Renaissance style

The Renaissance was the true revolution touching simultaneously arts, sciences, philosophy, the organization of the company. It begins at the beginning of the 15th century in Italy. The ideas of the Rebirth will be propagated in many countries of Europe, especially as from the 16th century.

The term of Rebirth was used by Vasari at the 16th century to indicate the modification of the art and the ways of thinking during 15th and 16th centuries in Italy. Italy, at that time, is diverted Moyen-âge and takes for model the Antiquité.

Segmentations in History as of arts

Italy

Into Italy one divides the Renaissance style per centuries:

The Quattrocento or 15th century with the construction of the cathedral Santa Maria del Fiore with Florence, started with Arnolfo di Cambio in XIIIe S. it will be finished by Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446), and its vault of Pazzi in 1429, but also the palate Médicis (1444-1464) of Bartolomeo di Michelozzo

The Cinquecento starts with a traditional tendency at the beginning of the 16th century with Donato Bramante in architecture and Léonard de Vinci, Raphaël in painting. Make mathematical watch of rigor with a step ahead on the prospect and the rigorous composition and the research of the perfection. The man becomes the standard meter and all is created for him and its vision of the world.

The artists who will succeed to them estimating that the perfection was reached change way and it is the appearance of the tendency mannerist much more theatrical, the forms are exaggerated and the overloaded decorations; one speaks even about fear of the vacuum.

Segmentations equivalent to following in History of Italian art:

  1. First Rebirth (Quattrocento)

  2. High Rebirth (1500-1530)

France

In France, the first Rebirths (1495-1540) begin at the end of the 15th century, the great innovation is the development of the architectural decoration. The French medium is ready to change lifestyle, we choose here the date of 1497 and the construction of the door of the Hurtault tower to the castle of Amboise, regarded as the first building of Renaissance style. And ends in the school of Fontainebleau on the Ile-de-France, the gallery François 1st with the castle of Fontainebleau finished about 1549.

The second French Rebirth (1540-1589) starting from Henri II, the French artists take the changing of their Italian fellow-members and develop an erudite and original art, mixture of antique, Italian Rebirth and national tradition, until the end of Valois.

Preceding or preexistent styles

One resolutely turns the back on the Middle Ages. Although seemingly certain Gothic pieces of furniture are kept, for their utility, the traditional ornaments resulting from the Italian Rebirth come to be grafted above.

Political situation and cultural

It is the time of the large navigators who will bring great discoveries and great richnesses especially to Spain and in Portugal, thanks to Christophe Colomb which discovers America, Dias which sails round the Cape of Good Hope in 1487, Magellan which makes its first round the world tour.

Gutenberg develops printing works in 1455, which allows the diffusion of the texts, and the diffusion of the culture of the Rebirth through all Europe.

The religion sudden of the important modifications with Martin Luther, reforming German monk, attacks the Roman Church of which he denounces the richnesses and the sales of indulgences in 1517. This text marks the beginning of the Protestant Reform. Its standpoint will involve the adhesion of part of the Christians to the Reform.

In Italy, it is the introduction of the patronage, the city-states Italian are often directed by princes patrons who compete to show their size, they order many works. Like Médicis with Florence, doges in Venice, Sforza and Visconti in Milan, Este with Ferrare, papacy in Rome.

In France, the neighboring states threaten the territory at the end of the Middle Ages and call into question the royal authority. The reign of Louis XI (1461-1483) preaches the national unit against the feudal power. The wars of Italy undertaken by Charles VIII, Louis XII and François 1st support the propagation of the Italian Rebirth in France. François 1st makes come from the Italian artists to build castles along the Loire, then in Ile-de-France with the school of Fontainebleau.

