The Early Renaissance in Europe: From darkness into light, or how one little competition changed the world.

At the beginning of the 14th Century in Europe, when Giotto completed The Arena Chapel, the new century was experiencing economic expansion and the renewed pursuit of intellectual and theological knowledge.  The advent of Giotto’s new artistic style seemed to foreshadow great things to come.  Instead it was a century marked by fear and desperation. For most of the 14^th century Europe walled itself up in a cocoon of self-defeating cynicism and recrimination. But then something amazing happened.  In 1401 a competition was held in Florence that paved the way for the Renaissance in Italy and Northern Europe. It turned the disastrous 14^th Century on its head and remade the world.  Join us for a look at this remarkable period when so many new and newly rediscovered ideas came to the forefront. with artists such as Donatello, Masaccio, Ghiberti and Brunelleschi as well as the next generation including Piero della Francesca, Van Eyck, Ghirandaio, Van de Goes, Verrocchio and Bottecelli. What the artists in the 15-century accomplished allowed for the advent of the High Renaissance and beyond. Revered artists who followed, such as Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael, were truly standing on the shoulders of giants.

Course Instructor

Kevin Justus Author