We will start the year off by learning about Renaissance Art and some of the famous artists associated with this time period. Specifically, we will be discussing; Di Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Donatello, Giotto, and Rubens (also the name of all the art tables:)
Here is a short biography of Italian Renaissance painter, Giotto Di Bondone:
It was more than six hundred years ago that a little peasant baby was born in the small village of Vespignano, not far from the beautiful city of Florence, in Italy. The baby's father, an honest, hard-working countryman, was called Bondone, and the name he gave to his little son was Giotto.
So it happened that when Giotto was ten years old his father sent him to take care of the sheep upon the hillside. But Giotto did something else besides watching his sheep. For there was one thing he loved doing better above all else, and that was to try to draw pictures of all the things he saw around him. He had no pencils or paper, and he had never, perhaps, seen a picture in all his life. But all this mattered little to him. With eager hands he would sharpen a piece of stone, choose out the smoothest rock, and try to draw on its flat surface wonderful shapes like olive-trees, flowers, birds and beasts, and especially his sheep.
Now it happened one day a great master painter from Florence came riding through the valley and over the hills where Giotto was feeding his sheep. The name of the great master was Cimabue, and he was the most wonderful artist in the world, so men said. Suddenly he came upon a flock of sheep nibbling the scanty sunburnt grass, and a little brown-faced shepherd-boy gave him a cheerful 'Good-day, master.' There was something so bright and merry in the boy's smile that the great man stopped and began to talk to him. Then his eye fell upon the smooth flat rock over which the boy had been bending, and he started with surprise. 'Who taught you to do this?' asked the master as he looked more carefully at the lines drawn on the rock. The boy opened his eyes wide with astonishment 'Nobody taught me, master,' he said. 'I only try to draw the things that my eyes see.'
'How would you like to come with me to Florence and learn to be a painter?' asked Cimabue, for he saw that the boy had a wonderful power in his little rough hands.Giotto's cheeks flushed, and his eyes shone with joy. 'Indeed, master, I would come most willingly,' he cried, 'if only my father will allow it.'
Bondone was amazed to see his boy in company with such a grand stranger, but he was still more surprised when he heard of the stranger's offer. It seemed a golden chance, and he gladly gave his consent. So the master set out, and the boy Giotto went with him to Florence to begin his training. The studio where Cimabue worked was not at all like those artists' rooms which we now call studios. It was much more like a workshop, and the boys who went there to learn how to draw and paint were taught first how to grind and prepare the colors and then to mix them. They were not allowed to touch a brush or pencil for a long time, but only to watch their master at work, and learn all that they could from what they saw him do. So there the boy Giotto worked and watched, but when his turn came to use the brush, to the amazement of all, his pictures were quite unlike anything which had ever been painted before in the workshop, for he drew all the things which he had learned to know so well, when he watched his father's sheep.
Now when Giotto was beginning to grow famous, it happened that the Pope was anxious to have the walls of the great Cathedral of St. Peter at Rome decorated. So he sent messengers all over Italy to find out who were the best painters that he might invite them to come and do the work. The messengers came to Giotto and told him their errand. The Pope, they said, wished to see one of his drawings to judge if he was fit for the great work. Giotto 'took a sheet of paper and a pencil dipped in a red color, then, resting his elbow on his side, with one turn of the hand, he drew a circle so perfect and exact that it was a marvel to behold.' 'Here is your drawing,' he said to the messenger, with a smile, handing him the drawing. The messengers thought this must all be a joke. 'How foolish we shall look if we take only a round O to show the Pope,' they said. The Pope and his advisers looked carefully over all the drawings, and, when they came to that round O, they knew that only a master-hand could have made such a perfect circle without the help of a compass. Without a moment's hesitation they decided that Giotto was the man they wanted, and they at once invited him to come to Rome to decorate the cathedral walls. So when the story was known the people became prouder than ever of their great painter, and the round O of Giotto has become a proverb to this day in Tuscany. 'Round as the O of Giotto, did you see? Which means as well done as a thing can be.'
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