We throw around words like “impressionistic”, “avant-garde”, and “modernist” a lot around here. 

We use “impasto” and “photorealistic” just as often.

We realize some of our readers might not be as familiar with those words as we are, but this kind of vocabulary is inevitable when you’re talking about and describing art.

We’ve wanted to do a series on the fundamentals of art and art history for a while now, but were never able to fit it into our plans.

With Christmas drawing near, we decided now was as good a time as any to get the ball rolling. 

That’s why we’ve decided to gift our readers a mini primer on the various movements, concepts, and time periods throughout the history of Western art.

This week we’re introducing a crucial time period that shaped our modern ideas of art more than any other point in the history of mankind. 

We’ll be going over the major movements and style characteristics of the time period, and discussing significant breakthroughs that contributed to the development of an entirely new way of creating art.

But first, we need to go even further back in time...

The Medieval and Gothic Periods

Notre-Dame de la Belle-Verrière [Public domain]

Following the utter collapse of the Roman Empire, Europe was plunged into a period of total disarray and decline as infrastructure and culture slowly began to deteriorate.

The Catholic church stepped in as a stable authoritative body, regulating the lives and deaths of medieval Europeans. They controlled everything from the time, date, and even the appropriate manner of dress. At this time, the Church had a central role in keeping language, culture, and tradition alive.

Bishops and Popes became purveyors of the arts and began using paintings, architecture, and sculptures as tools to spread Christendom throughout Europe. The Church encouraged religious and allegorical themes in the arts but were strongly against anything that could be considered idolatry—something which Historians believe necessitated the period’s stiff, one-dimensional, style. 

As the middle class rose to power they, too, began championing the arts. This allowed artists to accept commissions outside of the Church, making it possible for them to experiment with dimension and realism. Although stylized figures and religious themes would continue well into the 17th century, this important development set the groundwork for art’s liberation from the Church.

The Renaissance

What historians consider today the Renaissance began sometime in the 14th and 15th centuries and continued all the way through the 16th century.

Although much of Europe’s populace was still stuck in the Dark Ages, philosophy, art, and science began to flourish dramatically. 

Cima da Conegliano [Public domain]

One major breakthrough was the rediscovery of humanism.

As Greek and Roman ideas were rediscovered, so too was humanism. Humanism emphasized the agency of human beings and believed in their inherent rationality and goodness. It placed great value on the pursuit of harmony, order, and balance.

Even though humanism was widely studied by the educated classes, the Church maintained considerable power in society writ large. This would change with time, but, for now, the Church and her champions held firmly onto their power and would double down on their authority, eradicating resistance as it was met.

No one ever expects the Inquisition...not even babies... 😬 

Giovanni Bellini [Public domain]

Major advances in the humanities and sciences led artists to dabble between the two disciplines and push the possibilities of art to its very limits.

Architects took cues from antiquity and began to design buildings inspired by Greek and Roman silhouettes, Sculptors relearned nearly forgotten techniques, and Painters began to explore and perfect linear perspective.

Linear Perspective is a tool used to create a three-dimensional picture or object on a two-dimensional surface that’s true-to-life. It enhances the illusion of “realness” and helps to intensify the viewer’s experience of a piece. 

Linear perspective can be achieved by drafting a horizon line, from which a vanishing point extends into intersecting orthogonals that correspond with elements within the scene.
Piero della Francesca [Public domain]

Further interest in blurring the lines between reality and idolatry led artists to dabble in depicting subjects more realistically. In places like Florence and Milan, this led to idealized bodies and an obsession with beauty, while in the north, in places like Ghent and Haarlem, they prized naturalism and relatively mundane figures. 

The Church still held Europe and her coffers in the palm of her hand, but the middle class was slowly rising to overtake her. The reintroduction of humanism and the invention of the printing press allowed new ideas to spread faster than ever before and encouraged educated Europeans to begin questioning Church teachings and to think for themselves.

Meanwhile, an increasingly connected world necessitated new ways of handling the economy.

Feudalism broke down and in the place of the landed estates and castles, cities and towns quickly arose. In Italy, dynasties of bankers began amassing large quantities of money and created a credit-based economy. These families invested their wealth in religious (ie: political) pursuits as well as the arts.

One such family was the Medici of Florence.

Rising from nothing in the late middle ages but quickly establishing themselves as powerhouses in their field, the Medici amassed countless priceless artifacts all the while securing titles and marrying into royalty. In no time, the Medici dominated the social, political, and religious spheres in Italy, and are remembered for essentially funding every major movement and event in Europe up to the 17th century.

It was very common for artists to sneak in personal messages, homages, self-portraits, allegories, and even pagan motifs in their artwork in spite of the original subject of the piece.

Take this piece from Botticelli, commissioned for the Florentine banker, Gaspare di Zanobi del Lama, for example. Although the piece itself depicts the biblical tale of the three magi meeting Jesus in the manger, Botticelli has certainly taken his own artistic liberties with the scene. 

