Renaissance Artists Intellectual Life
Before attempting to answer the question it is important to consider what we mean by 'early Italian Renaissance. Unlike many periods in history the Renaissance has no obvious start and end dates, for the purposes of this assignment I will define the approximate period within which to look as about 1390 to about 1520. 1390 represents the time when the Carrara court in Padua was gaining an intellectual reputation of excellence, as well as this being about the time that two Roman coin like medals were cast of Francesco II and his father. This represents a typically renaissance trait of looking to antiquities for inspiration, as will be discussed later. The time around 1520 represents when Raphael died this was followed closely by the death of Pope Leo X, the second High Renaissance pope. It is after their deaths that the creative and optimistic mood in Italy began to fade. The decade ending 1520 saw Leonardo da Vinci leaving for France and then dieing there in 1519. There are many other examples that could confirm these dates as significant, and also many more that would dispute them, but for the purposes of simplicity we will take these as a guide. In the beginnings of the Renaissance painting was seen very much as a craft performed
At the beginning of the period in question we can see the artist as a craftsman and member of the artisan class. This is reflected in his training at the bottega, which did not contain any wider intellectual training. Over the course of the early Renaissance this began to change, whether it was due to the aspirations of the artists or the pressures of the patron, that the artists stared pursuing intellectual training, is up for debate. Most likely the answer lies between the two, patrons wanted works that contained religious or mythical themes, and these were based on texts written almost exclusively in Latin. The artist could pay someone to translate but this could become costly. Also knowledge of Latin was essential to be considered an equal in intellectLondon 1972 Ames-Lewis, F., The Intellectual Life of the Early Renaissance Artist, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2000. For a painter to embark on an extended curriculum of more intellectual study it would have been after their basic training at abacus school and even perhaps after their initial apprenticeship. At the beginning of the fifteenth century an artist's apprenticeship would be very unlikely to contain a wider intellectual syllabus. This did change through the course of the early Renaissance; opportunities in the bottega allowed the painter to absorb intellectual ideas and understanding. During the course of the early renaissance artists increasingly wished to take on apprenticeships that allowed the opportunity to expand their intellectual range, so these opportunities were seized with increased regularity. Vasari, G., trans Bull, G., Lives of the artists, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1987. "Those sciences that are imitable are of such kind that through them the disciple can equal the master... Amongst these, painting has first place. It cannot be taught to someone not endowed with it by nature... Such singularity gives it greater excellence than those things that are spread abroad."#
Some common words found in the essay are:
De Pictura, Proficiency Latin, Leo Renaissance, Antonio Boltraffio's, Council Nuremberg, Renaissance Unlike, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Similarly Leonardo, Francesco II, Pirckheimer Venice, renaissance artists, fifteenth century, abacus school, humanistic script, grammar school, classical past, artisan class, course renaissance, painting liberal art, haven london, painting liberal, leonardo da vinci, contain wider intellectual, awareness humanistic script, treatise de pictura,
Approximate Word count = 2434
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page double spaced)
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