Attitudes of High Renaissance in Bramante Architecture

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Question: Examine the importance of architecture of Bramante and evaluate how his architecture represents the attitudes and aesthetics of the High Renaissance. Your paper must be at least four pages long and you must use five works to support your analysis. In addition, you must also use two scholarly resources in addition to Gardner's Art through the Ages to support your claims.

Bramante (born Donato d'Angelo in Urbino, Italy in 1444 and died in Rome in 1514) was one of the Italian High Renaissance's most innovative and influential architects. His work reflected not only the popular aesthetic ties to the Classical past but also new and creative ways of recombining these elements to create something new and exciting. While the Humanists drew inspiration from ancient Greek and Roman art and architecture (as well as philosophy, mathematics, and science), they also revered the spirit of exploration and experimentation that had engendered the achievements of these cultures in the beginning. Thus, works that made use of the Classical ideals of "order, clarity, lucidity, simplicity, harmony, and proportion" (de la Croix and Tansey, p. 607), but did so in a new way (new materials, technology, visual rhythm, texture, etc.) became the most sought-after and ultimately the most influential during the Italian High Renaissance. Successful artists and architects of this time displayed in their work a "self-confident Humanism", an "admiration of Classical forms" (such as symmetry, balance, proportion and the geometric elements, the circle and the square), and a "dominating sense of stability and order." (Stokstad, pp. 340) Because of his ability to fuse the Classical ideals with his own new concepts regarding organization of elements, use of space, and variety of rhythm, proportion, and ...