Renaissance Paintings
From Florence and Venice to Flanders: Botticelli, Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo and Titian beside Van Eyck, Bosch and Bruegel.
13 prints · printed to order on heavyweight matte paper · framed or unframed
Italy and the North
The Italian Renaissance recovered the forms of antiquity, perspective and the idealised human figure; the Northern Renaissance, in Flanders and the Low Countries, perfected oil paint and a microscopic attention to the visible world. Van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait of 1434 and Botticelli's Birth of Venus of the 1480s were painted fifty years and a thousand miles apart, and between them they define the two traditions.
The works in this collection
Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Primavera; Leonardo's Mona Lisa, Lady with an Ermine and the Vitruvian Man drawing; Raphael's School of Athens and Sistine Madonna; Michelangelo's Creation of Adam; Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne. From the North, Van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait, Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights and Bruegel's Hunters in the Snow and Tower of Babel.
Choosing a Renaissance print
The frescoes and altarpieces are wide and were made to be read from a distance: the Creation of Adam, the School of Athens and Primavera work best large and in landscape format. The portraits, the Mona Lisa and Lady with an Ermine, are intimate and suit a 16×24 in a hallway or above a desk.