ITALIAN RENAISSANCE PAINTING AND SCULPTURE

Many features of Renaissance art can be seen in The Birth of Venus. The patron who commissioned this work was a member of the powerful Medici family. It was painted by the Florentine Sandro Botticelli at the end of the 15th century, using the tempera technique.

The artist took his inspiration from classical mythology to depict the birth of Venus (the Roman goddess of love, beuty and marriage).

There is a clear symmetry to the composition and it contains a striking image: the nude, which had disappeared from Western art during the Middle Ages.

The Birth of  Venus (Botticelli)

In the search for a true representation of reality, Renaissance artists introduced a revolutionary new technique: perspective. This enabled them to give depth and volume  to scenes, objects and figures.

In sculpture, perspective was achieved by creating reliefs with various depths, which can be seen in this detail from The Gates of Paradise by Lorenzo Ghiberti.

The Gates of Paradise (Lorenzo Ghiberti)

Perspective was achieved in painting by placing the figures in different planes and puting landscapes or architectural features in the most distant one (the background). They also used linear perspective, which consits of arranging the elements on imaginary lines which converge at a vanishing point at the back. This can be seen in the fresco The School of Athens by Raphael Sanzio.

Other methods which are used to create depth are aerial perspective, blurring the background so it appears further away; and using contrasts of light and shadow (chiaroscuro) to create volume.

The School of Athens (Raphael Sanzio)