(1919). (J. HUD.) RENAISSANCE ART. The revival of classic learning in Italy, which was so marked a feature of Italian culture during the 15th century, was paralleled by an equal passion for the beauty of classic design in all the artistic fields ; and when this eager delight in the then fresh and sensuous graciousness that is the mark of much classic work—to the Italians of that time, seemingly the expression of a golden age—became universal, complete domination of the classic ideal in art was inevitable. This turning to classic models was less sudden and revolutionary than it seemed. Throughout the history of Romanesque and Gothic Italian art, the tradition of classic structure and ornament still remained alive ; again and again, in the 12th and 13th cen turies classic forms—the acanthus leaf, moulding ornaments, the treatment of drapery in a relief—are imitated, often with crudeness, to be sure, but with a basic sympathy for the old imperial Roman methods of design. (See GOTHIC ART; ROMAN ESQUE ART.) How much more at home seems the mediaeval Italian artist, who carved the spiralling acanthus leaves on the doors of Pisa cathedral (11th century) than the designer of the laboured and stupid, crocketted capitals of the cathedral in Florence (14th century), or the contorted and unconvincing but tress pinnacles of Milan cathedral (begun 1386). The best of Italian Gothic art is always that which is least like northern Gothic, and is usually dominated by ideals, essentially those of earlier Italian building, like the Byzantinesque palaces of Venice. Niccolo Pisano (c. 1206-128o) was but the first of many Italian artists, particularly sculptors, to turn definitely to Roman sculp ture for inspiration.
It was therefore only natural that Brunelleschi (1377-1476) should study the ruins of ancient Rome, and that, following his example, the whole artistic world of Florence turned to the same source of inspiration almost unanimously. Brunelleschi's famous cupola over the cathedral of Florence completes the work of the preceding age and is not yet a Renaissance manifestation. The new style was displayed in the Pazzi chapel and in the plans for San Lorenzo and San Spirito.
Florence was the great centre of this early Renaissance; whence it spread throughout Italy in the 15th century; the greater number of artists were Florence-trained. The enthusiastic patron age of art of the new type by Cosimo dei Medici (1389-1464), and Lorenzo dei Medici (1449-1492), who founded the famous Platonic Academy, gave a tremendous impetus to the move ment, and the general Florentine method of art training, through bottege, or craftsman shops, assured the fact that the Renais sance was not confined to architecture and sculpture, but spread to all the industrial arts as well.
Another element besides the influence of ancient Rome be comes evident as the Renaissance matured in such of the minor arts as textiles, pottery and metal work. This was the influence of the Near East. Commerce between Italy and the Turkish dominions was constant and large in amount, and Oriental pot tery and textiles were much sought after. When the Italians started manufacturing their own goods to compete with this for eign source, limitation and adaptation of the Oriental patterns was natural. Thus the controlling designs of Venetian velvets and brocades, down to the i8th century, owe much to the carnation and the palmette of Persia, and in 16th and 17th century armour and silver-ware, there occur the spear-head shapes and bifurcated leaves and intricate interlaces of fine lines which characterize the inlaid brass, copper and steel of Damascus or Constantinople.
By the beginning of the 16th century the tentative and ex perimental characteristics of the earlier Renaissance had, in Italy, given way to the mature, knowing, and facile use of classic forms which constitutes the High Renaissance or cinquecento (q.v.). In architecture, the orders were used with entire com mand; in the minor arts the decorative exuberance of the 15th century was yielding to sounder and more dignified conceptions. Yet the development of this polished classicism was limited and eager; creative imaginations refused to be bound by it. The result was the resurgence of untrammelled and, at times, unlicensed individualism in design, which is known as the Baroque or late Renaissance. Already, in the work of Michelangelo, 1474 1564, and Cellini, 150o-71 (see SILVERSMITHS' AND GOLDSMITHS' WORK), Baroque elements are obvious, and by the year 1600 the ideals of climax, broken curves, magnificent composition and dynamic contrasts, which constitute the Baroque movement, were universally accepted, and the classic forms became merely an inspirational frame-work for individual development and crea tion. The Baroque was a style curiously turgid, often gigan tesque, theatrical, often denying or falsifying structural frame work, yet magnificently alive ; producing alike such over lavish and ill considered decorations as those of Andrea Pozzo (1642– 1709) for the church of S. Ignazio in Rome and the dignified and monumental colonnades of the Piazza of S. Peter's, by Bernini (1598-168o). During the i8th century the vitality of the Baroque degenerated into a chaos of contorted forms, to be in turn replaced, at the end of the century, by a recrudescence of stern, cold and rather sterile classicism. Yet the Renaissance in Spain was no mere copy of the Italian.