Renaissance and Reformation: Art, Culture, and Religion

Posted on Jan 16, 2025 in Religion

Renaissance and Reformation: Key Concepts

  • Chiaroscuro: The use of strong contrasts between light and dark to achieve a sense of volume in modeling three-dimensional objects and figures.
  • Humanism: A philosophical and cultural movement that spread through Europe in the 15th century.
  • Renaissance: An art movement that sought an ideal form of beauty, using the classical world, such as Greece and Rome, as inspiration in the 15th and 16th centuries.
  • Patron: Wealthy noblemen and burghers who supported artists financially.
  • Reformation: A reform movement in 16th-century Europe. It criticized the Catholic Church and was started by Martin Luther.
  • Counter-Reformation: A religious movement within the Catholic Church in response to Protestantism.
  • Council of Trent: A meeting that confirmed the authority of the Pope and the Church’s traditional doctrine.
  • Martin Luther: A German monk who criticized the Pope and started a new religious movement.
  • John Calvin: He founded the Protestant movement called Calvinism and the idea of predestination.
  • King Henry VIII: He was the King of England and founded a new church where the King is the head.
  • Ignatius of Loyola: He founded the Society of Jesus, and its members helped to spread the ideas of the Counter-Reformation.

Ideas Proposed by Luther

  1. People are saved by their faith.
  2. People can freely read the Bible.
  3. Only two sacraments: Baptism and Eucharist.
  4. Suppression of the veneration of the Virgin Mary and the Saints.

Main Criticisms of the Catholic Church

  1. The luxury of the higher clergy.
  2. Parish priests were uneducated.
  3. Indulgences pardoned people’s sins for money.

Measures of the Council of Trent

  1. Confirmed the authority of the Pope and the Church’s traditional doctrine.
  2. Prohibition of indulgences.
  3. Creation of schools.
  4. Creation of seminaries to improve the clergy’s education.
  5. Foundation and reformation of religious orders.

Reformers and Their Movements

ReformersMovementMain Ideas
Martin LutherLutheranismPeople are saved by their faith.
John CalvinCalvinismBased on the idea of predestination. People are destined by God to be saved or damned, irrespective of their actions.
King Henry VIIIAnglicanismThe head of the Church is the King.

Renaissance Art

Architecture

  1. Types of Buildings: Religious and civil buildings (basilicas, churches, and palaces).
  2. Architectural Elements: Rounded arches, pediments, barrel vaulting, domes, and columns.

Periods, Artists, and Masterpieces

  • Quattrocento: Brunelleschi (Florence Cathedral’s Dome).
  • Cinquecento: Bramante and Michelangelo (St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican), Palladio (Villa Rotonda).

Sculpture

  1. Function: Religious.
  2. Form: Realistic but idealized or proportional, beautiful, and full of anatomical accuracy.
  3. Types: Nude bodies, portraits, and equestrian statues.

Periods, Artists, and Masterpieces

  • Quattrocento: Lorenzo Ghiberti (Doors of Florence Cathedral) and Donatello (David).
  • Cinquecento: Michelangelo (David, Pietà).

Painting

  1. Function: Religious.
  2. Form: Sensation of volume or linear perspective.
  3. Subjects: Portraits, landscapes, religious, and classical mythological ones.

Periods, Artists, and Masterpieces

  • Quattrocento: Botticelli (The Birth of Venus), Masaccio (The Holy Trinity).
  • Cinquecento: Da Vinci (The Last Supper), Michelangelo (Sistine Chapel), Raphael (Madonna of the Goldfinch).