欧洲文化入门期末论文

Renaissance in Italy

The word Renaissance is a French word meaning new birth, a name given to the movement in Europe that inspired men to abandon the restraints of the Middle Ages and to develop modern interests, enthusiasm and ideals. Its most noted feature was the Revival of Learning, an awakening of mind and a thirst after the new knowledge.

Key words: Italian Renaissance background humanism New Literature Renaissance Art

1.Background

In the 12th century, a rediscovery of Greek and Roman literature occurred across Europe that eventually led to the development of the humanist movement in the 14th century. In addition to emphasizing Greek and Latin scholarship, humanists believed that each individual had significance within society. The growth of an interest in humanism led to the changes in the arts and sciences that form common conceptions of the Renaissance.

The 14th century through the 16th century was a period of economic flux in Europe, the most extensive changes took place in Italy. After the death of Frederick II in 1250, emperors lost power in Italy and throughout Europe, none of Frederick's successors equaled him. Power fell instead into the hands of various popes; after the Great Schism (1378–1415; see Schism, Great), when three popes held power simultaneously, control

returned to secular rulers.

During the Renaissance small Italian republics developed into despotisms as the centers of power moved from the landed estates to the cities. Europe itself slowly developed into groups of self-sufficient compartments. At the height of the Renaissance there were five major city-states in Italy: the combined state of Naples and Sicily, the Papal State, Florence, Milan, and Venice. Italy's economic growth is best exemplified in the development of strong banks, most notably the Medici bank of Florence. England, France, and Spain also began to develop economically based class systems.

2.Humanism

Humanism is the keynote of Renaissance.

Renaissance humanism was an activity of cultural and educational reform engaged by scholars, writers, and civic leaders who are today known as Renaissance humanists. It developed during the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth centuries, and was a response to the challenge of medieval scholastic education, emphasizing practical, pre-professional and pre-scientific studies. The main centers of humanism were Florence and Naples.

2.1 The main content of humanism

2.1.1Man is the measure of all things, man-centered culture .

It emphasize the power, value and dignity of the human beings and

holding that human beings are glorious creatures. And the lines of Shakespeare’s Hamlet is the best summary of the core of Renaissance thought---the greatness of man.

2,1,2Emphasize the dignity of human beings and the importance of the present life.

It emphasize secular happiness and individualism against the medieval ideas of asceticism, shifting man’s interest from Christianity to humanity, from religion to philosophy, from beauty and greatness of God to the beauty of human body in all its joys and pains.

2.1.3Believe human beings were glorious creatures and man has the right to pursue personal happiness, knowledge and wealth.

It applies Aristotle’s theory that humanist literature mainly use realistic style and take literature as the mirror or miniature of the society. Therefore these Italians, and many others, helped to make Italy the center of the Renaissance movement in Europe. The movement changed the medieval Western Europe into a modern one．

3.New literature

3.1Three outstanding heroes of Florence literature

3.1.1Giovanni Boccaccio

French-born Italian poet and writer whose classic work, the Decameron (1351-1353), is a collection of 100 tales told by seven young ladies and three younger gentlemen. In 1348, a terrible plague attacked Florence. Every day, even every hour, large numbers of human remains were carried to the outskirts of the town . From March to July, the death toll amounted to more than 100000, Florence City, became a cemetery ,which is full of wild land, bones. no one could bear to look at it . In order to record human disaster, Boccaccio took this plague as a background, wrote one of the Italy's most famous short story collection" Decameron ". At that time," Decameron " was referred to as the" music", which is known as a companion with Dante’s " Divine Comedy”.

3.1.2Francesco Petrarch

Italian poet, scholar, and humanist who is famous for Canzoniers, a collection of love lyrics songs written in his Italian dialect. It expresses the author’s true love to his girl friend Laura and the view of love and happiness. He praised the beauty of the girl in the reality and considered young men and women have the right to enjoy the love. He lapsed into extremely sad when Laura died of illness .A painful emotion can easily seen in his poem. Such feelings have got rid of the abstract and symbolic significance of medieval literature .

We look upon him as the father of modern poetry because in his sonnets for Laura he showed himself to be a great humanist writer keenly

aware of mortal and earthly values and he ignored medieval courtly conventions and defined true emotions.

3.1.3Dante Alighieri

He was commonly known as Dante, a major Italian poet of the Middle Age, the founder of Modern Italian---one of the pioneering figures in The European Renaissance. His Divine Comedy, originally called Comedy and later called Divine by Boccaccio, is considered the greatest literary work composed in the Italian language and a masterpiece of world literature. It is a narrative poem in terza rima containing 14 233 lines organized into 100 cantos approximately 142 lines each and can be called

a spiritual travel book.

4.Renaissance art

4.1The two peaks of Renaissance art

One is the radical break with medieval methods of representing the visible world occurred in Italy during the 2nd half of the 13th century the other is the decided break with the medieval pictorial tradition until the 2nd decade of the 15th century.

4.2Distinct features of Renaissance art

The first is the breakaway from the domination of the church.

The second is the changed themes of painting from purely celestial realm to an appreciation of all aspects of nature and man.

The third is the studies of the ruins of Roman and Greek temples and

the revival of the principles of ancient civilization into their works.

The fourth is the introduction of scientific theories of anatomy and perspective in artistic works.

4.3Early Renaissance Artists

4.3.1Giotto

He was the forerunner of the Renaissance who was said to have determined the course of painting in Europe. He led the way of restoring dignity to human figures. He also worked towards a more realistic depiction of space.His famous work Flight into Egypt is a painting based on the story in the Bible with Maria riding on a donkey that is ready to face the hardship ahead. She looked firm and resolute while her husband Joseph looked hesitant and sorrowful. His another painting, Betrayal of Judas is also very famous.

4.3.2Filippo Brunelleschi

Florentine architect, one of the initiators of the Italian Renaissance. His revival of classical forms and his championing of an architecture based on mathematics, proportion, and perspective make him a key artistic figure in the transition from the Middle Ages to the modern era. In his designing of the churches he showed a systematic use of perspective. He also introduced motif that was widely imitated during the Renaissance.In 1420 he began to build the dome for the cathedral in Florence and it became the most original construction in the building of

domes in the world history of architecture.

Other early Renaissance artists, including Donatello, Giorgione also made great contribution to the art.

4.4High Renaissance Artists

4.4.1Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci was known not only as a masterful painter but as an architect, sculptor, engineer, and scientist. His pursuit of knowledge was relentless and his discoveries left lasting changes in the fields of art and science. With his sophisticated skills and love for learning, Leonardo was the quintessential Renaissance man. In painting he stressed the expression of emotional states. As a painter Leonardo is best known for The Last Supper and Mona Lisa . His other works, The Virgin of the Rocks, Vitruvian Man, Four Caricatures, are also favored by people.

4.4.2Michelangelo Buonarroti

Michelangelo's extraordinary accomplishments in painting, sculpture, and architecture made him one of the outstanding figures in Renaissance art. He is known for painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and rendering the human form in a wide variety of positions and with great emotional expression in painting and sculpture, and creating several of the most important works of the Italian Renaissance, such as the sculpture of David and Moses, the marble statue of Dying Slave and so on.

Other high Renaissance artists, like Raphael, Titian also left many world

famous works to us.

The Renaissance resulted in numerous investigations of natural events, in a widespread study of art and literature and in a broadening of outlook to a degree never before known. Economic and intellectual changes during the Renaissance both helped to speed up Western social and cultural development and hence prepared the necessary conditions for rapid progress in political, social and ideological areas of the modern Age.