Grade 10 Western Civilization Lesson 159

In this lesson I learned about Renaissance Art, Part II. This lesson is dedicated mainly to the precursors and early painters of the Renaissance. One such precursor who displayed some of the aspects of Renaissance painting was Cimabue, who lived from around 1240 to 1302. Only one work can really be attributed to him with certainty, the Mosaic of St. John.

Mosaic of St. John

Some influence was also drawn from Giotto who lived from 1276 to 1337, making him a late medieval painter. The characteristics of his paintings include realism and individuating characteristics.

Slowly in the 13th and 14 centuries, perspective and foreshortening, at least in a primitive form develop. By the fifteenth century Brunelleschi comes up with a mathematical formula of perspective, and Alberti writes the Della Pittura, which explains perspective in detail. All major artists study these techniques until everyone is using it.

This brings us to Masaccio who lived a short life from 1401 to 1428. No one knows exactly how he died, but while he was alive he painted the first painting using Brunelleshi’s new formula, the Holy Trinity fresco.

Holy Trinity fresco by Masaccio

Only four works are known for sure to be his, and two of them we know were done jointly with an older colleague. However in his short career, he was able to use foreshortening and anatomical details to make masterpieces. Everybody knew of him and all the major painters who could get to Florence to study his works did so. Along with the exquisite use of principles dreampt up by others, Masaccio pioneered his own, chiaroscuro, or the use of light and shade to improve realism. Chiaroscuro would be used 100 years later in Correggio’s Holy Night, which depicts the Christ child as the source of light.

Holy Night by Correggio

My teacher, Tom Woods said that this next painter he was going to show me had much less talent than Masaccio, but nonetheless had a great emphasis on perspective. He was talking about Paolo Uccello who painted The Hunt by Night.

The Hunt by Night by Paolo Uccello

Next up was Botticelli who lived from 1444 to 1510. He wasn’t really appreciated during his lifetime and would only earn his reputation in the mid-nineteenth century, when his paintings were resurrected. He is famous for his painting the Birth of Venus.

Birth of Venus by Botticelli

However after listening to the sermons of Savonarola, he puts his skills at the service of faith. He would illustrate scenes from Dante’s Divine Comedy as well.

Fra Angelico who lived from 1387 to 1455 was the final cry of the medieval spirit in art. He was a Dominican friar who left his cell to go to Rome and decorate the chapel of Pope Nicholas V with scenes from the lives of St. Stephen and St. Lawrence. While he would demonstrate the principles of perspective, and a bit of realism, there would be less individuating faces and characteristics.

Descent from the Cross by Fra Angelico

Finally there’s Piero della Francesca, who was so focused on displaying perspective that he would literally put the focus of the painting in the background.

The Flagellation of Christ by Piero della Francesca

Grade 10 Western Civilization Lesson 158

In this lesson I learned about Renaissance Art, Part I. Finally we’re learning about Renaissance Art, and it is of no short supply, this is the first of four lessons on Renaissance Art.

Renaissance normally starts with the Florentine guild commissioning bronze doors for the Baptistery next to the Duomo. They do this through competition, and judges narrow it down to seven artists. Everyone is given four sheets of bronze and told to submit a design of the sacrifice of Issac. Of the seven, we only have two, and they just happen to be the two main artists we will be looking at today, Ghiberti and Brunelleschi. After two years of deliberation, the judges decided that Ghiberti had won. Brunellesci himself admitted that Ghiberti’s sketches were better than his own before leaving Florence to study perspective and design in Rome.

Ghiberti’s panels

Lorenzo Ghiberti was born in 1378 and would die in 1455. After winning the competition, he was tasked with completing 28 panels on the west side of the Baptistery, twenty on the life of Christ, four each on their own apostle, and four on doctors of the Church. That was just for the west side, after that he started work on the east side, moving from New Testament scenes to Old Testament scenes. Apparently the second set turned out better, as Michelangelo considered it “so fine that it would grace the entrance of paradise.” In total it took Ghiberti 20 years to complete all of it.

Ghiberti had an assistant named Donatello, who lived from 1386 to 1466. It would be Donatello who would make the most productive use of his experience in Ghiberti’s workshop. Really I can’t say anything to prove it, and my teacher couldn’t either, so he showed me some of his work.

