Renaissance, Religion, And Humanism Reflected In Renaissance Art

During the Renaissance, religion and humanism shaped the content and qualities of the art produced in Florence and the surrounding areas. Humanism was the idea that human beings have greater importance than divine beings such as God. Prior to the Renaissance, art was mainly concerned with religious themes. Renaissance artists used pencil, oil, and stone to express their ideas of religion, gratitude, and perfection. Perspective was not widely used, and realism was still not common. Artists frequently created imagery of people separated by millennia. Detail was not important, so artists would frequently forgo backgrounds. Art was about the collective, rather than individuals.
The shifting role of religion in the Renaissance is reflected in the
One of these paintings was Titian’s Venus of Urbino, painted in 1538. It is a single person painting of a nude woman reclining on a bed. During Renaissance time, there was a clear split between public and private space, especially for people who had the means to commission personal portraits. Titian’s painting was considered scandalous, due to the woman’s posture and for the fact that she was nude. This was a contrast to Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, where there was still one person in the frame, but the figure has a straight posture and is dressed. Both of these paintings were painted for patrons; the Venus of Urbino for a wealthy Duke and the Mona Lisa for Francesco del Giocondo, a wealthy Florentine silk merchant. Both patrons were progressive and more interested in a single subject, rather than large, multi-person paintings with religious bearings. The two paintings are similar, in that there is an individual subject. In the Venus of Urbino, the nude woman is alone, with only a couple of figures in the background. In the Mona Lisa, she is the only subject of the painting, with a simple background. In The Betrothal of the Arnolfini, the painting is of one particular couple, rather than a large group of people. Only someone with a lot of money would be able to contract an artist to paint something like this. Prior to the Renaissance, the only places with the means to contract paintings were the church; so most paintings had religious significance and multiple