Move northward to Venice. The painters there had been in contact with the Flemish and learned of a new innovation in the art of the area. Oil paints became immensely popular, and colors that were never before seen became true to life as cobalts danced with the brightest yellows and golds. This also reflected the lives of the Venetians, who drank to life and love and had the brightest clothing of all the courts. They also reflected emotion in their lives, much more than the Florentines.  Although they began with the same roots as the Florentines, their paintings held the influence from the northerners: valuing atmospheric perspective and using oil paint on a lighter background. The light that was reflected inside the work became very important, and their lives were multidimensional. It is only natural that they were scorned by the rest of Italy for their liberal style.

Feuds between these two great cities lasted throughout the Renaissance, one side scorning the other for their “inferior” way of life. The Venitians were shunned at higher social functions outside their province and thus became further isolated from the rest of their world. The Florentines continued to shave their heads and dye their hair, fitting into the ideals of their culture. At the time Michelangelo was in Bologna he was still considered a great Renaissance sculptor and was loved by Florentine art collectors. The rejection of Venetian life became institutionalized.

Rome, in an effort to bring splendor back to the Catholic church, began importing artists from all over Italy, specifically Michelangelo. The seventeenth century was wracked with religious turmoil: the Protestant reformation was well under way and the Counter reformation was not achieving desired results. The style of the High Renaissance was rapidly changing to reflect this turmoil, and there  was an influx of Venetian artists working for the clergy. Their region had been affected most prominently by the change, since they were still in close proximity with the German and Flemish painters. The first person they inspired was Michelangelo, as he also spent some time in the northern regions before being called to Rome. Although he was the epitome of High Renaissance his work began to change, adopting the more brilliant hues of the Venitians and elongating his figures. The Sistine Chapel was then painted and he began sculpting again. His last pieces were never finished.

In the twentieth century Art Historians considered Michelangelo to be one of the High Renaissance Masters, along with Da Vinci and Rafaello. The Sistine Chapel became a national treasure and a tourist attraction, with lines rounding down the blocks hours before its doors would finally open. The Italians declared it the pinnacle of High Renaissance art and of Michelangelo’s career: the muted colors and demure faces became trademarks of his style. In the nineteen eighties, however, the walls and ceiling were so covered in various human pollution that the figures were hard to distinguish. The entire chapel was closed down for months as restoration crews carefully stripped away the layers of grime and fixed the cracks in the plaster. All of the walls plus the massive ceiling were beginning to chip in places, which had to be fixed, and the only paints that would adhere were the same types of pigments used in the original. At the end of the labor intensive process the doors were finally opened.

The first thing that was noted was the clarity of the disegno in the thoughtfully rendered figures. The splendor of the church had finally been restored. The colors were not even noted until the art historians began to take slides. Brilliant crimsons swept through the azure skies, and the yellows were as dazzling as the sun! Of course the restoration team was blames: surely they had used chemicals that were too strong and destroyed the essence of Michelangelo’s tonal range. The immediate reaction was to cover the chapel in dust once more, since most of those historians had written entire books about Michelangelo’s muted palette. Third party art historians were then brought in to inspect the style of painting.

The critique that followed finally determined that the entirety of the Sistine chapel had been painted in a Mannerist style, and for the greatest accuracy art history books should mention Venetian painters as a primary inspiration for the movement. The Chapel itself was to be reclassified. Rafaello, who had also been considered a purely Florentine Renaissance painter, was also reviewed and proclaimed Mannerist as it slowly became a more accepted term. That reclassification is still changing beliefs about the culture of that time, and the italian belief structure was not completely known until that discovery. Before that there was no reason for the rise of Baroque. And don’t even think that this was just a history lesson.