Bonaventura BERLINGHIERI

Panel From St. Francis Altarpiece

1235          Italy          Byzantine

CIMABUE

Madonna Enthroned with Angels and Prophets (Maesta)

1280-1290              Italy              Byzantine 

DUCCIO

Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints (From Maesta Altarpiece)

1308-1311                Italy               Byzantine

DUCCIO

The Betrayal of Jesus (Detail from Maesta Altarpiece, Sienna Cathedral) 

1309-1311           Italy           Byzantine

GIOTTO di Bodone

Madonna Enthroned

1310            Italy           Proto-Renaissance

GIOTTO di Bondone

Lamentation

1305                 Italy                   Proto-Renaissance

Simone MARTINI

The Annunciation

1333               Italy                International Gothic

Pietro LORENZETTI

The Birth of the Virgin

1342              Italy               Proto-Renaissance

Ambrogio LORENZETTI

Peaceful City (Detail from Effects of Good Government in the City and Country)

1338-1339           Italy             Proto-Renaissance

Ambrogio LORENZETTI

 Peaceful Country (Detail from Effects of Good Government in the City and Country)

1338-1339           Italy             Proto-Renaissance

LIMBOURG BROTHERS

January (Illumination from The Very Sumptuous Hours of the Duke of Berry)

1413-1416        Flanders        International [Gothic] Style

LIMBOURG BROTHERS

October (Illumination from The Very Sumptuous Hours of the Duke of Berry)

1413-1416        Flanders        International [Gothic] Style

Claus SLUTER

Well of Moses

1395-1406          Flanders         Northern Renaissance  

ROBERT CAMPIN 

The Merode Altarpiece (Triptych of the Annunciation)

1425-1428           Flanders           Northern Renaissance

JAN VAN EYCK

The Ghent Altarpiece (Closed)

1432            Flanders            Northern Renaissance

JAN VAN EYCK

The Ghent Altarpiece (Open)

1432              Flanders              Northern Renaissance

JAN VAN EYCK 

Giovanni Arnolfini and His Bride (The Arnolfini Wedding Portrait)

1434            Flanders           Northern Renaissance    

JAN VAN EYCK

Man in a Red Turban

1433            Flanders             Northern Renaissance

ROGIER van der WEYDEN

Deposition (The Escorial Deposition center panel from an altarpiece)

1435              Flanders               Northern Renaissance

ROGIER van der WEYDEN

Portrait of a Lady

1460               Flanders              Northern Renaissance

HUGO van der GOES

The Portinari Altarpiece

1476              Flanders            Northern Renaissance

NANNI di BANCO

Four Crowned Saints (Or San Michele, Guild Hall)

1410-1416                 Italy              Renaissance

DONATELLO

St. Mark (from Or San Michele)

1411-1413                Italy                  Renaissance

DONATELLO

David

1440-1460 or 1428-1432            Italy          Renaissance

DONATELLO

Equestrian Statue of Erasmo da Narni (Gattemelata)

1445-1453                  Italy               Renaissance

 In the Renaissance, an emphasis on education and on expanding knowledge (especially of classical antiquity), the exploration of individual potential and a desire to excel, and a commitment to civic responsibility and moral duty. 

An artistic convention in which greater size indicates greater importance. 

The doctrine that art should adhere as closely as possible to the appearance of the natural world. Naturalism, with varying degrees of fidelity to appearance, recurs in the history of Western art. 

Literally "the writing of images." The term refers both to the content, or subject of  an art work and to the study of content in art. Includes the study of the symbolic, often religious, ,eanngs of objects, persons or events depicted in works of art. 

In European history, the period of roughly 1000 years (c. 400 AD & 1400 AD) from the end of the Western Roman Empire to the Renaissance. 

A method of giving the impression of recession by visual instinct, not by the use of an overall program or system.

Fresco painted on fresh, wet plaster so the pigments become chemically bound to the plaster.

Fresco painted on dry plaster so it just sits on top and is not bound to the plaster. 

A style or category of art; also a kind of painting that realistically depicts scenes from everyday life. 

The representation in a work of art of an abstract idea or concept using specific objects or human figures. 

Decoration with drawings (usually in gold, silver & bright colors), especially on medieval manuscript pages; Conceived in such a way that the imagery "sheds light" on the written text. 

Pertaining to worldly things or to things that are not regarded as religious, spiritual or sacred; temporal; concerned with non-religious subjects. 

An altarpiece composed of more than three sections

The symbolic object or objects that identify a particular deity, saint or personification in art. 

A monochrome painting done mainly in neutral grays to simulate sculpture. 

Seeing everything; depicting every minute detail to represent that God sees everything.

Not composed of matter; having no physical existance.

Pertaining to the body as opposed to the spirit

Capital and largest city of Flanders. 

An association of merchants, craftspersons, or scholars in medieval and Renaissance Europe. 

Politically influential banking family in Florence during the Renaissance. 

A term referring to the art and architecture of the ancient Greeks and Romans. 

Any aspect of later art or architecture reminiscent of the rules, canons, and examples of the art of ancient Greece and Rome. Also, generally, any art aspiring to the qualities of restraint, balance, and rational order exemplified by the ancients. 

The representation of things according to a preconception of ideal form or type; a kind of aesthetic distortion to produce idealized forms. 

Rule, e.g., of proportion. The ancient Greeks considered beauty to be a matter of "correct" proportion and sought a canon of proportion, in music and for the human figure. 

The narrow ledge on which an altarpiece rests on an altar. 

The disposition of the human figure in which one part is turned in opposition to another part (usually hips and legs one way, shoulders and chest another), creating a counterpositioning of the body about its central axis. Sometimes called "weight shift" because the weight of the body tends to be thrown to one foot, creating tension on one side and relaxation on the other. 

In drawing or painting, the treatment and use of light and dark, especially the gradations of light that produce the effect of modeling. 

All parallel lines or surface edges converge on one, two, or three vanishing points located with reference to the eye level of the viewer (the horizon line of the picture), and associated objects are rendered smaller the farther from the viewer they are intended to seem.

Creates the illusion of distance by the greater diminution of color intensity, the shift in color intensity, the shift in color toward an almost neutral blue, and the blurring of contours as the intended distance between eye and object increases. 

The use of perspective to represent in art the apparent visual contraction of an object that extends back in space at an angle to the perpendicular plane of sight. 

Usually, the front of a building; also, the other sides when they are emphasized architecturally.