Western Art: 1444 to 1456

The Artistic Revolution of the International Renaissance

The International Renaissance was a period of unprecedented artistic innovation, fueled by scientific advancements in anatomy, optics, and perspective. Artists sought a new realism, emphasizing proportion, harmony, and the resolution of complex and conflicting elements. This movement was not confined to Italy but spanned across Europe and beyond, influencing Flemish, Byzantine, and Chinese art traditions.

I. The Italian Renaissance: Masters of Proportion and Perspective

Italy was the epicenter of Renaissance art, producing visionary painters, sculptors, and architects who redefined artistic expression:

• Fra Angelico – A Dominican friar who blended spiritual devotion with Renaissance realism, best known for his frescoes at the Convent of San Marco in Florence.
• Jacopo de' Barbari – One of the first Italian artists to experiment with engraving, blending Venetian and Northern Renaissance influences.
• Sandro Botticelli – Known for his mythological masterpieces, including The Birth of Venus and Primavera, where elegance and fluidity of line define his style.
• Leonardo da Vinci – A polymath who mastered anatomy, light, and shadow, producing iconic works like Mona Lisa and The Last Supper.
• Fra Filippo Lippi – A master of delicate expressions and graceful figures, influencing later Florentine painters.
• Masaccio – The first painter to use scientific perspective in frescoes, revolutionizing spatial depth in painting.
• Piero della Francesca – Famous for his mathematical approach to perspective, exemplified in The Flagellation of Christ.
• Piero and Antonio del Pollaiuolo – Masters of anatomical accuracy and dynamic movement, pioneering the study of the human body in action.
• Luca Signorelli – Created some of the most vivid and muscular human forms, particularly in his frescoes in Orvieto Cathedral.
• Andrea del Verrocchio – Teacher of Leonardo da Vinci, known for his sculptures and refined painting techniques.

II. The Flemish Renaissance: Masters of Light and Detail

The Flemish Renaissance artists focused on realism, meticulous detail, and mastery of oil painting, influencing later European art:

• Hieronymus Bosch – Created surreal, dreamlike imagery with complex allegories and moral narratives, seen in The Garden of Earthly Delights.
• Hugo van der Goes – Renowned for his expressive emotion and intense realism, particularly in The Portinari Altarpiece.
• Hans Memling – Specialized in portraits and religious compositions, combining graceful figures with luminous color.
• Jan and Hubert van Eyck – Innovators of oil painting, with Jan's Arnolfini Portrait demonstrating unmatched precision and use of light.
• Rogier van der Weyden – Master of pathos and human expression, particularly in The Descent from the Cross.
• Michael Wolgemut – A leading German painter and printmaker, influential as the teacher of Albrecht Dürer.

III. The Byzantine and Chinese Renaissance Masters

• Theophanes the Greek (Byzantium) – The most famous Byzantine painter of the period, known for his dynamic, expressive figures and influence on early Russian iconography.
• Shen Zhou and Wen Zhengming (China) – Masters of the Wu School, blending traditional Chinese landscape painting with poetic expression, emphasizing personal expression over strict realism.

IV. Bridging the Early and High Renaissance: Dürer and Michelangelo

• Albrecht Dürer (Germany) – Bridged Gothic tradition and Renaissance humanism, mastering woodcuts, engravings, and scientific perspective in works like Melencolia I.
• Michelangelo Buonarroti (Italy) – His career spanned the transition from the Early to High Renaissance, creating sculptures, paintings, and architectural marvels, such as the Sistine Chapel frescoes and David.

V. The Legacy of the Renaissance Masters

The International Renaissance was an era of unparalleled artistic achievement, shaped by scientific inquiry, humanistic ideals, and cross-cultural influences. Through innovations in light, color, and perspective, artists redefined realism and transformed the visual world, leaving a legacy that continues to inspire modern art.

Sassetta (the name given Italian painter Stefano di Giovanni in the eighteenth century by an unknown writer) has from 1437 to 1444 created a double-sided altarpiece for the Church of San Francesco at Borgo San Sepolcro.

