The High Renaissance of painting was the culmination of the varied means of expression and various advances in painting technique, such as linear perspective, the realistic depiction of both physical and psychological features, and the manipulation of light and darkness, including tone contrast,
sfumato (softening the transition between colours) and
chiaroscuro (contrast between light and dark), in a single unifying style which expressed total compositional order, balance and harmony. According to
Marcia Hall,
cangiante and what she calls
unione can be added to
chiaroscuro and
sfumato to make four specific painting styles in the High Renaissance; these are now sometimes grouped as the "canonical painting modes" of the period. In particular, the individual parts of the painting had a complex but balanced and well-knit relationship to a dynamic whole. Painting of the High Renaissance is considered to be the absolute zenith of western painting and achieved the balancing and reconciliation, in harmony, of contradictory and seemingly mutually exclusive artistic positions, such as real versus ideal, movement versus rest, freedom versus law, space versus plane, and line versus colour. Most art historians state that the High Renaissance started around 1495 or 1500 and ended in 1520 with the death of
Raphael, although some say the High Renaissance ended about 1525 or in 1527 with the Sack of Rome by the army of
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, or about 1530. Many cite Leonardo da Vinci's
The Last Supper, started in 1495 and completed in 1498, as being the first work of the High Renaissance. In his book,
A History of Art: Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, Frederick Hartt states that 1520 to 1530 was a transition period between the High Renaissance and Mannerism. The High Renaissance was dominated by three painters: Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael; while Giovanni Bellini, Giorgione and Titian were the leaders of Venetian High Renaissance painting, with
Correggio and
Andrea del Sarto being other significant painters of the High Renaissance style.
Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo (1452–1519) spent his formative years training in the
Florence workshop of
Verrocchio before moving to Milan, where he worked from 1482 to 1499 before returning to Florence from 1500 to 1506. Because of the scope of his interests and the extraordinary degree of talent that he demonstrated in so many diverse areas, he is regarded as the archetypal "
Renaissance man". But it was first and foremost as a painter that he was admired in his own time, and as a painter, he drew on the knowledge he gained from his other interests. Leonardo was a scientific observer. He learned by looking at things. He studied and drew the flowers of the fields, the eddies of the river, the form of the rocks and mountains, the way light reflected from foliage and sparkled in a jewel. In particular, he studied the human form, dissecting thirty or more unclaimed
cadavers from a hospital in order to understand muscles and sinews. ''|alt= Rectangular fresco, in very damaged condition, of the Last Supper. The scene shows a table across a room which has three windows at the rear. At the centre, Jesus sits, stretching out his hands, the left palm up and the right down. Around the table, are the disciples, twelve men of different ages. They are all reacting in surprise or dismay at what Jesus has just said. The different emotional reactions and gestures are portrayed with great naturalism. Leonardo achieved a degree of realism in the expression of human emotion, prefigured by Giotto but unknown since Masaccio's
Adam and Eve. Leonardo's
Last Supper, painted from 1495 to 1498 in the refectory of the Convent of
Santa Maria delle Grazie (Milan), became the benchmark for religious narrative painting for the next half millennium. Many other Renaissance artists painted versions of the
Last Supper, but only Leonardo's was destined to be reproduced countless times in wood, alabaster, plaster, lithograph, tapestry, crochet, and table-carpets. More than any other artist, he advanced the study and painting of "atmosphere". In his paintings such as the
Mona Lisa (–1517) and
Virgin of the Rocks (1483–1486) (the earliest complete work fully of his hand), he used light and shade with such subtlety that, for want of a better word, it became known as Leonardo's
sfumato or "smoke". He exhibited a revolutionary use of colour by defining the transition between figures by colour modulation instead of by actual lines. His work invited the viewer into a mysterious world of shifting shadows, chaotic mountains and whirling torrents. Another significant work of Leonardo's was
The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne (–1519); the monumental three-dimensional quality of the group and the calculated effects of dynamism and tension in the composition made it a model that inspired Classicists and the Mannerists in equal measure. Apart from the direct impact of the works themselves, Leonardo's studies of light, anatomy, landscape, and human expression were disseminated in part through his generosity to a retinue of students.
