In today’s class we began by discussing Botticelli’s “The Birth of the Venus” which was created in 1485. It’s important to note that the scene does not actually depict how Venus was born, but it was given this name. Botticelli had a quest for naturalism. He adopted a slightly different approach to depictions of life and presented a very mythological scene in this painting. The painting is based on a Roman copy of a Greek Hellenistic original know as “Medici Venus.” Within the scene, Venus is being pushed to the shore by Zephyr, who is the God of the West wind, and is hugging Chloris. There are also roses flying in the air, which represent the “flowers of Venus.” Venus is known as the “Hour of Spring,” and thus the painting is filled with spring-like flora such as the roses and blooming orange trees in the background. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We then shifted our focus to the High Renaissance in Italy. The main start of this era was Leonardo da Vinci who was born in Vinci in 1452. Leonardo was more than just a painter, he was also a well-renowned sculptor, architect, and worked as a military engineer, creating many sketches and graphical representations for military items. Leonardo is widely known for the relationship between macrocosm and microcosm. He tried to find patterns and systems between small parts and the overall large part of something. We then focused on one of Leonardo’s works, “Madonna of the Rocks,” which is a painting that was divided into three aspects: pictorial, graphic, and speculative parts. Leonardo’s artwork is all about problem solving, and he is always searching for new ideas. Within this scene, baby Jesus, his cousin St. John the Baptist, the Virgin, and the angel are all connected with one another. He presents these four figures in a pyramidal shape, which is much more stable than a symmetrical work. Overall, it was fascinating studying some of Leonardo da Vinci’s works during the High Renaissance era. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In today’s class we began by discussing Botticelli’s “The Birth of the Venus” which was created in 1485. It’s important to note that the scene does not actually depict how Venus was born, but it was given this name. Botticelli had a quest for naturalism. He adopted a slightly different approach to depictions of life […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11923,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1831"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11923"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1831"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1832,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1831\/revisions\/1832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}