The Renaissance was a significant cultural movement that provided society with a wealth of important contributions. It not only gave rise to a new way of understanding religion, but also to a revolutionary way of expressing Renaissance art , leading to its creation. This artistic period is probably one of the best known worldwide due to its enduring popularity. For this reason, it is considered one of the most important periods in world history.
What was the Renaissance and its Renaissance art
It is presumed that the origin of the Renaissance dates between the end of the XNUMXth century and the beginning of the XNUMXth century, with its peak in the XNUMXth century. The Renaissance served as a transitional period between the Middle Ages and the Modern Age. In itself, this was a cultural movement or phenomenon from the city of Florence, Italy, a consequence of the considerable opening of the cities, to free trade from other regions. Shortly after its peak, it spread throughout the European continent, with the exception of Russia.
This period bears this name, since it was considered the rebirth of art and interest in Greco-Latin history. The enthusiasm for classical culture and the return to the ideal of perfection could be seen reflected in all European cities. The Renaissance made education the main pillar of fifteenth-century societies, the principles and statutes of the Middle Ages no longer had a place here, the classical authors and their beliefs fostered new stimuli and models for the creation of new thinking.
This caused the artists to move away from the theocentrism that the Catholic Church had implanted so much in their works, and began to focus more and more on all aspects of human culture; ethics, morals, philosophy, science, among others. Those artists who followed the archaic traditions of past centuries were considered barbaric and old-fashioned, because rather a fresh way of perceiving man as a perfect and exceptional being was sought through art.
Therefore, the Renaissance represented the revival of knowledge and progress after many years of the predominance of the dogmatic mentality of the church in the Middle Ages. With his arrival, attention for science, politics and, above all, art was recovered, putting aside medieval theocentrism and replacing it with an innovative current, anthropocentrism. It was possible to fully demarcate the civic from the religious.
From the point of view of epistemology, anthropocentrism could be defined as the doctrine that places man as the center of all things and the definitive end of nature. This had its peak in Greek art. On the other hand, seen from the philosophical discipline of ethics, anthropocentrism defends that the needs of the human being must receive immediate moral attention above any requirement of another living being.
For this reason, this period resulted in the birth of wonderful artists, who managed to express their creative freedom in its maximum splendor, even going beyond the usual art, they became exceptional inventors.
periods
As we already mentioned, the beginning of the Renaissance does not have a fixed date, some authors assert that this movement emerged at the beginning of the XNUMXth century and others affirm that it was rather in the middle of the XNUMXth century. However, this period is seriously divided into three stages, which considerably marked its development in various ways. These are:
Three hundred
The characteristic name "Trecento" is an expression of Italian origin that refers to the fourteenth century, which would be the cycle of 1300 years specifically. This period marked the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. In it, unlike the previous era, all its artists are individualized.
In addition, an attempt was made to perfect the expressions of emotional traits in the works, more attention was paid to the anatomy of the work presented, the fresco technique was improved and, above all, the painters began to fully work on the composition that is included in the landscapes. The Trecento gave way to the creation of two exceptional schools that contributed to aesthetic renewal; The Florentine and the Sienese.
Quattrocento
The Quattrocento corresponds to the 1400s or simply known as the fifteenth century. This is the stage where the Renaissance begins to take much more shape. His point of growth was fundamentally in Florence, Italy. Here classical mythology is taken up again and a new way of communicating through art is sought. Its greatest exponents were Filippo Brunelleschi and Leon Battista Alberti.
Sculpture manages to completely emancipate itself from architecture, since civil architecture acquired an impressive importance within societies. The emerging architecture class was looking for more reasonable and organized spaces by means of certain essential rules.
Public spaces should have an orderly layout. The traditional Greco-Roman precept is taken up again and can be observed everywhere; residential areas, commercial centers and even palaces, which ceased to be conceived as fortresses. In addition to this, oil painting was developed and the genre of pictorial portrait emerged.
Five hundred
The great peak of the Renaissance, the Cinquecento, the 1500th century or the XNUMXs. In this period, Florence is no longer the point of development of the artistic process, it moves to the Italian capital, Rome. In fact, in the Cinquecento one of the most recognized works in the whole world of the Renaissance period was created, The Sistine Chapel.
This is because the great Renaissance artists were attracted to Rome by the Catholic Church to carry out works inside its buildings, resulting in the appearance of painters, sculptors and architects recognized at the time, such as Sangallo, Pallado, Miguel Angel, Vignola and Della Porta. Additionally, an innovative style called "mannerism" was manifested, which managed to coexist *for a long time together with the classicist trend.
General characteristics
Despite the fact that a wide variety of expressions, styles, movements and interests arose throughout the Renaissance, it does have certain characteristics that could define it and allow us to differentiate it from the rest of the periods of human history. Among the most prominent are:
Great influence of Greek art
One of the most outstanding factors that led to the immense cultural and artistic change throughout Europe was the great influence of classical Greek art on the sculptors, painters and writers of the time. Most of the characteristics that can be observed in these works are very similar to those present in the Greek works.
