Features of Renaissance Art

Individualism. Like the writers of the Renaissance, the artists of the time looked back to the ancient Greeks and Romans for their themes and ideas. They used ancient works of art as their models in painting a variety of subjects – stories from Greek mythology, scenes from Roman history, incidents in the Bible, and Church history. They also captured on canvas Renaissance politicians, patrons of art, and ordinary people busy with their daily activities.

Medieval artists had used their creativity mainly to serve the Church and express their religious feelings. Their paintings generally showed people who were stiffly posed and whose faces had little individuality. Renaissance art, like classical art, emphasized the uniqueness of each human face and figure. In portraits, Renaissance artists tried to show each individual’s character and personality in a lifelike way.

Balance and proportion. Renaissance artists and architects saw nature as the standard for balance and proportion. They hoped to achieve these same qualities in their own work so that it would look more realistic. While medieval painters had often drawn people larger than buildings, Renaissance artists tried to show people, trees, buildings, and mountains in their proper sizes.

Renaissance architects scorned the Gothic cathedral, the symbol of the Middle Ages, which soared upward toward heaven and seemed to defy all the laws of balance. Renaissance architects turned back to the Romanesque style, adding domes, windows, and balconies to let in light and air. They tried to make all the parts of a building appear perfectly balanced in size and shape.

Use of perspective. Another step toward realism was the discovery of how to achieve perspective – the impression of depth and distance on the flat surface of a painting. The Florentine painter Giotto had first used this technique about 1300. Giotto’s realistic style seemed odd to medieval eyes, however, and his advances were ignored until the Renaissance.

In the 1400’s the Florentine architect Filippo Brunelleschi discovered that painters could use mathematical laws in planning their pictures. In this way they could show perspective accurately. Masaccio a friend of Brunelleschi’s, applied these laws in his paintings.

New materials. Medieval painters had commonly used a kind of paint called tempera. it dried so quickly that painters could not change or correct what they had painted. A new technique, oil painting, was developed by the Flemish painter Jan van Eyck, who lived from about 1380 to about 1440. Oil painting let artists work more slowly, create new colors, and obtain more lifelike effects. For example, they could show realistically the look and texture of different fabrics.

The use of oil-based paints quickly spread from Flanders to other parts of Europe. In Italy, Renaissance artists soon began to use both perspective and oil painting to produce many important works that are now considered masterpieces.