Introduction to the Renaissance

The Renaissance, French for "rebirth," was a humanistic revival of classical art, architecture, literature, and learning. It originated in Italy in the fifteenth-century and later spread throughout Europe. Italian Renaissance and Northern Renaissance philosophy, concepts, and techniques were unmistakably different. One way in which these differences manifested themselves was within the discipline of art - painting in particular, but also in sculpture.

Italian Renaissance artwork was intensely biblical in nature. There was an acute interest in the culture of the ancient Greeks and Romans. In some paintings, such as Sandro Boticelli's La Primavera, there exists a balanced combination of ancient mythology and contemporary Christian themes. In early Renaissance sculpture, the artist Dontatello re-popularized the classical free-standing nude. His David possesses the stature of classical Greek figures. During the Northern Renaissance, the amazing scope of artwork focused not only on the religious and the elite, but also the disabled and destitute. The painter Pieter Bruegel, for instance, was fascinated by the lives of the common folk. He often painted them absorbed in scenes of daily life (such as The Hunters' Return). His Parable of the Blind was satiric in nature, possibly in response to the political controversies of the Reformation and Protestant hostility towards religious art.

Patronage dominated the artwork of the Italian Renaissance. Wealthy families, such as the Medici family, and sometimes even individuals, such as Pope Julius II, commissioned artists to create. Occassionally, there were even contests - the 1401 contest in Florence, for example, to design panels for the bronze doors of the Florentine Baptistry. The Italian Renaissance's greatest advance was the invention of perspective. Perspective served to both unify and harmonize a picture, making it appear to be three-dimensional. Northern artists, at first, paid little to no attention to the artistic innovations of the Italian Renaissance. They were preoccupied with creating intense visual realism in their artwork, forgoing the classical and intellectual allusion of Italian art.

Florentine painters were renowned for their refined technique in fresco. Fresco was very well suited for decorating the walls of churches and chapels, such as Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper or Michelangelo's ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Northern painters meanwhile developed an intense visual realism in their artwork. Many Northern masterpieces were painted in oil, which enabled them to fashion intricate details into their work (Jan van Eyck's Adam and Eve, of the Ghent Altarpiece). Visual realism often commingled with intense religious emotionalism. Matthias Grunewald's Crucifixion depicts a figure of Jesus Christ consumed by the bubonic plague.

The Italian Renaissance and the Northern Renaissance differed on many levels. Religiously and philosophically, the great thinkers of the North were preoccupied with the role of the Church, as well as the role of mankind. Artistically, the pieces created were equally beautiful yet decidedly different. Both movements were successful in their quest redefine the concept of modern man