Power, Politics, and Gender in Renaissance Art

Women in all early art are seen as beauty symbols. Women are either shown in a conservation or scandalous ways. The focus is more on their slender appearances than their knowledge or power. Women are shown in art as sex symbols. Someone who is weddible, pure, vulnerable. It is to provoke a desire. I plan to look at and analyze the art displaying the two most represented women in art ever: The Virgin Mary and Apherdite, the goddess of love. These two women are icons of everything women were seen as.  Virgin Mary often is represented in variations of the annunciation where the angel david comes down to tell Mary she is pregnant with the son of God. In all variations, she appears the same way. There was a fresco of this scene in the Santa Maria Novella. Mary is shown fully clothed with a halo over her head. Her body is in a poised but distressed manner as if taken back from the shocking news. Her hands are laid over her stomach as if now aware of what is to happen to her. Mary’s ex...

The Uffizi was a beautiful building filled with inspiring pieces of artwork. I felt that the space within the structure was very well used. The building itself is huge! The structure makes a big U-shape with a couple stories of brilliant artwork. There are tons of rooms and hallways. It is easy to get lost in there which I feel makes the experience so fun. To be lost in a museum among artwork is where we truly get to embrace the surroundings. As you walk through each room, you discover more. It is like you enter a whole new world.  As much as I found the Uffizi to be extraordinary, there was another building that I feel had the most impact on me: the Santa Maria Novella.  I loved visiting the Santa Maria Novella. Both the exterior and interior were breathtaking to look out. designed around the building are very geometric which contrasts from other churches we’ve visited. While looking at the appearance of the structure, you notice that the bottom half is Tuscan styled wh...

Our culture today, believes that it is most fitting to display a piece of art in an empty room with no other distractions. We feel this is the best way to fully understand the artist’s concept while also connecting emotionally with the piece. In this kind of environment, your mind is only capable of focusing on one piece of art at a time. You are given the breathing room you need to take in the artist’s craftsmanship and stand there in a train of thought. This helps the viewer concentrate on the single piece and allows them to unravel the story behind each piece. I also believe that placing a painting or statue by itself emphasizes its importance to the viewer. The audience then takes more time to look at it because they believe it must be something grand if it was hung up here. The reading titled The Museum as a Way of Seeing talks about how the “everything in a museum is put under the pressure of a way of seeing” (The Museum as a Way of Seeing, 29). I believe this means that museums...

David was a symbol of Florence. His story represented the promise and power the people’s city. This is why there are so many statues of David created during the 14th and 15th centuries. Each statue captures David at different moments during his story of fighting Goliath. For the purpose of this post,  I will be focusing on Donatello’s bronze statue of David and Michelangelo’s marble statue.  The first statue of David ever created was by the hands of Donetello. He made two; one in marble and the other in bronze. The bronze statue shows a slender image of David with his foot resting on the head of the barbarian Goliath. It is the moment of victory. Donatello displayed David to appear youthful. He has no muscles and his body almost looks to be femine. To understand the purpose of this, you have to learn the story behind this statue and why it was created. It was the Medici family who hired Donatello to make them a David. Medici wanted David because he was seen as an under...

It is hard to answer when exactly the Renaissance started. No one at the time classified pieces of art as if they knew one day it would be defined as renaissance art. However, generally speaking, the renaissance occurred around the 15th and 16th century. The Renaissance is known for being the rebirth and led the europeans into a more modern era. This is when the idea of Humanism became very popular. Humanism is basically all about liberal arts and people loved to explore the world of philosophy, literature, and art such as paintings and sculptures. Florence was one of the main cities that influenced the world of art. Florence was financially prospering due to their business in taking sheeps' wool and turning it into cloth. It was because they had so much money that many citizens were able to afford hiring artists to paint or sculpt various different things. Most if not all art from that time period was religious. Citizens were illiterate so the churches would hire artists to ill...