In much of Leonardo's paintings, both in portraiture as well as groups, you can see the "Renaissance Triangle" which will dominate painting as well as sculpture during the Renaissance. A visual manifestation of the Classical ideals of order, balance and moderation -- stability.

Michelangelo Buonarroti

Michelangelo was a sculptor, a carver of marble to the core. His faith in the image of man as the supreme vehicle of expression gave him a sense of kinship with Classical Greek Sculpture closer than that of any other Renaissance artist. Conventions, standards and traditions might be observed by lesser spirits; he could acknowledge no authority higher than the dictates of his own genius.

He was only 24 when he completed the Pieta. In it he condensed the whole of the High Renaissance in Rome and the highest ideals of Classical Greek sculpture; that precarious balance of intellect and emotion, of naturalism and idealization and his personal belief in the spiritual and man.

If Mary was to stand up she would be close to seven feet tall, much larger than her son who rests comfortable across her lap. She looks down at Christ with a calm serenity and a face younger than that of her son. The whole work emanates a calm harmonious feeling, an acceptance of Christ's death as a logical part of God's plan for the salvation of mankind through Jesus Christ's death and resurrection. Mary's face (younger than her son's) is calm and peaceful, showing none of the agony of the other Pieta. Christ seems almost to be asleep (the veins are still flushed with blood in acknowledgment of Christ's spiritual immortality).

Michelangelo's Pieta can be seen as an acceptance of the Passion as a logical part of God's plan and his love for mankind.

Even today when anyone speaks of the Pieta or The David there is only one sculptors work that comes to mind. Of all the artists of the High Renaissance, I realize we are only looking a few, Michelangelo above all personifies the highest ideals of the age. When Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to redecorate the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel he wanted a rather modest series of the Twelve Apostles seated on thrones to be painted in the triangular spandrels, The walls between the lunettes framing the windows. When Michelangelo objected to the limitations of Julius's plan, the pope told him to paint whatever he liked on the ceiling -- and he did.


Michelangelo Buonarroti and the Sistine Chapel

Creation of Adam

The Expulsion

On the Top are two of the most famous of the panels from the Sistine ceiling, although it is difficult to pick any one panel as the most famous of the most famous ceiling in the world and one considered the greatest single work of the High Renaissance.

And while we're still talking High Renaissance, take a closer look at the picture of the interior of Sistine Chapel in your text. Notice that the ceiling is comprised of a series of geometric shapes that create a unified and controlled composition -- a mathematical structure if you will. And the two panels on the left are both calm, rational interpretations of the subject matter. Consider how these rather explosive events might be handled by today's cinematographers. Here in the top panel God reaches out to give life, not only to Adam but to all humanity while all the yet unborn souls are carried along in Gods mighty embrace. In the bottom panel Adam and Eve have broken Gods one commandment and he has sent an angel to drive them from paradise. But this is still the Michelangelo of the Pieta, the whole ceiling is a pictorial declaration of papal authority, derived from the Bible. But his unbridled belief in his church and a rational world based on that belief is about to be challenged. Look again at the Sistine Chapel, but this time look to the back wall.


The Last Judgment




The interval between the Sistine Chapel and the Last Judgment was a period of political and religious crisis which tore the very fabric of Christendom apart. During this later period Michelangelo's work starts to move away from the rational/balanced order of the High Renaissance and toward the non-rational.







Figures now twist and turn one form intertwining with the other, all the order and stability of the Sistine Chapel ceiling has disappeared and the calm serenity has been replaced with pleading saints who hold out the instruments of their martyrdom, while Mary turns her face away from the horrific scene as an avenging God, arm raised in an angry gesture of final judgment, condemning the sinners to eternal damnation.


Michelangelo found himself at the edge between the Renaissance and the Baroque, the next period we will be talking about or the Late Renaissance if you will. The self assurance and total belief in the rightness of the church of Rome and the concepts of the High Renaissace that we saw in the Michelangelo's Pieta and his David are now replaced with doubt about both his personal beliefs and his faith in the church. New ideas, especially those of Martin Luther, will challenge the power of Rome and split Europe into warring camps. Scientific investigation propted by the rise of Humanism and the adoption of the Greek concept of a Universe rendered accessible to examination according to a common standard quantitative scale (Geometry); a rational universe founded on a rational order that was accessible to man's understanding would also challange the Church's teachings -- not only will the earth be found to be not flat but it would no longer be the center of God's Universe around which the Sun and the planets revolved.

We can compare much of this period, in fact many of the modern periods we will be discussing, with our old friends the Greeks and Romans. The Early Renaissance = the Late Archaic or Early Classical Greeks: the evolution from a society nominated by the supernatural toward the more man orientated Humanistic socity. High Renaissance (especially in Rome) = The High Classical of Athens, a relatively short period of supreme control and order over a realatively small area, and this later period of the Renaissance -- often refered to as Mannerism -- and the up coming Baroque Period, equivalent to the Hellenistic Greek period, where the upsetting influences of new and often conflicting ideas and a broading of the political field (ie. Greek city-state verus Hellenistic Empire. All poweful Catholic Rome verus an awakening European nationalism and the riseing conflict within the Church which will eventually led to the Protestant Reformation) have again thrown everything into doubt.

This same doubt will will affect even the artist who most epitomise the High Renaissance Raphael Sanzio, better known simply as Raphael.


Raphael Sanzio

Raphael represents the High Renaissance ideal of harmony in its mostcomplete expression. His genius was his unique power of synthesis that enabled him to merge the qualities of Leonardo and Michelangelo, creating a lyrical and dramatic pictorially rich and sculpturally solid composition.

                 
 Marriage of the Virgin                       School of Athens Fresco Stanza della    Panel Panel Painting                            Segnatura c.1510-11 Vatican, Rome
    67" x 46 1/2" c.1504
     Pinacoteca di Brera,
             Milan


For Raphael, harmony was the basic purpose of art. But like Michelangelo, Raphael's late work turned toward a more emotional style. Where he might have gone with it we'll never know ... His death on Good Friday, April 6 1520, at the age of 37, traditionally marks the end of the High Renaissance in Rome.