New Ideas and Art (pages 618-626)

Did You Know?

Leonardo da Vinci's painting Mona Lisa is displayed at the
Louvre, a museum in France. The painting was stolen from the Louvre in
1911 when a Louvre employee, believing the painting should be in Italy,
simply walked out the door with it. The painting was recovered and sent
back to the Louvre in 1913.

Renaissance Humanism (pages 619-621)

Humanism was a way of understanding the world that was based on
the values of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Humanists sought a balance
between religion and reason.

Western Europeans began studying Greek and Roman works in the 1300s.
During the Crusades, Western Europeans were exposed to Greek and Roman
culture that had been preserved by Arab scholars. Italians studied ancient
books, statues, and buildings.

Petrarch was a famous scholar of ancient works. He encouraged Europeans
to search for Latin manuscripts in monasteries. New libraries were built to
house the manuscripts, including the Vatican Library in Rome.

Writers during the Renaissance began writing in the vernacular,
the everyday language of a people. Dante Alighieri wrote The
Divine Comedy, one of the world's greatest poems, in the vernacular. In
England, the poet Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales in
English.

Johannes Gutenberg developed a printing press that used movable
type. The press could print books quickly, so more books became available.
Gutenberg's Bible was the first European book printed on the press.

Leonardo da Vinci was a great scientist, artist, inventor, and
engineer. Leonardo imagined machines long before they were invented, such as
the airplane and helicopter.

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Interest in other topics flourished as well. People studied plants,
human anatomy, and medicine, as well as astronomy and mathematics.

Discussion Question

How did Gutenberg's movable type differ from Chinese movable type?
(Chinese movable type was difficult to use because their large alphabet
contained characters that were whole words. Gutenberg's press contained
individual metal letters that could easily be
manipulated.)

Artists in Renaissance Italy (pages 623-624)

There are major style differences between medieval and Renaissance art.
Renaissance artists used new techniques, such as perspective and
chiaroscuro, to add realism and express drama and emotion.

The peak of the Renaissance occurred between 1490 and 1520.

Leonardo da Vinci, a great scientist, was also a trained artist. One of
his most famous works was The Last Supper.

Raphael was one of Italy's most famous painters who painted frescoes in
the Vatican. His best-known painting is School of Athens.

Michelangelo Buonarroti was a painter and sculptor. He is best
known for his sculpture David.

Discussion Question

What was significant about the chiaroscuro technique? (Chiaroscuro
used light and shadows instead of stiff outlines to separate objects in a
painting. This softening of the edges created more drama and emotion in a
painting.)

The Renaissance Spreads (pages 625-626)

The Northern Renaissance refers to art from places we know today as
Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, and the Netherlands.

Northern Renaissance artists used different techniques than artists in
Italy. Artists in Flanders, a region in what is today northern
Belgium, developed oil painting.

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Jan van Eyck was a great oil painter.

Albrecht Dürer was an artist best known for his engravings. Engravings
are made in wood, metal, or stone, and covered in ink. The image is then
printed on paper.

In England, the Renaissance created great works of theater and
literature. William Shakespeare was the greatest English writer of
the Renaissance. He wrote tragedies, comedies, and historical plays.

Discussion Question

Why do you think theater was so popular in England during the
Renaissance? (The upper class of England enjoyed theater, and admission
to the theater was cheap, so even the poor could
attend.)

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