Statue of David by Donatello

Herod’s Feast by Donatello

The honorable competitor in the competition, Brunelleschi lived from 1377 to 1446. Though he was trained as a sculptor, he would turn to architecture, and as it turns out it would fit him better. He is known as the first great architect of the Renaissance, probably a great deal of which is due to the fact that he was able to complete the Duomo.

Other architects couldn’t figure out how to build a dome capable of covering such a large opening over the choir. Here’s how Brunelleschi approached it: instead of building a solid mass he built two interior shells of lesser weight, and instead of traditional scaffolding he invented machines that were able to hoist up the things he needed. Through such innovation he was able to make one of the most magnificent domes known to man. Brunelleschi was also able to formulate a method of drawing according to mathematical perspective that would come into wide use.

Finally I learned about Leon Battista Alberti who lived from 1404 to 1472. His significant contribution was the De re aedificatoria, a major work on architecture that would be sought after by many a young builder and architect. Alberti’s work would be the first sweeping architectural treatise since Vitruvius, and by a wide margin. While Vitruvius’ work was good, it wasn’t that practical. Meanwhile Alberti’s work thought through everything and displayed it in a systematic order.

While all these amazing works were beautiful and some quite original, the artists had some classical references to lean on if they wanted to, the Greeks had architecture and they had sculptures. However the Greeks didn’t have paintings, this would force the Renaissance painters we know and love to create truly original works of art.

 

Grade 10 Western Civilization Lesson 157

In this lesson I learned about Machiavelli’s The Prince, 1513. This is considered the most lasting literary work of the Italian Renaissance. A part of that may be due to its complete contrast to medieval works on politics. Ancient and contemporary works at the time approached the matter morally, they said that the prince must follow a set of moral rules that if not followed would lead to suffering in the afterlife. Machiavelli headed in practically the exact opposite direction, exempting any mention of natural law, the Bible, or the church from his book.

Machiavelli’s basic principle is that the state should do whatever it has to do in order to maintain itself, if this means acting immorally, so be it. Now for the sake of being truthful, Machiavelli does not propose that the prince should always be immoral, he thinks it is a bad idea because people are likely to revolt. However he does maintain that it is better for people to fear the state than to like it.

Machiavelli says that he is describing what the state is, not what it ought to be in his book. Christianity is poorly suited for his state, it promotes gentleness, meekness, peace, and a commitment to a single moral code. Instead he prefers the Roman ethic, that the safety of the state is the guiding principle. Because according to Machiavelli, the building of the state had to be completely independent of morality.

Grade 10 Western Civilization Lesson 156

In this lesson I learned about Renaissance Humanism Part 2. This lesson started with Baldissare Castiglione’s The Courtier (1528). This book basically talks about what qualities one must assume to be welcome in a king’s court. Castiglione said that you must be helpful and that you need to be good company for him. To do this he said you must show martial/combat skills, you must show the knowledge of a scholar, and you must be a gentleman. To sum it up you must be a Renaissance man if you want to have a chance of getting into the kings court. Finally though he said that you must show comfort in your skills, and make it appear like they came easily to you.

Scholars such as Castiglione would partake in civic humanism, the act of putting your skills at the service of the city-state’s government. One great example of this was Colluccio Salutati who lived from 1331-1406. Salutati was a master of rhetoric, and he was able to persuade the leaders of many cities to accept the Florentine point of view. It was said that one letter written by him was worth 1,000 horse on the battlefield.

I then learned about Pope Nicholas V who was pope from 1447 to 1455. He was in effect a humanist, he valued ancient manuscripts and collected them, he had them translated, and he would give prize to those who unearthed rare manuscripts. It was also Nicholas who founded the Vatican Library. The relationship between humanists and Christianity was divided. Pope Nicholas V represented a happy commingling of ancient manuscripts and church tradition, and some others agreed with him. However others clearly drifted from Christianity.

Bracciolini was a humanist who laughed at the church, this is made more startling by the fact that he also worked for the church. Really practically everybody laughed at the church, but this is not to say that everybody opposed the church, it was just the punchline of many a joke. Lorenzo Valla was a humanist who believed himself the best in terms of understanding Latin. He would ridicule others who wrote or spoke Latin, he was really a jerk. His belief was that human nature is good because God created it, and that anything humans think is good, is good. To contrast the other two the lesson also talked about Pico della Mirandola, who believed that human nature could only be perfected by God.

