A SHORT HISTORY
BY PAUL JOHNSON
Although concise and resourceful, it is not an easy read and patience is needed to absorb the knowledge contained therein.
4.0 stars out of 5 stars
After reading several of Paul Johnson’s books, including “Mozart – A Life”, and the trilogy: ”Intellectuals” , ” Heroes”, and “Creators” I came across another one of his books, with the title “The Renaissance”. The subject matter appears attractive, as my knowledge of this period of European history was very limited. I knew it was a notable period during which literature and the arts not only revived but flourished in Italy. However, I would be hard put to name the precise centuries when this occurred; whether it was confined to Italy only. I would also have difficulty identifying authors, sculptors, and painters other than the household names of Dante, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo.
The book is organized into six parts, starting with the historical and economic background leading to The Renaissance. The descriptions of the activities during Renaissance are divided into: Literature and Scholarship; Sculpture; Building and Architecture; and Painting. The final part of the book describes the spread and decline of the Renaissance.
Although the book is concise, consisting of 186 pages, it is not an easy read, especially the parts concerning architecture and painting. Some background knowledge on architecture and oil painting are necessary in understanding what the author tries to explain. Adding to the difficulty is the complete lack of illustrations. Despite this, my knowledge of the Renaissance has increased and enhanced when I laid down the book. Below are some narratives and quotes illustrating and supporting this assertion:
- Renaissance refers to the movement not only to restore but also to excel the glory of Greek and Roman antiquity. Italy was the first to experience this movement beginning in the 14th century. It then spread out to other European countries, but it did not reach England until the sixteenth century. The period known as the High Renaissance refers to the years around the turn of the fifteenth to sixteenth centuries. By the early 17th century, the Renaissance had come to an end.
- “The background was a cumulative growth and spread of wealth never before experience in world history and the rise of a society in which intermediate technology was becoming the norm, producing in due course a startling revolution in the way words were published and distributed”.
- Florence was the key city. It remained the center for Renaissance and came to a climax in the quarter century before the French invasion (Charles VIII of France, September 1494), when it truly was a city made for artists. The French invasion, as well as the overreaction of the Catholic Church to the Reformation Movement, initiated the decline. By the early 17th century, the Renaissance had come to an end.
- Dante was the chief literary figure in Renaissance. While I was aware that his masterpiece “The Divine Comedy” had extraordinary influence in the religious and philosophical arenas, I did not know that, by writing it throughout in Italian, Dante showed that the common Tuscan tongue could be used to write the most exquisite poetry and to deal with matter of the highest significance. “Before Dante, Tuscan was one of the many Italian dialects and there was no Italianate written language that was accepted throughout the peninsula. After Dante, however, written Italian (in the Tuscan mode) was a fact”.
- Another famous name was Niccolò Machiavelli, authored of “The Prince”. While not a literary work in the traditional sense, “The Prince” is a best known political treatise and Machiavelli often been called the father of modern political philosophy and political science.
- “Renaissance sculpture begins with Nicola Pisano, who lived approximately between 1220 and 1284. He brought to Tuscany something new: the classical anxiety to represent the human body accurately, to show emotions not symbolically but as they are actually seen on human faces”.
- “Michelangelo had more than seventy years of active artistic life, without pause or rest, working as sculptor, painter and architect, and writing poetry too. More nonsense has been written about him than about any other great artists: that he was a neurotic, a homosexual, a Neoplatonist mystic, etc. In fact, he was nothing more than a very skilled and energetic artist: though often a very harassed one, who got himself into contractual messes, not always of his own devising. He never thought about anything except getting on with his art as best he could and worshiping God”.
- I was surprised to find a negative comment about Mona Lisa – “the face and the hands are woefully inconsistent”.
- In Johnson’s opinion, Lady with an Ermine, also by Leonardo da Vinci, is as close to perfection as a painting can be: beautifully composed and full of fascination.
- Leonardo da Vinci was known not to finish the work he started and not to honor his commitments to patrons. As a result, his output was scare. “Despite the unsatisfactory state of his output at his death, Leonardo has been regarded as the founder of the period known as the High Renaissance, in the years around the turn of the fifteenth to sixteenth centuries, when the progress of the movement to restore and excel antiquity came to a climax at the highest level of achievement and with the great impact on the future”.
- “If Leonardo encompassed the Renaissance intellectually, Raphael (1883-1520) epitomized his quest for beauty and its success in finding it. For if his life was short (he died when only thirty-seven) his output was large, continuous, invariably of the highest possible quality and finished”. One of his most famous paintings, The School of Athens, is prominently displayed in the Vatican.
- Many architects and several popes were involved in the building of the Vatican.
In conclusion, although concise and resourceful about one of the most notable periods of human history, “The Renaissance” is not an easy book to read, Patience is needed to absorb and to benefit from the knowledge it contains.
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Top review among 95 ratings on 4/6/23
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