Term Papers on The Renaissance Period

Term Paper Title	The Renaissance Period
# of Words	1808
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	7.23

The Renaissance Period

The Renaissance period had a great impact in many areas.  One of the most obvious areas to see is in the Renaissance art.  Renaissance art was something new to everyone at the time and varied from previous art in many ways.  Renaissance art and Medieval art for example had many differences.
In order to see a difference between these two different styles of art, characteristics of each must first be given.  The first to be discussed will be the Renaissance.
The Italian Renaissance was called the beginning of the modern age.  The most obvious changes during Renaissance times are seen in the paintings and sculptures. Artists began to experiment for the first time with oil-based paints.  They mixed powdered pigments with linseed oil.1

1Martindale, Andrew, Man and The Renaissance (McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York: Toronto, 1966) p. 8
The paints dried slowly, and remained workable for a few months.  Stonemasons of the Middle Ages began to be replaced by Artists.  They used materials like bronze to make the scenes in their bas-reliefs more lifelike.1  Perspective and light were introduced into art.  Many Renaissance works of art showed subjects taken from the Bible.  Non-religious subjects from Greek and Roman Mythology were also popular. The painters and artists that lived during the Renaissance changed the way the world looked at art for all time.
The 1400s (called quattrocento in Italian) and 1500s (cinquecento) bore witness to a dazzling creativity in painting, architecture, and sculpture.2  In all the arts, the city of Florence first led the way.  In the period art historians describe as the High Renaissance (1500-1527) Rome took the lead.  The main characteristics of High Renaissance art-classical balance, harmony, and restraint-are revealed in the masterpieces of Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), Raphael (1483-1520), and Michelangelo (1475-1564), all of whom worked in Rome.2
1Martindale, Andrew, Man and The Renaissance (McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York: Toronto, 1966) p. 8
2McKay, Hill, Buckler, A History of World Societies (United States, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1996)
p. 472
In early Renaissance Italy, art manifested corporate power.  Powerful urban groups such as guilds and religious confraternities commissioned works of art.  The Florentine cloth merchants, for example, delegated Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446) to build the magnificent dome on the cathedral of Florence and selected Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378-1455) to design the bronze doors of the baptistry.2  These works were signs of the merchants' dominant influence in the community. Corporate patronage is also reflected in the Florentine government's decision to hire Michelangelo to create a sculpture of David, the great Hebrew hero and king.2  The subject matter of art through the early fifteenth century, as in the Middle Ages, remained overwhelmingly religious.
As the fifteenth century advanced, the subject matter of art became steadily more secular.  Religious topics, such as the Annunciation of the Virgin, remained popular among both patrons and artists, but classical themes and motifs, such as the lives and loves of pagan gods and goddesses, figured increasingly in painting and sculpture.2  The individual portrait emerged as the distinct artistic genre.
2McKay, Hill, Buckler, A History of World Societies (United States, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1996)
p. 472
People were conscious of their physical uniqueness and wanted their individuality immortalized.  In the fifteenth century, members of the newly rich middle class often had themselves painted in a scene of Romantic chivalry or in courtly society.2  Rather than reflecting a spiritual ideal, as medieval painting and sculpture tended to do, Renaissance portraits mirrored reality.
As important as realism was the new "international style," so called because of the wandering careers of influential artists, the close communications and rivalry of princely courts, and the increased trade in works of art.2  Rich color, decorative detail, curvilinear rhythm...

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