I recently attended the play, Brigadoon by Loewe and Lerner, at my local college theater. Through all of the play's mystical events and songs, I noticed some very important details. I chose to compare the ideas in the play to some specific ideas held by a group of people in Italy. They mounted th...

In the visual arts the sixteenth century saw the spread of Italian Renaissance ideas northward. In some cases they were carried by Italian artists like Benvenuto Cellini, who went to work in France. Cellini was Goldsmith to Francis I of France from 1537 to 1545. He completed here his first sculptur...

The European Renaissance When the new upper class movement, called the Renaissance, occurred in Italy around the 14th century, a revival of the classical forms originally developed by the ancient Greeks and Romans occurred, along with an intensified concern with secular life, interest in human...

Have you ever pondered the birth of your hobbies? Or have you ever wondered who invented the mechanisms you use in your everyday life? Well, modern art, today's religion, and the present printing press had to originate some point in time. And what could be a better time then during the Renaissance a...

In Vasari's "Lives of the Artists," Vasari offers us a fairly in-depth portrait of Tiziano de Cadore (most commonly and hereafter to be referred to as "Titian") both as one of the great painters of the Renaissance and as an influential and beneficent individual. Indeed, the portrait of Titian t...

The Renaissance was a golden age in the long history of Venetian painting, and the art that came from Venice during that era includes some of the most visually exciting works in the whole of western art. Venetian painting grew out of Byzantine art, and its ease and sensuousness clearly differentiat...

Prior to the fifteenth century, very few works of art were signed and virtually no information on their artists, male or female, was recorded. However, beginning in the early Renaissance, the identities of artists and their stories begin to be preserved. Any study of the art of this period will undo...

There are many countries of the world that exist solely for the purpose of living. The people of these countries, cities, and towns may not know the treasures that their beautiful land has to offer. A magnificent example of such a country is Italy. The country of Italy is situated in Europe and at...

No one knows exactly when the Italian artist, Tiziano Vecellio, was born. Over the centuries, there has been a great deal of confusion concerning the date, due to a misprint in his biography by sixteenth-century art historian, Girgio Vasari. Vasari recorded the date as 1480, but the progress of Tizi...

Through the centuries, artists have been astounded by the beauty and serenity of Aphrodite, causing various representations of guises and poses. These guises and poses caused such a stir that artists were kept busy to satisfy the hungry collectors (Loggia). "Aphrodite is known as the Greek godd...

The Renaissance period was when the most brilliant ideas of art were discovered and invented. During this time, many talents were shown and new techniques in drawing were introduced. Before the Girogionesque style was developed, most painters liked to focus on defining the shapes and the object matt...

Giorgione's painting "The Tempest" is one of the most controversial paintings of the Renaissance in terms of its information deficiency. Not only is the painter Giorgione, the most mysterious artist in Venetian Renaissance, but the painting itself stands as a milestone in art history. Despite a v...

Botticelli's, "The Birth of Venus," reflects the art of the Italian Renaissance ideals. Many people that lived during the Renaissance were very religious and desired to learn about new aspects of life that were not uncovered yet. The Birth of Venus was based on a classical myth of ancient times. ...

Tiziano Vecellio No one knows exactly when the Italian artist, Tiziano Vecellio, was born. Over the centuries, there has been a great deal of confusion concerning the date, due to a misprint in his biography by sixteenth century art historian, Girgio Vasari. Vasari recorded the date as 1480, but...

It has been said that Titian's "Assunta," which adorns the high altar, and "Pesaro" (on the left aisle of the chapel of the Immaculate Conception) stand mid-way between the past and the future of Venetian painting. This infers that Titian drew on established traditions learned from his masters ...

Vittore Carpaccio was born around the year 1460 near Venice, Italy. They didn't keep birth records then, so this date is an estimate. Vittore knew from a very young age that he wanted to be a painter when he was older. He couldn't pay attention in school because he was always drawing or sketching ...

Introduction Many tales have been spun from Marko Polo and his stories of his life adventures exploring the Far East. History will never truly know what was fact and what was fiction, the truth lies only and died with Marko Polo himself. But, history was also altered by the yarns of Marko Pol...

Italy: A Place of Romance Picture this: You and someone you love sitting on a balcony with a view of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, sipping fine wine and watching all the beautiful lights of the city. Some people could never imagine themselves in Italy. Rumors of the m...