The Renaissance and Public Art

Currently, the students in Art History AP are studying the High Renaissance. The art of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael often stand alone due to their incomparable beauty and their status as the ultimate portrayal of perfect technical execution. Nevertheless, they also demonstrate important developments in artistic practices that came before the Renaissance and continued to affect the production of art after the Renaissance had faded into the annals of history.

One of these developments is the continuation of public art. The students had already encountered unavoidably in situ art in the form of frescoes--the earliest of which comes from the time of the Minoans, a civilization that spanned from the 27th to the 15th century BC.


(I love this fresco. It looks like a Dr. Seuss illustration!)

Frescoes continue throughout time as the go-to medium for public art and the artists of the Renaissance utilize this style of painting in order to create some astonishing masterpieces. The early Renaissance master, Giotto, used fresco to illustrate scenes from the Old Testament in the Arena Chapel in Padua, Italy.

Lamentation
Giotto, 1305

But Michelangelo does the unprecedented in his creation of the Last Judgment fresco in the Sistine Chapel...

The Last Judgment
Michelangelo, 1535-1541

But why is the medium of fresco relevant today? What is the current status of public art?

There is a current and undeniable trend in public art that favors the temporary, the ephemeral, and, often, the socially conscious. These elements combine and come to bear in the budding forms of street art. Street art includes but is certainly not limited to traditional graffiti, stencil art, sticker art, wheatpasting, video projection, guerrilla art, and street installations. Because many forms of street art are considered vandalism and are thus illegal, many street artists create designs that are temporary in nature and often require very little time to execute.

Some street artists, however, have become incorporated into the mainstream and work for corporations and private clients. One such artist is a chalk artist (creatively) known as Chalk Man. He is very much an artist inspired by the tenets espoused by Renaissance artists, especially those of realistic perspective and effective trompe l'oeil, a French phrase meaning "to deceive the eye."

Above: Hell
Right: Alice

Keep in mind: These chalk drawings are on flat, two-dimensional surfaces! How's that for deceiving the eye?

Another well-known contemporary street artist is Shepard Fairey, especially noteworthy for his "André the Giant Has a Posse" or "...OBEY..." project and his stunning Barack Obama campaign poster.


Shepard Fairey reworked this image in a clever and somewhat blasphemous way for Showtime's Emmy award winning television show Dexter, a police drama about a blood spatter analyst who moonlights as a serial killer.


But it is the (in)famous street artist Banksy who gives the greatest nod to the public religious works of the Renaissance fresco masters. How does the work below engage with the history of public art? What commentary does it offer? And how is its public nature important to the message it sends?


Let me know what you think! Leave a comment!