Why is the renaissance revealing

During the European Renaissance, there was a new focus on the identity and perspective of the individual. Africans living or visiting Europe at this time included artists, aristocrats, saints, slaves and diplomats. The exhibition of vivid portraits created from life encourages face to face encounters with these individuals and poses questions about the challenges of color, class and stereotypes that a new diversity brought to Europe.

Aspects of this material have been studied by scholars, but this is the first time the subject has been presented to a wider American public. On view Oct. These artworks are drawn from the Walters, major museums in Europe and the United States, and private collections.

Paul Getty Museum, together with coordinating curator Sasha Suda, assistant curator of European art at the AGO, Revealing the Early Renaissance: Stories and Secrets in Florentine Art brought to life recent discoveries about artistic techniques and studio practice in Florence between and More than years before Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci called Florence home, her citizens faced a moral dilemma. They were blessed with unprecedented prosperity brought about by advances in industry and agriculture and a prolific lending economy, yet many feared that their new wealth might jeopardize their admittance to heaven.

They relied on their faith to help them navigate a path between affluence and piety and they looked to art to guide their devotion. Fortunes were invested in building new churches and in adorning their walls and altars with art that assuaged the Florentine conscience. Giotto di Bondone c. Sheathed in gold leaf, the monumental Peruzzi Altarpiece is an ethereal vision of artistic progress. Giotto moves away from the iconic stoicism of altarpieces past by turning each figure toward Christ in a relatable fashion.

In the early s, the population of Florence relied on its artists to make its ideal world real through imagery that conflated the earthly and the ethereal. This exhibition inspired us to consider the weight of such a major civic commitment to art and to revel in the limitless potential of human creativity. Quick facts about 14th-century Florence and Revealing the Early Renaissance.

Counting on art to express their hopes, fears, emotions and ideals, a newly prosperous merchant class in Florence commissioned new buildings and decorated them with art of all kinds.

The artists of Florence established workshops to meet this increased demand and to train the next generation. During the Renaissance, Christians used paintings and manuscripts to aid in prayer and devotion. The portraits at the core of this show provide a window on an unsuspected facet of a society deeply impacted by the expanding worldview of the Age of Exploration.

Revealing the African Presence in Renaissance Europe invites visitors to explore the roles of Africans and their descendants in Renaissance Europe as revealed in compelling paintings, drawings, sculpture and printed books of the period.

Vivid portraits from life both encourage face-to-face encounters with the individuals themselves and pose questions about the challenges of color, class, and stereotypes that this new diversity brought to Europe.

Despite the importance of the questions posed for audiences today, this is the first time they have been addressed in a major exhibition. It will feature about 75 works of art drawn from the Walters, major museums in the U.

The exhibition catalog, Revealing the African Presence in Renaissance Europe is available for free, online. The exhibition was supported by funding from the Richard C.

The publication is generously supported by the Robert H. This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. In This Section.