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Giotto
the italian artist Giotto
(c.1266-1337) painted at the
beginning of the Renaissance. He
brought a new sense of naturalness
to paintings. the painting shown
above is called The Flight into Egypt. it
shows Mary and Jesus on a donkey
being led by Joseph.Michelangelo
had difficulty
in reaching
certain parts
of the ceiling
in the Sistine
Chapel, so
he built a
scaffold and
sometimes lay
on his back
to paint.MicHelanGelo
Michelangelo Buonarroti
(1475-1564) is one of the
best-known italian Renaissance
painters. Much of his work
was for Pope Julius ii, who
commissioned him to paint
the ceiling of the Sistine
chapel in the Vatican, in Rome,
between 1508 and 1512.RenaiSSance
one of the greatest periods
in european painting was the
Renaissance, which reached its
height in italy in the late 15th and
early 16th centuries. During the
Renaissance, painters developed
more realistic styles of painting. they
studied perspective and the human
body, painted more realistic landscapes,
and developed portrait painting.aRtiStS USe Paint in the same way that writers use words to convey
ideas on paper. Painters capture the likeness of a face or a flower, but
they can do much more than just paint a realistic image. Painters work
skillfully with color, texture, and shape to create all kinds of eye-catching
images of the world as they see it. Many cultures throughout history have
produced their own great painters, from Giotto in the 14th century to
Picasso in the 20th century. there have been many different groups, or
movements, in painting, such as classicism, cubism, and pop art.
Painters change the way we see the world. Rembrandt’s portrait
paintings, for example, are powerful studies from real life,
while Salvador Dali’s strange surrealist (dreamlike) landscapes
are drawn from his imagination. Painters use all kinds of paint
to create a picture—thick blobs
of oil paint daubed on to a canvas
with a palette knife; delicate
brushstrokes of water-color on a
sheet of paper. Some painters dab
paint on with sponges, rags, even
their fingers; others flick paint
onto a surface. Whatever the
medium (materials) used, each
great painter has his or her own
distinctive style.People in medieval paintings sometimes look stiff and
expressionless, like the figures in this 11th-century
picture (left) of an emperor, a saint, and an angel.Painters 398-
The Sistine Chapel
ceiling, painted by
Michelangelo.eaRly PainteRS
the artists of ancient egypt
decorated the walls of tombs
with scenes of gods and
goddesses and of hunting and
feasting. the Minoan people of early Greece painted
their houses and palaces with pictures of dancers,
birds, and flowers. Roman artists painted gods and
goddesses and scenes from classical mythology.MeDieVal PainteRS
Up until the 14th century, Western artists painted
mostly christian subjects—the life of christ and the
saints. Painters used rich colors and thin layers of gold
to make these religious paintings. these early artists
used different methods of painting people from later
Western painters, and although the paintings may
look flat to us, they are no less powerful. artists
worked on wood panels
for altarpieces
and painted
directly on
church
walls.US_398_Painters_1.indd 398 22/01/16 4:45 pm