— ART HISTORY & IMAGE STUDIES — ARTH 341 SCHEDULE REQUIREMENTS Christopher L. C. E. Witcombe INTRODUCTION Some Questions What is the "Renaissance"? Why did the "Renaissance" happen? What is "new" in art? How is it "new"? Why was it made? (why do works of art - paintings, sculptures, architecture - come into existence?) The shift from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance Coppo di Marcovaldo c. 1265 Giotto c. 1310 The shift from Early Renaissance to High Renaissance Masaccio 1426-27 Raphael 1509-11 The shift from High Renaissance to Mannerism Michelangelo 1501-04 Giambologna 1574-82 Contemporary Context Renaissance Humanism Renaissance Philosophy, especially Renaissance Neoplatonism Social, religious, and economic history Contemporary Written Sources Theophilus (12th century) (On various arts: English text: Book III) Cennino Cennini (Il Libro dell’Arte: English text) Leon Battista Alberti (On Painting: English text) Lorenzo Ghiberti Leonardo da Vinci Giorgio Vasari and his Lives of the Most Excellent Italian Painters, Sculptors, and Architects The Concept of the Renaissance The term Renaissance was first used to describe a specific period in history by Balzac in a novel in 1829. It subsequently gained currency in intellectual circles. In 1855, it was used by Jules Michelet for the title of his book La Renaissance, 1855, and in 1860 is was employed definitively by Jacob Burckhardt in his The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. It was also used by Ruskin, Stones of Venice in 1851, and by Trollope, Summer in Brittany, in 1840.