The Pope's plan for the Apostles would thematically

The Pope's plan for the Apostles would thematically have formed a pictorial link between the Old Testament and New Testament narratives on the walls, and the popes in the gallery of portraits. Sony VAIO VPCM125AGP battery It is the twelve apostles, and their leader Peter as first Bishop of Rome, that make that bridge. But Michelangelo's scheme went the opposite direction. The theme of Michelangelo's ceiling is not God's grand plan for humanity's salvation. The theme is about humanity's disgrace. Sony VAIO VPCM128JC/L battery It is about why humanity needed, and in the terms of the faith, needs Jesus.[25] Superficially, the ceiling is a Humanist construction. The figures are of superhuman dimension and, in the case of Adam, of such beauty that according to the biographer Vasari, Sony VAIO VPCM128JC/P battery it really looks as if God himself had designed the figure, rather than Michelangelo. But despite the beauty of the individual figures, Michelangelo has not glorified the human state, and he certainly has not presented the Humanist ideal of platonic love. Sony VAIO VPCM129AJ/L battery In fact, the ancestors of Christ, which he painted around the upper section of the wall, demonstrate all the worst aspects of family relationships, displaying dysfunction in as many different forms as there are families.[25] Vasari praised Michelangelo's seemingly infinite powers of invention in creating postures for the figures. Sony VAIO VPCM129AJ/P battery Raphael, who was given a preview by Bramante after Michelangelo had downed his brush and stormed off to Bologna in a temper, painted at least two figures in imitation of Michelangelo's prophets, one at the church of Sant' Agostino and the other in the Vatican, his portrait of Michelangelo himself in The School of Athens. Sony VAIO VPCM129AJ/W battery With Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, Raphael's name is synonymous with the High Renaissance. However, he was younger than Michelangelo by 18 years and Leonardo by nearly 30. It cannot be said of him that he greatly advanced the state of painting as his two famous contemporaries did. Sony VAIO VPCM13M1E/L battery Rather, his work was the culmination of all the developments of the High Renaissance. Raphael had the good luck to be born the son of a painter, so his career path, unlike that of Michelangelo who was the son of minor nobility, was decided without a quarrel. Sony VAIO VPCM13M1E/P battery Some years after his father's death he worked in the Umbrian workshop of Perugino, an excellent painter and a superb technician. His first signed and dated painting, executed at the age of 21, is the Betrothal of the Virgin, which immediately reveals its origins in Perugino's Christ giving the Keys to Peter.[16] Sony VAIO VPCM13M1E/W battery Raphael was a carefree character who unashamedly drew on the skills of the renowned painters whose lifespans encompassed his. In his works the individual qualities of numerous different painters are drawn together. The rounded forms and luminous colours of Perugino, the lifelike portraiture of Ghirlandaio, Sony VAIO VPCM125AG/L battery the realism and lighting of Leonardo and the powerful draughtsmanship of Michelangelo became unified in the paintings of Raphael. In his short life he executed a number of large altarpieces, an impressive Classical fresco of the sea nymph, Sony VAIO VPCM125AG/P battery Galatea, outstanding portraits with two popes and a famous writer among them, and, while Michelangelo was painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling, a series of wall frescoes in the Vatican chambers nearby, of which the School of Athens is uniquely significant. Sony VAIO VPCM125AG/W battery This fresco depicts a meeting of all the most learned ancient Athenians, gathered in a grand classical setting around the central figure of Plato, whom Raphael has famously modelled uponLeonardo da Vinci. The brooding figure of Heraclitus who sits by a large block of stone, is a portrait of Michelangelo, and is a reference to the latter's painting of the Prophet Jeremiah in the Sistine Chapel. Sony VAIO VPCM125JC/W battery His own portrait is to the right, beside his teacher, Perugino.