Andrea del Verrocchio (with Leonardo), Baptism of Christ, 1470–75, oil and tempera on panel, 180 x 152 cm (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence); Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker
When you think of the Renaissance, the names that come to mind are probably the artists of this period (the High Renaissance): Leonardo and Michelangelo, for instance. And perhaps when you think of the greatest work of art in the western world, Michelangelo’s Sistine Ceiling might come to mind. This is a period of big, ambitious projects.
Fra Filippo Lippi, Madonna and Child with Two Angels, c. 1460–65, tempera on panel, 95 x 63.5 cm (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence)
How is the High Renaissance different from the Early Renaissance?
As the Humanism of the Early Renaissance develops, a problem arises. Have a look at Fra Filippo Lippi’s Madonna and Child with Angels. We see a Madonna and Christ Child that have become so real—the figures appear so human—that in some ways we can hardly tell that these are divine figures (except perhaps for the faint outline of a halo, and Mary’s sorrowful expression and hands clasped in prayer). On the other hand, in the Middle Ages, the need to create transcendent spiritual figures, meant a move toward abstraction—toward flatness and elongation.
In the Early Renaissance then, a tension arises. To create spiritual figures, your image can’t look very real, and if you want your image to appear real, then you sacrifice some spirituality. In the late 15th century though, Leonardo da Vinci creates figures who are physical and real (just as real as Lippi’s or Masaccio’s figures), and yet they have an undeniable and intense spirituality. We could say that Leonardo unites the real and spiritual, or soul and substance.
Andrea del Verrocchio (with Leonardo), Baptism of Christ, 1470–75, oil and tempera on panel, 180 x 152 cm (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
The best way to see this is in this painting by Verrocchio—an important Early Renaissance artist who Leonardo was apprenticed to when he was young. Verrocchio asked Leonardo to paint one of the angels in his painting of the Baptism of Christ.
Detail, Andrea del Verrocchio (with Leonardo), Baptism of Christ, 1470–75, oil and tempera on panel, 180 x 152 cm (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Can you tell which angel is Leonardo’s? One angel should look more like a boy—that’s the Early Renaissance angel (the one painted by Verrocchio) and the other angel should look truly divine, sent by God from heaven (that’s Leonardo’s angel).
The angel on the left is Leonardo’s.
Leonardo’s angel is ideally beautiful and moves in a graceful and complex way, twisting her upper body to the left but raising her head up and to the right. Figures that move elegantly and that are ideally beautiful are typical of the High Renaissance.
Additional resources
Expanding the Renaissance: a new Smarthistory initiative.
Read a chapter in our textbook, Reframing Art History, about rethinking how we approach Italian renaissance art (art in republics as well as in sovereign states).
Explore Leonardo from The National Gallery.
Smarthistory images for teaching and learning:
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[0:00] [music]
Dr. Beth Harris: [0:03] We’re in the Uffizi, and we’re looking at Verrocchio’s painting of the baptism of Christ. We see Saint John on the right, baptizing Christ. This is simultaneously the moment that Christ’s divine nature is revealed, and we see that in the Holy Spirit in the hands of God above.
[0:21] What’s especially fun about this painting is that Leonardo was one of his students, and Leonardo painted some parts of this painting.
Dr. Steven Zucker: [0:29] That’s a wild idea right there, because we think of Leonardo as the master of the High Renaissance, and the notion of him as a student, and to actually have some of his student work available, is really fabulous.
Dr. Harris: [0:39] Well, it’s pretty wild, just the notion that other people would paint part of your paintings.
Dr. Zucker: [0:43] That’s true.
Dr. Harris: [0:44] It’s not something we can imagine a modern artist doing.
Dr. Zucker: [0:46] This was a standard idea, that a master would have students, would have apprentices. They would work in his workshop and often do some of the less critical elements, so we know that Leonardo was responsible for one of the angels.
Dr. Harris: [0:59] Right. One day, Verrocchio said, “Today, Leonardo, could you paint one of the angels for me?” And so Verrocchio painted one of the angels, and Leonardo painted the other.
[1:08] I think what’s fun about this is to think about one of the angels as an Early Renaissance angel and the other angel as a High Renaissance angel. Leonardo’s angel as the High Renaissance angel, because it’s really Leonardo who invents the style of the High Renaissance. To me, I think it’s pretty obvious.
Dr. Zucker: [1:25] We have two angels. They’re very close.
Dr. Harris: [1:28] I think about how one angel, Verrocchio’s angel, looks rather typical, like a boy.
Dr. Zucker: [1:34] He does look like a boy.
Dr. Harris: [1:35] Yeah. Like maybe Verrocchio went out and got a boy to model for him.
[1:39] Leonardo’s angel looks like it has no earthly model. It’s just ideally beautiful, and it’s that ideal beauty that will become so important in the High Renaissance. If you think about figures like Michelangelo’s “David,” it’s the ideal beauty of the High Renaissance figures that suggests their divine nature.
Dr. Zucker: [1:58] That’s so interesting, because when we think about the Trecento, we have a kind of painting that created a representation of the otherworldly, of the divine, that had nothing to do with the earthly. But then in the 15th century, we had artists that were studying nature, studying our reality.
[2:15] In a sense, you’re saying that Leonardo is surpassing even that, that he took the lessons of the 15th century and reworked them in order to be able to create an even more transcendent representation of the divine.
Dr. Harris: [2:28] Well, in the 1300s, artists would represent spirituality or in the heavenly by using a lot of gold, halos, figures that were very flat, and so they suggested transcendence and otherworldliness.
[2:42] What Leonardo is doing is he’s keeping all of those lessons of the early Renaissance of how to make the human figure look real, using modeling, giving the figure a sense of weight and gravity, giving the figure a sense of three-dimensionality.
Dr. Zucker: [2:56] Understanding its anatomy.
Dr. Harris: [2:58] Exactly. All of those lessons of the early Renaissance, and yet is able to imbue the figure with a sense of transcendence and divinity.
Dr. Zucker: [3:08] So much so that the halo now almost seems redundant.
Dr. Harris: [3:12] Exactly, and it’s Leonardo who will do away with the halo. But it’s not just the ideal beauty of the figure that suggests that kind of transcendence and spirituality. It’s also, for me, in the movements of the figure.
[3:25] If you look at Leonardo’s angel holding Christ’s clothing, he kneels facing to the right. His shoulders twist slightly to the left. His head leans back and up. It’s an incredibly complex pose. If you think back to the early Renaissance, the artists like Masaccio and Donatello were just really discovering how to create figures standing in contrapposto, who could move realistically.
[3:54] Leonardo is taking a giant step beyond that. The figures really move in a very elegant and graceful way that suggests that divine nature.
Dr. Zucker: [4:04] Leonardo is really offering us a glimpse into the future, a promise of what the High Renaissance will hold in store for us.
[4:10] [music]