Sandro Botticelli [Public domain]

Botticelli places the Holy Family in a manger, smack dab in the middle of the ruins of an ancient city. Around them, vines and leaves, symbolizing birth and growth, burst through the old limestone walls, while a peacock watches the scene below. This bird has traditionally been associated with wealth, beauty, rebirth and the Greek (read: pagan!!) goddess Hera.

The dozens of figures surrounding the Holy Child and his mother are dressed in a mixture of modern and antique dress, blurring the lines between the past and present.

Complicating things even more, Botticelli populates the scene with portraits of his patron (the older gentleman leaning against the wall of the manger, wearing light blue robes, on the right side of the piece) and his good friends and faithful patrons, the all-powerful Medici family.

Leonardo da Vinci [Public domain]

This experimentation with portrayal was by no means an isolated incident.

Take this painting of the Annunciation by Leonardo da Vinci for example.

In it, the angel Gabriel visits Mary to announce her immaculate conception of the Messiah. In the angel’s hand, a sprig of white lilies bloom. These flowers, associated with purity and renewal, have long been a symbol of the Holy Mother and pop up throughout art history beside her.

The Virgin, meanwhile, sits in front of an ornately carved table, decorated with the image of an open shell. This motif was traditionally associated with Aphrodite, or Venus, the goddess of love, beauty, and fertility.

Sandro Botticelli [Public domain]

A picture, as they say, is worth a thousand words, and symbols would have been easily recognizable to the masses, regardless of formal education or their ability to read. This makes them a great tool for artists to use in order to convey their intended message to their often illiterate audience.

Religious and classical subjects were often associated with fruits or other symbols. Nearly every saint had a set of images that corresponded to their virtues, miracles, or deaths that could be used or appropriated for different purposes. This not only made them easy to identify, but it gave artists a visual tradition on which they could build upon. 

High Renaissance

The High Renaissance was less a movement and more a descriptive moniker. 

Leonardo da Vinci [Public domain]

Works identified as High Renaissance feature smooth brushstrokes, bold contrasts or bright colors, and attention to anatomical and realistic details. These works are the ones we can pretty much collectively named by sight and are often created by the artists we know by name (ie: Donatello, Michaelangelo, da Vinci, and Raphael). These paintings combine talent, skill, and subject to create a painting that’s both beautiful and captivating. 

Ever wonder why Mary’s always painted wearing blue?

Before the discovery of modern synthetic pigments, the precious stone, lapiz lazuli, was ground into a fine powder and mixed with binders to create paints. Because of the labor-intensive and costly process, this ultramarine hue was only reserved for the most important of figures.
Titian [Public domain]

 Raphael [Public domain]

As the Renaissance continued, the subjects of artworks become increasingly secular. 

Religious, allegorical, and classical art was still valued as the epitome of artistic achievement, but people began to crave other, more decorative, things as well.

This gave way to new subjects such as genre, landscape, and portraiture, which strayed away from the more traditional subjects in their (perceived) varying degrees of complexity. 

Landscape

Lavinia Fontana [Public domain]

Although landscape painting would take another two centuries to develop into a venerable subject, the Renaissance laid the groundwork for its recognition.

Artists that dabbled in landscape during this period did so as an aside to some larger religious or allegorical subject. The landscapes produced during the period were highly idealized and aesthetically very perfect. Early interest in the landscape itself, however, is still present and slowly developing into a subject of its own.

The above painting by revered woman painter, Lavinia Fontana, is a prime example of the beginnings of this shift. 

Although the subject of this piece is the meeting of Mary Magdalene with the newly resurrected Messiah, the background is full of lush foliage and brush that adds an extra dimension and a certain intricacy to the scene. 

Portraiture

Giovanni Battista Moroni [Public domain]

Portraiture rose to popularity during this time due to the interests of the rising middle class.

Portraits gave patrons the opportunity to craft their own identity, fashioning themselves into grander and richer avatars of who they truly were. This style of painting became a way to document wealth and status and was used in the arrangements of proposals, to document important events, and even as propaganda, effectively standing in as the selfies of their day.

Genre

Genre gained popularity in Northern Europe in an area collectively known as the Low Countries but slowly made its way south into Italy where the Renaissance masters quickly took hold. 

In this style of painting the subjects are everyday people doing ordinary things. These paintings became popular among the middle class, who found the scenes charming for their intimacy and familiarity.

Sofonisba Anguissola [Public domain]

The Renaissance birthed a series of ideas and movements that shaped the notions of morality and aesthetics and continues to influence artists and regular people alike to this day. The art during this period is counted among the finest ever created and pieces from this period are very often deemed cultural heritage pieces.

It’s easy to see, then, why the Renaissance is considered the most influential and virtuosic in history. Because of its status, it has continued to inspire generations of creators who continued and built upon the period’s main tenants in order to create styles and themes of their own.

Sources:

https://www.bl.uk/medieval-english-french-manuscripts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xf2G2Il8crw&t=4s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YiL9MNyGKE

https://www.britannica.com/event/Middle-Ages

https://www.britannica.com/art/Gothic-art/High-Gothic

https://www.britannica.com/art/Renaissance-art

“Renaissance Art: A Very Short Introduction” by Geraldine Johnson, 2005

“Renaissance Art” by Victoria Charles, 2007