One panel, The Mystic Marriage of Saint Francis, shows his fusion of the decorative grace and fantasy of the Sienese Gothic International Style with aspects of Florentine realism.

Its irrational perspective and its narration of events—separated in time but portrayed as synchronous occurrences—are Gothic elements; the humanity displayed in the attitudes of Saint Francis and Poverty, his bride, is typically Florentine in style.

Konrad Witz paints his most important work, the Saint Peter Altarpiece, in 1444.

One of the two (surviving) wing panels, the dramatic representation of Christ Walking on the Water and the Miraculous Draught of Fishes represents one of the first examples in Western art of an actual landscape setting—a view of Lake Geneva.

Taking a characteristically Flemish interest in detail, Witz depicts not only the reflections of the garments on the surface of the water, but also bubbles rising from the bottom and rocks seen through the surface.

Witz is most famous for painting three altarpieces, all of which survive only partially.

The earliest is the Heilspiegel Altarpiece of about 1435 (today mostly in the Kunstmuseum, Basel, with isolated panels in other collections).

The next is the Altarpiece of the Virgin of around 1440), which has been associated with panels now in Basel, Nuremberg, and Strasbourg (Musée de l’Œuvre Notre-Dame).

Witz's final altarpiece is the St. Peter Altarpiece of 1444, painted for St. Peter's Cathedral, Geneva, and now in the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, Geneva, which contains his most famous composition, the Miraculous Draught of Fishes.

Erasmo da Narni, or “Gattemelata” (the nickname means "The Honeyed Cat"), Gattemelata, is among the most famous of the condottieri or mercenaries in the Italian Renaissance.

Born in Narni, he served a number of Italian city-states: he began with Braccio da Montone, served Pope and Florence equally, and served Venice in 1434 in the battles with the Visconti of Milan.

He is the subject of one of the greatest monuments of the Italian Renaissance: Donatello's equestrian bronze sculpture created in 1446 for the Piazza del Santo, the main square of Padua, the same city over which Gattemelata had become dictator in 1437, ruling until his death in 1443.

Jean Fouquet assimilates characteristics of Italian Renaissance art with his native French style as a result of a trip to Italy about 1443-47.

Sometime before 1447, he is asked to paint a portrait of Pope Eugene IV (now lost).

Michelozzo receives another commission from Cosimo de'Medici, head of the Medici banking family of Florence, for the Palazzo Medici, which he begins in 1445.

Domenico Veneziano’s chief contribution to Italian painting, the use of brilliant color and the solid but delicate handling of the human form, is exemplified in his major work, the “St.

Lucy Altarpiece,” painted between 1445 and 1447.

Displaying Domenico’s familiarity with earlier Florentine masters, this altarpiece is among the first works to bring the Madonna and saints together in a group.

Petrus Christus: Bridging Tradition and Innovation in the Bruges School (1441–1446)

Petrus Christus, born in Baarle-Hertog near Antwerp, emerged prominently as a leading painter in Bruges following the death of Jan van Eyck in 1441. Although traditionally viewed as Van Eyck’s direct pupil and immediate successor—an assumption reinforced by similarities between their styles and Christus's known completion of some works left unfinished by Van Eyck—recent scholarship has clarified that Christus was not, in fact, Van Eyck’s student. Rather, after Van Eyck’s death, Christus independently took over as the leading painter in Bruges, purchasing the master’s workshop and thereby continuing the prominent tradition of Flemish realism established there.

Christus, born near Antwerp in Baarle-Hertog, had already developed an individual artistic identity, drawing influences from contemporary Flemish masters such as Robert Campin, Rogier van der Weyden, and Dieric Bouts, alongside the legacy of Van Eyck himself. He soon emerged as an artist who combined the meticulous realism of the early Netherlandish tradition with innovative approaches to composition and spatial perspective.

