Annotated Mona Lisa, The - Strickland, Carol.original_ [23]
MASACCIO. The founder of Early Renaissance painting, which became the cornerstone of European painting for more than six centuries, was Masaccio (pronounced ma SAHT chee oh; 1401-28). Nicknamed “Sloppy Tom” because he neglected his appearance in his pursuit of art, Masaccio was the first since Giotto to paint the human figure not as a linear column, in the Gothic style, but as a real human being. As a Renaissance painter, Vasari said, “Masaccio made his figures stand upon their feet.” Other Masaccio innovations were a mastery of perspective and his use of a single, constant source of light casting accurate shadows.
Donatello, “David,” c.1430-32, Museo Nazionale, Florence. Donatello pioneered the Renaissance style of sculpture with rounded body masses.
DONATELLO. What Masaccio did for painting, Donatello (1386-1466) did for sculpture. His work recaptured the central discovery of Classical sculpture: contrapposto, or weight concentrated on one leg with the rest of the body relaxed, often turned. Donatello carved figures and draped them realistically with a sense of their underlying skeletal structure.
His “David” was the first life-size, freestanding nude sculpture since the Classical period. The brutal naturalism of “Mary Magdalen” was even more probing, harshly accurate, and “real” than ancient Roman portraits. He carved the aged Magdalen as a gaunt, shriveled hag, with stringy hair and hollowed eyes. Donatello’s sculpture was so lifelike, the artist was said to have shouted at it, “Speak, speak, or the plague take you!”
Botticelli, “Birth of Venus,” 1482 , Uffizi, Florence. Botticelli drew undulating lines and figures with long necks, sloping shoulders, and pole, soft bodies.
BOTTICELLI. While Donatello and Masaccio laid the groundwork for three-dimensional realism, Botticelli (pronounced bought tee CHEL lee; 1444-1510) was moving in the opposite direction. His decorative linear style and tiptoeing, golden-haired maidens were more a throw-back to Byzantine art. Yet his nudes epitomized the Renaissance. “Birth of Venus” marks the rebirth of Classical mythology.
THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE
HEROES OF THE HIGH RENAISSANCE. In the sixteenth century, artistic leadership spread from Florence to Rome and Venice, where giants like Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael created sculpture and paintings with total technical mastery. Their work fused Renaissance discoveries like composition, ideal proportions, and perspective — a culmination referred to as the High Renaissance (1500-1520).
LEONARDO DA VINCI. The term “Renaissance man” has come to mean an omnitalented individual who radiates wisdom. Its prototype was Leonardo (1452-1519), who came nearer to achieving this ideal than anyone before or since.
Leonardo was universally admired for his handsome appearance, intellect, and charm. His “personal beauty could not be exaggerated,” a contemporary said of this tall man with long blond hair, “whose every movement was grace itself, and whose abilities were so extraordinary that he could readily solve every difficulty.” As if this were not enough, Leonardo could sing “divinely” and “his charming conversation won all hearts. ”
Leonardo, “Mona Lisa,” or “La Gioconda,” 1503-6, Louvre, Paris. The world’s most famous portrait embodied all the Renaissance discoveries of perspective, anatomy, and composition.
An avid mountain climber who delighted in scaling great heights, Leonardo was also fascinated with flight. Whenever he saw caged birds, he paid the owner to set them free. He frequently sketched fluttering wings in his notebooks, where he constantly designed flying contraptions that he eventually built and strapped on himself in hopes of soaring. He once wrote, “I wish to work miracles,” an ambition evident in his inventions: a machine to move mountains,