Question

In Italy, describe specific qualities that represent Renaissance art and architecture and music, identify your favorite individual artists who contributed to the tradition, and explain how, within the artworks themselves, these artists applied those innovations.

Answer 1

The Italian Renaissance occurred between the 14th and 17 centuries in Italy. It is generally seen as an enlightened age of art and architecture due to a renewed cultural interest in classical antiquity.specific qualities that represent Renaissance art and architecture and music are:

(1) The emergence of the individual figure, in place of stereotyped, or symbolic figures.

(2) Greater realism and consequent attention to detail, as reflected in the development of linear perspective and the increasing realism of human faces and bodies;

(3) An emphasis on and promotion of virtuous action which promoted the idea that man, not fate or God, controlled human destiny, and that is why history painting became regarded as the highest form of painting.

(5) the exploration of virtue in the visual arts also involved an examination of vice and human evil.

(6) architecture often conveys an interest in symmetry and balance.buildings of the era frequently feature columns, arches, and moulding, as evident in the ornate façade of St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City.

(7) Music still based on modes, but gradually more accidentals creep in.

(8) Richer texture in four or more parts. Bass part is added below the tenor.

(9) Blending rather than contrasting strands in the musical texture.

(10)Harmony. Greater concern with the flow and progression of chords.

(11) Church music. Some pieces were intended for 'a cappella' performance.

One of the greatest Old Masters of the Italian Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci excelled as a painter, sculptor, engineer, architect and scientist. Along with Michelangelo (1475-1564) and Raphael (Raffaello Santi) (1483-1520), he is considered to be one of the three great creators of High Renaissance art in Italy (1490-1530). Renowned as a master of oil painting, including the painterly techniques of chiaroscuro (use of shadow to create a 3-D effect) and sfumato (use of glazes in slightly different tones of colour creating an almost imperceptible transition from light to dark), both techniques are visible in his masterpiece, Mona Lisa.

Brunelleschi was the designer and architect behind Florence's famed duomo, or dome which conveys an interest in symmetry and balance.