Obviously there was an anticlerical strain of humanism. The ascetic ideals of monasticism were mocked by people like Poggio, who in his book Facetiae made fun of Clerics, as well as pretty much anyone in power in an immature way. There was the portrayal that the natural, or the mortal was good and even perfectible. These humanists preferred to dwell in the classical world, which revealed civilizations untroubled by the prospect of sin or divine punishment, that celebrated man as he is.

Grade 10 Western Civilization Lesson 155

In this lesson I did a review. I also had to write essays answer two of the following topics.

1. Discuss some of the key ideas of the Renaissance.
2. In what ways does Petrarch embody the spirit of the Renaissance?
3. According to Pico della Miranola, what makes human beings unique? What is his attitude toward knowledge derived from sources other than the Bible and the Church? Why does he find the liberal arts valuable?

I chose to answer the first and second topics.

The Renaissance is known for its paintings, sculptures, and art in general. However I learned in the past week that it also very much housed new ideas. In this essay I’ll be describing these key ideas, and showing their effects.

An idea that showed great growth in the Renaissance was individualism. Individualism was the belief that the individual could, on his own, do great things. As you can imagine this led to individuals taking credit for said great things. Artists wrote their names on their works, which believe or not, was not a common practice before the Renaissance. There was also an increase in portraits as a result. People who weren’t artists also wanted in on the fame, not only wanting their names known but also their faces. People were less and less content with eternal life in heaven and more wanted eternal life on earth, or fame.

Another idea that grew in the Renaissance was that secularism was not illegitimate. For those who hate double negatives, people believed more and more that secularism was worthy of observation and focus. This is not to say that the church was ignored. On the contrary, people saw secularism as a way to promote faith and used it as a more persuasive way of spreading what they believed. Secularism was simply recognized as legitimate and grew alongside religion without taking from it. It must be acknowledged though, that there was a significant emphasis on this world and the beings within it.

The final idea I’ll be discussing today is that of the emphasis on natural man. Natural is referring to the natural and the supernatural, of mortals and deities. From that we can gather that people were more focused on what man could do without God. Now this paragraph is focused more on the belief that man has infinite possibilities. This belief can be specifically found in Pico della Mirandola’s Oration on the Dignity of Man (1486). Now Mirandola was a Catholic, but he had a tremendous optimism for man, calling to mind his heroic nature.

Some ideas of the Renaissance include individualism, secularism, and the emphasis on natural man. While we don’t often hear about them, they impacted the majority and even some of the most famous artists, writers, and thinkers.

Now for the second essay.

Petrarch was born in 1304, and though his father forced him to study law, he wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to be a part of the Renaissance. His life embodied the spirit of the renaissance and he would even promote one of its main ideas.

Once free from his father’s control, Petrarch abandoned his study of law to pursue his real love, poetry. He enjoyed reading the classics and sought them out, helping recover many lost works that we know today. Petrarch loved secular works, however he was pious, carrying Augustine’s Confessions on himself at all time. Rather than ignoring his faith to read secular works, he found that reading the secular works could help him spread his faith. In this way he promoted secularism, one of the key ideas of the Renaissance. He was turned off by Aristotle’s logical reasoning because he thought that the common man would be bored by them too. Instead he thought that the works of Virgil, Cicero, and Plato could be used to persuade people of religion in an interesting manner.

Petrarch would however not be content with eternal life in heaven. Later in life after becoming the poet laureate of Rome in 1340, he would write his own poetry. What every historian notes about his poetry is that there is an undeniable focus on himself. Petrarch wanted fame, he wanted his name to be known on earth in a sort of earthly immortality, and this essay is a testament to his success. In this way embodied the spirit of the Renaissance that eternal life was not enough, emphasizing himself even in his love poems.

Petrarch promoted secularism, the belief that secular works should be legitimately observed, as well as earthly fame, the pursuit of immortality on earth. This is why Petrarch embodied the spirit of the Renaissance.

American History Lesson 49: Continental Congress

In this lesson I learned about the Continental Congress. After the British closed the port of Boston, a movement for the colonies to unite began to form. This of course stemmed from Massachusetts, for without the active support of the other colonies, Massachusetts would be left alone to face the might of the British Empire. The First Continental Congress was held in 1774 at Carpenters’ Hall in Philadelphia. While they hoped it would be the last they would have to hold it, a second Continental Congress would be held in 1775, managing the colonial war effort. Ultimately, the Congress becomes a government by accident, and though its members put off the final step, the British force it by going to invade New York. The Congress, not being able to delay any longer sign the formal Declaration of Independence.

