Room for Colours

We often talk about the Renaissance as a time of new ideas, new freedom and human potential.

But who actually got to be part of it?

In this final episode of the series, we look at women, patrons, servants, nuns, outsiders and artists like El Greco, who had to fight for their place and for the value of their work.

Because there wasn’t just one Renaissance.

There were many different Renaissance lives.

And once we start asking who had access, who had money, who was remembered and who disappeared from the story, those famous masterpieces begin to look very different.

Episode 3 out of 4.

We love the idea of the Renaissance genius: Botticelli, Brunelleschi, Donatello, brilliant artists somehow producing masterpieces through talent and inspiration.

Except that’s not really how it worked.

In this episode, we step behind the masterpieces and into the workshops, guilds and banking houses of Renaissance Florence. We look at apprentices learning their craft, patrons paying the bills, the Medici using art and culture as power, and Botticelli’s Primavera as the product of an entire creative ecosystem.

Because great art needs more than talent. It needs training, materials, money, opportunity, other people and a world that makes creativity possible.

Florence wasn’t magic. It was an ecosystem

This is part 2 out of 4 about the Renaissance.

What if one of the biggest ideas of the Renaissance wasn't perspective, anatomy or even great art—but the belief that people could change through learning?

In this episode, we explore Renaissance Humanism: from Petrarch and education to Masaccio’s The Tribute Money, and the growing fascination with observation, individuality and human experience.

And this is where the Renaissance becomes surprisingly relevant today. Because underneath all the famous names is an idea I deeply believe in: we aren't simply born with talent. We learn. We practise. We look. We become.

The divine didn’t disappear from Renaissance art. The human was brought into it.

Forget the lone geniuses and the sudden “rebirth” of Europe. The Renaissance began in a world already connected by trade, migration, technology and the movement of ideas. In this first episode, we look beyond Leonardo and Michelangelo to discover the networks linking Europe with Asia, Africa, Byzantium and the Islamic world—and ask what actually had to change before Renaissance art could happen.

The Renaissance wasn’t born in a studio. It was born in a connected world.

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Berthe Morisot is one of the leading Impressionist painters. But somehow she is nearly forgotten.

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For more, join our growing Skool community. Weekly live art talks and more.

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If you want to learn more, follow our growing Skool community with weekly live art talks.

https://www.skool.com/room-for-colours-9527/about

Episode 1 of 4 on Impressionism

If you want to know more, follow our ongoing discussions and live art talks on Skool

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In this episode, we discuss who decides on the art market. And does social media are different to gallery owners?

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If you want to know more, join my growing Skool community