Italian Renaissance Artists Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Italian Renaissance Artists - Term Paper ExampleIt was a movement and an era of awakening that turned from the darkness and stagnation of the midway ages and laid the basis for Western civilization up to the present. The flowering of subterfuge during the Renaissance is what it is most remembered for today. Hence, the paintings and sculptures and their creators can be seen as springboards for discussing some fundamental changes in attitude especially how art evidences new attitudes toward man, his place in the world, and his relationship to God. (Osmond, 1998, p.18) This essay will talk about Italian artists the likes of Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Bellini, etc - who played icy roles in this great chapter in European history. During the era of the early Renaissance, evolving modes of representation and choice of content led to a redefinition of painting and sculpture as bragging(a) arts. It can even be said that visualartists themselves played a role in modifying the perce ption of their profession and art. In other words, artists both helped to mould and to react to an essential change in their status from craftsman to creator. This can be learnt from the broad ranging written and visual evidence, including treatises, contracts, letters, financial records, and, perhaps most interesting, the works of art themselves. That many of the most successful earlyRenaissance artistsevinced a significant interest in intellectual and social issues is demonstrated in a number of different areas, including changes in artistic training the involvement ofartists in civic life their engagement in the study of antiquity and antique artartists pursuit of the literary arts, including poetry, autobiography, and theory and their participation in the paragone debate. (Rosenberg, 2001, p.937) There was also a shift in the power relationship between patron and artist in favor of the latter, a shift ushered in by the emergence of the social value of artistic renown. The impa ct of this phenomenon is best illustrated in the difficulties which Isabella dEste, the Marchioness of Mantua, go through as she went about negotiating with some of Italys bestartists -- Bellini, Mantegna, Perugino, and Leonardo -- for paintings for her famous studiolo. (Rosenberg, 2001, p.937) Likewise, artists such as Giovanna Garzoni, Bartolomeo Bimbi, Jacopo Ligozzi, etc brought to their subjects not only a masterly technique, but a cheek and originality of style that would have a lasting influence on botanical illustration and the art of naturalistic painting. (Hirschauer, 2002, p.62) The cartoons made by them are full-scale drawings characterized by extended passages of careful modeling and chiaroscuro, became collectible objects valued for their intrinsic aesthetic qualities. Raphaels cartoon (Ambrosiana Gallery, Milan) for the School of Athens is the largest and perhaps best known example of this folk of drawing. Because the transfer process often led to the destruction o f a cartoon, artists introduced another intermediate step, the substitute cartoon, as a means of preserving workshop model drawings and of keeping the ben finito cartone intact (Fletcher, 2000, p.347) Towering above the achievements of other artists are the masterly works of Michelangelo,