The most important person in this change was Francesco Petrarca, a famous Italian artist of the fourteenth century. The inspiration obtained from antiquity managed to renew the themes and criteria of creation in each of the artistic disciplines. In addition, this led to the appearance of movements that moved away from the archaic culture of the Middle Ages.
Emergence of Humanism
With the arrival of the Renaissance, an eminent intellectual movement that goes by the name "Humanism" also arises. Which is why much of the art of this era is inspired by philosophical beliefs. In this movement, the ancient ecclesiastical traditions of the Middle Ages are set aside and the qualities of human nature are considerably exalted.
The practice of humanism in the Renaissance allowed artists to speak more freely about religion and about subjects that were previously considered sinful. Similarly, its appearance meant that more attention was paid to the features and small details of the people portrayed.
Those who followed humanism with conviction, claimed to know the real essence of man and give a sensible meaning to life, all this with the help of the great Greek and Latin masters of antiquity. The movement back then worked in endless ways for Greek society, including contributing to the emergence of democratic ideas within politics.
paint upgrade
In the Cinquecento, many famous Dutch painters succeeded in developing better methods of painting in oils. The techniques reached the cradle of the Renaissance and the Florentine artists adopted the revolutionary way of the Dutch to make their paintings. The improvement of his techniques brought with it that the paintings were of a superior quality and, consequently, that they will last much longer.
A vast number of extraordinary characters from this country, to this day, are considered the best within their disciplines, such as Donatello and Piero della Francesca. There was a before and after in this period, the significant change in techniques and themes can be seen in all the works.
Reunion of the literary classics
Because of all the misfortunes that humanity had to live in the Dark Ages, in Europe there was a valuable amount of literature lost, burned or confiscated by the Catholic Church and the royalty of that time. A few years after the European continent emerged from the darkness of the Middle Ages, many of the texts that had been lost began to appear.
Seeing this, the authors decided to return to the themes that had been banned and use the best works of past centuries as inspiration, giving their creations an ancient and contemporary touch.
Predominance of symmetry, balance and proportion
By being interested again in classical art, the enthusiasm for the 3 fundamental aspects of the classical canon also reappears; symmetry, balance and proportion. These not only served to represent in the works the basic aesthetic elements that a refined, pure and transparent composition should have, but also reflected an expression of the scientific and philosophical rationalism adopted at the time. The predominance of the three aspects can be seen in Leonardo Da Vinci's famous drawing, The Vitruvian Man (1490).
Art as a form of knowledge
Although in the Middle Ages all plastic arts were considered as simple manual arts, in the Renaissance this changed his mind. The artists and their community were at the foot of the canyon so that the thought of it would be modified, since the scientific spirit was also incorporated into Renaissance art. Most of the sculptors, painters, and even writers, at the same time that they worked in their areas, were in charge of studying anatomy, geometry, and other sciences in depth.
Beginning of nature study
Between the previous era and this one, there are a wide number of differences, one of them is the beginning of the study of nature by artists. In the Renaissance, creators no longer had to follow a strict code of conduct, they could discover the world and the entire universe if they preferred. The human being was able to resume the investigations of how the physical laws of our universe work, for this the previous knowledge of antiquity in geometry, mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, anatomy, botany, etc. was used.
In the field of fine arts, these studies led to the development of other aspects such as diaphanous light, giving rise to chiaroscuro pictorial technique, and spatial geometry, which allowed the improvement of linear perspective and the vanishing point. Likewise, the study of nature makes it possible to perfect naturalism, the basis of the reproduction of natural forms in search of severisimilitude.
Emergence of new genres
Due to the desire to innovate that the entire population possessed in the Renaissance, new genres began to emerge in all the arts, or at least, what already existed continued to be developed to fertilize those winds of change. In painting, due to the appearance of the pictorial technique of oil painting, a new variant called painting on canvas could be created.
This made possible the subsequent development of other new genres such as the pictorial portrait. On the sculpture side, it finally managed to become totally independent from architecture, leading to the birth of free-standing sculpture and the creation of public monuments.
In literature, a genre appears that is currently of great importance: the essay, created and promoted by the French writer and philosopher Michel de Montaigne. For its part, in the lyric, a great infinity of new genres are promoted, such as the song, the ode, the eclogue, the elegy, the satire and the hymn.
In the narrative in verse, the epic, the romance and the epic poem began to be practiced; and in the narrative in prose, the legend, the story, the fable and the novel in all its versions. Finally, music began to have a greater relevance within society, resulting in the establishment of polyphony, the motet, the mass, the madrigal, the ballad, the Christmas carol, the salad, etc.
aesthetic principle
The aesthetic principles of this period are very diverse, because not having the same restrictions as in the Middle Ages, artists had much more freedom to do what they wanted. His works touched on topics such as birth, marriage or life in general.
