Thursday 8th November at 10.30am
Places are available for the Gallery Talk on Italian Renaissance Art on Thursday 8th November at 10.30am at the National Gallery.
Please message me if you would be interested in attending. The fee is £30, including a full set of notes emailed to you afterwards.
The talk will focus on around ten paintings by artists including Masaccio, Piero della Francesca, Botticelli and Leonardo da Vinci. Renaissance art achieved its fullest flowering in Italy, where the remains of classical sculpture and architecture could be studied and newly-rich city states, such as Florence, provided generous and innovative patrons. The beginnings of the Italian Renaissance, literally "rebirth" of interest in classical learning, also brought the discovery of the new technique of perspective and a mastery of naturalism in art, in particular through the study of the human body and the use of oil paint. Subject matter was expanded from being predominantly religious to include classical mythology, portraiture and to reflect contemporary events. Leonardo da Vinci was largely responsible for establishing the idea of the artist as a creative intellectual and not simply a skilled craftsman.