By 1446, his creative independence was evident in works like the Portrait of a Carthusian and the Portrait of Edward Grimston (Portrait of a Carthusian), where Christus notably advanced Van Eyck’s dedication to visual realism. His pioneering experimentation with linear perspective deepened the spatial complexity of his compositions, marking an evolution beyond the visual literalism of his predecessor.

Thus, Petrus Christus, rather than simply inheriting Van Eyck's mantle, played a critical role in the development of Netherlandish painting, synthesizing earlier innovations while simultaneously pushing forward into new territory—particularly through his early experiments with perspective and his distinctive approach to portraiture.

Andrea del Castagno works in the refectory of Sant'Apollonia in Florence, painting, in the lower part, a Last Supper fresco in 1447, accompanied by other scenes portraying the Deposition, Resurrection, and Crucifixion, which are now damaged.

He also paints a lunette in the cloister, depicting a Pietà.

The detail and naturalism of this fresco, which displays del Castagno's talents at his best, portrays the ways in which del Castagno has departed from earlier artistic styles.

It is likely that Leonardo da Vinci was already familiar with this work before he painted his his own Last Supper in a more dramatic form to contrast with the stillness of these works, so that more emotion would be displayed.

Jean Fouquet: Artistic Innovation and French Identity after the Hundred Years' War (ca. 1447)

Jean Fouquet, born in Tours around 1420, emerged as one of the most influential French painters of the mid-15th century, playing a pivotal role in shaping French visual culture. Before 1447, Fouquet traveled to Italy, where he notably executed a portrait of Pope Eugene IV (died 1447), known today only through later copies. During this formative Italian period, Fouquet carefully absorbed elements of contemporary Italian Renaissance style and composition, subsequently merging them with the distinctively French aesthetic traditions upon his return to France.

Settling again in his native Tours, Fouquet rapidly secured prestigious commissions from prominent figures of the French court, including King Charles VII, his influential treasurer Étienne Chevalier, and the chancellor Guillaume Jouvenel des Ursins. Fouquet’s artistic synthesis combined the refined naturalism and innovative perspectives observed in Italy with a distinctly French sensibility and iconographic tradition, aligning closely with the emerging political and cultural aims of the Valois monarchy.

Indeed, Fouquet’s artwork became intimately associated with the French court's broader project of reinforcing national identity following decades of warfare and cultural fragmentation during the Hundred Years' War. His elegant portraits, religious paintings, and manuscript illuminations articulated a confident, sophisticated vision of French monarchy and identity at a moment when France sought cultural as well as political renewal and cohesion in the aftermath of prolonged conflict with England.

In sum, Jean Fouquet's career exemplifies how artistic innovation intersected with broader political objectives, contributing to France’s emerging national identity and cultural confidence in the mid-fifteenth century.

Rogier van der Weyden’s Portraits of Philip the Good (Mid-15th Century)

In the mid-fifteenth century, the esteemed Flemish painter Rogier van der Weyden executed at least two significant panel portraits of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, prominently featuring the duke wearing the prestigious collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece. Although the original panel portraits have not survived and are known today only through later copies, they reflect Van der Weyden’s celebrated mastery of psychological depth, realism, and subtle symbolism, capturing Philip’s authority and refinement.

Remarkably, the only surviving original depiction of Philip attributed directly to Van der Weyden is a finely rendered miniature illumination within a manuscript, the Chroniques de Hainaut, produced by the Flemish illuminator known as the Master Girart de Roussillon. This miniature, executed under Van der Weyden’s direct supervision or influence, stands out as an exceptional example of Burgundian manuscript illumination, skillfully blending intricate detail, rich color, and lifelike representation.

These portraits, especially the lost panel paintings, underscore Philip the Good’s conscious use of art as a political instrument to project his ducal image and assert his cultural prestige throughout Burgundian territories and beyond. The survival of the illuminated miniature further emphasizes the interconnected artistic culture of the Burgundian court, where manuscript illumination complemented panel painting in celebrating and reinforcing the duke's image and authority.