The support of society became so high that both the middle class and the aristocracy were in charge of buying all their art to increase the value of their goods and their social status. To stop talking about so many generalities, we go a little deeper into the subject and treat each of the artistic expressions individually. These could be divided into three; painting, sculpture and architecture.
Painting
Within the defining characteristics of Renaissance painting are classicism and realism. First let's define what is classicism, trend or artistic style that is characterized by the search for symmetry, serenity and coherence of those forms typical of the Greco-Roman tradition.
With the use of it, the painter led to the techniques of traditional paintings, that is, simplicity and balance at its best. In addition to this, in his works the use of physical realism was chosen, a characteristic used thanks to the philosophy of the humanist movement.
Despite the fact that in the Renaissance art departed a bit from religious themes, the most recognized works of the time are related to these topics. This is because the Catholic Church at that time hired many Italian artists, such as Michelangelo, to do various allegorical works with scenes from the history of Catholicism.
At the end of the XNUMXth century, painters abandoned classicism and adopted the innovative technique of mannerism. In this artistic style, complex and unnatural forms were exposed, the drawn objects were specially painted to appear distorted.
Its main representatives were Italians: Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli, Michelangelo, Rafael Sanzio, Titian, Caravaggio, Tintoretto, among others. However, as a result of the expansion of the movement, other figures of great importance began to emerge, mainly from Spain and Holland, such as Juan de Juanes, Luis de Morales, Alonso Sánchez Coello, Pieter Brueghel, Jan van Scorel or El Bosco.
For its part, within the most recognized paintings of the time stand out; «The Adoration of the Lamb of God», Hubert and Jan Van Eyck (1430), «Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his wife», Jan Van Eyck (1434), «The spring», Sandro Botticelli (1477), «The Last Supper », Leonardo da Vinci (1496), «La Gioconda», Leonardo da Vinci (1503), «The Creation of Adam», Michelangelo (1510) and «The School of Athens», Raphael Sanzio (1511).
Architecture
The architects of the Renaissance, completely moved away from the Gothic ideal that had been working on all the buildings of the Middle Ages and past centuries. Their structures were extremely clean, they thought that it was best to create simpler and lower structures, therefore, it is common to observe architectures that are mostly rounded.
However, there was not a major difference between the last century and this one with respect to the creation mainly of churches, in addition to urban and exclusive mansions in rural areas of high society people. Many of them made by the artist of Italian origin, Andrea di Pietro della Góndola. In general, the exterior part of the buildings of the time were flat and decorated with quite conservative motifs such as columns and arches, referring to Ancient Greece.
The greatest exponents of Renaissance architecture were in the homeland of the movement, Italy. These were: Filippo Brunelleschi, Leon Battista Alberti, Donato d'Angelo Bramante, Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, Andrea Palladio, Jacopo Barozzi de Vignola, and Michelangelo. The most important architectural works of the Renaissance are; "The Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore", Arnolfo di Di Cambio, Filippo Brunelleschi, Francesco Talenti and Bernardo Rossellino (1436).
"The Basilica of San Lorenzo", Michelangelo and Filippo Brunelleschi (1470), "The Farnese Palace", Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, Jacopo Vignola, Giacomo della Porta, Girolamo Rainaldi and Michelangelo (1534), "The Villa Capra" , Andrea Palladio (1592) and "Saint Peter's Basilica", Donato d'Angelo Bramante, Michelangelo, Raphael Sanzio, Carlo Maderno and Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1626).
Sculpture
Like painting and architecture, Renaissance sculpture was heavily inspired by ancient references, Greece and even Rome. In it, the features and details in the works were sought to be sublime, realism was the ultimate goal of all sculptors, in fact, you could rarely find a work that did not impress you. The carvings had to be anatomically proportionate and precise.
In Italy, the governments of each city, especially that of Florence, were in charge of making investments of large sums of money so that the artists could make exceptional sculptures. Likewise, wealthy people entrusted him with personalized works by famous sculptors to have in their gardens and mansions. Everyone began to show a greater interest in the art of sculpting, making the profession one of the most lucrative at the time.
As was the case with the paintings, the church tried to ensure that emerging artists were in charge of making their works, so it is common to see sculptures of religious themes. However, the creative potential of this skill was greater, with it even creating the hand-carved doors of the Florence Cathedral, a feat never seen before.
In the area of sculpture, a vast number of representatives can be mentioned, but among the most important stand out: Donatello, Michelangelo, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Giovanni da Bologna and Andrea del Verrocchio. The most famous sculptures of this period were; "The David", Donatello (1440), "Bartolomeo Colleoni", Andrea del Verrocchio (1488), "The David", Michelangelo (1504), "The Vatican Pietà" Michelangelo (1515) and "Hercules and the centaur Neso", Giovanni da Bologna (1599).
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