Part I

The Birth of Venus heralds an increased interest in man and in the civilization of Ancient Greece and Rome. The painting expresses a renewed interest in the physical senses, in the human body, and in nature.

Lorenzo Valla, a famous Renaissance philosopher, wrote: “Would that man had fifty senses, since five give such delight…”

In Italy, the Greek and Roman past had never fully disappeared. But the shadows of the Middle Ages dimmed the art and ideas of classical Greece and Rome.

By the 15th century, the classical past emerged once again to reflect its meanings in the sunlight of a new age. During the Middle Ages, man sent his imagination soaring up into the infinite vaults of his cathedrals. His aim was heavenward, into the spiritual world. Renaissance man did not lose sight of God. But, with Christopher Columbus, he had more self-confidence and believed more strongly in the world around him than did his medieval ancestors. He embarked in ships and sailed outward, beyond the horizon. He explored this world, not the next.

The medieval nave was a spiritual ship, which transported souls upward, toward Heaven. “The Santa Maria” was a real ship, which carried an Italian adventurer outward on the search for a new trade route. With the great increase in commerce and trade, the principle aim of Western man became fame, success, and fortune. Man still prayed before the Bible, but now his richly embroidered purse was at his waist. He pursued the good things of this life, like fine music and good food. He dressed splendidly, in cloth of red and gold and in rich brocades.

The middle class grew in power and importance by accumulating fortunes from banking and trade. Money became an important foundation for individual power. This is Lorenzo de Medici, a member of one of the most wealthy and powerful families of Renaissance Italy. The popes increased their holdings until they were among the richest men in Europe. This is Pope Leo X; his father was Lorenzo de Medici whose portrait you have just seen.

Renaissance man, full of pride, commissioned artists to preserve his face for posterity. Such portraits were an expensive display of wealth and power. For the new, wealthy and powerful classes of the Renaissance, life itself had become a work of art. With the coming of the Renaissance, art was filled suddenly with portraits of individual people - a subject matter absent since the ancient Romans.

A gallery of unique faces….

A favorite subject for Renaissance artists was the young David, popular because he represented the youthful vitality of the Renaissance. Renaissance artists frequently used as models the people and things familiar to them, even when their subjects, like David, were Biblical. Donatello, the sculptor, ­ ­gave us a David who is actually an Italian shepherd boy. He is wearing a hat, which was common in Florence in the 15th century. His body is a study of the soft, youthful awkwardness of early adolescence. The boy stands with one hip pushed to the side in a classical manner, which reminds us of Greek and Roman models.

As time passed, the growing confidence of Renaissance man was reflected in the changing forms of his art. A generation after the creation of Donatello's David, Verrocchio of Florence also cast a young David. Now there is swagger and self-assurance in the hard, tough young body. Michelangelo's David, still later, is no longer a boy, but a self-confident man. Towering 18 feet from the floor, his perfectly developed body and piercing, intelligent gaze hold the world within their power.

Michelangelo's David represents Renaissance man's high regard for human dignity and worth. ­By the 15th century, man wanted to be more than a soul to be saved or ­condemned in the afterlife.

Most names of the builders of the medieval cathedrals have been lost to history. But the Renaissance artist wanted to be more than an anonymous craftsman in the service of God. He was a proud genius who sought fame and recognition, like Titian of Venice, seen in this self-portrait, or the haughty Durer or Lorenzo Ghiberti, the sculptor, or Raphael of Urbino.

Surely a self-portrait is a good measure of man's self-esteem. Here is Botticelli standing at the far right in his painting the Adoration of the Kings. The Biblical kings are actually portraits of Botticelli's employers, the Medici family.

Obviously, man has become more important. He meets­ God face to face in this classical ruin. A traditional religious subject has become a portrait of contemporary man. The Renaissance artist was respectful, but scarcely humble in his relationship to the Holy Virgin. He did not hesitate to sit in the same room with her and draw her portrait.

The Renaissance idea of Christ had also changed from that of the Middle Ages. Pictured, as a miniature adult in this painting from the Middle Ages Christ has become a realistic baby in this Renaissance painting. It was a youthful age. Children assumed a new importance in art.

The world of nature held a newfound fascination for the men of the Renaissance. St. Francis, a monk of the Middle Ages, had marveled at the world of plants and animals. For that reason he became an important figure to the Renaissance. Here is St. Francis preaching to the birds. Monks of the Renaissance left their cloisters and preached in the outside world of man and nature. To the medieval imagination, the natural world was make-believe or unimportant. This medieval painting of the Flight into Egypt places the figures in a toy landscape - with tiny stone mountains, rounded trees, and a gold sky. In this Renaissance painting of the Flight into Egypt, the figures follow a rustic garden path, which winds through a landscape of rolling hills spotted with trees. As these Renaissance works show, artists became scientific observers of nature.

This painting of the Adoration of the Shepherds includes some of the elements of the Renaissance, which we have discussed: individualism, youth, nature. The painting is a clear expression of the Renaissance artist's love of life and of his newfound fascination with all aspects of the world around him.