I Will Comfort You Trivia Quiz

Answer: Reticence

Renaissance is a relatively modern word meaning "rebirth". As society in Europe emerged from the Middle Ages, Italy in particular experienced a political, cultural, intellectual and economic boom that lasted roughly 200 years. It included re-connection with classical literature and philosophy, new inventions and discoveries, and commerce exchanged with exotic places to the East. This was all reflected in the art of the day, which prominent citizens displayed in their very comfortable homes.

Reticence, the correct answer, suggests restrained or unwilling.

Answer: Commission

Art held a powerful place as an emblem of the comforts of life during the Renaissance. Obscure paupers before, artists were now requested or "commissioned" to work, or even completely financed by wealthy patrons. The powerful statesman Lorenzo de' Medici (1449-1492) did much to stimulate patronage of the arts. Patronage elevated individual artists, and indeed the occupation, to new status and comfort. To commission your own or a family portrait became quite popular.

From the Latin "commissio", sending together, to unite.

Answer: False

The Renaissance produced such greats as Giovanni Bellini, Botticelli, da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio). Raphael (1483-1520) was invited to Rome by Pope Julius II to paint at the Vatican, where he was heavily influenced by Michelangelo. Typical of many artists, Raphael used uplifting words in his titles such as miraculous, triumph and virtues. Noble, idealized and grace describe his art. His lines are flowing and soft, his colors a solace.

Many artists titled their paintings "comfort" of various kinds. They painted scenes that are even today reassuring, harmonious, and serene.

Monet was an Impressionist painter of the nineteenth century, so this question is false.

Answer: Angels

Much Renaissance artwork depicted splendid angels, looking upon or even holding humans. Angels are shown comforting Jesus, the Madonna, the poor, the criminal, those in strife or people kneeling in prayer. Angels seem to be messengers of compassion and good news, or providers of comfort at times of sorrow.

Bermejo, Lippi, Botticelli, Canova and many others painted angels. Da Vinci painted the exquisite, "The Annunciation" (1475) where a bird-like angel kneels in a carpet of flowers, and Raphael (some believe it was Romano) painted the stunning, "St. Michael Vanquishing Satan" (1518) commissioned by Pope Leo X. The delightful "Musical Angel" is by Rosso Tiorentino (about 1522). There was even a legend that an actual angel finished a painting for an artist who fell asleep.

Answer: Canines

During the Renaissance canines became a common theme in art for the first time. Prior to this most people could not afford to house, feed and train dogs, but now, dogs represented a sense of security, loyalty and affluence. These sleek and beautiful animals are shown with royalty or hunting parties, as the companions of children, and at the side of both the powerful and the spiritual. At the time artistic ability to show movement, angles, body proportion and expression was just emerging, so we sometimes see only a dog-like form sitting patiently under a master's chair.

In a 15th century fresco by Andrea Mantegna titled "Camera Picta", dogs accompany people as they enjoy comfortable surroundings and leisurely pursuits.

Answer: Florence

Florenza, Firenze or Florence, it is the "Jewel of the Renaissance", its birthplace and a World Heritage Site. Leonardo da Vinci, Filippo Brunelleschi, and Beato Angelico are three of the many Renaissance masters who lived and worked in this stunning city, though Rome, Milan and Venice drew artists as well. It was perhaps the presence of the Medici family and fortune, with their great devotion to art, that made Florence the hub. Beauty, harmony and balance were classical art tenets given renewed life in the City of Flowers.

Florence led not only in painting, but also in beautiful and comforting architecture. In 1445 the first Renaissance style architecture opened. Hospital of Innocents was the world's first orphanage. It was designed by Filippo Brunelleschi to be both harmonious and utilitarian. Brunelleschi is credited with creating the math technique of linear perspective in art and engineering. His beautiful building is still in use today, and houses a Renaissance art museum. After Hospital of Innocents other centers followed, built to provide improved social and health care for citizens.

Answer: Condemned

In Renaissance art, there is depicted a practice called Comforting the Condemned. A "comfort confraternity" ministered to prisoners who were condemned to death, as shown in Filippo Dolciati's (1443-1519) the "Execution of Girolamo Savonarola". The comforters used songs, poems, and little paintings on sticks to shield prisoners from the crowd, distract the condemned from their imminent demise, and provide some solace.

Answer: Cupid

A favorite theme in Renaissance art is the deep comfort of love and affection, the realm of the god Cupid. With us since the Classical Greeks, the slim youth becomes a chubby toddler with a bow and arrows during the Renaissance. He gains more complex and allegorical meanings.

Cupid is shown as a small tyke who is cuddled, reassured or happily playful. The chubby little god is rendered in soft and rounded lines, an adorable being hovering or sitting near both gods and humans to assist, caress and comfort. About 1580 Paolo Veronese (Caliari) painted "Venus, Cupid and Mars" where Venus behaves like a human mother, reaching over to gently comfort little Cupid's alarm when a dog startles him.

Around 1640, though, Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641) painted "Time Clipping the Wings of Love", where Kronos, the father of time, cruelly shears Cupid's wings, suggesting love is damaged by Time. Perhaps, as the Renaissance has ended, the rosy cheer of Cupid's love had lost its glow.

Answer: Odd body proportions

Although depictions of the Madonna and Child go back to the late 2nd to 4th centuries (at the Catacomb of Priscilla), by the early Renaissance an ability to realistically portray babies in correct proportion was still absent.

One explanation is that most painters had little exposure to real infants, babies make impatient models, and the mastery of perspective was as yet undeveloped. Both kids and babies resemble adults in tiny form, with therefore odd-sized limbs, wrinkly elbows and heads too large. Sometimes baby eyes are quite strange. In the later Renaissance Jan Van Eyck, Robert Campin and others made advances in proportion and perspective. They achieved more accurate baby figures, and set both mother and child in more realistic poses. Still, misshapen or no, babies in this period were generally portrayed as well-fed, well-loved and happy.

