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Brunelleschi, Dome of the Cathedral of Florence. (video) | Khan Academy

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Gentile da Fabriano, Adoration of the Magi

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Gentile da Fabriano, Adoration of the Magi, 1423, tempera on panel, 283 x 300 cm (Uffizi Gallery, Florence) Speakers: Dr. Steven Zucker & Dr. Beth Harris

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Masaccio, The Holy Trinity (video) | Khan Academy

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Watch a sculptor demonstrate the use of traditional tools-such as the tooth chisel, the point chisel, the drill, and the rasp-as he creates a finished figure from a block of marble. Love art? Follow us on Google+

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DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: We've walked into the Academia in Florence, which is an old art school, and is now number one tourist destination in Florence, I think. There's a lot of people here. DR. BETH HARRIS: And there's a long line of people waiting outside to get in. And it's hard to blame them, because inside is Michelangelo's "David," and it's unspeakably beautiful. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: So this is a sculpture that's often seen as a perfect exemplar of High Renaissance art. And I suppose it's important to get the story out of the way first. So it's an Old Testament story, and it speaks to a young man whose name is David. He was brave enough to take on this terrible giant, this terrible enemy Goliath, that all of the older men are too fearful of to confront. And he does so without any armor. DR. BETH HARRIS: He goes to battle against Goliath on behalf of the Israelites, and defeats Goliath with the help of God. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: Specifically, with a slingshot and a single rock, but clearly with the help of God. DR. BETH HARRIS: And you can see the slingshot in his left hand, and the rock in his right. And although the Bible says David fought Goliath without armor, it doesn't say completely nude. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: If you look at the body, of course, it's in a kind of classical contrapposto. The weight is clearly on the right leg. The left leg is free, but the body is engaged in something even more complex and more specific. Much of the body is still relaxed. His right hand is just beginning to tense, and you can see his eyes have darted to his left. His body, it seems to me, is about to swivel and follow the head's movement. And so you have the sense that David has just caught sight of his enemy, and his body is just beginning to tense. He's just preparing to meet Goliath. DR. BETH HARRIS: It's impossible not to notice the remarkable knowledge that Michelangelo brings of the human body and how it works, and the muscles, and the skeletal structure. And he created this ideally beautiful figure. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: Michelangelo had dissected the human body, understood its internal structure. And this is a fascinating thought. It was not long before this age that in the West, we had no idea how the human body functioned, when we take for granted now in the 21st Century that we understand the mechanics of the body. And so that kind of analysis of the structure of the body is really an extraordinary achievement. This is a sculpture that is about potential. It is showing this idealized body, but in a sense, we can begin to see ourselves in this kind of heroic stance, as well. DR. BETH HARRIS: This is nearly three times the size of a human being. You can see why Michelangelo later got the name Il Divino, the divine one. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: It's important to remember that Michelangelo is a relatively unknown sculptor at this point. DR. BETH HARRIS: He's young. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: He's really young. He had had one major commission, which is the "Pieta." And then he comes out with this tour de force, which will bring him an enormous amount of attention. DR. BETH HARRIS: It was commissioned by the city government of Florence in 1501. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: It was originally going to be placed on one of the Tribunes, high atop the roof line of the Duomo in Florence, that is, of the main cathedral of Florence. DR. BETH HARRIS: So it was meant to be seen from very far below. When Michelangelo showed what he had completed three years later to his patrons, the city government of Florence, they were astounded at how unbelievably beautiful it was. And thought there's no way we want to put this high up. We're going to put it in the Piazza, in the square, in front of the Signoria, in front of the government building of Florence. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: And that's because not only was this sculpture so extraordinarily beautiful, but because the story of David had come to be aligned with the story of Florence. It was a symbol of the Republic of Florence in opposition to the notion of tyranny. This was a very particular moment in Florentine history. And the Medici had, by that time, actually assumed a great amount of power and had really subverted the Republican ideals of the city. And so this was a brief moment of the flourishing again of these democratic ideals. There are ways in which the pose referred specifically back to classical images of Hercules. And Hercules was a longstanding symbol of Florence as well. So there's a whole set of symbols that surround this figure. DR. BETH HARRIS: By making a colossal male nude, and by that we mean way over life-size, Michelangelo's taking on a type of sculpture that the ancient Greeks and Romans had made, and in a way surpassing what the ancient Greeks and Romans had done, showing that Florence itself had surpassed ancient Greece and Rome, too. We know that Florence saw itself as sometimes the new Athens, or the new Rome. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: And in fact, an important part of the mythology of Florence was that it had been founded by the ancient Romans, and it was an inherent part of their identity. So this all makes sense. DR. BETH HARRIS: It makes total sense that the government of Florence, the Signoria, would see this sculpture, and bring it to the Palazzo Vecchio, bring it to the seat of government. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: As this potent symbol. DR. BETH HARRIS: A special conveyance was built to bring it to the Signoria. There were 14 greased logs that rolled it with the power of 40 men-- DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: Over several days. DR. BETH HARRIS: --from the studio to the Palazzo. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: And they didn't want it to go up in the cathedral. They wanted it close. They celebrated it. The city fell in love with this sculpture. DR. BETH HARRIS: And saw it as the most powerful symbol they could imagine of their renewed republic.

