Italian art

Interior showing the nave and altar of the basilica of Sant'Angelo in Formia, Italy. This Romanesque basilica was built in AD 925 on the ruins of an ancient temple. The frescos in the apse and nave date to AD 1072–78, and show the influence of Byzantine mosaics and miniatures on mural painting.

One of the mosaics for which Ravenna is well known, a depiction of the Roman port of Classis, showing the castle battlements and ships in the harbour, 6th century AD (San Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna). Ravenna, occupied by the Byzantine general Belisarius in 540, became the administrative centre of government in Italy during the Byzantine era. The mosaics at San Apollinare Nuovo are among the finest examples of the fusion of classical and Byzantine styles that typify 5th- and 6th-century art in Italy.

Painting and sculpture of Italy from the early Middle Ages to the present. In the 4th century AD Christian art emerged from Roman art, which was adapted to give expression to religious beliefs and sentiments. Throughout the next 14 centuries Roman art was to be the source of constant reappraisals and renewals in the evolution of the visual arts in Italy, and was fundamental to the major development of the Renaissance. It is from antique art, blended with Byzantine and then Gothic influences, that Italian art emerged.

Early Middle Ages

The imagery of the funerary art of antique Rome, especially of the sarcophagi, was adapted to the iconography of Christianity. In painting, the graphic, summary, and often emblematic style is exemplified in the murals of the Roman catacombs. The 5th- and 6th-century architecture and mosaics of Ravenna (such as Sant' Apollinare Nuovo and San Vitale, Ravenna) represent the richest fusions of Roman, Greek, and Byzantine styles.

Gothic

The Roman and Byzantine traditions were now infused with Gothic styles from France. Until the 14th century, sculpture was controlled by the scale and structure of the buildings it enhanced, and was seen as an adjunct of architectural style. In Italian painting and sculpture, as in architecture and illumination, international decorative motifs occur. Patterns which originated in Asia were mingled with those developed by French sculptors. The work of Benedetto Antelami of the late 12th to early 13th centuries, influential in Parma and Vercelli, demonstrates the fusion of Byzantine forms with Gothic derivations from French cathedral sculpture.

13th century (Italian Duecento)

The transformation of Italian art from the mid-13th century paralleled the literary developments of Dante and later of Petrarch and Boccaccio. The sculpture of Nicola Pisano and his son Giovanni represents a fusion of Gothic and antique. Nicola looked to Roman models, while Giovanni turned more to Gothic types in the human figure. His career is representative of the emergence of the artist as a personality, which went hand in hand with the new attitudes of both artists and patrons, and was accompanied by a corresponding rise in the status of the artist. In painting, such artists as Coppo di Marcovaldo and Duccio (both Siena), Cavallini (Rome), and Cimabue (Florence) brought a new expressiveness and humanity to the stern Byzantine-Gothic traditions.

14th century (Trecento)

In the 14th century the interaction of the Gothic, Byzantine, and antique Roman – in the work of many outstanding individuals – created a recognizably national culture in Italy. In his frescoes and panel paintings, the Florentine Giotto (working in several parts of Italy) revolutionized Italian art, developing a naturalism and drama that marks the first decisive sign of the Renaissance. Though many artists were influenced by Giotto (for example Bernardo Daddi), his advances were not fully developed for a century. At the same time (the first half of the century), Simone Martini was able to breathe new life into the ornate, richly coloured style of Siena, which was a blend of Byzantine and International Gothic. After the Black Death of the mid-14th century, which brought about a deepening of religious feeling, it was the International Gothic style of Siena and Lombardy that gained ascendancy over the more monumental, Giotto-inspired, styles of Tuscany. The work of Orcagna is an example.

15th century (Quattrocento)

The 15th century is known as the early or classical Renaissance. At the opening of the century the International Gothic style still characterized the work of many Italian painters, among them Gentile da Fabriano, Antonio Pisanello, Sassett, and Giovanni di Paolo. In Florence, however, there was a reaction against the decorative Gothic styles in the 1420s in the paintings of Masaccio, the sculptures of Donatello, and the architecture of Brunelleschi, who had formulated the mathematical principles of perspective. The foundations of the Renaissance are to be traced to the works of these three men. Its rapid development (both in Florence and beyond) was encouraged by the development of humanism and scientific enquiry, and by the lavish patronage of increasingly wealthy and powerful families such as the Medici in Florence and the Visconti and Sforzas in Milan. The flowering of this Early Renaissance can be seen in the sculpture of Ghiberti and Nanni di Banco, and the paintings of Uccello, Filippo Lippi, Fra Angelico, Piero della Francesca, the Pollaiuolo brothers, Verrocchio, Perugino, Ghirlandaio, Mantegna, and Botticelli. In Venice this new spirit is seen in the works of the Bellini family. By the mid- and late 15th century, northern European artists such as Rogier van der Weyden, Hugo van der Goes, and Memling were an important influence on Italian artists through their visits to Italy or sale of works to patrons there, for example Hugo van der Goes's Portinari Altarpiece 1475. Humanist culture grew with the writings of treatises on art theory and technique, and mathematics, often derived from antique sources, such as Alberti's On Architecture 1485, based on the Roman writer Vitruvius. Theoretical writings by such artists as Ghiberti, Filarete, and Piero della Francesca were concerned with speculations on aesthetic theory and morals intended to produce a basis of discipline similar to that of the writings of antiquity.

