The High Renaissance & the ‘Genius Artist’

Art Historian Dr Matthew Whyte offers a new lecture series, which takes the audience on an art-filled journey through the often beautiful, sometimes scandalous, and always fascinating moments in the development of Western civilisation.

6. The High Renaissance & the ‘Genius Artist’

The sixteenth century saw the creation of the artist-celebrity for the first time in history. Through their prodigious skill and ceaseless innovation, artists such as Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and Raphael were able to achieve an unprecedented level of fame which freed them to an extent from the pressures of patronal control. These artists are among the first to be subject to biographies within their own lifetime, and Michelangelo seized the opportunity to create a mythology around his own genius. This week, we foreground these artists’ most well-known works – Michelangelo’s David and Sistine Chapel frescoes, Raphael’s School of Athens, and Leonardo’s Mona Lisa and Last Supper – questioning how far the artists’ claims about their own genius hold true. We also explore how the nature of their innovation addressed resilient and potentially scandalous issues surrounding questions of physical beauty and sexuality in the face of Christian propriety and the place of Classical subjects in the face of reform.