Humanism

Question 1

What was the renaissance?

Answer 1

• new enthusiasm for classical literature, learning and art
• growth and development of the vernacular literature wehihc appealed to the masses
• Dante Alighieri- A Middle Ages man but a ‘prophet’ of the new era
• recovery of the treasures of the civilisation of Graeco-Roman antiquity

Question 2

Why was it in Italy?

Answer 2

• influence of Italian cities
• break between old and new civilaizations was not so complete like in other cities
• existence of the peninsula

Question 3

Who was Petrarch?

Answer 3

• first greatest representation of the humanistic phase of the rensaissance.
• scholar who appreciated classic literature and its value in culture
• worshipped ancient writers
• made a collection of 200 manuscripts of classics

Question 4

Who was Boccaccio?

Answer 4

• wrote Decameron, a collection of tales written in Italian
• did much to spread and deepen the enthusiasm for antiquity that Petrarch awakened

Question 5

Rome in the renaissance

Answer 5

• centre of art and learning
• Large Vatican library in Rome
• When Constantinople was captured by the Ottoman Turks, many scholars migrated West and brought the Ancient Greek manuscripts with them, many were appointed teachers in Italy

Question 6

What was the artistic revival?

Answer 6

• a return of art to nature
• a study of the masterpieces of ancient art
  New conceptions of life and the world
  Impulse to progress the human race and to correct the extravagance of medieval imagination

Question 7

What is visual arts humanism?

Answer 7

• emergence of the individual figure in place of sterotyped or symbolic figures
• greater realism and consequent attention to detail: development of linear perspective and realism in human faces
• emphasis on and promotion of virtuous action

Question 8

What was the Italian renaissance?

Answer 8

1. A reverent revival of classical Greek/ roman art forms and styles
2. A faith in the nobility of man (humanism)
3. The mastery of illusionistic painting techniques, maximising depth in picture
4. The naturalistic realism of its faces and figures, enhanced by oil painting techniques like Sfumato

Question 9

Masaccio (1401-28)

Answer 9

• introduced a new method of mathematical perspective in his fresco The Holy Trinity
• blended humanism with religious iconography
  
  • anatomy
• linear perspective
  -perfect proportion and physical beauty
• naturalistic portrayal

Question 10

Leon Batitista Alberti

Answer 10

• started the alliance between humanism and the visual arts
  1. Established a new set of aims for paintings
  2. Proclaimed the artist to be a man of culture like the literary humanist

Question 11

The Medici Family

Answer 11

• Giovanni de’Medici
  —his son Cosimo
  —His grandson Lorenzo

Intellectual atmosphere the Medici created was an invigorating element that caused Florence to outdo Siena
- used the expert of artists as a weapon
- encouraged the belief that art mattered