Renaissance art and its historical significance

Renaissance Art

Renaissance literally means 'rebirth' and the movement was specifically about rebirth of cultural ideas, spiritual views and artistic expression. The term, first coined by Vasari in 1550, is now used for the period from mid 14th to mid 16th centuries that was marked by a revolution in art, painting, sculpture and even literature. Renaissance gained prominence almost immediately with Bellini, Botticelli, Bruegel, da Vinci, Durer, Michelangelo, Raphael associating themselves with the movement. Though the origins of Renaissance can be traced to Florence, Italy, there is no consensus on the exact period when this rebirth took place. Some believe that it started in 14th century as early as 1337 with the death of Giotto while others feel it originated in the 15th century. Similarly historians largely fail to agree on the exact period when Renaissance ended. But it is largely felt that Renaissance Art died somewhere between the death of Raphael in 1520 and Tintoretto in 1594. Renaissance artists were extremely proud of their accomplishments and for this reason, the movement is art was frequently referred to as the Golden period in art history since it emerged after a century long slumber in artistic expression. Peter Murray wrote in his book 'The Art of the Renaissance' (1963):

The word itself means 'rebirth', and there can be no doubt that the Italians of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries regarded their own times as immensely superior to all the ages since the fall of the Roman Empire (that is, about a thousand years earlier), and in this opinion posterity has largely concurred. The idea of the rebirth of letters and of the arts after a sleep of a thousand years is an Italian one, as quotation can easily establish. Marsilio Ficino, writing to Paul of Middelburg in 1492, says: 'This century, like a golden age, has restored to light the liberal arts, which were almost extinct: grammar, poetry, rhetoric, painting, sculpture, architecture, music, the ancient singing of songs to the Orphic lyre, and all this in Florence. Achieving what had been honoured among the ancients, but almost forgotten since, the age has joined wisdom with eloquence, and prudence with the military art, and this most strikingly in Federigo, Duke of Urbino, as if proclaimed in the presence of Pallas herself." (Murray: 7)

Renaissance in Art is marked by extreme emphasis on the human body and the individual. The material world was the sole focal point of artistic expression during this period. Human anatomy became a favorite subject of interest and thus we find more nudes under this movement than any other in art history accentuating humanism and individualism that marked the period. Everything took on new meaning as painters focused on the material world, sensations, sensuality and man's connection with the obvious. Even old Christian beliefs had lost their spiritual touch and were no longer being painted with the religious zeal of the Middle Ages:

In the Renaissance, the material world for the first time became the sole inspiration for plastic and pictorial invention. For example, Gothic artists attempted portraiture and the nude as incidental parts of their paintings, but only in the Renaissance could Pollaiuolo create a group of nudes as the sole interest of his picture. The artistic content should be carefully distinguished from the subject matter. The Renaissance, except for the introduction of certain classical and poetic themes, continued to paint the Christian subjects but the artistic content was no longer Christian." (Sarton et al. 107)