Renaissance means rebirth in French; it has a few historical concepts that resonate with the cultural development of the time. Renaissance is used to describe the rediscovery of Roman culture in the late thirteen centuries. This artistic concept inspired art, architecture, science, music, and philosophy. Renaissance began in the late fourteen century in Italy; this period was regarded as the middle ages (Panofsky 92). During this time, several arts were produced to revolutionize the humanism idea of the Renaissance. This paper will discuss one of the arts produced between the thirteen fifty and fifteen centuries. However, before that, four major themes will be addressed in connection to renaissance cultural production.
These themes were generally based on humanities, arts, religion, science, and church authority. Humanism is a moral theory that was influenced by the work of Italian Renaissance artists and took inspiration from classical antiquity. Painters, sculptors, and builders strove to restore the ideals of Classical Greek and Roman culture as Europe emerged from the Middle Ages. Secularism was used to appreciate the pleasures of life, individual expressions, and independence (Panofsky 120). Medieval artists supported the stimulation of secularism by ignoring realistic aspects in their paintings. The artists focused on nature, the scenery, and the secular spirit and ignored fundamental aspects in which the main focus was God. The third theme focused on individualism. The main idea was to help people make their own judgments out of the paintings. And the final theme is rationalism, a philosophical movement that grew in popularity during the seventeenth century’s Age of Reason. Any viewpoint that appeals to intellectual and logical reason as a source of information or justification is rationalism.
The art chosen in this paper is the meditation on passion by Vittore Carpaccio. The art was produced in 1490, describing the meditation on the death and resurrection of Jesus. The cultural shift occurs when something new becomes acceptable by all mankind. In this art, people accepted that Jesus died and was resurrected on the third day (Moscovich 34). Has the art is indicated, Jesus is seated with two people, and some skeleton’s head down to symbolize death. The two others are Job and Jerome, who wrote a commentary in the book of Job. They both look at their savior with hope and patience. Christ appears to sleep, a sign that people who believe in Him will live.
The art shows a shift in modernity by showing early prophets together with Jesus. There is cultural production in this segment where the artist illustrates the resurrection of the elderly when the survivor comes. To clarify this, in the book of Job 19:25, Job says, “my Redeemer lives, and when He comes back, He will stand upon earth…. And I shall see Him”. The art tries to associate the ancient with the modern by bringing the resurrection of the son of God to the old people like Job. In the Bible, Job was seen as a very charismatic man who believed in God even when his wife asked him to betray Him. Jerome helps Christians interpret the suffering of Job and teaches them to be patient. It is thought that Job and Jesus anguished in pain, and no one denied or surrendered to God. The bird symbolizes the soul in the art, and the landscape displays the theme of life and death, especially for animals (Moscovich 78). The turbaned figure shown in the background of the three is associated with Venetians in their trade with Middle East countries.
Works Cited
Moscovich, A. (2019). The Lion and the Wisdom—The Multiple Meanings of the Lion as One of the Keys for Deciphering Vittore Carpaccio’s Meditation on the Passion. Religions, 10(5), 344.
Panofsky, E. (2018). Studies in iconology: Humanistic themes in the art of the Renaissance. Routledge.