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Statue of David by Michelangelo (video) | Khan Academy

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Michelangelo, David, marble, 1501-04 (Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence) A conversation with Khan Academy's Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Beth Harris. His perfect beauty reminds me of Pico della Mirandola, who imagines God saying to man at the creation, "Thou shalt have the power out of thy soul's judgment to be reborn into the higher forms which are divine."

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Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus, 1483-85, tempera on panel, 68 x 109 5/8" (172.5 x 278.5 cm), Galeria degli Uffizi, Florence Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris & Dr. Steven Zucker

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Botticelli, La Primavera (Spring), 1481-1482, tempera on panel, 80 x 123 1/2" (203 x 314), Uffizi, Florence Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker http://khan.smarthistory.org/botticelli-primavera.html

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Donatello, St. Mark, 1411-13, marble, 93" (236 cm), Orsanmichele, Florence Speakers: Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Beth Harris

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Brunelleschi, Old Sacristy, San Lorenzo, Florence, begun c. 1421 Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker

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Ghiberti, “Gates of Paradise,” east doors of the Florence Baptistery (video) | Khan Academy

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Brunelleschi & Ghiberti, the Sacrifice of Isaac

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Brunelleschi & Ghiberti, Sacrifice of Isaac, competition panels for the second set of bronze doors for the Florence Baptistery, 1401-2 Speakers: Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Beth Harris

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Orsanmichele and Donatello's Saint Mark, Florence, 1349 loggia (1380-1404 upper stories) Speakers: Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Beth Harris

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How one-point linear perspective works (video) | Khan Academy

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Speakers: Dr. Steven Zucker & Dr. Beth Harris