Michelangelo ''|alt= Rectangular fresco. God is in the act of creating the first man, who lies languidly on the ground, propped on one elbow, and reaching towards God. God, shown as a dynamic elderly man, is reaching his hand from Heaven to touch Adam and fill him with life. In 1508
Pope Julius II succeeded in getting the Florentine sculptor
Michelangelo (1475–1564) to agree to continue the decorative scheme of the Sistine Chapel. The
Sistine Chapel ceiling was constructed in such a way that there were twelve sloping
pendentives supporting the vault that formed ideal surfaces on which to paint the
Twelve Apostles. Michelangelo soon devised an entirely different scheme, far more complex both in design and in iconography. The scale of the work, which he executed single handed except for manual assistance, was titanic and took nearly five years to complete. The Pope's plan for the Apostles would thematically have formed a pictorial link between the
Old Testament and
New Testament narratives on the walls, and the popes in the gallery of portraits. Superficially, the ceiling is a
Humanist construction. The figures are of superhuman dimension and, in the case of
Adam, of such beauty that according to the biographer
Vasari, it really looks as if God himself had designed the figure, rather than Michelangelo. But despite the beauty of the individual figures, Michelangelo has not glorified the human state, and he certainly has not presented the Humanist ideal of
platonic love. In fact, the ancestors of Christ, which he painted around the upper section of the wall, demonstrate all the worst aspects of family relationships, displaying dysfunction in as many different forms as there are families. Michelangelo's later work,
The Last Judgement, painted on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel between 1534 and 1541, shows a Mannerist style, with generally elongated bodies, which took over from the High Renaissance style between 1520 and 1530.
Raphael With
Leonardo da Vinci and
Michelangelo,
Raphael's (1483–1520) name is synonymous with the High Renaissance, although he was younger than Michelangelo by 18 years and Leonardo by almost 30 and died at the age of 37 just one year after Leonardo. It cannot be said that he as greatly advanced the state of painting as did his two famous contemporaries. Rather, his work was the culmination of all the developments of the High Renaissance. '', commissioned by
Pope Julius II to decorate a suite now known as the
Raphael Rooms in the Vatican Raphael was born the son of a painter, so his career path, unlike that of Michelangelo, who was the son of minor nobility, was decided without a quarrel. Some years after his father's death he worked in the
Umbrian workshop of
Perugino, an excellent painter and a superb technician. His first signed and dated painting, executed at the age of 21, is the
Betrothal of the Virgin, which immediately reveals its origins in Perugino's
Christ giving the Keys to St. Peter. But the main source of Raphael's popularity was not his major works, but his small Florentine pictures of the Madonna and Christ Child. Over and over he painted, in slightly different poses, a similar plump, calm-faced blonde woman and her chubby babies the most famous probably being
La Belle Jardinière ("The Madonna of the Beautiful Garden"), now in the
Louvre. His larger work, the
Sistine Madonna, used as a design for countless
stained glass windows, has come, in the 21st century, to provide the iconic image of two small cherubs which has been reproduced on everything from paper table napkins to umbrellas.
Giovanni Bellini ,
The San Zaccaria Altarpiece|alt= Oil painting. A large altarpiece in which the Madonna sits on a raised throne, with four saints and an angel as described in the article. A leader of
Venetian painting,
Giovanni Bellini (1430–1516) was born within a year of his brother
Gentile, his brother-in-law
Mantegna and
Antonello da Messina, but lived a decade longer than the first two and almost three decades longer than the latter. He was painting right up until his death and his works illustrate several influences. His early works show the influence of Mantegna with incisive lines and clearly delineated colours, while after Messina's stay in Venice in 1475 to 1476 his works adopted a Flemish-like realism and luminous colours, which shows he was highly successful at adopting the techniques of oil painting brought by Messina. He was first the teacher of
Giorgione and
Titian but was later influenced by Giorgione, most notably in adopting
Tonalism, wherein paint is applied in superimposed layers creating a soft diffused effect so figures and landscapes become more unified in atmosphere. Bellini became the only great 15th-century painter to cross the threshold from the Early Renaissance to the High Renaissance style with works such as
Portrait of Doge Leonardo Loredan (1501), wherein the Doge shows a calmness Bellini likely learned from Messina,
Giorgione ''|alt= Oil painting. A mysterious landscape with Classical ruins. A man stands to the left, and to the right a nude woman feeds a baby Despite the brevity of his career (he died in 1510 at about 35) and the low number of works universally agreed to be totally by his hand (as low as four or five),
Giorgione is often credited as being the founder of the Venetian High Renaissance style, although different scholars cite different reasons for asserting this. One is his increasing use of gradations of colour and light (colour modulation), including
sfumato, often achieved by tonalism, Some believe he may have been taught this by Leonardo da Vinci, who is said to have visited Venice in 1501. In his
Castelfranco Madonna, 1505, the use of line and colour modulation are equally balanced but in
The Tempest, , colour modulation almost entirely replaces line creating an artistic vision in which humankind and nature are combined. Some consider the
Tempest one of the most important paintings produced in Italy, as the components are held together by colour, and there is a dreamy atmosphere of perfect harmony. and whenever his paintings feature a landscape it becomes an integral part of the painting. The
Castelfranco Madonna, when compared to Giovanni Bellini's similar
San Zaccaria Altarpiece, illustrates another innovation of Giorgioneadjusting the directions and positions of the figures, such as the lance held by
St. Liberale to the left and the folds in the Madonna's robe being placed in parallel, to more unify the subjects. Lastly, Giorgione's paintings are always ambiguous in their meaning and open to different interpretations. In
The Tempest, the naked woman feeding a baby and the clothed man, and a flash of lightning, perhaps represents
Adam and Eve in their post-Eden days, or perhaps it does not. Another painting attributed to him,
The Three Philosophers, may represent the
Magi planning their journey in search of the infant Christ, or it may not. None of Giorgione's paintings has ever had a certain interpretation.