Principles

  1. Humanism : Whereas the Middle Ages placed God in the center of the concerns, as of XIVe S. in Italy, a new glance goes on the man and gives birth to a rebirth during which the artists are of the Man the subject of their esthetic research.
  2. Return to arts of Antiquity gréco-Roman : With the poets Pétrarque and Boccace, the literary movement Florentin of XIVe S. wants to return to the purity of the texts. Thinkers study the literature, the history and the philosophy of Antiquity. The study of the authors of Antiquity makes it possible to consider the world and the place which the man occupies there according to new diagrams.
  3. the heliocentrism : The astronomers like Copernic, Galileo,… study the universe and end to the scientific recognition of the heliocentrism: the sun is in the center of the planetary system and the ground is only one planet which turns around the sun.
  4. the creative artist : The artist gives up the anonymous and corporative statute medieval. He passes from the expert to the man of ideas.

Esthetics

Main features

  • one takes again the five traditional orders of architecture gréco-Roman (doric, Tuscan, ionic, Corinthian and composite)
  • with the columns released or engaged one adds the Pilastre S which have only one decorative function.

Ornamentation

  • the balustrades
  • the rinceaux : rollings up of opposed and alternated acanthuses, lighter than those of Antiquity
  • the Putti : cherubs or figures derived from Cupid
  • architectural Encadrements
  • the mowed or medallion
  • the symmetrical arabesque floral composition of light foliages around a central reason, often a very fine stem, a enrubanné node, a basin or a candelabrum.
  • grotesque : without symmetry contrary to the arabesques, they can comprise reasons animalist or mythical, they are also often lighter. In France one will more often speak the grotesque ones rather than about arabesques.
  • the mascaron
  • the shell

Furniture

Italian furniture borrows its forms from architecture ancient and reappearing: pediment, entablature, column, pilaster, arcade,… The decorative reasons are varied: putti, will mascarons, cut out cartridges, leathers, tied medallions, mirrors, garlands, ribbons, interlacing, basket of flowers and fruits, falls of piastres,…

Current pieces of furniture

  • the trunk was often offered at the time of the marriages and remains the essence of furniture. It bears the name of cassone to Italy. The frame of the trunk remains the same one as with the Middle Ages assembled by dovetail, but the frontage evolves/moves. The pinnacles are replaced by balusters, insertion of medallions, the grotesque ones and arabesques, the rinceaux one and shells. Decorations of medallions and balusters, as well as the rinceaux one.

  • the cabinet is the storage unit for invaluable objects. It is composed of two bodies

  • the metal plaque
  • the table is the copy of the Roman table. It is made of a rectangular plate supported by two extreme feet, those are connected by a spacer. The plate is often decorated marbles and stones of color. Towards the end of XVIe S., one carries out tables with 6,8 or 9 feet. The top dissimulates two sliding shutters making it possible to increase surface (pull knobs) by it.

Seats

  • the chair with high file : this chair is monumental, it often has a pediment. It keeps a trunk in its base but loses its platform. The file is formed by boards which are united on which an ornamentation develops.

stuck Applications: cornices, plinths, capitals.
fenestration is replaced by the rinceaux ones and crowning refers to arts gréco-Romans, by an entablature ending in a cornice and an architrave. One often finds, on the high part of the file, a reason in the shape of escutcheon or a mirror left circle curvature out of polished wood.
  • the sedia dantesca , armchair in X made of four amounts which cross two by two by forming the gothic arch of the Gothic, supports the seat which is only one broad leather strap. A right file, two arm-rests and two shoes gave the aspect of a faudesteuil.

  • the sedia savonarola , or armchair out of clippers, armchair in X resulting from the medieval faudesteuil. Constituted of eight parallel amounts affecting a movement of counter-curve forming an arc in accodance. The file characterized by a very sinuous cutting is often decorated, in its center by an escutcheon.

New pieces of furniture

  • the sgabello : sit mobile completely characteristic of the Italian Rebirth. It appears as of XVe S. the sgabello is characterized by the curious assembly of two boards, slightly tilted towards the seat provided with a trapezoidal file. The decoration of this seat is made will mascarons and of volutes of cutting out.

  • Chair with arm : the file does not exceed any more the head, often furnished with mobile cushions, end of the 16th century it will be covered with leather of tapestry at large points or Damas with Naples and even with satin. At the 17th century it will take the name of Fauteuil except at the court where it will take the name of Chaise. often associated with the Style Henri II.

