High Renaissance

The Virgin of the Rocks (sometimes the Madonna of the Rocks) is the name used for two paintings by Leonardo da Vinci, of the same subject, and of a composition which is identical except for several significant details. The version generally considered the prime version, that is the earlier of the two, hangs in the Musée du Louvre in Paris and the other in the National Gallery, London. The paintings are both nearly 2 metres (over 6 feet) high and are painted in oils. Both were painted on wooden panel; that in the Louvre has been transferred to canvas. Both paintings show the Madonna and Christ Child with the infant John the Baptist and an angel, in a rocky setting which gives the paintings their usual name. The significant compositional differences are in the gaze and right hand of the angel. There are many minor ways in which the works differ, including the colours, the lighting, the flora, and the way in which sfumato has been used. Although the date of an associated commission is documented, the complete histories of the two paintings are unknown, and lead to speculation about which of the two is earlier.

This is a painting of the traditional subject of the Annunciation, by the Italian Renaissance artists Leonardo da Vinci and Andrea del Verrocchio, dating from circa 1472–1475[1] and housed in the Uffizi Gallery of Florence, Italy. The angel holds a Madonna lily, a symbol of Mary's virginity and of the city of Florence. It is supposed that Leonardo originally copied the wings from those of a bird in flight, but they have since been lengthened by a later artist.

Ginevra de’ Benci was an aristocrat from 15th-century Florence, admired for her intelligence by Florentine contemporaries. She is the subject of a portrait painting by Leonardo da Vinci. The oil-on-wood portrait was acquired by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., in 1967, for US$5 million paid to the Princely House of Liechtenstein, a record price at the time, from the Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund. It is the only painting by Leonardo on public view in the Americas.

The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne is an oil painting by Leonardo da Vinci depicting St. Anne, her daughter the Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus. Christ is shown grappling with a sacrificial lamb symbolizing his Passion as the Virgin tries to restrain him. The painting was commissioned as the high altarpiece for the Church of Santissima Annunziata in Florence and its theme had long preoccupied Leonardo.

The Mona Lisa (or La Gioconda) is a half-length portrait of a woman by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci, which has been acclaimed as "the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world." The painting, thought to be a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, is in oil on a poplar panel, and is believed to have been painted between 1503 and 1506. It was acquired by King Francis I of France and is now the property of the French Republic, on permanent display at the Musée du Louvre in Paris since 1797. The ambiguity of the subject's expression, which is frequently described as enigmatic, the monumentality of the composition, the subtle modeling of forms and the atmospheric illusionism were novel qualities that have contributed to the continuing fascination and study of the work.

St. John the Baptist is an oil painting on walnut wood by Leonardo da Vinci. Completed from 1513 to 1516, when the High Renaissance was metamorphosing into Mannerism, it is believed to be his last painting. The original size of the work was 69x57 cm. It is now exhibited at the Musée du Louvre in Paris, France. The piece depicts St. John the Baptist in isolation. St. John is dressed in pelts, has long curly hair, and is smiling in an enigmatic manner which is reminiscent of Leonardo's famous Mona Lisa. He holds a reed cross in his left hand while his right hand points up toward heaven (like St Anne in Leonardo's cartoon The Virgin and Child with St Anne and St John the Baptist). It is believed that the cross and wool skins were added at a later date by another painter.

The Doni Tondo, sometimes called The Holy Family, is the only finished panel painting by the mature Michelangelo to survive. Now in the Uffizi in Florence, Italy, and still in its original frame, the painting was probably commissioned by Agnolo Doni to commemorate his marriage to Maddalena Strozzi, the daughter of a powerful Tuscan family. The painting is in the form of a tondo, or round frame, which is frequently associated during the Renaissance with domestic ideas. The work was most likely created during the period after the Doni's marriage in 1503 or 1504, as well as after the excavation of the Laocoön about 1506, yet before the Sistine Chapel ceiling frescoes were begun in 1508, dating the painting to approximately late 1506 or 1507. The Doni Tondo features the Christian Holy family (the child Jesus, Mary, and Saint Joseph) along with John the Baptist in the foreground and contains five ambiguous nude male figures in the background. The inclusion of these nude figures has been interpreted in a variety of ways.

The Creation of Adam is arguably the most famous section of Michelangelo's fresco Sistine Chapel ceiling painted circa 1511–1512. It is traditionally thought to illustrate the Biblical creation narrative from the Book of Genesis in which God breathes life into Adam, the first man. Chronologically the fourth in the series of panels depicting episodes from Genesis on the Sistine ceiling, it was among the last to be completed. It is the most well-known of the Sistine Chapel fresco panels, and its fame as a piece of art is rivaled only by the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci. The image of the near-touching hands of God and Adam has become one of the single most iconic images of humanity and has been reproduced in countless imitations and parodies. Along with Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper, The Creation of Adam and the other Sistine Chapel panels are the most replicated religious paintings of all time.