Many Renaissance paintings of the Virgin Madonna and Child are as beautiful and warm as one could imagine. The Madonna sits with baby Jesus in her lap, or she is breastfeeding, looking very much a mother soothing her beloved infant. The clothes, colors and surroundings are lush, the poses serene. In some, called as a group "Madonna Enthroned", she and the infant Jesus are surreal beings, surrounded by angels and saints. They may both pray or make holy gestures. These paintings suggest to the viewer that all is well.

Answer: Jan van Eyck

Jan van Eyck (perhaps 1385-1440) was born in Belgium, and became a painter of the court, a more highly educated and well-traveled painter than most. He had legendary skill with oils, intense color and exquisite detail. He revived out of antiquity the three-quarter view in portraits, and produced many paintings of the Virgin Mary, sometimes holding the child Christ, sometimes an apparition to those in prayer. Many works include inscriptions or prayers for use in religious devotions and comforts as you gaze at the painting.

Although Italy was the center of the Renaissance, the Netherlands, France and Germany each produced Renaissance era masters. Britain and Scotland were late to it, but did dabble, so to speak.

Answer: Fabric

In what is called the High Renaissance (the early 1490s to around mid-1500s) Italian textile industries made generous use of silk and velvet, weaving metals like gold and silver thread right into a garment. They used magnificently intricate designs newly learned from the East, as well as bead work and embroidery to bejewel the aristocratic. Social norms dictated you dress as richly as possible, with men in silks and satin, trimmed with frills and lace. Quite the impressive peacocks!

Painters used new abilities in the play of light, lines that drape and flow, and expressive individual stance to create imposing human figures, with garments so lush and alive, so suggestive of magnificent comforts, you can almost reach out and touch them.

In interesting opposition were Italian "sumptuary laws" a code restricting displays of vanity and wealth like showy fabrics or elaborate capes. You could have only so many guests and dishes at your wedding feast, for example, to be sure you did not exceed your class. A hired artist could display you in portrait as sumptuously as you liked, however.

Answer: Hope

Sidney Harold Meteyard (1868-1947) painted "Hope Comforting Love in Bondage". In this piece Hope is a woman seated on a bench, laying a gentle hand on the shoulder of a dejected adolescent Cupid. Cupid's magnificent wings seem to shelter them both, but he has tossed aside his bow and arrows.

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood believed Raphael and later-Renaissance painters corrupted art with their elegant grandeur and "muddy" colors. The Brotherhood believed in sharp, superb detail, with very bright colors. They often rendered poverty, prostitution, emigration and sexuality, uncommon in the more idyllic Renaissance. They greatly upset the British, including Charles Dickens, by (for example) painting a young Jesus in what some called a "slum" home with an "ugly" mother, "Christ in the House of His Parents" by John Everett Millais, 1850. Certainly Raphael turned over in his grave. Yet despite their rejection of the later-Renaissance artists as self-congratulatory and opulent, the theme of giving comfort was retained.

Answer: Trees

Close with the sculptor Donatello, Paolo di Dono (1397-1475) was nicknamed "little bird" (Uccello) due to his passion for painting birds, and by Uccello he is now known. It is said he kept many birds and animals in his home. He impressed people with his mastery of the new concepts of realistic perspective and depth, an affirmation of how the world actually looked to us. Uccello was able to paint trees correctly in form and color, unusual at the time, making him in-demand for painting landscapes, historical scenes and animals, such as "The Battle of San Romano" and his famous "Saint George and the Dragon".

It is said Uccello's skill with lines and space was a strong influence on both Leonardo da Vinci and Durer.

Answer: Comfort food

When it came to food, many Renaissance painters portrayed the prettier items like lemons, peaches or pomegranates, at the time available only to the rich. Artichokes were thought to be an aphrodisiac, so they are often painted. Each food carried symbolic meaning and even messages, representing the divine, virtues, class, and eroticism, evoking the satisfactions and comfort of eating. Raphael was partial to figs, melons and peaches in his works.

A commonly painted meal is called "biancomangiare", a soothing restorative of shredded chicken and almond milk in a bowl, intended for women in childbirth, or to nourish the occupants of a monastery, but later a favorite at the banquets of the nobles, and still made today.

The Venetian painter Vittore Carpaccio created a sacred scene, "Birth of the Virgin" (about 1502), which shows a woman bringing this dish to the bedside of Anna. An angel holds the newborn, and there is an overall sense of peace.

Quite often we see shared religious meals, such as Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece "Last Supper" and Paolo Veronese's "Feast in the House of Levi" (1573). As an aside, Veronese was summoned to account by the Holy Tribunal inquisitor, because the painting, they said, depicted dwarfs, drunks and buffoons in company with Christ. Veronese saved himself by arguing they were decently far from Christ's table, and changing the title.

Very often the common person is portrayed with food, such as Annibale Carracci's "The Bean Eater" (about 1583) or Bartolomeo Passerotti's "The Butchers Shop" (1580). Painting the common person reaping, cooking or eating allowed the nobles to gaze upon the lower classes from a comfortable distance.

Answer: Celebrates humanity

Art allows us to experience a shared celebration of humanity, both today and stretching back through history. Recognizing we share emotions and perspectives, even with people long dead or across the planet, is a deep comfort to mind and spirit.

During the Renaissance, Art reinforced our faith, communicated class, demonstrated warm community and love, and showcased great beauty. Art was a happy and increasingly skillful splendor. At once the gods, the One God, our pets, children and heroes, our history and our travels, the whole of our shared human world, smiled upon us from the wall.