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The High Renaissance is
widely viewed as the
greatest explosion of creative genius in history. Even relatively minor
painters active during the period, such as Fra Bartolomeo and Mariotto
Albertinelli, produced works remarkable for their perfect harmony and
total control of the painterly mediums. Simply put, this period represented a culmination. The tentative artistic
explorations of the Proto-Renaissance, which caught hold and flowered during the
Early Renaissance, burst into full bloom during the High Renaissance. Artists no
longer pondered the art of antiquity. They now had the tools, technology,
training and confidence to go their own way, secure in the knowledge that the
artwork they were creating was as good, or better, than anything that had been done
before. Additionally, the High Renaissance represented a convergence of talent,
an almost obscene wealth of talent, concentrated in the same area during
the same small window of time. It was truly astounding, considering what the odds. The art of the High Renaissance sought a general, unified effect of pictorial
representation or architectural composition, increasing the dramatic force and
physical presence of a work of art and gathering its energies and forming a
controlled equilibrium. Because Pope Julius II patronized many artists during
this time, the movement was centered in Rome, instead of Florence as it
had been during the Early Renaissance art period. Since the essential characteristic of High Renaissance
art was its unity, a balance achieved as a matter of intuition, beyond the reach
of rational knowledge or technical skill, the High Renaissance art style was
destined to break up as soon as emphasis was shifted to favor any one element in
the composition. The High Renaissance art style endured for only a brief period, 1495-1520, and was
created by a few artists of genius, among them
Leonardo da Vinci, Donato Bramante,
Michelangelo,
Raphael, and Titian. Leonardo da Vinci is considered the paragon of Renaissance thinkers, engaged as he was in experiments of all kinds and having brought to his art a spirit of restless inquiry that sought to discover the laws governing diverse natural phenomena. The High Renaissance is generally held to have emerged in the late 1490s, when Leonardo da Vinci painted his Last Supper in Milan. Michelangelo has come to typify the artist endowed with inexplicable, solitary genius. His universal talents are exemplified by the Tomb of Julius II, the Medici Chapel, the Sistine Chapel ceiling, and Last Judgment. These artworks represent major and inimitable accomplishments in the separate fields of sculpture, painting, and architecture. High Renaissance sculpture, as exemplified by Michelangelo's Pietà and David, is characterized by the ideal balance between statics and movement. Raphael evoked, in paintings of Madonna's and in frescoes, not overwhelming forces but sublime harmony and lyric, graceful beauty. The paintings in the Vatican by Michelangelo and Raphael represent the culmination of the style in painting. |