  • the caquetoire : held with the women, it has a fixed trapezoidal base or with pivot. Mark a progress for comfort, the feet are connected either by cross-pieces or by only one spacer in H.

  • the armchair with high file : appears in Italy during first half of XVIe S. and one sees some very quickly in all Europe. The seat as the file is made of corrugated leather, piqué of large gilded nails. Under the seat, two carved stringcourses form decoration.

Materials

Techniques and tools

  • the garnishing : for the seats hard natural wood surfaces will be gradually replaced by a leather trimming of tapestry or fine fabric. Tended on felt straps and stuffed.

  • the marquetry

In XIVe S., marquetry is given to the mode to Tuscany. The wood of report/ratio a thickness from 3 to 5 millimetres is cut either with the chisel, or with instruments of sawing, close to the tools of the carpenter. The decoration in plating entirely recovers an ordinary wooden support. The elements are cut out, shades with heat and are adjusted to be stuck on their support the ones after the others.

XVe S. is one important time in the development of the inlaid decoration. To Florence, a school will be created specialized in the inlaid decoration: Intarsiatoris.

Benedetto da Maiano was the most famous representative of the process with incrustations: the intarsio.

  • the incrustations (the tarsia atoppo and tarsia certosina)

the geometrical interlacings are bands prepared in block and encrusted in the mass with wood (tarsia atoppo). The representation of a city treated in prospect, is the preferred subject of the artists of the North of Italy and is carried out before the assembly and is encrusted then (tarsia certosina).

  • Technique “Moorish”

They make deep incisions that the craftsmen fill of nets of paste white ivory said to “the Moorish” or “white Moorish”: this technique would have been imported by the Arabs in Italy: The preferred reasons are rollings up of rinceaux very fine.

Cabinetmakers representative of the style

In arts…

Structure

Quattrocento (Italy)

At the beginning of XVe S., Filippo Brunelleschi and Leone Battista Alberti propose new designs of space.
  • the characteristics of Quattrocento are:
    • Use of the five orders of architecture gréco-Romans: doric, Tuscan, ionic, Corinthian, composite.
    • With the imbedded and released columns is added pilasters to decorative function.
    • the doors and the windows are surmounted by an arched or triangular pediment.
    • Use of coffered ceilings, or barrel vaults out of boxes, or of cupolas.
    • the carved decoration extremely is varied and inspired by the Roman decoration.
    • Use of carved medallions, the tondo - mowed.

the construction of the cathedral Santa Maria del Fiore with Florence: begin with Arnolfo di Cambio in XIIIe S. and will be finished during Quattrocento by Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446)
    • It decides not to assemble the dome in only one block but to connect two shells between them, so that they are reinforced mutually. Large veins being used as stiffeners.
    • Importance of the legibility of space by a rational architecture where all the elements are definite a priori . The relationship proportional between these architectural elements is clearly drawn up.
    • Importance of unit: the clear volume of the cupola, the lines and the colors are in harmony with those of the tiles ochers furnishing the roofs neighborhood.
    • mathematical Calculation: The beauty of architecture must result from the ordered report/ratio of each element with the unit.
    • It takes as scale the proportions of the human body.

In the vault of Pazzi (1429), Brunelleschi exploits the opposition between the white rough coat and a dark stone (the will pietra serena ). This stone draws long veins on the lines which correspond to the members of the masonry inside and underlines its articulation.

Of Antiquity it begins again, the Roman arch, the cupola and the capitals
On the other hand there is like innovation, the medallions out of terra cotta or Tondo and the pillars which play only one decorative part.

  • Bartolomeo di Michelozzo (1396-1472)
The Palate of Médicis, 1444-1464 Michelozzo is a disciple of Brunelleschi. It adapts the architectural principles of its Master to laic buildings. The construction of civil buildings is important thanks to the favorable economic situation of the time. The palazzo, is a house of trade of a merchant. It can be used of office and warehouse.

