Art: Renaissance Art
The French word Renaissance means “rebirth” and is used to describe the period of Italian art and architecture during the 15th and early 16th centuries. The renaissance was an intellectual movement that influenced cultural, political, and linguistic ideas. While the movement started in the early 15th century in Italy, it spread throughout other European countries by the end of the 15th century. The renaissance movement was an extension of the humanism movement and antiquity. Artists from this period used classical literature, sculpture, painting, art, philosophy, and architecture as their inspiration. In return, the Renaissance movement greatly influenced artistic styles in the centuries that followed. The Renaissance brought together ancient ideas from mythology and Jewish mysticism with the Christian world.
To understand art from the Renaissance period, a good understanding of humanism is required. Before the humanism movement, the world was portrayed in art as being based on God and heaven. The humanism movement began a shift in thought that portrayed the world being based on nature. With this shift towards nature, pictures displayed realistic backgrounds, sculptures and paintings depicted the human form in correct proportions, and buildings were more horizontal, remaining close to the ground. Sculptors and artists also focused on portraying human movement and facial expression accurately. The artists of this period studied nature to depict it accurately in various art forms. Art actually became some what of a science.
Leonardo da Vinci added to the existing theories of perspective and created the technique, Stumato. The technique created smooth transitions between different area of color and tone in paintings.
Artists and architects not only worked for civic, religious, or political reasons during this period. They were also hired by patrons so that the works created would glorify the patron. Ownership of art work also began to be viewed as a status symbol during the Renaissance period.
