When it comes to pessimism even Leonardo has some way to go to match the despair of Hieronymus Bosch. ibid.
His most famous picture, The Garden of Earthly Delights in the Prado, that extraordinary theme-park of sin, is a triptych packed with so much bad news that I can’t deal with it all once. ibid.
In the marvellous Renaissance action art of Bernard Palissy, something new appeared in the world – ceramics that pack a punch. And the pessimism of the Renaissance found one of its most inventive outlets. ibid.
Ruskin is the guy who comes up with the idea of a bad Renaissance instead of a good one ... Renaissance bad, Gothic good. Matthew Collings, This is Civilisation III, BBC 2007
Heavenly vaults but made by the earthly hand of man. The imagined form of the universe: a circle, no beginning, no end, just wheeling eternity. Domes had appeared in antiquity and the medieval centuries but never with such compulsive grandeur. Simon Schama, Civilisations V: The Triumph of Art, BBC 2018
The great flowering we call the Renaissance owed much to Arab scholars … the outpouring of creativity would flow both ways between Islamic East and Christian West. ibid.
St Peter’s: Michelangelo toiled away into his ’80s on this. ibid.
Cellini’s outrageous miracle in bronze … Perseus, head down … with the ultimate trophy … Cellini is a sorcerer, an alchemist. ibid.
On the outer wall of Lahore Fort, Jahangir set a vast display of mosaic tiles. ibid.
Caravaggio was a bisexual murderer with major anger management issues … but if he acted like a devil he painted like an angel. ibid.
Velazquez produced images of the royals on demand … with sparkling naturalism. ibid.
Late summer 1498, Milan: Leonardo da Vinci had just put the finishing touches to a defining image of the High Renaissance … Europe was now home to the most dynamic culture of all. Andrew Marr’s History of the World IV: Into the Light, BBC 2012