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About the Artist
Lorenzo Lotto was among the great masters of the
Renaissance. He traveled constantly in and around Bergamo, Treviso,
Rome, and Venice. Securing commissions as he went along. He worked
primarily painting altarpieces and fresco for local chapels as well as
privately commissioned portraits for the aristocracy. It is for
his portraiture that he his most celebrated. Lotto had a strange rather
eccentric style. He was a very devout man and his works are highly
spiritual .
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About The High Renaissance Period
Artists of the
Renaissance were elevated in social standing and their art was no
longer looked upon as simple handicrafts, but as divinely inspired
creations. The spirit of an era awoke, revitalized with knowledge and
creativity. Although art still served a specific functions, which were
primarily religious, painters added more of their individual spirit and
personal vision to their creations.
John Ruskin,
famous art historian stated, "The
art of any country is the exponent of its social and political virtues
. The art, or general productive and formative energy, of any country,
is an exact exponent of its ethical life. you can have noble art only
from noble persons, associated under laws fitted to their time and
circumstance."
The major painters of the
Renaissance were not only artists but men of great genius who gave the
world their great intellectual gifts. Florentine and Venetian painting
schools were both formed by extraordinary personalities. These
independent creative geniuses tackled mathematical, artistic and
philosophical problems of the highest interest, and presented solutions
that have never lost their value. Prominent Italian writer of the High
Renaissance Niccolo Machiavelli wrote "There are three kinds of
intelligence: one kind understands things for itself, the other
appreciates what others can understand, the third understands neither
for itself nor through others. This first kind is excellent, the second
good, and the third kind useless". The sense of humanism
pervading renaissance painting is still palpable. The painters touched
on a multitude of issues regarding the human condition - death,
love, reason, religion, universal morality, social problems.
Until the
Middle Ages
men regarded themselves as following the
Good Shepherd,
and art consequently did not recognize the individual in particular. In
the structure and position of the figures, as in their
expression, a general and uniform type of beauty prevailed. The early
Renaissance marks the victory of individualism and the uncompromising
prominence of the individual. According to Renaissance historian
Walter Pater "Here, artists and philosophers and those whom the
action of the world has elevated and made keen, do not live in
isolation, but breathe a common air, and catch light and heat from each
other’s thoughts. There is a spirit of general elevation and
enlightenment in which all alike communicate. The unity of this spirit
gives unity to all the various products of the Renaissance; and it is
to this intimate alliance with the mind, this participation in the best
thoughts which that age produced, that the art of Italy in the
fifteenth century owes much of its grave dignity and influence.."
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Key Descriptive Words and Phrases associated with the Renaissance Movement -
rebirth, rediscovery of the classical world, publication of Della Pittura, a book about the laws of mathematical perspective for artists, sfumato, chiaroscuro, spiritually significant,
illuminated manuscript, idealized biblical themes,
scriptorium,
illuminator,
plague, Age
of Discovery, curiosity about the natural world, realistic use of
colours and light, Old Testament stories, ethereal and foggy
backgrounds, Gospel parables, romanticized landscapes,
Christian symbolism.
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