Ch 21 Study Guide Questions #1

1. What are the tenets of humanism? 2. What influence does humanism have on the art of the Renaissance? 3. How did art function in the princely courts of Italy (see insert page 574)? 4. Briefly explain the life of a court painter (see insert page 574). 5. The authors mention that the competition for the east doors of the Florence baptistery included many of the traits that characterized Renaissance art. What were these traits and how were the evident in the competition panels? 6. How does the story of the Sacrifice of Isaac connect to by the Crucifixion, the sacrament of baptism, and civic responsibility? 7. Why was Ghiberti’s panel selected as the winner over Brunelleschi’s? 8. How does Donatello’s Feast of Herod provide both an emotional energy and a mastery of perspective space? 9. On the right is the detail of Mark Tansey’s A Short History of Modernist Painting from 1979. Discuss Tansey’s comment about the way Renaissance artists viewed painting. 10. Briefly explain the following terms: linear perspective, one-point perspective, orthogonals, two-point perspective, and atmospheric perspective. BONUS: name a Roman painting that utilized atmospheric perspective 11. How did perspective confer “aesthetic legitimacy” on painting? 12. How do Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise combined painting and sculptural techniques? 13. What is the purpose of the architecture in the background of Ghiberti’s panels for the Gates of Paradise? 14. What sort of political, artistic, and economic messages were made through the niche statues of Or San Michele? 15. Explain the connection between the figures of the Four Crowned Saints and the architecture in which they are located? 16. From what source did Nanni di Banco derive the emotional intensity and general appearance of the Four Crowned Saints? 17. How does the body and drapery of Donatello’s Saint Mark relate to one another? 18. What accounts for Donatello’s “subtly calculated distortions” of form and features of Habbakuk? 19. How is Gentile da Fabriano’s Adoration of the Magi an example of the Late Gothic International Style? What “striking bits of radical naturalism” did da Fabriano insert in the this work? 20. How is Masaccio an “artistic descendant” of Giotto’s? 21. Explain the 3 scenes of Masaccio’s Tribute Money? 22. Explain the difference in Masaccio and Giotto’s understanding and depiction of light? 23. Explain the concepts of imitation and emulation as related to the career of a Renaissance artist (see insert page 585). 24. What is inventive about Masaccio’s figures and their arrangement in Tribute Money? 25. How is space and light communicated in Masaccio’s Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden? 26. What two principal Renaissance interests are embodied in Masaccio’s Holy Trinity? Explain how these elements are utilized. 27. What was the problem of the unfinished dome of Florence Cathedral? 28. Explain Brunelleschi’s methods to solve the problem of the dome? 29. Why does the dome not really “express Brunelleschi’s architectural style?” 30. What is Brunelleschi’s architectural style as seen at Santo Spirito? 31. Explain the logic and rationality of Santo Spirito. 32. How is the pietra serena utilized in Brunelleschi’s Pazzi Chapel? 33. What the possible reasons for why Cosimo de Medici rejected Brunelleschi’s plan for a new Medici palace? 34. Explain the organization of the façade of the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi.