Italian painting began in the service of the Church and always remained religious in character. Artists usually chose subjects from the Bible or the lives of the saints. They did not trouble themselves to secure correctness of costume, but represented ancient Jews, Greeks, and Romans in the garb of Italian gentlemen. Many of their pictures were frescoes, that is, the colors were mixed with water and applied to the plaster walls of churches and palaces. After the process of mixing oils with the colors was discovered, pictures on wood or canvas (easel paintings) became common. Renaissance painters excelled in portraiture. They were less successful with landscapes.
THE "OLD MASTERS"
Among the "old masters" of Italian painting four, besides Michelangelo, stand out with special prominence. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519 A.D.) was architect, sculptor, musician, and engineer, as well as painter. His finest work, the "Last Supper," a fresco painting at Milan, is much damaged, but fortunately good copies of it exist. Paris has the best of his easel pictures—the "Monna Lisa." Leonardo spent four years on it and then declared that he could not finish it to his satisfaction. Leonardo's contemporary, Raphael (1483-1520 A.D.), died before he was forty, but not before he had produced the "Sistine Madonna," now at Dresden, the "Transfiguration," in the Vatican Gallery at Rome, and many other famous compositions. In Raphael Italian painting reached its zenith. All his works are masterpieces. Another artist, the Venetian Titian (1477?-1576 A.D.), painted portraits unsurpassed for glowing color. His "Assumption of the Virgin" ranks among the greatest pictures in the world. Lastly must be noted the exquisite paintings of Correggio (1494-1534 A.D.), among them the "Holy Night" and the "Marriage of St. Catherine."
[Illustration: ITALIAN PAINTINGS OF THE RENAISSANCE
ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN—TITIAN
SISTINE MADONNA—RAPHAEL
THE LAST SUPPER—LEONARDO DA VINCI
MARRIAGE OF ST. CATHERINE—CORREGGIO
MONNA LISA GIOCONDA—LEONARDO DA VINCI]
[Illustration: FLEMISH, DUTCH AND SPANISH PAINTINGS OF THE RENAISSANCE
THE NIGHTWATCH—REMBRANDT
DESCENT FROM THE CROSS—RUBENS
THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION—MURILLO]
MUSIC
Another modern art, that of music, arose in Italy during the Renaissance. In the sixteenth century the three-stringed rebeck received a fourth string and became the violin, the most expressive of all musical instruments. A forerunner of the pianoforte also appeared in the harpsichord. A papal organist and choir-master, Palestrina (1526-1594 A.D.), was the first of the great composers. He gave music its fitting place in worship by composing melodious hymns and masses still sung in Roman Catholic churches. The oratorio, a religious drama set to music but without action, scenery, or costume, had its beginning at this time. The opera, however, was little developed until the eighteenth century.
213. REVIVAL OF LEARNING AND ART BEYOND ITALY
SPREAD OF HUMANISM IN EUROPE
About the middle of the fifteenth century fire from the Italian altar was carried across the Alps, and a revival of learning began in northern lands. Italy had led the way by recovering the long-buried treasures of the classics and by providing means for their study. Scholars in Germany, France, and England, who now had the aid of the printing press, continued the intellectual movement and gave it widespread currency.