Michelozzo influences religious architecture for the decoration of its palate, but it attaches of this fact the importance to decoration: arcades, framings of windows (begun again Gothic fenestrations), posts, Roman arch (decorative)…

  • Leone Battista Alberti (1404-1472)

This architect seems the reappearing theorist. He separates the design from the execution. For him, essence lies in the idea and the plans which translate it. The beautiful one becomes the supreme value of an esthetic unit. The prospect is the basic element in art to design a building. (ex: Church San Andrea, Mantoue, XVe S.)

Cinquecento

the traditional tendency

Bramante (1444-1514) The traditional style is born as of the first years from XVIe S. In order to return to the city its glorious face, the architects imitate the town planning and the buildings of the Roman epoch and paléochrétienne, since the plans until the techniques of construction, which they adapt to the modern needs. The loans with Antiquity were recurring in XVe S., but they remained partial. During XVIe S., the influence will be much more radical: all the elements are drawn from ancient architecture and obey its rules.

Ex : Tempietto San Pietro in Montorio, 1503, it acts of a small round temple of very traditional aspect, its plan in Greek cross, is surmounted by a cupola. The columns are Tuscan, the plank with métope and triglyphes, the columns form a peristyle.

As innovations one distinguishes, the ornamentation of shells, the balusters.

the tendency mannerist

Far from the rigor of Bramante, the architectural elements are used with a greater profusion, to ensure complex ornamentation which makes decorated surface an almost theatrical space.

Palladio (1508-1580) works primarily in Venezia. He enjoys since XVIe S. the reputation the architects Modern times. Ex: Capra the Villa known as “Rotonda”, close to Vicenza, the base form is the square with integration of a cross with four equivalent branches. The external building points out the Greek temple, where all the frontages are equal and seem to comprise each one an entry. But, each frontage is the resumption of a frontage of Roman temple (square Maison style of Nimes) in which imbricates the cubic volume of the Pantheon of Rome. Statues accentuate the overall effect.

Giulio Romano (1499-1546) It is one of the large representatives of the mannerism. Disciple of Raphaël, Giulio meets the future duke of Mantoue, Frederic de Gonzague. This one had a ground called Te located in the middle of a meadow. He asks Romano to raise his palate there. The palate, built and decorated by Romano, is a masterpiece mannerist. It creates an upheaval in the ordinance of the decorations: the spacing of the windows is not regular. Romano installs the confusion and the instability, which produce a certain disorder at the spectator.

Painting

With Humanism, one places the man in the center of the concerns. What imports is the way in which the man will look at this table. The man becomes the measurement of reference. The prospect must thus respect the physical laws of the world, and association between the light and the shade of the bodies. Masaccio wants to represent in the table “objective” reality. Piero Della Francesca is impassioned for the treaties of Vitruve, Latin thinker of Ier S., which develops in its writings the art of the reason, the direction of measurement and balance. Painting requires the adequacy between the vision of the painted image and that of the objects in space. This principle results in the reductions in size of the objects which are distant. Piero della Francesca will make studies on visual realism and the linear prospect.

ex: The scourging of Christ, 1477-9, Urbino.

In 1504, it settles in Florence. It assimilates graphic innovations like theobscure ones and the sfumato. It is about a principle of prospect which gives to the forms a vague aspect if they are distant. The drawing takes precedence over the color.

ex: Mona Lisa, 1503, Paris, Museum of Louvre.

  • Raphaël (1483-1520)

From 1504 to 1508, it paints many Madonna with the child. It bases its composition on the message which it wants to make pass: maternal love.

ex: The Virgin with the goldfinch, 1507, museum of the Offices of Florence Importance of the clear compositions based on geometrical forms, like the triangle. These compositions give an effect of stability.

  • Pondormo

Painter mannerist . The objective is to shock and of touching the spectator. The painters mannerists deform the bodies of the characters. The bodies are completely disproportionate. They disfigure the characters by excessive expressions.

ex: The Deposition, 1520

Sculpture

…

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