Humanism

Humanism in
Italian
Renaissance Art

Angie Lazar, Brenda Tang
Period 2

The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli

The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli is a piece of Renaissance art that embodies multiple ideas of humanism. The Birth of Venus shows antiquity, because the subject of the piece, Venus, is a pagan god from
Greek and Roman mythology and secularism because The Birth Of
Venus is not biblical art. Venus is also naked, which shows secularism and worldliness. Like The David by Michelangelo, there’s a bend in the knee in Venus’s pose. She’s in a natural pose, which is first introduced in the renaissance. This relaxed and realistic approach was humanistic compared Medieval art which has no concept of realism. The woman on the left is in a beautiful dress. Nice clothing shows worldliness which is another idea of humanism.

David by Michelangelo

The influence of humanism is strongly present in
Michelangelo’s sculpture, David. Individualism is evident in the sculpture's focus on the human self. The body envisioned by
Michelangelo is human. David exemplifies human strength and beauty without being godly. The explicit nudity also relates back to the individualism. The David is a distinct example of antiquity.
The statue embodies an idealistic view of man. It exhibits many of the Hellenic ideas which could be found in classic Greek art. For example the hands and feet are unjustifiably large and not proportionate to the rest of the body. This depicts the idea that man has power. The concept of secularism is also found in the sculpture. David is well known as a biblical figure but the fact that he is uncircumcised says otherwise. Although many argue that the presence of foreskin was just poor judgment on
Michelangelo’s part since it was not popular during the renaissance and he may have not generally known what an uncircumcised penis looked like, it is more likely his way of detaching his art from religion and directly portraying secularism.

Vitruvian Man by Leonardo Di Vinci

Leonardo Di Vinci’s Vitruvian Man has many themes of humanism embedded in it. The obvious humanistic theme here would be secularism because Leonardo Di Vinci portrayed his subject nude. The subject is supposed to display the perfect proportions, which goes back to the Greek and Romans because they really valued the idea of man’s perfection. Di
Vinci actually went and dissected dead bodies to learn about proportions, so there’s a science behind his art, instead of portraying them in a godly way. There’s also realism in the piece because of the research his research on anatomy. The proportions show that there’s science and geometry in the drawing, which makes it learning, another theme of humanism.

The School of Athens by Raphael

The School of Athens is a painting by Raphael dating back to
1510. The Italian renaissance’s main idea of humanism is delineated in this artwork. Individualism is one of the most prominent concepts brought to light in The School of Athens. The painting shows different groups of people or sole individuals looking in different directions and doing their own things. Raphael drops another hint of this type of humanism by paying respects to individual artists. For example Leonardo Di Vinci’s face is painted on Plato’s body. There is also a display of worldliness in the nice attire that people are dressed in. Their nice clothes show wealth and so does their learning. Almost everyone is reading or writing.
The interest in education is a major event in the renaissance and huge part of the humanism influence on this piece. Antiquity appears in the design of the architecture . The setting of the art has a beautiful arched ceiling and the arch was invented by the
Roman people. All together these ideas incorporate themselves into one another and form a prime case of how significant the influence of humanism was on the art during the renaissance.