16th century (Cinquecento)

The very end of the 15th century and the beginning of the 16th century form the High Renaissance. The balanced, harmonious, and linear style of the Early Renaissance gave way to styles that reflect a greater emotional intensity and turbulence. Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael are its dominant figures. During the 16th century the artistic centre shifted from Florence to Rome, encouraged by the patronage of the popes Julius II and Leo X, whose efforts to resurrect Rome's former glory led to their employing the leading artists of the day, including Bramante, Raphael, Antonio da Sangalo, and Michelangelo. Many other artists were attracted to Rome, and it was there that Mannerism developed, a style which, through its distortion of the emotionalism implicit in High Renaissance works, marked the end of the Renaissance. The Sack of Rome 1527 dispersed the Mannerist style to provincial centres of Italy, and, through Rosso and Primaticcio, to Fontainebleau in France. Leading Mannerists were Parmigianini, Giulio Romano, Pontormo, Beccafumi, Bronzino, and Vasari. Among sculptors Michelangelo was dominant, though major Mannerist works were produced by Cellini, Ammanati, Bandinelli, and Giovanni Bologna. In Venice, the High Renaissance was dominated by artists who developed a lyrical, richly coloured style from that of Giovanni Bellini – Giorgione, Titian, Veronese, Lotto, and Palma Vecchio. Titian went on to develop the Venetian portrait in a manner well suited to the dignity of the courtly needs of his later patrons. Mannerism in Venice is strongest in the works of Tintoretto, whose painting for the Scuola di San Rocco are among Mannerism's greatest works. Mercantile, aristocratic, and ecclesiastical patronage ensured the rapid development of the portrait in the 16th century. The three-quarter-length state portrait established by Raphael (Julius II) was followed by Sebastiano (Clement VII) and Titian (Paul III). The German innovation of the full-length portrait was a widely used form included in, among others, the work of Titian and Moretto. In Florence, a type of Mannerist portraiture evolved by Bronzino was ideally suited to court patrons, and was entirely different from the Venetian style exemplified in the later portraits of Tintoretto.

17th century

The Catholic Counter-Reformation, though demanding an art of emotional intensity, caused a reaction against the excesses of Mannerism. This period, know as the baroque, saw the development styles: classical, realist, and flamboyant. Classical baroque was developed by the Carracci, who established schools of painting in the academies in Bologna and Rome, using Raphael as a model. The classical style, which sought a return to the balance and harmony of the Renaissance, was developed by Guido Reni, Guercino, and Domenichino. Realist baroque was the creation of Caravaggio, whose stark realism and dramatic use of light and shadow were to have a profound impact on the whole course of European painting. Among his many followers (the ‘Caravaggisti’) were the Gentileschi, the Spanish artists Ribera and Ribalta, and the Dutch artist Honthorst. Flamboyant baroque was the result of the Counter-Reformation desire for an opulent style that would express both the mystical intensity of religious experience, and also the power and majesty of the Church. Pietro da Cortona and Andrea Pozzo, inspired by the classically inspired works of Annibale Carracci, created vast, exuberant ceiling paintings swirling with angels and saints. The greatest of these artists however was Bernini, whose works in architecture, sculpture, painting, and design are the most confident and colourful expression of Italian baroque.

18th and 19th centuries

During the 18th century many Italian artists continued to use baroque styles, though rococo became increasingly important, particularly in decorative works. Alessandro Magnasco worked in Genoa and Florence in the first half of the 18th century, contributing to the type of Italian landscape painting derived from Rosa. The early years of the century also saw the growth in demand for painted and engraved views of Rome, of which Panini's paintings and Piranesi's engravings are the most important examples, showing a turning away from baroque styles. In Venice, Canaletto and Guardi developed in landscape painting a type which was independent of the academic Roman style. The grand Venetian tradition of decorative painting was revitalized by Tiepolo and Piazzetta. Also in Venice, Pietro Longhi excelled in genre paintings.

19th century

During the 19th century Italian artists responded to movements such as Romanticism and realism, but with little originality. The most original art was produced in the 1850s and 1860s by a group known as ‘Macchiaioli’ (‘patchers’). Largely inspired by Corot, they painted pictures which, formed by flat areas (patches) of strong colour, anticipate post-Impressionism. The main artists were Giovanni Fattori (1825–1908), Silvestro Lega (1826–1895), and Telemaco Signorini (1835–1901).

20th century (Novecento)

The Futurist movement 1909–14 tried to portray phenomena such as speed and electricity in paintings and sculptures. The first dreamlike metaphysical paintings of de Chirico date from the same period. The paintings of Modigliani and the sculptures of Marini are among the finest Italian work of the period. More recently arte povera (a form of Conceptual art) developed during the 1960s, while in the 1970s and 1980s Sandro Chia, Francesco Clemente, and Enzo Cucchi became leading figures in European neo-expressionism (known in Italy as transavanguardia).