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(gentle music) - [Man] How do you recognize Italian Renaissance art? - [Woman] Sometimes we use the word renaissance to talk about the revival of something generally, but in art history, Renaissance means something very specific. - [Man] It means the rebirth of the culture of ancient Greece and ancient Rome. - [Woman] Which we call the classical period or classical antiquity. - [Man] Let's start at the very end of the medieval. - [Woman] And that's a good place to start because it gives us a sense of what the Renaissance is going to do differently, so let's start with this beautiful stained glass window from Chartres Cathedral. - [Man] This was a very important cathedral in the medieval period and it's extremely famous for its stained glass, and one of its most famous windows is known as the Blue Virgin. In the center is the Virgin Mary, she's seated on a throne and the young Christ child is seated on her lap. - [Woman] Both of the figures are frontal and that's a pose that is very static, it gives us a sense of the divine. We move our bodies in space, we're rarely seen from a perfectly frontal view so as soon as a figure is represented in a frontal way, there's a sense of authority, a sense of the eternal. - [Man] There's a formality. This is not meant to portray real people, this is meant to portray the Virgin Mary and the Christ child in a heavenly sphere, and in fact, we see above them a representation of a dove and that's a symbol of the Holy Spirit. - [Woman] The Holy Spirit being one part of the three-part nature of god. We also see that the figure of the virgin especially, if she were to stand up, her body would be so long. - [Man] There's no concern with a naturalistic rendering of the proportions of the human body, but one of my favorite aspects is that you have this very large virgin and child in the center and then you have these rather small angels that are framing them on either side. - [Woman] A hierarchy is expressed here between the angels and the Madonna and the Christ child, telling us that they're more important than the angels on either side of them, so let's now look at a painting, a fresco, by Giotto. - [Man] We're now in Italy, we're in a town named Padua and we're looking at one scene in a complex series of scenes painted on the walls of a private chapel which is usually called the Arena Chapel or sometimes the Scrovegni Chapel. - [Woman] So we've shifted to a smaller family chapel and this tells us something about how patronage is shifting at the very end of the Middle Ages, we have more individuals who are accumulating wealth and they spend their money often on religious works of art, on family chapels, to help to ensure their place in heaven. - [Man] But it also helped to ensure his social position on earth. Scrovegni was a banker, his father had been a banker and they hired one of the most prominent artists of the era, Giotto, to paint a fresco cycle. Now Giotto came from the city of Florence and every artist that we'll look at in the remainder of this video will be associated with Florence, which is often seen as the birthplace of the Renaissance. - [Woman] So let's look closely at the Lamentation. This is after Christ has been crucified, his body has been removed from the cross, he's being held, mourned by his mother, Mary, in an incredibly emotional moment, surrounded by the apostles who are also mourning his death. - [Man] So a number of important changes. First of all, we have emotion, we have emotion in the face of Mary and in the tender way in which she holds her now-dead son. We have emotion in the angels. But I think, even more importantly, we've lost the frontality that we saw at Chartres. - [Woman] We have figures from profile view, three-quarter view, we have figures that are seen from behind, this is much more the way we would really see a group of people. By using modeling, Giotto is able to create figures who take up space. - [Man] When you use the term modeling, or we could use the Italian word, chiaroscuro, we're talking about the creation of an illusion on a flat surface of something that is rounded, something that takes up space, and if you look at the backs of these figures, you see how the cloth is light in certain places, and shadowed in certain places. The figures seem to take up space, they have a sense of mass and volume. - [Woman] He's also using that light and dark to call attention to the forms of the body underneath the drapery, so for example, Mary Magdalene, who's seated at the feet of Christ, we see her knee pressing through the drapery, we see the beginnings of an interest in the human body. - [Man] One other important change is that we're now in a landscape. At Chartres, we were in a heavenly sphere, we had this marvelous red background, but here we see a bit of a hill, we see a tree, we see a sky, what we're seeing is an increased interest in placing Christ on earth. - [Woman] So we're gonna move from the early 1300s to the middle of the 1400s, to a period that art historians usually call the early Renaissance. - [Man] Now, the image that we saw at Chartres was stained glass. The Giotto was fresco, that is, it was painted directly on the wall. This is different, this is a piece of wood, and on that, the artist has happened with tempera, pigment that is suspended in egg yolk. - [Woman] Tempera on wood means that the artist has created something that is movable. This is something that can be bought and sold. - [Man] This is by Fra Filippo Lippi and we see again the Virgin Mary. - [Woman] Even though her hands are in prayer, she seems more like an earthly mother and those angels seem much more like little boys than they seem like angels. - [Man] In fact, they even look mischievous. - [Woman] And the Christ child seems more like a baby. - [Man] Lippi's facility with naturalism is evident. We wanna believe the truthfulness of these figures. In fact, they seem to literally come out of the frame into our space. - [Woman] And I just wanna call our attention to that word naturalism, it means like nature, truthful. - [Man] And we see it not only in this increasing ability to render something that seems believable but also in the landscape beyond. We see a convincing representation of depth and that's represented by diminishing scale as well as something that we call atmospheric perspective. That is, as things go back in space, they become lighter and their colors become less intense. But these are all formal qualities. Why are artists interested in this kind of naturalism. - [Woman] We have an increasing number of families in Florence who are accumulating vast amounts of wealth and people want to enjoy their earthly life and one of the things that they do is commission works of art. - [Man] And works of art become a signal for somebody's social status. - [Woman] Although these are religious paintings, we are still looking at a culture that is deeply religious. - [Man] And we see the conflation of those issues in this painting. Here we have tremendous naturalism, a tremendous interest in the anatomy of the human body, in human emotion, human intimacy, but at the same time, this is the Christ child, this is the Virgin Mary. - [Woman] Let's move now to a period art historians call the High Renaissance, and the artists there are Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Raphael. - [Man] This is the Creation of Adam from the center of the Sistine Chapel ceiling. - [Woman] Michelangelo is a artist from Florence but he's been called to Rome by the pope. - [Man] So what are the formal characteristics of the High Renaissance? For me, it is an extraordinary understanding of the anatomy of the human body, of its skeletal structure, of its musculature, and a direct focus on the beauty of the human form. - [Woman] There's this new interest in the graceful movement of the human body, making that body move through space in an incredibly graceful and elegant way. - [Man] And in increasingly complex ways as well. We see god on the right, who seems to be moving with great velocity, his arm reaches out. His other arm, however, moves back around another figure. We see his legs are crossed. His face is in profile but his chest is forward. We have not only this careful articulation of the body, but we have that body in the most complex poses. - [Woman] And the same could be said of Adam. His right arm comes back and his right shoulder moves back. His left shoulder moves forward, his head tilts back as he looks toward his creator, this is an expression of the beauty and love of the body in the High Renaissance. We've been talking about the elegance and the complexity of god and of Adam, but we could also say that that complexity extends to groupings of figures, so we see those angels who surround god, they twist, they turn, they lean forward to see what god has created. We have this complex interaction between the figures and layering of the figures that is also very High Renaissance. - [Man] So where do you go after Michelangelo's Creation of Adam? - [Woman] And after the other great works of the High Renaissance, like Raphael's School of Athens or Leonardo's Last Supper, it's as though the interest in naturalism had reached this level of perfection, so where do you go after you've gotten to the perfect? - You heighten the perfect. - You complicate the perfect. - [Man] And the Renaissance is slowly transformed into a style that we know as mannerism. This was a moment when the virtuosity of the artist comes to the fore. - [Woman] During much of the 15th century, Florence had been a republic, but in the early 1500s, Florence becomes basically ruled by the Medici, and the court culture results in this new style that we call mannerism. - [Man] We're looking at Pontormo's Deposition or Entombment of Christ. Look at the length of his body. Look at the length of the figures that support him. They are unnaturally long. There's an unnatural complexity to their poses. - [Woman] And to the composition, we don't know where to look, our eye doesn't rest anywhere, and there's no earthly setting here. - [Man] But this is not a regression, this is not painting that is less technically proficient than the High Renaissance, this was a further development, the culture had changed and therefore, the art had changed. (gentle music)

