Renaissance

Rebirth in Europe

During Middle Ages, Europe suffered from both war and plague.

Those who survived wanted to celebrate life and the human spirit.

Some people began questioning the church.

These men and women would greatly change how Europeans saw themselves and their world.

Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, Michelangelo

Portraying Individuals

Da Vinci – The Mona Lisa

(1504-1506)

Renaissance artists

showed individuals as

they really looked.

Renaissance patrons

wanted art that showed

joy in human beauty and

life’s pleasures.

Renaissance Science and Technology

Leonardo Da Vinci filled

notebooks with observations

and sketches of new

inventions.

The spiral screw design was

shown to achieve flight. This

drawing anticipated the

helicopter.

Classical and Renaissance Sculpture

Michelangelo sculpted

David from 1501 to

1504. David’s posture is

graceful, yet his figure

also displays strength.

The statue which is 18

feet tall towers over the

viewer.

Michelangelo Buonarroti of Florence was one of the greatest artists of all time.

Michelangelo was a devout Christian, and the church was his greatest patron.

Michelangelo’s paintings cover the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, the building

where new popes have been selected for more than five hundred years.

Raphael Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino,

known as Raphael, was an

Italian painter and

architect of the High

Renaissance. His work is

admired for its clarity of

form, ease of composition,

and visual achievement of

the Neoplatonic ideal of

human grandeur.

Sandro Botticelli - Venus is illustrated as a beautiful and chaste

goddess and symbol of the coming spring. Her depiction as a

nude is significant in itself, given that during this time in

Renaissance history almost all artwork was of a Christian

theme, and nude women were hardly ever portrayed.