High Renaissance Art-and-Science — Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Linear Perspective

Display Raphael's School of Athens 1511. Ask: 'How many figures can you name?' Students often recognize Plato + Aristotle in the center. Bridge: this is a visual humanist manifesto, naming ~21 classical philosophers + 4 Renaissance figures (Bramante, Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael self-portrait).

• Display School of Athens
• Ask figure-recognition question
• Introduce 'high Renaissance' chronology 1490-1527

High Renaissance ~1490-1527 — Leonardo (1452-1519), Michelangelo (1475-1564), Raphael (1483-1520). Leonardo — Vinci near Florence, illegitimate son of notary; trained Verrocchio's workshop; Florence + Milan + Rome + France; Mona Lisa 1503-1519, Last Supper 1495-1498 Milan, Vitruvian Man 1490 — integration of art + engineering + anatomy + flying-machine sketches in Codex Atlanticus. Michelangelo — Caprese Tuscany, Lorenzo de' Medici household at age 14; Pietà 1499 Vatican; David 1501-1504 Florence; Sistine Chapel ceiling 1508-1512 commissioned by Pope Julius II; Last Judgment 1541. Raphael — Urbino, son of court painter; Pope Julius II + Leo X commissions; School of Athens 1511 — visual humanist manifesto naming Plato + Aristotle + Pythagoras + Euclid + Heraclitus + Diogenes + ~21 classical philosophers + 4 Renaissance contemporaries (Bramante as Euclid, Michelangelo as Heraclitus, Leonardo as Plato, Raphael self-portrait at far right). LINEAR PERSPECTIVE — Filippo Brunelleschi 1413 demonstration at Baptistery Florence; Leon Battista Alberti 1435 De Pictura codification — vanishing point + mathematical proportion. CRITICAL: linear perspective is a CULTURAL CHOICE not a 'discovery.' Chinese landscape painting (e.g., Fan Kuan c.990 Travelers Among Streams and Mountains, National Palace Museum Taipei) deliberately uses different spatial conventions — multiple viewpoints + atmospheric perspective + 'high and distant' compositional principle. Both traditions are 'realistic' in different senses.

• Vitruvian Man is the visual icon of Renaissance art-science integration. But integration was rare — most Renaissance figures specialized.

  model Vitruvian Man 1490 integrates: classical source (Vitruvius De Architectura 1st c. BCE on human-body proportions); empirical observation (Leonardo measured human bodies); geometric idealization (circle + square + ideal human proportions); Christian theology (humans made in God's image — humanist confidence). It is art + science + classical revival + theology in one sketch.

  prompt Why is Vitruvian Man significant? What does it integrate?
• This is MG-7 Q7 'Whose Golden Age?' applied to artistic convention — Renaissance perspective is not 'better' than Song landscape; it is DIFFERENT, expressing different worldviews.

  model School of Athens uses one-point linear perspective — vanishing point at center horizon between Plato + Aristotle — places the viewer in a fixed mathematical position; suggests RATIONAL CARTESIAN space + Renaissance confidence in geometric mastery. Fan Kuan uses high-and-distant atmospheric perspective — multiple viewpoints as the viewer's eye travels up the painting; suggests CONTEMPLATIVE space + Daoist-Confucian view of humans as small in vast nature. Both are 'realistic' in different senses.

  prompt Compare Raphael's School of Athens linear perspective with Fan Kuan's c.990 Travelers Among Streams and Mountains atmospheric perspective. What do these conventions suggest about each tradition's view of space?

• Name one work by each of Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael with date.
• What is linear perspective? Who codified it and when?
• How does Chinese landscape perspective differ?

M-7-S-CUL-05-A Illustration

High-resolution reproduction of Raphael's School of Athens 1511 Vatican Stanza della Segnatura with 21-figure key overlay naming Plato/Aristotle/Pythagoras/Euclid/Heraclitus/Diogenes/Ptolemy + Renaissance figures Bramante-as-Euclid/Michelangelo-as-Heraclitus/Leonardo-as-Plato/Raphael self-portrait.

M-7-S-CUL-05-B Illustration

Pair: Leonardo Vitruvian Man 1490 (Gallerie dell'Accademia Venice) high-resolution + Fan Kuan c.990 Travelers Among Streams and Mountains (National Palace Museum Taipei) high-resolution — placed side-by-side for spatial-convention comparison; annotated with linear-perspective diagram vs. atmospheric-perspective diagram.

• Pairs: identify 5 figures in Raphael's School of Athens using the figure-key handout.

  scaffold Figure-key handout with 21 named figures + biographical notes.
• Source-card practice: apply MG-7 Q1 SOURCING + Q3 CORROBORATION (does Vasari's account agree?) + Q7 WHOSE GOLDEN AGE to Vitruvian Man.

  scaffold MG-7 reverse sentence frames.

M-7-S-CUL-05-C Diagram

Diagram from Alberti's 1435 De Pictura showing one-point linear perspective construction: vanishing point + horizon line + orthogonals + transversals + checkerboard floor demonstration; modern reconstruction with English-language labels.

• Name one work by each of Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael with date.
• Define linear perspective in one sentence.
• Sticky to MG-23 about Italian art you want to research.

• Recite FIVE PROMISES
• Add stickies
• Preview Lesson 5b — Scientific Revolution

• Find an image of one work by Leonardo, Michelangelo, OR Raphael NOT discussed today; name the work + date + what classical/Christian/empirical content it integrates.