Renaissance Art: Filippo Brunelleschi

Essentially, the period of Renaissance art was about the revival or the rebirth of classical Greek and Roman learning. The key difference is that while the Greeks were more inclined to idealism, the Renaissance people gravitated towards ideas of Humanism, making use of human based ideals, which resulted in greater realism in art. Humanism places emphasis on individual potential and the expansion on human knowledge as compared to the middle Ages, where art and learning was very much based on religion and the church . It was also during the Renaissance that Filippo Brunelleschi rediscovered linear perspective, which had a significant impact especially on art and architecture. This is evident from how it was passionately pursued by the Renaissance
By drawing orthogonals that diverge from the vanishing point to the edge of the picture and transversals, which are parallel to the horizon line, a grid is created. Hence, with this grid, the artist is then able to determine the size of objects within the space that has been created and faithfully represent spatial reality.

Several Renaissance artists rendered tiles in their paintings, which are actually derived from the perspective lines. One such example is Perugino’s Christ Handing the Keys of the Kingdom to St. Peter. Firstly, the one point perspective is apparent when the viewer takes the first look at the painting because of the domed structure in the center. The diverging orthogonal lines lead the viewer’s eyes to Jesus who is handing the keys to St. Peter, surrounded by the apostles. The transversals are disguised as tiles that start from the background, getting slightly more discernable towards the foreground where the apostles are standing. Though lines are faint, a grid is more or less formed and emphasizes the use of linear perspective. Perugino also utilizes aerial perspective to further enhance the illusion of depth in his painting. The hills and the
In placing important subjects along the vanishing point, the viewer’s attention is directed to the subject immediately. These subjects are usually religious figures – Jesus, the Virgin Mary, or Saints.

The application of linear perspective extends beyond the representation of space on two-dimensional surfaces. Foreshortening of the human body is based on the law of linear perspective – body parts that are further away from the viewer’s eyes and recedes into space are smaller and vice versa. The artist’s ability to accurately foreshorten human figures adds on to the degree of realism in art, which is of high importance because of how Renaissance art.

A classic example of foreshortening in Renaissance painting would be Mantegna’s Lamentation of the Christ. To see that the body is indeed foreshortened, the viewer would have to observe how Mantegna paints the folds of the blanket such that they mimic the transversals and the lines of the muscles on Christ’s torso mimic the orthogonals. Christ’s head is aligned with the vanishing point in the painting. Again a substitute grid is formed by the elements in the painting, which the viewer’s eyes will more or less recognize once they are familiar with the perspectival grid. Thus, the body is foreshortened in accordance to the law of linear perspective. Foreshortening allowed artists to depict the body more realistically on a two-dimensional