As there was no screencast, I watched Liberty! The American Revolution Part II.

American History Lesson 48: Coordinating Resistance

In this lesson I learned about Coordinating Resistance. As there was no screencast I watched a video documentary on the American Revolution.

American History Lesson 47: Boston Tea Party

In this lesson I learned about the Boston Tea Party. Dr. North started with his theory of revolution, which he said i fairly conventional. He said that revolutions must change the legal order, which he drew from Harold Berman. If the activity looks like revolution but does not change the legal order it is not revolution, it is a Coup d’état. Revolutions are never spontaneous, they are always planned and initially, they are planned by small groups of elites. Despite this planning, there are always something that aren’t foreseen, and revolutions can quickly get out of hand.

The fundamental issues that led to the Boston Tea Party did not involve the colonists’ dislike of a certain beverage. The main issue was ultimately sovereignty. The British Parliament thought itself sovereign, including over the colonies. The colonies however though that colonial legislatures should be sovereign. The saying “No taxation without representation” was a subset of the primary issue, relating to the colony’s fiscal sovereignty. The colonists were also upset about indirect taxation, about how Parliament thought they could tax the East India Company, which would pass the taxes onto the colonists, in effect taxing them. Other sellers of tea were also upset because the East India Company was a monopoly, and was able to sell for lower prices than them even if they smuggled it in. There was the battle in political leadership between Adams and Hutchinson, the governor of Massachusetts. On the Parliament’s side, they were tired of sending designated agents into the colonies only for them to be attacked. Finally there was the matter of the solvency of the East India Company, it may have been a monopoly on the sale of tea since 1721, but this monopoly was not over the retail sale of tea.

Those were the main issues, and notice I did not mention that the level of taxation was one of them. Of course the colonist didn’t like the taxes, but they were very minimal in most cases. What the colonists really disliked was what the taxes represented, the Parliament’s sovereignty. Another issue that was peripheral was that of smuggling, Parliament didn’t care too much about the smugglers, they were able to make the East India Company so much of a monopoly that even smuggled goods costed more than the EIC’s goods.

While on the topic of the East India Company, why don’t we delve a bit deeper into the situation it was in. The EIC had had the monopoly over the sale of tea in North America since 1721. It had been unprofitable, it was jut sitting there with a huge inventory of tea. The EIC needed somewhere to sell its inventory, and the Parliament thought that that place was North America. So taxes were reduced in England in order to make it competitive, and the EIC sold directly to the four big cities in the colonies, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston. Parliament also taxed the imports in order to pay the governors, which got the colonial legislators out of the loop. The colonial legislators had previously paid the governors, but by imposing this tax and directing some funds to the governors, the Parliament was able to assert their dominance over the colonies. In turn this gave the protesters in the colonies a target which any revolution needs in order to persuade the masses to join.

In the same way that an enemy is needed to persuade people against, people also need a symbol, and that’s what the Boston Tea Party was, a symbol. From a public relations standpoint, this symbolic action was genius. However it worked both ways, as a symbol and as an action worth punishing on the Parliament’s side. It was also a huge loss of money for the shippers, though I have used the word symbol a lot, the money lost was very real, and someone had to pay it. Parliament didn’t want to pay it, and the colonists didn’t want to pay it.

Initially Massachusetts was to be the only colony punished, they threw the tea into the water. All merchants in Boston would be effected as the port was closed, all merchants in Boston faced bankruptcy. So Adams coordinated an inter colonial response, saying that if the other colonies didn’t back Massachusetts, they would be next. As a result the Continental Congress of 1774 was formed.

American History Lesson 46: Freemasonry

In this lesson I learned about freemasonry. Freemasonry was the first widespread organization to support religious toleration and liberty, and it would be through it that those principles would be spread throughout America. Though according to a book called Masonic Membership of the Founding Fathers by Ronald E. Heaton, only eight of the fifty-six signers of the Declaration of Independence were freemasons. However it is apparent that their initiation affected them and changed how each of them thought.

American History Lesson 45: Liberty! The American Revolution (1997), Part 1

In this lesson I watched a documentary called Liberty! The American Revolution.