Renaissance Research

Renaissance is the development of culture, style of art and architecture during the 14 century. The Renaissance refers to the era in Europe from the 14th to the 16th century in which a new style in painting, sculpture and architecture developed after the Gothic. Although a religious view of the world continued to play an important role in the lives of Europeans, a growing awareness of the natural world, the individual and collective humanitys worldly existence shaped the Renaissance period. Taken from the French word, renaissance, and the Italian word rinasctia, both meaning rebirth, the Renaissance was a period when scholars and artists began to investigate what they believed to be a revival of classical learning, literature and art. For example, the followers of the 14th-century author Petrarch began to study texts from Greece and Rome for their moral content and literary style. Having its roots in the medieval university, this study called Humanism centred on rhetoric, literature, history and moral philosophy.
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During the Renaissance, many features of the medieval persisted, including the heritage of the artistic techniques used in books, manuscripts, precious objects and oil painting. The paintings of Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden record the extreme details of the natural world in order to make the viewers religious and spiritual experience. North of the Alps, Renaissance ideals culminated in the work of Albrecht Durer in the early 16th century, and Germany became a dominant artistic centre. With the Reformation and the absence of the Catholic Church in German speaking lands of the 16th century, prints in the form of woodcuts and engravings helped to disseminate the spread of Protestant ideals. As a result, artists such as Pieter Bruegel I in the Netherlands and Hans Holbein in England specialized in more secular subjects, such as landscape and portraiture. In politics, the Renaissance contributed the development of the conventions of diplomacy, and in science an increased reliance on observation. Historians often argue this intellectual transformation was a bridge between the middle Ages and the Modern era. Although the Renaissance saw revolutions in many intellectual pursuits, as well as social and political change, it is perhaps best known for its artistic developments and the contributions of such polymaths as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, who inspired the term "Renaissance man". The 14 Century, renaissance, were a time of great crisis; the plague, the hundred years war, and the turmoil in the Catholic Church. During this Era the Black Death was one of the most horrific plaguing in history, killing
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an estimate of 75 to 200 million people in Europe. The Black Death is thought to have originated from China then travelled along the Silk Road. From there it was most likely rat fleas living on the black rat that were on the merchant ship whipping out huge amount of Europeans.

Things within the Renaissance art:

Perspective. To add three-dimensional depth and space to their work, Renaissance artists rediscovered and greatly focused on the idea of linear perspective, horizon line, and vanishing point. Linear perspective: Rendering a painting with linear perspective is like looking through a window and painting exactly what you see on the window pane. Instead of every object in the picture being the same size, object that were further away would be smaller, while those closer to you would be larger. Horizon line: Horizon line refers to the point in the distance where objects become so infinitely small, that they have shrunken to the size of a line.

Vanishing point: The vanishing point is the point at which parallel lines appear to converge far in the distance, often on the horizon line. This is the effect you can see when standing on railroad tracks and looking at the tracks recede into the distance. Shadows and light. Artists were interested in playing with the way lights hits objects and create shadow. Emotion. Renaissance artists wanted the viewer to feel something while looking at their work, to have an emotional experience from it. Realism and Naturalism. In addition to perspective, artist sought to make objects, especially people more realistic. They studied human anatomy, measuring proportions and seeking the ideal human form.