On the five pendentives along each side of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and the two at either end, Michelangelo painted the largest figures on the ceiling: twelve people who prophesied or represented some aspect of the Coming of Christ. Of those twelve, seven were Prophets of Israel and were male. The remaining five were prophets of the Classical World, called Sibyls and were female. The Libyan Sibyl, named Phemonoe, was the prophetic priestess presiding over the Zeus Ammon Oracle (Zeus represented with the horns of Ammon) at Siwa Oasis in the Libyan Desert.

The Madonna of the Meadow is also known as Madonna del prato. In it, the three figures in a calm green meadow are linked by looks and touching hands. The Virgin Mary is shown in a contrapposto pose, wearing a gold-bordered blue mantle set against a red dress and with her right leg lying along a diagonal. The blue symbolizes the church and the red Christ's death, with the Madonna the uniting of Mother Church with Christ's sacrifice. With her eyes fixed on Christ, her head is turned to the left and slightly inclined, and in her hands she holds up Christ, as he leans forward unsteadily to touch the miniature cross held by John. The poppy refers to Christ's passion, death and resurrection.

The Deposition, also known as the Pala Baglione, Borghese Deposition or The Entombment, is an oil painting by the Italian High Renaissance painter Raphael. Signed and dated "Raphael Urbinas MDVII (1507)", the painting is in the Galleria Borghese in Rome. It is the central panel of a larger altarpiece commissioned by Atalanta Baglioni of Perugia in honor of her of fallen son, Grifonetto Baglioni. Like many works, it shares elements of the common subjects of the Deposition of Christ, the Lamentation of Christ, and the Entombment of Christ.

The Portrait of a Young Woman, also known as La Muta, is a portrait by the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael, c. 1507-1508. It is housed in the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, in Urbino. The picture portrays an unknown noblewoman over a near-black background, showing some Leonardesque influences. Although only recently attributed to Raphael, it is ranked among the best portraits by his hand.

The Portrait of Maddalena Doni is an oil painting by Italian Renaissance master Raphael, executed between 1506 and 1507. The portrait is one of a pair that depict a recently married merchant and his wife. Agnolo Doni married Maddalena Strozzi in 1503, but Raphael's portraits were probably executed in 1506, the period in which the painter studied the art of Leonardo da Vinci most closely. The composition of the portraits resembles that of the Mona Lisa: the figures are presented in the same way in respect to the picture plane, and their hands, like those of the Mona Lisa, are placed on top of one another. But the low horizon of the landscape background permits a careful assessment of the human figure by providing a uniform light which defines surfaces and volumes. This relationship between landscape and figure presents a clear contrast to the striking settings of Leonardo, which communicate the threatening presence of nature.

The Madonna del cardellino or Madonna of the Goldfinch is a painting by the Italian renaissance artist Raphael, from c. 1505-1506. A 10-year restoration process was completed in 2008, after which the painting was returned to its home at the Uffizi in Florence. In this painting, as in most of the Madonnas of his Florentine period, Raphael arranged the three figures - Mary, Christ and the young John the Baptist - to fit into a geometrical design. Though the positions of the three bodies are natural, together they form an almost regular triangle. The Madonna is shown young and beautiful, as with Raphael’s various other Madonnas. She is also clothed in red and blue, also typical, for red signifies the passion of Christ and blue was used to signify the church. Christ and John are still very young, only babies. John holds a goldfinch in his hand, and Christ is reaching out to touch it. The background is one typical of Raphael. The natural setting is diverse and yet all calmly frames the central subject taking place.

The Alba Madonna is a painting by the Italian High Renaissance artist Raphael, depicting Mary, Jesus and John the Baptist, in a typical Italian countryside. John the Baptist is holding up a cross to Jesus, which the baby Jesus is grasping. All three figures are staring at the cross. The three figures are grouped to the left in the round design, but the outstretched arm of the Madonna and the billowing material of her cloak balance the image.

The School of Athens is one of the most famous frescoes by the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael. It was painted between 1509 and 1511 as a part of Raphael's commission to decorate with frescoes the rooms now known as the Stanze di Raffaello, in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican. The Stanza della Segnatura was the first of the rooms to be decorated, and The School of Athens the second painting to be finished there, after La Disputa, on the opposite wall. The picture has long been seen as "Raphael's masterpiece and the perfect embodiment of the classical spirit of the High Renaissance."

