the period immediately following the Middle Ages in Europe saw a great revival of interest in the classical learning and values of ancient Greece and Rome.

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