A.+Renaissance+-+Painting

Adoration of the Magi Leonardo da Vinci Adoration of the Magi depicts the first appearance of the Son of God on Earth with Virgin Mary in the middle under the Tree of Life while being surrounded by all humanity, excluding no one (all gender, age and classes). da Vinci's original sketch illustrated more of a wild appearance in the image, where all the people were in a tangle up mess naked, people were hanging on the arc of the stairs or crawling up it, there were some wildly riding horses and one man was drawn swinging an ax at the column in the left of the painting. da Vinci changed all these when he started painting, but kept the human equality in the painting. da Vinci was commission to make this painting when he was twenty-nine by monks for the monastery of San Donato, but later the monks decided to withdraw their commission leaving it to be an uncompleted painting. The left of the painting shows a busy outlook of life, but also include nature. The middle has a stair leading upwards toward the sky, a symbol of conjunction. The right is of battles and death segregated in the distance of a field.



__Outline of What Is Renaissance__
-Rome's arches and Greece's pillars - humans are capable of great achievement (humanism) -individualism -realism -linear perspective/ vanishing point -chiaroscuro
 * the Renaissance meant the rebirth or revival of the ancient Greeks and Romans
 * change of feelings/views of the earth they live on and themselves
 * new art techniques were practiced

__Adoration of the Magi__
*equality, all humanity is represented: the poor, the saint, female -added nature (more realistic of the world people live in): previous paintings had depicted a golden/Godly land -human emotions are shown through facial expression and gestures -people well distributed and buildings placed so there is a sense of space and not just a flat surface - Churches were major patron of the arts, even though some of the arts involved science and mathematics which contradicted the Bible
 * artists have painted paintings of the Adoration of the Magi, but da Vinci was the first to add linear perspective to the art
 * demonstration of realism through the illusion of depth through using linear perspective where the vanishing point is right above Virgin Mary, and the use of chiaroscuro where shade of the colour makes subjects and objects solid
 * techniques in painting changed, oil was now mixed with pigments so it would dry up slowly, allowing the artist to paint layers and paint details or correcting mistake
 * Even though da Vinci was a scientist, the monks (religious leaders) who represented God's will, commissioned him
 * At the left of the painting there are Rome arches - bringing back of the ancient and portraying the "true" values of it

Harris, Nathaniel. "Renaissance Art". East Sussex, England: Wayland, 1994. Wallace, Robert. "The World of Leonardo 1452-1519". New York: Time Inc., 1966. Zeri, Fedecico. "Leonardo, The Last Supper". North America: NDE Publishing, 1999.