Italian Renaissance brought humanity into a golden age of artistic expression and the rejuvenation of humanism as a philosophy and a way of looking at the world. (Italian Renaissance, 1) The re-discovery of many ancient Greek and Roman texts allowed architects, artists, historians, and scientists to build upon the greatest achievements of man from the ancient world. After centuries of feudalism and a strong Catholic Church, wealthy elites began to compete amongst themselves in various artistic forms, commissioning works of art from common artists intended for the personal glorification of themselves or their family, a sharp contrast to the feudal idea of serf and lord. The Italian Renaissance consolidated science and technology in order to establish new understanding of the world, and the way in which humanity thought.
The Renaissance that began in the various principalities of Italy slowly spread north to France, Germany, England, and elsewhere in Northern Europe, adopting…...

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Works Cited

"Italian Renaissance -- History.com Articles, Video, Pictures and Facts." History.com -- History Made Every Day -- American & World History. Web. 24 Dec. 2011. .

"Social, Economic and Religious Change in the Renaissance." Renaissance Faires, Renaissance Fairs and Renaissance Festivals. Web. 24 Dec. 2011. .

The two seem to be squaring off in generosity, each inviting the other to go before him to make obeisance.
The postures and figures in the crowd range of arrogance to humility. A figure on the left appears to be frowning haughtily at the scene before him as though he could not possibly give up his dignity to bow before such a poor family. The fact that the setting is shifted from Bethlehem to Italy, complete with realistic depiction of countryside, sky, history, and place shows how important it was for the artist to make this Scriptural story as much a part of the lives of the Florentines as could be possible. That is why Botticelli transports the setting of the Adoration from the Middle East to Italy -- to drive home both the idea that Jesus was born for all men and the idea that Florence is as great…...

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Works Cited

Johnson, Paul. Art: A New History. NY: HarperCollins, 2003. Print.

Kirsch, Johann Peter. "St. Lawrence." The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 9. NY: Robert

Appleton Company, 1910.

McCarthy, Mary. "A City of Stone." The New Yorker, 22 Aug 1959, p. 38. Web. 14

The landscape diffuses in colors to give optical illusion of perspective and farness. The first figures, of the two children are softly modeled in lights and shades. The light is bright and clear and it seems to have no specific direction.

Although enaissance had great preoccupation with the study of light and the use of it to give volume, there will pass a longer time before artists would really use the light in all its realistic power. enaissance light seems controlled and unnatural in some cases, used only to help the bodies gain threedimentionality and depth.

Another good example that displays all those characteristics is the small Cowper Madonna (1505, Oil on wood, 23 3/8 x 17 3/8 in, National Gallery of Art, Washington). aphael was also a gifted artist to create complicate compositions as the Coronation of the Virgin (1503, Oil on canvas (transferred from panel) 267 x 163 cm

Vatican Museum,…...

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References

-Boston College Honors Program, 1997, 'Renaissance Art and Architecture', Art History on the WWW, available at  http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/HP/renaiss.html 

-Cocke, Richard, 2004, Raphael, Chaucer Press, London.

Italian Painting, available at  http://history.hanover.edu/courses/art/111ren.html 

-Lucas,

Italian Renaissance Art
Mannerism

Mannerism is a period of European art that arose from the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520. It went on until around 1580 in Italy, when a more Baroque style developed to take its place, but Northern Mannerism lasted into the first part of the 17th century, all through much of Europe. Stylistically, Mannerism includes an assortment of methods swayed by, and responding to, the congruous principles and controlled naturalism associated with artists such as Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and Raphael. This essay will discuss Mannerism expression of an era, the characteristics that define this movement and the reason why it is an extension of the earlier conventions.

Mannerism: Reflection of the Era

For years, many have thought that Mannerism was essentially considered to be a tendency developed by artist because it communicated the liberalism in their expression. However, more evidence leans toward the fact that it…...

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Works Cited

Friedlander, Walter. "Mannerism and Anti-Mannerism in Italian Painting." Stockton: Columbia University Press, 1965. 17-60.

Gardner, Helen Louise. "The Metaphysical Poets, Selected and Edited." New York: Penguin Books, 1972. 10-65

Smyth, Craig Hugh. "Mannerism and Maniera, with an introduction by Elizabeth Cropper." Vienna: IRSA, 1992. 56-78.

Sypher, Wylie. "Four Stages of Renaissance Style: Transformations in Art and Literature, 1400-1700." Doubleday., 1955. 21-58.

