It was the patrons who funded, enabled, and occasionally directed the movement towards realism and secular subjects, and developed the genres.
renaissance
At the start of the 15th century, Italian easel paintings used egg tempera. By the end, Leonardo da Vinci was pushing the technical boundaries using oil paint.
For over a century, Italian painters had strived to achieve coherent perspective projection, but it was until about 1420 that this was achieved. How essential was it?
Considers what exactly changed in painting in the Renaissance, and when we can establish as those dates, compared with literature, for example.
How the Tuscan city of Florence came to provide the right conditions for the Renaissance during the 14th century.
First in a new series looking at Renaissance painting from Italy, centred on Florence, shows some of the masterpieces of the ‘gap’ before the Gothic.
An architect, a sculptor and painter, and a young painter. Add a Pope who wants to be remembered, and this is what happens.
Telling a more complex story such as the Passion is more demanding. This traces how it broke out of frames, ultimately into Tintoretto’s masterpiece.
Four masterly paintings telling stories. Painted by 3 different hands, each works in 4 dimensions thanks to narrative devices, as explained here.
Bridging between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, he was a master who helped shape our whole visual culture.
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