The Medici & How To Draw The Renaissance

Here are several fine student examples of drawings completed to help focus the review for the Renaissance exam. Notice how the images are not titled but further cultural and connotative references are pointed out with notations. Combining these two disciplines: first drawing your own version of the compositions and secondly labeling their connection to their time helps adhere the image and their meanings to your memory. Check 'em out...

We moved quickly towards the end of class last week but we should not short change the economical aspect of the Renaissance. Especially the archetypal family who helped set the patronage tone. The Medici were the main financiers of the Renaissance. The impact they held emanated from their establishment as the most powerful banking and political family in Italy, a position they rooted for generations. Ambitious, cunning intellectuals, they were also obsessed with their public image and used their patronage of art and architecture to convey a complex, idealized, yet careful image of themselves and by extension their home city. Think Kennedy, the closest American equivalent of self image wrapped up into national image. The Medici tradition helped plant this model.

One of the major themes the Medici looked to convey was a blend of ancient Greek and Roman ideas within a Catholic narrative. Despite advancements in science and engineering, the mix of Humanism, spirituality and earthly power was seen by some as lofty and by others as controversial and decadent and eventually proved unstable. However the story of Renaissance ideas can be interpreted in the artists the Medici financed such as Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci, Donatello and Botticelli.

Peep the movie below for a full disclosure...