Sandro Botticelli's painting, "Mars and Venus" typifies the Greek and Roman themes of the Early Italian Renaissance. The work shows Venus, the goddess of love, overlooking a sleeping Mars, the god of love. A clear depiction of the power of love over war, "Mars and Venus" is painted in muted tones and careful outlines, giving the painting a dreamlike feeling.
General Description

Born Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi in 1445 in Florence, Italy, Sandro Botticelli became one of the most noted artists of the Early Italian Renaissance. Botticelli was known for his commissions for major churches in Florence, as well as his famed wall frescos on the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican in Rome. He painted a number of famed religious paintings, including "The Adoration of the Magi," "Madonna of the Pomegranate," "The Cestello Annunciation," as well as a number of paintings that depicted Roman and Greek legends, including "Primavera," "The Birth of…...

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Works Cited

The National Gallery of London. Collection at a Glance. 18 March 2004.

 http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/collection/glance.htm 

WebMuseum, Paris. Botticelli, Sandro. ibiblio.com. Chapel Hill, North Carolina,

U.S.A. http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/botticelli/

This uncertainty "provided the material for new intellectual, cultural, and social experiments that would at their conclusion provide the means of constructing a new European monocultural identity, one focused on humanistic studies, science, and the arts" (Hooker). According the History Channel, the Renaissance was "above all an urban phenomenon" (History) that is conceptually linked with the past in that while "medieval scholars looked askance at the pagan Greek and Roman world, believing that they were living in the final age before the last judgment, their Renaissance counterparts adored the ancients, condemned the Middle Ages as ignorant and barbaric, and proclaimed their own age one of light and the rebirth of the classical heritage" (history). In the midst of challenge and change, answers to life's questions were discovered.
The Renaissance is the result of several aspects in a society manifesting themselves in a way that demonstrates mankind's ability to adapt and…...

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Works Cited

Hooker, Richard. "Backgrounds to the Italian Renaissance." Washington State University. Information Retrieved December 27, 2008.  http://wsu.edu/~dee/REN/BACK.htm 

Hooker, Richard. "The Idea of the Renaissance." Washington State University. Information Retrieved December 27, 2008.  http://wsu.edu/~dee/REN/HUMANISM.htm 

Bennett, Josephine Waters. "On the Causes of the Renaissance." Renaissance News. 1949. JSTOR Resource Database. Information Retrieved December 27, 2008.  http://www.jstor.org 

History Channel Online. "Renaissance." Information Retrieved December 27, 2008.  http://www.history.com/encyclopedia.do?articleId=220511

Power and the Changing Social Role of the Artist
The process of artistic creation is often taken for granted as the product of some singularly brilliant talent acting alone in his or her inspiration. However, this notion undermines the importance of art as reflecting certain social or cultural conditions pertinent to the time and place of its creation. This is the premise at the center of the article by ind (1985), which weighs the relationship between individual will power and artistic creation. ind's writing offers a compelling and nuanced consideration of the ways in which the artistic processes has changed with the shifting of socioeconomic structures and how, accordingly, the artist's psyche must also change.

Article Summary:

ind's article describes the considerable difference between producing art in the feudalist eras and today, examining various relationships between prominent artists and project commissioners over history. Largely, this describes a relationship between iconic artistic figures…...

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Works Cited:

Wind, E. (1985). Art and the Will. Art and Anarchy: London: Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd.

Technology has now reached such dizzying heights that it attempts to give us here and now the Empyrean that Galileo's telescope neglected to find. How has it worked? Perhaps that should be the subject of another discussion. All the same, it is interesting to note that modern science is still attempting to explain the mysteries of the universe that in the medieval world were simply accepted on faith as part of the Faith revealed by God. Today, that God is dead (as Nietzsche tells us), and we are left creating new myths of Supermen, whom we adore in droves at the cinemas every year. What does it all mean?
These are interesting points for speculation.

If we look at the reaction to Galileo's article in the Starry Messenger in 1610, we find both approval and condemnation. The Carmelite Foscarini, for example, was in favor of pursuing Galileo's discoveries. The Holy Office,…...

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Bibliography

Albee, Edward. The Goat. Dramatists Play Service, Inc., 2003. Edward Albee's play connects only peripherally to the subject of science in the Italian Renaissance. But what is at its core is strikingly similar to what seems to be at the core of the debate between modern science and old religion: definition. In the play, the main character tries to re-define love to include acts of bestiality. This does not go over well with his wife. Battle ensues. Through the consequent eruption, some revealing ideas are expressed pertaining to reason and a sort of primordial sense of right and wrong.

Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica. Trans. Fathers of the English Dominican

Province. Thomas Aquinas. Christian Classics Ethereal Library,1998. Web. 22

Feb 2011. . This site gives Aquinas in full. Much time can be spent on the many details of the Summa, but for a cursory glance of his teachings, a smaller, portable volume would be helpful. For quick access to certain points, however, this web edition is perfect.

Here Mars is asleep and unarmed, while Venus is awake and alert. The meaning of the picture is that love conquers war, or love conquers all." (Cole, xx) the purpose of the work during the renaissance was mostly likely for a prominent individual's bedroom furniture or a piece of wainscoting.
Some art connoisseurs have considered that the detailed wasps at upper right may have been a link to the popular Vespucci family of Florence and other connoisseurs have decided that the wasps are nothing more than a symbolism for Venus and the stings of love. "A lost Classical painting of the marriage of Alexander and Roxana was described by the 2nd-century Greek writer, Lucian. It showed cupids playing with Alexander's spear and armor. Botticelli's satyrs may refer to this. Mars is sleeping the 'little death' which comes after making love, and not even a trumpet in his ear will wake…...

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Works Cited

Botticelli, Sandro. Ed. Emil Kren and Daniel Marx. Web Gallery of Art. Retrieved on 13 Nov. 2004, from http://gallery.euroweb.hu/bio/b/botticel/biograph.html.

Cole, Bruce. Italian Art, 1250-1550: The Relation of Renaissance Art to Life and Society. New York: Harper & Row, 1987.

Venus and Mars. The National Gallery. Retrieved on 13 Nov. 2004, from http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/cgi-bin/WebObjects.dll/CollectionPublisher.woa/wa/work?workNumber=NG915.

Art

eformation
The Italian enaissance, in Babcock's account, was more secular than the Northern, which gave us the eformation. Yet there seem to be contradictions in his account of the Northern enaissance. For example, Babcock argues that the eformation is alive today for the reasons that Max Weber emphasized in his 1905 book "whose title gives the whole thesis away": The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. (Babcock 212). Weber claims Protestants were looking for "signs of God's blessings on His elect" and found them in "hard work, the acquisition and growth of capital" (213). Babcock summarizes Weber as arguing that "through the acquisition of wealth, and all the capitalistic virtues that go with that, one could demonstrate that there was the blessing of God in your life" (213).

Babcock concedes that Weber's thesis has been "very controversial" but he himself endorses it as a "very powerful interpretation" (213). I can understand…...

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References

Babcock, MA. (2011). The story of Western culture. Lynchburg: HPS Publishing.

He took Giotto's notions and ran with them, so to speak. He, too, was breaking away from tradition because he viewed art differently than others sis. In his book, Michelangelo, illiam Lace states that Michelangelo was responsible for bringing realism to art and "freeing it from the stiff formality of the preceding centuries" (Lace 7). Michelangelo wanted his art to appear as realistic as possible. His goal was to create something that suggested authentic emotion. In addition to this, Michelangelo also saw the artist differently than others did as well. He wanted to bring forth from the stone what was already inside it. Here we see an artist that sees himself as a part of the artistic process. This sort of though was new and it inspired many artists of the day. hat we find so important about this new line of thinking is the freedom that the artists…...

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Works Cited

Cameron, Euan. Early Modern Europe. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Craig, Albert M., et al. The Heritage of World Civilizations. Fifth Edition. New Jersey: Prentice

Hall. 2000.

Lace, William. Michelangelo. San Diego: Lucent Books. 1993.

Romantic and Neoclassical Paintings
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Eugene Delacroix were contemporaries -- but they practiced two very different styles: the former was a Neoclassical painter and the latter a Romantic painter. Neoclassicalism emphasized symmetry and simplicity and found its inspiration in the ancient art of Greece and Rome: its practitioners celebrated the artistic styles of the Greco-Roman world, rejecting the drama of the Baroque and adopting a more intellectualized approached to the visual arts. The subjects of these paintings were often political, social historical and classical -- a portrait of the Horatii, for example, or of a scene in Homer's Iliad. The visual style was decorous, concise, restrained, balanced, rational, and sometimes witty: it appealed to the Enlightenment thinkers of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Romanticism on the other hand was more emotional: its subjects were more often focused on nature, the individual, the common man, the spirit of…...