Sistine Madonna is an oil painting by the Italian artist Raphael. Commissioned in 1512 by Pope Julius II as an altarpiece for the church of San Sisto, Piacenza, it was one of the last Madonnas painted by the artist. Relocated to Dresden from 1754, the well-known painting has been particularly influential in Germany. After World War II, it was relocated to Moscow for a decade before it was returned to Germany. There, it resides as one of the central pieces in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister. The painting has been highly praised by many notable critics, and Giorgio Vasari called it a "a truly rare and extraordinary work".

The Triumph of Galatea is a fresco masterpiece completed about 1514 by the Italian painter Raphael for the Villa Farnesina in Rome. The Farnesina was built for the Sienese banker Agostino Chigi, one of the richest men of that age. The Farnese family later acquired and renamed the villa, smaller than the more ostentatious palazzo at the other side of the Tiber. The fresco is a mythological scene of a series embellishing the open gallery of the building, a series never completed which was inspired to the "Stanze per la giostra" of the poet Angelo Poliziano. In Greek mythology, the beautiful Nereid Galatea had fallen in love with the peasant shepherd Acis. Her consort, one-eyed giant Polyphemus, after chancing upon the two lovers together, lobbed an enormous pillar and killed Acis.

The Madonna of the Chair or the Madonna della seggiola is a Madonna painting by the Italian renaissance artist Raphael, dating to c. 1513-1514 and housed in the Palazzo Pitti collection in Florence. It depicts Mary embracing the child Christ, while the young John the Baptist devoutly watches. Painted during his Roman period, this Madonna does not have the strict geometrical form and linear style of his earlier Florentine treatments of the same subject. Instead, the warmer colors seem to suggest the influence of Titian and Raphael's rival Sebastiano del Piombo.

The Veiled Woman or La donna velata is one of the most famous portraits by the Italian Renaissance painter Raphael. The subject of the painting appears in another portrait, La Fornarina, and is traditionally identified as the fornarina (bakeress) Margherita Luti, Raphael's Roman mistress.

The Portrait of Bindo Altoviti is a painting finished around 1515 by the Italian High Renaissance painter Raphael. Bindo Altoviti was a rich banker born in Rome in 1491, but of Florentine origin. He was a cultured man who loved the arts. The graceful, almost effeminate position of the subject along with the heavy contrast between light and shadow are atypical of Raphael's work, particularly of his portraits of men, demonstrating the artist's experimentation with different styles and forms in his later Roman period. The influence of the works of Leonardo, which Raphael studied astutely during this period of his career, are strikingly evident in this particular piece.

This portrait was eloquently described by Giorgio Vasari in his 1568 biography of Titian. He identified the man as a member of the Barbarigo, an aristocratic Venetian family. The most likely candidate is Gerolamo, who was 30 years old in 1509. He had numerous political and literary contacts and would have helped the young Titian on his path to success.

Flora is an oil painting by Italian late Renaissance painter Titian, dated to around 1515 and now held at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. The work was reproduced in numerous 16th century etchings. It portrays an idealized beautiful woman, a model established in the Venetian school by Titian's master Giorgione with his Laura. Her left hands holds a pink-shaded mantle, while another holds a handful of flowers and leaves. The meaning of the painting is disputed: some, basing for example to inscriptions added to the 16th century reproductions, identifies the woman as a courtesan; other consider it a symbol of nuptial love, although her dress is not a dressing one. The identification with Flora, the ancient goddess of Spring and vegetation, derives from the presence of Spring flowers in her hands.

Bacchus and Ariadne (1520–23)[1] is an oil painting by Titian. It is one of a cycle of paintings on mythological subjects produced for Alfonso d'Este, the Duke of Ferrara, for the Camerino d'Alabastro – a private room in his palazzo in Ferrara decorated with paintings based on classical texts. An advance payment was given to Raphael, who originally held the commission for the subject of a Triumph of Bacchus. At the time of Raphael's death in 1520, only a preliminary drawing was completed and the commission was then handed to Titian. In the case of Bacchus and Ariadne, the subject matter was derived from the Roman poets Catullus and Ovid. The painting, considered one of Titian's greatest works, now hangs in the National Gallery in London.

The Venus of Urbino is a 1538 oil painting by the Italian master Titian. It depicts a nude young woman, identified with the goddess Venus, reclining on a couch or bed in the sumptuous surroundings of a Renaissance palace. It hangs in the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence. The figure's pose is based on Giorgione's Sleeping Venus (c. 1510), which Titian completed. In this depiction, Titian has domesticated Venus by moving her to an indoor setting, engaging her with the viewer, and making her sensuality explicit. Devoid as it is of any classical or allegorical trappings – Venus displays none of the attributes of the goddess she is supposed to represent – the painting is unapologetically erotic.