[28] But the main source of Raphael's popularity was not his major works, but his small Florentine pictures of the Madonna and Christ Child. Over and over he painted the same plump calm-faced blonde woman and her succession of chubby babiesSony VAIO VPCM126AA/L battery , the most famous probably being La Belle Jardinière ("The Madonna of the Beautiful Garden"), now in the Louvre. His larger work, the Sistine Madonna, used as a design for countless stained glass windows, has come, in the 21st century, to provide the iconic image of two small cherubs which has been reproduced on everything from paper table napkins to umbrellas. Sony VAIO VPCM126AA/P battery Giovanni Bellini was the exact contemporary of his brother Gentile, his brother-in-law Mantegna and Antonello da Messina. Working most of his life in the studio of his brother, and strongly influenced by the crisp style of Mantegna, he does not appear to have produced an independently signed painting until he was in his late 50s. Sony VAIO VPCM126AA/W battery During the last 30 years of his life he was both extraordinarily productive and influential, having the guidance of both Giorgione andTitian. Bellini, like his much younger contemporary, Raphael, produced numerous small Madonnas in rich glowing colour, usually of more intense tonality than his Florentine counterpart. Sony VAIO VPCM126AG/L battery These Madonnas multiplied prolifically as they were reproduced by other members of the large Bellini studio, one tiny picture, The Circumcision of Christ existing in four or five almost identical versions. Traditionally, in the painting of altarpieces of the Madonna and Child, Sony VAIO VPCM126AG/P battery the enthroned figure of the Virgin is accompanied by saints, who stand in defined spaces, separated physically in the form of a polytych or defined by painted architectural boundaries. Piero della Francesca used the Classical niche as a setting for his enthroned Madonnas, asMasaccio had used it as the setting for his Holy Trinity at Santa Maria Novella. Sony VAIO VPCM126AG/W battery Piero grouped saints around the throne, in the architectural space. Bellini used this same form, known as Sacred conversations, in several of his later altarpieces such as that for the Venetian church of San Zaccaria. It is a masterful composition which extends the real architecture of the building into the illusionistic architecture of the painting, Sony VAIO VPCM126AH/L battery making the niche a sort of loggiaopened up to the landscape and to daylight which streams across the figures of the Virgin and Child, the two female saints and the little angel who plays aviola making them brighter than the two elderly male saints who stand to the fore in the picture, Peter deep in thought and Jerome immersed in a book. Sony VAIO VPCM126AH/P battery Whilst the style of Giorgione's painting clearly relates to that of his presumed master,Giovanni Bellini, his subject matter makes him one of the most original and abstruse artists of the Renaissance. One of his paintings, of a landscape known as The Tempest, with a semi-naked woman feeding a baby, Sony VAIO VPCM126AH/W battery a clothed man, some classical columns and a flash of lightning, perhaps represents Adam and Eve in their post-Eden days, or perhaps it does not. Another painting attributed to him and traditionally known as The Three Philosophers, may represent the Magiplanning their journey in search of the infant Christ, but this is not certain either. Sony VPCCA15FA/B battery One thing that appears to be certain is that Giorgione painted a female nude, the very first female nude that stands, or rather, lies, as a subject to be portrayed and admired for beauty alone. There are no need for Classical references in this painting, although in later nudesTitian, Velazquez, Veronese, Rembrandt, Rubens and even Manet saw fit to add some. Sony VPCCA15FA/G battery They are the artistic heirs of Giorgione's nude. On Giorgione's premature death, Titian completed the painting and went on to paint a great more naked women, most frequently, as Botticelli did, disguising them as goddesses and surrounding them with sylvan woods and starry skies to make perfect decoration for the walls of rich clientele. Sony VPCCA15FA/L battery But it was as a painter of portraits that Titian excelled, his longevity allowing him to achieve far more, both in the way of production and in stylistic development than either Giorgione or his Florentine contemporary Raphael were able to. Titian gave the world images of Pietro Aretino and Pope Paul III Sony VPCCA15FA/P battery and many other people of his day, perhaps his most powerful portrait being that of Doge Andrea Gritti, ruler of Venice, who looms large in the picture space, one huge hand clasping his heavily buttoned robe in a dynamic Expressionistic gesture. Titian is also renowned for his religious painting, his last work being a turbulent and abstracted Pietà. Sony VPCCA15FA/W battery Michelangelo and Titian both lived into the second half of the 16th century. Both saw their styles and those of Leonardo, Mantegna, Giovanni Bellini, Antonello da Messina and Raphael adapted by later painters to form a disparate style known as Mannerism, and move steadily towards the great outpouring of imagination and painterly virtuosity of the Baroque period. Sony VPCCA15FF/B battery The artist who most extended the trends in Titian's large figurative compositions is Tintoretto, although his personal manner was such that he only lasted nine days as Titian's apprentice. Rembrandt's knowledge of the works of both Titian and Raphael is apparent in his portraits. Sony VPCCA15FF/G battery The direct influences of Leonardo and Raphael upon their own pupils was to effect generations of artists including Poussin and schools of Classical painters of the 18th and 19th centuries. Antonello da Messina's work had a direct influence on Albrecht Dürer and Martin Schongauer and through the latter's engravings, Sony VPCCA15FF/L battery countless artists including the German, Dutch and English schools of stained glass makers extending into the early 20th century.