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Works Cited

"Ars Quatuor Coronatorum." Freemasonry.

 http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/aqc/napoleon.html 

"The Lady with an Ermine." Italian Renaissance.  http://www.italian-renaissance-art.com/Lady-with-an-Ermine.html

The Black Death and enaissanceThe Black Death swept across Europe from 1347 to 1351, leading to an estimated death of 75-200 million people, or approximately 30-60% of Europe\\\'s total population at that time (Gottfried, 2010). It was believed to be caused by the Bubonic plague, a deadly infection carried by fleas on black rats, and it resulted in severe social, economic, and cultural impacts. The enaissance, on the other hand, was a period of intellectual and artistic reawakening that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th centuries (from the end of the Middle Ages to the beginning of the Modern era). It began in Italy and gradually spread across Europe, bringing a new focus on the potential of human capabilities, knowledge, and creativity (Baker, 2015). This paper compares and contrasts the two with respect to several categories.Significant Individuals:With respect to the Black Death, this period lacked prominent individuals. However, religious…...

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ReferencesAberth, J., & Randolph, G. (1999). England\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s counter-reformation: The changing historiography of English religious history. The Downside review, 117(409), 273-292.Baker, P. (2015). Italian Renaissance humanism in the mirror (Vol. 14). Cambridge University Press.Field, J. V. (2016). The unhelpful notion of ‘Renaissance man’. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 41(2-3), 188-201.Gottfried, R. S. (2010). Black death. Simon and Schuster.

Renaissance Art
The relationship between patronage and art

During Early and High Renaissance of Italy, it was through the vehicle of patronage was the key fashion in which an artist established his artistic identity as well as established himself economically. For instance, in considering Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus," it is important to remember that this vision is not an individualistic picture of a an artist living outside of his society. Rather, the patron who commissioned the Botticelli painting for his country villa was a member of the rich and powerful family of the Medici, and demanded that certain artistic standards and ideals be reflected in the work. (Sandro Bottecelli, ebart, "The Birth of Venus (http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/botticelli/venus/)

The Medici family had a fascination not so much with tale of Venus, but with the Neoplatonic philosophy of beauty this female form had the potential to represent. Venus, it was thought, and all beautifual and idealized…...

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Works Cited

Bottecelli, Sandro. Webart, "The Birth of Venus" The Madonna with the Book," and "Primavera

  " http://gallery.euroweb.hu/html/b/botticel/madonna/index.html. And gallery.euroweb.hu/html/b/botticel/allegory/index.htmlhttp://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/botticelli/ venus/and

El Greco. "The Spoliation, Christ Stripped of His Garments.  http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/greco/ 

Van Eyck, Jan.

Considered part of the Northern Renaissance, German Renaissance developed in the 15th and 16th centuries among German thinkers who had traveled to Italy, the cradle of the movement, and had been inspired to import it to Germany. Humanism exerted a strong influence over the arts and sciences in several German principalities, and coincided with a period of political development.

Painting was one of the most prominent ways of artistic expression within the German Renaissance. Also, publishing and printmaking were two areas which developed significantly throughout this period. German art was deeply influenced by its Gothic past, but many painters became increasingly more interested in fusing these Gothic elements with newer developments. Two of the most important figures of German visual arts were Konrad itz, a conservative German painter who was less keen on adopting Italian trends, and Albrecht Durer who was both a painter and a graphic master. In fact, it…...

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Works Cited

Guisepi, R.A.. "Beginning and Progress of the Renaissance." University of California. Available at Accessed 3 November, 2008.http://history-world.org/renaissance.htm.

Hulme, Edward Maslin "The Revival of Art." In the Renaissance, the Protestant Revolution, and the Catholic Reformation in Continental Europe, 108-124. Revised ed. New York: D. Appleton-Century, 1915.

Ballet is a classical form of dance that originated in the 15th century during the Italian Renaissance. It is a highly technical and artistic dance style that emphasizes precise movements, grace, and elegance. Ballet dancers undergo rigorous training and follow a structured technique that includes specific positions of the arms and feet, intricate footwork, and fluid body movements. The dancers often wear pointe shoes to perform on their toes and create an illusion of weightlessness. Ballet includes various styles, such as classical ballet, neoclassical ballet, and contemporary ballet, each showcasing different choreography and music. It is widely performed in professional....