Renaissance Art

Renaissance Art During a time when all life in Europe was affected by the collapse of the Roman Empire and invasion of barbarian people, the Catholic Church managed to keep fine arts alive in the holiest of cities (Netzley). Before the time of the Renaissance, the Church focused their efforts on creating an unnatural essence that was Medieval art. This type of art appears abnormal to modern people, mostly because they had very little knowledge about human anatomy and mathematics (Brown). The figures in the paintings also appeared stiff, simply because they were painting ideals, which was a subject that they were unfamiliar with (Brown). The Renaissance Art Movement, led greatly by Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, lasted from the 13th century until the 17th century and spurred a cultural movement throughout Europe.
Renaissance in Latin actually means “rebirth.” The idea of rebirthing ancient art lead to the Italian artists incorporating the style of the Greeks and the Romans into modern Italian art. The Greeks and the Romans had similar qualities in terms of art, which eventually became the inspiration of artists during the Renaissance. The Greeks are generally classified as being superior to the Romans in terms of art, because the Greeks focused on creating ideals whereas the Romans created natural forms (Montgomery). Modern Italians considered their heritage to be Roman, so they followed the ideas that had been previously used in ancient times.
By the 13th century, an artist named Giotto began painting frescoes, (paintings on top of wet plaster) and created one of the first actual pictures of Christ and his followers (Guisepi). This type of art was previously unseen, and in some cases forbidden, during the Middle Ages. Giotto focused on painting the beauty and majesty of people, which differed from the work of the previous artists (Buchel). At this time, art followed the classic evolution from itself, outward. Around the 1500’s, during the Renaissance,