[16] Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling and later The Last Judgment had direct influence on the figurative compositions firstly of Raphael and his pupils and then Sony VPCCA15FF/P battery almost every subsequent 16th century painter who looked for new and interesting ways to depict the human form. It is possible to trace his style of figurative composition through Andrea del Sarto, Pontormo, Bronzino, Parmigianino, Veronese, to el Greco, Carracci, Caravaggio, Rubens, Sony VPCCA15FF/W battery Poussin and Tiepolo to both theClassical and the Romantic painters of the 19th century such as Jacques Louis David and Delacroix. Under the influence of the Italian Renaissance painting, many modern academies of art, such as the Royal Academy, were founded, and it was specifically to collect the Sony VPCCA15FG battery works of the Italian Renaissance that some of the world's best known art collections, such as the National Gallery, London, were formed. This article about the development of themes in Italian Renaissance painting is an extension to the article Italian Renaissance painting, for which it provides additional pictures with commentary. Sony VPCCA15FG/B battery The works encompassed are from Giotto in the early 14th century to Michelangelo's Last Judgement of the 1530s. The themes that preoccupied painters of the Italian Renaissance were those of both subject matter and execution- what was painted and the style in which it was painted. Sony VPCCA15FG/D battery The artist had far more freedom of both subject and style than did a Medieval painter. Certain characteristic elements of Renaissance painting evolved a great deal during the period. These include perspective, both in terms of how it was achieved and the effect to which it was applied, Sony VPCCA15FG/G battery and realism, particularly in the depiction of humanity, either as symbolic, portrait or narrative element. The Flagellation of Christ by Piero della Francesca (above) demonstrates in a single small work many of the themes of Italian Renaissance painting, both in terms of compositional elements and subject matter. Sony VPCCA15FG/P battery Immediately apparent is Piero's mastery of perspective and light. The architectural elements, including the tiled floor which becomes more complex around the central action, combine to create two spaces. The inner space is lit by an unseen light source to which Jesus looks. Sony VPCCA15FG/R battery Its exact location can be pinpointed mathematically by an analysis of the diffusion and the angle of the shadows on the coffered ceiling. The three figures who are standing outside are lit from a different angle, from both daylight and light reflected from the pavement and buildings.Sony VPCCA15FG/W battery The religious theme is tied to the present. The ruler is a portrait of the visiting Emperor of Byzantium.[1] Flagellation is also called "scourging". The term "scourge" was applied to the plague. Outside stand three men representing those who buried the body of Christ. Sony VPCCA15FH/B battery The two older, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathaea, are believed to be portraits of men who recently lost their sons, one of them to plague. The third man is the young disciple John, and is perhaps a portrait of one of the sons, or else represents both of them in a single idealised figure, coinciding with the manner in which Piero painted angels. Sony VPCCA15FH/G battery The pictures in the gallery below show the development of linear perspective in buildings and cityscapes. In Giotto's fresco, the building is like a stage set with one side open to the viewer. In Paolo Uccello's fresco, the townscape gives an impression of depth. Masaccio's Holy Trinity was painted with carefully calculated mathematical proportions, in which he was probably assisted by the architect Brunelleschi. Sony VPCCA15FH/L battery Fra Angelico uses the simple motif of a small loggia accurately drafted to create an intimate space. Gentile Bellini has painted a vast space, the Piazza San Marco in Venice, in which the receding figures add to the sense of perspective. Leonardo da Vinci did detailed and measured drawings of the background Classical ruins preparatory to commencing the unfinished Adoration of the Magi. Sony VPCCA15FH/P battery