Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper" (Vasari)

Leonardo da Vinci
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Leonardo da Vinci was commissioned by Dominican friars to paint Last Supper in the refectory of the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. In the painting, Jesus and his twelve disciples sit at a long table in a large room. Vasari stated that Leonardo “had imagined and succeeded in expressing the suspicion the Apostles experienced when they sought to discover who would betray their master.” Leonardo was the quintessential “Renaissance man” and a true artist-scientist. His paintings benefited greatly from his scientific investigations and innumerable interests. To prepare for the painting, Leonardo read the Gospel story carefully and studied human figures using live models. He painted each figure to express a certain charge and emotion. According to Vasari, the disciples' “faces show their love, fear, and indignation, or, rather, sorrow, over being unable to grasp Christ's meaning.” Leonardo used his great knowledge about the world to create a psychologically complex painting.

Botticelli's "Birth of Venus"

Sandro Botticelli's Birth of Venus
Picture taken by Professor S. Haynes

Sandro Botticelli's Birth of Venus was inspired by a Greek myth in Angelo Poliziano's poem. In the painting, Venus is born of sea foam and standing on a cockle shell. Zhephyrus, god of the west wind, carries goddess Chloris and blows Venus to Cyprus, her sacred island. On Cyprus, the nymph Pomona meets Venus with a brocaded mantle. Nude figures were extremely rare in the Middle Ages, but the nude depiction of Venus was accepted in the more accommodating culture of the Renaissance, especially under the protection of the Medici. Birth of Venus also has Neo-Platonic interpretations as an allegory of divine love. Neo-Platonism attempted to reconcile pagan ideas with Christian beliefs. Marsilio Ficino, an influential humanist philosopher during the Renaissance, explained that when humans see physical beauty, they will reflect on spiritual and divine beauty. Unlike the advances in perspective demonstrated by many Renaissance painters, Birth of Venus has a flat background. Botticelli's linear style emphasizes his interest in two-dimensional images.

Masaccio's "Baptism of the Neophytes" (Vasari)

Masaccio's "Baptism of the Neophytes" (upper fresco)
Picture taken by Cava H.

Between 1424 and 1427, Masaccio worked with Masolino on the frescoes of the Brancacci Chapel in the church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence. After the death of Masolino, Masaccio was given the commission. In the “Baptism of the Neophytes,” Masaccio shows physical and psychological realism in the manner in which he paints the figures in the scene. The postures, musculature, and skeletal structures of the two nude figures are natural and realistic. In the kneeling figure, water is shown dripping down his hair, and his knees and feet are submerged in the cold water. The viewer feels empathy for the standing figure on the right as he stands shivering, arms around his body and knees bent. According to Vasari, “a very fine nude figure, shown shivering among those being baptized, numb with cold, is executed with the most beautiful relief and the sweetest style.” Masaccio contributed greatly to Italian Renaissance painting in a short span of six years. Countless painters, including Michelangelo Buonarroti, have studied his works in the Brancacci Chapel.

Fra Angelico's Simple and Direct Style

Fra Angelico's "Anunciation" at top of stairs in monastery of San Marco
Picture taken by Cava H.

Fra Angelico was a Dominican monk who lived and worked in the church of San Marco in Florence from 1438 to 1450. The abbot of the monastery of San Marco asked Fra Angelico to paint frescoes for the monastery in the late 1430s. At the top of the cells leading to the friars' cells, Fra Angelico painted “Anunciation,” the scene of the Virgin Mary and the Archangel Gabriel. The scene is simple and serene, appropriate for its function as a devotional image. The figures in the scene are slender and elegant in the international Gothic style. The angel's wings are colorful and resemble bird wings, suggesting that Fra Angelico had studied bird wings while he painted. At the base of the image is an inscription cautioning passersby to honor Mary: “As you venerate, while passing before it, this figure of the intact Virgin beware lest you omit to say a Hail Mary.” The fresco shows Renaissance perspective in the classical architecture and the way the columns recede towards a vanishing point, but its primary concern was not humanism. The simple and direct paintings of Fra Angelico served the Roman Catholic Church.    

Brunelleschi's Dome (Vasari)

Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore towering above Florence
Picture taken by Cava H.

Filippo Brunelleschi designed and solved the problem of building the massive dome of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore. According to Vasari, the dome “appears equal to the mountains around Florence.” The dome was the highest ever built at the time, and had to be as light as possible. Brunelleschi solved the weight problem by designing a double shelled dome. To better disperse the weight of the dome, Brunelleschi used the herringbone pattern of brickwork that he learned from the Romans. Brunelleschi also invented many devices to aid in the construction of the dome, such as cantilever scaffolding and a hoisting machine. Vasari describes how it was disruptive and time-consuming for workers to go down the dome to eat and drink, so Brunelleschi “found a way to open eating places with kitchens on the dome, where he sold wine as well, and in this fashion no one left the work until the evening.” Brunelleschi's engineering skills, innovations, and devotion enabled him to reach new heights in Renaissance architecture.

Harmony in Architecture

Church of Santa Maria Novella
Picture taken by Cava H.

Ancient ideals of beauty based on harmony and proportion were revived in Italian Renaissance architecture by Leon Battista Alberti. Alberti studied the ancient Roman architectural treatise of Vitruvius, and applied the classical formula to his works. According to Vitruvius, the circle and the square derived from the human body provided the model for proportion. Harmony is achieved when parts of a building are proportionally related to the whole. Alberti applied such principles when he designed the facade of the church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence. The facade of the church fits into a square (its width equals its height). The upper structure fits into a square that is one-fourth the size of the square of the entire facade. To cover the sloping roofs on the sides of the church, Alberti designed two scrolls that frame the upper “classical temple” part of the facade. The scrolls also unite the narrow upper part with the broad lower part of the church facade. The mathematical proportions of the building create a sense of calmness and balance that demonstrate the Renaissance ideal of beauty and harmony.