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How to recognize Italian Renaissance art (video) | Khan Academy

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(gentle music) - [Man] How do you recognize Italian Renaissance art? - [Woman] Sometimes we use the word renaissance to talk about the revival of something generally, but in art history, Renaissance means something very specific. - [Man] It means the rebirth of the culture of ancient Greece and ancient Rome.

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(jazzy piano music) - [Steven] We're in the Archaeological Museum in Florence, looking at a life-size male nude figure in bronze. - [Beth] Now, we both saw this from down the hallway, and thought immediately about contrapposto, the Greek invention in the fifth century BCE, a way of naturalistically representing the human body. A real revolution in Western art. - [Steven] When we stand naturally, in a relaxed pose, we tend to stand with our weight on one leg or the other. In fact, if we stand for an extended period of time, we tend to shift our weight from one leg to the other every few minutes. It helps to rest the body. - [Beth] Nevertheless, when the Greeks before this, or the Egyptians, represented the human body, they represented the figure standing with their weight equally distributed on both legs, making the figure appear very symmetrical. A way that you very rarely see human beings in the world. - [Steven] I don't stand like that, and it's actually quite uncomfortable. - [Beth] I'm not standing like that right now. - [Steven] But to represent a figure with weight on one leg is a much more complex endeavor, because the entire body responds. Contrapposto affects not only the legs, but the torso, and to some extent, even potentially the shoulders and the head. - [Beth] The ultimate effect is a revolutionary one, because it creates a figure who seems to exist in our world, by breaking the symmetry of the archaic Greek figures, of Egyptian pharaohs. By breaking that symmetry, we get a sense of a figure who exists in our own world, a figure who is human like us. - [Steven] What I'm seeing first is a kind of S-curve in his spine, so that the hips seem to jut out to his right, and his rib cage seems to push to his left. - [Beth] And because his weight is on his right leg, his left side is more elongated, because his left leg is relaxed, pulling that hip down, and his right torso is compacted. - [Steven] And you can see that very clearly if you look at the shift in the axis of the hips. It also allows for that sway, not only in his body, but in his spine as well. - [Beth] And then he looks in the direction of the swayed hip. We also notice, while his right leg is straight, his left arm is straight, and his right hand opens up toward us. In other examples of sculptures like this, from Classical Greece, for example, Polykleitos's Doryphoros, that hand often held a spear. So you have the weight-bearing hand on the right, and the weight-bearing leg on the right, the free leg on the left, and the free hand on the left. - [Steven] And this affects the shoulders, as well. If his right hip juts upward, his left shoulder falls down towards it. And so they're in opposition. And the same is true on the other side. On his left, his hip falls, and his shoulder rises. - [Beth] The Greek invention of contrapposto, in the fifth century BCE, tells us that the Greeks have a different way of thinking about human beings and their place in the world. This first naturalistic image of humanity, of human beings in the West, gives us a sense that the Greeks have a confidence in human beings, in the human mind, in human reason, and we see that through their philosophy, through their love of athleticism, through their invention of the Olympics, their study of the heavens, the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, the great Greek comedies and tragedies, the confidence of Greek culture in humanity, I think, is expressed in contrapposto. - [Steven] And this sculpture, because it's not actually Greek, but Roman, a Roman copy of these Greek principles, shows us the influence of these ideas. The way that the Ancient Romans emulated the Greeks, saw themselves as the inheritor of this tradition, and it is through the Romans that these ideas come down to us today. - [Beth] And then are revived in the Renaissance. And here we are in Renaissance Florence, where sculptures like this one were rediscovered, were collected, and artists like Donatello, Nanni di Banco, ultimately Michelangelo, and Raphael in his paintings, will create figures that look back to Ancient Greek and Roman sculpture, and the tremendous naturalism that the Ancient Greeks and Romans achieved. (jazzy piano music)

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Contrapposto explained (video) | Start here | Khan Academy

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Linear Perspective: Brunelleschi's Experiment (video) | Khan Academy

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Learn for free about math, art, computer programming, economics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, finance, history, and more. Khan Academy is a nonprofit with the mission of providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.