Titian ''|alt= whose dynamic three-tier composition and colour scheme established him as the preeminent painter north of Rome.
Titian (–1576) trained in the workshop of
Giovanni Bellini alongside Giorgione and then assisted Giorgione. Following Giorgione's death, he was the monarch of the Venetian School for over 60 years. His early work shows strong influences of Bellini and Giorgione, but he soon he took the principles of form and colour announced by those two, and established colour, not line, as the major determinant in painting, thereby consummating the Venetian High Renaissance style. This brought out the light and colour in equal measure at the same time; he was famous in his own day as the master of light and colour. Another strength of Titian was the composition of his paintings. In the
Pesaro Madonna, 1519–1526, he moves the Madonna from the centre, instead placing her at the upper
vertex of a powerful diagonal line (as opposed to the usual vertical or horizontal) which still focuses the attention on the Madonna. This was one of the first works to group figures in a circular, ascending structure.
Assumption of the Virgin, 1516–1518, also features diagonal lines (shaped by the cherubs located around the Virgin), which carries the triumphant message of the painting upward into the upper levels of the Church of Frari in Venice on whose altar it stands. This work was the first to have visual suggestion of movement; all of Titian's works have a new dynamism in the movements of people compared to the static elements of other High Renaissance painters. The
Assumption of the Virgin also features, like all of his paintings, glowing, deep, rich colours due to Titian's applying layer after layer of paint, sometimes of different colours. Titian was also the most sought-after portraitist of his time and brought portraiture to the same level of esteem as narrative painting. Highly notable are the
Equestrian Portrait of Charles V, 1548, an equestrian picture in a symphony of purples, and the portrait of Doge
Andrea Gritti, ruler of Venice, perhaps Titian's most powerful portrait. As Titian aged, he maintained a generally High Renaissance style until his last years, when figure was almost completed dissolved in the movement of colour, so he became increasingly isolated from the mainstream of Italian painting, which had moved almost completely towards
Mannerism by 1530. In many ways, Titian can be considered the founder of modern painting. He invented the open heaven filled with floating figures church dome, which became a hallmark of the 17th-century Baroque period, with his
Vision of St. John the Evangelist, 1520–1524, in Parma's San Giovanni Evangelista, and the
Assumption of the Virgin, 1526–1530, in Parma Cathedral. One art scholar states that in the latter, Correggio creates a "dazzling illusion: the architecture of the dome seems to dissolve and the form seems to explode through the building drawing the viewer up into the swirling vortex of saints and angels who rush upwards to accompany the Virgin in to heaven". In those domes and other works, his bold use of perspective, usually by setting a dark colour against light colours to enhance the illusion of depth, is described as astonishing. His chief interest was painting light and he anticipates the effects to be achieved by
Caravaggio at the start of the next century. His mastery of
foreshortening (causing objects to look shorter because they are angled to the viewer) to create perspective is described as perhaps the most skillful ever. In
Jupiter and Io, 1531–1532, Correggio painted a strong contrast between the luminous figure of
Io and the soft but dark clouds filling the sky, which seem to envelop Io's gleaming body. Correggio was able to execute the diffuse effect of clouds, haze, or mist perfectly, and together with colour modulation, this infuses his characters with a distinct sense of weightlessness. He painted flesh in a delicate, voluptuous manner that has never been surpassed, and presents a new concept of feminine beauty only rediscovered during the
Rococo period. Correggio prefigured many components of
Baroque painting.
Other significant High Renaissance painters Andrea del Sarto (1486–1530), a Florentine, drew upon both Michelangelo and Raphael in his work, but went far beyond them in the portrayal of facial expressions and gestures, as evidenced in
Madonna of the Harpies, 1517. His figures show a greater individuality than earlier High Renaissance works while losing none of the nobility. and with the faces of his figures usually being calm and often beautiful, showing none of the torment of his Mannerist contemporaries, some of whom were his pupils.
Lorenzo Lotto (1480–1556), one of the most important High Renaissance painters in Venice, also spent time in other areas of Northern Italy as, perhaps due to his greater focus on realist detail and on line than rather than colour compared to the Venetian school, he was not much appreciated in Venice. While he painted a variety of subjects, he was an excellent portrait painter who had a superior ability to see into the soul of his subjects and to portray a depth of feeling in the painting. He usually included other objects in the background or foreground of the portrait to portray the subject's character. ==Influence of Italian Renaissance painting==